Nuharoo rose and bowed to the Emperor. She passed back his handkerchief and took a towel from Chief Eunuch Shim. She patted her cheeks with the towel and said, “I am concerned that the baby has been strained because of this. I will not be able to face our ancestors if there is any damage.” Again she broke into tears. At this, Emperor Hsien Feng offered to accompany her to the Imperial park in the afternoon to help her regain her composure.
It was hard to watch the way His Majesty showed his affection for Nuharoo. And it was harder to spend the night alone knowing that Hsien Feng was with her. The possibilities of what might have happened, and what might happen in the future, scared me more than any nightmare.
I lived in a world of chaos where torture was a routine practice. I began to understand why so many concubines became obsessed with religion. It was either that or complete madness.
I was enduring the worst winter of my life. It was mid-February of 1856. My belly was now the size of a watermelon. Against An-te-hai’s advice, I stepped out onto the frosted ground. I wanted to visit my garden and longed to breathe fresh air. The beauty of the snow-covered pavilions and pagodas brought me a delighted feeling of hope. In only a few months the baby would be born.
I attempted to dig into the soil, but the ground was still hard. An-te-hai brought a large sack of flower bulbs from the past year and said to me, “Plant a wish for the baby, my lady.”
I could tell he had been sleeping soundly, for his cheeks were apple red.
“Of course,” I said.
It took us the whole day to plant the bulbs. I thought about the farmers in the countryside and imagined the families working to break the frozen soil.
“If you are to be a son,” I said, placing a hand on my belly, “and if you ever get to be the Emperor of China, I wish you to be good and deserving.”
“A-ko! ” The moment I heard An-te-hai’s cry, my mind turned into a spring garden where flowers bloomed all at once. Although exhausted, I was in rapture. Before Hsien Feng arrived, Nuharoo and all His Maj-esty’s other wives and concubines made their way to my palace. “Where is our newborn son?”
Everybody congratulated Nuharoo. When she picked up the baby from my arms and proudly showed him to the others, my fear returned. I kept thinking: Now that they have lost the chance to kill my son in my belly, will they kill him in his cradle? Will they poison his mind by spoiling him? One thing I was sure of was that they would never let go of the idea of getting even with me.
I was granted a new title by Emperor Hsien Feng, the Auspicious Mother. Gifts and cases of taels were sent to honor my family. Still, my mother and my sister were not permitted to visit me. My husband didn’t come either. My “filthiness” was believed to be capable of bringing disease to His Majesty.
I was served ten meals a day, but I had no appetite and most of the food was wasted. I was left alone to drift in and out of sleep. In my dreams I chased people who came in disguise to harm my son.
A few days later, the Emperor visited me. He didn’t look well. The robe he wore made him look thinner and frailer than before. He was concerned about the size of his son. Why was he so small, and why did he sleep all the time?
“Who knows?” I teased. How could the Son of Heaven be so innocent?
“I went to the park yesterday.” His Majesty passed the baby to a maid and sat down beside me. His eyes wandered from my eyes to my mouth. “I saw a dead tree,” he said in a whisper. “On top of its crown grew human hair. It was very long and draped down like a black waterfall.”
I stared at him.
“Is it a good sign or a bad sign, Orchid?”
Before I could answer, he went on. “That’s why I came to see you. If there is a dead tree on the grounds of your palace, have it removed immediately, Orchid. Will you promise me?”
His Majesty and I spent some time in the courtyard looking for dead trees. There was not one, and we ended up watching the sunset together. I was so happy I wept. His Majesty told me that he had learned from the gardener that the hair he saw in the park was a rare kind of lichen that grew on dead trees.
I didn’t want to talk about dead trees, so I asked about his days and his audiences. He had little to say, so we walked quietly for a while. He rocked the baby to sleep. It was the sweetest moment in my life. Em-peror Hsien Feng didn’t stay the night, and I dared not beg him to.
I told myself that I should be glad that my delivery had gone smoothly. I could have died under Chief Eunuch Shim’s whip, or a hundred different ways. The Imperial concubines had lost, and I regained His Majesty’s attention because of the newborn.
The next day Hsien Feng came again. He lingered after holding the baby. I made it a rule not to ask him any questions. He began to visit me regularly, always in the afternoon. Gradually we started to talk again. We chatted about our son, and he described the goings-on at court. He complained about how long everything took and the impotence of his ministers.
I listened most of the time. Hsien Feng seemed to enjoy our discussions and started to arrive earlier in the day. We were never intimate, but we were close.
I tried to be content with what I had. But part of me wanted more. After His Majesty had gone for the night, I couldn’t help imagining him with his Chinese women-surely they performed better tricks than my fan dance. I became miserable trying to understand why he was no longer attracted to me. Was it the change in my body shape? My red eyes? My milk-enlarged breasts? Why did he avoid coming near my bed?
An-te-hai tried to convince me that His Majesty’s lack of interest had nothing to do with me. “He isn’t in the habit of returning to women he has slept with. It doesn’t matter how much he praised their beauty or how satisfied he was in bed.”
The good news for me was that I had heard no report of any other pregnancy.
From Prince Kung’s letters I learned that Emperor Hsien Feng had been avoiding audiences since he had signed a new treaty with the foreigners, which acknowledged China’s defeat. Ashamed and humiliated, His Majesty spent his days alone in the Imperial gardens. At night, bodily pleasures had become his escape.
Sick as he was, he demanded round-the-clock entertainment. An-te-hai found out the details from a new friend, His Majesty’s chamber attendant, a eunuch named Chow Tee, a boy from An-te-hai’s hometown.
“His Majesty is drunk most of the time, and he is unable to perform his manhood,” An-te-hai told me. “He enjoys watching his women and orders them to touch themselves while dancing. The parties last all night while His Majesty sleeps.”
I recalled our last visit together. Hsien Feng couldn’t stop talking about his fall. “I have no doubt that I will be shredded into ten thousand pieces by my ancestors when I meet them.” He laughed nervously and coughed. His chest sounded like a wind box. “Doctor Sun Pao-tien has prescribed opium for my pain,” he said. “I don’t really mind dying, because I look forward to being released from my troubles.”
It was no longer a secret to the nation that the Emperor’s health had once again begun to decline. His pale face and empty eyes concerned everyone. Since we had moved back to the Forbidden City, the court’s ministers were ordered to report their state matters to him in his bedroom.
It broke my heart to see Hsien Feng giving up hope. Before he left my palace he said, “I am sorry.” Raising his face from his son’s cradle, he smiled sadly at me. “It is not up to me anymore.”
I looked at my child’s father putting on his dragon robe. He had no strength even to lift his sleeves. It took him three long breaths to get into his shoes.
I must ask him before it is too late to grant me the right to raise our son! The thought came to me while I held the baby and watched Hsien Feng enter his palanquin. I had mentioned my wish before, but there had been no response. According to An-te-hai, the Emperor would never hurt Nuharoo by taking away her right to be the first mother.