Zhōngguó still remembers her.
He still remembers her as she passed through the Tarim Basin. When he closes his eyes, he can see her again in her soldier's armor, dressed just like her men and speaking just as loudly. Strong legs, warrior arms, and the impression that they were standing before a Goddess when she took off her helmet and he met her jade-green eyes. They looked at each other like two people who know they are related but have never spoken to each other. Divided by miles and miles of land. Divided by language, by body and by mind.
That first time, she hadn’t smiled. And Zhōngguó understood why much later, when he discovered that those men, vagabonds, rough and seeking new adventures, looked down on those who spoke and acted differently from them. That was the first word he learned from her: barbarian. Yet she seemed fascinated by him, even though he wasn’t what she considered a proper man. Unfortunately for both of them, she was so charming and her smile so warm that it was impossible to hate her, not completely at least.
Zhōngguó had received gifts from her. She loved to do that. Small statues and a golden plate with the Twelve Gods sitting together on a panther surrounded by grapes. He lost the golden plate, and he blamed Time for the loss.
When he closes his eyes, he remembered her hands, the way she held the little statues out to him, one of which would remain forever hidden among his shelves, the dust and grime of centuries helping to hide it from inquiring eyes.
He still remembers her. He still remembers the second time he saw her, when Rome was but a fading dream and she was still there, ruling over her share of the Sea.
It was Persia that brought them together again.
She had not changed; the mischievous glint in her eyes was still there. Haughty, beautiful as a goddess. Her dress clinging to its classical Greek roots. She never seemed to want to grow up, as if what she had been long ago should outlive her.
She liked silk. It fell over her body, soft and light as a breath of wind, richly patterned fabric that curved down to a sharp point, a top layer of brocade. The curly hair held in those intricate hairdos, a look of recognition flashing across her face, her red lips spreading into a smile.
Tiānxià nodded in greeting. She too. An emperor meeting an empress.
She liked silk, but also furs, iron, cinnamon and rhubarb. Oddly enough, she loved rhubarb. One day Tiānxià saw her seasoning fish with cinnamon and cloves. She told him to try it, and he did not immediately agree to it.
"You're just like me," she told him, laughing. "You don't trust what's new."
They had lunch together, and he promised he would cook something for her one day. (He never managed to keep his promise.)
Zhōngguó still remembers her. The first time he saw her with her hair down, on a summer evening so long ago it feels like a figment of his imagination. He remembers the smell of the sea coming from far away to the palace where she lived. He remembers her sunburned feet, the way she put her arm around him, her tanned, freckled skin against milky white. She liked to make comparisons, their cultures, their languages, their histories. His dark brown eyes against her green.
He told her about Lord Gan. She told him about Castor and Pollux.
She took him by the hand and led him to the beach. He, who dared not take his feet out of his precious shoes; she, who walked ankle-deep in the sea, sand between her toes.
He told her about cosmological dualism. She told him about chaos and primordial disorder.
Wáng Yào remembers her. He remembers the day she introduced him to her son, him hiding behind his mother's skirts, the same jade eyes, the same suspicious glare. He had brought his younger brother that day. Their future hidden behind their backs. She had laughed, a laugh that says everything and nothing, as if she had so much knowledge, but was incapable of understanding it herself. Tiānxià had heard such a laugh only once in his life, from Rome’s lips, before he left forever.
Who knows, perhaps when one is about to die, one laughs as if they know everything.
Zhōngguó never laughed like that, but she did, and Zhōngguó was sure she didn’t know what it meant.
He still remembers her, during the Justinian's Plague. Pale, weak, but always with a smile on her face when she saw him.
"Wáng Yào!" she called to him. She stretched out her hand to him, and he - though he was angry with her because her people had dared steal silk eggs right from under his nose - had come to her. She sat in her golden chair, a mirror in her hand, and laughed, laughed, laughed.
"I'm not fit to be in your presence in such a state, am I?"
"No, you’re beautiful." He leaned down to be at her own eye level, took her hand and brought it to his lips.
(All in all, falling in love with her had been a bad idea).
He told her about the Ding, Zun, and Gui ritual vessels and jade sculptures. She told him about the Cycladic idols. Complicated decorations against simpler forms of art.
He told her how the Zhou Dynasty had justified the overthrow of the Shang Dynasty by claiming that the Shang had lost the mandate of Heaven through their evil deeds. She wondered if Heaven really had any power over them, at all.
She had believed in many gods, and now she believed in a god who would soon abandon her.
Sometimes, when Zhōngguó closed his eyes, he imagined her standing next to him in his room. He has imagined her many times, in different clothes over the centuries, always barefoot, always with her hair flowing down her shoulders. When he cooked, she sat next to him, sometimes smoking as she chopped carrots, sometimes singing, sometimes doing nothing at all. She had never seen a cigarette in her life, let alone a carrot of such bright orange color. But Wáng Yào had promised her long ago that they would cook together, and he had to keep his promise somehow, even if it was only a dream.
She told him that, once upon a time, the Virgin of Blachernae had interceded to save Constantinople from various attacks and sieges. He told her that, once upon a time, a great battle between the gods had broken the pillars supporting the sky and caused great devastation. There was a great flood and the sky collapsed. Nüwa patched the holes in the sky with five colored stones, and she used the legs of a turtle to mend the pillars.
She liked that story, and Zhōngguó never understood why, until he realized that she, too, needed someone to patch the holes in her own sky with colored stones.
She loved silk. Tiānxià had watched her take off her clothes to put on his many times. The rustle of silk in the dim light. The cicadas screaming outside the window. He still had a warrior's arms, strong legs, the walk of one who knows where they should go. She loved his hair. She always ran her fingers through them, from top to bottom. She said they felt like silk, and he promised to take her to see how silk is made someday. (He never managed to keep his promise.)
Sometimes, when Zhongguó closed his eyes, he imagined her standing next to him in his room. He might be reading a book, or he might be watching television, and she would be there watching with him, even though she'd never seen a television in her life. If there's a documentary focusing on silk, he stares at the screen without really watching. He can feel her fingers in his hair. That's one reason he doesn't want to cut it short.
He says to no one in particular, “See, this is how silk is made.”
Zhōngguó still remembers her. He remembers the last time he saw her, though he didn’t know it would be the last time. On a ship, waving to him from afar. Divided by miles and miles of water. Divided by death and life.
"Wáng Yào!" she called to him. And he approached the harbor, and she became more and more distant, more and more unreachable. Perhaps that memory was a figment of his imagination.
The fact is that Wáng Yào wishes he didn’t remembered her at all.
But he doesn’t know how.
