Lisa See - Peony in Love

more go out to find this volume than I could have if I’d been alive. She had to rely on her wiles, her charm, and her husband’s love to bring it into our home. Ze had my help, but she also had her own abilities. She could be stubborn, petty, and spoiled. Our husband responded beautifully.

“I long to read Volume Two of The Peony Pavilion, ” she might say, as she poured him a cup of tea. “I saw the opera long ago and now I would love to read the great writer’s words and discuss them with you.” As Ren sipped the hot liquid, she would look into his eyes, run her fingers along his sleeve, and add, “Sometimes I don’t understand what the writer meant with his metaphors and allusions. You are such a fine poet. Maybe you could tell me.”

Or at night, in bed, with Ren lying between us and the quilts piled high to keep them warm, she might whisper in his ear, “I think of my sister-wife each day. The missing second half of the opera is a vivid reminder to me that Same is gone. Surely you miss her too. If only we could bring her back to us.” And then her tongue would dart from her lips and tease his earlobe until other things began to happen.

I grew bolder. By summer I began to leave the bedchamber by placing my hands on Ze’s shoulders and letting her pull me from room to room.

Drifting this way, I didn’t have to worry about corners. I was merely a breath of air that trailed behind my sister-wife. When we arrived in the eating hall for dinner, Madame Wu would put away her fan, call to the servants to close the doors against the sudden chill, and order coal to be lit in the brazier even though these were the hottest months.

“Your lips are growing thin again,” Madame Wu said to Ze one evening.

Such a common mother-in-law complaint, since everyone knows that thin lips show a thinness of personality and this thinness can translate to a thinness of the womb. The unspoken message: Where is my grandson? So typical, so old-fashioned.

Under the table Ren took Ze’s hand. A look of concern came over his face.

“And your hand is cold. Wife, it’s summer. Come outside with me tomorrow. We’ll sit by the pond, look at the flowers and butterflies, and let the sun warm your skin.”

“These days, it is my fate to despise blossoms,” Ze murmured, “while butterflies remind me of dead souls. When I see water, I think only of drowning.”

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“I think,” my mother-in-law observed caustically, “that the sun will not help her either. She brings coldness with her wherever she goes. We should not wish the sun to run from her as well.”

Tears welled in Ze’s eyes. “I should return to my room. I have reading to do.”

Madame Wu pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

“Perhaps that is best. I will send a doctor tomorrow to make a diagnosis.”

Ze squeezed her thighs together. “That won’t be necessary.”

“How will you bring a son if . . . ?”

A son? Ze was worth more to me than her ability to give a son! She was helping me. We did not need a son.

But this was not Doctor Zhao’s concern when he came to visit us. I’d not seen him since I died, and I can’t say I was happy to see him again.

He took the usual pulses, looked at Ze’s tongue, took Ren outside, and pronounced, “I have seen this many times before. Your wife has stopped eating and she spends hours alone brooding in darkness. Master Wu, I can draw only one conclusion: Your wife is lovesick.”

“What can I do?” Ren asked in alarm.

The doctor and Ren sat on a bench in the garden.

“Usually a night alone with her husband will cure a wife’s lovesickness,” the doctor said. “Has she been unwilling to perform clouds and rain? Is this why she has not yet conceived? You’ve been married for well over a year now.”

I was incensed that the doctor would even suggest this. I wished I had the abilities of a vengeful ghost, for I would have made the doctor pay for those accusations.

“I could not ask for a better wife in this regard,” Ren said.

“Have you”—and here the doctor hesitated before going on—“been giving her your vital essence? A woman must take this internally to maintain good health. You cannot just spend it between the scented softness of her bound feet.”

After much prompting, Ren confided the activities that took place each day and night in the bedchamber. Once everything was revealed, the doctor could not fault one party or the other for a lack of enthusiasm, knowledge, frequency, or ingestion.

“Perhaps something else is causing your wife’s lovesickness. Is there something else she wants?” the doctor asked.

Ren left town the next day. I didn’t try to follow him, because I was busy with Ze. Madame Wu, on instructions from the doctor, entered the ( 1 6 8 )

bedchamber, opened the doors, and took away the heavy curtains that covered our windows. The heat and humidity so common in Hangzhou during the summer months filled our room. It was horrible, but we tried our best to be dutiful daughters-in-law by adapting, putting our personal feelings and comfort aside, and complying. I stayed as close as possible to Ze to offer her solace from the intrusion. I was gratified to see her put on another coat over her jacket. Mothers-in-law can tell you what to do, and we can appear to submit, but they can’t watch us every minute.

Three mornings later, Ren returned.

“I went to every village between the Tiao and Zha rivers,” he said. “My persistence paid off in Shaoxi. I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner.” From behind his back he brought out a copy of The Peony Pavilion, with parts one and two together in one volume. “This is the best gift I could ever give you.” He hesitated then, and I knew he had to be thinking of me. “I give you the entire story.”

Ze and I collapsed in his arms with happiness. What he said next convinced me that I was still very much in his heart.

“I don’t want you to be lovesick,” he said. “You’ll be better now.”

I thought, Yes, yes, I will be better. Thank you, Husband, thank you.

“Yes, yes,” Ze echoed and sighed.

We had to celebrate.

“Let us celebrate,” she said.

Though it was still morning, servants brought a bottle of wine and jade drinking cups. My sister-wife was not accustomed to drinking and I’d never had wine, but we were happy. She drank the first cup even before Ren picked up his. Each time she set down her cup, I touched the rim and she’d fill it again. It was broad daylight and the windows were open to the heat, but there was another kind of light and heat that husband and wife began to feel. A cup, another cup, and another cup. Ze drank nine cups.

Her cheeks were dizzied by the tide of wine. Ren was far more chaste, but he’d made his wife glad and she repaid him with our combined gratitude.

The two of them fell asleep in the early afternoon. The next day, Ren woke up at his usual time and went to his library to compose. I let my sister-wife, so unused to wine, continue to sleep, because I needed her to be fresh and ready.

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Dreams of the Heart

wh e n th e sun st ruc k th e h ook s of th e b e d c ur -

tains, I roused Ze. I had her gather up all the small pieces of paper she’d been writing on during the last few months and sent her to Ren’s library. She bowed her head and showed him the papers in her hands.

“Might I be allowed to copy my commentary, along with that of Sister-Wife Tong’s, into our new copy of The Peony Pavilion ?” she asked.

“I’ll allow it,” he said, not even looking up from his papers.