“When he left for Buddha’s land years ago, he passed by our home. Your father asked him to read our family’s future. It was he who foretold your future and your father’s death. Do you remember?”
Of course I did. I turned away to stare at the bubbling pot. “Did you know, Mother.” I swallowed. “Father died because of me.”
The beads stopped flowing.
“I could not remember it all these years, but now I do. It was not an accident. I was there when the beast came. Father died to protect me.” I choked on my words. “It was my fault. If he had not died, we still would have lived in Wenshui. Little Sister would have been alive, and you, you would be home too.”
“You were there?”
“Forgive me, Mother.” I buried my face in her lap, unable to keep back my tears. “I brought down our family.”
“So that was why he cried out for you.”
“What?” I raised my head.
“Your father came to me in my dreams. Your name was the only one he mentioned. That’s why I asked the Captain to deliver the message to you, so I could talk to you. I met him in the market. He and your father fought in the war together. He remembered me.”
“What did Father say?”
“Father said not to blame you.”
I gazed at her. “He…forgave me?”
“I did not understand that at first. Now I do.”
I burst out in tears again. “That’s all? Did he say anything else?”
She shook her head.
I sniffed. A weight lifted off my shoulders. “He forgave me…just like that?”
Nodding, she stroked my hair. “Let all that was gone be gone. Worry no more, child.”
Tightly, I hugged her. She was all I had, and I wanted to stay with her, sweep the floor with her, fetch water from the well, cook for her, eat with her, watch her hair grow, wash her stole, and talk to her until we fell asleep.
“You should return to the palace,” she said gently.
“What about you?”
“I’m happy here.”
I straightened and looked around the dirt floor and cracked walls.
As though reading my mind, she said, “When you’re older, you will understand this—what happiness means. It is an illusion men promise to deceive themselves. I have learned so much from Buddha. All people lead a life of torment and suffering, from infancy to death, and after death, the souls suffer an eternity to make amends.” Her fingers pushed the beads of her rosary. “It’s true, child. Life has no worth, no meaning, no happiness.”
I drew back. “What about family? They are not illusions. They mean something.”
“What do they mean? Family, children, love, and honor. Where do they lead us?”
I could not find a word to say.
“They are only secular ties and deceiving vanities that pull us like a yoke and force us to mill. Remember, in the end, nothing is important, and all return to dust.”
“Dust?”
“I pray all shall come to peace. I pray all the lost shall be found.” A chant came at the door. The abbess appeared, her hands pressed together. Mother rose and returned her a similar gesture.
I watched them. Their motions were smooth, their expressions calm and identical. Mother did not need me. She did not need my embraces, my love, or my protection. She was at peace, on her own terms. Or on Buddha’s terms. It did not matter.
After a while, I bowed to Mother and the abbess. I wished them good health, promised I would visit again, and took my leave.
I stepped out of the monastery. The opaque mountain mists shifted around me. A falcon screeched over my head and vanished in the stands of mountain pines on a distant cliff. I thought of Father, his forgiveness, and Mother’s retreating to the religious world, and slowly I walked toward the stairs.
Under my feet, only a few flights stretched, the rest hidden in the thick clouds of mists. A single misstep and I would plunge into the rocky depth.
But I understood it now. Somehow, sometime in our lives, we all needed to find a path through the clouds of our destinies and walk down. Alone.
Slowly, I descended the mountain stairs.
AD 644
the Eighteenth Year of Emperor Taizong’s Reign of Peaceful Prospect
WINTER
37
Soon after I returned to the palace, the Emperor finally opened his eyes. He was extremely weak and unable to speak. All of us, concubines ranked seventh degree and above, were relieved of our usual duties and ordered to stay with him day and night, caring for him. A month later, he was able to take some broth and herbal drinks and sit with assistance. Gradually, he uttered words, though with a thick and strange slur, and held his meetings in a hall adjacent to his bedchamber. He could not hold his calligraphy brush, so he met the Duke and dictated to him. The Uncle and the Chancellor were not summoned, so I did not need to spy on them.