I was drowning in the waves of daily life. The caravans and imperial parades snaked through the four seasons between Heaven and Earth. Clothed in green, red, yellow, then white, the trees were resplendent and then withered; flowers exploded and then fell silent. Day after day, night after night, the role of Empress became a full-time occupation, and the discipline I had imposed on my existence wrapped itself around me. I myself had made the chains that bound me, and I headed toward death with open eyes and a dry heart.
An unusually hard drought followed by a famine ravaged the Central Plain. Overwhelmed by the suffering and sorrow of the people, I decided to take on the anger of the gods myself: Considering myself unworthy of my position, I offered my abdication.
MY HUSBAND REJECTED my request, and the Outer Court, in a state of panic, signed a petition begging me to remain on the throne. In the first year of the age of the Supreme Element, Little Phoenix took the title of Celestial Emperor offered by the Court, and during the course of the ceremony, he conferred on me the golden blade and seal of the Celestial Empress. The fine gauze behind the throne that screened my seat was removed, and in palaces where receptions were held, two thrones now stood side by side. Up in the heavens, the stars foretold a luminous future for me, and yet, I could see only shadows.
My husband and his ministers had capitulated. My power was no longer contested. I returned to work giving audiences and scrutinizing political reports, as a weaver returns to her loom. I no longer needed to fight to secure my position. For the first time in my life, I tasted the bitterness of boredom. But it was in one of these moments of darkness that Heaven heard my prayer: It sent me a sign, a gift, a sparkle, and my life was suddenly set alight.
The precocious literary talents of a little servant girl had met with high praise in a report written by the eunuch professors at the Institute of Letters in the Inner Court. I was intrigued by her family name: I discovered that she was the granddaughter of Shang Guan Yi, the poet chancellor who had plotted my dismissal. After the execution of male members of her clan, she had followed her mother in becoming an imperial slave. I had her poems sent to me. Her calligraphy revealed a firm but supple wrist, and her verses had the direct elegance of simple cadences. If I had not been informed, I would never have guessed that these words had been written by a fourteen-year-old girl.
The child was summoned to my palace. Her fringe concealed the tattoos borne by the condemned, and she replied to my questions with considerable aplomb. Her blend of shyness and an indefinable assurance gave her charm. Listening to her, I remembered the Gracious Wife and her soft voice. My stomach lurched: This child reminded me of that devastating passion. Her huge eyes seduced me. Her smile was defiant. I could hear her unspoken question: “Would you dare to love me?”
That very evening, trembling in every limb, Gentleness offered me her virginity, and I initiated her in the realms of pleasure. I had just turned fifty. I had had her father, her grandfather, and all her brothers executed. I was the jailor and torturer whose tyranny she worshipped. She was the pale flower I would transform into a resplendent peony.
Sensual delight colored my world. Love is insolent. Disguised as a page, Gentleness followed me day and night from my palace to the audience hall. When I sat, she remained standing; when I held secret meetings with ministers, she kept watch at the door; when I flew into a rage, her expression of silent amazement appeased me. When I ordered her to rest, she would retire to her room and write. Her poetry soothed me with its chaste descriptions of festivities and journeys. As I held her in my arms, I wondered when she would betray me and avenge her clan’s extermination. Hers was a perfume of innocence and poison. Shy caresses preceded her violent release, shaken by an unknown pain. She would scream, and she would cry.
Her sleeping face held the dangers that made me feel young and strong.
TIME DIES, AND time is born again, but men’s lives are a one-way journey. Imperial birthdays were excuses for sumptuous festivities. Fireworks and banquets were laid on for the people in every town-our imperial generosity being matched by our subjects’ dissolute celebrations for a transient pleasure. From one year to the next, our ages accumulated and weighed us down. From one year to the next, these birthdays changed and saw me mourning our long-buried youth. The sovereign’s inevitable deterioration gave real meaning to a vague concept: Death was lying in wait for us.
But it was the Supreme Son who succumbed to coughing and breathlessness. Splendor left us forever. The passing of his beloved heir affected the Celestial Emperor so profoundly that it provoked chest pains. United with my husband in grief and anguish, I forgot my resentments. Little Phoenix clung to me more than ever, as the shipwrecked cling to a piece of flotsam. And the fear of losing him paralyzed me more than ever. The memory of Father’s death, which had been such a brutal loss, came back to haunt me. I could clearly remember the utter dejection of those childhood days. Would I have the strength to survive another such onslaught? Little Phoenix and I had been living as prisoners of the Forbidden City for forty years now. His very presence was the air I breathed; he was the balancing pole to my tightrope-walking soul. How would I cope with the emptiness and loneliness when he joined the gods and embraced freedom?
Medicine, prayer, and magic services secretly arranged in monasteries sustained the Emperor but did not cure him. There were more and more bad omens. I had just announced a pilgrimage to Mount Song for another blessing from Heaven, but a Tibetan attack forced me to abandon the expedition. During the Eternal Ancestor’s reign, the Court had planned to build a Temple of Clarity dedicated to the sacred religions, as a symbol of union between imperial power and the will of Heaven. The idea had matured, and now the architects’ plans were ready, but an incident ruffled the serenity of the proceedings and delayed this building project that had been wanted for so long. Wisdom, my second son, tried to usurp the throne. He was stripped of his title as heir and driven from the Capital.
There was a succession of terrible natural catastrophes. After a winter that yielded no snow, cereal production dropped in the north and the region near Luoyang declared penury. Later a very wet summer saw the Yellow River burst its banks, and the floods were followed by an epidemic that killed tens of thousands of horses and cows. The following year, clouds of locusts descended on the fields, and an earthquake rocked both capitals. The Ancients said that when the natural elements were unsettled in this way, great misfortune would befall the Empire. They even specified that if, amid all this fury, the Earth began to tremble, Heaven was announcing the death of an eminent man.
Exploiting the difficulties our empire was suffering, the Turks rose up against us. Negotiations with them failed, and I had to send imperial troops to put down the rebellion with bloodshed. I may have maintained the country’s stability by force of arms, but in the Inner Palace, I was completely disarmed by just one man’s illnesses.
In the residential city of the Celestial Oblation, my husband’s body doubled in size, and violent spells of dizziness and headaches pinned him to his bed. He lay behind the curtains moaning while a crowd of doctors thronged round him. The Supreme Son and the Great Ministers knelt beside him. It was their duty to approve prescriptions and to taste each remedy. I dismissed all these people whose agitated bustling was only weakening my husband. I set up my own bed and my writing table in his palace of rest. With one hand I countersigned political decisions, and with the other, I held the sovereign’s limp, clammy hand. He was soothed by my presence; drinking in my strength, he seemed to improve and asked for food.