Shan Sa - Empress

Deep in the forest, eunuchs would free thousands of birds: blackbirds, orioles, skylarks, and thrushes launching themselves into the skies. Their song, an exuberant hymn to life full of virtuoso trills, moved me to tears. The more I was surrounded, the more I was alone. Dusk was falling. It would soon be everlasting night.

ONE MOMENT OF bliss followed another, and time wrapped itself around me like an endless thread tightening its stranglehold. From the depths of my opaque cocoon, I was expecting a miracle: never to grow old.

My lovemaking with Scribe of Loyalty was losing its intensity. At first his vigorous body and well-defined muscles had been like an unfulfilled fantasy, then a vague dream. As the years went by, his virile youth became disturbing.

My lover was thirty, and I sixty-nine. Like other wealthy debauched monks, he had bought houses for his mistresses in the commoners’ town outside the Forbidden City. His many wives dripped with jewels and lived off my generosity through him. The one he liked best was a young girl of sixteen bought for a jug of pearls in a brothel. She could make love to him for hours on end without tiring. Their cries of ecstasy had even carried to the depths of my gynaeceum where I struggled with my jealousy and despair.

Scribe of Loyalty came to the Palace less and less. Once a month, on the night of the full moon, he would caress me and spill his seed on me as a peasant sows his field. His every move was precise and attentive; he performed his duties as a favorite like an official carrying out a laborious task. In the darkness I could still read his pity, his resignation, and his indifference. Scribe of Loyalty no longer loved me. I no longer afforded him any pleasure.

I developed a profound loathing for my own body, this Future Buddha’s body which was said to be sacred and indestructible. The baths, massages, and unguents could no longer stop this flesh from slackening and crumpling. I hid my resentment toward my young lover who shattered the myth every time he undressed me.

I was obsessed by hygiene: I forced him to undergo medical examinations and to be washed from head to toe before he came to my bed. In spite of the soaps and the vigorous scrubbing by my serving women, he still gave off a smell of earthly debauchery, underlining the irony of my decrepitude. His member had trawled through the town; his dirty hands had delved in other orifices; his tongue had licked fresh, pungent young skin. Every time I took him in my arms, I exposed myself to his gaze, to being compared.

One night, I exploded angrily, and he dared to reply: “Majesty, I know you have me followed and that your spies have been sold into my houses as slaves. You spy on my every coupling; you follow my life with the ferocity of a lioness. But you have never tried to look into my heart. Have you ever thought that it is you who drives me into other women’s arms:

“Little Treasure,” I sneered, using his original name. “All these years, I have never forbidden you from finding pleasure elsewhere when I could have demanded your complete faithfulness. Imperial concubines are shut away in the gynaeceum, but I have allowed you to run free. That is the greatest proof of affection an emperor can give. Instead of showing gratitude, you abuse my patience. Now you dare accuse me of driving you into other women’s arms! What do you mean by this? Am I so very old and hideous?”

“Faithfulness, yes, let us talk of that,” he said furiously. “Has Your Majesty herself been faithful? If you had told me at the very start that, as sovereign, you had the right to every pleasure, then I would have been forced to accept that in silence. But you claimed that I was the only man in your life. You prided yourself on your faithfulness and found some glorious virtue in the fact that you did not have ten thousand beautiful men in your Inner Palace. Can you explain to me then why you enter into relationships based on intellect and affection with your ministers, your magistrates, and your generals? That particular love, which has no physical element and is forbidden between master and servant, is so much more intense than mere copulation. You love Judge Lai Jun Chen! I only have to see you with him to know that you marvel at his coldness and that you guard his life jealously even though the whole Empire wishes him dead. You exiled Great Chancellor Li Zhao De because your ministers urged you to, but soon you will call him back to Court as if nothing had happened. If that is not love, what other word is there to explain it? There is also the Great Secretary Ji Xu, who holds your horse’s bridle and who can make you laugh so readily. Two years ago, like a loving wife stitching a war uniform for her husband heading off to the front, you gave each of your delegated governors an official tunic sewn by the serving women in your gynaeceum. You claimed you yourself embroidered the words ”firm, supple, calm, ardent“ on the back of these garments. Majesty, do you realize that some of these coarse creatures sleep with those tunics folded neatly beside their pillows, that others have laid them on altars and converse with them as if they were divinities? When you receive the candidates for the final imperial test; when you sit behind your gauze curtain and interrogate them in your deep, kindly voice; when you seduce budding ministers with your humor and erudition, you sew the seeds of love in their hearts, and those seeds will grow into blossoming trees whose fruits you can harvest. And after this great succession of men, there is me: a pitiful vagrant, a monk whom you forbid to take any part in politics! I am your weakness, your sickness, the shame that you keep hidden. There are plenty of humble girls who appreciate my kindness and venerate me, but Your Majesty is a cruel goddess who neglects me and destroys me! She offers her attentions to her subjects-men, women, young, and old-all of them beloved in her heart. She therefore saves herself from becoming attached to any single man; she manages her feelings so that she can never be disappointed. Her eyes never truly look at men; they are fixed on the skies. Her hand gives, takes away, pardons, kills… and I, Scribe of Loyalty, I live in the mire, struggling with contempt and longing. I am an object of slander and ridicule. Your ministers hate me, and the kings believe I manipulate you with a giant phallus! And yet you receive me only by night like a thief, and you turn me away when I want to make love to you!”

I had not realized that Scribe of Loyalty could feel jealousy, and his admission filled me with joy. I would have liked to ask his forgiveness and to admit that I was ashamed to let him touch my tired, old skin. I would have liked to reveal to him the secret that I kept hidden: I despaired as I grew old. My heart was calling out for his help, but my pride made me respond with a sigh: “What can I do to improve your standing? The Temple of Ten Thousand Elements has brought you wealth and notoriety. Twice I have appointed you commander of my imperial armies to fight the Tibetans, and I have given you the glorious title of Great General of the Invincible Defense and that of Lord of the Kingdom of Liang. But, as you are unable to rise early, you never attend the morning salutation. How do you expect to earn the Court’s respect if you do not respect its constraints and discipline?”

“Majesty,” Scribe of Loyalty interrupted me, “you know very well that I am not interested in power. If you care for me, if you love me, I ask just one thing of you: give me status. Marry me! Name me your Imperial Husband!”

I was so astonished by what I heard that I could find no words to reply. An emperor’s wife received the Empress’s Seal, but could a female emperor raise a man to the position of Imperial Husband? If an empress were considered to be the mother of the Empire and the most perfect incarnation of feminine virtue, would an imperial husband be the father of the Empire and master of all men? If Scribe of Loyalty received prostrations from the Court and the veneration of an entire people, would he not foster a desire to reign, would he not be tempted to usurp power? The people would never tolerate the image of a former drug peddler to be associated with me. How could I renounce the tomb of my glorious late husband, Celestial Emperor, Sovereign Lordly Ancestor, and lie down in the grave of an ordinary man?