by Lisa See
This is how my uncles came to be hungry ghosts. With no bodies, they couldn’t be buried properly. The three parts of their souls were still roaming, unable to complete their journeys, unable to find rest. Tears dripped down Grandmother’s cheeks, and I let mine flow as well. Below us in the earthly realm a terrible storm lashed Hangzhou.
“Your mother could not sit and wait,” Grandmother remembered. “She had to do something—with her hands, if nothing else. At least that’s what I thought. She told us to rip out the stitches that held the silver and gems. We did as we were told and then she held out her hands to take the glittering pieces. ‘Stay here,’ she said. ‘I will send help.’ Then, before any of us could stop her—we were paralyzed with fear and grief—she got to her feet and stepped out of the girls’ lookout pavilion.”
I felt sick and filled with dread.
“An hour later, your father and grandfather came to us,” she said. “They’d been beaten and they looked frightened. The concubines threw themselves on your grandfather’s feet, sobbing and thrashing on the ground. Making noise is what they were doing, attracting attention. I had never loved your grandfather. It was an arranged marriage. He did his duty, I did mine. He had his business and left me alone to follow my own interests. But in that moment I felt nothing but contempt for him, because I could see there was a part of him—in this most terrible of circumstances—that enjoyed having those pretty girls slithering like greased snakes all over his shoes.”
“And Baba?”
“He did not say a word, but he had a look on his face that no mother should see—guilt for having left your mama behind, combined with a desire for survival. ‘Hurry!’ he said. ‘Get up! We must move quickly.’ And we did as we were told, because we were women and we now had men to tell us what to do.”
“But where was Mama? What happened to her?”
But Grandmother was reliving what happened next. As she continued speaking, I searched for my mother, but she remained hidden. It seemed I could only follow this story through my grandmother’s eyes.
“We crept back downstairs. Your mother may have procured your father and your grandfather’s freedom, but that didn’t mean we were safe. We edged along a passageway lined with severed heads until we reached the back of the compound, where we kept our camels and horses in corrals. We crawled under the animals’ bellies through more filth, blood, and death. We didn’t dare risk going back out on the streets, so we waited. Several hours later, we heard men coming. The concubines panicked. They slipped back under the bellies of the horses and camels. The rest of us decided to hide in a pile of straw.”
Grandmother’s voice swelled with remembered bitterness. “‘I know your foremost concern is for me and our eldest son,’ your grandfather said to me. ‘My mouth wants to go on eating for a few more years. It is good of you to choose death, protect your chastity, and save your husband and son.’”
She cleared her throat and spit. “Go on eating for a few more years! I knew my duty and I would have done the right thing, but I hated being volunteered by that selfish man. He hid in the back of the pile of straw. Your father went in next to him. As the wife and mother, I had the honor of lying on top of them. I covered myself as best as I could. The soldiers came in. They were not dumb. They’d been killing for four days already. They used their lances to stab into the pile. They stabbed and stabbed until I died, but I saved my husband and my son, I preserved my chastity, and I learned I was expendable.”
My grandmother loosened her gown and for the first time pulled her water sleeves up and over her hands. She was horribly scarred.
“Then I was flying across the sky,” she said, a slight smile on her face. “The soldiers got bored and wandered away. Your grandfather and father stayed hidden for another full day and night with my cold body as their protection, while the concubines retreated to a corner and stared for hours at the silent, bloody pile of straw. Then, like that, the Manchus’ lesson ended. Your father and grandfather crawled out of the straw. The concubines washed and wrapped my body. Your father and grandfather performed all the proper rites for me to become an ancestor, and in time they took me back to Hangzhou for burial. I was honored as a martyr.” She sniffed. “This was a piece of Manchu propaganda that your grandfather was happy to receive.” She gazed around the Viewing Terrace appraisingly. “I think I have found a better home.”
“But they capitalized on your sacrifice!” I said indignantly. “They let you be canonized by the Manchus so they wouldn’t have to acknowledge the truth.”
Grandmother looked at me as though I still didn’t understand. And I didn’t.
“They did what was proper,” she admitted. “Your grandfather did the right and sensible thing for the entire family, since women have no value. You still don’t want to accept this.”
I was disappointed in my father yet again. He hadn’t told me anything resembling the truth about what happened during the Cataclysm. Even when I was dying and he’d come to me to beg forgiveness from his brothers, he hadn’t mentioned that his mother had saved his life. He didn’t ask for her absolution or send his thanks.
“But don’t think I’ve been happy with the result,” she added. “The imperial support of my female virtues brought many rewards to my descendants. The family is wealthier than ever and your father’s new post is very powerful, but our family still lacks something it wants desperately. That doesn’t mean I have to give it to them.”
“Sons?” I asked. I was angry on my grandmother’s behalf, but had she really denied our family this most important treasure?
“I don’t see it as revenge or retribution,” she confided. “It’s just that all those who had real value and honor in our family were women. For too long our daughters have been pushed aside. I thought that might change with you.”
I was appalled. How could my grandmother be so cruel and vindictive as to keep sons from our family? I forgot my manners and demanded, “Where is Grandfather? Why hasn’t he given the family sons?”
“I told you. He’s in one of the hells. But even if he were by my side right now, he would have no power in this regard. The affairs of the inner chambers belong to women. The other ancestor women in our family—even my mother-in-law—have acquiesced to my desires, because even here I’m honored for my sacrifice.”
Grandmother’s eyes were clear and at peace. But I was broken, torn apart by conflicting feelings. All this was truly beyond me. I had uncles who languished in the earthly realm as hungry ghosts, a grandfather who suffered in a dark and painful hell, and a grandmother who was so far from benevolent that she was actually hurting our family by not giving us sons. But above all, I couldn’t stop thinking about my mother.
“You must have seen Mama after you died,” I prompted. “When your soul was roaming.”
“The last time I saw her was when she left us that terrible night with her hands full of jewels and silver. I didn’t see her again until I arrived here at the Viewing Terrace, five weeks after I died. By then the whole family was back in the Chen Family Villa and she’d changed. She’d become the woman you know as your mother, adhering to the old ways, so afraid she could no longer venture out, divorced from the world of words and books, and unable anymore to feel or express love. Since that time your mother has never spoken of the Cataclysm, so I’ve been unable to travel there with her in her mind.”
My thoughts went back to why Grandmother had come here today. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I thought of my two boy uncles’ deaths. Grandmother took my hand and looked at me with great kindness.
“Peony, my sweet girl, if you ask your question, I will help you find the answer.”
“What am I?”
“I think you know.”
My uncles had not found peace because they hadn’t been buried properly; I hadn’t been able to move beyond the Viewing Terrace because my ancestor tablet hadn’t been dotted. The three of us had been denied proper burial rites. For us, even access to the hells was denied. Now, as the words
came out of my mouth, my last bit of blindness fell away.
“I am a hungry ghost.”
Red Palanquin
I HAD NOWHERE TO GO. I WAS BEREFT AND LONELY. I had no embroidery to work on and for years I hadn’t had brush, paper, and ink to write. I was hungry, but I had nothing to eat. I no longer wanted to fill the long empty hours by staring over the balustrade at the earthly realm below. It hurt too much to see my mother, because now all I could sense was her secret suffering; it hurt to see my father, knowing I’d never been as precious to him as I’d believed. And when Ren entered my mind, my heart constricted in pain. I was alone as no human or spirit should be, unloved and unconnected. For weeks, I cried, sighed, screamed, and moaned. The monsoon was particularly bad that season in my hometown.
Slowly, tentatively, I began to feel better. I folded my arms on the balustrade, leaned over the edge, and looked out. I shielded my eyes from my parents’ home and instead watched the laborers in my father’s mulberry fields. I looked at the girls spinning silk thread. I peeked in on the headman’s family in Gudang. I liked Madame Qian; she was erudite and refined. In other times, she wouldn’t have been married to a farmer, but in the aftermath of the Cataclysm she was lucky to have a husband and a home. The five daughters were disappointment upon disappointment. She couldn’t even teach them to read since their futures were tied to work in silk production. She had little time to call her own, but late at night she might light a candle and read from the Book of Songs, the one thing she’d saved from her former life. She had many desires and no way to attain them.
But truthfully she and her family were just a distraction. They were what I looked at until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Then I would give in to my desires and let my eyes travel to Ren’s home. I teased myself, letting one image after another caress me—the plum tree that still refused to bloom, the peonies heavy-headed with passion, the moonlight glistening on the lily pond—until finally I would seek out Ren, who was twenty-five and still unmarried.
One morning I was going through my ritual when I came upon Ren’s mother walking to the front gate. She looked around to make sure nobody was watching and then tacked something to the wall just above the door. When she was done, Madame Wu glanced around again. Convinced nobody could see her, she cupped her hands together and bowed three times in the four directions of the compass. Finished with her rite, she wended her way back through the courtyards toward her inner chamber. Her shoulders were hunched and she shifted her gaze furtively from side to side. Clearly she’d done something she didn’t want anyone to see, but her pitiable human actions couldn’t be hidden from me.
I was far away, but by now my eyes were very strong. I focused them until my vision was as solid and as straight as an embroidery needle. I pierced through the great distance, focusing on the spot above the door, and found the tip of a fern frond. I sat back, surprised and startled, because everyone knows that ferns are supposed to blind spirits. I pressed my fingers over my eyes, worried that they’d been damaged. But they hadn’t been harmed at all. In fact, I felt nothing. I gathered my courage and peeked at the fern again. I felt no pain this time either. That frail piece of greenery was useless against me.
Now I was the one to glance around surreptitiously. Madame Wu was trying to protect her house from a ghost or ghosts, but I didn’t see anyone spying on the compound other than myself. Did she know I was watching? Was she trying to protect her son from me? But I would do nothing to hurt him! And even if I could, why would I want to? I loved him. No, the only reason she would try to keep me away was if there was something she didn’t want me to see. After so many weeks of feeling despondent and without purpose, I burned with curiosity.
I observed the Wu household for the rest of the day. People came and went. Tables and chairs were set up in the courtyard. Red lanterns were hung in the trees. In the kitchen, servants chopped ginger and garlic, strung peas, cleaned ducks and chickens, carved pork. Young men came to visit. They played cards and drank with Ren late into the night. They made jokes about his sexual prowess, and even so far away I blushed in embarrassment but also in desire.
The next morning, couplets on red and gold paper were festooned on the front gate. Some type of celebration was about to take place. For so long I hadn’t taken care with my appearance, but now I brushed my hair and pinned it up. I smoothed my skirt and tunic. I pinched my cheeks to bring in color. All this, as though I were going to the party myself.
I’d just settled down to watch the events unfold when I felt something graze my arm. Grandmother had come.
“Look below!” I exclaimed. “So much merriment and joy.”
“That’s why I’m here.” She looked down at the compound and frowned. After a long moment, she said, “Tell me what you’ve seen.”
I told her about the decorations, the late-night drinking, and the cooking. I smiled the whole while, still feeling as though I were going to be a guest and not just an observer.
“I’m happy. Can you understand that, Grandmother? When my poet is happy, I feel so—”
“Oh, Peony.” She shook her head, and her headdress tinkled as softly as whispering birds. She took my chin in her palm and turned my face away from the world of the living so she could look into my eyes. “You’re too young to have such heartbreak.”
I tried to pull away, irritated that she wanted to turn my happiness into something dark and unpleasant, but her fingers held me with surprising strength.
“Don’t look, child,” she cautioned.
With that warning, I yanked away from her. My eyes fell to the Wu family compound just as a palanquin draped in red silk and carried by four bearers stopped before the front gate. A servant opened the palanquin’s door. A perfectly bound foot in a red slipper emerged from the dark interior. Slowly a figure stepped out. It was a girl, dressed from head to toe in wedding red. Her head drooped from the weight of her headdress, which was encrusted with pearls, carnelian, jade, and other gems. A veil hid her face. A servant used a mirror to flash rays of light on the girl to ward off any malevolent influences that might have accompanied her.
I frantically tried to come up with an explanation other than what my eyes now told me and other than what my grandmother already seemed to understand.
“Ren’s brother must be marrying today,” I said.
“That boy is already married,” Grandmother responded softly. “His wife sent you your special edition of The Peony Pavilion.”
“Then perhaps he’s taking a concubine—”
“He no longer lives in this house. He and his family have gone to Shanxi province, where he’s a magistrate. Only Madame Wu and her younger son live here now. And look, above the door someone has placed a fern.”
“Madame Wu put it there.”
“She’s trying to protect someone she loves very much.”
My body shook, not wanting to accept what Grandmother was trying to tell me.
“She’s protecting her son and his bride from you,” she said.
Tears poured from my eyes, fell down my cheeks, and dripped over the balustrade. Down below, on the north shore of West Lake, mists formed, partially obscuring the bridal party. I wiped my eyes, blinking back my emotions. Once again the sun broke through the mists and I clearly saw the palanquin and the girl who was taking my place. She stepped over the threshold. My mother-in-law led her through the first courtyard, and then the second. From here, Madame Wu escorted the girl into the bridal chamber. Soon the girl would be left in seclusion to calm her thoughts. To prepare her for what was coming, Madame Wu would do what many mothers-in-law do by giving the girl a book, a kind of confidential text that would outline the intimate demands of married life with a man she knew not at all. But all this should have been happening to me!
I’ll admit it. I wanted to kill that girl. I wanted to tear off her veil and see who would dare to replace me. I wanted her to see my ghostly face and then rip her eyes from their sockets. I thought of the story my mother used to tell me abou
t the man who brought in a concubine, who’d laughed at the first wife behind her back and taunted her for how her appearance had changed over the years. The wife turned into a tiger and ate the concubine’s heart and innards, leaving behind her head and limbs for the husband to find. That’s what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t leave the Viewing Terrace.
“When we’re alive we believe many things that we only learn are wrong when we get here,” Grandmother said.
I didn’t absorb her words. I was completely transfixed by what I was seeing. It couldn’t be happening, yet it was.
“Peony!” Grandmother’s voice was sharp. “I can help you!”
“There is no help or hope for me,” I cried.
Grandmother laughed. The sound was so foreign that it jarred me from my tragic circumstances. I turned to her and her face practically danced with mirth and mischievousness. I had never seen that before, but I was too heartbroken to be hurt by that old woman’s amusement at my desperate circumstances.
“Listen to me,” she continued, seemingly oblivious to the torture I felt. “You know I don’t believe in love.”
“I don’t want your bitterness,” I said.
“I’m not offering it. Instead, I’m saying that perhaps I was wrong. You love this man; I understand that now. And surely he must love you still or his mother wouldn’t be trying to protect that girl from you.” She glanced over the balustrade and smiled knowingly. “See that?”
I looked and saw Madame Wu present her future daughter-in-law with a hand mirror, which was a traditional gift given to a bride to protect her from troublesome spirits.