Shan Sa - Empress

Sixteen years of separation-a split second or a whole eternity. When I arranged for Mother to be brought to the Forbidden City, I had been proud of fulfilling my promise. I had wanted to dazzle her with the riches and the glory waiting for her here, but my blood had frozen in my veins at the sight of this stooped old woman leaning on her cane. I had forgotten that Mother had borne me when she was forty-six and that she could grow old. She prostrated herself at my feet. In keeping with Court etiquette, I returned her greeting with a slight nod of my head. A searing pain carved through me: The happiness I claimed to be offering her was laughable.

Ever since childhood, Mother had demonstrated a tendency toward philosophy and a contempt for manual labor. She had abandoned the women’s duties prescribed by the ancestors to devote herself to a spiritual quest. When a team of workmen had restored her apartments in her family home, they had found a piece of paper hidden in a cleft in a beam. On it she had written the maxim for her existence: “Never to do evil and to spread generosity of heart to the four corners of the country.” Her father, the famous Great Minister Yang Da, had exclaimed, “My daughter is the future of our family!”

Until I took up my position at the palace, I had always venerated Mother as an idol: Her erudition was quite equal to a man’s. Her words were inspired; she had a serene strength that had protected me from the vices of the men in the clan. When she came to present herself at Court, I saw that sixteen years of misery had gradually worn her down; she had become passive, pessimistic, and conciliatory. Her words of wisdom that had rung comfortingly in my ears were reduced to the weary moans of a frightened old woman.

Mother had passed her fervor on to me. I had stolen her valiance. She had dreamed of seeing me married happily to a minor official and was terrified to see me fighting for the position of Empress.

“Once the moon is full,” she warned me, “it begins to wane; the higher we climb, the harder we fall. A man should learn to be satisfied with what he already has!”

Her pronouncements had irritated me, and I replied: “You have misunderstood me, good lady. Empress Wang has tarnished her title. Under her rule, the Inner Palace has sunk into chaos, and the sovereign’s life is in danger. I am determined to make His Majesty happy and peaceful. This is not a question of personal ambition.”

Later she had defended my rivals: “No one should kill a woman who can no longer do any harm. Buddha would have granted both criminals the chance to repent! Majesty, I beg you, shut them away in a monastery-give them an opportunity to pray for their future existence.”

“Buddha grants his unlimited compassion to the living because he is invincible,” I replied. “I am a mere mortal. Here in the Forbidden City, every life hangs by a thread. Even if I feel pity in my heart, my reason forbids it. Good lady, what you are asking is impossible.”

Later Mother learned of the sovereign’s liaison with Elder Sister. In veiled terms she criticized me for corrupting Purity’s virtue.

“The primary virtue in life,” I told her, “is order. Thanks to Purity, I have secured the imperial seed exclusively. Now there are no births anywhere outside my palace, and there is only one uncontested Mistress in the Inner City. That is how I have succeeded in imposing virtue that has been neglected for so long. The concubines have stopped their jealous posturing, the eunuchs no longer dare dally in intrigues. I have banished frivolity and introduced a mood of restraint. The Court ladies have followed my example by removing their jewels and wearing simple gowns and leggings. They have started studying the Great Classics and practicing sport. I have had the names of their titles changed: They are no longer called Precious Wife, Gracious Wife, or Delicious Concubine-all names that reduced them to sexual objects. They have become Supervisor of Piety, Overseer of Morality, and Servant of Wisdom. With the money that I have saved on our clothes, I have financed the construction of Buddhist temples so that messages from the Great One can spread to the four corners of Earth. Good lady, the sovereign’s kindness has seen an unloved widow blossom. The happiness of millions of people has resulted from her corruption. Purity is more virtuous than any religion!”

Mother was outraged, and she started to pray day and night to secure Buddha’s forgiveness for our incestuous affections. Purity was indifferent to her torment. I heaped honors and gifts on Mother and started treating her like a little girl. At the time, my sister and I could not imagine the fears of a woman who had seen a dynasty fall, a fortune dissolve, and fate overturned.

To us the inconstancies of this ephemeral world were still a source of poetic melancholy and negligible suffering.

I had enjoyed Little Phoenix’s favor for ten years, a miraculously long time for carnal passion to survive. Even though I had added to his sensual delight by offering him the young virgins I called to my bed, I knew that he would eventually tire of these repeated orgies and that one day he would succumb to a new infatuation. At thirty, Little Phoenix had become slow and listless. I felt responsible for this apathy that betrayed the boredom in his soul. While I was looking for a trustworthy young woman capable of reawakening his sexual energy, I learned that the sovereign’s heart had been inflamed once more and that his conquest had already been consummated. Her name was Harmony. She was Purity’s daughter.

Even when she was just twelve years old, word of her beauty had spread through both capitals. Key families and Court dignitaries had sent their most persuasive emissaries to my sister. Mother had opposed a very early marriage; at eighty, she could not bear to be separated from her granddaughter. The matrimonial negotiations broke up and then began again several times. None of them was ever very serious.

Harmony had been raised by her grandmother. The one reaching the twilight of her years idolized the one flowering with the dawn. The spoiled child had become a rebellious adolescent; the charms of puberty had probably awakened the sovereign’s attentions. It was also possible that this precocious niece had always nurtured a fascination for an inaccessible uncle. With her wide, curving brow; her fine, willful mouth, and her proud, haughty bearing; she was like me… alas, even down to her taste for incest.

I closed my eyes to this clandestine love. But the day Purity learned of this betrayal, she flew into a rage. One morning, a group of eunuchs burst into my palace. An argument had broken out between the Lady of the Kingdom of Han and her young rival. “The noble lady slapped her daughter,” I was told. “She called for a strong rope with which to strangle her!”

I ran to my sister’s pavilion. The governess’s cries announcing my arrival immediately calmed both women. Purity was lying prostrate, and Harmony was kneeling stiff and motionless beside her. Her face was rigid as an iron mask and showed no trace of tears. She was staring darkly at the ground and greeted me with one sharp gesture.

“What does this mean?” I asked them. “You have fought in the Inner Palace and for that you both deserve twenty strokes of the plank! For two women of my clan to argue like common shrews is an insult to my favor and my patience! Take Harmony away, shut her up, and have her copy out The Book of the Virtuous Women ten times!”

Once Harmony and her retinue had moved away, I spoke to my sister: “How could you get so angry that you forgot the dignity required by your rank? Before making such a scene, think of the mocking smiles of all the ladies and the laughter of all the high-ranking women in the Outer Court. Everyone envies the power our household enjoys. Why give them an opportunity to gossip about us? Have you thought of Mother? She is eighty-three. How would she cope with the sorrow if she saw you strangle her favorite granddaughter! Your extreme nobility demands that you be a model for every woman in the Empire. Is this any way to behave?”