Part 19 (1/2)
Afraid that my remorse would be unbearable I had avoided this place for years. And I had been right. My memory was as fresh as yesterday. My tears flowed the moment I stepped off the bus. The sight of the building brought Wild Ginger right back to me. I could see her speaking to me vividly. ”Maple, don't ever feel sorry for me. I take the wounds as medals!” But I also heard her laughter. The sound of silver beads dropping on a jade plate. I was able to admit to myself that I had been lonely for her all these years. There was not one person who could understand and share my feelings.
Suddenly I missed Evergreen terribly.
I felt weak. My mind kept unleas.h.i.+ng itself. Was he a village teacher? Did he ever miss Wild Ginger? Or me? Was he married? Who would she be? A village girl? His student? Or another woman, another village teacher who taught at his school?
A worker at the square told me that the explosion would take place in five minutes. ”It's an old ugly building. It no longer carries significance. We have brought down a lot of the same kind in Beijing. It's interesting that not many people have bothered to come to see the spectacle. When I was doing one in Beijing, the crowd was-”
Suddenly I saw what I took to be an illusion. A man of Evergreen's figure walked into my view. I blinked my eyes and shook my head. The image was still there, still moving. My hands went to cover my mouth. I dared not breathe; it seemed that if I did I would break the illusion, as a drop of water would chase away the reflection of the moon in the pond.
I stood, stared, unable to move.
This is not a mistake, I heard my mind say. It's him.
The worker turned toward the man. ”Hey, you! Step out! It's too dangerous! Get out! You hear me? Out! This way! Hurry up!”
The man turned toward us, smiling apologetically, and suddenly he saw me. His smile froze and he stopped in his tracks.
The worker went and pushed him out of the area.
29.
From his features I learned how I had aged. He was a real peasant with deep gaplike wrinkles and weatherbeaten skin. He wore a washed-out green army coat and a pair of worn boots. He was covered with dust. Yet he was solid.
For a moment we were awkward. Words halted our tongues.
The loudspeaker was giving the last warning about safety. And then came the countdown.
Both Evergreen and I turned to look at the city hall. I was sure he saw exactly what I saw.
Like a piece of silk fabric Wild Ginger fell from the building, descending in slow motion.
My mind leapt backward. I saw her sixteen-year-old face.
”You know what, Maple? I am burning fire, the heat itself. n.o.body can extinguish my pa.s.sion for Chairman Mao. I feel so happy and complete. It is Chairman Mao who saved me from withering and kindled my spirit into a glorious blaze!”
Through my tears I felt Evergreen's hand. He came to hold me. I felt his breath on my neck.
I turned to him. There was no hesitation in his eyes. He was determined to pursue what he was doing. His eyes were asking for my permission. I wanted to tell him that I had been waiting for him all along. I wanted to tell him that I was ready. I tried hard to push, to get the words out.
He sealed my words with his lips.
I closed my eyes.
The sound of explosion came.
I tasted her in my mouth.
A PREVIEW OF ANCHEE MIN'S NEW NOVEL.
EMPRESS.
ORCHID.
The story of the infamous last Empress of China, by the author of the best-selling Becoming Madame Mao Becoming Madame Mao ***
It is the final days of the Chinese empire. Trade in opium with Europe is slowly corroding the power of the Ch'ing Dynasty. Orchid, a beautiful seventeen-year-old from an aristocratic but impoverished family, is pushed into the maelstrom when she finds herself unexpectedly chosen to become a low-ranking concubine of the Emperor.
The world inside the Forbidden City is erotically charged and highly ritualized, but beneath its immaculate face are whispers of murders and ghosts. The thousands of concubines will go to any length to bear the Emperor a son and become his Empress. Determined not to be a victim of jealousy and foul play, Orchid trains herself in the art of pleasing a man, bribes her way into the royal bed, and seduces the monarch. Little does she know that China will collapse around her, and she will be its last Empress.
Available from Mariner Books
Prelude THE TRUTH is that I have never been the mastermind of anything. I laugh when I hear people say that it was my desire to rule China from an early age. My life was shaped by forces at work before I was born. The dynasty's conspiracies were old, and men and women were caught up in cutthroat rivalries long before I entered the Forbidden City and became a concubine. My dynasty, the Ch'ing, has been beyond saving ever since we lost the Opium Wars to Great Britain and its allies. My world has been an exasperating place of ritual where the only privacy has been inside my head. Not a day has gone by when I haven't felt like a mouse escaping one more trap. For half a century, I partic.i.p.ated in the elaborate etiquette of the court in all its meticulous detail. I am like a painting from the Imperial portrait gallery. When I sit on the throne my appearance is gracious, pleasant and placid. is that I have never been the mastermind of anything. I laugh when I hear people say that it was my desire to rule China from an early age. My life was shaped by forces at work before I was born. The dynasty's conspiracies were old, and men and women were caught up in cutthroat rivalries long before I entered the Forbidden City and became a concubine. My dynasty, the Ch'ing, has been beyond saving ever since we lost the Opium Wars to Great Britain and its allies. My world has been an exasperating place of ritual where the only privacy has been inside my head. Not a day has gone by when I haven't felt like a mouse escaping one more trap. For half a century, I partic.i.p.ated in the elaborate etiquette of the court in all its meticulous detail. I am like a painting from the Imperial portrait gallery. When I sit on the throne my appearance is gracious, pleasant and placid.
In front of me is a gauze curtain-a translucent screen symbolically separating the female from the male. Guarding myself from criticism, I listen but speak little. Thoroughly schooled in the sensitivity of men, I understand that a simple look of cunning would disturb the councilors and ministers. To them the idea of a woman as the monarch is frightening. Jealous princes prey on an cient fears of women meddling in politics. When my husband died and I became the acting regent for our five-year-old son, Tung Chih, I satisfied the court by emphasizing in my decree that it was Tung Chih, the young Emperor, who would remain the ruler, not his mother.
While the men at court sought to impress each other with their intelligence, I hid mine. My business of running the court has been a constant fight with ambitious advisors, devious ministers, and generals who commanded armies that never saw battle. It has been more than forty-six years. Last summer I realized that I had become a candle burnt to its end in a windowless hall-my health was leaving me, and I understood that my days were numbered.
Recently I have been forcing myself to rise at dawn and attend the audience before breakfast. My condition I have kept a secret. Today I was too weak to rise. My eunuch came to hurry me. The mandarins and autocrats are waiting for me in the audience hall on sore knees. They are not here to discuss matters of state after my death, but to press me into naming one of their sons as heir.
It pains me to admit that our dynasty has exhausted its essence. In times like this I can do nothing right. I have been forced to witness the collapse not only of my son, at the age of nineteen, but of China itself. Could anything be crueler? Fully aware of the reasons that contributed to my situation, I feel stifled and on the verge of suffocation. China has become a world poisoned in its own waste. My spirits are so withered that the priests from the finest temples are unable to revive them.
This is not the worst part. The worst part is that my fellow countrymen continue to show their faith in me, and that I, at the call of my conscience, must destroy their faith. I have been tearing hearts for the past few months. I tear them with my farewell decrees; I tear them by telling my countrymen the truth that their lives would be better off without me. I told my ministers that I am ready to enter eternity in peace regardless of the world's opinions. In other words, I am a dead bird no longer afraid of boiling water.
I had been blind when my sight was perfect. This morning I had trouble seeing what I was writing, but my mind's eye was clear. The French dye does an excellent job of making my hair look the way it used to-black as velvet night. And it does not stain my scalp like the Chinese dye I applied for years. Don't talk to me about how smart we are compared to the barbarians! It is true that our ancestors invented paper, the printing press, the compa.s.s and explosives, but our ancestors also refused, dynasty after dynasty, to build proper defenses for the country. They believed that China was too civilized for anyone to even think about challenging. Look at where we are now: the dynasty is like a fallen elephant taking its time to finish its last breath.
Confucianism has been shown to be flawed. China has been defeated. I have received no respect, no fairness, no support from the rest of the world. Our neighboring allies watch us falling apart with apathy and helplessness. What is freedom when there has been no honor? The insult for me is not about this unbearable way of dying, but about the absence of honor and our inability to see the truth.
It surprises me that no one realizes that our att.i.tude toward the end is comical in its absurdity. During the last audience I couldn't help but yell, ”I am the only one who knows that my hair is white and thin!”
The court refused to hear me. My ministers saw the French dye and my finely arranged hairstyle as real. Knocking their heads on the ground, they sang, ”Heaven's grace! Ten thousand years of health! Long live Your Majesty!”
One.