Empress (32 page)

I, the wandering child, I, the shaven-headed nun, I, the concubine who preferred the power of separation to the weakness of attachment, I, the Empress who was both in and out of life here and elsewhere-I noticed with stupefaction that a miracle had come to pass: I had laid down roots at the city of Luoyang.

Since my husband had joined the heavens, I had never returned to Long Peace. The seething metropolis of a million inhabitants had swept aside all the illusions of a provincial Talented One. I did not miss its markets and rows of little shops, its avenues of jostling horses and pedestrians. That town had forged me and perverted me. Away from it, I could at last forgive its feverish debauchery, its easy wealth; I no longer criticized its gleeful dissipation, its titillating exuberance. I had freed myself once and for all from a Forbidden City built by the emperors of Tang, haunted by the ghosts of murdered princes and poisoned concubines. Long Peace, which had robbed me of my youth, would be punished by my absence.

Specialists in genealogy had proved that my clan, the Wus, were descended from the lineage of the King of Peace from the ancient Zhou dynasty. Twelve hundred years previously, this Great Ancestor had moved his capital from Long Peace to Luoyang, lying on its fertile plain and surrounded by steep mountains on three sides. The wide, peaceful River Luo flowed through the city where it was joined by many other rivers. Geomancy experts had seen happy prosperity in the configuration of the surrounding countryside, and strategists, liked its central location, protected it from Tatar invasions. Emperor Yang of the overthrown dynasty had raised millions of peasants to dig the Great Canal, setting off from the Eastern Gate and linking the five rivers of China.

In Long Peace there were sweat and dust and the heavy ruts left by carts. In Luoyang there were green canals, red sails, and the grinding of oars. Luoyang did not move, and the world came to it on the waves. Boats laden with grain, precious woods, bolts of silk, packages of tea, and jars of wine set off from the provinces and unloaded their wares before the imperial palace.

Luoyang had welcomed me as a triumphant empress. The city had been destroyed by war and had surrendered itself, naked, to my imagination. I had exercised my thoughts over every restored quayside, every new stretch of canal. I had redesigned the ramparts of its rectangular fortifications. I had reinstated its ten avenues bisected by ten wide boulevards and its 130 separate districts. I had planted the double row of scarlet grenadine trees and pink peach trees in the middle of the boulevards and constructed stone bridges shaped like rainbows and wooden bridges that opened to allow boats to pass with their sails filled with the wind. I had restored and enlarged the Forbidden City and the Imperial Park. I had built the three imperial temples to the east of the Palace to house the spirits of the Emperor Lordly Forebear, the Emperor Eternal Ancestor, and the Emperor Lordly Ancestor, called there from Long Peace. I had erected the Temple of Adoration where my forebears now received offerings on a par with those given to the three sovereigns of the dynasty.

Long Peace was banished. In Luoyang the wind blew over crimson peonies. From the top of the Pagoda of Contemplation, I could see the River Luo glittering in the middle of the Imperial Park. The Palaces of Spring and Autumn appeared in the depths of the forest where pavilions of cherry blossoms and terraces of orchid melted into the shadow. Galleries wound their way along the banks of rivers and became bridges launching out toward little islands, discs of emerald in the water. To the south, the low-lying city spread its panorama. Sailing ships glided across the sky. It was no longer clear where boats were setting out and where birds were flying off; tiled roofs and thatched roofs were smudges of turquoise and yellow between the canals. In the gap between blue and green on the horizon, a thread of black hovered. I could just make out the sacred valley through which the River Yi flowed. Devout Buddhists had dug thousands of caves along the cliffs on its right bank and had erected their idols in them over the centuries. My childhood wish had been granted there: A mountain had been sculpted and transformed into Buddha Vairocana of the Great Sun, accompanied by his bodhisattva servants. I had lent the giant statue my oval face, the thoughtful curve of my brow, my long slanting eyes, and my full-pouting lips, now immortalized in a distant smile.

Further away, there were forests and rivers, endless fields, and busy little towns. The golden and purple banners I had designed blew in the wind throughout the land of China. Men were dead. I was mistress of this eternal world.

LITTLE PHOENIX, HIS sickly cheeks and wan smile, was gradually erased by images of the Emperor Lordly Ancestor. Astride his horse, with his bow in his hand, he was a haughty and invincible warrior. On his throne, with his hands on his knees, wearing his ochre-yellow tunic and his cap of lacquered linen, he was dazzling in his majesty. At the top of Tai Mountain, wearing the crown with twenty-four tiers of jade pearls and the scarlet and black cloak embroidered with symbols of sovereignty, holding up the goblet of libations in his hands, he was the great priest of this earthly world.

Little Phoenix, the feverish adolescent and unfaithful husband. Little Phoenix, who had been my brother and my lover, had now become an effigy, a transparent glory, a sparkling light. His soul had wandered through the palace before joining the Emperor Eternal Ancestor in the heavens. They were both now a source of vague heat and icy inspiration to me, open to my contemplation but unattainable, on high.

They were both near to me and very far away; they had become stars.

My bed had been a desert for twenty years, and I had stumbled on Little Treasure as if onto an oasis. I forgot the damp embrace and herbal smell of medicinal infusions. I now savored his cool skin, firm muscles, and proud virility unashamedly. Love, which makes the weak weaker, had strengthened my powerful soul. I wanted to show the government that ecstasy by night robbed me of none of my lucidity by day.

New reforms were instigated: The best legal minds were summoned to examine the laws and compile new codes. In the past, the Mandarin Competitions had been organized to suit the government’s needs. I now wanted them to take place once a year and the final session to be held in my presence. I broadened the scope of the trials and decreed that it was no longer compulsory to submit a dissertation on the Great Classics. I included poetry-that music of the gods and window to our souls-as the most infallible test of talent.

A decree went out expressing my determination not to miss a single hint of genius: “The Empire’s prosperity is a duty for every one of us. Every individual-whether an official or of no distinction, nobleman or commoner, Chinese or foreign, gifted in the field of culture, economics, defense, education, justice, or major works-should present themselves to the recruiting officers without a letter of recommendation.”

I poached more time from recreational activities and wrote
The Ethics of a Servant of the State
and
A New Warning to Imperial Officials,
in which I made reflections on loyalty and competence. I published an essay on agriculture and had the largest astronomical sphere beneath the sky erected at the Northern Gate to the Palace. I diligently replied to the people’s requests thrown into the Urn of Truth. With one hand I managed the administration of the provinces, while with the other, I continued to weave a web of intrigue to weaken the Barbarian tribes in the west.

My reawakening to life stimulated the rebirth of the Empire. The years of famine and epidemics were forgotten. Grain stores were filled once more; there was abundant meat, game and fish in the markets. The generosity of Heaven and Earth inspired me to brave the heights before which my husband, the Sovereign Lordly Ancestor, had faltered. Above and beyond secular power, was the reign of the gods. Above and beyond the seal of Supreme Empress, was the scepter of a high priestess, the incarnation of Divine Justice.

In the fourth year of the Era of Lowered Arms and Joined Hands, I detailed a holy man, the master monk Scribe of Loyalty, to knock down the reception palace at the entrance to the Forbidden City and to build the Temple of Clarity on its ruins. This site would provide a home for the sacred sanctuary. This project had been abandoned in my husband’s time, but it would be my masterpiece. The construction of this temple would make all petty human squabbles meaningless. An entire empire, an entire people would be called up by a divine force and would burn with the desire to reach heaven. Exalted souls disdain suffering. Poverty-my enemy and my rival-would soon be reduced to ashes and dust.

IT WAS NOT long before the gods expressed their satisfaction through a number of extraordinary phenomena. Since I began governing the Empire as Supreme Empress, the Officer of Rites in the Palace had already recorded some thirty promising apparitions, atmospheric events, and astral configurations that indicated celestial approval.

These good omens culminated one morning in a fisherman on the River Luo bringing up a stone with cracks on its surface that formed an inscription. During the morning audience, ministers and soothsayers deciphered the oracle and translated these characters: “divine mother on this earth, through her, the emperor’s reign shall be prosperous and everlasting.” For the first time since the world sprang forth from chaos, the gods were identifying a woman as the human sovereign! The news spread throughout the Empire, and letters of congratulation fell around me like snowflakes: “Your Majesty has pursued the former sovereign’s unfinished work. Her endeavor and her humility have touched the gods. That is why this divine writing has been sent to the world for the third time since civilization began… As a representative of the female element in us, Your Majesty is invested with male strength. The union of these two opposites has produced the great harmony now enjoyed by our ten thousand kingdoms. That is why Heaven has appointed her Mistress of all people.”

My past-with its downfalls and resurrections, its opportunities and difficulties-had already convinced me that I bore the mark of a very singular fate on my forehead. I had known suffering and had brushed with death. Every time that I was pushed to the very limits of despair, abandoned by men and gods, I managed to find the strength to triumph within myself, in my own body. That was the stamp, the voice, the music of providence. The oracle had just revealed the hidden truth behind all these trials: The gods were appointing me as their representative on Earth, having forged me with the consuming power of flames and the sudden chill of water.

Why Heavenlight? Why the little girl who loved horses? Why this strange ascension by such a devious route? Even the dead had served me as stepping stones to reach the heights. Why had it taken the deaths of my first master, Emperor Eternal Ancestor; my husband, the Sovereign Lordly Ancestor, my sons Splendor and Wisdom, and my sisters, Purity and Clarity, to reveal me, to accomplish what I was to be? Why did I know how to draw strength from the infirmities of birth? Why had my status as a woman and a commoner, my failings, been turned into triumphs? All the questions that had always tormented me disappeared. The gods had given me their answer at last.

I left it to the Court to award me the pompous and ambiguous title of Divine Mother Sacred Emperor that interwove masculinity and femininity. I left it to my nephews to engrave the three imperial seals with the simple name Sacred Emperor. All this feverish activity that demonstrated the delight of some of my courtiers and subjects provoked only anger in others.

One morning, the audience hall was shaken by a dispatch: In their respective provinces, the King of Yue and the King of the County of Lang Xie -Little Phoenix’s brother and nephew-were rising up and calling on the world to overthrow the “usurper.” I smiled at this grotesque spectacle: a dead husband’s family openly seeking to punish a widow for not knowing “a woman’s place.” There was nothing to fear. The gods who had chosen me would defend me. I replied to their war cries and their furious indignation, which wanted to restore male supremacy, by sending them my faithful armies. Yet again there was a miracle: Only twenty days later the insurrection was quashed and the rebels’ heads hung before the Southern Gate of the Forbidden City. Their supporters within the Court were pursued by the magistrates of Autumnal Duties and the inspectors from the Lodge of Purification. Other plots came to light: kings and princesses received orders to hang themselves in their palaces. During one of the enquiries, I was informed that the Prince Consort Xue Xiao, Lieutenant General of the Guards, and his brothers had also sworn allegiance to the insurgents. My daughter, Moon, wept by my bedside and begged my clemency. Despite her anguish, I decided to make an example of my son-in-law and to demonstrate my merciless repression. I spared him the shame of a public execution and had him starved to death in prison.

An illegitimate authority that knows no respect crumbles at the first signs of uprising. A revolt that dies down in a few days is a disturbance that did not have the people’s approval. The silence in my empire was a tacit recognition of my legitimacy. I had indeed worked tirelessly for the Tang dynasty for nearly thirty years, and everyone recognized that I was the source of its prosperity. Why should I go on reigning behind an incompetent son and reducing him to a puppet emperor? I had already changed banners, renamed ministers, and made Luoyang my capital. I had squashed revolutions and subdued the Tatars. I had allowed poetry and the arts to flourish and had seen justice triumph. The people were well fed. The world had me to thank for its beauty. Why let the hazy title of Divine Mother Sacred Emperor and the shadowy suggestion of usurpation hover over me? Why should I not formally and enthusiastically take up the mandate offered to me by Heaven?

On the fifteenth day of the twelfth month in the fourth year of the Era of Lowered Arms and Joined Hands, two months after the insurrection led by the royal princes, I broke the ancestral law that forbade women to officiate in the rites of celebration. In the name of the Sacred Emperor, I raised the great imperial parade that had once served my husband. Followed by my son, the Emperor, and his heir, by officials and governor delegates, Barbarian kings, foreign ambassadors, and an entire people in a state of feverish, exalted excitement, I traveled to the banks of the River Luo. There I stepped up onto the altar to the strains of ten thousand musicians playing the fourteen verses of
Rejoicing and Veneration-,
which I had composed. At the top of this great monument, there were a thousand wild birds, a thousand game birds, a thousand sheep and goats, a thousand bulls and cows, a thousand jars of grain, a thousand jugs of wine, and countless rare creatures sent as gifts by vassal kingdoms; these made up my offering to the goddess of the River Luo who had sent me the divine message.