Rosa: A Wangxian Reincarnation Story

Rosa 7: Reaffirmation

After they leave. I am pulled to my deepest secret. Only Lan Zhan knew of it. And he has forgotten it with all his other memories. No one, not even Lan Xi Chen, has seen it. Since I began classes at UVA I have let them assume that my art is a trivial pursuit, a way to pass time. Oh you know, just Scott and another short-lived passion to replace his losses. They could not be further from the truth.
     
     When I purchased the condo, I also bought a small studio apartment next door. I had an adjoining door installed quietly, with locks on both sides. I can hide there as long as I want. This place is my real world, a genealogy of my long, twisting lifeline. A testament to love, hate, fear, happiness, and despair. It is how I have kept sane and able to latch on to some continuity. For each lifetime, I have always recreated this room, wherever I have lived. I developed trusts to handle payments and I take over the room each time I return to begin again, keeping it up to all the newest standards of climate control, even though I had discontinued my work after I returned in the 1960s to find him truly gone. But there had been nothing worth recording after he was cleaned of everything. Therefore there has not been anything added since 1939. it has laid fallow for a very long time.

    That is going to change today.

     I change into tattered jeans an old Tee and an overly large , soft red flannel shirt. I stand in front of a brocade tapestry and look lovingly at a vista of two mated cranes in flight above a pond of lotus blossoms. White mountains \float in thick mist in the distance. I push it to one side and reveal my secret door. I unlock it then open it in slow motion, flip a switch and stand back. I sense my studio blink at the sudden assault of light.

Starting at the left. I have mounted paintings done by me since the beginning. All on ten by twelve-inch canvases. The mediums are vastly different because they reflect the artist and what I used in the period. Watercolors on silk depict several very early ones, mostly Asian in style. The first, of course, is Cloud Recesses reaching through the mist and seeking the sunlight. In the right corner is a pair of men, their backs to the artist, one in blue and white. You sense his calm and serenity. The other is in black and red robes. He radiates nervous energy. They hold each other's hands and, in their free ones, each carries a sword. They are gazing at the location before them.

      Location after location, depicting the span covered by two soul-bonded lovers, and in every single one, the same two men are always somewhere, looking inward, ignoring the man designated to record them. The paintings reach from floor to ceiling, covering three-quarters of the room. An easel dominates the center, and there is a blank canvas that has sat there for ninety-three years, waiting for an artist, who in turn has waited for his inspiration to return.

     I am back, I whisper to the men depicted. And. I think, so is he.

     I close my eyes, overwhelmed because I sense their energies reawakening. I have neglected our old selves for way too long. I no longer believe that Lan Zhan was the only one to get sick of it all and reject his past. I now believe,  that, in my way, I have done the same thing. I walk over among them, these men who are me and him, who are Wei Ying and Lan Zhan and all of us in between.

     I am sorry I gave up on us all.

     I have brought a large shopping tote with me but first I lay the old, brittle, yellowed canvas on the paint daubed table to the left, replacing it with a fresh one. (I will not destroy the old one for it represents how deeply I can lose myself in despair.) Then I replace all the old, hardened tubes with brand-new paints, vibrant acrylics instead of the last few centuries of oils. There are so many amazing colors these days. Little mixing to do. I bought a tube of every color available. Brushes, palettes, palette knives. Everything is fresh in an attempt to erase my long neglect. And a small pile lies to one side, saved for a special project. Tubes of every shade of gold and metallic they had. Alain/Lan Zhan must be represented in all his resurgent glory. And only one small man in black and crimson will be gazing at him, back to the world.

      I spend the afternoon studying each completed canvas. I have to admit, I am pretty damned good. At least one thousand lifetimes are represented.

     It is then that I spot a lone canvas that I barely remember, setting to one side. I did not remember painting it before and when I had seen it, wrapped in Berlin newspapers from the month before our deportation, I had no desire to see what was inside. It has remained unopened for nearly a century. Since I have dedicated today as a day for new beginnings, I decide it is time to hang it with the rest. Whatever is inside is still a representation of our journey together and should be honored, no matter the pain that comes with it.

     I sit on the floor and rip the newsprint away in much the same manner as tearing off a scab that will not heal. I turn it over and my heart stops for a moment. There, on a background covered in thick slashes of jet black, is one word painted in a delicate pink script.

    Liebe.

    German for Love.

    And it is in Lan Zhan's Western handwriting. The handwriting on the movie poster.

     There are no lingering doubts.

     He is back. He may not know it yet, but he is seeking himself once again.