Anchee Min - Empress Orchid

But she is not the mother of your child! I shouted in my head.

Nuharoo played her role well. She showed her happiness with real tears. I thought, Could I be wrong about her? Maybe it was time for me to change my view. Maybe Nuharoo had turned herself into a true Buddhist.

When I was five months pregnant, Nuharoo suggested to Emperor Hsien Feng that I be moved back to the Palace of Concentrated Beauty.

“Lady Yehonala needs absolute peace,” Nuharoo said to him. “She needs to stay away from stress of any kind, including the bad news about the country from you.”

I let myself believe that Nuharoo was thinking of my welfare, and agreed to be moved. But the moment I was out of His Majesty’s bedroom, I sensed that I had made a mistake. Soon enough the truth revealed itself, and I never made it back to that bedroom.

As if to add more chaos to my life, Chief Eunuch Shim told me that I would not be allowed to raise my own child. I was considered “one of the prince’s mothers,” but not the only one. “It is the Imperial tradition,” Shim said coldly. Nuharoo would also be responsible for the daily care and education of my child, and she would have the right to take my child away from me if I refused to cooperate with her. The Manchu clan and Emperor Hsien Feng both believed that Nuharoo’s Imperial blood qualified her to be the chief mother of the future prince. No one had ever accused me of being a concubine from a lower class, but my background as a village girl and my father’s status as a low-ranking governor were an embarrassment that the court and the Emperor never forgot.

A MONTH AFTER I was out of his sight, Emperor Hsien Feng took in four new concubines. They were of Han Chinese origin. Since the Imperial rules didn’t permit non-Manchu women in the palace, Nuharoo made arrangements to smuggle them in.

It was hard for me to speak about the pain this caused me. It was like a slow drowning: the air was being shut out of my lungs and death had yet to arrive.

“Their teeny lotus-shaped feet have enthralled His Majesty,” An-te-hai reported. “The ladies were a gift from the governor of Soochow.”

I supposed that it was not difficult for Nuharoo to hint to the governors that the moment had come to please their ruler. An-te-hai discovered that Nuharoo had housed the new concubines in the Emperor’s miniature town of Soochow, within the largest Imperial garden at the Summer Palace, located several miles from Yuan Ming Yuan. The Summer Palace, with its little Soochow, had been built around a lake and was made up of more than three thousand structures on almost seven hundred acres.

Would I be any different if I were in her shoes? What was I crying about? Hadn’t I shamelessly gone to a whorehouse in order to learn man-pleasing tricks?

Emperor Hsien Feng had not visited me since I had left. My longing for him drove me to thoughts of white silk ropes. The little kicks inside my belly brought me back and steeled my will to survive. I reflected on my life, struggling to maintain my composure. Hsien Feng had never been mine to begin with. It was simply the way things were. The irony was that the Emperor was supposed to stay sober and refrain from lovemaking for three months after his mother’s death. He honored only the traditions that suited him. I could not imagine my son being raised the way his father had been. I needed to convince Nuharoo that I would be no threat to her so that I would always be close to my child.

The rumors of His Majesty’s obsession with his Chinese ladies reached every corner of the Forbidden City. I began to have horrible dreams. I dreamed that I was sleeping and someone was trying to pull me off the bed. I struggled but was unsuccessful and was dragged out of the room. In the meantime I clearly saw that my body was still on the bed, unmoving.

Also in my dreams I saw red berries prematurely dropping from trees. I could even hear them as they fell- pop, pop, pop. Superstition hinted that this was an omen for miscarriage. In a panic, I sent An-te-hai out to check if it was true that the berry trees behind my palace had started dropping their fruit. An-te-hai came back and reported that he had found no berries on the ground.

Day after day I heard the popping sounds in my sleep. I suspected that the berries might have gotten caught between the roof tiles. To comfort me, An-te-hai climbed up a ladder to the roof. He and the other eunuchs checked between the tiles, and again there were no berries.

There continued to be no sign of His Majesty until Nuharoo arrived one morning with a broad smile on her face. I was surprised to see Emperor Hsien Feng behind her.

My lover looked a little awkward but soon composed himself. I couldn’t tell whether he had missed me. I guessed not. He had been raised to have no comprehension of another’s suffering. For him it would be wrong to spend time with only one woman anyway. I wondered if he had been enjoying his women. Had they been taking walks shoulder to shoulder, “carrying the light of the setting sun”? Had His Majesty been wanting to “kiss the flowers in their hands”?

I didn’t care where those women came from. I hated them. Picturing how my lover must have touched them, my tears welled up. “I am well, thank you,” I said to Emperor Hsien Feng, trying to smile. I would never let him know how terrible my pain was.

I didn’t want to tell him that I had refused to go home when I was granted a ten-day leave as a reward for being pregnant. Although I missed my family very much, I wouldn’t be able to hide my feelings if I saw them. My mother’s fragile health would not bear my frustration, and it would be bad for Rong, who had been counting on me to find her a suitor. Rong would be disappointed if I told her that I was no longer the favorite and my way of helping her was limited.

His Majesty was quiet for a while. When he opened his mouth he talked about mosquitoes, how they bedeviled him. He blamed the eunuchs and complained that Doctor Sun Pao-tien had failed to heal an itchy spot below his chin. He didn’t ask after me, and he acted as if my big belly was not there.

“I have been playing a game with my astrologer called the Lost Palaces,” His Majesty said as if to break the silence between us. “It has many traps that will lead you to misjudgment. The master’s advice was that I stay where I am and not bother to find my way until the time is ripe and the key to solving the problem presents itself.”

Would Hsien Feng believe it if I explained to him what Nuharoo had done? It would never work, I concluded. It was public knowledge that when Nuharoo walked in the garden she looked like a drunkard. Actually it was because she was afraid of stepping on ants. When she accidentally did step on them, she apologized. The eunuchs had witnessed this. She had been called “the most tender creature” by our late mother-in-law.

We sat sipping tea while the conversation between His Majesty and Nuharoo went on. In the name of caring for me, Nuharoo proposed that she send me four of her own maids.

“It is to express my appreciation of Lady Yehonala, of my mei-mei ’s contribution to the dynasty.” She now officially called me mei-mei, “younger sister.”

“My Little Cloud is the best among the four,” Nuharoo said. “I will have difficulty letting her go. But you are my priority. The dynasty’s hope of revival and prosperity rests in your belly.”

Emperor Hsien Feng was pleased. He praised Nuharoo for her kindness, and then he got up to leave. He avoided looking at me as he bid goodbye. “Good health,” he murmured dryly.

I was unable to hide my sadness. My heart kept searching for an acknowledgment of the warmth we had shared. But it was not there. It was as if we had never known each other. I wished that my belly were not in front of my eyes, not protruding like this, not demanding attention and touch. I wished that I could wipe away the memories.