Anchee Min - Empress Orchid

Lady Jin’s head looked like a big pile of dough from all the powder on her face. An-te-hai told me that in her last days boils had erupted all over her face. In the record, her doctor wrote that the “buds” on Her Majesty’s body “bloomed” and produced “nectar.” The boils were black and green, like a rotten potato sprouting shoots. The whole Forbidden City gossiped that it must have been the work of her former rival, Empress Chu An.

Lady Jin’s face had been smoothed and patched with powder from ground pearls. If one looked closely, however, one could still detect the bumps. On the right side of Her Majesty’s head was a tray with a golden ceramic bowl. This contained her last earthly meal, rice. On the left stood a large burning oil lamp, the “eternal light.”

I went with Nuharoo and Emperor Hsien Feng’s other wives to view the body. We were all dressed in white silk gowns. Nuharoo wore makeup but without the rouge dot on her lower lip. She burst into tears when she saw Lady Jin. She pulled a piece of lace from her hair and bit it with her teeth in order to hold back her emotions. I was moved by her sadness and offered her my hand. We stood shoulder to shoulder before the dead Empress.

A mourning troupe arrived. They cried in various styles. The sound was more like singing than crying. It reminded me of the discordant music of a village band. Maybe it was how I felt-I had just escaped the curse. My mood was lightened and I felt little sadness.

Lady Jin had never liked me. She said openly after learning I was pregnant that she wished the news had come from Nuharoo. She believed that I had stolen Emperor Hsien Feng from Nuharoo.

I remembered the last time I encountered Lady Jin. Her health was declining but she refused to admit it. Disregarding the fact that everyone knew about the peach-pit-sized stone, she claimed that her health had never been more robust. She rewarded doctors who lied to her and said that her longevity was not in doubt. But her body gave away her flaws. When she pointed a finger and tried to tell me that I was bad, her hand trembled. It looked like she was getting ready to strike me. She tried to fight off her trembling. Eventually she fell back and couldn’t sit up without help from her eunuchs. That didn’t stop her from cursing me. “You illiterate!” she cried. I didn’t understand her choice of epithet. None of the other ladies, except perhaps Nuharoo, was more accomplished than I was in reading.

I tried to avoid Lady Jin’s lifeless eyes. I looked above her eyebrows when I had to face her. Her broad wrinkled forehead reminded me of a painting I had once seen of the Gobi Desert. Folds of skin hung from her chin. The loss of her teeth on her right side made her face slope like a spoiled melon.

Lady Jin had a love of magnolias. Even in sickness, she wore an embroidered dress with large pink magnolia flowers covering every inch of the fabric. “Magnolia” had been the Empress’s childhood name. I could hardly believe that she had once caught the eye of Emperor Tao Kuang.

How frightening it was the way a woman could age. Would anyone be able to imagine how I would look by the time I died?

Lady Jin yelled at me that day, “Don’t you worry about your beauty. Worry about beheading instead!” The words were pushed out of her chest as she struggled with her breath. “Let me tell you what I have been worrying about since the day I became the Imperial consort! I will continue to worry until the day I die!” Fighting to keep her composure, she raised herself up with the help of her eunuchs. With both arms in the air she looked like a vulture spreading its wings from the edge of a cliff.

We dared not move. The daughters-in-law-Nuharoo, Ladies Yun, Li, Mei and Hui, and I-endured her ranting and waited for the moment when she would release us.

“Have you heard the story from a country far away where people’s eyeballs look like they have been bleached and their hair is the color of straw?” Lady Jin narrowed her eyes. The landscape of her forehead changed from rolling hills to steep valleys. “A king’s entire family was slaughtered after the empire was overthrown. All of them, including the infants!”

Seeing that her words had startled us, she was satisfied. “You bunch of illiterates!” she yelled. Suddenly her throat produced a string of noises: “ Ohhhhh, wa! Ohhhhh, wa! ” It took me a while to realize that she was laughing. “Fear is good! Ohhhhh, wa! Fear tortures you and makes you behave. You can’t gain immortality without it, and my job is to instill fear in you! Ohhhhh, wa! Ohhhhh, wa! ”

I could still hear that laughter. I wondered what Lady Jin would say if she had known that she was the victim of my child, her grandson’s curse. I felt blessed that Lady Jin considered me an illiterate. She would have ordered my beheading if she had seen my love for knowledge or bothered to trace the source of the curse.

Watching her on her soul bed, I had little remorse. I saw no sympathy in the others except for Nuharoo. The general expression was wooden. The eunuchs had just finished burning straw paper in the hall, and now the crowd was led outside to burn more paper. In the courtyard life-size palanquins, horses, carriages, tables and chamber pots were being installed with life-size paper figures of people and animals. The figures were clothed in expensive silk and linen, as was the furniture. Following the Manchu burial traditions she had adopted, she had arranged everything herself years before. The paper figure of herself looked real, although it was the way she used to look when she was young. It was wearing a magnolia-patterned dress.

Before the ceremony began, a thirty-foot pole was raised. A red silk scroll was mounted at the top with the word tien, “in memory.” It was the first time I had a chance to witness this ritual. Centuries before, Manchus inhabited vast grasslands where it was difficult to notify relatives about a death in the family. When a family member died, a pole with a red scroll would be put up in front of the family’s tent, so that passing horsemen and herdsmen would stop and pay their respects in place of the missing relatives.

True to the custom, three large tents were set up in the Forbidden City. One was used to display the body, the second housed the monks, lamas and priests who came from afar, and the last was for receiving relatives and high-ranking guests. Other, smaller tents were also put up in the courtyard to receive visitors. The tents were about ten feet in height, and the supporting bamboo posts were decorated with white magnolias made of silk. As daughters-in-law we each were given a dozen handkerchiefs for our tears. I kept hearing Lady Jin-“Illiterate!”-and wanted to laugh instead of cry. I had to cover my face with my hands.

Between my fingers I saw Prince Kung arrive. He was dressed in a white robe and matching boots. When he examined the coffin, he looked grief-stricken. The female relatives were supposed to avoid their male cousins or brothers-in-law, so we retreated to the next room. Fortunately I was able to see through the windows. The coffin lid was lifted for Prince Kung. Glittering jewels, gold, jade, pearls, emeralds, rubies and crystal vases were piled on Lady Jin’s chest. Besides the little mirror, she was holding her makeup box.

Prince Kung stood solemnly beside his mother. His sorrow made him look like an older man. He got down on his knees and performed a kowtow. His forehead remained on the ground for a long time. When he rose, a eunuch went up and carefully parted Lady Jin’s lips. The eunuch placed a large pearl strung on red thread in her mouth. Then he closed her mouth, leaving the end of the thread hanging by her chin. The pearl was the symbol of life’s essence and represented purity and nobility. The red thread, which would be tied by her son, served as a demonstration of his unwillingness to part with her.