“Yunxian,” she says before I reach the door. I stop, waiting for a new critique.
Will it be that I’m not friendly enough in the women’s chambers? That my poetry skills aren’t amusing? That I set a bad example for her daughters and other unmarried girls with my inability to laugh and gossip along with the others?
“I came here as a bride myself,” she says. “I know what it’s like to be on the bottom rung of the ladder, but you must think ahead to when you’re on the top rung.”
She clearly means to encourage me, but all I feel is despair.
“Thank you, Lady Kuo,” I say, but I don’t have her skills and can’t imagine ever becoming adept at them. I miss Grandmother and the purpose I felt at her side. I miss Miss Zhao’s quiet encouragement. I miss Meiling in too many ways to count. In our parting words, I asked her to visit, and she asked me to write. She has not visited. I’ve written many letters but have not received a single reply.
I walk through a colonnade in the direction of the women’s rooms at the back of the compound. It’s still early enough that the servants have yet to dim the wicks that burn in the silk-gauze lanterns that hang above my head. I’m passing through the fourth courtyard when Second Uncle comes hurrying in my direction. As Master Yang’s second brother, he is the second most important person in the household, tasked with many duties and responsibilities. I lift my sleeve to cover my face and avert my gaze until he’s gone past. I don’t say a word and neither does he, but his forceful strides stir the air, causing my sleeves and skirt to billow. Not for the first time I wonder what it would be like to be a man, moving with determination, going beyond the gate, when I’m not permitted to peek through a crack in the wall, if one were even to be found.
I hold on to the balustrade to steady myself. My mother-in-law was right in her assessment of me. I have lost weight. I am pale. My loneliness is a black chasm within me, and I feel weak and sad. I should continue to the inner chambers, but the prospect fills me with gloom. The women there don’t like me. I let my mind drift to my natal home and my grandmother.
“The human body is a small Heaven and Earth,” she tells me. “Whatever happens in the body as a whole is also happening in each appendage and organ. Never forget the deleterious effects of yin on women. We can be invaded through our orifices by Wind, but we also leak and drain from those same openings. Not only are our bodies troubled by Damp, but our emotions are as well. Men have physical cravings for food and bedchamber affairs, but we women ooze affection and desire, love and hatred, envy and jealousy, nervousness and vindictiveness, bitterness and revenge—”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“What are the ingredients for the Decoction of Four Substances, and why are they important?”
“Angelica nourishes Blood, white peony root supports Blood, the rhizome of lovage moves and breaks up Blood, while rehmannia root inspires the qi and balances the cooling properties of the other three ingredients.”
“Always remember, in women, Blood is the leader.”
I take a breath, hold it, and then slowly release it. I’ll go to the inner chambers, but first I’ll visit the Garden of Fragrant Delights—the garden for which the mansion is named. I shouldn’t wander off alone. If someone sees me, I’ll say I’m seeking inspiration for the afternoon’s poetry contest. I continue through the covered colonnade, keeping my face down, trying to make myself invisible. The Yang compound has many large courtyards, mini-courtyards, wings, and structures. Each family group has its own quarters, with a kitchen, dining hall, and private courtyard. There are buildings for washing, storing grain and other foodstuffs, and housing the lesser servants. The Yang family even has its own live-in weavers. Sometimes I hear them singing, but I have yet to follow the sounds to the rooms where they make silk damasks, silk satins, and common raw silk cloth.
When I get to the Courtyard of Whispering Willows, I step through a gate and enter another world. Generations ago, the emperor gave a large plot of land abutting the western side of the mansion to a Yang ancestor who’d served the empire well. That ancestor built a protective wall around the property and then set about creating the Garden of Fragrant Delights. I can’t know what it meant to him, but for me the garden is a refuge. It is, by my guess, even larger than the main compound where we all live.
Pavilions dot the landscape. A stream meanders around rare stones brought from the bottom of Lake Tai, where the waters have riddled them with holes and fissures, giving them a delicate appearance. Strategically placed portals and lattice windows provide the visitor with vistas of the natural world miniaturized. Moon gates lead from one part of the garden to the next, each one giving a perfect view of a twisting tree branch or a spray of orchids. Gingko trees that stood here long before the garden was created cast dappled shade. Flowering trees—the red-petaled peach, the rose-tinted crabapple, and coral-blushed quince—burst forth with splashes of color in different seasons. Vines creep and cling to balustrades and walls; some hang from branches or eaves and wave gently in the breeze. The walkways are inlaid with stones to massage the bottoms of the feet. If the body replicates the cosmos and the ear is a reflection of the entire body, then the garden is a container for the universe. Rocky grottos evoke mountain ranges. Ponds and streams bring forth the idea of lakes and rivers.
Male voices float to my ears from one of the pavilions, and I stay as far away as the paths allow. My father-in-law and other men in the household like to meet there with friends to drink, play cards, sing songs of the mountainfolk, and be entertained by a concubine chosen for her particular skill. That they are still here at this early morning hour tells me that last night’s revelries were particularly enjoyable. I pass the Three-Way Moon-Viewing Pavilion, where I’ve spent precious hours with my husband on the nights of the full moon, observing that silvery orb in the sky, in the reflection of the pond, and in the mirror mounted at an angle above the lounging couch. We’ve tried hard on those nights to make Blood and Essence mingle to create a baby. How could the beauty and romance of this spot continue to fail us so?
I reach a whitewashed building called the Hermitage, which rests in the middle of the garden’s largest pond. I cross the zigzag bridge and step onto the terrace that surrounds the structure. Resting my elbows on the carved marble railing, I gaze down at the water lilies and lotuses that float on the pond’s surface. It’s early enough that the koi are still nestled in the mud. The pond is so shallow, I could probably walk across it and get wet only to my knees. This terrace is my place to contemplate, to wonder, to dream. The garden, where every instance of wildness is manicured and controlled, is a reminder that I—like every man and woman on earth—am insignificant in the face of nature. I try to let the melancholy in my head flow down my arms, out my fingertips, and into the rippling water. As I breathe in the scented air, images of my grandparents, my brother, Miss Zhao, and Meiling come to mind. Think of me. Remember me. Love me.
Fortified, I retrace my steps, leave the garden, and go to the inner chambers at the back of the compound. The women who live in the Garden of Fragrant Delights—including me—are among the most fortunate in the land. This also means we’re kept the most secluded. A good woman should not take three steps beyond the gate. As a result of this belief, some of the concepts found in the garden can be seen in the main gathering room. A miniature stone from Lake Tai sits on a stand. Incense gives off a woodsy scent. Lacquerware screens present tableaus of women watching an opera and attending a dragon boat race—things Lady Kuo would never allow us to do. Brush-and-ink paintings depict a deserted bridge after a snowstorm, a branch of cassia stretched over a pond’s still waters, and a towering mountain range with a small temple inhabited by a lonely monk. A pair of ancestor scrolls hang on one of the walls—the eyes of my husband’s great-great-grandparents keeping watch on us.