Peony in Love (26 page)

“Why should having children and tending to our homes keep us from thinking about public affairs and the future of our country?” Lin Yining continued. “Marrying and having sons are not a woman’s only way to have dignity.”

“You say this because you wish you were a man,” Gu Yurei teased.

“I was educated by my mother, so how could I wish this?” Yining countered, her fingers trailing in the water, sending quiet ripples across the lake. “And I’m a wife and mother myself. But if I’d been a man, I would have greater success.”

“If we were men,” one of the others cut in, “the Manchus might not let us write or publish at all.”

“All I’m saying is that I also give birth to sons through my writing,” Yining went on.

I thought about my failed project. Had it not been like a child I was trying to bring into the world to tie me to Ren? I shuddered at this. My love for him had never gone away but only changed, growing deeper like wine fermenting or pickles curing. It bore into me with the pervasiveness of water working its way to the center of a mountain.

Instead of letting my emotions continue to torture me, I began to use them for good. When someone got stuck composing a poem, I helped her. When Lin Yining began a line like, “I feel a kinship with…” I finished with “mists and fog.” New moons could be grand up there beyond the clouds, but they could also move us to melancholy and remind us of our impermanence. Whenever we sank into sorrow, these poets remembered the voices of the lost and desperate women who’d written on walls during the Cataclysm.

“My heart is empty and my life has no value anymore. Each moment a thousand tears,”
Gu Yurie recited one day, recalling the poem that seemed to speak the sadness of my existence.

The members of the Banana Garden Five could joke about their relative unimportance to the Manchus, but they were clearly disrupting the moral order. How long would it be before the Manchus, and those who followed them, sent all women—from those who floated on the lake on a warm spring day to those who merely read to expand their hearts—permanently back to their inner chambers?

Mother Love

FOR THREE YEARS I WAS AFRAID TO SEE REN. BUT AS THIS
year’s Double Seven Festival approached, I found myself thinking about the Weaving Maid and the Cowherd and how all the magpies on earth formed a bridge so they could meet on this one special night. Couldn’t Ren and I also have one night to reunite? I’d learned enough by now; I wouldn’t hurt him. So two days before the Double Seven Festival—and the twelfth anniversary of Ren’s and my first meeting—I left Solitary Island and glided up Wushan Mountain until I came to his home.

I waited outside the gate until he left the compound. To me, he was the same: man-beautiful. I relished his scent, his voice, his very presence. I attached myself to his shoulders so I could be pulled along as he went to a bookshop and later gave a talk to a gathering of men. Afterward, he was restless and unsettled. He spent the rest of the night drinking and gambling. I followed him when he went home. His bedchamber had been left untouched since Ze’s death. Her zither rested in its stand in the corner. Her perfumes, brushes, and hair ornaments collected dust and spider silks on her dressing table. He stayed up late, pulling her books from the shelves and opening them. Was he thinking of her or me or both of us?

Ren slept until after lunch, woke up, and repeated the exact same pattern as the day before. Then, on Double Seven, on what would have been my twenty-eighth birthday, Ren spent the afternoon with his mother. She read poetry to him. She poured his tea. She patted his sad face. By now I was sure he was remembering me.

After his mother went to bed, Ren once again looked through Ze’s books. I went back to my old place in the rafters, where my feelings of regret and remorse about Ren, Ze, and my own life and death rippled through me in wave upon wave. I’d failed in so many ways, and now seeing my poet like this—opening one book after another, his mind far into the past—hurt beyond measure. I closed my eyes against the pain of what I was seeing. I put my hands over my ears, which had never adapted to the sounds of the earthly realm, but I could still hear pages turning, each one a reminder of what Ren and I had lost.

When he moaned below me, the sound tore through my body. I opened my eyes and looked down. Ren sat on the edge of the bed, holding two sheets of paper, the book that they’d come from open next to him. I slipped straight down and came to rest at his side. He held the two pages Ze had so cruelly ripped out of our shared copy of
The Peony Pavilion
that described how our commentary had been written. Here was the proof Ren needed to know that Ze and I had worked together. I was delighted, but Ren didn’t look happy or relieved in any way.

He folded the papers, tucked them into his tunic, and set out into the night with me hanging on to his shoulders. He pushed his way through the streets until he came to a house I didn’t know. He was let in and led to a room filled with men, who were waiting for their wives to finish their Double Seven customs and games so they could sit down to their banquet. The air was thick with smoke and incense, and at first Ren didn’t recognize anyone. Then Hong Sheng, who had been at Ren’s niece’s house the day I had gone on my first ever excursion, stood and came forward. Seeing that Ren was not there for the festivities, Hong Sheng picked up an oil lamp with one hand and two cups and a bottle of wine with the other, and the two men walked outside to a pavilion on the property and sat down.

“Have you eaten?” Hong Sheng asked.

Ren politely declined and then began, “I have come—”

“Baba!”

A little girl, still so young her feet hadn’t been bound, came running into the pavilion and climbed into Hong Sheng’s lap. I remembered seeing the poet’s wife pregnant with this child.

“Shouldn’t you be with your mother and the others?” Hong Sheng asked.

The child squirmed her indifference to the games of the inner chamber. She reached up, put her arms around her father’s neck, and buried her face in his shoulder.

“All right then,” Hong Sheng said, “you can stay, but you must be quiet, and when your mother comes you’ll have to go back with her. No arguments. No tears.”

How many times had I sought refuge with my father? Was this girl as wrong about her father as I’d been about mine?

“Do you remember a few years ago when we visited my cousin’s home?” Ren asked. “Cousin Shen and the others had read the commentary on
The Peony Pavilion.
”

“I’d read it too. I was very impressed by your work. I still am.”

“That day I told everyone I hadn’t written it.”

“You remain modest. It’s a good quality.”

Ren pulled out the two sheets of paper and gave them to his friend. The poet tilted them to the lamplight and read. When he was done, he looked up, and asked, “Is this true?”

“It was always true, but no one would listen.” Ren hung his head. “Now I want to tell everyone.”

“What good will it do if you change the story now?” Hong Sheng asked. “You will appear a fool at best and a man who is trying to promote women’s fame at worst.”

Hong Sheng was right. What I thought was a wonderful discovery locked Ren further into sadness and despair. He picked up the bottle of wine, poured himself a cup, and drained it. When he grabbed the bottle again, Hong Sheng took it from his hand.

“My friend,” he said, “you need to get back to your own work. You need to forget about your suffering and the tragedies of that girl and your wife.”

If Ren forgot, what would happen to me? But keeping us in his heart was torturing him. I’d seen this in his loneliness, his drinking, and in the way he handled Ze’s books so lovingly. Ren had to get over his grief and forget about us. I left the pavilion, wondering if I would ever see him again.

A sliver of moon hung in the night sky. The air was damp and warm. I walked and walked, believing each step would take me farther into exile. I watched the sky the whole night, and I never saw the Weaving Maid and her Cowherd meet. And I didn’t know what Ren did with those two pages.

JUST ONE WEEK
later, the Festival of Hungry Ghosts arrived. After so many years, I knew what I was and what I needed to do. I pushed. I shoved. I stuffed my mouth with whatever I could grab. I went from house to house. And as usual, as if I could have changed where I went even if I wanted to, I found myself again in front of the Chen Family Villa. I had my face in a bowl of melon rinds so old they’d gone soft and slimy when I heard someone call my name. I growled, spun around, and came face-to-face with my mother.

Her cheeks were painted white and she was dressed in layer upon layer of the finest silk. She recoiled when she saw it truly was me. Terror filled her eyes. She threw spirit money at me and took several steps back, tripping over her train.

“Mama!” I hurried to her side and helped her to her feet. How could she possibly see me? Had a miracle happened?

“Stay away!” She threw more money at me, which the other nether creatures scrambled to grab for themselves.

“Mama, Mama—”

She started to edge away again, but I stayed with her. Her back came up against the wall of the compound across the street. She looked from side to side, hoping to find a way to escape, but she was surrounded by those who wanted more money.

“Give them what they want,” I said.

“I have nothing more.”

“Then show them.”

Mama held out her empty hands, and then reached into her clothes to show them she had nothing hidden beyond a couple of fish-shaped locks. The other ghosts and creatures—driven by their hunger—turned away and scurried back to the altar table.

I reached out to touch her cheek. It was soft and cold. She closed her eyes. Her whole body shook with fright.

“Mama, why are you out here?”

She opened her eyes and looked at me in bewilderment.

“Come with me,” I said.

I led her by the elbow to the corner of our compound. I looked down. Neither of us cast shadows, but I refused to take in the knowledge. I arced out wide to navigate the corner by the shore. When I saw our feet left no prints in the soft mud, nor did our skirts get dirty, I shut my heart to what I was seeing. Only when I realized Mama couldn’t take more than ten steps without swaying did I accept the truth. My mother was dead and roaming, only she didn’t know it.

We came to my family’s Moon-Viewing Pavilion, I helped her up, and then I joined her.

“I remember this place. I used to come here with your father,” Mama said. “But you shouldn’t be here, and I should get back. I need to put out New Year offerings.” Again confusion settled over her features. “But those are for ancestors and you’re—”

“A ghost. I know, Mama. And this is not New Year.” She had to have died very recently, because her confusion was still so powerful and complete.

“How can that be? You have an ancestor tablet. Your father had one made, even though it goes against tradition.”

My tablet…

Grandmother had said I couldn’t do anything to get it dotted, but maybe I could get my mother to help me.

“When did you last see it?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“Your father took it with him to the capital. He couldn’t bear to be parted from you.”

I formed the sentences to tell her what had actually happened, but as hard as I tried, the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. A terrible feeling of helplessness washed over me. I could do many things but not this.

“You look exactly the same,” Mama said, after a long while, “but I see so much in your eyes. You’ve grown. You’re different.”

I saw a lot in her eyes too: desolation, resignation, and guilt.

WE STAYED IN
the Moon-Viewing Pavilion for three days. Mama didn’t say much and neither did I. Her heart needed to settle so she would understand she was dead. Gradually she remembered getting the feast for hungry ghosts ready and collapsing on the kitchen floor. Slowly she became aware of the other two parts of her soul, one waiting for burial, the other journeying to the afterworld. The third with me was free to roam, but Mama hesitated to leave the Moon-Viewing Pavilion.

“I don’t go abroad,” she said on the third night, as flower shadows trembled around us, “and you shouldn’t either. You belong at home where you’ll be safe.”

“Mama, I’ve been roaming for a long time now. Nothing”—I considered my words carefully—“physically bad has happened to me.”

She stared at me. She was still beautiful: thin, elegant, refined, but touched by sorrow so deep it gave her grace and dignity. How had I not seen this in life?

“I’ve walked to Gudang to see our mulberry groves,” I said. “I’ve gone on excursions. I’ve even joined a poetry club. Have you heard of the Banana Garden Five? We go boating on the lake. I’ve helped them with their writing.”

I could have told her about my project, how much I’d done on it and how my husband had received fame as a result. But she hadn’t known about it when I was alive and in death I’d pursued it so hard that I’d caused Ze’s death. Mama wouldn’t be proud of me; she’d be disgusted and ashamed.

But it was as if she hadn’t heard me at all when she said, “I never wanted you to go out. I tried hard to protect you. There was so much I didn’t want you to know. Your father and I didn’t want anyone to know.”

She reached into her clothes and fingered her hidden locks. My aunts must have placed them there when preparing her for burial.

“Even before you were born, I dreamed of you and who you would be,” she went on. “When you were seven, you wrote your first poem and it was beautiful. I wanted your talent to soar like a bird, but when it did I was frightened. I worried about what would happen to you. I saw your emotions were close enough to touch, and I knew you would have little happiness in life. This is when I realized the real lesson of the Weaving Maid and the Cowherd. Her gift of cleverness and her ability at weaving did not put an end to her sorrow, it caused it. If she hadn’t been so good at weaving cloth for the gods, she could have lived forever with the Cowherd on earth.”

“I always thought you told that tale because it was romantic. I didn’t understand.”

A long silence followed. Her interpretation of the story was dark and negative. There were so many things I didn’t know about her.