Zhang Ma
张妈
“Named Once, in a Letter”
Her Story
She exists in one clause of somebody else’s letter.
In Chapter 74 the Garden is searched at night. In Siqi’s chest the searchers find a pair of men’s socks and shoes, a love-knot, and a note from her cousin Pan Youan: if they can meet inside the Garden, he writes, 你可托张妈给一信息 — you can send word by Zhang Ma. Xifeng reads it and laughs instead of raging. Siqi is finished.
Nobody asks who Zhang Ma is. She is the channel, the woman who can carry a message across the Garden wall, and the search never follows her name any further.
In Xiang Li's Hands
An old woman in mauve patterned robes with black borders and a purple cloth over her hair, hunched forward with a big red-and-yellow bundle held in both arms, glancing sharply off to one side as she walks. Bare paper behind her, a grey wash of shadow at her feet. Nothing says what is in the bundle. She paints the errand rather than the woman.
The Calligraphy
张妈, two characters at the upper right — surname plus 妈, the form used to and about older women in service, which is precisely how the letter names her and all anyone ever learns.
Connections
- Siqi 司棋 — Yingchun’s maid, to whom the letter naming her is addressed.
- Pan Youan 潘又安 — Siqi’s cousin, who writes that word can be sent through her.
- Wang Xifeng 王熙凤 — who reads the letter aloud during the search.
- Wang Shanbao’s wife 王善保家的 — who drives the search and finds her own
- granddaughter’s box.
Dream of the Red Chamber
Xiang Li painted all 413 characters of the novel between 1975 and 1985, the first person to complete the entire cast. See the whole collection · Chinese Empresses
