reminded me of the discordant music of a village band. Maybe it was how I felt-I had just escaped the curse. My mood was lightened and I felt little sadness.
Lady Jin had never liked me. She said openly after learning I was pregnant that she wished the news had come from Nuharoo. She believed that I had stolen Emperor Hsien Feng from Nuharoo.
I remembered the last time I encountered Lady Jin. Her health was declining but she refused to admit it. Disregarding the fact that everyone knew about the peach-pit-sized stone, she claimed that her health had never been more robust. She rewarded doctors who lied to her and said that her longevity was not in doubt. But her body gave away her flaws. When she pointed a finger and tried to tell me that I was bad, her hand trembled. It looked like she was getting ready to strike me. She tried to fight off her trembling. Eventually she fell back and couldn’t sit up without help from her eunuchs. That didn’t stop her from cursing me. “You illiterate!” she cried. I didn’t understand her choice of epithet. None of the other ladies, except perhaps Nuharoo, was more accomplished than I was in reading.
I tried to avoid Lady Jin’s lifeless eyes. I looked above her eyebrows when I had to face her. Her broad wrinkled forehead reminded me of a painting I had once seen of the Gobi Desert. Folds of skin hung from her chin. The loss of her teeth on her right side made her face slope like a spoiled melon.
Lady Jin had a love of magnolias. Even in sickness, she wore an embroidered dress with large pink magnolia flowers covering every inch of the fabric. “Magnolia” had been the Empress’s childhood name. I could hardly believe that she had once caught the eye of Emperor Tao Kuang.
How frightening it was the way a woman could age. Would anyone be able to imagine how I would look by the time I died?
Lady Jin yelled at me that day, “Don’t you worry about your beauty. Worry about beheading instead!” The words were pushed out of her chest as she struggled with her breath. “Let me tell you what I have been worrying about since the day I became the Imperial consort! I will continue to worry until the day I die!” Fighting to keep her composure, she raised herself up with the help of her eunuchs. With both arms in the air she looked like a vulture spreading its wings from the edge of a cliff.
We dared not move. The daughters-in-law-Nuharoo, Ladies Yun, Li, Mei and Hui, and I-endured her ranting and waited for the moment when she would release us.
“Have you heard the story from a country far away where people’s eyeballs look like they have been bleached and their hair is the color of straw?” Lady Jin narrowed her eyes. The landscape of her forehead changed from rolling hills to steep valleys. “A king’s entire family was slaughtered after the empire was overthrown. All of them, including the infants!”
Seeing that her words had startled us, she was satisfied. “You bunch of illiterates!” she yelled. Suddenly her throat produced a string of noises: “
I could still hear that laughter. I wondered what Lady Jin would say if she had known that she was the victim of my child, her grandson’s curse. I felt blessed that Lady Jin considered me an illiterate. She would have ordered my beheading if she had seen my love for knowledge or bothered to trace the source of the curse.
Watching her on her soul bed, I had little remorse. I saw no sympathy in the others except for Nuharoo. The general expression was wooden. The eunuchs had just finished burning straw paper in the hall, and now the crowd was led outside to burn more paper. In the courtyard life-size palanquins, horses, carriages, tables and chamber pots were being installed with life-size paper figures of people and animals. The figures were clothed in expensive silk and linen, as was the furniture. Following the Manchu burial traditions she had adopted, she had arranged everything herself years before. The paper figure of herself looked real, although it was the way she used to look when she was young. It was wearing a magnolia-patterned dress.
Before the ceremony began, a thirty-foot pole was raised. A red silk scroll was mounted at the top with the word
True to the custom, three large tents were set up in the Forbidden City. One was used to display the body, the second housed the monks, lamas and priests who came from afar, and the last was for receiving relatives and high-ranking guests. Other, smaller tents were also put up in the courtyard to receive visitors. The tents were about ten feet in height, and the supporting bamboo posts were decorated with white magnolias made of silk. As daughters-in-law we each were given a dozen handkerchiefs for our tears. I kept hearing Lady Jin-“Illiterate!”-and wanted to laugh instead of cry. I had to cover my face with my hands.
Between my fingers I saw Prince Kung arrive. He was dressed in a white robe and matching boots. When he examined the coffin, he looked grief-stricken. The female relatives were supposed to avoid their male cousins or brothers-in-law, so we retreated to the next room. Fortunately I was able to see through the windows. The coffin lid was lifted for Prince Kung. Glittering jewels, gold, jade, pearls, emeralds, rubies and crystal vases were piled on Lady Jin’s chest. Besides the little mirror, she was holding her makeup box.
Prince Kung stood solemnly beside his mother. His sorrow made him look like an older man. He got down on his knees and performed a kowtow. His forehead remained on the ground for a long time. When he rose, a eunuch went up and carefully parted Lady Jin’s lips. The eunuch placed a large pearl strung on red thread in her mouth. Then he closed her mouth, leaving the end of the thread hanging by her chin. The pearl was the symbol of life’s essence and represented purity and nobility. The red thread, which would be tied by her son, served as a demonstration of his unwillingness to part with her.
Prince Kung tied the thread onto the first button of his mother’s robe. A eunuch handed him a pair of chopsticks with a wet cotton ball between them. Prince Kung gently wiped his mother’s eyelids with the cotton ball.
The guests brought in boxes of decorated steamed buns. The plates in front of the altars had to be changed every few minutes in order to receive more boxes. Hundreds of scrolls were also brought. They piled up and made the palace look like a calligraphy festival. Couplets and poems hung from every wall. Extra string was needed to tie more couplets from the beams. The kitchen served a banquet for more than two thousand guests.
The mourning troupe wailed when Prince Kung’s knees hit the ground again. The chanting mounted to a crescendo. The trumpets were deafening. I thought that this would be the end of the ceremony, but no: it had just officially started.
The seventh day was the time of the figure-burning ceremony. Three paper palaces and two mountains were to be set on fire. The palaces were twelve feet high, each with a golden pagoda at the top. One mountain was painted gold and the other silver. The ceremony was conducted outside the Forbidden City, near the North Bridge. The crowds that gathered exceeded the New Year’s Eve celebration. The paper palaces were modeled after examples of Sung Dynasty architecture. The tiles of the traditional wing roofs were painted ocean blue. From where I stood, I could peer into the palaces, which were completely furnished. The chair covers were painted in strokes and patterns that imitated embroidery. On a dining table piled with paper flowers, silver chopsticks and gold wine cups were neatly set out.
The mountains were covered with rocks, brooks, magnolia trees and waving grass, all done to scale. What amazed me even more was that there were tiny cicadas resting on the magnolia branches, butterflies on peonies and crickets in the grass. It took hundreds of craftsmen years to complete this paper world, and in minutes it would turn to ashes.
The chanting began and the fire was lit. As the flames shot high the monks, lamas and priests threw steamed buns over the heads of the cheering crowd. The buns were supposed to be consumed by homeless ghosts. It was a gesture of Lady Jin’s benevolence.
Emperor Hsien Feng was absent from the beginning to the end. He claimed to be ill. I knew that he hated this woman, and I didn’t blame him. Lady Jin was the one who had caused his birth mother’s suicide. By not attending the funeral, the Emperor was making a statement.
The guests and concubines made poor mourners. They ate and drank and chatted with one another. I even heard people talking about my pregnancy.
There was no way I could convince Emperor Hsien Feng that my rivals were plotting against me. I told His Majesty that the fish in my pond were dying, that the orchids in my garden had withered in the middle of a strong
