The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (49 page)

“You’re to be my successor, Chia-ch’ing. I’ve given up hope of finding a better. I can hope no more: all of you have turned it to gall. Here, see this little key that fits my writing desk. When Heaven calls me, you shall open my desk and find a document in the book
Li Ch’ing
naming you heir to the throne.”

He still gazed fixedly at Chia-ch’ing’s plump composed face. Chia-ch’ing stared sadly before him; his loose left eyelid twitched. “I don’t want to be your heir, Majesty. I can’t see any difference in the way you sent Pu-wang off to the Ili and send me to the throne of the Ta Ch’ing. You accuse me. I don’t deserve it.”

Both were silent. Refined singing from the guest hall wafted across.
Oh, who could for long tramp the path of life, that all must travel alone?

The Emperor seemed to have forgotten the conversation. Chia-ch’ing was profoundly astonished at the extraordinary changes in his father’s expression: the strongest tension and complete exhaustion chased each other across it. Only now did Chia-ch’ing notice that Ch’ien-lung had brought back from Jehol hollowed temples, a mouth whose movement and lines had lost their sharpness. At first the Emperor had seemed still in command of his old impulsiveness, but from his eyes something helpless, woeful, anxious often escaped that was new in Ch’ien-lung. Chia-ch’ing was especially shocked by an occasional lowering, hunted expression that regularly preceded a look of apathy. This expression so unmanned
the prince that with an obscure feeling of calamity he could barely restrain himself from leaving the spot.

He said, when he noticed his father straining constantly after the distant singing, “My father spent many days listening to wise sayings from the west. You were going to speak of them.”

“Of Paldan Ishe?”

“Yes.”

“Or of this bench? This pleases me more than Paldan Ishe. Do you know this bench? One night at the new moon they came creeping, three, four, one behind the other: the half blind woman P’ei, fat Mien-k’o, Pu-wang; a child with the heart of a criminal, Mrs Ying, whom I do not know. I was the fifth, Chia-ch’ing. Though I sat in Jehol or in the monastery of Kolotu’r and slept, this Mrs P’ei had me in her power as I slept. It is possible, no doubt of that; I recognize it in my ailments, when I lose myself for whole weeks and find myself again. She managed to squeeze me into the little jade doll, spirit me away with a movement of her hand like this, or this, or this; and then they carried me a living corpse here by this bench, down here into the earth. So the vampire, confined, half suffocating, could tear at me, at what the woman had left of me. Pu-wang, my son, stood there, and my son Mien-k’o; their eyes glittering with hungry joy, little Pu-wang, the swine Mien. I can well imagine that night. Where were you that night, Chia-ch’ing?”

“At the jade fountain on Wanshou-shan.”

“You were at Wanshou-shan. That’s how you attend to my interests, when I have need of you. If the dead weren’t with us we’d be quite forsaken. You are my only friend; I still place my hopes in you. The shades are my only friends.”

“I fear the Tibetan’s visit has overtaxed Your Majesty. You seem so exhausted; your arms are trembling.”

“That was the woman P’ei and Mien-k’o and Pu-wang, the
whole tribe. They managed that much. They made me half mad, so that I begged Paldan Ishe for advice and counted myself lucky to receive it, I here on this bench, with trembling arms, the son of Yung-cheng, grandson of K’ang-hsi. That’s the solution of this east-westerly riddle. No, Panchen Rinpoche, your wooden sceptre doesn’t make me shudder. Your black scabs, your peeling flesh are much more interesting to me. Unmasked.—Am I trembling much, Chia-ch’ing?”

“It comes from the lateness of the hour. If we go back to the guests in the hall, my father will feel better. Or if we walk across to the orchids. My orchids gave you pleasure once. Won’t you stand up? It would give me the greatest happiness to enjoy your confidence. I have neglected nothing, and shall neglect nothing, in my devotion to you. Won’t you stand up?”

“No, stay here a while.”

“Are you looking for something down there? Have you dropped something?”

Ch’ien-lung had bent forward and was grubbing with his jewelled fan in the earth.

“No, nothing. I haven’t dropped anything. I just want to show you I’m not afraid. I can stand up to this Madam P’ei and wicked Mien. It’s not the dark I’m afraid of. You should have seen me last night. When I walked past the guard out through the door. Through the garden. No one saw me. It doesn’t need four people just to carry one doll. You can carry it wrapped in linen in your arms like a child. It’s a little heavier, a little colder. I often carried Pu-wang like that myself; I’m very fond of children. A doll like that doesn’t cry. See here, Chia-ch’ing, I’ve found the place.”

He dug with an effort into the soil; some ribs of his white fan split and hung loose. He seemed to have found what he was looking for; he thrust in his hand, felt about. The soil loosened. He
pulled out a white cloth by one end; something black came with it. Suddenly it rolled free of the cloth. Chia-ch’ing sprang up together with the Emperor, who snatched the doll up from the earth and showed it triumphantly to his cringing son.

“Am I afraid, Chia-ch’ing, or am I not afraid? Don’t be upset; this is me. I’ve no desire to bewitch anyone. I’m not capable of bewitching any of you, whatever your names are. I’ll soon be done with you. How prettily they dressed me up. Madam P’ei must be an excellent seamstress to copy so exactly my undershirt, my gown, girdle, fan, and look, my ring. If I were a demon and didn’t know who Ch’ien-lung was, I too would be fooled by this thing. So finely made, so exquisite. Brother, little brother, so pretty, so alive! Won’t you give me your ring? Let us greet each other, old lateborn brother of jade.”

Chia-ch’ing groaned and shuddered. He was afraid to touch the figure in the linen cloth, yet had to wrest it from Ch’ien-lung.

“Father, what are you doing! Give me the figure. It’s not right to play with the figure. Do it for my sake, father. They’ll see us from the hall.”

Dulcet tones of stringed instruments wafted through the cypresses. The Yellow Lord, his face wrinkled with pleasure, gazed all the while at the doll, pressed it to him. “Tu Fu was wrong, Chia-ch’ing. In the end Tu Fu was wrong. That pleases me. Who could for long tramp the road of life, that each must travel alone. I can, for I’ve found a companion, a companion of stone. I scarcely know if it is he who stands here, I who lie there. Both of us for sure belong together, Chia-ch’ing, the doll and I. And so find the road of life bearable. Sacrifice for us, Chia-ch’ing, my dear son, honour us both. And take us back to my rooms, to our rooms.”

Chia-ch’ing managed to wrest the dooll from the Emperor’s arms, drop it into the hole.

The Emperor made a solemn face, taut with expectancy. He looked straight across to the marble columnss of his palace, a rapt hearkening, a grateful inclination of the ear to barely audible sounds.

He repeated, whispering, “Take us back, dear Chia-ch’ing, to our rooms. We shan’t forget your friendship.”

They exchanged no more words. They set off in the direction of the Emperor’s quarters, across the marble bridge. But Ch’ien-lung suddenly veered aside towards the murmuring guest halls. Then he turned back, and followed Chia-ch’ing.

The Emperor’s steps dragged ever slower the nearer he came to his palace, where white and yellow lanterns gleamed. He ignored the parting words and bows of distraught Chia-ch’ing. At the threshold Ch’ien-lung ducked down, as if he were passing under something.

That night, once more a night of the new moon, Chia-ch’ing slept badly. His dreams were so fevered that by the third night watch he could no longer bear to remain on the hot brickbed, but rolled off and in a daze of sleepiness dressed in the pitch dark room. Not until he was fully clothed and searching for his cap on the table did he come to himself, conscious of his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth, stand there wondering why he had got dressed in the middle of the night.

He sat there a while in the darkness, paced up and down once or twice between the vases that stood on the floor, in sudden disquiet left the room and stood in the front courtyard.

From the watchman’s box, the outline of it barely discernible, came a gurgling and snoring. A damp cold night breeze swept now and then through the broad parklands of the Vermilion City, which lay in a darkness more fearsome than Chia-ch’ing had ever seen.

His heart pounded; in his ears was a thin roaring. He did not know why he stood here or why he was looking up at the treetops.

He slowly turned to go back to his room, but after a few paces realized he had another plan and wanted rather to go out into the park, beneath the trees, and unburden himself of his disquiet.

He trudged slowly through the gate along a path. Gravel crunched under his soft soles. He moved aside onto grass so as not to make a noise, for his steps frightened him. It frightened him that someone should be here in the dark with no companion, and he wondered why it was that this someone had not brought a companion.

Chia-ch’ing’s disquiet grew with every step, every turning in the path. He had no idea why he had chosen to come this way. Whenever he saw a little pavilion between the trees he thought this must be the place—he wasn’t sure what place; but he wasn’t there yet. In his great anxiety he Sighed and rubbed his cheeks with both hands.

The paths emerged from the trees. He felt his way around enormous fountains like black fingers. Then suddenly he stood rapt, hands drawn up to his throat like a swimmer, screwed up eyes.

A dark apparition came swiftly down the path; he could make it out only from the movement. It meant to slip past; it was gone. He ran behind it, reached it in four strides, held it fast.

It was a woman with unbound hair, who thrust at him with her head to push him away.

She whispered, “What have I done to you?”

He slapped her face, struggled with her to the foot of a cypress. Now Chia-ch’ing realized he was right next to the Emperor’s apartment.

He snarled at her, “Demon! Where’ve you been? What have you done? Tell me your name!”

She bit his finger, looked malevolently up at him. He threw the apparition against a tree root. It made no sound, held fast to his legs.

He could not subdue her, and when he saw her spiteful grin such a shiver ran down his spine that in a panic he trampled his legs free from her hands. The woman flung herself to one side snarling. Chia-ch’ing grabbed a dangling girdle-end. She struggled to free herself, but in a trice he had her on her feet, hands bound in a noose, and with great strides, the woman whimpering behind him, ran to the Emperor’s apartment that lay concealed in the profound darkness, tied her twisting and spitting hand and foot to a stone hitching post for elephants, stood trembling by the door.

He pushed over the threshold. He remembered how curiously the Emperor, that little slender figure, had ducked his head under the tall doorarch. He too had better duck his head.

Ch’ien-lung had not gone to bed that evening. After perusing documents in his study, entering corrections to his great poem on the city of Mukden, he ate little for his supper. But the chamberlain remarked how much wine the Emperor drank, how at the end of the meal he sat silent at the table, ordered no music, no game of morra with his favourites.

Tightlipped, as if he did not see them, he brushed past the most graceful beauties of his harem standing in their purple gowns at the door of the dining room, summoned by Hu to enliven the Emperor’s mood. He passed the prostrate rows of eunuchs and serving girls with steps now fast, now hesitating. Once he raised his hand to the servant who followed with a lamp, uttered, “A-kuei,” pondered, waved him away.

In his room he tried to read by the light of an oil lamp. It was a little work that Paldan Ishe had presented to him, a Tibetan text translated into Manchu, entitled
The Prayer of Deliverance from the Abyss of the Intermediate State
.

He stretched out on his mattress bed after dismissing the servants, dozed off for a while with the woodframed pages, waking
gazed about the tall wide room with its scent of sandalwood. His beard was crushed and matted, one cheek glowed red, his hands and feet were frozen. He sniffed. Hot bitterness stuck in his throat.

No sound outside; it must be late. Ch’ien-lung felt his way to the edge of the uncurtained bed. His girdle was too tight; he loosed the knot and let it drop together with the broken fan and clinking ornaments onto the vermilion carpet, in which golden orchids sparkled like stars, stamped its surface with milky discs.

He noticed that he was groaning loudly, that he must be ill again, but he noticed this only for brief moments. Then the doddering man busied himself among cabinets, mirrors and vases, sought in corners, felt with his fingers on the carpet, scratched with his thumbnail at the woven flowers, kneeling hollowed his hand and tried to scoop or scrape up the shimmering stars so he could rub them on his tongue.

A little bronze cow grazed in a corner. Ch’ien-lung, stooping, laid his right arm, sleeve pulled up, onto the cold metal back, moved one leg and bobbed as if he were going to mount the beast.

He picked up the Tibetan book. Sitting on the bed he turned the pages over and over and pressed them whimpering to his breast so that the edges splintered and snapped the chain around his neck. Moaning louder he buried the paper in his face, sobbed, “Paldan Ishe, Paldan Ishe,” and with his head hidden in his left arm sent the fingers of his right hand groping blindly for the pearls that were dropping one by one from the chain, rolling across his lap.

The old man slid to the floor after them. When he had gathered a handful he put them where his girdle lay, so that they rolled gently apart.

Abstractedly he got to his feet, stumbled over the carpet, murmured, “Pray, Paldan Ishe, pray. They’re stealing me from here. Pray, Paldan Ishe.”

He crept against the wall at the foot of his white bed. The wall was recessed like a cupboard: a little altar with an ancestral tablet filled the space. Ch’ien-lung shifted from side to side in front of the altar. His grizzling and groaning, in a descending scale, were like the monotonous dirge of a flogged man. The Emperor, dulleyed, tears trickling, turned towards his bed, tugged down a purple coverlet, retreated to the recess in the wall. Tangled in the cloth he stumbled, and twice stood still when pearls cracked under his feet. Then he raised the purple shroud and hung it with fumbling hands over the altar, secured it around the silver tablet.