The Last Empress - Anchee Min [47]
Yung Lu could not put up a false front. He tried but could not give Willow what her heart desired. His guilt was apparent in every look. His avoidance of me and his awkward apologies made her feel worse.
I drank a good deal of wine during the celebration. I suppose I was trying to forget. I was dressed in a golden silk gown embroidered with phoenixes. My hair was fastened onto a thin board and piled into the shape of a cloud. Li Lien-ying had secured the cloud with dark blue jade hairpins. My phoenix earrings were light blue. I wanted to please Yung Lu, but I was unable to maintain my cheerfulness. The thought of being denied the chance to see him left me drunk and sobbing. I was so woozy and nauseated I had to run outside and vomit in the bushes.
It was in that shameful, desperate moment that Willow sat down next to me and quietly offered her sympathy. She never told me what I had said to her that night. I was sure that I was rude and nasty. Li Lien-ying told me afterward that Willow held my hand and would not let those who were curious get near me.
That was how I began my friendship with Yung Lu's Willow. She never once uttered a word about her husband's secret. Her compassion for my tragedy overcame her jealousy. The gesture of friendship she offered was to keep me informed of her husband's lasting love for me all the way to his end.
"It is impossible not to love you, Orchid—if I may call you by name," said Willow, and I understood why Yung Lu loved her.
In turn, I wanted to do the same for Willow. When she came back to Peking to give birth to her daughter a year later, I received her. The harsh life of the desert had darkened her skin, and wrinkles had climbed onto her forehead. She continued to be cheerful, but she couldn't hide her anxiety: Something in the desert climate had caused Yung Lu to suffer from chronic bronchitis.
I sent bags of herbal medicine to Sinkiang, along with fine tea, dried meat and several kinds of preserved soybeans. I let Willow know that she could always depend on me.
16
Weng Tong-hur, known as Tutor Weng, a well-known historian, critic, poet and calligrapher, was appointed to oversee Guang-hsu's education. Nuharoo and I had taken part in the selection and sat through the interviews. I was especially careful this time, for I had learned a hard lesson when selecting Tung Chih's tutors. I regretted that I had neither checked up on nor attended my son's lessons. When Tung Chih complained that his teachers were boring, I punished him. It never occurred to me that the tutors could be at fault—they might know a great deal about their subjects, but little of how to teach a child.
After Tung Chih died, I had spoken with several eunuchs who had witnessed the Imperial tutors at work. I was told that my son was made to memorize a text regardless of whether he understood it. The tutors were in their sixties or seventies, and were more interested in leaving behind a personal legacy than helping Tung Chih learn. Although I was told their spirits were high as the day began, they grew tired after lunch. They would fall asleep in the middle of lessons.
While a tutor snoozed and snored, Tung Chih would amuse himself by playing with the ornaments hanging from the tutor's hat and clothes. He bragged to his eunuchs afterward that he plucked the peacock feather from the tutor's hat.
"The feather stuck out about two feet from the back of the tutor's head," the eunuch recalled. "His Young Majesty liked the dot on the feather, which he called the eye. It amused him to see the way it moved whenever the tutor nodded. He would ask the same question repeatedly so the tutor would nod."
"I'd like to make sure that this time," I said to the court, "Emperor Guang-hsu doesn't repeat Emperor Tung Chih's experience."
Tutor Weng was no stranger to Nuharoo and me. He had been our teacher in history and literature in 1861, right after our husband died and we became the acting regents. At that time no male was