The Tapestries (26 page)

The night was fleeing. Through a round window on the wall to her right, the early sun sent its rosy rays over the stark branches of a dead oak tree. She could also glimpse a russet sky, like the healthy glow on a child's cheeks. With each day that passed, she felt herself lingering, like a guest that has outstayed her welcome. A rock the size of a grapefruit had grown in her womb, mounding under her abdomen like a fetus. She could hardly walk, for each step caused a searing pain that forced her to stoop and gasp.

Two weeks earlier, while attending her duties in the queen's bedchamber among the other ladies-in-waiting, she had sprawled on the tiles, her face twisted in agony and her hands clutching her belly. A strange mist shrouded her eyes. The high ceiling above her had faded to a grayness like that of the silken counterpane that she had draped over her employer's lower body prior to the attack. Before she fainted, she remembered reaching toward the Queen Mother, Lady Thuc, who shrank away in her seat and cried out for the guards.

An imperial physician had rushed to her side. He discovered the tumor in her womb and advised that it had permanently enlarged the spleen, diseased the liver, and weakened the heart. There was no hope of recovery, since Death had also tinted the whites of her eyes a silvery shade of green. In the holy citadel, where she had lived most of her life, she had no immediate family. As for the distant relatives, none would agree to look after her. She was taken to the Apartments of Peace, one of the three royal buildings outside the walls of the Imperial Palace, where the women of the court spent their final days.

When she had first entered this rectangular room with its whitewashed stucco walls, she was seized with a terror that had almost suffocated her. The ceiling seemed so low that her initial impulse was to push it outward like a coffin's lid. She lay, alone and isolated, on the narrow cot, sometimes hearing the moans of unseen sufferers in adjacent rooms. When the noise coalesced into a high-pitched siren inside her head, she screamed, begging the empty space for forgiveness. The thick walls responded only with the echoes of her lament.

Once her eyes became used to the lack of light, the starkness of her apartment seemed less intimidating. A bamboo bed was its only furniture. Exhausted from her outburst, she grew quiet, allowing herself to evaporate into the surroundings like a puddle in a desert. The gloominess began to suit her, as though it had always been a world she belonged to. She learned to acknowledge the existence of Death, its decaying miasma and its mystery.

Eventually she found a portal in her mind that she could cross whenever she liked. Through it she entered a white space where Death seemed peaceful and familiar; going there was like sailing down the Perfume River on a calm day. With each visit, she hoped to get closer to her ultimate destination. But each morning she would wake up on her bed, disoriented, relieved, and at the same time filled with disappointment.

Outside her window the cannon boomed, announcing the opening of the palace gates. Above its roar, she also heard drums and bells from the nearby pagoda. On the heels of the eager sunlight, an air of festivity crept into her vacant, orderly little bedchamber.

Lady Chin rolled to her side and looked at the wall. Beyond the usual sounds of the morning ritual procession, she was conscious of the steady, rhythmic pounding of hammers. Something was being built inside the Imperial Palace. Experience told her that the construction foretold some great event. She shut her eyes and forced herself to sleep.

T
oday, she was determined not to think of her husband and son. But still, in the cold stony room, with her back to the door and staring at the darkness, she could not help but wonder about them. To keep her mind clear, she longed for the company of the male servant who came once a day to bring her a meal. So far, he had been her only visitor. Custom dictated that once a lady entered the Apartments of Peace, she must go hungry as she waited for Death. This strict rule allowed no room for exception, and any servant found guilty of contravening it would be severely punished. How strange that anyone would challenge this tradition for her benefit.

The young man had first come to her during one of her fits of suffering. A large conical straw hat and wide chin strap covered most of his face, as though to keep his identity a secret. From the floor where she quivered on her hands and knees, groaning deep in her throat, he seemed to hover above her in a cloud of white light. She had looked into his large eyes and somehow found them reassuring, and his touch was gentle.

She did not fight when he bent down and lifted her in his arms. Then, floating in a gray void between being waking and sleeping, she was back in her bed. The servant's musky scent—the odor of young men—filled her nose. For a moment she was confused. Could that be her son returning from the grave to forgive her? As if to answer her, the man took off his hat.

A thin ray of light shining from under the door struck his face, but it provided her no clues. She could feel his hand withdraw from her neck as she relaxed onto her pillow. He fed her some warm broth, which filled her mouth with the bitter taste of herbal medicine. When he finished, Lady Chin remembered reaching out her arms, which protruded thin and angular from the long sleeves of her robe like two lotus buds. She wanted nothing more than to be held.

“Who are you?” she had asked him. “This is the house of peace. A surgeon sent me here, so that I can end my life with dignity. Why must you interfere? Were you sent by the Queen Mother?”

He shook his head.

“Then go, please,” she told him. “I am in great pain. If the guards find you here, the two of us will be severely punished, and you may even face internment.”

He reached for a warm cloth to wipe her mouth, but she pushed him away. She wondered if she had seen him in the palace kitchen, or in the old queen's parlor, or in the royal stables. She could hardly spit out her words. “If you are not acting on orders from Her Highness, then who gives you permission to be here? I have seen your face before, but I can't remember where.”

Instead of answering, he vanished from her bedroom.

After that he came every day. Although they hardly spoke to each other, she was amazed at what joy she derived from seeing this quiet man, even for the short visit. More than the food he brought, she welcomed his presence, a warm contrast to the illusiveness of her other world.

S
he woke to the sound of cautious footsteps on the stone pavement outside her room. The sickly dawn had matured into a robust afternoon.

She pushed to a sitting position and swept the mosquito net aside, then swung her feet to the floor. Even in the last days of her life, she must receive any visitors graciously, for she was a lady of superior station. The shy footfalls made her think of the servant. With her eyes closed, she could almost see him, treading nimbly along the old path that was covered with green moss. Then the door's hinges squeaked. When she opened her eyes, his tattered brown tunic was inside her apartment, together with a splash of sunlight. He cast a worried look at her; how honest his eyes were. She offered a weak smile.

The servant inched closer to her, his upper back bent to accommodate the low ceiling. He set a covered basket at her feet and stuttered a greeting.

“How y-you f-feeling, Aunty?” He seemed nervous.

She shook her head, reaching for a knot in her hair and trying to smooth it. The room took shape before her, cloudy at first, then with clearer details. She could see the weblike pattern of brown stains on the plaster, like clouds. The wall across her bedposts held an array of seven posters, depicting sketches of the criminal who was responsible for murdering her husband and son. She had asked the guards to post the bulletins there so she could look at them each day. The killer was a peasant woman. Her face was burned into Lady Chin's mind, especially the haunting eyes, which had now become an integral current of her river of memories. The fact that the murderer had never been caught was one of the few reasons she clung to life.

The servant knelt and placed his hands on her bony shoulders. A light breeze crept through the round window, ushering in a handful of wilted pear blossoms from the yard. She touched his face, feeling the strong cheekbones under his skin. The servant reacted with a jerk of his head, but he continued to hold her. Was it the poison from her pores that prompted him to flinch? Or was he hiding something from her?

“No need to be afraid of me, my dear son,” she said.

He looked startled, and rather sad, as if she had said something outrageous. “I-I am not B-Bui, Aunty.”

Her features contracted, and warm tears rolled down her cheeks. “I know you are not him,” she said.

He turned his attention to the food. His skillful hands opened the bamboo kit and laid two bowls on the floor. She saw a couple of steamed chicken legs, thrusting from the white liquid. Part of her found the smell delicious, and this realization frightened her.

“No food, please,” she wailed. “Why must you insist on feeding me? Don't you see that I am dying, and nothing on Earth can save me? All you are doing is strengthening me so that my suffering can last longer.”

“Eat, please.” He held the porcelain bowl in front of her, and she recognized the sweet odor of three-mooned rice—a special grain harvested after three lunar months and husked with the peasants' bare hands instead of machinery, so that each speck was as white as ivory and as soft as cotton. She turned her head away.

“Please have some food,” he said again. She could hear the compassion in his voice.

“I am so scared, especially of your kindness,” she said. “I don't know what you want from me. But during the past two weeks of your companionship, I have been filled with happiness. Why must you treat me with such tender care, which I clearly do not deserve? Young man, I beg you to let me go, because I cannot stand to be separated from my family any longer.”

He nodded, placing the soup bowl in her hands. He gathered the rest of the food into the basket. With a light touch of his fingertips, he swept a strand of dark hair away from her cheek. He looked at her one last time, and then he was gone, slipping back to the world outside her tomb.

L
ady Chin sat on the edge of the bed, the porcelain bowl in her lap forgotten. She gradually slouched back until the dish tilted and slid from her hands. She was not aware of the shattering noise it made against the cement floor, nor did she notice the soup that splattered on her legs. The pain returned to seize at her heart instead of her womb. Through the door overlooking the street she could see workers, their brown backs slick with perspiration, moving through the afternoon heat like cattle. With each step their flat soles slapped the burning soil, stirring up a cloud of dust that carried the vague aroma of roasted bamboo bark.

Her whole adult life had revolved around that smell. She thought of the forest behind the royal kitchen, the exclusive source of the special kind of bamboo used in carving chopsticks and toothpicks for the imperial family. She saw herself among the trees; the sun was high and the branches swayed. The delicate leaves cut her skin like sharp knives if she was not careful. She recalled the hours she had spent each day sitting by an earthen stove, inhaling the smell of burning bamboo, while the jumping sparks dotted the dark room like perfect stars.

Often the bamboo stem must be roasted prior to the making of utensils. Once touched by the flame, its texture became soft and malleable for a few minutes. During that time, it was easy to whittle with a knife. How many toothpicks had she carved in that kitchen? None of the other ladies-in-waiting had the delicacy and confidence for the job, and since each meal in the Imperial Palace required elaborate preparation, they all took part in the various cooking activities—except for her.

Squatting in front of the flame and blushing from the heat, she drew her hands along the bamboo. The slender, tapered end of the toothpick was used to remove food particles lodged between the teeth. At the other end, she cleaved the wood into a thousand splinterlike fibers and pounded them with a light hammer until they became soft. The Queen Mothers liked to use this end as a toothbrush after each meal.

She tossed in her seat. Why did her mind bother with this tidbit of memory during the last moments of her life? Was it a mechanism to mask the pain? She turned her mind inward. The snapshots of her past reminded her how monotonous her life had been. Those precious hours she had wasted in the frivolity of making toothpicks—oh, if she could have them back again!

“Lady Chin!”

A head, bald as her kneecap, poked inside her chamber. She recognized the narrow face, the round eyes without lashes, and the golden earrings that had once been blessed by a Tibetan monk. The sight of the man's homely features brought a smile to her face. It was Ung, her oldest and dearest friend from the private building across the yard—an elderly eunuch, once the royal chamberlain. Now he had been cast into a home outside the walls of the palace for men of his kind.

In 1914, during the reign of King Duy Tan, the employment of eunuchs had been officially eliminated. The remaining castrati were sent to the queen, or to serve in the royal harem until they died. When the eminent Lady Thuc was confirmed as Queen Mother, Lady Chin's son, Bui, must have been about nine years old. The servant was probably in his early sixties when he assumed his new duty at Khon Thai Tower, the lowly job of tending the royal chamber pot for the Queen Mother.

Like most of the ladies-in-waiting, Lady Chin never knew what he looked like, for he had kept out of sight. No one knew much about him, his name, or the life he had led; and no one cared. Each day, he wandered through the promenades. With his shaven head bowed down and his hands clapped together in front of his chest, he resembled a studious monk.

Every time she caught a glimpse of him, he vanished into the gardens or behind a building. She wondered if the flash of brown from his tunic had been a mere trick of the eyes, or if she had just encountered a ghost. For many years, that lonely image had been the only evidence of his existence to the rest of the denizens of the Forbidden City.