Disclaimer: All rights and privileges to Card Captor Sakura and all related art, characters and story are trademarks and property of CLAMP, Nelvana, Kodansha, NEP21, Tokyo Pop and associated parties. The characters of these works are used without permission for the purpose of entertainment only. I, Hally Dang, do not claim Card Captor Sakura and all related art, characters and story as my own property.
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La
Figlia Che Piange
by Hally Dang
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- for the lovely Ekai Ungson, because your words always make my day a little brighter -
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i. they said weave, weave the sunlight in her hair
Eriol was always one who enjoyed a good story. There was one particular Italian folklore he liked immensely and would think of often.
It was said that somewhere in a land forgotten by time, there was a girl of breathtaking beauty. Those lucky enough to have laid eyes on her believed her to be the very essence of sunlight and spring; they were never the same after seeing her, for nothing—no matter how pretty, how lovely—could ever compare. However, as all such stories go, she was cursed. She bore such a terrible sadness that she would cry everyday until the day she died.
Thus she was called la figlia che piange—the weeping girl. It was as though as a punishment for her heartbreaking beauty, she was never to obtain happiness. So she cried and cried and cried. She wept who those who cannot weep. She carried within her the very sadness of the world. Until at last, as all such stories go, the gods took pity on her. They cast her spirit into the sky so that she might look for her happiness. Yet, she was still sad, for her spirit had never known anything but an immense sadness. So her spirit became gray clouds and continued to weep as the soft summer shower, as the bitter November rain. And she will weep for as long as the rivers flowed and as long as there were tears to shed.
Eriol would always wonder about this tragic girl, especially on those long rainy days when the skies were heavy with gray clouds. How could someone so beautiful be so sad at the same time? Yet somehow, Eriol understood, for beauty and sadness couple together too easily, too often. There was always beauty in sadness, and sadness in beauty.
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ii. saturated in urgency
Eriol came to Prague in the depth of January to escape the harsh winters of Saint Petersburg's. It was his third time in Prague and he knew the Czech Republic well enough to appreciate that it was often mild and cool during the darkest months. He had already spent a winter in Saint Petersburg's many years ago; he stayed with a lovely Russian lady who had been intrigued by him and offered him lodgings in her second bedroom. So he spent the winter months there, reading poetry late into the night by candlelight and writing until daybreak when the candles had melted. The cold weather was not kind to him and he resolved to never again winter in Saint Petersburg's; one was enough.
He was living like a vagabond, drifting from one city to another, from one language to another. He left behind a pleasant living in London, where he had resided ever since returning from Japan in his youth with the woman he loved deeply. He left it all behind him because he needed more than the love of a woman and a comfortable life. He was jaded and unfulfilled, so he left and became a transient. It started eleven years ago when Eriol came up with the brilliant idea to retrace Clow Reed's life through the cities Clow had once resided.
"We are all attracted to the places we once lived," Eriol had explained to a bewildered Kaho many years ago when the idea had first came to him. "But I had never truly lived in any of the places I remember. They are Clow's memories, not mine. I want them to be my memories."
At first Kaho was confused, but then it dawned on her, what he had truly meant by that. "But, Eriol, you can't be serious," Kaho had protested.
He smiled and reached out for her hand. "But I am perfectly serious, darling," he replied. "I think I will go to Hong Kong first, then Hiroshima and Munich, Brussels—I'll see where it takes me."
She looked at him, long and hard, searching for something that would betray him and would tell her that he wasn't sincere about it at all. "At least let me come with you," Kaho made one last desperate attempt when no such indication could be found. He was perfectly serious. She knew him well enough to understand that once his mind was made there was no changing it. "Please, let me be with you—just let me be with you."
"Kaho, you know you can't. I need to do this for myself," he shook his head, refusing the woman he loved with all his heart. "I need to make peace with Clow."
She had suddenly burst out in tears; he was leaving her. They had both known in that moment when he decided to leave that it would be the very end of them. This was how ten years together would end.
It was only the second time he had seen Kaho cry, so he took her into his arms, his hand in her dark red hair, cradling her against his chest. The first time had been when he had broken his leg while playing rugby at Cambridge; he suddenly recalled when his shirt was warm with her tears. Kaho had rushed into the emergency room with tears dripping down her face. He remembered being surprised by her crying. It was Kaho, his Kaho—the beautiful strong woman, unbendingly magnificent and somehow the tears looked inappropriate on her. He never forgot that look in her eyes, the same look in her eyes now as she sobbed into his skin.
Eriol left London and Kaho the next morning on the first plane to Hong Kong. He did exactly what he said he would. Hiroshima, Munich, Brussels—he hasn't stopped since.
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iii. have you made greatness your companion?
His favorite part of Prague was the architecture, ranging from Art Nouveau to Baroque, Renaissance, Gothic, to Neo-Classical. He would often wander the streets of the older parts of the city and wondered if Kafka or Mozart had ever turned the same corners. There were many old buildings and the city was unmarred by the World Wars. It shimmered with history and splendor. Eriol felt that he could have spent months simply drifting aimlessly and admiring the city's magnificent silhouettes, skylines, and profiles or the way sunlight found its way into the spaces between buildings and windowpanes.
It was during his second week in the golden city when he discovered a lovely antique bookshop in the corner of a little stone house by the Vltava River. There he found a first edition of Yeats' The Green Helmet, the original version from 1910. He smiled to himself and took the book slowly from its place on the mahogany shelf. The spine had been torn and the paper was brown, but it was a wonderful find nonetheless. He opened the pages carefully, turning to see one of his favorite poems. His eyes fell to the first line—
"These are the clouds about the fallen sun," a voice spoke behind him. It was a sparkling soprano that fluttered in the air, thrilling and soft.
Eriol spun around, nearly dropping the book in his hands, and caught the scent of lavender in the air. She was closely behind him, her great amethyst eyes reading his favorite poem over his shoulder. He grinned as recognition and nostalgia dawned. "The majesty that shuts his burning eye," he finished and laughed. He followed her voice and enveloped her in a casual embrace. "Tomoyo-chan!"
She smiled. "How have you been, Eriol-kun?"
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iv. another phase of finding
She must have fallen from the tips of Botticelli's brush. Tomoyo possessed such a remarkable beauty that seeing her was like getting the air knocked out of your lungs. It was as if her mere presence was a gift. When the sunlight catches her, she seemed to glow. Her skin was sheer, opalescent; everything about her was timeless, indefinable.
"Tell me about your sojourn in the Sinai Peninsula," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. They were on their third cup of coffee now. It the sun was setting for darkness now outweighed the day.
Her words passed through the air, passed through him. They were too soft like the falling light and they slipped through him. He looked away, still trying desperately to find words to describe someone indescribable. There had to be something, some word big enough to contain her.
"I went to Saint Catherine's Monastery," he finally replied.
His mind drifted back to those weeks in the depth of the desert. Saint Catherine's was the oldest monastery in the world. It sat at the foot of Mount Sinai, where it was said that Moses received the Ten Commandments from God. Eriol took refuge within the dry, yellow walls of the monastery. He went to every morning mass and spent his days in Saint Catherine's formidable library, second only to the Vatican. The monks there were kind enough to provide him access to every codex, scroll or manuscript he asked for. He read over the ancient texts in their original tongue—Ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic—until finally night fell and he could no longer make out the ornate calligraphy on the antiquated parchment.
He didn't know why he felt the need to go to Saint Catherine's. He had somehow found his way to Istanbul earlier that year. He met a group of pilgrims there—a collection of lost souls from Corporate America searching for God—and decided, on a whim, to join them on their journey to Mount Sinai. Nonetheless, it was an awfully long, arduous expedition for a library. Perhaps it was because of a longing for the desert. The Sinai Peninsula was barren and the sky was perpetually crystalline blue, the truest blue he had ever seen. The desert was wide open, so much space, so much air. Perhaps it was because only in a place where all signs of life had diminished could he genuinely feel alive. When there was nothing else but the sky and dead earth, perhaps then, he could truly be alone with himself.
Perhaps, really, it was because of a yearning to be closer to something greater than himself. Clow was never a religious man; science was his God. Yet Eriol knew that in some deep-rooted, bottom-of-all-bottoms way, Clow had never felt completed. Perhaps being where Western faith was born, where God had been the closest to mortal man, perhaps there, there he could find God. Eriol needed to be connected with something bigger, greater than all the millennia of knowledge and wisdom Clow had achieved. He needed to feel that one split second of clarity, when he was one with the universe, instead of being forever the outsider examiner.
He felt her eyes studying him. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she slowly asked him after a long moment of silence. Her voice was clearer than usual.
"No," was his answer, abrupt and crisp.
She gave him a wry, reassuring smile; her entire face seemed to light up. "You will, Eriol-kun. We always do."
He couldn't help but return her smile. A line from Campion slipped into his mind. "There's a garden in her face," he whispered quietly to himself. Perhaps, he will never be close to feeling infinity, but this—this is the closest he would ever get in capturing Tomoyo's infinity.
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v. the sanguine sunrise with his meteor eyes
Tomoyo have never been to Prague; in fact, she couldn't speak a speck of Czech. The cold of winter made wanderlust sink deep into her skin. So as January settled into the bones and narrows of Tomoeda, she found herself buying a one-way ticket to the city of a hundred spires. She didn't know how long she was staying or when and how she was returning.
She managed to locate a small family owned hotel in the older parts of Prague. She wandered the city on most days with her old manual Nikon camera. She got by speaking English and broken German; the locals were kind and a smile went a long way. She enjoyed the solitude—no obligations, no responsibilities. It was just her and the city.
"Why Prague, Tomoyo-chan?" Eriol finally asked her one morning. It was the end of February and Eriol and Tomoyo had found a traveling companion in each other.
She shook her head. She looked out the café window, where they were enjoying breakfast together, and into the busy streets. The city was waking up. "I don't know," she finally replied; her voice was small. "I just wanted to go somewhere I've never been before."
"You are a long way from home," he said.
Tomoyo remembered a saying from when she was little: people build their homes inside their loved one's heart. A home was never a house; it was never something physical. Home was an emotion felt when you were with the person you loved. Home was closer to a state of being than a building.
Throughout Tomoyo's life, she had loved many people, loved so fiercely that their happiness was her own. But she never felt like they were her home. Sakura could never be her home because Sakura had always belonged to someone else; even her heart wasn't big enough to be two people's home. Perhaps that was why Tomoyo had bouts of wanderlust. There was nothing for her in Tomoeda.
She smiled. "People like us don't have homes, Eriol-kun."
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vi. tell her you've been searching for her soul
Winter was slowly leaving Prague. The afternoons were getting warmer. Tomoyo and Eriol took advantage of the lighter weather to take more walks together through the city. Ever since they met, they had spent everyday together. At first it was a dinner, a talk to catch up on things. But neither of them wanted to be alone so they sought each other. Prague had so much to offer. There was always a new boutique to discover, a new gallery to appreciate, a new restaurant to try out.
"Do you ever miss her, Eriol-kun?" she asked him once in the silence of a gallery in Prague's Old Town Square. He had been admiring a vibrant pastel piece depicting two lovers on a garden path. It was bursting with warm colors like pieces of summer. "Kaho, I mean."
His eyes never left the painting. "In the beginning," he replied, his voice low.
"You don't miss her anymore?" she pursued.
"Sometimes."
She paused before her next question. "Do you still love her?" It was barely a whisper.
"Do you ever stop loving someone to whom you have given so much?" he answered instead.
She exhaled sharply and remembered her own past. Tomoyo never felt closer to Eriol than in that moment. It was recognition that he was feeling exactly what she had felt all her life. Tomoyo slipped her hand in his and laced her fingers with his. She squeezed his hand. "I don't know, Eriol-kun. I don't know."
They stood there together like this for a long time; the pair of them standing before the painting of young lovers. They stood under the dim light, hand in hand. Tomoyo wished then that there was something she could say to make both of them feel better. She wished that there was a word for love when it wasn't love but only a shadow of a previous love, a ghost of a love truer than everything you have ever known. If only there was a word for that.
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vii. her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers
Prague was a fairy tale. It was one of those cities which made you fall in love. The city was wonderfully preserved. Prague Castle had been constructed in the 9th century and had not been significantly renovated since the 18th century. Coming to Prague was like entering another world, another time.
Tomoyo loved Prague. She was slowly beginning to pick up pieces of Czech. Nashledanou means goodbye and Tomoyo loved how the sounds roll across her tongue. Eriol was a particularly helpful and knowledgeable linguist. She wondered exactly how many languages he was fluent in, how many cities he had traveled to. How much could you journey when you had the duration of two lifetimes?
"Of all the places you've been Eriol," Tomoyo asked with a whimsical smile one afternoon. "What was your favorite?"
He pondered the question for a few moments. "India," he replied.
"Why?" she was surprised.
"The history, the languages—everything," Eriol gave one of those boyish grins. "It's one of those places."
"How long were you there?" she was curious.
"Two years in Northern India," he replied. "And then about six months on the coast."
Tomoyo studied him. She wondered why he needed to be constantly moving, why he never stopped. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked once more even though she already knew the answer.
He shook his head.
"I'm sorry, Eriol-kun," her voice was soft and sympathetic.
He looked her closely, taken aback by her empathy. He tried to understand why she stayed with him in Prague all this time, why she accepted his reasons. She was giving him a heartbreaking look, as though she understood his longing for answers, his ache for something unattainable.
Eriol took a step back from her. He pressed the palms of his hands together in front of his chest and gave Tomoyo a slow, practiced bow.
She was startled by the gesture.
"It means namaste," he explained quietly. "I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you which is of light and peace. When you are in that place within you and I am in that place within me, we are one."
It took a moment for her to process his words. Tomoyo smiled, pressing the palms of her hands together in front of her chest, and returned the same slow, practiced bow. "Namaste," she replied.
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viii. gray clouds
Spring was settling into the bones and narrows of Prague. The days were getting longer. The new weather suited the city well. The trees are sprouting tender green buds. More birds have returned from their journeys south. Everything was waking up from their winter stasis. With melted snow in its veins, the Vltava River was high and full. The city was preparing for summer.
It was one of those particularly warm rainy days which were filled on ends with a sort of slow, gentle shower. Eriol looked out the window of his small hotel room and to the gray clouds above. The clouds hang like white wispy gossamer. They lingered low, clenching at treetops as cobwebs in musty attics. The rain was drumming a melody on the windowpane.
There was a knock on the door behind him. "Good morning! I brought tea," she was saying. There was a clatter as she set the tray down on the small bed. Tomoyo often brought him his morning tea when she came to visit him.
He didn't turn around. It was days like these when he couldn't think of anything but the story of La Figlia Che Piange because it was the sort of rain that came down like tears, like sobbing, like the clouds were so full of sorrow that it was about to burst.
"Eriol-kun?" Tomoyo was concerned. She placed a porcelain teacup beside him on the windowsill. It was earl gray with one slice of lemon.
He turned to her, giving a small smile. "Thank you."
She sat down beside him. "Are you all right?"
He nodded. "Of course, just a little preoccupied."
"Hm," she looked out the window, following his eyes to the gray clouds.
"Have you ever heard of the story of the weeping girl, Tomoyo-chan?"
She shook her head.
"They say that her spirit is in the clouds when it rains," he explaining, slowly imparting the whole tale to her.
Tomoyo did not speak for a long time. Only the sounds of the rain filled the silence, the space between them. "Her sadness is what makes her beautiful," she whispered.
He stayed motionless. Closing his eyes, Eriol let the sounds of the beating rain wash over him; he let Prague wash over him. Eriol let go of his own desolation; he allowed the rain to mourn for him. "I think it's time that I leave this city," he finally said.
She was stunned. "Are you serious?" she asked although she knew the answer. She knew that once his mind was made there was no changing it. "Where will you go?"
"I had been thinking a lot about Italy lately," he replied. "It will be really lovely around this time of year. I miss the Mediterranean climate."
"What are you searching for?" she asked, slightly panicked.
"I don't know. Maybe I will know when I find it."
She remembered the Italian folklore he had shared with her—the weeping girl, la figlia che piange. It was the gray clouds that created wanderlust in his bones. Had he been looking for the weeping girl all these years? There was a mild stinging in her eyes. She blinked back her tears.
"Tomoyo-chan?"
She didn't move, afraid that he will see her eyes.
"Will you come with me?"
Startled, she turned to see him, to see if he was serious. He was looking intently at her, eagerly. She smiled, allowing relief to wash over her. She was sure that she was crying now, but she was happy. Tomoyo reached out and squeezed his hand. "Yes."
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ix. somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
In the following week, Eriol and Tomoyo got on the flight to Rome. Tomoyo was sad to have missed summer in Prague but she took to Italy very well. From there they traveled to Spain, then Morocco. People like them don't have homes because a true home was being with the one you loved. They lived as transients, shifting from one culture to another, from one language to another. Having each other's companionship was enough because that companionship was in itself a destination—that was their home.
They haven't stopped since.
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- fin -
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Footnotes: Each of the section titles, excluding "gray clouds," are taken from (in no particular order) the poem "La Figlia Che Piange" by T. S. Eliot, the song "Volcano" by Damien Rice, the song "Then Go" by Damien Rice, the poem "These Are the Clouds" by W. B. Yeats, the poem "The Cloud" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, the song "Coconut Skins" by Damien Rice, and finally the poem "somewhere i have never travelled" by E. E. Cummings.
La Figlia Che Piange – This is Italian for "the weeping girl." However the actual tale is fictional. It was created purely for this story. I was inspired by a poem by T. S. Eliot by the same name.
Prague – It is the capital of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for the city were the golden city, city of a hundred spires. The famous writer Franz Kafka had spent many years of his life in Prague. Mozart, as well, had resided in Prague for several years and had composed several famous pieces there including the Prague Symphony.
Vltava River – The river is the longest in Czech Republic and it runs directly through Prague.
Yeats – The poem Eriol reads is titled "These Are the Clouds." It is written by W. B. Yeats and published in one of Yeats earliest collections of poetry The Green Helmet. This first edition of this book in good condition will sell for at least $350 USD.
Botticelli – A famous Italian painter who was a important part of the Early Renaissance. The Birth of Venus is among his most famous paintings.
Sinai Peninsula – This is the triangular area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The area is very dry, but also has very deep Biblical history.
Istanbul – The modern name for Constantinople. It's Turkey's biggest city.
Campion – An English, Renaissance poet. "There is a Garden in Her Face" is among his later poems.
Prague's Old Town Square – One of the most famous landmarks in Prague where the well known Astronomical Clock is situated. Today many galleries, boutiques, restaurants can also be found in this area.
Prague Castle – It is the biggest ancient castle in the world. It is truly spectacular.
Namaste – The word is Sanskrit, one of the classical languages of India. It is one of the sacred languages of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Namaste is used as a greeting in parts of India to say either hello or goodbye. Often the gesture (the bowing with palms pressed) in itself is enough. The word has many meanings, like "I salute the Spirit in you," "I greet that place where you and I are one." There's no exact translation. The translation in the story is a combination of several variations. It is meant to express a deep respect and understanding.
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Author's Notes: Ekai Ungson had been kind enough to write a wonderfully beautiful story for me, "A Little Fall of Snow," and ever since I've meant to write this for her. I've worked on bits and pieces of this story for at least a year now. I'm sorry that this is so late. I can just hope that this will bring a smile to her as well.
Thank you for reading, I really enjoyed writing this.
Please review before you leave.