The Red Chamber

by Pauline A. Chen

  “They are wearing yellow robes and pointed helmets—”

  Jia Zheng sinks down on the kang. “It’s the Embroidered Jackets.”

  “The Embroidered Jackets!” The Emperor’s Secret Police. Baoyu feels his heart knocking against his ribs. “It must be a confiscation!”

  “How many of them are there?” his father asks.

  “Dozens!”

  His father lurches to his feet. “I must go see them. I must try to reason with them.”

  Baoyu is dimly aware of being surprised by his father’s courage, but his mind is picturing what will happen. If the Embroidered Jackets find Daiyu locked up, they will not realize that she is a member of the family. At best, they will assume that she is a concubine, or a maid. Who knows what will happen to her? She might be sent to serve in another household. He must release her before the Embroidered Jackets arrive, even if he has to break down the door.

  “Baoyu, come with me and help me speak to them,” his father says, starting towards the door.

  “I can’t.” He pushes past his father and begins to run as he has never run before.

  12

  A key scrapes in the lock. In an instant Daiyu is out of her makeshift bed. Finally, after four days of waiting, Baoyu is here to rescue her. When the door swings open, however, it is Snowgoose, not Baoyu.

  “Snowgoose! What’s happening—”

  Snowgoose takes her hand and tugs her out the door.

  “What is it?” Daiyu says, stumbling.

  “You have to get out of here.” Snowgoose pulls Daiyu towards the front gates of Xifeng’s apartments.

  “But why?” Infected by Snowgoose’s urgency, Daiyu begins to run as well.

  “The Embroidered Jackets are here. They’re confiscating the Jias.” Snowgoose gets the words out between gasps of breath. “I saw them out near the stables. I ran in here to let you out. You can get out the side gate before they come.”

  “Confiscated? But why?” Now they are circling around the back of Xifeng’s apartments.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will anything happen to Uncle Zheng and Baoyu?”

  “I’m not sure. It doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it?”

  Daiyu slows her steps. “I can’t just run away and leave them—”

  Snowgoose’s grip on her hand tightens. “What could you do? You don’t owe them anything after the way they’ve treated you.” They have arrived at a small gate in the back wall of the Inner Quarters, which Snowgoose opens with a key from her waist. “Now when you get out into the streets, you must go straight to Flowers Street near the Chongwen gate in the southern part of the city. You must ask for the blacksmith Zhen Shiyin. Anyone on Flowers Street will be able to tell you where he lives. Can you remember?”

  “Of course, but how can I stay with your family?” She knows the Zhens are too poor to be able to feed an extra mouth.

  “We’ll manage. When you get there, tell them who you are and what happened. I’ve told them all about you.” Now they are running down a back passage in the outer mansion.

  At last they come to the outer wall. From the other side Daiyu hears the hubbub of the streets: the clopping of hooves, the scrape of wheels, the babble and screech of a hundred voices. Snowgoose unlocks the gate. “You remember where to go?”

  “Yes, but what about you?” She takes Snowgoose’s hand. “Aren’t you coming with me? Is it safe for you to go back?”

  “I’m only a servant. I’ll probably just be sent to another household. I’ll come see you as soon as I can.”

  Snowgoose pushes her out the gate. She hesitates, the thought of Baoyu holding her back. Then she remembers how she has not heard from him for the last four days. “If Baoyu wants to know where I am, you’ll let him know, won’t you?”

  “Of course. Now go!”

  The gate clangs shut behind her. She is alone outside the mansion. The bracing air of the streets hits her, so different from the air inside: smokier, grittier, yet somehow clearer and more invigorating. Breathing in deeply, she looks around the back alley, then walks towards the main thoroughfare, orienting herself by the increase in noise. When she reaches it, she stands for a moment amid the stream of people and animals and vehicles passing in both directions, conscious that she has nothing but the clothes that she wears. Her hand goes up to her throat to finger the jade, a habit she developed in the few weeks she had worn it, before she remembers it is gone.

  As he runs towards Xifeng’s apartments, Baoyu hears all around him evidence that the Embroidered Jackets have already broken into the Inner Quarters: loud male voices, the tramping of heavy feet, the splintering of wood. He takes the alley behind the apartments to avoid the police. He hears Auntie Zhao and the maids screaming from his father’s rooms. The Embroidered Jackets must have ignored his father’s pleas and must already be searching the mansion. He runs faster.

  At the back wall of Xifeng’s compound, he swings onto a low branch of a nearby tree. The back gate bursts open and a half-dozen Embroidered Jackets emerge. He turns to run but they are on him in an instant.

  “Let me go!” He wrenches himself out of their hands and runs a few steps, but they catch hold of him again.

  “Let me go!” He struggles wildly. One of them twists his forearm behind his back. Half bent over from the pain in his arm, he glares up at the Embroidered Jackets. With their flapping sleeves and peaked helmets, they look like ill-omened birds of prey.

  “You have no right to detain me.” He tries to pull his arm away, but the Embroidered Jacket wrenches it so hard he cries out.

  “Who are you?” the soldier shouts.

  “I’m Jia Baoyu.”

  “Jia Baoyu, I hereby arrest you.”

  Strangely, he is not frightened. His mind latches on to the hope that if he stops resisting and speaks reasonably to them, they will let him explain about Daiyu, and will see that she is released and placed with the other women in the family.

  He stops struggling and says as calmly as he can, “On what charges?”

  “Didn’t you hear the Edict read?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll take you to the lieutenant. He can explain it to you.”

  Still twisting Baoyu’s arm, the soldier leads Baoyu to the courtyard of Xifeng’s apartments. The place is swarming with Embroidered Jackets, but there is no sign of Daiyu.

  “Do you know if they found a girl locked in one of these rooms?” he asks.

  “If you have questions, you’d better ask the lieutenant.”

  However, the lieutenant is nowhere to be seen. At last the soldier releases Baoyu’s arm and allows him to wait, flanked by two soldiers, in the corner of the courtyard. Baoyu watches the stream of police going in and out of the apartments. Occasionally there is the sound of crockery breaking, or of some heavy piece of furniture being shifted.

  Finally, a policeman in a more elaborate uniform enters the courtyard. The soldier who had twisted Baoyu’s arm accosts him. “This is Jia Baoyu. He wants to know on what charges he is being held.”

  The lieutenant looks Baoyu up and down expressionlessly. “We were sent to arrest Jia Zheng, Duke of Rongguo, as well as Jia Lian, Jia Huan, and yourself on the charge of treason and collaborating with enemies of the State. Also on the charge of receiving gifts from enemies of the State.”

  Baoyu is stunned. Treason and collaborating with the enemy are serious crimes, carrying significant prison sentences. While it is not unheard-of for all the adult male members of a family to be included in a charge for a political crime, it strikes him as unusually harsh that all four Jia men are to be arrested. How will the women manage on their own?

  The lieutenant continues, “Jia Zheng is also charged with obstruction of justice in the case of Surviving Relatives of Zhang Hua vs. Xue Pan.”

  “Obstruction of justice?” Baoyu repeats dumbly. Had Xue Pan killed someone, and had his father intervened on Pan’s behalf? With a flash of insight, he at last understands why his father had be
friended Jia Yucun, and what secret, tortuous ties bind the Xues and the Jias.

  “Jia Zheng is hereby stripped of his rank as Duke of Rongguo,” the lieutenant goes on, speaking with the clipped precision of a military man. “We have also found evidence of additional crimes.”

  Baoyu knows that this is how it happens in confiscations: Even if the evidence against a family is weak to begin with, a top-to-bottom search of their property usually turns up sufficient evidence to arrest them.

  “We found Prohibited Articles on the premises: more than two dozen bolts of Imperial Use silk, which are restricted for Palace use. Therefore, you will also be charged with illegal possession of contraband goods.”

  “But Her Late Highness the Imperial Concubine sent those to us!”

  “The law clearly specifies that it is a crime for a private household to be in possession of articles reserved for use in the Palace.”

  Baoyu wants to protest that it is a universal practice for Palace women to smuggle out items as gifts for their families, but he suddenly feels ashamed, and stops himself.

  “The last charge is for usury.” The lieutenant speaks contemptuously.

  “Usury! We haven’t loaned any money—”

  “Promissory notes, imprinted with Jia Lian’s chop, were found in these very apartments.”

  “Lian couldn’t have made those loans.” Generous to a fault, Lian is incapable of calculating the price of a few casks of wine. The thought occurs to him: Could Xifeng have made them? She had told him that very morning how precarious the family finances were. He wonders if he should tell the lieutenant the truth—but the idea that Xifeng too would be arrested is unthinkable.

  “Do you have any other questions, before we take you to the yamen?” the lieutenant asks.

  “Yes. Have you finished searching these apartments?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you find a girl locked up in one of the storerooms?”

  The lieutenant looks surprised, but answers, “No, we didn’t. We did find a storeroom with a bed and a trunk, but no one was there.”

  He is flooded with relief. Someone must have remembered Daiyu and released her. He lets himself be led out of Xifeng’s apartments towards Granny’s place, wondering if he will find her there. Granny’s courtyard is crowded with people. After the first moment of confusion he sees that, besides the Embroidered Jackets, there are three groups. One group, in the far corner, consists of Granny and Xifeng, Ping’er and Qiaojie, and Tanchun and Xichun, as well as Baochai and Mrs. Xue. Daiyu is not among them. Granny is hunched on the verandah steps, while Xifeng supports her. All the women but Xifeng are crying. Baochai, her face swollen with tears, has her arms around her mother. He feels a twinge of dislike.

  The far larger group in the middle of the courtyard consists of maids and stewardesses and other senior women servants. He scans it quickly for Daiyu, but she is not there. His eyes go to the final group, in another corner, surrounded by Embroidered Jackets, to which he himself is being led. As he approaches it, he sees that it consists of his father, Lian, and Huan. At the sight of his father, something—shame or pity—twists in his stomach. Jia Zheng is boxed in by four Embroidered Jackets, as if they suspect him of trying to escape. One even holds his upper arm. Although Baoyu was not angry when the police seized his own arm, he feels a mad urge to thrust this policeman away. His father’s head and shoulders are bowed, his eyes fixed on the ground.

  The full disgrace of their situation hits him. He is sufficiently well versed in court life to understand that his father had done nothing to warrant the treason charge, but is a victim of factional strife. The other charges, though probably carrying lighter sentences, trouble him more: the usury, his father’s intervention in Pan’s murder case, the smuggling of items out of the Imperial Palace. As insignificant as each may seem, exposed to the harsh glare of public scrutiny, they stink of corruption and abuse of power. For the first time it occurs to him that the grandeur and pomp of their whole life have been built on these small acts of wrongdoing. While Xifeng had been earning interest on illegal loans, he had worn the best clothing, had ridden the finest horses, without ever understanding their price. He had been self-righteous, posing as a freethinker above ambition and duty. In the meantime, his father and Xifeng had done the dirty work. He feels a wave of self-disgust.

  Gently, he pushes past Huan and Lian, and stands next to his father.

  Xifeng walks away from the huddle of sobbing women near the Inner Gate. Ping’er is trying to soothe Qiaojie, soiled and wet from not having had her diaper changed all day. Lady Jia, her face rigid with shock, is sitting on the steps beside Baochai. When Baoyu had been taken away with the other men, Xifeng saw Baochai’s composure break for the first time. She cried out his name, and even ran a few steps after him. Perhaps she cared for him more than Xifeng supposed. Now Baochai’s iron composure is back as she divides her attention between Granny and her mother. The Two Springs are crying in each other’s arms.

  The men have been taken to prison; she does not know when she will hear from them again. Rongguo no longer belongs to the family, and the women must leave the mansion by nightfall. She can think of nowhere to go to sleep tonight but Cousin Rong’s two-room apartment. Before they leave she must go back to her own apartment. They need diapers and clothes for Qiaojie, and she must check whether her secret cache of money has somehow escaped discovery. They need cash urgently: to bribe the prison guards, to send messengers to friends and relatives begging for their intervention. If only she can get her hands on some silver, she will not feel so helpless.

  She has heard of people hanging themselves during confiscations. Now she understands why. At first, she had thrown herself onto the kang, terrified that the police would grab her. They did not do so, but had simply ordered her out into the courtyard. However, the few moments before she helped Granny out of the room were enough for her to see what they were doing: the lock on the tansu had been smashed, wardrobes jerked open, drawers upended. Watching the police paw over the objects of her daily life, she felt a burning sense of violation, as if they had dared to touch her own body. As she had tended to Granny, making a pillow out of her vest and settling her in the shade of the verandah, she noticed a stream of Embroidered Jackets coming out of the apartment, carrying trunks opened to reveal jumbles of scrolls and antiques and jewelry. She caught sight of a pair of solid gold Buddhas—so heavy that two policemen were needed to lift the trunk—strings of pearls, “mutton-fat” white jade girdles, West Ocean clocks and watches, tiger skins and fox furs and Tibetan yak’s serge, all the treasures that Granny Jia had hoarded over her lifetime. As the Embroidered Police continued to stream out, some of them carrying trunks of silver and copper, she calculated that sixty or seventy thousand taels’ worth of property was being taken in one fell swoop. She held on to a wild hope that her own stash, better hidden, would somehow escape the search.

  Now she hurries towards her own apartments, struck by the eerie silence. That morning, there had been more than one hundred and fifty servants in the Inner Quarters. The Embroidered Jackets had rounded up the forty or so most senior maids and stewards and stewardesses for “questioning.” The rest of the servants, she suspects, have run away in the panic. As she walks, she calls out to see if anyone is there. Her voice sounds weak and small in the empty spaces. All her life, she has had to take great pains to avoid servants whenever she wished to be alone. Now she could scream and no one would come.

  Through the dimness she sees the front gate of her apartments padlocked and sealed over with strips of white paper proclaiming them State Property, their loose ends fluttering in the wind. The small door in the back wall, probably unnoticed, has not been locked and sealed. She unlocks it with one of the keys at her waist, and makes her way down a short alley to a side entrance to the apartments. As she tries to swing the door open, it catches on the piles of clothing and broken crockery on the floor. She forces the door wider, stepping across the debris to the front room. The cu
pboards have been emptied, drifts of tea and rice spilling across the floor. Books lie facedown underfoot. Even the pillows and quilts have been slashed open, as if the Embroidered Jackets had suspected that something was secreted inside them. Her face powder has been dumped out on the dressing table, all the pots of creams and lotions opened and gouged with some sharp object to make sure nothing was hidden at the bottom. Everything valuable is gone: the West Ocean clock, the scrolls on the wall, the mother-of-pearl screen.

  She flounders over the debris to her bedroom. The wardrobe door swings open. The false bottom of the wardrobe has been removed and her hiding place lies revealed. Still she throws herself to her knees and scrabbles her fingers over every inch of the recess, breaking a fingernail on the rough brick. Nothing. The rug has been torn off the kang. She pries up the loose brick under which she had hidden a bag of her most precious jewelry. It is all gone. There is one last place: the bottom of a flowerpot where she kept some gold and jade rings. She finds the uprooted plant and shards of porcelain on the floor.

  She cannot stop from going back to the wardrobe and searching it one last time. She plunges her torn and bleeding hands into the hiding place, digging her fingers into the crevices. Then she remembers. Besides the money, she had hidden the loan agreements there as well. With the loan agreements confiscated, she will never be repaid the thousands of taels she has lent. Moreover, because the agreements specify illegally high interest rates, Jia Lian, whose name is on the documents, will be charged with usury. A cold finger of fear touches her heart at the thought of Lian’s fury. The fact that he is in prison and cannot vent his anger on her is a relief. But what will his anger, unable to find its object, drive him to do? Will he tell Uncle Zheng? Will he testify against her in court? She pushes such thoughts away, stooping to gather some of Qiaojie’s clothing from the floor.

  Mechanically, her hands sort though piles of debris, picking out diapers, trousers, a jacket, blankets, and piling them on a wrapping cloth. What a long, terrible day it has been. Was it really just this morning that she had been sitting on the kang with Granny and Uncle Zheng and Baoyu talking about his betrothal? What were they saying when the Embroidered Jackets arrived? They had just realized that Baoyu’s jade was lost, the same moment this terrible calamity befell them. A fear sharper than any she has felt all day grips her. She has never believed in coincidence. How can anyone doubt that the family’s fate is bound up with Baoyu’s jade? And now that the jade is gone, the family’s luck has run out, too.