God help me, this began as a little oneshot to procrastinate and stave off writer's block, and it turned into a monster! Oops.
Said monster is a Moritz/Ilse 'what-if' story, in which Ilse stopped Moritz from committing suicide and instead took him to her friends in Priapia, the artists colony, to recuperate and live. I took a lot—a lot of a lot—of inspiration from the original Spring Awakening play by Frank Wedekind (translation by Edward Bond), in particular a scene between Melchior and Moritz in which Moritz recounts the titular tale (which, I promise, will be explained in this story—no need to Google!). The play also cites Nohl (who is mentioned as one of the men in Ilse's monologue) so I don't own him, only this characterization. There is mention of Plato's Symposium, information about which can be found here: http /en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Plato%27s_Symposium
Ultimately, this is a work of fan fiction; I do not own any version of Spring Awakening and its characters, nor do I own anything by Plato. I am simply an avid fan who promised my sister a Moritz/Ilse story once upon a time. Thank you for checking this story out and please enjoy! :)
The Queen With No Head
Priapia is nothing like what Moritz expected. Even now, whenever he thinks of the name, he recalls Father Kaulbach's splotchy red face and beady eyes, the way he spluttered and spat as he leaned over the pulpit towards his congregation and denounced, with furious holy words, the blasphemers, the drunks and the violent criminals who took up residence there. He remembers the black looks on the faces of the adults whenever one of their children dared ask about the strange village just yonder and the bizarrely dressed people who would occasionally wander into their good town; how stern their parents became, how determined that their child should never associate himself with such an awful, Godless place!
Moritz is no child, however, and, when Ilse reached out a pale hand and offered to lead him to a safe place, Moritz allowed himself to be taken down that fateful road to the colony of Priapia. Ilse would protect him, had promised to keep him safe, had even taken and hidden the gun from him after he limply relinquished it.
The village Moritz now finds himself in is worlds apart from the cesspool he had been brought up to fear. A cluster of buildings, of random sizes and materials, make up the centre of the colony, with groups of tents and caravans circling them, making up the homes of those who only consider Priapia a temporary residence. (The home of the man Ilse had brought him to, named only as Nohl, was a small apartment on the third floor of one of these clustered buildings.)
He meets people of all sorts of nationalities—American, English and French, though the men in the apartment above are all from Scandic countries—some religious and some not, most of them kind and accepting, all of them welcoming to or at least unbothered about the nervous, jumpy boy that Ilse, their little nightingale, has brought into their ranks.
Despite himself, Moritz learns to like it here. The black thoughts—the ceaseless drumbeat of worthless worthless worthless—are quieter now, or perhaps he has got used to them. They have yet to truly lessen and he wonders if he will have to live with them forever, now that he has lost the chance to blast them out of his skull for good.
Ilse occasionally brings word from their hometown, none of it good. Herr and Frau Stiefel have been quiet about the disappearance of their son, but the rest of the town has not been. Moritz twitches and rubs his heavy eyes as Ilse recounts rumour after dreadful rumour, and feels that much more ashamed of his own stupidity, of the shame he has brought to his mother and father.
It is on the tip of his tongue to ask Ilse for his gun back, so that he may walk into the woods once again and hopefully never come back out. Ilse, however, dashes his hopes by carelessly tossing out, "I've buried your gun, Moritz, just like Melchior once did my tomahawk, don't you remember? We have no need of a gun here."
Then she squeezes his knee and smiles at him and, for the life of him, Moritz cannot understand why.
Every time Ilse leaves him in Priapia and returns to her parents' house—sometimes for hours, sometimes for a day or two—Moritz always feels adrift. Nohl, the man whose home Ilse has left him at, is a big fellow from far-off Australia and speaks poor German with a strong accent, rendering him almost unintelligible. Coupled with his height, stature and his coarse black hair and beard, he strikes Moritz as frightening, like those terrible pirates who had such a large role in his childhood games. Moritz initially takes to avoiding Nohl like the plague, not daring to leave the apartment without Ilse.
After a week, however, just as Moritz is attempting to sleep on his makeshift bed, the door pops open and Nohl fills the doorway, peering down at the boy with a furrowed brow.
"Come," he says gruffly, gesturing with one huge hand, "Come."
It crosses Moritz's mind to refuse—to burrow into his nest of cushions and remain until the massive man is gone. He is reminded of weekend mornings at home, when his father would burst into his bedroom and insist that men did not waste valuable time, that Moritz had to be more alert and less lazy if he wanted to succeed.
"You are not sleeping. Come."
Slowly, reluctantly, Moritz creeps after Nohl, feeling smaller and more pathetic next to this bear of a man. In the main room, a painting easel stands, sporting a naked canvas. Nohl gestures for him to sit on the threadbare couch next to the easel, before offering him a wooden mug. Inside the mug swills a dark liquid, which scorches Moritz's throat as he sips.
"Why am I here?" Moritz asks and his voice sounds embarrassingly small and thin. Nohl glances at him and then—Moritz ought not feel surprised but does anyway—his face crinkles into a unexpectedly warm smile.
"We talk," he replies, "We drink!" Here, he lifts his own mug and chucks the liquor down his throat. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve and looks again at Moritz, "We celebrate."
It is not until later, after the whisky has loosened his tongue and sunlight is casting away the night sky, that Moritz gathers the courage to ask what exactly they are celebrating. Nohl laughs, a booming great sound, in answer and Moritz feels his own lips pull up as well.
The weeks go by; winter snow is melted by the rays of spring, new life is born and Wendla Bergmann dies. Ilse staggers into Nohl's flat muffling sobs, unaware that Nohl and Moritz are awake and not to be undisturbed.
"Anaemia," she mumbles into Moritz's shoulder, "That is what the mothers are saying. I don't believe a whit of it," Here, Nohl tuts knowingly, sadly, and Ilse lifts her head to look at Moritz, "Melchior Gabor has been sent away, Moritz. To a reformatory. Isn't it plain that the two are linked?"
Moritz shakes his head dumbly. It seems unfathomable that a girl as sweet and blessed as Wendla—a girl with whom he was once friends—could have met so sudden an end. Wendla was not like Moritz: there was never a doubt that she would meet every one of her parents' expectations. Every man and woman would always comment at church or in town on how well Wendla was and Wendla would smile prettily and clutch her mother's hand.
"Oh Moritz," Ilse sighs and pushes her head once again into Moritz's neck. What she tells him next—what the word 'anaemia' usually means when referring to young girls like Wendla caught up with knowledgeable boys like Melchior—bursts open a dam in the vast lake of Moritz's mind.
He recalls the innocent round face of a smiling Wendla and her proud mother and wonders if the expectations of any parent in the world are ever met—or if, like in the cases of his own father and Wendla's mother, every wrong step of parent and child force those expectations further above their heads, until not even the birds can reach them.
With every moment that he spends in Priapia, Father Kaulbach's mottled face fades a little bit more. Moritz grows a bit more confident: when he leaves the flat—Ilse or Nohl's company is no longer necessary for this feat, though it is pleasant—he does not flinch as he passes the people.
He begins to encounter more and more other young people, a handful of years older than himself, who share with him beer and smokes and tell him their stories: desperate stories, nearly all of which portray Priapia as their escape—oasis—paradise. One of these, an American artist, employs Moritz to help sell his pieces of art and get commissions, after noticing that Moritz's lean height and uncontrollable dark hair are rather eye-catching. Moritz, awkward social being that he is, proves hopeless at this and immeasurably better at helping customers pack up and take home their new paintings. The thrilled artist even offers Moritz a fraction of his profits; it is no banking or law or medicine, but it is a job, one that leaves Moritz feeling, for the first time in his life, a little fulfilled.
Two weeks after this, Moritz realizes that he is so busy—between the American's artworks and Nohl's late-night talks and his new friends and Ilse—that he has not thought of the gun in a long time.
"Okay."
Moritz, more than tipsy and absently stirring his whisky with his index finger, looks up with wide, startled eyes as Nohl abruptly addresses him. The canvas, bare all of those months ago, now has colours stretching across it in random, nonsensical patterns and shapes. Moritz wonders what it will look like at the end—whether it will be something familiar that everyone will see, or if the nonsensical patterns will depict something only Nohl can see. Would he, Moritz, see the same thing?
"Okay," he echoes. Nohl blinks at him, and then rolls his eyes.
"I have run out of stories," Nohl declares solemnly, "It is your turn, kid."
Moritz's head is no longer pleasantly fuzzy. He stammers, "I don't have any stories."
Nohl clucks his tongue and waves a hand, as though knocking the insinuation away, "Everyone has stories. Even same stories are not exactly thesame. Uh—different people."
Moritz is not quite sure—Nohl's broken German, though improving, is still all but undecipherable—but he thinks he understands. Even fairy tales, stories every child had heard, vary somewhat depending on which child is asked. So he casts his mind back to his youth.
"My grandmother," he murmurs eventually, "when I was very young, used to tell me a story called The Queen with No Head."
Nohl cocks his head curiously, "I have not heard it. Tell me."
"Oh—um—very well."
Blushing violently and still quite drunk, Moritz mumbles out his story as best as he can remember it: how the queen of a distant land was considered a wise and fair ruler, but was sadly born without a head, unable to speak or laugh or eat or drink. She had to tap out declarations of war and death sentences with her little jeweled shoes, and converse with her courtiers using her soft white hands. One day, her country went to war and lost to a rival kingdom—the ruler of which was a man who happened to have two heads! The two-headed king and the headless queen constantly quarreled and irritated one another until, one day, a wizard had the ingenious idea of taking the smaller of the king's heads and placing it on the queen's shoulders. It fit perfectly. After that, the king and queen were married and, instead of quarrelling and irritating one another, they could kiss—and live happily ever after.
"All rubbish!" Moritz cries, cheeks flaming, "Just—just stories—"
Nohl, observing the boy with a half-smile, shakes his head, "No. No rubbish. It is a good story—like Plato's Symposium, isn't it? It says that we all have a man or a woman who completes us. A queen who needs one of our heads."
At this last statement, Nohl grins lecherously and Moritz blushes further.
One day, in the middle of summer, as they lie on green glass and peer at the cloudless sky, Ilse tells Moritz that she wants to leave.
"There's too much hateful stuff here," she tells him dismissively when he asks and then turns her brown eyes up towards the sky, "Isn't it a beautiful day today?"
"It's the same sky no matter where you are," Moritz points out, a little desperately—because even though her parents are horrible and her friends are moving on and dying off and there is nothing in this pitiful little town to keep her here, he wants Ilse to stay here, until this part of the sky, with him.
"Not true!" Ilse says with a childish lilt, "In some parts, it's grey. In others, it's night. It's only sunny and blue right here."
"Then why go?"
Ilse does not reply for a long time. It is enough time for Moritz to begin frantically thinking of reasons for Ilse to stay, to imagine what life would be like if she were to leave him, like she almost left him in the woods that winter night. It is enough time for Moritz's dark thoughts, the evil whisper in his mind, to swell once again in a rising, panicked crescendo—
"Moritz, you're always so serious about everything," sighs Ilse, "You think all the time. I think it was all that school," She bites her lower lip and wrinkles her nose, "It's good to be clever, of course, but you don't need to think constantly."
Ironically, Moritz's train of thought splutters to a stop as she speaks. Ilse glances up at him and, registering his blank look, she giggles.
"Moritz, liebling," she smiles as she sits up, "If I ask you to leave with me, will you give me the first answer that you think of?"
"Yes," says Moritz—without further thought, as promised.
"Which question does that answer?"
Moritz hesitates—his lungs expand, his mind clears, the cruel litany in his head dies well and truly away. "Both."
"Good," Ilse says, and then she leans in and presses her lips to his.
Priapia is nothing like what Moritz expected. Or maybe Moritz simply changed his expectations, or maybe Moritz changed himself. He is not very sure anymore, not that he dwells much on it. Ilse is not sure either and she spends much more time musing. She wants to fully understand him, Moritz reckons; he is not the first man she has loved, but he is the first boy that she has fallen in love with.
Love is a peculiar sensation. It is more than always wanting to be around that person, or joining with that person in the eyes of God. It is wanting to learn and understand every component that makes that person tick, and wanting to be one of those components. It is wanting to know so much about one another and see all of one another and become almost one with one another—taking your missing half and fitting together like a jigsaw puzzle, just like Plato's Symposium claimed, like the queen with no head did with her two-headed prince. Moritz's shoulders had grown weary with the weight of two heads and Ilse had gladly shared the burden.
If anything sucked, that is because I sucked. Much of the story of the Queen with No Head was taken from my copy of the play Spring Awakening, so none of that is mine either. If you made it this far, I commend you! Please review and thanks again.