Authors: Anchee Min
"Which ones?" I asked.
"The Emperor Hsien Feng Clock and the Tung Chih Clock!"
I went to check and found that the clocks had been taken apart, the tiny pieces scattered over the table like chewed-up chicken bones.
"I trust that you have a plan to put the clocks back together," I said to Guang-hsu.
"What if I can't?" Guang-hsu asked, holding a small screwdriver in his hand.
"I will give you credit for trying," I encouraged.
"Would you be mad if your favorite bird clock no longer sings?"
"Well, I can't say I would be happy, but a clock expert must learn to put the broken parts together too."
Yung Lu stood before me in his purple satin court robe. My heart's ice began to melt in the spring sun. Like ghost lovers, our meeting places had been in our dreams. At dawn we would slip back into our human skin, but the dreams continued. In my costumes and makeup, I would imagine my head against his chest and my hands feeling his warmth. I walked the steps of a gracious empress, yet I felt the passion of a village girl.
I had no one to share my thoughts of Yung Lu after An-te-hai's death. When I turned forty, I accepted the fact that Yung Lu and I would not consummate our passion. We lived under the eyes of our nation. Newspapers and magazines made their living selling gossip about us.
There was nowhere Yung Lu and I could be with each other without exposing ourselves. The money offered for information about my private life tempted eunuchs, maids and the lowest-ranking servants to lurk, to pry, to tell tales.
Yet moments like this reminded me of how impossible it was to deny my love. My emotions found a home in Yung Lu's presence. The look in his eyes rescued me from fear and prevented me from falling into self-destructive thoughts. Whatever misery I was experiencing, he assured me that he was with me. At audiences and court I relied on his judgment and support. He was my harshest and most honest critic, guiding me to see all sides of whatever issue was before me. But once I had made a decision, he saw to it that my orders were carried out.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I..." His expression was of a reluctant executioner. He gathered
his breath and pushed the words out of his chest. "I ... am going to get married."
I resisted the feelings that assaulted me. Making a tremendous effort, I pressed back my tears.
"You don't need my permission," I managed to say.
"That is not why I am here." His voice was low but clear.
"Why
are
you here, then?" I turned to look at him, angry and terrified.
"I request your permission to move away," he said quietly.
"What does that have to do with—" I stopped, because I understood.
"My family will go with me," he added. "Where are you going?" I heard myself ask.
"Sinkiang." Sinkiang was in the far northwest, a Moslem state, a remote desert region, as far from the capital as could be.
I didn't mean to break down, but I began to lose control. "Do you really think that I can survive without you?"
He stood in silence.
"You know who I am. You know what I am made of, and you know the reason I show up every morning for audiences."
"Your Majesty, please..."
"I want ... to be informed that you are safe so that I will be able to rest."
"Nothing has changed."
"But you are leaving!"
"I will write letters. I promise..."
"How? Sinkiang is impossible to reach."
"It will not be easy, Your Majesty. But ... it will be good for you if I leave," he insisted.
"Convince me."
He glanced around the room. Although the eunuchs and maids had made themselves unseen, they were not gone. We could hear their movements in the courtyard.
"Moslems have led uprisings, Your Majesty. The province is full of unrest. Our troops now have it under control, but just barely. In the most recent crisis, large groups of rebels have been gathering along the border of Gansu province."
"Why do you have to go to the frontier yourself? Isn't the capital more important?"
He did not answer.
"Nuharoo and I can't do without you."
"My men are already scheduled to depart, Your Majesty."
"Self-imposed exile, that's what it is!"
He stared straight at me.
"You don't care that I have lost my son..." I shut my eyes, trying to press back the tears. My mind knew that he was doing the right thing.
"As I said, it will be good for the future," he murmured.
"You will not have my permission." I turned away from him.
I heard the sound of Yung Lu's knees hitting the floor. I wasn't able to look back at him.
"I'll get the court to support me, then."
"What if I reject the court's decision?"
He got up and marched toward the door.
"Never mind, Yung Lu!" My tears ran down my cheeks. "I ... I will grant you permission."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
I sat down on my chair. My handkerchief was brown and black with smeared makeup.
"Why does it have to be Sinkiang?" I asked. "It is a harsh land of sickness and death. It is a place ruled by religious fanatics. Where will you get a doctor if you become ill? Where will you get help if you lose a battle to the Moslems? Where will you station your reserve troops? Who is in charge of your supply lines? How will you possibly keep me informed?"
She was a Manchu but had the Han name of Willow. She treated her eunuchs and maids as if they were her own family. That alone told me she was not of the royal bloodline. A royal would treat her eunuchs and maids as slaves. She was Yung Lu's young bride. Mrs. Yung Lu—my tongue was yet to get used to Willow—was in her late twenties. The age difference caused whispers; Yung Lu was old enough to be her father. But Willow kept smiling and her lips remained sealed. For her wedding she wore a light blue silk gown embroidered with water hibiscuses. Like her name, she had a slender figure and moved gracefully.
I was glad Nuharoo made an excuse not to attend the wedding. Her dominance would have distracted me from observing the celebration, especially the newlyweds.
When Yung Lu introduced his bride to me, she couldn't have been any sweeter. She took a bold look at me, which surprised me. It was as if she had been waiting for this moment all her life.
Many years later, after we became friends and after her husband's death, Willow would tell me that she knew the truth all along—Yung Lu had never hid it from her, which made her an extraordinary character in my eyes. She was the daughter of a warlord friend of Yung Lu's, the leader of a Mongol tribe. Yung Lu's exploits had repeatedly been the topic at the family's table when she was growing up. Whenever Yung Lu visited her father, young Willow would find reasons to linger. She was in love with him before she met him.
Willow would eventually tell me that I had been the subject of her study before she began her relationship with her husband. In fact, I was the only subject she was interested in during Yung Lu's visits. She asked many questions and was impressed with his answers. She said that it was their mutual interest in me that led to letter writing, friendship and the discovery of a deeper feeling for each other. She was the only person to whom he confided his secret.
It was only after Willow had turned away numerous matchmakers that Yung Lu woke to her love. Her devotion and openness touched him. He proposed and she accepted. He knew that he would not be able to maintain a healthy relationship with his wife if he continued to see me at audiences.
Willow didn't fool me with her pretended innocence. The moment we met, I felt as if someone had peeked through a window into my soul. There was a strange and mysterious understanding between us. Years later, Willow would recall my receiving her at the wedding celebration. She remembered me as being warm and sincere. She asked how I was able to keep my poise. I told her that I had practiced acting on the stage of life. "And so have you," I said to her.
Yung Lu could not put up a false front. He tried but could not give Willow what her heart desired. His guilt was apparent in every look. His avoidance of me and his awkward apologies made her feel worse.
I drank a good deal of wine during the celebration. I suppose I was trying to forget. I was dressed in a golden silk gown embroidered with phoenixes. My hair was fastened onto a thin board and piled into the shape of a cloud. Li Lien-ying had secured the cloud with dark blue jade hairpins. My phoenix earrings were light blue. I wanted to please Yung Lu, but I was unable to maintain my cheerfulness. The thought of being denied the chance to see him left me drunk and sobbing. I was so woozy and nauseated I had to run outside and vomit in the bushes.
It was in that shameful, desperate moment that Willow sat down next to me and quietly offered her sympathy. She never told me what I
had said to her that night. I was sure that I was rude and nasty. Li Lien-ying told me afterward that Willow held my hand and would not let those who were curious get near me.
That was how I began my friendship with Yung Lu's Willow. She never once uttered a word about her husband's secret. Her compassion for my tragedy overcame her jealousy. The gesture of friendship she offered was to keep me informed of her husband's lasting love for me all the way to his end.
"It is impossible not to love you, Orchid—if I may call you by name," said Willow, and I understood why Yung Lu loved her.
In turn, I wanted to do the same for Willow. When she came back to Peking to give birth to her daughter a year later, I received her. The harsh life of the desert had darkened her skin, and wrinkles had climbed onto her forehead. She continued to be cheerful, but she couldn't hide her anxiety: Something in the desert climate had caused Yung Lu to suffer from chronic bronchitis.
I sent bags of herbal medicine to Sinkiang, along with fine tea, dried meat and several kinds of preserved soybeans. I let Willow know that she could always depend on me.
Weng Tong-hur, known as Tutor Weng, a well-known historian, critic, poet and calligrapher, was appointed to oversee Guang-hsu's education. Nuharoo and I had taken part in the selection and sat through the interviews. I was especially careful this time, for I had learned a hard lesson when selecting Tung Chih's tutors. I regretted that I had neither checked up on nor attended my son's lessons. When Tung Chih complained that his teachers were boring, I punished him. It never occurred to me that the tutors could be at fault—they might know a great deal about their subjects, but little of how to teach a child.
After Tung Chih died, I had spoken with several eunuchs who had witnessed the Imperial tutors at work. I was told that my son was made to memorize a text regardless of whether he understood it. The tutors were in their sixties or seventies, and were more interested in leaving behind a personal legacy than helping Tung Chih learn. Although I was told their spirits were high as the day began, they grew tired after lunch. They would fall asleep in the middle of lessons.
While a tutor snoozed and snored, Tung Chih would amuse himself by playing with the ornaments hanging from the tutor's hat and clothes. He bragged to his eunuchs afterward that he plucked the peacock feather from the tutor's hat.
"The feather stuck out about two feet from the back of the tutor's head," the eunuch recalled. "His Young Majesty liked the dot on the feather, which he called the eye. It amused him to see the way it moved
whenever the tutor nodded. He would ask the same question repeatedly so the tutor would nod."
"I'd like to make sure that this time," I said to the court, "Emperor Guang-hsu doesn't repeat Emperor Tung Chih's experience."
Tutor Weng was no stranger to Nuharoo and me. He had been our teacher in history and literature in 1861, right after our husband died and we became the acting regents. At that time no male was allowed to spend time with us except Tutor Weng. He was charged with a mission of national importance: two young women with no formal education or experience were ruling China.
Tutor Weng had come at Prince Kung's recommendation. Back then the scholar was in his forties and was a towering figure. Within days Nuharoo and I were spellbound. His brilliance lay in his ability to inspire thinking, a rewarding experience for me. After eighteen years Tutor Weng had become an important advisor.
At the time of Tung Chih's death, Tutor Weng had been the head of China's top literary school, the Hanlin Academy. He had also been the chief judge of the national civil service examination. He was no longer a slender man—his waist was as thick as a bath bucket. He had white hair and a gray beard, but his energy was still unflagging. His voice sounded like a temple bell. He had a righteous air and spoke with a sense of urgency.
Tutor Weng's impeccable moral standards were another reason he was our choice. While most ministers vied with each other to be ever more elaborately gracious in their expression of admiration toward us, Tutor Weng never flattered. He was brutally honest.
Unfortunately, my craving to be liked by people I admired made me vulnerable to manipulation. My relationship with Tutor Weng was a good example.
"I am deeply honored by the challenge," Tutor Weng said, bowing to Nuharoo and me. "And I understand my responsibility."
"His Young Majesty Guang-hsu is the only one left of the bloodline of the Ch'ing Dynasty," Nuharoo said. "Lady Yehonala and I believe that with you in charge of his education, we can count on China's future prosperity."
Leaves were snowing down from the giant oak, walnut and mulberry trees. Squirrels ran around busily storing their winter food. The fall
days had been warm this year. The trees began dropping their nuts and soon covered the ground. The eunuchs had to sweep the courtyards over and over because Nuharoo insisted that the palace gardens should not look like a natural forest with piled-up dead leaves. Afraid that she might be hit by dropping nuts, she always walked beneath her umbrella.
I loved my morning walks and loved kicking the fallen leaves. The sound of nuts popping off the trees reminded me of my childhood days in the countryside. It made my spirit come out of its dark shadow.