Without the dot I was unable to enter the tablet, and the part of my soul that was supposed to settle there united with me on the Viewing Terrace.
( 1 1 4 )
The Viewing Terrace
of Lost Souls
i was unable to journey b eyond th e v i ew i ng te r -
race, so I had no opportunity to plead my case before the panel of infernal judges. As the days went by, I discovered that I still had all the needs and wants I had when I was alive. Death, rather than quelling my emotions, had intensified them. The Seven Emotions we talk about on earth—joy, anger, grief, fear, love, hate, and desire—had traveled with me to the afterworld. These ancestral emotions, I saw, were more commanding and enduring than any other force in the universe: stronger than life, more persistent than death, more powerful than what the gods can control, floating about us without beginning and without end. And while I was awash in them, none was stronger than the sorrow I felt for the life I’d lost.
I missed the Chen Family Villa. I missed the smells of ginger, green tea, jasmine, and summer rain. After so many months without an appetite, suddenly I hungered for lotus roots braised in sweet soy, preserved duck, lake crabs, and crystal shrimps. I missed the sound of nightingales, the chatter of the women in our inner quarters, and the lapping of the lake along the shore. I missed the feel of silk on my skin and the warm wind coming through my bedroom window. I missed the smell of paper and ink. I missed my books. I missed being able to step into their pages and into another world. But what I missed most was my family.
Every day I looked over the balustrade to watch them. I saw Mama, my aunts, my cousins, and the concubines go back to their usual routines. I ( 1 1 5 )
was happy when Baba came home to visit, have meetings in the Hall of Abundant Elegance with young men in handsome robes in the afternoons, and sip tea with my mother in the evenings. I never heard them talk about me, however. Mama didn’t mention that she hadn’t dotted my ancestor tablet, because she thought Baba had done it. And he didn’t bring it up, because he thought she’d done it. Which meant, of course, that Baba didn’t invite Ren back to dot my tablet either. With my tablet hidden away, I might be stuck here forever. When I got too scared about that, I comforted myself with the knowledge that Prefect Du had left for his appointment right after Liniang’s death and had forgotten to dot her tablet too.
With so many parallels between Liniang and me, surely I would also be brought back to life through true love.
I began to look for Ren’s home. Finally, after countless attempts, my vision found the way by skimming across the surface of West Lake, passing over Solitary Island, and crossing onto the north shore. I located the temple where torches had burned so brightly on the night of the opera and from there located Ren’s family compound.
I was supposed to be a jade maiden marrying a golden boy—meaning that our family status and wealth matched—but the Wu family’s villa had just a few courtyards, a handful of pavilions, and only 120 fingers. Ren’s older brother had moved to a posting in a distant province, where he lived with his wife and daughter, so the Wu compound was home now only to Ren, his mother, and ten servants. Did I question this? No. I was lovesick and saw only what I wanted to see, which was a small but tasteful villa.
The main doors were painted the color of cinnabar. The green tile roof blended beautifully with the willow trees that surrounded the compound.
The plum tree Ren had told me about stood in the central courtyard, but it had lost its leaves. And then there was Ren, composing in his library during the day, taking his meals with his widowed mother, and wandering in the garden and along the dark corridors at night. I watched him all the time and forgot about my own family, which is why I was unprepared when Shao came to call at the Wu home.
My old wet nurse was escorted to a hall and told to wait. Then a servant brought Ren and his mother into the room. Madame Wu had been a widow for many years and dressed appropriately in somber hues. Her hair was shot through with strands of gray and her face showed the suffering of the loss of her husband. Shao bowed several times, but she was a servant, so they did not exchange pleasantries and Madame Wu did not offer tea.
“When Little Miss was dying,” Shao said, “she gave me some things to ( 1 1 6 )
give to your family. The first—” She peeled back the corners of a silk kerchief that lined a basket and brought out a tiny package also wrapped in silk. Shao lowered her head and held out the bundle cupped in the palms of her hands. “Little Miss intended these for you as a token of filial piety.”
Madame Wu took the package and slowly opened it. She picked up one of the shoes I’d made for her and examined it with a mother-in-law’s shrewd eyes. The peonies I’d embroidered were striking against their deep blue background. Madame Wu turned to her son, and said, “Your wife was very talented with a needle.”
Would she have said that to me if I’d been alive? Or would she have criticized me as a proper mother-in-law should?
Shao reached back into the basket and pulled out my copy of The Peony Pavilion.
Here’s a truth about death: Sometimes you forget things that you once thought were important. I’d asked Shao to bring Volume One to my new home three days after my marriage. She hadn’t done that for obvious reasons, and I’d forgotten about her promise and my project. Even when I’d seen her daughter hiding her embroidery patterns in the folds, I didn’t remember.
After Shao explained that I’d stayed up late at night reading and writing, that my mother had burned my books, and that I’d hidden the volume in my bedclothes, Ren took it in his hands and opened it.
“My son saw the opera, and then he searched the city to find this particular copy,” Madame Wu explained. “I thought it best if my daughter-in-law gave it to your Peony. But this is only part one. Where is the second volume?”
“As I said, the girl’s mother burned it,” Shao repeated.
Madame Wu sighed and pursed her lips in disapproval.
Ren leafed through the pages, stopping here and there.
“Do you see?” he asked, pointing to characters blurred by my tears.
“Her essence glistens on the paper.” He began to read. A few moments later he looked up and said, “I see her face in every word. The ink looks vivid and new. Mother, you can sense her hand’s moisture on the pages.”
Madame Wu regarded her son sympathetically.
I felt sure Ren would read my thoughts about the opera and know what he had to do. Shao would help him by telling him to dot my tablet.
But Shao mentioned nothing about my missing dot, and Ren didn’t look hopeful or inspired in any way. Rather, sadness deepened his features. My pain was so deep I felt as though my heart was shredding.
( 1 1 7 )
“We’re grateful to you,” Madame Wu said to Shao. “In your mistress’s brushstrokes, my son finds his wife. In this way, she continues to live.”
Ren closed the book and abruptly stood. He gave Shao an ounce of silver, which she pocketed. Then, without another word, he stalked out of the room with my book under his arm.
That night I watched him in his library as he sank deeper and deeper into melancholy. He called for servants and ordered wine. He read my words, delicately touching the pages. He held his head, drank, and let tears fall down his cheeks. Distraught at this reaction—this was not at all what I wanted—I looked for Madame Wu and found her in her bedchamber.
We shared the same name and we both loved Ren. I had to believe that she would do whatever she could to ease her son’s mind. In this we had to be
“sames.”
Madame Wu waited until the household grew quiet, and then she padded along the corridor on her lily feet. She quietly opened the door to the library. Ren had put his head down on the desk and fallen asleep.