A maidservant knocked on the door and informed me that my grandfather was waiting for me. I washed my face in the basin and went down to confront him. I had decided that I would express to him my disappointment at how my mother had been treated. I would let him know that my father had been a good husband to her. Then I would tell him that I saw no point in our meeting again and that I would leave the next day. I had not even unpacked, which should make my departure easier and quicker.
“You look much rested,” he said. “Did the room agree with you?”
“It did. The sound of the water and the smell of the flowers were very soothing.”
I wondered if he had been behind the choice of room I had been given. He led me out to the garden, pointing out the various flowers to me, their fragrance unabashed and heady. I looked, but could not find a frangipani tree.
When we approached the fountain, he asked, “Is it very similar?”
Before, I would not have felt the faint, controlled timber of emotion in his voice. But Endo-san’s lessons had taught me that there is often movement in stillness, and stillness in movement. And so it was that I felt it clearly within me, the hidden mixture of regret, sorrow, and hope. I kept my face as carefully controlled as my grandfather’s voice had been, so as not to embarrass him.
I circled the fountain that my mother had loved so much, crouching to examine the carvings of birds and trees that ran around its wall and the plump angel that stood poised with a jug in the center. Dragonflies, looking like long, thin red chillies, hovered above the water’s surface. I watched them for a moment and a memory returned to me of how upset my mother had been when William and I snared the dragonflies in the fountain in Istana when we were younger.
I was six then and William was thirteen. He had shown me how to tie threads to the bodies of the dragonflies we had caught. I had thought then that my mother’s displeasure was disproportionate to our harmless act. Now I knew why we had saddened her and silently I said to my mother,
“I’m sorry,”
and hoped she could hear me.
I blinked, nodded to my grandfather and said, “Yes, the fountain at home is very similar. It even sounds the same.”
He sat down on the rim of the fountain and looked at his feet.
When he looked up again I saw the expression on his face softened by the truth of his words. “That is good,” he said. “I am glad.”
* * *
Dinner was a simple, almost monastic meal. He fussed over me and placed food in my bowl with his chopsticks. We had watched dusk cloak the garden in a golden light with no more words spoken. I reminded myself to tell him I would leave the next day, but I found my resolve to be weaker than before.
The maidservants cleared away our meal and brought out a tray bearing dainty little teacups and a teapot. He opened his fan with a flick of his wrist and waved it at Aunt Mei. “Please leave us,” he said.
She looked ready to refuse but my grandfather said, “Go, Eldest Daughter,” and she could only comply. She rose from her chair and left us, trailing an air of annoyance behind her like a thwarted feline. My grandfather looked amused, his eyes blinking rapidly. He lifted the lid of his cup and sniffed at the steam. Again he took out the small pin and wet it in his tea. He caught me staring and I took the opportunity to ask him, “Why do you keep doing that? Does the pin alter the flavor of the tea?”
“It warns me of the presence of poison.”
“But you didn’t use it to test your food when we were having dinner,” I said, feeling pleased that I had caught him in an inconsistency.
“I do it merely out of habit now, and only when I drink. It is almost as though the pin
does
change the taste of my tea, a taste that I have grown used to.”
He held the pin up so I could examine it. It was slightly over an inch long, and the color of the jade was faint, almost like sunlight seen through a delicate leaf.
“Does it really work?” I asked.
He gave me a reflective, almost dreamy smile. After a little while he said, “Yes, once, long ago, it did.”
“How did you get the pin?”
“Let us start at the beginning. I know everything about you, but you know nothing of me. I do not think that is quite fair, do you?” he asked.
“How do you know everything about me?” I asked
He waved his hand in the air, as if to say that it did not matter.
I recognized that movement for I too had the same mannerism. It felt uncanny to meet a man who had some of my own habitual gestures. “Let me tell you about myself, about this strange, cruel man, this man with an iron soul who is your grandfather. Go on, drink your tea. It is good Black Dragon tea and I will not poison you.”
Like Aunt Mei I felt compelled to obey him. For the moment the past days disappeared as he began to speak and soon I was caught up in his tale.
* * *
“Most people think I am a crude, uneducated coolie who found my fortune in the mines. No, do not save me face and deny that that is what you thought as well. I was thirty years old when I arrived in Penang, part of an endless wave of people fleeing the chaos in China. I was different from them, though, for in my bags I had a small fortune in gold ingots, taken from the Imperial Treasury in the final days of the Ching Dynasty. Are you aware of the Ching Dynasty?”
I told him that Uncle Lim used to tell me stories about China, about its many dynasties and its Imperial House. I had found them fascinating at first, but as I grew older the stories seemed to stagnate and I became tired of them.
“It was the last dynasty of China,” I said. “After that the Republicans led by Dr. Sun Yat Sen toppled the monarchy.” He seemed impressed that I knew my facts. “Is that why you left China?” I asked.
“I left a long time before the monarchy became as dust in the Gobi desert. Even at that time, the intelligent ones could see that an age was nearing its end. Something new would come in and sweep it all away, everything we knew and had lived for.”
He took another sip of tea. “Do I look old to you? No? You are very diplomatic. No matter how I look, I
feel
old. And yet how can I feel old, I sometimes ask myself. I, who have escaped history. For if one escapes history, does not one then escape time?”
“No one can escape history,” I said.
“You are wrong,” he said. “I often think of one who has been written out of history. I see his face, eternally young as it was on the day we first met in a courtyard of the Forbidden City. This was in 1906—it seems like a lifetime ago. These days everybody knows that Pu Yi was the last emperor of China, having ascended the Dragon Throne at the age of three. But no one knows of the one before him. No one—except me.”
“How did you come to know about him, if he was ‘written out of history’?” I could not help asking.
“I was his tutor,” he replied, enjoying the skeptical look on my face. His eyes peered at me over the top of his spectacles and he gave me a crooked grin. “It might surprise you to learn that I was once a respected scholar of classical Chinese philosophy and, at the age of twenty-seven, one of the youngest members on the Imperial Board of Examinations.
“My achievements brought me into the most exalted circles of all, when I was appointed to teach the emperor’s heir, Wen Zu.”
“His son?”
“No, not his son. Wracked by perpetual illnesses, the emperor was childless, his spirit weakened by too much wine and countless courtesans. The real ruler of China at this time—as I expect you know—was the Dowager Empress Tzu Xsi, and it was she who had recently selected Wen Zu, the son of a distant cousin, as the successor to the throne.
“I was apprehensive at having been chosen as Wen Zu’s tutor. It would mean leaving my wife and my two daughters. Your mother, Yu Lian, was just beginning to take her first steps.” He smiled wistfully at me before continuing. “Your aunt, Yu Mei, would have been about seven years old.”
“But it was a great honor for you,” I said.
“True. My father, a Manchu Bannerman, was extremely proud of my appointment, but my mother cried, fearing for my life. There have always been stories of people entering the Forbidden City and never coming out again. On the night before I was to leave for the palace, she entered my room and, from her hair plucked a hairpin made of jade which she had obtained from her Buddhist abbot. She pressed it into my hand, and told me that it would keep me safe from harm. And then she hugged me tightly, something she had not done since I was ten.
“At dawn my father and I rode through the streets of the city. A few night watchmen were still going about, their lanterns swaying as they patrolled their areas, singing out their words of warning into the chilly air. Suddenly the warren of streets fell away and we sped across an empty, silent field of stone. I could hear nothing but the breathing of our horses, their hoofs clattering on the stones, and strangely, my own heartbeat. Behind us a touch of the sun lightened the sky. The hulk of the palace rose up before us, silent and dark. I could barely make out its countless upturned eaves, its many layers of roofs.
“Then the sun hit the palace and my breath was stopped short. All its intricate details could be seen, every curve, every window, every golden tile on the roofs. The celestial pairings of dragons and phoenixes twined around the columns, writhed up and down, frozen forever in their passionate chase.
“We came to a high, white wall, planted intermittently at the top with banners fluttering gently in the morning wind. At the main gate the guards lifted their gloved palms to stop us. The wooden doors opened almost as if on the silent command of those within. We rode through a narrow tunnel and then out into the strengthening sunlight. We dismounted at a guardhouse. From now on we walked.
“Like two small insects we crossed the immense courtyard, past two lines of helmeted guards. We walked up a flight of marble steps which seemed to go ever on up into the sky. At the top we were greeted by a strange-looking man. I sensed that he was old, but his skin was pale and flawless. My father advanced, said a few deferential words to him and then returned to me.
“He said, ‘You will follow Master Chow into the palace. From now on you are under the protection of the Imperial House.’ My father’s voice then hardened. ‘You are also under your obligations as a member of the House. You must forget all your mother’s nonsense. You have the court’s permission to visit your family once a month and I shall come to see you whenever it is permissible.’
“I nodded, trying to hide my fears from him. He held my shoulder and it was the closest my father had come to expressing his love for me.
“Master Chow, I learned later, was a eunuch. He was the first I had ever seen, though I had heard many stories about them. He had the slender limbs and soft skin of one gelded at an early age. He also had the corpulence of one who had grown used to a life of abundance in the palace.
“We walked through dark, empty hallways but we were never alone. I could hear whispers and sense hidden movements all around us. Columns rose up into the darkness of the unseen ceilings and doorways opened to more dim corridors. Footfalls floated, soft and silent as the disturbances of dust. I suddenly felt what my mother had feared. There was so much sorrow trapped within these walls.
“My small room was lavishly furnished, quite unlike my own at home. I put down my bundle of belongings and thanked Master Chow. Even then, I knew instinctively that one should not cross this ageless being.
“He nodded to me and informed me that Wen Zu would be waiting to meet me at breakfast, in the Pavilion of Willows.
“I changed into fresh clothes and let the sun and the sounds of laughter guide me to the Inner Courtyard where the pavilion was situated. Surrounded by willow trees, the courtyard was actually a series of large interconnected carp ponds, humped with many graceful stone bridges. In the center, like an exotic flower, was the pavilion. That was where I met the young man who was to be my student and eventually my friend.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
My grandfather’s eyes softened. “He wasn’t remarkable-looking at all. He was just a youth—two years younger than yourself, maybe. His face had not yet been hardened by the realities of his life. The eyes were guarded but lively and curious. ‘So you are the one sent to be my tutor,’ he said.
“He wasn’t emperor yet, so I was quite informal with him. ‘Yes, and to help you with your studies.’
“He made a face. ‘I dislike studying. When I am emperor I shall stop studying.’
“I said that I disagreed with him and he said, quick to have the final word, ‘That is why you were sent.’
“We had a hurried breakfast. I was hungry after the morning’s ride. It was quiet, except for the songs of birds and the busy clicking of our chopsticks against our bowls. Already the day was late. I told him that he was to have his first lesson that day, copying out the
Analects
of Confucius. Because of the presence of the Western powers in the International Settlement in Shanghai I would also teach him English, which I had learned from foreign missionaries.
