The Red Chamber (19 page)

“Sleep well,” she says.

2

Ten days before the Twelfth Month, Baochai sits in her mother’s room preparing New Year’s gifts for the servants. Her own rooms seem empty without Daiyu, and she has taken to spending more time with her mother. For weeks she has regretted the way she parted from Daiyu. Startled by the rush of jealousy she had felt on overhearing Baoyu’s voice from Daiyu’s room, she had deliberately interrupted their tête-à-tête. She had hidden her jealousy under a calm exterior, but had been unable to infuse any warmth into her last moments with Daiyu. Now she misses Daiyu, and wonders what Daiyu had made of her coldness. And her jealousy is pointless, she knows: Baoyu has never paid the least attention to her since that day he almost kissed her last summer.

She looks up from stuffing the embroidered purses with little medallions of gold and silver. Her mother, instead of helping, is staring off into space with a frown. “What’s the matter, Mother?”

Mrs. Xue doesn’t respond. Baochai sighs, knowing that she is worrying about Pan. There has been only one letter from him, from almost two months ago, saying that he had arrived in Nanjing. To distract her mother, she says, “Granny is hiring the best troupe of child actors to perform on New Year’s Eve. Their soprano is supposed to be excellent in ingénue roles. What scenes do you want to hear them perform?”

“What?” Mrs. Xue jumps.

Baochai repeats her question. Her mother does not answer, her eyes fixed on the window. “Someone’s coming.”

Baochai looks towards the door. Pan walks in, dressed in traveling clothes.

“Surprise!” he says, as Baochai and her mother jump up from the
kang
.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Mrs. Xue exclaims. She grips him by the upper arms and looks searchingly into his face.

“Old Feng told me to write you,” Pan says, laughing. “But I thought it’d be more fun if I just walked in and surprised you …”

“Yes, but why are you back so early?” Baochai says. “I thought you weren’t supposed to come back until spring.”

“I wasn’t, but something came up.”

Baochai braces herself. It is impossible to believe that Pan’s sudden return does not foretell disaster.

“Wonderful news!”

“What is it?”

“I’ve met a girl. I want to be married!”

She looks at her mother and sees that Mrs. Xue is looking alarmed as well.

“Do you mean a concubine?” Mrs. Xue asks.

“No, I mean a wife. I want to marry the Xias’ daughter. I came back so you could arrange the match.”

“The Xias?” Mrs. Xue’s eyes widen with surprise. “You mean Xia Jingui?”

He nods, beaming.

Mrs. Xue looks at Baochai. “They’re old family friends!”

Baochai frowns. “I’ve never heard that name.”

“They were Imperial Purveyors, too. Immensely wealthy: they made their fortune selling cassia. Your father used to do business with Mr. Xia, but he died not long after your father, and we fell out of contact.” Mrs. Xue begins to laugh, apparently delighted. “How did you meet them, Pan?”

“Old Feng reminded me that they used to be friends with Father, so I went to visit them in Nanjing. Mrs. Xia was so pleased that I had visited after all those years, and insisted that I meet her daughter. She said we had played together as children. The moment I saw Jingui, I knew—”

“What’s she like?”

“She’s nineteen, and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She’s educated and accomplished, too. Mother, you’ll send a matchmaker, won’t you?”

Mrs. Xue laughs again. “I don’t see why not, when you’ve chosen such a perfect match!”

After Pan leaves to wash up and rest, Mrs. Xue says, “I can’t believe it. What luck!”

Baochai has not seen her mother so happy in a long time. Her cheeks glow with excitement. “It seems fortunate that his fancy alighted on a girl from a decent family,” Baochai says. “But tell me more about the Xias.”

“Let me see. I remember your father and Mr. Xia used to have a joke, about how Mr. Xia would trade your father cassia for a son like Pan.
They were desperate for a son, you understand. They couldn’t seem to have more children even though Mr. Xia had two or three concubines.”

Baochai wonders at the idea of Mr. Xia wanting a son like Pan, but says nothing.

Mrs. Xue continues, “Mr. Xia was a nice man, always laughing and joking, but your father said that he was very shrewd as far as business was concerned. Mrs. Xia was stiffer, as I recall. I remember she was very proud of Jingui’s accomplishments even when she was just a little girl.”

“You don’t remember anything about Jingui herself?”

Mrs. Xue frowns in concentration. “I remember she had very long fingernails, because of playing the
qin
. She had long slender fingers to begin with, so it gave her a very odd look: a grown woman’s hands on a little girl.” She laughs, as if the recollection is endearing. “I must ask Pan if her hands are still like that.”

Baochai sees that her mother is too happy to be cautious. To her, this match seems to mean an end to the life they have been living: Pan settling down properly to his duties, a good daughter-in-law to serve her, a stable home life, and grandchildren. “You have no objections to the match, then?”

“I don’t see why I should. The girl couldn’t have been more suitable if I had chosen her myself.”

While Baochai sees no real objection to the match, her native caution makes her consider the worst-case scenario. “Has it occurred to you that they may say ‘no’ to Pan? Family background aside, it is not as if he himself is a desirable catch, since he has not passed the Exams. With Jingui’s qualifications, they may be hoping for a Palace Graduate.”

“They may say ‘no,’ of course. But it doesn’t hurt to ask, since Pan has his heart set on it.”

“If they say ‘no,’ they say ‘no,’ ” Baochai says. “And maybe it will do Pan good, not to get something that he has set his heart on.”

There is a scuffle of feet outside the door and Pan bursts back into the room. “I was already on my horse before I remembered!” He goes to where Baochai sits on the
kang
and unstraps his saddlebag. “I brought these for you all the way from Nanjing.”

“What is it?” she asks curiously, as he takes out a rolled-up vest. He unfurls it to reveal a jumble of brightly colored figurines.

“Look at this.” He places one on a
kang
table. The little figure of a man begins to move by itself and actually turns a somersault. Baochai begins to laugh. She has never seen anything like this.

“And look at this!” He takes another figure, holds it upside down for a moment, and then places it upright next to the first one. This one slowly wiggles its arms and legs.

“How do they work?” Mrs. Xue says, marveling and laughing.

“This first one has mercury in it. When the mercury runs to its head, it turns a somersault. The other one has sand in it. I got them at a place called Huqiushan, where they specialize in making these things. And look at these!” He takes out another rolled-up article of clothing, this time a jacket. Only Pan would present his gifts wrapped in his dirty clothing.

These are figurines of characters from plays and operas, molded out of colored clay. Baochai picks one up and is wondering at how finely it is made when Pan holds another figure before her eyes. It is a replica of Pan himself, perfect in every detail, from the large, flat feet and slight paunch, to the slouched posture. She collapses in laughter, showing her mother.

Pan laughs delightedly also. “I knew that you would like it,” he says, putting his arm around her. “I wanted to make you laugh, after all that you’ve been through.” He stops short of saying “after all that I’ve put you through,” but she knows that that is what he means, nevertheless.

She sees his simple pride and joy at amazing her and her mother, and realizes that this is why it is so difficult to harden her heart against him. She puts her arms around him, torn between laughter and tears. “Welcome home, Pan. I’m glad you’re back.”

3

“You wanted to see me, ma’am?” Cook Liu stands in the doorway of Xifeng’s front room, nervously drying her red hands on her apron.

Xifeng does not look up from the ledger on her desk. Very deliberately, she makes an infinitesimal check in the margin beside one of the numbers, before raising her eyes from the ledger. She puts down her ink brush.

“I have been going over household accounts,” she says. Still not looking at the cook, she pulls another ledger, this one for kitchen expenditures, from the corner of the desk. She opens it to a page marked with a bamboo slip.

Finally, she looks up. “It seems to me that you have been spending quite a bit more than you used to.”

“Oh, my lady.” Cook Liu’s hands twitch under her apron, as she rushes to explain. “It’s getting close to New Year’s, you know, and with all the parties, and visitors, and preparing for the sacrifices, we’ve been spending three or four times as much as we do in a usual month—”

“If you think I don’t know that, you’re more of a fool than I supposed,” Xifeng interrupts. “No, I don’t mean just the last month or two. I mean that for the last six months or more, the kitchens have consistently exceeded their budget. And with things as tight as they are, we simply can’t afford to be so extravagant. Take this, for example.” She runs her finger down the page in the ledger and finds a line near the bottom. She lays the bamboo slip below it, to mark the place, and turns the heavy ledger so it faces the cook.

Cook Liu steps forward and squints at the tiny characters. “ ‘Two dozen black-boned chickens,’ ” she reads.

“And how much did they cost?” Xifeng prompts.

“Twenty-four
taels
.”

“One
tael
apiece, for chickens! And we already have a standing order for twenty-five chickens a month to begin with. To order more chickens, and by far the most expensive kind at that—”

“But, my lady,” Cook Liu says, opening her eyes wide. “Surely you
know that we stew one every couple of mornings with some jujubes and ginkgo nuts for Miss Ping’er. You know that chickens, especially the black-boned kind, are good for pregnant women, with how much blood and
qi
they lose at delivery, and nursing the baby—”

Xifeng cuts her off. “Well, with things as tight as they are, we really can’t afford it. Please don’t order them anymore.” She shuts the ledger and pushes it back to the corner of the desk. She picks up her writing brush again.

The cook, however, remains standing there, still twisting her hands in her apron. Xifeng turns to a new page in the ledger and begins to tally up the columns.

“The moment he heard she was pregnant,” the cook says, “Master Lian came to the kitchens himself. He told us to see that she got a stewed black-boned chicken every few days.”

“Did he give you the money to pay for them?” Xifeng does not look up.

The cook shakes her head.

“If he wanted her to have them, he should have paid for them,” Xifeng tells her.

“But he’s away down south!”

“That’s not my problem, is it?” Xifeng reaches for her abacus and begins to click the beads.

A few days later, when Ping’er is opening the lacquered box that the kitchen has delivered for her breakfast, she says, “That’s strange.”

“What is?” asks Xifeng, glancing over from the dressing table, even though she knows perfectly well. Now that Lian has been gone for more than a week, Xifeng and Ping’er have fallen back, on the surface at least, into something of their old companionship.

“Well, I used to get some stewed black-boned chicken every morning, but for the last few days I haven’t been getting it.”

“Really?” Xifeng gets up and walks over to where Ping’er sits on the
kang
, with the just-opened box steaming before her. There is an egg custard, its creamy yellow surface dotted with dried scallops, some tiny silver fish crusted with salt, pickled radishes, a few
mantou
, and tofu, as well as shreds of crisp-fried pork and a bowl of rice porridge.

“You’re right,” she says. “Well, Cook Liu was saying just the other day that the prices of things, eggs and so on, have gone up so much these days that they’ve really had to tighten their belts.”

“Is that so?” Ping’er picks up her chopsticks, shrugging. “Oh, well. There is plenty without it.”

Xifeng goes back to her dressing table. As she picks up her comb again, some impulse makes her say, “But a pregnant woman can’t be too careful about getting proper nutrition, you know.” She smiles at Ping’er. “I’ll talk to Cook Liu, and tell her to set aside all the chicken necks and wings to make a nice stew for you every morning.”

Ping’er looks up from her breakfast, her eyes shining with pleasure. “That’s very kind of you.”

“It’s no problem.” She begins to comb her hair again. “Your morning sickness is better, isn’t it?”

“That’s right. I’ve felt a lot better since the beginning of the Twelfth Month. I have even been meaning to go out to the Water Moon Priory to burn incense to Guanyin for a safe delivery.”

“That’s a good idea.” Guanyin is the goddess of childbirth, as well as of mercy. Xifeng had miscarried so many months before her baby was due that she had not gotten a chance to go to the temple to pray to her. She makes an effort to speak lightly. “When you go out there, let me know, will you? I have something to deliver to the Abbess.”

“Of course.”

Autumn comes in. “There’s a servant here from Feng Ziying. He says that Master Lian owes him a debt from dice. He says he wouldn’t ordinarily bother you while Master Lian is gone, only he needs the money right away to pay a debt to someone else.”

“Is that so?” Xifeng rises from the dressing table, irritated. “Well, you can tell him that he’ll just have to wait until Lian comes back to get paid, because I am certainly not going to throw away money on his gaming debts—”

“How much is the debt for?” Ping’er interrupts.

“One hundred
taels
,” Autumn says.

“I can pay it,” Ping’er says, struggling to rise from the
kang
. “Lian left me some money.”

Torn between indignation that Lian has kept money without her knowledge, and triumph that she is about to discover where he hides it, Xifeng rushes to help Ping’er off the
kang
. Ping’er does not really need help, but she wants an excuse to follow Ping’er into her bedroom. In the bedroom, Ping’er points to the far corner of the
kang
. “It’s under a loose brick.”