Empress Orchid Part 16

Eleven.

I TOLD Emperor Hsien Feng about Snow's disappearance and that I had been unable to solve the mystery. "Get another one" was his response. I revealed the incident to him only after I found myself too anxious to comply with his request that I sing for him.

"It can't be Nuharoo," he said. "She may not be terribly intelligent, but she is not the vicious type."

I agreed with him. More than once Nuharoo had surprised me with her remarks or behavior. After an audience the week before, the Emperor told us that a large portion of the country was in the midst of a serious drought. People in the provinces of Hupeh, Hunan and Anhwei were dying of starvation.

"Four thousand new deaths since winter." His Majesty paced back and forth between the standing basin and the throne. "Four thousand! What else can I do besides order the beheading of the governors? The peasants have begun looting and robbing. Soon it will be a nationwide uprising."

Nuharoo removed her necklace and bracelets and took down her hairpins. "Your Majesty, they are yours from now on. Auction them off so the peasants can eat." She spoke with a n.o.ble glow on her face.

I could tell that Hsien Feng didn't want to hurt her feelings. He asked Nuharoo to take back her belongings. Then he turned to me. "What would you do if you were me?"

I recalled an idea I once heard my father discussing with his friends. "I would raise taxes on the rich landlords, merchants and government officials. I would tell them that this is an emergency and the country needs their support."

Although Emperor Hsien Feng didn't praise my suggestion in front of Nuharoo, he rewarded me later. That night we had a long conversation. He said that he felt blessed by his ancestors to have a concubine who was not only beautiful but intelligent. I was thrilled, although a little shy. I decided that I must work to live up to His Majesty's praise.

That night was the first night I didn't have to perform the fan dance.

We sat in bed and talked. His Majesty spoke about his mother, and I my father. We shed tears together. He asked what I remembered most about my life as a child in the country. I told him about an experience that changed my view of peasants. When I was eleven, I partic.i.p.ated in an event organized by my father, the taotai, taotai, to rescue the crops from locust infestation. to rescue the crops from locust infestation.

"The summer was hot and damp," I recalled. "Green stretched as far as the eye could see. The crops were waist high. The rice, wheat and millet were fattening up day by day. The harvest was fingers away. My father was happy, because he knew if everything went smoothly until the crops were harvested, the peasants living in almost five hundred villages would be able to survive the year."

Then came the sound of swarming locusts. They descended when the crops began to mature. Overnight the entire region was infested. It was as if they had come from the clouds or from deep within the earth. These brown cousins of crickets had two tiny sh.e.l.l-like drums close to their wings. When the wings flapped against the drums, it sounded like fingers tapping on tin. The pests came in dark clouds that blotted out the sun. They swarmed over the crops and chewed up the leaves with teeth like saws. In a few days fields of green disappeared.

My father gathered all of his men to help the villagers fight the locusts. People took off their shoes and beat the locusts with them. My father saw the futility of this and switched tactics.

He declared a state of emergency and told the peasants to dig trenches. He placed people in the path of the locusts as they moved through the crops. When a trench was ready, my father ordered one group of peasants to chase the locusts. "Hold up your clothes and wave," he said. The idea was to push the locusts toward the trench, while another group lined up behind the trench, which was piled high with dry straw.

Thousands of people waved and shouted at the top of their lungs, and I was one of them. We chased the locusts into the trench. Once they were in, my father ordered the straw to be lit. The locusts were roasted. I beat at the locusts as fast as I could to prevent them from flying away. We fought for five days and nights and were able to save half our crops. By the time my father p.r.o.nounced victory, he was covered with locusts and their broken sh.e.l.ls. I even picked locusts out of his pockets.

Emperor Hsien Feng listened to me with fascination. He said that he could imagine my father. He wished that he had known the man.

The next day I was ordered to move in with His Majesty. I would stay with him for the rest of the year. He put me in a compound connected to the audience hall, and he came to me during breaks and between audiences.

I dared not wish for my good fortune to last forever. I tried hard not to expect anything. But deep down I desired to keep what I had sprouted.

When Emperor Hsien Feng left me for work, I missed him immediately. I became easily bored and was impatient for his return. Walking around the garden, I could think of little to do but reflect on what had happened the night before. I fed on the details of our time together.

Each day I checked the calendar to remind myself that I had gained another lucky day. May of 1854 was the best time of my life. Everything was too good to be true for a girl of my background. However, I had never allowed the Emperor's adoration to alter my sense of reality. Whenever I got carried away, I caught myself the moment I saw Nuharoo and the other concubines. I told myself to remember that my luck could end in an instant. I tried to make the best of my time.

When the season turned, His Majesty moved to Yuan Ming Yuan, the Grand Round Garden, and took me with him. It was the loveliest of his many summer palaces. Generations of emperors had come here to nurture solitude. The place was itself a fable. It was located to the northwest of the Forbidden City, eighteen miles from Peking. There were gardens within gardens, lakes, meadows, misty hollows, exquisite paG.o.das, temples and of course palaces. One could wander from sunup to sundown without seeing the same view twice. It took me a while to realize that Yuan Ming Yuan stretched for twenty miles!

The main gardens had been built by Emperor Kang Hsi in 1709. There was a story about how Kang Hsi discovered the site. Out riding one day, he had come across a mysterious ruin. He was enchanted by its wildness and vastness, and certain that it was no common place. And he was right. It was an ancient park that had been buried in sand blown from the Gobi Desert. He found out that it had belonged to a prince of the Ming Dynasty and had been the prince's hunting park.

Thrilled by his discovery, the Emperor decided to build a garden palace on the ruins. Later it became his favorite retreat, and he lived there until his death. Since then his successors had continued to adorn and increase its wonders. More and more pavilions, palaces, temples and gardens had been added in the many years since.

What amazed me was that no single palace resembled another. Yet the whole gave no sense of disharmony. To contrive something so perfect that it looked accidental was the aim of Chinese art and architecture. Yuan Ming Yuan reflected the Taoist love of natural spontaneity and the Confucian belief in man's ability to improve on nature.

The more I learned about the architecture and craftsmanship, the more I was drawn to individual works of art. Soon my sitting room became a gallery. It was crowded with beautiful objects ranging from floor vases to grain carvings-sculptures cut from single grains of rice. Also in my room were long-legged basins set with diamonds. Wall cases became my display windows, which were filled with lucky locks of hair, fancy watches, pencil cases and decorative perfume bottles. An-te-hai framed every piece for the pleasure of my eyes. My favorite of all was a tea table inlaid with pearls the size of marbles.

Emperor Hsien Feng had fallen ill from the strain of rule. After audiences he came to me sad-faced. His mood had swung back to darkness. He hated to rise in the morning, and he wished to avoid the duty of giving audiences. He was especially reluctant when his signature on decrees and edicts was required.

When the peach flowers began to blossom, His Majesty's desire for intimacy began to fade. The peasants had started to rebel openly, he informed me. He was ashamed of his inability to reverse the situation. His worst nightmare had become a reality-the peasants had begun to join the Taiping uprising. Reports of looting and destruction came from every corner. On top of this, and perhaps most troubling of all, the foreign powers continued to demand that he open up more ports to trade. China was behind in its reparation payments for the Opium Wars and was threatened with further invasions.

Soon Emperor Hsien Feng was too depressed even to leave his room. The only time he came to me was to ask me to accompany him to Imperial worship sites. On clear days we took trips to outer Peking. I spent hour after hour inside my palanquin and could eat nothing but a bitter leaf diet-the ceremonies required "an uncontaminated body." When we arrived at the sites, we begged the Imperial ancestors for help. I followed my husband and threw myself on the ground and bowed until my knees were bruised.

His Majesty always felt better on the way back to the palace. He believed that his prayers would be heard and he would soon expect good news. But his ancestors failed to help him-the barbarians' ships were reported to be closing in on the ports of China with weapons capable of wiping out our army in the time it took to eat a meal.

Fearing for Hsien Feng's health, the Grand Empress ordered him to slow down. "Leave your office, my son. The sick roots of your being need to rejuvenate."

"Would you come to bed with me, Orchid?" His Majesty let fall his heavy dragon robe and took me to bed. But he was no longer his past self. His sense of pleasure had left him. I couldn't arouse him.

"There is no more yang yang element left in me." He sighed and pointed to himself. "This is a skin bag. Look how pitifully it extends from my neck." element left in me." He sighed and pointed to himself. "This is a skin bag. Look how pitifully it extends from my neck."

I tried everything. I did the fan dance and turned our bed into an erotic stage. Each night I invented a different G.o.ddess. I stripped and did bedroom acrobatics. The poses were borrowed from an Imperial pillow book An-te-hai had found for me.

Nothing I did had any effect. His Majesty gave up. The look on his face broke my heart. "I am a eunuch." His smiles were worse than his tears.

After he fell asleep, I went to work with the chefs. I wanted His Majesty to have a more healthful, nutritious diet. I insisted on country-style fresh vegetables and meat instead of deep-fried and preserved foods. I convinced His Majesty that the best way to please me was to pick up his chopsticks. But he had no appet.i.te. He complained that everything inside him hurt. The doctors told him, "Your inner fire is burning so badly that you have blisters growing along your swallowing pipe."

His Majesty stayed in bed all day. "I won't last long, Orchid, I am sure," he said with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. "Maybe it is for the best."

I remembered that my father had done the same after he had been removed from his post. I wished that I could tell Emperor Hsien Feng how selfish and unmerciful he was to his people. "Dying is cheap and living is n.o.ble." I groaned like a drunken lady.

Trying to cheer him up, I ordered his favorite operas. Troupes performed in our sitting room. The actors' swords and sticks and imagi-nary horses were inches away from His Majesty's nose. It got his attention. For a few days he was pleasantly distracted. But it didn't last. One day he walked out in the middle of the performance. There would be no more opera.

The Emperor had been living on ginseng soup. He was spiritless and often fell deeply asleep in his chair. He would wake up in the middle of the night and sit alone in the dark. He no longer looked forward to sleep for fear of nightmares. He was afraid of shutting his eyes. When it became unbearable, he would go to the piles of court doc.u.ments, which were brought every evening by his eunuchs. He would work until exhausted. Night after night I heard him weeping in utter despair.

A handsome rooster was brought to his garden to wake him up at dawn. Hsien Feng preferred the singing of a rooster to the chimes of clocks. The rooster had a large red crown, black feathers and emerald green tail feathers. It had the look of a bully, with vicious eyes and a beak like a hook. Its claws were as large as a vulture's. The Imperial rooster woke us with loud cries, often before dawn. The cry reminded me of someone who was cheering: Ooow, oow, oow Ooow, oow, oow ... ... Oh. Ooow, oow, oow. Oh. Ooow, oow, oow. It woke His Majesty, all right, but he didn't have the energy to get up. It woke His Majesty, all right, but he didn't have the energy to get up.

One night Hsien Feng threw a pile of doc.u.ments on the bed and asked me to take a look. He pounded his chest and yelled, "Any tree will bear a rope for me. Why should I hesitate?"

I started to read. My limited schooling didn't allow me to go much deeper than the meanings of primary words. It was not difficult to understand the problems, though. They were all anyone had talked about since I had entered the Forbidden City.

I don't recall exactly when Emperor Hsien Feng began to regularly ask me to read his doc.u.ments. I was so driven by the desire to help that I ignored the rule that a concubine was forbidden to learn the court's business. The Emperor was too tired and sick to care about restrictions.

"I have just ordered the beheading of a dozen eunuchs who have become opium addicts," His Majesty told me one evening.

"What did they do?" I asked.

"They needed money to buy the drug, so they stole from the treasury. I can't believe that this disease has invaded my own backyard. Imagine what it's doing to the nation!"

He pushed himself out of bed and went to his desk. He flipped the pages of a thick doc.u.ment and said, "I am in the middle of reviewing a treaty that the British forced on us, and I am constantly distracted by things that come up unexpectedly."

I gently asked if I could help. He tossed the treaty to me. "You will get sick to death too if you read too much of it."

I went through the doc.u.ment without a break. I had always wondered what gave foreigners the power to coerce China to do what they wanted, like the opening of ports or the selling of opium. Why, I had asked myself, couldn't we flatly say no and chase them away? Now I began to understand. They had no respect for the Emperor of China. It seemed a given to them that Hsien Feng was weak and defenseless. What really didn't make sense to me, however, was the way our court handled the situation. Those who were supposedly the masterminds of the country simply insisted that China's five-thousand-year civilization was a power in itself. They believed that China was inviolable. Over and over I heard them cry in their writings, "China cannot lose because it represents Heaven's morals and principles!"

Yet the truth was so clear even I could see it: China had been repeatedly a.s.saulted and her Emperor shamed. I wanted to yell at them. Had Emperor Hsien Feng's decrees the power to stop the foreign invasion or unite the peasants? Hadn't His Majesty given enough time for the magic plans of his advisors to work?

I looked at my husband day in and day out when he studied the treaties. Each sentence caused him anguish. His facial muscles twitched, as did his fingers, and he pressed his stomach with his hands as if he wished to pull his guts out. He asked me to heat up his tea to the boiling point. He poured the scalding water down his throat.

"You are cooking yourself!" I cried.

"It helps," he said with a tired look in his eyes.

I hid in the chamber-pot room and wept whenever I boiled Hsien Feng's tea. I saw his pain return the moment he went back to work.

"What am I going to do with this mess of mine?" he said every night before bed.

"Tomorrow morning the rooster will sing again and the sunlight will make a difference." I helped him into the sheets.

"I can't bear the rooster's singing anymore," he said. "Actually, I haven't heard it for quite a while. I hear the sound of my body shutting down. I hear my neck squeak when it turns. My toes and fingers feel like wood. The holes in my lungs must be getting bigger. It feels like there are slugs parked there."

Yet we had to carry on the facade of n.o.bility. As long as Emperor Hsien Feng was alive, he had to attend the audiences. I skipped meals and sleep in order to read the doc.u.ments and offer him a summary. I wanted to be his neck, his heart and his lungs. I wanted him to hear the rooster sing again and feel the warmth of the sunlight. When I was with His Majesty and he happened to be well rested, I would ask questions.

I asked about the origin of opium. It seemed to me that the decline of the Ch'ing Dynasty had started with the importation of it. I knew parts of the story well, others not at all.

His Majesty explained that the infestation started during the sixteenth year of the reign of his father, Tao Kuang. "Although my father banned opium, the corrupt ministers and merchants managed to carry on a secret business. By 1840, the situation had become so out of control that half of the court were either addicts themselves or the supporters of a policy that legalized opium. Or both. In a rage my father ordered an end to opium once and for all. He summoned his most trusted minister to take up the matter ..." Pausing, His Majesty looked at me. "Do you know his name?"

"Commissioner Lin?"

His Majesty looked at me with adoration when I told him my favorite part of Lin Tse-shu's story, which was when he arrested hundreds of opium dealers and confiscated more than a hundred thousand pounds of contraband. It was not that His Majesty was ignorant of such details. I simply sensed that it would bring him pleasure to experience the moment again. "In the name of the Emperor, Lin set a deadline and ordered all foreign merchants to turn over their opium." My voice was as clear as a professional storyteller's. "But he was ignored. Refusing to give in, Commissioner Lin collected the opium by force. On April 22, 1840, Lin set fire to twenty thousand cases of opium. He announced that China would stop trading with Great Britain."

Emperor Hsien Feng nodded. "According to my father, the burning pit was as large as a lake. What a hero Lin was!"

Suddenly short of breath, His Majesty hammered on his chest and coughed and fell onto his pillow. His eyes closed. When he opened them again, he asked, "Has something happened to the rooster? Shim told me that yesterday the guards had seen weasels."

I called in An-te-hai and was shocked to learn that the rooster had vanished.

"A weasel got it, my lady. I saw it myself this morning. A fat weasel the size of a baby pig."

I told His Majesty about the rooster, and his expression grew dark. "Heaven's signs are all here. The touch of a finger will put the dynasty out of existence." He bit his lower lip so hard that it began to bleed. There was a hissing sound in his lungs.

"Come, Orchid," he said. "I want to tell you something."

I sat down by him quietly.

"You must remember the things I have told you," he said. "If we should have a son, I expect you to pa.s.s on my words to him."

"Yes, I will." I held His Majesty's feet and kissed them. "If we should have a son."

"Tell him this." He struggled to push the sentences out of his chest. "After Commissioner Lin's action, the barbarians declared war against China. They crossed the oceans with sixteen armed ships along with four thousand soldiers."

I didn't want him to go on, so I told him that I was aware of all this. When he didn't believe me, I decided to prove myself. "The foreign ships entered the mouth of the Pearl River and fired at our guards at Canton," I said, remembering what my father had told me.

His Majesty's eyes stared into s.p.a.ce. His pupils were fixed on the sculpted dragon head that hung from the ceiling. "July twenty-seventh ... was the saddest day in my father's life," he uttered. "It was the day ... when the barbarians destroyed our navy and took Kowloon." The Emperor drew in his shoulders and coughed uncontrollably.

"Please rest, Your Majesty."

"Let me finish, Orchid. Our child must know this ... In the next few months the barbarians took the ports of Amoy, Chou Shan, Ningpo, and Tinghai ... Without stopping ..."

I finished it for him. "Without stopping, the barbarians headed north toward Tientsin and took the city."

Emperor Hsien Feng nodded. "You have managed the facts very well, Orchid, but I want to tell you a bit more about my father. He was in his sixties. He had been in good health, but the bad news destroyed him as no disease ever could. His tears had no chance to dry ... My father didn't close his eyes when he died. I am a son of little piety and I have brought him nothing but more shame ..."

"It is late, Your Majesty." I rose from the bed, trying to get him to stop.

"Orchid, I'm afraid we might not have another chance." He grasped my hands and placed them on his chest. "You must believe me when I tell you that I am halfway in my grave. I see my father more than ever lately. His eyes are red and swollen, as big as peach pits. He comes to remind me of my obligations ... Ever since I was a boy, my father took me with him when he conducted audiences. I remember messengers coming in with their robes wet with sweat. The horses they rode died of exhaustion. So much bad news. I remember the echoing sound the messengers made. They yelled the sentence as if it were the last one of their lives: 'Pao Shan has fallen!' 'Shanghai has fallen!' 'Chiang Nin has fallen!''Hangchow has fallen!'

"As a child, I made up a poem with lines that rhymed with 'fallen.' My father could only smile bitterly. When he couldn't bear it any longer, he would withdraw in the middle of an audience. For days on end he would kneel before the portrait of my grandfather. He gathered us, all his children, wives and concubines, in the Hall of Spiritual Nurturing. He then admitted his shame. That was the moment after he had signed the treaty, which included China's first war reparations to Great Britain. The amount was twenty-one million taels. The British also demanded ownership of Hong Kong for a hundred years. From that time on, foreign merchants came and went at will. My father died on the morning of January 5, 1850. Lady Jin had difficulty closing his eyelids. A monk told me that my father's soul was disturbed, and unless I got even with his enemy, he would never rest in peace."

Half asleep, my husband continued his sad story. He talked about the Taiping uprising, which started a month after he was crowned. He described it as a wildfire that jumped from province to province, crossing the country and reaching as far as Chihli. "A nasty wound that wouldn't heal. This is what I inherited from my father. A nasty wound. I can't remember how many battles I ordered and how many generals I beheaded for their inability to bring me victory."

All night long my husband tossed and shouted, "Help me, Heaven!"

I had little sleep and was afraid of being sent away. I had been living with His Majesty for months and had been his only company. He made our bedroom his office and drafted letters and edicts at all hours. I ground the ink for him and made sure his tea was hot. He was so weak that he would doze off in the middle of writing. When I saw his chin drop, I removed the brush from his hand so that he wouldn't ruin the doc.u.ment. Sometimes I came to the rescue too late, and there would be a spreading ink blot on the rice paper. To save the lost work, I would fetch a clean sheet and recopy his words. I imitated his style of calligraphy and eventually became very good. When he woke, he wouldn't notice that the page on his desk was not the original. He wouldn't believe me until I showed him the writing that he had ruined.

We succeeded in sharing intimacy, and he was attentive and engaged. But once our lovemaking was over he would become frustrated again. He said not one bit of good news had come to his court for an entire year. He grew bitter. No matter how hard he would work, he be-lieved China was beyond saving. "Doomed by fate," he said. He began to cancel audiences. Retreating into himself, he spent more and more time imagining himself as an emperor of a different time. A wistful, dreamy look clouded his eyes when he described his reveries.

I became nervous when I saw urgent doc.u.ments piling up. I couldn't enjoy his attention when I knew that ministers and generals were waiting for his instructions. I feared that I would be held responsible-a concubine who had seduced the Emperor. I begged Hsien Feng to resume his duties.

When my efforts failed, I picked up the doc.u.ments and started to read to him. I read the questions from the letters aloud. Hsien Feng had to think of a reply. When he did, I wrote the answers down on the decree in his style, using a red brush. Lan Lan in the third tone meant "I have reviewed." in the third tone meant "I have reviewed." Chi-tao-le Chi-tao-le meant "It's clear to me." meant "It's clear to me." Kai-pu-chih-tao Kai-pu-chih-tao meant "I am clear about this part." And meant "I am clear about this part." And Yi-yi Yi-yi meant "You have my permission to go ahead." He would review what I wrote and put his signature on top of it. meant "You have my permission to go ahead." He would review what I wrote and put his signature on top of it.

He came to enjoy this. He praised my ability and quick wit. In a few weeks I became Emperor Hsien Feng's unofficial secretary. I reviewed everything that pa.s.sed across his desk. I became familiar with his way of thinking and his style of debating. Eventually I managed to draft letters sounding so much like him that even he couldn't tell the difference.

During summer days it was difficult for me to avoid the "walk-in" ministers, since we left the door open to let in cool air. To avoid suspicion, Hsien Feng told me to disguise myself as an ink boy.

I hid my long hair under a hat and dressed in a plain robe, pretending to be the eunuch who ground the ink. No one paid attention to me; indeed, the ministers' minds were preoccupied, so they easily ignored me.

Before the summer ended, we left Yuan Ming Yuan and moved back to the Forbidden City. With my persistence, Emperor Hsien Feng was able to rise before dawn again. After washing and dressing, we would have a cup of tea and a bowl of porridge made of red beans, sesame and lotus seeds. We then rode in separate palanquins to the Hall of Spiritual Nurturing. The court had realized the seriousness of Hsien Feng's illness-they knew his heart and lungs were weak, and that his black moods drained his strength-and accepted his proposal that I accompany him to work.

It was only a half-minute walk from our bedroom to the office, but etiquette must be followed-an Emperor didn't walk on his own legs. To me it was a waste of time, but I soon understood how important ritual was in the minds of our ministers and countrymen. Based on the idea that distance creates myth, and myth evokes power, the effect was to separate the n.o.bles from the ma.s.ses.

Like his father, Hsien Feng was strict about his ministers' punctuality, but not about his own. The notion that everyone in the Forbidden City lived to attend his needs had been continually reinforced since he was a child. He expected devotion and had little sensitivity to the needs of others. He would schedule his appearances at dawn, forgetting or not caring that the summoned would have to travel through the night. Never was a promise given concerning the exact time of the meetings. The fact was that not every appointment was kept. When matters got complicated and the original schedules were pushed back or canceled, officials were left in the dark and had to wait endlessly. Some waited for weeks, only to be told to return home.

When His Majesty realized that he was canceling too many appointments, he rewarded the disappointed with gifts and autographs. Once, when rain poured and those summoned got soaking wet after nights of traveling and their appointments were canceled, Hsien Feng rewarded each with a bolt of silk and satin to make new clothes.

I sat next to His Majesty as he worked. The room was a resting area to the rear of the throne room. It was now called the library because of its wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Above my head was a black tablet engraved with the large Chinese characters upright upright and and above-board. above-board. From the outside, it was difficult to gauge the real size of the building. It was much larger than I had imagined. Built in the fifteenth century, it was near the Palace of Benevolent Tranquility but still within the Gate of Imperial Justice, the Gate of Glorious Virtue and the Gate of Preserved Fortune. This last led to a group of large compounds and side buildings that housed the Imperial offices. From the outside, it was difficult to gauge the real size of the building. It was much larger than I had imagined. Built in the fifteenth century, it was near the Palace of Benevolent Tranquility but still within the Gate of Imperial Justice, the Gate of Glorious Virtue and the Gate of Preserved Fortune. This last led to a group of large compounds and side buildings that housed the Imperial offices.

The place was also near the office of the Grand Council, which had grown in importance in recent years. From here the Emperor could summon his councilors to discuss matters at any time. His Majesty usually preferred to receive his ministers in the central room of the Hall of Spiritual Nurturing. For reading, writing or receiving senior officials or trusted friends, he would go to the western wing. The eastern wing had been rearranged during the summer and had become our new bedchamber.