Secret of a Thousand Beauties (29 page)

When the waiter came, she ordered like a rich boss. “Give me dan dan noodles, concubine chicken, pan-fried pork dumplings, stir-fried pork intestine with chili paste, steamed fish with black bean sauce. And some beer.”

Soon we were talking and eating. Her chopsticks kept hitting her bowl, making an urgent, irritating sound. Finally, after she finished everything and had washed it all down with two pots of tea, she rubbed her bulging belly, looking satisfied, if not happy.

“It’s been a very long time since I had a chance to eat like this. You are kind.” She paused, then added, “And rich.”

I ignored her compliment but asked, “You really don’t know who I am, Aunty Peony?”

“Hmmm . . . maybe I do, but you look very different. Did you work for me in the past?”

I nodded.

“How come you look so fat? Hair down like a slut, wearing a Western dress—you a whore now?”

But I was not angry. Aunty Peony was after all Aunty Peony—rude as ever. She could at least see well enough to notice my bulging stomach. But I was not going to give away any details about my present life. Anyway, I was dying to know what had happened to her.

“What happened to you, Aunty Peony? Why did you leave us?”

She sipped her tea and sighed heavily. “Can’t you see that I’m going blind?”

“I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“It was all my years of embroidering, from when I was a child. But I never told anyone. Why do you think I let you redo
Along the River
? Not because you’re better than me—don’t even dream about that—but because my eyes started to blur and I couldn’t tell the difference between the subtle shadings. Now all I can see are shadows, silhouettes, and faces—though very blurred.”

She gulped her tea, then went on. “But my young lover told me he loved me no matter what. That he’d always take good care of me, since I can’t see well and am older than him. Now you see the effects of his honeyed words and slippery tongue! I left you all to start a new life with him here in Peking. That’s what comes of believing a man’s lies.”

I gazed at her in bewilderment as she went on. “He told me how he loved and admired me, so I let my guard down and gave him my whole life’s savings and all my imperial treasures. After that, he ran away with a pretty girl much younger than me.”

She paused, looking morose. Her bloodshot eyes wandered around the small restaurant. “In the past,” she said, raising her voice, “I’d never have eaten in the same place with these losers. I used to eat with the emperor!”

A young man at the neighboring table laughed and said to his friend, “Hahaha, what a crazy woman! Ate with the emperor! I bet she didn’t even have the chance to eat with the emperor’s dog!”

“Or rat, hahaha!” his friend blurted out.

The two laughed more, then resumed eating their greasy food.

Aunty continued with her boasting spree. “Huh! I’m the only one who knows the secrets of a thousand beauties! In the palace I only ate with chopsticks made of ivory, from bowls of the finest white tallow jade, and rubbed my hands only with the most delicate oil scented with a hundred different herbs—”

I cut her off. “Then what happened . . . ?”

“My mouth is dry. Buy me a drink so I’ll be able to tell you more.”

The waiter brought her another bottle of beer, which she finished in several big gulps.

“So I ended up begging and stealing on the streets. You know, some people are generous, but most are so stingy that it kills them to spare you a few coins. So I steal. And I never feel guilty. . . .”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s fair that after I had everything stolen, I steal in return.”

I knew this half-blind and crazy woman in front of me was indeed Aunty Peony. But, smart as she was, how did she end up in her present pitiful state?

“Aunty, do you have a place to stay?” I blurted out, then immediately regretted it. I couldn’t possibly take her to live at Our Lady of Sorrows—though now Aunty Peony was indeed a lady of sorrow.

She cast me an are-you-stupid-or-what look. “I stay right here.”

“What do you mean?”

She pointed to the direction of Compassionate Light. “In the temple here, where else?”

Of course there would be lodging for homeless and old people in a Buddhist temple.

“Aunty Peony, why don’t you go back to your house in Soochow?”

“I don’t even have money to buy a train ticket—will you lend me some?”

I ignored this. “Tell me about the person who cheated on you.”

“Oh, you don’t know? The one I threw rotten meat and vegetables at—the singer, that bastard, Soaring Crane!”

Now something clicked. I remembered. Soaring Crane—not Snoring Cane as mispronounced by the woman in her heavy accent—who got the bad review I read in the newspaper. And Aunty was the rich older lover mentioned in the article.

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll call the police to arrest you for attacking him?”

“You think he dares? He stole all my”—she leaned toward me and said in a heated whisper—“imperial treasures!”

I remembered when I had searched Aunty’s secret chamber and found that everything was gone. So this is how they’d ended up—stolen by a crooked opera singer.

“But . . . what can he do with them? If he tries to sell them, he’ll get caught.”

“But he can.”

“How?”

“His most ardent admirer is a gangster, so he’ll buy them.”

“But the police have spies everywhere—what if they find out?”

“Ha! You don’t know that gangsters’ best friends are the police?”

It took me a minute or two to digest all this. Then I wondered, “How could this Soaring Crane make you give him all your prized possessions?”

“He has the sweetest honeyed lips and tongue, not to mention that he’s very handsome and good at you-know-what. He told me that I was so beautiful and talented that he could never love another woman. So I told him everything about myself, my years in the palace and the emperor’s treasures. I always paid for the hotel rooms, expensive restaurants, and bought him lavish gifts. He’d told me that the theater owed him a lot of money and that he’d pay me back when he got paid.”

“Aunty, you kept this secret from us. How did you and he see each other?”

“Sometimes I went to Peking to see him, but most of the time he came to Soochow.”

“How come we never got to meet him?”

She cast me a disgusted look. “There’re lots of things about me you girls had no idea about, stupid.”

Before I could respond, she went on. “I spent most of what we made on him. He kept saying he wanted us to get married so he’d take good care of me and my treasures. So I took everything I owned and moved in with him. After a few days he disappeared, and my treasures with him. I had a little money hidden away, but pretty soon it ran out. With my eyesight nearly gone I couldn’t embroider anymore. So here I am, living at the mercy of this temple.”

Listening to Aunty, I couldn’t help but think of the saying “Smart for whole life, stupid for one moment.”

“Why didn’t you call the police to expose him?”

“Because he already sold everything to the gangster. I’m sure he’s gambled it all away by now. I’d just be asking for trouble.”

I felt so sorry for her that I asked, “Aunty Peony, do you want to come and live with me?”

She didn’t respond, looking down at the empty dishes. I suddenly realized that during our entire conversation, she’d never once asked about me. Why I was here in Peking; what I’d been doing; how I’d survived since she’d left; what had happened to the other girls; did I still embroider?

I sighed—even destitute she was as cold as ever. But I should not have been surprised by this. I’d never known her to care about anyone else. Except Soaring Crane, of course. It was ironic that she’d been cheated by the only person she’d ever loved and trusted. Or maybe that was selfishness, too, wanting to be with someone young, famous, handsome, who had promised to take care of her.

She gave me a curious glance. “Why did you invite me to live with you—you want to learn my secret stitches? Pay me back for all I’ve done for you and the other girls? But the answer is no, because I’m not homeless. Anyway, where do you live?”

“I’m married to a man who works at a Western church. I help out by doing embroideries for the church to sell.”

“Ah, so you’re still living off the skills I taught you. I always knew you’re the smartest among the girls. Not like the stupid Leilei who got herself killed by running away trying to sell
Along the River.
Or Purple, that whore!”

I decided not to tell her about Leilei, so I asked, “Purple? Do you know where she is?”

Aunty spat. “She threw all my teaching down the toilet! Worthless, ungrateful girl; should have been a prostitute to begin with.”

“How do you know that?”

“Compassionate Light Temple receives many different newspapers. One lady reads to me from the
Soochow Daily.
”

Purple in the newspaper? That did not sound good. “What’d it say about Purple?”

“Even though she was a whore, she wanted to be a nun instead. So she left the turquoise pavilion for a temple. But inside she was still just a whore. When she fell in love with a monk, the abbot kicked them both out. The newspaper said they were sent to another temple in Manchuria to do hard labor to work off their bad karma.”

She must have guessed what I was going to ask, because she quickly added, “Since then, nobody knows what happened to them. Maybe they couldn’t stand the harsh weather and committed suicide together. Who knows?”

I tried to digest this disturbing news. Was this what really happened or was there more to the story? I felt I should try to help Purple, remembering her kindness in taking me to Aunty’s house. But with a husband and baby on the way, I could not travel to the far north to look for her. I could only pray for her and her lover.

Finally, I said, “Aunty Peony, Little Doll is with me and my husband—you want to see her?”

She vehemently waved her bony hand. “No, she’ll hate me—like all of you do. None of you appreciate what I did for you. I’m not that stupid. Just leave me alone. Anyway, I have my plans.”

“What are you planning?”

“Why are you so nosy? It has nothing to do with you anyway.” She stood up abruptly. “All right, I’m going back to where I belong.”

“How can I see you again?”

“Ask for the death room in the temple, you know, where all the old people are.” She laughed.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re the smartest one, so go figure it out. But even if you come, that doesn’t mean I’ll see you, you understand?”

When I tried to help her walk back to the temple, she pushed me away.

“Go back to your husband and the worthless doll. And don’t you pity me. I know this area like the back of my hand. You understand?”

31

W
ith a heavy heart, I quickly walked back to Compassionate Light Temple. Entering the courtyard, I was alarmed to discover that it was now empty. The makeshift stage was dark, looking forlorn and dilapidated like an abandoned farmhouse. It was then that I realized I’d been gone for almost an hour and my husband and little sister must’ve gone crazy trying to find me. I just hoped Ryan hadn’t gone to the police to report me as a missing person!

In the distance, an emaciated, middle-aged man was sweeping the ground in front of the stage, occasionally picking up dropped objects—bits of food, a pen, a few coins.

I went up to him and politely asked, “Mister, did you happen to see a foreigner with a young Chinese girl?”

He stopped sweeping to look up at me. “You mean white ghost?”

I nodded.

“Yes, you think he’s going to do something bad to the girl?”

I chuckled. “No, mister. That foreigner is my husband and the girl my little sister; please tell me where they are.”

“Miss,” he said, and now looked at me differently, “why marry a foreigner? Chinese men no good? That’s why my twenty-seven-year-old son still can’t find a woman to marry!”

“Please, mister, just tell me if you saw them?”

He pointed to the temple’s exit. “I believe they went out there.”

Although his suggestion was basically useless, I thanked him and quickly walked toward the entrance. When I passed the bronze incense burner, I saw that donors’ names were etched on its round belly. Did these people all have such bad karma that they were desperate to reverse it by giving money to a temple? But actually all of us could use more good karma. Maybe when I had more money, I’d have Father Edwin’s, Ryan’s, Little Doll’s, and my name etched here too. One caught my attention: Peony. Could this be
my
Aunty Peony who had donated to have her name inscribed hoping to gain merit?

My musing was interrupted by Ryan shouting my name. “Spring Swallow, please don’t scare us like that in the future!”

He grabbed me and hugged me tightly, as if fearing even the incense’s smoke would lift me up and carry me away. Finally, he released me, looking upset and happy at the same time. Then it was Little Doll’s turn to hug me.

“Sister Spring Swallow, where have you been? We looked for you all over! Unkle Rai An was very upset; he thought you might be kidnapped.”

Ryan chimed in, and his voice held a scolding edge. “Spring Swallow, promise me that you won’t wander off like that again!”

“I promise,” I told him, meaning it.

“Where were you? What happened?”

We all went to sit on a bench near the gate and I told them about running into Aunty Peony and hearing the sad story of her life since leaving us. I also told Little Doll that I would take her to see Aunty very soon.

Ryan didn’t look very enthusiastic about the reunion, and told me, “Spring Swallow, you should stay away from her.”

“But I promised Little Doll I’d try to get our family back together. Heaven let me run into Aunty, so—”

“You’re a married woman now. A married woman’s responsibility is with her husband, not her aunty, especially since your so-called aunty is not even nice to you and is now mentally unstable. So you and Little Doll should stay away from her.”

This was the first time Ryan had been so firm. It made me a little scared, but his concern touched me.

“But, Ryan—”

“If you go to see her, there’ll be nothing but trouble. As your husband, I have to warn you.”

“Then what am I going to do, just let her be?”

“Exactly. And don’t worry about her—she has the temple to care for her.”

And that ended our conversation.

 

After my unexpected encounter with Aunty Peony, life went on uneventfully. Little Doll and I continued to embroider, and Ryan taught Bible class and helped run Our Lady of Sorrows with Father Edwin. Although I was planning to visit Aunty Peony again, at least to bring Little Doll to her, I was not going to discuss this with Ryan.

Just a week later I had my chance. Father Edwin had sent Ryan away to interview prospective new seminary students. So the next morning, I hailed a tricycle rickshaw and took Little Doll straight to Compassionate Light Temple.

Instead of sounding like a huge, noisy circus, now the temple courtyard possessed a quieter, melancholic air. Also, it was not until now that I noticed the many smaller temple complexes beside the main
Daxiong Baodian,
the “Grand Heroic Hall.” I had no idea how to look for Aunty. I dared not take Little Doll inside any of these halls, because they all looked mysterious and intimidating, especially the
Daxiong Baodian.
So we waited till we saw a nun heading toward one of the complexes, carrying a plate of food.

We hurried to her, and I asked, “Please,
shifu,
can you tell us where the nursing home for women is?”

“Who are you looking for?”

This time Little Doll answered eagerly, “We want to see our teacher, Aunty Peony.”

To my surprise, a shock shadowed the nun’s face. “Oh, her . . .”

“Doesn’t she live here?”

“She did . . . but no more.”

“What do you mean—what happened?” Aunty was lucky to be housed by a Buddhist temple, so why would she have left for another place?

“She’s your teacher and you don’t know? It’s all over the newspapers!”

“But we don’t usually read the papers.”

“She’s a murderess! She’s in jail,” the nun blurted out.

Little Doll and I exclaimed, “What!?”

“Yes, it’s horrible.”

“Aunty Peony a murderess? Who—”

“The famous Peking opera performer Soaring Crane.”

“But he was here last week. We heard him perform.”

“That’s when it happened. After the performance she went to his home. We heard that they had a big argument and she stabbed him many times. By the time he got to the hospital he was dead. This is a terrible thing for the temple and the nuns. Very embarrassing.”

“Where is she?”

“They arrested her right away. Now she’s locked up in the Tian Shan Women’s Prison outside the city.”

“What will happen to her?”

“There will be a trial, I guess.”

I really did not want to talk to her about Aunty any further, so I thanked her profusely and pulled Little Doll away.

But the nun called, “Poor little girl! Wait.” She picked up a sweet bun from the tray she was carrying and handed it to my little sister.

“Here, little girl. You’re too skinny; try to eat more.”

Next she stared at my pregnant belly, then gave me two buns and two dumplings wrapped in lotus leaves.

“Take these, you two may be hungry on your way.”

We thanked her again and hurried away. Though a cold wind blew from the gate, I felt the warmth of the nun’s kindness to us.

Outside the temple, between bites of her bun, Little Doll asked, “Sister Spring Swallow, what are we going to do now?”

“We are going to where Aunty Peony is. This may be our last chance to see her.”

Half an hour later, Little Doll and I arrived at the Tian Shan Women’s Prison. In the distance, the elongated building looked like a huge, indolent snake ready to wake up and attack. We walked another five minutes in the cold before we reached an iron gate guarded by scowling police. I checked inside my cloth bag and was relieved to see the lucky money envelopes given to me and Little Doll during the New Year were still there. After one of these envelopes discreetly changed hands, we were led inside. I could not even have imagined what it was like—dark, gloomy, and stinking of death, impending or actual.

At the reception area, a bulky man with a crude face looked up at us from his newspaper. I handed him another “entry fee.” He looked at it and told us to wait.

When he reappeared without Aunty, he told us, “She said she won’t see any visitors because all people are worthless.”

I showed him the snacks given to me by the nun. “Can you tell Miss Peony that I have some food for her?”

“All right, I’m the one who decides whom she’ll see or not see. Hahaha! Come, follow me.”

As Little Doll and I followed him along the gloomy corridor, from the dark, filthy cells, eyes stared at us, silently expressing resignation, bitterness, and misery. No one complained, cursed, or spat; they simply ignored us, waiting resignedly for the inevitable. Their silence was much sadder than angry protest would have been. There was no hope in this place.

I asked the man, “What’s going to happen to Peony?”

“Don’t know yet, probably a death sentence. They might give her an easy death because she’s old and crazy. But maybe not—the judge is an opera fan.”

Little Doll started to cry, so I patted her shoulder, trying to calm her.

The guard turned to look at me. “But who are you, young miss, and what’s she to you?”

Fortunately, I didn’t have to answer this question, for just then we reached Aunty’s cell. He took out a big metal ring, found the right key, then threw open the door with a nerve-wracking clang, and then let me and Little Doll in.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“Oh, please, can’t we have more?”

Aunty Peony answered for him. “That’ll be enough.”

So the man left with another loud clang of the gate. The harsh sound seemed to terrify Little Doll. For now we were prisoners, too, locked into this confined space stinking with human sweat, urine, and excrement.

Little Doll, cheered by the sight of Aunty, ran to her and passionately hugged her.

“Aunty Peony, so good to see you!”

Aunty pushed her away. “Stop talking so loud and acting so excited. Behave like a lady, won’t you?”

Looking crestfallen, Little Doll went to stand by me.

In place of the rags she had worn when I had seen her at the performance, Aunty now wore a baggy gray prison uniform that matched the equally gray and dreary prison walls.

She spoke. “I told the guard that I don’t want to see anyone, so why did he bring you here?”

Before I could say anything, she turned to Little Doll. “And you, how come you can grow so big; who’s wasting their food on you?”

In the past, I’d have laughed at this preposterous comment, but now I only felt sad. But not Little Doll. She looked happy that her aunty had addressed her.

“Aunty Peony, I’m fine and having a good time! Now I’m living with Sister Spring Swallow and Unkle Rai An, who is a very nice foreigner and very good to me. I even embroider small things to make money. Thank you, Aunty, for teaching me.”

Aunty scoffed. “Thank me, what for? Don’t you girls realize you all caught bad luck from me? !”

I ignored this. “Aunty Peony, I brought you something.” I took off my jacket and handed it to her.

She waved her bony hand. “Don’t pity me. I’m not cold, and even if I was, I don’t care. So keep your worthless jacket for yourself. Or”—she pointed to Little Doll—“for this stupid girl when she grows even bigger.”

I didn’t know why she kept saying that Little Doll was big, because, in fact, she was anything but.

I leaned to whisper to Little Doll. “I have to talk to Aunty Peony privately, so why don’t you stand over there and cover your ears.”

Little Doll giggled as she complied, though I suspected she would try to listen anyway.

I patted her shoulder and said tenderly, “Don’t forget to keep your ears covered—and turn your back. I won’t take long. You can have another bun when we’re done.”

“Aunty Peony,” I asked in a whisper, “was it because Soaring Crane stole your treasures that you killed him?”

“Yes, he ruined me completely. Then he ruined himself gambling it all away!” She spat on the ground. “I should have stabbed him even more, hahaha!”

Before I could say anything, she went on vehemently. “He ruined me with his charm, so I ruined him with my knife. Not my fault—it was his karma. He took all my imperial treasures; I took his life. We’re even. He lost his voice; I lost my embroidery. Everything is gone!”

“Aunty Peony, it’s not all gone.”

She cast me a suspicious look. “What do you mean?”

I opened my jacket and showed her what I had sewn inside.

Aunty’s eyes were round as two big coins. “Oh, Heaven! How did you get this? I thought I’d lost it.”

“No, Aunty. I found it where you’d hidden it in your pillow.”

She reached out with her bony hand and stroked it. “How could I have forgotten where I put it? It was my token of love for the emperor!”

“The emperor?” I already knew about this but hoped to learn more.

“Yes, the emperor. I was sixteen and he was twenty-six; we loved each other dearly. I embroidered this for his thirtieth birthday. But he died shortly afterward.”

“How?”

“Poisoned, I’m sure. People inside the palace died mysteriously all the time. Princes, princesses, imperial consorts, eunuchs, maids, anyone you can think of . . .”

Of course, I couldn’t think of such people—I’d never met a prince or princess, or any of the others. I tried to imagine life inside the Forbidden City and Aunty’s life and love in that vanished era, and assumed that she was imagining the same.

Little Doll had taken her hands off her ears and seemed to be trying to hear our conversation, so I spoke in a whisper. “Aunty Peony, you better hide this in case the guards here—”

“No, they won’t. The people here are idiots. They can’t tell the difference between an imperial garment and a rag.”

She frowned and shook her head. “Don’t worry, after all that has happened to me, I’m not going to lose my treasure again. No way, unless I die.” She held it against her cheek, then put the jacket on to conceal it.

Just then the prison guard reappeared. “All right, time’s up. If you like, come again tomorrow.”