The Red Chamber (45 page)

She feels wetness on her face and looks up. A few large snowflakes
drift down from the gray sky, but she thinks nothing of it, as it almost never snows heavily in the Capital. She has begun to notice this cold-hearted pragmatism in herself more often, most recently in her reaction to Qiaojie’s death. She had felt sorry, of course, but a part of her had been relieved that the family would no longer be squandering resources and money on the little girl. When Xifeng and Ping’er had woken the family with their wails over Qiaojie’s body, Baochai noticed that of all of them, only her own and Lady Jia’s eyes were dry. She had taken out her handkerchief and lowered her face to hide this fact, but it was the first time it had occurred to her that she and Lady Jia were similar in any way.

Drifts of snow are swirling around her now, and she is having trouble seeing more than five or ten paces ahead. Her feet have grown cold, and it has become difficult to walk. She sees that already more than an inch of snow has accumulated on the ground. The snow makes everything look unfamiliar, and she gazes around, trying to orient herself. She continues walking, the snowflakes cold on her face, hoping for a passerby from whom she can ask directions. Few people are out in the storm, and she must walk half a
li
before she comes upon a knife sharpener with his heavy round whetstone slung over his bowed shoulders. He tells her that she has overshot Flowers Street and must walk one street north and one to the west. Following his directions, she backtracks, and begins to look for the Zhens’, expecting to be able to see from a distance the smoke issuing from the forge. Looking back and forth up the street, however, she does not see the column of smoke. It occurs to her that Zhen Shiyin cannot work in all the snow, and that the forge is unlit. She must trudge up and down the street herself, in her now sodden slippers, to look for the place. She goes to the end of the street. Nothing looks familiar, everything blanketed by a layer of snow. Then she goes back the way she came and continues to the other end. To her confusion, she sees no sign of the forge, and wonders if the knife sharpener has misdirected her. She goes down the street again, looking for someone to ask. Eventually, she sees a middle-aged man with his legs bound up in rags sweeping the snow before his house.

“Excuse me, can you tell me whether this is Flowers Street?” she asks.

He pauses in his sweeping to stare at her, and gives a brief nod.

“Can you tell me where Zhen Shiyin, the blacksmith, lives?”

“I don’t know him. I didn’t know a blacksmith lived here.”

The man’s reply fills her with uneasiness. It seems odd that a person would not notice a blacksmith’s forge on his own street. Now shivering
with cold she continues down the street and starts back up again. The snow seems to obliterate everything, leaving her alone in a white, trackless wasteland. At last, she notices a house with a front yard about the size and shape of what she remembered the Zhens’ to be; only there is no forge or anvil there, just a ramshackle chicken coop. She flounders through the snow to the side door and hammers on it. She waits for about a minute, then hammers again. After knocking one more time, she hesitates before pushing on the door. It opens, and she steps through. “Hello? Is anybody home?”

An old woman, considerably older than Lady Jia, squats on a three-legged stool, fanning the stove with a fan of plaited bamboo leaves. Although the woman appears to be looking directly at Baochai, she evinces no reaction to a stranger entering her house and continues to fan the fire.

“I’m sorry to intrude on you like this,” Baochai begins, taking a step into the room. “I was wondering whether you could tell me where the Zhens live.”

The woman makes no reply, but bobs her head vigorously, parting her lips in a gap-toothed smile.

Baochai realizes the woman is deaf. She steps closer, repeating more loudly with her hands cupped to her mouth, “Can you tell me where the Zhens live?”

The woman nods and smiles some more. To Baochai’s relief, she says, “The Zhens? They don’t live here anymore.” She speaks in the overly loud, uninflected voice of the very deaf.

“They used to live here?” Baochai says.

There is no response. Baochai gestures at the room. “They used to live here?” she shouts. Peering around in the dimness, she thinks she recognizes it as the room where she had visited Daiyu. Because the furniture is different, she did not at first think it familiar, but now she recognizes the narrow
kang
, the small high window on the far wall, the ledge above the stove. Her heart begins to thump. Where have the Zhens gone, and why have they left? She has heard that poor families move more frequently than rich families, because they are always on the lookout for cheaper quarters, but the Zhens could hardly move with Daiyu in the state she was in. If only she could find Snowgoose and ask her what has happened—but although Snowgoose had mentioned the name of her new mistress, Baochai can no longer remember it.

“Where did the Zhens go?” She leans down to yell near the old woman’s ear.

“Down south.”

“And the young lady?” she persists, miming a bun at the back of the head to suggest Daiyu’s hairstyle.

“Gone,” the old woman says. For once she does not smile and nod. She shuts the stove with a clang and throws down the fan.

“Gone?” Baochai echoes. She pauses. “Do you mean—do you mean
dead
?”

The old woman nods.

Baochai stares at her. Surely she is mistaken. It has been barely a month since Baochai saw Daiyu. And yet, deep inside, Baochai had known the last time she saw Daiyu that the end was not far. That was why she had given Zhen Shiyin her gold locket so impulsively; she was afraid that it would soon be too late.

Though she rarely cries, the tears come to her eyes. The last time she cried was when she had seen Daiyu. Surely that brief, awkward conversation, when Daiyu was scarcely able to veil her hostility at first, could not have been the last time they would ever speak? On her last visit she had mostly been conscious of her own guilt. This time, finding Daiyu gone, she is aware of a haunting sense of loss. Even though the two of them had spoken infrequently since Daiyu returned from Suzhou after her father’s death, in her mind Daiyu has always been the one person to whom she could talk the most freely. Freed from the necessity of maintaining a façade, she has spoken to Daiyu without fear of consequences and has come to know herself through her own words. This was what had happened even in her last conversation with Daiyu. She had spoken of women’s choices, implicitly encouraging Daiyu to make the choice to live rather than die. But hadn’t she also been speaking, without realizing it, of the choice that she herself was making? To accept the imperfections and humiliations of her own situation, to marry Baoyu when he was released from prison, to cultivate her relationship with the Jias in the meantime, to make the best of her life. Still, how much colder and emptier her life seemed without Daiyu! With her mother and Pan, she must always be strong. It was only with Daiyu that she had allowed herself to be weak. She is becoming so hard, she thinks, like a stone, locked in a prison of her own reticence and self-control.

“When did she die?” she asks, wiping away her tears.

The woman ignores her.

Baochai tries again, more loudly. “When did she die?”

The old woman stares vacantly at a spot on the floor. Baochai turns away. There is nothing more to be said, after all. She thanks the woman and walks slowly out into the snow.

10

By the time Xifeng makes it back to the city gates, the snow is well over ankle-deep, and her shoes and socks and trousers are soaked almost to her knees. The shawl that she wears over her head and shoulders has kept her upper body dry during the blizzard, the worst that she ever remembers seeing in the Capital, but her bare hands are freezing. She has trudged almost ten
li
each way through the snow to the Water Moon Priory in the suburbs. When she saw how heavy and gray the morning sky was, she had not wanted to set out on the long trip. The day before, however, Ping’er had told her that a slave trader had come while Xifeng was out. The slave trader had examined Ping’er closely, even opening her mouth to peer at her teeth. Terrified, Xifeng had forced herself to set out for the Priory to ask the Mother Abbess for a loan.

She has already gone to almost a dozen people with the same request. Before the confiscation, she had done so many little favors for people. When Jia Qiang, Lian’s cousin, needed a job, she made a position for him buying new trees and shrubs for the Garden. She used Jia connections to help Cousin Yun’s daughter get out of a prior betrothal when a better match offered itself. But now that she is in need, each person has an excuse why he cannot possibly spare even fifty or a hundred
taels
. People had so little
liangxin
, sense of decency, these days; they were like the wolf who had been saved from hunters by Mr. Dongguo, who then proposed to eat his benefactor the moment he was hungry. She had reasoned and pleaded until her throat went dry, and still everyone had turned her down.

Today, she had been hopeful that the Abbess, to whom she had been so generous in the past, would be able to give her something. Because the Abbess continually solicited contributions for the Priory from wealthy families, she almost certainly had a large amount of cash on hand. The Abbess had sat her down and offered her tea cordially enough. She had clucked sympathetically when Xifeng told her about the family’s poverty and Qiaojie’s death. But the moment Xifeng asked for a loan, she exclaimed, “Oh, I wish you had come two weeks sooner!”

“Why?” Her heart sank, understanding that she was to be put off with some excuse.

“Didn’t you know? All autumn and winter I’ve been going around getting contributions to build a new wing with a statue of Bodhidharma in it. Just two weeks ago I gave all the money to the workmen.”

“But it’s the middle of the winter. Surely they can’t start work on it now.”

“Well, they need the money to buy materials, hire carpenters, and so forth. I am afraid that I really can’t help you. I’m terribly sorry.”

“We don’t need very much. Even as little as a hundred
taels
would help. Perhaps you could squeeze a little out of your ordinary operating expenses—”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” the Abbess had said. Xifeng could hear the note of finality in her voice. “Now be sure to give Lady Jia my regards.”

As Xifeng trudges into the city through the western gate, she seethes at how the Abbess had not even bothered to formulate an excuse. She obviously had the money and was simply unwilling to lend it. If the Jias ever get Rongguo back, Xifeng thinks, she will never contribute so much as a copper coin to the Water Moon Priory. Exhausted, she sinks down to rest on a small ledge on the inside of the city walls. Where else can she go? she thinks. Time is running out. In less than an hour it will be getting dark. Suddenly, the answer floats up to her from her tired brain. Jia Yucun. She has tried not to think of him since she ran into him buying medicine for Qiaojie. But hadn’t he made it clear that he still had feelings for her? Would he really refuse to help when he saw how desperate she was?

She remembers hearing that he had moved into a new mansion not far from Rongguo. Could she risk waiting until tomorrow, so that she can make herself fresh and pretty for the visit? She does not dare to wait. Who knows when the slave trader will find a buyer for Ping’er? She must go as she is, exhausted and cold in her sodden clothes, her face bare of makeup. Fortunately, the snow has stopped. Smoothing her hair, she climbs to her feet, her hope giving strength to her legs.

She sets off in the direction of Rongguo. When she is a few streets away, she asks someone where the Minister of Rites lives, and is directed to a street two blocks north of Rongguo. She walks rapidly, wanting to get there before the light fades entirely. When she turns onto the street, she can see that the towering triple gate, only slightly smaller than Rongguo’s,
is already closed. She goes to one of the side gates and hammers on it. A gateman steps out. “What is it?”

Assuming a confidence she does not feel, she says, “I have a message for Minister Jia from my master, Mr. Jia Lian.” She hopes that Yucun will realize that the message is from her when he hears Lian’s name.

It seems to her that the gateman is looking at her strangely. It is unusual for a maid, rather than a page, to be carrying a message to a male recipient. He puts out his hand. “If you have a letter, I’ll take it in for Minister Jia.”

She shakes her head. “There is no letter. I have a message. My master told me to deliver it to Minister Jia personally.”

The gateman looks at her even more strangely. After a moment, he shuts the gate in her face and disappears. She is not sure whether he is shutting her out or going inside to ask whether she is to be admitted. She decides to wait a little while before knocking again. The temperature is dropping as the sun sets, and her wet stockings are starting to tingle painfully against her skin. She forces herself to jog back and forth to keep warm. After she has waited about ten minutes, the gate opens again.

“You may come in,” the gateman says.

She follows him through the gate and across a large, formal courtyard. Most of the buildings are unlit; all she can see is that they are large and well-proportioned. The gateman leads her through another courtyard, and another one. She wonders whether he is taking her to Yucun’s study, until she sees they are approaching what must be the Inner Gate. She is surprised. Why would Yucun wish to see her in the Inner Quarters, where his wife will certainly hear of her visit? At the Inner Gate, the gateman, forbidden from entering the women’s quarters, leaves her with a waiting maid. In the light of the lanterns at the gate, the maid in her butterfly silks at first reminds her of the maids at Rongguo. However, a second look reveals that she is too plain-faced to have been chosen to serve at Rongguo. The maid leads her to what appear to be the main apartments. How strange, she thinks. Won’t his wife be there? As Xifeng crosses the courtyard towards the front door, she is seized by a sudden nervousness and has an urge to turn back.