Empress Orchid by Anchee Min Read Free Book Online Page B

the Yehonala clan that the two families united and eventually took over China, creating the Celestial Purity, or Ch’ing, Dynasty.
    I smelled the scent of lilies from Nuharoo’s hair. She sat still and gazed at the stands of bamboo as if drawing them with her eyes. She radiated contentment. For a long time she didn’t move. It was as if she were studying the details of each leaf. Her concentration was undisturbed by the passing eunuchs. I wondered what she was thinking, if she shared my longing for my family, my anxiety about the future. I wanted to know what drove her to try for the selection. I was sure that it was neither hunger nor money. Had she dreamt of becoming an empress? How was she raised? Who were her parents? There was not the slightest nervousness in her expression. It was as if she simply knew that she would be selected. As if she had come only to receive this news.
    After a long while Nuharoo turned toward me and smiled again. Shehad an almost childlike smile, innocent and free of worry. I was sure she had never suffered. She must have had servants in her house to fan her to sleep on hot summer nights. Her gestures suggested that she was trained in manners. Had she attended schools for the rich? What did she read? Did she like opera? If she did, she must have a hero or heroine that she admired. Suppose we loved the same operas, and suppose we were both lucky enough to be chosen …
    “What do you think about your chance of being chosen?” I asked Nuharoo after she revealed to me that her father was Emperor Hsien Feng’s distant uncle.
    “I don’t think about it much,” she said quietly. Her lips opened like the petals of a flower. “I do whatever my family asks of me.”
    “So your parents know how to read wood grains.”
    “Pardon me?”
    “One’s future.”
    Nuharoo turned away from me and smiled gently into the distance. “Yehonala, how do you see our chances?”
    “You are born of an Imperial relative and you are beautiful,” I said. “I am not sure about my chance. My father was a
taotai
before he died. If my family hadn’t been heavily in debt, and if I had not been forced to marry my retarded cousin Ping, I wouldn’t have …” I had to stop, because my tears were welling up.
    Nuharoo put a hand into her pocket and took out a lace handkerchief. “I am sorry.” She passed the handkerchief to me. “Your story sounds terrible.”
    I didn’t want to ruin her handkerchief, so I wiped my tears with the back of my hands.
    “Tell me more,” she said.
    I shook my head. “My story of misery would be bad for your health.”
    “I don’t mind. I want to hear it. This is the first time I have stepped out of my house. I have never traveled like you.”
    “Travel? It was not at all a pleasant experience.” As I continued speaking, my mind flooded with memories of my father. The decaying smell of the coffin and the flies that followed it. To remove myself from the sadness I switched subjects.
    “Did you go to school when you grew up, Nuharoo?”
    “I had private tutors,” she answered. “Three of them. Each taught me a different subject.”
    “What was your favorite subject?”
    “History.”
    “History! I thought that was only for boys.” I remembered hiding a book from my father,
The Record of the Three Kingdoms.
    “It was not general history as you are imagining.” Nuharoo smiled as she explained. “It was the history of the Imperial household. It was about the lives of empresses and concubines. My classes focused on those of the greatest virtue.” After a pause, she added, “I was expected to model myself after Empress Hsiao Ch’in. My parents have told me since I was a young girl that I would one day join the ladies whose portraits are hung in the Imperial gallery.”
    No wonder she looked like she belonged to this place. “I am sure you will impress,” I said. “I am afraid that I am the least educated in this aspect of life. I don’t even know how the ranks work