by Kien Nguyen
“Dear Heavens, madam, how are you feeling?” he asked. “What has happened?”
“Nothing,” she replied. “Only, as you see, I just realized the true identity of the servant who comes by my room each day to feed me. In my delirium I did not recognize him at first.”
“Who are you talking about?”
Her eyes were fixed on a young man who sat behind a bamboo screen. A thick canvas was stretched on a wooden frame before him, and on it, the emperor's portrait was taking form with uncanny likeness. Balls of colored thread lay scattered over the floor; some were sticking to his clothes.
“Are you referring to the queen's official embroiderer, Dan Nguyen?” he asked.
She nodded and closed her eyes once again. “Please take me back to my chamber and arrange for a meeting with that young man. I must speak to him.”
chapter seventeen
The Portrait of the King
The dancing guests cast flickering shadows on the inlaid dragons that capered across the marble floor. Above the mahogany parquet and solid hand-carved oak beams that formed the dais for the king's throne, the embroiderer sat, weaving a royal portrait. A fog of cigarette smoke surrounded his platform, caressing him with its cottony tendrils. As the fumes burned his eyes, the progress of his stitches slowed. Below him, the party was reaching its height of excitement.
Dan Nguyen hummed as he coaxed a strand of dark-brown silk into the coarse canvas, creating the lower rim of the emperor's left eye. Layer upon layer, he kept adding threads to the flat surface of the fabric, sculpting the curves of King Bao Dai's features in three-dimensional clarity. In his expert hands, the golden needle leapt like a flash of lightning, replicating the vision inside his head. Although he had created many likenesses in this fashion, the richness that materialized in his tapestries never ceased to amaze him. He examined each new image with childlike disbelief, as if somehow, like a spider, he had spun strands of life from his own veins and woven them into living art. Above the deep cloud of pollution, the dome-shaped ceiling, composed of six enormous triangular ocean-blue crystals, spread fanwise to provide an overhead view of the sky. Twelve mahogany columns, embossed with gold dragons, supported this spectacular glass roof. From where he sat, Dan could see the rising moon, like a mellow chandelier; its light added to the brightness inside.
The full moon shining on the great house meant good fortune, and the throne was placed so that the emperor could have a commanding view of the universe and its heavenly bodies. Tonight the glorious sight went unappreciated, since the young king was weary from his long journey and, in spite of the ongoing party and lively company, had retired early to his bedchamber. The Throne of the Son of Heaven, lacquered in red and encrusted with gold, remained unoccupied.
Dan stopped embroidering, secured his needle in his black silk headdress, and looked at his pocket watch. He struggled to focus his attention on the portrait, but his mind wandered. The song he was singing contained the low rustling of the wind across a cornfield, a reminder of his life before the citadel.
He tried not to revisit the past often. Memories suffocated him, made him feel as if he had dived to the bottom of a river to explore a beautiful but haunted world to which he no longer belonged. At such times, his songs were gusts of wind that helped him restart his lungs. From the music came a thrill of anticipation. He could sense the approach of the one he longed to see—or was it the desperation of his fanciful mind?
According to the schedule of festivities, it was time for the imperial talent troupe to perform an act of the famous opera The Jade Pin. In his mind he could already hear the first stanza of the lyrics.
Where is his tormented lover?
With a baffled face and a turbulent heart,
Phan Sink paced to and fro, in and out, in vacillation.
The gentle wind carried an aroma of incense,
And his sudden attack of anguish evaporated. He began to think of her again, unequivocally.
The sound of crickets chirping echoed in his ears,
Together with the cackles of roosters and hens, piercing his lonely heart.
The beating of the gongs and the clashing of brass plates from the time-teller signaled the last interval of night.
His book was set in front of him; he was unable to read. His lute stayed hanging right beside him; he was in no mood to play…
“Tai May, where are you?” he muttered. The sound of her name poured down his body with the velocity of a waterfall. Dan was certain he had startled the entire ballroom with the intensity of emotion in his voice. Judging from the blank expressions of the guards nearby, no one had heard him. He retrieved the needle from his hair covering and went back to the canvas.
So many years had passed, but Dan's memories of Tai May were still painfully vivid. He had not forgotten anything about her face, her body, and the willfulness of her personality. Time and again, he had captured her features on canvas until he surrounded himself with likenesses of her face. With his eyes closed, he could still feel her warm breath gliding on his skin, taste her soft kiss, and smell the perfume of her powdered skin. She was constantly in his thoughts, from the first sunlight that touched his eyes in the morning to the last lantern he blew out at night. In his dreams he saw her, floating like a princess among the dancing images in his mind.
He had taken her advice and come to Hue City, where he was just another face in the crowd. At first he lived with some fishermen along the edge of the river not far from the citadel. They were part of the beggar community that included coolies, laborers, mussel-gatherers, and sometime outlaws. The nearby market, famous for its size and location, always needed laborers like Dan.
The beggars had welcomed him into their circle; they accepted anyone who was homeless and starving. They were like the peasants in his village, plain and guileless, but instead of scraping the soil for food, they skimmed the river. Most of them had nothing beyond what they earned in a day's labor and from begging, and from the outset Dan had understood that he could never be one of them.
During the days when the work at the market was slow, Dan had embroidered his tapestries. While the dusty wind sighed through the tattered rooftops, he set up his equipment in a shed, bound together by dirty rush sacks, to escape the harsh sunlight. And amid its poverty he had created beautiful images that were suitable for a rich man's house. He sold most of his needlework to a shop at the market, keeping for himself only those portraits he had made of Tai May. He became known for his unique talent, and rich ladies hired him to embroider their portraits, often posing with their favorite Pekingese.
One day, a noblewoman, seeing the unusual style of needlework at the shop, had decided to question the merchant about the artist. With little difficulty she had found Dan in his home. It was an afternoon at the end of December. The northeasterly gale blew through the streets, warning of a storm. It was an idle day for the coolies because the harsh weather had forced the marketplace to close. Inside his hut, the wind had torn some of the split reeds off the mats that covered the roof. The tapestries he had made of Tai May napped as he was trying to retrieve them from the walls and place them under the floorboards. When the noblewoman entered, he was so engrossed in protecting his work that he did not hear her. In fact, the lady had been there in the doorway for several minutes before he noticed her. She was examining the wall hangings with an expression of wonder. Not until the last tapestry was safely packed away did she speak.
“I admire your work. I did not expect you to be so young.” Her voice was cool and steady in contrast to the rumbling of thunder outside.
“Thank you,” he said, wondering how a woman of her importance had found her way to this poor section.
As if reading his mind, she said, “I saw your embroideries at the market. It took me a while to find out where you live, but I am a persistent person. And now I see the beautiful likeness that you did of the young dancer in the palace. She must have been a great inspiration for you to have so many of her images in your home. I
must confess I am a little jealous, but she is a lovely model.”
Even the booming thunder outside did not shake him as forcibly as her words. Dan's mind reeled. Could it really be Tai May that the woman was referring to? He had to find out. But he must be careful because he was a runaway slave. He took a deep breath and asked, “Do you know this dancer, great lady?”
“Of course. Every lady in the court talks about this girl. She is the disgraced granddaughter of a wealthy landowner from the town of Cam Le.”
It had to be Tai May, and she was no longer with her family. He struggled to keep silent, lest his emotion betray his identity.
That same afternoon, the woman had commissioned him to create a portrait of her mandarin husband, accessorized in all his glory. In a matter of weeks he had created a life-size image of the old official, draped in his noble coat of arms with its ferocious blue dragon. The artwork caught Lady Thuc's attention. “I have seen your work, and I would like to meet you,” she wrote in a letter to him. At that moment, Dan decided that he no longer wanted to be in hiding. Now he had a chance and a reason to enter the palace and look for his love. He could not worry anymore about his past or his safety when she was so close. The following day, he stepped into a red palanquin, shaded by a yellow parasol. Borne aloft by four liveried porters, he bade farewell to the workmen's grim neighborhood and entered his comfortable new quarters in the citadel. His new home was behind the legendary Lake of Serene Heart, one of the modest and secluded apartments reserved for artists of the royal family.
For the next five years, whenever he was summoned by the royal family, he entered into a small work area the shape of a bamboo birdcage without a roof. Its walls were a series of strings and beads, turned at an angle to allow him a view limited to his subject. It was located a short distance from the king's throne, so that Dan could embroider each requested portrait. The bored women of the court scrutinized his completed canvases, their yawns expressing their views of his fountain of ingenuity. The only relief he found from the monotony of his new occupation had been the performances of the opera troupe.
Dan liked the way their melodies translated his emotions into sound. The screens of glass beads surrounding him parted like the sheer curtains on a window. Sometimes he was given permission to part the curtain and get a full view of the room, but only for short intervals. Any time he watched too long, it would be the armed guards' duty to pull him away. They were there to protect the royals. During one evening's entertainment, he had caught a glimpse of a slender body pirouetting among other dancers. She was facing toward him, but her eyes seemed to register only the dark beads that hung between them.
At first he thought he had nodded off and encountered her only in his dream. The plaintive melody shrieked as if someone were sharpening a knife against the outer wall of his skull. And somehow, incredibly, Tai May was dancing on the inside. Her skirts, like a white butterfly's wings, whirled under the green canopy of rosebushes outside his childhood home. After a time, he became aware that he was not dreaming. She was as real as the music streaming from the singer's mouth.
In a daze, Dan had gotten up from his seat. Barely aware of the warning looks of the guards, he parted the blinds and peeked through the opening. But the girl had moved away from the main stage, and he did not know where she had gone. Then, as the two guards seized him by the arms and pulled him away from the lookout point, he saw the white panels of her clothing some distance away, motionless. Had she recognized him, too? The curtain closed before he could see her face. After a moment, she turned and rejoined the rest of the dancers.
“I've found you, but it has never been in my power to give you happiness,” he whispered to her form as it disappeared from his view. He pushed the guards away and sat back down on his chair. Never had it dawned on him what a great sacrifice she had made in order to save his life. To give him his freedom she had lost hers.
Through party after party he had sat and watched, needle in hand, observing the merrymaking of the royals. During ceremonies and rituals, he peered into the inner court, scrutinizing dozens of dancers, but he did not see her. It was as though she had vanished from the palace. And then, at last, came the evening when Lady Thuc had decided to employ the entire royal opera company to perform The Jade Pin.
That night, Dan had been assigned his own corner in a room filled with mountains of food heaped on a low table, in the Japanese style. In front of him, the ladies reclined on their dainty seats, anticipating the great event. The banquet consisted of roasted pheasants, decorated in peacock feathers and surrounded by tiny black chickens to depict the gracious feminine character of the phoenix; a boar on a spit; several superb courses of fried carp; and enticing platters of oysters and clams. Between these major dishes were the smaller ones of rice, noodles, and other vegetarian delicacies, including sauteed snow peas, mustard greens in three types of wine vinegar, and seaweed salads. Wine and spirits were served in carved silver cups next to large gold-rimmed plates imported from Beijing, China.
Dan paid scant attention to the food that was served to him behind his screens. He had never attended a formal feast; even divided from the rest of the guests like an invisible man, he felt conspicuously out of place.
In an unseen inner room, a lute nicked its first soft, lingering note. Above the spectators' voices it sounded like the gurgle of a brook, rising and swelling until it became a stream of melody. Through his blinds, he saw Tai May. Her white flesh shimmered through the opening of a purple satin robe. As the tips of her satin shoes, ornamented with glass beads, touched the tiled floor and the sweeping music floated around her, she moved closer to the screen that obscured him.
She stopped, facing in his direction. The music halted and the room fell silent. Too overwhelmed to breathe, he leaned closer to the beaded blinds and parted them. This time there was no doubt in his mind that she saw him. Her eyes were shining with teardrops. Her face wore the same expression that he had seen the night she helped him escape Magistrate Toan's murderous fury. That evening, beneath the calmness of her face, she had plotted for his freedom. He wondered what she was going to do now. He felt feverish.
She reached inside the crepe-de-Chine band that bound her bosom and pulled out a piece of cloth. Dan gasped, recognizing the red rose he had embroidered for her. The music lifted and she began to sing. He retreated back into his seat. Her voice was choked with the passion of the song's lyrics, which depicted the awakening of love between two mortals. The words pierced his heart. Then she bowed and pressed her face against the fabric, made an abrupt twirl, and returned to the audience. Dan sat frozen in his sanctuary, shaking and perspiring. She belonged to the king—just like his tapestries. But he knew she had sung and danced for him alone.
While the world below him celebrated the young king's homecoming, Dan studied the door behind the dais, which led to the royal theater and the rooms reserved for the dancers. The moon was slanting through the glass ceiling. Looking out the window toward the pond, he could see reflections of silver on the rippling water, flickering among the shadows of the trees. A drowsy hibiscus drooped its branches over the misty bank. The scent of water lilies, subtle but distinct, wafted through the humid air that enveloped the jade building.
Dan stole another glance at his watch, and the humming died in his throat. The palace dancers were now well behind schedule. It struck him that the opera might not be performed this evening, and the idea was enough to make him ill. It had always been difficult for Dan, as a male official of the court, to obtain authorization to enter the inner palace during major events, even to do needlework.
Throughout the year, the Forbidden City celebrated a seemingly endless succession of festivals and ceremonies. Anniversaries of the births and deaths of emperors and queens, observations of the changing seasons, the year's end, the beginning of a new year, or respectful acknowledgments of lost souls and stray spirits—all demanded their appropriate rituals.
For each occasion the old queen would send out invita
tions to all the women of the palace, enclosing an agenda that generally included a lavish procession to offer tea, fruits, flowers, rice, and incense to the ancestors in the pagodas and temples in the morning, and bridge or mah-jongg games with entertainment from the opera troupe in the evening. During these rare opportunities, Dan knew he must exercise his charms and influence on the ladies-in-waiting, who prepared the guest list. The permits he acquired from them would provide him a few passing glances at his beloved Tai May.
For five long years, whenever he had gone to work, each evening he had tarried until the musicians and dancers began their rehearsal on a veranda along the great theater's wall. In his corner behind the thin barrier, he sat stiffly and searched until his eyes could discern his lover, waiting for her turn to sing. Each holiday, he went into the women's palace and watched her, like a lonely canary in a cage, singing and dancing for a mate that would never come. He knew that she was aware that he was right beside her, also caged but forced to hold his silence.
How he longed to leap forward into the court, shout her name, take her in his arms, and declare his love for her. But he knew what would happen if he did so. She was the king's property. If he dared to approach her, the guards would burst into the room and fire their rifles at them. To Dan, the idea of giving up his life for love often seemed preferable to the torment of his perpetual wait. But an inner voice would stop him from behaving impulsively. The voice belonged to his peasant wife.
Not knowing what had happened to Ven, Dan could only assume that she had sacrificed her life for his freedom. The last time he had seen her, she had been urging him to flee the ruins of the Nguyen mansion after they had witnessed the murders of the minister of religion and his son. Dan could only surmise that she must have been executed in some horrible way by the old magistrate.
If his wife were standing in front of him now, she would say, “You have cheated death more than once, young Master. Do not offend the gods by forsaking your life now. Remember all that you owe me, for I stayed behind to face a violent death in order to save you. During our marriage, you deprived me of liberty, love, and happiness. The least you must do now to repay your debt is to seek revenge. Release my woe!”
