by Lisa See
How many times had he warned me of these things?
“I won’t, Baba,” I promised.
My eyes rested on the narrator’s opening lines. Last night I had heard the actor who played him speak of how three incarnations had led Liniang and Mengmei to the Peony Pavilion.
I took the volume to my father, pointed to the passage, and asked, “Baba, where does this come from? Was it something Tang Xianzu invented or is it one of the things he borrowed from another poem or story?”
My father smiled, pleased as usual with my curiosity. “Look on the third shelf on that wall. Find the oldest book and you’ll get your answer.”
I put my new copy of The Peony Pavilion on the daybed and did as my father suggested. I took the book back to the bed and leafed through the pages until I found the original source for the three incarnations. It seemed that in the Tang dynasty a girl loved a monk. It took three separate lifetimes for them to attain perfect circumstances and perfect love. I pondered that. Could love be strong enough to outlast death not once but three times?
I picked up The Peony Pavilion again and slowly turned the pages. I wanted to find Mengmei and relive meeting my stranger last night. I came to Mengmei’s entrance:
I have inherited fragrance of classic books. Drilling the wall for light, hair tied to a beam in fear of drowsing, I wrest from nature excellence in letters….
“What are you reading now?” Baba asked.
Caught! Blood rushed to my cheeks.
“I…I…”
“There are things in the story a girl like you might not understand. You could discuss them with your mother—”
I blushed an even deeper red. “It’s nothing like that,” I stammered, and then I read him the lines, which on their own seemed perfectly innocent.
“Ah, so you want to know the source for this too.” When I nodded, he got up, went to one of the shelves, pulled down a book, and brought it to the bed. “This records the deeds of famous scholars. Do you want me to help you?”
“I can do it, Baba.”
“I know you can,” he said, and handed me the volume.
Aware of my father’s eyes watching me, I leafed through the book until I came to an entry about Kuang Heng, a scholar so poor he couldn’t afford oil for his lamp. He drilled a hole in the wall so he might borrow his neighbor’s light.
“In a few more pages”—Baba urged me on—“you’ll find the reference to Sun Jing, who tied his hair to a beam, so fearful was he of falling asleep at his studies.”
I nodded soberly, wondering if the young man I’d met was as diligent as those men of antiquity.
“If you’d been a son,” Baba went on, “you would have made an excellent imperial scholar, perhaps the best our family has ever seen.”
He meant it as a compliment and I took it that way, but I heard regret in his voice too. I was not a son and never would be.
“If you’re going to be here,” he added hurriedly, perhaps aware of his lapse, “then you should help me.”
We went back to his desk and sat down. He carefully arranged his clothes around him and then adjusted his queue so that it hung straight down his back. He ran his fingers over his shaved forehead—a habit, like wearing Manchu styles, that reminded him of his choice to protect our family—and then he opened a drawer and pulled out several strings of silver cash pieces.
He pushed a string across the desk and said, “I need to send funds to the countryside. Help me count them out.”
We owned thousands of mou planted with mulberry trees. In the Gudang area, not far from here, whole villages relied on our family for their livelihood. Baba cared for the people who raised the trees, harvested the leaves, fed and nurtured the silkworms, pulled the floss from the cocoons, spun thread, and, of course, made cloth. He told me what was required for each enterprise, and I began putting together the proper amounts.
“You don’t seem like yourself today,” my father said. “What troubles you?”
I couldn’t tell him about the young man I’d met or that I was worrying about whether or not I should meet him again in the Riding-the-Wind Pavilion, but if Baba could help me understand my grandmother and the choices she’d made, then maybe I’d know what to do tonight.
“I’ve been thinking about Grandmother Chen. Was she so very brave? Did she have any moments when she was unsure?”
“We’ve studied this history—”
“The history, yes, but not about Grandmother. What was she like?”
My father knew me very well, and unlike most daughters I knew him very well too. Over the years I’d learned to recognize certain expressions: the way he raised his eyebrows in surprise when I asked about this or that woman poet, the grimace he made when he quizzed me on history and I answered incorrectly, the thoughtful way he pulled on his chin when I asked him a question about The Peony Pavilion for which he didn’t know the answer. Now he looked at me as though he were weighing my worth.
“The Manchus had seen city after city fall,” he said at last, “but they knew that when they got to the Yangzi delta they’d find strong loyalist resistance. They could have chosen Hangzhou, where we live, but instead they decided to make Yangzhou, where my father served as a minister, a lesson to other cities in the region.”
I’d heard this many times and wondered if he’d tell me anything I didn’t already know.
“The generals, who until then had kept the soldiers under strict control, gave the order for their men to let loose their desires and take whatever riches they wanted—in the form of women, silver, silk, antiques, and animals—as reward for their service.” My father paused and regarded me in that same appraising way. “Do you understand what I’m saying…about the women?”
In all honesty I didn’t, but I nodded.
“For five days, the city ran with blood,” he continued wearily. “Fires destroyed homes, halls, temples. Thousands and thousands of people died.”
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Everyone was scared, but my mother taught us how to be brave. And we had to be brave in so many ways.” Again he scrutinized me as though considering whether or not to continue. He must have found me lacking, because he picked up a string of cash and went back to his counting. Without taking his eyes from the pieces of silver, he concluded, “Now you know why I prefer to look only at beauty—to read poetry, do my calligraphy, read, and listen to opera.”
But he hadn’t told me anything about Grandmother! And he hadn’t said anything that would help me decide what to do tonight or help me understand what I was feeling.
“Baba…” I said shyly.
“Yes,” he answered, without looking up.
“I’ve been thinking about the opera and Liniang’s lovesickness,” I blurted in a rushed tumble. “Do you think that could happen in real life?”
“Absolutely. You’ve heard of Xiaoqing, haven’t you?”
Of course I had. She was the greatest lovesick maiden ever.
“She died very young,” I prompted. “Was it because she was beautiful?”
“In many ways she was a lot like you,” Baba answered. “She was graceful and elegant by nature. But her parents, members of the gentry, lost their fortune. Her mother became a teacher, so Xiaoqing was well educated. Perhaps too well educated.”
“But how can anyone be too well educated?” I asked, thinking of how happy I had just made my father by showing interest in his books.
“When Xiaoqing was a little girl, she visited a nun,” Baba answered. “In one sitting, Xiaoqing learned to recite the Heart Sutra without missing a single character. But as she was doing this, the nun saw that Xiaoqing did not have good fortune. If the girl could keep from reading, then she’d live to thirty. If not…”
“But how could she die of lovesickness?”
“When she turned sixteen, a man in Hangzhou acquired her to be a concubine and secreted her away just out there”—he gestured to the window—“on Solitary Island to keep her safe from his jealous wife.
Xiaoqing was all alone and very lonely. Her only comfort came from reading The Peony Pavilion. Like you, she read the opera constantly. She became obsessed, caught a case of lovesickness, and wasted away. As she weakened, she wrote poems likening herself to Liniang.” His voice softened and color came to his cheeks. “She was only seventeen when she died.”
My cousins and I sometimes talked about Xiaoqing. We made up explanations for what we thought “being put on earth for the delights of men” might mean. But as Baba spoke, I saw that somehow Xiaoqing’s frailty and dissipation excited and fascinated him. He wasn’t the only man who’d been captivated by her life and death. Lots of men had written poems to her, and more than twenty had written plays about her. There was, I realized now, something about Xiaoqing and how she died that was deeply attractive and enthralling to men. Did my stranger feel the same way too?
“I often think of Xiaoqing as she reached the end of her days,” Baba added, his voice dreamy. “She drank only one small cup of pear juice a day. Can you imagine?”
I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. He was my father, and I didn’t like thinking he might have feelings and sensations similar to the ones I’d had since last night when I had always told myself that he and my mother were distant with each other and that he received no real joy from his concubines.
“Just like Liniang, Xiaoqing wanted to leave behind a portrait of herself,” Baba went on, oblivious to my unease. “It took the artist three attempts to get it right. Xiaoqing grew more pathetic with each passing day, but she never forgot her duty to be beautiful. Each morning she dressed her hair and clothed herself in her finest silks. She died sitting up, looking so perfect that those who came to see her believed her still to be alive. Then her owner’s terrible wife burned Xiaoqing’s poems and all but one of the portraits.”
Baba gazed out the window to Solitary Island, his eyes glassy and filled with…pity? desire? longing?
Into the heavy silence, I said, “Not everything was lost, Baba. Before Xiaoqing died, she wrapped some jewelry in discarded paper and gave it to her maid’s daughter. When the girl opened the package, she found eleven poems on those abandoned sheets.”
“Recite one of them for me, will you, Peony?”
My father hadn’t helped me understand what I was feeling, but he did give me a glimmer of the romantic thoughts my stranger might be experiencing as he waited for me to come to him. I took a breath and began to recite.
“The sound of cold rain hitting the forlorn window is not bearable—”
“Please close your mouth!” Mama ordered. She never came here, and her appearance was startling and unsettling. How long had she been listening? To my father, she said, “You tell our daughter about Xiaoqing, but you know perfectly well she was not the only one to die upon reading The Peony Pavilion.”
“Stories tell us how we should live,” my father responded easily, covering the surprise he must have felt at my mother’s presence and her accusatory tone.
“The story of Xiaoqing has a lesson for our daughter?” Mama asked. “Peony was born into one of the finest families in Hangzhou. That other girl was a thin horse, bought and sold like property. One girl is pure. The other was a—”
“I’m aware of Xiaoqing’s profession,” my father cut in. “You don’t need to remind me. But when I speak to our daughter about Xiaoqing, I’m thinking more of the lessons that can be learned from the opera that inspired her. Surely you see no harm in that.”
“No harm? Are you suggesting our daughter’s fate will be like that of Du Liniang?”
I glanced furtively at the servant standing by the door. How long before he reported this—gleefully, probably—to another servant and it spread throughout the compound?
“Peony could learn from her, yes,” Baba answered evenly. “Liniang is fair, her heart kind and pure, her vision farsighted, and her will steadfast and true.”
“Waaa!” Mama responded. “That girl was stubborn in love! How many girls need to die from this story before you see the perils?”
My cousins and I whispered about these unfortunates late at night when we thought no one was listening. We spoke of Yu Niang, who became enamored of the opera at the age of thirteen and died by seventeen, with the text at her side. The great Tang Xianzu, heartbroken at the news, wrote poems eulogizing her. But soon came many many more girls, who read the story, became lovesick like Liniang, wasted away, and died, hoping that true love would find them and bring them back to life.
“Our daughter is a phoenix,” Baba said. “I will see her married to a dragon, not a crow.”
This answer did not satisfy my mother. When she was happy, she could change ice crystals into flowers. When she was sad or angry—as she was now—she could turn dark clouds into swarms of biting insects.
“An overeducated daughter is a dead daughter,” my mother announced. “Talent is not a gift we should wish on Peony. All this reading, where do you think it will end—in nuptial bliss or in disappointment, consumption, and death?”
“I’ve told you before, Peony will not die from words.”
Mama and Baba seemed to have forgotten I was in the room, and I didn’t move for fear they would notice me. Just yesterday I’d heard them argue about this subject. I rarely saw my parents together. When I did, it was for festivals or religious rites in the ancestral hall, where every word and action was set in advance. Now I wondered if they were like this all the time.
“How will she learn to be a good wife and mother if she keeps coming here?” Mama demanded.
“How will she not?” Baba asked, no concern in his voice. To my great surprise and my mother’s disgust, he loosely quoted Prefect Du speaking about his daughter. “A young lady needs an understanding of letters, so that when she marries she will not be deficient in conversation with her husband. And Peony’s role is to be a moral guardian, is it not? You should be happy that she cares little for pretty dresses, new hairpins, or painting her face. While she is lovely, we need to remember that her face is not what distinguishes her. Her beauty is a reflection of the virtue and talent she keeps inside. One day she will offer comfort and solace to her husband through reading to him, but ultimately we are training our daughter to be a good mother—no more, no less. Her role is to teach her daughters to write poetry and perfect their womanly skills. Most of all, she will help our grandson in his studies, until he is old enough to leave the women’s chambers. When he completes his studies, she will have her day of glory and honor. Only then will she shine. Only then will she be recognized.”
My mother could not argue this point; she acquiesced. “Just so long as her reading doesn’t cause her to cross any boundaries. You wouldn’t want her to become unruly. And if you must tell our daughter stories, can’t you tell her of the gods and goddesses?”
When my father wouldn’t agree, Mama’s eyes came to rest on me. She said to my father, “How much longer will you keep her?”
“Just a little while.”
As quietly as she’d come, my mother disappeared. My father had won the argument, I think. At least he didn’t seem particularly perturbed as he made a notation in an account book and then set down his calligraphy brush, got up, and walked to the window to look out to Solitary Island.
A servant came in, bowed to my father, and handed him a sealed letter with an official red chop. My father fingered it thoughtfully, as though he might already know what was written inside. Since he didn’t seem to want to open it with me sitting there, I rose, thanked him again for giving me the edition of The Peony Pavilion, and left the library.
Desire
ANOTHER LUSH AND WARM NIGHT. IN OUR WOMEN’S chambers we enjoyed a banquet that included beans dried in spring sunshine and then steamed with dried tangerine peel, and red seventh-month crabs, which were the size of hen’s eggs and available from our local waters only at this time of year. Special ingredients were added to the married women’s dishes to help them get pregnant, while others were left out for those who were or might be w
ith child: rabbit meat, because everyone knows it can cause a hare lip, and lamb, because it can cause a baby to be born ill. But I wasn’t hungry. My mind was already in the Riding-the-Wind Pavilion.
When the cymbals and drums called us to the garden, I lagged behind, doing my best to be gracious and make small talk with my aunts, the concubines, and the wives of my father’s guests. I joined the last group to leave our chambers. Only cushions on the outer edge of the women’s area remained. I took one and looked around to make sure I’d made the right decision. Yes, my mother, as the hostess, sat in the middle of the group. Tonight all the unmarried girls but me had been clustered together. Tan Ze—whether of her own accord or because my mother had insisted on it—had been relegated to the section with girls her own age.
Once again my father had chosen highlights for this evening’s performance, which began three years after Du Liniang’s death with the scholar Liu Mengmei falling ill on his long journey to take the imperial exams. Liniang’s old tutor gives Mengmei shelter at her shrine near the plum tree. As soon as the next piece of music started, I could tell that we’d gone with Liniang to the afterworld for Infernal Judgment. Since tonight I couldn’t see the performers, I had to imagine the judge, fearful in his aspect, as he talked about reincarnation and how souls scatter like sparks from a firecracker. They’re sent to any of 48,000 fates in the realms of desire, of form, and of the formless, or to one of the 242 levels of Hell. Liniang pleaded with the judge, telling him a terrible mistake had been made, for she was too young to be there, had neither married nor drunk wine, but had fallen into longing and then lost her life.
“When in the world did anyone die from a dream?” The judge’s voice tore into me as he demanded an explanation from the Flower Spirit, who had brought about Liniang’s lovesickness and death. Then, after checking the Register of Marriages, he determined that indeed Liniang had been destined to be with Mengmei, and—since her ancestor tablet hadn’t been dotted—granted her permission to wander the world as a ghost in search of the husband she’d been fated to marry. After this, he charged the Flower Spirit with keeping Liniang’s physical body from decaying. As a ghost, Liniang returned to the earthly realm to live near her tomb under the plum tree. When Sister Stone, the old nun charged with caring for the tomb, made offerings on a table under the tree, Liniang was so grateful that she scattered plum blossoms into which she infused her loving thoughts.