A Flower’s Shade (11 page)

F
or many years Miss Yu had wanted to explore the Mystery Chambers, but once she became the mistress of the Estate, she did not hurry to enter them. Of all the buildings in the Zhen Estate, the Mystery Chambers were the most enigmatic, and they were also the only place that Old Master Zhen had not allowed her to set foot. Miss Yu knew that his place was the scene of her father's romances, knew that this was the spot where he and the concubines sought their pleasure. Miss Yu could remember having secretly once gone into the Mystery Chambers. At the time she had been only sixteen, and she had been led there unsuspectingly by the sounds of a woman's moaning that filtered out. Because her father had told her many times never to enter the Mystery Chambers, she had gone up the stairs, quietly as a cat. The woman's moaning had become more and more intense. The first thing Miss Yu saw through a hole in the paper window was an enormous charcoal brazier set in the middle of the hall, a bright red brazier that caught the eye. The next thing she saw was her naked father standing by the edge of the bed, thrusting forcefully. The moans were coming out of the mouth of the woman lying on the bed. This was when Miss Yu saw for the first time a man's thing, for he suddenly stopped the action, struck the woman on her behind, had her change positions, and began all over again. In that moment the stiff thing gave Miss Yu a great fright. All of a sudden Miss Yu began to figure out what it was all about. A year later, having secretly read The Plum in the Golden Vase, she had filled in all the missing bits in her understanding.

In the end, Miss Yu took Huaifu to the Mystery Chambers. After the death of Old Master Zhen, this was the first time she officially decided to go into this building. It seemed that she already knew what was concealed inside. Like an adventurous child in search of a treasure, she was excited and curious as well as slightly afraid. Unaware of the truth, Huaifu followed her unsuspectingly. Even in Yaoshan village, accounts of the Mystery Chambers were widely known, but Huaifu didn't know at the time where he was going with Miss Yu. He only knew that he was willing to do whatever Miss Yu commanded.

Just as they were going up the stairs, they saw Ai'ai nearby, pushing Naixiang in their direction. Ever since Huaifu had moved into the Zhen Estate, he had frequently run into Naixiang, roaming about. The impression Naixiang made on him was of a living corpse, for whom each breath might be his last, always making abrupt appearances in front of people. Huaifu had noticed that Miss Yu had seemed to hesitate upon seeing the wheelchair. She had stopped upon the staircase, a little squeamish, though at the same time she had looked at Naixiang with contempt. Huaifu had been able to sense that there was some kind of uncompromising hostility between these two siblings. Miss Yu seemed never to pay him any attention.

Miss Yu fished out a large bunch of keys, and tried them each on the lock. Having tried several, none of which worked, she became impatient and gave the keys to Huaifu. Huaifu had fumbled with the keys, and after much fiddling, he had finally got the door open. With a click, the door finally opened, and an extraordinary scene presented itself to their eyes.

It was a room, elegantly appointed, and permeated with an old-fashioned ambience of decadence. On the opposite wall hung a painting of The Precious Concubine Emerging from Her Bath by an old master. Above the wide opium bed hung an enormous mirror in which could be seen a great carved rosewood bed with the edges of the frame trimmed with erotic scenes carved in shell. There was a collection of strange bottles and jars on a long table, all of them in cloisonné. Miss Yu casually picked up a lid on the reverse of which, incredibly, was a painting of a naked man and woman in the act of union. Miss Yu's suddenly blushed, and instinctively hastened to replace the lid. She noticed that Huaifu's eyes had already strayed elsewhere, and so, full of curiosity, she opened the bottle again and took a quick look at the lid, and again replaced it after a few moments. In a round little bottle Miss Yu discovered some pills. She picked one of the tiny, exquisitely carved pills out, and put it on her fingertip to examine closely. She knew that these were the aphrodisiacs her father had used to take, they might even have been made according to the prescriptions described in The Plum in the Golden Vase. It was on account of these aphrodisiacs that Old Master Zhen's women had abandoned themselves to ceaseless moaning. And it was also these aphrodisiacs that had caused his sexual overindulgence, and his sudden death in the arms of a woman. It was rather dark in the Mystery Chambers and Miss Yu told Huaifu to open one of the western windows. Huaifu did so, walked over and after some struggle managed to open the window. A ray of golden sunlight fell in. Miss Yu considered the pills in her hand once more against the dazzling light.

Huaifu was looking uneasily about, glancing now at Miss Yu, now at the furnishings of the Mystery Chambers. Suddenly, his gaze alighted on The Precious Concubine Emerging from Her Bath. The Precious Concubine was wearing only a thin veil, rippling with vernal passions, her eyes looking at him in drowsy languor. Beneath this gaze, charged with innuendo, Huaifu felt highly uncomfortable. In order to cover this discomfort, Huaifu averted his eyes and looked at the lid of the cloisonné bottle that Miss Yu had opened. Though the lid was on, it was as though Huaifu's eyes could see through the lid, for though his gaze had only passed over it, the image of the united naked and woman was already branded on his mind.

Huaifu was uncomfortable, and Miss Yu felt equally ill-at-ease. Although she was familiar with The Plum in the Golden Vase, and had been in a sense theoretically precocious about the matter, she was after all an old maid. At this time, in this place, in this situation, here she was with a living, breathing man. It seemed suddenly to have occurred to her that Huaifu was a man, too. Ever since he had come into the Zhen Estate, she had never considered him as a real man. Or, to put it another way, she had never considered him at all. But in the atmosphere of the Mystery Chambers, Miss Yu's heart began involuntarily to beat faster. She couldn't help but glance at Huaifu.

"Let me tell you, this isn't a good place at all." Miss Yu said secretively.

There was a row of rosewood bookshelves in the Mystery Chambers, and Miss Yu resolutely put her hand out, extracting a copybook encased in dust. Evidently, before his death Old Master Zhen had developed a strong interest in calligraphy. In fact, the decision to have his daughter study calligraphy a tutor might have been the only good decision her father had made regarding her upbringing. The number of copybooks attracted Miss Yu's attention, and before opening the one she had taken, she blew with all her strength to get the dust off it. The dust flew all around them. Huaifu was approaching and the dust blurred his vision. He rubbed his eyes hard to get the dust out.

Miss Yu casually took out another copybook, and then right away another one. She suddenly took out an album. The album was rather heavy, and when she dropped it, its pages scattered over the floor.

Both Huaifu and Miss Yu had the fright of their lives.

They were erotic drawings, obscene and ridiculous.

W
ithout any hesitation, Miss Yu brought the erotic drawings back to her rooms. Shortly after they had left the Mystery Chambers, she had felt a nagging compunction, because it gave her an ill-defined feeling of shame that Huaifu would know about this. She reflected that she ought to have gone covertly and alone to the Mystery Chambers; she ought to have removed the album without a soul knowing, living or dead.

Returning to her own rooms, her worries vanished entirely. She remembered that she was the mistress of this Estate, and didn't need to worry about what other people would think. Huaifu was just something like a servant, and there was no reason to consider him. She realized how much she wanted to see what really was in the album drawings, she knew that it would be like her repeated readings of The Plum in the Golden Vase: she would shut herself up in her room, and devoting herself to the appreciation of the erotic drawings. She would give herself up to these irrepressible sensations.

The weather was growing rapidly warmer. It seemed like the last hurrah of spring, and in the pool in the back of the Zhen Estate, the frogs were beginning to croak. Miss Yu appeared a little uneasy. Dinner had long been over, and she had been unable to concentrate herself on her calligraphy exercises. Because she hadn't been able to concentrate, she did an extra hour of practice. Under Kang Tuo's tutelage, her copies of Ode to the Stone Gates were technically much improved. Once Huaifu had blown the opium for her, she had dismissed him rather urgently.

Now she was finally alone in her room and could look at the erotic album. She was stealing looks at the pictures, but she was still embarrassed, and quickly broke out in innocent laughter. The album was highly imaginative, and its exaggerated deformations and humorous set-ups complemented each other, diluting its erotic charge. Late and alone in the night, with the croaking of the frogs, Miss Yu grew deeply absorbed and did not notice at all that Huaifu, who had returned to his bedchamber, was now concealed outside her window, spying on her from behind the lowered bamboo blind. It would never have occurred to her. On the other hand, Huaifu seemed to have guessed what was on Miss Yu's mind, he knew the truth behind her hasty dismissal of him.

In his heart of hearts, Huaifu wanted even more urgently than Miss Yu to examine the erotic drawings. Although Miss Yu was quite near the window, Huaifu had no way of getting a clear look at the drawings. All he could see was that there were men and women in the drawings, and that they were naked as the day they were born, or in any event they had no pants on, their limbs were all free, and locked in an embrace like they were fighting. Huaifu could only roughly guess whether the drawings were amusing or not by the expressions on Miss Yu's face. She would look at one drawing with glad excitement, then another with a grave face of decency, and then she would close her lips and titter. In the end she was so amused by the ridiculous aspect of the drawings that she burst into laughter.

At Miss Yu's giggling, Huaifu placed his head against the wall and panted for breath. He couldn't understand why Miss Yu would burst into laughter at such a time. For a moment, he thought his spying had been discovered, but then he realized almost instantly that this was not possible. She was too engrossed in the album to wonder whether someone might be spying on her. Huaifu suddenly realized what a disgrace it would be if Miss Yu really did discover his spying. A feeling of repentance welled up from the bottom of the heart. He struck himself on the forehead and left.

"Shameless, really shameless." Huaifu quietly cursed himself as he crossed the courtyard and looked at the star-filled sky, "I'm a damned subhuman!"

Though he pounded himself on the head, though he cursed himself again and again, Huaifu discovered that he could not calm down. Returning to his own room, he acted like a baited bear, knocking about without rhyme or reason. There were strings hanging from the wall, on which Miss Yu's calligraphy was attached by bamboo clips. Whenever she was doing her calligraphy, if she happened to write a character with which she was not satisfied, she would crumple it and throw it into the wastepaper basked. Huaifu had surreptitiously removed the characters from the basket, smoothed them all, and hung them for his own appreciation. Huaifu didn't know what was good and what was bad calligraphy, and the reason he liked these characters was that she had written them with her own hand. He also liked the susurrations the papers made when they rubbed against each other in a breeze. The sound made him think of his childhood, when he had first heard people telling stories in the bamboo garden.

Huaifu suddenly sat down in the darkness. He thought of the adventure in the dusk at the Mystery Chambers and then thought about how Miss Yu was now secretly studying the erotic drawings. What would she think once she had seen the drawings? His thoughts galloped unbridled through his mind, and he found himself remembering the wet dream he had had after meeting Miss Yu for the second time. When she had seen these obscene erotic drawings, what had Miss Yu been laughing about? Countless men and women without pants on appeared before Huaifu's mind's eye, and naked below the waist the men and women were chasing each other back and forth across an endless grassland, playing some games and holding each other tightly, like children in a fight. Huaifu imagined himself as one of the people without pants on. He knew that the only way to calm himself now was to think of nothing, to climb into bed and go to sleep. It would be wonderful if he could now lay his head on the pillow and start snoring right away; if only he could start dreaming right away, he didn't even take his clothes off, he just threw himself in misery on the bed. At that moment, having experienced so much emotion, Huaifu knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. He knew that there was something he really did not want to do at all, but that it patiently waited for him. He never wanted to do it, but in the end he always did.

He had felt remorse on account of this idiotic habit numberless times. Helplessly, he walked over to one of the characters that hung there. When he had unclasped his tight belt, and taken out his faithful companion, he faced the calligraphy which rustled and trembled in the wind. He could hardly prevent himself from crying.

O
nce more, not long after emerging from her bath, Miss Yu had gone from being a spinster to a very real woman in the twinkling of an eye. The change was really too sudden, and even Miss Yu, who had prepared herself for it mentally, was bowled over. Before she realized it, something had happened. It was as though everything had been predetermined, as though everything about her fate was fixed. Miss Yu had been too ripe, so ripe that the fruit had fallen from the stem all by itself. Perhaps it had all been inevitable.

Ever since the bathtub's installation, Miss Yu had become passionate about bathing. She liked to fill the bathtub to the brim, and to soak in the bath like a dumpling. She liked the way she looked naked. She liked how the buoyancy of water teased her body. Before she had left, Mrs. Wu had always been the one to bathe her. This had been her habit since childhood, and ended only when Miss Yu had dismissed her from the Zhen Estate. Mrs. Wu was an impatient woman, and under her control, there had been nothing very amusing about bathing. Mrs. Wu had always scrubbed her down very quickly, and then immediately had her get dressed, as if a second's delay would cause her to catch cold. Once she had tried to go naked to see herself in the mirror, and Mrs. Wu had overreacted, threatening to tell Old Master Zhen of it.