Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [94]
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: “Ohhhhh, wa! Ohhhhh, wa!” It took me a while to realize that she was laughing. “Fear is good! Ohhhhh, wa! Fear tortures you and makes you behave. You can’t gain immortality without it, and my job is to instill fear in you! Ohhhhh, wa! Ohhhhh, wa!”
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 tien, “in memory.” It was the first time I had a chance to witness this ritual. Centuries before, Manchus inhabited vast grasslands where it was difficult to notify relatives about a death in the family. When a family member died, a pole with a red scroll would be put up in front of the family’s tent, so that passing horsemen and herdsmen would stop and pay their respects in place of the missing relatives.
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