My Last Empress

by Da Chen

  “Who is the father?” I asked.

  “You.”

  Doubt stirred in me. “Have you had other lovers?”

  She slapped me hard with her cold palm.

  I could find no words of adequacy to convey what was and wasn’t within me, and I was confused and confounded by my own lack of enthusiasm, of former zest, of even curiosity. I seemed to have aged reversely back to my childish years of uncertainty, shyness, and witlessness.

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” she snapped. “I said it’s yours. Aren’t you happy now that you’ve lost your …” Q bit her lip.

  I sighed. Something was aground, forcefully barring me from reaching her, from loving her as I had always dreamed of loving. Something dull and leaden was holding me back. Something new was asserting a fence of forbearance where formerly there had been none. All I could utter was, “Look at what you’ve done to yourself.”

  She looked at me, hurt.

  I broke down like a defenseless child right before her, my earthly love-mate, my incarnated wife, the quintessence of what I had once held dear and deemed perfect—the only tangible trace of my entangled and contorted love.

  That was all I could say.

  What shame! What sorrow!

  She turned on her heel and walked away.

  39

  After Q’s brief visit, In-In and I settled into the fabled three-room shanty built by the Reverend Hawthorn. It was in this locale that I learned about the fate of Q and the lordly Wang Dan.

  Once Q missed her ship, heading for Kyoto, that good man, Wang Dan, came to her rescue, taking her away from the Tianjin Wharf after my capture, keeping her safe from the murderous hands of the dowager.

  The palace pursued Wang Dan for aiding the fugitive empress. The royal army besieged his township, and not long after Wang surrendered himself. By then Q was long gone, some say to far south Canton where the flames of revolution were spreading. Others said she had gone to Kyoto where she had spent her formative years. Still others said she had fled to Boston. All, however, said she had left with a child growing in her—her child, my child, our child.

  I had heard by then that it was really the young emperor himself who had ordered Q to be hanged that night of our flight. The poor fellow was given a choice of no choice by the dowager: get rid of Qiu Rong or he would be dethroned. He chose to hang her, knowing well it would neither save his crown nor his life. He was said to have died lamenting the loss of his last empress. Was he a villain or a victim? Both, I would say.

  The dowager had Wang Dan buried alive, nailing him down in his coffin like Christ to his cross, weighing his tomb with layers of rock in an unmarked crypt. When his followers unearthed his tomb and exhumed his body several days later, they found not only the anomaly of his pseudohermaphrodite state but also a surprising syndactyly of his toes, specifically webbing between his second and third toes, the very same state afflicting Q.

  I will leave it to you all to judge. After all, you are my sitting jury. I will just say what needs to be said and no more. Wang’s webbed toes tell an utterly enchanting tale: that he is the father of Qiu Rong, and considering the ambiguity of his manhood and sexuality, it could only be by means of a godly way.

  As for my Annabelle, the truth that I have come to see is that passion blinds a man, but love keeps him alive. I would have died a long time ago, finding the world empty and life hollow without much aim, dying if not by natural means then by hanging myself, many a time and chance, but Annabelle’s phantom possession gave my living a florid content and my journey a worthy destination. Now every day that I live in this childhood house of hers, looking with my wane eyes at the hawthorn trees she had planted and deciphering drawings her fingers made along the walls, I am one with her, flying with her tribe of butterflies in that evergreen summer garden. Summers and childhood are synonyms equating themselves in turn with our initial love; they are the foremost hieroglyphs of our waking souls, thus making us long for them as such.

  Quiet nights, I hear Annabelle’s footfalls, and mornings her giggles, echoes of her youth. Seasons come and go. Our hawthorn trees blossom and bloom. In this grace, I await nothing but my end to go to her.

  The desire and lust are gone, leaving behind a clear-eyed lucidity in which sweet love for her infuses my every breath. Each day I ponder, gaining new insight. Each sunset and sunrise marks my slow and sure steps toward her.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No book is ever done alone in utter isolation. I wish to give thanks and credit to the following people for creating a forest around me, and allowing this book to blossom:

  My beautiful wife, Sunny. My first and foremost editor, she labored over every single word in this book, making sure diction and phrases were properly applied. My gratitude for her is deep and vast. Her literary gift is abundant in the marvelous fictions she publishes with Berkeley/Penguin Group.

  My mother for her rice noodles with shrimp, oysters, and cilantro. Her calm smiles are always filled with enough love for me to soak myself in.

  My children, Victoria and Michael. You make us proud and bring a smile to our faces every day.

  Mrs. and Mr. Liu, my in-laws, the most loving and generous people. We are much blessed by your love.

  Uncle (Dr.) Nate, Auntie Mil, and their children, Austin, Sam, Erica, and Hudson. You are our inspiration in more ways than you know.

  My sister, Ke, her husband, and my niece Si: for your generous and loyal support.

  Our dear friends Marcia Gay Harden and Thaddaeus Scheel. New Year’s Day skating at your lake house is a beloved tradition and warm celebration of friendship and goodwill.

  Elliot Figman, much celebrated poet and founder of Poets & Writers, who has watched over me from the very onset of my publishing career. There is no worthier cause than Elliot’s P&W Foundation. Donate!

  My dear colleagues Elizabeth Hastings and Dr. Michael White, celebrated novelist and director of Fairfield University’s MFA program in creative writing, which I am proudly a part of. You are my heroes on Enders Island. Thanks to all my FUMFAers for their love and general awesomeness.

  Glen Loveland. Thanks for making sure that all my southerner’s pin-yin spellings are correct.

  My literary agent, Alex Glass, of Trident Media Group, who cares deeply about fine books, and even more deeply about his authors. I am most fortunate to have your friendship, dedication, and wise counsel.

  My deep appreciation to Jenny Frost and Shaye Areheart.

  Kate Kennedy, whom I cannot thank enough for shaping this book to its essence.

  My most heartfelt thanks to Alexis Washam, my brilliant editor, for launching this book. Another shout of thanks to her amazing assistant, Christine Kopprasch. To the esteemed Maya Mavjee, Molly Stern, and Tina Constable, thank you for your brilliant leadership at Crown.

  Finally, I have to acknowledge that the idea first sparked for this story when I was invited to speak at Yale University and saw the portrait of Mr. Horace Tracy Pitkin (class of 1892) hanging in the Woolsey rotunda. His heroism inspired me to write this book, but all the characters and scenes are purely of my own imagining and creation.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DA CHEN is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Colors of the Mountain, and the award-winning novel Brothers. He teaches creative writing at Fairfield University’s MFA program. For more information, please visit www.dachen.org.