A delegation of eunuchs came to inspect the premises and to establish the laws of protocol. Then, at dawn on the twentieth day of the first moon, the imperial regiments circled the forest, and we knelt before the gates of the monastery. A long time passed before we saw golden panels with ornate calligraphy appearing on the horizon. The wind dropped, and the birds fell silent. Eunuchs and imperial guards marched past us in a two by two procession that went on for many hours, then the Emperor eventually stepped over the Threshold of Purity.
After three years of separation, Little Phoenix was unrecognizable. He wore a beard that gave him an air of authority, and he walked with quiet purpose. While he received the prostration of the nuns, he sat like a statue on his tall seat, a sacred icon, an inaccessible god. After the celebration, the gifts were distributed: One after the other the nuns approached the sovereign, and he gave each of them a tunic and a sandalwood rosary. Their gray dresses, shaven heads, and unpowdered faces filed past in ceremonial silence. Little Phoenix did not recognize me. Heavenlight had died inside Perfect Clarity’s body!
The Emperor withdrew to eat a vegetarian meal, and I ran to my cell to weep. Someone knocked at my door. A senior nun informed me of an imperial summons: His Majesty wished to speak of religious piety with me.
Several eunuchs took me to a pavilion and closed the door behind me. Little Phoenix was sitting in the middle of the room. He looked astonished at the sight of me, and all at once I could measure the suffering I had endured. My legs gave way, and I sank to my knees. He rushed over to me and supported me in his arms.
“Heavenlight, I’ve missed you!”
His voice was deeper. His hands that gripped me were those of a stranger. When he drew me to him, I stiffened and stepped back.
“Are you not happy to see me again?” he asked, surprised. “Are you angry? You know full well that everything I do has become a major event requiring protocol and preparations and the deployment of thousands of servants. It has taken me a long time to find a pretext to foil the Empress and my uncle Wu Ji who oppose my every decision.”
He tried to stroke my face, but I lowered my head. He led me over to the imperial bed, which was already prepared for him to sleep. Prostrating myself on the ground, I broke down and wept.
“What is it, Heavenlight? Do you no longer love me?”
I was speechless with despair.
“Heavenlight, these three years have been like a long, dark nightmare to me!”
The Emperor turned me over onto my back. I struggled in silence. His hands tore my dress feverishly. Muttering incoherent supplications, he crushed me beneath his weight. His hands were more experienced, his caresses more brutal. In the past, overcome with emotion, he would climax quickly, but now he knew how to prolong his pleasure. After three years of abstinence, the moment of penetration was painful to me. My tears fell, and Little Phoenix became more and more aroused. Eventually he collapsed with a long sigh.
While we ate together, he was happy and relaxed, giving me news of my horses. He told me about the building work he had undertaken and described the artists and poets he had discovered. The winter sun came through the casements and danced on the tables between the dishes. I recognized the flush on Little Phoenix’s cheeks when he had climaxed. A vanished world slowly reappeared and wrapped me in its indecipherable melancholy.
A eunuch scratched at the door and warned the sovereign that it was time for him to change. The happiness fell from his face; he frowned and fell silent. We had not yet talked of my future. Was he going to leave and disappear from my life forever?
The eunuchs became more insistent. Wearily, he drained the last cup of tea.
“Heavenlight, do you know that I have been very unhappy? Last year my sister the High Princess Sun of Gao plotted against me with her husband, the son of Fang Xuan Ling, a minister who was a close confidant of the previous Emperor. They managed to enlist support from my aunts, the Great High Princess Sun of Dan and the Great High Princess of Ba Ling, and my uncle the King of Jing. My own family wanted to overthrow me to put my brother the King of Wu on the throne. I had to let my uncle Wu Ji arrange their trial and sign the papers sentencing them to death. Up on my imperial throne, I am like a man sitting alone at the top of a mountain, surrounded by vultures ravenous for power. Heavenlight, I am already tired of reigning. Every morning I strive to be worthy of Sovereign Father, but the ministers take my orders lightly and obey only my uncle Wu Ji. In the evenings, in the Inner Palace, I find it hard to sleep. I am possessed by the obsessions that have tormented every Emperor before me. Lying in the dark, I listen for the drip, drip of poison, the sly footsteps of an assassin, and the rumblings of revolt.
He broke off to wipe away his tears. Standing before this unveiled divinity, I let my torments subside. I held out my arms to him, and he wept on my shoulder. Then I helped him change and repowder his face. As he stood before the mirror, he explained: “For you to return to the Palace, the Empress must draw up a decree and affix her seal to it. She is a jealous, unpredictable woman, and she supports her uncle whom I appointed Great Minister in a rush of generosity. He now dares to disagree with me over everything. Tired of resisting him, I have often given in to his absurd demands. But this time I am determined to see the fight through to the end. That is why I have left my seed in your belly. It is proof of our love. The heir who is born of your belly will give me the courage to defy the impossible.”
Looking in the mirror, I thought I could see a malicious smile on his face. Little Phoenix had just caught me in a trap. If I were with child, I could no longer stay at the monastery and would have to go back to the Palace. After he left, I collapsed at Buddha’s feet. Let him show me the way!
Barely five days later a miracle happened: The Empress called me back to Court, appointing me as one of her ladies-in-waiting. A carriage escorted by eunuchs and soldiers came to collect me from the monastery. I left the nuns, their thin bodies, and their silent loathing of men without regret. Buddha had spoken. My fate lay elsewhere.
FASHION HAD CHANGED in the Side Court. Women wore their hair in elaborate topknots, shaped like birds with outstretched wings, dragons coiled on themselves, and galloping horses. They pinned fresh flowers and long strings of pearls into them. On their red-powdered cheeks, they stuck bees in yellow silk. They wore long, pleated skirts just under the rib cage to exaggerate their nearly bare breasts and expose their shoulders, which were veiled under wide-sleeved muslin tunics.
I was cradled within the eternal landscape of the Middle Court. The palaces, lakes, and gardens were all still the same color, in the same light, breathing to the same rhythm. Their immutable music played itself out to the very end of the sacred world. But the servants’ faces had become overrun by wrinkles; the dead would be absent forever; the survivors had been subject to promotion or deposition. Some areas were now full of life, others had been condemned to dust.
Courtesy required that I introduce myself to the Mistress of the Palace as soon as I arrive and thank her for signing the decree for my return. Not to awaken her jealousy, I had chosen a tunic in saffron-colored brocade and leggings in crimson satin, and I wrapped a mauve turban around my head to hide my shaved scalp.
I thought she would send me away contemptuously, but she received me eagerly. In the days when I had served the previous emperor, I had seen her from a distance, and she must not even have known I existed. She sat, frozen in a majestic pose, on a platform before a screen painted with powdered gold and bearing the calligraphy of a great master. Her hands lay in her lap, and she had a pink peony pinned into a topknot two cubits high. Her features were pure and regular, finely chiseled by her distinguished birth in which the noblest bloodlines in the Empire had been combined. She must have been twenty years old, but she looked fifteen. Her face was expressionless. Only her huge eyes, examining me from head to toe, betrayed her inner turmoil. To her left, at the foot of the steps, there was a woman who was nearly forty. From the resemblance between them, I guessed that this must be the Lady Mother.