The Tapestries (29 page)

This was the place where her destiny had taken its tragic turn. There, on the front steps of the palace, her husband had notified her of the proposed union between their Bui and the daughter of the mayor of Cam Le. And there, a few days later, Magistrate Toan, the angel of death, had come to deliver the news of her family's last days on Earth.

She thought of the young girl who might have been her daughter-in-law if only fate had not been so cruel. It gave her a bittersweet pleasure to contemplate what her son's future could have been. During the years when she was still in good health, Lady Chin had tried to attend as many opera concerts as she could to spy on one particular dancer. Her friend the eunuch had informed her that this was Magistrate Toan's only granddaughter, the girl her son might have married. In the wake of the scandal surrounding the death of her son, the girl's family sought to restore its honor by giving her to the palace. She was her son's widow before she was even betrothed to him. Because of the tragedy, no proper suitor would ever consider asking for her hand in marriage again.

To Lady Chin, the fact that Magistrate Toan had sent his only grandchild to the palace seemed strange. She sensed that more dark deeds were hidden behind the deaths of her husband and son. This girl might have held the key to her unanswered questions. She wanted to believe that Bui's last days had been joyous, but the expression of sadness on the dancer's face troubled her. She wondered if the loss of Bui's life had caused this young concubine to lose all happiness in herself and enter this chaste existence in order to venerate him.

Lady Chin became obsessed with the girl. One night after a performance, she approached the dancer, summoning all of her courage. When their eyes locked, she fought the urge to flee. After the grace of a lady returned to her, she pushed a proud chin forward and said, “I am Bui's mother. I want you to tell me everything you know about my son's last days.” Her voice broke into a sob. “I want to know how he died.”

The dancer cried out as if she had seen a ghost. “Leave me alone,” she wailed. “I am not the reason for your losses. I have vowed never to speak of that incident for as long as I live. Please do not ask me to relive the horror of that night.” She ran off into her dressing room. After that brief encounter, they never met again. Lady Chin could only watch her from a distance. The girl's singing had grown more distressed with time, like the cries of a wounded nightingale.

Beside her, the eunuch had resumed the conversation, but now his voice seemed a thousand miles away.

“I assure you, madam, for you, being a mother, would understand. These foreigners have many plans for our young king, including a secret engagement that is about to be announced this evening.”

Her head, which rested against the railing of the mezzanine, felt like a sack of stones. The emperor got up from his throne and stood over his grandmother's shoulder, studying her mah-jongg tiles. “How on Earth did you learn this information, Mr. Ung?” Lady Chin asked.

“We eunuchs have ways to gather intelligence,” he said, “but you and I are having a confidential conversation that should not be heard by anyone else. Also, the rapid development of journalism in Da Nang has opened my eyes to the world beyond our citadel. There are many facts about the emperor that we, the ultraconservatives inside this closed fortress, are not aware of. The French would like to see the royal family lie around and smoke opium while they run the country.

“This morning, while waiting for King Bao Dai at the Da Nang Harbor, I read an article in the
Nam Phong
newspaper. It reported that a romantic encounter between our lord and Mademoiselle Mariette Jeanne Lan Thi Nguyen nourished into a liaison while they were onboard the
D'Artagnan
for their return trip to Vietnam. They left the Marseille port and drifted across the Pacific Ocean, which took several months at sea. During this time, they met each other in an incident that was carefully orchestrated by His Majesty's guardians. She is a Catholic who has just finished her baccalaureate at a convent in Paris, la Couvent des Oiseaux, run by the nuns of Saint Augustine.

“Also, in the same article, it said that the French government has eagerly approved this relationship and viewed it as a positive step for the young emperor, a union that would help improve his image. But in my opinion, the conflict between the two cultures, Vietnam and France, may have unforeseen repercussions on politics.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, madam, the Vietnamese people were hoping that our new king would abolish the French influences from Vietnam. However, it does not seem likely. A young boy is sent off to France, raised by a French ambassador to think and behave like a Frenchman. Do you think he would rebel against a culture that he was made a part of? His future wife, who is a Catholic, will also play a crucial role in his career. I doubt that her religion will allow him to have more than one wife. By contrast, his ancestors, by this age, would have had several concubines and established many families. Mademoiselle Nguyen's parents have been active in their religion. The fact that they were responsible for the construction of the first three cathedrals in the south of Vietnam has proven their wealth and power among the Christian community.”

“What rank is her family in the court?” Lady Chin asked.

“I am afraid that they are not royalty, madam.”

She sucked at her teeth. “That might pose an extreme barrier to the acceptance of the girl's relatives in the court, Mr. Ung. After all, it has been our tradition and prerequisite for the queen to derive from noble blood. No doubt this young woman belongs to a horrible class of businessmen. Oh, is it not bad enough that she is a commoner, does she have to worship the missionary god instead of the Buddha like the rest of us? I imagine that the councilmen and the Queen Mothers would refuse to grant their approval, and the king might have to look for his new queen somewhere else.”

“Quite the opposite,” the eunuch replied. “They have all approved of her. The mere fact that she is Vietnamese instead of some French girl is enough to make the royal family heave a sigh of relief. Just this afternoon, I learned that Lady Thuc has given her permission for the emperor to take a trip to Dalat, where he will have an intimate rendezvous with Mademoiselle Nguyen's family. I entreat you not to leave this social gathering yet, because tonight you are witnessing the making of history, Madam Chin.”

“I still do not understand what the French want from us. Why can they not leave us to govern our country in peace?”

“Money, madam,” the eunuch said. “Also, the missionaries see us as barbaric and heathen. They want to save our souls by persuading us to worship a popular Western god, and therefore civilize our people into the modern world. To them, we are just a colony, not an independent country that has any rights.”

Lady Chin felt as if she had awakened from a long sleep. The eunuch's explanations had opened her mind to a world that was shut down when her family died. However, his voice was beginning to sound incoherent to her, as though he were speaking in another language.

Something else had caught her attention—a vision that emerged from a corner of the platform. For a second, her son seemed to appear in the crowd. Suddenly, she was very tired. She laid her head back against the railing and closed her eyes. Through her eyelids, she could still feel the intense heat from the lights overhead.

Below her, the emperor announced his early departure from the party, and some of the excitement seemed to leave with him. Something heavy crept up her chest. She must have drifted away, because when she opened her eyes, she was looking straight up at the ceiling. Against its white stucco dome-shaped lining, Ung's face was hovering like a moon. He wore the same helpless expression she had seen years ago, when he had found her teetering on the ledge of her apartment window.

He was shaking both of her shoulders. She responded by blinking her eyes while remaining perfectly still, no longer fearful, but in utter disbelief. Then she smiled, feeling herself float like a fully expanded balloon.

“Dear Heavens, madam, how are you feeling?” he asked. “What has happened?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Only, as you see, I just realized the true identity of the servant who comes by my room each day to feed me. In my delirium I did not recognize him at first.”

“Who are you talking about?”

Her eyes were fixed on a young man who sat behind a bamboo screen. A thick canvas was stretched on a wooden frame before him, and on it, the emperor's portrait was taking form with uncanny likeness. Balls of colored thread lay scattered over the floor; some were sticking to his clothes.

“Are you referring to the queen's official embroiderer, Dan Nguyen?” he asked.

She nodded and closed her eyes once again. “Please take me back to my chamber and arrange for a meeting with that young man. I must speak to him.”

chapter seventeen

The Portrait of the King

T
he dancing guests cast flickering shadows on the inlaid dragons that capered across the marble floor. Above the mahogany parquet and solid hand-carved oak beams that formed the dais for the king's throne, the embroiderer sat, weaving a royal portrait. A fog of cigarette smoke surrounded his platform, caressing him with its cottony tendrils. As the fumes burned his eyes, the progress of his stitches slowed. Below him, the party was reaching its height of excitement.

Dan Nguyen hummed as he coaxed a strand of dark-brown silk into the coarse canvas, creating the lower rim of the emperor's left eye. Layer upon layer, he kept adding threads to the flat surface of the fabric, sculpting the curves of King Bao Dai's features in three-dimensional clarity. In his expert hands, the golden needle leapt like a flash of lightning, replicating the vision inside his head. Although he had created many likenesses in this fashion, the richness that materialized in his tapestries never ceased to amaze him. He examined each new image with childlike disbelief, as if somehow, like a spider, he had spun strands of life from his own veins and woven them into living art. Above the deep cloud of pollution, the dome-shaped ceiling, composed of six enormous triangular ocean-blue crystals, spread fanwise to provide an overhead view of the sky. Twelve mahogany columns, embossed with gold dragons, supported this spectacular glass roof. From where he sat, Dan could see the rising moon, like a mellow chandelier; its light added to the brightness inside.

The full moon shining on the great house meant good fortune, and the throne was placed so that the emperor could have a commanding view of the universe and its heavenly bodies. Tonight the glorious sight went unappreciated, since the young king was weary from his long journey and, in spite of the ongoing party and lively company, had retired early to his bedchamber. The Throne of the Son of Heaven, lacquered in red and encrusted with gold, remained unoccupied.

Dan stopped embroidering, secured his needle in his black silk headdress, and looked at his pocket watch. He struggled to focus his attention on the portrait, but his mind wandered. The song he was singing contained the low rustling of the wind across a cornfield, a reminder of his life before the citadel.

He tried not to revisit the past often. Memories suffocated him, made him feel as if he had dived to the bottom of a river to explore a beautiful but haunted world to which he no longer belonged. At such times, his songs were gusts of wind that helped him restart his lungs. From the music came a thrill of anticipation. He could sense the approach of the one he longed to see—or was it the desperation of his fanciful mind?

According to the schedule of festivities, it was time for the imperial talent troupe to perform an act of the famous opera
The Jade Pin.
In his mind he could already hear the first stanza of the lyrics.

Where is his tormented lover?

With a baffled face and a turbulent heart,

Phan Sink paced to and fro, in and out, in vacillation.

The gentle wind carried an aroma of incense,

And his sudden attack of anguish evaporated. He began to think of her again, unequivocally.

The sound of crickets chirping echoed in his ears,

Together with the cackles of roosters and hens, piercing his lonely heart.

The beating of the gongs and the clashing of brass plates from the time-teller signaled the last interval of night.

His book was set in front of him; he was unable to read. His lute stayed hanging right beside him; he was in no mood to play…

“Tai May, where are you?” he muttered. The sound of her name poured down his body with the velocity of a waterfall. Dan was certain he had startled the entire ballroom with the intensity of emotion in his voice. Judging from the blank expressions of the guards nearby, no one had heard him. He retrieved the needle from his hair covering and went back to the canvas.

So many years had passed, but Dan's memories of Tai May were still painfully vivid. He had not forgotten anything about her face, her body, and the willfulness of her personality. Time and again, he had captured her features on canvas until he surrounded himself with likenesses of her face. With his eyes closed, he could still feel her warm breath gliding on his skin, taste her soft kiss, and smell the perfume of her powdered skin. She was constantly in his thoughts, from the first sunlight that touched his eyes in the morning to the last lantern he blew out at night. In his dreams he saw her, floating like a princess among the dancing images in his mind.

He had taken her advice and come to Hue City, where he was just another face in the crowd. At first he lived with some fishermen along the edge of the river not far from the citadel. They were part of the beggar community that included coolies, laborers, mussel-gatherers, and sometime outlaws. The nearby market, famous for its size and location, always needed laborers like Dan.

The beggars had welcomed him into their circle; they accepted anyone who was homeless and starving. They were like the peasants in his village, plain and guileless, but instead of scraping the soil for food, they skimmed the river. Most of them had nothing beyond what they earned in a day's labor and from begging, and from the outset Dan had understood that he could never be one of them.