Mulberry and Peach by Hualing Nieh Page A

Ch’ing emperors sacrificed to Heaven and prayed for a good harvest. All around, as far as you can see, are old cypress trees. The Hall of Prayer, the Imperial Circular Hall, and the Altar of Heaven are all located at the Temple of Heaven. The Hall of Prayer is where the emperors prayed for a good harvest. It’s a huge round triple-roofed hall with double eaves. The ceiling of the dome is decorated with golden dragons and phoenixes, glazed blue tiles; there are no beams. The three roofs and the double eaves are supported solely by twenty-eight giant pillars. The Imperial Circular Hall houses the memorial tablets of the emperors. It’s a small circular shrine with a golden roof, glazed blue tiles, red walls, and glazed doors. The Altar of Heaven is where the emperors sacrificed to heaven. It’s a three-tiered circular terrace built of white marble. The centre of the altar is a round stone encircled by nine rings of marble. Each ring consists of marble slabs arranged in multiples of nine. The rings radiate from the centre like ripples on a pond. When you stand there, you feel like you’ve touched heaven. If you whisper in the centre of the altar, you can hear a loud echo.
    â€˜The Temple of Heaven I dreamed about wasn’t like that at all. The Hall of Prayer, the Imperial Circular Hall, the Altar of Heaven were crowded with refugees’ straw mats, quilts, and sheets. Ragged pants were hanging out to dry in the sun on the white marble balustrades. The memorial tablets of the emperors had been thrown down to the ground, and the Hall of Prayer was full of excrement.
    â€˜The old cypress trees had been cut down.
    â€˜Only the shrine of the Altar of Heaven was still clean: white marble stones. The sky above the shrine was still clear blue. Mulberry, I dreamed you were lying in the centre of the altar, naked, looking up at the sky. You were so clean and pure. I had to make love to you. We rolled over and over on top of the altar, shouting. The space between heaven and earth was filled with our shouting. Between heaven and earth there was only you and me, two naked bodies entwined together.’
    He gently pushes me down on the sofa in my room and begins stripping off my clothes.

    I suddenly sit up. ‘No, Chia-kang, you must respect me.’
    â€˜I know you’re a pure, clean girl. I want to marry you right away. Even if we sleep together now, it’s all right because we’re going to get married.’
    â€˜Even if I sleep with my own husband, it’s still dirty.’
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    The parlour door opens. Large flakes of snow whirl around the doorsill. Tiny icicles dangle from the acacia branches. A crow, immobile, sits on a branch, a black statue in ice.
    Hsing-hsing hurries in, removes the red scarf from around her head and brushes the snow from her clothes. Her long pigtails swish back and forth. She goes into Aunt Shen’s room, saying, ‘A bomb went off at the airport, killing and wounding more than forty people!’
    â€˜Who did it?’ asks Chia-kang.
    â€˜Someone said that the Nationalists did it as they were retreating from the airport. Someone else said the Eighth Army did it as they were seizing the airport . . .’
    â€˜Then the Eighth Army is really going to fight its way into Peking.’
    â€˜Second Master Shen, the Eighth Army is already at the base of the city wall. Grain and vegetables can’t get into the city. The city’s food supply is almost gone. My mother hoarded up twenty sacks of flour and forty heads of cabbage. The Nationalist government just released a lot of prisoners in order to save food, but the prisoners didn’t want to leave the prison. No one would feed them if they left. The guards forced them out with bayonets. The government has declared a general amnesty. They have even released traitors from the Japanese occupation and a lot of students who had been jailed for demonstrating. Five or six students from our