Towards German Unity (Part 7)
Towards German Unity Part 7
10th of November, 1990
Rupert was not completely sure he should be in this meeting. As secretary to a high ranking, hospitalized official of West Berlin, he had orders to attend all meetings in his place and take notes for his boss. However that had been a week ago, when everything was stable and the Berlin Wall had fewer gaps in it.
In his seat at the back he could see West and East officials eyeing each other cautiously. Many had refused to attend this unofficial meeting of only German politicians, either because of a fear of what the rest of Europe would say or because a united Germany was not something they wished to see.
And speaking of a Germany they wished to see, Rupert swept the room with his eyes, looking for a female figure. Lady Germany (not West Germany, because East Germany had never been officially acknowledged, which made things even more awkward) was not here yet. In the three years he had been privy to her existence and true nature he had never known her to be late to a meeting.
Of course he had been sceptical when told the existence of personified nations, and shocked when introduced to the female one of his own country. But with time he, like everybody else, had come to respect and admire her. Her conduct, her work ethic, made her easy to respect.
“Please, please be seated.” Called a mediator, who had been employed to preside over this very delicate meeting. Two East German secretaries sat down to the right of Rupert, their clothing a little worn, but very neat.
Just as the mediator was about to speak again, the door opened and Lady Germany appeared. The two East Germans looked at her as well, one realizing what she was and elbowing the other, who was giving her a very patriotic once over.
Rupert did not blame him. Lady Germany looked different somehow, brighter and taller than she usually was. She was dressed in her usual dress suit, blond hair neatly pinned up and jewellery minimal. Her face was different though, her lips redder, her eyes bigger. Maybe it was new make-up for such an important occasion? There was a smile on her face that looked like it wanted to become a full out grin.
“Sorry we’re late.” She said and walked into the room towards two empty seats at the main table. Entering after her, holding her hand was a man in uniform. The uniform was in pristine condition, the man not so. He was by far the thinnest in the room, Rupert could see a scabbed cut running along the back of his head, among white hair.
Next to him Rupert subconsciously noted the two East German secretaries exchanging money; apparently one had just lost a bet to the other. The rest of the East Germans in the room were either grinning, looking confused or cowering behind their meeting program. The West Germans were just confused.
“Everyone.” Lady Germany addressed the room. “For those who do not know, I am the Westdeutschland.” She said, calling herself by her unofficial name for the first time to Rupert’s knowledge. “And this is my husband Ostdeutschland, or” she smiled warmly at the seated man in question, “whatever title you prefer.”
“Well…” the man in question smirked back at her. “I always liked the title Preuβen best, personally.”
Somewhere in the room an official choked. Another whimpered. Suddenly denying East Germany’s legitimacy seemed like a very bad idea.
“Maybe,” said Lady Germany turning her head back to face her audience, her face stern. “You will treat him as you would me.”
It was not the cooperation or bonding experience anyone had planed for, but for the first time in 43 years a meeting of East and West German officials united in a singular activity. Cowering at East’s smirk of self satisfaction.
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Gilbert savoured the last bite of his meal, the first proper Hesse-Kassel meal he had eaten in half a century. He would have ordered more, but he knew his stomach was still not used to having a full meal. Across from the restaurant table Luise held a cold mug in her hands, having stared at it through out the entire meal.
Luise, who still called herself his wife, after so many years. That had been the most unexpected event of the last twenty-four hours. That Luise still considered them married. He had fully expected to be given a cold welcome at the wall, possibly some half-hearted co-operation before shoving him out to die or beg Russia for the job of Kaliningrad Oblast personification.
They had not parted on the best of terms. Gilbert smiled to himself, taking a cautious sip of his own cold coffee. There was an understatement. When the Allies had separated them, it had been more to keep them from ripping each other to shreds, than for punishment or revenge. The words they had flung at each other still echoed in Gilbert’s head sometimes, on cold Soviet nights when the rest of the Eastern Bloc huddled together, old hurts forgotten in the face of such emptiness.
But Luise had held him and kissed him, exactly the same way she had done a century ago when she was a goal he wanted to reach and he an escape route to her. She had led him home, away from the celebrations and confusions, to warm food and a warmer bed.
And even if this was all a terrible trick, even if the meal she just bought him was poisoned, nothing could take away the fact that last night he got to rest against Luise again, her curves and soft skin cushioning his scars and bones. Even if it had just been self gratification on her part, the fact that she still wore both their crosses meant something.
Still, he was not about to get all sappy and let everything just slide out of control.
“You don’t think maybe you were a little over the top in there?” Germany (and she was Germany really, not just West Germany) focused her eyes back into the present when he spoke. “You could have been a bit more subtle about the whole thing.”
Luise sighed. “I’ve been subtle, Gilbert. For the past 40 years I haven’t put a foot wrong, raised my voice or done anything that could be perceived as a threat.” Her voice got more hesitant. “I haven’t paid off the war reparations from the first war, I’m still occupied by the Allies, and they are not happy about potential unification. I’ve had to fight them every step of the way in the NATO and America…” Luise pulled a face and waved a hand, conveying a complicated mix of positive and negative emotion. “He has supported me because Russia was the bigger threat. But I doubt he wants us together either.”
“West, I don’t know if you noticed, but my side is a mess at the moment. Any chance at stability ended with the ‘53 strikes.” Gilbert did not reach up to his newest scar still healing at the back of his head. “I can’t help you when it comes to money or power.”
And that hurt to admit. The mighty Prussia, with not a single solider to his name.
Luise broke off the conversation then, waved down a waiter and settled their bill. Gilbert’s empty wallet was still at her house.
They walked down the street, further away from the wall that still looked a bit threatening, even with all the spray paint and graffiti on it. She seemed to be taller than him, but maybe it was his worn out shoes, or her pinned up hair, or how her shoulders were as broad and strong as ever and Gilbert still had to remind himself not to curl in defensively.
“You do have power, though.” Luise said finally, not looking at him “The Allies disbanded you.”
“I know, killed by documents and words, I know.”
“You’re not listening. Even after two World Wars, even after everything done in my name, they disbanded you, not me.” Luise turned to face him. “At the back of their minds, even if they do not realize it, I’m just a child who was always very good at doing what she was told.” Luise face began to fall sadly at that. “And in a way they’re right. I never learnt the first lesson of being a great nation, of listening to all my people not just my boss.” A thousand words and six million six hundred deaths passed unspoken between them.
Gilbert could remember faintly, when he has so few people to his name, his first name, that he knew each and everyone by face and name and family. As he and they slowly grew bigger it was easy to feel and understand them all, even with many different points of view fighting in his head. He had taken the name Prussia from another nation along with the remainder of his people. And they became just as loud in his head as the Teutonic Prussians. He had never really grasped Luise’s problem until it was too late, until the deaths that Luise just could not feel or hear or see as anything but good started to deafen him with the screams and pleads and quiet prayers and the ohGodmakethemachinessilentmakethepainstopjustletmedie.
He slowly put his arms around Luise as she shook from memories and guilt and anger that she would probably never be able to give way to. Who could she possibly blame but herself? He thought of Germania who had been given his name by Rome, because being the nation with a hundred different names was too complicated for a conqueror to grasp. He thought of Holy Rome, who used to shake like this during internal wars when every blow was a victory and defeat wrapped in disjointed pain. They had died of their own wounds those two, wounds given to them by their own people. And Luise had just carried on, growing weaker and wondering why until one gunshot had sent her into a screaming, raging ball of pain and betrayal, screaming at him, blaming him. That had been the first time he had ever struck her. To which she had retaliated in force, crippling words spewing between them.
“I need to stand up for myself.” Luise whispered into his jacket, as her shaking slowly subsided. “But every time I try to do anything the Allies haven’t told me to do, every time they want me to do something I know is unfair or wrong, they just have to give me a look and I can’t say a word.”
“I don’t exist anymore. I have no words to say.”
“But you do exist!” Lusie pulled back to look him in the eyes. “To me you exist, will always exist as long as there’s a Germany. Remember I wanted to share kings with you and your king refused?” Gilbert tried to pull back, but she had a grip on his jacket and forced him to remain. “What if he had said yes then? What if I had married you right then, in 1848?”
Gilbert could remember that day: a blue gown, a room of crates, a few half formed plans and a lot of desire that was abruptly interrupted and grew stronger and more consuming with every year and every failed attempt.
“If I had married you as I was then, weak, disjointed and with no knowledge of war, how long would we have lasted? How long would I have lasted if you had said no to marriage outright and turned your back on me?” Luise’s eyes were as blue and deep as they ever had been.
“If not for you, I would have never unified, never have been able to become one country with all the city states and princedoms in it. I would have lasted until the first war at most.” Here she broke off to glare into the distance. “I don’t care what France says, that one was not our fault.”
Gilbert put a hand to her cheek, bringing her attention back to him. “I hear what you say, but just because I helped make you doesn’t mean I’m entitled to stay with you.”
“I need someone the Allies are afraid of, I need someone who can stare America in the eye and tell him to piss off. I need someone to back me up when I try to do anything other than earn money! I need you.” Now her eyes were pleading. “The Allies disbanded you because they’re scared of you, because in their minds they can still see you on the battlefield, standing against and besides them as an equal.”
She sighed, finally letting go of his jacket. “We would be better together than apart.”
“Luise.” Gilbert felt his age weigh heavily on him. So much war, then so many years of communism had left him tired. Whatever their governments and the Allies decided, it would be so easy to let go. Leave everything in Luise’s capable if uncertain hands and fade way.
“History and Europe are against us.” His mouth curved in a real smile for the first time in years. “But that never stopped us before.” But then again, he had always loved a challenge. And just fading away, after everything: not awesome at all.
Luise smiled back, her grown up concern and childish fears leaving her face. Around the world, important people argued over their fate, unaware that East Germany’s heart was speeding up and West Germany’s breathing relaxed into even breaths, matching each other in heartbeats and breaths as they kissed, harmonizing for a moment.
Then they broke off and resumed their walk, arm in arm.
“So, about this sex trade and porn business you’ve got going this side of Berlin...”
“Shut up, Husband.”
Epilogue
On October 3, 1990, the German Democratic Republic was dissolved and five states were recreated and made a part of the Federal Republic of Germany.
After a lot of arguing Prussia (the German parliament took a vote, he could keep the name on the condition that he stopped gate crashing Russia’s internal meetings, claiming he was Kaliningrad and inciting officials to rebel) took control of those five states along with Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. (He refused Bavaria on the grounds that it had never been his, was annoyingly Bavarian and far too close to Austria.) This left Germany with eight states to Prussia’s seven. Berlin was shared between them, as it always had been, always would be. Not as an east and west but as a gorgon knot of new, old, yours, mine and ours.
Sometimes Germany went to meetings with other Nations and was diplomatic and courteous and often fed up and angry by the end. Sometimes Prussia went to meetings with other Nations and was pragmatic and cautious and often made others angry and fed up. And sometimes they went to meetings together and were completely awesome. And most of the time, they were happy.
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Hypothetically if I were to write something else in this AU, should it be about:
- Sweden and how she fell out with her brothers, built an Empire and stole a husband. (Featuring the Nordics, Sweden/Finland)
- Switzerland and how her gender went unnoticed for a ridiculously long time while she worked her way to stability. (Featuring Middle Europe, denial Austria/Switzerland and it’s-just-politics France/Switzerland)
- S. Italy and how she emotionally juggled her way out of many an overlord’s control and down the aisle with N. Italy. (Featuring the Mediterranean, bittersweet Spain/S.Italy, flirty France/S.Italy and political Italicest.)
- Belgium and how I can’t find any historical fiction with her in the staring role and something must be done about it. (Featuring Northern Europe + England, and…pairings of some kind or another.)