In moments, everyone departs.
“Are you ready?” my husband asks. When I nod, he gently lifts my veil. The glow from a special dragon-and-phoenix candle is not enough to light the room, but it does reveal my husband’s face, which is as round and as pale as the moon. He is even more handsome than I’d dreamed.
“Let the candle’s luminosity drive away bad spirits—”
“And bring us good luck,” I finish for him.
“May we be like a pair of mandarin ducks.”
Again, I complete the phrase. “Paired for life in unreserved loyalty and love.”
It’s not long before I discover how lean he is, how strong his shoulders are, and how gentle he can be. As the sounds from the wedding celebrations continue to come to us from a distance, I finally understand, in a way no words or drawings could teach me, about bedchamber affairs. When it’s over, I draw my legs up, with my feet flat on the mattress, and pray that a son is being made.
* * *
The room is dark when I wake the next morning. The dragon-and-phoenix candle has burned to its base. Poppy didn’t sleep in the antechamber of my bed, so she was unable to rise early and open the heavy brocade draperies to bring in light. I shift in the bed, bump against my husband, and immediately pull back as if I touched a hot brazier. I slip off the bed, step through the two antechambers, and into the main room. In the shadowy light, I find my wardrobe, where Lady Huang has placed my folded skirts, vests, tunics, and jackets in drawers according to the season. I dress, comb and pin my hair, and wash my face. I drape myself in my finest rose-cloud cape—rosy in color and voluminous like a cloud—and quietly pad to the door. I open it to find Poppy waiting for me. The sky is just beginning to turn pink. I must hurry…
“Good morning, Little Miss,” she says, handing me a cup of scented tea so I might cleanse my mouth as my mother taught me. “I’ve learned where to take you. Follow me.”
As I look back over my shoulder to close the door, the morning sun sends a wedge of light into the room. My marriage bed, which by any measure is significant in size, seems small in the large space. Through the dimness I see the outlines of embroidered wall hangings and pearwood furniture set just so. I turn back to Poppy, and for the first time meet the grandeur of the Garden of Fragrant Delights. This single courtyard is probably four times the size of the one where I lived with my mother and father. I don’t have time to explore right now. I follow as swiftly as I can behind Poppy through courtyard after courtyard, turning this way and that.
Poppy holds open a door, and I step inside. My mother-in-law and father-in-law, both formally dressed, wait for me. Poppy has already arranged for the hot water, cups, and teapot.
“Father. Mother,” I say as I drop to the ground and put my forehead on the floor.
“Very good,” Master Yang says. “You may continue.”
It is a new wife’s duty to serve tea to her in-laws. My hands shake, but I’m comforted to see the gift from my grandparents—the canister of loose tea leaves. I know the tea will be of the highest quality. I brew tea, pour it, and, with my head bowed in deference, offer the first cup to my father-in-law. Once I hand the second cup to my mother-in-law, I sit back on my heels.
“A family’s fortune can be foretold by whether or not its members are early risers.” My mother-in-law’s tone is no less gruff or demanding than when she shushed the children in the marriage chamber last night. “Rise before dawn and do not retire until my son is ready.”
“Yes, Mother—”
“I would prefer you call me Lady Kuo.”
I’m not sure how to feel about this desire for formality. Does she not see me as part of the family? I will need to work hard to win her approval.
“I will rise earlier tomorrow,” I promise, keeping my gaze lowered.
“So be it.”
And that is that. They dismiss me. I haven’t even had a chance to see their faces. By the time I get back to my room, my husband is gone. My eyes fall on one of the decorations hung on the walls. It shows two birds perched together on a peony branch. This image sends the message of happiness and longevity to newlyweds. Red characters written in flowing script unfurl down the right side of the painting: White-haired, growing old together.
* * *
Three days later, as tradition requires, my husband and I go to my family home. As I suspected, the palanquin transporting me to the Garden of Fragrant Delights had taken a roundabout route. In fact, my grandparents live only fifteen minutes away. I could walk there if I had to. Without any hesitancy, I can send Poppy to deliver letters to my grandparents and brother, but also to Grandmother to give to Meiling.
My grandparents host a banquet for our family, but now I am only a visiting guest. Over the next two days, I barely see my husband, who spends his time with Grandfather. Perhaps they are discussing Maoren’s upcoming examinations or what position he might take once he passes, if he passes. I stay in the inner chambers.
“Was your husband kind on your wedding night?” Miss Zhao inquires.
“What does the house look like?” Lady Huang probes.
“Tell us of your father-in-law,” White Jade urges.
“Will your mother-in-law make a place for you in the household?” Green Jade wants to know.
“Or in her heart?” Red Jade asks, even more pointedly.
I answer that my husband was kind, but I have no one and nothing else to compare my wedding night to. The Garden of Fragrant Delights is too big for me to grasp, let alone explain. My father-in-law seemed nice enough, but I have no idea when I’ll see him again. As for my mother-in-law…
“I don’t think she likes me,” I say.
“Give her time,” Grandmother Ru says. “Mothers-in-law are by their natures demanding. It might be different if her mother-in-law were still alive, because Lady Kuo would then be the second-ranked woman in the household. But she isn’t, which means she controls everything within the gates of the compound, including you. Lady Kuo can make your life miserable, or she can accept you. Just remember that as women we have nowhere to place our emotions except inside our bodies, where they burrow and fester. As a woman born in the Year of the Snake, you must be especially heedful. Snakes are blessed with lovely and smooth complexions, but inside they roil from stress and turbulent emotions. Be careful, dear girl. Be very careful.”
A Container for the Universe
“Start teaching your son when he is a baby,” Lady Kuo recites, seemingly to the air. “Start teaching your daughter-in-law when she first arrives.”
I close my eyes for a moment. What my mother-in-law has said is true, but I take her words as criticism of me. I’ve tried in every way I can think of, using every method I’ve been taught, to please her. I rise every morning one hour before sunrise. I bring her tea and breakfast. I wash her hands and face. Sometimes I pin up her hair. But in these past seven months I have not done the one thing I’m supposed to do, which is get pregnant with a grandson who will guarantee her husband’s direct line and provide for her when she goes to the Afterworld.
I open my eyes to find her assessing me. What have I done wrong today? Is the tea too strong or too weak? Has someone in the inner chambers complained about me… again?
“You look thin, and your color is not fine,” she observes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Eat. Pinch your cheeks.”
She tightens her jaw in her usual show of impatience with me. Her in-laws—my husband’s grandparents—died from typhus five years ago, elevating her to top woman in the household at the young age of twenty-nine. Her forehead is naturally high, but she piles her hair in overlapping buns to accentuate that creamy expanse, sending the message that what is inside is always working. She’s given birth to one son and three daughters, but her figure is slim. Her fingers are long and tapered, but she rules with an iron fist, because, in addition to the usual responsibilities every mother must bear, she keeps the household accounts, tracks the moon-water cycles of every female inhabitant in the Garden of Fragrant Delights, and maintains strength and power in the inner chambers. Poppy tells me that the servants respect her, because she has never once beaten a maid, wet nurse, or kitchen helper so badly that she could not do her job the following day. Scolding, however, is a different matter—whether toward lazy servants, misbehaving concubines, or someone irksome to her, like me.
“What do you have to say?” she asks irritably.
“I’ll try harder.”
“I’ll try harder. I’ll try harder. I’ll try harder.”
My cheeks burn crimson at the way she mimics me.
“Pour me a little more tea, then you may leave,” she says in a softer tone. “I will see you later.”
The liquid flows into her cup without a single drop lost. Then I begin to back out of the room, holding up my skirt so I don’t trip.