“You must not think of him,” she said quietly. “It’s all a game to him.”
“What is?”
“You. Even me. The other women he’s doubtless had. We are a hobby, like his collection.”
“He takes his collection seriously.”
“He studies us, too, just as he studies the seals. He discovers their patterns, their complexity. And you may be sure, they go to him willingly. I daresay that sometimes they think that it’s they who have seduced him. Yet in the end, to him, we are only good for a single purpose. Another stamp for private display in his collection. You are taken with him now, but it will pass.”
“Everything will pass.”
“Don’t let him destroy you—and your children.”
Her daughter was silent for a few moments. Then she remarked, “There will be a full moon tonight.”
“We shan’t see it.”
“If the clouds cleared and the wind dropped, we could go out on the lake.”
“No.”
“Was there something else about him, Mother?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. When he was telling us about his fight with the Taiping officer, I caught sight of your face. I saw something. I don’t know what.”
“You saw nothing.”
“I am going in now,” said Bright Moon.
But Mei-Ling did not go in with her. She remained alone on the jetty, staring over the water. She thought of Nio. It was Nio whom the general had killed. She was quite sure of it. All the circumstances fitted into place. All her instincts told her. Nio had died at the hand of this charming old seducer, who was threatening to destroy her daughter next.
* * *
—
Later that afternoon, the wind became stronger. The clouds were dark, thick as ever. Not a hint of the full moon, not even where it might be. By nightfall the wind was whipping the surface of the lake into a fury and rushing in under the awning on the shallow boat, which no one had thought to remove, making it flap and bang and shaking the pleasure boat to and fro.
They all went to bed early.
No one saw Mei-Ling slip out of the house into the dark. She was carrying a small bag.
* * *
—
Guanji was half dozing on the divan. He had not decided: Now I will sleep. But he might slip into unconsciousness at any moment; and if he did, he thought, he wouldn’t mind. He wouldn’t mind one way or the other.
On the desk a small brass oil lamp—one he’d taken on campaign many times—provided just enough light so that, if he did sleep and wake again, he’d be able to see where he was.
Outside, the wind rattled the shutters. He liked the rattle of the wind, just as he loved the rain and thunder. They had never seemed threatening. They reminded him of the endless open plains he used to dream of as a child.
And perhaps he would have started dreaming then, except that he became conscious of a soft click that did not come from the shuttered window, but from his left. The door was being opened.
Instantly, he was fully awake. His right hand reached across to the sword beside his bed and grasped the hilt. But he kept his eyes almost closed, as though he were asleep.
Slowly, almost silently, the intruder moved across the floor and reached the foot of the bed. And then, by the lamplight, he saw: It was the woman, Mei-Ling.
“Good evening,” he said.
“Ah.” She gave a little involuntary gasp. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I’m awake now.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “There’s quite a storm out there.”
“Just a little wind.”
“You came here by yourself?”
“Whom would I bring with me?”
“And what can I do for you?”
* * *
—
Mei-Ling had come with two possible plans: one if he was asleep; the other if he wasn’t. She would have preferred it if he had been asleep, but he wasn’t. Going over to the clothes chest, she laid the little bag on it and began to undress.
She had kept her figure. The soft light was kind to her, but even in a harsher light she could have passed for a healthy woman ten years younger than she was. Then she turned to face him. He was smiling. She joined him on the divan.
* * *
—
Over the years, Guanji had formed a theory. The Chinese moon festivals might be about the completeness of the family, but many people also found the full moon to be conducive to the act of love. Guanji’s theory was that women were more affected by the moon than men.
That evening, however, a further idea occurred to him. Could it be that the full moon had drawn this woman to him, even though it was invisible behind the clouds? While he’d considered the thought that he might be able to seduce Mei-Ling before she left for the south again, he really hadn’t expected the older woman to make the first move, and to make it at once. It must be the moon, he thought, even though we can’t see it. Unless it’s the storm that excites her.
Whatever the reasons for her presence in his bed, he certainly had no complaints that night.
* * *
—
It was an hour after midnight when Mei-Ling very carefully stepped off the divan. The wind was still rattling the shutters almost as loudly as before. The general was lying on his back, fast asleep, his lips slightly parted, his face at peace. Exactly what she needed.
She didn’t waste any time. She didn’t want him to wake. She reached for the sword at the side of the bed and carefully drew it from its scabbard. The blade shone in the lamplight. She quickly tested it, just to make sure it was sharp. Then, balancing herself with her feet comfortably apart, she raised the Chinese sabre high over her head and brought it down with a smooth, flowing swing. “Let the blade do the work,” she’d heard the men in the village say when they chopped down a tree. So that’s what she did.
The general’s eyes started wide open. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. She pulled up the sword, wondering whether to strike again. She could see that she had cut clean through everything down to the neck bone. Did she need to sever the bone? His throat was opening in a great V. There was a gurgling sound, not very loud. Blood was pumping out. She stepped back.
She put the sword down over by the window. There was no need to put it out of the general’s reach, but she felt more comfortable doing so. Taking the small bag she’d brought with her, she opened the drawers of the desk. There was a little money in one of them. She took the money and tossed it into the bag. Then she took the seals off the shelves over the desk and put them in the bag, too. She looked around for anything else a robber might take and saw a small jade ornament. That also went in the bag.
She quickly got dressed. She saw that there was blood all over the bed now. That was good. If there were any signs of the evening’s activity, they’d be covered by the blackened blood.
She made sure she had left nothing behind other than the general’s sword and let herself out again.
It was pitch-dark, but she’d taken careful note of every inch of the way, and she knew how to move through the country. At one point, the lane passed directly beside the waters of the lake. Reaching into the bag, she tossed the contents—the coins and the seals and the little jade ornament—one by one out into the water, as far as she could.
Inside the hour, she was back in her bed. No one had seen her leave or return.
* * *
—
In the morning, Mr. Yao went to see a neighbor about a mile away. At noon he came back, looking shocked. “Have you heard? The general’s been killed by a robber, during the storm last night. Killed with his own sword. Who would do such a thing?”
By afternoon, however, a rumor was buzzing around the lake. The general’s servants were saying that the general had had a terrible q
uarrel with a distant kinsman who’d come to get money from him. The fellow had threatened to do the general harm.
Two days later, news came from Hangzhou. The man had been found in an opium den in the city. Couldn’t account for his movements.
“It’s an open-and-shut case,” said Mr. Yao. “He did it, all right.”
“He should be executed,” said Bright Moon with feeling.
“He will be. Don’t worry about that,” said her husband.
Mei-Ling said nothing.
Ten days afterwards, she returned to her home.
September 1887
Shi-Rong smiled. This time, at last, he was going to get it right. He’d redeem his reputation—not only with his son, but with his late father too. He might even be remembered in the history books. But he had to be careful. He needed to talk to his son. Not that he was going to tell Ru-Hai exactly what his plan was. Better keep that a secret. But he needed to talk to him all the same.
He pulled the last weed from beside his father’s grave. He liked tending his ancestors’ tombs. It gave him a sense of peace. The modest graveyard in which they rested, on a ledge overlooking the wide plain of the Yellow River, was in perfect order. So was the small Buddhist monastery higher up the hill. He’d paid for its restoration just a few years ago. So was the estate. Everything was in order.
The huge orb of the sun had broken free of the eastern horizon, and the gleaming river, its waters choked with rich yellow dust from the vast Asiatic plateau through which it had carved its way, snaked heavily across the land.
Perhaps Ru-Hai will arrive today, he thought. My son and his little boy. He was sure they would come.
They had not come for Qingming that spring or the year before. The festival when all the world returned to their families’ ancestral graves, to meet relations, tend the tombs, and show respect to those who had given them life. All, that was, who could. But it wasn’t easy for Ru-Hai. Beijing was over four hundred miles away. A month’s journey. He couldn’t do that each year. Shi-Rong had swept the graves and prayed alone.
But Ru-Hai would make the journey now. He couldn’t fail to, after the message Shi-Rong had sent.
It has been too long since I have seen you. Your father asks you to come now, since there are matters concerning the estate I need to tell you. Please also bring your son, so that he will have a memory of his grandfather.
I suggest you spend perhaps two days at the house, then take your son up to the great monastery of Shaolin in the hills, where you can see the Zen masters of the martial arts, which no doubt he will enjoy, before you return to Beijing.
Shi-Rong had hardly been to Beijing in the last decade. He’d made one visit to the court when he retired; another to arrange the wedding of his son—quite a good marriage, as it happened, to the daughter of a third-rank mandarin; and a third to see Ru-Hai and his family three years ago. That was all. But he’d kept abreast of events.
Looking back over the last two decades, it seemed to Shi-Rong that China’s affairs could be summed up in two words: stagnation and corruption. He should know. He’d been part of it.
The treasury was still empty. One province after another had suffered famines. There were beggars in the streets of every city. The planned rebuilding of the Summer Palace had been postponed so many times for lack of funds that he’d lost count.
In his own neighborhood, most people whom Shi-Rong knew just wanted to return to the old life as it was a generation ago. And who could blame them? If aging mandarins took bribes and clung to their office, what of it? If governors lied to the imperial court about conditions in the provinces—they always had. Better stagnation than chaos.
The military reforms had slowed down; the colonial powers were circling like wolves. In the northeast, Russia had continued to steal territory at every chance she got. In the southwest, the Burmese no longer took their orders from China, but the British. France was now master of Vietnam, and her warships were patrolling the waters around Taiwan. So far, the Japanese had been stopped from actually taking over the Korean peninsula—but only just. And for how long?
How had it all happened?
Shi-Rong knew what his father would have said: If the king follows the rules of Confucian morality, his kingdom will be ordered. If not, anarchy will follow.
Look what happened a quarter of a century ago, he would have pointed out, when the emperor disgracefully abandoned his post and ran away to the north. The barbarians had destroyed the Summer Palace and humiliated the Celestial Empire.
When the first regency was set up, the rules had been followed. The boy emperor had been the old emperor’s son. The empress was a regent—that was correct procedure. Including the boy’s mother, Cixi, in the circumstances, had made sense. And there had been a council, led by Prince Gong.
But when the young heir had died and they’d had to set up a second regency, it was a different story. Who had chosen the new boy emperor? Cixi. Why? Because he was her sister’s son, and his father, Prince Chun, was on her side. Was it proper? No. The rules of succession had not been followed. Therefore, Shi-Rong’s father would have said, no good could come of it. Yet no one had stood up to the dowager empress.
Except one man. One heroic mandarin: Wu the Censor. He alone had behaved like a true Confucian and made a formal protest. Wu the Martyr, some people called him. For he had sacrificed his life.
And what did I do that same year? Shi-Rong thought ruefully. Failed to get the salt inspector’s position and was accused by my own son of taking bribes. The year of my humiliation and my shame.
As for Cixi, it seemed to him she’d achieved nothing in the first few years except to outmaneuver Prince Gong, the one man the empire really needed, and to reduce his role from head of her council to a mere advisor.
Then something strange had happened. Cixi had suddenly fallen ill. Word came she was close to death. For months no one saw her. She sent messages to the council from time to time; but it was the docile empress who conducted business. This went on for about a year.
What was wrong with Cixi? Nobody seemed to know. What was she hiding? Ru-Hai had made a brief visit home at this time and Shi-Rong had asked him: “Is it possible she got herself pregnant and wants to hide it?”
“I doubt it, Father,” he replied. “She’s a bit old for that.”
“There are no rumors?”
“Might be smallpox, but we don’t think so.” Ru-Hai had smiled. “Say what you like, the Forbidden City knows how to keep a secret.”
“Perhaps she’s being punished by the gods for her sins,” Shi-Rong remarked sourly. But he was never able to learn anything more.
A year later, she appeared again as though nothing had happened. Some said she looked older. More people started calling her Venerable Buddha after this. The two empresses resumed their regency. Shi-Rong imagined it would last another five or six years until the new boy emperor came of age.
So how was it, he asked himself, that the kindly little empress, who’d never done anyone any harm, should suddenly drop down dead a year later? Ru-Hai wrote that she’d had a stroke. At forty-four? Or had she been poisoned? And if so, by whom? Might Cixi have concluded, since the empress had managed the business of government well enough without her while she’d been ill, that people might say that she, Cixi, was not really needed, and therefore decided to poison her little friend?
The idea was not so outlandish. Everyone knew the story of the only female emperor of China, twelve hundred years ago, who’d begun her life in a similar way to Cixi. She’d been the concubine of one emperor. When he died, she’d become the concubine of his son. She’d murdered two legal empresses, two other concubines, and probably four of her own children before making herself sole ruler of the empire.
Was Cixi cut from the same cloth? It seemed to Shi-Rong that she might be.
For the facts alone about Cixi’s c
ourt were enough to invite censure. And now the events of the last three years had confirmed all his fears.
She’d dismissed her entire council. Prince Gong, still her best advisor, she’d sent packing. Told him to retire from public life. Then she’d made the boy emperor’s father, Prince Chun, head of the council. Quite apart from the fact that the once gallant prince had degenerated into a toady who’d do anything Cixi wanted, it was also against palace law for the boy emperor’s father to be his official councillor. Finally, when the boy emperor reached his majority, when he was supposed to take the reins of government, she got her new council to say he wasn’t ready, leaving her in charge. Would she ever give up power? Shi-Rong doubted it.
And so he had formed his secret plan.
Once the plan was settled, he’d be free. His Confucian duty to his family and his country would be completed. Nothing more to hold him back from other things. From the meditative life. And beyond.
* * *
—
Shi-Rong couldn’t say exactly when he had begun to withdraw from active life. It was certainly after he had retired from Jingdezhen. The following year he’d been busy with Ru-Hai’s marriage. Then there had been the excitement of his grandson’s birth. Young Bao-Yu would be ten next birthday.
After he’d left Jingdezhen without the salt inspector’s post, he’d retired to the family estate. His friend Mr. Peng had come up with one other suggestion—a lucrative position, down in the south—but after the humiliation of his failure the last time, Shi-Rong wasn’t anxious to go through anything like it again. Besides, the estate needed his full attention just then. So he’d decided to devote himself to handing on the home of his ancestors in the best shape he could and content himself with that.
Thanks to these efforts, the estate was now in better shape than it had ever been before. Everything was in good repair; the storehouses were full. His duty to his family being accomplished therefore, Shi-Rong had felt free to devote himself to the things of the mind.
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