The Red Chamber (13 page)

“Run, Pan! Run!” she hears herself scream.

As the Embroidered Jackets surround him, he begins to fight with a ferocity that terrifies her. He punches one, kicks another in the stomach. Baochai catches a glimpse of his face. His lips are curled back into a fierce and desperate expression that makes him look like a stranger.

“Baochai! Baochai!” She hears someone calling her name.

She turns to see who it is and finds herself staring into darkness. Her heart pounds, and her body is soaked with sweat.

“Baochai!” Someone is gently shaking her shoulder.

She realizes that she has been dreaming, and that she is lying in bed in her own room.

“Baochai, are you all right?”

She sees a glimpse of a pale face through the darkness, and realizes it is Daiyu. She struggles to raise herself to her elbow. “Yes, I’m all right,” she gasps. “I was having the most terrible dream.” Even now the images of the yellow-coated police, and of Pan’s savage expression, are vivid before her.

“I heard you crying out in your sleep.” Daiyu is kneeling on the
kang
beside her. She reaches for Baochai’s hands. “You’re shaking. Your hands are freezing. Do you want me to get you some water?”

“No, no,” Baochai says, instinctively gripping Daiyu’s hand, as Daiyu pulls away to fetch the water. “Stay here with me.”

“Of course. What were you dreaming about? You seemed so frightened.”

“I—I—It was about my brother, Pan.”

Daiyu sneezes. Baochai realizes she is dressed in only a sleeveless tunic and undertrousers. “You’d better come under the covers, too, or else you’ll catch cold.”

Daiyu slips under the quilt beside Baochai, and snuggles against her. Daiyu’s skin is warm, and her hair, falling against Baochai’s cheek, is soft and smells faintly of sweat mingled with sandalwood soap. “What were you dreaming about Pan?”

Baochai lies there silently.

“Are you worried that he’ll get sick or hurt on his trip?” Daiyu prompts.

“No, it’s not that at all. It’s not what you, and everyone else, thinks.”

“Then what is it?”

Shaken out of her usual reserve, she blurts out the truth about Pan: his drinking and gambling and wildness. As she speaks, she is conscious of a queer relief in at last sharing what she and her mother have so long kept hidden. In the darkness, when she cannot see anything of Daiyu’s expression, just the pale shadow of her face, it is easier to speak; yet she is also aware that it is something about Daiyu that elicits this openness. She is someone who has grown up outside the complicated web of extended family that hampers Baochai’s movements. She is as curious and observant as a sparrow—and yet her responses are not uncritical, undercut by a certain sly wit.

Baochai finds herself even telling about Zhang Hua’s murder. As she reaches the end of her recital her momentary relief shades into the familiar sense of dread. She falls silent, half bracing herself for Daiyu’s recoil of shock and horror, perhaps for herself as well as for Pan.

For a moment Daiyu says nothing. Her hand gropes for Baochai’s under the covers, her fingers warm and sweaty. “No wonder you and your mother always seem so anxious,” Daiyu says, as if finally receiving the answer to a question she has long pondered.

At the unexpectedness of Daiyu’s reaction, Baochai gives a little laugh despite herself.

“I never suspected. He seemed perfectly pleasant the few times I saw him.”

“That’s the hard part. In many ways, he is a kind person. Only he seems to have no control over himself when he loses his temper …”

“It’s frightening to think that he beat someone up so badly, even if he didn’t mean to kill him.”

“But he was horrified by what he’d done.” Baochai is surprised by her instinct to defend him.

“If he was horrified by it, then perhaps he will change.”

Baochai sighs, shaking her head. “We have pleaded with and scolded him for years.”

“But other people telling you is different from feeling something yourself. My mother …” Daiyu pauses, as Baochai has observed that she always does before speaking of her mother, as if she must gather her composure to mention the topic. “Before my mother was sick, she used to have the neighbors’ children over to teach them a few characters, and I would help her. Sometimes I’d get frustrated that they learned slowly, or forgot what we taught them the day before. My mother always said that people learn at different rates, but that everyone learns in the end. She said that someone who can learn nothing is just as rare as someone who can learn everything. So perhaps Pan has just been slow to learn …”

Feeling herself relaxing against the warmth of Daiyu’s body and under the gentle murmur of her voice, Baochai yawns.

“Do you think you can fall asleep again? I’m afraid you’ll be tired tomorrow. But if you want to stay up, I’ll light the lamp and stay up with you.”

“No, we’d better go to sleep.” Baochai turns onto her side away from Daiyu. With a little sigh, Daiyu curls her body against Baochai’s so that her torso follows the curve of Baochai’s back.

“Are you warm enough?” Baochai asks.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

For a long time they lie silent. It has been several years since Baochai has slept with anyone. She used to sleep with her mother, but then
when she moved into the Garden she became accustomed to sleeping by herself. She notices that Daiyu’s breathing has slowed and deepened. She turns her head to look at her cousin. The faintest gray light is coming through the window; it must be getting close to sunrise. She sees Daiyu’s parted pink lips, the purplish smudges under her eyes beneath her straight lashes. The little pucker between her brows has relaxed into smoothness. Baochai smiles as she hears the gurgle of a snore in Daiyu’s nose. Then she lets herself slip into sleep.

14

Xifeng wakes in the chilly autumn dawn and shuffles out from her bedroom to the front room. The room is cold and dark, the blinds still down. The fire in the
kang
has all but gone out. This is the fourth time in six weeks that Autumn has failed to arrive on time. As she stoops down to poke at the dying embers, she thinks about how she will have the maid beaten, and deduct a month’s salary as well. Despite all her threats and scoldings, Autumn has not become more dependable. In her heart, she admits to herself that she had promoted Autumn to senior maid simply because Ping’er disliked her.

Xifeng pours water into a kettle, letting the metal bang against the stove. She goes to the wardrobe and begins to dress. She glances at the clock on the wall, knowing she should hurry to get to Lady Jia’s on time. Still, she feels a heavy sluggishness weighing on her limbs, as if she has not slept enough. She puts on a fur-lined vest over her robe, then goes to her dressing table and sits before the mirror.

Since Lian started neglecting her for Ping’er, she has felt old; but after all, she is only nine months older than Ping’er, and even the most unforgiving scrutiny does not reveal any wrinkles or lack of freshness in her complexion. She only looks tired and spiritless, with tiny creases in her forehead and at the corners of her mouth. She dislikes doing her own hair, since Ping’er always did it for her, and starts instead on her makeup. She forces herself to smile and open her eyes wide as she applies the powder and rouge and kohl, taking a little heart from the lively, pretty countenance that appears in her mirror.

She has just finished combing her hair when she hears a sound in the hallway from the room where Lian sleeps with Ping’er every night. Ping’er comes in, yawning and buttoning up her tunic, which is the only thing she wears besides a pair of loose undertrousers. Xifeng tries to keep her eyes fixed on her reflection in the mirror. All the same, through the corner of her eye, she cannot help noticing how flushed and rosy Ping’er is, suffused, she thinks sourly, with a glow of contentment and sexual satisfaction.

Without even saying good morning, Ping’er goes to the cupboard by the stove and starts to rummage inside it. “Have you seen the Pu’er?”

Pu’er is Lian’s favorite kind of tea.

“I think we’re out.” Xifeng does not take her eyes off her reflection. It is Ping’er’s responsibility to keep the cupboard stocked.

“Oh, well, I’ll make another kind. What’s this?” She emerges from the cupboard holding the metal canister of herbs that Dr. Wang had prescribed to help Xifeng conceive.

Xifeng does not answer.

Ping’er realizes what it is. She shuts her mouth and stands there looking a little foolish. She shakes the canister, feeling how full it is. There is a silence. Then she says, “Why haven’t you been taking your medicine?”

Xifeng takes her eyes off her reflection to look at Ping’er, as she begins to pin her hair into a knot. “I don’t have time to make it for myself in the mornings. I barely have enough time to wash and dress as it is, before I have to go to Lady Jia’s.”

“Why don’t you have one of the other maids, like Autumn, make it for you?”

Xifeng is silent for a moment before replying. “What is the point?” She looks back at her reflection. Lian has not spent a single night with her since he took Ping’er as a concubine.

Ping’er does not speak. Without bothering to pin her ornaments in her hair, Xifeng rises to go to Granny’s.

“Wait a moment,” Ping’er says.

Xifeng continues towards the door.

“What is the date?” Ping’er asks, just as Xifeng puts out her hand to swing it open.

Xifeng pauses, faintly surprised at the irrelevance of the question. “It is the thirteenth of the Tenth Month.”

Ping’er rushes over to Xifeng. She grabs her arm and whispers in her ear. “That means you are fertile now. Doesn’t your period always come around the first of the month?”

Xifeng tries to draw her arm away, sickened by this attempt to act as if they are still intimate. Ping’er holds on, looking at the calendar on the wall. “It was the first of the month, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but what of it?”

Ping’er glances down the hallway. “Find some excuse to send me away tonight,” she whispers. “And get him to sleep with you.”

“He’s not interested in me.”

“You know what he is like.” Ping’er nudges Xifeng confidentially. “All you have to do is order some wine and wear a low-cut gown.”

Xifeng does not move, mortified that the intimate knowledge of Lian’s sexual proclivities is now something she shares with Ping’er.

“Come on. Why not?” Ping’er urges. “Otherwise you’ll have to wait another whole month for a chance.” Now she is at the stove shaking the medicine into a cup, pouring the water from the kettle. “Come on,” she repeats. “You can’t afford to give up.”

She brings the steaming cup to Xifeng.

Xifeng does not take it for a moment, filled with distrust, as if the cup holds something poisonous. Why is Ping’er being nice to her all of a sudden after ignoring her for weeks? Regardless of Ping’er’s motives, Xifeng cannot afford to let the opportunity slip. She takes the cup.

“Why don’t you let me fix your hair while you drink it? The back is uneven.” Ping’er shepherds Xifeng back to the dressing table and starts to pluck out the pins.

“Ouch, you’re hurting me,” Xifeng complains, when a pin snags in her hair. Inside, she feels abjectly grateful for Ping’er’s help.

Baoyu walks quickly through the Inner Gate, rejoicing that in honor of the Spirit Festival the day after tomorrow, the schoolmaster has let the class out early. He will tell Granny that he is home, then he will go to Baochai’s, in the hope of spending his afternoon with Daiyu. When he enters Granny’s apartment, he is surprised to find the front room empty, although it is nearly four o’clock. He goes down the corridor to her bedroom. Even before he pushes through the door curtain, his nostrils are assailed by the strong medicinal smell of the
baiyao
liniment that Granny has Snowgoose rub on her legs. When he slips into the room, the blinds are still down, the wardrobes and chests that line the walls shadowy hulks. He advances towards the
kang
, his eyes adjusting to the dimness, and sees that Lady Jia is still sleeping on the
kang
while a maid massages her legs. As he creeps nearer, he sees that instead of Snowgoose, it is the pretty, flirtatious Silver, one of Granny’s senior maids. She seems half asleep herself, her eyelids half shut and her head nodding, as her hands mechanically knead Lady Jia’s legs. He knows that he should leave again, but something about her unconsciousness, her fluttering eyelids and red lips falling apart to reveal small white teeth, makes him want to linger.
She does not seem to notice as he climbs onto the
kang
. He leans over and tweaks her earring. Her eyelids fly open in surprise, but her lips curve into a smile when she sees who it is.

He leans close to her and whispers in her ear, “Isn’t Granny feeling well?”

She turns her head so that her lips brush his hair, and whispers back, “No, she has a headache.”

“Where’s Snowgoose?”

“Lady Jia sent her to the doctor to get some medicine.”

Baoyu is glad that Snowgoose is not there. It always seems strange to him that so pretty a girl should have so forbidding a personality. She keeps him at a distance, and he has the vague feeling that she disapproves of him. It is different with Silver and the other maids. He has known them for years, watching them transform from gangly, giggling girls to lovely young women. He remembers when Granny bought Silver, a skinny monkey of a girl with some of her teeth still missing. His mother was still alive then, so she must be seventeen or eighteen by now. He wonders what will become of her. Usually the Jias marry the maids off, to stewards or grooms, when they reach their early twenties and are too old to be maids. Sometimes they are freed and allowed to return to their families, if they have any. For some reason, the thought of Silver getting married and leaving the mansion makes him feel like crying.