The Red Chamber (36 page)

Still kissing her, he feels the smoothness of her belly, the delicate tracery of her ribs and backbone. She reaches up and begins to tug at his gown. He shrugs it off so that he too is only in tunic and undertrousers. He presses his body against hers, and touches her small pointed breasts with his hands. She moans and her whole body stiffens and jerks against his. He loosens the waistband of her pants and lets his fingers travel down her slim hips. His hand moves slowly towards the damp, slick place between her legs. She wraps her legs around him and buries her face in his throat. He strokes her gently and she whimpers against him. Loosening the drawstring of his pants, her fingers close around his penis. At the feeling of her warm hand gripping him, he gasps and almost doubles over. She tugs on him gently, looking at his face. In the darkness, he can see the gleam of her eyes, although he cannot see her expression. He is amazed at her unself-consciousness. He feels like crying. He has never felt so close to another person in his whole life.

He feels an irresistible urge to make love to her. He has made love to a woman only once before. On his sixteenth birthday Lian had taken him to a
qinglou
and arranged for him to sleep with one of the singing girls. The girl had been pretty enough, and had known how to make Baoyu comfortable, but somehow the act, though pleasurable in itself, had felt
empty and sordid. Now he wants to become one with Daiyu, to erase any sliver of separation between them. He pulls his pants down all the way, and then tugs at hers. She lets him draw them down. He guides his penis so that its tip touches the wet spot between her legs. Both of them gasp and leap apart at the intensity of the sensation.

“Daiyu.”

“Yes?” she breathes.

“Is it all right if I—if we …” He trails off in embarrassment, not knowing what words to use.

“I don’t know.” Her voice is barely audible.

“Do you—do you know what I mean?”

“Yes.” As if embarrassed, she buries her face in his chest. The movement brings his penis in contact with her again. This time they do not jerk apart. Between his own gasps, he hears her quick, shallow breaths. “Do you want to?” she says.

“Yes. Do you?”

She is silent for a moment. “Yes.”

He puts up his hand and strokes her hair. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” and as if to affirm her statement, she moves against him so that the length of his penis slides between her legs.

With a groan he rolls her onto her back so that he is on top of her. For a few minutes, he rubs against her and the sensation is both exquisite and excruciating. Then he uses his hand to guide himself. His tip slides in and meets resistance. As gently as he can, he pushes past it. He hears her give a tiny whimper.

“Did I hurt you?” he says, drawing back.

“Just for a moment.” She pulls him back towards her, and he is deep inside her. She seems beside herself, shuddering almost as if in pain. He feels so overwhelmed by sensation that he is afraid he will not be able to control himself if he moves a single muscle. Slowly, their breathing calms, they look at each other, and he begins to move deliberately and rhythmically inside her. She puts her arms around his neck and starts to rock her hips, awkwardly at first, and then more smoothly, to match his movements. As he thrusts, smelling the sweat on her body, hearing her gasps, he feels as if a giant bubble of something, joy perhaps, is swelling up inside his chest so that he can hardly breathe. The room and everything else around them recedes until he feels like the two of them are the only two people in the universe. She clings to him, pressing his face to her breasts.

Later, he looks down at her lying against his arm, and sees that she is falling asleep.

“You can’t stay,” she murmurs.

“No, I know. I’ll go back to my apartment after you fall asleep.”

A few minutes later she is snoring gently. He strokes her face, touched by a sense of wonder and joy, before slipping away.

10

Daiyu wakes to bright sunshine. Instinctively she looks around for Baoyu, then remembers that he promised to go back to his own rooms. Slightly disappointed, she shuts her eyes again, imagining him touching her. She is startled by the sound of voices from the front of the apartments. Realizing that her trousers are not on, she jumps out of bed and pulls them on. She has just slipped back under the covers when Granny Jia, leaning on Xifeng’s arm, enters the room.

“What is it?” she says, sitting up, surprised to see Granny, who rarely leaves her own apartments.

Granny approaches the bed. “Give me the jade.”

Her first instinct is to deny that she has it. Then she shakes her head. “No.”

“Do you have the jade or not?”

“I have it, but I won’t give it to you. Baoyu wants me to have it.”

Daiyu expects Lady Jia to be angry, but her impassive expression does not change. She looks over her shoulder towards Xifeng. “So Baochai was right. Take it from her.”

With a flash of anger, she realizes that Baochai must have seen the jade while washing her hair—had perhaps even manufactured the pretext as a means of discovering whether Daiyu had the jade. She puts her hands protectively over the stone as Xifeng advances towards her.

Xifeng smiles a trifle apologetically. “Why don’t you just give it to me, Cousin Lin?”

“No.” She grips the jade tightly.

Xifeng tries to pull the cord over Daiyu’s head. It catches in Daiyu’s hair, and Xifeng’s tugs bring tears to her eyes. Xifeng’s roughness makes her afraid, but still she will not loosen her grip. “Baoyu gave it to me. You have no right to take it away.”

Xifeng lets go, and looks questioningly at Lady Jia.

“What are you waiting for?” Lady Jia snaps.

This time, when Daiyu resists her, Xifeng uses both her hands to force Daiyu’s left wrist back. Daiyu cries out in pain, and lets go.

“Give it to me,” Lady Jia says.

Xifeng hands Lady Jia the jade.

“Now pack up your things,” Lady Jia says.

“Why? What are you going to do with me?” Daiyu jumps out of bed, her fear sharpening.

Lady Jia looks at her coldly, and then turns back to Xifeng. “Have her things moved to that storeroom in the back of my apartments.”

“You can’t lock me up,” Daiyu cries, but Lady Jia ignores her.

Xifeng raises her brows. “A storeroom? Surely you can’t be considering putting her in a storeroom! If you don’t want Baoyu sneaking in to see her, why not have a maid guard her, or send her to Cousin Rong’s?”

“You think a maid can stop him? And they don’t have room at Cousin Rong’s.”

Xifeng sighs, avoiding Daiyu’s eyes. “If you insist on locking her up, there’s a storeroom in the back of my apartments with a high window she can’t possibly climb out of. If you don’t want Baoyu talking to her, you can post two maids to watch her.”

Granny Jia nods. “I suppose that will do.” She turns towards Daiyu. “Now pack your things.”

They speak of her as if she isn’t there. Struggling against a feeling of helplessness, she cries, “You can’t do this! Baoyu won’t let you.”

Lady Jia does not deign to respond.

“He wants to marry me.”

Instead of being angry or surprised as Daiyu expects, Lady Jia gives a little laugh. “No doubt that’s what he told you. What else would he have said if he wanted to sleep with you?” She turns to Xifeng. “I suppose the best way to avert a scandal is to arrange a match for her at once.”

Xifeng frowns. “What sort of match did you have in mind? You’ll have to provide a dowry and—”

Daiyu breaks in. “Baoyu won’t let you. He’s not afraid of you—”

A deep bonging echoes through the Garden, drowning out her words.

“What’s that infernal noise?” Lady Jia says.

Xifeng holds up one finger for silence, an arrested look on her face. “It is the big iron chime bar by the Inner Gate. One. Two. Three. Four.” She counts the ominous strokes. “Four strokes for death,” she says, her face suddenly scared.

The street to the Imperial Palace is clogged with vehicles. Jia Zheng, sweating in his mourning robes in the summer heat, fidgets at the slow progress of the carriage through the crowds. Wiping his eyes, he looks around at his weeping family. Across from him, Mrs. Xue and Xifeng are trying to comfort Granny Jia. Jia Lian looks stunned and a little scared, while Baoyu, his eyes bloodshot and his face pale, is looking out the window. Pushing aside the blind, Jia Zheng looks out to see a river of white mourning snaking up the street towards the Palace. White banners flutter sluggishly in the faint wind. Every vehicle, every person, every horse, has been swathed in the color of death. The tears prickle in his eyes, and he pictures His Highness’s face, with its fine wrinkles and expression of benevolence. He cannot stand to sit any longer in the carriage inching at a snail’s pace.

“I’m getting out and walking,” he says.

“Oh, Zheng, are you sure?” his mother quavers. He had not realized how shaken she would be by His Highness’s death. “The crowds out there are terrible.”

“That’s all right. I’ll probably get there faster than you. I’ll meet you by the front entrance. Baoyu, Lian, you take care of Granny.”

In a moment, he is out in the blazing sun. There is little pedestrian traffic, and he walks briskly, quickly losing sight of his own carriage in the crush of other vehicles. He notices that all the stores are closed, their doors shut and awnings down. Other than those hurrying to the Palace to mourn, there is no one on the streets. It is eerily silent.

Within a few hundred yards of the Palace, the pedestrians grow denser. When he approaches the enormous flight of stairs up to the throne room, he is caught in the crowd of mourners disembarking from their carriages. He tries to find a spot to wait for his mother and the others, but is driven towards the stairway by the press of people. He is forced through the entranceway, and then up the stairs. On the fourth or fifth step, he turns and sees Jia Yucun a few steps back. It is too solemn an occasion to call out, so he raises his eyebrows and nods his head, trying to get Yucun’s attention. It seems impossible that Yucun does not see him—he is looking right in Jia Zheng’s direction—but Yucun turns away without acknowledging the greeting.

He catches sight of numerous other colleagues and acquaintances on either side of him, escorting the female members of their families, wives or elderly mothers, some of whom have not appeared in public for years. He notices that same eerie silence. It strikes him that few people are
actually crying, but instead wear tense, watchful expressions. What do they fear? Near the top of the stairs, he sees the Prime Minister, Nian Gengyao, looking haggard with grief.

With a surge like the breaking of a wave, Jia Zheng is thrust through the great doors into the throne room. Raising his eyes over the heads in front of him, he sees the massive black coffin on a dais flanked by rows of kneeling monks. Half blinded by tears, his eyes go automatically to the throne to the right of the coffin where he has so often seen the Emperor. To his amazement, it is not empty. Prince Yongzheng is in his father’s place. He stares at the ugly, clever face blazing with triumph, at the golden robes embroidered with dragons that only the Emperor himself can wear. He had thought his grief was so great that it left no room for any other emotion, but he was wrong, for now his heart pounds with fear.

11

By the fourth day of mourning, Baoyu is exhausted. He has spent the last three days, from daylight until ten o’clock, at the Palace kneeling and kowtowing amid the crowds of mourners. The first night back from the Palace, he had gone straight to Daiyu’s rooms in his mourning robes. Discovering them empty, and all her possessions gone, he rushed to Tanchun’s room in a panic. The gates of Tanchun’s apartment were locked, and he had had to sneak back to her bedroom window to wake her. All she could tell him was that Lady Jia was angry at Daiyu and had moved her into a storeroom in Xifeng’s apartments. He had rushed to Xifeng’s apartments, leaving Tanchun in midsentence. To his relief, the gates of Xifeng’s apartments were still open—he could see lit lanterns in Xifeng’s rooms, and could hear Qiaojie crying. When he got to the storeroom, he found two maids standing watch outside. He begged and pleaded with them to let him speak to Daiyu, even offering them bribes, but they refused, saying that Baoyu was expressly forbidden to see her. At a loss, he had gone back to his own apartments to lie down, and then returned two hours later. This time, Xifeng’s front gates were locked. He climbed into the compound by scaling a crab apple tree outside the wall. There were two different maids standing guard, and they had been so scared by his sudden appearance in the middle of the night that they threatened to start screaming if he did not go away.

Now, after the third night of failing to see Daiyu, he puts on his mourning robes and walks straight to Lady Jia’s. In the front room he finds Xifeng helping Granny dress. His father, already in mourning clothes, slumps in a chair. He looks terrible, his face a ghastly yellow, and Baoyu wonders whether he, too, has passed a sleepless night. He feels guilty for bringing up something to worry and upset his father even more, but forces himself to begin. “I need to speak to you.”