[Fic] A Passage for Trumpet
elsane answered my dumb NYC questions and talkjive put up with my shit.
Title: A Passage for Trumpet
Characters: Austria, America
Rating: G for gen.
Words: 8800
Summary: He scanned the note, skipping the niceties: ten days in Manhattan, to improve international relations. They did not work like that-they were not dogs, to be introduced to one another at parks- Austria takes a vacation.
A Passage for Trumpet
I have watched
the city from a distance at night
and wondered why I wrote no poem.
Come! Yes,
the city is ablaze for you
and you stand and look at it.
William Carlos Williams, "To a Friend Concerning Several Ladies"
Autumn of 1964.
The arrangements were made without Austria's knowledge or consent; under normal circumstances, he would have marched to the Hofburg, knocked on the Chancellor's bedroom door, and demanded to know who was responsible. Staring at the plane ticket and note, however, he decided he was more indignant that his government had entered his home without his permission than their presumption.
He scanned the note, skipping the niceties: ten days in Manhattan, to improve international relations. They did not work like that-they were not dogs, to be introduced to one another at parks, held safely back from misbehavior on leashes and encouraged to sniff at one another's bottoms. He tapped the envelope against his palm and went to the warm kitchen, where his housekeeper had a pot of soup on the stove for him.
Yet before he could sit down, the phone rang. Austria picked up, prepared to give whomever felt the need to interrupt his meal a piece of his mind, and was disappointed by the heavy breathing on the other end. He tolerated it, however-for all of ten seconds-before asking, "How did you get this number, Frankreich?"
"You have found me out," France said. "They say you are to visit Amérique."
"They move very quickly."
"Evasive."
"Yes. And you are drunk, and I'm going to hang up now." France's tittering laugh rang loud and clear over the line. It stayed Austria's hand. "I fail to see the humor."
France cleared his throat, and Austria imagined smelling the stale wine on his breath. "Angleterre should be making this call."
"Großbrittanien is aware that I speak English."
"Perfect English. And I suspect that he speaks more German than he lets on! But he is so irrational-"
"I know that word," a voice in the background snapped.
Austria shifted the phone from one ear to the other and grimaced. "He is there with you."
"Ah," France said. "Yes. Would you like to speak to him?"
"Tell me-and please, be honest-have I done something to offend you?"
"Not in the past decade. In any event, I'm to tell you not to influence him unduly, to keep your hands-" France stopped, switched to absurdly accented English to say, "Yes, yes, I'm telling him."
"To keep my hands to myself," Austria offered.
"To keep your bloody hands to yourself," said France. "The nuance would be lost in translation. And I'm to remind you that we do not care what he does, or that Angleterre doesn't."
Yes. France was interested in America's well-being. That was precisely it. "If we are quite finished threatening an international incident, I would like to get back to my dinner."
"By all means, enjoy your vacation," France said, to the sour accompaniment of England's grumbling.
Politics-if this was indeed politics-ruined his appetite, and he indulged himself in slamming the phone down on the hook.
Austria ate. He packed, for there was nothing better to do. He did his very best not to wonder how France and England received word of his trip at the same time as, if not before him. He was almost positive that the sudden restlessness in his legs was imagined, but he gave in and made his way upstairs. Though this house had been built in the last fifty years, the stairs creaked under his feet and pipes groaned as he passed; Austria aged his surroundings, but it gave a building character. A draft hit his feet as he passed his music room, and was as good an excuse as any to go in and distract himself by fiddling with his things.
He picked over his music. Schubert-entirely too obvious, and too cheerful, to boot. No, he would have his fill of earnest bespectacled young men. He returned it to its place. Perhaps something from the unopened packages of music his neighbors sent him from time to time, as though his sage approval of their cultural achievements would make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
The envelope on the very top was from Spain. He sat at his piano bench, careful not to lean back against the keys, and slid a finger neatly under the seal to open it, then turned it over check the date of its postmark: 1915, Barcelona. He would have felt guilty if he thought that anyone honestly expected a response from him. Siete canciones populares españoles, transcribed by the composer himself for violin and piano, upon request of one Don Antonio Fernandez y Carriedo.
-how considerate of Don Antonio. Fernandez y Carriedo. Someone had moved up in his own estimation since disposing of his royal line, possibly twice; the madness, it likely had something to do with the sun, Austria was glad to have been untouched by it within his borders.
His violin was against the wall. He'd taught no lessons in it today. He could bring it with him. (The cello next to it had a coat of dust on its broad shoulders. The one he'd been teaching to play it would not return for some time.)
Austria had never crossed the Atlantic, he had only seen the ocean from Spain's shores, and once from France's. This only dawned on him once he stepped off the plane, whereupon he was assaulted by the same abrupt wrongness that accompanied leaving his own borders, only-more. Far more. He sneezed into the crook of his arm and looked up to scan the crowd and, there, that would be America, that blond head bobbing and ducking through the crowd to get to him.
Austria sneezed again, and when he looked up America, dressed as a chauffeur, was at the very front of the assembled with a sign that said, in even, childish block letters, RODERICK EDELSTEIN. He'd even colored horizontal bands of red at the top and bottom.
Well. He hadn't expected a motorcade and the Radetzky March.
"Welcome to Idlewild, Mr. Edelstein," America said. He stuck out a gloved hand, and Austria looked down at it until America remembered himself and took the suitcase from him, then set it on the ground. After sufficient pause, Austria shook. "How was your flight? Do you need a nap?" America continued, lest Austria get a word in edgewise. "And, oh-this isn't Idlewild anymore."
"My condolences," Austria said, removing his hand to take the measure of the boy before him.
America's even grin faltered, and he stuck his thumbs in the pocket of his coat and splayed the rest of his fingers, shrugging. "I guess-"
"I'm very tired," Austria said.
America hefted the suitcase. "Welcome to JFK." (Austria could not imagine becoming attached to rulers who were deposed every four years like clockwork.) "Hungry?"
He'd heard stories from France about what passed for food in America. "I believe I would like a nap." They involved grease. "Failing that, Mr. Jones, several strong cups of coffee." Austria had dealt with grease for centuries-servants brought their own cuisines, after all-but France had been dabbing at tears. "Am I correct in assuming that you drink coffee?"
Outside of the airport, the wind threatened to whip through Austria's sturdy wool coat. He tugged his scarf over his chin with one hand while squinting into the street, watching America perform a complicated dance just off the curb to summon a passing taxi to their aid. "I live on coffee," America said, with the air of someone confession a grave and terrible sin, and winced when the driver named his fee. He lowered his voice and scooted across the sticky seats, far too close for comfort. "When can I call you Austria?"
So Austria sneezed once more, if only to get a centimeter of space. "Human names are necessary." The taxi driver's radio was loud enough that America did not need to be theatrical; he must have picked it up from France.
"But they're weird."
And insulting, in the right tone, but no one had yet done anything to warrant insult. "Necessary."
America's apartment looked as though some well-meaning, matronly government official, or England, had grabbed America by the scruff of his neck, dragged him to a department store, and disregarded all of his preferences and chose his furniture for him. The walls in the living room were a bright sky blue-bright enough to make Austria's teeth hurt-and he half-expected to look up and see a model airplane hanging from the ceiling.
When they came into the dining room there was one, hanging above the table where a chandelier had once been.
"What do you think!" America set Austria's suitcase on the scuffed hardwood floor with a small thud and rushed to sweep a stack of papers off the table and into a drawer.
"Where are your other homes?" Austria asked.
"I'm not supposed to tell you that, am I."
Austria set his violin down. "Very good." He took his time peeling his gloves off, followed America into the kitchen, sat at the table. It was far cleaner than Austria would have expected.
Scratching the back of his neck, America pulled a matte green bag from his cupboard. It was much-abused. It was held shut with a rubber band. He handed it over, and Austria opened it as cautiously as he would defuse a bomb and took a sniff that was perhaps daintier than was strictly necessary.
He took a pinch of the stuff and sniffed it, then, under America's gaze, let it fall back into the bag, rubbing the tips of his fingers together to remove any residue it may have left behind. "This," he said, and let America's imagination finish the sentence. "Your government has given me an allowance?" He was perhaps being an ungracious guest, but an Austrian could not be denied decent coffee.
America's mouth hung half-open. Good. "A thousand bucks or so. I think."
"Very generous," Austria said, and America brightened immediately. "Will you ask the gentleman outside your building to find the quality shops in the area?"
"What gentleman?"
The one in the dark suit in the nondescript blue car, watching them through binoculars as they arrived. "I must have been mistaken," he said. "We will search by foot. At noon."
"How about seven!" America said.
Austria winced. "In the evening?"
"In the morning."
"Absolutely not."
"Why?"
And now was as good a time as any to see how well badgering would work. "Are you questioning my judgement?"
"No, sir! Coffee-hunting at noon, sir!" America snapped to attention and saluted, and it took every ounce of Austria's gravity to keep a smile off of his face.
"You have the right spirit," he said, and pushed the bag away from him.
America snatched it up and put it back in the cupboard. "You think so?"
It occurred to Austria that this-this enthusiasm-was all an act America put on, as it would be with Poland, or Prussia-and also that forcing him to drink better coffee counted as influencing him. France would approve, at least, on both counts. (Tea was a degenerate's drink, though no one in recent history had stooped so low as to accuse England of honor.) "I do," Austria said. "Now-if you would be so kind-"
"Your room is right this way, sir."
"Please, don't call me sir."
Nonetheless, he was roused at exactly eight by the smell of grease wafting under his door, or jet lag-he blamed the grease. He didn't remember changing into his pyjamas, but his underwear was draped over the nightstand, and he snatched it off and tossed it into the hamper and wondered who would take care of his laundry while he was here. He stretched and ran a hand over his violin case and shuffled into the kitchen, where America stood before the stove in an apron. Clean and white. Very professional.
"Did I wake you up?" America asked.
"No," Austria said, cleaning his glasses on his sleeve. "I'm sleepwalking."
America shrugged the sarcasm off magnificently, if he'd noticed it at all. "It's biscuits and gravy day."
"I don't have sweets for breakfast." Austria inspected the silverware. On the counter, a pot of that foul coffee was brewing, but there was only one mug at the table.
"They're not-"
"Do you have any bread?"
Rather than answer, America went to the oven and pulled out a baking sheet. Biscuits. This English was not Britain's, and they didn't smell sweet. "May I?"
"Take two," America said, peeling one of them off with his bare hands. He didn't wince at the hot metal on his skin.
"One will suffice," said Austria, and America gave him two anyway, then went back to the stove to retrieve a pan with thick, white-grey gravy, and Austria took one good look and inched his plate away as politely as possible. He had done more than a few unappetizing things in the name of improving international relations-many of which had involved fluids of a similar color-if not consistency-but he could not force himself to do this.
And now America looked crestfallen. Devastated. "But you have to try the gravy."
-he made a strong case. "On the side, then." It smelled edible, at least, and the sins of English cuisine, the unsettling puddings and undercooked rice and questionable beers, were not visited upon America's.
This impression was affirmed at lunch, though his stomach growled well before then. Manhattan was overcast and oddly hushed in its din after all of the businessmen left the streets. Austria had to crane his neck all the way back to see the sky. The city had grown up, rather than out. "I had one of these in Paris, once," Austria said, by way of conversation, holding up his hot dog.
"What'd you think?"
Not as good as wurst. "Far better than fish and chips." In its sodden newsprint, soused in vinegar, though Austria had a healthy appreciation for vinegar.
He finished it off the precise moment before America took him by the arm and pulled him into the next shop. The search had been inconclusive; Austria could not find any of his familiar brands, or even the ones he would settle for in a pinch, or even the Turkish ones.
"Hey," America said, shifting the bag with Austria's other purchases to his other hand and picking at a bin of produce. The store itself was small and murky and smelled of nothing. "About the fish and chips thing, you don't gotta"-he took a deep breath -"I mean, I'm not just..."
The delicate pride of young nations-he applied his flattest monotone: "The unfortunate wet spot of England's cultural legacy, everything good you have is not borrowed, or stolen, from us, you are something entirely different?"
America looked sheepish, now. "That's the one."
"You've wanted to say that for a long time."
"Yeah."
"And do you feel better?"
"Sorta."
Now that that was out of the way-Austria picked a tin off the shelf at random: brushed metal, discreet logo, and he did not recognize it, but he was finished shopping and it displayed the hallmarks of quality, which was more than enough. His purchase went into a cheap brown bag, and he let America lead him from the store and back to the train, for his sense of direction was grew worse the further away from Vienna he got. And at least the sneezing had stopped.
And, naturally, the instant he thought so, he found himself taking a deep breath and muffling one with his sleeve. America looked back up the stairs at him, and Austria crinkled the bag in his hands. He was the only nation he knew with the problem, and it comforted him to think of alternatives that his fellows might suffer. (He wished sudden, violent incontinence on Prussia in particular.) They simply walked past the ticket booth, and in the station proper the air was damp and thin and did nothing for Austria's lungs.
A young man sat cross-legged against the pillar directly across from their bench. He had a guitar in his lap, and his pick in his mouth. There was money in the case open before him-by the amount in it, Austria imagined that he'd been sitting for two, perhaps three hours. That he had to re-tune so soon meant that his strings were in need of a changing.
Austria could hear how close he was to getting the string in tune. He turned away to look down the tunnel for a train.
Then the boy started playing, and Austria thought-Ah. Talent. He knew it when he heard it. There must have been hundreds of gifted musicians in the city, but for the universe to present him with one within hours of his arrival-these things were rarely insignificant, or useless.
"This city'll eat you alive," America said, when the train's doors closed behind them.
No, Austria thought, thinking on the boy's pinched face. He could have been handsome, with a meal in his stomach and clothes that fit. It will eat itself.
He was dragged, in summary: to the top of the Empire State Building, to the Statue of Liberty-a bouquet of flowers would have been less expensive, and less of an eyesore-Canal Street, the Bronx Zoo, museums, theaters, palaces of finance-all in the space of three days, and all with a suited man watching them from a distance, standing out to Austria's eyes from the crowds of men in suits.
"And tomorrow, I've got something for you," America said over a dinner of rice and beans and pork on the third day. Before Austria could guess, America hopped up and shuffled to the sideboard to retrieve an envelope from under a fine Italian vase, currently the resting place of America's fedora. Fedoras. (They did not suit his face.) "Take a guess."
"Shock me."
He slapped the envelope onto the table. "Tickets!"
Austria stopped himself from flinching, swallowed his mouthful of rice and beans. "For the orchestra."
America's shoulders dropped. "How'd you know?"
"Because." He dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin (paper) and peered at America over his glasses. "I can read your mind."
"If you think I'm gonna fall for that-" America stopped. "Wait, really?"
"Of course not," Austria said. "But where else would you take me?"
America blinked and sat down, slid the envelope across the table. "It's a big city."
"It is."
Another palace of finance, that evening, and the banker mistook Austria for a visiting dignitary and tucked a hundred-dollar bill into his breast pocket while America entertained the man's daughter. Austria was not a dignitary. He felt no need to mention it to America on the way back to the train station.
His busker-Austria had developed proprietary feelings for him-was sitting in his place, as usual, but there was another man, older, not as grizzled as he could be, with a cello case open at his feet. The two of them were sparring, if not with their instruments-they were playing together like good children, improvising a duet-then with their words. Austria only caught a word here and there. Cabrón. He knew that one, at least, and more words returned as he listened: Your mother's sweet ass, your sister's, your mother and your sister at the same time, while their instruments wound around one another, the guitar at the bottom of its range, the cello at the very top.
Austria put money in both of their cases; America checked his watch and peered down the tunnel.
Twenty paces away, a man in a suit took a picture of them.
-and an orchestra warming up sounded the same everywhere: looping violins and sudden blasts from the brass section. The schoolchildren squirming in their seats were all the same, their parents were all the same, the programs were all made along the same lines, and people who were not used to being forced into bowties all fiddled with them in the same manner. "Take it off," Austria said. America hesitated, hands on the knot, and he added, "You won't enjoy the music if you're fidgeting."
America did not need to be told twice. "What do you think?"
Austria considered his fumbling attempts to remove the tie and leaned over to help; America jerked back, wide-eyed. He looked around to-make sure no one was watching them?-and allowed Austria within his personal space. "What do I think."
"That's what I said!"
"Nothing, yet," he said, turning the program over in his hands. Goodbye to Nationalism. Whoever was arranging this trip had a sense of humor.
America turned his program over to read the advertisements on the back. "Isn't the book of music you brought with you by one of these guys?"
"Yes," said Austria, thumbing over Manuel de Falla's name. An appalling sense of humor. There was Czech music on the program, and though Austria was not still upset about being thrown out a window, centuries had passed, he was gratified that the German name of the piece was the one that stuck. Die Moldau. As things should be.
The children in the row in front of them were pinching one another's arms, stifling their giggles and flinches that their parents, bookending them, wouldn't hear. One of them turned to ask their mother whether she had something to eat-a child after his own heart, Americans did not eat nearly often enough-and was waved off when the conductor, preceded by his nose. Austria knew who the gentleman was, of course.
And so he chose to stay in his seat through the intermission. The music did not unsettle him. His reaction to it unsettled him. He was too old and too tired to be charmed, and glancing over at America, leaning forward in his seat, elbows on his knees-"Sit up straight," Austria said.
Now America slouched in his chair. "What'd you think of that?" He didn't sound as though he was trying to prove a point. Austria could have cared less, but he could not shake the sudden idea that he was a symbol, no matter where he went, and perhaps on this continent of only three nations his role was magnified: he was the old world, and America, the new. Or, less mystical, he had not spent years in this symphony hall and didn't know how the sound worked.
"-you in there, bud?"
"I," Austria said, "will reserve judgment until the concert is over."
America slumped deeper in his chair, hands shoved into his suit pockets, and Austria bit his tongue. He was a guest. This was his host's building, he could sit however he wished. "Judgment?" he asked.
"Nothing horrible."
"You're sure?"
"Would I lie to you?" Only if it benefited him.
"You sound just like England," he said, wrapping and unwrapping the length of cloth that had once been his bowtie around his hand.
"If I wanted to be insulted, boy, I would call Prussia."
"Don't call me 'boy.'"
Remember, Österreich, he is capable of throwing you through a wall. Several walls. "Britain calls you that."
"You're like him."
"Quite the contrary," Austria said-"I can announce that I am baking a cake and not watch, baffled, as everyone I know gives me a kilometer-wide berth."
"His cooking's not that-"
"For a month."
A convenient hush descended over the audience on month. His rational mind was as powerless against the concert (though the last two pieces were by an American and a Soviet who would become nothing more than program filler within twenty years; Austria's instinct for these things was unerring) as it had been, he realized, against the gravy and the busker. He allowed himself to wonder about the busker, then looked down at the little girl, leaning against her older brother's arm, shoulders rising and falling steadily, asleep even through the applause.
"America," he heard himself say, over the roar of the crowd. "I should like to shake the conductor's hand."
"It's against the rules," said America, and he only shrugged under the full force of America's arched eyebrow.
"The rules," Austria repeated. He must have misheard. The cheering was loud, these things happened.
America shrugged again, then whooped for the conductor. "It's a cultural thing!" he said, right into Austria's ear.
"And whose rules are these?"
Now the crowd died down. America looked up at the ceiling, and surely he wasn't thinking of saying God made the rules. "My bosses said you weren't allowed to talk to the musicians, is all," he said. Austria could believe this, America had not a drop of guile in him, and no nation could resist the urge to show off their finest, and despite these two truths-these self-evident truths, even-it was still an affront, and Austria saw no reason to hide it, and America made it no better by saying, "I could call somebody."
"Don't trouble yourself on my account."
"Really," America said grabbing him by the wrist. The concert hall was half cleared-out, and their voices were suddenly loud over the hush. "If you want to, I'll try."
Austria tried freeing himself, and came very close to rolling his program up and hitting America in the nose with it. "Do you want to be noticed?" he snapped, and America let him go. Austria stumbled and hit his thigh on the arm of a seat.
No one was staring. No one would ever stare.
Their dash from cab to door soaked them through, and they dripped their way up the stairs. America fumbled his keys and dropped them on the floor once before managing to open his door; Austria did not offer to help. It wasn't yet dinner time, but the apartment was dim enough for America to rush into the kitchen to turn on the light. It softened the room's edges, made the hideous chintz chair in the corner with the poorly-knitted throw look beautiful.
America turned around, in the middle of everything to strip down to his undershirt. It was light blue, rather than white. That explained who did the laundry. He was well-built from behind, but Austria would have been more sexually interested in unbaked apfelstrudel. Then he turned. The scant light from the next room caught his Erkennugsmarken-Austria forgot the English word-dog tags, he remembered; dog tags, with their chain falling over strong collarbones and broad shoulders, and a thin layer of comfortable fat over his abdomen, a strong nation grown somewhat complacent.
"-what'd you think?" America was saying. "Really."
Austria cleared his throat and looked into the dining room at the plane on the ceiling. It stirred and swayed in the breeze from an open window. "Magnificent." He cleared his throat. "The concert. Do you go often?"
America picked up his undershirt and toweled his hair off with it, and Austria indulged himself in wondering whether anyone had ever, so to speak, tilled this fertile field. Surely England had not, nor France, nor Prussia. "Once or twice a year," he said. "Free tickets, you know."
"Benefits." Austria went to the guest room to make himself presentable. When the water stopped running down his forehead and onto the sheet music, he took up his violin, but halfway through his warm-up America poked his head into the guest room.
"The kids next door are sleeping."
He didn't sound irritable; Austria only chose to take offense. More offense. "Are they."
"Could you keep it down?"
"I can try."
"And hey, do you want to-"
"I'm going to take a walk," Austria said, and pretended America's eyes weren't glued to him as he searched through the closet-at length, though it was no broader than he was-for his raincoat. And his umbrella. He wasn't nearly as ashamed as he should have been at his petulance, young states needed to be taken in hand, and Austria was far too old to finish what England had not.
And America's pout was pure Spain. "Don't get lost out there."
He would. It was a useful skill. A half-hour and ten centimeters of water up his pant legs later, the sound of a cello from a window above him, two stories up, gave him pause. This was the last thing he needed to dwell on, but he leaned against the lamppost to listen it. The child was no older than twelve, judging by the way their hands skidded on the strings. A breeze stirred the curtains, and the playing stopped. Austria imagined a small brown-haired girl (all women had brown hair in his imaginings) hopping from her seat, setting her instrument aside with the utmost care. And it was a girl he saw, poking her head out the window and shutting her eyes and breathing in what must have been clean, crisp air to her. The window shut, then, with the creak of bare wood scraping wood.
He carried on. The rain had not died down. It was late enough: he could go to the subway to listen to his busker play, on the pretence of catching a train, but he had no money for fare. Or he could go to the Polish grocery he'd seen the day before, he was losing his Polish; but he would not begin to know where to find it. He had no watch, but he imagined it had been an hour, and let his thoughts wander, until it occurred to him that-
He should have been in Budapest, not getting himself lost in a foreign city to teach a child a lesson, and how many years would he spend flagellating himself over something beyond his control? Ideological barriers were stronger than walls, to their kind. If they had been kinder to Serbia, or had beaten Prussia nearly a hundred years ago-he would have a bottle of vodka on his right hand and a bottle of wine on his left, being urged drinking shots from each to honor the memories of each of the twelve generals his own emperor had hanged. The hangover was atonement enough.
"You're gonna get sick," someone said, and Austria jumped in shock, tripped over his own feet and landed on his face. The umbrella tumbled away in the wind, but that did not matter so much as the snap of his glasses breaking, and the flap of America's coat as he rushed over to help him up. "Hey, bud, I'm sorry-"
"I'm fine," Austria said. He permitted America's hand on his elbow, taking his glasses off to assess the extent of the damage. The lenses were only scratched, and this was bearable, but the arm had broken off at the screw.
"Let's go back," America said, and Austria's pride was not so great that he would refuse the umbrella America held over his head.
"The best idea you've had all evening."
To America's credit, he did not rise to the bait.
When they returned, America held out his hand. "Let me look at 'em."
"You know someone who can fix them?" he asked, pulling them out of his pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief.
"Yeah," America said. He stroked his chin and sat down on his couch, spreading the remains of Austria's glasses out on the coffee table as precisely as Switzerland would disassemble a gun. "Six foot one. Blond. Handsome guy."
"Who could you possibly be talking about."
"-me."
"Never mind," Austria said, taking a seat in the chair and unlacing his shoes.
"That's one eighty-five." He turned the frame over in his hands. "I have to convert for Canada."
A brother to the north; a sister to the south. Austria could not conceive of a continent with only three nations, and imagined it unbearably lonely. "Impressive."
"How'd you go so long without knowing how to fix your own glasses?"
"I've always had-people," said Austria, watching America rush to fetch what looked like a sewing box from his closet. He opened it, and it was filled with thousands upon thousands of tiny screws, ostensibly organized by a difference in size that Austria's eyes could not see. "Who were skilled with their hands."
America nodded and fiddled with a tiny screwdriver. "Like?"
"No one in particular."
"Lithuania was good with his hands."
"I never ruled him," Austria said.
"Nah, neither did I, but he stayed with me for a few years""-as if Austria needed a reminder, all of Europe knew this. "Do you know Poland?"
"I ruled him."
"How?"
"Why." Vodka on his right, wine on his left.
"I mean, don't get me wrong, he's swell, I've got a ton of his people, he taught me a lot..."
"He was difficult."
"You guys are all nuts over there, anyway." Austria couldn't very well argue with that, and instead wondered what exactly America could have learned from Poland, of all nations. "But I like his pierogi!" America continued. "And his sausage! What's it called-"
"Kiełbasa." Question answered. America's stomach growled audibly, and the question of what they would have for dinner was also answered. He made an affirmative noise around the screw he held in his his lips while he picked a pair of pliers out of the box and unbent the arm of Austria's glasses. Austria indulged himself, considered America's mouth, then was properly appalled with himself.
And-honestly-there was no reason for him to hold it there, he could have set it on the table, it was too small to roll anywhere. "Here," America said when he was finished, and Austria's sudden impulse to correct his pronunciation of Hier jolted him into the realization that they had been speaking perfect German for the last ten minutes, if not since that they had walked in the door.
"But they say you only speak English," he said.
"They say that." Then America looked excited, I brought you a present, do you like it? His words came out in a rush: "And I've got enough of your people in me, yours and Germany's, and some of them that remember being Prussia's too, because, I mean, it wasn't that long ago, that I can sorta pull it up sometimes?"
"Do it again."
His face fell. "I can't."
Very well, every nation had its own mystery. He started, "I," and America leaned forward in his chair. Austria put his glasses back on to shield himself. "Thank you."
"I'm gonna go lay down," America said, pushing up from the couch. "Watch some TV, will you?" He handed over the remote before Austria could say he preferred not to and shut his door quietly behind him.
Austria paced the length of the room, considered his violin, and gave the idea of practice up-there were neighbors, and his host was resting. There was only one bookshelf visible, and it was covered in books on America's own history. And that was to be expected. He thumbed through one, but the words swam on the page before his tired eyes and he had to put it down. From America's room, the soft sound of a jazz record leaked under the door, into the living room.
It was only noise until something caught on Austria's ear, courtesy of that maddening habit that forced him to hear these things: a four-note repeated figure on the saxophone, over and over, in a different key each time-he gave counting at the fifteenth-up and down, half-maddening and half-attractive. He was tapping his foot to the rhythm. He stopped. He started again, and realized that he was supposed to tap his foot, and so he allowed it, until it distracted him from his reading. He knocked on America's door and entered before he was given permission. America lay spread-eagled on his stomach and lifted his head just enough to acknowledge him.
"Good evening," Austria said, as though they hadn't spoken to one another all day. The musician on the record started murmuring, sotto voce, and America gestured to a chair-the room itself was likely far less attractive by the light of day, but this was where he kept all of his books, and his collection of records. Austria sat back. And he listened.
Out of Austria's reach, on the second shelf from the top, the glint of a battered trumpet caught Austria's eye. The tracked changed, and in the momentary silence Austria asked, "Do you play?"
America started and sat up, shirt rumpled. "It's not mine," he said. "It was a friend's."
"One of your great musicians."
America ran a hand through his hair, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I can play a little."
"Show me." Austria leaned forward to remove the needle from the record.
So America stood up and put the trumpet to his lips. Austria waited patiently for him to correct his grip, which, after much puttering, was still wrong. He would tire out his left hand in minutes that way. Taking a deep breath and furrowing his brow, he made one clear, bright blast into the instrument, then lowered it to his chest. "That's all I can do."
Austria's fingers twitched to take the instrument from him and give him a lesson. Brass instruments were not his strongest point, but surely he remembered enough. But there was no time. He had six days left in the country, and his itinerary was packed with crass sight-seeing. "You ought to get instruction," he said, instead. "Do you play anything at all?"
"The flute," he admitted. "Just a little." Shrugging, America switched the record player off. There had not been a note of music in the house save what Austria himself had played since he arrived, and as he recalled he had never gotten the inevitable package of sheet music from America.
"The flute is a degenerate's instrument," Austria said. "There was a king who played it, you know. He was a tyrant." America sat down, the bell of the instrument on his knee, rapt. And, oh. Austria had not expected him to believe it. "The trumpet, however-you could do far worse."
"Maybe," America said.
"So I have to run up to see Canada-"
"Where?"
"Up north," America clarified, extracting himself from the phone cord he'd somehow gotten wrapped around his waist. "My brother."
Dear god, there were two of them. And Austria remembered-a small boy, clinging to two of France's long, outstretched fingers-he had not seemed significant at the time, imperialist powers had their favorites. "I won't destroy your apartment."
"No, I didn't think you would, just..." Austria raised an eyebrow, and America spoke faster, like a cornered schoolboy: "I'm just saying that if a couple of guys in suits come around looking for things, and they're not going to say what those things are, don't give them any trouble, okay?"
"Have you anything to hide?"
"No," said America, "that's what I'm trying to-"
"America," said Austria. "Have you anything to hide." Perhaps a hidden of his comic books, or bootlegged jazz LPs, for what could a nation get up to in less than two hundred years of existence? Not very much. And then Austria thought of Germany and changed his mind: the ones who grew to power too fast were the very worst of them, though there was not much more to be said for old states, or for attempting to apply human standards of good and evil to any of their number.
"They just like to look around," America said.
"These men are from your government."
America nodded mutely.
"You are explicitly monitored." America nodded again, and Austria felt the coppery tang of horror spread in his mouth. This was not Europe, where rulers understood that there were things a nation could not, and should not, share with their people. "And the man in the car."
"His name's George."
"Are you being blackmailed?" Austria could not decide whether he took more offense at America's apparent cowardice or at having been lied to. The cowardice was the better option, and more easily remedied.
"They mean the best," America said, holding his hands up, "they're just trying to make sure I don't get up to anything, you know."
"Communist."
"How'd you know?"
As an older nation, he was required to take some measure of interest in the well-being of his younger counterparts. There were so very few of them, after all. "One can guess. Now, tell me the first words of your declaration."
"How do you know about that?"
"Your mother country spent a decade being miffed after you broke free, and France spent the same years gloating, and both of them to anyone who would listen. Half of Europe knows at least the first three words."
Poor boy. "He's not my mother country."
Austria waved it away. "The first three."
"We the People," America said, and wrinkled his nose, as if the words were champagne bubbles tickling it.
"You. The people. Rule your government."
"They don't rule me."
"You are quicker than expected," Austria said, and instead of noticing the backhand in the compliment, America's grin spread ear to ear. "And instead of submitting to their inspection next time, what will you do?"
"Punch them?"
"That is not quite the-"
"I'm kidding!"
"Delicacy," Austria said, "and foresight. You will have terrible rulers, and they will need to be reminded of whom they serve." On the other hand-and he was sure America wasn't thinking of this-his government was too large to be properly shamed into submission; he still longed, in the bottom of his being, for an enlightened despot, and held democracy at an arm's mental length, but he caught up with his times, if only because he had to. "You will do as you please."
"It's not like they order me around-"
"Say it."
"I do what I want."
Good enough. "Invest in a cane," Austria suggested. "tap it impatiently against your foot when you hear someone out. And you are wearing glasses, are you not? You are. And when you are explaining to your leader why his course of action is wrong and his advisors bob their heads in unison..." He sat down at the table and pressed his fingers into his brow. "Push them up," he said, modeling the gestures as he spoke, "to see them clearly, and hope that you have heard them incorrectly-but, no, they are still there, and still stupid. So remove them in horror, maybe it is a trick of the light, of the lenses-but that fails you as well, so put them down, rub your face, visibly pray for patience, pray to any number of Gods. Do you understand?"
America's mouth was gaping open a few centimeters; Austria could have reached out and tapped it shut, but he chose not to. "You," America said.
"I?"
"You are the best. Ever."
Modest press of the hand to the breast. America would forget that within the hour. "So I've heard. Alternately, you may stand up suddenly, slam a hand down on the table, and pull your glasses off in horror." Austria demonstrated, and America looked appropriately cowed.
"Where'd you learn all this stuff?"
"Practice," Austria said, "watching centuries of great men command rooms. Do you think that brute force will win you everything?"
America pumped a fist into the air, and Austria stopped himself from cringing. "Diplomacy is good!"
Write that on the blackboard ten more times, young man, and perhaps you will remember it. "Think on what you've learned today," said Austria.
"Wait!"
"Yes?"
"You never said you wouldn't give them any trouble."
"I won't give them any trouble." None at all.
Austria enjoyed the quiet for all of the first hour America was gone. He lounged in his bare feet. He made it to the Polish bakery, finally, discovered that the owners did not speak the language, and spent only an hour lost on his way back. He browsed through America's records and found nothing to interest him. He paced the length and breadth of the place, tidying things, for there was no housekeeper.
And only when he ran out of things to clean did he turn to his music-neighbors be damned-and he moved it into the dining room, and set the book out on the table. The binding was already half-cracked from the strain of all ten times he'd opened it. (He would have to have a talk with Spain about it, if they were on speaking terms within the next fifty years.)
He had the low, mournful Asturiana most nearly memorized, and he played it through, now. It appealed, though it was meant to be played on a far deeper instrument than the violin, which was likely why it appealed, and he would take on a cello student when he got home.
When he finished, he stopped. And put his violin back in his case.
He knew his way to the station by sheer force of repetition. He didn't know what moved him, but it was the right time for his busker to be around, and the boy-in his shoes, with heir soles coming away from their uppers-doffed his cap. The recognition thrilled him: he was Austria, music followed him wherever he went, as sure as angry fathers followed France.
The boy played for him, looking him straight in the eye, as though this was an audition. They were alone in the station. Austria's applause echoed off of the walls, carried by the damp air, and he muffled a sneeze into his sleeve.
"Let me help you," he said, in the most correct Spanish he could muster. The boy held his hand up, No more money, please, and Austria shook his said. He held his hands out for the guitar. He hadn't touched one since-a trip to Seville, perhaps. 1902. He'd had one shoved into his hands at a café, handed a piece of sheet music, and of course he could play, but he would have appreciated being asked first. He'd picked out a simple soleá while Spain danced with a young woman with a flower in her hair, and complained bitterly about it afterward. The boy handed it over, and sat frozen while Austria fixed the tuning for him, plucking at the two strings a few times, fiddling with the peg until they sounded right.
The busker, skeptical, strummed at it, then his face lit up and he held his hand up to shake. "Enrique Garcia."
For a mad moment, all he wanted to say was Republik Österreich, but he caught himself and said, "Roderich Edelstein."
Enrique picked up a twenty-dollar bill from his guitar case and attempted to hand it to him, but Austria put a hand over his heart and shook his head to decline. He wanted, suddenly, to take this young man out of the station, buy him a suit, bring him back to Vienna for the best musical instruction, but there were lines, and there were limits, and this was not one of his people. He could not look at him and at a glance know his history. He wanted to ask, but what little Spanish he had was outdated, Castillian, and too rusty to be of any use in conversation.
Not half an hour after he returned, there was a knock at the door. Austria paused in the middle of his partita, transferred his bow to the hand holding his violin and opened the door for two dark-suited, very solemn gentlemen. "Please," he said. "Come in. Have a seat."
America announced his return by the stomping of his boots on the doormat, New York's sky was blue at last, and it snowed from nowhere. The apartment wasn't nearly warm enough; the kitchen only gave the illusion of coziness by virtue of its narrowness. Rats scuttled beneath the floorboards, and Austria hated them with the passion of a thousand granaries and was glad for the distraction. "You have mail," Austria said. He looked up only an inch from his cup of coffee, his second, while America tore the envelope open with his bare hands and leaned against the kitchen counter, skimming it. Once, then twice. "What is it?"
"An apology," said America. A rivulet of meltwater ran down his face and dripped onto the paper, and he wiped his forehead. "Gosh."
"From?" Because it was astounding how much fear one could strike into the heart of a leader with the simple words, Do you know what we do to rulers like you in Europe? When the true answers were something to the effect of Show up naked to important meetings. Or Get drunk. Or Disappear into the woods for weeks at a stretch, none of which Austria had ever lowered himself to.
America crumpled the letter between his fingers. "Nobody. Did you..."
"Your government? Don't be absurd." Austria took in America's incredulous look. "They must have had an attack of conscience. I hear penicillin will clear that sort of thing up."
"Like syphilis."
"Are you familiar with it?"
America's ears flushed, and only his ears."No, but, I mean-"
"When one spends enough time around France," Austria said. "I understand." Far too well.
"What do you want to do today?"
Distraction achieved. "Where haven't you taken me?"
"I dunno. Central Park?" America rotated his neck slowly, and Austria imagined that it was as much to relieve an ache from plane travel as it was to test the feeling of a burden off of his shoulders. Another count of influence-of interference. Somewhere, England was having palpitations and attributing it to the dankness of his capital.
"It's cold," Austria said. He added a thick layer of and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for suggesting it to his voice. America glanced out the kitchen window, and, no, the snow did not stick to the ground. "And you should rest."
America scratched his nose. "I guess." He poured himself a cup of coffee and shrugged off his coat at last, draping it over the back of a chair; then, he pulled the tin of coffee out of the cupboard to examine it. "How'd you know to buy this stuff?" he asked.
Austria warmed his hands on his cup and thought, My unerring, absolute good taste, but shook his head. "A lucky guess," he said, watching America turn it over and mouth the name out to himself. Another palpitation for England. The thought warmed him.
And he noticed, for the first time, that America took it black. And that, but for a single hot dog, they had not eaten outside of America's home. "Bring your trumpet," he said, in the bored same tone he would tell someone to drop their trousers, or lift their skirt. (This was the point in the diplomatic visit that he would ask, or order, a host to do just that-as a parting gift-and he had no grounds to lecture America on not letting one's government get out of hand when he'd agreed to this trip without the smallest objection, but hypocrisy was a cherished family value.)
Yet America's face lit up, and he set his cup down to rush into his bedroom and retrieve his trumpet. "You don't have to," America said, "I mean, I don't wanna..."
Which was exactly what his host would say in the other way this situation could play out. Austria took the instrument from him and turned it over in his hands. Sturdy construction. Previous owner's initials etched into it, now faded, and they may have been L or a T. "Correct hand position is essential for comfort and stability," said Austria, right out of a method book, modeling the incorrect position America had been unfortunate enough to pick up, then the proper one. As he would with one of his students in Vienna. He hadn't touched a trumpet in decades. It wouldn't be a problem.
"Hey," America said. "Thanks."
Austria handed the trumpet back and wished desperately for his cane. "Stand up straight. Do you know how to care for your instrument?"
"Nope."
"First lesson," he said. It would come back to him as he spoke. "Straighter, America."
-
-
-
- It was only noise until something caught on Austria's ear--A Love Supreme. John Coltrane.
- That concert? Actually happened.
- Autumn in Hungary is a very sad time.
- That busker? Puts himself through college, becomes a music teacher, and has a kid who has a kid who becomes the president of the United States.
Title: A Passage for Trumpet
Characters: Austria, America
Rating: G for gen.
Words: 8800
Summary: He scanned the note, skipping the niceties: ten days in Manhattan, to improve international relations. They did not work like that-they were not dogs, to be introduced to one another at parks- Austria takes a vacation.
A Passage for Trumpet
I have watched
the city from a distance at night
and wondered why I wrote no poem.
Come! Yes,
the city is ablaze for you
and you stand and look at it.
William Carlos Williams, "To a Friend Concerning Several Ladies"
Autumn of 1964.
The arrangements were made without Austria's knowledge or consent; under normal circumstances, he would have marched to the Hofburg, knocked on the Chancellor's bedroom door, and demanded to know who was responsible. Staring at the plane ticket and note, however, he decided he was more indignant that his government had entered his home without his permission than their presumption.
He scanned the note, skipping the niceties: ten days in Manhattan, to improve international relations. They did not work like that-they were not dogs, to be introduced to one another at parks, held safely back from misbehavior on leashes and encouraged to sniff at one another's bottoms. He tapped the envelope against his palm and went to the warm kitchen, where his housekeeper had a pot of soup on the stove for him.
Yet before he could sit down, the phone rang. Austria picked up, prepared to give whomever felt the need to interrupt his meal a piece of his mind, and was disappointed by the heavy breathing on the other end. He tolerated it, however-for all of ten seconds-before asking, "How did you get this number, Frankreich?"
"You have found me out," France said. "They say you are to visit Amérique."
"They move very quickly."
"Evasive."
"Yes. And you are drunk, and I'm going to hang up now." France's tittering laugh rang loud and clear over the line. It stayed Austria's hand. "I fail to see the humor."
France cleared his throat, and Austria imagined smelling the stale wine on his breath. "Angleterre should be making this call."
"Großbrittanien is aware that I speak English."
"Perfect English. And I suspect that he speaks more German than he lets on! But he is so irrational-"
"I know that word," a voice in the background snapped.
Austria shifted the phone from one ear to the other and grimaced. "He is there with you."
"Ah," France said. "Yes. Would you like to speak to him?"
"Tell me-and please, be honest-have I done something to offend you?"
"Not in the past decade. In any event, I'm to tell you not to influence him unduly, to keep your hands-" France stopped, switched to absurdly accented English to say, "Yes, yes, I'm telling him."
"To keep my hands to myself," Austria offered.
"To keep your bloody hands to yourself," said France. "The nuance would be lost in translation. And I'm to remind you that we do not care what he does, or that Angleterre doesn't."
Yes. France was interested in America's well-being. That was precisely it. "If we are quite finished threatening an international incident, I would like to get back to my dinner."
"By all means, enjoy your vacation," France said, to the sour accompaniment of England's grumbling.
Politics-if this was indeed politics-ruined his appetite, and he indulged himself in slamming the phone down on the hook.
Austria ate. He packed, for there was nothing better to do. He did his very best not to wonder how France and England received word of his trip at the same time as, if not before him. He was almost positive that the sudden restlessness in his legs was imagined, but he gave in and made his way upstairs. Though this house had been built in the last fifty years, the stairs creaked under his feet and pipes groaned as he passed; Austria aged his surroundings, but it gave a building character. A draft hit his feet as he passed his music room, and was as good an excuse as any to go in and distract himself by fiddling with his things.
He picked over his music. Schubert-entirely too obvious, and too cheerful, to boot. No, he would have his fill of earnest bespectacled young men. He returned it to its place. Perhaps something from the unopened packages of music his neighbors sent him from time to time, as though his sage approval of their cultural achievements would make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
The envelope on the very top was from Spain. He sat at his piano bench, careful not to lean back against the keys, and slid a finger neatly under the seal to open it, then turned it over check the date of its postmark: 1915, Barcelona. He would have felt guilty if he thought that anyone honestly expected a response from him. Siete canciones populares españoles, transcribed by the composer himself for violin and piano, upon request of one Don Antonio Fernandez y Carriedo.
-how considerate of Don Antonio. Fernandez y Carriedo. Someone had moved up in his own estimation since disposing of his royal line, possibly twice; the madness, it likely had something to do with the sun, Austria was glad to have been untouched by it within his borders.
His violin was against the wall. He'd taught no lessons in it today. He could bring it with him. (The cello next to it had a coat of dust on its broad shoulders. The one he'd been teaching to play it would not return for some time.)
Austria had never crossed the Atlantic, he had only seen the ocean from Spain's shores, and once from France's. This only dawned on him once he stepped off the plane, whereupon he was assaulted by the same abrupt wrongness that accompanied leaving his own borders, only-more. Far more. He sneezed into the crook of his arm and looked up to scan the crowd and, there, that would be America, that blond head bobbing and ducking through the crowd to get to him.
Austria sneezed again, and when he looked up America, dressed as a chauffeur, was at the very front of the assembled with a sign that said, in even, childish block letters, RODERICK EDELSTEIN. He'd even colored horizontal bands of red at the top and bottom.
Well. He hadn't expected a motorcade and the Radetzky March.
"Welcome to Idlewild, Mr. Edelstein," America said. He stuck out a gloved hand, and Austria looked down at it until America remembered himself and took the suitcase from him, then set it on the ground. After sufficient pause, Austria shook. "How was your flight? Do you need a nap?" America continued, lest Austria get a word in edgewise. "And, oh-this isn't Idlewild anymore."
"My condolences," Austria said, removing his hand to take the measure of the boy before him.
America's even grin faltered, and he stuck his thumbs in the pocket of his coat and splayed the rest of his fingers, shrugging. "I guess-"
"I'm very tired," Austria said.
America hefted the suitcase. "Welcome to JFK." (Austria could not imagine becoming attached to rulers who were deposed every four years like clockwork.) "Hungry?"
He'd heard stories from France about what passed for food in America. "I believe I would like a nap." They involved grease. "Failing that, Mr. Jones, several strong cups of coffee." Austria had dealt with grease for centuries-servants brought their own cuisines, after all-but France had been dabbing at tears. "Am I correct in assuming that you drink coffee?"
Outside of the airport, the wind threatened to whip through Austria's sturdy wool coat. He tugged his scarf over his chin with one hand while squinting into the street, watching America perform a complicated dance just off the curb to summon a passing taxi to their aid. "I live on coffee," America said, with the air of someone confession a grave and terrible sin, and winced when the driver named his fee. He lowered his voice and scooted across the sticky seats, far too close for comfort. "When can I call you Austria?"
So Austria sneezed once more, if only to get a centimeter of space. "Human names are necessary." The taxi driver's radio was loud enough that America did not need to be theatrical; he must have picked it up from France.
"But they're weird."
And insulting, in the right tone, but no one had yet done anything to warrant insult. "Necessary."
America's apartment looked as though some well-meaning, matronly government official, or England, had grabbed America by the scruff of his neck, dragged him to a department store, and disregarded all of his preferences and chose his furniture for him. The walls in the living room were a bright sky blue-bright enough to make Austria's teeth hurt-and he half-expected to look up and see a model airplane hanging from the ceiling.
When they came into the dining room there was one, hanging above the table where a chandelier had once been.
"What do you think!" America set Austria's suitcase on the scuffed hardwood floor with a small thud and rushed to sweep a stack of papers off the table and into a drawer.
"Where are your other homes?" Austria asked.
"I'm not supposed to tell you that, am I."
Austria set his violin down. "Very good." He took his time peeling his gloves off, followed America into the kitchen, sat at the table. It was far cleaner than Austria would have expected.
Scratching the back of his neck, America pulled a matte green bag from his cupboard. It was much-abused. It was held shut with a rubber band. He handed it over, and Austria opened it as cautiously as he would defuse a bomb and took a sniff that was perhaps daintier than was strictly necessary.
He took a pinch of the stuff and sniffed it, then, under America's gaze, let it fall back into the bag, rubbing the tips of his fingers together to remove any residue it may have left behind. "This," he said, and let America's imagination finish the sentence. "Your government has given me an allowance?" He was perhaps being an ungracious guest, but an Austrian could not be denied decent coffee.
America's mouth hung half-open. Good. "A thousand bucks or so. I think."
"Very generous," Austria said, and America brightened immediately. "Will you ask the gentleman outside your building to find the quality shops in the area?"
"What gentleman?"
The one in the dark suit in the nondescript blue car, watching them through binoculars as they arrived. "I must have been mistaken," he said. "We will search by foot. At noon."
"How about seven!" America said.
Austria winced. "In the evening?"
"In the morning."
"Absolutely not."
"Why?"
And now was as good a time as any to see how well badgering would work. "Are you questioning my judgement?"
"No, sir! Coffee-hunting at noon, sir!" America snapped to attention and saluted, and it took every ounce of Austria's gravity to keep a smile off of his face.
"You have the right spirit," he said, and pushed the bag away from him.
America snatched it up and put it back in the cupboard. "You think so?"
It occurred to Austria that this-this enthusiasm-was all an act America put on, as it would be with Poland, or Prussia-and also that forcing him to drink better coffee counted as influencing him. France would approve, at least, on both counts. (Tea was a degenerate's drink, though no one in recent history had stooped so low as to accuse England of honor.) "I do," Austria said. "Now-if you would be so kind-"
"Your room is right this way, sir."
"Please, don't call me sir."
Nonetheless, he was roused at exactly eight by the smell of grease wafting under his door, or jet lag-he blamed the grease. He didn't remember changing into his pyjamas, but his underwear was draped over the nightstand, and he snatched it off and tossed it into the hamper and wondered who would take care of his laundry while he was here. He stretched and ran a hand over his violin case and shuffled into the kitchen, where America stood before the stove in an apron. Clean and white. Very professional.
"Did I wake you up?" America asked.
"No," Austria said, cleaning his glasses on his sleeve. "I'm sleepwalking."
America shrugged the sarcasm off magnificently, if he'd noticed it at all. "It's biscuits and gravy day."
"I don't have sweets for breakfast." Austria inspected the silverware. On the counter, a pot of that foul coffee was brewing, but there was only one mug at the table.
"They're not-"
"Do you have any bread?"
Rather than answer, America went to the oven and pulled out a baking sheet. Biscuits. This English was not Britain's, and they didn't smell sweet. "May I?"
"Take two," America said, peeling one of them off with his bare hands. He didn't wince at the hot metal on his skin.
"One will suffice," said Austria, and America gave him two anyway, then went back to the stove to retrieve a pan with thick, white-grey gravy, and Austria took one good look and inched his plate away as politely as possible. He had done more than a few unappetizing things in the name of improving international relations-many of which had involved fluids of a similar color-if not consistency-but he could not force himself to do this.
And now America looked crestfallen. Devastated. "But you have to try the gravy."
-he made a strong case. "On the side, then." It smelled edible, at least, and the sins of English cuisine, the unsettling puddings and undercooked rice and questionable beers, were not visited upon America's.
This impression was affirmed at lunch, though his stomach growled well before then. Manhattan was overcast and oddly hushed in its din after all of the businessmen left the streets. Austria had to crane his neck all the way back to see the sky. The city had grown up, rather than out. "I had one of these in Paris, once," Austria said, by way of conversation, holding up his hot dog.
"What'd you think?"
Not as good as wurst. "Far better than fish and chips." In its sodden newsprint, soused in vinegar, though Austria had a healthy appreciation for vinegar.
He finished it off the precise moment before America took him by the arm and pulled him into the next shop. The search had been inconclusive; Austria could not find any of his familiar brands, or even the ones he would settle for in a pinch, or even the Turkish ones.
"Hey," America said, shifting the bag with Austria's other purchases to his other hand and picking at a bin of produce. The store itself was small and murky and smelled of nothing. "About the fish and chips thing, you don't gotta"-he took a deep breath -"I mean, I'm not just..."
The delicate pride of young nations-he applied his flattest monotone: "The unfortunate wet spot of England's cultural legacy, everything good you have is not borrowed, or stolen, from us, you are something entirely different?"
America looked sheepish, now. "That's the one."
"You've wanted to say that for a long time."
"Yeah."
"And do you feel better?"
"Sorta."
Now that that was out of the way-Austria picked a tin off the shelf at random: brushed metal, discreet logo, and he did not recognize it, but he was finished shopping and it displayed the hallmarks of quality, which was more than enough. His purchase went into a cheap brown bag, and he let America lead him from the store and back to the train, for his sense of direction was grew worse the further away from Vienna he got. And at least the sneezing had stopped.
And, naturally, the instant he thought so, he found himself taking a deep breath and muffling one with his sleeve. America looked back up the stairs at him, and Austria crinkled the bag in his hands. He was the only nation he knew with the problem, and it comforted him to think of alternatives that his fellows might suffer. (He wished sudden, violent incontinence on Prussia in particular.) They simply walked past the ticket booth, and in the station proper the air was damp and thin and did nothing for Austria's lungs.
A young man sat cross-legged against the pillar directly across from their bench. He had a guitar in his lap, and his pick in his mouth. There was money in the case open before him-by the amount in it, Austria imagined that he'd been sitting for two, perhaps three hours. That he had to re-tune so soon meant that his strings were in need of a changing.
Austria could hear how close he was to getting the string in tune. He turned away to look down the tunnel for a train.
Then the boy started playing, and Austria thought-Ah. Talent. He knew it when he heard it. There must have been hundreds of gifted musicians in the city, but for the universe to present him with one within hours of his arrival-these things were rarely insignificant, or useless.
"This city'll eat you alive," America said, when the train's doors closed behind them.
No, Austria thought, thinking on the boy's pinched face. He could have been handsome, with a meal in his stomach and clothes that fit. It will eat itself.
He was dragged, in summary: to the top of the Empire State Building, to the Statue of Liberty-a bouquet of flowers would have been less expensive, and less of an eyesore-Canal Street, the Bronx Zoo, museums, theaters, palaces of finance-all in the space of three days, and all with a suited man watching them from a distance, standing out to Austria's eyes from the crowds of men in suits.
"And tomorrow, I've got something for you," America said over a dinner of rice and beans and pork on the third day. Before Austria could guess, America hopped up and shuffled to the sideboard to retrieve an envelope from under a fine Italian vase, currently the resting place of America's fedora. Fedoras. (They did not suit his face.) "Take a guess."
"Shock me."
He slapped the envelope onto the table. "Tickets!"
Austria stopped himself from flinching, swallowed his mouthful of rice and beans. "For the orchestra."
America's shoulders dropped. "How'd you know?"
"Because." He dabbed at his mouth with a paper napkin (paper) and peered at America over his glasses. "I can read your mind."
"If you think I'm gonna fall for that-" America stopped. "Wait, really?"
"Of course not," Austria said. "But where else would you take me?"
America blinked and sat down, slid the envelope across the table. "It's a big city."
"It is."
Another palace of finance, that evening, and the banker mistook Austria for a visiting dignitary and tucked a hundred-dollar bill into his breast pocket while America entertained the man's daughter. Austria was not a dignitary. He felt no need to mention it to America on the way back to the train station.
His busker-Austria had developed proprietary feelings for him-was sitting in his place, as usual, but there was another man, older, not as grizzled as he could be, with a cello case open at his feet. The two of them were sparring, if not with their instruments-they were playing together like good children, improvising a duet-then with their words. Austria only caught a word here and there. Cabrón. He knew that one, at least, and more words returned as he listened: Your mother's sweet ass, your sister's, your mother and your sister at the same time, while their instruments wound around one another, the guitar at the bottom of its range, the cello at the very top.
Austria put money in both of their cases; America checked his watch and peered down the tunnel.
Twenty paces away, a man in a suit took a picture of them.
-and an orchestra warming up sounded the same everywhere: looping violins and sudden blasts from the brass section. The schoolchildren squirming in their seats were all the same, their parents were all the same, the programs were all made along the same lines, and people who were not used to being forced into bowties all fiddled with them in the same manner. "Take it off," Austria said. America hesitated, hands on the knot, and he added, "You won't enjoy the music if you're fidgeting."
America did not need to be told twice. "What do you think?"
Austria considered his fumbling attempts to remove the tie and leaned over to help; America jerked back, wide-eyed. He looked around to-make sure no one was watching them?-and allowed Austria within his personal space. "What do I think."
"That's what I said!"
"Nothing, yet," he said, turning the program over in his hands. Goodbye to Nationalism. Whoever was arranging this trip had a sense of humor.
America turned his program over to read the advertisements on the back. "Isn't the book of music you brought with you by one of these guys?"
"Yes," said Austria, thumbing over Manuel de Falla's name. An appalling sense of humor. There was Czech music on the program, and though Austria was not still upset about being thrown out a window, centuries had passed, he was gratified that the German name of the piece was the one that stuck. Die Moldau. As things should be.
The children in the row in front of them were pinching one another's arms, stifling their giggles and flinches that their parents, bookending them, wouldn't hear. One of them turned to ask their mother whether she had something to eat-a child after his own heart, Americans did not eat nearly often enough-and was waved off when the conductor, preceded by his nose. Austria knew who the gentleman was, of course.
And so he chose to stay in his seat through the intermission. The music did not unsettle him. His reaction to it unsettled him. He was too old and too tired to be charmed, and glancing over at America, leaning forward in his seat, elbows on his knees-"Sit up straight," Austria said.
Now America slouched in his chair. "What'd you think of that?" He didn't sound as though he was trying to prove a point. Austria could have cared less, but he could not shake the sudden idea that he was a symbol, no matter where he went, and perhaps on this continent of only three nations his role was magnified: he was the old world, and America, the new. Or, less mystical, he had not spent years in this symphony hall and didn't know how the sound worked.
"-you in there, bud?"
"I," Austria said, "will reserve judgment until the concert is over."
America slumped deeper in his chair, hands shoved into his suit pockets, and Austria bit his tongue. He was a guest. This was his host's building, he could sit however he wished. "Judgment?" he asked.
"Nothing horrible."
"You're sure?"
"Would I lie to you?" Only if it benefited him.
"You sound just like England," he said, wrapping and unwrapping the length of cloth that had once been his bowtie around his hand.
"If I wanted to be insulted, boy, I would call Prussia."
"Don't call me 'boy.'"
Remember, Österreich, he is capable of throwing you through a wall. Several walls. "Britain calls you that."
"You're like him."
"Quite the contrary," Austria said-"I can announce that I am baking a cake and not watch, baffled, as everyone I know gives me a kilometer-wide berth."
"His cooking's not that-"
"For a month."
A convenient hush descended over the audience on month. His rational mind was as powerless against the concert (though the last two pieces were by an American and a Soviet who would become nothing more than program filler within twenty years; Austria's instinct for these things was unerring) as it had been, he realized, against the gravy and the busker. He allowed himself to wonder about the busker, then looked down at the little girl, leaning against her older brother's arm, shoulders rising and falling steadily, asleep even through the applause.
"America," he heard himself say, over the roar of the crowd. "I should like to shake the conductor's hand."
"It's against the rules," said America, and he only shrugged under the full force of America's arched eyebrow.
"The rules," Austria repeated. He must have misheard. The cheering was loud, these things happened.
America shrugged again, then whooped for the conductor. "It's a cultural thing!" he said, right into Austria's ear.
"And whose rules are these?"
Now the crowd died down. America looked up at the ceiling, and surely he wasn't thinking of saying God made the rules. "My bosses said you weren't allowed to talk to the musicians, is all," he said. Austria could believe this, America had not a drop of guile in him, and no nation could resist the urge to show off their finest, and despite these two truths-these self-evident truths, even-it was still an affront, and Austria saw no reason to hide it, and America made it no better by saying, "I could call somebody."
"Don't trouble yourself on my account."
"Really," America said grabbing him by the wrist. The concert hall was half cleared-out, and their voices were suddenly loud over the hush. "If you want to, I'll try."
Austria tried freeing himself, and came very close to rolling his program up and hitting America in the nose with it. "Do you want to be noticed?" he snapped, and America let him go. Austria stumbled and hit his thigh on the arm of a seat.
No one was staring. No one would ever stare.
Their dash from cab to door soaked them through, and they dripped their way up the stairs. America fumbled his keys and dropped them on the floor once before managing to open his door; Austria did not offer to help. It wasn't yet dinner time, but the apartment was dim enough for America to rush into the kitchen to turn on the light. It softened the room's edges, made the hideous chintz chair in the corner with the poorly-knitted throw look beautiful.
America turned around, in the middle of everything to strip down to his undershirt. It was light blue, rather than white. That explained who did the laundry. He was well-built from behind, but Austria would have been more sexually interested in unbaked apfelstrudel. Then he turned. The scant light from the next room caught his Erkennugsmarken-Austria forgot the English word-dog tags, he remembered; dog tags, with their chain falling over strong collarbones and broad shoulders, and a thin layer of comfortable fat over his abdomen, a strong nation grown somewhat complacent.
"-what'd you think?" America was saying. "Really."
Austria cleared his throat and looked into the dining room at the plane on the ceiling. It stirred and swayed in the breeze from an open window. "Magnificent." He cleared his throat. "The concert. Do you go often?"
America picked up his undershirt and toweled his hair off with it, and Austria indulged himself in wondering whether anyone had ever, so to speak, tilled this fertile field. Surely England had not, nor France, nor Prussia. "Once or twice a year," he said. "Free tickets, you know."
"Benefits." Austria went to the guest room to make himself presentable. When the water stopped running down his forehead and onto the sheet music, he took up his violin, but halfway through his warm-up America poked his head into the guest room.
"The kids next door are sleeping."
He didn't sound irritable; Austria only chose to take offense. More offense. "Are they."
"Could you keep it down?"
"I can try."
"And hey, do you want to-"
"I'm going to take a walk," Austria said, and pretended America's eyes weren't glued to him as he searched through the closet-at length, though it was no broader than he was-for his raincoat. And his umbrella. He wasn't nearly as ashamed as he should have been at his petulance, young states needed to be taken in hand, and Austria was far too old to finish what England had not.
And America's pout was pure Spain. "Don't get lost out there."
He would. It was a useful skill. A half-hour and ten centimeters of water up his pant legs later, the sound of a cello from a window above him, two stories up, gave him pause. This was the last thing he needed to dwell on, but he leaned against the lamppost to listen it. The child was no older than twelve, judging by the way their hands skidded on the strings. A breeze stirred the curtains, and the playing stopped. Austria imagined a small brown-haired girl (all women had brown hair in his imaginings) hopping from her seat, setting her instrument aside with the utmost care. And it was a girl he saw, poking her head out the window and shutting her eyes and breathing in what must have been clean, crisp air to her. The window shut, then, with the creak of bare wood scraping wood.
He carried on. The rain had not died down. It was late enough: he could go to the subway to listen to his busker play, on the pretence of catching a train, but he had no money for fare. Or he could go to the Polish grocery he'd seen the day before, he was losing his Polish; but he would not begin to know where to find it. He had no watch, but he imagined it had been an hour, and let his thoughts wander, until it occurred to him that-
He should have been in Budapest, not getting himself lost in a foreign city to teach a child a lesson, and how many years would he spend flagellating himself over something beyond his control? Ideological barriers were stronger than walls, to their kind. If they had been kinder to Serbia, or had beaten Prussia nearly a hundred years ago-he would have a bottle of vodka on his right hand and a bottle of wine on his left, being urged drinking shots from each to honor the memories of each of the twelve generals his own emperor had hanged. The hangover was atonement enough.
"You're gonna get sick," someone said, and Austria jumped in shock, tripped over his own feet and landed on his face. The umbrella tumbled away in the wind, but that did not matter so much as the snap of his glasses breaking, and the flap of America's coat as he rushed over to help him up. "Hey, bud, I'm sorry-"
"I'm fine," Austria said. He permitted America's hand on his elbow, taking his glasses off to assess the extent of the damage. The lenses were only scratched, and this was bearable, but the arm had broken off at the screw.
"Let's go back," America said, and Austria's pride was not so great that he would refuse the umbrella America held over his head.
"The best idea you've had all evening."
To America's credit, he did not rise to the bait.
When they returned, America held out his hand. "Let me look at 'em."
"You know someone who can fix them?" he asked, pulling them out of his pocket, wrapped in a handkerchief.
"Yeah," America said. He stroked his chin and sat down on his couch, spreading the remains of Austria's glasses out on the coffee table as precisely as Switzerland would disassemble a gun. "Six foot one. Blond. Handsome guy."
"Who could you possibly be talking about."
"-me."
"Never mind," Austria said, taking a seat in the chair and unlacing his shoes.
"That's one eighty-five." He turned the frame over in his hands. "I have to convert for Canada."
A brother to the north; a sister to the south. Austria could not conceive of a continent with only three nations, and imagined it unbearably lonely. "Impressive."
"How'd you go so long without knowing how to fix your own glasses?"
"I've always had-people," said Austria, watching America rush to fetch what looked like a sewing box from his closet. He opened it, and it was filled with thousands upon thousands of tiny screws, ostensibly organized by a difference in size that Austria's eyes could not see. "Who were skilled with their hands."
America nodded and fiddled with a tiny screwdriver. "Like?"
"No one in particular."
"Lithuania was good with his hands."
"I never ruled him," Austria said.
"Nah, neither did I, but he stayed with me for a few years""-as if Austria needed a reminder, all of Europe knew this. "Do you know Poland?"
"I ruled him."
"How?"
"Why." Vodka on his right, wine on his left.
"I mean, don't get me wrong, he's swell, I've got a ton of his people, he taught me a lot..."
"He was difficult."
"You guys are all nuts over there, anyway." Austria couldn't very well argue with that, and instead wondered what exactly America could have learned from Poland, of all nations. "But I like his pierogi!" America continued. "And his sausage! What's it called-"
"Kiełbasa." Question answered. America's stomach growled audibly, and the question of what they would have for dinner was also answered. He made an affirmative noise around the screw he held in his his lips while he picked a pair of pliers out of the box and unbent the arm of Austria's glasses. Austria indulged himself, considered America's mouth, then was properly appalled with himself.
And-honestly-there was no reason for him to hold it there, he could have set it on the table, it was too small to roll anywhere. "Here," America said when he was finished, and Austria's sudden impulse to correct his pronunciation of Hier jolted him into the realization that they had been speaking perfect German for the last ten minutes, if not since that they had walked in the door.
"But they say you only speak English," he said.
"They say that." Then America looked excited, I brought you a present, do you like it? His words came out in a rush: "And I've got enough of your people in me, yours and Germany's, and some of them that remember being Prussia's too, because, I mean, it wasn't that long ago, that I can sorta pull it up sometimes?"
"Do it again."
His face fell. "I can't."
Very well, every nation had its own mystery. He started, "I," and America leaned forward in his chair. Austria put his glasses back on to shield himself. "Thank you."
"I'm gonna go lay down," America said, pushing up from the couch. "Watch some TV, will you?" He handed over the remote before Austria could say he preferred not to and shut his door quietly behind him.
Austria paced the length of the room, considered his violin, and gave the idea of practice up-there were neighbors, and his host was resting. There was only one bookshelf visible, and it was covered in books on America's own history. And that was to be expected. He thumbed through one, but the words swam on the page before his tired eyes and he had to put it down. From America's room, the soft sound of a jazz record leaked under the door, into the living room.
It was only noise until something caught on Austria's ear, courtesy of that maddening habit that forced him to hear these things: a four-note repeated figure on the saxophone, over and over, in a different key each time-he gave counting at the fifteenth-up and down, half-maddening and half-attractive. He was tapping his foot to the rhythm. He stopped. He started again, and realized that he was supposed to tap his foot, and so he allowed it, until it distracted him from his reading. He knocked on America's door and entered before he was given permission. America lay spread-eagled on his stomach and lifted his head just enough to acknowledge him.
"Good evening," Austria said, as though they hadn't spoken to one another all day. The musician on the record started murmuring, sotto voce, and America gestured to a chair-the room itself was likely far less attractive by the light of day, but this was where he kept all of his books, and his collection of records. Austria sat back. And he listened.
Out of Austria's reach, on the second shelf from the top, the glint of a battered trumpet caught Austria's eye. The tracked changed, and in the momentary silence Austria asked, "Do you play?"
America started and sat up, shirt rumpled. "It's not mine," he said. "It was a friend's."
"One of your great musicians."
America ran a hand through his hair, removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "I can play a little."
"Show me." Austria leaned forward to remove the needle from the record.
So America stood up and put the trumpet to his lips. Austria waited patiently for him to correct his grip, which, after much puttering, was still wrong. He would tire out his left hand in minutes that way. Taking a deep breath and furrowing his brow, he made one clear, bright blast into the instrument, then lowered it to his chest. "That's all I can do."
Austria's fingers twitched to take the instrument from him and give him a lesson. Brass instruments were not his strongest point, but surely he remembered enough. But there was no time. He had six days left in the country, and his itinerary was packed with crass sight-seeing. "You ought to get instruction," he said, instead. "Do you play anything at all?"
"The flute," he admitted. "Just a little." Shrugging, America switched the record player off. There had not been a note of music in the house save what Austria himself had played since he arrived, and as he recalled he had never gotten the inevitable package of sheet music from America.
"The flute is a degenerate's instrument," Austria said. "There was a king who played it, you know. He was a tyrant." America sat down, the bell of the instrument on his knee, rapt. And, oh. Austria had not expected him to believe it. "The trumpet, however-you could do far worse."
"Maybe," America said.
"So I have to run up to see Canada-"
"Where?"
"Up north," America clarified, extracting himself from the phone cord he'd somehow gotten wrapped around his waist. "My brother."
Dear god, there were two of them. And Austria remembered-a small boy, clinging to two of France's long, outstretched fingers-he had not seemed significant at the time, imperialist powers had their favorites. "I won't destroy your apartment."
"No, I didn't think you would, just..." Austria raised an eyebrow, and America spoke faster, like a cornered schoolboy: "I'm just saying that if a couple of guys in suits come around looking for things, and they're not going to say what those things are, don't give them any trouble, okay?"
"Have you anything to hide?"
"No," said America, "that's what I'm trying to-"
"America," said Austria. "Have you anything to hide." Perhaps a hidden of his comic books, or bootlegged jazz LPs, for what could a nation get up to in less than two hundred years of existence? Not very much. And then Austria thought of Germany and changed his mind: the ones who grew to power too fast were the very worst of them, though there was not much more to be said for old states, or for attempting to apply human standards of good and evil to any of their number.
"They just like to look around," America said.
"These men are from your government."
America nodded mutely.
"You are explicitly monitored." America nodded again, and Austria felt the coppery tang of horror spread in his mouth. This was not Europe, where rulers understood that there were things a nation could not, and should not, share with their people. "And the man in the car."
"His name's George."
"Are you being blackmailed?" Austria could not decide whether he took more offense at America's apparent cowardice or at having been lied to. The cowardice was the better option, and more easily remedied.
"They mean the best," America said, holding his hands up, "they're just trying to make sure I don't get up to anything, you know."
"Communist."
"How'd you know?"
As an older nation, he was required to take some measure of interest in the well-being of his younger counterparts. There were so very few of them, after all. "One can guess. Now, tell me the first words of your declaration."
"How do you know about that?"
"Your mother country spent a decade being miffed after you broke free, and France spent the same years gloating, and both of them to anyone who would listen. Half of Europe knows at least the first three words."
Poor boy. "He's not my mother country."
Austria waved it away. "The first three."
"We the People," America said, and wrinkled his nose, as if the words were champagne bubbles tickling it.
"You. The people. Rule your government."
"They don't rule me."
"You are quicker than expected," Austria said, and instead of noticing the backhand in the compliment, America's grin spread ear to ear. "And instead of submitting to their inspection next time, what will you do?"
"Punch them?"
"That is not quite the-"
"I'm kidding!"
"Delicacy," Austria said, "and foresight. You will have terrible rulers, and they will need to be reminded of whom they serve." On the other hand-and he was sure America wasn't thinking of this-his government was too large to be properly shamed into submission; he still longed, in the bottom of his being, for an enlightened despot, and held democracy at an arm's mental length, but he caught up with his times, if only because he had to. "You will do as you please."
"It's not like they order me around-"
"Say it."
"I do what I want."
Good enough. "Invest in a cane," Austria suggested. "tap it impatiently against your foot when you hear someone out. And you are wearing glasses, are you not? You are. And when you are explaining to your leader why his course of action is wrong and his advisors bob their heads in unison..." He sat down at the table and pressed his fingers into his brow. "Push them up," he said, modeling the gestures as he spoke, "to see them clearly, and hope that you have heard them incorrectly-but, no, they are still there, and still stupid. So remove them in horror, maybe it is a trick of the light, of the lenses-but that fails you as well, so put them down, rub your face, visibly pray for patience, pray to any number of Gods. Do you understand?"
America's mouth was gaping open a few centimeters; Austria could have reached out and tapped it shut, but he chose not to. "You," America said.
"I?"
"You are the best. Ever."
Modest press of the hand to the breast. America would forget that within the hour. "So I've heard. Alternately, you may stand up suddenly, slam a hand down on the table, and pull your glasses off in horror." Austria demonstrated, and America looked appropriately cowed.
"Where'd you learn all this stuff?"
"Practice," Austria said, "watching centuries of great men command rooms. Do you think that brute force will win you everything?"
America pumped a fist into the air, and Austria stopped himself from cringing. "Diplomacy is good!"
Write that on the blackboard ten more times, young man, and perhaps you will remember it. "Think on what you've learned today," said Austria.
"Wait!"
"Yes?"
"You never said you wouldn't give them any trouble."
"I won't give them any trouble." None at all.
Austria enjoyed the quiet for all of the first hour America was gone. He lounged in his bare feet. He made it to the Polish bakery, finally, discovered that the owners did not speak the language, and spent only an hour lost on his way back. He browsed through America's records and found nothing to interest him. He paced the length and breadth of the place, tidying things, for there was no housekeeper.
And only when he ran out of things to clean did he turn to his music-neighbors be damned-and he moved it into the dining room, and set the book out on the table. The binding was already half-cracked from the strain of all ten times he'd opened it. (He would have to have a talk with Spain about it, if they were on speaking terms within the next fifty years.)
He had the low, mournful Asturiana most nearly memorized, and he played it through, now. It appealed, though it was meant to be played on a far deeper instrument than the violin, which was likely why it appealed, and he would take on a cello student when he got home.
When he finished, he stopped. And put his violin back in his case.
He knew his way to the station by sheer force of repetition. He didn't know what moved him, but it was the right time for his busker to be around, and the boy-in his shoes, with heir soles coming away from their uppers-doffed his cap. The recognition thrilled him: he was Austria, music followed him wherever he went, as sure as angry fathers followed France.
The boy played for him, looking him straight in the eye, as though this was an audition. They were alone in the station. Austria's applause echoed off of the walls, carried by the damp air, and he muffled a sneeze into his sleeve.
"Let me help you," he said, in the most correct Spanish he could muster. The boy held his hand up, No more money, please, and Austria shook his said. He held his hands out for the guitar. He hadn't touched one since-a trip to Seville, perhaps. 1902. He'd had one shoved into his hands at a café, handed a piece of sheet music, and of course he could play, but he would have appreciated being asked first. He'd picked out a simple soleá while Spain danced with a young woman with a flower in her hair, and complained bitterly about it afterward. The boy handed it over, and sat frozen while Austria fixed the tuning for him, plucking at the two strings a few times, fiddling with the peg until they sounded right.
The busker, skeptical, strummed at it, then his face lit up and he held his hand up to shake. "Enrique Garcia."
For a mad moment, all he wanted to say was Republik Österreich, but he caught himself and said, "Roderich Edelstein."
Enrique picked up a twenty-dollar bill from his guitar case and attempted to hand it to him, but Austria put a hand over his heart and shook his head to decline. He wanted, suddenly, to take this young man out of the station, buy him a suit, bring him back to Vienna for the best musical instruction, but there were lines, and there were limits, and this was not one of his people. He could not look at him and at a glance know his history. He wanted to ask, but what little Spanish he had was outdated, Castillian, and too rusty to be of any use in conversation.
Not half an hour after he returned, there was a knock at the door. Austria paused in the middle of his partita, transferred his bow to the hand holding his violin and opened the door for two dark-suited, very solemn gentlemen. "Please," he said. "Come in. Have a seat."
America announced his return by the stomping of his boots on the doormat, New York's sky was blue at last, and it snowed from nowhere. The apartment wasn't nearly warm enough; the kitchen only gave the illusion of coziness by virtue of its narrowness. Rats scuttled beneath the floorboards, and Austria hated them with the passion of a thousand granaries and was glad for the distraction. "You have mail," Austria said. He looked up only an inch from his cup of coffee, his second, while America tore the envelope open with his bare hands and leaned against the kitchen counter, skimming it. Once, then twice. "What is it?"
"An apology," said America. A rivulet of meltwater ran down his face and dripped onto the paper, and he wiped his forehead. "Gosh."
"From?" Because it was astounding how much fear one could strike into the heart of a leader with the simple words, Do you know what we do to rulers like you in Europe? When the true answers were something to the effect of Show up naked to important meetings. Or Get drunk. Or Disappear into the woods for weeks at a stretch, none of which Austria had ever lowered himself to.
America crumpled the letter between his fingers. "Nobody. Did you..."
"Your government? Don't be absurd." Austria took in America's incredulous look. "They must have had an attack of conscience. I hear penicillin will clear that sort of thing up."
"Like syphilis."
"Are you familiar with it?"
America's ears flushed, and only his ears."No, but, I mean-"
"When one spends enough time around France," Austria said. "I understand." Far too well.
"What do you want to do today?"
Distraction achieved. "Where haven't you taken me?"
"I dunno. Central Park?" America rotated his neck slowly, and Austria imagined that it was as much to relieve an ache from plane travel as it was to test the feeling of a burden off of his shoulders. Another count of influence-of interference. Somewhere, England was having palpitations and attributing it to the dankness of his capital.
"It's cold," Austria said. He added a thick layer of and you ought to be ashamed of yourself for suggesting it to his voice. America glanced out the kitchen window, and, no, the snow did not stick to the ground. "And you should rest."
America scratched his nose. "I guess." He poured himself a cup of coffee and shrugged off his coat at last, draping it over the back of a chair; then, he pulled the tin of coffee out of the cupboard to examine it. "How'd you know to buy this stuff?" he asked.
Austria warmed his hands on his cup and thought, My unerring, absolute good taste, but shook his head. "A lucky guess," he said, watching America turn it over and mouth the name out to himself. Another palpitation for England. The thought warmed him.
And he noticed, for the first time, that America took it black. And that, but for a single hot dog, they had not eaten outside of America's home. "Bring your trumpet," he said, in the bored same tone he would tell someone to drop their trousers, or lift their skirt. (This was the point in the diplomatic visit that he would ask, or order, a host to do just that-as a parting gift-and he had no grounds to lecture America on not letting one's government get out of hand when he'd agreed to this trip without the smallest objection, but hypocrisy was a cherished family value.)
Yet America's face lit up, and he set his cup down to rush into his bedroom and retrieve his trumpet. "You don't have to," America said, "I mean, I don't wanna..."
Which was exactly what his host would say in the other way this situation could play out. Austria took the instrument from him and turned it over in his hands. Sturdy construction. Previous owner's initials etched into it, now faded, and they may have been L or a T. "Correct hand position is essential for comfort and stability," said Austria, right out of a method book, modeling the incorrect position America had been unfortunate enough to pick up, then the proper one. As he would with one of his students in Vienna. He hadn't touched a trumpet in decades. It wouldn't be a problem.
"Hey," America said. "Thanks."
Austria handed the trumpet back and wished desperately for his cane. "Stand up straight. Do you know how to care for your instrument?"
"Nope."
"First lesson," he said. It would come back to him as he spoke. "Straighter, America."
-
-
-
- It was only noise until something caught on Austria's ear--A Love Supreme. John Coltrane.
- That concert? Actually happened.
- Autumn in Hungary is a very sad time.
- That busker? Puts himself through college, becomes a music teacher, and has a kid who has a kid who becomes the president of the United States.