Bildungsroman (2/2)
Oh hi well uh. I think this story may have broken me. And it got far longer than I ever actually intended it to be. So. Whatever, man.
Title: Bildungsroman (2/2)
Character(s): Germany/Italy, bit o' Liechtenstein
Rating: R for several non-graphic moments of OH GOD GERMANY WHY.
Warnings: OH GOD. WHY.
Summary: Germany learns to read. Twice.
Just like the title of this cartoon
Nothing new
No I am not subtle
Woyzeck woyzeck woyzeck woyzeck.
Everything you really need to know about mentioned texts is already in the story. Having read them might just twist the knife a little more, is all.
After, again
Italy calls it a date. Italy also calls it a first. Germany has reservations about both of these which escape him.
The walls of Italy's kitchen were blue once, or so he says, but now they stand half-stripped and fading, peeling at the ceiling corners where white steam gathers. Italy can not afford repairs yet, not even with the War this far behind them and more promising prospects on the rise. Italy can afford fine wine and the tall candles in the foyer. Privately, Germany suspects a correlation.
"So...it's a pattern, sort of," Italy concludes, tamping the last bits of raw spaghetti down into the water with the flat of his wooden spoon. His other hand rests in his apron pocket, green embroidered leaves and a phrase Germany would probably mispronounce on the first attempt. "You've got this character and he grows up, and maybe a lot of bad things happen to him but the point is how that changes him and everything he's learned about himself and the world by the end." The pot lid clanks when Italy lowers it. "I've got some of those too! Like Candide! Only this one gets shot."
"Yes," says Germany, calm, cutting basil leaves at the countertop. The whole kitchen smells of it now, basil and garlic and mustard seed but not mustard gas in the cabinets above his head. "But after all, that makes sense for a war story. It's the basic structure of the thing that is common. Nothing new." A pun; one he did not mean to make. But is it translated the same in the Italian printing?
"I guess not," Italy decides, "Or you wouldn't have a word for it. Anyway the book is very good. I read it, you know." He brushes by on the way to the cupboard, too close or not close enough, and Germany's back straightens. "Plus a bunch of other people must have too because I hear America made a movie about it and everything! Oh, but he changed the title all around."
Germany lifts the cutting board, scrapes his work carefully into the saucepan. "That is also nothing new." But the whole concept is troublesome: Germany does not need a movie to relive the Western front, nor to confront it. After sitting so long in the middle of it he knows perfectly well about its silence, and what came before that. There is nothing wrong with Germany's memory. He pushes his sleeves above his elbows and makes for the sink--cold water. "Remarque tells me he plans to write a sequel."
"Oh! Will you read it?"
It is a harmless question, or in any case an honest one, but Germany still considers it more thoroughly than he once might have. "I don't know."
Behind him Italy taps fingernails on the counter top and hums, a half-register away respectively from exasperation and amusement. "Germany, you're worrying."
Conscientiously, Germany wipes his hands on a dishcloth. They will smell like a garden through at least two more thorough washings. "I'm thinking."
"But that's the same thing for you. You should try just one of them alone sometime." Germany turns to reply and is unprepared to resist the wedge of tomato Italy pops into his mouth then; red, more so but not by much than the flush he feels creeping up towards his ears. "Stay after dinner!" Italy tells him, and for Germany at least this is, in fact, a first.
Presently
The problem, he discovers, has forever been one of context. Germany has been a part of the story, bound to it as ink to the page, as paper to the binding, and the trouble with this is that Germany has not yet seen it from the outside, for what it actually is. But then as he learns, nobody has wanted him to see before now. Permitting Germany to see would mean permitting Germany to see what he is, and especially what he is meant to be.
How fortunate that there are men now who want Germany to see.
It takes time and for a while he is not so certain he can make sense of everything they show him, but piece by piece the fragments align themselves in dependable order. He learns to interpret them, to salvage the moral above all else. He learns that he is the story, and how far it truly reaches back, and how far ahead it must go before it is complete. This, Germany understands, is the new breed of progress.
Did you know about the battle in the Teutoburg forest? he asks Prussia, from the center of a sea of notes with all of the relevant passages helpfully underlined for him. In 9 AD. That was where we first proved our real power as a race. They have told me that I was there, but I did not remember it. And now I do. Prussia stares at him long and hard, head to one side, and then he laughs until it is almost unseemly.
What the hell, he says, wiping away tears. You only live once, right? But he is gone before Germany can pursue the discussion.
Italy explains to him once, bent over a cafe table with pen and napkin in hand, the beauty in simplification. Take a picture, he says, and break it down to the parts of it that really make it what it is, down to its basic function--because art can have function, Germany, look at me, I'm being practical!--and now you have something everyone can understand. Plus without all the extra stuff it's easier to make copies and show it to even more people! That's the point, isn't it? Saying what you want to say to everyone who can hear it?
Not that you can't have complicated pictures, though!, and here Italy's hand becomes all forward motion, quick deft strokes of the pen. Angles, structure. This is what we are creating for ourselves. Like this, Italy declares, holding his work up to see, and then he bursts out laughing when he and Germany realize at the same instant that the napkin is cloth, not paper. Germany pays for it, keeps it.
It is all about simplification, in a way, and so Germany's methods change accordingly. He has to, if he intends to share the message. The new terms come quicker now, less polished in a way (because the age of artisans is long since past), but Germany is no less an expert in coining phrases than he ever was, no less adept with the tools at his disposal. Art can have function, Italy said. And so can words.
Italy says the posters are beautiful. Germany tells him the slogans are better.
He understands it all now. Context. How fortunate, how simple! To think he had not learned to see things this way years ago. Once, Germany felt caught between ambition and origin, trapped in the thin transparent lines between the land that breathed for him and the city which learned to breathe without him. But now he learns that his doubts were unfounded, for there is room for both. Let there be cities, let there be advancement. Let there be power and industry and hard, glinting edges, but let there also be what came before these things. Let there be countryside, wide, inviting. Let there be roots. Let there be birthright, someone tells him, and if he had not considered it in the same manner before he feels foolish now not to have done so.
This is Germany's newest word. It started with National, and then they combined it with some other things which expanded upon the meaning.
By and by
"So he dies at the end, right?"
If Germany did not know better, he would say it is cheeky of Italy. Instead he rolls his eyes and shifts carefully in the hammock to keep it from tipping and spilling its overloaded contents. Italy's shoulder presses awkwardly into his side, and neither of them seems entirely sure where all of their arms are meant to go like this. "Yes," he replies, cooly shutting the book. "Or Death would not be in the title. Aschenbach dies because he does not care to leave the city in time." Nobody concerns himself with the plague until it is already upon him, Germany thinks. Why is that? It seems highly impractical.
Italy disentangles one of his legs from the sprawled mess of limbs and swings it over the edge of the hammock, pushes booted toes idly against the ground to set the whole thing swinging lazily back and forth. He yawns, and Germany realizes suddenly how late it is. "Well, I guess he shouldn't have done that then. You have sad stories, Germany."
"I have many stories," says Germany, nodding into the calming motion. It is late: when did the sun sink so deeply? A buzzing at the edge of his hearing makes him scowl--flies? He can't see any out here. Germany twists the book on his chest in his hands, half-registering what he must be doing to its spine. "This story is about the end of things," he explains, observing the post to which the far end of the hammock is affixed. "Particularly rationality. Mann wrote it in 1911. What do you think that means?"
Italy curls closer with an unconcerned tsk. "Dunno, have you tried asking him?"
Germany shrugs. "I can't anymore. He--we had some disagreements on state matters and he left. I believe he is in California now." He declines to mention that Mann was neither the first nor the last, ignores the odd pang in his chest.
"Oh." Italy's head nestles on Germany's shoulder. "Can't you invite him back, then? Just for a little while so you can ask him your questions!"
So many questions. Germany sighs and moves his right hand, still holding the book, until it dangles over the hammock's edge. "That is unlikely."
"Well, maybe you could go visit him and..."
"No, Italy."
"Oh," Italy repeats, and the gentle swinging stops. Then: "But there's no plague here now, Germany. Look! Venice is so beautiful tonight."
With some precise maneuvering, Germany's other arm finds its way around Italy's shoulders, pulls him closer on his side until they are facing each other in the hammock's lowest point. "I know," he says, simply, nuzzling at Italy's hair with eyes closed.
"--I didn't mean it to sound that way!" Italy all but disappears in Germany's collar, grinning appreciatively. "And anyway it's okay because I like your stories. Even the sad ones!"
"You've mentioned," says Germany, whose headache feels better now. He means to coax Italy's chin up and look him in the eye, but suddenly both are gone when Italy sits up and--oh. And Italy has decided where to put his arms and legs now. Germany fights a sharp, startled laugh while the hammock rocks again. It is difficult to feign exasperation in the middle of this sort of motion. "Italy?"
The book threatens to slip from his grasp; Italy, ever observant, lunges and grabs for Germany's wrist, helps him guide it down to rest on the ground, closed, the page unmarked. He stays where he is after that, low, close. "Ha, look, Germany! It's like in Dante! 'They read no more that day.' See, I have stories too!"
You said that before, thinks Germany, smelling canvas. Or something like it. But then Italy's lips are on his and there is not enough room in the hammock for this but Italy tries anyway, as is his custom. Later, between breaths and giggles and clean sheets on the bed Germany deliberately carries him to, he will kiss the bruises made by the tumble out onto the patio stones and Germany will forgive him.
Subsequently
Mann is gone. That much is inescapable. So is Brecht, who was sick, and Remarque, whose sequel Germany did not after all have any desire to read. Neumann, Zweig, Werfel, Renn. He remembers their names to identify, not to immortalize. Wait a while longer and the names will be the only things left, and then at last will he be able to discard them. Germany can outlive most any thing. Wait. Patience. It is an acceptable demand, when he asks it of himself.
One day someone informs him that Hasenclever has killed himself at the camp in Les Milles, as though this should interest him. Germany considers the news, passes it along to the next person whom it may concern, and thereafter spares not another wasted thought on the subject. It matters little, less than Toller the year before or Tucholsky longer still before that. Germany remembers Tucholsky's words, the weak set of his jaw while penning disloyalty, but time enough will rid him of these too. Contemporaries are brief intruders, in the grander scheme.
Wait. Patience. There will be new texts soon enough. It isn't so hard after all, making things for people to believe in. It is never so hard as they would like to make it appear, and there is no more power in their pages than in any others. There never was. A few men sit down and write some pretty verse, and what is so exceptional about that?
Besides, paper burns.
Late
He is face down on top of the covers when something stirs in the dark. Germany wrenches himself from half-sleep at the first shifting of the bedsprings, fighting to hurl a clumsy, unprepared body into sudden action, but then a familiar weight settles against his side and he need not turn to know whose arms these are around his back and shoulder. He can tell already by the fit. Italy is considerate and reminds him anyway.
"It's me."
Germany slumps, exhausted. His hand uncurls slowly from the Luger under his pillow and he squints briefly, but cannot read the clock on the dresser. Think. Dark, but there, the window, the curtains are open. Something has passed. He only meant to rest for a moment after training. "Time?" he mumbles, in thickness.
"Twenty-two hundred hours," Italy murmurs, hugging closer to Germany's torso. His limbs on the sheets move slow and deafening. "You slept through bedtime. Oh, and dinner." Too tired to nod, Germany turns his head back to rest it in the crook of his elbow. Italy runs fingernails reassuringly down the nape of his neck, through the ends of his hair. "Germany," he says, "I have clothes on tonight! Only not my uniform because you said I shouldn't wear that to bed ever. Even though you're wearing yours now, but I guess you have to be ready for anything, huh?" His leg tangles with Germany's, gently. "That must be why your boots are on, too."
Germany twitches, still caught in the fog swirling just before wakefulness. He contemplates the stale taste in his mouth, tongue grazing teeth. "I hate oversleeping."
"It's not so bad," Italy advises. "Maybe...maybe now you can wake up earlier and watch the sun come up since you already got some rest! I like the sunrise, there's lots of yellow then."
For a moment Italy withdraws his touch, distracted. Germany's skin burns strangely at the absence of it.
"Right, Germany? Yellow?"
"Yes, yellow."
Weight below his shoulder--Italy is pressing his face to the blade through layers of cloth. "Germany, are you thinking?"
--He said that, before. Or something else, or the same thing, if it is all the same. "I think..." Germany turns to face Italy, who lets his own head drop to the pillow so they can mostly look one another in the eye. "I think I would like to live once, to see what it is like."
Italy's hand comes up to Germany's cheek, to his forehead, traces the lines cutting across it but does not attempt to force them smooth. "But we have to be here for longer than that, Germany," he says, a tired, bewildered smile in the dark. Open curtains, long shadows. "Or else what's the point?"
Outside it is dark, and too soon yet to lie awake for sunrise. Germany watches the shifting of not enough light on the ceiling and says, "I am trying to remember who said that there has to be one." Italy's breathing has slowed and shallowed before he finishes, so he leaves the thought there. He would like to pull Italy closer before he sleeps again, but that would call for arms that move.
September 21, 1943
It is evening again and Greece's beaches are empty. Greece's streets are empty, too, or maybe just hidden beneath themselves; there is not much Germany would not put past Greece at this point. At this point, but that is not the point. The heart of the matter is here, on the ground, where Germany instructed Italy to follow after him and Italy obeyed. At least he is still capable of listening that much. So they are on the beach now, away from haunted cities walking not side by side (as he once presumed) and not shoulder to shoulder (theirs were never equal heights) but in some manner of uniformity that is nearly but not quite acceptable, saccharine tablets in lieu of sugar. Not that Germany remembers the difference between the two, but that is not the point either. Commitment necessitates sacrifice.
Sand makes for insufficient footing, but Germany stays in step, wordless as the waves. Once, twice, they threaten to wash over his boots, but always shrink back just out of reach of the worn black leather. Germany watches his feet, counting paces. It does not surprise him that Italy has fallen behind, or that Italy is not silent.
"...So I know it doesn't seem very fair," Italy says, for the hundredth time tonight, "and I really, really hope you understand that it's what everyone thinks is for the best--and not just my brother, Germany, really almost everybody thinks so!--but the thing is, Germany, the thing is it's getting harder now and too sad and England and America and the others really aren't bad people, you know they aren't they're just different is all, and maybe..." He stops when Germany does, a short distance ahead, crouches briefly in the sand to grab a seashell and tosses it in his hand while they both turn out facing the sea. "Maybe enough is enough, you know?"
Green waves, salt air. Germany tells Italy that he knows.
"I'm glad," says Italy, sincerely. His hand closes halfway over the shell, fingertips exploring the texture. "Then I guess that's it. Oh, but this doesn't have to change everything, Germany. I mean, it's not like I planned to go over to their side after all, but it's what's best right now and orders are orders, right? I hoped you would understand."
Orders are orders. Germany knows what he wants to say now, the words boiling up from some centuries-long tunnel almost before he can realize that they are not entirely his. Oh, and that is funny. It is very funny. Woyzeck, when did he last think of anything to do with Woyzeck? He stabs Maria by the river's edge, as many times as it takes, and who could possibly fail to see it coming? But Büchner never finished the stupid play, did he, just loose scenes and too many fragments which might have been conclusions. Germany remembers this part, though. Everyone who has read it once remembers it.
There is water and a sunset and everything. Büchner would find it funny, too, were he not powder and dust.
Go ahead then, play the part--it is near enough of an ending. "Italy, do you know how long it's been?"
Of course Italy misses the reference. Italy never notices these things. "Hm? Since when, Germany? Because the war's been going on for a while now, I guess, but if you mean something else I'm not really sure..."
Germany glances from the water to the sky, gloved hand straying to the cool, dark weight at his hip. Red sunset: good news for sailors, or so one hears. "Do you know how long it's going to be?"
Italy does not remember what is supposed to come after that, either. Germany suspects he would not know how to play his part properly even with a script in front of him and the appropriate lines marked. But that matters little now, and either way it is decades out of context.
Finally
Paper burns.
There really is nothing very exceptional about that.
Then
The most sensible course of action, decides Germany's body, is to breathe.
Germany can respect the argument. It is sound, well-founded reasoning and most of the larger wounds which would have made such exertion painful have adequately healed by now, and so Germany assents to his body's counsel and continues to draw air.
He does not open his eyes. From the birdsong outside and the strength of the sunlight pressing against the lids, he guesses it is still at least an hour too early for the alarm to wake him, as of course it will. It will and it must: today is important. Today is the election. The first one, in fact, or rather not exactly the first but an absolutely vital one. Free elections, democracy. This is where beginnings come from. He should in fact leave bed for that, but not yet. Another hour. Afterward there will be time for the hundred things demanding his attention, for pressure and politics and whoever that is sitting in the chair by the--
For a split second when he turns Germany's hand starts under the pillow, but it remembers in time and instead snatches frantically at the sheets for coverage in light of his visitor. "You're awake," says Liechtenstein, without batting an eye, and then, "Hi." She is wearing his glasses, taken from the bedside table. They are too large for her features. She adjusts the frames and informs him, "Your eyes aren't so bad after all."
Germany eases his back against the wall, blinking. He feels his heartbeat echo through the plaster. "Where is your brother?" he asks, when he can speak again.
"Switzerland is helping Austria find his music again," says Liechtenstein. She removes his glasses, holds them delicately in her lap, and nods at the rest of the bedroom as though appreciating a garden. "You have some catching up to do, too."
--In Germany's defense, the book piles do tend to grow at night, when he is not looking. Perhaps if this were otherwise he could better keep his floor clean in preparation for company. As it is the newest ones teeter at the top of already unwieldy stacks, half-finished scripts and drafts of chapters even the publishers have not yet seen patiently awaiting acknowledgment in the morning light. He sometimes wonders how they get here, but mostly he wonders how they discover every time when his address has changed again. "I know."
Liechtenstein regards him patiently. "It's really not the same if you haven't looked at them yourself," she reasons, and plucks gently at the ends of her neatly pressed skirts.
"I know," Germany repeats. "They are organized," he offers, because it's true. He alphabetizes the stacks once a week before leaving for work, dusts them, aligns their corners in as few moves as it takes to touch them bare-handed. Some of the names he recognizes, some he does not. But he remembers which order to put them in, at least.
Liechtenstein cannot know all of this, but perhaps she does not find it hard to guess. "Organized and that's all." She looks at the piles collecting dust, lips drawn into a thin line. "Germany," she opens, like a doctor opens the patient's chart and dreads what he will see printed there, "when was the last time you read a book? All the way through."
That he must think should be answer enough. Nevertheless--"1941."
She doesn't count them, doesn't hold up a finger for each of eight years for him to see, but he can picture it fine enough for himself. "Oh, Germany." Liechtenstein exhales. "That's too long."
"I know," he says, a third time, and then a fourth, tired. Germany's hands feel stupidly overlarge in his hair. He sinks down closer to the greying mattress. "But it's different now," he says between his fingers, to Liechtenstein or the books or all of them or nobody, "I have so much to fix and I can't just...there are more important matters at hand, I don't have the time--"
"Time!" She has been crying, or she will be: there at the corners of her eyes he can see it. "You always had time."
Germany crosses his arms over his stomach, draws his knees up under the sheets and frowns at Liechtenstein in her ribbon and her out of fashion shoes. "Do you understand what I did?" he asks her, slowly.
Liechtenstein sits prim and proper in her seat, knee-to-knee ankle-to-ankle. "Of course I do, I was there." He looks away and she sighs, still watching. "And yes, some of it was your fault. Some of what happened to Prussia, too. But you still have yourself to think about, and that means all of yourself." Twisting around, she casts about beside her and disrupts one of the piles to pull part of it away. "Look, most of the new ones are short. Maybe that's an easier way to start if you're out of practice." She smoothes the corner of a thin, haphazardly stapled draft with something like affection. "I just had a look at this one. It's a little sad and a little strange but you should still see it. It's a mirror-story.
"She dies at the beginning," Liechtenstein explains, "and lives backwards from there, finish to start. And someone else goes backwards with her or forwards without her and doesn't even know it."
Germany considers this, picks dully at the hairline cracks in the window, and decides, "That's wrong."
"It's yours." She reaches for his hand then, squeezes it lightly, slides pages and glasses together under his fingers as she stands. "You figure out what to do with it." As she leaves she promises him she will be back another time to check in when he is less busy; that she expects to have an easier time getting from one end of the room to the other without all of these poor books blocking the path when she does so. On the way out she rest her hand on the knob and tells him "Good morning, Germany," because she forgot to before, but the door swings shut behind her and if he answered it would only be to the sounds of her feet in the stairwell.
Which leaves Germany and his glasses and no shirt and uncombed hair and a remarkably smug-looking little bundle of paper on the bed by the windowsill. He looks at it, and then the clock. The alarm is still set. Today is still election day. But then it really is a very short story, and he does have some time ahead of him. Enough, anyway.
Twice
There's a man over there and he has a camera. It is fortune that Germany recalls how much more there is to it than that, and then again it is not.
He makes his approach as slow and conspicuous as he can, in case Italy should like to be on the far side of the bridge by the time Germany reaches the middle. Italy does not move, for all that that might mean, but rather keeps his attention on the scenery, on the skyline framing the river and the holes yet unfilled inside it. There should be more color, Germany thinks. Everything looks duller, washed-out, and what light steals through the clouds adds only a flat, pale tint to Italy's hair. There is a word for that. He remembers the feel of it, but not the sound. Germany stops at a distance and watches Italy ignore him and fumble in framing a shot. He takes great care in clearing his throat. "Camera?"
Italy nods without looking. "Impressionism for cheaters," he chirrups. "My brushes are all a little mad at me right now." There is no bitterness in his voice. His fingers curl around the buttons, delicate. He has not yet taken the picture. "You have a city again," he says, nodding toward the construction.
"Yes," Germany agrees. He thinks perhaps that staying could be as much of a mistake as leaving, but the railing does not scorch his hands when he lays them on it, so they and Germany stay where they are and Italy doesn't move away but he doesn't look either.
The camera remains unused. "This is the Rhine, isn't it?" Italy says, indicating the river. "That meant something lovely once."
It would be much easier if Italy only sent him away. Germany steps back from the railing. "Italy..." And Italy obliges with a blank half-turn, so what now? What does Germany say now? Where are the words for what is twisting his insides into knots of themselves?
Italy, I went for a walk this morning, he might say. I went for a walk and I followed the train tracks because they are steady and solid and the trains move at a rhythm that is easy to walk with, even if they are much quicker. I did this, you see, because I am reading a book. A new one. I enjoy it very much and I want to know how it ends, but it is long and soon I will have read one hundred pages of it, and this is as far as I have gotten in anything since I started again. It is always the same now, and I do not know why. It doesn't matter how fast or how slow I read, if I try to break it into different sections or days or plan it chapter by chapter. No matter what I try, somehow somewhere something happens after a hundred pages and I give up, or else lose my place, or pick up something else before I can finish the first, and Italy, it is so inefficient.
So I followed the train tracks to remember something that is efficient, that runs as it is supposed to without hesitation. But they stopped along one route because something had torn them down, and I lost the beat I walked in time to. I lost it and I was alone, in an empty street with a broken track and nothing to rely upon except retracing my steps. Then there was something else to listen to. Something smaller than a train that did not keep to a steady beat (some things never do this), and I realized--I can hear typewriters again. All the way across the city, one leads to the other and the other after that. You can get anywhere that way, if you know how. For a while I did not think I would hear it anymore. But I was wrong, I can, there were things under the rubble I never really lost and there are things in those buildings I will find again, even if I have to knock on every door to find where exactly the typing is coming from.
Italien, Italien, it is 1957 and we are older than we were the last time we spoke, and I can't finish a novel and you can't start a painting but we are here now and this is not a beginning, this is a different part of the same story because I can't keep starting over again. I cannot give up on the narrative. It does not work that way. So I will accept it, and the part I took in it, and I will finish rebuilding this city and the others and I will be new steel and rusted iron and whatever it is they're melting down to make typewriters now and it can be arrhythmic, Italy, it can be of impure alloys and the trains can run on less than perfect time if I can only--
But Germany does not have all of these words yet and so he looks up from his hands in his grey coat sleeves, shrugs, and says instead, "There's metal in me."
Silent, Italy watches Germany's face for a moment. "Yeah!" He says, turning away. "In me too."
"I know." Germany says this a lot now, he finds. "I'm--"
But Italy bustles and flips the camera again, fingers tightening unsteady around the wide black casing. "I'm trying to find a composition that breathes," he says smoothly, tilting the thing this way and that. He shuts his eye to Germany to peer through the lens. "Something open enough, something nice and powerful and beautiful but not too shut in to really appreciate. Only it's hard since this thing doesn't give me the same kind of scope I'd get just looking with my eyes." Italy inhales deeply, bracingly. "Do you know what that's like, Germany?"
Germany follows Italy's gaze and tries to see what is there within a similar frame. "No," he admits, and leans on the railing again. He nudges a pebble off the edge with his foot to watch the long slow fall into the river below. "Desaturated," he says suddenly, blinking. "That was the word I was trying to think of."
The surprised sound Italy makes with the click of the shutter then is still too sharp to be exactly like the ones Germany remembers. However, he finally takes the picture.
Eventually
It is not easy. It is not simple. It is not a renewal or a resurrection or even a return, strictly speaking. It is not renaissance.
It is progress, of a very different sort. It is work, deliberation, innovation. It is late nights through long hours. It is travel and treaties and meetings meetings meetings, and after that, perhaps, reward.
It is England cracking jokes. It is France getting along without his cane. It is looking some people in the eye again, and letting others wait a while longer without pressing. It is sunlight and idle afternoons and the first time Italy really laughs; scrawled hopscotch lines on the sidewalk. It is new currency--two marks for the girls to buy new chalk after Italy turns theirs into a mural, pink-green-purple-orange.
It is continuity. It is lunch with Thomas Mann; billiards with Heinrich Böll. It is getting to page one hundred and reading further.
It is not escaping the story. It is taking up the pen.
Now
Germany's students like Büchner. Büchner was thoughtful enough to die before leaving too intimidating a life's work for the studying. There is something to be said for brevity, as anyone who has ever been obliged to carry the collected works of Schiller or Goethe in one trip might readily attest. So Germany's students carry the things Büchner did write under one arm, lightly, and dream up new things to say about them but perhaps not new words with which to say them, for even Germany's most learned professors grow weary of this sort of artistry when it is abused.
He sees them sometimes in the course of his daily business, gathering in libraries or corner cafes or on lawns he would rather they not lie on, strictly speaking, but it is quite futile to enforce this and anyway the grass does not appear to raise objections. Every so often, one will invite him to join them for a while. Every so often, and if his in-box and his conscience can reconcile themselves to the notion, he accepts. Not to help or to offer too much input, strictly speaking, that--there are principles of academic integrity to consider, after all. (Correcting grammar does not count; Prussia does that just as often and louder when he gets the chance.) But to listen, that much is always within his capacity. If they are in a cafe and the argument is compelling enough, Germany might offer to pay for an extra cup of coffee while he does so.
With Büchner and with Woyzeck the question quickly becomes one of assembly, of intent. Here are the other fragments from the manuscript, but which of these are proper scenes, and what order do they follow? Which one belongs at the end? Germany knows that discussion well enough. He thinks he must hear a new position on it every time someone prints a different edition, and so if asked for his opinion can do little more than shrug. They are fragments, he explains, going back to his coffee, but perhaps that is not so helpful in writing a dissertation after all.
In time
Yellow kitchen walls, freshly painted; the flecks Germany didn't get to clean in time still stubbornly clinging to the counter top. Water reaching a slow boil. Italy, whose hands move like birds when they hover around the windowsill herb garden. Basil, rosemary, sage. Germany's knife chopping out of sync with Corelli's tenor on the muted radio behind them.
"How does that old poem you tried to teach me go, again?" Italy's hair catches some but not all of the light when he turns toward the sink. "The really pretty one about night in the forest and flying home?"
There are things for which words do not yet exist. Germany thinks, if it comes to that, he might leave these undefined a little longer and see what becomes of them when one lets them be.
(Part 1)
Title: Bildungsroman (2/2)
Character(s): Germany/Italy, bit o' Liechtenstein
Rating: R for several non-graphic moments of OH GOD GERMANY WHY.
Warnings: OH GOD. WHY.
Summary: Germany learns to read. Twice.
Just like the title of this cartoon
Nothing new
No I am not subtle
Woyzeck woyzeck woyzeck woyzeck.
Everything you really need to know about mentioned texts is already in the story. Having read them might just twist the knife a little more, is all.
After, again
Italy calls it a date. Italy also calls it a first. Germany has reservations about both of these which escape him.
The walls of Italy's kitchen were blue once, or so he says, but now they stand half-stripped and fading, peeling at the ceiling corners where white steam gathers. Italy can not afford repairs yet, not even with the War this far behind them and more promising prospects on the rise. Italy can afford fine wine and the tall candles in the foyer. Privately, Germany suspects a correlation.
"So...it's a pattern, sort of," Italy concludes, tamping the last bits of raw spaghetti down into the water with the flat of his wooden spoon. His other hand rests in his apron pocket, green embroidered leaves and a phrase Germany would probably mispronounce on the first attempt. "You've got this character and he grows up, and maybe a lot of bad things happen to him but the point is how that changes him and everything he's learned about himself and the world by the end." The pot lid clanks when Italy lowers it. "I've got some of those too! Like Candide! Only this one gets shot."
"Yes," says Germany, calm, cutting basil leaves at the countertop. The whole kitchen smells of it now, basil and garlic and mustard seed but not mustard gas in the cabinets above his head. "But after all, that makes sense for a war story. It's the basic structure of the thing that is common. Nothing new." A pun; one he did not mean to make. But is it translated the same in the Italian printing?
"I guess not," Italy decides, "Or you wouldn't have a word for it. Anyway the book is very good. I read it, you know." He brushes by on the way to the cupboard, too close or not close enough, and Germany's back straightens. "Plus a bunch of other people must have too because I hear America made a movie about it and everything! Oh, but he changed the title all around."
Germany lifts the cutting board, scrapes his work carefully into the saucepan. "That is also nothing new." But the whole concept is troublesome: Germany does not need a movie to relive the Western front, nor to confront it. After sitting so long in the middle of it he knows perfectly well about its silence, and what came before that. There is nothing wrong with Germany's memory. He pushes his sleeves above his elbows and makes for the sink--cold water. "Remarque tells me he plans to write a sequel."
"Oh! Will you read it?"
It is a harmless question, or in any case an honest one, but Germany still considers it more thoroughly than he once might have. "I don't know."
Behind him Italy taps fingernails on the counter top and hums, a half-register away respectively from exasperation and amusement. "Germany, you're worrying."
Conscientiously, Germany wipes his hands on a dishcloth. They will smell like a garden through at least two more thorough washings. "I'm thinking."
"But that's the same thing for you. You should try just one of them alone sometime." Germany turns to reply and is unprepared to resist the wedge of tomato Italy pops into his mouth then; red, more so but not by much than the flush he feels creeping up towards his ears. "Stay after dinner!" Italy tells him, and for Germany at least this is, in fact, a first.
Presently
The problem, he discovers, has forever been one of context. Germany has been a part of the story, bound to it as ink to the page, as paper to the binding, and the trouble with this is that Germany has not yet seen it from the outside, for what it actually is. But then as he learns, nobody has wanted him to see before now. Permitting Germany to see would mean permitting Germany to see what he is, and especially what he is meant to be.
How fortunate that there are men now who want Germany to see.
It takes time and for a while he is not so certain he can make sense of everything they show him, but piece by piece the fragments align themselves in dependable order. He learns to interpret them, to salvage the moral above all else. He learns that he is the story, and how far it truly reaches back, and how far ahead it must go before it is complete. This, Germany understands, is the new breed of progress.
Did you know about the battle in the Teutoburg forest? he asks Prussia, from the center of a sea of notes with all of the relevant passages helpfully underlined for him. In 9 AD. That was where we first proved our real power as a race. They have told me that I was there, but I did not remember it. And now I do. Prussia stares at him long and hard, head to one side, and then he laughs until it is almost unseemly.
What the hell, he says, wiping away tears. You only live once, right? But he is gone before Germany can pursue the discussion.
Italy explains to him once, bent over a cafe table with pen and napkin in hand, the beauty in simplification. Take a picture, he says, and break it down to the parts of it that really make it what it is, down to its basic function--because art can have function, Germany, look at me, I'm being practical!--and now you have something everyone can understand. Plus without all the extra stuff it's easier to make copies and show it to even more people! That's the point, isn't it? Saying what you want to say to everyone who can hear it?
Not that you can't have complicated pictures, though!, and here Italy's hand becomes all forward motion, quick deft strokes of the pen. Angles, structure. This is what we are creating for ourselves. Like this, Italy declares, holding his work up to see, and then he bursts out laughing when he and Germany realize at the same instant that the napkin is cloth, not paper. Germany pays for it, keeps it.
It is all about simplification, in a way, and so Germany's methods change accordingly. He has to, if he intends to share the message. The new terms come quicker now, less polished in a way (because the age of artisans is long since past), but Germany is no less an expert in coining phrases than he ever was, no less adept with the tools at his disposal. Art can have function, Italy said. And so can words.
Italy says the posters are beautiful. Germany tells him the slogans are better.
He understands it all now. Context. How fortunate, how simple! To think he had not learned to see things this way years ago. Once, Germany felt caught between ambition and origin, trapped in the thin transparent lines between the land that breathed for him and the city which learned to breathe without him. But now he learns that his doubts were unfounded, for there is room for both. Let there be cities, let there be advancement. Let there be power and industry and hard, glinting edges, but let there also be what came before these things. Let there be countryside, wide, inviting. Let there be roots. Let there be birthright, someone tells him, and if he had not considered it in the same manner before he feels foolish now not to have done so.
This is Germany's newest word. It started with National, and then they combined it with some other things which expanded upon the meaning.
By and by
"So he dies at the end, right?"
If Germany did not know better, he would say it is cheeky of Italy. Instead he rolls his eyes and shifts carefully in the hammock to keep it from tipping and spilling its overloaded contents. Italy's shoulder presses awkwardly into his side, and neither of them seems entirely sure where all of their arms are meant to go like this. "Yes," he replies, cooly shutting the book. "Or Death would not be in the title. Aschenbach dies because he does not care to leave the city in time." Nobody concerns himself with the plague until it is already upon him, Germany thinks. Why is that? It seems highly impractical.
Italy disentangles one of his legs from the sprawled mess of limbs and swings it over the edge of the hammock, pushes booted toes idly against the ground to set the whole thing swinging lazily back and forth. He yawns, and Germany realizes suddenly how late it is. "Well, I guess he shouldn't have done that then. You have sad stories, Germany."
"I have many stories," says Germany, nodding into the calming motion. It is late: when did the sun sink so deeply? A buzzing at the edge of his hearing makes him scowl--flies? He can't see any out here. Germany twists the book on his chest in his hands, half-registering what he must be doing to its spine. "This story is about the end of things," he explains, observing the post to which the far end of the hammock is affixed. "Particularly rationality. Mann wrote it in 1911. What do you think that means?"
Italy curls closer with an unconcerned tsk. "Dunno, have you tried asking him?"
Germany shrugs. "I can't anymore. He--we had some disagreements on state matters and he left. I believe he is in California now." He declines to mention that Mann was neither the first nor the last, ignores the odd pang in his chest.
"Oh." Italy's head nestles on Germany's shoulder. "Can't you invite him back, then? Just for a little while so you can ask him your questions!"
So many questions. Germany sighs and moves his right hand, still holding the book, until it dangles over the hammock's edge. "That is unlikely."
"Well, maybe you could go visit him and..."
"No, Italy."
"Oh," Italy repeats, and the gentle swinging stops. Then: "But there's no plague here now, Germany. Look! Venice is so beautiful tonight."
With some precise maneuvering, Germany's other arm finds its way around Italy's shoulders, pulls him closer on his side until they are facing each other in the hammock's lowest point. "I know," he says, simply, nuzzling at Italy's hair with eyes closed.
"--I didn't mean it to sound that way!" Italy all but disappears in Germany's collar, grinning appreciatively. "And anyway it's okay because I like your stories. Even the sad ones!"
"You've mentioned," says Germany, whose headache feels better now. He means to coax Italy's chin up and look him in the eye, but suddenly both are gone when Italy sits up and--oh. And Italy has decided where to put his arms and legs now. Germany fights a sharp, startled laugh while the hammock rocks again. It is difficult to feign exasperation in the middle of this sort of motion. "Italy?"
The book threatens to slip from his grasp; Italy, ever observant, lunges and grabs for Germany's wrist, helps him guide it down to rest on the ground, closed, the page unmarked. He stays where he is after that, low, close. "Ha, look, Germany! It's like in Dante! 'They read no more that day.' See, I have stories too!"
You said that before, thinks Germany, smelling canvas. Or something like it. But then Italy's lips are on his and there is not enough room in the hammock for this but Italy tries anyway, as is his custom. Later, between breaths and giggles and clean sheets on the bed Germany deliberately carries him to, he will kiss the bruises made by the tumble out onto the patio stones and Germany will forgive him.
Subsequently
Mann is gone. That much is inescapable. So is Brecht, who was sick, and Remarque, whose sequel Germany did not after all have any desire to read. Neumann, Zweig, Werfel, Renn. He remembers their names to identify, not to immortalize. Wait a while longer and the names will be the only things left, and then at last will he be able to discard them. Germany can outlive most any thing. Wait. Patience. It is an acceptable demand, when he asks it of himself.
One day someone informs him that Hasenclever has killed himself at the camp in Les Milles, as though this should interest him. Germany considers the news, passes it along to the next person whom it may concern, and thereafter spares not another wasted thought on the subject. It matters little, less than Toller the year before or Tucholsky longer still before that. Germany remembers Tucholsky's words, the weak set of his jaw while penning disloyalty, but time enough will rid him of these too. Contemporaries are brief intruders, in the grander scheme.
Wait. Patience. There will be new texts soon enough. It isn't so hard after all, making things for people to believe in. It is never so hard as they would like to make it appear, and there is no more power in their pages than in any others. There never was. A few men sit down and write some pretty verse, and what is so exceptional about that?
Besides, paper burns.
Late
He is face down on top of the covers when something stirs in the dark. Germany wrenches himself from half-sleep at the first shifting of the bedsprings, fighting to hurl a clumsy, unprepared body into sudden action, but then a familiar weight settles against his side and he need not turn to know whose arms these are around his back and shoulder. He can tell already by the fit. Italy is considerate and reminds him anyway.
"It's me."
Germany slumps, exhausted. His hand uncurls slowly from the Luger under his pillow and he squints briefly, but cannot read the clock on the dresser. Think. Dark, but there, the window, the curtains are open. Something has passed. He only meant to rest for a moment after training. "Time?" he mumbles, in thickness.
"Twenty-two hundred hours," Italy murmurs, hugging closer to Germany's torso. His limbs on the sheets move slow and deafening. "You slept through bedtime. Oh, and dinner." Too tired to nod, Germany turns his head back to rest it in the crook of his elbow. Italy runs fingernails reassuringly down the nape of his neck, through the ends of his hair. "Germany," he says, "I have clothes on tonight! Only not my uniform because you said I shouldn't wear that to bed ever. Even though you're wearing yours now, but I guess you have to be ready for anything, huh?" His leg tangles with Germany's, gently. "That must be why your boots are on, too."
Germany twitches, still caught in the fog swirling just before wakefulness. He contemplates the stale taste in his mouth, tongue grazing teeth. "I hate oversleeping."
"It's not so bad," Italy advises. "Maybe...maybe now you can wake up earlier and watch the sun come up since you already got some rest! I like the sunrise, there's lots of yellow then."
For a moment Italy withdraws his touch, distracted. Germany's skin burns strangely at the absence of it.
"Right, Germany? Yellow?"
"Yes, yellow."
Weight below his shoulder--Italy is pressing his face to the blade through layers of cloth. "Germany, are you thinking?"
--He said that, before. Or something else, or the same thing, if it is all the same. "I think..." Germany turns to face Italy, who lets his own head drop to the pillow so they can mostly look one another in the eye. "I think I would like to live once, to see what it is like."
Italy's hand comes up to Germany's cheek, to his forehead, traces the lines cutting across it but does not attempt to force them smooth. "But we have to be here for longer than that, Germany," he says, a tired, bewildered smile in the dark. Open curtains, long shadows. "Or else what's the point?"
Outside it is dark, and too soon yet to lie awake for sunrise. Germany watches the shifting of not enough light on the ceiling and says, "I am trying to remember who said that there has to be one." Italy's breathing has slowed and shallowed before he finishes, so he leaves the thought there. He would like to pull Italy closer before he sleeps again, but that would call for arms that move.
September 21, 1943
It is evening again and Greece's beaches are empty. Greece's streets are empty, too, or maybe just hidden beneath themselves; there is not much Germany would not put past Greece at this point. At this point, but that is not the point. The heart of the matter is here, on the ground, where Germany instructed Italy to follow after him and Italy obeyed. At least he is still capable of listening that much. So they are on the beach now, away from haunted cities walking not side by side (as he once presumed) and not shoulder to shoulder (theirs were never equal heights) but in some manner of uniformity that is nearly but not quite acceptable, saccharine tablets in lieu of sugar. Not that Germany remembers the difference between the two, but that is not the point either. Commitment necessitates sacrifice.
Sand makes for insufficient footing, but Germany stays in step, wordless as the waves. Once, twice, they threaten to wash over his boots, but always shrink back just out of reach of the worn black leather. Germany watches his feet, counting paces. It does not surprise him that Italy has fallen behind, or that Italy is not silent.
"...So I know it doesn't seem very fair," Italy says, for the hundredth time tonight, "and I really, really hope you understand that it's what everyone thinks is for the best--and not just my brother, Germany, really almost everybody thinks so!--but the thing is, Germany, the thing is it's getting harder now and too sad and England and America and the others really aren't bad people, you know they aren't they're just different is all, and maybe..." He stops when Germany does, a short distance ahead, crouches briefly in the sand to grab a seashell and tosses it in his hand while they both turn out facing the sea. "Maybe enough is enough, you know?"
Green waves, salt air. Germany tells Italy that he knows.
"I'm glad," says Italy, sincerely. His hand closes halfway over the shell, fingertips exploring the texture. "Then I guess that's it. Oh, but this doesn't have to change everything, Germany. I mean, it's not like I planned to go over to their side after all, but it's what's best right now and orders are orders, right? I hoped you would understand."
Orders are orders. Germany knows what he wants to say now, the words boiling up from some centuries-long tunnel almost before he can realize that they are not entirely his. Oh, and that is funny. It is very funny. Woyzeck, when did he last think of anything to do with Woyzeck? He stabs Maria by the river's edge, as many times as it takes, and who could possibly fail to see it coming? But Büchner never finished the stupid play, did he, just loose scenes and too many fragments which might have been conclusions. Germany remembers this part, though. Everyone who has read it once remembers it.
There is water and a sunset and everything. Büchner would find it funny, too, were he not powder and dust.
Go ahead then, play the part--it is near enough of an ending. "Italy, do you know how long it's been?"
Of course Italy misses the reference. Italy never notices these things. "Hm? Since when, Germany? Because the war's been going on for a while now, I guess, but if you mean something else I'm not really sure..."
Germany glances from the water to the sky, gloved hand straying to the cool, dark weight at his hip. Red sunset: good news for sailors, or so one hears. "Do you know how long it's going to be?"
Italy does not remember what is supposed to come after that, either. Germany suspects he would not know how to play his part properly even with a script in front of him and the appropriate lines marked. But that matters little now, and either way it is decades out of context.
Finally
Paper burns.
There really is nothing very exceptional about that.
Then
The most sensible course of action, decides Germany's body, is to breathe.
Germany can respect the argument. It is sound, well-founded reasoning and most of the larger wounds which would have made such exertion painful have adequately healed by now, and so Germany assents to his body's counsel and continues to draw air.
He does not open his eyes. From the birdsong outside and the strength of the sunlight pressing against the lids, he guesses it is still at least an hour too early for the alarm to wake him, as of course it will. It will and it must: today is important. Today is the election. The first one, in fact, or rather not exactly the first but an absolutely vital one. Free elections, democracy. This is where beginnings come from. He should in fact leave bed for that, but not yet. Another hour. Afterward there will be time for the hundred things demanding his attention, for pressure and politics and whoever that is sitting in the chair by the--
For a split second when he turns Germany's hand starts under the pillow, but it remembers in time and instead snatches frantically at the sheets for coverage in light of his visitor. "You're awake," says Liechtenstein, without batting an eye, and then, "Hi." She is wearing his glasses, taken from the bedside table. They are too large for her features. She adjusts the frames and informs him, "Your eyes aren't so bad after all."
Germany eases his back against the wall, blinking. He feels his heartbeat echo through the plaster. "Where is your brother?" he asks, when he can speak again.
"Switzerland is helping Austria find his music again," says Liechtenstein. She removes his glasses, holds them delicately in her lap, and nods at the rest of the bedroom as though appreciating a garden. "You have some catching up to do, too."
--In Germany's defense, the book piles do tend to grow at night, when he is not looking. Perhaps if this were otherwise he could better keep his floor clean in preparation for company. As it is the newest ones teeter at the top of already unwieldy stacks, half-finished scripts and drafts of chapters even the publishers have not yet seen patiently awaiting acknowledgment in the morning light. He sometimes wonders how they get here, but mostly he wonders how they discover every time when his address has changed again. "I know."
Liechtenstein regards him patiently. "It's really not the same if you haven't looked at them yourself," she reasons, and plucks gently at the ends of her neatly pressed skirts.
"I know," Germany repeats. "They are organized," he offers, because it's true. He alphabetizes the stacks once a week before leaving for work, dusts them, aligns their corners in as few moves as it takes to touch them bare-handed. Some of the names he recognizes, some he does not. But he remembers which order to put them in, at least.
Liechtenstein cannot know all of this, but perhaps she does not find it hard to guess. "Organized and that's all." She looks at the piles collecting dust, lips drawn into a thin line. "Germany," she opens, like a doctor opens the patient's chart and dreads what he will see printed there, "when was the last time you read a book? All the way through."
That he must think should be answer enough. Nevertheless--"1941."
She doesn't count them, doesn't hold up a finger for each of eight years for him to see, but he can picture it fine enough for himself. "Oh, Germany." Liechtenstein exhales. "That's too long."
"I know," he says, a third time, and then a fourth, tired. Germany's hands feel stupidly overlarge in his hair. He sinks down closer to the greying mattress. "But it's different now," he says between his fingers, to Liechtenstein or the books or all of them or nobody, "I have so much to fix and I can't just...there are more important matters at hand, I don't have the time--"
"Time!" She has been crying, or she will be: there at the corners of her eyes he can see it. "You always had time."
Germany crosses his arms over his stomach, draws his knees up under the sheets and frowns at Liechtenstein in her ribbon and her out of fashion shoes. "Do you understand what I did?" he asks her, slowly.
Liechtenstein sits prim and proper in her seat, knee-to-knee ankle-to-ankle. "Of course I do, I was there." He looks away and she sighs, still watching. "And yes, some of it was your fault. Some of what happened to Prussia, too. But you still have yourself to think about, and that means all of yourself." Twisting around, she casts about beside her and disrupts one of the piles to pull part of it away. "Look, most of the new ones are short. Maybe that's an easier way to start if you're out of practice." She smoothes the corner of a thin, haphazardly stapled draft with something like affection. "I just had a look at this one. It's a little sad and a little strange but you should still see it. It's a mirror-story.
"She dies at the beginning," Liechtenstein explains, "and lives backwards from there, finish to start. And someone else goes backwards with her or forwards without her and doesn't even know it."
Germany considers this, picks dully at the hairline cracks in the window, and decides, "That's wrong."
"It's yours." She reaches for his hand then, squeezes it lightly, slides pages and glasses together under his fingers as she stands. "You figure out what to do with it." As she leaves she promises him she will be back another time to check in when he is less busy; that she expects to have an easier time getting from one end of the room to the other without all of these poor books blocking the path when she does so. On the way out she rest her hand on the knob and tells him "Good morning, Germany," because she forgot to before, but the door swings shut behind her and if he answered it would only be to the sounds of her feet in the stairwell.
Which leaves Germany and his glasses and no shirt and uncombed hair and a remarkably smug-looking little bundle of paper on the bed by the windowsill. He looks at it, and then the clock. The alarm is still set. Today is still election day. But then it really is a very short story, and he does have some time ahead of him. Enough, anyway.
Twice
There's a man over there and he has a camera. It is fortune that Germany recalls how much more there is to it than that, and then again it is not.
He makes his approach as slow and conspicuous as he can, in case Italy should like to be on the far side of the bridge by the time Germany reaches the middle. Italy does not move, for all that that might mean, but rather keeps his attention on the scenery, on the skyline framing the river and the holes yet unfilled inside it. There should be more color, Germany thinks. Everything looks duller, washed-out, and what light steals through the clouds adds only a flat, pale tint to Italy's hair. There is a word for that. He remembers the feel of it, but not the sound. Germany stops at a distance and watches Italy ignore him and fumble in framing a shot. He takes great care in clearing his throat. "Camera?"
Italy nods without looking. "Impressionism for cheaters," he chirrups. "My brushes are all a little mad at me right now." There is no bitterness in his voice. His fingers curl around the buttons, delicate. He has not yet taken the picture. "You have a city again," he says, nodding toward the construction.
"Yes," Germany agrees. He thinks perhaps that staying could be as much of a mistake as leaving, but the railing does not scorch his hands when he lays them on it, so they and Germany stay where they are and Italy doesn't move away but he doesn't look either.
The camera remains unused. "This is the Rhine, isn't it?" Italy says, indicating the river. "That meant something lovely once."
It would be much easier if Italy only sent him away. Germany steps back from the railing. "Italy..." And Italy obliges with a blank half-turn, so what now? What does Germany say now? Where are the words for what is twisting his insides into knots of themselves?
Italy, I went for a walk this morning, he might say. I went for a walk and I followed the train tracks because they are steady and solid and the trains move at a rhythm that is easy to walk with, even if they are much quicker. I did this, you see, because I am reading a book. A new one. I enjoy it very much and I want to know how it ends, but it is long and soon I will have read one hundred pages of it, and this is as far as I have gotten in anything since I started again. It is always the same now, and I do not know why. It doesn't matter how fast or how slow I read, if I try to break it into different sections or days or plan it chapter by chapter. No matter what I try, somehow somewhere something happens after a hundred pages and I give up, or else lose my place, or pick up something else before I can finish the first, and Italy, it is so inefficient.
So I followed the train tracks to remember something that is efficient, that runs as it is supposed to without hesitation. But they stopped along one route because something had torn them down, and I lost the beat I walked in time to. I lost it and I was alone, in an empty street with a broken track and nothing to rely upon except retracing my steps. Then there was something else to listen to. Something smaller than a train that did not keep to a steady beat (some things never do this), and I realized--I can hear typewriters again. All the way across the city, one leads to the other and the other after that. You can get anywhere that way, if you know how. For a while I did not think I would hear it anymore. But I was wrong, I can, there were things under the rubble I never really lost and there are things in those buildings I will find again, even if I have to knock on every door to find where exactly the typing is coming from.
Italien, Italien, it is 1957 and we are older than we were the last time we spoke, and I can't finish a novel and you can't start a painting but we are here now and this is not a beginning, this is a different part of the same story because I can't keep starting over again. I cannot give up on the narrative. It does not work that way. So I will accept it, and the part I took in it, and I will finish rebuilding this city and the others and I will be new steel and rusted iron and whatever it is they're melting down to make typewriters now and it can be arrhythmic, Italy, it can be of impure alloys and the trains can run on less than perfect time if I can only--
But Germany does not have all of these words yet and so he looks up from his hands in his grey coat sleeves, shrugs, and says instead, "There's metal in me."
Silent, Italy watches Germany's face for a moment. "Yeah!" He says, turning away. "In me too."
"I know." Germany says this a lot now, he finds. "I'm--"
But Italy bustles and flips the camera again, fingers tightening unsteady around the wide black casing. "I'm trying to find a composition that breathes," he says smoothly, tilting the thing this way and that. He shuts his eye to Germany to peer through the lens. "Something open enough, something nice and powerful and beautiful but not too shut in to really appreciate. Only it's hard since this thing doesn't give me the same kind of scope I'd get just looking with my eyes." Italy inhales deeply, bracingly. "Do you know what that's like, Germany?"
Germany follows Italy's gaze and tries to see what is there within a similar frame. "No," he admits, and leans on the railing again. He nudges a pebble off the edge with his foot to watch the long slow fall into the river below. "Desaturated," he says suddenly, blinking. "That was the word I was trying to think of."
The surprised sound Italy makes with the click of the shutter then is still too sharp to be exactly like the ones Germany remembers. However, he finally takes the picture.
Eventually
It is not easy. It is not simple. It is not a renewal or a resurrection or even a return, strictly speaking. It is not renaissance.
It is progress, of a very different sort. It is work, deliberation, innovation. It is late nights through long hours. It is travel and treaties and meetings meetings meetings, and after that, perhaps, reward.
It is England cracking jokes. It is France getting along without his cane. It is looking some people in the eye again, and letting others wait a while longer without pressing. It is sunlight and idle afternoons and the first time Italy really laughs; scrawled hopscotch lines on the sidewalk. It is new currency--two marks for the girls to buy new chalk after Italy turns theirs into a mural, pink-green-purple-orange.
It is continuity. It is lunch with Thomas Mann; billiards with Heinrich Böll. It is getting to page one hundred and reading further.
It is not escaping the story. It is taking up the pen.
Now
Germany's students like Büchner. Büchner was thoughtful enough to die before leaving too intimidating a life's work for the studying. There is something to be said for brevity, as anyone who has ever been obliged to carry the collected works of Schiller or Goethe in one trip might readily attest. So Germany's students carry the things Büchner did write under one arm, lightly, and dream up new things to say about them but perhaps not new words with which to say them, for even Germany's most learned professors grow weary of this sort of artistry when it is abused.
He sees them sometimes in the course of his daily business, gathering in libraries or corner cafes or on lawns he would rather they not lie on, strictly speaking, but it is quite futile to enforce this and anyway the grass does not appear to raise objections. Every so often, one will invite him to join them for a while. Every so often, and if his in-box and his conscience can reconcile themselves to the notion, he accepts. Not to help or to offer too much input, strictly speaking, that--there are principles of academic integrity to consider, after all. (Correcting grammar does not count; Prussia does that just as often and louder when he gets the chance.) But to listen, that much is always within his capacity. If they are in a cafe and the argument is compelling enough, Germany might offer to pay for an extra cup of coffee while he does so.
With Büchner and with Woyzeck the question quickly becomes one of assembly, of intent. Here are the other fragments from the manuscript, but which of these are proper scenes, and what order do they follow? Which one belongs at the end? Germany knows that discussion well enough. He thinks he must hear a new position on it every time someone prints a different edition, and so if asked for his opinion can do little more than shrug. They are fragments, he explains, going back to his coffee, but perhaps that is not so helpful in writing a dissertation after all.
In time
Yellow kitchen walls, freshly painted; the flecks Germany didn't get to clean in time still stubbornly clinging to the counter top. Water reaching a slow boil. Italy, whose hands move like birds when they hover around the windowsill herb garden. Basil, rosemary, sage. Germany's knife chopping out of sync with Corelli's tenor on the muted radio behind them.
"How does that old poem you tried to teach me go, again?" Italy's hair catches some but not all of the light when he turns toward the sink. "The really pretty one about night in the forest and flying home?"
There are things for which words do not yet exist. Germany thinks, if it comes to that, he might leave these undefined a little longer and see what becomes of them when one lets them be.
(Part 1)