The Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines

by Wiersinga, Pim;

  How fortunate! And yet, how disturbing! Did any of my previous pleas ever get through to Your benevolent eye? I know not what to believe.

  However, it is now certain that my writings pertaining to Cao Xueqin and the envoy Ti Qing must have been read by the man who forged Your Majesty’s seal: their contents aroused resentment in the one official who feels entitled to speak in Your name, otherwise he would have either taken the trouble of stealing the seal—on the sly of course, for this is still a capital offense—or applied more refinement in counterfeiting it. But as he enjoys Your Majesty’s full trust, I shall compose my last request according to his prescripts. Rarely will I mention Xueqin and Ti Qing, and I shall prove to be loyal to Your Majesty, even while being accused of sedition!

  How dare you equate your worthless self to noble Lin Daiyu? the ‘letter’ says, and How revolting to Our loyal subjects! Allegations like these will, even if Your Majesty acquits me, harm my reputation to such a degree that I can no longer rely on the fame I owe to my poetic talent. Alas, what my seditious behaviour consists of remains unsaid under seal 197112. Again Macartney’s refusal to kowtow is alluded to,unnecessarily I might add. A simple interpreter, and a woman, is expected to carry the onerous burden of blame for not inculcating duty in the British miscreant and for failing to point out to this kowtow-recusant the fine line between awe for the Emperor and mere self-debasement. Impossible! And yet, how I wish I had done the impossible!

  But in what way, Your Majesty, could I foretell that the Brit would violate rules of propriety, let alone those of style, grace, and polish, in so blatant a manner? Prior to the decisive audience in Peking, Macartney feigned praise for our customs and behaved accordingly: the tiger disguised as a camel. You might perhaps blame me for missing his sarcasm, but why would I assume bitterness in an envoy travelling thousands of li to the Forbidden City in order to beg favours? No, I couldn’t have known he intended offense to the Throne. And yet now—an outcome no one had wished for—my name is soiled forever.

  I recall a phrase of Yours—if You wrote it, that is, which seems questionable after Lady Chun’s revelation of Heshen’s forgery—a phrase that sounds ominous in hindsight: Should you ever be brought to justice… Has Your Majesty no intention to judge my case, then? Has He a mind to forget me, to let me to sink into oblivion now that I’m trapped in this pavilion? Or is my seclusion perhaps based on a verdict of which I am ignorant?

  I can only hope for Your leniency, Oh Majesty, only hope that You will not lag behind the Ming Emperor who pardoned Yuying.

  I beg forgiveness, Oh Son of Heaven! For one moment,I was forgetting how vast and populous Your Empire is: ten thousand things require Your attention. Henceforth I will put bitterness aside and be patient, just like Yuying… You know the story of the girl Yuying—everyone does—yet I must lay her hardships next to mine for You to judge the merit of my request.

  Yuying’s mother died young. Her father remarried with a widow who was a mother herself and hated this girl—in fact, all offspring born of the first marriage. Soon, Yuying’s father died of grief.

  Immediately after his funeral, Yuying’s sister was sent out to beg on the streets. Her small brother was poisoned and his corpse maimed. Because neighbours showed signs of alarm, Yuying’s life was spared. But for how long?

  One day, the stepmother took her own children with her to visit her twin brother. Yuying had to stay behind in the house, defenceless against servants who either ignored or taunted her to please the new mistress. Yuying contemplated her fate. She lost heart. A lonesome life lay ahead of her; she would die a forgotten woman, doomed to a lonely life behind walls. And it was behind those walls that she saw an abandoned swallow’s nest and wrote a poem.

  Yuying’s youth has similarities to my own. My parents too died young, one shortly after the other, though in my case it was my father who went first. I was relinquished to my mother’s cousin, an uncouth woman who treated me like a dog. She lacked all those talents that were manifest in me, even at a tender age. It was my good fortune that this woman’s master—a distant relative, born to the once-rich Cao branch—took pity on me. This master soon recognized my talent and sent me to school; he took me in his service after sacking my stepmother. Indeed this master fell in love with me, though he had the patience to wait until my sixteenth year—well, fifteenth, which I myself found old enough: had he not rescued me from hell? I would have yielded sooner, had he not been my deceased father’s senior by a decade or so.

  Night after night he caressed me; night after night I was visited by a dream. In this dream, my new master and I are of the same age, and his name is Baoyu. We live in a pleasure garden; we are surrounded by bamboo, peonies, moon-gates, and lush pavilions; we share tears and poems. And then I see myself, under a weeping willow, a pond full of carp languidly gasping for air at my feet, and ‘Baoyu’ sits next to me…

  One day I told my master this dream and he exclaimed: ‘Fantastic, Baoqin! Just what I need for my book!’

  I beg Your pardon, Your Majesty. In a fit of enthusiasm barely befitting my years, I have devoted words to the author of Dream in spite of the injunction not to—though I obey the instruction in my spirit. I do not expect Your Majesty’s congeniality, nor am I flaunting my talents: I am merely emphasizing parallels with Yuying.

  Poetry! That’s what that girl and I have in common. She wrote a poem of an empty swallow’s nest and then, as Your Majesty will recall, things went awry, either because the poor thing had the cheek to compose poetry at all or because the stepmother deduced from her verse that a lover was involved: in baser souls all cravings take on the shape of envy. The stepmother’s twin brother, on her instigation, coerced the local prefect into suing Yuying for the alleged lewdness of her poetry—a clever ruse, for said prefect, indebted to the brother, was eager to be of service.

  Yuying was marched off to the Imperial Office of Justice. There, she was to be put to death; she knew this and abandoned herself to despair. No one cared for her; no longer did she seem part of life. Less than a li from here she was imprisoned, oh Your Majesty, perhaps in the dungeon in which I lingered ere You had me transferred to this pavilion. In desperation, Yuying mustered her last resolve. And suddenly, she realized she’d done no wrong, no matter what people opined or whispered behind her back. She wrote a request to Heaven’s Son Himself—as I now turn to You, Your Majesty! But Yuying had the good fortune that her petition was read by the Jiajing Emperor Himself, not by a mere court official. Old Concubine Chun Xian told me Your successor will bear the well-nigh identical title Jiaqing. Is this a coincidence or a hopeful omen?

  Yuying’s story offers hope: the Emperor, persuaded by her, sentenced the stepmother and twin brother to death, and he set the girl free.

  Yuying’s story proves that the Emperor watches over His subjects, no matter how often lesser officials seek to thwart His will.

  Yuying’s story is my story, if it pleases Your Majesty to undo my failure—or the failure of officials. How? By restoring me to dignity and attaching me to the envoy whose name Your Honourable Seal-Forger forbids me utter. May justice be done: it is all I ask for. Even if my case offers no grounds for acquittal, Your Majesty, it would be an honour as well as a pleasure to mediate between the Dutch Envoy and the Court. I am in fluent command of Dutch, English, and Japanese; versed in classic Mandarin as well as in any dialect betwixt Manchuria and Macao. As Your Majesty is aware, none equals me when it comes to tongues and dialects, notwithstanding the fact that I’m an Interpreter Second Class.

  Do grant the Dutchman an audience, Oh Majesty, even if You wish to exclude me. In Your view, the East India Company may well be nothing but a band of brigands, and indeed the company has uprooted kingdoms and sultanates in the past, lusting after profit. However, wise leaders have emerged who, like You, grasp that enduring prosperity can never be founded on temporary loot; who, like You, grasp that the future should be built on the wealth of nation
s, all nations, and not on the greed of merchants. Advantages are worthless if they are not mutually shared: this is the cornerstone of the New Thinking that is afoot in the world. A former master of mine cherishes the motto, I despise money, for it does not satisfy curiosity. He passionately believes in the peaceful trading of nations, in trade that does not merely comprise the exchange of goods but also includes reciprocal ingenuity, common morality, and the dissemination of art and talent: that alone is true prosperity, my master opined. Even China has no monopoly on civilisation and neither do we—to China we owe silk, porcelain, and tea, while China has the Portuguese to thank for maize, tobacco, and sweet potato. In the long run, all of mankind shall equally benefit. Your Majesty! Isn’t it more efficacious to negotiate with a man who reasons in this vein than with that mule Macartney?

  Another consideration serves to advocate a Dutch embassy in Peking. His Majesty will be cognizant of the troubles and turmoil ravaging the world of the Red-Haired Devils. The colonies west of the West, known as Ameriguo,have loosened the shackles chaining them to Britain; the inhabitants of Franguo deposed their king, animated by hope rather than hatred; many who propagated this hope held up the Celestial Empire, flourishing under Your glorious Reign, as a mirror to expose corrupt lackeys and Jesuits, those fanatics expelled from our midst under Your grandfather.

  Oh Majesty, I may be a literate woman, but affairs of State are the business of men. The scope and ramifications of those affairs elude me. In fact, few grasp the upheavals that have ravaged the West. But he whose name I am forbidden to mention understands such reversals like few others. What could be more precious than first-hand knowledge?

  What Your humble Interpreter Second Class has to offer is her gift for languages, plus the bond of friendship with the head of the Dutch embassy that, if it pleases Heaven, will open its doors by the time it is winter, outside the Southeast Gate of the Forbidden City. Does it matter whether I am guilty or not, when I solemnly pledge that I shall mediate to the best of my abilities? And afterwards, You may put me back in this pavilion, where I will await death with a clear conscience, even though my acquittal would prove that the Qing Dynasty is devoted to justice, and blessed by the Mandate of Heaven.

  This scroll might easily accommodate another five or six hundred characters. But if it so pleases the Son of Heaven,I would gladly leave them unwritten, for fear of taxing the Emperor’s patience. I shall now take leave from Your Majesty, kowtowing from afar and humbly awaiting Your verdict.

  

  Imperial Charter 22471

  Concerning Old Second Concubine Chun Xian

  Learning that Ming-loyalism, supposedly dead,

  has reared its misshapen head

  in the Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines,

  and considering that all subjects,

  including those lodged in the Great Within,

  are to obey the Emperor with unwavering loyalty,

  and pending the death sentence with which offenses

  against said loyalty are wont to be penalized,

  the Court commands Chun Xian,

  Old Second Concubine to

  the late Yongzheng Emperor,

  to relinquish her leading position

  in aforesaid Pavilion,

  to prepare for departure,

  to distribute her possessions,

  save the barest of necessities,

  to her fellow inmates,

  and to remain at the disposal

  of the Imperial Authority,

  awaiting punishment.

  Part II

  Moon over Deshima

  月球比出島

  Lady Cao

  better known as Lin Daiyu,

  to the Son of Heaven

  Oh Majesty! Second Concubine Chun Xian, the favourite of Your father and former mistress of our pavilion, had to leave us. We are clad in white; we are plunged into mourning.

  At dawn, Imperial Guards and Gaolers came to fetch her. They had to wait: it did take time to distribute perfumes, lacquered boxes, dresses, and jewellery among concubines in line with Your instructions, and to say—nay weep!—good-byes in as dignified a manner as we could muster. Far be it from me to encumber You with superfluous detail, Oh Exalted One! And yet I do not wish to leave You in the dark about the deep impression the Old Lady made on all, Your Majesty’s Gaolers included. All are convinced that Chun Xian was going to meet her death—Heaven forbid!

  To me, Lady Chun proffered her writing things as a farewell-gift, and instead of showing envy, my pavilion-inmates cheered. And while Old Concubine and I embraced and hugged, she, tears notwithstanding, said in her crisp voice, audible to all: ‘Oh Daiyu! You saved my life.’

  I bowed my head; the very opposite seemed true. Had I not been brought to this pavilion, Chun Xian would still be with us—with them. Her tribute to me, accompanied by such a priceless present, was unbearable. You know of what I speak, Oh Majesty; while all applaud Imperial benevolence, Your conscience is eaten by doubt, and rightly so, for what You are doing to Chun Xian—to us!—secluding her in a musty cell, her last abode on earth prior to her execution!—merits no praise at all.

  ‘Lady!’ I cupped her delicate wrists, bereft of tinkling bracelets. ‘You have no idea how…’

  ‘Oh yes, I have!’

  My mind was clouded by grief. I dearly wished to hold her, caress her, overwhelm her with gestures of solace; in fact it was she who consoled me. ‘I act in full command of my wit. For you to complete your novel, my scrolls may not suffice, but the core of your life’s work will be committed to paper that was mine to this day. I will recall it with joy when I am to meet my executioners. And—hear me, all!—you, Lin Daiyu, will be the Forgotten Concubines’ mistress in my stead!’

  The old lady spoke with such conviction that one would well-nigh pity the executioners charged with such a shameful task. It is an ignominious verdict, Your Majesty! Repeal it! You have the power to do so, and Yours is the glory when You do. You cheat Your subjects by putting Your father’s favourite to death, prompted by nothing but rumours of her Ming-loyalism—alleged Ming-loyalism, to be precise.

  Your Majesty! Had not those Manchurian hordes trampled Peking and overrun China one hundred and fifty years ago, our men wouldn’t have to wear that ridiculous queue at the back of their heads, and I could have written novels in peace, as the Ming Dynasty felt no urge to curb Ladies of talent. There! Sentence me in Lady Chun’s stead! If anyone is guilty of being a Ming-loyalist, it is I!

  You dare not do it: You know this so-called Ming-loyalism to be merely symbolic. Devotion to the previous dynasty—whether founded in Reason or not—can never be considered a serious threat by You or any of Your minions. Besides, whether the Ruler is a Han Chinese or a Manchu matters not, as long as His reign is just and fair. I never suspected I would come to doubt Your fairness, Your Majesty, not even while You or the Censorate commissioned my poetry to the pyre. But now that You have had Chun Xian arrested, my trust is broken. How can I tread in Lady Chun’s footsteps while my heart is teeming with rage?

  Therefore, Your humble servant shall request Heshen, who has been unwavering in his loyalty to the Throne and is truly trusted and beloved by You, to arrange an audience so that Your Majesty may convince me of Your justice. Once convinced, my loyalty will double, nay triple! And if it so pleases the Son of Heaven, I, in the tradition of famous Liu Rushi and all those courtesans of Nanking, Suzhou, and Hangzhou, cities of lost glory, shall sing strum ballads and love-poems for Your ear only, and in so sparkling a manner that You will end up a Ming-loyalist Yourself!

  

  Imperial Decree 23.027

  concerning Lady Cao

  Heshen, Grand Vizier of the Celestial Empire, Grand Councillor to the Qianlong Emperor commands Interpreter Second Class Cao Baoqin to prepare herself for consultation with said Heshen in the seclusion of his reside
nce. Moreover, Lady Cao will be granted the exceptional privilege to publish her account of this meeting in an article which is to be printed in the Court Gazette of Peking.

  Chief Censor Qian Qianlin will closely see to it that her account be trustworthy and complete; he is to remove any word or phrase that displeases Heaven or offends Heaven’s Son.

  Thus, both Interpreter Cao and Censor Qian will prove their utter loyalty to the Ruling One.

  Obey these commands!

  

  COURT GAZETTE OF PEKING 京 报

  Last day of the White Dew Weeks,

  in the Fifty-ninth year of the Qianlong period 乾 隆 帝

  Lord Heshen

  and the Writer’s

  Conscience

  by Lady Cao Baoqin

  also known as Lin Daiyu

  PEKING, FORBIDDEN CITY - I, Imperial Interpreter Second Class, was awarded the honour of being received by the Emperor’s highest confidant.

  Councillor Heshen proved an excellent host and a keen listener; he exhibited a profound love of poetry and letters. After mutual salutations—informal, though heeding differences in rank—he inquired after the state of my health, showed concern about a recent bruising of my back, and alluded to a genuine version of Dream of the Red Chamber. If such a priceless gem exists, he remarked, it belongs in the treasure chambers of the Forbidden City itself—thus showing once again his unwavering Loyalty to our benevolent Ruler.

  A genuine version of Cao Xueqin’s Dream! Gentle reader,I am still astounded that a man like Councillor Heshen, occupied by ten thousand worries, should take the trouble to address a literary enigma so dear to my heart!