Lisa See - Peony in Love

“Listen to me,” she continued, seemingly oblivious to the torture I felt.

“You know I don’t believe in love.”

“I don’t want your bitterness,” I said.

“I’m not offering it. Instead, I’m saying that perhaps I was wrong. You love this man; I understand that now. And surely he must love you still or his mother wouldn’t be trying to protect that girl from you.” She glanced over the balustrade and smiled knowingly. “See that?”

I looked and saw Madame Wu present her future daughter-in-law with a hand mirror, which was a traditional gift given to a bride to protect her from troublesome spirits.

“Today when I saw what was happening,” Grandmother went on earnestly, “everything became clear. You must go back to your rightful place.”

“I don’t think I can,” I said, but inside my mind began to spin with the possibilities of how I would seek revenge on the girl dressed in red, sitting in seclusion, waiting to go to her husband.

“Think, child, think. You’re a hungry ghost. Now that you know what you are, you’re free to roam wherever you want.”

“But I’m stuck—”

“You can’t go forward and you can’t go back, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go down. You could have returned at any time, but I interceded with the judges. I selfishly wanted you to stay here with me.” She tossed her head defiantly. “With men there’s always a bureaucracy, and it’s no different here. I bribed them with some of the offerings I received at New Year.”

“Will I ever meet them? Will I ever have a chance to plead my case?”

“Only when your ancestor tablet is dotted. Otherwise”—she gestured below—“that’s where you belong.”

She was right . . . again. As a hungry ghost, I should have been roaming in the earthly realm these last seven years.

My mind at that moment was so twisted between my desire to harm the girl and the realization that I should have been roaming all this time that for a second I didn’t comprehend what she was saying. I took my eyes away from the girl in red and looked at Grandmother.

( 1 4 4 )

“Are you saying I could also get my tablet dotted?”

Grandmother leaned forward and took my hands in hers. “You should hope for that to happen, because then you’ll come back here and become an ancestor. But you won’t be able to make it happen. You’ll have a lot of tricks that you can use with people in the earthly realm to get them to do what you want them to do, but you will be powerless when it comes to your tablet. Remember all the ghost stories you heard as a little girl? There are a lot of different ways people become ghosts, but if all those creatures who didn’t have their tablets dotted could force humans to complete this task, there wouldn’t be very many ghost stories, would there?”

I nodded, taking it all in, thinking first I would ruin the wedding, then I would make Ren remember me, then I would make him to go my father’s house and dot my tablet, then we would have a ghost marriage, and then . . . I shook my head. Vengeance and confusion were so clouding my mind that I wasn’t thinking clearly. In reality, I’d heard a lot of ghost stories, as Grandmother said, and the happy endings only came when those creatures were wounded, maimed, and destroyed.

“Won’t it be dangerous?” I asked. “Mama used to tell me that she would cut any evil spirits that visited me with scissors and that if I wore charms I’d be safe when I walked in the garden. What about ferns and mirrors?”

Grandmother laughed once more, and it was no less extraordinary than the first time.

“A fern will not protect the living from someone such as you. And mirrors?” She snorted at their relative insignificance. “They can hurt you if you get too close, but they won’t destroy you.” She stood and kissed me.

“You won’t be able to come back until you’ve settled things in the earthly realm. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Rely on the lessons you learned when you were alive.” She began to drift away from me. “Use common sense and be wary. I’ll watch out for you from here and protect you as best I can.”

And then she was gone.

I looked down at the Wu household. Madame Wu was walking to her inner chamber, where I was sure she would retrieve the confidential book to give to her future daughter-in-law.

I took one last look around the terrace, and then I lifted myself up and over the balustrade and dropped down into the main courtyard of the Wu compound. I went straight to Ren’s room. I spotted him by the window, ( 1 4 5 )

staring at a stand of bamboo as it swayed in the breeze. I was sure he would turn to me, but he didn’t. I swirled around him so that I floated just before the bamboo. The light played on his high cheekbones. The ends of his black hair hung over his collar. His hands rested on the windowsill. His fingers were long and tapered, perfect for holding a calligraphy brush.

His eyes—as black and limpid as the waters of our West Lake—stared out the window with an expression I couldn’t read. I was right before him, but he didn’t see me; he didn’t even sense me.

A band began to play. This meant Ren would soon meet his bride. If I was going to stop this, I had to try someone else. I went quickly to the bridal chamber. The girl sat on her wedding chair, the mirror held securely in her lap. Even alone, she hadn’t pushed aside her veil. She was dutiful and obedient, this one. She was also strong. I don’t know how to explain it, but in her absolute stillness I felt her fighting against me—me personally—as though she knew I’d be here.

I hurried to Madame Wu’s bedchamber. She was on her knees before an altar. She lit incense, prayed wordlessly to herself, and then put her forehead to the ground. Her actions didn’t frighten me or drive me away.

Instead, I was filled with resolve and a kind of peace I hadn’t felt in years.

Madame Wu rose and crossed to a cabinet. She slid open a drawer. Inside, two books nestled in silk: to the right, her confidential book on marriage; to the left, Volume One of The Peony Pavilion. Her hands reached down and touched the confidential book.

“No!” I screamed. If I couldn’t stop the wedding, at least Ren and his wife’s first night together would be miserable.

Madame Wu’s hands drew back as though the book were in flames.

She tentatively reached down again.

I whispered this time: “No, no, no.”

It was all so sudden—that I was here, that the marriage would happen in minutes—that I acted without thinking about the consequences.

“Take the other one,” I whispered impulsively. “Take it. Take it!”

Madame Wu stepped away from the open drawer and looked around the room.

“Take it! Take it!”

Seeing nothing, she adjusted a pin in her hair and then, in the most indifferent way possible, picked up my book as though it were the one she’d come for and carried it out through the courtyards to the bridal chamber.

“Daughter,” she said to the seated girl, “this helped me on my wedding night. I’m sure it will help you too.”

( 1 4 6 )

“Thank you, Mother,” the bride said.

Something about the girl’s voice chilled me, but I shrugged it off, believing I was finding my powers and that my revenge would come soon.

Madame Wu backed out of the room. The girl stared at the cover of the book where I’d painted my favorite scene from The Peony Pavilion. It was The Interrupted Dream, where Du Liniang meets the scholar and they become lovers. This scene had to be a common one used to decorate women’s confidential books, for the girl didn’t seem distressed or surprised by the subject.

Now that The Peony Pavilion was in her hands, I realized I’d acted rashly when I told Madame Wu to take it. I didn’t want this girl to read my private thoughts, but then a plan slowly began to form in my mind. Maybe I could use my written words to scare this bride away from her marriage. As I’d done with Madame Wu, I began whispering.