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Here is the truth: Nicolò is not a man of words. He struggles to find the words to speak his thoughts unless they are given to him.
The Church gave him the words of his faith.
Pater Nostris, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum….
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et terrae…
Yusuf gave him the words of their love.
You are the moon when I’m lost in darkness.
I could bask in your smile for an eternity.
Love is too paltry a word; I adore you.
The world believes Italians are all poets and artists, but Nicolò is older than the Renaissance, from a time when Italians were called not to be poets but soldiers. Nicolò finds it easier to say words that are given to him.
Nicolò recites his prayers in a language that is more ancient than his native tongue while fingering his latest rosary, already worn by decades of worrying. God does not mind the traditional words, how Nicolò’s Italian accent struggles against the arcane Latin, because God is beyond words. God hears the anxieties and hopes of his soul.
He parrots Yusuf’s Arabic words back to him, the vowels foreign and the consonants weighty in his mouth. Sometimes he translates the words to Italian before speaking them, but to Nicolò Arabic is the language of love, because it is Yusuf’s language. His lover doesn’t mind that Nicolò’s words are unoriginal, because Nicolò’s kisses are all his own, his touches speaking where his words fail. Nicolò believes his love to be apparent in his actions, and Yusuf has given him no reason to believe otherwise.
Yusuf is a man of words, which isn’t to say he loves to talk, but he always has the right words. He always knows which words to use to get across what he means. Andromache is a woman of action, but she knows how to use her words—a gift of the millennia she’s been alive. She has more words in more languages than Nicolò can imagine. So when there are discussions to be had, it is Yusuf and Andromache who debate back and forth while Nicolò listens.
Quynh used to interject into any discussion with the most scathing, dry wit, but of course Quynh is not with them anymore. And that is the crux of the matter, the heart of their brokenness, the truth beneath the tense silences, and the anxiety in their terse words.
Quynh is at the bottom of the sea, in an agony Nicolò cannot begin to imagine, while the three of them are here, on dry land, debating her fate.
They are in the dining room of their cottage. They have only been in this cottage for about ten years now, and perhaps they will get to stay longer than the last. This landlord is less prone to visits and questions. At the last cottage, about twenty miles south, Nicolò had to play Andromache’s husband. He likes this better, where she is a wealthy widow and he and Yusuf are just her servants.
It’s dangerous to spend so long in one area, especially near the sea where sailors travel up and down the coast. Someone who knew them at their previous spot might spot them here and start to ask questions. It is still such a dangerous time, especially now that the Protestant queen is dead and a Catholic king is back on the throne of England. The people see heretics and witches around every corner.
Nicolò doesn’t like these petty divisions, Protestant and Catholic. Most days he no longer sees the differences in his own faith and Yusuf’s. Other days he likes to ruminate on Christology. In either mindset, he does not see the point in killing anyone over theological differences. He has seen how that played out before, during the Crusades. Both sides came out sullied and soiled.
But human memory only lasts so long. These Protestants and Catholics are far removed from the generations of Crusaders. And now they fight over even more minor theological differences. Or so they claim. Here is the truth: wars like this are always over power.
If they do not want to end up like Quynh, it would be best to leave Europe while these theological conflicts play out, or at least go to a place where they are less exposed, but they cannot. They cannot leave her. So in England they remain. They search the ocean again and again. And today, they tracked down the last sailor left alive, the man who once upon a time had been the ship’s boy.
When they arrived at his house, he was already dead.
“There is no one left,” Yusuf says. He is standing by the window, looking out at the countryside. They have, all three of them, been dancing around this conversation for so long. Nicolò knows it is easier for Yusuf to find these difficult words without looking at Andromache, without having to see the devastation on her face. “Where do we go from here?”
Andromache sits at the table, holding a bottle of wine that she has been nursing for the past hour. When she speaks her voice is hard. “We go to the spots we know again. We search again.”
Nicolò sits at the table across from Andromache. His fingers worry at his rosary—a contrivance of the thirteenth century but he likes it. He likes having something to do with his hands, something that can ground him. From where he sits, he has a good view of both Andromache and Yusuf. Both are pretending to be relaxed. Neither is.
Andromache’s face is pinched. Yusuf’s shoulder line is tense. There are no words that can ease the strain in the air. The connections between them are taught, pulled to their limits, and one misspoken word in this moment could shatter them forever.
Here is the truth: Before there was Nicolò and Yusuf, there was Andromache and Quynh. Nicolò and Yusuf have never known Andromache without Quynh. Without her, they are unbalanced, and one wrong word will send them spinning apart, irreparably broken.
Yusuf knows this. He and Nicolò have discussed it in stolen moments, when they knew Andromache could not overhear. The future of everything relies on this conversation. Over five hundred years in each other’s company could end forever with one ill-thought word. This is why Yusuf speaks and Nicolò remains silent.
“We search,” Yusuf agrees. “And after that?”
“You mean if we don’t find her.” Andromache’s words are an accusation, as if Yusuf’s words alone will condemn them to failure.
“Yes,” Yusuf responds simply, his voice calm and not rising to her anger.
“Tell me, Yusuf,” Andromache’s fingertips turn white, where they press against the neck of the wine bottle. “If it was Nicolò, how long would you search? How long would you scour the seas?”
Yusuf has an answer for this, because they have discussed it at length. They have whispered fights in the middle of the night—fervent and broken, pleading. They have shouted in the woods—passionate and angry, pleading. They have argued in Italian, Arabic, English, and French through tears and sobs, pleading.
Nicolò and Yusuf are not like Andromache and Quynh. The women knew what it was like to be apart, for millennia. Nicolò had barely lived thirty years without Yusuf. He has been waking up by Yusuf’s side for so long, he has forgotten what it means to sleep alone.
Yusuf and Nicolò became immortal together. They have never known any other way.
Nicolò does not know if that makes the imagined scenario of them being separated better or worse than Andromache’s. Nicolò can’t imagine life without Yusuf, doesn’t know how to live without him. Andromache has lived without Quynh before. She is now reliving a nightmare she had thought long before defeated.
Yusuf is silent for a long time after Andromache’s question, and then he turns. His eyes lock on Nicolò’s, his expression broken. When he speaks, it is a whisper. “One hundred years.”
“What?” Andromache’s head whips up, her eyes wide. It is obviously not the answer she expected.
“You asked me how long I would search,” Yusuf’s voice is louder, but still thick with emotion. “We have discussed it. We have agreed. One hundred years. And if at the end of that time, there is no hope—we have to stop.”
Andromache shakes her head, her expression turning from Yusuf to Nicolò. “You agreed to this?”
“We have a mission,” Nicolò says. He has had this argument with Yusuf so many times that for once the words come to him easily. He knows just what he wants to say. “God has put us here to help people. We cannot waste this gift, this life, absorbed in ourselves. We must continue.” God did not put them here to only love each other, Nicolò argued over and over. He gave them these lives to do good. Nicolò does not want Yusuf to stop—to stop trying, to stop helping, to stop living—just because Nicolò falls into Quynh’s same fate.
Nicolò needs to know that Yusuf would keep living. He needs to know that his love would continue, rather than entomb himself in a fruitless search. Knowing that Yusuf would never stop—would destroy himself to get to Nicolò—would be worse torture than living in death like Quynh.
Andromache searches his face, searches for any deception and then she drops her gaze to her wine bottle. “One hundred years,” she says the words as if they are foreign. Then she looks back up at him and says the words again, this time as a question just to be sure, “One hundred years?”
“One hundred years,” he agrees. Slowly Andromache nods.
Nicolò does not speak much. He often lacks the words. Even when he knows what he wants to say, he struggles to give them sound and shape in whatever the language of the day is. Italian comes easier to him than any other tongue. So he finds it easier to just not speak, to let others use their words. He has found in his five hundred years of life, that a side-effect of this is that when he does speak, people listen to him more closely. His words, because they are used so sparingly, have more weight. Even with Andromache.
“We search the sea again,” Andromache says. Her words are brittle. “We get a boat. We do a thorough search of all the areas of the map we identified and add a ten-mile radius. You know how the oceans shift. She could have been pushed many places. We search again.”
“And then?” Yusuf prompts, the weight of his gaze on her. “If we find nothing?”
“Then we continue with the mission,” Andromache says. She takes a long swig of the wine. “May your God forgive us.” Quieter she says, “May Quynh forgive us.”
“May God forgive us,” Yusuf agrees in Arabic, while Nicolò crosses himself. It is the agreement Nicolò wanted—he needs them to stop; he needs this precedent to be set for Yusuf. Nicolò is sure that God will forgive Andromache and Yusuf. God will see their pain, their faith, their truth, because God sees beyond words and he sees their meanings.
It is Nicolò that God will not forgive.
Because here is the truth: Nicolò would never, ever stop looking for Yusuf. The world may turn to ash, the oceans may burn off into deserts, and the sun may go dark, but Nicolò would search for eternity to gaze upon Yusuf even one more time. There is no Nicolò without Yusuf.
This is the truth.