He listened to my pulses, watched me breathe in and out, asked me a few meaningless questions, and then announced, “Maidens, particularly at the moment of marriage, are susceptible to the evil attention of malevolent spirits. Young girls often lose their minds to these apparitions. The more beautiful the girl, the more she will suffer from chills and fever.
She’ll stop eating, much as your daughter has stopped eating, until she dies.” He squeezed his chin thoughtfully before going on. “This, as you might expect, is not something a future husband wants to hear. And I can say from experience that many girls in our city have used this claim to keep from having conjugal relations upon marrying into their husbands’
homes. But, Lady Chen, you should be grateful. Your daughter is clear of such debauchery. She claims no improper relations with any gods or spirits. She is still pure and ready for marriage.”
These words did not cheer my mother, and I felt even worse. I saw no way out of my wedding night or the unhappy years that would come af-terward.
“Tea brewed from fresh snow will cause her cheeks to bloom in time for the ceremony,” Doctor Zhao said as he left.
Every day Mama came to stand by my bed, her face wan with dread.
She begged me to get up, visit my aunts and cousins, or eat a little. I tried to laugh lightly at her concern.
“I’m fine here, Mama. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.”
But my words gave her no comfort. She brought back the diviner. This time he slashed the air around my bed with a sword, trying to scare away the evil spirits he claimed lurked there. He hung an amulet of stone around my neck to prevent my soul from being stolen by a hungry ghost.
He asked my mother for one of my skirts into which he tied bundles of peanuts, telling her that each peanut would serve as a prison for predatory spirits. He shouted out incantations. I pulled the bedclothes up over my face so he wouldn’t see my tears.
.
.
.
( 8 7 )
f or dau g h te r s, marry i ng out is a little like dying. We say goodbye to our parents, our aunts and uncles, our cousins, and the servants who cared for us, and go into an entirely new life, where we live with our true families, where our names will be listed in our in-laws’ ancestral hall. In this way, marriage is like experiencing death and rebirth without having to travel to the afterworld. These are morbid thoughts for any bride, I know, but mine were compounded by my unhappy situation. That morbidity sent my mind into darker and darker places. Sometimes I even believed—
hoped—I might be dying like Xiaoqing or the other lovesick maidens. I let my mind dwell in theirs. I used my tears to mix the ink, and then I took up my brush. Lines of poetry flowed from the tip: I have learned to use the pattern of butterflies and flowers in my embroidery.
I have been doing this for years, because I’m expecting my wedding day.
Do people know that once I go to the afterworld The flowers will not be fragrant, nor the butterflies fly for me?
For days my mind burned with words and emotions. I wrote and wrote. When I felt too tired and weary to lift my brush I had Shao write down my poems for me. She did as she was told. Over the next few days, I dictated another eight. My words floated out one by one, like peach flowers floating on a grotto stream.
We reached the twelfth month. Charcoal burned all day and night in the brazier, but I was never warm. I was to be married in ten days.
My silk slippers are only seven centimeters long.
My waistband is loose even though I fold it in half.
Since my fragile being does not allow me to walk to the afterworld, I have to lean on the wind to go there.
I worried that someone would find them and laugh at my melodrama or say my words had as much importance and permanence as the songs of insects. I folded the pieces of paper and looked around the room for a place to hide them, but all my furniture would eventually be taken to my husband’s home.
I was adamant that my poems not be found, but I didn’t have the strength of will to set fire to them. Too many women burn their words in a fit of thinking them not worthy, only to regret it later. I wanted to keep ( 8 8 )
these, imagining that one day, after I was a married lady with children of my own, I might forget my poet. I would come to visit my family, find my poems, read them again, and remember my lovesick girlhood. Wouldn’t that be for the best?
But I would never forget what had happened. This made me even more determined to find a safe place for my poems. No matter what the future held, I would always be able to come here and relive my sentiments. I forced myself out of bed and went into the corridor. It was early evening and everyone was at dinner. I made my way—and it seemed to take forever to get there as I steadied myself by holding on to the walls, grasping pillars, or clinging to the balustrades—to my father’s library. I pulled out a book no one would ever look at, on the history of dam building in the southern provinces, and tucked my poems between its pages. I put the book back and stared at it to remember the title and its place on the shelf.
When I returned to my room, I picked up my brush for the last time before my marriage. On the outside of my volume of The Peony Pavilion, I painted my interpretation of The Interrupted Dream, the scene where Mengmei and Liniang first meet. My painting showed the two of them before the rockery, just moments before they would disappear into the grotto for clouds and rain. I waited until my ink dried, and then I opened the book and wrote:
When people are alive, they love. When they die, they keep loving. If love ends when a person dies, that is not real love.
I closed the book and called for Shao.
“You saw me when I came into the world,” I said. “Now you see me as I leave for my new home. I can trust no one else.”
Tears ran down Shao’s stern face. “What do you want me to do?”
“You must promise to obey, no matter what Mama or Baba say. They have taken away so much from me, but I have things that must go with me to my new home. Promise you will bring them three days after my marriage.”
I saw hesitation in her eyes. She shivered once, and said, “I promise.”
“Please bring me the shoes I made for Madame Wu.”
Shao left the room. I lay very still, staring at the ceiling, listening to the honking of orphaned geese as they crossed the sky. They made me think of Xiaoqing’s poems and the way she’d invoked that sorrowful sound.
( 8 9 )
Then I remembered the nameless woman who’d written her despair on a wall in Yangzhou. She too had heard the calling of geese. I sighed as I remembered her line, If only my tears of blood could dye red the blossoms of the plum tree. But I will never make it to spring. . . .
A few minutes later, Shao returned with the shoes, still in the silk I’d wrapped them in.
“Put them in a safe place. Don’t let Mama know you have them.”
“Of course, Peony.”
I had not been called by my milk name since my father changed it on the final night of the opera.
“There is one more thing,” I said. I reached under my bedclothes and pulled out my saved copy of The Peony Pavilion.
Shao drew back in alarm.
“This is the most important item in my dowry. Mama and Baba don’t know about it and you must never tell them. Promise!”
“I promise,” she mumbled.
“Keep it safe. Only you can bring it to me. Three days after my marriage. Don’t forget.”
baba returne d f rom his trip to the capital. For the first time in my life he came to visit me in my room. He hesitated by the door, too nervous to approach.
“Daughter,” he said, “your marriage is only five days away. Your mother tells me you refuse to rise and perform your toilette, but you must get up. You don’t want to miss your wedding.”
When I hung my head in resignation, he crossed the room, sat on the bed, and took my hand.