For Old Time's Sake
Zeus and Hera, long since divorced, meet again in modern Japan. Where will this encounter take them?
- Encounter -
Long, slender hands with silver-painted nails were holding on to the steam of a glass with white wine, large and almond-shaped dark-brown eyes shadowed by thick lashes regarding how the light bounced off the liquid as she slowly spun the flute around with gentle hands. The inertia of the wine was causing intricate effects of light and shadows on the dark wood of the bar desk and upon her pale, slightly olive-skinned hands. She had been looking at that glass now for a while, with melancholy tainting the beauty of her eyes, but hardly taken a sip of the wine. Looking at it but not quite seeing since her mind was wandering, plowing through tons of remembrance. What was she searching for, what was she trying to recall? Honestly, she didn't know other than that she sought something to banish the boredom and the forlorn loneliness that was grating at her old soul.
She didn't know what was worse, what she regretted the most, the things she had done, or those she never did. There was just one thing she was certain of – if she got a chance to do it all over again, she would do a lot of things differently.
"Is this seat taken?" the deep bass was mellow, the question kind and honest and without any tries at flirting, unusual at this hour in a bar and when it was so achingly evident that she was a lonely woman. Just because the gentle sound of it and perhaps a faint trace of an accent she remembered, did she cast the slightest of glances in his direction, noticing a vibrant shadow blocking the ambient resin of the overhead light.
"No, you're welcome to it," her voice was modulated to be polite but not inviting. That timbre had she practiced for so long now that it was utilized without even thinking.
There was a soft scraping when he pulled out his chair, she glimpsed more than saw him sitting down, perceiving how he made contact with the bar tender, ordering a whisky on the rocks. She had to brace herself to not look at the man, look and become disappointed, because he reminded her so much of someone from long ago. Someone she had 'seen' and 'heard' so many times earlier, before realizing it was just been wishful thinking, that he had been someone else, just reminding her of the one she imagined she saw. Make-believe, what a cruel game!
Disappointed – and relived just the same, because her sensible self knew that a re-encounter would be tragic. Therefore she had shrouded herself in obscurity, retracted those parts of the woman he might recognize and turned anonymous, one of billions in the endless crowds. She wouldn't let him find her just as she had forced herself to not search for him.
Changing position marginally she finally took a sip of her wine, relishing the buttery crispiness of liquid sunrays. Once chilled, it had now grown lukewarm and didn't taste her as much as earlier, but she needed the diversion to neglect the gentleman to her right, to not begin making up little patterns of daydreams in her mind. Yet they were almost inevitably, those visions, those reminiscences came to her without her wish for it. The sun, the beach, the bluest of oceans, the salty wind in her nostrils. The sound of the children and the music. The airy white structures against the blue sky. Bulging curtains of semi-transparent and colourful silk woven with strands of silver and gold. His large hands across her chest, strong but tender as they cupped her breasts. His chin on her neck, his warm breath when he whispered wonderfully indecent things in the shell of her ear. The slight moist of his bodily perspiration dampening her skin. Why had she thrown it all away?
"Milady?" his voice cut right through her wandering thoughts, it was obvious he had directed it at her, and involuntarily she turned to face him while putting down her glass on the counter. "A yen for your thoughts?"
o=*=*=o
He had called it a night when the last of the emails had been sent off and there was nothing more of importance in the inbox. He then switched off the laptop, closed the brushed-silvery lid and stood from his desk, turning around and gazing out over the frozen explosion of lights that was downtown Tokyo. Being at floor 58 in the headquarter high-rise of Orinaki Corps he virtually had the city at his feet, like a treasure chest filled with the most wondrous of jewels and no matter that he had seen this very sight for so many years now, it still filled him with joy.
Taking a small step back, he regarded the face superimposed upon the glittering urban area beyond, his own reflection in the glass, another all too well known sight. Because when not envisioning something else, he always saw himself, no matter what he let other people see. The strong and handsome man with bronzed skin and hair so fair it was almost white, profound sapphire eyes regarding the reproduction thoughtfully.
It was in that instance he became aware of something, a sensation that hadn't run through his mind in years and years. Something different, something refreshingly unexpected. Something reminding him of...
It shook him in his very foundation, almost like the volatile ground of Japan occasionally would do. But the tremor was not a quake this time, this unsteady sentiment emanated from the inside of him.
She was here, he knew it. Here in Tokyo.
Still hiding however, still trying to keep herself undisclosed, doing her best to stay out of his perception. Itinerant beneath the radar. Regardless of having seen through her disguise long time ago, he'd refrained from letting her know, refrained from getting in touch. That much did he respect her, no matter what had passed between them.
Their marriage had been a sad excuse at its best, a disaster most commonly. In his own mind had he eventually come to the conclusion that it was mostly his fault, that his deeds had shattered their love, robbed them of the joy they could have experienced together. Too late had he accepted to take the blame for the misfortune. When he finally woke up and smelled the coffee had it been too late and she was gone. Permanently this time.
He hadn't deserved her, that was the painful deduction.
Retrieving his Armani jacket and adjusting his necktie had just taking him moments; he didn't even need a mirror these days. He turned off the lights in his office and left, crossed the now empty foyer hardly seeing its elegant blend of futuristic and archaic. The thick lion-yellow broadloom dampened his footfalls as he made it over to the row of elevators, polished brass doors adorned with meandering art noveau patterns gleaning and reflecting the warm light. Pressing a button he called up a coach; he had located her now and made the quick decision to encounter her. He had enough of waiting, enough of pretending that he didn't care for her. Whatever the reason for her to be in Tokyo now, she had more or less run right into his arms just by coming here, something he took as a sign. A sign that she was unconsciously ready now.
o=*=*=o
"My thoughts?" she sat up a bit more erect. "Those aren't worth even a yen, they are just dumb wanderings."
"Let me be the judge of that." The voice was indeed conversant and shifting her position, she finally took in his face, his form, hardly believing what he was seeing since it was an all too familiar sight. Achingly familiar like melancholia covered in rust chafing itself across her soul. Not even centuries had banished this feeling of instant cognizance. His haircut and dress-code might be different, more aligned with this era and the people around him, but his tall, strong body was the same as were his chiseled features and most of all those glistening primary blue eyes, like two shining leds. There was no use pretending anymore, no matter if it had happened intentionally or being pure chance, it was her ex-husband sitting here opposite of her, centuries and miles from the place where they had parted.
"Zeus?"
"Hera?"
"What brings you to Japan?"
"I could ask the same."
"Curiosity I guess," she tittered against her will. "It is an amazing country, challenging for the mind and the soul constantly in the midst of the huricane of endless transformation. And you, Lord Olympian?"
"I live here these days, make my living as a CIO for the Orinaki, an international company manufacturing components for power plants and engaging in environmental research."
"Ah," her eyes widened. "Zeus, the born manager. I should have guessed."
"And you?" Hera could hear how he cut himself off before he reached that endearment having formed upon his tongue, and she felt an odd respect for him because of that.
"I left Venice a week ago. Had to, I've been living there for more than seventy years now, and my alter ego had grown too old. La Contessa Adriana Verselli had to die; being a 90 year old woman was too tiresome. There's absolutely nothing reasonably fun a mortal of that age can do." She saw him smile, a sight she had missed and which made her heart contract. She would trade anything for... no, she'd better banish these thoughts. This was a chance encounter, it had been stupid of her to not check Japan out before coming here, but she had figured that none of the others would be here. Especially not he.
"So now you're what? 24?" he asked of her, eyes glittering as he sipped of his drink.
"Something like that, yes. I think I wrote that I was born in 1993 in the passport. I'm still an Italian citizen, but that may change when I decide to settle somewhere. I'm not sure if it'll be Japan yet or if I'm to continue elsewhere, I went to Tokyo mostly on a whim, nothing planned at all."
"I have room for a guest at my place," he offered, trust him to be so self-assured that he thought she'd accept on a caprice.
"No family?"
"Orsiaon Aquila is a divorcee, no children."
"Amaterasu?" she asked, reminiscing the latest known wife of Zeus.
"That was long ago," he shrugged his shoulders.
"I thought you'd still be together," Hera traced a finger across the rim of her glass, her nail polish glistening.
"No," he shifted his gaze, following the movement of her hand with partly closed eyes. His voice altered, grew softer and narrating. "The Japanese Sun Goddess and I divorced back in the early 18th century. As friends, perhaps with a faint hope to pick it up where we had left, should a chance present itself later on. Yet it didn't take me long to realize it was not going to happen. Especially after returning to Japan in the nineteen-eighties. It was nice to see her, to talk, but the spark simply wasn't there anymore. We had both moved on, our time together felt like past tense. As a matter of fact, it feels like it was longer ago and less tangible than our epoch, Hera."
She knit her brow, those words surprised her. Moved her.
"How long were the two of you married?"
"Four centuries," he was toying with his glass, half of the drink was left, the golden liquid swirling around to the sound of the clinking ice cubes.
"That's not even half our time together. I hope for your sake that it also was less than half as disastrous."
"Disastrous," he blinked. "Is that all you recall, Hera? The bad parts of what we had?"
"No," she had to admit after a few heartbeats of silence. "There were better times too. The first centuries, those I tried so hard to bring back later. The children. I still see some of them now and then, nonetheless they have their own busy lives these days. What were we, happy for 300 years of something? Perhaps I should be glad for that instead of remembering what came after."
"Those centuries are still vibrant in my mind. I remember also trying to get them back. I have to admit, Hera, I never got over you."
When that was said Zeus wanted to zip his lips, that was something he had promised himself to never admit, especially not to her. In frustration he downed the rest of his drink before turning to catch the eyes of the bartender, ordering another one. He offered Hera a drink as well, but she declined gently. Instead she tilted her head and gazed into the vast depths of his eyes, trying to understand what she just had heard him say.
"I thought you were glad to be rid of me," she bit her lower lip. "So you could get on with your life, marry that Norse goddess you met."
"Eleodora," he almost huffed. "She had nothing against you, she was a mere pastime." When he found her not believing him, he went on. "Marrying Eleodora felt like a good idea at the time. Thought she was everything you weren't. And I thought right. Where you were fiery and temperamental, she was tranquil bordering on insipid. When you had humour she was wishy-washy. When you confronted me she kept making excuses, laying the blame upon herself. Pulling the martyr card. She failed to challenge me in so many ways. Finally our sex-life, let's say watching paint dry could be more exciting."
At his words, Hera felt the corners of her lips tug. A new whiskey appeared in front of Zeus and once again she declined another drink. But she raised her glass and they toasted. Their glass chimed when they connected and a cup of peanuts landed between them as the bartender returned Zeus' Amex Black.
"For something," she heard herself say. "I don't know what yet, but perhaps we can think of something."
"For a few centuries which weren't half-bad," he tried and they drunk to that in absence of anything better.
"And who else was there?" she asked, fingering in the cup, retrieving a few nuts and savoring them, the salt a welcome tang on her lips. "I mean for real, not just some ephemeral affairs."
"What is this, a cross examination?" but Zeus' eyes were smiling when he asked. At the same time he felt oddly affected by that unassuming movement of hers when she sampled the nuts, her gracious fingers reaching those full, sensual lips, a short glimpse of shining white teeth and a moisty tongue. It prepossessed him on a primal level.
"Why not, Zeus?" she dared. "This woman meets the man she was married to so many years ago. Naturally she's curious as to how he's doing now. And what he did all those years."
"Then let me buy you dinner, and we can talk for quite a few hours more in a nicer surrounding than this comfortable but oh so anonymous gajin bar."
Hera almost blushed, now he had her, he had laid a clever trap and she had fallen right into it, baited by objects for her own senseless curiosity. Then again, it was just a dinner, and if she was careful with her emotions it could actually be nice.