A/N: 'cause there was only one pillow... 1967, Eastern Bloc, love-hate relation, and legendary The Rolling Stones. PrusPol, translation. I'm native Polish, I'm making my best to improve my English. If you see any errors, please tell me. It's my 2 or 3 translation of my fanfictions, so it isn't perfect, but I'm still trying.
Author: KaiShouri
Translation: KaiShouri
Original title: "Poduszka"
Knock knock.
"Podnimaysya, priyatel'... Ya skazal, podnimaysya! Vstat', Pol'sha[1]!"
When no one answered, and no sound came from the room indicating that Feliks had disentangled himself from under the duvet and left the creaking bed, impatient Ivan opened the door unceremoniously.
"Pol'sha?"
What he saw made Ivan very surprised. He stood a moment and realized that leaving an unclosed liquor cabinet and went outside in the evening, leaving the rest of the Eastern bloc alone, could have unforeseen consequences. But, if we want to understand, what exactly was so surprised, we have to come back to previous day...
"Kurwa, kurwa, kurwa, kurwa yob tvoyu mat'[2]."
In 1945 he was hopeful for a moment that everything will be alright. This hell was ended, they kicked asses of bad guys who deserved it, and now he will come back to normal life. He was so naive and he had a bad luck again. As well, he shares a room with this dickhead. It's weird they didn't nibble on themselves yet.
"You talk to me?" Gilbert, standing next to a window, looks at dusty wine bottle's label they found in a basement. To be honest, Latvia found it, but he agreed for exchange.
"It could be to you" Feliks stopped swear and took a deep breath. "Stop gape on it, just pour. But fairly, or I'll say Ivan who stole his cigarettes hidden under a bed."
"Asshole... Do you think it is able to drink? The label is faded and there is no date. It can lie here since Napoleon's war and it doesn't look like a wine which is better when is older..."
"Don't care, just pour" Feliks snorted. "Listen, Prussian louse, do you think I can pay them two carriages of vodka?"
"Who?" Gilbert started to search a corkscrew under the wardrobe. Their room, poor twelve square meters with grey walls and damp patches on it, has a lot of cubbyholes. He brought out several dozen German marks saved for a rainy day, two Polish zloty's, French magazine with naked girls inside and a vinyl wrapped in a piece of paper from "Neues Deutschland[3]" newspaper. Gilbert still couldn't find the corkscrew and he suspects Latvia added a new condition of exchange without his agreement. When he'll find this half-pint one...
"These ones you hold in hands, you ingrate, and which I, I repeat, I, personally, risking a lot, brought from Mr. Sławomir, which his son smuggled it across the border in own... Wait. Where's Ivan?"
"He went for vodka to the boss of all bosses" Gilbert unpacked tattered paper, trying didn't read this communistic newspeak. He knocked his finger on the vinyl. "Rolling Stones? Are you fucking kidding me? For what you want to pay them vodka?"
"For a gig in Warsaw[4]" replied Feliks so naturally like Western bands play every week behind Iron Curtain.
Gilbert glanced over the wine, which he lied down on the wardrobe. By the way, he reminded himself he hidden the corkscrew under a floor. This alcoholic gang, unfortunately, he started to belong to it too, like lend the corkscrew without permission. And he once thought he never stoops so low to guzzle alcohol with Slavs. If his brother saw him...
"What do you drunk and where you have it from?"
"I'm sober" Feliks grimaced. "Unfortunately... Don't look at me in this way, for fuck's sake. Rolling Stones. In Warsaw. For a week. I convinced Władysław[5]. His granddaughters also helped."
"You organized a gig" Gilbert slowly summarized. "You have no money to pay them".
"Wow, you keep up. And I thought I should speak slooooowly..."
"And you want to give them vodka," Gilbert thought to fuck the cubbyholes (Feliks probably knew about this one under the floor) and brought out the corkscrew. He grappled with a cork for a moment in a silence broken swearing. "Are you normal... Okay, no question".
"You aren't normal too" replied Feliks. "I know who..."
"I know too" Gilbert decided to play in the same game. Let this Polish scoundrel know he won't let to blackmail him.
Feliks blenched.
"You know?"
"I know."
There was a silence in the room. A moment later Gilbert snorted with bitter laughter and he took a sip of wine. Then started to cough and almost vomited.
"Scheiße[6], what is this?"
"Give it me" Feliks was not disheartened of his roommate's reaction and he smelled the bottle. "It's not wine. This is Yugoslavian slivovitz, but a bit too old. Don't drink it. I'll give it somebody."
"You won't drink it yourself?" Gilbert started search something he could drink and erase this slivovitz's taste from this mouth. "I through after this denaturated alcohol you..."
"I don't stoop so low. Yet. I said seriously about this two carriages of vodka. There is a water behind my bed."
"In the water fishes[7]... Oh, I have got."
"Anno Domini 1967, the personification of Eastern Germany drinks vodka from the bottle" Feliks commented looking how Gilbert finds 250 ml bottle of vodka. "Full russification in twenty-two years, what Mr. Painter[8] would say..."
"Not a word about him, not a word about Ludwig, not a word about..." Gilbert interrupted in mid-sentence.
"'Cause?"
"'Cause I'll do you what I've been dreaming about since 1410[9].
"You'll lam out to me, hold against a wall and start kiss?" Feliks raised one eyebrow and looked at Prussian with a sneer.
"Rather I'll disembowel you alive and then feed dogs.
"It's not trendy now. Now guns and gases are trendy. Beautiful time of Middle-Age is over."
"More beautiful ages are here".
"It is over too, little soldier. Do you have this Allied Control Council's act yet, this act of your liquidation? I would like to hang it on the wall over my bed, or set a candle and thank you, God...
"If you like hanging out, just ask..."
"I like hanging out. Especially, after Nuremberg[10]..."
Gilbert just tried to devise next riposte, waiting when Poland lost his temper and they finally break a tension in an old good way, hitting themselves in faces, but in this moment Latvia dropped in on a room.
"Listen, listen... Eeeh..." Latvia stood in the middle of the room, looked right where Feliks brought a militia baton out behind the wardrobe, then looked left where Gilbert rolled his sleeves up with an evil smile, and finally, Raivis figure out and started to slowly back away. "Okay, guys, I'll come back later..."
"Speak, half-pint!" They snapped at the same time.
"'Cause, ee... Uh... Belarus brought to Russia so good... You know, absinthe, and, uh, I thought you can join us until he is not home and... " Latvia was closer and closer to the door. "But you are busy, I guess..." He flew, stumbling against a doorstep.
They looked each other.
"A cease-fire for absinthe time?"
"You really sound like a Slav already"
This room saw a lot, heard a lot too, but today evening was an interesting change of pace from brawls and insults. Two roommates dropped in on the room, didn't lookings where they set foots, the first one got the second one against the wall, but for a moment, quietly swearing, become got against the wall itself. Hands started yerked a hair and clothes...
"Some dick stole my pillow" Feliks gasped when they relocate in bed area, rolling about the wall.
"The only one is enough" Gilbert growled, bitting Feliks's neck. "Dreams are real, wow..."
"You said you want to disembowel me since 1410..." Feliks noticed, at the same time thinking how to take Gilbert's skirt off, if he holds Feliks's hands over his head.
"'Cause I just want to fuck you since 15 minutes".
"How much do you guzzled?"
"The same as you."
"Kurwa" Feliks started to consider they are enough sober to make decisions like that. This Belarusian absinthe had something weird inside, he was sure. Probably someone was a jester and add some aphrodisiac. Probably it was Latvia. "What will be tomorrow morning?"
"Vania will be surprised... We won't fit his scheme already".
"What scheme?" Feliks tried to guess what Prussia want to say, but it was not easy when Gilbert kisses his collarbone and it was so beguiling. "You drunk a vodka before".
"A quarter" Gilbert snorted. ""Divide and rule". Now it is changed to "Guzz and connect"."
"You are drunk like a Messerschmitt[11]" Feliks started wondering what he should do. To be honest, Gilbert after two decades of communism guzzled similar amount alcohol like Feliks, but he still has not strong head like Slavs, although he trained. "You wake up in the morning and..."
"Mein Gott, if you don't want to do it, just hit me in the face" Gilbert mumbled. "As always, how many times you hit me in the past? What's going on with you, Polen?"
It was a good question, Feliks though, feeling like Gilbert's hands let go his own. He put his hand down, ambiguous realizing that to this moment warm hands pleasantly heated his wrists. Wondering about an answer, looked once again at the bed. Someone stole his favorite pillow, filled feathers, which he won in a battle a few years ago. The second pillow, Gilbert's one, which he got as a consolation prize, was not comfortable, so maybe sleeping is not a good idea this night...
Unaware of this weird thoughts, Gilbert a bit unstable got away, wrongly interpreted Feliks's gaze.
"What are you doing?" Feliks rasped. A warm body, which got him against the wall and equipoise its coldness, got away, so Feliks instinctively caught this wrinkly skirt.
"In the morning" Gilbert replied to the previous question, speaking slowly. "You would regret".
"I regret a lot of things and I can live with it" Feliks replied, making a decision. What will be will be. "For example, I regret that... I hit you with this stool. But I accepted it..."
Gilbert instinctively touched his head, where he was hit in last month.
"So, you know, totally, I think I can live with this..."
"Are you sure you drunk less than me?" Gilbert ascertained. "'cause you are talking nonsense..."
"Since when you take care of what I'm saying?" Feliks frowned.
"About since July 1949."
"What was happened then?"
"You hit me with a brick and it inevitably damaged my mind."
"Then you started drink vodka with us!" Feliks joyfully reminded. "And looking at me in this way! I didn't realize it was a love, to this moment! It started then, my bastard! Say I'm right!"
Gilbert decided he had enough this situation and without any word just kissed Feliks. A moment later, when they fell on the pillow (it was really uncomfortable) Feliks deemed it was a positive reply.
"Well, well, Mr. Painter is spinning over in his grave..."
"Shit, Polen" Gilbert raise his head above Feliks's neck. "I'm drunk and horny and you speak about him? Don't spoil a climate for me. For us.
"It was a contriteness? If I'll hit you with a brick once again, you will ask forgiveness... "
"To ask" Gilbert's eyes dangerously glittered. "You'll ask for a moment..."
Ivan slowly closed the door to not look more at clothes lying about, duvet looking like after a hurricane, and the pillow lying on the floor. To say that he was surprised it would be like saying nothing. To this moment it was inconceivable to him that those who have attacked each other for centuries, and he put them in one room only because it was very funny, finally will be sleeping in one bed...
"Little brother! Little brother!"
Hearing Belarus's voice, Iwan came to a standstill.
"I saw the bottle with my special love absinthe is empty, my love! I'm was sure you will like it! Can we become one even more?"
the end.
[1] Russian: Get up, friend. I said, get up! Get up, Poland!
[2] Kurwa - [s] the most beatiful[/s] [s]the most known[/s] Polish word, meaning literally "whore", the most popular swear word, using sometimes as coma :D
yob tvoyu mat' - Russian swear phrase, literally "fuck your mother".
[3] Neues Deutschland, a communistic newsletter in East Germany.
[4] This gig was real. The Rolling Stones played in Warsaw in 1967. And YES, Poles gave them two carriages of VODKA as payment.
[5] Władysław Gomułka, Polish communist politician, first secretary of the Polish United Worker's Party in People's Republic of Poland, de facto leader of post-war Poland. His granddaughters asked him to an agreement for Rolling Stones gig and he agreed.
[6] Scheiße - a German word meaning "shit".
[7] - this is a reference to Polish meme about one of the previous presidents, who is alcoholic: "W wodzie to się ryby pierdolą", literally "In the water fishes fuck themselves (so it's better to drink vodka)". Of course, in 1976 Gilbert couldn't know it, this is just joke for Polish readers.
[8]- Mr. Painter - Adolf Hitler. This "tittle" comes from "Siekiera, motyka", one of Forgotten Songs singed by Poles during WWII. For singing these songs the German occupants sentenced people to death.
"Full russification in twenty-two years, what Mr. Painter would say..." Feliks references here to Nazi ideology, which says there are "Übermenschen ("overman", Germans, Arians) and Untermenschen (inferior people, "unterman": Jew, Roma, Slavic nations like a Poles, Russians and other Slavic). Feliks says Gilbert drink vodka like a Russian.
200/250 ml bottle of vodka - in Polish called "małpka", "little monkey", the smallest bottle of vodka available in Poland.
[9] Grunwald battle, 1410. Teutonic Order vs Polish-Lithuanian army.
[10] Subsequent Nuremberg trials were a series of twelve U.S. military tribunals for war crimes against members of the leadership of Nazi Germany, held in the Palace of Justice, Nuremberg, after World War II from 1946 to 1949 following the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal.
[11] My favorite Polish idiom :D "drunk like a Messerschmitt" means a person who is very drunk.