EMPRESS ORCHID.

by ANCHEE MIN.

THE FORBIDDEN CITY.

Prelude

THE TRUTH IS that I have never been the mastermind of anything. I laugh when I hear people say that it was my desire to rule China from an early age. My life was shaped by forces at work before I was born. The dynasty's conspiracies were old, and men and women were caught up in cutthroat rivalries long before I entered the Forbidden City and became a concubine. My dynasty, the Ch'ing, has been beyond saving ever since we lost the Opium Wars to Great Britain and its allies. My world has been an exasperating place of ritual where the only privacy has been inside my head. Not a day has gone by when I haven't felt like a mouse escaping one more trap. For half a century, I partic.i.p.ated in the elaborate etiquette of the court in all its meticulous detail. I am like a painting from the Imperial portrait gallery. When I sit on the throne my appearance is gracious, pleasant and placid.

In front of me is a gauze curtain-a translucent screen symbolically separating the female from the male. Guarding myself from criticism, I listen but speak little. Thoroughly schooled in the sensitivity of men, I understand that a simple look of cunning would disturb the councilors and ministers. To them the idea of a woman as the monarch is frightening. Jealous princes prey on ancient fears of women meddling in politics. When my husband died and I became the acting regent for our five-year-old son, Tung Chih, I satisfied the court by emphasizing in my decree that it was Tung Chih, the young Emperor, who would remain the ruler, not his mother.

While the men at court sought to impress each other with their intelligence, I hid mine. My business of running the court has been a constant fight with ambitious advisors, devious ministers, and generals who commanded armies that never saw battle. It has been more than forty-six years. Last summer I realized that I had become a candle burnt to its end in a windowless hall-my health was leaving me, and I understood that my days were numbered.

Recently I have been forcing myself to rise at dawn and attend the audience before breakfast. My condition I have kept a secret. Today I was too weak to rise. My eunuch came to hurry me. The mandarins and autocrats are waiting for me in the audience hall on sore knees. They are not here to discuss matters of state after my death, but to press me into naming one of their sons as heir.

It pains me to admit that our dynasty has exhausted its essence. In times like this I can do nothing right. I have been forced to witness the collapse not only of my son, at the age of nineteen, but of China itself. Could anything be crueler? Fully aware of the reasons that contributed to my situation, I feel stifled and on the verge of suffocation. China has become a world poisoned in its own waste. My spirits are so withered that the priests from the finest temples are unable to revive them.

This is not the worst part. The worst part is that my fellow countrymen continue to show their faith in me, and that I, at the call of my conscience, must destroy their faith. I have been tearing hearts for the past few months. I tear them with my farewell decrees; I tear them by telling my countrymen the truth that their lives would be better off without me. I told my ministers that I am ready to enter eternity in peace regardless of the world's opinions. In other words, I am a dead bird no longer afraid of boiling water.

I had been blind when my sight was perfect. This morning I had trouble seeing what I was writing, but my mind's eye was clear. The French dye does an excellent job of making my hair look the way it used to-black as velvet night. And it does not stain my scalp like the Chinese dye I applied for years. Don't talk to me about how smart we are compared to the barbarians! It is true that our ancestors invented paper, the printing press, the compa.s.s and explosives, but our ancestors also refused, dynasty after dynasty, to build proper defenses for the country. They believed that China was too civilized for anyone to even think about challenging. Look at where we are now: the dynasty is like a fallen elephant taking its time to finish its last breath.

Confucianism has been shown to be flawed. China has been de-feated. I have received no respect, no fairness, no support from the rest of the world. Our neighboring allies watch us falling apart with apathy and helplessness. What is freedom when there has been no honor? The insult for me is not about this unbearable way of dying, but about the absence of honor and our inability to see the truth.

It surprises me that no one realizes that our att.i.tude toward the end is comical in its absurdity. During the last audience I couldn't help but yell, "I am the only one who knows that my hair is white and thin!"

The court refused to hear me. My ministers saw the French dye and my finely arranged hairstyle as real. Knocking their heads on the ground, they sang, "Heaven's grace! Ten thousand years of health! Long live Your Majesty!"

EMPRESS ORCHID.

One.

MY IMPERIAL LIFE began with a smell. A rotten smell that came from my father's coffin-he had been dead for two months and we were still carrying him, trying to reach Peking, his birthplace, for burial. My mother was frustrated. "My husband was the governor of Wuhu," she said to the footmen whom we had hired to bear the coffin. "Yes, madam," the head footman answered humbly, "and we sincerely wish the governor a good journey home."

In my memory, my father was not a happy man. He had been repeatedly demoted because of his poor performance in the suppression of the Taiping peasant uprisings. Not until later did I learn that my father was not totally to blame. For years China had been dogged by famine and foreign aggression. Anyone who tried on my father's shoes would understand that carrying out the Emperor's order to restore peace in the countryside was impossible-peasants saw their lives as no better than death.

I witnessed my father's struggles and sufferings at a young age. I was born and raised in Anhwei, the poorest province in China. We didn't live in poverty, but I was aware that my neighbors had eaten earthworms for dinner and had sold their children to pay off debts. My father's slow journey to h.e.l.l and my mother's effort to fight it occupied my childhood. Like a long-armed cricket my mother tried to block a carriage from running over her family.

The summer heat baked the path. The coffin was carried in a tilted position because the footmen were of different heights. Mother imag-ined how uncomfortable my father must be lying inside. We walked in silence and listened to the sound of our broken shoes tapping the dirt. Swarms of flies chased the coffin. Each time the footmen paused for a break the flies covered the lid like a blanket. Mother asked my sister Rong, my brother Kuei Hsiang and me to keep the flies away. But we were too exhausted to lift our arms. We had been traveling north along the Grand Ca.n.a.l on foot because we had no money to hire a boat. My feet were covered with blisters. The landscape on both sides of the path was bleak. The water in the ca.n.a.l was low and dirt-brown. Beyond it were barren hills, which extended mile after mile. There were fewer inns to be seen. The ones that we did come upon were infested with lice.

"You'd better pay us," the head footman said to Mother when he heard her complaint that her wallet was near empty, "or you will have to carry the coffin yourselves, madam." Mother began to sob again and said that her husband didn't deserve this. She gained no sympathy. The next dawn the footmen abandoned the coffin.

Mother sat down on a rock by the road. She had a ring of sores sprouting around her mouth. Rong and Kuei Hsiang discussed burying our father where he was. I didn't have the heart to leave him in a place without a tree in sight. Although I was not my father's favorite at first-he was disappointed that I, his firstborn, was not a son-he did his best in raising me. It was he who insisted that I learn to read. I had no formal schooling, but I developed enough of a vocabulary to figure out the stories of the Ming and Ch'ing cla.s.sics.

At the age of five I thought that being born in the Year of the Sheep was bad luck. I told my father that my friends in the village said that my birth sign was an inauspicious one. It meant that I would be slaughtered.

Father disagreed. "The sheep is a most adorable creature," he said. "It is a symbol of modesty, harmony and devotion." He explained that my birth sign was in fact strong. "You have a double ten in the numbers. You were born on the tenth day of the tenth moon, which fell on the twenty-ninth of November 1835. You can't be luckier!"

Also having doubts regarding my being a sheep, Mother brought in a local astrologer to consult. The astrologer believed that double ten was too strong. "Too full," the old hag said, which meant "too easily spilled." "Your daughter will grow up to be a stubborn sheep, which means a miserable end!" The astrologer talked excitedly as white spittle gathered at the corners of her mouth. "Even an emperor would avoid ten, in fear of its fullness!"

Finally, at the suggestion of the astrologer, my parents gave me a name that promised I would "bend."

This was how I was called Orchid.

Mother told me later that orchids had also been the favorite subject of my father's ink paintings. He liked the fact that the plant stood green in all seasons and its flower was elegant in color, graceful in form and sweet in scent.

My father's name was Hui Cheng Yehonala. When I close my eyes, I can see my old man standing in a gray cotton gown. He was slender with Confucian features. It is hard to imagine from his gentle look that his Yehonala ancestors were Manchu Bannermen who lived on horseback. Father told me that they were originally from the Nu Cheng people in the state of Manchuria, in northern China between Mongolia and Korea. The name Yehonala meant that our roots could be traced to the Yeho tribe of the Nala clan in the sixteenth century. My ancestors fought shoulder to shoulder with the Bannerman leader Nurhachi, who conquered China in 1644 and became the first Emperor of the Ch'ing Dynasty. The Ch'ing had now entered its seventh generation. My father inherited the t.i.tle of Manchu Bannerman of the Blue Rank, although the t.i.tle gave him little but honor.

When I was ten years old my father became the taotai, taotai, or governor, of a small town called Wuhu, in Anhwei province. I have fond memories of that time, although many consider Wuhu a terrible place. During the summer months the temperature stayed above one hundred degrees, day and night. Other governors hired coolies to fan their children, but my parents couldn't afford one. Each morning my sheet would be soaked with sweat. "You wet the bed!" my brother would tease. or governor, of a small town called Wuhu, in Anhwei province. I have fond memories of that time, although many consider Wuhu a terrible place. During the summer months the temperature stayed above one hundred degrees, day and night. Other governors hired coolies to fan their children, but my parents couldn't afford one. Each morning my sheet would be soaked with sweat. "You wet the bed!" my brother would tease.

Nevertheless, I loved Wuhu as a child. The lake there was part of the great Yangtze River, which drove through China carving out gorges, s.h.a.ggy crags, and valleys thick with ferns and gra.s.ses. It descended into a bright, broad, richly watered plain where vegetables, rice and mosquitoes all thrived. It flowed on until it met the East China Sea at Shanghai. Wuhu Wuhu meant "the lake of a luxuriant growth of weeds." meant "the lake of a luxuriant growth of weeds."

Our house, the governor's mansion, had a gray ceramic-tile roof with the figures of G.o.ds standing at the four corners of the tilted eaves. Every morning I would walk to the lake to wash my face and brush my hair. My reflection in the water was mirror-clear. We drank from and bathed in the river. I played with my siblings and neighbors on the slick backs of buffalo. We did fish-and-frog jumps. The long bushy weeds were our favorite hiding places. We snacked on the hearts of sweet water plants called chiao-pai. chiao-pai.

In the afternoon, when the heat became unbearable, I would organize the children to help cool the house. My sister and brother would fill buckets, and I would pull them up to the roof where I poured the water over the tiles. We would go back to the water afterward. P'ieh, P'ieh, bamboo rafts, floated by. They came down the river like a giant loose necklace. My friends and I would hop onto the rafts for rides. We joined the raft men singing songs. My favorite tune was "Wuhu Is a Wonderful Place." At sunset Mother would call us home. Dinner was set on a table in the yard under a trellis covered with purple wisteria. bamboo rafts, floated by. They came down the river like a giant loose necklace. My friends and I would hop onto the rafts for rides. We joined the raft men singing songs. My favorite tune was "Wuhu Is a Wonderful Place." At sunset Mother would call us home. Dinner was set on a table in the yard under a trellis covered with purple wisteria.

My mother was raised the Chinese way, although she was a Manchu by blood. According to Mother, after the Manchus conquered China they discovered that the Chinese system of ruling was more benevolent and efficient, and they adopted it fully. The Manchu emperors learned to speak Mandarin. Emperor Tao Kuang ate with chopsticks. He was an admirer of Peking opera and he hired Chinese tutors to teach his children. The Manchus also adopted the Chinese way of dressing. The only thing that stayed Manchu was the hairstyle. The Emperor had a shaved forehead and a rope-like braid of black hair down his back called a queue. The Empress wore her hair with a thin black board fastened on top of her head displaying ornaments.

My grandparents on my mother's side were brought up in the Ch'an, or Zen, religion, a combination of Buddhism and Taoism. My mother was taught the Ch'an concept of happiness, which was to find satisfaction in small things. I was taught to appreciate the fresh air in the morning, the color of leaves turning red in autumn and the water's smoothness when I soaked my hands in the basin.

My mother didn't consider herself educated, but she adored Li Po, a Tang Dynasty poet. Each time she read his poems she would discover new meanings. She would put down her book and gaze out the window. Her goose-egg-shaped face was stunningly beautiful.

Mandarin Chinese was the language I spoke as a child. Once a month we had a tutor who came to teach us Manchu. I remember nothing about the cla.s.ses but being bored. I wouldn't have sat through the lessons if it hadn't been to please my parents. Deep down I knew that my parents were not serious about having us master the Manchu language. It was only for the appearance, so my mother could say to her guests, "Oh, my children are taking Manchu." The truth was that Manchu was not useful. It was like a dead river that n.o.body drank from.

I was crazy about Peking operas. Again, it was my mother's influence. She was such an enthusiast that she saved for the entire year so she could hire a local troupe for an in-house performance during the Chinese New Year. Each year the troupe presented a different opera. My mother invited all the neighbors and their children to join us. When I turned twelve the troupe performed Hua Mulan. Hua Mulan.

I fell in love with the woman warrior, Hua Mulan. After the show I went to the back of our makeshift stage and emptied my wallet to tip the actress, who let me try on her costume. She even taught me the aria "Goodbye, My Dress." For the rest of the month people as far as a mile from the lake could hear me singing "Goodbye, My Dress."

My father took pleasure in telling the background to the operas. He loved to show off his knowledge. He reminded us that we were Manchus, the ruling cla.s.s of China. "It is the Manchus who appreciate and promote Chinese art and culture." When liquor took hold of my father's spirit, he would become more animated. He would line up the children and quiz us on the details of the ancient Bannerman system. He wouldn't quit until every child knew how each Bannerman was identified by his rank, such as Bordered, Plain, White, Yellow, Red and Blue.

One day my father brought out a scroll map of China. China was like the crown of a hat ringed by countries eager and accustomed to pledging their fealty to the Son of Heaven, the Emperor. Among the countries were Laos, Siam and Burma to the south; Nepal to the west; Korea, the Ryukyu Islands and Sulu to the east and southeast; Mongolia and Turkestan to the north and northwest.

Years later, when I recalled the scene, I understood why my father showed us the map. The shape of China was soon to change. By the time my father met his fate, during the last few years of Emperor Tao Kuang, the peasant revolts had worsened. In the midst of a summer drought, my father didn't come home for months. My mother worried about his safety, for she had heard news from a neighboring province about angry peasants setting their governor's mansion on fire. My father had been living in his office and trying to control the rebels. One day an edict arrived. To everyone's shock the Emperor dismissed him.

Father came home deeply shamed. He shut himself in the study and refused visitors. Within a year his health broke down. It didn't take him long to die. Our doctor bills piled up even after his death. My mother sold all of the family possessions, but we still couldn't clear the debts. Yesterday Mother sold her last item: her wedding souvenir from my father, a b.u.t.terfly hairpin made of green jade.

Before leaving us, the footmen carried the coffin to the bank of the Grand Ca.n.a.l so we could see the pa.s.sing boats, where we might get help. The heat worsened and the air grew still. The smell of decay from the coffin grew stronger. We spent the night under the open sky, tormented by the heat and mosquitoes. My siblings and I could hear one another's stomachs rumbling.

I woke at dawn and heard the clattering of a horse's hooves in the distance. I thought I was dreaming. In no time a rider appeared in front of me. I felt dizzy with fatigue and hunger. The man dismounted and walked straight toward me. Without saying a word he presented me with a package tied with ribbon. He said it was from the taotai taotai of the local town. Startled, I ran to my mother, who opened the package. Inside were three hundred taels of silver. of the local town. Startled, I ran to my mother, who opened the package. Inside were three hundred taels of silver.

"The taotai taotai must be a friend of your father's!" Mother cried. With the help of the rider we hired back our footmen. But our good luck didn't last. A few miles down the ca.n.a.l we were stopped by a group of men on horses led by the must be a friend of your father's!" Mother cried. With the help of the rider we hired back our footmen. But our good luck didn't last. A few miles down the ca.n.a.l we were stopped by a group of men on horses led by the taotai taotai himself. "A mistake has been made," he said. "My rider delivered the taels to the wrong family." himself. "A mistake has been made," he said. "My rider delivered the taels to the wrong family."

Hearing this, Mother fell to her knees.

The taotai taotai's men took back the taels.

Exhaustion suddenly overwhelmed me and I fell on my father's coffin.

The taotai taotai walked to the coffin and squatted as if studying the grains of the wood. He was a stocky man with rough features. A moment later he turned to me. I expected him to speak but he didn't. walked to the coffin and squatted as if studying the grains of the wood. He was a stocky man with rough features. A moment later he turned to me. I expected him to speak but he didn't.

"You are not a Chinese, are you?" he finally asked. His eyes were on my unbound feet.

"No, sir," I replied. "I am Manchu."

"How old are you? Fifteen?"

"Seventeen."

He nodded. His eyes continued to travel up and down, examining me.

"The road is filled with bandits," he said. "A pretty girl like you should not be walking."

"But my father needs to go home." My tears ran.

The taotai taotai took my hand and placed the silver taels in my palm. "My respects to your father." took my hand and placed the silver taels in my palm. "My respects to your father."

I never forgot about the taotai. taotai. After I became the Empress of China I sought him out. I made an exception to promote him. I made him a provincial governor, and he was given a handsome pension for the rest of his life. After I became the Empress of China I sought him out. I made an exception to promote him. I made him a provincial governor, and he was given a handsome pension for the rest of his life.

Two.

WE ENTERED Peking through the south gate. I was amazed at the ma.s.sive rose-colored walls. They were everywhere, one behind another, winding around the entire city. The walls were about forty feet high and fifty feet thick. At the hidden heart of the sprawling, low-lying capital sat the Forbidden City, the home of the Emperor.

I had never seen so many people in one place. The smell of roasting meat fluttered in the air. The street before us was more than sixty feet wide, and for a mile went straight to the Gate of Zenith. Along each side were rows of deep huddled mat-constructed booths and shops festooned with flags announcing their wares. There was so much to see: rope dancers twirling and spinning, fortunetellers throwing interpretations of the I Ching, I Ching, acrobats and jugglers performing tricks with bears and monkeys, folksingers telling old tales in fanciful masks, wigs and costumes. Furniture craftsmen were busy with their hands. The scenes were right out of cla.s.sic Chinese opera. Herbalists displayed large black dry fungi. An acupuncturist applied needles to a patient's head, making him look like a porcupine. Repairers mended porcelain with small rivets, their work as fine as embroidery. Barbers hummed their favorite songs while shaving their customers. Children screamed happily while sly-eyed camels with heavy loads strutted elegantly by. acrobats and jugglers performing tricks with bears and monkeys, folksingers telling old tales in fanciful masks, wigs and costumes. Furniture craftsmen were busy with their hands. The scenes were right out of cla.s.sic Chinese opera. Herbalists displayed large black dry fungi. An acupuncturist applied needles to a patient's head, making him look like a porcupine. Repairers mended porcelain with small rivets, their work as fine as embroidery. Barbers hummed their favorite songs while shaving their customers. Children screamed happily while sly-eyed camels with heavy loads strutted elegantly by.

My eyes were drawn to sugar-coated berries on sticks. I would have felt miserable if I hadn't seen a group of coolies carrying heavy buckets on bamboo poles across their bare shoulders. The men were collecting feces for the night-soil merchants. They moved slowly toward waiting boats by the ca.n.a.l.

A distant relative whom we called Eleventh Uncle received us. He was a tiny-framed, sour man from my father's side. He wasn't pleased with our arrival. He complained about his troubles running a dry-food shop. "There hasn't been much food to dry in recent years," he said. "All eaten. Nothing left to sell." Mother apologized for the inconvenience and said that we would leave as soon as we got back on our feet. He nodded and then warned Mother about his door: "It falls out of its frame."

Finally we buried our father. There was no ceremony, because we couldn't afford one. We settled down in our uncle's three-room house, in a kinsman's compound in Pewter Lane. In the local dialect, the compound was called a hootong. hootong. Like a spider web, the city of Peking was woven with Like a spider web, the city of Peking was woven with hootongs. hootongs. The Forbidden City was at the center, and thousands of The Forbidden City was at the center, and thousands of hootongs hootongs made up the web. My uncle's lane was on the east side of a street near the ca.n.a.l of the Imperial city. The ca.n.a.l ran parallel to the high walls and served as the Emperor's private waterway. I saw boats with yellow flags travel down the ca.n.a.l. Tall trees were thick behind the walls like floating green clouds. The neighbors warned us not to look in the direction of the Forbidden City. "There are dragons, the guardian spirits sent by the G.o.ds, living inside." made up the web. My uncle's lane was on the east side of a street near the ca.n.a.l of the Imperial city. The ca.n.a.l ran parallel to the high walls and served as the Emperor's private waterway. I saw boats with yellow flags travel down the ca.n.a.l. Tall trees were thick behind the walls like floating green clouds. The neighbors warned us not to look in the direction of the Forbidden City. "There are dragons, the guardian spirits sent by the G.o.ds, living inside."

I went to the neighbors and peddlers at the vegetable market hoping to find work. I carried loads of yams and cabbages, and cleaned the stalls after the market closed. I made a few copper pennies each day. Some days no one hired me and I would come home empty-handed. One day, through my uncle, I landed a job in a shop specializing in shoes for wealthy Manchu ladies. My boss was a middle-aged woman called Big Sister Fann. Fann was a heavyset lady who liked to apply her face paint as thick as an opera singer's. Her makeup flaked off in bits as she talked. Her oily hair was combed back tightly against her skull. She was known to have a scorpion mouth but a tofu heart.

Big Sister Fann was proud that she used to serve the Grand Empress of Emperor Tao Kuang. She had been in charge of Her Majesty's dressing room, and she considered herself expert in court etiquette. She dressed magnificently but had no money to clean her clothes. During lice season, she would ask me to pinch off the lice around her neck. She would scratch herself raw under her armpits. When she caught the creatures, she crushed them between her teeth.

In her shop I worked with needles, waxed thread, twisters, pliers and hammers. First I decorated a shoe with strings of pearls, encrusting it with stones, then raised the sole on a central wedge, like a streamlined clog, which added extra height to the lady who would wear the shoe. By the time I got off work, my hair would be coated with dust and my neck painfully sore.

Nevertheless I liked to go to work. It was not only for the money, but also to enjoy Big Sister Fann's wisdom about life. "The sun doesn't just hang on one family's tree," she would say. She believed that everybody had a chance. I also loved her gossip about the royal families. She complained that her life had been ruined by the Grand Empress, who "awarded" her to a eunuch as a figurehead wife, dooming her to childlessness.

"Do you know how many dragons are carved around the Hall of Heavenly Harmony in the Forbidden City?" Above her misery she bragged about the glory of her time in the palace. "Thirteen thousand eight hundred and forty-four dragons!" As always, she answered her own question. "It was the work of the finest craftsmen over generations!"

It was from Big Sister Fann that I learned about the place where I would soon live for the rest of my life. She told me that the hall's ceiling alone housed 2,604 dragons, and each had a different meaning and significance.

It took her a month to finish describing the Hall of Heavenly Harmony. I failed to follow Big Sister Fann and to keep count of the number of dragons, but she made me understand the power they symbolized. Years later, when I sat on the throne and was was the dragon, I was very much afraid that people would find out that there was nothing to the images. Like all my predecessors, I hid my face behind the gorgeous carvings of dragons and prayed that my costumes and props would help me play the part right. the dragon, I was very much afraid that people would find out that there was nothing to the images. Like all my predecessors, I hid my face behind the gorgeous carvings of dragons and prayed that my costumes and props would help me play the part right.

"Four thousand three hundred and seven dragons inside the Hall of Heavenly Harmony alone!" Gasping, Big Sister Fann turned to me and asked, "Orchid, can you imagine the rest of the Imperial glory? Mark my words: a glimpse of such beauty makes one feel that one's life has been worthy. One glimpse, Orchid, and you will never be an ordinary person again."

One evening I went to Big Sister Fann's place for dinner. I lit a fire in the hearth and washed her clothes while she cooked. We ate dumplings stuffed with greens and soybeans. Afterward I served her tea and prepared her pipe. Pleased, she said that she was ready to tell me more stories.

We sat into the night. Big Sister Fann recalled her time with her first Majesty, Empress Chu An. I noticed that when she mentioned Her Majesty's name, her voice had a worshipful tone. "Chu An was scented with rose petals, herbs and precious essences since she was a child. And she was half woman and half G.o.ddess. She exhaled heavenly aromas as she moved. Do you know why there was no announcement and ceremony when she died?"

I shook my head.

"It had to do with Her Majesty's son Hsien Feng and his half-brother Prince Kung." Big Sister Fann inhaled deeply and continued. "It took place about ten years ago. Hsien Feng was eleven and Kung was nine. I was part of the servant group who helped raise the boys. Among the nine sons Emperor Tao Kuang had, Hsien Feng was the fourth and Kung the sixth. The first three princes died of illness, which left the Emperor six healthy heirs. Hsien Feng and Kung showed the most promise. Hsien Feng's mother was my mistress, Chu An, and Kung's mother was the concubine Lady Jin, who was the Emperor's favorite."

Big Sister Fann lowered her voice to a whisper. "Although Chu An was the Empress, and as such enjoyed the greater power, she was extremely insecure about her son Hsien Feng's chances for succession."

According to tradition, the elder son would be considered the heir. But Empress Chu An indeed had reason to worry. As the greater physical and intellectual talents of Prince Kung began to declare themselves, it gradually became obvious to the court that if Emperor Tao Kuang had good sense, he would select Prince Kung over Hsien Feng.

"The Empress arranged a plot to get rid of Prince Kung," Big Sister Fann continued. "My mistress invited the two brothers for lunch one day. The main meal was steamed fish. The Empress had her maid Apricot put poison on Kung's plate. Now I would say that Heaven must have meant to stop this act. Right before Prince Kung lifted his chopsticks, the Empress's cat jumped onto the table. Before the servants were able to do anything, that cat ate Prince Kung's fish. Immediately the animal showed signs of poisoning. It wobbled, and in minutes it fell flat on the floor."

Much later I would learn the details of the investigation conducted by the Imperial household. The first suspects were the people who worked in the kitchen. The chef, especially, was questioned. Knowing that he had little chance to live, he committed suicide. The next to be interrogated were the eunuchs. One eunuch confessed that he saw Apricot speak secretively with the chef on the morning of the incident. At that point Empress Chu An's involvement was exposed. The matter was brought to the Grand Empress.

"'Fetch me the Emperor!'" Big Sister Fann mimicked the Grand Empress. "Her voice echoed through the hall. I was attending my mistress and thus witnessed Her Majesty's face turn from red to white."

Empress Chu An was found guilty. At first Emperor Tao Kuang didn't have the strength to order her execution. He blamed the servant girl Apricot. But the Grand Empress stood firm and said that Apricot wouldn't act alone "even if she borrowed a lion's guts." Eventually the Emperor gave in.

"When Emperor Tao Kuang entered our palace, the Palace of Pure Essence, Her Majesty sensed that she had reached the end of her life. She greeted her husband on her knees and was unable to rise afterward. His Majesty helped her up. His swollen eyes showed that he had been crying. Then he spoke, expressing his regret that he could no longer protect her, and that she must die."

Big Sister Fann sucked on her pipe, unaware that it had gone out. "As if accepting her fate, Empress Chu An stopped weeping. She told His Majesty that she knew her shame and would accept the punishment. Then she begged for a last favor. Tao Kuang promised to grant anything she wished. She wanted to keep the true reason for her death a secret. When the wish was granted, the Empress bade her husband farewell. She then sent me to fetch her son for the final time."

Tears began to well up in Big Sister Fann's eyes. "Hsien Feng was a fragile-looking boy. From his mother's face he sensed tragedy. Of course he wouldn't have guessed that in the next few minutes his mother would be gone from the face of the earth. The boy brought his pet, a parrot. He wanted to cheer his mother up by making the bird talk. Hsien Feng recited his new lesson, one he had been having trouble with. She was pleased and hugged him.

"His laughter brought more sadness to the mother. The boy took out his handkerchief and wiped her tears. He wanted to know what was bothering her. She wouldn't answer. Then he stopped playing and became scared. At that moment the sound of drums came from the courtyard. It was the signal to hurry Empress Chu An on her way. She held her son again. The drumbeat got louder. Hsien Feng looked terri-fied. His mother buried her face in his little vest and whispered, 'I shall bless you, my son.'

"The voice of the minister of the Imperial household echoed in the hallway. 'Your Majesty the Empress, on your way, please!' To protect her son from seeing the horror, Empress Chu An ordered me to take Hsien Feng away. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I stood like a dead tree trunk. Her Majesty came and shook me by the shoulders. From her wrist she took off a jade bracelet and tucked it in my pocket. 'Please, Fann!' She looked at me pleadingly. I woke to my senses and dragged the screaming Hsien Feng away from his mother. Outside the gate stood the minister. He was holding a piece of folded white silk-the hanging rope. Behind him were several guards."

I wept for the young boy Hsien Feng. Years later he would become my husband, and I kept a tender spot for him in my heart even after he abandoned me.