The Red Chamber

by Pauline A. Chen

  Xifeng clings to Baochai’s arm, as if in need of support.

  “What is it? Is something wrong?” Baochai asks again.

  “It’s nothing.” Xifeng steadies herself and lets go of Baochai. “I just lost my balance.”

  “You looked as if you were about to faint. Should we send for a doctor?”

  “No!” Xifeng speaks with her old sharpness. “I’m fine.”

  Just as they are approaching the apartment, she hears a man’s voice behind her.

  “Baochai!”

  She turns. Pan, dressed in traveling clothes, rushes up to them.

  “Pan!” She flings her arms around him. “You’re back! We’ve been so worried about you!”

  “How’s Mother?”

  “She’s fine. Come in and see her.” They rush into the apartment calling for their mother.

  Mrs. Xue clings to Pan, bursting into tears. “Why didn’t you answer our message? We’ve been so worried!”

  “What message?” Pan says.

  “We asked Jingui to send a message asking you to come back to the Capital.”

  “I didn’t get any message. I suppose it came after I left Nanjing.”

  “Left Nanjing? Where were you?”

  Pan laughs. “I went to Hangzhou, Chang’an, and Tianjin.”

  “Why on earth did you go to all those places?” Mrs. Xue exclaims.

  “Ever since I heard the Jias were confiscated, I’ve been going to all their relatives by marriage, and asking them to petition the Emperor for clemency on their behalf,” Pan says, beaming with pride. “I went to the Xues, and the Shis and the Wangs in Chang’an—”

  Baochai almost drops her basket in surprise. It had never occurred to her that Pan was doing something to help the Jias of his own initiative.

  He looks around at Lady Jia and Xifeng and the Two Springs. “I have some excellent news. I stopped by the yamen on the way here, and they told me the Jias have been granted an appeal!”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Lady Jia cuts through the exclamations of gratitude and surprise. With Tanchun and Xichun supporting her, she moves forward from her backrest to the edge of the kang.

  “It means there is a good chance that the sentences will be overturned, or at the least shortened.”

  “When will we find out?”

  “In the next week or two, I should think.”

  Baochai sees her own surprise mirrored on her mother’s face. “Pan,” her mother begins, “how did you think of such a thing? I never realized that you knew … that you thought …”

  “I knew how Uncle Zheng had helped me, so when I heard about the Jias, I went to Uncle Xue in Nanjing, and asked if he could do anything. He said he would send in a petition to the throne.”

  “He did?” Mrs. Xue says, startled. Baochai knows she has never gotten along with her husband’s younger brother.

  “I told him Baochai was engaged to Baoyu. He said he’d always been fond of Baochai, and didn’t want to see such a fine girl suffer.” Pan looks teasingly at Baochai. “It was my uncle who suggested that I go to the Jias’ other relatives by marriage, and ask that they petition His Highness as well. I went to the Wangs first.” He turns to Xifeng. “I saw your honored uncle. When I told him that Lian was in prison, he said he would write a petition right away.”

  Baochai notices how forced Xifeng’s smile is.

  Pan continues, “Then I went to the others. At first I pleaded with them, and they still wouldn’t help. But as soon as I told them that Xue Bing and General Wang were already sending in petitions, they agreed to send them as well.”

  Of course, it makes sense to Baochai that while each individual fears to speak out alone, he is more willing to join a chorus of other powerful voices. Far more marvelous to her is Pan’s transformation. He now carries himself with the easy confidence of a man well versed in the ways of the world.

  She takes his hands. “Pan, I don’t know what it is. You seem so different.”

  He smiles at her. “I feel different. You know, when Father’s clerks used to try to teach me about the business, I never really paid any attention. But this time, when I was on my way south, I noticed that various medicines—rhinocerous horn, ginseng, cordyceps—were being sold at a very good price. So I spent almost all the cash I had and bought a really large quantity: several kilos of each. Then, when I got down south, I was able to sell them at a tremendous profit: three or four hundred percent! It was the first time I realized I could actually succeed at something on my own, without being told what to do.” He gives a self-deprecating laugh. “You know, even though I was never good at memorizing texts, I always was pretty good at numbers.” With a guilty start, Baochai realizes that although she has always been good at mathematics, it has never crossed her mind that Pan might share her talent.

  “So then I started talking to Father’s old clerks more about the business, and started making purchases for the Imperial Household, and keeping my own accounts. I actually found it pretty interesting.”

  “That’s wonderful,” she says. “But what about the Xias’ business? Didn’t Jingui want you to buy some paper and sandalwood, and bring them back up here to sell?”

  At the mention of Jingui, his face seems to harden. “Actually,” he says, “when I got down south, I found that the prices for those items were rather high. We wouldn’t have made any profit at all bringing them back up here, so I didn’t buy them.”

  “You’ve seen Jingui?” her mother asks hesitantly.

  “Yes, she was the one who told me where you were living,” Pan says. He says nothing more, his face still wearing the hard look. Baochai wonders what could have happened between the couple. Perhaps Pan found out something to Jingui’s discredit when he went to Nanjing, or perhaps he is angry at her for not letting Baochai and Mrs. Xue live with her after the confiscation. In any case, he no longer seems to be held under Jingui’s sway.

  “Tell me,” Lady Jia says. “Is it really true that Zheng and Baoyu and Lian will be released early? I can’t believe it. Maybe we’ll be able to get out of this place and move back to Rongguo …”

  “Don’t outrun yourself, Granny,” Pan says, laughing again. “I’ll go to the yamen again tomorrow, and make some inquiries. And now that I’m in the Capital, I’ll go to the Prince of Beijing to see if he can pull some strings. He was always good friends with Baoyu. But, based on everything that people have said, I think the chances are good they won’t have to serve their full sentences. After all,” he lowers his voice, “all the rival Princes are in jail, and His Highness has been on the throne for more than nine months, with no trouble anywhere in the Empire. Surely he can begin to relax …”

  “Thank you, for everything that you have done for us.” Lady Jia, with a return to her old dignity, tries to struggle off the kang to kowtow. “You and your sister and mother have stood by us, when everyone else abandoned us.”

  Pan stops her, blushing at her attempt to thank him. “That’s all right. The Xues and the Jias have always been close, and Uncle Zheng saved me when I would have gone to jail.” In his embarrassment, he takes refuge in teasing. He throws his arm around Baochai’s shoulders and squeezes her. “Besides, I couldn’t let my little sister dwindle into an old maid now, could I?”

  2

  Baoyu lies on the straw pallet. His face, against the dirty, scratchy sheet, is hot and dry. He alternately shakes with fever or shivers with cold. He is covered by a ragged blanket that has not been washed for as long as he has been in prison. At times he clutches it, only to fling it off when the next bout of ague descends on him. His body is crawling with lice, but he no longer bothers to scratch. The room is redolent with the stench of the chamber pot, which is emptied only once a day. Fainter than the smell of the chamber pot, but just as nauseating, is the smell of lunch—rice porridge swimming with a few dried fish—which he has not touched. As he lies there, however, his mind is far from the narrow walls of his prison cell. As always, he runs through his memories of Daiyu o
ne by one, as if fingering a string of prayer beads. He remembers Daiyu on her first day at Rongguo in her dirty pink robe, with her strange combination of awkwardness and grace, of reticence and candor. He remembers that first dinner, when she was in an agony of blushes because she had drunk the tea for gargling. He pictures the time she had come to see him after his father beat him, and he told her about Zhu’s secret life. Most often, he thinks of the time when she returned pale and spent from nursing her father in Suzhou. That was the happiest time in his life, when he had snuck into her bedroom almost every night to talk with her before she went to sleep.

  Sometimes he will indulge himself by picturing every detail of her appearance: the way the hairpin holding up her bun was always slightly lopsided, the faint film of sweat on the back of her neck, the way that the soles of her shoes wore out unevenly because her feet turned out a little when she walked. Her pink fingernails, as curved and as delicate as seashells, the little frown that pulled her eyebrows together, giving her a faint look of melancholy, even when she was happy.

  Sometimes he will replay one of their conversations, sifting and pondering her remarks. He will think about the time she came to see him after his face was burned. He showed her his jade for the first time, and she had made up a story about a stone coming down from the Heavens to live in the human world. When she had said the stone was from the Heavens, was she mocking him about his sense of superiority? The stone had fallen in love with a mortal girl. Did she already know then that he was in love with her? He will think about her voice, rich and low, with a slight southern accent that didn’t distinguish between n’s and ng’s; about her small white teeth, which were slightly crooked, and the curve of her full lips. Lying against the rough straw pallet, he will imagine it is her body beneath his, and that he has only to open his eyes to see her face.

  Sometimes he thinks he is making himself crazy living over these details from the past. But then he tells himself that reliving them is what he does to stop himself from going crazy, from giving in to lethargy and despair. What else does he have to think about in this tiny room with its high, barred window, with no brush and paper, with no books? What else does he have to focus his mind on, other than the thought that he will survive these five years, and then find her, somewhere, somehow?

  He hears a key turn in the lock. His mind registers that this is an unusual occurrence, because ordinarily no one enters the cell between lunchtime and dinner, but he does not bother moving.

  He hears a voice beside him. “Jia Baoyu, get up!”

  He turns his head. Instead of one of the usual guards, he sees the head warden, whom he has met only a few times. “What is it?”

  “What’s the matter? Are you sick? Can’t you get up?”

  With an effort Baoyu uses his arms to push himself to a sitting position. “What is it?”

  “Get your things together. You’re being released today.”

  “Released?” he says confusedly. As the meaning of the word penetrates his murky brain, he feels a surge of hope and gladness. He tries to get to his feet but reels dizzily. “How? Why?”

  The warden catches him by the arm to stop him from falling. “You’ve been granted an Imperial Pardon. Come along!”

  Baoyu stoops to try to pick up his few items of clothes, but almost loses his balance.

  “Never mind those,” the warden says impatiently. “I doubt you’ll want to wear them on the outside.”

  “You’re right,” says Baoyu. He goes out through the open door of the cell and staggers after the warden as quickly as he can down a series of hallways. He cannot keep up, and at one point the warden comes back to support him by the arm. They end up in some sort of office at the front of the prison. His father is there, sitting on one of the benches along the wall. Xue Pan is next to him.

  “Father!” he cries.

  Jia Zheng gets to his feet and hurries towards Baoyu with his arms outstretched. Although his robes are filthy and he has lost weight, he does not otherwise look unwell.

  “Father, how are you?”

  Jia Zheng grips Baoyu’s hands. “I’m fine. But what ails you? You look terrible.” He peers into Baoyu’s face. “You have some sort of fever, don’t you?”

  “I think so. My cell was on the north side. It didn’t get much sunlight, and was always cold and damp.”

  “We must have a doctor come as soon as possible.”

  “Father, what’s happened? Why are we getting released?”

  Jia Zheng turns to Xue Pan with a grateful smile. “Cousin Pan here has been asking our relatives to petition the throne, and it seems that His Highness has decided to grant us an Imperial Pardon, in recognition of the many years that our family has served the throne faithfully. Also, your friend the Prince of Beijing went to see him personally last week to beg for our early release.”

  Baoyu smiles. The Prince of Beijing has always been kind to him. He turns to Xue Pan. “I don’t know how to thank you,” he says, putting his hands together to make a bow.

  Xue Pan catches him to stop him from kowtowing. “Please don’t do that. It’s nothing. After all, we’re soon going to be brothers-in-law.”

  Pan’s words strike a chill into Baoyu’s heart. He had hardly thought about his betrothal in prison. It had never occurred to him that Baochai would wait five years for him to be released. He tells himself that he cannot make the same mistake as last time; he must make it perfectly clear that he will marry no one but Daiyu.

  Before he can speak, however, Lian and Huan are led into the room. He is surprised by the rush of affection that he feels for them. They both embrace him, exclaiming at how ill he looks. They, by contrast, seem to be in good health despite their pallor and thinness.

  And then, almost too quickly for him to absorb, their ordeal is over. The warden reads them some documents, though his head is aching too badly for him to listen properly. Their names are written down on a roster, and suddenly they are out in the streets in a wagon that Pan has hired to bring them home. Baoyu holds on to the side to steady himself, marveling at the freshness of the air and the expanses of space around him. He had lost track of time in prison, but now he senses, from the quality of the light and heat, that it is the end of spring. The sunlight is too intense for his eyes, and he shades them with his hand. Now they are approaching a busier part of town. The people on the streets strike him as belonging to a different and unfamiliar species. There are children shouting and chasing one another, peddlers standing in front of their shops hawking their wares. Their voices are too loud, just as the shapes and colors of objects seem too vivid. He sees stacks of zongzi, the pyramids of rice wrapped in bamboo leaves that are eaten in honor of Qu Yuan’s suicide, and realizes that it must almost be the Double Fifth, the Dragon Boat Festival.

  Now they are lurching down a familiar street. “Are we going to Rongguo?” he asks.

  “No, it’s still Imperial Property,” Pan says over his shoulder. “They are renting an apartment south of Rongguo. It was rather small, so I rented the rooms next door for them as well when I got back to the Capital.”

  They draw into a small alley, and now the driver is pulling up the horses. As Pan helps Jia Zheng and Baoyu out of the wagon, a door bursts open and Tanchun and Xichun and Baochai and Mrs. Xue pour out to greet them. Tanchun is hugging and weeping over him and his father and Huan, while Xichun clings to Jia Lian. Baochai and Mrs. Xue embrace his father. Then Mrs. Xue turns to hug him, while Baochai gives him a formal bow, barely meeting his eye. Her coldness fills him with unease. She must still consider herself betrothed to him; that is why she treats him with such formality.

  Granny Jia comes out of the apartment, supported by Xifeng. Granny embraces his father, but he cannot take his eyes off Xifeng. What has happened to her? Her complexion has taken on a strange, clay-like cast, and the whites of her eyes are a muddy yellow. She has lost so much weight that he can see the shape of her jawbone clearly. Haven’t the others noticed the change in her? He looks at Lian, who is sti
ll speaking to Xichun and does not approach his wife. Surely, he thinks, Lian will take pity on her and not treat her too harshly about the loans. He takes Xifeng’s hands. “Where is Qiaojie?”

  A quiver runs over her sallow face. “She died last winter.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” He squeezes her hands, and feels her thin fingers trembling in his own. “And Ping’er?”

  He realizes from her face that he has again blundered into a painful subject.

  “Granny insisted that we sell her,” she says.

  Time had stood still for him in prison. Only now, at Xifeng’s words, does he realize how much has happened in his absence, what losses and partings have rent the family. Unbidden, a line from Zhuangzi comes to him: xuwu piaomiao, rensheng zaishi, nanmian fengliu yunsan. “This life, this insubstantial tissue of vanity, floats like a cloud on the wind.”

  Now Granny is embracing him. While he feels joy at seeing his sister and cousins, he is still angry at how Granny had treated Daiyu. He submits to her putting her arms around him, and stroking his hair. Abruptly, she draws her hand away. “Good Heavens! You’re crawling with lice, and your head is as hot as fire!”

  “Yes, let’s let Baoyu rest. He isn’t well. We must call a doctor,” Jia Zheng says, putting his arm around Baoyu’s shoulders and supporting him into the house. Realizing how exhausted he is from the journey from prison, Baoyu allows himself to be led to the kang. He sinks down on some cushions, as the others begin to talk about which doctor to send for, and about bathing and getting new clothes for the prisoners.

  As he looks around the unfamiliar apartment, watching everyone bustle about, he is so struck by the absence of Daiyu that he wants to cry out in pain. How can everyone else chatter and laugh, rejoicing in the return of the prisoners, without remembering those who are missing? Unable to contain himself, he says, “Does anyone know what happened to Cousin Lin after the confiscation?”