“I like the one about the man who was a connoisseur of stone.”
“Which one is that?”
“There was a man who was a collector of rocks, who finds a rare and beautiful stone entangled in his fishing net. It was shaped like a small mountain, with all sorts of tunnels and crannies, and had magical powers: whenever it was going to rain, it would emit puffs of mist, just like a real mountain.”
Baoyu wrinkles his brow. “That sounds familiar. I think I read it a long time ago. Then what happens?”
“A powerful official covets it, and accuses the man of a crime he didn’t commit. Then the stone is confiscated and the man is thrown in jail.”
“Oh, yes! I remember! Then the stone comes to the man in a dream, and tells him that it can only belong to one who truly loves it, and that one day it will somehow return to him.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“That’s a good story. I’d almost forgotten it. I really should read it again sometime.”
The story reminds her. “You know, I still haven’t seen that famous jade of yours.”
He says nothing, looking at her gravely over his clasped knees.
“Never mind,” she says quickly, afraid that she has assumed an intimacy that does not exist.
“It’s really not so special.”
“I said I didn’t need to see it. I’m sorry I asked.”
“Everyone who sees it is disappointed,” he continues, as if she had not spoken.
She fidgets uncomfortably, not knowing whether she is supposed to contradict him. He is acting like a spoiled child: pushing people away and demanding reassurance at the same time.
“I hate it,” he adds. “It always makes people think that I’m very special.”
She has to stop herself from smiling, for it is obvious from the way he talks and carries himself that he is fully convinced of his own specialness.
“What are you laughing at?” he demands suspiciously.
“Nothing. You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to.”
But he slips his fingers inside his collar and loops a black and gold silk cord over his head. “Here.”
She stares at it in the palm of her hand, still warm from his skin. It is about the size and shape of a sparrow’s egg, with the suppressed, milky radiance of a sunlit cloud and veined with iridescent streaks of color. Somehow, she had expected a jade found in a person’s mouth to be rough, unpolished; but this is satin-smooth to her touch. He is right: the stone itself is not special. You might find something similar in any jewelry stall for thirty or forty taels.
“I hate it,” he says again. “I hate the things people imagine about me because of it.”
“It’s all just stories, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“People make up stories to explain things they don’t understand.”
He looks doubtful. “I suppose so.”
“You should make up your own story, too.”
“Like what?”
She hands the stone back. “Oh, I don’t know. Like … once upon a time, up in the Heavens, by the banks of the River of Immortality, there was a stone who wanted to come down to earth to taste the pleasures of human life. He begged and pleaded with the gods, and finally they granted his wish. They agreed to let him be born into the world of men in the mouth of an infant boy, Jia Baoyu of Rongguo Mansion …”
He laughs, slipping the jade back on. “I like that. What happened to him on earth?”
“How should I know? Perhaps he fell in love with a human girl.”
“And?”
“Well, maybe they got married and lived happily ever after.”
“But the girl would die, wouldn’t she?” he points out. “Because she was only human, whereas he was immortal.”
“Then his heart would break.”
“Then maybe he would ask the gods to turn him back into a stone.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because it would be better to be a stone than to feel the pain of human suffering,” he explains.
“Do you really think so?” she says, thinking about her mother.
“Yes,” he says. “Because he would always be missing her, and the pain would never stop.” He speaks as though the thought of such emotional pain is unbearable to him, even though he has endured the physical pain of his burn without a murmur.
“I don’t think so,” she tells him. “If I lost someone I loved, I would never want to forget them, even if it gave me pain until the end of my days.”
By the time Xifeng returns to her apartment after overseeing dinner at Lady Jia’s, it is after ten o’clock. For the first time since she can remember, Ping’er is not waiting for her, to rub her aching feet or to fix her a snack. As she stands there in the gloom of the empty front room, she hears the talking and laughing and clink of dishes from down the hall. The new couple is celebrating their wedding night in the new bedroom that has been prepared for Ping’er. She hears Lian’s voice, his braying laugh punctuating his stories about the horses he has bought and the wagers he has won. Occasionally she catches Ping’er’s voice, bleating a reply, or giving a self-conscious titter.
She advances slowly into the room and lights the lamps. Ping’er’s clothes lie in a tangle on the kang. The dressing table is littered with hairpins and face powder. She cannot stand to leave the room like this. She folds Ping’er’s clothes. She thinks of calling for one of the junior maids, but decides not to. She does not want anyone else to be a witness to this scene that is so humiliating to her.
She puts Ping’er’s clothes away. Autumn comes in from the courtyard holding a kettle of wine in one hand and a stack of food boxes in the other. She seems surprised to see Xifeng there and gives a nervous little bow.
“Why didn’t you clean up this mess?” Xifeng says.
“I’ve been busy fetching food and wine for Master Lian and Mistress Ping’er. I’ll do it as soon as I’ve delivered these dishes.”
Nevertheless, after Autumn has scuttled down the hallway to Ping’er’s room, Xifeng lingers there instead of going to her own bedroom, both dreading what she will overhear and unable to tear herself away. She hears Lian joking with Autumn as she serves them the food. She gets a broom and sweeps the floor.
Autumn reappears, this time with a stack of dirty dishes. “I can clean the room now, if you like,” she says. “Master Lian said they won’t be needing anything more.”
“Never mind. I’ll do it myself. Why don’t you take that stuff back to the kitchens?”
Alone now, Xifeng arranges the hairpins and cosmetics neatly in the drawers. She sweeps the spilled powder onto a sheet of paper, and folds the paper in half to pour the powder back into its little jade box. She can no longer hear talking from Ping’er’s room. She tells herself she should go to bed, but she cannot bear to face the emptiness of her bedroom. She has never, for as long as she can remember, gone to bed alone. When she was a little girl in Chang’an, Ping’er had slept beside her every night. Then, when she was married, she slept with Lian. If he was out late, Ping’er would come in to make up her bed and blow out the lamp.
She shuts the front door and shoots the bolt into place, looking around for another task. Her eyes fall on her loom in the corner, long unused since she became responsible for running the household. She takes a lamp from the desk and carries it to the loom. When she removes the dust cover, she sees that she had been working on a pillowcase with a pattern of a pair of mandarin ducks drifting among lotuses. She had completed the top third, the ducks shading off into nothingness below their crested heads and arched necks.
After staring at the pattern, she sits down before the loom. As if about to begin a difficult piece on the zither, she flexes her fingers, then flicks back her sleeves. With her left hand she takes up the shuttle wound with silver thread. She places her right hand below the weft, and she begins to pass the shuttle back and forth between her two hands, working it over and under the threads. Her fingers
are clumsy at first, but after a minute or two they regain their old rhythm, the shuttle becoming a blur between her hands. Even in her concentration, she listens for sounds from Ping’er’s rooms. She cannot hear anything now, just random murmurs and rustlings. Sometimes she imagines that she hears the sound of heavy breathing, but perhaps that is only the rush of blood in her own ears.
She reaches the end of the row. Her fingers slow as she works the shuttle through the last few threads of the weft. She hears a moan. She kicks the treadle hard. The brake releases and falls with a thump. She packs the row she has just woven against the edge of the finished cloth, then shoves the beater bar violently away. She begins a new row. It is pointless to try to sleep. Seized by a perverse inspiration, she tells herself she will weave all night: the thumping of the loom telling Lian and Ping’er that she is still there, still alive, still awake.
She turns her head, distracted by a movement at the corner of her vision. A moth has blundered into the glass cover of the lamp. It crawls a dozen steps, turns a half circle, then flutters helplessly against the hot glass, the yellowish eyespots on its tufted brown wings pulsing uneasily. She takes off the cover and reaches out her hands to capture the moth. She feels its furry, surprisingly strong wings beat against her cupped hands. She opens the catch of the window with her elbow, and pushes open the paper-covered wooden frame. She leans out and releases it, breathing the coolness of the night deep into her lungs.
12
Jia Zheng ushers Jia Yucun into a reception hall in the outer mansion. “I wish that my nephew Xue Pan were here to thank you for your help, but I am afraid my sister-in-law has sent him south to learn about the family business.”
“No doubt it is wise of him to leave the Capital,” the magistrate says dryly.
“Won’t you sit down and have some tea?”
Instead of sitting down, Jia Yucun stands in front of the antique bronze tripod on the side table. “Where did you get this?” Though he keeps his hands clasped behind his back, as if to show that he does not presume to touch anything, he looks so closely at the tripod that his nose is only an inch or two away. Like a shopkeeper, Jia Zheng thinks disgustedly.
“That was given to my grandfather by His Late Majesty Shunzhi,” he says.
Jia Yucun’s attention drifts towards the two ebony boards inlaid with gold characters on either side of the door. “ ‘May the jewel of learning shine in this house more brightly than the sun and moon,’ ” he reads aloud. “ ‘May the insignia of honor glitter in these halls more brilliantly than the starry sky.’ What’s this?”
“His Highness Prince Yinti gave them to me when my son Jia Zhu passed the Exams.”
“Jia Zhu? I didn’t know you already had a son in the Civil Service.”
“He died eight years ago.”
Jia Yucun finally takes the cup of tea that Jia Zheng has poured for him. He gives Jia Zheng a knowing smile, as if he has discovered something to Jia Zheng’s discredit. “Naturally an old Bondsman family like yours would be close to Prince Yinti.”
“What do you mean by that?” Jia Zheng bristles at his tone.
“Why, only that it doesn’t surprise me that you would support Yinti. He is one of the few Princes who have any use for the Imperial Bondsmen.”
“Everyone knows His Highness has always favored Prince Yinti—”
“Then why doesn’t His Highness appoint him Heir Apparent? Otherwise, what can the Princes do but fight it out? And who knows how long and bloody that will be? As for who will succeed in the end, I’m betting on Prince Yongzheng—”
“Yongzheng!” Jia Zheng cannot stop himself from breaking into laughter. “That—that dolt!”
“You are wrong. I have spoken to him, and on the contrary I found him very intelligent.”
“I would have said out of the twenty princes, he would be the least likely to succeed. His Highness has never cared for him. He is so—so common, with such abrupt manners, and that slow, halting way of speaking, almost a stutter—”
Jia Yucun smiles maliciously. “Well, I can see how you wouldn’t like it if he became Emperor. He’s made no secret of how he hates the Bondsmen.”
To Jia Zheng’s relief, Baoyu, accompanied by Lian and Huan, comes in to meet his new kinsman. He hurries forward to make the introductions. Lian and Huan kowtow to the magistrate.
“I’ve already had the pleasure,” Baoyu drawls.
Jia Zheng catches the insolent edge to Baoyu’s voice, surprised. “You didn’t tell me you’d already met,” he says to the magistrate.
Jia Yucun says nothing.
“It was last month, at the Duke of Nan’an’s party,” Baoyu says. “He was there with ‘Daddy’ Xia.”
“Daddy” Xia is the Eunuch Chamberlain’s nickname. For the first time, Jia Yucun seems ill at ease, probably because he knows that most officials hold the eunuchs in disdain and do not willingly associate with them. Unlike the officials, the eunuchs are poor and uneducated men whose parents had taken the shameful step of castrating them so they could serve in the Imperial Palace.
“You spent the whole evening at his side,” Baoyu continues. “How did you meet him?”
Jia Yucun shrugs, his cheeks flushing.
Aware that it is dangerous to let Baoyu offend the magistrate, Jia Zheng attempts to deflect the barbs. “Baoyu, Magistrate Jia passed the Exams last year, high on the lists. Perhaps he can help you with your essays.”
“Yes.” Yucun tries to recover his footing. “Many people find Eight-Legged essays very difficult. I would be happy to help you.”
“That is very kind of you,” Baoyu says. “But Academician Mei said he would read my practice essays whenever I liked.”
Academician Mei is a high-ranking official known for his Eight-Legged essays. Baoyu is being so rude that Jia Zheng wonders whether he should apologize for his behavior. Looking at the two young men, he is struck by the contrast between them. Despite the patch of roughened skin from his burn, Baoyu, sleek with the best care and food, is like a pampered cat; whereas Jia Yucun is like a stray dog, ready to growl and snap over the meanest scraps. He wonders whether his own distaste for the district magistrate’s lack of polish has blinded him to Yucun’s good qualities.
“Cousin Yucun would like to see the Garden,” he says. “Why don’t the three of you take him around?” He bows to Yucun. “Please excuse me. I would go with you, too, but my rheumatism is bothering me.”
Baoyu darts a look at his father, in which Jia Zheng can read Baoyu’s outrage that this distant kinsman, almost a stranger, should be allowed into the sanctum of the Garden.
“I’d be delighted to,” Lian says. “Only it isn’t as nice in the fall as in spring. You’ll have to come back again then.” He is friendly to the magistrate, striking up a conversation and offering to take Yucun to his favorite haunts in the Capital. Huan also is eager for the excursion; since the burning, he has not been allowed into the Garden.
Only Baoyu refuses, offering a perfunctory excuse. “You go without me. I have a headache today.”
When the others leave the room, he says, “You ought to send a servant to warn the girls to stay in their apartments. It might frighten them to see a stranger in the Garden.”
Jia Zheng finds Baoyu’s reproof disrespectful. “You’re making a fuss about nothing,” he says.
“I don’t understand why you’re having anything to do with someone like him, let alone inviting him into the Garden.”
Jia Zheng does not want to tell Baoyu about Yucun’s help in Xue Pan’s case. He wishes to protect his son from such unpleasant realities, he tells himself. Underlying his reticence is also shame at his own involvement. “How dare you treat a guest in our house like that?”
Baoyu wipes his fingers on his gown as if he has been soiled by mere contact with the magistrate. “I’ve never met anyone so vulgar.”
The theatricality of Baoyu’s gesture nettles Jia Zheng. “I don’t know what you have against him.”
“You should
have seen him at the Duke’s party, trying to ingratiate himself with all the right people—”
“You look down on him just because he isn’t as well connected as you—”
“Flattering and fawning on everyone in sight, and then telling that sob story about his father dying when he was a little boy, and expecting everyone to pity and admire him for it …”
He smiles at seeing Baoyu shaken out of his usual complacency. No doubt Baoyu is threatened by a young man who has succeeded entirely by his own wits, without any of the advantages Baoyu himself enjoys. His initial dislike of Yucun fades. He thinks of ways he can serve as a patron to the young man, who is after all a relative. “You’re being small-minded. You should learn from him, instead of trying to belittle him.”
Baoyu stares at him, as if he has sensed the shift in Jia Zheng’s sentiments. “He is using you to get in with the right people, to meet the higher-ups—”
Half amused, half offended, Jia Zheng waves off Baoyu’s accusations. After all, he is Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Works. Isn’t his own position sufficiently high that he would be worth knowing for his own sake?
“Mark my words. He’s a dangerous man.”
“Dangerous!” Jia Zheng laughs outright. “What a child you are, for all your airs. You condemn a man as a villain, just because he has bad manners. Perhaps after you’ve passed the Exams and been in the Civil Service for a few years, you’ll be wiser.”
Baoyu opens his mouth, then shuts it. He turns on his heel and stalks out in a huff.
13
Baochai, sitting alone sewing, is startled by a loud banging on the door. She rushes to open it. A band of men in elaborately embroidered yellow jackets are standing there.
“Who are you? What do you want?” she cries in a voice she can hardly recognize as her own.
“We are looking for Xue Pan.”
With a throb of horror, she realizes who they are: the Embroidered Jackets, the Emperor’s Secret Police. Her heart starts to hammer. “There must be some mistake. My brother hasn’t done anything wrong. Can you tell me the charge against him?”
The Red Chamber Page 9
