“Perhaps aware of his tenuous position as the future emperor of China, Wen Zu would regularly make proclamations that he hoped the God of Heaven could hear and so help him secure his fate. ‘When I am emperor you will stay on as my friend and advisor,’ he often said. ‘Many changes will have to be made to make our country strong again. We have to show the West our capabilities.’
“He was only restating the old ideas that had swept the palace a few years earlier before the Boxer Rebellion, when the emperor had been petitioned by a group of reformers who wanted to restore the empire based on a vague reinterpretation of Confucian writings and to modernize it along Western ideals.”
“The emperor would have turned them away.”
“On the contrary, the emperor gave his support and issued a series of edicts proclaiming the reforms that would take place. But the reformation movement failed and the emperor, disillusioned, fell back into his old habits of indolence and self-indulgence.
“I thought we would hear no more of reforms and modernization, but I was wrong. In the spring of 1908, in my second year in the palace, the movement was revived. Once again the emperor was roused out of his stupor, eager to reclaim his dignity. For a while he was intoxicated, not by wine or opium, but by the thought of himself being recorded as the savior of the dynasty, especially in light of the grave humiliation suffered in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion. Against the dowager empress’s wishes he initiated his reforms once more.
“Given power by the emperor’s proclamations, these new reformers rampaged through Shanghai, Canton, and Peking. They destroyed the factories and all the stocks of opium owned by the Western trading houses.
“My father, on one of his visits, warned me not to get involved. I passed on his warning to Wen Zu, who did not heed me. He took to visiting the Hall of Repentance regularly, reciting the names of the lost ports and ceded territories like a sutra. ‘Those ports will once more belong to China,’ Wen Zu said, his eyes shining as they saw the future as envisioned by the reformers. ‘We will own the country again.’ He made his views well known in the palace. Like many young men he liked to shock, but I was certain he was quite sincere in his beliefs. However, sincerity was sometimes not a virtue in the palace.”
“How did you endure for so long in the palace? It must’ve been stifling,” I said.
“We often escaped to the city outside for an hour or so. We walked the streets I had known all my life, past the tea houses and the brothels with fancy names like Tower of Dizzy Stars and the Inn of Cosmic Pleasure. Heavily painted women stood on the balconies and waved their scented handkerchiefs, calling out to the people below, promising them exquisite, heavenly pleasures. The streets were crowded with beggars, performers, and hawkers, and the air was plaited with the smells of roasting meat, boiling sweets, fried tofu, dirt, and refuse. Refugees from the north lay dazed on the streets, victims of drought and war. I heard so many languages in the streets: there were voices from Mongolia, from the Gobi Desert, and from the outer hems of the empire. Arguments were carried on in various dialects of the provinces; all were different-colored threads sewn into the tapestry that was the Middle Kingdom. This truly was the center of the world. We had invented the compass, and I found it fitting that we were placed right in its heart.
“It was not unusual to come across opium addicts lying on the roads, eyes glazed, uncaring, even as the reformers kicked and shouted at them. Opium dens were torn down and foreign-owned opium factories and warehouses were set alight, sending clouds of sweet smoke into the sky, so thick, so potent and unending I thought the gods in their homes above us would become intoxicated with the fumes. Maybe they did, for the country suffered catastrophes and disasters. I knew many impoverished addicts congregated at such burnings, sucking in the air, hoping to extract every ounce of their drug from such wanton waste. I worried about the Old One’s reactions, for the reformers were surely eroding her influence, opening her to greater danger from the Westerners, who were enraged by the destruction of their properties. It was also well-known that the Old One’s clawed fingers clutched many such enterprises.
“On one of these trips we saw a eunuch carrying a wooden box into the shop of a dealer in antiquities. The owner examined the contents of the box, appeared spellbound, and seemed willing enough to part with a large number of gold taels.
“We knew then that what we were witnessing was one of the many methods the eunuchs used to enrich themselves. Theft of palace treasures was one of the unsavory practices the emperor, in a fit of reformatory success, then decided to stamp out.
“We watched as the palace accounts were scrutinized. The eunuchs panicked and many escaped into the night, taking with them containers holding their most precious possessions—their preserved organs. They knew they could not enter Heaven if they were not complete.
“To save themselves some took to accusing their fellow eunuchs of theft. Most distressing was the number of suicides. It became quite common for a serving maid to scream with horror when she opened a door to find a pair of legs dangling before her eyes, the body swinging from the beams. What frightened me more were the rumors that some of these suicides were murders ordered by the Old One.
“And then we heard the rumor that the dowager empress had secretly selected another heir, an infant barely weaned from his mother. The factions that had once backed Wen Zu shifted, like the bits of glass in the mirrored tube which an English tutor had once shown me, creating new configurations of power and leaving Wen Zu to stand on his own. The appointment had not been announced and I tried to calm Wen Zu’s anger and fears. It was a direct insult to him to have to cede to an infant, and I knew then that Wen Zu had become inessential, and even inconvenient, to have around.
“Although most of the eunuchs were too clever to infuriate Wen Zu—for who knew how the winds of Heaven would blow tomorrow?—they were politically wise enough to know of his precarious position. But the younger ones got along well with us, in particular Tsiao Li, a slender beautiful youth who, I knew, loved Wen Zu. He was the one who warned me.”
“What did he warn you about?” I nudged him on gently when it seemed to me he had become lost in his thoughts.
“Strange how I can still remember it so clearly,” he said in a soft voice. I leaned closer to him, not wishing to miss anything. “It was a hot summer’s day, the carp ponds so still the dragonflies seemed mesmerized by their own reflections on the water. As I walked along the paths circling the ponds, waiting for Wen Zu to join me in a game of elephant chess, Tsiao Li came with a message from Wen Zu.
“The young eunuch was unusually formal. ‘His Highness regrets to inform you that he has been summoned by the emperor to discuss the reforms and is therefore unable to join you.’
“I made a face. ‘Must you talk in that terrible way? Can’t you talk like a normal person?’ I was too annoyed and too hot to pay attention to him, expecting him to reply with one of his usual witty barbs.
“ ‘You must eat properly and take care of your health. And His Highness’s also. Once one’s health has been broken it cannot be reformed.’
“The unusual use of the last word he had spoken and the note of fear in his voice made me stop fanning myself. I met his eyes and was chilled. Suddenly the summer heat did not bother me any more.
“ ‘Yes,’ I replied with difficulty in the same stilted form. ‘As must you.’
“I looked behind him. A few courtiers stood on a bridge, gazing into the pond. ‘It is not only food I must fear but also the dagger beneath the honeyed tongue,’ the young eunuch said.
“He turned, and walked away quickly. I stared at the plate of fruit before me. That was the last time I spoke to him, for two days later he was fished out from an old well, water dripping from his mouth, eyes wide open.
“ ‘You are mad,’ Wen Zu said when I told him of the conversation with the eunuch. ‘Nobody would dare!’ he said. Silence fell. We both knew there was only one person in the palace who would dare.
“I took out the jade hairpin my mother had given me. It had been presented to her by her abbot who had once taught at the Shaolin monastery and it was said that it had come from one of the Five Ancestors who had used it to test their food for poison, the existence of which would turn the jade a darker green.
“Wen Zu nodded when I told him this. Unlike me, he believed it completely. Perhaps by that time he was also frightened for his life. I remembered one of the many strange sayings I had to memorize in my English lessons, something about a drowning man clutching at a straw. We were now dying youths clutching at a hairpin.
“ ‘Put it into this.’ Wen Zu pointed to the pot of snake’s tongue grass tea, a cooling infusion perfect for a hot summer’s day. I poured some into a small cup and wet my pin with it. We held our breaths as the pin came out of the tea.
“ ‘Does it look darker?’ he asked.
“I studied it closely. ‘I don’t know. I think it does. I think they will poison us in small doses.’
“He masked his rising fear behind his annoyance. ‘Can you not tell at all?’
“ ‘I don’t conduct tests for poisons every day,’ I said.
“He snorted and walked away. If there had been poison, the amount would be tiny, I reassured myself. I resolved to test every dish we ate with the pin. But first there was one person we had to warn.
“I had seen the emperor once from some distance away, in the early days of my arrival. Now, as we entered his chambers, I wondered if the person before us was the same man. He appeared to have regained his health: the pallor so common to opium smokers was gone, although he still coughed violently. His skin, once stretched taut and dry, now had the elasticity of his relative youth. We touched our heads to the ground and shuffled to him on our knees.”
“It couldn’t have been easy to get to see the emperor,” I said.
“The audience with him had been possible only because of Wen Zu’s brashness; breaching countless rules of etiquette and bureaucracy, he had simply gone to the emperor’s quarters and asked for an immediate response. Outside, dusk had fallen. Occasionally, by a trick of the wind I seemed to hear the night-watchman cry out the hour, his voice mournful as a wounded hound.
“The emperor listened to our carefully worded warning. He frowned at us but in his sad eyes I saw that he was aware of the turn in the tide. I was afraid for him. Through his recent edicts he had wielded his power with delight. Such power had been denied to him for a long while. I wondered for how much longer would he be allowed to exercise it before it was taken away again, this time perhaps for good.
“ ‘You have brought unsubstantiated accusations against persons you do not want to name. What do you expect me to do?’ he said finally.
“I kept silent, but from the manner in which Wen Zu lifted his head I knew the words he was going to say. Looking back, perhaps if I had stopped him, things would have turned out differently. I suppose, as his tutor, I had failed him.
“ ‘If my words have been obscure, forgive me. What I wish to state is that we suspect we are being poisoned by the dowager empress. We further suspect that you are also being fed doses of poison.’
“The emperor stood up and came to us, lifting Wen Zu to his feet. ‘Thank you for warning me,’ he said. ‘Now it is time for you to go to sleep.’
“He already knew his fate, we saw. And consequently, ours had also been revealed. He led us out and at the door he said, ‘Let what you have discovered be good advice: never let your children become dangerous to you.’ His eyes looked up to the moon, his laugh knowing and bitter. ‘That was also the dowager empress’s advice, years ago.’
“I did not sleep well that night. I held on to the pin tightly and whispered a prayer to my mother’s gods for protection.
“A month later the emperor fell ill. Doctors from the International Settlement visited him, but found nothing wrong. To cure him the Old One ordered that opium be administered to him. And it seemed to me that on the day the order was carried out I could scent and taste the pervasive sweet odor in every room in the palace. The reformation movement, its head cut off, fell to pieces. Those members who could not flee in time were assassinated.
“It was time for a new emperor to ascend the Dragon Throne and Wen Zu knew with certainty that it would not be him. One night the pin came out black from a bowl of soup and he let out a moan. I threw away our food, as I had done for weeks, and thought of my plans to escape. I refused to be killed here, my body thrown into some abandoned well. I had to get my family to a safe hiding place. ‘You must come with me,’ I urged Wen Zu again. He stared, fascinated, at the pin.
“ ‘Where will we go ? Where in the vastness of China can we hide from her? We have no money, no friends. Her power is limitless. She will hunt us down.’
“ ‘My mother has friends. They will shelter us, and guide us to a safe place.’
“ ‘Your mother’s friends? They are revolutionaries and criminals, and they would happily see me die, or worse, they would just capture me and send me back to the Old One out of spite.’
“ ‘No. You’re my friend, and that is enough.’ I held his shoulders firmly, but he looked away and said, ‘Tell me about your famous monks again.’