China

by Edward Rutherfurd

  “Have you got anything on him, sir?” I asked. “Something I could use to blackmail him.”

  “No,” he answered. “He’s taken bribes, of course, but then…” He spread his hands as though to say, Haven’t we all?

  “That’s a pity,” I said.

  “You owe me a lot of money,” he suddenly declared.

  “Which I can’t pay,” I replied. But he was just saying that to get rid of me, so I left.

  * * *

  —

  After a while I began to think about killing myself. Was I really going to spend the rest of my life with the old man—day after day, month after month, year after year—and then turn into the next Old Stinker? I’d never have enough money to repay Mr. Chen or buy my private parts back. So I’d go into the poor eunuchs’ graveyard, incomplete.

  In the meantime, how was I going to keep my family on the pittance I was getting? And once my father was gone, would my little boys even survive?

  Everything I’d done had been for nothing. And sooner or later my family was going to discover the truth about what I did at the palace. I didn’t know if I could face the shame of that. I’d sooner have died, to tell the truth, and come back in my next life as a worm.

  So that was the choice: a lifetime of shame ahead of me, and maybe not even save my boys; or death, and turn my back on every duty I had.

  * * *

  —

  Head eunuch Liu appeared to inspect the kitchen without any warning. One morning I came in to get my overalls, and there he was, just as I remembered him, in his peacock robes, looking serenely into the cooking pots. Everyone was terrified, of course. And so was I for a moment or two. But then something else occurred to me.

  I daresay he inspects the kitchen once in a while, I thought, but he’s also come to look at me, just to make sure that I’m suffering and that he has really humiliated Mr. Chen.

  One thing was sure: I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to confront him.

  So I went up to him, made a low bow, and said, “Mr. Liu, may your humble servant speak with you for a moment, after your inspection?” And I must have been right, because after staring at me blankly for a moment, he said, “Tell Old Stinker to start without you.”

  * * *

  —

  He led me to the little office and sat down behind the table, leaving me standing in front of it. Then he just watched me, waiting for me to speak.

  “Mr. Chen is very humiliated,” I began.

  “So I hear,” he answered.

  “It’s terrible, what you’ve done to me, Mr. Liu,” I said. “My family still don’t know what I do, but they’ll find out. I can’t get the smell off my hands. And I get so little pay…I can’t support them on it. Will you ever show me any mercy?”

  “No. It would make me look weak.”

  “Then may this foolish servant ask your advice?” I said.

  He looked a bit surprised. “My advice?”

  “Yes, Mr. Liu. Should I kill myself?”

  “Are you serious?” he asked.

  “Your lowly servant is very serious,” I said.

  “How would you do it?” he asked. He seemed quite curious.

  “When the last Ming emperor lost his kingdom to the Manchu invaders, he went up a hill and hanged himself for shame,” I said. “If that was good enough for him, it’s got to be good enough for me. But I thought I should ask you first.”

  “Why?”

  “You might not want me to.”

  “Oh?” He glared at me. “Why not?”

  “Well, sir,” I said, “everyone knows that my suffering is to embarrass Mr. Chen. So if it drives me to kill myself, people might say bad things about you.”

  After a pause, he nodded. “You’re quite intelligent,” he replied. “But you’re mistaken. People don’t value life as much as you think. You’ve heard the story of the lady-in-waiting who spilled hot ash on an empress, and how she was executed. Unlike you, she came from a noble family. But nobody complained. So don’t think anybody’s going to be shocked by your death. Or even interested.” He considered. “And you’re overlooking something else. There are dozens of people in this palace whom I’ve helped and promoted down the years, who owe their lives and fortunes to me. If I drive you to your death, it will only add fear to their gratitude, which is quite useful to me, you know.”

  “I see what you mean, Mr. Liu,” I said.

  “On the whole,” he continued easily, “I’d be quite agreeable to your killing yourself.”

  You had to admire his logic.

  “Well, that’s it, then,” I said.

  “You were unlucky in having Mr. Chen for a friend.”

  “I don’t believe in friendship anymore,” I cried. “I don’t think it exists.”

  “No,” he corrected me, “it does. But I grant you it is rare.” He seemed to be meditating. “You know,” he said, “you could have taken another line of argument.”

  “May your humble servant ask what that would have been?” I inquired.

  “That for the time being, I might prefer to have you alive. As long as you’re with Old Stinker, you’re a constant humiliation to Mr. Chen. Once you are dead, people will soon forget. Though Mr. Chen certainly won’t try to promote any more of his kind in the palace—which was my goal—I’d like to rub his nose in it for a few more years.” He nodded to himself. “So I will make you this offer. I shall give you a present that will allow you to keep your family for a year. A private present from me to you. On no account may you tell anyone about it. Above all, you must not pay Mr. Chen a single copper coin of the money you owe him. If he asks for anything, you will tell him you have no money. Do you agree to this?”

  “But I have to go on with Old Stinker?” I forgot even to address him politely.

  “Exactly so.”

  I had to think of my family. “You’ve got me there, honorable sir,” I said.

  “In a year’s time, if I still wish to humiliate Mr. Chen, and if you have done nothing to displease me, then I may give you another present.” He looked at me. “Well?”

  “Your servant thanks you, Mr. Liu,” I said.

  “On your way home tonight, you will see me in the street, and I shall slip you the money.”

  * * *

  —

  And sure enough, he did. A small bag of silver, far more than I expected. It was nothing to him, of course, but it would more than feed my family for a year.

  “Don’t tell your family about the money,” he warned me, “or they’ll spend it all. Keep it hidden and give them only a little at a time.”

  He was right, of course. The moment I produced a silver dollar that night and told my family I’d been given a tip for my good work in the palace, I saw my father’s face light up.

  “Well done, my son,” he cried. “At this rate, I shan’t need to work anymore.” And although he was laughing, I could tell he meant it. In my experience, the minute someone thinks they don’t have to work, you can never get the notion out of their head again.

  “Don’t stop working, Father,” I said. “This could be the last tip I ever get.”

  The next problem was: Where to hide the money?

  I still kept all my lacquer work brushes and other implements in a box. So I stowed the silver in that for the night. But it was no use leaving it there. Sooner or later, someone would be sure to open the box and find it. By the morning, though, I’d had an idea.

  After work that day, instead of hurrying home at once, I walked slowly past the alley that Old Stinker had told me was haunted. It appeared to be empty, and nobody saw me turn into it. The alley ended in a little yard with a door a few feet away on the left and a garden beyond. It was very quiet, and the moss on the cobblestones suggested to me that no one ever came there. I gently tried the door. It was locked.

&nb
sp; I looked about. The alley walls were topped with little tile roofs, but they were too high to reach. The cobblestones under my feet seemed more promising. And sure enough, a couple of feet from the door, against the wall, I saw a cobblestone that seemed to be loose. I had a short knife with me. In a few minutes, I’d managed to prize the cobblestone out. Underneath it was just beaten earth. I carved out a little pocket in the middle, just big enough to receive the silver coins, leaving a rectangle of hard earth around it. Then I replaced the cobblestone. One would never have guessed there was a tiny hiding place beneath it.

  During this time, I wasn’t troubled by the ghost at all.

  The next day, early in the morning, I visited that place again. I easily prized up the stone and deposited the silver. Everything fitted perfectly. But just to be safe, I had made a little paste using dust and lacquer to bind it, and this I worked in around the cobblestone like a thin cement. It would hold the stone perfectly, but I could easily loosen it whenever I needed to open my little store again. By the time I’d carefully cut and transplanted some pieces of the moss growing on the neighboring stones, no one would ever have imagined the place had been disturbed.

  I was still kneeling on the ground when I had the sensation of something behind me. It felt like the shade of a passing cloud. It was rather cold.

  I didn’t look back or move at all. I just said, “Thank you, Honored Lady, for guarding my silver. It’s all I’ve got.”

  There was no sound, but the sense of coldness seemed to melt away. And when I got up and looked around, there was nobody there.

  * * *

  —

  As it happened, a month later, head eunuch Liu was sent on a mission by the emperor to inspect the coastal defenses to the south of Beijing. This showed how much the emperor trusted him, because normally eunuchs were not allowed to leave the capital. But it meant that Liu was away for nearly a month, and during that time his deputy took his place. This eunuch was rather frail. His name was Mr. Yuan, but behind his back everyone called him Shaking Leaf because he was always worried something would go wrong, which is probably why his arrangements were actually rather thorough.

  To make matters worse for Mr. Yuan, the emperor returned to the Forbidden City for that month. People told me that everything was more formal in the Forbidden City than up at the Summer Palace; nobody wanted to be there, and all the courtiers were in a bad temper.

  Old Stinker and I had far more work to do because of all the extra chamber pots, so we weren’t happy. As for poor Shaking Leaf, there were so many little things that could go wrong each day that he was in a constant state of anxiety.

  He was certainly in quite a flap the day that changed my fortune.

  * * *

  —

  They say that we’re all made by our previous lives. Our affinities for each other were made in the deep past, and when we meet people who become important in our lives, it may seem like a chance accident—no more significant than the flapping of a butterfly’s wing—but in fact a hidden force is drawing us together across the surface of the stream of life. Yuanfen, they call it.

  So you might say that the head eunuch’s being away on the day that the emperor’s favorite concubine broke her fingernail was just a coincidence. Random chance. But I don’t think so. It was yuanfen, drawing us together.

  I was in the kitchen at the end of the afternoon, all cleaned up and ready to go home, when Shaking Leaf suddenly appeared. “Does anyone here know how to reattach a lady’s broken fingernail?” he cried out.

  Now the moment he said that, I was all ears. I knew what he must be talking about. Fashionable Manchu ladies at that time often had fingernails whole inches long. Proof they didn’t have to work, I suppose. But if the most important eunuch in the palace was so concerned about it, then the owner of the fingernail must be someone important. Very important. And why was he asking in the kitchen, of all places?

  Obviously, he’d tried everywhere else. So why hadn’t anyone volunteered? I mean, it was hardly likely that none of the palace ladies or the servants on duty could have fixed a broken fingernail, was it?

  They don’t want the job, I thought. This means danger. But also opportunity. And what did I have to lose? Nothing. As a matter of fact, if he’d asked if anyone knew how to catch a tiger, I daresay I’d have volunteered for that, too.

  “I can help you, Mr. Yuan,” I said.

  “You? Why?” he demanded.

  “I was a lacquer craftsman, sir,” I answered. “I did the finest work. With lacquer and varnish I’m sure I could fix any broken nail.”

  “Well, you’re all I’ve got,” he said irritably. “I hope you can.”

  “May your foolish servant ask,” I ventured, as he led me along a passage, “whose fingernail has been broken?”

  “The emperor’s favorite concubine. The Noble Consort Yi.”

  That was her name just then. Later she’d be known as Cixi. People often change their names several times as they move up in rank. But she was already important.

  If the empress, his official wife, had been able to give the Son of Heaven children, things would have been different. But for some reason the empress, who was a gentle, rather timid young woman, seemed unable to have them. So it was up to the concubines.

  I’d heard that, like most of the palace concubines, the Noble Consort Yi came from a noble Manchu clan—the Yehe Nara, in her case—though her father hadn’t amounted to much. “She isn’t beautiful,” people said, “but she’s clever.” When her father hadn’t troubled to get her a teacher, she’d taught herself to read and write. The emperor liked to talk to her. And most important of all, she’d given him a son.

  “I hear she is a charming lady,” I said softly.

  “Yes,” he answered. “When she wants to be. Just don’t cross her, that’s all.” As we hurried along, he told me more. “The servant who does her nails broke one. So she’s had the girl beaten.” He frowned. “Unfortunately, the girl wasn’t strong enough to take it.” He shook his head. But then he brightened. “Don’t worry,” he added, “you’ll be all right.”

  No wonder no one wanted to take the girl’s place.

  “How do I address her?” I asked him. “Am I supposed to kowtow?”

  “Just call yourself her slave and bow low.” He gave me a nod. “She won’t be testing your etiquette. All she wants is her nail fixed.”

  The concubines lived in a compound of several little palaces, each with its own courtyard, on the west side of the emperor’s private apartments. Shaking Leaf led the way. He knew all the shortcuts. We went through corridors with gilded walls and heavy-beamed ceilings, down open passageways with red walls and golden gateways, through courtyards where curving yellow-tiled roofs gracefully overhung their sides. I noticed ornamental trees in many of them. They say the huge central spaces of the Forbidden City are treeless because the emperors were afraid of assassins hiding behind tree trunks. But there were all manner of fragrant and flowering trees in the smaller palaces.

  Finally we came through a gateway with a green lintel and found ourselves in a long rectangular courtyard, with apartments to the left and right. Some of the doors were open, and I could see silk-covered beds in curtained alcoves inside.

  There were half a dozen ladies in the courtyard, attended by a couple of eunuchs. The ladies were all dressed in long silk Manchu gowns, with slits down the sides, and Manchu platform shoes that made them look even more tall and elegant. I noticed several Pekinese palace dogs waddling around. But the ladies were looking nervous. There was a swing hanging from a tree bough. No one was sitting in it.

  Shaking Leaf led me towards the hall at the end. The central doorway was open. On either side of it stood one of the big bronze water tubs they keep in every palace in case of fire. Shaking Leaf stepped into the hall in front of me. I watched him bow low and murmur a few words. Then it was my
turn.

  “Your slave attends you, Highness,” I said quietly. Then I knelt. He’d told me only to bow, but I wanted to kneel.

  “Get up and let me look at you,” said a voice—very clear; quite pleasant in fact. So I stood and raised my eyes towards the Noble Consort Yi.

  * * *

  —

  I’ve met only a few people in my life whom I’d call superior beings. Even in palaces most of them aren’t. But she was. I could see it at once. And I could see how she’d done it.

  Most women try to make themselves look pretty with makeup. They want small features and doe eyes. They smile. They haven’t a thought in their heads. It’s what the men want, so you can’t really blame them. Please the men—and your mother-in-law—and you’ll survive. But this young woman was different. She was sitting bolt upright on a wooden armchair, still as a Buddha. I could see the square white platforms under her embroidered shoes, and then I realized something else. Her feet were tiny. You’d have thought they were bound, except that she was a Manchu, so they couldn’t have been.

  Her gown was the color of plum blossom, which signifies inner strength. As well as the borders, which were a shade darker, the gown had a pattern of stripes and open squares, each side matching the other. And this bold effect was continued above. For while her hair was parted in the middle and pulled tightly back, in the usual Manchu manner, it wasn’t wound around a big fan-shaped comb on the back of her head, as with the other ladies, but around a single horizontal wooden bar above her head, which she hadn’t even decorated with flowers.

  Instead of trying to look pretty, the Noble Consort Yi had created an ensemble like a perfectly constructed Chinese character: complex yet strong. And she was perfectly controlled, her emotions contained. Every gardener knows: Contain a space inside a wall and it seems larger. Contain a character, and its symmetry grows fearsome. Clearly she understood all this. She knew how to look at herself from the outside, to create a design of which she was only a part. That is style, and art.