by Zoey Gong
Finally, I crawl into bed. It is rather late I think, but I’m still not particularly tired. I am sure that Suyin and Jinhai are, though, so I lay in bed quietly, pretending to sleep until I can hear their soft snores. Suyin sleeps at the foot of my bed, and Jinhai sleeps on the floor near the door, apparently so that they are on hand should I need anything, but I don’t know what I could possibly need while I am sleeping.
I am surprised by how quiet the Forbidden City is at night. Other than the hoot of an owl and chirrup of crickets, I don’t hear another person. Occasionally I see a light pass the window, and I think it must be a guard patrolling the grounds. Somehow even he moves on silent feet.
I stare up at the canopy over my bed into the darkness, begging sleep to come, when I hear something. It’s very faint at first, but the longer I listen, the clearer it becomes. I hear a sniffle and realize someone is crying. At first, I think it must be one of the other girls in the house, but then I realize it is much closer than that.
I sit up and see that Suyin is still sound asleep, her body rising and falling evenly. And it isn’t Jinhai because it is certainly a female crying. I slip out of the bed carefully so as not to disturb Suyin and move toward the sound. It’s coming in through the window, from the little courtyard I saw earlier.
I peek outside and can barely make out the form of a girl sitting on the bench, her white nightgown shining in the moonlight. I wonder for a second if I am seeing a ghost, a vision of a concubine who died of loneliness. But as she makes a snorting sound amid her crying, I know this is just a girl who is devastated to be here—just like me.
I go back to the bed and pick up my silk slippers and tiptoe toward the door. There is no one in the hall, and the front door of the palace itself is wide open. I slip outside and sit on the threshold as I put on my shoes, then I follow a path around the palace to where I know the courtyard must be.
“Who’s there?” the girl asks, standing up in alarm when I step on some loose gravel.
“Shh!” I whisper. “I heard you crying. Are you all right?”
“Oh,” she says, keeping her voice quiet as well. “Yes, of course. I shouldn’t be out here.” She starts to walk past me.
“Wait,” I say. “You can stay. I wasn’t able to sleep anyway, that’s why I heard you.”
She hesitates. “I’m sure we aren’t supposed to be outside alone.”
“There’s a lot of things we aren’t supposed to do,” I say, and I can see a small smile form on her lips.
“There certainly are a lot of rules,” she says, then we both laugh, covering our mouths so no one hears us.
“I’m Da—Lihua,” I say.
“Wangli,” she replies. “So, you live here? I’m in the next building down that way.” She points down a path.
“Yes,” I say, “with three other girls, and the servants of course. The other girls don’t seem to like me very much.”
“That’s to be expected,” Wangli says. “We are all in competition, are we not?”
I shrug. “It doesn’t really matter to me.”
She raises an eyebrow and I know I’ve misspoken. It’s supposed to be my life’s dream to give the emperor a son, isn’t it?
“I guess you aren’t very happy to be here either,” I say. “Since, you know, you were crying.”
“I was just missing my family,” she says. “My mother, my brothers.”
“You have brothers?”
“Yes, four of them,” she says.
“Wow. I had four sisters.”
“My brothers were always so protective of me. It’s strange to be surrounded only by girls. And my mother…” She shakes her head. “She will be so alone now.”
“My mother relied on me too,” I say, and I want to slap myself for my stupidity. Lihua didn’t have any sisters! I need to bite my tongue before I slip up and say something too revealing.
We hear the bang of a gong and a man cries out that is it now the hour of the tiger.
“We better get back inside before we are missed,” Wangli says.
“Maybe we can meet tomorrow? We can have tea together or something.”
“I’d like that,” Wangli says. “It’s good to have a friend, even if we are expected to be rivals.”
I smirk. I want to tell her that she is welcome to the emperor if she wants him, but I don’t want to overstep.
“Tomorrow, then.”
She gives a little wave and then disappears from sight. I slip back inside the palace to my room, and then into my bed.
“Hmm?” Suyin raises her head sleepily.
“Nothing,” I whisper. “Go back to sleep.” It doesn’t take long before she is quietly snoring again.
The stress and unease I felt earlier is a bit lighter now. I am glad to know that I’m not the only person less than happy to be here. And it will be good to have a friend. Hopefully between Wangli and Yanmei, I won’t be as lonely as I feared.
12
The next morning I wake at eight and ten dishes of breakfast foods are brought in. After I take a bite of each—which was far more than I needed—a large copper tub is brought to my room. I see that the other girls in the house are brought copper tubs as well. A flurry of simply dressed servants then bring in several pails of water to fill the tub. Suyin—as small and young as she is—barks orders at them and I wonder just how many layers to the hierarchy of servants there are.
I climb into the tub and Suyin scrubs me from head to toe, spending extra time on my scalp and long hair. When I stand up from the water, she rubs scented oils on my skin. Thankfully Jinhai is not present. I know he is a eunuch, but he is also a man and I would not want him to see me naked.
Suyin wraps me in a silk robe and I sit on a chair at the dressing table as she gets to work on my hair, brushing it one hundred times and then combing more oils through it to make it sleek and smooth. She winds my hair tightly around a bian fang and then attaches a very small liang batou to the back of my head. Thankfully it is not very heavy. She then adorns the entire style in silk and jewel flowers.
Then she must paint my face, and I am already feeling exhausted. I can understand ladies spending so much time on their appearance for special occasions, but must I do this every day? It is already well past ten o’clock.
“Only the most basic of cosmetics have been supplied for you,” Suyin explains as she mixes kohl with water and then paints a thin black line around my eyes. “You should purchase better ones.”
“From my household allowance,” I grumble. Living in the Forbidden City seems to be terribly expensive. I must find a way to learn numbers and math without giving away just how ignorant I am.
“Of course,” Suyin says, apparently not hearing the bitterness in my voice. Finally, my face paint is complete and Suyin helps me dress. The silk qipao is not as heavy as I expected, the silk feeling cool and light against my skin. It is better quality than the gowns I was given by Mingxia, something I didn’t think possible.
When I step into the pot-bottom shoes, I take a look at myself in the mirror. The image unnerves me because I hardly recognize the girl staring back. And yet this is who I am now. Every day for the rest of my life, I will look like this.
“You are so beautiful, my lady,” Suyin says with pride, mistaking the reason why I stare.
“Thank you,” I say, forcing a smile. I know the girl has worked hard to make me presentable, and I don’t wish to insult her.
“Come,” she says, offering me her arm. I see that the other girls in the house are also leaving.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To see the empress, of course,” Suyin says. “It is time for the morning greetings.”
“Of course,” I say, having only a vague idea of what she means. I know that Lihua greeted her mother every morning, so I suppose we must pay the same honor to the empress.
It is nearly midday when I step out of the palace and into the sun. Jinhai is waiting for me by the door with an umbrella, which he holds over
my head as we walk down the twisting maze of paths.
“Wangli!” I say with a wave when I see her step out of her palace. Wangli smiles and steps toward me so that we may walk together.
“How are you?” I ask her.
“Fine,” she says. “I’m sure I only needed a good night’s rest.”
“Of course,” I say. Before long, we make up only a small part of the large crowd of girls heading toward the same building and I feel a sinking sensation in my stomach. What am I to do when I arrive? Is this something I should already know? I don’t realize my steps have slowed until Suyin ends up a step ahead of me.
“What is wrong, my lady?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “Only…I am very nervous.”
“Lihua!” I see Yanmei waving at me and I wave back. She trots over to me, her smile large and the tassels dangling from her hair waving in the wind. How she can be so quick in her shoes, I’ll never know. We greet each other with a hug.
“Can you believe it?” Yanmei asks. “Our first day as palace ladies. Isn’t it grand?”
“I certainly never thought I would experience it,” Wangli says dryly.
I introduce Wangli and Yanmei to each other.
“You are so lucky to live so close together!” Yanmei exclaims.
“I’m sure we can visit each other easily enough,” I reply. I notice that there are other girls milling about in the courtyard, but I don’t recognize them. “Who are they?”
Suyin looks over. “Some of the concubines who were already here before you arrived,” she says. “They will not be happy that the emperor now has more ladies to choose from, but they were all elevated because of it, so they should be glad.”
“They are all at least rank four or five concubines now,” Yanmei’s maid adds.
“You must bow to them when you pass them as your superiors,” Suyin explains.
“And how should I greet the empress?” I ask, my heart racing as I see more ladies enter the audience hall.
Suyin offers me a kind smile. “There is no reason for concern. You will line up and perform your morning kowtow, then the empress will give her announcements and orders for the day.”
“Well, first you will greet the empress,” Wangli’s maid explains. “Then the dowager empress.”
“The dowager will be there?” Yanmei asks.
Her maid nods and then looks around as if to make sure no one is listening. I think the girl must be a gossip.
“The empress is supposed to be the head of the harem, of course,” she says, her voice low. We all lean in to hear her better. “The dowager usually has no real power after her husband dies and her son and his wife become emperor and empress. She should be merely a figurehead, unless the emperor specifically asks for her advice.”
“But the dowager hates the empress!” Wangli’s maid interjects. I think she was feeling left out. “She was an expensive bride, the most expensive there has ever been.”
“Her bride price was more than all the other concubines combined,” Yanmei’s maid says. “She was a Mongolian princess.”
I do find this a little interesting. I thought Mongolians were wild, savage people. They live north of the wall and ride horses across the great plains tending herds of yaks. Why the emperor would pay so much to marry a Mongolian, even a princess, I could never guess.
“Is that why the dowager despises her?” Wangli asks. “Simply because she was expensive?”
“She was expensive but has yet to give the emperor a son,” Yanmei’s maid says.
“Oh,” Yanmei and Wangli say together with a nod of their heads.
Yanmei’s maid opens her mouth to say more, but I see that the other ladies have all entered the audience hall.
“We should go,” I say. “We can continue this conversation later.”
They all seem terribly disappointed, and while the information is interesting, I cannot see how any of it matters to me. I’m a sixth-rank concubine and have no plans to change that. The farther I stay away from the center of the court, the better.
As we enter the audience hall, I am still nervous. I am sure that there is more to the morning greeting than bowing and smiling. There must be a specific way to bow and greet the empress and the dowager that the other girls will know from years of practice. I walk slowly so that others may enter ahead of me. I wish to be as far to the back as possible so I can mimic the other girls and be lost in the crowd.
When I enter the audience hall, I am struck by how large it is. The empress sits at the back of the room on a golden throne upon a raised dais, and the dowager sits on an equally impressive throne at the same level. The empress is as elegant as I remember, her robe a deep golden color embroidered with flying cranes. Her headdress is much smaller than the one she wore yesterday, but it is still more ornate than anyone else’s. It is like a golden filigree crown extending from one side of her head to the other. She has a slight smile on her face that makes her appear kind, approachable. I wonder if the reason her beauty is so striking is because of her Mongolian blood.
The dowager, on the other hand, looks stern. She wears no makeup, her gown black with gold embroidery. Her headdress is larger than that of the empress, but with few adornments.
To either side of the room are four long rows of chairs where many concubines—over fifty—are already seated.
“Good luck!” Suyin says as she gives both my hands a squeeze and then walks away.
“Where are you—” I then notice that all of the servant girls stand quietly against the back wall. The eunuchs all wait outside except for those that attend the empress and dowager.
The new concubines fall into three straight columns before the empress and the dowager. I end up in the middle column very near the back, which I hope is the perfect place to hide. I cannot help but look at the beautiful girls around me. In the row to my left, toward the front, I see Yanmei. To my right, very nearby, is Wangli.
“It is now time for the formal greeting by the new concubines,” a eunuch at the front of the room, standing near the dais announces.
All of the girls bend down until they are sitting on their knees, and I follow suit as best I can, though it is awkward in my ridiculous shoes. In unison, the girls then raise a handkerchief with their right hands, flicking it up over their shoulders and then back down again as though waving it dramatically. I remember that Suyin had tucked a handkerchief into one of my sleeves when she was dressing me and pull it out in time to take part in the third wave.
“May the empress live ten thousand years!” the girls all say, and I open and close my mouth, sure to remember the words for the next day. “May the empress mother live ten thousand years!”
“Rise and greet Lady An, rank three consort,” the empress says, motioning to a woman sitting at the end of the row on our right. Lady An is not as beautiful as the empress, and her face seems tired, but she still smiles. We all turn and perform the same greeting as we did for the empress.
“Rise,” the empress announces when we are done. “Take your seats.”
I look behind us to see that several rows of chairs have appeared. As usual, I walk slowly, taking a seat to the back where I can disappear.
“The emperor has an eye for beauty,” the dowager says. “I am sure each of you will bring him great delight in your turn.” Everyone smiles but does not respond. “And plenty of sons.”
I see several girls blush, and the empress frowns, turning her head aside for a moment before clearing her throat and resuming her usual, gentle face.
“I am looking forward to getting to know each you personally,” the empress says, and my heart thumps hard in my chest. The eunuch standing near her hands her a red book. She reads four names from the book, thankfully not mine. Each of the girls stands when her name is read. “You four are invited to take the midday meal with me.”
The girls gasp in surprise and then fall to their knees, praising the empress for her kindness.
I feel nauseous. If she plans to
get to know all of us, eventually she will send for me. I might be able to fool servants and other concubines, but surely not the empress. She didn’t get a good look at me at the selection, nor did I speak. I’ll not be able to hide from her when we share a table.
“Lady Ula Nara Lihua,” the empress says, and I think I will faint. No, no, no! She couldn’t have meant me, could she? I see Wangli staring at me.
You! she mouths.
I slowly rise to my feet, but I can feel my knees shaking and fear I will topple over.
“Yes, your majesty.”
“It says here that you can read. Is this true?”
My heart thumps so hard in my chest my vision turns black. I blink and open my mouth to speak but my tongue is dry as sand. What do I do? What do I say?
“Well?” the empress asks.
“N-n-no—” I start to whisper.
“Speak so you can be heard,” the dowager barks.
“No!” I yell more loudly than I meant. I hear snickering and see several girls hiding their mouths behind their sleeves. “I mean no, your majesty,” I say in a somewhat normal voice.
“What do you mean no?” the empress asks. Her voice is not unkind, but she clearly demands an answer. I try to remember anything Mingxia told me about Lihua’s education.
“I…I had a tutor,” I say. “But I was a very poor student.”
“Then why does the introduction sent by your mother say you can read and write?” the empress asks.
“My mother…” I gulp. “My mother thought very highly of me. I am sure her praise is much exaggerated.”
At this, most of the newer concubines burst into laughter they do not bother to hide.
The dowager claps her hands together once. “Silence! Such cackling is not becoming of a lady!”
The room is immediately quiet. The empress leans over and says something to the dowager from behind the red book.
“You may sit down, Lady Lihua,” the empress then says.
My knees give way and I fall into my seat awkwardly. The girls around me who notice snicker again but quickly collect themselves. What does this mean for me? Have I already ruined everything? Will I be punished? Will I be found out? My stomach clenches and I fear I will vomit.