Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [92]
The concubines in the Forbidden City, especially the senior ones, were extremely superstitious. Besides making yoo-hoo-loos and chanting, they spent their days mastering various kinds of witchcraft. To them, belief in the next life was itself a weapon. They needed the weapon to place curses on their rivals. They were very ingenious about the various fates they wished upon their enemies.
Nuharoo showed me a book called The Calendar of Chinese Ghosts, with vivid, bizarre illustrations. I was not unfamiliar with the material. I had heard every story it contained and had seen a hand-copied version in Wuhu. The book was used by storytellers in the countryside. Nuharoo was especially fascinated by “The Red Embroidered Shoes,” an old tale about a pair of shoes worn by a ghost.
As a child I had seen fortunetellers make false predictions that ruined lives. However, An-te-hai wanted to take no chances. I knew he worried that the ill-fated “she” would turn out to be me.
For the next few days his worry grew. He became melodramatic to the point of silliness. “Each day could be your last,” he mumbled one morning. He served me carefully, observing my every move. He sniffed the air like a dog and refused to shut his eyes at night. When I napped, he left the Forbidden City and came back to report that he had spent time with older village bachelors. Offering money, he asked the bachelors if they would like to adopt my unborn child.
I asked why he was doing so.
An-te-hai explained that since my boy would bear a curse, it was our duty to spread the curse to other people. According to The Book of Superstition, if enough people were to bear the curse, it would lose its effect. “The bachelors are eager to have someone carry on their family name,” my eunuch said. “Don’t worry, my lady. I did not reveal who the boy was, and the adoption is an oral contract only.”
I praised An-te-hai’s loyalty and told him to stop. But he wouldn’t. The next day I saw him bowing to a crippled dog as it passed by the garden. On another day he got down on his knees and kowtowed to a bundled pig on its way to the temple to be sacrificed.
“We must undo the curse,” An-te-hai said. “Paying respect to the crippled dog acknowledges that it had suffered. Someone had beaten it and broken its bones. Such animals serve as a substitute, reducing the power of the curse, if not transferring it to others.” After the pig was slaughtered, An-te-hai believed that I would be released, for I, in the spirit of the pig, had become a ghost.
Early one morning news broke throughout the Imperial household: Grand Empress Lady Jin had passed away.
An-te-hai and I couldn’t help but conclude that there must be something to pa kua. Another strange incident took place that morning. The glass housing of the clock in the Hall of Spiritual Nurturing shattered when the clock struck nine. The court astrologer explained that Lady Jin’s death was brought on because she had been too eager to invest in her longevity. She loved the number nine. She had celebrated her forty-ninth birthday by draping her bed with red ropes and silk sheets embroidered with forty-nine Chinese nines.
“She had been sick but was not expected