As English is not my first language, I beg your pardon for every spelling or grammar error I didn't correct!
Many thanks to my prereaders Franziska and Elizabeth who helped me a lot and have to deal with a very, very long story...
That's all, I hope you will enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Disclaimer: I don't own TSOM, yada yada... But everything you don't recognize comes out from my sick brain...
Vienna, January 7th 1919, late at night
The night was cold and silent in the empty streets of Vienna. The city, no, the whole country tried desperately to get away from the nightmare that had persecuted it for two months now. The Great War, as they were beginning to call it, had found an end after more than four years of suffering. People in Paris, London, Roma, Belgrade or New York certainly were still celebrating their victory. The victory of democracies upon autocratic empires.
However, here everything was different. The Austrian empire had lost so many young soldiers just as the other countries, of course, and nothing could repair their useless death. Nonetheless, simple people had suffered beyond knowledge from the blockade exerced by the Allies and had paid their toll to hunger and epidemic illnesses, then the Spanish influenza went to hit a country that certainly did not need it.
Some people still believed that they would soon get up from this horrible nightmare and live a normal day in a bright land. But it was no use. It was the end. The emperor was gone, Bohemia-Moravia, Hungary, Slovaquia had claimed their independency and the once powerful Habsburg Empire was now reduced to a small country lost in the Alps.
"The Empire is dead, long life to the Republics!" thought bitterly a thin young man sitting at a table in a bar of the city, slowly drinking his fourth vodka of the evening. His beard and hair were ruffled and his left shoulder was wrapped. The last customers were chatting sadly about the conference which was about to begin in Paris. There, the Allies would certainly impose their views and make Germany and Austria pay for the horrible war that had rampaged Europe during all these years. The young man did not want to hear about that at all. Still, he did not have the courage to get up and leave that bloody place. So he stood there, his mind furiously replaying the events that had occured since his return to his homeland. He took one last sip of his drink, lit a cigarette and stared into space, trying to get away from his obsessions. But just as for everybody else in the country, it was useless and his demons began their daily unbearable dance in his mind.
What was he doing there by the way? Why was he there alone in Vienna and not in at home with his family in Salzburg? The answer was simple. He just could not stand the sight of his father and his young brother. The former had made a huge amount of money, a shocking huge of money more exactly, investing in war industries, which made him sick. The second never left Austria nor fought, for he had been a general's secretary during the war. Both did not have a single idea of what he had gone through and did not seem to want to, just as many people who safely and cowardly had stayed behind. He could not see them again, that was all. The last time he went to Salzburg, a month ago, he had an intense argument with Herr Emanuel von Trapp about his behaviour which was not, to the "noble" man's mind, the one of the eldest son of an rich, aristocratic family, of a hero as they say. Then, he almost killed Viktor-Emanuel, who had always been the "good son", beating him without being able to stop... If his beloved Frau Schmidt had not been there to wake him up from his trance...
"That bloody war had turned me into a real beast..." he thought angrily as he asked for another drink. Why had he been so furious with that stupid guy who was unfortunately his brother? Why was he born in such an egoistic household at all? He had been asking himself this questions since his childhood and now it seemed more accurate now than never. How could have Viktor talked about his crew in such a way? He said that it was no wonder that Austria had lost when you watch at the traitors, the cowards that were part of the army, or, in other words, it was all the Hungarians' or the Czechs' or the Jews' fault! He could not let that little crap say that. He just could not. So he beat his ass off. His crew had been his only family for more than two years. In the Wotan, they tried desperatly to break the blockade, nor for the Emperor's sake, neither for the love of the Habsburg Empire as propaganda had repeated endlessly for four years. But they had fought for their lands' sake, for their family who were dying out of hunger and illnesses. It was the least they could do. They did not hate the enemy for sure, even if the government wanted them to, they just hated the blockade and the suffering that it caused in Austria, Hungary or Bohemia...
As the young officer thought about war again and again in the heat of the bar, somewhere else in the cold streets of Vienna, a little girl was weeping soundlessly, all alone. She had not eaten properly for two days and waited hopelessly that somebody would soon go and find her, because she knew that she could not stand her situation one more day. She and her aunt had left Salzburg for Vienna to visit her uncle who was still at a military hospital because he had been seriously injured. But she got lost when the two came back to the railway station and now she was alone, dying slowly. She could not hold her tears anymore and called softly for her mother. Nevertheless, she could not help her, she would not be able to help her anymore in this world because she went and joined her dead father three months ago. It was as if nobody wanted her to stay in this scattered world, she, a Czech pianist and an Austrian teacher's daughter, a little bastard as her aunt used to call her since her mother and she left Prague to go and find help in Salzburg... She was only seven-year-old but she had a clear conscience of her current condition: so many people had repeated it to her so many times! Even if she was exhausted, she tried to stay awake with all her might, hoping that somebody would help her. However nobody in this impersonal city seemed to care...