The Private Papers of Eastern Jewel

by Maureen Lindley

  Did Wan Jung truly think that everything was as she had left it in her old home? Did she imagine that her clothes, still folded with tissue, were lying in the fifty chests of her dressing rooms? Perhaps they were, perhaps the rows of her shoes, her imported perfumes and the little drawers filled with incense were waiting for her touch in the undisturbed air of her apartments, but I did not think so.

  We were intimates that afternoon, gossiping and laughing at little things. She asked me what path my life had taken since she had last seen me and I told her about Jack.

  'Don't weep,' she said, handing me a linen handkerchief. 'You could still have him if you wanted.'

  'Yes, of course,' I replied. 'I could still have him if I wanted.'

  But did I want Jack more than I wanted Japan? If I chose him over my country would I spend my life in regret, suffering the humiliations of a refugee? If I released Jack and honoured Japan would it help to dilute the venom in my heart that I felt at the loss of him?

  'You are luckier than you know, Princess,' she said. 'I sometimes think that I will never have a man inside me again.'

  Pu Yi never came near her, nor did she want him to, but there were times, she said, when she longed to be touched. I joked with her that she was living surrounded by men; surely there must be one amongst them whom she desired.

  'The thing is, Eastern Jewel, you have never allowed your class to determine your journey in life, whereas mine holds me in a prison from which there is no escape. An empress can only lie with an emperor; anyone less would put the throne and her life at risk.'

  'Wan Jung,' I whispered. 'If you let go the desire to be Empress, you could escape this place. There are other ways for a young and beautiful woman to live; a moment of courage and you would be free.'

  'Being Empress is the last and only thing left to me, Eastern Jewel,' she said. 'Whereas you make your own fate, I have no choice but to follow mine.'

  It was the only time that I was to speak of desertion to WanJung. I had no wish to betray Japan by encouraging her to go against their plans, yet something in me longed to release her from the awful life she was living. The thought of her dying in the hated Salt Tax Palace was unbearable, but she had a run of fatalism in her nature which made her incapable of action and there was nothing I could do about it. After our time together in the Quiet Garden, I don't think that Wan Jung ever truly trusted me again, but without her tutor whispering in her ear, I think that she was able to forgive me. I came to love those late afternoons in her company and still treasure the memory of them. She liked me to talk of Shanghai and of my past adventures, and enjoyed speculating on how Tamura might be living in America, and whether Mari was dead or alive. For those few hours, when she was not feeding the tyrant of her addiction, we shared what felt like the sweet companionship of sisters.

  I didn't see Pu Yi for three weeks; he had an illness that gave him splitting headaches and made him vomit. Wan Jung said that he had lost his voice and suffered a constantly high temperature. His doctor said he had seen the illness before and that Pu Yi would recover within the month. The Empress was fearful that he had been given poison, but I'm sure she was wrong in that. Her Emperor was as unlucky with his health as he was with everything else in his life.

  Thirteen days after I had left Shanghai, I received a letter from Tanaka saying that he was pleased that I was with Wan Jung in Manchuria as he thought it brought us and our plan to return to Japan closer. Amongst his other news he wrote, 'I hear that your friend, Jack Stone, has returned to America.'

  The words were such a shock to me that I had to read them over and over again, trying to convince myself through tear-blurred eyes that they could not be true. I could hardly believe it, but I knew Tanaka and he would not have said it if it wasn't true. So Jack hadn't even waited out the month, he had broken the bond between us and cut himself free. If a heart can break twice, I think that for the second time in my life, mine broke on that day. With no letter from Jack, explaining his reasons or giving any promise of his return to China, the old feelings of abandonment overtook me. The pain of it was caustic and sent me running for opium.

  Yet, in fairness, despite my promise to him, I'm not sure that I would have returned to Jack within the month anyway. But love is not fair nor logical, and his not waiting inflicted a wound too deep for me to take lightly. The betrayal set me to seeking old ways of salving my pain, and I knew, with grey disappointment, that it would not be long before I sought out the bed of General Hayao Tada. Tanaka had been blind to my true addiction; it had never been opium.

  Even so, that evening, after reading Tanaka's letter, I shared a long pipe with Wan Jung and sharing her heartache, too, I dreamt of the Forbidden City. It was covered in a layer of cold white frost. The twenty palaces of the city sparkled as though covered in diamonds, while its gates and ornamental bridges were hung with icicles. The moat surrounding the Imperial Palace was encrusted with silvery ice that reflected the tiles of the palace's roof in a thousand little yellow flags. In my dream, the city was so silent that you could hear the gods breathing. When I told Wan Jung of it, she said it was a sign that the Forbidden City was waiting for its Imperial Family to bring it back to life. My dream put her in a good mood for days.

  On his recovery, Pu Yi invited me to dine with him and I was pleased to accept, as I had often found the dinner hour lonely in the Salt Tax Palace. Wan Jung no longer bothered with meals; she just picked at the food brought to her apartment on a tray. Apart from her huge consumption of opium, she drank a lot of champagne and smoked so many Turkish cigarettes that her fingers were stained sulphur yellow. Given her lifestyle, it was not surprising that her waking hours were just a fraction of those in which she slept.

  I dressed carefully for that first dinner with Pu Yi, guessing that General Tada would be joining us. Choosing a midnight-blue crepe de chine cheongsam, I pinned a diamond brooch in the shape of a dragonfly above my breasts. I had bought the brooch for myself in Shanghai to celebrate my promotion and had never worn it in Jack's company. I smoothed chrysanthemum oil on the pulses at my wrist and between my breasts and, despite it not being musk, I thought of Jack. Because I sensed Tada would like it and knew that Jack would not, I smudged the outer corner of my eyes with kohl.

  If it were true that Tada was seduced by everything Chinese, then I would do my best to live up to that fantasy. I had done it well enough for Sesyu in Tokyo. In any case, I would choose to playa concubine over a geisha any day. Geishas, hidden under their face paint, courtly manners and endless undergarments, make the sexual dance too complex. A concubine is there for the taking the moment she is desired.

  Pu Yi greeted me with his usual courtesy, but I couldn't tell if there was warmth in his eyes, because he was wearing dark glasses. He apologised for them, saying that he had an eye infection left over from his illness and that the light made his eyes water. I knew that he suffered from progressive myopia and that he was practically blind without his spectacles. Dressed in the uniform of commander-in-chief of the Manchukuo Army, one that had no doubt been made up for him, he was covered in medals and looked uncomfortable. At his feet two huge English mastiff dogs slobbered strings of saliva onto the carpet.

  'Welcome to the Salt Tax Palace and to Manchukuo, Princess,' he said, taking my hand briefly into his own limp one.

  I noticed that whereas Wan Jung always used the Chinese name Manchuria for her new country, Pu Yi was happy to please his masters and use the Japanese, Manchukuo. I despised him for being such a watered-down Manchu.

  Tada was standing near the Emperor attired in his Japanese dress uniform looking very smart. He greeted me like an old friend and poured me champagne. The meal was good enough, better than anything I had eaten at the Quiet Garden and I enjoyed watching Tada satisfy his healthy appetite. He took Chinese pickled ginger with his duck and refused the raw fish that most Japanese would have preferred. After dinner the three of us played poker with the senior officer of the Japanese gendarmes, a serious man devoid of humour
. The gendarmes were housed in the palace and were so placed that no one could come or go without their knowledge. Pu Yi could not receive letters without them first being read by our poker companion and every household item was delivered to and thoroughly inspected by his men. They had the Chinese Emperor so under control that he could not urinate without them first lifting his robes. I was impressed, but not surprised by such attention to detail. It was part of the Japanese ethos to be thorough and one of the reasons for its success in the world arena.

  It didn't surprise me that Pu Yi never questioned what in reality was his confinement. In Tientsin, I had noticed how well defended he was against the knowledge of the obvious. I think he was as deluded as Wan Jung in his belief that he would be returned to Peking in triumph and was prepared to put up with anything until that glorious day came.

  During the game, we drank tall glasses of jasmine tea and ate candied orange peel. Pu Yi declined the tea, explaining that he could no longer drink it as the inferior quality of the rice in Manchuria had given him piles, which reacted badly to tea. At ten o'clock he stood up, gave his apologies for leaving us so early and said that he had much to do and that he would be working into the early hours of the morning. In a voice shaking with emotion, he said that he had made a resolution never to be lazy again. He owed it to his people to strive tirelessly for his reinstatement to the Qing throne, which would not only give them back their pride, but would also satisfy his aggrieved ancestors. As he left us, the two giant mastiffs rose and followed him out of the room. Despite his grand uniform and the impressive size of his dogs, he looked a pathetic figure.

  I asked Tada what the Emperor would be working on and he said that most likely he would be reading the Book of Changes, which he believed would help him to think intellectually. I had dallied with the book myself but had found it too male-orientated to appeal to a woman. It was full of sentences that began with, 'The superior male' or 'The great man'. I understood, though, why it would appeal to Pu Yi.

  Tada offered to take me to one of the new bars in Hsingking, where the wealthier of the Japanese immigrants in Manchukuo could drink sake and lie with Japanese prostitutes. I said that I would rather drink champagne with him in his quarters, where we might be alone. He picked up a bottle from the sideboard where they were lined up in neat rows, handed me two glasses and guided me towards the east wing of the house where he had a fine apartment furnished in the Chinese style. We drank the champagne, went back for more and then attempted to out drink each other with shots of sake. I discovered Tada to be an amusing companion who seduced with a quick humour and a talent for cruel mimicry. He had Pu Yi's voice and body language off to perfection. I knew that perhaps not that night, but soon, we would lie together and that he would be a good lover. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule, but I have found that men who make you laugh also make you moan in bed.

  Tada told me that he had left his wife, with whom he was bored, in Osaka and planned never to return. He said that, unlike me, he was in love with China and could not bear even to think about what his life had been like in Japan. I felt sorry for his wife who had lost such a life-enhancing man and even more so when he told me that she was barren. For a Japanese wife to be barren is a disgrace that taints every minute of her life. It reflects on her husband, who without offspring cannot continue his bloodline.

  Halfway through the second bottle of champagne, we clumsily undressed each other and lay naked on the bed. I wanted to make love, but Tada said we should wait until our senses were less saturated with alcohol. He asked me to tell him the story of my first coupling with a man and not to spare even the smallest of details. I could not bring myself to tell him of my breaking by old man Teshima or those that had followed him in the Kawashima household. He may have known of it, but if he did he never said.

  I told him that my first lover had been Kanjurjab, but that the telling of that experience would bore him and so I would relate the story of Harry and the midnight swim at the Shanghai Club. I replaced the fat German's young male lover with a beautiful Chinese girl, knowing that Tada would find that more exciting. I modelled her on the fourteen-year-old girl whom I had watched through the carved screen servicing my father, all those years ago in my birth home. I said that the girl had long dark hair that coiled in the water like sea snakes, and that apart from a pair of silk slippers that covered her tiny bound feet, she swam naked. I described the water of the pool as the palest of blues, through which the girl's body gleamed like that of a mermaid. I said that as Harry and I made love in the cubicle, we could hear the guttural moans of the fat German as he entered his young whore, and hear too her tiny cries of feigned pleasure. By the time I had finished the tale we were both too drunk to make love and so we went on drinking until we fell asleep.

  When we woke at sunrise he pulled me towards him and entered me without a word. I liked the weight and hardness of him. I tried to think of those things and not of Jack, and mostly I succeeded. I wanted to please Tada, so that he would remember me above all the other lovers I was sure he had enjoyed. It was a vanity on my part that I wanted the memory of sex with me to set the standard of encounters to follow. I accepted his tongue into my mouth as though I was savouring the most delicious oyster. Arching my body so as to give him more pleasure, I ran my nails down the length of his back and cupped his buttocks with my hands, helping him to push into me. It was not often in sex that I gave so selflessly. I wanted to leave him wanting more. I wanted too to replace my feelings of hurt at Jack's betrayal with those of revenge. Revenge is so much more pleasurable than pain.

  Before I left Tada's rooms, I kissed the purple scar where his appendix had been taken out and asked him what would give him the most pleasure when I returned that evening.

  'Come to me dressed as the Chinese princess that you are,' he said. 'But be as obedient as a concubine. Wear the same perfume, the same dark paint around your eyes and be barefoot.'

  I liked a man who knew the game he wanted to play and I looked forward to indulging him and myself in the role. As a taster of my obedience to come, I knelt before him as he sat on the bed and took his member into my mouth, sucking as softly as I could until he came with a deep groan of satisfaction.

  For what turned out to be the ten months of my stay with the Pu Yis, I never missed a night in Tada's bed. I played his Chinese whore and refused nothing that he asked of me. He was a man capable of losing himself in a woman's body in a way which, despite my little games of servitude, made me feel delightfully powerful. He loved the roundness of my earlobes, the crescent of my lips, the hollow in my throat and even the curved arches of my feet. He said that Chinese women had a delicacy of shape that could not be matched by those of any other nation. The General was in love with the idea of concubines, with Chinese legends of beauties so delicate you might crush them as they lay beneath you. His ambition was to live in China with a stable full of horses and a house full of concubines vying for the pleasure of his company between their sheets. I thought that he would be a strong master, respectfully kowtowed to by his servants, adored by his women. I had no desire to be one of them, but in his bed I came near to losing myself, to forgetting the girl in the blue dress whom Jack had said he loved.

  It was lucky for me that I had my General for company, otherwise the time that I spent in Manchuria would have been very lonely. WanJung slept, locked in her plush bedroom, while Pu Yi wasted his days in endless meetings that were designed to keep him occupied, while Japan got on with running Manchukuo. Pu Yi had a Manchu tutor who was teaching him the language of his ancestors, but he preferred English and was attempting to make it the second language of the court. Of course, the Japanese would have none of it.

  Outside the cold Salt Tax Palace, the world was full of intrigue. There was a war in Europe and Japan had allied itself with the axis powers of Germany and Italy. To the rest of the troubled globe the Qing Emperor and his number one wife must have seemed like relics from a dead past.

  Tada frequen
tly visited the nearby headquarters of the Kwangtung Army where, if Wan Jung was to be believed, he indulged what she believed was his cruel nature by devising terrible punishments for the captured bandits who challenged the Japanese in Manchuria. I believed her, but I did not judge him in the same way that she did. A General has to know how to use propaganda, as well as to be good at battle strategy. There can be no better message to a bandit than to use his fellows for bayonet practice. I never asked Tada about his treatment of prisoners; he had his work to do for Japan as we all did.

  I often rode out with him on horseback and once or twice he left me to play stand-in general over a borrowed detachment of Manchurian soldiers. I chose the best-looking captains to sleep with and paid them for their services with Kwangtung gold. It was no secret to Tada that I used his men; in fact he encouraged it and would later ask for every detail, what they did and what they said. I had to make up stories for him for, strangely, when in those narrow barrack beds, I had begun to feel ashamed of myself and preferred a silent sort of union. I wanted Jack to come and save me from myself, but I received no word from him.

  Heralded by the bitter winds that howled in the stairwells of the Salt Tax Palace, a ferocious winter arrived in Hsingking. The frosts were so hard that the giant pots in the courtyard cracked from top to bottom and had to be replaced with a pair of couchant stone lions. Some of the rooms in the palace were heated with open fires, but the halls were freezing and in the early morning ice could be found on the inside of the windows. I began to long for Shanghai with its central heating, hot water on tap, and streets warmed by jostling crowds.