Whenever you finished a chunk or chapter, I was in the best of spirits: the interminable stream of comments would fall silent at last. The mood was festive; the women of the house would for a while be admitted. Miraculously, they never seemed to envy me: it was beyond their comprehension that I could put up with ‘that bickering’, as they saw fit to call those male gatherings.
Those women made me feel lonely, Xueqin. Never once did they notice (such things being beyond their wildest imaginings) that I was devoured by something stronger than lust or love: an unquenchable thirst, poisoning me ever so slowly. It was only after your untimely death, Xueqin, that I began to understand what made me so thirsty. Although I was inclined to believe nobody knew my innermost secret, you of course knew it all along, and when I think of it, I, to this day, dissolve in tears.
Yes, my love, you and you alone knew of my burning ambition. You saw it. And you encouraged me. In that respect you indeed resemble the envoy Ti Qing. Understand my tears: I am sure you would have encouraged me with greater zeal had I myself comprehended the nature of the thirst that paralyzed my tongue: to write a novel that would surpass even Dream of the Red Chamber… The novel that, after all these years, is still unwritten, but growing in me; it must be given birth, lest I perish.
In the end, this very desire stood between us. I began to doubt your assertion that Daiyu stemmed from your passion for me; each day I saw less of myself in that languid lily. Yet it makes me chuckle that suspicions at my end were the obverse of your relatives’: they guessed Daiyu was none other than the skittish housekeeper with whom you secretly convened, while ‘the housekeeper’ herself thought Lin Daiyu derived from nostalgia for a childhood sweetheart who, like the heroine in your book, died young. I fell prey to my own mystification until, sick with envy, I started resembling the lily after all, lapsing into a demonic inner state not unlike that of Daiyu herself! There have been times I suspected you of cultivating this envy, just to create the effect. Gradually, I grew to hate Lin Daiyu and all she stood for, knowing that one may combat a rival, but a memory never.
Oh no, I did not doubt your love: Our bond was like a rainbow, spanning the abyss of life and death. If anything, I started to doubt Love itself.
‘Lin Daiyu’ was allegedly the spectre of your deceased beloved, but how could you ‘make rain and wind’ with a ghost? Lady Handsome in any story, as you were quick to discover after chapters of bitter toil, could not dispel loneliness, and with Tianyou, your bosom friend since your days in school, the intimacy of yore was all but gone.
You had become mired halfway through the first draft, when Fate itself came to your rescue. A distant cousin died and left a widow behind: no other than my mother, mad with grief. She was unable to take care of me; rumour has it she took her life shortly after she pawned me off on the monster who ran your household. Over time, you found a pretext to send that woman away. It was quite a delicate undertaking: she was a distant relative after all, and as such entitled to your protection. You cared well for me, oh beloved Xueqin. You even allowed your household to go in a slump; I hadn’t the slightest disposition for domestic duties. But you reassured me. You initiated me. Yes, you deflowered me and taught me each and every pleasure. And I gave you back the joys of youth. The joys—but the love? How young I was, so young…
You were my first man; I loved you as you must have loved a first love, and I desired to be your first love in turn: that was how it was and ought to be, in order to be loved even more intensely, more fiercely! I identified you with Baoyu, and compared you with him, much to your disadvantage. Surprisingly—to members of the Cao clan, that is—Red Ink-Stone, the young beau who bore an outward resemblance to the hero, more than you did, left me cold. You do know that, don’t you, Xueqin? Yes, you must know I never cared for cousin Tianyou that way. Did I ever reproach you for the tenderness you shared with him? I was even inclined to encourage it, if only in the hope that Tianyou’s voracious eye would detach itself from my then-nimble limbs…
Ah, these events have gone now, and what does it matter? The one thing vexing me now is the guilt-ridden notion that I did you wrong. Just like the rest of them did. Neither Red Ink-Stone nor Gao E (wasn’t he once the assistant teacher in that dilapidated Cao family school, or am I mixing up people?) nor anyone else ever knew how much they corrupted literary ideals by their petty meddling in a work, the grandeur of which escaped them. It has been said that the ghost of a deceased doesn’t feel suffering; I doubt this applies to the agony of one’s innermost soul, even in the hereafter. It may well be, my dear friend, that you don’t feel the hurt anymore, as one merges with one’s agony after death. Or did your spirit die along with your first love; did you merely drink your way to the oblivion of the grave? In that case I shall have loved a living corpse, a mind enmeshed in idle fancy, a walking daze.
And yet, thirty years later, I can see the beauty of our bond, such as it was and was not. In me, the past rises to brilliant life: oh bygone days, when bliss was just around the corner, when stylish courtesans with graceful banter and sparkling conversation were the leading spirits of the age rather than those barren literati you derided so venomously in your portrayal of Baoyu’s loveless begetter! In me, you found the civilisation that perished when the last Ming Emperor hanged himself in despair, his throne hijacked by Manchus. In the novel you dreamed of (the publication of which your family, cousin Tianyou included, foiled), Baoyu’s twin soul, his sister-in-arms, never dies of heartbreak! On the contrary, Lin Daiyu musters courage and knifes ‘sweet’ Grandmother Jia to her death, only to vanish from the clan premises thereafter. Frail as she may be, Lin Daiyu becomes a leader of the White Lotus women-warriors. In this capacity,she unites friends and relatives and even descendants of Ming Emperors under her shining banner; united, they conquer the Forbidden City itself. In the name of humanity she compels the Emperor to abdicate, after long and bloody battle in which one half of the Jia-clan fights for the Ming and the other half for the Qing. Such, my love, should have been the true and glorious ending of your book; we often talked about it while secretly convening. And so it would have ended indeed, had not your family interfered. If ever there was a Ming-loyalist, Xueqin, it was you…
What passes away will never come back—as you, having witnessed at age thirteen your clan go from riches to rags, knew only too well. Wallowing in a fatalistic gloom, you allowed talentless critics to all but ruin your masterpiece. How I despised you for it!
And yet, sometimes fatalism seems strangely in unison with grandeur.
I will now abandon my scribbling to the flames. Decipher them in the smoke spiralling up from the fireplace! Take note of my unwavering love for you, and then you shall vanish out of my life like a wisp of vapour.
Forgive me for hoping against hope to find love with a stranger!
Yet never shall I spill my love for you, Xueqin, on anyone else, just as White Lotus—or any triad—will never restore China to the lost lustre you in your innocence dreamt of.
Grand Councillor Heshen
To Lady Cao Baoqin
and the envoy Ti Qing
On behalf of the Qianlong Emperor, who will abdicate and retire next month in honour of the Kangxi Emperor—his grandfather, and the greatest, hence longest-enthroned Ruler of the glorious Qing dynasty—I command Lady Cao, Imperial Interpreter Second Class, to marry Ti Qing, envoy of the Netherlands at Beijing, the highest representative of the Dutch East India Company in Batavia.
Both will obey this command immediately!
Lady Cao
To Chief Councillor Heshen
My Good Sir Heshen! I am too old to subjugate myself to wedlock on command, even assuming there would be an appropriate age at all for such an atrocity. And I am too well acquainted with the Dutch envoy for me not to know that you insulted him to the marrow when he was being ordered the same, even if our marriage were in accord with his
deepest desires.
The envoy is a free man. Do you know what that means, freedom?
In the West, arranged marriages are no longer observed. Even kings, save the Russian czar perhaps, can force only their next of kin, or their slaves perhaps, into marriage: never their subjects.
I do not understand your conduct, Heshen. The envoy was to comply with our morals only so as not to give offence; we were to leave him to his own devices as long as he was of no encumbrance to us. You part with prudence. Why?
Western literati praise the harmony of our Celestial Empire; its coercion they despise. A marriage to the envoy is to be decided on by him and myself, without interference from others. Therefore, Heshen, I insist on a meeting with Ti Qing in the seclusion of his residence; our correspondence is, as your intervention amply proves, being read by third parties.
Isaac Titsingh
To Lady Cao
We must marry, Baoqin! If not, they’ll hang you. This morning Heshen imparted this to me in person before rushing off on some tour of inspection in the Northeast. I fear I am powerless to prevent your death unless you consent to our marriage.
Do not turn my offer down, oh tender, proud Baoqin. It’s my only way to rescue you from the gallows!
Call me a coward, a tyrant, a brute if you will, but contemplation of your fate fills me with dread, and in the hollow of night I lie on my lonely bed, vexed by insomnia and waking nightmares of your lonely, atrocious end.
Forgive me my shrill tone that is most unreasonable, unless it helps convince you that the situation is critical indeed! I am
Entirely yours,
Isaac Titsingh
Lady Cao,
also known as
Lin Daiyu,
to Isaac Titsingh
I would have responded to your ‘ultimatum’ with contemptuous silence, Isaac, were I not convinced of your sincere concern for my person and my well-being. You’ve been misinformed, if not misled, by the chief Councillor himself. Until recently, Heshen was Peking’s most powerful man; now he is doomed. You need not come to my rescue. Heshen, China’s chief hangman, will meet the fate he had in store for me!
The dragon-adorned palanquin unleashed an uproar in our pavilion: the Emperor, the Exalted One, the Son of Heaven, visiting his Forgotten Concubines—unheard of! Such a thing had not happened in years, my dear Isaac, if ever! Nobody recalled having actually seen him at our abode, and old Chun Xian was no longer with us to offer guidance.
I cast myself to the ground; my Ladies half-heartedly follow suit. Irritably, the Ruler of China commands us to rise and look him straight in the eye. ‘Soon my successor will ascend the Throne,’ he says without ado, ‘the Emperor of the Jiaqing period. On that day Heshen will be put to death.’
He turns his sunken face to me.
As Lady Chun’s successor, I ought to either congratulate the Emperor or express regret that a reign of prosperity will presently come to an end. But I can’t speak, so stunned am I by what the Son of Heaven has just imparted.
‘Are you not pleased?’ the old man insists. In his wrinkled face all remnants of joy seem extinguished. If I remain silent any longer, the Imperial wrath shall descend upon me. I must reply swiftly.
‘Your Majesty, the fairness of the verdict is above doubt. But may I ask: are You pleased with it Yourself?’
Unheard-of insolence, on the face of it, but I am quick in perceiving the reason behind the Emperor’s resentment over kowtows: he is tired of obeisance. He craves responses that will break his solitude, like the little beak that breaks the eggshell which keeps the chick trapped inside.
‘Lady Cao!’ You will recall the Emperor’s flat, high-pitched voice, Isaac; in the pavilion, it seems to float in mid-air. ‘Your concern for my well-being merits gratitude. In the confiscated property of the man who has chained me to the poppy with shackles woven of golden fumes, copies have been found of decrees of which I had no knowledge,edicts I never issued. So distorted is Heshen’s mind that he commands you to marry a barbarian! To spite you! Poor Lady! Would I ever force you, a paragon of mature charm, to lose face? No! In fact, I forbid it!’
I revere his station; I despise his decrepitude. ‘Heshen’s power is unbroken,’ I cry out, ‘as long as caprice continues. I desire a hearing with Ti Qing, Your Majesty! Why has this favour not been granted? I’m not just anybody. I am the successor to Lady Chun cruelly put to death by Your henchmen! Why am I not allowed to meet Ti Qing?’
Exclamations of dismay from my ladies; some swooned.
With a bland face the Ruler of China walks towards me, slowly, and his person exhales a whiff of the bittersweet poppy, which evokes painful reminiscences of my frenzied, forlorn, and opium-suffused nights in Nanking—nights I’d fain forget but must conjure up if I ever am to finish my novel.
The Emperor puts a withered hand on my wrist. I swallow my fear, resist the urge to cringe. ‘Lady Chun lives.’ He says it—he has actually said this!
I stare at him, incredulously.
‘She lives,’ the Emperor flatly repeats.
‘Your Majesty!’ I am in utter confusion. ‘How can that be?’
‘After Heshen had her noble person arrested as if she were a common harlot, even if he acted on behest of the Throne, I came to realize belatedly that this parasite has eroded Imperial prestige, as woodworms erode a chest and maggots a corpse. With unerring resolve, Lady Cao, I sent Heshen on an inspection tour to the Northeast and had his possessions confiscated; that’s the way my late father was accustomed to handling these things. I should have done so sooner. Heshen’s abuse of power was everywhere in evidence.’
‘And Chun Xian?’ I fail to observe the forms. So does the Emperor.
‘She’s safe.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I cannot tell you. But believe me, she’s safe.’
A weight slides off my shoulders. During the time I was privileged to enjoy her company, Chun Xian was a mother to me and held me in her deepest affection. ‘Oh Majesty,’I stammer, ‘Your generosity knows no bounds! Good tidings indeed! But what a torment not to know where she is.’ A quiver runs through my limbs. ‘She is alive, is she not?’
‘She?’ The Emperor displays a thin smile. ‘Oh, more than ever!’
‘So the allegation of Ming-loyalism has been proven false!’
The Emperor—former Emperor almost—merely smiles, then has us pledge silence about an announcement He is about to make. To that pledge I feel bound, dear Isaac, so much so that I can’t share Chun’s whereabouts with you. But I dearly wish to share all else…
The Emperor ordered his retinue to wait by the palanquin,and, after many solemn oaths on our end, he revealed where—with whom—dear Chun Xian resides.
Ere I had recovered from my bewilderment, the Emperor granted me a wish.
A wish! I looked around. The faces of my fellow inmates sank in. Women whose illegitimate children were murdered in cold blood; women who rose high in Imperial favour,only to tumble more deeply than they had risen; women with disfigured faces or an ailing skin; ancient children who were depreciated and discarded after one night or who had never even enjoyed the privilege (if it is one) of the Imperial Bedchamber. Faces forgotten by the Emperor the next morrow, faces pursuing him in opium dreams; from a corner of my eye I saw the Emperor shun gazes. It must have been his conscience: no eyes were fixed on him. All faces, young, old, pretty, ugly, round, angular, sympathetic, sullen—shone like lanterns on me, radiant with all their hopes and fears. How cruel that I should be the only one allowed to voice a wish…
Then I came up with something. And if my wish didn’t include you, dear Isaac, it still was the only proper one:
‘Oh Majesty, if it be in Your power to implement it, please grant the residents of this pavilion the li
berty to go wherever they please, in and outside the Forbidden City, at certain hours at least, so they can visit dear ones and honour their ancestors.’
‘I will grant it. Only because it is coming from you, Lady Cao!’
A sigh of relief swept through our ranks.
The Emperor cast a curious glance at me. ‘Lady Cao! Heshen destroyed my heart, else you would have aroused my desire.’
‘Your Majesty does not mean to say I’m indebted to Heshen!’ I played up to him courtesan style, and faces burst into laughter, quickly stifled as my fellow inmates covered their mouths. My jest must have gone too far; I feared the worst! But the despot seemed amused rather than offended. And all the time his gaze was settled on me.
‘Would that be all, Lady Cao?’
Only then I knew it was not. ‘Your Majesty, my other needs and wishes are of a subordinate kind; they reside under this main wish and do not concern third parties.’
He grasped the hint. Through the autumnal garden I led the Ruler of China to abandoned quarters formerly belonging to Chun Xian, prepared to take any risk. We waded through the autumnal foliage, as lush as it was dead, the Emperor and I. No one accompanied us thither. We maintained a perfect silence; even the songbirds were mute.
We stepped into the twilit, faintly perfumed abode. ‘I miss her so,’ I exclaimed. ‘I must see her!’
The Qianlong Emperor replied it was not he to whom such a request must be forwarded; it was the secret society—not to be named here—currently providing shelter to Old Concubine. On the Imperial Countenance a smile blossomed. ‘Even I,’ the Son of Heaven confessed, ‘am something of a Ming-loyalist, though I would have forgotten had you not reminded me of it, Lady, and for that I’m deeply indebted to you.’ He became lively, his withered features quickened, he digressed at length about old and grand designs to transform the Empire bequeathed him into a Realm of Art and Culture. Thus the disenchanted monarch vied for my favour, Ti Qing, in a well-nigh obsequious manner; he even addressed me as Lady Lin or Lin Daiyu, whilst at the same time giving himself airs as if he were the Literature God in person—he, who during his protracted reign abandoned volumes, anthologies, entire oeuvres, including my poetry, to the ever-hungry flame, because they were reputedly seditious. And I knew of the crippled rhymes with which he had soiled precious silk paintings in the Forbidden City.
The Pavilion of Forgotten Concubines Page 9