Ft. Allusions to George DeValier's Veraverse (resistance members!Vargas family) but that's it. History fact: after World War II Australia implemented an immigration scheme to bring loads of white Europeans to the country. You were gaurenteed work and you were given a benefit so you could afford life. Fun fact: with the second European-Australian generation, however, racism started to get very bad, and now Australia is like super racist to these Australians of European decent.
Like we all aren't, guys.
The ship is crowded. Masses of people, some Greek, some Italian - all foreign. All traveling from a shaken, shattered, battered Europe, not so much land anymore but a quivering, smouldering mess. Remnants left after the War had ravished it.
The ship is noisy. Full of lingual clutter, Lovino can hear a woman shouting in something, something he's never heard before, and another, the lilting, rolling, articulated syllables he recognises as Italian, his language. Children cry. Men grunt and swear. The elderly sit reserved and quiet, their eyes shut and hands folded neat in their laps. Thinking about their homes, how they were before invasions, before guns and men in black swarming and maiming and murdering. Before the War.
The water is murky and clouded, polluted with city and human, nothing the like the oceans back home. His reflection is lost. It stretches into a bay, grey, and lined with boats and buoys all shifting on the surface, which is blanketed by a layer of oil and waste and grime. It licks low stone walls, the barriers from the roads, which muck-covered cobblestone wind and coil around trees and skirt the terrace houses, side by side in rows and rows, mimicking London, or Amsterdam, maybe. Nothing like his hamlet home, comfortable as a farm house tucked away between the blossoming mountains, covered in blooms in the spring and the summer. It didn't survive the War.
But he did, and his brother, and his grandpa, and he supposes, that's something to be thankful for.
"This sure is different, isn't it?"
The man next to him is speaking, in English, and it takes Lovino Vargas a moment to realise he is talking to him. Why is he speaking to him? What? He isn't worth anyone's time, and he isn't sure anyone besides his family is worth his.
A smile like summer and hair as rich as chocolate, sitting mopped and messy and in his eyes, which are olive like his skin; a brilliant burnt gold - the man's nose is arched, and he speaks warm-honey words lilted Spanish from wide, firm lips. His clothes are poor, an old dress shirt tucked into brown trousers, brown shoes, and a smart bark cap flattening his errant curls. His attire is a fallacy. He is young, but the setting sun catches in the little creases and crevices around his eyes and his mouth, shadows dancing on his face, and he hasn't shaved in months. The bracers Lovino is wearing suddenly feel convicting, and so does the food in his belly and the shared cabin his grandpa could barely afford for the trip.
Lovino noticed when he first boarded - everyone is still in that spun-glass word, everyone is still in that world composed of melting sheets of ice. Everyone pretends that they are on a pleasure cruise when really; some do not have a knowledge of English.
"Antonio Carriedo." says the Spanish man, and it is succeeded with another one of those summery smiles. His hand is outstretched.
"Lovino Vargas." says Lovino, and he tries to reciprocate but Lovino hasn't smiled in a long time, and it comes out as this sort of awkward twitch from his lip to his cheek. His brother always does that for him, now. Antonio's grip is comfortable.
"Lovino Vargas," repeats Antonio slowly. He leans against the deck railing, tipping a little forward and staring at the horizon. He must be in his thirties. "Italian?" he asks quickly, furrowed brows and comical features. Lovino isn't sure if he really wants to talk to him. But this new place is so big. He'll never see him again, so, why not.
"Yes. But not anymore."
"Why do you say that?"
"Heritage means nothing when it's dead."
From his peripheral vision, Lovino can see Antonio turn to look at him. Study him from thick lashes and thick brows, and bite the bow of his lip.
"That is an odd thing to say. Heritage is only heritage when it is your history, no?"
"But it still hurts, and Nostalgia is far too generous when she isn't wanted," Lovino replies softly. He can still hear a child crying. The illustrious port, the one his grandpa would rile Feliciano up over, get him ready for this new adventure, is still dirty and smog-stifled.
"I'm sorry, you have lost people in this war. Me, too. Well, I don't know if they are dead. They are just... lost."
"I'm sorry. Family?" Antonio shakes his head.
"No, friends. My two best friends. A Frenchman and… well… a, a German."
Immediately Lovino reels, snaps his head to look at him with wild, wide brown eyes, Flight or Fight teetering between the two. The war hasn't been over very long, and the resistenza is still wanted…
"No, no, don't worry, I am not… no. Never. I would never rationalise with fascism. I could never… no. My… everything is gone because of that. No." Antonio speaks so fervently and so strongly, and with such conviction it makes Lovino feel ashamed for thinking that this man might turn him in. Not that he could, they are worlds away. But old habits die hard, as they say, and Lovino is very stubborn and doesn't want to accept that this isn't Europe anymore, not just yet.
"I'm sorry, that was silly of me. I'm very sorry." Lovino looks down at the dirty deck, splashed with orange sun that kisses the horizon.
"No, no, I understand," he chuckles breathily. "I understand. It is difficult to not... associate, German with Nazi, no?"
"Very. It has been all I have known for five years." Antonio laughs now, but it isn't with any humour.
"Oh- oh, yes," is all Antonio says, and Lovino is a little curious, but talking about this sort of thing is like treading along the pebbles of a cliff, and he doesn't want Antonio to slip, because Lovino knows very well what that is like. Antonio seems to be thinking the same thing, though, and he readily changes the subject.
"You're English is very good. How old are you? Nineteen?"
"Twenty. Thank you. Your… English is also very good." What a strange topic. But, maybe not that strange, considering their location.
"Twenty. That's still so young… Too young for this sort of thing. For this great a travel. But, you know this language. That is more than can be said for others."
The Spaniard pointedly looks behind him, at the children playing on the deck behind them, yelling in Turkish, or Czech, or some language that isn't worth anything anymore. "So selfish, this world." And so selfish, Lovino feels. Because Antonio is right. Lovino can speak this language, and is mature enough to adapt, and to accept. So selfish, because Lovino has money to his name and a family, and a knowledge of farming and a knowledge of cooking; his family will find his way. What about all these people, with nothing? Not even words? What is going to happen to his European brothers and sisters – and they are, because he's been on this boat months, and he knows that the Dutch woman with the butter hair and wire frames whose husband died when the English liberated Holland. He knows that there is a Portuguese man who plays guitar every day out on the deck for whoever will listen, because he is trying to find his father with the melodies, who might be on this ship. And he knows that everyone else has no idea what will happen when they arrive.
"What are you going to do?" Lovino suddenly asks.
"In this country? I am not sure. I like to play guitar. Maybe I could play on the street. I like to sing, and I like to write. I will find something." He is so optimistic, Lovino notes.
"My Nonno might start an Italian restaurant, or find farm work."
"I doubt there will be farm work in city like this," Antonio replies softly, and the impending reality comes closer with every meter of murky ocean the ship ploughs through.
"No, there won't be, will there." And it isn't a question. Monotonous words lost in the lingual clutter, the noise and the thick, swirling choke that is already making its way to them. The sun has been swallowed by the evening, this evening he has spent with this internally fractured Spaniard with the wild hair and wild eyes. It saddens Lovino to think he will never see him again.
The pair do not speak until the ship docks, and then, they say farewell. And that is it. Lovino Vargas spent his one last, spun-glass, crystalline fantasy evening with Antonio Carriedo, one last evening where they weren't yet immigrants in a foreign country, one more evening where he might wake up and find Hitler, and the Third Reich, and the Nazis were all a dream.
The War wasn't a dream.
The ship's occupants are gingerly spilling onto the pavement, onto new ground, in a concrete jungle many have probably never been in before.
The little brown cap Antonio wears is tipped in one final gesture, composed of hope and good luck, and it is returned with a proper smile as Lovino makes to find his younger brother and his grandpa below deck. Pack their things; tell the Swedish man and his Finnish companion that shared their accommodation 'good luck' for the last time. And then walk onto that pavement and find the rooms their grandpa rented pre-travel.
The case in Lovino's hand is much too heavy, like his legs, and his heart. He liked Antonio. He knew what to say and where not to tread. Lovino hopes he can find him again.
They join the swarm of migrants, and Lovino revels in the lingual clutter one last time. His brother, Feliciano, is flipping frantically through his English book one last time, as they feel solid cobble stones underfoot for the first time in months.
The city is Sydney, Australia and this is the world to which Lovino Vargas' family is fleeing.