The Last Empress (20 page)

Li Lien-ying told me that my paintings were not selling because the collectors believed that they were not mine.

"The new pieces lack elegance and calmness," my eunuch said.

I told him that the beauty of the Imperial parks no longer inspired me. "Hostile and inhuman, the pavilions stand there only to help rally oppression!"

"But my lady, we who inhabit the Forbidden City live like bats in caves. Darkness is our mean."

I threw my brush across the room. "I am sick of looking at the shady courtyards and the long, dark, narrow stone paths! The identical Forbidden City apartments whisper murder in my ears!"

"It's a sickness of the mind, my lady. I'll make arrangements to hang a large mirror by the entrance. It will help deflect the intruding evil spirits."

The day Li Lien-ying hung the new mirror, I dreamed of journeying to a Buddhist temple high in the mountains. The upward path by a cliff was less than a foot wide. Hundreds of feet below was a mirror-like lake. It sat in a valley between two hills. In my dream the donkey I rode refused to move. Its legs were shaking.

I woke remembering a summer holiday, traveling on a river with my family. Our boat was infested with fleas. They didn't seem to bother anyone but me. In the evening, when I brushed the dirt off my sheet to get ready for sleep, the dirt jumped right back and covered the sheet again. It was then that I discovered that it was not dirt but fleas.

Drifting on the water, I could hear the boatmen sing songs to keep each other in rhythm. I remembered reaching out and dipping my hands in the dark green river. The sunset was red, then gray, and then instantly the sky was black. The water flowed through my fingers, warm and smooth.

Yung Lu had been visiting me in my dreams. He always stood on top of a fortress in the middle of a desert. Many years later, when I described to him what my mind's eye saw, he was surprised by its accuracy. His skin was weatherbeaten and he wore a Bannerman's uniform. His posture was as erect as the stone guards made for tomb burial.

In the middle of the night I heard something hit my roof. A rotted
branch had dropped from an old tree. I followed my astrologer's advice to avoid omens and moved from the Palace of Concentrated Beauty to the Palace of Peaceful Longevity, which was on the far east side of the Forbidden City. The new palace was quieter, and its greater distance from the audience hall encouraged Guang-hsu's independence, for now it was less convenient for him to consult me.

At the age of fifty-one, I realized how much I wanted Yung Lu back. Not only for personal reasons: his presence would calm Guang-hsu and the court. I needed him to perform the same function Prince Kung did for the young Emperor.

In a letter to Yung Lu, I reported Nuharoo's death, Guang-hsu's upcoming ceremony of mounting the throne and Prince Kung's resignation. I made no mention of how I had survived the seven long years without him. To ensure his return, I enclosed a copy of a petition signed by the ministers at the court demanding Li Hung-chang's beheading.

I had never expected that this would be the scene of our reunion: Yung Lu wolfing down dumplings in my dining room, his hunger giving me an opportunity to observe him. Wrinkles now crossed his face like valleys and rivers. The biggest change I noticed, though, was that he was no longer stiffly formal.

Time, distance and marriage seemed to have calmed him. I didn't experience the anxiety I had anticipated. I had visualized his return so many times—like variations of the same scene in an opera, he would enter again and again but in different settings and in different costumes, offering me different words.

"Willow asked me to apologize." Yung Lu pushed away the empty dish and wiped his mouth. "She is still unpacking."

I did not think Yung Lu understood his wife's sacrifice. Or he pretended not to understand.

Yung Lu continued, "Guang-hsu demands independence, and I wonder if you think him ready."

"You are the throne's last standing advisor," I said.

"If the court wants Li's beheading," he said slowly, "then Emperor Guang-hsu has a long way to go."

I agreed. "I hope I get to retire before I die."

I no longer celebrated the Chinese New Year after Tung Chih died. I found myself living more in the past than the present. I dreaded the moment when I would hear the sound of distant fireworks, because I couldn't help but keep count of Tung Chih's age, as if he had lived. He would be twenty-six. Ever so vivid, Tung Chih would appear in my mind's eye.

My son would look pale. His sad eyes would say, "I didn't mean to abandon you, Mother," his expression full of remorse.

I would freeze until Tung Chih's image evaporated, then get down on my knees, facing where he had stood, and weep.

Over the years certain images would grow and sharpen while others would alter or fade. I could clearly see Tung Chih running toward me holding his red-eyed rabbit. I could smell berries on his breath. However, I could no longer remember what he said to me.

An-te-hai often came to my mind as well. I missed his vibrancy, humor and enlightenment. I remembered his poems. I would see his image appear and disappear at the corner of a pavilion or behind a bush. He would smile and sometimes be holding a comb in his right hand. He would ask, "What hairstyle has my lady in mind for today?" or "Time for your longevity walk, my lady."

The ghostly images of Emperor Hsien Feng and Nuharoo also visited me. My husband was always distant and cold, while Nuharoo, unlike the living, breathing person, was affectionate and even humorous. She would order me to create a ceramic opera troupe to bring to her altar.

I regularly inspected the tombs of my husband, Tung Chih and
Nuharoo. I wanted to make sure the provincial governor did his job, that no robbers had raided the sites. I wanted to reassure myself that the surrounding sculptures, forests and gardens were well maintained.

Nuharoo's burial ceremony had been elaborate, just the way she'd requested. I followed her instructions: masses of gardenias piled high as snowdrifts, and I wore a black satin court robe embroidered with three hundred bats. I hated it because it made me look like a vulture.

I could have ignored her wishes, but I decided to honor them. It was her way of making sure that I didn't steal her last show. She wanted an open casket, a custom favored by nobles in the West, but rejected the idea at the last minute. She loved the idea that people would admire her eternal robe, a work of such craftsmanship it had taken thirty royal tailors several years to complete.

I remembered the day when Nuharoo and I first inspected the tomb, shortly after Hsien Feng died. She stood tall in her white ceremonial robe and expressed her dissatisfaction with the design of her coffin. The day was as cold as today. The desert wind never ceased. My earrings sang like wind chimes.

I also remembered that I walked alone into the tomb. An-te-hai, like a crazy matchmaker in a comic opera, was determined to see Yung Lu and me together. And his plan had worked. But reality had swept back and life had gone on.

More than half of the people who had made up my life were now dead. I had seen them off to their next lives in glorious fashion, all except for An-te-hai. His remains were nowhere to be found, so he went without a burial. Years later, and after many bribes, I would finally find him. My favorite was wrapped in dirty rags and shipped back to me. His head was loosely sewed back onto his neck. I knew he wanted to be buried "in one piece" because he dreaded returning as a "tailless dog." When An-te-hai had become the highest-ranking eunuch, he had been able to buy back his penis from the butcher who castrated him. He spent a fortune for his "dried-up root."

I remember his eyes lit up when describing his next life, which he would live as a normal man. It touched me profoundly. He knew his place in life, and it was with his charm that he fought against misfortune. I admired his effort and wished that I had his courage. Until I lost him, I didn't realize how much I had loved him—his presence, his birds, his plants, and his wild imagination.

The night I mourned for An-te-hai I wore my pink dress, his favorite. I blew out the memorial candles and slipped into the heated bed. Closing my eyes, I summoned An-te-hai's spirit.

Li Lien-ying was in awe of An-te-hai's "luck." He watched me with tears in his eyes when I burned candles and incense on An-te-hai's birthdays. And on every birthday I would tell Li Lien-ying the same stories: "When I first met An-te-hai, he was a shy fifteen-year-old boy with bright eyes and rouge lips..."

I spent New Year's Eve with the sick and old concubines of my father-in-law, Emperor Tao Kuang. I used to fear these ladies, but now I was among them. They refused doctors and medicine, for they believed that it would interrupt the Buddha's way. Every few months one of them would die, leaving behind a pile of embroidered handkerchiefs, pillowcases and ornamental gourds with images of playing children carved into them.

A week ago Princess Jung, Lady Yun's daughter, whom I had not seen for ages, visited me. Many years before, her mother had been put to death because she had tried to harm me when I was pregnant. I had taken in Princess Jung, treated her with kindness, and saw to it that she was raised properly. After completing her education, she married a Manchu prince and lived near Peking. During our visit we talked about her half-brother, Tung Chih, and inspected the items that would be displayed in the newly completed Tung Chih Memorial Hall, near the ancient city of Sian. Leaning over Jung's shoulder, I examined my son's towels, handkerchiefs, combs, necklaces, hats, shoes, kneeling mats, chairs, washbasins, vases, bowls, cups, spoons and chopsticks. By the time we finished, I was trembling so much that Jung had to hold me up.

Around the New Year of 1888 I received the terrible news that Prince Kung's son Tsai-chen had died. He was Tung Chih's playmate and best friend. He also died of a venereal disease.

Although Prince Kung blamed himself for his son's death, he never allowed himself to mourn. Right after Tung Chih's burial, Prince Kung had thrown Tsai-chen out and sworn he'd never speak to him again. When the news of his son's illness came, he was shocked. But when he entered his son's room and saw a silk robe embroidered with pink peonies hanging on the dresser, he turned around and left, and Tsai-chen died that night.

I invited Prince Kung for dinner and suggested that we drink and talk about the good times. We told stories about our dead sons, about the way they met and the way they played together.

Li Lien-ying had been standing over one of the royal tailors for the past three days, supervising the making of my dress for a clan gathering to discuss Guang-hsu's marriage.

I put on the dress and looked at myself in the mirror. My wrinkles were too numerous to hide, and my teeth were not as white as they used to be. Fortunately my hair remained lacquer black. Li Lien-ying was thrilled that I agreed to try a new hairdo. He said that I had put him out of practice for too long.

To sort my earrings, bracelets and necklaces, my eunuch got up before dawn. He laid out the combs, pins, strings, scented-oil bottles and hair boards. I heard him filling up the washbasin and thought that maybe I should stop talking about An-te-hai so much.

In Li Lien-ying's hands I became a work of art. My dress was "moonlight on snow," embroidered with a silver turnip pattern, and my new hairstyle was a "piled-up jewelry cake."

Rong came with her husband, Prince Ch'un. The family had grown to more than thirty people. I hadn't seen my sister for a long time and noticed changes in her. Her back was hunched and her belly stuck out. Wearing the Manchu four-inch platform shoes, she walked with a drunkard's steps. A large jade hair board was fastened on the back of her head. The centerpiece was a jade grasshopper. Her teeth protruded so badly they looked as if they were flying out of her mouth. Infected gums made her jaws puffy. One side of her face was visibly bigger than the other.

Rong started criticizing me the moment she arrived. She was loud and animated. Warned by Prince Ch'un of her deteriorating mental condition, I tried to ignore her.

The royal brothers sat down together. Prince Kung, Prince Ch'un and Prince Ts'eng showed little affection for one another. They sat in silence smoking pipes.

My brother, Kuei Hsiang, arrived drunk. His wife wore a hair board with ornaments piled up like a pagoda. Since she could hardly turn her head, she talked while her eyes rolled from side to side.

Emperor Guang-hsu, now seventeen, looked handsome and confident in a sunlight-colored silk robe. He had made it clear to the royal
clan that he wouldn't take more than one Empress and two concubines. I gave him my support.

By now I was familiar with the unique ways of boys raised as the Son of Heaven. They lived inside their heads. For Tung Chih, living had meant escaping himself. For Guang-hsu it meant denying his own humanity, for he believed that it was pleasure that had destroyed Tung Chih.

The list of choices for the new Empress was long. The royal clan spent days in discussion. Finally my brother's twenty-year-old daughter, Lan, was nominated.

My room became dark after the sun set. The eunuchs came and added coal to the heaters. Guang-hsu and I sat facing each other. He let me know that he wasn't keen on getting married. I convinced him that in order to claim himself as an adult and officially mount the throne, he must first get married.

"I can't afford to waste time," he complained. "But wasting time is mostly what I do!"

"What do you think of your cousin Lan?" I asked.

"What about her?"

"She is plain," I said, "but character-wise, she is well versed in art, literature and music."

"If she is your choice," Guang-hsu said, "she will be mine."

"She is three years older than you and perhaps more mature. She might not strike your fancy, but you grew up together and you know each other. It is you, however, who must choose."

"We get along." Guang-hsu's face turned red. "I have seen her paintings, although I don't really feel as if I know her."

"She would like very much to be your Empress."