“How will you greet your husband when you see him?” Second Aunt sounds cordial, but her bitterness about her aspirations for her husband to assume authority in the household has only grown over the years, leaving her face lined with resentment. “Will you be kind or—”
“Complain that he didn’t bring you a bolt of silk—”
“Or a jade bracelet—”
“Or will you quickly take him to the bedchamber so he might give you a son?”
I glance at the faces of the women who sit together in their late morning circles in the inner chambers. The room fairly buzzes with anticipation. My husband is coming home for a three-month visit. He’s bringing with him an official from the Department of Service in Beijing who is reported to be one of the richest, most refined, cultivated, and influential men in the capital. As such, he has powerful connections to the imperial palace. In the inner chambers, the women are surprised—and shocked—to learn that the official is bringing his wife and mother with him. The traveling party should arrive shortly, and we all have our ears perked, listening for the sounds of cymbals, drums, clappers, and horns that always accompany a high-ranking official’s procession.
I tilt my head modestly, as I’ve seen Meiling do so many times. “I’m very much looking forward to seeing Maoren. It’s been months since he was last here.”
“It is in a woman’s nature to be plagued by vitriol,” Second Aunt comments, “so plant a pretty smile on your face when you see him.”
I take her advice to be as meaningful as a single grain of rice in a banquet cauldron. Nevertheless, I remain respectful in my response. “I will, Second Aunt.”
“After all,” she goes on, “who knows what our husbands have been doing and who they’ve been doing it with when they’re away.”
“You’re speaking of jealousy,” Fourth Aunt jumps in, as though every person here doesn’t know that this is the very emotion that causes her to carp at her husband whenever he’s home.
“Or envy,” one of Second Uncle’s concubines quips from across the room. “Who here hasn’t heard you banging on my door when the master is visiting me?”
Lady Kuo holds up a hand. “That’s enough!”
And it is for a few moments. But over where the widows and spinsters sit something’s brewing. Those old ladies can be unpredictable. Great-Aunt, who moved here after her husband’s family died out, can be especially nettlesome, yet her voice sounds casual when she begins speaking.
“A bevy of husbands was afraid of their wives.” Heads swing in Great-Aunt’s direction at the recognition of the beginning of the familiar story. “One day those men met in a tavern to discuss what to do. The first man said, ‘I will beat my wife into submission. She will be as docile as a doe in springtime.’?”
One of the other widows is ready with the next part. “The second man said, ‘I will stop feeding my bride. Hunger will tame her bossiness.’?”
“The third man said, ‘I will tie my wife to the bed,’?” Great-Aunt resumes. “?‘She won’t be able to escape my charms then.’?”
Listening to them, I miss Spinster Aunt. I think a couple of other women do too.
“All of a sudden, who should appear?” Great-Aunt asks in mock alarm. “Why, it was one of the Six Grannies! This one happened to be a crone who made her living as a fortune-teller. She warned the husbands. ‘Look out! Look out! Your wives are coming!’ Despite their earlier daring words, two of the men scattered like fleas from a dead cat. The third man stayed planted to his chair, proving he was the most valiant of men.” She falls silent to let the suspense build. Then, much like Spinster Aunt did in the past, she leans forward to confide in a voice just loud enough for everyone to hear. “But when the other husbands regained their courage, they approached only to discover he’d frozen to death from fear!”
I join the laughter, but inside I’m as nervous as a bride. I’m lucky to love my husband and for him to love me in return, but sending letters back and forth over great distances by foot courier is not the same as sharing a bed.
Just then, we hear the first sounds of the procession. Lady Kuo raps her knuckles on the arm of her chair, signaling that she wishes me to approach. Standing before her, I feel every pair of eyes in the room on me. Poppy helped with my hair, brushing it until it shines, and inserting my best gold and jade pins to hold and decorate the upswept bun. The red paint on my lips and pink powder on my cheeks stand out even brighter and, I hope, alluringly, above my snow-white gown made of silk as thin and translucent as a cicada’s wing. My mother-in-law would never offer a compliment, but on this day she can’t complain about how I look.
“Do you think it will be better for you to be at the front gate, attend the banquet, or be in your bedchamber when my son arrives?” she asks.
There is only one correct response. “Though I long to see my husband and every minute apart has been a sword in my heart, I’ll remain in my room. I hope his desires will bring him to me quickly.”
Lady Kuo nods her approval. Then, “While my duty is to oversee the banquet for our guests, please be confident that I’ll watch to make sure my son neither eats nor drinks too much. I want him active in the bedchamber.”
I bow my head in deference, although it’s hard to imagine what control she might have over my husband in this regard. She raps her knuckles again to dismiss me and then rises to address the room. “We don’t often receive guests in the inner chambers. I expect everyone to be hospitable.” After a pause, she adds, “I realize tomorrow is the day Doctor Wong and Young Midwife pay their monthly call. Their work is too important to cancel. I’ll make sure you each have an opportunity to see them, but please remember that our men are making connections that can build the Yang family’s wealth and reputation. We must do all we can to help by showing these traveling women”—those last words come out of her mouth as though she’s speaking of ghouls—“that we live by the values Confucius and the emperor have set forth.”
Not long after she leaves, I tell my daughters to keep working on their embroidery and then retire to my room. Listening to the distant sounds of arrival and greeting, and later the hum from the welcome banquet being held in the second courtyard, I keep returning to my wedding night and the anticipation I felt. The evening crawls toward midnight, but I remain still, so movement won’t smear my makeup or push a single hair out of place. My gown drapes across my lap to the floor. I adjust the fabric so that the toes of my shoes peek out from the puddled silk as an enticement. I am like this—as sublime as a figurine of the Goddess of Mercy in meditation—when Maoren enters. My appearance has the desired effect.
“Tonight we will make a son,” my husband says, pulling me into his arms.
* * *
The next morning, the visitors are already settled in the inner chambers when I enter. Everyone is in attendance, which means that Doctor Wong and Meiling have yet to arrive. My mother-in-law motions for me to sit next to her. It’s the first time I’ve been positioned as the woman second in line of importance in the household. I should feel honored—and I do—but I’m distracted by the strangers among us and how different they are. Lady Liu, the wife of the visiting dignitary, tells us she’s twenty-three years old. Her mother-in-law, Widow Bao, is fifty-one. Their clothes are fine but not as elegant as what we can have made in our province, where silk and dyes are superb and plentiful. Still, the simplicity of their gestures shows their refinement, while what I imagine to be big-city sophistication spills from their lips.
“The emperor has sent my husband to travel the length and breadth of our country. He is to find men and boys who would like to enter service as eunuchs in the palace,” Lady Liu tells us. “Many husbands are gone for years at a time, and we women must accept our loneliness. My husband takes a different view. He wants his wife and mother to be with him in his journeys. In this way, we are not so different from the wives of the lowest juren scholars who accompany their husbands to remote postings.”
“How admirable,” Lady Kuo says, but to her this choice is as far from being admirable as the moon is from the sun.
“Knowing my son as I do,” Widow Bao says, “I can tell you he is happy to have the women of his family around him when each day he’s looking for other families willing to sell their sons—and grown men who wish to offer themselves—only to have their three privates cut off so they might be employed in the palace. My son’s job is important, no question, but he profits from the hardship of many.”
Lady Kuo purses her lips against such blunt words. Into the silence, Lady Liu tries to smooth the rough edges of her mother-in-law’s comments. “Eunuchs are needed in the Forbidden City to care for the emperor, but their most important job is to watch over the women in the palace. Some emperors keep as many as ten thousand wives, concubines, and consorts.”