14 - Veri

       Stretched luxuriously on a cushion on the floor, my thoughts had been lost in the strange melodies of a shamisen played by a pale girl with almond eyes and dark hair – had been lost, that is, until interrupted most rudely by sudden, loud speech.
       “Veri! Are you doing well? We missed you at the play the other night, whyever did you not attend?”
       I lift my eyes slowly, narrowing them at the intruder. The girl plays on, but the restfulness brought by her music has gone. I take a long sip of the green tea in a small Japanese iron cup, but the taste grows bitter on my tongue. I do not hurry to answer him, he deserves no such preferential consideration.
       “Veri?” He crosses the room – with his shoes still on, the heathen. It is a tea room, clearly in Japanese style, to be entered only in slippers, of which there are several pairs beside the entry. He collapses into a cushion on the floor, then adjusts it that he might be facing me.
       I sigh heavily, and set down the cup of tea. “Claude. I had asked for no visitors today. Why are you here?”
       He laughs, pretending to be merely amiable. The sound grates on my ears. “Why, no-one had seen you for more than a week! And none could say why. I thought I would visit and make certain all was well – I know Meres is quite concerned, yet he seems reluctant to visit.”
       My hearts warms half a degree at this news. My dear Meres. At least he thinks of me... But this rude boy. The others are well aware when I desire to be left alone, and respect my wishes. Why did they not make this clear to the boy? “My associates are capable of respecting the privacy of others. They would not burst into my home uninvited, and I have not invited any of late. My health, you know, I have been tired.”
       “But it is not good for one to be alone when unwell – you must wish for company at times, to offer sympathy and bring you news, distract you from your illness,” he chatters away without thought.
       “There is a great different between company and intrusion.”
       He stops at this, frowning a little. I do not think he expected me to receive him with such utter coldness, but how could he have thought otherwise? I do not want his company. I did not ask for it, and I shall have fierce words with the servants later for letting him in – whatever lies he told them to gain admittance, they ought to have known enough to see through.
       “Veri... I shall leave if you wish it. But I thought, since Meres seemed not to want to come, that I might look in on you, merely in courtesy to your ill health.”
       I nearly laugh. “Meres! As I said, Meres knows to respect my wishes. And I did not wish to---” I break off, recalling the note I had sent him not long ago. And then I was so happy to see him at the party, and so pained when he left me. Oh, it is not true that I do not wish to see him... I wish it so badly, that it is all I can do not to fixate on that single desire. My dear kind Meres... why are you grown so cruel?
       A mean smile curls the corner of Claude's lips. “I know you wish him here, with you. But he has chosen otherwise, and spends most of his days with me now.”
       Ha! Oh, this ridiculous boy! To think that some few weeks, a month or two, means anything to ones such as us! Meres and I have been together for millenia, we have seen the rise and fall of empires, each at the side of the other. We dallied in the gardens of Babylon, we dined in the courts of Pharaohs, we drank the chocolate of the Aztecs and the wine of Athens. We have spoken sweet words to each other in languages that none on the earth still know; embracing, we have watched the sun set on lands that have sunk below the sea. This boy... this boy has spent a few days painting while Meres watches in idle amusement. What threat is this to me!
       Claude appears puzzled, having thought, I expect, that I would have burst into a jealous rage. He will gain no such victory from me.
       “Claude. My dear little boy.” I can see him rankle at the patronage in my voice. Good. I sit up, leaning my back against the wall, resting my hand placidly in my lap. “Meres is welcome to amuse himself as he wishes. We all pick up new toys from time to time, to amuse us for a little while. Novelty is the key to appeasing the senses, you know. But when he has tired of you,” I lean forward, staring intently into his smug eyes. “And I promise you, he will tire of you soon. He will drop you as a child drops a stone into a lake, and watch with cold detachment to see what sort of ripples it will make.”
       He forces a laugh, but it is short and abrupt, and there is fear at the edges of it. “I will believe no such thing from you. You may have known him once, but I know him now, and---”
       At this, I truly do begin to laugh, and he stops short in petulant anger. “You know him! Oh, dear young child. He has told you, then, his family history? He has told you of his past loves? Of his hopes and dreams for the future? He tells you what it is that makes him sad, or angry? You know his real name! He has shown you his paintings!” I am truly laughing now, at the increasing absurdity of these things. “Oh... oh child, you have no conception of the depth of your own foolishness. Did you think you could join our society? Take the place of myself among the others?”
       He is scowling fiercely, his fists clenching, his body tense and eyes dark. “I did not come here to be insulted.”
       “No – you came here to insult me, in the harshest way you could think to do. You came here to dispose me from my place, which you thought to usurp. You! I have not laughed so in years. You. Are. A. Toy. A mere pet, a plaything. Go ahead, play your rôle, be the eager puppy at Meres' side. Enjoy it while you are able – you shall see that it does not last.”
       He stands up sharply, glaring at me coldly. “We shall see. I do not intend to have my life dictated by one such as you.”
       I smile cruelly, folding my hands delicately. “One such as me? Do you think I could not control you, that I am somehow weaker than--- oh, I can hardly speak such ridiculous words, you would think I am weaker than you?”
       “Perhaps. I am not the child you think I am.”
       “No, dear boy... I am beginning to suspect you are even more a child than I had anticipated. Go. Play. I have nothing more to say to you.”
       He pauses a long moment, undoubtedly searching for a biting retort to make.
       I simply lay back down on the cushions, and pour a fresh cup of tea. The cup scalds my cold hands, which I wrap more tightly around it. I take a slow slip, feeling the heat warm my throat, my lungs, my blood. Closing my eyes, I breathe in the delicate bitterness of the tea, feeling my body relax. I hear heavy footsteps storm from the room, soon receding down the hallways leading him away. What an uncouth boy. It is amazing that he is able to put such grace into his paintings, for he certainly does not possess it himself.
       I hear again the strange sharp notes of the shamisen, but they are too sparse to push the echoes of the boy's voice from my mind.
       “Onna-san wa koto o hikimasu,” I instruct, raising my voice just enough to be heard across the room. The girl completes the phrase she was playing, then sets the long-necked instrument and its ivory pick to one side. Turning, she faces a long rectangular instrument which rests on the floor, silken strings running its length. Onto her pale fingers, she slides ivory picks, and then skims delicately over the strings. The melodies are so strange, the keys and harmonies so unlike those of the Western world, that I find them quite engaging to the ear. There is no music written for such an instrument, all is passed down in ancient tradition, or invented by the musician's skillful whims. Letting my eyes fall closed again, I sink back into the cushions, and let my mind drift. Claude's rude interruption is soon carried out of my mind, borne on the spiced wind of the East. I recall the drift of cherry blossoms through all the air in spring, the simple blossoms contrasting the sharply elaborate architecture of the temples, with their intricate spines and stolid rectangular arches. The gardens there are so lovely in their spareness, the eye falling on the most minute arrangements of mosses and stones, the channels worn through sand by light rains, all the world seeming to exist in a patch of ground smaller than this room...
       Perhaps I shall go with Azal, when again he leaves the city. The air of this place seems so stale of late, an endless gray dullness that seeps in after the rain, and refuses to leave, clouding all freshness and lightness. Meres, I am sure, would like to see the vivid colors of the Moorish temples again, the dazzling whiteness of ancient Grecian pillars, the heated blue of warmer oceans, the strange shapes of tropical flowers... He and I should go, and find rest in such warmth and color, and he might paint some of what he sees, and, in seeing his escape from his thoughts, perhaps I might be carried alongside, at least for a time.