Empress Orchid Part 27

For the rest of my life, my mind would return to this scene of magnificence suddenly transformed into crumbling piles of masonry. Miles and miles of flames swallowing six thousand dwellings-the palace of my body and soul, along with treasures and works of art collected by generations of emperors.

Hsien Feng had to live with this shame, which eventually ate him up. In my old age, whenever I tired of working or thought of quitting, I would go and visit the ruins of Yuan Ming Yuan. The moment I stepped among the broken stones, I could hear the barbarians cheering. The image would choke me as if the smoke still hung in the air.

A bra.s.sy sun peered down upon the moving festival. We continued our long journey to Jehol. I was bitter and sad when I thought about my husband's "hunting" excuse. In marvelous clothing the ministers and princes were borne in richly decorated palanquins on the shoulders of toiling bearers while guards patrolled on Mongolian ponies.

The chanting of the chair bearers had been replaced by a deep and tortured silence. I no longer heard the slap and slither of sandaled feet over the loose stones. Instead I saw the pain from blisters etched into the lines of grimy sweat-washed faces. Even though we had entered the wild country, everyone remained concerned about the barbarians' possible pursuit. The procession grew longer each day. It was like a gaudily colored snake winding its way along a narrow road.

At night, tents were pitched and bonfires lit. The people slept like an army of the dead. Emperor Hsien Feng spent most of his time in si-lence. Occasionally when his fever rose, he would speak beyond the ordinary.

"Who can guarantee that all the seeds of nature will be pure and healthy and that their blooms will create a picture of harmony in the garden?" he asked.

Unable to answer, I stared back at him.

"I am talking about bad seeds," His Majesty continued. "Seeds that have been secretly soaked in poison. They lay sleeping in fertile soil until the spring rain wakes them. They grow to enormous size at an amazing speed, covering the ground and taking water and sun from others. I can see their fat flowers. Their branches expand like bullies spreading poison. Don't let Tung Chih out of your sight, Orchid."

I held Tung Chih while we slept. In my dreams I heard horses champing at the bit. Fear woke me like a strange attack. Sweat would gather and soak my shirt. My scalp was constantly wet. My senses became heightened to certain things, like Tung Chih's breath and the noises around the tent, and deadened to others, like hunger. Though we stayed in separate tents, Emperor Hsien Feng would appear in front of me like a ghost in the middle of the night. He stood there in dry-eyed misery. I wondered if I was also losing my mind.

It was close to evening and we decided to break for a meal. That afternoon His Majesty had experienced a terrifying coughing fit. Blood drooled from the corners of his mouth. The doctor said that it was bad for him to ride in the palanquin. But we had no choice. Eventually we stopped in order to still his cough.

At dawn I looked out from the tent. We were close to Jehol, and the landscape was of extraordinary beauty. The ground was covered with clover and wildflowers, and the gentle hills were thick with brush. The autumn heat was tolerable compared to Peking. The fragrance of mountain dandelions was sweet. After the morning meal we were on the road again. We pa.s.sed through fields where the gra.s.s was waist-high.

Whenever Tung Chih was with me I tried to be strong and cheerful. But it wasn't easy. When the old palaces of Jehol appeared on the horizon, we all rolled out of the palanquins and got down on our knees. We thanked Heaven we had made it to this place of temporary refuge. The moment Tung Chih was lifted from the chair he took off after wild rabbits and squirrels, which skittered away from him.

We hurried to reach the great gates. It was like entering a dream-land, a scene from a faded painting. Hsien Feng's grandfather Chien Lung had built Jehol in the eighteenth century. Today the palace stood like an aged beauty whose makeup was smeared. I had heard so much about this place that the view was already familiar to me. Jehol was more of a work of nature than the Forbidden City. Over the years the trees and bushes had grown into each other. Ivy had spread from wall to wall and up the sky-high trees, where it dangled in luxuriant vines. The furniture in the palaces was made of hardwood, exquisitely carved pieces inlaid with jade and stones. The dragons on the ceiling panels were of pure gold, the walls resplendent in shimmering silk.

I adored the wildness. I wouldn't have minded living in Jehol. I thought it would be a good place to raise Tung Chih. He could learn the Bannermen's trade. He could learn to hunt. I wanted so much for him to grow up on horseback as his ancestors did. I wished I didn't have to remind myself that we were in exile.

Jehol was a great silent place. The bleached light of the sun reflected softly from its tiled roofs. The courtyards were paved with cobblestones. Doors were flanked by thick walls. Since Chien Lung's death half a century before, most of the palaces had stood vacant and they smelled of mold. Battered by decades of wind and rain, the exteriors seemed to fade into the landscape. The original color had been sand yellow; now it was brown and green. Inside, mildew covered the ceilings and darkened the corners of the s.p.a.cious rooms.

The royal families swept into Jehol and the place came to life. The slumbering halls, courtyards and buildings were wakened to the echo of human voices and footfalls. Doors were pushed open to the sound of sc.r.a.ping wood and metal. Rusty window locks broke off when we attempted to open them. The eunuchs did their best to remove the must and grime of years.

I was given an apartment next to Nuharoo's on one side of the main palace. The Emperor occupied the largest bedroom, of course, right in the middle. His office, which was called the Hall of Literary Zest, was next to the apartments of Su Shun and the other grand councilors on the other side of the palace. Nuharoo watched over Tung Chih while I attended Hsien Feng. Our schedules and responsibilities now ran according to the needs of the father and the son.

Since His Majesty had stopped giving audiences, he was no longer presented doc.u.ments to review or sign. The court's business continued to be managed solely by Su Shun. Brewing herbs for Hsien Feng had become my job. The bitter smell was so strong that he complained. I had to tell the servants to take the pots to the kitchen, which was at the far end of the palace. I worked with the herbalist and Doctor Sun Paotien to make sure that the medicine was properly prepared. It wasn't easy. One of the prescriptions required that the soup be mixed with fresh deer blood, which spoiled quickly. The kitchen staff had to slaughter a deer every two days, immediately prepare the medicine, then hope that His Majesty wouldn't throw up right after we poured it down his throat.

In late October the maple trees looked like they were set to burning by the sun. One morning when Nuharoo and I took Tung Chih for a walk we discovered that a nearby spring was surprisingly warm. A eunuch who had guarded the palaces all his life said that there were several hot springs in the area. It was how Jehol got its name: je-hol, je-hol, hot river. hot river.

"The spring gets hotter when it snows," the eunuch said. "You can feel the water with your hand." Tung Chih was curious and insisted on bathing in the spring. Nuharoo was about to give in, but I opposed the idea. Tung Chih didn't know how to swim and had just recovered from a cold. Resenting my discipline, he turned to Nuharoo, pouting. My son knew that Nuharoo outranked me and that I was not allowed to disobey her. It had become a pattern with Nuharoo, my son and me. It was irritating and left me feeling defenseless. The kitchen became my place of escape.

Hsien Feng's health seemed to have stabilized a little. As soon as he was able to sit up, Prince Kung sent him drafts of the treaties. I was summoned to help.

"Your brother expects you to honor the terms," I said, summarizing Prince Kung's letter to His Majesty. "He says that these are the final doc.u.ments. Peace and order will be restored after you sign."

"The barbarians are asking me to reward them for spitting in my face," Hsien Feng said. "I now understand why my father wouldn't close his eyes when he died-he couldn't swallow the insult."

I waited for him to calm down before I resumed reading. Some of the terms disturbed His Majesty so much that he gasped for air. Bubbling sounds would come from his throat and then he would burst out coughing.

Tiny blood spots covered the floor and the blankets. I didn't want to go on reading, but the doc.u.ments had to be returned within ten days. If not, Prince Kung said, the Allies would destroy the capital.

It was no use for Emperor Hsien Feng to beat his chest and shout, "All foreigners are brute beasts!" It was also no use to issue edicts urging the army to fight harder. The situation was irreversible.

Tung Chih watched his father drag himself out of bed and get down on his knees to beg Heaven for help. Again and again Hsien Feng wished he had the courage to take his own life.

It was in the Hall of Literary Zest where the treaties with France and Great Britain were sealed. Both treaties continued to validate the previous Tientsin Treaty, but with items added. It was the first time in several thousand years that China had borne such shame.

Emperor Hsien Feng was forced to open the city of Tientsin as a new trading port. To him this not only allowed the barbarians to trade in his front yard, but also permitted their military access to the capital through the open sea. His Majesty was also forced to "rent" Kowloon to the British as war compensation. The treaties stated that Western missionaries were to be given total freedom and protection to operate in China, which included building churches. Chinese laws would not apply to any foreigners, and violations of the treaties by any Chinese were to be punished swiftly. China was made to pay indemnities of eight million taels to the British and the French.

As if this were not enough, the Russians submitted a new draft of the Sino-Russian Treaty of Peking. The Russian envoy tried to persuade Prince Kung that the burning of the Imperial palaces indicated that China needed military protection from Russia. Although fully aware of what the Russians were up to, Prince Kung couldn't say no. China was in no position to defend itself and could not afford to make Russia an enemy.

"When a wolf pack hunts down a sick deer, what can the deer do but beg for mercy?" Prince Kung wrote in a letter. The Russians wanted the Amur lands in the north, which the tsarists had already seized. Russians had already settled along the whole of the Ussuri River east to the border of Korea. They had claimed the crucial Chinese port of Haishenwei, soon to be known as Vladivostok.

I will never forget the moment when Emperor Hsien Feng signed the treaties. It was like a death rehearsal.

The brush pen he held seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. His hand couldn't stop shaking. He couldn't bring himself to write his name. To stabilize his elbows I added two more pillows behind his back. Chief Eunuch Shim prepared the ink and laid flat the pages of the treaties in front of him on a rice paper pad.

My sorrow for Hsien Feng and my country was beyond expression. Saliva gathered at the corners of His Majesty's purple lips. He was crying, but there were no tears. He shouted and screamed for days. Finally his voice simply died. Each breath was now a struggle.

His fingers were like brittle sticks. His frame was no better than a skeleton. He had begun the journey of vanishing into a ghost. His ancestors hadn't answered his prayers. Heaven had been merciless to its son. In Hsien Feng's helplessness, however, he demonstrated the dignity of the Emperor of China. His struggle was heroic-the dying man holding on to his brush, refusing to sign China away.

I asked Nuharoo to bring Tung Chih. I wanted him to witness his father's struggle to perform his duty. Nuharoo rejected the idea. She said that Tung Chih should be exposed to glory, not shame.

I could have fought with Nuharoo. And I almost did. I wanted to tell her that dying was not shameful, nor was having the courage to face reality. Tung Chih's education should begin at his father's deathbed. He should watch the signing of the treaties and remember and understand why his father was crying.

Nuharoo reminded me that she was the Empress of the East, the one whose word was the house's law. I had to retreat.

Chief Eunuch Shim asked if His Majesty cared to test the ink before putting down his stroke. Hsien Feng nodded. I adjusted the rice paper.

The moment the tip of the brush touched the paper Hsien Feng's hand trembled violently. It started with his fingers, then spread to his arm, his shoulder and his entire body. Sweat soaked through his robe. His eyes rolled up as he drew deeply for breath.

Doctor Sun Pao-tien was summoned. He came in and knelt beside His Majesty. He bent his head over Hsien Feng's chest and listened.

I stared at Sun Pao-tien's lips, which were half hidden by his long white beard. I feared what he might say.

"He might slip into a coma." The doctor rose. "He will wake, but I can't guarantee how much time he has left."

For the rest of the day we waited for Hsien Feng to return to consciousness. When he did, I begged him to complete the signature, but he didn't say a word.

We had reached a deadlock-Emperor Hsien Feng refused to pick up the brush pen. I kept grinding the ink. I wished that Prince Kung were here.

Feeling helpless, I started to cry.

"Orchid." His Majesty's voice was barely audible. "I won't be able to die in peace if I sign."

I understood. I wouldn't want to sign either if I were he. But Prince Kung needed the signature to continue negotiating. The Emperor was going to die, but the nation had to go on. China had to get back on its feet.

In the afternoon Hsien Feng decided to yield. It was only after I said that his signature would not be an endors.e.m.e.nt for invasion but a tactic to gain time.

He picked up the brush pen but was unable to see where on the paper he was to put his signature.

"Guide my hand, Orchid," he said, and tried to sit up, but collapsed instead.

The three of us-Chief Eunuch Shim, An-te-hai and I-laid His Majesty down on his back. I put the paper near his hand and told him that he could ink his signature now.

With his eyes fixed on the ceiling, Emperor Hsien Feng wiggled the brush. I carefully guided his strokes to prevent his signature from looking like a child's scribble. By the time we covered his name with the red Imperial seal, Hsien Feng had dropped the brush pen and pa.s.sed out. The ink stone fell and black ink splattered all over my dress and shoes.

In July of 1861 we celebrated Hsien Feng's thirtieth birthday. His Majesty lay in his bed and drifted in and out of consciousness. No guests were invited. The birthday ceremony included a food parade. The dishes were barely touched; everyone sensed his coming death.

A month later, Hsien Feng seemed to hit bottom. Doctor Sun Pao-tien predicted that His Majesty's demise was a week, perhaps days, away. The court grew tense because the Emperor had not named his successor.

Tung Chih was not allowed to be with his father because the court was afraid it would be too disturbing. This upset me. I believed that any affection demonstrated by His Majesty would sustain Tung Chih's memory for the rest of his life.

Nuharoo accused me of placing a curse on Hsien Feng by telling Tung Chih that his father was going to die. Her astrologer believed that only when we refused to accept his death would Hsien Feng be saved by a miracle.

It was hard to fight Nuharoo when she had her mind set. I could only manage to have An-te-hai sneak Tung Chih to his father's bedside, usually when Nuharoo went with the Buddhists to chant or was enjoying her teatime opera, provided by Su Shun and performed in Nuharoo's quarters.

To my disappointment Tung Chih didn't want to be with his father. He complained about his father's "scary look" and "bad breath." He was miserable when I pushed him toward the sickbed. He called his father a bore and once yelled, "You hollow man!" He pulled at Hsien Feng's sheets and threw pillows at him. He wanted to play Ride the Horsy with the dying man. There wasn't a single compa.s.sionate bone in his little body.

I spanked my son. For the next week, instead of leaving Tung Chih to Nuharoo I spent time observing him. I discovered the source of his poor behavior.

I had instructed Tung Chih to take riding lessons with Yung Lu, but Nuharoo made excuses for the child to be absent. Instead of practicing with real horses, Tung Chih rode the eunuchs. More than thirty eunuchs had to crawl around the courtyard to make him happy. His favorite "horse" was An-te-hai. It was the child's way of getting revenge, for An-te-hai had been ordered by me to discipline him. Tung Chih whipped An-te-hai's b.u.t.tocks and forced him to crawl until his knees bled.

Worse than this treatment of An-te-hai was that he ordered a seventy-year-old eunuch named Old Wei to swallow his feces. When I questioned Tung Chih, he replied, "Mother, I just wanted to know if Old Wei had been telling the truth."

"What truth?"

"That I could do anything I wanted. I only asked him to prove it."

I looked at my son's little face and wondered how he had become capable of such mean tricks. He was clever and knew whom to punish and whom to reward. If An-te-hai hadn't been loyal to me, he would have yielded to Tung Chih's every desire. Tung Chih had once claimed that he knew Nuharoo's favorite dishes. It didn't occur to me that this was my son's way of rewarding her. I even praised him when he sent Nuharoo her favorite fancy moon cakes. I thought it was an appropriate gesture of piety and was pleased that my son got along with her. Then Tung Chih bragged about how Nuharoo encouraged him to neglect school. She had said to him, "There are emperors in history who never spent a day in the cla.s.sroom but had no problem bringing their country to prosperity."

I confronted Nuharoo and pointed out the danger of not disciplining Tung Chih. She told me that I was overreacting. "He's only five years old! As soon as we get back to Peking and Tung Chih resumes his normal schooling, everything will be fine. Playing is a child's nature, and we must not interfere with Heaven's intent. He asked for the parrots yesterday, but An-te-hai had brought none with him. Poor Tung Chih-he only asked for a parrot!"

This time I decided not to give in. I insisted that he attend his cla.s.ses. I told Nuharoo that I would check with the tutors regarding Tung Chih's homework. But I was disappointed. The head tutor begged me to release him from Tung Chih.

"His Young Majesty threw paper b.a.l.l.s and knocked off my gla.s.ses," the rabbit-toothed tutor reported. "He will not listen. Yesterday he made me eat a strange-tasting cookie. Afterward he told me that he had dipped the cookie in his own waste."

I was shocked at the way Tung Chih ruled his cla.s.sroom. But what concerned me more was his interest in Nuharoo's ghost books. He stayed up late to listen to her stories of the underworld. He got so scared that he would wet his bed at night. Yet he was so drawn to those stories that they became an addiction. When I interfered by taking the picture books away, he fought with me.

Tung Chih was willing to do anything to get away from me. First he pretended to be sick in order to avoid his cla.s.ses. When I caught him, Nuharoo would come to his defense. She even secretly ordered Doctor Sun Pao-tien to lie about the "fever" that kept him out of school.

If this was the way we prepared Tung Chih to be the next emperor, the dynasty was doomed. I decided to take the matter into my own hands. In my eyes, the situation was of national significance. All I knew was that my time was running out.

Every day I escorted my son to his tutors and then waited outside until the cla.s.ses were over. Nuharoo was upset that I didn't trust her, but I was too angry to worry about her feelings. I wanted to change Tung Chih before it was too late.

Tung Chih knew how to play Nuharoo and me off each other. He knew that I couldn't deny his visiting Nuharoo, so he went as often as he could, to make me jealous. Unfortunately I fell into his trap. And he continued to cause trouble in school. One day he pulled out the rabbit-toothed tutor's two longest eyebrow hairs. He knew full well that the old man regarded them as his "longevity sign." The man was so crushed, he was seized by a stroke and sent home for good. Nuharoo saw the incident as a comedy. I didn't agree, and intended to punish my son for his cruelty.

The court replaced the old tutor with a new one, but he was fired by his student the first day on the job. Tung Chih's stated reason was that the man farted during lessons. He charged the tutor with "disrespect for the Son of Heaven." The man was whipped. Upon hearing this, Nuharoo praised Tung Chih for "acting like a true ruler," while I was shattered.

The more I pressed, the worse Tung Chih rebelled. Instead of supporting me, the court asked Nuharoo to "watch over" my "outrageous behavior." I wondered if Su Shun was behind it. Tung Chih now had no problem talking back to me in front of the eunuchs and the maids. He was good with words. Sometimes he sounded too sophisticated for a five-year-old. He would say, "How low of you to deny my nature!" or "I am an endowed animal!" or "It's wrong for you to put me to sleep in order to play the tamer!"

I had heard the same from Nuharoo: "Allow Tung Chih to journey forth, Lady Yehonala" and "He is a traveler who understands the universe. He thinks not of himself, but of the voyage, of dreams and of the soul of the Buddha's spirituality" and "Throw your keys to the winds, and leave his cage open!"

I began to doubt her intentions. There had always been something perverse about her approach to Tung Chih. No matter what he did, she was always the loving one. I realized that unless I stopped Nuharoo, I wouldn't be able to stop Tung Chih. For me the struggle had turned into a battle to save my son. I spent days thinking about how to talk to her. I wanted to be firm about my intentions without injuring her pride. I wanted her to understand that I appreciated her affection for Tung Chih, but she had to learn to discipline him.

To my surprise, Nuharoo came to me before I went to her. She was dressed casually in an ivory gown. She brought fresh lotus flowers as a gift. She complained about my restrictions on Tung Chih's diet. She insisted that he was too thin. I explained that I had no problem with his eating more, but that his diet must be balanced. I told her that Tung Chih sat for hours on the chamber pot without producing a single t.u.r.d.

"I don't see it as a problem," Nuharoo said. "Children take their time when it comes to the potty."

"The children of peasants never have that problem," I argued. "They eat plenty of roughage."

"But Tung Chih is no peasant's child. It is insulting to make that comparison." Nuharoo's expression turned cold. "It is only right that Tung Chih follow the Imperial diet."

I had personally hired a chef to prepare healthful meals, but Tung Chih complained to Nuharoo that the chef had served him rotten shrimp, giving him cramps. No one except Nuharoo believed the lie. However, to please Tung Chih, she fired the chef.

I had to restrain myself from fighting openly with Nuharoo. I made a decision to concentrate on Tung Chih's studies first. Every morning I took a whip and escorted Tung Chih to his tutor.

He was being taught about the celestial globe. I asked the tutor for a copy of the text and said to my son that I would test him myself after he finished the lesson.

As I expected, Tung Chih couldn't recall a word of what he had learned. He had just come from school and we were about to eat our dinner. I ordered his meal to be removed and took him by the hand. As we left I picked up the whip. I took him to a small shed in the back garden, away from the main halls and apartments. I told Tung Chih that he would not be released until he recited the full text.

He let out a loud cry to see if anyone would come to his rescue. I had prepared for this. An-te-hai had been told to keep the tutors away, and I had expressly ordered that no one inform Nuharoo of Tung Chih's whereabouts.

"'In very early times,'" I said, to start my son off. "Begin."

Tung Chih sobbed and pretended not to hear.

I grabbed the whip and lifted my arm so that its length danced before him.

He started to recite. "'In very early times, there were four huge star patterns in the starry sky. Along the Yellow River there were figures of animals ...'"

"Go on. 'A dragon ...'"

"'A dragon, a tortoise with a snake, a tiger and a bird, which rises up and then sets down ...'" He shook his head and said that he didn't remember the next line.

"Start over and read it again!"

He opened his textbook but stumbled over the words.

I read to him. "'... One after another, arcing around the north celestial pole, flows an asterism called the Northern Dipper.'"

"This is too hard," he complained, and threw down the text.

I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "This is for a spoiled boy who lives without laws and without any thought of the consequences!" I lifted him off the floor and stripped away his robe. I raised my arm and let the whip fall.

A clear red line settled on his little behind.

Tung Chih screamed.

My tears fell, but I struck again. I had to force myself to continue. I had let him run loose for too long. This was my punishment and my last chance.