We entered Peking and I saw everything from dogs and children sharing the same scraps of food in the street to wide avenues lined with peach trees in full bloom.
Zeru-Meq helped us locate rooms near the Forbidden City and we finally took off our Tibetan Buddhist robes for good. There seemed to be hundreds of thousands of children on their own in Peking and four more like us would alert no one.
That night, it was decided that I would be the one to visit Li Lien-ying. I was still convinced that it was Opari’s heartfear that made her vulnerable and her heartfear was me. “Why” was a question I couldn’t answer. All those years in China and I hadn’t heard one voice or dreamed one dream that made anything any clearer. But I was excited. I knew I was close. There were only a few miles separating us that night and I knew that soon even that gap would be closed.
The next day, Sailor went to cable Unai and Usoa. No matter what happened in Peking, he wanted news of the Fleur-du-Mal. Zeru-Meq went to arrange the audience with Li Lien-ying. He said it could take five minutes or five hours. There was no way to know until it was done. Geaxi and I began to walk around the Forbidden City, but the wind was still full of grit and sand and we returned to our rooms. It was odd. Whole years had swept by me, barely noticed or counted, and now a few hours seemed a lifetime. I was nervous. Geaxi laughed at me and said, “The one thing you should be able to do, and do well, is wait.”
Sailor returned at about four in the afternoon, saying only, “Peking has lost its charm.” Zeru-Meq arrived at six and said I was to be outside the east gate at eight o’clock sharp. An audience had been accepted. He said he had had to give my name, it was required, and the truth seemed most appropriate. He said “the truth” from now on would be my ally; it was so rarely heard inside the walls of the Forbidden City.
We had tea together at a small cafe as the sun was going down and the wind with it. Outside, however, the Peking traffic remained constant. Sailor went over everything I should say to Opari if the chance arose and reminded me that I would be the first to do this. “Do not be the last,” he said.
I was met at the gate by four eunuchs, two in front to escort me and two behind for no reason other than ceremony and ritual, the way it had always been done.
We walked through the massive gate and along the wall to another smaller gate, through that and across a courtyard into a large hall with two huge doors, painted a brilliant vermilion. All around the building were hundreds of intricately carved lattice windows. Inside, there was electric light, which somehow seemed incongruous.
I was handed over to four other eunuchs in slightly more elaborate dress and led down a corridor alongside the hall. It must have been the living quarters for hundreds, maybe thousands, of eunuchs. The same sour odor of decay I had detected in Kansu was overwhelming.
At the end of the hall, we crossed another courtyard and I was left alone on the steps of a smaller, but just as magnificent, structure. It was a two-story pavilion with stone dragon heads peering over the upturned corners of the roof.
The building was dark inside and around me the sounds of Peking were only a distant murmur. The door opened gently and a small man asked me politely in English to come in.
It was deathly quiet. I followed him to the center of the large room where a man was standing with his back to me: a tall man, taller than any of the other eunuchs I had seen. He was standing beside an ancient cherry and teak wood desk with a single candle on top. It was the only furniture in the room. The small man moved slightly to the side, into the shadows. I was not introduced, so I stood where I was, waiting.
The tall man said something in Chinese I couldn’t quite catch. His voice was high-pitched, but not the screech of a crow The small man spoke immediately after, interpreting. “Your name is Zezen, is that correct?”
“Yes,” I said, speaking to the tall man.
He spoke again, still with his back to me, and the small man interpreted. “Is it Zianno Zezen?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Do you know a man, a Chinese man, named Po?”
I thought for a moment, trying to place all the names with all the faces I’d seen in China. Then, I thought again. “I know a man named Li who used to be called Po. He lives in America with a friend of mine.”
“Then our meeting is most fortuitous,” he said, turning around as the small man was translating.
“I am—” he started, then caught his breath in his throat and his eyes widened slightly. He was startled at seeing me and I thought if he had known of the Meq, then he hadn’t known many. He composed himself and continued. “I am Li Lien-ying, chief eunuch for the imperial court of Ch’ing, and please tell me, how is my cousin?”
I almost laughed out loud, but managed to keep a straight face. “Li, I mean Po, is your cousin?”
“Yes, my first cousin on my mother’s side. We would have starved as children if it had not been for his family. He has always been opposed to my chosen profession, but I have always owed him a debt of gratitude. I have promised to deliver what was given to me.”
I was confused. I wasn’t sure what he meant. “You mean, you will take me to Opari?” I asked.
At the mention of Opari, he was genuinely surprised and looked down on me with a cruel, paranoid stare. “No, no,” he said rapidly. “That would be impossible.”
“Then what did you promise to deliver?”
“This!” he said and pulled open a drawer in the desk, drawing out a letter and handing it to me.
I looked at it. It was very familiar. There was nothing written on the side facing up and I turned it over. In the middle, scratched in black ink, was a single letter. “Z.”
I ripped it open and read it by the light of the single candle.
Z, my only Z, please get this! I am afraid. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who else to tell. I have seen the evil one, the one that killed Georgia and Mrs. Bennings. I saw him in the French Pavilion at the World’s Fair. And he saw me!! I had my baby with me, Z, and he gave me a look that was like a knife in the chest. I am so frightened. I know he will do something, I can feel it, but what? And when? I can’t bear this with my baby around, Z. I am more afraid for her than me. Please, Z, I don’t know what you can do, but you are the only one who understands. The only one. I pray this gets to you.
C.
I looked up and glared at the chief eunuch. “When did you get this?”
He looked over at the small man, as if to confirm it, and said, “The day before yesterday.”
At that moment, the door to the large room opened and in the darkness we could hear the rustle of robes followed by a sharp command in Chinese. Li Lien-ying and the small man stood frozen in their slippers.
Shuffling toward us with tiny steps and gradually becoming visible was an old woman dressed in a priceless robe of yellow, orange, and purple. Embroidered with seed pearls and coral, it was covered with ideograms and images of bats and dragons. A girl about my size, with a translucent scarf over her head for a veil, accompanied the old woman and held her arm gently. It was Tz’u-hsi herself, the Empress Dowager of China.
She stopped not three feet in front of me. Behind me, Li Lien-ying said, “Good evening, madam.”
She stared at me, up and down, as if I were an exotic animal. “It was,” she said, “until We were informed of certain proceedings. We would think that We would be informed when such a special guest is in Our midst.”
She tried to smile at me, but the right side of her face sagged and her eye and cheek began to twitch violently. She turned away from me and barked, “Why does this ‘magic child’ come to Us?”
Li Lien-ying answered, “He seeks one of his own kind, madam.”
Still hiding her face from me, Tz’u-hsi said, “And who would that be?”
“Opari,” I said.
“Silence!” Li Lien-ying yelled.
Tz’u-hsi raised her hand and said, “There is no need for that.” Then she reached over and lifted the scarf from the girl’s head and revealed her face. She was Meq. She had green eyes. She was somehow familiar. “This is Opari,” Tz’u-hsi said. “Tell her what you seek.”
I looked down at the letter I was still holding in my hand. Suddenly all I could think was “I may be too late. I’ve got to get there.” Then, I thought I heard a bird crashing against the lattice windows, somewhere in the darkness. It was loud and I looked all around me, but no one else seemed to hear. I looked at the girl who was staring back at me, expressionless. There was something about her, something in the eyes. Then it made sense.
