The Last Empress (9 page)

I wanted to confront Prince Kung. I couldn't prove his involvement, but I knew he supported An-te-hai's murder. My relationship with Prince Kung was beyond saving. By getting rid of An-te-hai, he let me know that he was capable of complete domination.

Nuharoo didn't want to discuss the death of my eunuch. When I went to her palace, her attendants pretended not to hear me at the gate. It only confirmed to me that Nuharoo was guilty. I could accept her dislike of An-te-hai, but I could not forgive her for taking part in murdering him.

Tung Chih didn't bother to hide his pleasure that An-te-hai was gone. He seemed confused by my sadness and concluded that An-te-hai was exactly who he thought he was—my secret lover. Tung Chih clumsily kicked over the altar I had placed in a room set aside to mourn An-te-hai.

It was through the confession of a local musician whom An-te-hai had hired during his trip that the deeper and darker reasons behind his death began to reveal themselves.

"One night An-te-hai asked us to play our instruments louder," the musician's account read.

It was already past midnight. I was afraid of attracting the local authorities' attention, so I begged him to let us stop. But the chief eunuch insisted that we carry on, and we obeyed. Our barges were brightly lit, and the junks were decorated with colorful lanterns. It was like a festival. We often traveled on the water after dark, and villagers would follow us for miles on the shore. Some of the
locals were invited on board to join the party. We drank until dawn. As I had predicted, the authorities interfered. At first An-te-hai succeeded in getting them to back off. He pointed up at the yellow flag flying from our barge, which had a blackbird on it, and told the officer to count its legs. The bird had three legs. "You don't offend this bird, because it represents the Emperor," An-te-hai said to him.

An-te-hai liked my music and we became friends. He told me how miserable he had been. I was shocked when he said that he was looking for a way to end his life. I thought he was drunk, so I didn't take his words seriously. How can anyone believe that the most powerful eunuch of our time was suffering? But before long I believed him, because I noticed that he deliberately invited trouble. It got me scared. It was lucky that I quit the day before Governor Ting showed up. I still don't understand why An-te-hai would throw away his good life.

Maybe An-te-hai meant to take his own life; maybe he decided that enough was enough. I should have known that he was braver than anyone else. His life was like grand opera, and he was Cheng Ho's reincarnation.

It was after midnight and every sound in the Forbidden City courtyard had faded. I lit An-te-hai's favorite jasmine-scented candles and read him a poem I composed.

How fair the lakes and hills of the south,
With plains extending like a golden strand.
How oft, wine cup in hand, have you been here
To make us linger, drunk though we appear.

By Lily Pond new-lit lamps are bright,
You play the Water Melody at night.
When I come back, the wind goes down, the bright moon paves
With emerald grass the river waves.

Following Tung Chih's wedding, Nuharoo and I ordered the astrologers to choose an auspicious date for the Emperor's assumption of power. The stars pointed to February 23, 1873. Although Tung Chih had already taken up his duties, mounting the throne was not considered official until elaborate, lengthy ceremonies were completed. They could take months: all the senior clansmen had to be present, and all would have to visit ancestral temples and perform the proper altar rituals. Tung Chih had to ask the spirits for their permission, and for their blessing and protection.

Not long after his investiture, the Tsungli Yamen, the Board of Foreign Affairs, received a note from the ambassadors of several foreign nations asking for an audience. The board had gotten such requests before, but it had always offered Tung Chih's youth as a reason to deny them. Now Tung Chih consented to the request. With Prince Kung's help, he rehearsed the etiquette thoroughly.

On June 29, 1873, my son received the ambassadors of Japan, Great Britain, France, Russia, the United States and the Netherlands. The guests gathered at nine in the morning and were led to the Pavilion of Violet Light, a large raised building where Tung Chih sat upon his throne.

I was nervous because it was my son's first appearance before the world. I had no idea how he would be challenged, and hoped that he would make a strong impression. I told him that China couldn't afford another misunderstanding.

I would not attend the event, but I did what a mother could: I made
sure that my son had a good breakfast and took care of the details of his dress—checking the buttons on his dragon robe, the jewels on his hat, the laces on his ornaments. After what he had done to An-te-hai, I had sworn to withhold all affection from Tung Chih, but I was unable to stick to my words. I could not unlove my son.

A few days later, Prince Kung sent me a copy of a foreign publication called
The Peking Gazette.
It let me know that Tung Chih had done well: "The ministers have admitted that divine virtue certainly emanated from the Emperor, hence the fear and trembling they felt even when they did not look upon His Majesty."

I can now retire
was the thought that came to mind. I would leave the business of the court to others, giving me time for private pleasures of which I'd only been able to dream. Gardening and opera were two interests that I planned to pursue. In particular, I had become curious about cultivating vegetables. My desire to grow tomatoes and cabbages had brought a sour face to the Imperial minister of gardens, but I would try again. Opera had always been my special delight, and perhaps I would take voice lessons so that I could sing my favorite songs. And of course I dreamed of grandchildren: on a special visit to Alute and Foo-cha, I promised my daughters-in-law promotions in rank if they succeeded. I had missed raising Tung Chih as a baby and wanted a new opportunity.

When I sat down to do paintings for my son, I found myself trying out different subjects. Besides flowers and birds, I painted fish in a pond, squirrels playing in trees, deer standing in broad fields. Some of my best pictures I selected to be embroidered. "For my grandchildren," I said to the royal tailors.

My son wanted to begin restoring my former garden home, Yuan Ming Yuan, which had been burned down by the foreigners nine years before. If I hadn't been concerned about the cost, I would have been thrilled. "Yuan Ming Yuan was the symbol of China's pride and might," my son insisted. "Mother, it will be my gift for your fortieth birthday."

I told him that I could not afford to accept such a gift, but he said that he would manage the cost.

"Where will the funds come from?" I asked.

"Uncle Prince Kung has already contributed twenty thousand taels," my son replied excitedly. "Friends, relatives, ministers and other officials are expected to follow. Mother, for once just try to enjoy life."

It had been nine years since I last visited Yuan Ming Yuan. The place
had been further wrecked by wind, weather, scavengers and thieves. Man-tall weeds covered the entire area. As I stood by the broken stone pillars, I could hear the creaking sound of carriage wheels and the footfalls of eunuchs and remembered the day we barely escaped the advancing foreign armies.

I had never told Tung Chih that Yuan Ming Yuan was the place where he was conceived. In that one moment I had it all—Emperor Hsien Feng's only desire was to please me. Brief as it was, it had been real, and it had come at the time of my greatest despair. I had spent everything I had to bribe Chief Eunuch Shim to get a single night with His Majesty. When Hsien Feng ridiculed me, I risked my life to speak to him openly and honestly. It had been my boldness that had gained his respect, and then his adoration. I remembered Hsien Feng's voice gently calling me "my Orchid." I remembered his tireless desire for me in bed, everywhere, and mine for him. The happiness we both felt. The tears that came in the middle of our lovemaking. His eunuchs were terrified that His Majesty would disappear during the night, while my eunuchs waited by the gate to receive him. As the "lady of the night" I was supposed to be prepared like a plate of food offered to His Majesty, but His Majesty offered himself to me. He was thrilled by his own love.

Later, when Hsien Feng took up with other ladies, I experienced something close to death. It was impossible to go on living, yet I couldn't take my own life because Tung Chih was inside me.

The first place Tung Chih wanted to restore was the palace where I had spent most of my time living with Hsien Feng. I thanked Tung Chih and asked how he came to know that the palace was special to me. "Mother," he replied, smiling, "when you are quiet about something, I know that is what you care about the most."

I never doubted Tung Chih's motives. I didn't know that the true reason my son was so eager to rebuild Yuan Ming Yuan was to get me away from him so that he could continue his secret life, which would soon destroy him.

The royal counselors encouraged Tung Chih because they were eager for me to retire. They resented taking my orders and looked forward to governing without my interference. With their approval, Tung Chih ordered the restoration to begin even before the funding was in place. The project was plagued by trouble from the start. When the chief lumber supplier was caught embezzling, the funding stopped. It was the beginning of a never-ending nightmare.

A local official wrote an indignant letter to the court accusing Tung Chih of caving in to my greed. He described the restoration of Yuan Ming Yuan as a misuse of national funds. "The dynasty before ours, the Ming, was one of China's longest, lasting sixteen rulers," the official pointed out. "But later Ming emperors wasted their energies on pleasure. By the end of the sixteenth century, the Ming Dynasty had lapsed into a coma, waiting to be pushed aside. The treasury was empty, taxes became impossible, and the traditional signs of misrule—flood, drought and famine—were everywhere. People transferred their loyalty to a new leader because the dynasty had forfeited the mandate of Heaven."

The court didn't need a minor functionary to remind them that the country was still ravaged by the recent Taiping rebellion and that the Moslem uprisings in the west had not yet been suppressed. However, they rebuked the official for "obstructing the Emperor's filial duty to his mother." Tung Chih was determined to see his goal realized, but after a year and a great deal of expense, he was pressured by Prince Kung to abandon the project.

For years I would be blamed for whatever happened at Yuan Ming Yuan, but I was no longer in a position to advise Tung Chih—I was officially retired. What puzzled me was Prince Kung's change of mind. It was he who first supported the restoration by giving a donation to begin construction, but now he was among those who begged Tung Chih to call off the project.

Throwing a temper tantrum, Tung Chih accused his uncle of using disrespectful language and demoted him. It was Nuharoo who persuaded Tung Chih to reinstate his uncle's position a few weeks later.

I stayed away because I felt that Tung Chih needed to learn how to be an emperor. It had been too easy for him to order others around without ever suffering.

On a warm day in the summer of 1874, I watched my eunuch Li Lien-ying cutting gardenias in my garden. He removed and discarded flower buds and side shoots, then sliced the stems into three-inch pieces, carefully making the cut below a node. "New roots will form at this point," he explained as he inserted the cuttings into containers. "By next spring the plants should be ready to go out in the garden." A month later the cuttings failed to send out any new leaves.

To test if the roots were growing, Li Lien-ying gently pulled on a cutting. He felt no resistance, which indicated that roots were not forming. He told himself to be patient and wait for a few more days. "I have been doing this for years," he said to me. "It is how I've patched up the old gardenia gardens." But the cuttings began to wilt and eventually died. The eunuch believed that it was Heaven's sign that something terrible was going to happen.

"Nothing will happen," the master gardener said to Li. "It could be your mishandling. Maybe the water was contaminated by an animal's urine, or there were insects hidden in the moss. In any case, the plants died of too much stress."

I couldn't help but think of my son. He had been like a houseplant, protected until now from the rigors and uncertainties of the garden.

Tung Chih caught a cold that didn't go away for months. He had developed a fever, and by autumn his body was very weak.

"Tung Chih needs to go outdoors and exercise," Prince Kung urged.

My son's other uncles, Prince Ts'eng and Prince Ch'un, assumed
that Tung Chih's nightly dissipations had begun taking a toll on his health. When Doctor Sun Pao-tien requested a meeting to discuss Tung Chih's real condition, he was rebuffed.

I couldn't bear the sight of Tung Chih in a sickbed. It reminded me of his father's dying days. I summoned Alute and Foo-cha and the other wives, and asked them, as they knelt before me, if they had any idea what was wrong with their husband.

Their revelation shocked me: Tung Chih had never quit going to the brothels. "His Majesty prefers flowers in the wild," Foo-cha complained.

Alute resented my questioning. I explained that I didn't mean to intrude or offend and that I was not interested in disrupting her privacy.

Eyebrows twisted into the shape of two flying swords, Alute said that as the Empress of China she had the right not to answer. "It's between Tung Chih and me," she insisted. Her white, porcelain-smooth skin turned pink.

I tried not to show my irritation. I told her that I only meant to help.

"I am not doubting your motives," Alute said to me. "It's just ... I don't feel lesser in status."

I was confused. "What are you talking about? Who made you feel 'lesser in status'?"