by Anchee Min
The father was stunned. Instantly, he made a decision on his heir.
The candle had gone out. I sat quietly. The moon was bright outside the window. The clouds were thick and white, like giant fish swimming across the sky.
“It is my view that Empress Chu An’s death played a big part in the selection of the heir too,” Big Sister Fann said. “Father Emperor Tao Kuang felt guilty that he took the mother away from her child. The fact that he never granted Lady Jin the wish to be titled Empress after Chu An was the proof. My mistress got what she wanted after all.”
“Isn’t Lady Jin the Grand Empress today?” I asked.
“Yes, but she didn’t get that title from Tao Kuang. Hsien Feng gave it to her when he became the Emperor. Again it was Tu’s advice. The act helped to add greatness to Hsien Feng’s name. Hsien Feng understood that the public knew that Lady Jin was Chu An’s enemy. He wanted people to believe in his benevolence. It was also to squelch the doubts of the nation, because Prince Kung was still on everyone’s mind. The father didn’t play fair. He didn’t keep his promise.”
“What about Prince Kung?” I asked. “After all, he scored the highest during the hunt. How did he feel about his father honoring a loser?”
“Orchid, you must learn never to judge the Son of Heaven.” Big Sister Fann lit another candle. She stuck her hand in the air and drew a line under her neck. “Whatever he does is Heaven’s will. It was Heaven’s will that Hsien Feng was made Emperor. Prince Kung believes this too. And that is why he assists his brother with such devotion.”
“But … was Prince Kung even a little bit jealous?”
“There has been no sign of it. However, Lady Jin was. She was bitter about Prince Kung’s submission. But she managed to hide her feelings.”
It was a terrible winter. Frozen bodies were found in the streets of Peking after an ice storm. I gave all that I earned to Mother, but it was not enough to pay the bills. The lenders lined up at our door. The door had repeatedly fallen out of its frame. Eleventh Uncle was uneasy and his thoughts were written all over his face. I knew he wanted us to move out. Mother took a cleaning job but was fired the next day, for she became ill. She had to lean against the bed to stand up, and her breath was labored. My sister Rong brewed herb medicine for her. Along with the bitter leaves the doctor prescribed cocoons of silkworms. The foul smell was in my clothes and hair. My brother Kuei Hsiang had been sent to borrow money from neighbors. After a while nobody would open the door for him. Mother bought cheap burial clothes, a black gown, and wore it all day long. “You won’t have to change me if you find me dead in bed,” she said.
One afternoon Uncle came with his son, to whom I had never been introduced. His name was Ping, meaning “bottle.” I knew that Uncle had had a son by a local prostitute and that he hid him because he was embarrassed. I didn’t know that Bottle was retarded.
“Orchid will make a good wife for Bottle,” Uncle said to my mother, pushing Bottle toward me. “How about I give you enough taels to help pay off your debts?”
Cousin Bottle was a slope-shouldered fellow. The shape of his face matched his name. He looked sixty years old, although he was only twenty-two. Besides being “slow,” he was an opium addict. He stood in the middle of the room smiling at me from ear to ear. His hands went constantly to pull up his pants, which fell right back to where they were, below his hips.
“Orchid needs decent clothes,” Uncle said, ignoring Mother’s reaction, which was to shut her eyes and bang her head on the bed frame. Uncle picked up his dirty cotton sack and took out a pink jacket patterned with blue orchids.
I ran from the house into the snow. Soon both of my shoes were soaked and I could no longer feel that I had toes.
A week later Mother told me that I was engaged to Bottle.
“What do I do with him?” I cried to her.
“It’s not fair for Orchid,” Rong said in a small voice.
“Uncle wants his rooms back,” Kuei Hsiang said. “Someone offered him more rent. Marry Bottle, Orchid, so Uncle won’t kick us out.”
I wished that I had the courage to say no to Mother. I did not have any choice. Rong and Kuei Hsiang were too young to help support the family. Rong had been suffering from severe nightmares. To watch her sleep was to watch her going through a torture chamber. She tore up the sheet as if possessed by demons. She was constantly afraid, nervous and suspicious. She walked like a frightened bird—wide-eyed, freezing in the middle of her movements. She made rattling sounds when she sat down. During meals she would continually knock her fingers on the table. My brother went the other way. He was disoriented, careless and lazy. He gave up his books and would do nothing to help.
All day long at work I listened to Big Sister Fann’s stories of men of charm and intelligence, men who spent their lives on horseback, conquered their foes and became emperors. I went home only to face the reality that I would be married to Bottle before spring.
Mother called from her bed, and I sat down beside her. I couldn’t bear looking at her face. She was bone-thin. “Your father used to say, ‘A sick tiger that loses its way on a plain is weaker than a lamb. It can’t fight wild dogs who come to feast.’ Unfortunately that is our fate, Orchid.”
One morning I heard a beggar singing in the street while I was brushing my hair:
To give it up is to accept your fate.
To give it up is to create peace.
To give it up is to gain the upper hand, and
To give it up is to have it all.
I stared at the beggar as he passed my window. He raised his empty bowl toward me. His fingers were as dry as dead branches. “Porridge,” he said.
“We are out of rice,” I said. “I have been digging up white clay from my yard and mixing it with wheat flour to make buns. Would you like one?”
“Don’t you know that white clay clogs the intestines?”
“I know, but there is nothing else to eat.”
He took the bun I gave him and disappeared at the end of the lane.
Sad and depressed, I walked to Big Sister Fann’s in the snow. When I arrived I picked up my tools and sat down on the bench and started to work. Fann came in with breakfast still in her mouth. She was excited and said she saw a decree posted on the city wall. “His Majesty Emperor Hsien Feng is looking for future mates. I wonder who the lucky girls will be!” She described the event, which was called the Selection of Imperial Consorts.
After work I decided to go and take a look at the decree. The direct route was blocked, so I weaved through the lanes and alleys and got there by sunset. The poster was written in black ink. The characters were blurred from the wash of wet snow. As I read it, my thoughts began to race. The candidates had to be Manchu, to keep the purity of the Imperial bloodline. I remembered Father once told me that among four hundred million people in China, five million were Manchu. The poster also said that the girls’ fathers had to be at least the rank of Blue Bannerman. That was to ensure the girls’ genetic intelligence. The poster further declared that all Manchu girls between the ages of thirteen and seventeen must register with their state for the selection. None of the young Manchu women were allowed to marry until the Emperor had passed them up.
“Don’t you think I have a chance?” I cried to Big Sister Fann. “I am a Manchu and seventeen. My father was a Blue Bannerman.”
Fann shook her head. “Orchid, you are an ugly mouse compared to the concubines and court ladies I have seen.”
I drank from a bucket of water and sat down to think. Big Sister Fann’s words discouraged me, but my desire was not diminished. I learned from Fann that the Imperial court would review the candidates in October. Governors all over the nation would send out scouts to gather beautiful girls. The scouts were ordered to make lists of names.
“They missed me!” I said to Big Sister Fann. I found out that the Im-perial household was in charge of this year’s selection, and the beauties from each state were being sent to Peking for the household committee to r
eview. The chief eunuch, who represented the Emperor, was expected to inspect more than five thousand girls and select about two hundred from among them. Those girls would be presented to Grand Empress Lady Jin and Emperor Hsien Feng for viewing.
Big Sister Fann told me that Hsien Feng would select seven official wives, and that he would be free to “reward happiness” to any court ladies or maids in the Forbidden City. After the official wives were chosen, the rest of the finalists would be kept and would live in the Forbidden City. They might never get a chance to mate with His Majesty, but they were guaranteed a lifetime of annual taels. The amount given was based on title and rank. All told, the Emperor would have three thousand concubines.
I also learned from Big Sister Fann that besides the consort selection, the Selection of Imperial Maids was also held this year. Unlike the consorts, who were given magnificent palaces to live in, the maids lived in barracks behind the palaces. Many such quarters had been left to decay and were barely fit to live in.
I asked Big Sister Fann about the eunuchs, two thousand of whom lived in the Forbidden City. She told me that most of them came from poverty. Their families were utterly beyond hope. While only castrated boys were qualified to apply for the positions, not every castrated boy was guaranteed a place.
“Besides being quick-witted, the boys had to be above average in looks,” Big Sister Fann said. “The smartest and handsomest would have a chance to survive or even become favorites.”
I asked why the court wouldn’t hire normal boys.
“It is to guarantee the Emperor as the sole seed planter,” she explained. The system was inherited from the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Emperor owned ninety thousand eunuchs. They were his in-house police force. It was a necessity, because cases of murder are not infrequent in a place where thousands of females compete for one male’s attention.
“The eunuchs are creatures capable of extreme hatred and cruelty and also loyalty and devotion. Privately they suffer a great deal. Most wear thick underwear because they constantly leak urine. Have you ever heard the expression ‘You stink like a eunuch’?”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I married one, for heaven’s sake! The leaking puts a lot of shame on the man. My husband had a profound understanding of mistreatment and suffering, but that did not stop him from being vicious and jealous. He wished everyone tragedy.”
I didn’t tell my family about what I intended to do, because I was aware that my chance of success was one in a million. The next morning I went to the local courthouse before work. I was nervous but determined. I announced my purpose to the guard and was guided to an office in the back. The room was large. Its columns, tables and chairs were wrapped with red cloth. A bearded man dressed in a red robe sat behind a large redwood desk. On the desk was a rectangular piece of yellow silk. It was a copy of the Imperial decree. I went up to the man and got down on my knees. I stated my name and age. I said that my father was from the Yehonala clan and was the late taotai of Wuhu.
The bearded man measured me with his eyes. “Do you have better clothes?” he asked after a hard stare.
“No, sir,” I replied.
“I am not allowed to let anyone enter the palace looking like a beggar.”
“Well, may I have your permission to ask whether I am qualified for the entrance? If I can get a yes from you, sir, I shall find a way to prepare my appearance.”
“Do you think I’d bother to waste my breath if I didn’t find you qualified?”
“Well,” Mother said, a bit relieved, “I will just have to tell your uncle that Bottle has to wait until the Emperor passes you up.”
“Maybe by then Uncle will get hit by a cart or Bottle will die of an opium overdose,” Kuei Hsiang said.
“Kuei Hsiang,” Rong stopped him, “you don’t curse people like that. After all, they sheltered us.”
I always found that Rong had better sense than Kuei Hsiang. That was not to say that Rong was not afraid. She continued to be delicate and fearful throughout her life. She would spend days working on an embroidery and then suddenly abandon it, saying that she saw its color turning. She would conclude that there must be a ghost at work. She would panic and cut up the piece.
“Why don’t you study, Kuei Hsiang?” I said to my brother. “You have a better chance than Rong and I. The Imperial civil service examination comes up every year. Why don’t you give it a try?”
“I don’t have what it takes” was Kuei Hsiang’s reply.
• • •
Big Sister Fann was surprised that I passed the entrance exam at the office of the Imperial household. Grabbing a candle, she studied my features.
“How did I miss it?” She turned my head right and left. “Bright almond-shaped single-lid eyes, smooth skin, a straight nose, a lovely mouth and a slender body. It must be the clothes that diminished your looks.”
Putting down the candle, Fann folded her arms. She paced around the room like a cricket in a jar before a fight. “You are not going to look like this when you enter the Forbidden City, Orchid.” She placed her hands on my shoulders and said, “Come, let me transform you.”
It was in Big Sister Fann’s dressing room that I was turned into a princess.
Big Sister Fann proved to me her reputation—she who was once in charge of dressing the Empress wrapped me in a light green satin tunic embroidered with lifelike white pheasants. Embroidered borders in a darker shade decorated the neck, cuffs and edges.
“This tunic was Her Majesty’s. She gave it to me as a wedding present,” Big Sister Fann explained. “I hardly wore it because I was afraid of stains. And now I am too old and heavy. I loan it to you, the matching headdress too.”
“Won’t Her Majesty recognize it?”
“Don’t worry.” Fann shook her head. “She has hundreds of similar dresses.”
“What will the dress make her think?”
“That you have her taste.”
I was thrilled and told Big Sister Fann that I couldn’t thank her enough.
“Remember, beauty is not the only measurement at the selection, Orchid,” Big Sister Fann said as she dressed me. “You can lose because you are too poor to bribe the eunuchs, who will in turn find a way to point out your shortcomings to His and Her Majesties. I have personally attended this kind of occasion. It was so exhausting that every girl looked the same by the end. His and Her Majesties’ eyes wouldn’t register beauty anymore, and that’s why most of the Imperial wives and concubines are ugly.”
Over the endless months of waiting, I could scarcely contain my agitation. I slept fitfully and awoke from dreams full of dread. Then the waiting ended: tomorrow I would enter the Forbidden City to compete for the selection.
Clouds hung high in the sky and the breeze was warm as my sister and I strode through the streets of Peking. “I have a feeling that you will be one of the two hundred concubines, if not one of the seven wives,” Rong said. “Your beauty is unmatchable, Orchid.”
“My desperation is unmatchable,” I corrected her.
We continued walking and I held her hand tightly. She was dressed in a light blue cotton gown with stitch pads neatly sewed on her shoulders. She and I looked alike in terms of features, except sometimes her expression gave away her fear.
“What if you never get to spend a night with His Majesty?” Rong asked. Her raised eyebrows formed a line on her forehead.
“It is better than marrying Bottle, isn’t it?”
Rong nodded.
“I’ll send you the most fashionable clothes patterns from the palace,” I said, trying to be cheerful. “You’ll be the best-dressed girl in the city. Fine fabrics, fabulous lace, peacock feathers.”
“Don’t you go out of your way, Orchid. Everyone knows that the Forbidden City has strict rules. One wrong move and your head could be chopped.”
For the rest of the walk we were quiet. The Imperial wall seemed taller and thicker. It was the wall that would separate us.
Three
A month before, the household committee had sent me for a physical examination. The process would have shocked me if I hadn’t been preparing myself. It took place on the south side of Peking, in a palace surrounded by a large formal garden. The house and grounds had once been used as a vacation palace for the emperors. There was a small pond in the middle of the courtyard.
I met many girls whose beauty I didn’t have words to even begin to describe. Each maiden was one of a kind. The girls from the southern provinces were slender, had swan-like necks, long limbs and small breasts. The girls from the north were like ripe fruit. They had breasts like gourds and pumpkin-sized buttocks.
The eunuchs checked our birth signs, star charts, height, weight, the shape of our hands and feet, our hair. They counted our teeth. Everything had to match the Emperor’s own charts.
We were instructed to undress and line up. One by one we were examined by a head eunuch, who had an assistant recording his words in a book.
“Uneven eyebrows,” the head eunuch pronounced as he walked past us, “crooked shoulders, a laborer’s hands, earlobes too small, jaw too narrow, lips too thin, puffy eyelids, square toes, legs too short, thighs too fat.” Those girls were instantly dismissed.
Hours later we were guided to a hall with peach-flower-patterned curtains. A group of eunuchs came holding tapes. My body was measured by three eunuchs. I was pinched and squeezed.
There was no place to hide. “Shrink or stick out your head—either way you won’t escape the dropping ax.” The head eunuch pushed my shoulders and yelled, “Straighten up!”