NINE
My periods had stopped.
The moon waxed and waned in vain. The crimson tide had run dry.
In this lowly world, women are the ocean’s pearls, their brilliance derived from the stain of their flesh. The blood had been the thread linking me to an underground world where a grim labyrinth twisted around a perpetual furnace. It had been the source of all my energy.
As Supreme Empress I had to conceal my failing, but the changes in my mood did not escape my old servant Emerald. One evening she forced me to accept a visit from a woman doctor, an austere creature who wore a man’s hat. After a brief examination the doctor prostrated herself and congratulated me: My divine body had returned to its original state. The serenity accorded me by my resting senses would allow me to achieve immortality at last. I did not like the term “resting,” and I interrupted her croaking pronouncements with a desultory wave. None of these women who officiated in the palace had known the violence of a phallus or the seismic upheavals of childbirth; virginity had made diaphanous creatures of them. A tree emptied of its sap loses its leaves and dries out. Stripped of my womanly barbarity, it was as if I were dead. The gods were imposing a virtuous widowhood on me, and I accepted their censure. The pleasures of the flesh no longer interested me. Carnal gratification would be the sacrifice I made to the heavens.
My duties running the Empire came to the fore again. Once again I was the weaver before her loom, unraveling inextricable threads. During the day, surrounded by ministers and generals, I forgot my age, my weariness, and the absence of a man to listen to me and support me. In the evening, sitting before my mirror in the Inner Court, I watched as my women dismantled my topknot, my pride, and my deceptive youth. Servants smoothed little squares of dampened silk over my face, and the white powders and red makeup melted away. I had to contemplate my bare skin and the wrinkles that had begun to knit their mesh in the corners of my eyes and lips. There in the candlelight, the mirror invited me to step into the abyss. I pictured Little Phoenix young and beautiful, his eyes brimming with desire. Then an aloof young woman appeared behind him, laughing, teasing him, and then drawing him up onto her horse. Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, they disappeared into the dark night of my memory.
Without Little Phoenix, his migraines, and his turbulent emotions, the Inner Court felt empty. In that huge garden that seemed to have been deserted by human beings, every tree whispered, every piece of furniture spoke, every window exhaled a perfume that reawakened snatches of the past. I slept alone and was tormented by insomnia. I would wake Gentleness and order her to walk before me, carrying a lantern. As I arrived in each successive pavilion, the women who kept watch at night prostrated themselves and held open the doors. The rooms I dared not venture into by day were fully lit. Here a zither he had caressed; over there, in front of the aquarium, I could still hear his childlike laugh; here, beneath this window, we once argued; over there, his calligraphy brushes and inkpots-his books still lying open. Sometimes Little Phoenix seemed to walk so close to me, whispering words of love; sometimes I would lose him behind a painted balustrade, as I turned along one of the galleries. He always eventually disappeared into the bushes, into infinity. Sometimes I would even ask for the door to the stables to be opened. When they saw me, his horses would stamp and snort with joy. I would put my arms around his favorite mount, Song of Snow, who would stare at me with sad, steady eyes. I would bury my head in that fine mane and weep.
The shadows had taken Little Phoenix, my father, my mother, my sisters, my niece, and my rivals. For the time being, I had learned to forget my body, which was “resting.” I grew accustomed to the lofty height of the throne on which I now sat alone. Alone, I manipulated the pawns on the vast chessboard of an empire orphaned by its master. I was nothing more than a mind, a mind contemplating the world below with chilled compassion.
POLITICAL AFFAIRS KEPT me breathing. I extended the time I dedicated to my work on into the evening to avoid my palace, my prison, my tomb.
The transition in reigns was an opportunity for plots to be revealed, for hidden ambitions to betray themselves. These little problems that needed resolving distracted me and occupied my solitude.
One night, a strange dream disturbed me. Someone was scratching at the door to my pavilion. As there seemed to be no servant on duty, I went to open the door myself. It was dark outside, and there was a little boy standing on the steps. A man! Who had let him into the gynaeceum where all males were forbidden? The child held up both his hands, holding a tiny box. “Could you give me some salt? Please?” Behind me, the room was deserted. In front of me, beyond the threshold, the dark rooftops of the Imperial City spread out to infinity. The wind blew, and I was gripped by an uncontrollable fear. Was he a professional killer, a hired assassin? And yet I could not find the resolve to close the door on him. Perhaps he needed my help? How could I refuse him a few grains of salt? I shook with fear, but in that agonizing moment of hesitation, I decided, in spite of myself, to let him in. As the stranger stepped over the threshold, my fear suddenly dissolved, and I woke feeling amazed and happy.
I confided this dream to the Princess of Gold, the youngest daughter of Emperor Lordly Ancestor, and my friend for thirty years. The princess thought for a while and then smiled at me mischievously: “Does your Supreme Majesty not think that salt gives food its taste? When there is no salt, life is bland and flavorless!”
I could not help myself sighing. In my dream, it had not in fact been a little boy asking for salt, but I, Supreme Empress, begging for the savor of life! The previous sovereign had given me back my freedom. Whatever I wished was now granted. In all of China, I had no other master but myself; I had become my own jailor, and I was my own prisoner.
My distress did not go unnoticed by the princess. She went on: “For a year now, Your Supreme Majesty has worked day and night. She receives me little, but I know she is hiding her sorrow from me, and only keeps going because she has a will of iron. Has she considered that every human body is a fragile organism and that, by accumulating too much melancholy, by neglecting the need for relaxation, it will eventually be exhausted and may suddenly succumb to some fatal illness? It seems that Your Majesty’s body has entered into the age of rest. I can, therefore, offer a remedy that will disperse your sadness and fortify your health!”
Intrigued, I asked her what it was.
“Supreme Majesty,” she said, blinking slowly, “the yin element must be mixed with the yang element, and the combined force of these two primordial energies creates the seasons, makes the flowers bloom, raises up the wind, and brings forth the rain. Even though Your Supreme Majesty’s soul is as virile as a warrior’s, your body remains that of a woman. Since our Celestial Sovereign was called to the heavens, the dark exhalations of yin have accumulated in your organs. The weight of them darkens your mood, causes gloominess, diminishes your strength, and beckons old age! Majesty, your servant has in her possession a remedy full of the power of the sun, the remedy you so need. It will recapture forever the freshness of your features, the suppleness in your limbs, and the elation in your spirit!”
Her charlatanism made me smile: the Princess of Gold-a great bulky woman who was impossible to age-was a constant whirlwind of celebrations and pleasure. Born into a jade cradle, raised in the closed universe of the Imperial Court, she maintained a constant battle against the extinction of desire that threatens all such high-born creatures. Strangely, I who loved sobriety, exactitude, and profundity, had become fond of her guileless eagerness, her desperate frivolity, and her debauched escapades that overflowed with joy and tears.