Peony in Love (10 page)

My mother controlled me through her instructions even as she refused to see me. My aunts controlled me through their lessons. My future mother-in-law would control me after marriage. Together, these women—from the time I was born until the day I died—would control every single minute of my life.

Yet for every effort at control, I was spinning away. At every moment, my poet invaded my thoughts—during every stitch, every strum, every didactic lesson. He was in my hair, my eyes, my fingers, my heart. I daydreamed about what he was doing, thinking, seeing, smelling, feeling. I could not eat for thoughts of him. Each time petal-scented air came through my window, my emotions were thrown into turmoil. Did he long for a traditional wife or a new wife, like the one he talked about the night we met in the Moon-Viewing Pavilion? Would his future wife give him what he wanted? And what about me? What would happen to me now?

At night, as moonlight sent scattered shadows of bamboo leaves across my silk bedding, I dwelled in these dark thoughts. Sometimes I would get up, step over Shao, and go to the drawer where I kept the sprig of willow my poet had given me on our last night together. As the weeks went by, leaf after leaf fell away and crumbled to nothing, until all that was left was the twig. My little speck of a heart was soaked through with sadness.

Over time I improved on the zither, memorized rules, and worked on my embroidery. Two months into my seclusion, Third Aunt announced, “You are ready to make shoes for your mother-in-law.”

Every bride does this as a sign of respect, but for years I’d dreaded this task, knowing my needlework would instantly reveal my flaws. Now I dreaded it even more. While I would no longer embarrass myself or bring shame on my family through my stitches, I had no feelings for this woman and felt no need to impress her. I tried to imagine she was my poet’s mother. What else could I do to protect myself from the hopelessness I felt? My mother-in-law’s name was the same as mine—Peony—so I incorporated that flower, the hardest of all to paint or stitch, into my design. I spent hours on each petal and leaf until after a month the shoes were completed. I held the pair in my hand and showed them to Third Aunt.

“They are perfect,” she said, and she meant it. I may not have woven in strands of my hair or made them as airy as she would have, but by any other standard they were splendid. “You may wrap them.”

ON THE NINTH
day of the ninth month, when we commemorate Lady Purple, who was treated so badly by her mother-in-law that she hanged herself in the privy she was required to clean each day, the door to my room opened and my mother entered. I bowed deeply to show my respect, and then I stood still, my hands clasped before me, my eyes cast down.

“
Waaa!
You look…!” The surprise in Mama’s voice caused me to glance up. She must have still been angry with me, because her face was disturbed. But she had perfected the art of hiding her feelings, and her features quickly settled. “Your final bride-price gifts have arrived. You might like to see them before they’re put away. But I expect you to—”

“Don’t worry, Mama. I’ve changed.”

“I see that,” she said, but again I did not detect pleasure in her tone. Rather, I heard concern. “Come. Take a look. Then I want you to join us for breakfast.”

As I left my room, a single thread held together my emotions—loneliness, despair, and my unwavering love for my poet. I had learned to vent my sorrows through sighs.

I followed my mother at a respectful distance to the Sitting-Down Hall. My bride-price gifts had been brought to our home in lacquer-framed boxes that looked like glass coffins. My family had received the usual items: silks and satins, gold and jewelry, porcelains and ceramics, cakes and dumplings, jars of wine and roast pork. Some of these things were for me; most were for my father’s coffers. Ample gifts of
cash
were for my uncles. This was physical proof that my marriage was going to happen—and soon. I pinched the bridge of my nose to keep from crying. Once my emotions were under control, I planted a placid smile on my face. I was out of my room at last and my mother would be watching for any lapse in the proprieties. I had to be wary.

My eyes fell on a package wrapped in red silk. I glanced at my mother, and she nodded to let me know I could open it. I peeled back the soft folds. Inside was a two-volume set of
The Peony Pavilion.
It was the only edition I didn’t already own, the one from Tang Xianzu’s private press. I opened the note that came with the set.
Dear Same, I look forward to staying up late with you, drinking tea, and talking about the opera.
It was signed by my future husband’s sister-in-law, who already lived in the Wu household. The bride-price payments were fine, but this gift told me that there was at least one person in the Wu family’s women’s chambers with whom I might find companionship.

“May I keep this?” I asked my mother.

Her brow furrowed and I thought she would say no.

“Take it to your room and then come straight away to the Spring Pavilion. You need to eat.”

I clutched the volumes to my chest, walked slowly back to my room, and set them on my bed. Then, following my mother’s orders, I went to the Spring Pavilion.

I’d been locked away for two months, and I looked at the room and everyone in it with new eyes. The usual tensions bubbled among my aunts, my cousins, my mother, and those women and girls who were unseen in the morning—the concubines and their daughters. But because I’d been away I saw and felt an undercurrent that I’d never fully noticed before. Every woman is expected to be pregnant at least ten times during her lifetime. The women in the Chen Family Villa had trouble getting pregnant, and when they did they seemed incapable of dropping a son. This lack of sons weighed on everyone. The concubines were supposed to rescue our dying family line, but even though we fed, clothed, and housed them, none of them had birthed a boy either. They may not have been allowed physically to join us for breakfast, but they were with us nonetheless.

My cousins seemed to have a new attitude toward me. Broom, who’d orchestrated my confinement, used her chopsticks to put a few dumplings on my plate. Lotus poured my tea and handed me her bowl of
congee,
which she’d flavored with salted fish and scallions. My aunts came by the table, welcomed me back with smiling faces, and urged me to eat. But I didn’t take a single bite. I even ignored the sweet-bean paste dumplings that Shao delivered from my mother’s table.

When the meal ended, we moved to the Lotus-Blooming Hall. Little clusters formed: one group to embroider, another to paint and do calligraphy, yet another to read poetry. The concubines arrived and came to peck at me, present me with treats, and pinch my cheeks to bring in color. Only two of my grandfather’s concubines were still alive, and they were very old. Their face powder accentuated their wrinkles. Their hair ornaments did not make them look younger but only highlighted the white. Their waists were big, but their feet were still as tiny and beautiful as they were on those nights when my grandfather had eased his mind by holding the delicate morsels in his hand.

“You look more like your grandmother every day,” Grandfather’s favorite said.

“You are as kind and good-natured as she was,” the other added.

“Please join us for embroidery,” the favorite went on. “Or choose another activity. It would please us to keep you company in whatever activity you desire. We are a sisterhood in this room, after all. When we were hiding from the Manchus in Yangzhou, your grandmother was very clear on this point.”

“From the afterworld she looks to your future,” the lesser concubine said, in an obsequious tone. “We’ve been making offerings to her on your behalf.”

After so many weeks of solitude, the chatter and competitiveness—all hidden behind the activities of embroidery, calligraphy, and reading poetry—clearly revealed to me the shadow darkness of the women who lived in the Chen Family Villa. I felt tears gather from the exertion of trying to be a good daughter, of listening and protecting myself from their false concern, and of realizing that this was my life.

But I could not fight my mother.

I wanted to submerge myself in my feelings. I wanted to bury myself in thoughts of love. I had no way to get out of my marriage, but maybe I could escape from it in the same way I had here in my natal home, by reading, writing, and imagining. I wasn’t a man and could never compete with the writings of men. I had no desire to write an eight-legged essay, even if I could have taken the imperial exams. But I did have a certain kind of knowledge—all those things I had learned sitting on my father’s lap when I was a small girl and later when he gave me editions of the classics and volumes of poetry to study—that most girls didn’t, and I would use it to save myself. I wouldn’t write poetry about butterflies and flowers. I had to find something that would not only be meaningful to me but would sustain me for the rest of my life.

A thousand years ago, the poet Han Yun wrote, “All things not at peace will cry out.” He compared the human need to express feelings in writing to the natural force that impelled plants to rustle in the wind or metal to ring when struck. With that I realized what I would do. It was something I’d already worked on for years. With the outside world stripped away, I had spent my life looking inward and my emotions were finely tuned. My poet wanted to know my thoughts about the Seven Emotions; now I would find all those places in
The Peony Pavilion
that illustrated them. I would look inside myself and write not what the critics had observed or what my aunts discussed about these emotions but how
I
felt them myself. I would finish my project in time for my marriage, so I could go to Wu Ren’s home with something that would remind me forever of the three nights of love I’d spent with my poet. My project would be my salvation in the coming dark years. I might be locked in my husband’s home, but my mind would travel to the Moon-Viewing Pavilion, where I could meet my poet again and again without interruption or fear of being caught. My poet would never read it, but I could always imagine presenting it to him—me unclothed on his bed and naked in my heart and mind.

I stood up abruptly, scraping my chair against the floor. The sound caused the women and girls to stare at me. I saw the way their hate and jealousy hid behind pretty faces filled with false worry and concern.

“Tong,” my mother said, addressing me by my new name.

My head felt like ants were crawling inside it. I composed my face as best I could.

“Mama, may I go to Baba’s library?”

“He’s not there. He’s gone to the capital.”

The news shocked me. He had not been back to the capital since the Manchus took over.

“Even if he were here,” she went on, “I would say no. He’s a bad influence. He thinks a girl should know about Xiaoqing. Well, look what that kind of lesson has brought you.” She said this in front of every woman who lived in our compound. This is how great her scorn and contempt for me was. “The Cataclysm is over. We have to remember who we are: women who belong in our inner chambers,
not
wandering in the garden.”

“I only want to look up something,” I said. “Please, Mama, let me go. I’ll return shortly.”

“I’ll accompany you. Let me hold your arm.”

“Mama, I’m fine. Really. I’ll be right back.”

Nearly everything I said to my mother was a lie, but she let me go anyway.

I left the Lotus-Blooming Hall feeling light-headed and wandered through the corridors until I could step out and into the garden. It was the ninth month. The blossoms had faded, their pitiful petals fallen. The birds had left for warmer climates. With spring feelings so strong in me, it hurt to see this reminder of the frailty of youth, life, and beauty.

When I came to the edge of our pond, I sank to my knees so I might see my reflection on the glassy surface. Lovesickness had caused my face to grow thin and pale. My body looked less substantial, as if it could no longer bear the weight of my tunic. My gold bracelets hung loosely on my wrists. Even my jade hairpins seemed too heavy for the lightness of my frame. Would my poet recognize me if he saw me now?

I stood again, lingering for a moment to see my reflection one last time, and then I retraced my steps until I was back in the corridor. I walked to the front gate. Over the last sixteen years I’d come here many times but had never stepped through it or been carried over the threshold. That would happen only on my wedding day. I ran my fingers along its surface. My father had once explained to me that we had a wind-fire gate. The side that faced the outside world was composed of solid wood. It protected us from all kinds of weather, but it also shielded us from ghosts and bandits by tricking them into believing that nothing of importance or interest resided on our side. The inside of the gate was sheathed in shaved stone to protect us from fire and give us extra fortification against whatever evils might try to penetrate our garden home. Touching those stone sheets was like touching the cold
yin
of the earth. From there I went to the ancestral hall, made obeisance to my grandmother, lit incense, and begged her to make me strong.

Finally, I went to my father’s library. When I stepped inside I could see that my father had been away for some time. I smelled no tobacco or incense floating on the air. The trays that held his summer ice had been removed, but no braziers had been brought in to heat the room against the autumn chill. More than anything, the energy of his mind was gone not only from this room but—I felt it now—from the compound. He was the most important person in the Chen Family Villa. How had I not noticed his absence, even alone in my room?

I went to the shelves and selected the best collections of poetry, history, myth, and religion I could find. I made three trips to my room to drop them off. I came back to the library and sat for a few minutes on the edge of Baba’s daybed to think if there was anything else I might want. I chose another three books from a stack in the corner, and then I left the library and made my way back to my room. I entered, and this time I closed the door of my own accord.