Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [52]
I had never seen such a disturbing dance. The women were in a squatting position most of the time. The “tails” looked more like stringy excrement.
“Don’t you move!” the monk called when he saw that I was attempting to stretch my legs.
The dancers sprang away and went to encircle the flagpole. They spun around like headless chickens with their arms waving at the sky. They shouted, “Pig! Pig!”
A trussed pig was carried over by four eunuchs. The animal wailed. The dancers hopped back and forth across its body. The pig was carried away. A golden plate was brought over with a flopping fish on it. The monk told me that the fish had been caught from the nearest pond. The young monk returned and skillfully trussed the fish with a red ribbon.
“On your heels!” The senior monk dragged me up and grabbed my right hand. Before I realized what was going on, a knife was put in my hand and I was forced to slice open the fish.
An-te-hai and the young monk supported me with their knees and arms so I wouldn’t collapse.
A blanched pig’s head was carried in on a large tray. The senior monk told me that it was the wailing pig I had seen a moment ago. “Only a freshly slaughtered and boiled pig will guarantee the magic.”
I shut my eyes and took deep breaths. Someone gripped my left hand and tried to loosen my stiff fingers. I opened my eyes and saw the dancers, who offered me a golden bowl.
“Hold it!” the senior monk commanded.
I was too weak to protest.
A rooster was brought before me. Once again I was handed a knife. The knife kept slipping through my fingers. The monk took the bowl into his own hands and told me to grab the rooster. “Cut its throat and pour its blood into the bowl!”
“I … can’t …” I felt that I was about to faint.
“Steady, my lady,” An-te-hai said. “It is the end!”
The last thing I remembered was that I poured wine upon the cobblestones where the fish, the pig’s head and the rooster lay in their blood.
On my way back in the palanquin I threw up. An-te-hai told me that every day a pig was brought through the Gate of Thunder and Storm and was sacrificed by noon. The headless pigs were supposed to be discarded after the ceremony, but they were not. The eunuchs of the temple hid them, chopped them up and sold them for a good price. “For over two hundred years, the broth in the giant wok that the pigs were boiled in has never been changed,” An-te-hai told me. “The fire in the stove has never been allowed to die. The eunuchs hawked the pig meat: ‘This is no ordinary meat. It has been dipped in the heavenly soup! It will bring you and your family luck and great fortune!’”
Nothing changed after my visit to the temple. By the end of autumn my hope to gain Emperor Hsien Feng’s attention was completely crushed. All night long I listened to crickets singing. The crickets in the Imperial backyard did not sound the same as the ones in Wuhu. Wuhu crickets carried short tunes, with three beats between each interval. The Imperial crickets sang without rest.
An-te-hai told me that the senior concubines who lived in the Palace of Benevolent Tranquility raised the crickets. When the weather was warm the crickets began to sing right after dark. Thousands of crickets lived in yoo-hoo-loos, bottle-shaped gourds made by the concubines.
The storm season started early this year, and the flowers were beaten. White petals covered the ground, and their fragrance was so strong that it filled my room. The roots of my peonies were soaked by the daylong rains and began to rot. Bushes were sick with brownish spots. Puddles were everywhere. I quit walking outside after An-te-hai stepped on a water scorpion. His heel swelled