by Anchee Min
Over the years certain images would grow and sharpen while others would alter or fade. I could clearly see Tung Chih running toward me holding his red-eyed rabbit. I could smell berries on his breath. However, I could no longer remember what he said to me.
An-te-hai often came to my mind as well. I missed his vibrancy, humor and enlightenment. I remembered his poems. I would see his image appear and disappear at the corner of a pavilion or behind a bush. He would smile and sometimes be holding a comb in his right hand. He would ask, "What hairstyle has my lady in mind for today?" or "Time for your longevity walk, my lady."
The ghostly images of Emperor Hsien Feng and Nuharoo also visited me. My husband was always distant and cold, while Nuharoo, unlike the living, breathing person, was affectionate and even humorous. She would order me to create a ceramic opera troupe to bring to her altar.
I regularly inspected the tombs of my husband, Tung Chih and Nuharoo. I wanted to make sure the provincial governor did his job, that no robbers had raided the sites. I wanted to reassure myself that the surrounding sculptures, forests and gardens were well maintained.
Nuharoo's burial ceremony had been elaborate, just the way she'd requested. I followed her instructions: masses of gardenias piled high as snowdrifts, and I wore a black satin court robe embroidered with three hundred bats. I hated it because it made me look like a vulture.
I could have ignored her wishes, but I decided to honor them. It was her way of making sure that I didn't steal her last show. She wanted an open casket, a custom favored by nobles in the West, but rejected the idea at the last minute. She loved the idea that people would admire her eternal robe, a work of such craftsmanship it had taken thirty royal tailors several years to complete.
I remembered the day when Nuharoo and I first inspected the tomb, shortly after Hsien Feng died. She stood tall in her white ceremonial robe and expressed her dissatisfaction with the design of her coffin. The day was as cold as today. The desert wind never ceased. My earrings sang like wind chimes.
I also remembered that I walked alone into the tomb. An-te-hai, like a crazy matchmaker in a comic opera, was determined to see Yung Lu and me together. And his plan had worked. But reality had swept back and life had gone on.
More than half of the people who had made up my life were now dead. I had seen them off to their next lives in glorious fashion, all except for An-te-hai. His remains were nowhere to be found, so he went without a burial. Years later, and after many bribes, I would finally find him. My favorite was wrapped in dirty rags and shipped back to me. His head was loosely sewed back onto his neck. I knew he wanted to be buried "in one piece" because he dreaded returning as a "tailless dog." When An-te-hai had become the highest-ranking eunuch, he had been able to buy back his penis from the butcher who castrated him. He spent a fortune for his "dried-up root."
I remember his eyes lit up when describing his next life, which he would live as a normal man. It touched me profoundly. He knew his place in life, and it was with his charm that he fought against misfortune. I admired his effort and wished that I had his courage. Until I lost him, I didn't realize how much I had loved him—his presence, his birds, his plants, and his wild imagination.
The night I mourned for An-te-hai I wore my pink dress, his favorite. I blew out the memorial candles and slipped into the heated bed. Closing my eyes, I summoned An-te-hai's spirit.
Li Lien-ying was in awe of An-te-hai's "luck." He watched me with tears in his eyes when I burned candles and incense on An-te-hai's birthdays. And on every birthday I would tell Li Lien-ying the same stories: "When I first met An-te-hai, he was a shy fifteen-year-old boy with bright eyes and rouge lips..."
I spent New Year's Eve with the sick and old concubines of my father-in-law, Emperor Tao Kuang. I used to fear these ladies, but now I was among them. They refused doctors and medicine, for they believed that it would interrupt the Buddha's way. Every few months one of them would die, leaving behind a pile of embroidered handkerchiefs, pillowcases and ornamental gourds with images of playing children carved into them.
A week ago Princess Jung, Lady Yun's daughter, whom I had not seen for ages, visited me. Many years before, her mother had been put to death because she had tried to harm me when I was pregnant. I had taken in Princess Jung, treated her with kindness, and saw to it that she was raised properly. After completing her education, she married a Manchu prince and lived near Peking. During our visit we talked about her half-brother, Tung Chih, and inspected the items that would be displayed in the newly completed Tung Chih Memorial Hall, near the ancient city of Sian. Leaning over Jung's shoulder, I examined my son's towels, handkerchiefs, combs, necklaces, hats, shoes, kneeling mats, chairs, washbasins, vases, bowls, cups, spoons and chopsticks. By the time we finished, I was trembling so much that Jung had to hold me up.
Around the New Year of 1888 I received the terrible news that Prince Kung's son Tsai-chen had died. He was Tung Chih's playmate and best friend. He also died of a venereal disease.
Although Prince Kung blamed himself for his son's death, he never allowed himself to mourn. Right after Tung Chih's burial, Prince Kung had thrown Tsai-chen out and sworn he'd never speak to him again. When the news of his son's illness came, he was shocked. But when he entered his son's room and saw a silk robe embroidered with pink peonies hanging on the dresser, he turned around and left, and Tsai-chen died that night.
I invited Prince Kung for dinner and suggested that we drink and talk about the good times. We told stories about our dead sons, about the way they met and the way they played together.
Li Lien-ying had been standing over one of the royal tailors for the past three days, supervising the making of my dress for a clan gathering to discuss Guang-hsu's marriage.
I put on the dress and looked at myself in the mirror. My wrinkles were too numerous to hide, and my teeth were not as white as they used to be. Fortunately my hair remained lacquer black. Li Lien-ying was thrilled that I agreed to try a new hairdo. He said that I had put him out of practice for too long.
To sort my earrings, bracelets and necklaces, my eunuch got up before dawn. He laid out the combs, pins, strings, scented-oil bottles and hair boards. I heard him filling up the washbasin and thought that maybe I should stop talking about An-te-hai so much.
In Li Lien-ying's hands I became a work of art. My dress was "moonlight on snow," embroidered with a silver turnip pattern, and my new hairstyle was a "piled-up jewelry cake."
Rong came with her husband, Prince Ch'un. The family had grown to more than thirty people. I hadn't seen my sister for a long time and noticed changes in her. Her back was hunched and her belly stuck out. Wearing the Manchu four-inch platform shoes, she walked with a drunkard's steps. A large jade hair board was fastened on the back of her head. The centerpiece was a jade grasshopper. Her teeth protruded so badly they looked as if they were flying out of her mouth. Infected gums made her jaws puffy. One side of her face was visibly bigger than the other.
Rong started criticizing me the moment she arrived. She was loud and animated. Warned by Prince Ch'un of her deteriorating mental condition, I tried to ignore her.
The royal brothers sat down together. Prince Kung, Prince Ch'un and Prince Ts'eng showed little affection for one another. They sat in silence smoking pipes.
My brother, Kuei Hsiang, arrived drunk. His wife wore a hair board with ornaments piled up like a pagoda. Since she could hardly turn her head, she talked while her eyes rolled from side to side.
Emperor Guang-hsu, now seventeen, looked handsome and confident in a sunlight-colored silk robe. He had made it clear to the royal clan that he wouldn't take more than one Empress and two concubines. I gave him my support.
By now I was familiar with the unique ways of boys raised as the Son of Heaven. They lived inside their heads. For Tung Chih, living had meant escaping himself. For Guang-hsu it meant denying his own humanity, for he believed that it was pleasure that had destroyed Tung Chih.
The list of choices f
or the new Empress was long. The royal clan spent days in discussion. Finally my brother's twenty-year-old daughter, Lan, was nominated.
My room became dark after the sun set. The eunuchs came and added coal to the heaters. Guang-hsu and I sat facing each other. He let me know that he wasn't keen on getting married. I convinced him that in order to claim himself as an adult and officially mount the throne, he must first get married.
"I can't afford to waste time," he complained. "But wasting time is mostly what I do!"
"What do you think of your cousin Lan?" I asked.
"What about her?"
"She is plain," I said, "but character-wise, she is well versed in art, literature and music."
"If she is your choice," Guang-hsu said, "she will be mine."
"She is three years older than you and perhaps more mature. She might not strike your fancy, but you grew up together and you know each other. It is you, however, who must choose."
"We get along." Guang-hsu's face turned red. "I have seen her paintings, although I don't really feel as if I know her."
"She would like very much to be your Empress."
"Has she really said that?" Guang-hsu asked.
I nodded.
"Well, that's nice..." He hesitated and rose from his chair. "I suppose she is the right one, then. You like her, and that's what matters to me."
"Do you mind Lan's lack of beauty?"
"Why should I mind?"
"Most men would."
"I am not most men."
"Well, both of you are not only my closest blood relations but also people I can truly trust. However, I would not be able to forgive myself if matching you two led to unhappiness."
Guang-hsu went quiet. After a while he said, "In my eyes Lan is beautiful and has always been kind."
I began to relax and felt hopeful.
"Within the family," Guang-hsu continued, "Lan was the one who always protected me when others ridiculed me."
"You are not doing this to please me, are you, Guang-hsu?"
"It would be dishonest to deny that I intend to please you," he said. "I don't think I am allowed to postpone my marriage, since I have already postponed it twice. The world thinks that the reason I am not married is because you refuse to step down."
I was moved by his concern for me. I said nothing, but my eyes grew tearful—I lost Tung Chih but gained Guang-hsu.
"Mother, let's just get it over with. If there is any chance that I shall fall in love, Lan would be the one."
Now I felt nervous and asked Guang-hsu to give himself a few months to think about Lan before making a final decision.
We walked along the shore of Kun Ming Lake where the view was serene. Shrouded in mist, the hills looked like a giant watercolor painting, and the rippling lake reminded me of watered silk.
I sighed when Tung Chih came to mind. "I wished that I had known how to please Alute."
"Let me make you happy again, Mother," Guang-hsu said softly.
The Big Dipper hung bright in the purple sky. That night Li Lien-ying applied green-tea-enriched dandelion cream on my skin and massaged my limbs. Something unsettling had descended over me, but I couldn't figure out what it was. In the future I would wish that I had continued my conversation with Guang-hsu.
I could only say that it was exactly what life was about: a mystery in which one can never know where one truly is.
23
Guang-hsu chose two sisters from the Tatala clan—which had close connections to the Yehonala clan—as his concubines. The girls were favorite students of Tutor Weng. Guang-hsu first heard his grand tutor praising them, and then was impressed when he met them. The girls' father was the secretary of the Imperial Board of Justice, a friend of Prince Kung's who was known for his liberal views.
I didn't quite know how to react when Guang-hsu presented the girls to me. The younger one, Zhen, or Pearl, was barely fourteen years old. She was beautiful and acted more like Guang-hsu's younger sister than his concubine. Pearl was curious, bright and vivacious. The elder girl, Chin, or Lustrous, was fifteen. She was rotund with a placid but stiff expression. Guang-hsu seemed happy with his selection and asked for my approval.
Although there were a number of girls who came highly recommended, and who in my opinion were much better qualified in terms of beauty and intelligence, I promised myself not to interfere with Guang-hsu's decisions. I was a little selfish and thought that the less attractive the girls, the safer it would be for my niece Lan. I would be doing Lan a disservice by surrounding her husband with beauties. Despite my prayers that Guang-hsu and Lan would eventually fall in love, I asked myself, what if they don't?
Pearl and Lustrous completed a harmonious package. When I lined them up with Lan, I thought the arrangement ideal: Pearl was young, Lustrous was passive, and Lan was given a chance to shine. My goal was to encourage Guang-hsu to have children with all of them.
The three girls came for tea in beautiful dresses. They reminded me of my youth. I intended to let them know of my regrettable relationship with Alute. The girls didn't expect my frankness and were stunned.
"I am sorry to put you through this," I explained. "If you don't already know the story, you will hear it sooner or later from palace rumors. It's better that I tell you my own version."
I warned them to put aside their expectations of life inside the Forbidden City. "Don't focus on how life should be but how life is." I let Lan know that I was thrilled to share with her a passion for literature and opera, but I cautioned her that poetry and opera are diversions, not serious pursuits.
The girls didn't seem to understand, but each nodded obediently.
"Alute and Tung Chih fell in love the first time they met," I went on. "But Tung Chih abandoned her after a few months for other women." I mentioned how I lost my husband to Chinese concubines. "It takes character, an iron will and endurance to survive inside the Forbidden City." To make my point clear, I emphasized that I would not tolerate another Alute.
While Lan, who already knew the story, listened, Lustrous and Pearl widened their eyes as I spoke of my late daughter-in-law Alute. I had to stop to wipe my tears, for the memory of Tung Chih was unbearable.
Pearl wept when I described Alute's sad end.
"I'd never do what Alute did even if I become disappointed with my life and wish to kill myself," she cried. "Alute was wrong to murder her baby!"
"Pearl," Lustrous interrupted. "Stop, please. Negative emotions will harm the Grand Empress's health."
"Would you say that you have survived and prospered?" Lan asked me at our third tea party.
"Survived, maybe—definitely not prospered" was my reply.
"Everyone in the country believes that your life is a fairy tale," Pearl said. "It's not true?"
"To an extent I suppose it is true," I agreed. "I live in the Forbidden City, thousands cater to my needs, my wardrobe is beyond imagining, but—"
"You are worshiped by millions," Lan interrupted.
"Are you not, Grand Empress?" the sisters followed.
I paused, debating whether I should reveal my true thoughts. "I will say this: I have gained prestige but lost happiness."
Despite her sister's elbow-pushing, Pearl voiced her disbelief and begged me to explain.
"My father was the governor of Wuhu when I was seven years old," I began. "I played with my village friends in the fields, hills and lakes. Our family was financially better off than most of the other townspeople, who relied entirely on the year's crops for survival. My biggest wish was to be able to afford a New Year's present for my best friend, a skinny, long-legged girl nicknamed Grasshopper. Grasshopper said that if I really meant to make her happy, all I had to do was allow her to clean my family's feces pit."
"What?" the Imperial ladies cried. "She wanted your shit?"
I nodded. "To have a steady supply of feces to fertilize his land is every farmer's dream." Sipping the finest tea, I described how Grasshopper and her family came to our house to collect this "
gift." How each member carried wooden buckets and a bamboo pole. How they sang songs as they emptied the pit. How Grasshopper worked in the pit on her knees, scraping the sides.
The three delicate ladies were wide-eyed. Pearl looked so taken aback that she held a hand over her mouth, as if afraid of something she might say.
"I will never forget the smile on Grasshopper's face." I drank up my tea. "She made me know what happiness is. I have never known such simple contentment since entering the Forbidden City."
"You sound like you haven't been lucky!" Pearl couldn't help saying.
"No," I sighed.
Guang-hsu and Tutor Weng joined us for dinner. Pearl, in all her innocence and natural charm, begged Guang-hsu to share what he had learned that day. As a student of Tutor Weng herself, they teased each other. Guang-hsu seemed to enjoy Pearl's challenge, and their friendship flourished in front of my eyes.
"I am convinced that China's only hope of salvation is in learning and emulating the science and technology of the Western nations," Guang-hsu said in a high-pitched voice, and Pearl nodded respectfully.
When Pearl asked the Emperor to explain how a clock worked, Guang-hsu sent his eunuch to bring a few items from his collection. Like a performer, he took a clock apart, pointing out its inner workings. She stared in awe of him, their two heads practically glued together as they continued exploring.
I could tell that Lan wished for the chance to talk with the Emperor about poetry and literature. Later, when I was alone with my niece, I asked of her feelings. We were sitting in front of her dressing mirror.
"Guang-hsu paid more attention to his concubines than to his Empress," Lan complained.
I didn't want to be the one to have to tell her this, but believed she ought to prepare herself: "This could be just a beginning, Lan."
My niece raised her small eyes and glanced at herself in the mirror. She was judging herself critically. A moment later she lowered her head and began to weep. "I am ugly."