A few hours later, my family begins the journey home. No matter the age, everyone looks tired but happy. It pleases me greatly to see husbands sitting with their wives as we glide across the water. I hope that a year from now we will see many infant sons.
That night Maoren comes to my bedchamber. He sits cross-legged at one end of my marriage bed. I sit across from him, my legs tucked to the side, my gown flowing about me, my feet peeping out just so. While he has his trio of Snows to keep him entertained, he still likes to come to my bedchamber now and then. I may have given birth to four children. I may not be as slender and lithe as I once was. I may even have a few lines at the corners of my eyes, but my feet are as perfect as the day my mother finished shaping them. Maoren takes them in his hands. Men may be heaven and the sun, but nothing can change the essential weakness of Essence. Despite all we women are taught, I suspect that in time every wife on earth comes to understand this fundamental truth.
* * *
The next day, I stay in the inner chambers through lunch and then absent myself to go to the Hermitage. The gingko trees have grown and the stands of bamboo thickened, but the sound of wind through branches and water trickling over rocks has remained the same. I cross the zigzag bridge to the Hermitage terrace. The building may have originally been intended as a place for men to meet, but it’s fully mine now. The interior looks much like my grandparents’ pharmacy did in the Mansion of Golden Light. Eight teak chairs are lined up with their backs to a wall. Grandmother Ru’s books and jars of herbs fill shelves on the opposite wall. After Grandfather’s passing, I moved his library of medical books and the larger furniture, including my grandparents’ three pearwood medicine cabinets with all the little drawers to hold ingredients, into the Hermitage as well.
Never force an illness to fit an existing formula. What matters is to find balance between the body, emotions, and the world. Almost everything I use to make medicines I keep here in the Hermitage. My herbs of choice are peony, angelica root, and lotus leaf—all of which strengthen a woman’s yin. In addition to the standard herbs suitable for women and girls, I also stock the usual ingredients that a wife can give her husband to promote his liveliness in the bedchamber or extend his longevity.
The first woman who comes today is from the outside. She’s as thin as a reed. Her pulses lack vitality, and her flesh has a yellowish tint to it. “I’ve given birth to ten children,” she mumbles as though she doesn’t have the strength to push the words from her mouth.
“You have done your wifely duties well,” I praise her.
“But I don’t want to have another baby. I can’t have another one. I’m so tired.”
Of course she’s tired. Too many women suffer from at least one of the Five Fatigues, three of which are brought on by grief, worry, and enervation. None, however, is as difficult to avoid or overcome as the fatigue that comes from giving birth and raising children—especially for the poor, who are without help. The symptoms are easy to recognize: loss of weight due to malnutrition, pallor brought on by exhaustion, feet and hands that go from cold to hot and back again, and dreams that interrupt the restorative nature of sleep. I have yet to meet a man who would be able to sustain a balanced qi when faced with such difficulties and challenges.
“You want control over your body,” I say, “but you’re afraid of what will happen if you tell your husband you will not perform bedchamber activities.”
“Very afraid,” she admits.
“I can give you herbs to regulate your monthly moon water, guaranteeing that it will arrive on time,” I promise her. “You must take the remedy without fail. If you don’t and you forget yourself one night, you may become pregnant.”
The wife of one of my husband’s cousins arrives next for a follow-up visit.
“I can’t wash away my anger,” she tells me as she weeps into a handkerchief.
“Cases like yours are difficult to treat,” I say.
“I’m grateful that your father helped my husband get appointed to a post on the Board of Punishments, but—”
“I’m sorry for my father’s part in your suffering.” I try to sound placating, but inside I think about how levying punishments—beatings, banishment, and death—is so contrary to the purpose of women, which is to bring life into the world. But this is not the only issue. To celebrate a recent promotion, my patient’s husband has acquired a concubine just fifteen years old. What woman wouldn’t become ill from anger?
I hold her wrist to feel her pulse. “I’ve been thinking about your case, and this morning I made adjustments to your formula. You will taste the difference.”
She nods to let me know she understands.
“You and I can do nothing about your husband and his concubine,” I go on, “and I don’t know that I can extinguish completely the fire that burns in your heart, but let us try to smother the flames until they’re smoldering embers.”
My third case is one I know only too well and have suffered from myself: the inability of a wife to give her husband a son. The patient is thirty years old and married to another of my husband’s cousins. I perform three of the Four Examinations and then consider how they’ve changed in the months I’ve been treating her. Then I begin to ask…
“Tell me about your monthly moon water. Has it become regular yet?”
The woman shakes her head, keeping her eyes focused on her hands.
“Would you call it heavy or light when it arrives?” I inquire.
She whispers her reply. “So heavy I feel dizzy when it comes.”
And on it goes.
Later, after the last patient leaves, I make a pot of tea and sit on the terrace. My mind is filled with ideas about the kinds of cases I could include in a book. I want to write about those problems that stem solely from being a woman. Oh, our feet may take different shapes and mark us by class, but we share breasts and the travails of the child palace. We are connected through blood and Blood. We also share the same emotions. When suffering, how can a woman not feel despair, frustration, or anger—whether rich or poor, educated or illiterate, childless or a mother? In other words, we are all trapped to some extent by our physical and emotional selves, but each woman is trapped in a different way. The empress—the most important woman in the world—is confined to the Great Within. Women like those who live in the Garden of Fragrant Delights and the Mansion of Golden Light may be among the most elite in China, but we’re also the most constrained, having lived our entire lives in the inner chambers in first our parents’ homes, then our husbands’. Concubines and servants get glimpses of the outside world, but they are bought and sold. Common women—those married to farmers, butchers, and shopkeepers, those who labor in silk factories or sort tea leaves, and those who fall under the category of the Three Aunties and Six Grannies—may work in the outside world of men, but they can’t avoid the hardships that come as a result. Just look at Meiling. She can go where she wants when she wants, but a midwife like her must suffer the disdain of husbands and fathers. Isn’t that just another version of being trapped?
When Meiling arrives the next morning, I sit at a respectful distance as she examines the women in our household who’ve entered the month or are doing the month. After each woman, Meiling looks my way and says, “All is well.” I never doubt her assessments.
When her examinations are complete, I invite her to my bedchamber. Poppy brings in a light meal. As my friend and I eat, I relay the ideas I’ve been pondering about medicine for women.
“This is exactly why I think you should write a book,” she says, her enthusiasm bright.
“Then we shall begin after lunch.”
Later, she follows me through the antechamber and the dressing room of my marriage bed and onto the sleeping platform. We sit side by side with our backs against the cushions as we have since we were little girls. I wiggle loose the panel where I’ve secreted the notebooks with my most important cases.
“Here,” I say. “You take one, and I’ll take one. We can decide together which are the best cases.”
It’s not long before Meiling looks up and says, “You should include the story of Yining.”
“She was my first patient in the Garden of Fragrant Delights—”
“A little one who suffered from food damage.”
“I like the idea, because any child can suffer from excessive love in the form of overindulgence.”