A Day and a Night and a Day
Romano avoids waking earlier than five ay-em. There are times, none too far and few, when he has blinked away the vestiges of rounded sleep: the fleeting, transient stretches of Titian blue landscapes and polished, scintillated light caught in streams, in grasses, in doling lovers' faces, to wake to curtains drawn back, the unmitigated reality: to the earth's sterile promontory, to the foul and filthy congregation of vapours that consume the mirthy night's slow, melting ascenscion into golden canopies with sweaty, dusty, husky afternoons of gritty fingernails and bleatings of goats along paveless kicks of roads, to that damn Spaniard. That damn Spaniard who stands fucking motionless, fingers tracing the cunting thick rims of the curtain's fabric with breath heaving against the window as if his body were framed by the clear, slippery plaque. Romano hates waking earlier than five ay-em to the stillness of the world, to the (almost scrotal) stirrings of life from Rome to the dirty jobs of the farm, and to Spain, who is so damn sad and so damn pathetic during the onset of the mornings.
But when he does find himself in those rare, cloud-capped moments, he lies, skin irritated by the warmth of blankets and hands lingering under the belside of cool, frigid folds of pillows and warm remnants of Spain's abandoned pillow beside him, face upturned to the light that traces itself around Spain's silhouette, hot and uncomfortable.
After hours dissolve, and the full noises of life emerge, Spain walks out of the room.
Romano often wonders what thoughts, memories, and insubstanial pageants Spain turns over and examines in those early hours. From Moorish days to Castille and Aragon to Hapsburgs to Thirty Years to Spanish Succession to Seven Years to Civil War. He hears whispers of fragments, "Portugal," and "New World," and "Kyrie Eleison."
And one day, he hears Spain confess. It makes Romano feel violated, to be suspended between, well, fucking everything: a day and a night and a day.
"Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti et tibit Pater.
Quia peccavi nimis,
Cogitatione, verbo, et opere."
And now he sees Spain's shoulders drop, "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa." Consonants forced hard, as if spitting aspersions held back for centuries. Romano can feel the faint spray of saliva on the window's perspiration.
"Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." And now he can feel the spiked calidity of Spain's cheek, resting on the smooth surface of the window, both his hands surrended above his head.
"Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison," Spain repeats, over and over, until it melts into the background of the room at five ay-em.
After hours dissolve, Spain does not walk out of the room. Instead, he ferments in his thoughts. Instead, he drags his beleagured soul to the bed's side; with weary, calloused fingers, cold from the window, he devours Romano's hands. Romano's hands, that are hot and feverish and buzzing. Poised in a prayer, Spain brings his clasped hands, and Romano's, to his lips.
"Lovino, our short lives are fretted with such sleep; as impotent and barren as the treasures we inherit. Little Lovino, when I felt that firm ground of earth in the New World, when Portugal, and I, ahh, we..."
"That bastard Portugal."
"No, we.."
Romano glares at Spain who has an unsettling, nostalgic, sad, longing look in the recesses of his eyes.
"The world was at our feet. The temples, the globe, the sugar and cocoa, the," and a wild look overcomes his face, "the treasure."
Romano rolls his eyes and wiggles his fingers, suffocating under Spain's tight grip, "Fucking disgusting. Fucking treasure and fucking land. Fucking gold and silver, was that what you were repenting about? Fucking silver and gold!"
Spain smiles, that wild look gone, years away, and opens his hands, thumbs placed on Romano's palms. "Mea culpa, mea culpa. I confess to you, my Lovino, I was young and adventurous."
"You still are," and Romano pulls a hand away to rest his face on, knees up, back hunched over. He chokes a laugh, sober, "I can't believe it. You were thinking about gold and silver all those times. Here, I believed, you had a decent thought. But, fucking treasure!"
Spain, still holding unto Romano's left hand, brings it to his face and places a chaste kiss on his palm.
"Not all treasure is silver and gold."
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Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti (I confess to God Almighty)
Et tibit Pater (And to you, Father)
Quia peccavi nimis (That I have sinned)
Cogitatione (In thought)
Verbo et opere (In word and deed)
Mea culpa (Through my fault)
Mea maximia culpa (Through my most greivous fault)
Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy)