The Last Empress - Anchee Min [50]
"It is my husband's window, I think."
"Where is it located?"
"At the Hall of Spiritual Nurturing."
"That's it! And then you summoned a fruit picker."
Shocked, I said that he was right.
"And with that fruit picker you took down the poppy heads one by one."
"Yes, I did."
"You then gathered those poppy heads in a basket, put them in a grinder and made soup."
I admitted that it all happened as he described.
"The problem is the soup. You should not have drunk it."
"But it was only a dream."
"It interprets truth."
"What truth?"
The man paused.
Quickly Li Lien-ying placed a bag of taels in his hand. The interpreter resumed, asking whether it was safe to utter what he knew.
Li Lien-ying assured him. The man drew in a breath and said, exhaling, "My lady, you have been poisoned by your own sickness."
I asked what kind of sickness. The man was reluctant to answer, but said that it contained elements of jealousy, resentment and secret yearnings for intimacy.
It was then that I asked him to stop.
"What would you advise?" Li Lien-ying said, grabbing the man's sleeve.
The interpreter said that he knew of no effective treatment. "We'll try anything," Li Lien-ying begged.
"Wait until autumn is deep. Leave Her Majesty's door open from evening until dawn. The purpose is to invite crickets in. The crickets will do the labor of suffering for her—they will sing themselves to death."
"How many crickets should I invite?" Li Lien-ying asked.
"As many as you can. There is a trick to luring them. You must place fresh grass and shelled soybeans in the room. Also lay wet bricks in each corner. The crickets will come to eat and then look for mating partners. They will sing throughout the night. Consider your treatment a success if you find dead crickets under your bed the following morning."
By the time I got used to the singing of crickets and waking up to find their dead bodies in my shoes, my dreams began to change. They became less frightening, more about my being tired and trying to escape.
I was again able to appreciate the beauty of the turning seasons. Walking along the garden paths had never meant so much to me. I would watch a worm-damaged plant swing in the wind and marvel at its way of surviving. I would feel the force of life and experience rapture at the simple sight of insects sucking nectar from flower hearts. I would find myself breathing freely, and I would feel the spirit of Tung Chih and An-te-hai.
I still missed Yung Lu terribly, but had the strength to bear it.
17
I had been sitting in front of the mirror since three in the morning. I opened my eyes and saw that the wide board that held my hair made my head look like a giant mushroom.
"How do you like it, my lady?" Li Lien-ying asked.
"It's fine. Let's finish as quickly as possible." I rose so that he could get me into the heavily layered court robe.
I hardly paid attention to how I looked these days. My mind had been dealing with Russia to the north, British India to the west, French Indochina to the south, and Japan to the east.
A number of countries and territories—including Korea, the Ryu-kyu Islands, Annam and Burma—that had sent representatives and tribute to us during Tung Chih's reign, sent them less frequently, and soon not at all. The fact that China was unable to claim back its privileges showed that our standing was diminishing. With every defection, our outer defenses were further weakened.
I now wished that Tutor Weng would quit his pointless displays of sincerity and get on with preparing Guang-hsu for the business of rule. Lacking flexibility and cunning, Nuharoo and I were unable to adopt a line of conduct when problems threatened to overwhelm us. No one seemed to understand that our country had been heading downhill for centuries. China was like a diseased and dying person, only now the rot of the body had become visible.
Like a hungry tiger, Japan had been hiding in the