What's This? (A Christmas Future)
A fanfic with music in two chapters. Post-fic teaser for a story still in development. Fluff with bits of floating angst. BA…and BA! My very first story up.
Thank you Dick Wolf for LOCI and all its characters. (You own them, but what would we do without them?) However, the other characters here, many nameless for now, are all mine. Credits for music quotations, explanations and author's blather at the end of each chapter. As a newbie, I love feedback.
December 2007
What's this? What's this?
There's something very wrong
What's this?
There are people singing songs
What's this?
The streets are lined with
Little creatures laughing
Everybody seems so happy
Have I possibly gone daffy?
What is this?
What's this?
Chapter 1
Berlin—Unter den Linden/Bebelsplatz
Nightfall came at 4pm this time of year, but it did not matter to the tall man waiting on the steps of the Staatsoper—the Berlin State Opera.
A year ago, he could not have imagined being here. Twenty-five years ago in the Army, he would not have been permitted here. But in present time, he looked out on Bebelsplatz and it was all good. The skaters on the temporary rink in the the square circled, twirled, laughed. The dome of St. Hedwig's Cathedral radiated green, the Alte Bibliothek—Old Library, the university buildings nearby and the Staatsopera itself behind him glowed in gold-tinged white.
You and the night and the music...
It was the light coating of snow or over-gorging most of the day on books in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin--Berlin State Library—nearby on Unter den Linden, but the people in the square…twinkled.
There are children throwing snowballs here
Instead of throwing heads
They're busy building toys
And absolutely no one's dead
There's frost on every window
Oh, I can't believe my eyes
And in my bones I feel the warmth
That's coming from inside
Warmth. Glow. His busy brain saw another time. This was called Opernplatz in May 1933. Twenty thousand books burning. The twinkly people's not-too-distant ancestors guttered songs, waved red-black-white hakenkreuz banners, laughed, danced, threw more books on the pyre.
Its sole memorial was a glass plate in the ground in the center of Bebelsplatz, revealing empty bookshelves underneath. Its plaque contained Heine's prescient quote of a century earlier: Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen—"Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings."
Burning books...ideas...comfort...refuge. The image in his head put ice in his gut.
She wrote him last year: Both of us have a common trait in overthinking things…our brains broil in a NY minute often to our peril. We snap to seeing the past in the present (and I'm far guiltier than you of this, because damned if I don't hear it too) --and miss the beauty of the present altogether...
Right as usual. Even when she wasn't here she brought him right back to reality. It was too remarkable of a night, so he returned to enjoying the twinkle and glow, moving a bit to warm up, scanning the square, looking for a small, lovely figure in black, who would be moving quickly.
Over here they've got a little tree, how queer
And who would ever think
And why?
They're covering it with tiny little things
They've got electric lights on strings
And there's a smile on everyone
So, now, correct me if I'm wrong
This looks like fun
This looks like fun
Oh, could it be I got my wish?
What's this?
Across Bebelsplatz east from Behrenstrasse, a woman in a fur collared full-length black coat moved at a smart clip. She had enjoyed her tough day of shopping in the well-appointed stores of Friedrichstrasse and Stadtmitte. The result was two small packages tucked into her large handbag. It was time for brain food.
Focusing on the Staatsoper, she hoped a certain tall man would already be there, as it was close to performance time.
She hoped he wasn't "lost". Not lost on the U-Bahn like a tourist. "Lost" in the 18th century delights of St. Hedwig's. "Lost" in the State Library, which could swallow him whole. Then I'll have to get a library card and check him out...
SNAP TO. Scan. Observe. Listen. Anything out of the ordinary? Situational awareness rules. Thank God you can still do this and entertain your busy brain at the same time.
This was a new Berlin. Hers had been West. West of a blasted, forbidding Brandenburg Gate. The Wall. Checkpoint Charlie. The "Ivans" ever looming. West Berlin of her high school years, the daughter of a US Air Force colonel stationed at Tempelhof. Returning as an officer herself, assigned to a joint signals intel unit dubbed "The Home for Wayward Brainiacs". Her first taste of command, de facto though it was. Deadly serious data analysis, boring work for most. Your brain had to work a certain labyrinthine way to love it.
The big secret was that brainiacs had better fun. And there was Johnnie. Wonderful, absolutely right Johnnie. Yet there was him.
Her heels clicked as she walked quickly over the cleared paving stones towards the Staatsoper. What's this? Ice skating in Bebelsplatz? So terribly German Christmasy. Of course it was right next to the 1933 book burning memorial. Thank you, Berlin, for the irony.
The damp Berliner luft seemed a little colder and she snuggled into her coat. Black times four—coat, hat, boots, dress. In the West the color of the day was blue. Johnnie commanding in RAF blue with the wide/narrow alternating blue and black bands of a squadron leader, equivalent to major. Her seconding in USAF blue with fresh single silver bars on the shoulders.
He of course had to be different—Army greens, three sergeant's stripes. She snatched him from a MP unit that mainly patrolled bases and quelled bar fights. Equal measures of brains, brawn and gawkiness in the giant economy size. She got her captain and Johnnie to go along with the gag. And thereby launched a career and a life.
A life that had saved hers twice. And she returned the favor twice over in another island, an ocean away, over a year ago. Their badges both gold, but hers bore the Queen's crown of her adopted city.
Everything that rises must converge, Johnnie once said.
Bebelsplatz became more luminous as she neared the Staatsoper. The reflection of light enhanced by snow. Getting windy, coming down from the North Sea, her eyes tearing up. She walked even faster now.
She was glad they were spending their short holiday mainly in the eastern part of Berlin. For both of them it was a new city. A chance to make their own memories that didn't constantly bump into the past. The East was theirs alone.
Staatsoper, finally. She looked up. Their eyes met. His brown and deep. Hers green. A light, luminous green. He walked down, she walked up.
Meeting, they smiled, corners crinkling. He leaned down to kiss her. With his large left hand, he touched the dark brown of her hair over her collar, holding her left hand in his right. The slight squeeze made his ring pinch a little. Her eyes widened, ever so slightly. Private looks in a public place.
Oh, your nose is cold! Well, the opera tonight will warm us up. "Doktor Faust" by Ferruccio Busoni. In 1930s dress. A man who sells his soul to the Devil….how Berliner! Yes, let's go in—now!
So, now, correct me if I'm wrong
This looks like fun
This looks like fun
Oh, could it be I got my wish?
What's this?
Author's Notes Updated 12/19/06: Chapter 1, Berlin
Lyrics: "What's This" by Fall Out Boy. I found this lyric totally by accident, have no idea of the tune or the author but isn't it marvelous and Christmasy? Thanks to obsessedwithstabler for the proper credit: Tim Burton's "A Nightmare Before Christmas".
Interpolation: "You and the night and the music"—a wonderful start to an even more wonderful tune by Arthur Schwartz (Jonathan's dad). Written about 50 years prior to "What's This".
No, I've never been to Berlin. (The closest I got was selling ad space for the German National Tourist Office's annual guide in 2002.) I kept a lot of German place names in as (1) our characters both speak German fluently and (2) they are readily understandable in context. The rink is current, the opera "Doktor Faust" is currently playing at the Staatsoper and the memorial to the 1933 book burning is real.
The military history is from basic research. I am a WWII living historian/reenactor with some general knowledge of military practice postwar. I've been privileged to know many veterans, some of whom were career military in the Air Force and stationed in Germany up until the 1980s. The American high school is real, with a long history of educating the children of military staff and, up until it ceased, Pan American's Internal German Service personnel. If anyone can fill me in with details on either please send a review!
Newbies love feedback!