Chapter 1:
Berlin and Germany had been inseparable since the beginning of anything like their country. The empires, the republics, Germany couldn't exist without his capital city and friend Berlin, and Berlin couldn't exist without her country Germany. They needed eachother. Sometimes they had flaming rows, often with Berlin proclaiming she wanted to be a country or district on her own. But always, when she had relaxed a bit, she closed him in her arms and whispered she never wanted to leave him.
But then the second world war began. People hated each other. People killed each other.
With tears in her eyes, Berlin saw how her city was totally surrendered to terror and violence. War.
She hadn't seen Germany in a while, but she knew he wasn't responsible for this himself. His country, his people were responsible. But he hadn't done anything wrong, except a little arguing with France and England. Not more, not less.
And then the Americans came from the west, and the Russians came from the east. The country was surrounded and they were defeated. The second world war ended.
Bombing, shootings, dying people; Berlin thought she'd seen it al. But that was untrue, she found out later.
Germany himself indeed turned out to be innocent. He didn't know anything about the hating and killing in his country and around it. And that was what shocked her even more.
After she read the book, she could't sleep for days. She stopped eating. She stopped taking care of herself. The traumatic experience of all the obliviousness started with breaking down her body. Then it got to her soul.
She avoided Germany as much as possible. Occasionally, he was able to enter her office to make her eat a little or talk to her. She didn't talk back, but still Germany thought it was the best thing to do.
Then one day she did talk to him. "Thanks for the food." Her voice was hoarse, but Germany was delighted with her sentence.
"I think I have been behaving very childish in the past few months," she said. Germany wrapped his strong arms around her scrawny body. "I don't mind. I'll never mind. I'm glad enough you're back, Berlin."
She nodded and returned his hug. "Is allright, is allright."
Strange enough, a few days later she got back to her silent self again. She didn't talk to him. Again. Germany had not the slightest clue of what was going on, but when the next day brought back her shameful self and the day after that she was silent again, he felt something burning in his chest. He had seen this before, by soldiers who killed someone and felt extremely sorry for it.
Berlin had become schizophrene.