MEIN VATER

DER KAISER

"One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

PART I

MEIN BRUDER, DER KAISER.

My pompous, snobbish, posh, caring, concerned, fatherly brother- the Kaiser.

Adagio in B minor

I remember when I had thought about saying to myself that I wanted to stay under my own antique sky.

1815. July. At the time, I didn't know how to play the piano, I was terrified of the aspect of ever performing in front of people, as boastful or such a braggart I was. My history was cluttered with articles of expansionist propaganda and deathly warfare, I was known all throughout Europe as a warmonger. And yet, I sat there, among the other well dressed nobles, their chests brimming with folded and flapped cloth, covered with golden vests and long embroidered coats, their heads topped with such posh and pompous wigs.

The light was soft, radiating from the chandeliers above. On us, the audience, facing around a loose ally of mine by the name of Roderich, a pale golden hue seemed to have descended. It was this chamber hall where I truly heard Roderich Edelstein place his hands on the white and black keys of a board, the piano, filling the hall with sound.

To be honest, for the longest time, and by longest, I really do mean longest, I've always had a dislike for the man. The greatest distaste, the Austrian, Austria himself, sat on the chair, hitting the keys with such flawless precision, I'd melted into my own world of antiquity.

I hadn't worried about being seen, I was far in the back, the only people concerned about me were the two bourgeoise ladies on either side of my seat who smelled of too much perfume, and looked as if they'd put on to much powder on their cheeks. They were pale as death from it all, but from their irritant scourge of an attitude, they most certainly weren't dead. I closed my eyes as the chamber echoed with the sound of another Adagio by the late Mozart, and in it, I found comfort. It was as if I had been ripped away from my life of strict military precision and firm decisive action in warfare and gently placed into a wondrous landscape with lush grass and soft trees.

At first, I had recognized it as Waterloo, a battle I had fought nearly a year ago with William Kirkland, de Britannia and, once again, Britain incarnate against France, the bastard Napoleon returning once again. As the music swayed, notes falling and dropping down to low C's and back up again to high G's, I walked along the roads of Waterloo, surprised to see no men, no camps, no fires, no corpses strewn across the countryside of fair Belgium. The notes flicked up and down, it gave me a temporary euphoria, the melody itself spun around as if I were walking through a clockwork shop, and all the clocks were gradually chiming twelve. Chiming in their own musical manner. I found that I walked in the clockmaster's room and was then swiftly brought back to Waterloo by a pastoral melody of such unfulfillable longing. This, this music, this scenery, it all made me blissfully imbibe a new sense of home. Such tremendous longing for this alternation, had Hougomont never been tossed around or the ridge never taken by anyone. I was convinced that the music in the chamber was vox dei.

But of course, that was when anyone in Berlin was either dead or Protestant.

Then a loud bang woke me, startled me, the first shot of the battle. Was it French? British? Prussian? No, claps, claps, bloody claps stirring by dreams, faded away like a spilled can of watercolour. Vox dei was gone, and Austria stood, poignant, prominent, polite, and posh.

Never had I so simultaneously loathed and admired a person. He had shown me something more glorious than battle lines and strewn out ranks. Vox dei was gone, but I had a chance to hear it again, in some other way, I could've known. I must've known. I did know. I did now.

1816. April. Dritte April ein-tausend acht hundert-sechzehn. How nine months passed me from the point I had listened to that Adagio without word from my brother Franz; of the complicated Kaiser and literal embodiment of German unification himself, I don't have foggiest idea what has happened. But he finally came, no, not himself in gold braids and medals, he'd be 'too informal' to do such a thing. But it was him. A courier, on a brown horse, wearing the usual dark blue with a black tricorn hat that had been used too much, wearing at the seams.

"For His Royal Highness, Herr Gilbert Weillschmidt von Hohenzollern?" he tilted his head and had his hand outstretched, an envelope with my brother's Royal Coat of Arms embossed in the centre.

I nodded, took the paper. The few thalers in my pocket were handed over to him by my left hand, the envelope lay in my right hand.

"Bitte, sir, refrain from using 'Royal Highness' on me."

It was a simple request. I, Gilbert Adalbert Weillschmidt, brother of Kaiser Franz Wilhelm Hohenzollern, and Ludwig Weillschmidt, did not use the title "Royal Highness." It simply did not fit. I am hundreds of years old, yet I'm trapped in a body of 26. I fought at disastrous Ligny and victorious Waterloo. I recalled what a certain Frenchman had said to me as he ran from the battalion I was stationed in. He recognized me as Prussia, and before he disappeared into the smoke and haze, the Guard, uniform red and hands blistered cried "You, Prussian, this is the ship. Now fix the mast."

A lead ball took him before I could take him in.

I still don't know what he meant by that. But here I am, wondering, standing here, 26, silver hair, pale skin, vermilion eyes- taking that note.

Even when I am entitled, I did not, I do not, and I won't plan to use the title "Royal Highness." I am just a soldier. Maybe a high-ranking one, yes, but inside me roars the voice of an infantryman. Inside me claws the sabres of curaissers. Inside me…

Was hesitation. The courier saluted me off and left me there at the steps of my Berlin home. Outside, church bells were ringing, birds flew from the trees and the thought of taking a stroll to a Protestant service wasn't welcoming. The thought of walking several blocks in the rain didn't push me to want to. I didn't know what I had believed in, Frederick II the Great himself, whom I knew personally on ventures in raiding Silesia, was a deist. Was I one…?

I shut the doors in my residence, causing the candles lit for Sunday courtesy to shake. I don't know what, but something in me other than the wracking of military labour made me want to cast this letter from my brother into the fireplace, well lit and raging. Jealousy. He was the one with the attention and the one with the medals- ah no- not jealousy. Disgust. Franz should greet family himself. Nein- it had to be fatigue for his petty invitations. 'No, bruder, I don't want to be invited to Brussels to see your new china set.' I thought aloud.

The damned Austrian's Adagio came back to mind again, soft trills, warm inviting chords and quaint notes plucked at my heartstrings once more. It was more than a buzz in my ears. The room was silent, but in my mind, I heard the music once more.

Out went the letter from the envelope. Handwriting, his handwriting, not the courier's or Belgium's, his wife. It was the Kaiser's handwriting that greeted me on the paper. What was this? Is he tricking me?

'Lieber Gilbert' it began.

And?

'Neun Monate ist eine furchtbar lange Zeit.'

No, he isn't… is he…?

'Ich habe nicht einmal die Zeit genommen, um mit Ludwig zu sprechen, oder senden Sie ihm etwas bis zu diesem Punkt.'

He isn't. Stop being posh. Franz-!

'Neun Monate brachte mich und Belgien Alois. Er ist gesund und …'

Carrying on reading made me hurt. Alois? A son? He had a son? And this is why we haven't heard from the Kaiser all this time? For an additional drain on resources of Prussia? I sound heartless; but to those who think they've won the war on the home front; you haven't. You fought as effectively as those in homes in the enemy country.

I'm grateful it's a son, who's eligible to fight in the military, our military, the Prussian military-

'aus der Asche der alten Französisch Empire, mit dem Sturz von Bonaparte, hier ist Luxemburg.'

Luxembourg? Their son is a newly established country?

A small one- a curse.

The deeper I read, the more I disliked this notion. The music inside me swelled form a peaceful Waterloo pastorale to a dense battle in Bavarian forests. How I abhorred the duty of taking care of another child, another mouth to feed, another drain. Such a small country- yet to be tossed around by mighty Austria, be subjugated by the Netherlands, or… what of me? What do you question?

What I did? Or really, the question is, what did I know?