Empress

by Shan Sa

  On the first day of the sixth moon, in his Eastern Palace, the twenty-two-year-old heir succeeded the late Emperor by putting on the imperial tunic painted with the twelve sacred symbols and by wearing the crown with twenty-four tiers of jade pearls. The music for the celebrations sailed over the red walls and hovered along the deserted galleries of the Inner Court. Bronze bells and sounding stones intoned the knell of his wives and concubines. Stifled tears and pious prayers escaped from every gloomy little room where the scarlet wall hangings had been covered over with white fabric.

  I stayed at the bedside of the Delicate Concubine Xu, trying to persuade her not to let herself die. Beneath her linen sheet, she weighed little more than a feather. She spat blood and was wracked by violent coughing. She reached out for me with her frozen, bony hand. We talked endlessly about our first few years in the Side Court, the Institute of Letters, and the late sovereign. I begged her to receive a doctor. She smiled and gave me no reply. I could see in her eyes her determination to follow the master into the next world.

  She died a few days later, and her death buried once and for all the intrigues between the Precious Wife, the Gracious Wife, and all the imperial favorites. Rivalries and alliances, loathing and attraction had been dissolved. Their existence had been a pointless tragedy, just as the talent of one prodigious poetess had been.

  Every woman in the Forbidden City—beautiful or ugly, intelligent or foolish, refined or vulgar—was fragrant dust. The whirlwind of history would carry them away, making no distinctions.

  THE SOVEREIGN HEIR gave the late sovereign the posthumous title of Emperor Eternal Ancestor. The man who had ruled the vastest empire under the skies had lost his final battle. Heroes are damned. No mortal conquers Death.

  In tears, the imperial concubines packed their bags. After the sovereign’s burial, they had to hand over their palaces to the new Emperor’s mistresses. The Precious Wife and the Gracious Wife followed their king-sons and exiled themselves in distant provinces. Other favorites resolved to take their vows. Oppressed by sadness and uncertainty, I tried in vain to contact Little Phoenix. He was now the all-powerful Emperor of China. From now on his friendship was a favor over which all men and women would fight. I had written to him, but he had sent no reply. His first wife would soon be recognized as Empress; his mistresses would leave the Eastern Palace and come to live in the Middle Court with their own intrigues. I would have no place in that horde of younger, more beautiful women. Why should I stay at the Side Court and wait for an unlikely summons from a man who would be surrounded by ten thousand beauties?

  One night, in my dreams, I saw the peripatetic monk Xuan Zang sitting in the middle of a lotus flower. His eyes stood out from his weather-beaten face with the incandescent brilliance of the sun. When I woke, I understood that Buddha had spoken to me through this image. I had been an apprentice nun at just seven; I was afraid neither of discipline nor of abstinence. A visionary monk had revealed my spiritual vocation to Mother: I should go back to the monastery.

  On a date decided by the astrologers, the Emperor raised a great parade and left the Forbidden City. More than one hundred thousand people followed him and made their way to the Mountain of Nine Horses, where the imperial tomb had just been completed. One thousand soldiers drew the imperial hearse, and behind it Little Phoenix and his wives, the ministers and princes, and the princesses and concubines of the August deceased formed a river of white tunics.

  One night I was woken by a bustle of activity outside my tent. Two people lifted the curtain and put two lanterns on the ground. A third person came in but was not announced. I rose quickly and prostrated myself before the Emperor.

  “Heavenlight,” he said. “I am so sorry I have been silent. My uncle Wu Ji is making my life impossible! With the funeral arrangements, electing a new government, and drawing up peace treaties with Turkish tribes, I don’t have one quiet moment.”

  My throat felt constricted.

  “I’ve missed you,” he went on. “In my most difficult moments, I have often thought that if you had been by my side, you would have advised and comforted me. Heavenlight, I have come to tell you that I have not forgotten you. I beg you to be patient. Another month or two apart, and we shall be together all the time.”

  Tears filled my eyes.

  “Too late, Majesty. After the funeral, I have to go to a monastery.”

  The smile vanished from his face. He was so taken aback he could not speak.

  “Majesty, you signed the authorization. I received Your Majesty’s decree and his gift three days ago.”

  “Do you think I read everything I sign? How could I know your name was among the list of concubines who were leaving? Why are you behaving like this? I wanted to be with you until the skies fall in, and you abandon me already!”

  Prostrated on the ground before him, I wept.

  “Majesty, your servant belonged to the previous Emperor. My inclusion in Your Majesty’s household would have caused such a scandal that Your Majesty’s reputation would have been blighted: It would not be long before people found out that our liaison began when the previous Emperor was still alive; Your Majesty would be accused of abusing his father’s trust. Your Majesty has just taken command of the Empire. Those who harbor dreams of usurping the throne would use slander such as this to weaken you. If Your Majesty is determined to lead his empire to prosperity, then he must forget me!”

  “Heavenlight, why did you give yourself to me? Why did you let me believe that we might stay together forever? What does this crown matter! I never wanted to be Emperor. If you become a nun, I shall abdicate, shave my head, and become a monk in the neighboring monastery.”

  He clasped me tightly in his arms.

  “Heavenlight, I beg you, don’t abandon me. I am the Emperor. I do as I please. I shall execute all those who are against us. I command you to obey your master, your sovereign: Stay, Heavenlight, stay by my side!”

  Little Phoenix’s words wrung my breast with pain.

  “Let me leave, Majesty,” I cried. “Leaving this secular life is a kind of death that erases all the impurities of the previous life. There I shall observe the twenty-seven months of mourning. Day and night I shall pray for the soul of the late sovereign. After that time, Your Majesty may call me back to the Palace. Coming out of the temple is a rebirth, and no one would be able to contest my legitimacy. Majesty, it is our only hope!”

  The Emperor wept. But he knew that once I had made up my mind, nothing could sway me. He sighed and lay down beside me. With my head on his chest, I listened to his heart beating. I could carry that music to the ends of the earth!

  I did not close my eyes all night. My own determination tortured me. Time fled by in the darkness; soon it would be dawn, and this night would be a mere memory. In this world of constant change, who could promise me a happy reunion after my ordeal?

  I HANDED OUT my jewels, dresses, shawls, and furs. I offered my trinkets and furniture to the eunuchs. I burned all the love letters, the melancholy calligraphy, and the handkerchiefs still perfumed with the tears of women who had been my lovers.

  In the Monastery of Rebirth, I cut my hair—a great black river streamed to the ground. My head was shaved, I was stripped of my clothes down to the last silk undergarment, and I was wrapped in a tunic of black cotton. In the bath I scrubbed myself furiously to erase every trace of my past life, the heady smell of sandalwood, musk, and irises. I renounced everything, abandoned everything. I was prepared to suffer annihilation to be reborn.

  As soon as we arrived, the Great Nun lectured the novices: “Children, my women are answerable to a father and his changing fortunes. As adults, they attach themselves to a fickle husband. Sometimes abandoned, sometimes adulated, wracked with jealousy and sick with suspicion, women die of sorrow; they slip away in childbirth and are struck down by illness. Man is woman’s enemy! Fathers barter and haggle to marry us off. Husbands lie and exploit us. Children betray us and kill us! Noblewomen, townswomen, peasant wome
n—all of them are like beasts of burden pulling the cart of a pointless existence. Never think that living out that sort of existence will set you free for your future life. Without prayer, without Buddha’s help, the lives to come will be an eternal repetition. I am often asked how a woman can obtain her freedom. I reply that a woman’s freedom begins when she understands the word ‘independence’—refusing the softness of silk, the delights of fine food, the bands of passion and the enslavement of motherhood—renouncing pleasures, longings, and illusions! Forget your breasts that nourish only sorrow, forget your bellies that conceive only crime, reject the soft caresses that are the source of all pain. Breaking with the home, with men, and with pleasure is the first step toward deliverance!”

  I learned later that this Great Nun had been a favorite of Emperor Yang of the overthrown dynasty, and the nuns in the monastery had all served emperors. To erase all memories of Court and to repent of its sins of vanity, the community applied the strictest laws. The imperial annuities that arrived every month meant we could survive in misery. We were forbidden visits by relations or to write letters. We were forbidden to speak to one another or to meet—except during prayer times. There was a constant succession of lectures and confessionals. The senior bonzes, elderly withered creatures themselves, toiled to extract the youth from our bodies as if it were gangrene.

  The wind howled a mournful funeral song. High walls as white as shrouds surrounded the temples with their curved roofs. There were scrubby clumps of grass along the path where we let the sheep and goats graze. There were no mirrors, no sheets of gold. There was no face powder, no perfume, no laughter. There were no birds in cages, no red carp in bowls, no soft silken carpets, golden floor tiles, marble basins, or pillars of fragrant wood. There was no red, or pink, violet, or yellow. Wan was the color of nuns, black the soot from the tapers, gray the cotton dresses, blue the sky, and green the forest that hemmed us in.

  My bed was a plank of wood. No more meat or wine, no more drunken happiness, no more poetry improvised by moonlight, no more musical instruments being played, no more picnics beside the river, no more cranes flying upward, black silhouettes against the velvet skies. Every night without these pleasures chafed me. Their gloomy silence incited me to tortuous meditation.

  The first winter was harsh. I was cold. Ruby and Emerald, who had followed me and become nuns, had chapped hands from washing my clothes in freezing water. I stole the lamp oil to rub into their wounds. Morning prayer was held when it was still dark. We recited the sutra, a muted droning, despite the bouts of coughing. In the palace, we had been served five meals a day; in the monastery, the nuns were allowed to take meals only in the morning and at midday. I was possessed by my hunger all afternoon. I missed the horses and, without books, I could no longer escape.

  I was called Perfect Clarity. My face as it had been in my previous life faded in my memory. Without mirrors, the other nuns became my reflection: bushy eyebrows, dry skin, walking skeletons.

  During the second winter, an epidemic swept through the monastery, and I came down with a violent fever. For days on end, I saw the monastery as a funereal city peopled with ghosts. I called for Little Phoenix. I begged him to take me away from the kingdom of the dead. Hugging a beautiful concubine in his arms, he would say: “Heavenlight, you left me. You wanted to be exiled. You cannot blame me if I forget you.”

  When I came back to my senses, the bells were ringing and funeral orations filled my ears. Since the monastery forbade the use of medicines and healed the sick with prayer, the scourge had taken the lives of some twenty bonzes. Would I be the next to be inscribed on the list of the dead? Down to the depths of my entrails, I could feel Mother’s pain now that she no longer had news of me. If I were to die, would this pious woman who had known every misfortune be able to confront her suffering simply by fingering her rosary beads?

  Buddha blessed me with a miracle. I survived that winter by drinking tea. When I finally recovered, it was already springtime. The sun that dazzled me then was no longer the sun of yesterday, and I was no longer the same person. Something in me had been burned out. I no longer felt any desire. I was no longer hungry, and I no longer hoped for anything. The sutras seemed intelligible to me now. I started studying Sanskrit and prepared to undertake a great imaginary pilgrimage to discover the origins of Buddhism.

  A huge ceremony of offerings was addressed to the late emperor’s spirit, bringing an end to the period of mourning. Ruby and Emerald started waiting by the gates, looking out for messengers from the Palace. Days passed, months drifted by, their impatience wore thin, their hopes dwindled. Little Phoenix, Master of the World, had forgotten me. I was no longer sad, but Ruby and Emerald wept in secret, and my only regret was that I had led them into this tomb in which they were buried alive.

  I had just turned twenty-eight, the age when a woman should break with her illusions of a better life.

  FIVE

  Ruby ran to me so quickly that she tripped. She leapt back to her feet and cried: “The messenger from Court has just left! The Emperor wishes to come to the monastery to burn incense, make offerings to the late sovereign’s spirit, and distribute gifts to the former imperial concubines. Mistress, he has not forgotten you!”

  The community was gripped with fevered activity. Rumor and whispering echoed behind every wall. The nuns, who had once been so gifted in the art of intrigue, had guessed that the Son of Heaven was coming to see a woman. Irritated and honored in equal measures, the Council of Great Nuns had no choice but to restore the temples and dormitories and to erect a pavilion intended as his August Resting Place. Fences sprang up around the building sites to shield us from the workmen’s eyes, but the symphony of hammering put an end to silence and meditation. I felt responsible, guilty, for this all-consuming confusion, but I was more disturbed at the thought of seeing a face that had so faded in my memory.

  A delegation of eunuchs came to inspect the premises and to establish the laws of protocol. Then, at dawn on the twentieth day of the first moon, the imperial regiments circled the forest, and we knelt before the gates of the monastery. A long time passed before we saw golden panels with ornate calligraphy appearing on the horizon. The wind dropped, and the birds fell silent. Eunuchs and imperial guards marched past us in a two by two procession that went on for many hours, then the Emperor eventually stepped over the Threshold of Purity.

  After three years of separation, Little Phoenix was unrecognizable. He wore a beard that gave him an air of authority, and he walked with quiet purpose. While he received the prostration of the nuns, he sat like a statue on his tall seat, a sacred icon, an inaccessible god. After the celebration, the gifts were distributed: One after the other the nuns approached the sovereign, and he gave each of them a tunic and a sandalwood rosary. Their gray dresses, shaven heads, and unpowdered faces filed past in ceremonial silence. Little Phoenix did not recognize me. Heavenlight had died inside Perfect Clarity’s body!

  The Emperor withdrew to eat a vegetarian meal, and I ran to my cell to weep. Someone knocked at my door. A senior nun informed me of an imperial summons: His Majesty wished to speak of religious piety with me.

  Several eunuchs took me to a pavilion and closed the door behind me. Little Phoenix was sitting in the middle of the room. He looked astonished at the sight of me, and all at once I could measure the suffering I had endured. My legs gave way, and I sank to my knees. He rushed over to me and supported me in his arms.

  “Heavenlight, I’ve missed you!”

  His voice was deeper. His hands that gripped me were those of a stranger. When he drew me to him, I stiffened and stepped back.

  “Are you not happy to see me again?” he asked, surprised. “Are you angry? You know full well that everything I do has become a major event requiring protocol and preparations and the deployment of thousands of servants. It has taken me a long time to find a pretext to foil the Empress and my uncle Wu Ji who oppose my every decision.”

  He tried to stroke my face, but
I lowered my head. He led me over to the imperial bed, which was already prepared for him to sleep. Prostrating myself on the ground, I broke down and wept.

  “What is it, Heavenlight? Do you no longer love me?”

  I was speechless with despair.

  “Heavenlight, these three years have been like a long, dark nightmare to me!”

  The Emperor turned me over onto my back. I struggled in silence. His hands tore my dress feverishly. Muttering incoherent supplications, he crushed me beneath his weight. His hands were more experienced, his caresses more brutal. In the past, overcome with emotion, he would climax quickly, but now he knew how to prolong his pleasure. After three years of abstinence, the moment of penetration was painful to me. My tears fell, and Little Phoenix became more and more aroused. Eventually he collapsed with a long sigh.

  While we ate together, he was happy and relaxed, giving me news of my horses. He told me about the building work he had undertaken and described the artists and poets he had discovered. The winter sun came through the casements and danced on the tables between the dishes. I recognized the flush on Little Phoenix’s cheeks when he had climaxed. A vanished world slowly reappeared and wrapped me in its indecipherable melancholy.

  A eunuch scratched at the door and warned the sovereign that it was time for him to change. The happiness fell from his face; he frowned and fell silent. We had not yet talked of my future. Was he going to leave and disappear from my life forever?