Elizaveta shakes her head, over and over, and the only words she utters are "Not guilty."
It is the day of her sentencing, but even now she has dressed herself up to the nines. She is beautiful, it's undeniable. Her brown hair cascades wildly in waves over her shoulders; she has placed a flower in it, right above her ear. The gentle wind ruffles the petals, and one falls off, fluttering to the floor in the wind.
"Not guilty!"
She is terrified. She never thought it would go this far – why hasn't he shown up to prove her claim right, to confess and save her? He had done the killing. Not her. She swears by it, over and over and over –
"Not guilty, not guilty!"
Axe-murdering. An axe. She's never even handled one before – her "weapon of choice" has always been a frying pan. She's hit her husband with it before, in kind, before she cooks him his meal; she's hit him with it before. He knows that she's not deadly, that she would never actually hurt anyone. Why did he pin it on her?
Him and his friends; it was always them. He had killed her husband, and the weapon had been his friend's prized axe. She's seen it before, when he had come over to the house in the middle of the night and dragged her out drinking with them. The happy-go-lucky Spaniard twirls the axe like it's just a simple baton, and he's good at it too – not once does he even come close to hitting either the Frenchman, him, her, or anyone in the vicinity. It's unreal – she remembers it as clearly as if she's right there now. He, the German, wouldn't have been used to that weapon, but she can picture him handling it with relative ease – his friend would have taught him, right?
"Not guilty…"
Why would she kill her husband? She loves him. She might love her other man slightly more – the attraction, the lust, the tension, the perfect balance between them is heated and real and undeniable – but she still loves her husband, otherwise she wouldn't stay with him. He might be boring and too serious at times, but he's gentle, he loves her, and she loves it when they put on classical music and dance around their expansive living room, stepping in time, waltzing, twirling like they were in another time…
Twirling like the axe that spins for a moment before falling, falling, falling and brutally murdering her husband.
"Not guilty...n-not g-g-guilty!"
She cries now as they discuss her sentence, but it is a womanly sort of crying and it suits her. Inside, though, her heart is breaking – her husband gone, her lover responsible for his death and yet he doesn't show up to absolve her or even to offer her support. Had she loved him for no good reason? But she still does love him now, in a twisted, broken way, because even though he has killed her husband, she knows why he did it.
"Eliza…don't you love me?"
His voice is sharp and yet broken, and she knows this is his terrible way of trying to do good.
"I loved him too," she answers, and it pains her to speak in the past tense of the man on the floor, bleeding, obviously dead. Her husband, until death…
"…'til death do you part, Eliza," he says urgently, fervour in his eyes. "He's dead now. You can be mine without worrying. No more secrets."
"How could you?" is all she can manage.
"I love you," is his reply.
"As do I," she tells him, and that is the last she says before collapsing before her husband, sobbing apologies in Hungarian, covering herself in his blood as she throws herself on him, holding him while he's still warm and she can pretend he's only injured and he'll get up and tell her that she was a fool for worrying so about him, it was only a little blood.
But he won't.
"Eliza?" the man behind her tries. "Elizaveta?"
She doesn't answer him. She cannot answer him. The sobs wrack her body and she is bloody and terrible and broken.
He kneels beside her, the axe on the floor, and rubs circles on her back, shushing her and rocking her slightly, but she won't let go of her dead husband and after a while he must know it's useless because he rises and leaves the house without a word.
This is the last she sees of him.
She doesn't even realize that he's left the axe on the floor beside her until the police come and apprehend her for the murder. She only realizes that she looks like the killer when she's behind bars, still in her old clothes, covered in her dead husband's blood. She tells them over and over again that she is not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty…
"Not guilty, ah-ah, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty…!"
But they don't believe her. Why would they? He did it, but they don't know that, because he hasn't come to tell them that what they believe is wrong. She is still metaphorically covered in her husband's blood.
They sentence her to hang.
Her sobs are no longer ladylike.
She has an hour before she goes to the rope. It is to be public.
Will he come then? She wonders this morbidly as she sobs, in her own corner, and everyone stays away from her because no one wants to comfort a murderess about to be hanged.
She doesn't even have a last meal. She will hang hungry, it seems.
She has been sobbing for at least a half hour.
"N-n-n-not g-g-guiltyyyyy…"
She is innocent. Why don't they believe her?
They say, still now, that her lover held down her husband while she killed him. They believe that her lover was involved, but they don't believe that he was the killer. They don't know who her lover is – they don't know why he did it. They don't know why she supposedly did it, either. She refuses to say anything other than "Not guilty," because they never listen to her anyway.
They don't understand that she's not dangerous. They don't know that her lover is still out there.
She sees a shadow come over her, and she looks up, still sobbing.
They don't know that he's right in front of her, right now.
This is the first time she's seen him since he killed her husband.
"I heard," he says simply, hands in his pockets, but even her eyes, still watering in fear and pain, can see the guilt and terror in his eyes, in the way he holds himself.
She doesn't say anything, only looks at him accusingly through the tears that are still coming furiously.
"I'm sorry."
But they both know that's not enough.
"I was scared. I know I'm not as awesome as I always pretend to be, but Elizaveta, please. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Elizaveta. Forgive me, please."
She stays silent, save for a sob that escapes her lips.
He kneels in front of her.
"Please, Eliza. I'm sorry."
"Not enough," she rasps what they both understand. He flinches. "You didn't tell them I wasn't guilty."
"I was scared."
"Coward."
He flinches again, and leans forward to her, and she wraps her arms around him, and he sobs too, into her dress, and they both cry together, cry for better times and for the loss of everything that they used to have. They sob for her husband, they sob for the blood that marks both of them, whether innocent or guilty, and they sob for her, because she now has to leave.
"Eliza…" he sobs, clinging to her dress. "Eliza, Eliza, Eliza…" He repeats her name like a prayer, holding to her. "Don't leave me, Eliza, I need you…" His voice breaks, and she has never seen him like this.
"I love you," she sobs, and they hold each other one last time before an officer comes to pull her away.
"Eliza!" he screams, pulling her towards him, not letting her go.
"Not guilty!" she sobs, being pulled in different directions. "Not guilty!"
"Listen to her!" he shouts, his voice breaking in terror now, and he holds tighter. "She didn't do anything, she's innocent, I killed him, it was me!"
"Nice try, sonny," says the officer grimly. "But this one's gotta be hanged now. Ain't nothing you can do 'bout it." He looks them over and then does so again, but really looks this time. His face softens, and he says quietly, "I'm sorry. There's nothin' I can do either. I'm sorry for the both of you." He puts his hand on her shoulder. "You don't look like the killing type. But orders are orders, even if I don't like them. I'm sorry," he apologizes again, and then, "but you have to come with me."
"Not guilty!" she cries, and her lover holds her tightly.
"Eliza, no!"
And the officer pushes him off of her, and they are both sobbing, he shouting her name and she sobbing a repetition of "Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty!"
The officer leads her away.
"Eliza!"
"Not guilty…"
She is hanged not ten minutes later. She imagines that she sees her husband at the end of the tunnel, and closes her eyes for the last time.
He shoots himself five minutes after she dies. It doesn't matter whether he gets to be with her in the afterlife. As long as he can see her alive again, and see her smile, and hear her laugh. He whispers her name before he pulls the trigger.
"Today, Elizaveta Héderváry was hanged for the crime of axe-murdering her husband. The woman's last words were, 'Not guilty.'"
Inspired by the musical Chicago and the Hunyak's fate – it's actually in keeping with the musical, which had her explain in 'Cell Block Tango' that people thought that her famous lover had held her husband down while she chopped off his head with an axe, so I twisted it, and Prussia, Hungary, and Austria meet cruel fates. Ah, well. At least they're at peace in the afterlife? ^^