To whom do you owe your life?
No question could be so unfair, so difficult for any soldier to answer. Could it have been her brother? Without him she'd never have gone to war, she'd never have gone through what she had. Had it been the odd Russian fellow that followed her every step? Her parents, for giving her life and teaching her to stand up for it? Or had it been the Italian, the one man that returned the favor. The one that she had fallen so harshly in love with?
"Raatteen, Raatteen raja sekä puomi,
siihen oli kirjoitettu: "Tästä alkaa Suomi".
Hoitamaton talvitie, ja ympärillä mettää,
tämä maa me vallataan, tääl ei asu kettään."
Bianca whispered the harsh lyrics to the cheery song of the previous years on the way to find a bar. It was difficult to adjust to the warmth of the new country. Why were there so many flowers? She had only gotten to the foreign country a day ago and already she saw more life than she had for two years. There was no complaining involved in the observations. It was rather quite lovely, she admit to herself. Just outside of base was a village, one that fellow soldiers claimed to have good drinking. After the hell that was the train ride, from Finland to Italy, she needed it.
To whom do you owe your life?
She went into the closest place that she could find, and immediately regretted it. With the amount of people that crowded in the small cantina, it was far warmer and stuffier, so much that it was uncomfortable. Taking a deep breath, she continued on and sat on one of the bar stools, looking at the bartender and then at the selection of drinks. As much as it made her sick to think of, she was in the mood for vodka. Of course, the selection was almost solely wines, with the occasional imported German beer. The bartender seemed to be looking at her with a confused look. Admittedly, Bianca was sure she had a confused look as well as she tried to read the labels of wines. "Baccanera?" She stated, phrasing her words as though they were a question. The bartender took a moment to stare at her awkwardly before turning around, frantically looking over the labels to see what she could have possibly been trying to communicate to him.
Soon the bartender decided on one, not the one that Bianca had intended, and poured it out into a glad for her. "Uh, grazie," she said, searching desperately in her head for the little Italian that she could muster. Notice was short that she would be heading to Italy, so there was no reason that she should have understood any extent of Italian. "Prego," the barman said, flashing her a sort of smile. He was a cute old man, perhaps in his fifties, with wrinkles around the corners of his mouth and a bald spot half-hidden by a hat. His suit was a dark reddish shade of purple, a shade that comically matched the lazily painted walls of the cantina. He seemed to be a kind figure, one that she might be able to get along with. As silly as she knew it was, she wanted to see whether she could befriend one of the villagers.
Without hesitation, she put the wineglass to her lips and tipped the glass. Immediately she decided that she was not a fan of wine, but she continued sipping nonetheless. The barman went his way to take care of the other people that sat in the cantina, talking loudly or smoking. It was difficult for Bianca to sustain a positive outlook on her situation. As beautiful as it was, she was not a fan of the heat or some of the societal norms she first noticed. Was it normal to speak so loudly? Surely if she had listened to the conversation going on between the woman and younger man behind her she would be fully able to. It would not have been accurate to claim that she felt discern for having left the colds of the north, however. Her wine ended sooner than she had thought, and already she was feeling slightly lightheaded. What was that miraculous drink? How did it make her feel better than the vodka or the beer on the train? Whatever it was, she decided that she liked it.
Closing her eyes, she could feel the memories of snipers and of bloodshed melt from her mind, the only aspect of herself remaining her personality. With just the one drink she began to feel the slightest bit dizzy, taller than she actually was. None of the occasional Russian or Finnish mutterings whispered under her breath made any sense. But they did, to herself in her state of being everything made sense. The way that gravity seemed to lessen made sense, that nobody else was there except herself made sense.
The effect of drunkenness on her part was short-lived, at least the physical effects. Soon she paid, accidentally too much, and left the counter, fiddling with her cap. Her business was clearly done there, and she was feeling the effects of it. She wasn't as strongly drunk as she often had been in Russia, but there was a difference between illegal and legal drinking. Either way, the headache that had pounded in her head since her arrival in Italy had melted along with her recollections of the war. On her way back to the base, she decided to continue singing her previous song, the lyrics practically second nature to her.
"Aurinkokin länteen laski, pohjoistuuli vaivas.
Kaalisoppa pakkiin jäätyi, kirkas oli taivas.
Joku huusi: "Mitä jos myö lähettäiskii kottiin,
ollaan umpijäässä, lisäks tallusteltu mottiin."
The base seemed less lively than when she had first arrived there, since her first experience of a culture so unlike her own. It was the largest juxtaposition of her life, being there in the peace and warmth of the bosom of Italy. Sighing happily, she realized that her day was meant to be dedicated to finding her way around, but she chose to just laze in her quarters for a long while. Something about alcohol made her want to sleep off its effects. It was still fairly early in the day; perhaps ten or eleven o'clock. Oh. Perhaps the bartender was confused because of the timing. She knew nothing of Italian culture.
At roughly fourteen o'clock Bianca forced herself out of bed to find her way around the village. It would not suffice to only know where the bar was. Perhaps it would have had she not been on military business. She began her second walk of the day, ignoring the occasional confused stare. A rare sight it must have been- seeing a female soldier. There was a particular person she noticed that seemed to follow her around. A boy that ironically seemed more lost than she felt, just following closely behind her. The vibe of him wasn't entirely negative, had he been trying to cause harm he wouldn't have stuck so close to her.
"Wow!" The boy started, walking alongside her, "where're you from? I don't see soldiers here often, especially not ones with that sort of uniform." Bianca stopped in her steps to look at the boy, to address him fully. He was close to the same height as she was, perhaps a bit taller, and he had a kind face. Tino had always said that he could tell how Bianca felt by looking into her eyes, so she made it her effort to pay the majority of her attention to a person's eyes. This Italian had particularly soft eyes, as though he had no troubles in the world. "I'm from Finland." She said, unsure of how to exactly take what he said. She was wearing the typical uniform for soldiers in that area, so why was he asking her that question? Her country's population may have been small, but it couldn't be that unnoticeable.
"Finland? That's somewhere north right? I've heard it's really cold there. My name's Feliciano!" The boy held out his hand to Bianca, and Bianca took it after some hesitation. His hands were unusually warm and the handshake was unusually casual. Who was it that told her there was a tense relationship between the countries? It was surely someone, she thought, back home. It wouldn't have been the first time that she was misled into thinking silly things. "Yes, but this country's hot," she stated, glad that at the very least he approached her with English. It would've been too difficult for her to attempt to say that she didn't understand Italian in Italian.
The presence of this Feliciano character motivated Bianca to give him a slight smile. Despite the amount that he talked he was pleasant. Before she had time to register, Feliciano was being pulled away by another boy, someone that looked extremely similar to Feliciano. Neither of them could have been older than eighteen, she thought, trying to hide her amusement with the situation. "Dammit, Feliciano, stop bothering people! It's bad enough you have to bother me all the time." The other boy was obviously irritated with Feliciano for some reason, but she didn't know why. Perhaps this was how the Russians felt when she refused to speak any language than Finnish with them. Feliciano was promptly dragged away from Bianca, leaving her unsure as to what to do with the rest of her time. She was rather enjoying her first actual conversation in the new place.