The Three Leaps of Wang Lun (46 page)

Hovering between shudders and caresses she remained the respectable young Madam P’ei, rich enough to indulge her whims. In the circles she frequented she never denied the secret mutterings behind her back. She was patient, waited for the moment to reveal her powers, for she hungered after influence in these spheres.

Now the ladies’ salon was joined by a Mrs Ying, pretty as a picture, who was in service with an Imperial princess. The trimness of her figure was rivalled only by her lack of brains. Madam P’ei kept her distance, for she became bitter in the presence of beauty. Mrs Ying gaped in astonishment when she found out about her fascinating powers. She pressed herself on the surprised lady, questioned her about it, paid visits to her apartment, woooed the cool P’ei, who played her along and condescended to her.

But Madam P’ei changed her demeanour at once when Mrs Ying climbed one day delightedly from her sedan chair, embraced her and conveyed an invitation to sip tea with the princess. Now P’ei returned most cordially the impetuous embraces of young Ying,
who felt happy and secure in the company of a Wu. This first courtesy visit to the princess was followed by intimate meetings, and the suburban barber’s grubby house slave stood on the threshold of a glittering career.

She found herself at Court in the Vermilion City among women and eunuchs who were mired in a swamp of superstitious entanglements. Before long the clever Madam P’ei was the centre of attention. Several princes showed up at the conventicles. Dark séances were held in locked rooms, ladies and gentlemen stood up smartly at the suggestion of this elegant woman with the confident movements, who secretly feared nothing more than that one of her experiments might succeed.

Ch’ien-lung’s favourite, Prince Pu-wang, was a free and easy daredevil. His sister wanted him to join their circle; he quickly spoiled the clandestine arrangements of Madam P’ei, whose supposedly evil looks he couldn’t abide. He was easily brought to heel: the gentle and timid princess, shocked at his behaviour and pained at the sorceress’ distress, persuaded P’ei to convince the young man with a practical demonstration. She offered to look the other way as the prince was made to fall for a crude trick. And the delighted woman consented half unwillingly to prophesy for the sneering Pu-wang an early morning encounter which the princess, under a sense of obligation to her insulted guest, took care to bring about. The prince’s astonishment was matched by his ensuing humility and ambivalence towards his sister’s protégée.

In his zeal the young man introduced the renowned Prince Mien-k’o to the magic circle, to which the chief eunuch also belonged. Mien-k’o, broad of shoulder, urgent, always in his general’s uniform with the lion insignia on the breast, a swaggering, boorish fellow, felt extraordinarily honoured to be received into such unusual Company, sat with his overlarge head and open mouth in
the upstairs room used for the séances. Ch’ien-lung hated this son, who stood out with his rough character and was kept in the background. When this squat, conceited man became aware of Madam P’ei’s arts he did not, like Pu-wang, reject them but as the company made its way from the salon appeared silent, grimly excited, so that Pu-wang found the woman even more convincing.

In the warrior’s muddled brain an idea took hold: to conquer Madam P’ei for himself and force her to place her talents at his disposal. Little Mrs Ying, who had been his concubine before her marriage, and chief eunuch Shang were startled to be overhauled by the prince’s runners on the way to Madam P’ei, invited into his own sedan chair and, as they were borne through the streets, informed without preamble that Madam P’ei had offered to serve him and he was going to make use of her occult powers. Mrs Ying and Mr Shang had to help him secure the lady. They wouldn’t lose by it. But the sorceress had better be taken into safekeeping, because it was absolutely essential to guard against betrayal.

Mr Shang’s protestations that there was nothing to fear as to the sorceress’ willingness were hoarsely dismissed by the prince, who looked at them from swollen bull’s eyes. It had to be done with resolution and force. You couldn’t trust a spirit woman; at which Mrs Ying gave a determined nod.

And so that afternoon the curious affair took place. Madam P’ei, collected in all her finery by Mr Shang and Mrs Ying, was carried in the sedan Chair of Imperial Prince Mien to a secluded house in the Forbidden City, was led on her arrival to a back room, set upon by the hideous prince, bound and laid on the floor. He took the silk cloth from her mouth when, half choked, she indicated by wild shakes of the head that she wasn’t going to scream. As she sat on the floor in her sumptuous furlined gown, snivelling quietly and fearing for her life, Mien stumped up and down in front of her,
swished his ceremonial sabre and declared himself the protector of her life and her safety if only she’d place herself, without any reservations, at his disposal.

Madam P’ei had to support herself against the wall. She’d thought the dark prince was going to unmask her, and instead—desired her. This abduction was just like his headstrong ways. She pretended confusion, referred to her good family. The solid man propped himself on his weapon and summed up brutally, “Yes or no?” at which, although she found his appearance not especially pleasing, she whispered a tender Yes, cried again quietly and squinted across at him.

He explained in the same surly tone that she’d live there for a while, leave the house only in a sealed sedan in the company of Mr Shang and Mrs Ying. She didn’t need to conjure spirits, summon shades, cure or cause sickness from a distance; she was just to be at his complete disposal. To which she assented with a sigh.

Mrs Ying was not a little astonished when she appeared that evening at her friend’s locked room and the latter embraced her laughing. Madam P’ei told her she’d soon grow accustomed to these new circumstances. At first she’d been afraid of the rude prince, but actually it was only his manner that was so frightening. What he wanted of her would of course cost her some spiritual difficulty, but—. And Mrs Ying, pleased, took up the ‘but’, urged her to take everything as it came, calmly and without fuss. The prince swore by her, but everything must stay a secret.

The next morning found lovehungry P’ei in a difficult position. Enlightened by the prince as to his not in the least amorous intentions, she had to conceal her disappointment and attend to the complexities of his plans. Mien’s evil plot was to have a certain man, at a particular time, by some suitable means, fall ill and not too much later die. At the princess’s apartment, in Mien’s presence,
Mrs P’ei had often boasted of such abilities, which every experienced Wu possessed. Now Madam P’ei wept in earnest and wouldn’t be comforted by the prince. She wept for her lost beauty and how horribly everything had turned out. She was close to jumping up, striking the man, who was watching out for it, on the face and screaming out her inability. The whole business showed the prince in a foolish light which disgusted the spoiled woman. She wept on in fury, remembered her childhood in the barber’s house and was slow to calm herself. The prince, who had left her alone, returned two hours later. She begged his forgiveness: a woman’s heart could not easily attach itself to new things. Mien questioned her more closely about the methods one used to bewitch a distant person, bring about his death. She thought the simplest way would be to send him a potion, but this, after some reflection, Mien rejected: it seemed too dangerous. Couldn’t she carry out his intentions without leaving her room? After considering a while Madam P’ei, brightening, declared that she could. She proposed to entice the spirit of the condemned man into a doll, bury the doll at the threshold of the man’s apartments; before long the man would grow mad, kill himself or in some other way die quickly.

Mien swung his arms: it should be done. He made her repeat her vow to keep mum and gather her powers. If all went well she’d be rewarded with whatever she wanted; nothing would be denied her.

And so Madam P’ei, ensnared in this manner, was only a little startled when the monstrous man bent towards her, weapons clanking, to whisper in her ear, having pushed aside the string of pearls that dangled from her headdress: it was the Emperor she was to bewitch.

The trust accorded her in this circle had excited her before now. Now a passion coursed through her head, her eyes were dazzled. She made up her mind to succeed, to hold power.

In addition to Mrs Ying and the eunuch, who took pains to preserve the secret of P’ei’s whereabouts, a lapidary was brought into the plot, a friend of the eunuch who often worked in the palaces of the Vermilion City. He was given four thousand taels by Prince Mien and a golden amulet representing the God of Longevity. Mrs P’ei commissioned him to carve a jade statue of the Emperor as big as an arm; he was to depict the Emperor lying down, wearing only a linen nightshirt. The further decking out of the doll she’d take care of herself.

It was more than five weeks later when the lapidary, working of necessity in secret, finished his task and one evening lifted a finely carved and stained booktrunk from his cart and carried it on his shoulder into the house occupied by Madam P’ei.

The doll of green nephrite was alarmingly like the Son of Heaven. The sleeping head lay on its right side; the mouth breathed slightly open; a flimsy garment flowed down to the bare feet and in restless sleep had slipped from the right shoulder, revealed a strong left ankle; the hands fell thickveined and heavy at either side. The glassy green stone was the image of a near corpse, and at the same time had an unearthly animation that welled from deep within the stone, almost speaking, fending off death.

The conspirators stood around the statue. Mien, sure of triumph, embraced the simple young lapidary, who looked proudly over his botched effort and wondered if a fold shouldn’t have been placed a little differently.

Mrs Ying cried, slunk into a corner where they could hear her sniffling; even Madam P’ei, who at first had stared at the doll in feigned calm, felt unwell. She sobbed, ran in fear from the room and had to be fetched back by Mrs Ying at the prince’s bidding.

The next stage of the work fell to Madam P’ei. After she had got rid of her guests, it took several days before she was able to
approach the doll with equanimity. Then the prince gave her the chance to observe Ch’ien-lung as he strolled among the magnolias and lily ponds of the Forbidden City. And little by little, with incantatory gestures, she absorbed from the man, as he pottered about, some part of his soul; today the spirit of the five viscera: liver, spleen, lungs, heart, kidneys; then the spirit of his eyes, brain. Every time she carried a little object in her closed left hand, the organ whose spirit she was bewitching: liver of blue wood, lungs of white metal, heart of flame-red silk. At home she squeezed the oval of material over the dreaming doll’s body, breast, forehead; incense smouldered, the windows were curtained. Like a sponge the doll absorbed the spirits; the stone began to darken, the figure lost its translucency, brown nodules formed within it from which fine lines and fissures extended like veins into the limbs and sprouted over the skin.

After Madam P’ei, with one last painful burst of concentration, had brought home the Emperor’s life spirit she locked up for five times five days the trunk in which the statue lay. Towards the end of this period perceptible groans and knocks emanated from within. Dark Prince Mien, the lapidary and pretty Mrs Ying leaned over the box as Madam P’ei, her knees now under control, dressed in a Wu-costume of red flames, tensed her arms and heaved open the lid. Warm vapour with a foul musty smell drifted from the trunk. Over her face Madam P’ei wore a snaketongued gilded godmask; her lively rouged hands grasped the doll, which abruptly, like a wild cat, she pressed to her bosom.

They all saw as they stood in a circle about the sorceress that the head of the statue was turned slightly to the front; the right eye had its lid drawn down in a wink; the folds of the gown lay smooth: the doll had stretched. Carefully the woman laid the figure onto the black felt of the table by the oil lamp, one finger always
resting on it. Trembling, hiccuping nervously Mrs Ying, frequently whimpering unawares, brought a delicate white mourning costume in which the sorceress quickly dressed the object.

It was nighttime; thick mist flowed over the silent palaces of the Forbidden City. In front of the Hall of Felicity, where the Emperor slept, the four conspirators felt their way to an ancient thuya tree under which Ch’ien-lung liked to sit. Quickly the prince and the lapidary dug a shallow hole with a shovel they had brought, placed the doll into it, clamped between two boards. The sorceress muttered a few words; a scratching came from the hole; earth was thrown over it.

They separated. It was done.

The doll would overpower the last remnants of Ch’ien-lung’s soul in a choking struggle. The Emperor must die; the doll was bound tight, was unable to rise.

These events took place in the year of the Broken Melon. The Emperor seldom resided in the Forbidden City; the affair made little progress. Madam P’ei returned to her apartments in the town. Prince Mien was a not infrequent visitor; before long he became loud and threatening towards her, convinced that for fear of the Emperor she hadn’t given her powers full rein. Once he struck the indignant woman so hard on the head that a doctor had to attend to the swelling.

She complained of her ill treatment to Mrs Ying and the lapidary, both of whom came and went often. Ying was visibly pleased at her misfortune, for she had grown jealous of Madam P’ei.

The lapidary was a sly, avaricious man who extorted large sums from the prince in this affair. When realization dawned in him how difficult it was he began to doubt the success of the enterprise, looked on P’ei as a moneygrubber like himself and attempted to secure his own safety in good time. Madam P’ei doubled
up in fury at his suggestion that both of them ought to touch the prince for all he was worth, then he’d marry her and take her to his home town in Shansi. Rejected and offended he plotted revenge.

While he was working on a stone garland on the façade of a pavilion by the southern lotus lake, he claimed one day to have mislaid a piece of jade of appreciable size. He made a report to the Supervisor of Building Works, who instituted an energetic search. The lapidary explained that the jade could have disappeared months ago. Thereupon he was flogged for his carelessness; and seeing now how stupidly he’d managed the affair to be punished right at the beginning, he shouted a confession of the whole plot.