“Oh. Lian was so hoping for a boy,” Ping’er says weakly, letting herself fall back with a little sigh. She opens her eyes and reaches out her arms. “Can I hold her?”
“Just a minute.” Old Woman Ma has cut the cord and is carrying the baby to a basin near the stove. It is an ugly thing, its skin blotchy, its head tapered to a blunt point. Xifeng feels a twinge of pity for the helpless creature, born into the world only to suffer.
“Why isn’t she crying?” Ping’er asks from the kang.
“Sometimes they swallow a lot of water during labor, especially during a long labor like yours. Let me dry her off, and I’ll slap her back—we’ll see if she doesn’t cry then!”
She takes the baby over her knees and slaps her on the back, so sharply that Xifeng winces. The baby whimpers and squirms a little. After a few more blows the baby begins to cry weakly.
“Is there something wrong with her lungs?” Xifeng says, at the same moment the midwife asks, “What are you going to call her?”
Ping’er says, “Lian will have to go to an astrologer to choose something lucky.”
“Of course I meant a ‘milk’ name,” Old Woman Ma says, putting the baby in a diaper. “Surely you can choose that yourself.”
“I suppose you’re right. I think I’ll call her ‘Qiaojie.’ ” Ping’er reaches out her arms. “Let me hold her now.”
Old Woman Ma hands Ping’er the baby. Ping’er lies awkwardly with the infant across her breast. She notices Xifeng standing there. “Help me up, will you?”
Xifeng climbs onto the kang and helps prop Ping’er into a sitting position.
“Thanks.” Ping’er gazes down at the baby. “Isn’t she beautiful?”
Xifeng kneels next to Ping’er. Although she would hardly call her beautiful, the baby looks more presentable now that she is cleaned up and her skinny monkey limbs are covered. She bends over and looks at the puffy face with its scattering of pimples. Gingerly, she touches one tiny hand. To her surprise, the baby opens her hand and holds on to her finger. Her skin is warm and moist, her grip surprisingly strong.
Ping’er laughs. “Oho! Qiaojie! Do you know your Auntie Xifeng?’ ”
Xifeng tugs her finger gently, as Qiaojie still maintains her grip. She is bewildered by Ping’er’s behavior, as if now, after the course of the labor, they have suddenly become as close as before. Ping’er rocks Qiaojie gently back and forth, burying her lips in the soft, sparse hair. “Oh, she smells good.” She draws Qiaojie’s feet from the blanket, fingering the toes. She looks up. “Do you want to hold her?”
Xifeng hesitates, then puts her arms out to take Qiaojie. The infant is unexpectedly light. She hardly knows what to do with it. She moves her arms back and forth as Ping’er had done, calling, “Qiaojie! Qiaojie!”
The baby’s eyes pop open, first one, and then the other. They are coal black, and full of light, like Baoyu’s.
Ping’er laughs delightedly. “Look! You already know your auntie!”
Xifeng cannot help laughing. Her eyes fill with tears. Before she can wipe them, one of them falls on the baby’s nose, and she starts to whimper again.
“You crying? I don’t believe it,” Ping’er says, with her old playfulness.
The wet nurse enters the room, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Probably she has heard the baby cry. She approaches the kang. “Should I take the baby now?”
“Who’s that?” Ping’er says in surprise, as Xifeng clambers off the kang with the baby.
Suddenly Ping’er understands. She cries out hoarsely and claws herself to a sitting position. “No! Jiejie, no!”
At the name “Jiejie,” Xifeng stops. “Older Sister” is the name Ping’er had always called her when they were children. Once they grew up and came to Rongguo, Ping’er had taken to calling her “Mistress,” as the other servants did. Half suspecting Ping’er of trying to manipulate her, Xifeng turns and looks at her. On Ping’er’s drawn face, dawning realization struggles with disbelief. There is shock, uncertainty, but not yet anger or accusation. Like a person who has just been bitten by a favorite dog, Ping’er’s first impulse, before the realization has sunk in, is to soothe and pet the creature with her torn hand. Xifeng had thought that the bond between her and Ping’er was long broken; she had nothing to lose. Looking at Ping’er now, she understands that all the bad blood of the past months counts for nothing. The old love is still there. She has only to step back into her old place.
The wet nurse is barely a pace away. If Xifeng hands her the baby, she can give back every ounce of humiliation and pain that Lian and Ping’er have inflicted on her. Instead she turns and thrusts the baby back into Ping’er’s arms. Ping’er bursts into tears, but Xifeng turns away dry-eyed. How will she survive in this world if she can’t harden her heart?
6
Daiyu sits up waiting for Baoyu. He has not come for three or four days, so she hopes he will visit tonight. When he still has not come by eleven, she puts aside the book of poems she is reading and, disappointed, blows out the lamp and climbs into bed. She falls asleep almost immediately, but at some point she half wakes and finds him sitting beside her in the darkness.
“You came,” she murmurs. “Why are you so late?”
“I was at a party at the Prince of Beijing’s and they started to talk about the political situation.” He shifts so that he is sitting only a few inches from her head with his knees clasped to his chest.
“What did they say?”
“His Highness’s health is getting worse quickly, but he still hasn’t called Prince Yinti back from the Tibetan front.”
“What does that mean?” Hearing the excitement in his voice, she pushes herself up onto her elbow.
“Well, if Prince Yinti isn’t back by the time His Highness departs from this world, more than one Prince may try to seize the throne.”
She sits up, rubbing her eyes. “Why doesn’t His Highness just appoint Prince Yinti as Heir Apparent?”
“No one knows why. I can’t understand why he didn’t do it seven or eight years ago, when he demoted Prince Yinreng. Surely he knows that if the Princes end up fighting over the throne, there may be bloodshed, or, Heaven forbid, civil war …”
“Really?” She peers at him in the darkness, suddenly a little scared.
“It’s possible. I really don’t know.”
“Do you think it will affect us?” Here, in the Inner Quarters, she feels so insulated from the outside world that it is hard for her to imagine the political situation making any difference in their day-to-day life.
He is silent for much longer than she expects. At last, after more than a minute, he shakes his head. “I don’t think so. My father doesn’t involve himself in this sort of thing. He doesn’t belong to any faction, and doesn’t have close ties to any of the Imperial Princes.”
She senses that he is still uneasy. “Then what is it?”
“I just don’t know what will happen.”
He falls silent. She can make out his profile in the faint moonlight coming through the window and sees that he is gazing somberly before him. Wanting to comfort him, she reaches out and takes his hand. He interlaces his fingers with hers and gives them a gentle squeeze. “Never mind. I didn’t mean to scare you.” He does not release her hand right away, but draws it up to his lips, warm and slightly bristly against her skin. It is the first time that he has touched her like this since she had left for Suzhou months ago, and she feels a strange crawling sensation on the back of her neck, at once pleasurable and disquieting. He lets go of her hand. “I shouldn’t have woken you. You’ll be tired tomorrow.” He moves towards the window.
Suddenly she feels bereft. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?” she blurts out. At her own words she feels her face go hot with embarrassment. She hears him laughing softly.
Suddenly he is on the kang beside her again. His arms go around her, catching her to him. He kisses her once, lingeringly, on the lips, and then he is gone.
At first Xifeng tries to sl
eep through the whimpers from beside her on the kang. She turns away, pulling a pillow over her head to muffle the noise, and manages to fall asleep again. Eventually, the sound of Qiaojie’s full-blown wailing penetrates her ears. She turns back over and sees Qiaojie writhing and red-faced, her hands balled into tiny fists. It is six o’clock, an hour before breakfast. Ping’er, on the other side of Qiaojie, is sprawled fast asleep, her tunic still open from the last time she nursed the baby.
Xifeng drags on a robe and stumbles out into the courtyard with Qiaojie so Ping’er can sleep. As soon as she is picked up, Qiaojie’s piercing wail quiets to a soft whimper. Xifeng walks back and forth, jiggling her knees to produce the little bounce that Qiaojie seems to find soporific. She glances across the courtyard at the rooms where Lian has slept alone since the baby’s birth. At least she assumes that he sleeps alone, although she has recently begun to suspect that Autumn shares his bed. She looks back down at Qiaojie’s half-open mouth and fluttering eyelids. Ping’er insists that Qiaojie will be pretty when she grows up, but Xifeng does not see any evidence of this. However, she is forced to admit that Qiaojie is cute, with her crescent-moon-shaped eyebrows, and snub nose with its tiny nostrils. Now her eyes are shut and her breathing is peaceful and even. With a sigh of relief, Xifeng eases herself into a sitting position on the front steps. She rests there enjoying the rare moment of peace, feeling an unexpected happiness. Even though the baby is not her own, Qiaojie, with her diapers and burps, her need to be cuddled and bathed, has pulled Xifeng away from the dry world of ledgers and tallies. She feels the light, warm bundle on her lap, alive with breath. Without opening her eyes, she draws one of Qioajie’s hands from the swaddling clothes. As always she is surprised by the velvety tenderness of Qiaojie’s skin. Her fingers touch the tiny dimples at every knuckle, the larger crease around the wrist.
She sits there resting with her eyes closed until Qiaojie begins to whimper again. She can tell by the sun that it is almost time for her to prepare to go to Lady Jia’s. She goes back into the apartment and lays Qiaojie beside Ping’er. “I’m sorry to wake you. I think she’s hungry again.”
“Thank you for taking her,” Ping’er murmurs. Half asleep, she pulls Qiaojie towards her breast, curving her arm around the baby.
“How did she sleep last night?”
“Much better. She nursed only three times. I think she’s getting more milk.”
Xifeng looks down at Qiaojie, the corners of her mouth puckering in a rhythmic sucking. The only thing that has worried her is that Qiaojie is not growing as robust and vigorous as she should be. Sometimes it even strikes her that there is a languor about Qiaojie, strange in an infant. As she prepares to serve breakfast at Lady Jia’s apartments, she tells herself that as Qiaojie eats more, she will sleep better, and grow more lively.
Her happy mood lasts until the end of breakfast. As Uncle Zheng rises from the table, he says, “I meant to ask you, Lian, have you seen Jia Yucun lately?”
She stops in the middle of stacking teacups to listen.
Lian shrugs. “No. Why?”
“He used to come over all the time, but he hasn’t come for quite a while. I was wondering whether he was ill or something.”
“Not that I know of. Maybe now that he’s Under-Secretary to the President of the Board of War, he’s too busy to associate with us.”
She stoops down before the tansu so no one will see her expression. Sometimes in a spare moment, she has found herself wondering what Yucun is doing. She has even wondered whether it would be possible to meet him somewhere outside of the mansion, as he had suggested, but fears that he would only importune her to see him again. Now that she is so happily absorbed in caring for Qiaojie with Ping’er, she is no longer willing to take such risks. Her feeling for him is like a nicked finger, she tells herself. It hurts only when it’s bumped.
Daiyu walks along the shore of the lake, trying to shake off the restlessness that has filled her since Baoyu’s visit the night before. She passes beneath the pergola, with its twining clumps of crimson and white roses, towards the farther end of the lake. For three months, caught up in grief for her father, she has been content not to question the nature of Baoyu’s visits, but simply to accept the comfort of his presence. Last night’s kiss, however, makes her think of how he had talked of marrying her the night before she left for Suzhou. She had taken it as a joke, and had not allowed herself to dwell on it. But since last night, she has been filled with joyous expectation—yet she cannot dispel a competing sense of foreboding. She has no dowry, no family, and Lady Jia dislikes her so much. She remembers how angry Lady Jia had been at her mother, for marrying her father instead of General Xue. Why would she be any more lenient with Baoyu?
Following the path beneath the grove of spotted bamboo, she almost stumbles upon Jia Huan, stooping by the water’s edge. “What are you doing?”
He shows her how he is balancing pebbles on bamboo leaves and pushing them out onto the lake to see if they will float. “I finished my homework early today.”
“How are your studies going?” She stoops down beside him to pick up a bamboo leaf too.
“Better. Once, after I’d made a fool of myself in class, Baoyu offered to help me with anything I didn’t understand. Since then, I go to him when I have trouble. I have to admit, sometimes he makes things clearer than the schoolmaster.”
Her heart swells with pride. “I’m so glad. You see, he wants to help you.” In her excitement, she fumbles a little with the flat black pebble that she is trying to balance on her leaf.
“I suppose so,” Jia Huan concedes. “He’s still a show-off.”
“He is not.”
“Yes, he is. He’s always trying to charm everyone into liking him.”
“That’s not true.”
He looks intently at her. Nervous that her face somehow betrays her, she looks away and stoops to pick up another rock.
“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She feels herself blushing, but manages to force a laugh.
“Yes, you are. I can see it in your face.”
“You’re dreaming!”
“Now that I think of it, I can see it in the way that you look at him. All the girls fall in love with him.” He speaks jeeringly, as if his old jealousy of Baoyu has flared up. “What has he been saying to you, to make you blush like that? But don’t take anything he says seriously, you know. He flirts with all the girls.”
“That isn’t true!”
Again he stares at her, and then gives a short laugh. “Well, whatever he’s been promising you, it won’t happen. They would never let him marry you. Besides”—his face is alive with malice—“he’s already betrothed.”
“What do you mean?” She is too shocked to feign indifference.
“He’s going to marry Baochai.”
“Baochai!” She takes refuge in incredulity. “Why have I never heard anything about it—”
“Granny arranged it all after you went back south. They’re keeping it secret.”
“Then how do you know?”
“My father told my mother, and she told me.”
She cannot speak. It all makes sense now: why Baochai moved in with her mother and no longer has meals with the rest of the household. But why hasn’t Baochai simply told her? She can no longer convince herself that Jia Huan is lying or mistaken. “Does Baoyu know?”
“I would think so.”
She turns and runs down the path towards her own apartments, so Huan will not see her tears. It makes perfect sense: gold and jade, the perfect pair. She could never hope to penetrate their charmed circle of wealth and power. Why has Baoyu deceived her? Why has he taken advantage of her vulnerability after her father’s death to make her love him? How could she have imagined that she could be with him? She is a nobody, a poor relation living on charity, and Granny Jia will never let her forget it.
The throne room is so tightly packed with officials that it takes Jia Zhen
g fifteen minutes to make it to the door. Everyone is buzzing with His Highness’s latest edict, recalling Prince Yinti from the front. Jia Zheng squeezes through the crowded doorway and makes his way down the steps, eager to get back to his Ministry to talk over the announcement with his colleagues. At the bottom of the stairs, he catches sight of Jia Yucun and hurries over to say hello. Only then does he see that Yucun is deep in conversation with “Daddy Xia,” the head eunuch in the Forbidden City. The Eunuch Chamberlain is leaning so close to Yucun that his pendulous lips almost touch the young man’s ear.
“Ah, Lord Jia,” Daddy Xia says, breaking off. “I never run into you these days.” In the old days, when the Imperial Concubine was still alive, Jia Zheng had often had dealings with the eunuch. “How is your esteemed mother?”
Barely waiting for Jia Zheng’s reply, however, the Eunuch Chamberlain moves away, nodding at Yucun over his shoulder. “We will talk another time.”
Left alone with his young relative, Jia Zheng cannot help gloating over the fact that his own predictions about the succession are about to come true. “So,” he says, tucking his hand into Yucun’s elbow as the two of them are pushed towards the main gate. “Prince Yinti will probably be back in the Capital in six or seven weeks.”
“Yes.”
“And then His Majesty will name him Heir Apparent.”
Jia Yucun says nothing.
Jia Zheng notices that the young man does not look well. His color is bad, and he has lost weight. “Have you been sick? I haven’t seen you in so long.”
“No, no.”
Then, as Jia Zheng continues to stare at him with a concerned face, he adds, “I’m just getting over a bout of stomach flu, that’s all.”
“You should eat rice porridge for a day or two until your system is cleaned out.” Jia Zheng squeezes the young man’s arm. “Are you free now? Why don’t you come back to Rongguo with me and have dinner?”
The Red Chamber Page 25
