The Terracotta Bride Read online

  The Terracotta Bride

  by Zen Cho

  http://zencho.org

  The Terracotta Bride

  © Zen Cho 2011

  All rights reserved

  Cover image © Likhain 2015

  http://likhain.net

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  The Terracotta Bride

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  The Terracotta Bride

  by Zen Cho

  Even the housekeeper knew about the terracotta bride before Siew Tsin did. Siew Tsin only found out when she ran down the stairs one day, a day like any other, and saw the girl coming in through the main doors in full bridal gear, her ornamented headdress tinkling.

  Siew Tsin crouched on the stairs in her old samfu and felt the winds of change raise the hairs on the back of her neck. She had ten seconds before anyone looked at her, ten seconds to rearrange her face so that nobody would know what she felt.

  Their husband Junsheng took the terracotta bride by the hand and presented her to Siew Tsin with an ironic tilt of the head.

  "The whole family has come out to greet you," he said to the girl. To Siew Tsin he said:

  "This is my new wife. Please look after her."

  The girl shone out from her extravagant silk robes like a pearl nestled in a red velvet box. She was beautiful, with skin as smooth as jade and hair like a lacquered black bowl.

  Her eyes were black commas, no whites in them. She was not human. She had never been alive.

  "You must be like sisters to one another," said their husband.

  "What is her name?" said Siew Tsin.

  "She can answer questions herself," said Junsheng. "She has a working brain. She is as intelligent as you and me. What is your name, my wife?"

  "You haven't given me one," said the terracotta bride. Her voice was throaty and surprisingly deep. She spoke without affect.

  Junsheng seemed to like this answer. "Precious, we'll have to think of a good name for you," he said. The last time Siew Tsin had seen him so pleased was when he'd been burnt a new car.

  Siew Tsin had not given much thought to what happened in the afterlife until the afterlife happened to her. She was young when she died, and it had been sudden. While running across the road, she had been hit by a motorcar and dashed against the curb. One moment she was brimming with life, possessed of ambitions, interests, an affectionate family—the next she was dead.

  Hell came as something of a shock. What education Siew Tsin had had was from the blue-eyed nuns at her convent school, with their soft voices and implacable religion. Their lectures, given in warm classrooms on sunny dozy afternoons, had given her a fluffy idea of the afterlife—all clouds and angels and loving Fathers.

  They had not prepared her for the reality. This was strangely like life. Hell was hot and full of unkind people in a hurry; there was far too much red tape; and the bureaucrats were all shockingly corrupt.

  It had been a relief to Siew Tsin when she had been scooped up by a long-dead great-uncle. Fourth Great-Uncle had seemed kind enough, though he was preoccupied by his children's lack of filial feeling.

  "Why don't they burn me more money? Why don't I hear their prayers?" he said. "Are children's memories so short now? Are they too poor to afford the hell paper, or too miserly?"

  Siew Tsin mumbled, "I don't know Auntie and Uncle very well. They live up in Alor Setar. We don't see them often."

  She was too embarrassed to explain that they were Christians and did not believe in the rites anymore. They probably thought he was safe in the Christian heaven, kit out with his own harp and in no need of cash.

  She might as well not have tried so hard to save his feelings, because the faithless old man went on to sell her. Again, the procession of events was so fast and illogical that she did not know what was happening until it had happened. One day she was scuttling across the black volcanic floors of hell, trying her best to understand the rules of this new world; the next day she was married off to the richest man in the tenth court of hell.

  The marriage worked out well for Fourth Great-Uncle. He got enough money from it to buy himself a house in the tenth court and bribe the officials to turn a blind eye to his continued presence.

  The tenth court was the most desirable postcode in hell. The other courts were taken up by spirits busy in the expiation of their sins, and the hell officials who facilitated their moral rehabilitation, using whatever tools were available to them—fire, chains, whips, spears and hammers for choice. Such work made demons short-tempered and violent in their integrity. What it did to the spirits did not bear thinking about.

  The tenth court was for souls who had worked off all their sins, or who had not had sins worth speaking of, or who'd simply had a grand enough funeral—and hence, sufficient hell money—to buy their way out of the torments. It was a waiting room, where spirits waited for their new lives to be prepared for them. This meant that it was a considerably more tranquil place to be dead than every other court of hell. The demons, grown soft from lack of exercise, were as pleasure-seeking and corrupt as any human official.

  Peace and stability meant the development of a society. The tenth court was where souls could enjoy the hard-earned fruits of their deaths: the mansions their descendants had burnt for them, the incense that floated down from the living world straight into their grateful nostrils. If a spirit was rich, or powerful, or simply intelligent, he could manage it so he went on residing in the tenth court for a long time, avoiding the invitation to tea with Lady Meng that heralded the change to the next life.

  Junsheng had been a rich man in life. He had left many children and grandchildren to tend his grave and burn him gifts year after year, so that the condition had persisted after death. When Siew Tsin met him he had been dead for twenty years. This was a long time to have evaded the loss of self entailed by reincarnation, even taking into account the inefficiency of hellish bureaucracy.

  Fourth Great-Uncle must have meant well. He must have thought that Junsheng would look after his great niece, give her a better death than she could otherwise expect. After all, Fourth Great-Uncle had been dead for a long while when Siew Tsin came to the underworld. In his lifetime women had had lower expectations. His sister, Siew Tsin's grandmother, had been named Chiu Dai: come, little brother.

  Siew Tsin had lived in a more modern time. Her parents had wanted her to be happy as well as docile. Resignation to unhappiness didn't come naturally—she had to learn it.

  Three months after her wedding, Siew Tsin had run away from Junsheng. She had still had the loved child's belief that it would not be allowed for anything too bad to happen to her. Her plan had been that she would tell a god or kindly functionary what had happened to her and they would somehow restore her to her parents. Perhaps they could arrange for her parents to be blessed with a child in their old age, like Elizabeth in the Bible. The child would of course be their dead daughter, come to them again.

  She was not a hundred paces from Junsheng's house when she found the functionary she had been looking for. A fairy from heaven in shining silk robes, standing discontentedly by the entrance of a grand house. A fragrance of sunshine and fresh air billowed from her, cutting through the smell of sulphur and stone. The crowd of spirits and demons that filled the streets left a wide space around her.

  A visitation from the Heavenly Court was so unusual that it could be nothing but a good omen. Siew Tsin plunged through the crowd towards the fairy.

  When Siew Tsin had explained her situation, she said:

  "Can you help me, elder sister? My mother and father live in Klang. Perhaps it is not on your way to heaven."

  The fairy had looked on her with compassion.

&
nbsp; "It is not, but that is of no account," she said. "I will see that you are looked after."

  Half an hour later Siew Tsin was bundled into a sedan chair by four stern hell officials and whisked back to Junsheng's. It appeared the fairy's understanding of what it meant to be looked after was the same as Fourth Great-Uncle's.

  Junsheng had not been unkind. He had been extremely definite.

  "I am too old and indolent to lecture you," he said. "But you should remember that I have every right to do so, if I wish. Considering the unusual circumstances of our marriage, I cannot be said merely to be your husband. I am your mother and father as well—I have their authority over you, and you have the same obligation to me as you would have had to your parents in life.

  "I will treat you as well as they themselves could wish for. In return, you must honour me as you would honour your mother and father. You are young, and I will forgive this mistake. I will say nothing of the inconvenience and embarrassment you have occasioned me. If I had beaten you and thrown you out on the street, or indeed if I had killed you, everyone would have agreed that I was perfectly within my rights. But I am too old, and too fond of my comfort, for this kind of violence. Out of consideration for my feelings, Siew Tsin, you must be a good girl from now on. I cannot countenance any more silliness."

  To be fair to Junsheng, he never cast it up to her again. But then again, there was nothing to cast up. Siew Tsin was a fast learner.

  "Does elder sister know?" Siew Tsin said to the housekeeper one evening when the terracotta bride had gone to bed. The terracotta woman did not sleep, but Junsheng preferred her to keep up the pretence of being like the rest of them.

  Siew Tsin wondered what she did all night: whether she turned herself off like a wireless, or whether she simply lay unmoving on the bed, her black eyes fixed on the ceiling, until it was morning and she was allowed to get up.

  "Mistress Ling'en has not been told," said the housekeeper.

  "What will she think of it?" Siew Tsin said.

  The housekeeper did not say, She will not be as angry as she was when he married you. But there was no need to say it. Even Siew Tsin knew that.

  The problem was that Ling'en and Junsheng had once been in love. This was a long time ago, when they were still alive. Junsheng had taken concubines in life, of course, but they had not mattered. It was known that he consulted his wife in everything—in the old days. It had gone sour long before his second wife had arrived on the scene. Ling'en had been living on her own for years when Junsheng married Siew Tsin.

  This was unusual. It was hard enough to survive in hell when you were a rich, powerful man with many faithful descendants and the hell officials' favour. There were so many other dangers to contend with—demons promoted from other courts, furiously upstanding and eager to hurry on the cycle of rebirth. The eight thousand terracotta warriors who had been buried with an emperor, now lost. Left masterless, the warriors roamed the tenth court, looking for trouble. And worst of all, the dead. In hell, as in every other world, man was man's greatest enemy.

  "A woman needs protection," Fourth Great-Uncle had said to Siew Tsin when he'd told her he was marrying her off.

  Ling'en had not listened to tiresome old men like Siew Tsin's great-uncle, or to her furious husband. Ling'en lived alone, in a very nice house her favourite son had burnt for her, and so far none of the disasters predicted for unprotected women in hell had befallen her.

  Because she found Junsheng tedious and avoided visiting, it took her a while to find out about his second wife. Siew Tsin had been married for several months when Ling'en came to see her.

  Siew Tsin remembered her first glimpse of Ling'en vividly. A slender woman, shorter than Siew Tsin, graceful as a willow tree, and youthful-looking despite the grey in her hair. She'd walked into the drawing room where Junsheng and his new wife sat without waiting for the housekeeper to announce her, as if it was still her own house.

  Junsheng had said, "So, you finally condescend to visit your husband."

  This was when Siew Tsin found out that she was a second wife. It was the start of an unhallowed tradition of her being the last to know anything important.

  Ling'en had glanced at Siew Tsin, and drawn her eyes away quickly as if she was not worth being looked at.

  "This is what you bought to entertain yourself in my absence?" she said. "I would have thought you could afford something more expensive."

  "If you had stayed as I had asked, dear wife, I would have consulted your impeccable taste before I made my decision," said Junsheng. "Since you were not here, I am afraid we will have to settle for what my crude judgment told me was appropriate."

  "She is young enough," said Ling'en. It was as if she was talking about an object of dubious value that Junsheng had bought at a flea market. "But that won't bring you any sons."

  "I did not choose her for that," said Junsheng.

  "Then why marry her?"

  "She is a respectable girl," said Junsheng. "Her great-uncle was concerned about her welfare, and asked me to offer her what protection I could give. He is a learned man, and we have a good relationship."

  "You haven't lost your gift for lying," said Ling'en. "How sordid!—But I suppose men feel differently about this kind of thing."

  Junsheng did not like this. He liked to think of himself as an honourable man, a patriarch in the good old-fashioned mould. A man of whom Confucius would have approved.

  "You are being vulgar. But that is what comes of your unnatural mode of living," he said. "It is no surprise that you have become coarse from having to fend for yourself in such a world. If you could bring yourself to behave with some modicum of propriety, you would not have to struggle. I am not an unreasonable man. I don't think my demands are so outrageous."

  "You wouldn't," sneered Ling'en.

  "All I ask is that we treat each other like civilised beings," said Junsheng with exasperating patience. "We have been married for so long. I have tried to be a good husband. If you have any complaint about the way I have treated you and our children, you are welcome to express it. All I ask is that you do not work out your grudge in this unseemly way. Feelings are one thing, but think how it makes the family look."

  "The family no longer exists," said Ling'en.

  "I am trying to be reasonable," said Junsheng.

  Ling'en let out what in a less elegant woman would have been a snort.

  "Try instead to be intelligent," she suggested. "We are dead and things are different. If you understood this, you would see that I am not coming back no matter how many young girls you marry."

  "It was not for that," said Junsheng.

  Even Siew Tsin knew this was a stupid thing to say, but Ling'en had apparently made him too cross to be sensible. Ling'en did not bother dignifying his remark with a response, but left the house.

  She was not any nicer to Siew Tsin when she saw her later. Their meetings were infrequent, but Ling'en had not cut all ties. Her relationship with Junsheng impressed on one the dreadful lastingness of marriage. They still operated as a team. They met to discuss money, strategies for keeping the hell officials satisfied, and the latest rumours in the tenth court.

  They still argued about Ling'en coming back to live with Junsheng, but eventually the arguments grew tired, half-hearted on Junsheng's part. When he realised that marrying Siew Tsin had not insulted Ling'en enough for her to want to return, he lost most of his interest in his new wife. The sex stopped, to Siew Tsin's relief. And she, now an unnoticed part of the household, retreated into herself. Junsheng had a large library of Chinese and English books. There was Chinese chess to play with any servant who could spare the time. If she got really bored, a thoughtful descendant had even burnt Junsheng a piano.

  It was a quiet death, but not an objectionable one. Siew Tsin sank like a stone in the river of quotidian incident, ignoring the scent of brimstone that gusted in at the windows. She closed her ears to the stories of the depredations of the terracotta warriors, the machinations
of the spirits, and the intricate bureaucracies of the hell officials. She lived, dead, unnoticed by her husband, the household, and even by her own self.

  Until the terracotta bride came.

  Junsheng named her Yonghua, his elegant lady. What Siew Tsin didn't understand was what function she performed.

  "Men have their needs," said the housekeeper. In the living world she had been paper, crumpled, folded, rolled, and painted into the form of a woman, burnt as an offering to the revered dead. Here in the afterlife she gave a convincing impression of being flesh, and of possessing all the sad wisdom a real old woman would have had.

  "Junsheng is not a man who thinks much about the pleasures of the flesh," said Siew Tsin. Because she had gone to a convent school when she was alive, she did not wonder aloud about how much pleasure a terracotta body could yield.

  The housekeeper replied, sensing the thought: "You'd be surprised. With Yonghua in his bed, any man would be interested." It was also part of her persona to be earthy.

  Yonghua was a marvel of engineering, far more advanced than the Qin-era warriors who looted shops, preyed on spirits, and made death hell for humans and demons alike. The terracotta warriors were painted to look human, but Yonghua's creators had coated her in a flexible material that acted and felt like skin. Her cheek was soft and downy, her eyelashes lush and long. Her hair stood out from her head and the flesh of her arm sprang back to the touch, like fresh dough pressed by a thumb.

  Her creators had made her the most tempting of women.

  "And seeing as they put so many thoughts into her head," said the housekeeper, "you can be certain they made her for other things as well."

  "Who created her?" said Siew Tsin.

  The housekeeper flicked a beady-eyed glance at her. Siew Tsin had an odd sense that she had been examined and found wanting.

  "Dirty-minded men, as they all are," said the housekeeper, with a lightness that seemed even falser than usual. Siew Tsin would have questioned her further, but the housekeeper went on: