Set in a universe where average citizens know about their nations' personifications. I want fic where some citizens of a certain country decide that they don't like their nation-tan's personality, and that the only way to get a new one is to kill them so that a replacement is born. The citizens in question attempt assassination, not understanding that nation-tans are immortal unless their nation itself falls.]
--
Mirosław had always been proud to be Polish. He read in school about their history, all the wonderful things they created - religious tolerance, the Golden Liberty - how hard they fought the Nazis, how it was Poland's resistance that tipped over the failing Soviet Union. At any point until two months shy of his twentieth birthday, he would not have hesitated to say he loved his nation. His opinion only began to change three months before his twentieth birthday, when Mirosław moved in next to his nation, and discovered his nation had a habit of coming home drunk at three in the morning and then playing bouncy pop music, ear-splittingly loud, at six.
At first he did not even realize who he had for a neighbor. Just another student, he assumed, taking advantage of the cheapness of the building - it was Communist-era, with a grim concrete face and unreliable plumbing. His neighbor was blond and cheerful and filled his balcony with flowers in pink pots. He helped Mirosław haul his books upstairs, asked him about his studies, and seemed very happy to find out Mirosław was studying social sciences, and wanted to go into government. "You really believe in this country, I can tell," he said. "We need guys like you around."
A week later Mirosław was woken up shortly after two by his neighbor singing. It was in tune, and it was the national anthem, but still. He heard a girl's laughter, too. He spent ten minutes with his pillow over his head while his neighbor started to work his way through a number of cheerful folk tunes before he gave up and went over to complain. The door was opened by a woman with a flower in her long brown hair and half her blouse undone. She giggled earnestly at his complaint, said she wasn't about to try shutting him up, and when the singing broke off with a plaintive wail of "Maaaaag! I'm out of vodka!", she laughed aloud and slammed the door in Mirosław's face. Mirosław retreated to his kitchen, the furthest room from the noise, and thought unkind thoughts.
When he returned from church the next morning his neighbor heard him coming, and darted into the hallway to ask if he had any asprin. Mirosław took a deep breath. "Your girlfriend was very rude to me last night," he said. "This morning, rather."
"What gi - oh! Oh, you mean Hungary. She's not my girlfriend." His neighbor flipped his hair back in a way Mirosław had found very irritating when the boy from next door with the motorbike had done it just before refusing to give him a ride into town. "It's not, like, anything personal. She just doesn't fuck around being polite."
"Hungary?" Odd nickname. Mirosław squinted. He was still a bit muzzy from losing sleep. "Didn't you call her Mag?"
"Yeah. Mag. Magyarország, she calls herself. Only we've been buddies since she was, like, fifty, so she lets me call her Mag. But she's Hungary." His neighbor grinned. "Oh, right, I never introduced myself, did I? I'm Poland. The Republic of Poland, technically, but nobody ever uses it, governments come and governments go, you know? I mean, France is on republic number five, and that's not even counting the Empire bits, and Russia used to call himself the Soviet Union and we all knew he wasn't the whole thing, he'd haul poor Lithuania to meetings to take notes for him and now he's the Russian Federation and he hauls Kalmykia to meetings with him, except Kalmykia never actually takes notes. Just plays go under the table with Estonia."
"Er," said Mirosław, who had been to Estonia once, but never even heard of Kalmykia.
"So, have you got any asprin? 'Cause this hangover is killing me."
Mirosław reminded himself that he was a patriot and loved his nation. But right now, he didn't think he liked him.
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [1/?]
anonymous
October 22 2010, 08:39:54 UTC
Woooah, I like it. Love your Feliks and his paty-ness :D And the whole thing with Hungary - just epic. Oou, and I feel sorry for Mirosław - it's tiring to have neighbour who parties all the time. But then again - it's Poland. How can you not love him?
And to think that such a sweet boy will try to kill his country! :<
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [1/?]
anonymous
October 22 2010, 23:21:22 UTC
This looks really good. I like it that you took the time to lay down the foundations for the dislike, rather than putting a fanatic bigot or psycho at the top of the plot. Also, for some reason, I found Hungary's rudeness very fitting
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [1/?]
anonymous
October 22 2010, 23:48:42 UTC
Kudos, great fill so far!
Loads of extra points for the Poland/Hungary bits <3 Is Mirosław any historical figure in particular? When I first saw it, it looked oddly familiar, like a politician that I heard about but can't quite recall. But after I googled it in Hungarian spelling, it might just be because there is a classical novel in Hungarian which I had to read in high-school and one of the main characters is called Mirosław. (It's from the era when like every northern Hungarian mansion had their own polishman, since they keenly took in a lot of refugees after the several blotched attempts to overthrow the invaders who cut up Poland -- oh and I'm not exaggerating about "their own polishman" bit, there is even a well known novel with the title literally meaning "Our Pole" where pole stands for polish person.)
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [1/?]
anonymous
October 23 2010, 00:17:25 UTC
(that title is officially translated as "Our Man from Poland" but I think "Our own Pole" sounds much closer to the Hungarian meaning... or at least is a literal translation)
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [1/?]
anonymous
October 23 2010, 00:52:08 UTC
Heh. No, Mirosław isn't anyone in particular, and in fact this whole fic is set in the 2020s or 2030s sometime. However, there will be several Significant Names - not historical people but 'look up the meaning' type names. If my sources are correct, Mirosław is formed from elements meaning "peace" and "glory". So it's ironic.
Who's the author of that novel? Do you know if it's ever been translated to English? It sounds fascinating.
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [1/?]
anonymous
October 24 2010, 00:05:28 UTC
Novel is written by Mór Jókai (Jókai being the surname there). His wikipedia page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B3r_J%C3%B3kai I don't think that particular novel got translated, but several other did get translated. But he has written an incredible amount of books.
"Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [2/14?]
anonymous
November 8 2010, 09:18:16 UTC
--
He started hanging out with some other students, actual Catholics all, to talk about philosophy and study together. They met in cafes, or at the townhouse Graźyna and Romana shared. Graźyna and Romana weren't sisters, although they looked it, both dark-haired and tall and elegant. Mirosław fell hard for Graźyna almost at once.
They held his twentieth birthday party at the townhouse. Romana was staying in Warsaw over the holidays, so she had put up an impressive Christmas tree; the lights were enough to obviate the need for a lamp in her living room. They put up candles anyway. Orek brought a cake he had made himself, and Tadeusz brought his violin and played it while the rest of them danced. It all went very well, until Orek made a comment about the chill.
Romana explained, in clipped tones, that she couldn't afford any more fuel that year, and that she did fancy a few more hot showers.
Janusz laughed, and clapped Orek on the back. "So blame the Belarussians," he suggested.
Mirosław, perhaps foolishly, suggested they couldn't blame Belarus for everything; good old government incompetence played its part, too. If they had a little more money - maybe if the pension scheme hadn't gone so badly, or if they had only granted maternity payments to married mothers -
Orek snapped that it was like he didn't want Poland to be as happy as Sweden. Mirosław didn't say that he would be happy if Poland actually went to church instead of hanging around asking returning church-goers if they had any aspirin. He wasn't sure he wanted everyone to know who he had for a neighbor.
After that the argument rapidly became political.
The bright spot came afterwards, when Graźyna took him aside in the hallway. "Thank you for what you said," she began, and then paused for a long while, and then burst out, "About married mothers. I've - I've been afraid to go out with anyone. Because it seems like no one wants to wait. But - you know, Mirek, I like you a lot -"
He assured her the feeling was mutual, and squeezed her hand, because a kiss would be too fast.
--
Mirosław felt vaguely smug about coming home at two-thirty, sure that for once, he would get the chance to wake up Poland by slamming his door. He was maybe a little bit drunk. But Poland's door was wide open, light spilling out, and the hallway was warm and smelled of cinnamon. Mirosław stood there for most of a minute, listening to the warble of a pop song from inside the apartment, before it stopped and Poland called out, "Come on in! I need a guinea pig."
He wasn't sure if he liked the sound of that, but he went in.
Poland was busy stamping out heart-shaped cookies from a sheet of dough. When he saw Mirosław he grabbed one off a cooling rack and stuck it in his mouth. Mirosław had to chew or spit it out, but it tasted of cinnamon too, so he chewed. Poland grinned at him. "You like?"
"S'good," Mirosław mumbled around the cookie, and swallowed. He blinked a few times, looking for an unoccupied spot of counter to lean on. There didn't seem to be one. "Poland? Why are you baking cookies in the dead of night?"
"Well, I have a lunch date," Poland said absently, as if that explained everything. When he saw Mirosław still looking blank he chuckled and waved a scrap of dough. "We're doing Christmas in Riga this year, yanno? All the Baltic states. Only that means we have to bring enough food Finland doesn't try to cook, and I'm meeting up with Lithuania tomorrow and we're staying over until New Year's. So I have to get all this done before I leave. Don't gape, Mirosław, it's not cute on you. What, you thought nations didn't like spending the holidays with their family?"
"I - would have thought Slovakia and Czechia would be family. Not Lithuania." If he'd thought about it at all.
Poland half-shrugged as he brushed his hands off. (Onto the floor, Mirosław noted with dismay, if he didn't sweep that right away it would only encourage the roaches.) "Ex-husband is family, right? Eh, who cares, we're all in this together."
It wasn't until he woke up the next morning, almost too late to catch his train, that Mirosław realized Poland said husband.
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [2/14?]
anonymous
November 8 2010, 12:21:51 UTC
This is wonderful, I can't wait to see what happens next...I like how you've made Mirosław very human. Narrow minded, but not evil or anything. In fact, I almost feel sorry for him, the poor misguided idiot. :'3 Lovely characterization on Poland too (I think I'd be annoyed about the noise too, if truth be told, ahahaha...I'3), how you've written him as exuberant in both good and bad.
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [2/14?]
anonymous
November 8 2010, 17:56:28 UTC
Poland would be an awesome roommate to me, but I'm not little Miroslav - then again, like other anon said, he's human enough that I can't really hate him<3 (that scene with the girl was so cute!)
"Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [3/14?]
anonymous
November 16 2010, 14:27:21 UTC
--
The trouble was, Mirosław had always thought of his nation as a Christian nation. So much history was tied up in that. Right back to the Baptism of Poland - he'd wondered if that was a literal term, considering - and for the thousand years and more after that, the story was one of civilization against barbarism, and the church against the heathens, and those things were more or less the same.
He had heard, of course, of the way people were paying less attention to church, to God, to the right way of life. But it was disturbing to have it demonstrated constantly by his neighbor. He had expected Warsaw to be different from his hometown. He had always known his family's standards of behaviour were higher than their neighbours. It was still a visceral shock, the way so few people seemed to care at all.
How did they do it? How could anyone stand to drift through life without an anchor? What was going to happen to his nation? Twenty years ago, the Pope had been Polish. Forty years ago, they'd fought back the Communists under the banner of Saint Mary.
What did his neighbor have to do with it?
It only occurred to Mirosław in February, on a chilly night as he and Janusz tossed maths questions at each other from opposite ends of Janusz's sofa, that he didn't know if his neighbour's unnerving secularism was an effect of his people's relentless apostasy, or a cause.
--
Anya had gone home to Lviv for the holidays, and come back with twenty pounds of coffee beans. She loved Turkish coffee. Orek hated it, but the rest never tried it, so on a Saturday in February they all descended on Romana's living room and turned it into a temporary café. Graźyna made sweet rolls for everyone, and Orek brought muffins. The wind was whistling outside, but inside it was warm enough, for once.
Three cups later Janusz sighed happily and plopped his feet on the table. He had on red-and-white striped socks, Mirosław noticed, louder than he would have expected Janusz to own. One had a hole in the toe. "I must spend some time in Lviv, if this is what they drink there."
"Well, some people." Anya smiled.
"I shall be one of them. I shall move there, in fact, and lounge attractively about in restaurants dispensing sage advice to passerby and drinking Turkish coffee, cup after cup."
Romana snorted. "Not much of a career plan."
"Really, Warsaw's nicer," Anya put in anxiously. "Ukraine has - supply-and-demand problems."
"Pish-tosh. Ukraine is in the European Union, is she not? Then all differences will settle, in time."
Orek sighed. "'E ash a -" He paused to remove the roll from his mouth. "He has a point, you know. It's not like we don't have problems. This country - Poland . . . " He waved the roll like he was trying to entice the right words out of hiding.
"Has infrastructure problems?" Graźyna offered.
Romana rolled her eyes. "Is being run by nincompoops?"
"Has a drinking problem," Mirosław muttered. "Never goes to church."
He hadn't meant to say that with such vehemence. He hadn't meant to say that at all. They were giving him funny looks. "Well, he does," he declared. "I think he gets plastered every Friday. And a lot of the rest of the time. He's an awful neighbor. And sometimes Hungary comes over and - look, I've lived next to him since last autumn and he drives me right up the wall, and I'm a patriot. I can't believe - look, have any of the rest of you met nations? In person, I mean, the personifications? Or any personifications."
"I saw Ukraine once," Anya offered. "Didn't speak to, just saw. At that big street fair, for the last EU expansion. She was standing with Tymoshenko, or I wouldn't have recognized her."
"I met Greece, the summer I toured Europe. He showed me around the Temple of Artemis. He was sweet." There was an odd expression on Romana's face, something like the one she wore before vanishing into her room to pound out a twenty-page paper in two hours. At the time, Mirosław took it for thoughtful. In distant retrospect, he recognized it for calculating.
But then, he noticed nothing. They laughed, and traded gossip of the foibles of nations - not that the was much gossip to be had, for it was in the nature of personifications to be overlooked, to seem unworthy of comment - and drank Turkish coffee until night fell.
Re: "Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [3/14?]
anonymous
November 18 2010, 06:44:16 UTC
Turkish coffee, ohhh-
right.
I'm loving this so much, anon! I like what you're doing with Mirosław, and yeah, it is true that Poland (the character, of course) could probably be percieved like this, huh? 'Has a drinking problem, never goes to church', eheh.
"Mother Poland, So Freshly Entombed" [4/14?]
anonymous
November 28 2010, 01:25:05 UTC
--
His neighbor vanished completely, to Mirosław's mingled relief and nervousness, for a few days in early March. "Saint Casimir's Day," he breezily explained, on his return. He was laden with parcels, and had drafted Mirosław to help carry them. "There's this awesome street fair in Vilnius."
Vilnius, not Wilno, Mirosław noticed. He always used the Polish names for other cities - even called Lviv, Lwow. Why was Wilno different? "Isn't Casimir one of our patron sints?" he said, because it was as easier mystery.
Poland grinned and started to attack a bundle with a kitchen knife. It unfolded itself neatly to reveal a bright red scarf, which he tossed around his neck. "Poland and Lithuania, but he's Lithuania's favorite. And of youth in general. Which isn't bad, I mean, it's not like those poor blokes who end up being patron of left-handed scuba divers or something. Poor kid kept going on about helping the downtrodden and bringing truth to the infidel, he would have hated being in charge of scuba-divers. He was a sweet guy, really. Just took everything way too serious." He flicked a bit of hair away from Mirosław's chin, so fast Mirosław hardly realized he'd done it before he went after the second parcel. "Not like anybody you know, right?"
"Er," said Mirosław, still trying to wrap his head around the idea of someone talking about a saint like a favorite grandchild.
"Here. I bet you go vegan for Lent, right?" Poland shoved the open parcel at Mirosław. It smelled of honey. "These won't last forty days. Have some for dinner." Poland snatched one of the heart-shaped cookies out of the parcel and bit into it. It left pink icing smeared around his lips, and the effect as he grinned was oddly childish. "Call your girlfriend, give her some too."
"I shouldn't have cookies for dinner," Mirosław muttered, and sat down heavily on Poland's chipping plastic kitchen chair.
"Why the hell not?" Poland clapped Mirosław on the shoulder and leaned close, looking as serious as possible considering the icing. "Mirek. There is an American saying: Life is short, eat dessert first. You're human. You've got, like, eighty years left. Eat the damn cookies, and enjoy yourself. I'm going to." He grabbed another heart, and waved it. Mirosław noticed distantly there was a scar on Poland's left hand, a pale ridge running between the tendons. He wondered where it came from.
The heart was delicious.
Graźyna came when he called. Poland charmed her into blushing and kissed her hand. They migrated to Mirosław's kitchen, where they supplemented the cookies with berry wine and tremendously oily latkes. They talked for an hour, while his ipod streamed old-fashioned waltzes. Then Graźyna excused herself, claiming a desire for an early night.
The way Poland stared after her made Mirosław suddenly jealous. But Poland just grinned, and clapped him on the back. "You look after her, Mirek," he declared. "She's a keeper."
"I intend to."
"Good, good. I like seeing my young people in love." He beamed, the kind of smile that nobody could possibly stay upset with. "Make sure she knows you love her. Be as kind as you can, and enjoy all the time you have."
It was then that Mirosław remembered what he had said at Christmas, about ex-husbands counting as family. Maybe it was rude, but his curiosity overtook him. "Poland, have you ever been in love?"
"Oh yes." Poland grins.
"Was it - " He pauses. "You said you had an ex-husband. Was that it? Not just a political marriage?"
"Well, it started political." Poland waved s dismissive hand, but then his expression went serious. "We fell in love along the way. But I - Christ, I was so stupid about it," he burst out. "I was never kind. Ran all over him, tried to make him part of me. I didn't know - " His laugh sounded forced, and his next words were almost reverent. "Oh, Lithuania! My husband - like good health; I never knew how much I loved him, 'til I lost him."
Of course. That had been his best guess, and the Commonwealth the obvious thing a nation might call marriage. Mirosław touched his shoulder, hesitant. "I'm sorry."
"Eh. We're friends now. It's okay."
His smile was still sad, and Mirosław felt terribly out of his depth. He was glad when Poland hurried away.
Set in a universe where average citizens know about their nations' personifications. I want fic where some citizens of a certain country decide that they don't like their nation-tan's personality, and that the only way to get a new one is to kill them so that a replacement is born. The citizens in question attempt assassination, not understanding that nation-tans are immortal unless their nation itself falls.]
--
Mirosław had always been proud to be Polish. He read in school about their history, all the wonderful things they created - religious tolerance, the Golden Liberty - how hard they fought the Nazis, how it was Poland's resistance that tipped over the failing Soviet Union. At any point until two months shy of his twentieth birthday, he would not have hesitated to say he loved his nation. His opinion only began to change three months before his twentieth birthday, when Mirosław moved in next to his nation, and discovered his nation had a habit of coming home drunk at three in the morning and then playing bouncy pop music, ear-splittingly loud, at six.
At first he did not even realize who he had for a neighbor. Just another student, he assumed, taking advantage of the cheapness of the building - it was Communist-era, with a grim concrete face and unreliable plumbing. His neighbor was blond and cheerful and filled his balcony with flowers in pink pots. He helped Mirosław haul his books upstairs, asked him about his studies, and seemed very happy to find out Mirosław was studying social sciences, and wanted to go into government. "You really believe in this country, I can tell," he said. "We need guys like you around."
A week later Mirosław was woken up shortly after two by his neighbor singing. It was in tune, and it was the national anthem, but still. He heard a girl's laughter, too. He spent ten minutes with his pillow over his head while his neighbor started to work his way through a number of cheerful folk tunes before he gave up and went over to complain. The door was opened by a woman with a flower in her long brown hair and half her blouse undone. She giggled earnestly at his complaint, said she wasn't about to try shutting him up, and when the singing broke off with a plaintive wail of "Maaaaag! I'm out of vodka!", she laughed aloud and slammed the door in Mirosław's face. Mirosław retreated to his kitchen, the furthest room from the noise, and thought unkind thoughts.
When he returned from church the next morning his neighbor heard him coming, and darted into the hallway to ask if he had any asprin. Mirosław took a deep breath. "Your girlfriend was very rude to me last night," he said. "This morning, rather."
"What gi - oh! Oh, you mean Hungary. She's not my girlfriend." His neighbor flipped his hair back in a way Mirosław had found very irritating when the boy from next door with the motorbike had done it just before refusing to give him a ride into town. "It's not, like, anything personal. She just doesn't fuck around being polite."
"Hungary?" Odd nickname. Mirosław squinted. He was still a bit muzzy from losing sleep. "Didn't you call her Mag?"
"Yeah. Mag. Magyarország, she calls herself. Only we've been buddies since she was, like, fifty, so she lets me call her Mag. But she's Hungary." His neighbor grinned. "Oh, right, I never introduced myself, did I? I'm Poland. The Republic of Poland, technically, but nobody ever uses it, governments come and governments go, you know? I mean, France is on republic number five, and that's not even counting the Empire bits, and Russia used to call himself the Soviet Union and we all knew he wasn't the whole thing, he'd haul poor Lithuania to meetings to take notes for him and now he's the Russian Federation and he hauls Kalmykia to meetings with him, except Kalmykia never actually takes notes. Just plays go under the table with Estonia."
"Er," said Mirosław, who had been to Estonia once, but never even heard of Kalmykia.
"So, have you got any asprin? 'Cause this hangover is killing me."
Mirosław reminded himself that he was a patriot and loved his nation. But right now, he didn't think he liked him.
--
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And to think that such a sweet boy will try to kill his country! :<
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Also, for some reason, I found Hungary's rudeness very fitting
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Loads of extra points for the Poland/Hungary bits <3
Is Mirosław any historical figure in particular? When I first saw it, it looked oddly familiar, like a politician that I heard about but can't quite recall. But after I googled it in Hungarian spelling, it might just be because there is a classical novel in Hungarian which I had to read in high-school and one of the main characters is called Mirosław. (It's from the era when like every northern Hungarian mansion had their own polishman, since they keenly took in a lot of refugees after the several blotched attempts to overthrow the invaders who cut up Poland -- oh and I'm not exaggerating about "their own polishman" bit, there is even a well known novel with the title literally meaning "Our Pole" where pole stands for polish person.)
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Who's the author of that novel? Do you know if it's ever been translated to English? It sounds fascinating.
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His wikipedia page is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B3r_J%C3%B3kai
I don't think that particular novel got translated, but several other did get translated. But he has written an incredible amount of books.
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--
He started hanging out with some other students, actual Catholics all, to talk about philosophy and study together. They met in cafes, or at the townhouse Graźyna and Romana shared. Graźyna and Romana weren't sisters, although they looked it, both dark-haired and tall and elegant. Mirosław fell hard for Graźyna almost at once.
They held his twentieth birthday party at the townhouse. Romana was staying in Warsaw over the holidays, so she had put up an impressive Christmas tree; the lights were enough to obviate the need for a lamp in her living room. They put up candles anyway. Orek brought a cake he had made himself, and Tadeusz brought his violin and played it while the rest of them danced. It all went very well, until Orek made a comment about the chill.
Romana explained, in clipped tones, that she couldn't afford any more fuel that year, and that she did fancy a few more hot showers.
Janusz laughed, and clapped Orek on the back. "So blame the Belarussians," he suggested.
Mirosław, perhaps foolishly, suggested they couldn't blame Belarus for everything; good old government incompetence played its part, too. If they had a little more money - maybe if the pension scheme hadn't gone so badly, or if they had only granted maternity payments to married mothers -
Orek snapped that it was like he didn't want Poland to be as happy as Sweden. Mirosław didn't say that he would be happy if Poland actually went to church instead of hanging around asking returning church-goers if they had any aspirin. He wasn't sure he wanted everyone to know who he had for a neighbor.
After that the argument rapidly became political.
The bright spot came afterwards, when Graźyna took him aside in the hallway. "Thank you for what you said," she began, and then paused for a long while, and then burst out, "About married mothers. I've - I've been afraid to go out with anyone. Because it seems like no one wants to wait. But - you know, Mirek, I like you a lot -"
He assured her the feeling was mutual, and squeezed her hand, because a kiss would be too fast.
--
Mirosław felt vaguely smug about coming home at two-thirty, sure that for once, he would get the chance to wake up Poland by slamming his door. He was maybe a little bit drunk. But Poland's door was wide open, light spilling out, and the hallway was warm and smelled of cinnamon. Mirosław stood there for most of a minute, listening to the warble of a pop song from inside the apartment, before it stopped and Poland called out, "Come on in! I need a guinea pig."
He wasn't sure if he liked the sound of that, but he went in.
Poland was busy stamping out heart-shaped cookies from a sheet of dough. When he saw Mirosław he grabbed one off a cooling rack and stuck it in his mouth. Mirosław had to chew or spit it out, but it tasted of cinnamon too, so he chewed. Poland grinned at him. "You like?"
"S'good," Mirosław mumbled around the cookie, and swallowed. He blinked a few times, looking for an unoccupied spot of counter to lean on. There didn't seem to be one. "Poland? Why are you baking cookies in the dead of night?"
"Well, I have a lunch date," Poland said absently, as if that explained everything. When he saw Mirosław still looking blank he chuckled and waved a scrap of dough. "We're doing Christmas in Riga this year, yanno? All the Baltic states. Only that means we have to bring enough food Finland doesn't try to cook, and I'm meeting up with Lithuania tomorrow and we're staying over until New Year's. So I have to get all this done before I leave. Don't gape, Mirosław, it's not cute on you. What, you thought nations didn't like spending the holidays with their family?"
"I - would have thought Slovakia and Czechia would be family. Not Lithuania." If he'd thought about it at all.
Poland half-shrugged as he brushed his hands off. (Onto the floor, Mirosław noted with dismay, if he didn't sweep that right away it would only encourage the roaches.) "Ex-husband is family, right? Eh, who cares, we're all in this together."
It wasn't until he woke up the next morning, almost too late to catch his train, that Mirosław realized Poland said husband.
--
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The trouble was, Mirosław had always thought of his nation as a Christian nation. So much history was tied up in that. Right back to the Baptism of Poland - he'd wondered if that was a literal term, considering - and for the thousand years and more after that, the story was one of civilization against barbarism, and the church against the heathens, and those things were more or less the same.
He had heard, of course, of the way people were paying less attention to church, to God, to the right way of life. But it was disturbing to have it demonstrated constantly by his neighbor. He had expected Warsaw to be different from his hometown. He had always known his family's standards of behaviour were higher than their neighbours. It was still a visceral shock, the way so few people seemed to care at all.
How did they do it? How could anyone stand to drift through life without an anchor? What was going to happen to his nation? Twenty years ago, the Pope had been Polish. Forty years ago, they'd fought back the Communists under the banner of Saint Mary.
What did his neighbor have to do with it?
It only occurred to Mirosław in February, on a chilly night as he and Janusz tossed maths questions at each other from opposite ends of Janusz's sofa, that he didn't know if his neighbour's unnerving secularism was an effect of his people's relentless apostasy, or a cause.
--
Anya had gone home to Lviv for the holidays, and come back with twenty pounds of coffee beans. She loved Turkish coffee. Orek hated it, but the rest never tried it, so on a Saturday in February they all descended on Romana's living room and turned it into a temporary café. Graźyna made sweet rolls for everyone, and Orek brought muffins. The wind was whistling outside, but inside it was warm enough, for once.
Three cups later Janusz sighed happily and plopped his feet on the table. He had on red-and-white striped socks, Mirosław noticed, louder than he would have expected Janusz to own. One had a hole in the toe. "I must spend some time in Lviv, if this is what they drink there."
"Well, some people." Anya smiled.
"I shall be one of them. I shall move there, in fact, and lounge attractively about in restaurants dispensing sage advice to passerby and drinking Turkish coffee, cup after cup."
Romana snorted. "Not much of a career plan."
"Really, Warsaw's nicer," Anya put in anxiously. "Ukraine has - supply-and-demand problems."
"Pish-tosh. Ukraine is in the European Union, is she not? Then all differences will settle, in time."
Orek sighed. "'E ash a -" He paused to remove the roll from his mouth. "He has a point, you know. It's not like we don't have problems. This country - Poland . . . " He waved the roll like he was trying to entice the right words out of hiding.
"Has infrastructure problems?" Graźyna offered.
Romana rolled her eyes. "Is being run by nincompoops?"
"Has a drinking problem," Mirosław muttered. "Never goes to church."
He hadn't meant to say that with such vehemence. He hadn't meant to say that at all. They were giving him funny looks. "Well, he does," he declared. "I think he gets plastered every Friday. And a lot of the rest of the time. He's an awful neighbor. And sometimes Hungary comes over and - look, I've lived next to him since last autumn and he drives me right up the wall, and I'm a patriot. I can't believe - look, have any of the rest of you met nations? In person, I mean, the personifications? Or any personifications."
"I saw Ukraine once," Anya offered. "Didn't speak to, just saw. At that big street fair, for the last EU expansion. She was standing with Tymoshenko, or I wouldn't have recognized her."
"I met Greece, the summer I toured Europe. He showed me around the Temple of Artemis. He was sweet." There was an odd expression on Romana's face, something like the one she wore before vanishing into her room to pound out a twenty-page paper in two hours. At the time, Mirosław took it for thoughtful. In distant retrospect, he recognized it for calculating.
But then, he noticed nothing. They laughed, and traded gossip of the foibles of nations - not that the was much gossip to be had, for it was in the nature of personifications to be overlooked, to seem unworthy of comment - and drank Turkish coffee until night fell.
--
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right.
I'm loving this so much, anon! I like what you're doing with Mirosław, and yeah, it is true that Poland (the character, of course) could probably be percieved like this, huh? 'Has a drinking problem, never goes to church', eheh.
Keep up the good work!
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--
His neighbor vanished completely, to Mirosław's mingled relief and nervousness, for a few days in early March. "Saint Casimir's Day," he breezily explained, on his return. He was laden with parcels, and had drafted Mirosław to help carry them. "There's this awesome street fair in Vilnius."
Vilnius, not Wilno, Mirosław noticed. He always used the Polish names for other cities - even called Lviv, Lwow. Why was Wilno different? "Isn't Casimir one of our patron sints?" he said, because it was as easier mystery.
Poland grinned and started to attack a bundle with a kitchen knife. It unfolded itself neatly to reveal a bright red scarf, which he tossed around his neck. "Poland and Lithuania, but he's Lithuania's favorite. And of youth in general. Which isn't bad, I mean, it's not like those poor blokes who end up being patron of left-handed scuba divers or something. Poor kid kept going on about helping the downtrodden and bringing truth to the infidel, he would have hated being in charge of scuba-divers. He was a sweet guy, really. Just took everything way too serious." He flicked a bit of hair away from Mirosław's chin, so fast Mirosław hardly realized he'd done it before he went after the second parcel. "Not like anybody you know, right?"
"Er," said Mirosław, still trying to wrap his head around the idea of someone talking about a saint like a favorite grandchild.
"Here. I bet you go vegan for Lent, right?" Poland shoved the open parcel at Mirosław. It smelled of honey. "These won't last forty days. Have some for dinner." Poland snatched one of the heart-shaped cookies out of the parcel and bit into it. It left pink icing smeared around his lips, and the effect as he grinned was oddly childish. "Call your girlfriend, give her some too."
"I shouldn't have cookies for dinner," Mirosław muttered, and sat down heavily on Poland's chipping plastic kitchen chair.
"Why the hell not?" Poland clapped Mirosław on the shoulder and leaned close, looking as serious as possible considering the icing. "Mirek. There is an American saying: Life is short, eat dessert first. You're human. You've got, like, eighty years left. Eat the damn cookies, and enjoy yourself. I'm going to." He grabbed another heart, and waved it. Mirosław noticed distantly there was a scar on Poland's left hand, a pale ridge running between the tendons. He wondered where it came from.
The heart was delicious.
Graźyna came when he called. Poland charmed her into blushing and kissed her hand. They migrated to Mirosław's kitchen, where they supplemented the cookies with berry wine and tremendously oily latkes. They talked for an hour, while his ipod streamed old-fashioned waltzes. Then Graźyna excused herself, claiming a desire for an early night.
The way Poland stared after her made Mirosław suddenly jealous. But Poland just grinned, and clapped him on the back. "You look after her, Mirek," he declared. "She's a keeper."
"I intend to."
"Good, good. I like seeing my young people in love." He beamed, the kind of smile that nobody could possibly stay upset with. "Make sure she knows you love her. Be as kind as you can, and enjoy all the time you have."
It was then that Mirosław remembered what he had said at Christmas, about ex-husbands counting as family. Maybe it was rude, but his curiosity overtook him. "Poland, have you ever been in love?"
"Oh yes." Poland grins.
"Was it - " He pauses. "You said you had an ex-husband. Was that it? Not just a political marriage?"
"Well, it started political." Poland waved s dismissive hand, but then his expression went serious. "We fell in love along the way. But I - Christ, I was so stupid about it," he burst out. "I was never kind. Ran all over him, tried to make him part of me. I didn't know - " His laugh sounded forced, and his next words were almost reverent. "Oh, Lithuania! My husband - like good health; I never knew how much I loved him, 'til I lost him."
Of course. That had been his best guess, and the Commonwealth the obvious thing a nation might call marriage. Mirosław touched his shoulder, hesitant. "I'm sorry."
"Eh. We're friends now. It's okay."
His smile was still sad, and Mirosław felt terribly out of his depth. He was glad when Poland hurried away.
--
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