Imperial Woman (15 page)

“And why,” the Emperor asked her that night, when the long lonely day was spent, “why is your mind so far from me? I am not deceived by you. Your body is here but it is lifeless.”

He took up her hand, a soft and beautiful hand now, its last roughness smoothed away, the fingers delicate, the palm strong.

“See this hand,” he said. “I hold it, it grasps mine, but it could be any woman’s hand.”

She confessed her humors. “I have been sad today,” she said. “I have spoken to no one. I have not even sent for the child.”

He continued to stroke the hand he held. “Now why,” he asked, “when you have everything, should you be sad?”

She longed to tell her strange fears to him but she dared not. He above all must never feel fear in her upon whom he leaned for strength. Oh, how heavy a burden was this necessity to be strong! And from whom could she draw her own strength? Above her there was none. She was indeed alone.

Tears filled her eyes against her will. The Emperor saw them glitter in the light of the candles that burned beside his bed and he was frightened.

“What is this?” he cried. “I have never seen you weep.”

She drew her hand away and wiped her eyes gracefully on the edge of her satin sleeve. “I have yearned all day for my mother,” she said. “And I do not know why. Can it be that I have somehow been unfilial? I have not looked upon her face since I entered these walls at your command. I do not know how she is. Perhaps she is dying and that is why I weep.”

The Emperor was all eagerness to please her. “You must visit her,” he urged. “Why did you not tell me? Go, go, my heart and liver, go tomorrow! I give you leave. But you must come back again by twilight. I cannot have you gone for a night.”

So it came about that Tzu Hsi once more returned to her mother for a day and the price she now paid to the Emperor was her grateful ardor. Yet it could not be the next day that she go, for the visit must be announced in order that her uncle’s house could be prepared. But the next day after it could be done, and two eunuchs were sent early to say that she would arrive at midday. What excitement now prevailed in Pewter Lane! Tzu Hsi, too, was warmed by her own eagerness, and she rose on the chosen morning with such a heart as she had not known since she came. She spent an hour deciding and then undoing her decisions as to what she should wear.

“I do not wish to be splendid,” she explained to her woman, “for then they will think I have grown proud.”

“Venerable, you must be somewhat splendid,” the woman remonstrated, “lest they think you do not give them honor.”

“A middling splendor,” Tzu Hsi agreed.

She looked over all her robes, choosing this one and then that, until she selected at last a satin of a delicate orchid purple, lined with gray fur. It was a fine robe, its beauty in the perfection of its embroidered sleeves and hem, and not in the boldness of its design. She was pleased with herself when she was robed in it and she chose for ornaments her favorite jade.

When she was ready and when she had eaten a few mouthfuls of food, which her ladies pleaded with her to swallow, she entered into her sedan that stood waiting in the courtyard, the bearers drew the yellow satin curtains close, and so the journey was begun. For a mile it lay within the walls of the Forbidden City, and she gauged the courts through which she was carried, and the halls by which she passed, traveling always toward the south, for the Emperor in the excess of his love had granted her the privilege of using the chief gate, called Meridian, by which usually only he himself could enter and leave his city. Outside that gate she heard the Commander of the Imperial Guard shout for his guardsmen to stand attendance while she passed. How well she knew that voice! She leaned forward in her chair and put aside the curtains a half-inch and looking through the crack she saw Jung Lu standing not ten feet from her, his face averted, his sword held up before him, his body taut and straight and at its full height. Neither to right nor left did he look when she passed but she knew by the dark flush on his cheeks that he had heard, that he knew it was she. She let the curtain fall.

It was high noon when Tzu Hsi reached the entrance to Pewter Lane, and hidden behind the sedan curtains she knew that she was near her childhood home. She smelled the familiar odors of salty crullers fried in bean oil, the musky fragrance of camphorwood, the reek of children’s urine and the choking scent of dust. The day was dry and cold and under the feet of the bearers the earth was frozen hard as stone. Upon this pale dry earth the shadows of the houses on either side of the lane were shrunken small and black against the walls and Tzu Hsi, peering downward between her sedan and the curtains, guessed the hour. So often had she run to and fro along this lane that she could tell within an inch what time it was, the shadows heavy toward the west in the morning and bending eastward in the afternoon. Now in the light of the full sun her sedan approached the well-known gate and she put her eye to the crack of the curtains again and saw that gate opened and her family gathered before it and waiting. There to the right stood her uncle and her mother, and with them the cousins of the elder generation and their wives, and to the left she saw a tall thin young girl who was surely her sister, and with her were the two brothers, grown beyond her memories and behind them Lu Ma. Against the walls on either side were the neighbors and the friends of Pewter Lane.

When she saw their faces grave and welcoming, tears watered into her eyes. Oh, she was the same to them, and somehow she must make them know it! Inside her breast beat the same heart they knew so well. Yet she could not open the curtains or cry out their names, for whatever her heart was, she was now Tzu Hsi, Empress of the Western Palace, and mother of the Imperial Heir, and so she must carry herself wherever she was. She made no sign and the eunuchs led the way to the gate, the Chief Eunuch first of all, for the Emperor had commanded him to go with his treasure and never leave her presence. Up the steps then and through the open gate the six bearers carried her, and they crossed the entrance courtyard and set the sedan down at last before the house. There the Chief Eunuch himself put aside the satin curtains and Tzu Hsi stepped out into the sunlight and saw before her the wide and open doors of her old home. The familiar room was there, the main hall, its tables and chairs polished and clean and the tiled floor swept. Often it had been her task to sweep and clean and set the chairs straight and dust the furniture, and now all was done as though she were still here. A vase of red paper flowers stood on the long table against the wall and fresh candles in the pewter candlesticks, and in front of the square table, between the ceremonial chairs, were small covered dishes of sweetmeats, a teapot and bowls.

She placed her hand upon the lifted arm of the Chief Eunuch and he led her to the highest seat to the right of the square table and she sat down and put her feet together on the footstool. He arranged her skirts and she folded her hands upon her lap. Then the Chief Eunuch returned to the gate and announced that now the family could approach the Empress of the Western Palace. One by one they came, her uncle first and then her mother, and then the elder cousins of the same generation and their wives, and after them her brothers and her sister and the younger cousins of their generation and each bowed down before her while behind her stood the eunuchs, and at her right hand the Chief Eunuch.

At first Tzu Hsi behaved indeed as an Empress must. She received the obeisances of her family with dignity and grave looks, except that when her uncle and her mother bowed before her she motioned to the Chief Eunuch to lift them up and invite them to be seated. When the ceremonies were complete no one knew what to say next. All must wait for the Empress to speak and Tzu Hsi looked from face to face. She longed to come down from her high place and speak as she used to do, and she longed to run about the house and be free as once she had been free. But the Chief Eunuch stood there watching all she did. For a while she considered how she could accomplish what she wished. All were arranged according to the generations, the elders seated and the young ones standing, and still they waited for her to speak first, and how could she speak as her heart longed? Suddenly she tapped her shielded fingernails upon the polished table at her right and she nodded at the Chief Eunuch to signify that she had something to say to him. He came near and leaned down his ear and into this ear she spoke.

“You are to stand aside, you and these eunuchs! How can I enjoy myself when you hear every word I speak and see every motion that I make?”

The Chief Eunuch was concerned when he heard such a command. “Venerable, the Son of Heaven bade me never leave your side,” he said in a loud whisper.

Tzu Hsi was instantly incensed. She tapped her foot on the floor and drummed her golden finger shields upon the table and she shook her head at the Chief Eunuch so that the pearls of her headdress trembled on their wires. Her own eunuch, Li Lien-ying, who stood near to hold her jeweled pipe and fan and toilet case, saw her fury rising and, knowing very well what it foretold, he plucked the sleeve of the Chief Eunuch.

“Elder Brother, it is better to let her have her way,” he whispered. “Why do you not rest yourself? I will stay near enough to watch over her.”

Now whether the Chief Eunuch would have obeyed Tzu Hsi or the Emperor cannot be known, but he was easily weary and already tired of standing on his feet and he grasped the chance to withdraw to another room. Seeing him gone, Tzu Hsi considered her mentor had left her, for Li Lien-ying was to her no more than a piece of furniture whose duty it was to hold whatever possessions she might need. She came down from her high seat now and she went to her uncle and bowed and she put her arms about her mother and laid her head down on that strong shoulder and wept.

“Oh, me,” she murmured, “how lonely I am in the palace!”

All were in consternation at this complaint and even her mother did not know what to say and she could only hold her daughter close. And in this long moment Tzu Hsi understood by their silence that even these she loved were helpless. In pride she lifted up her head again and laughed, her eyes still wet, and she cried out to her sister:

“Come, take this heavy thing from my head!”

Her sister came and lifted off the headdress and Li Lien-ying took it and set it carefully on a table. Without this ornament of dignity, all saw now that Tzu Hsi, in spite of her imperial robes and the jewels on her hands and wrists, was the same gay girl that she had ever been. So talk began and the women came near and smoothed her hands and examined her rings and bracelets and exclaimed at her beauty.

“Your skin is white and soft,” they said. “What do you rub in your skin?”

“An ointment from India,” she told them, “and it is made of fresh cream and pounded orange peel. It is even better than our mutton fat.”

“And where do you get the cream?” they asked.

“It is skimmed from asses’ milk,” she said.

Such small questions they asked, but none dared to ask about her life in the Forbidden City, or of how her lord dealt with her, or of the Heir, lest they use a word which might bring ill luck by chance and inadvertence, as, for example, if one should speak the word “yellow,” which being imperial might seem harmless except that it is also a part of the Yellow Springs, which means death, and death may not be mentioned next to the Son of Heaven or the Heir. But Tzu Hsi could not hide her joy in her child, and when none spoke she spoke, and she said in all happiness:

“I did wish indeed that I might bring my little son to show you, but when I asked the Most High, my lord, he said no, it could not be, lest an evil wind or a shadow or some cruel spirit do the child damage. But I assure you, my mother, that he is such a child as would delight your soul, and you must come to visit him since I may not bring him here. His eyes are big like this—” here she measured two circles with her thumbs and forefingers—“and he is so fat, his flesh so fragrant—and he never cries, I do assure you—and he is always greedy for his food and his teeth are whiter than these pearls, and though he is still so small, he wants to stand on his legs, which are like two posts under his strong body.”

“Hush!” her mother cried. “Hush—hush—what if the gods hear you, reckless one? Will they not seek to destroy such a child?”

Her mother looked up and down and everywhere around and she cried out, in a loud voice, “Nothing is as you say! I have heard that he is puny and weak and—and—”

Tzu Hsi laughed and put her hand over her mother’s mouth. “I am not afraid!”

“Do not say so,” her mother insisted beneath the hand.

But Tzu Hsi could only laugh, and soon she was walking everywhere, looking at the rooms she knew so well and teasing her sister, who now had the whole bed to herself, and alone with her mother in one room, she asked concerning the marriage plans for her sister, and proposed that she would find a good husband for her among the young noblemen.

“Indeed,” she said, “I will find one young and handsome and bid him wed my sister.”

Her mother was grateful. “If you can so do,” she said, “it will be a filial deed, and very pious.”

So the hours passed, and all the family was merry because Tzu Hsi was merry. In midafternoon a good feast was set, Lu Ma busy everywhere and bawling at the hired cooks, and when this had been shared the day was nearing night and the Chief Eunuch returned to his duty. He approached Tzu Hsi and requested her to prepare for leave-taking.

“The time has come, Venerable,” he said. “I have the command of the Most High. It is my duty to obey.”

She knew there was no further escape and so she yielded with grace. Once more she became the Empress. Li Lien-ying put back her headdress and she took her seat again in the main room and arranged herself. Immediately the family became her subjects. One by one they came forward and made their obeisances and said their farewells and to each she spoke with suitable words leaving gifts for each, and for Lu Ma money. At last all farewells were said. She lingered a few minutes more in silence, her eyes moving here and there. It had been a day of deep happiness and a renewal of the simple affections of her childhood. And yet somehow she knew it was the last time that ever she could return to this house. All seemed the same, but in spite of her faithful heart, she knew nothing was the same. They loved her still, but their love was entangled with hopes and desires of what she could do for them. Her uncle hinted at debts unpaid, her brother yearned for amusements, and her mother bade her not forget her promise for her sister. In lesser ways the kinfolk, too, had mentioned hardships and lacks. She was pitying and merciful, she made promises for all and she would fulfill them because she could, but her loneliness returned and lay ten times more heavy on her heart, for now she knew she was loved beyond herself. She was loved for what she could do and for what she could give, and her heart shriveled. Though her body had come back and for these few hours her spirit had rejoined the others in this house, the separation was forever. Destiny compelled her onward, and her own she must leave behind. There could be no return.