Empress Orchid

by Anchee Min

  Hsien Feng lay curled in sleep, a man dreaming a man’s dreams. Like everyone in China, I used to think of the Son of Heaven as a god-like figure, the dragon who penetrated the universe. Today I saw a man whose delicate shoulders were having trouble carrying the nation’s burden; I saw a man who sobbed over my songs, a man who grew up without a mother’s love. What was misfortune if this was not? How terrible it must have been for him when his mother hanged herself in shame and everyone lied to him while all along he knew the truth! The irony was that he would never get to be the simple man he desired to be. Tomorrow morning, in front of his audience, he had to fake himself.

  Tonight had been worthy of my ruyi and my hairpin. I was glad for what I had achieved. If His Majesty forgot me tomorrow, he couldn’t erase my memory of tonight. It belonged to me. If I were to see my grave tomorrow, I would carry this night with me.

  The moonlight shifted and now shone through the carved window frames. The shadows looked like embroidery spilling onto the floor. I put my cheek against the soft silky sheet of the Imperial bed and my skin against the body of the Son of Heaven. I wanted to thank him for stripping us of our titles and allowing us to touch each other the way common souls did.

  At this thought I relaxed, although my fear still lingered. I prepared myself to leave the Hall of Spiritual Nurturing and never return.

  Emperor Hsien Feng turned. His left arm was exposed. In the moonlight it looked as thin as a young boy’s. I would let him sleep. He was facing me now. His eyebrows were no longer furrowed. His dream must be sweet.

  The yoo-hoo-loos’ singing had become discordant. It was a sign (so An-te-hai told me) that the males were finished mating and were now struggling to leave the females’ bodies. The high-pitched sounds, those of the females, were disturbing. The longer I sat, the harder they were to bear. I was forced to admit that I had fallen in love with the moment, and was dreading its end. An ache started to take hold of me. I grew more desperate with each fleeting instant.

  I could kiss him, I thought. I could kiss him the way I had learned at the House of Lotus. I wished that His Majesty were the same as the customers who visited that house, for they knew pleasure and sought it at every opportunity. I wondered if Emperor Hsien Feng had ever experienced true pleasure. I sensed that he hadn’t. He didn’t seem familiar with affection. But how could I blame him? He had to rule the country, and every night it was his duty to deposit his seeds in womb after womb. Wouldn’t I be impotent too?

  I heard soft footsteps. The eunuchs were coming for me.

  Emperor Hsien Feng remained still. I bid a silent farewell.

  There was a light knock at the door.

  I stood in the moonlight.

  The door was gently pushed open. Chief Eunuch Shim’s figure blocked the moon. He threw himself on the ground and bowed toward the sleeping Emperor. “It’s time for me to fetch Lady Yehonala, Your Majesty.”

  No response came from the bed.

  Chief Eunuch Shim repeated himself.

  Snoring was Emperor Hsien Feng’s reply.

  With no hesitation, Shim waved and four other eunuchs stepped in. They approached me with the litter. They took me by the arms and placed me on it and carried me outside.

  Just as Shim was about to close the door, a sudden wailed “No!” erupted from the room.

  Signaling his people to halt, Shim went back. He stuck his head inside the bedroom. “Your Majesty?”

  There came no answer.

  He hesitated for a moment and then signaled for the eunuchs to free me.

  I got off the litter and slipped barefoot back into His Majesty’s room.

  Chief Eunuch Shim pulled the door closed.

  I was beyond my good senses.

  His Majesty cuddled up behind me. The touch of his skin was exciting. He was still sound asleep. I stayed awake for another hour before I drifted off. In my dream I was being swallowed by a dragon with a shark’s mouth. The clouds rolled around me. I struggled to get away from the monster. My shoulders were caught and my chest was pressed. The dragon held me in its claws. “I am potent,” it whispered.

  I woke. Emperor Hsien Feng was touching me. I had the sensation I felt when I sat on eggs. His hands were cold but his body warm and his movements gentle. He explored.

  I wrapped him like a vine around a tree.

  He fumbled and his breath grew thick. He seemed to be surprised by his own excitement. One moment he pushed me away, and the next he threw himself back at me.

  I tried to recall the steps I had learned from the House of Lotus. But my mind was a stewing pot where my thoughts turned into mushy beans.

  “Take it,” he whispered. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready … for what, Your Majesty?”

  “Don’t disgust me. Stick up your behind. Aren’t you after my seeds?”

  “What does His Majesty expect me to say?”

  “Say the lines.”

  “Lines? What lines? I have … lost the lines. You don’t want to be bored with something you have heard said hundreds of times.”

  “Be quiet for my ancestors’ sake!” Hsien Feng pulled himself away.

  I looked at him and found him attractive in his nakedness. I’d better enjoy this, I thought, since I’ll never be allowed to see another naked man in my life.

  He asked for my thoughts and I reported honestly.

  “What a wicked spirit!” he said slowly. “You are calm and unafraid. You look at the Son of Heaven as if he were a tree.”

  I decided not to interrupt.

  “Look, I am obligated to produce the bloody sheet. Shim is waiting to collect it. He is waiting to pass it on to the household officials for examination and the record book. Then they will wait for the sign of an heir. They will calculate the dates on their fingers. The doctors will be called to stand by, day and night, for a sign of pregnancy.”

  His droning explanation somehow aroused me and I became unafraid.

  “You come in armies,” he continued. “You don’t care how I feel. You come to fill up my bedroom and rob me of my essence. You selfish, greedy, bloodsucking female wolves!”

  “I would enjoy our business.” Words were pushed out of my chest as if by a strange force.

  He was astounded. “You … would?”

  “I am not afraid to stick up my behind.” My voice demanded me to release it. “I am here to be your lover. I have paid for this moment dearly. It has not only cost me my ruyi and hairpin, but has also taken me from my family.” My tears came and I had no desire to hold them back. “I haven’t allowed myself to miss my mother and my siblings, but I do now, terribly! I haven’t cried despite the fact that I’ve had to spend my days in loneliness, but I do now. I might be selfish, but I am not greedy or a bloodsucking wolf! I am after nobody’s essence, but I am hungry for affection!”

  “You …” He came closer and gently pulled me toward him “These are not the official lines. Who prepared the lines for you? You did? Yourself? Do you have more?”

  An urge to perform pleasure rose inside me. “Your Majesty, spare me from answering the question. I was thinking … if you like, there are dances I know.”

  Against my will, my mind started to picture a pair of mating silkworms, the moment when half of the male moth’s body was swallowed by the female’s. I lay half in excitement and half in disgust.

  On top of me he groaned, murmuring words I didn’t understand. I couldn’t believe that the expected pain was not taking place. My body welcomed its intruder.

  Emperor Hsien Feng struggled as if performing a difficult task.

  I was awkward too. Sticking up my behind was not part of the fan dance. We were like two monkeys exploring ways to settle ourselves. Eventually I was exhausted and lay down on my back. His face appeared above me. His sweat dripped into my mouth. I arched my rib cage and stuck out my breasts.

  “Keep going,” he cried as his breath came to a halt.

  I could hear my own thought: Apply what you learned at the House of Lotus
! But I was unable to move my behind. I fumbled and flipped and was on my stomach.

  Hsien Feng sprawled himself on me like a blanket. I felt so surprisingly at home that I wept.

  His movements had a rhythm. The lines from an opera came into my head: Cease yearning for the future, my love, for sun will not be brighter and day will not be happier … Pleasure grew and gradually seized me.

  The Son of Heaven whispered between breaths. I was not sure if I heard the word “seeds.”

  Before dawn he wanted more. It was then that I had a chance to try my fan dance. I was curious about the effect. It worked. His Majesty praised me as magical. He especially appreciated my calling him “love” in the midst of passion, rather than “Your Majesty.”

  For the next few nights I continued to be summoned. My lover was amazed that he was repeatedly able to plant his seeds. Indulging himself, he begged me to explore. I became anxious about the Grand Empress. She would accuse me of keeping him all to myself, of robbing her of grandchildren “counted in the hundreds.” The pleasure of love made us stay up all night. His Majesty held me close. My energy seemed inexhaustible, and I let myself be carried away again and again.

  In the mornings we looked at each other as if we had been lovers for years.

  “‘Magpie Bridge,’” His Majesty uttered one day. “It is the most beautiful tale I have ever heard. The Imperial tutors would never have taught it to me. My head has been stuffed only with rubbish. My studies have been limited to pictures of a broken empire. The lessons never made sense to me. How could all be lost when every emperor has been wise? The tutors could never explain how we have come to owe so much to those who have stolen from us.”

  I listened attentively.

  “The tutors told me that my mission in life was revenge,” he continued. “So I was taught hatred. They threatened that I would be given no place in the temple of my ancestors if I didn’t perform my duty. My duty is to restore the map of China. But how can I possibly achieve that? China is torn and I am sent to do battle without weapons! This is what my life is about: to be humiliated by barbarians.”

  He made me feel that I was his friend. Then one night he asked, “What would you like me to grant you?”

  “I don’t want to say ‘to see you again,’ but I am afraid that I am beginning to desire that.” I tried to take hold of myself, but my tears betrayed me.

  “Orchid, don’t be distressed. I have the power to give you anything.”

  My heart took comfort in his promise, but my head warned me not to trust his words in a moment of passion. I told myself that tomorrow another concubine would be sent. Another concubine who was as desperate as I was; another concubine who had also offered her life savings to Chief Eunuch Shim.

  By the time the sun rose I was back in the Palace of Concentrated Beauty. After washing, I stepped out of the room into the garden.

  The weather was clear and the sun bright. The roses and magnolias were just beginning to bloom. In the courtyard, dozens of birdcages hung from the branches of trees. At this hour the eunuchs came to train the Imperial birds. The birds were from all over the country. After a period of training, the best would be sent to Emperor Hsien Feng. He would then distribute them as gifts to his late father’s concubines in their palaces.

  The eunuchs taught the birds to sing, talk and do tricks. Most of the birds were exotic and had funny names, such as Scholar, Poet, Doctor and Tang Priest. Those who performed were rewarded with crickets and worms. Those who didn’t were starved. There were pigeons too. These were all white and allowed to fly freely. An-te-hai’s favorite hobby was training pigeons. He tied whistles and bells on the birds’ ankles, then let them go. They circled above my palace producing lovely sounds. When the wind was strong the sounds made me think of ancient music.

  There was one highly intelligent parrot An-te-hai named Confucius. The bird could recite three-character phrases from the San Tzu Ching. For example, it said, “Men were kind-natured when they were born.” An-te-hai gave Confucius to Chief Eunuch Shim as a birthday gift, and he in turn presented it to Emperor Hsien Feng as his birthday gift, and then the Emperor rewarded me with the bird. By that time the bird didn’t know what it was talking about. It garbled a word, which twisted the meaning. What the parrot Confucius was now saying was “Men were evil-natured when they were born.” I wondered if this was the work of His Majesty. I told An-te-hai to spare the bird from correction.

  I also loved the peacocks An-te-hai raised. Peacocks roamed everywhere in my palace. An-te-hai trained them to follow me. He called them “my Imperial ladies.” They lived and bred in my garden. When An-te-hai saw me step out, he would blow a whistle and the peacocks would gather and greet me. It was wonderful. The birds made a kind of cackling noise that sounded as if they were chatting. If they were in the right mood they would open their blue and green “dresses” and compete to show off their beauty.

  “May luck stay with you, my lady.” An-te-hai greeted me with deep bows this morning.

  “May luck stay with you!” Other eunuchs, ladies in waiting, maids and even the chefs echoed the sentiment in every corner of the palace —everybody knew by now that I had become His Majesty’s favorite.

  “Has the morning boat gone out on the canal yet?” I asked An-te-hai. “I’d like to visit the temple on Prospect Hill.”

  “You can go anywhere, anytime, my lady,” An-te-hai said. “This morning Emperor Hsien Feng has ordered that you be sent to him every night. You are on top of the Forbidden City, my lady. If you wish, the court will make a petrified tree bloom and a rotten vine climb.”

  It was from the top of Prospect Hill that the secret, tranquil, elegant Imperial capital of Peking was best revealed. The hill was actually an artificial mound built to obstruct the descent of the noxious and unpropitious spirits of the north onto the Forbidden City. From its crest the city looked like a magical forest filled with flowering trees and shrubs, more wooded than the countryside itself. Through the foliage the gleaming old yellow-gold tiles showed, and also the bright enameled temple roofs, gatehouses and palaces. The scarlet and emerald pavilions exhibited their fantastically ornate and upturned eaves.

  Standing on top of the hill, I was overwhelmed by the idea that I had been blessed by celestial energy. I had been made love to by the Son of Heaven. More important, it was continuing to happen.

  As I took a deep breath of fresh air, the golden roof of the Palace of Benevolent Tranquility caught my eye. I remembered the jealous elderly concubines. I remembered the way they stared at me like hungry vultures. One story An-te-hai told would not leave my mind: the fate of a favorite concubine of the Ming Dynasty after the Emperor died. She was trapped in a court conspiracy orchestrated by fellow concubines, and she was buried alive.

  I received an unexpected guest: Nuharoo. She had never visited before. I was sure that it had to do with Hsien Feng’s spending his nights with me. I had no doubt that her eunuchs spied for her, as An-te-hai spied for me.

  Nervous but without panic, I greeted her.

  Standing like a gorgeous magnolia, she performed her greeting by bending her knees slightly. I couldn’t help but admire her beauty. If I were a man, I would desire her endlessly. Dressed in an apricot-colored satin robe, she was as graceful as a goddess descended from the clouds. Her sense of nobility seemed inborn. Her lacquered black hair was combed back in a goose-tail shape. A golden hairpin with a string of pearls dangled inches from her forehead. In her presence I lost confidence in my own beauty. I couldn’t help but believe that I would lose Emperor Hsien Feng’s affection if he took another look at her.

  According to custom, I had to get down on my knees and kowtow to receive her. But she walked up and held my arms before I had a chance.

  “My dear younger sister,” she said, as befitted her rank. She was in fact a year younger than me. “I have brought you some good herbal tea and wild mushrooms. They were sent here from Manchuria. You will need it now.” She waved her hand and her eunuchs came and
presented me with a beautifully wrapped yellow box.

  There was no sign of jealousy, I observed. Her voice bore no disturbance.

  “This is the best kind of tang kuei,” Nuharoo explained, picking up a dry root. “It is picked from cliffs high above the clouds. It grew from the freshest air and rain. Each is thirty years old or more.” She sat down and took the teacup An-te-hai served her.

  “You have grown taller since I saw you last.” She smiled at An-te-hai. “I also have a gift for you.” She waved again and her eunuch brought over a small blue silk box.

  An-te-hai threw himself on the floor and kowtowed before taking the box. Nuharoo encouraged him to open it. Inside was a bag of taels. I was sure An-te-hai had never had that much money given to him all at once. He held the box and walked on his knees toward Nuharoo. “An-te-hai doesn’t deserve this, Your Majesty!”

  “Go and please yourself with it.” Nuharoo smiled.

  I waited for her to speak about the husband we shared. I waited to hear the words that expressed her frustration. I almost wished that she would say something to insult me. But none came. She sat calmly sipping her tea.

  I wondered what made her hold herself so upright and calm. If I were she, I would find it difficult. I would resent my rival and wish myself in her place. Was she putting up a front? Or had she already developed a scheme to destroy me and was now only playing peace to deceive me?

  Her quietness bothered me. Eventually I could bear it no longer. I began to confess. I reported that Emperor Hsien Feng had been spending nights with me. I begged Nuharoo for forgiveness, and I worried that my voice lacked sincerity.

  “You have done nothing wrong,” she said in an even tone.

  Confused, I went on. “But I have. I have failed to ask for your advice.” I had difficulty continuing. I was unused to faking my emotions. “I was … was afraid. I was not sure how to report to you. I am inexperienced in court etiquette. I should have kept you informed. I am ready to accept your censure.” My mouth was dry and I took up my tea and poured it down my throat.