But Let It Go, And You Learn
"Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is." Maxim Gorky
"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates." Thomas S. Szasz
Author's note: 1969, what a crazy year! Trying to balance adorable child, adorable lovers, and serious issues being serious. Adorable child is kind of winning. Anastasia is probably the plot point I was most worried about, but I think you'll see how she moves us nicely through the last twenty years we have.
"As long as the sun shines one does not ask for the moon" Russian Proverb
1969
Erzsi was the one who started calling her Anya. It made Vanya laugh, and she knew it wasn't the proper Russian diminutive, but it sounded so pretty at the time, and so it just sort of stuck. Vanya even had the sign on their daughter's door carefully painted to read "Аня".
They're watching the ballet class from the back, all the little girls dressed in matching outfits, hair slicked back. Anya waves from across the room before showing her footwork to the instructor, who nods and moves on. Vanya takes great pride in his daughter being the best ballerina in the class. It helps that she has two lessons a week instead of one, an extra one while Erzsi has her own private lesson. Anya always looks forward to it, and though she won't say why ("It's a secret Mama! Shh!"), she suspects Vanya dances with Anya during them.
After ballet they walk to the car, enjoying the warm spring day. Anya's got a hold on each of their hands, and they lift her to swing between them as they walk. Her laugh is infectious, and the town people all smile as they pass. She looks like Vanya, blonde hair and pale skin, his jaw. But her eyes are Erzsi's, and so is her nose and the face she makes when she concentrates.
At home she runs off to find Uncle Gil and show him what she learned today, but before they've finished walking through the door Edouard hands Vanya something. Turning it over in his hands, the Russian silently makes his way back to his office, Erzsi following, closing the door behind her. "What is it?"
He tosses his coat over the chair; he only removes it for her. "It's about Yao," and though Erzsi has never met the Chinese nation personally, she knows he was close to Vanya. Wang Yao had very precise handwriting when he wrote Vanya's name on an envelope: Иван Брагинский, each letter perfectly upright. The letters used to come every week, but recently they've stopped; Erzsi doesn't ask why.
While Vanya pours himself vodka, reading through the pages in the letter, Erzsi removes his gun from its holster, locking it in his desk. She sits on the side of the chair, massaging his shoulders while he flips through the papers again. Finally he sighs, leaning back and pulling her to his lap.
"Well, it seems I've lost my only true friend." They don't talk about Yao again.
They're at the dining room table, Erzsi helping Anya perfect each Cyrillic letter. Irina is flying about behind them, setting up for dinner. Nataliya is much slower in her moves, eyeing the Hungarian and half-Hungarian. Since Anya's birth Nataliya has taken to staring at Erzsi when she thinks she isn't looking, and ignoring Erzsi and Anya's existence. But both her and Vanya agreed that this was probably the best they could hope for. Anya had never taken to Nataliya anyway.
"Mama?" Anya looks up at her with big green eyes.
"Yes honey?" Anya doesn't go to school with the other girls in town, only sees them during ballet. Vanya has tutors come in instead, and one of the rooms in the house has been turned into a schoolroom just for her. When Anya's especially good, she gets a special lesson from her mother in German, French, and (always Anya's favorite) Hungarian.
"Why do so many people live here with you and Papa?"
Fringe falls into her daughter's eyes, and Erzsi gently pushes it away. She's wearing a ring Vanya gave her on Anya's first birthday as a token of love; it has a large emerald set in platinum. In the light it glistens. "It's complicated Anya."
"I promise I'll try to understand!" her daughter pleads. "Please, Mama! The tutors won't tell me, they said Papa said no." As she finishes speaking Vanya walks in, perking at the sound of his name.
"What did I say no to?" He leans down, kissing Anya's forehead. Anya smiles.
Erzsi is the one to respond. She's sitting in his chair at the head of the table, so Vanya sits in her normal chair, just on the other side of the girl. "Anya wants to know why so many people live here with us." Anya is still smiling up at her father, but Vanya sees the disdain in Erzsi's face. She had told him he'd have to explain one day, have to tell their daughter that he owned her mother. Erzsi loves Vanya, but she never forgets she had no choice in staying or leaving.
"Well," the Russian starts awkwardly, clearing his throat, and it only makes Anya more eager. "Oh, are you practicing?" and like that Anya forgets all about her question, showing her father her letters. Over her heard Vanya gives Erzsi a sad look, and she knows it's meant apologetically. Anya's just not ready to understand, not ready for the truth. For today, that's fine.
"Hold!" Anya is yelling, dancing about the small room before the television set. They rarely use this room, Vanya's always preferred reading. But for just today Vanya's arranged for them to get a special broadcast, letting Anya stay up late to see it. Her parents are on the couch, Erzsi feeding Vanya sweets in between stealing the candies for her own. "Hold! Hold!"
"Anastasiya," Vanya warns, and the little girl giggles, throwing herself on her stomach before the television.
All last week her lesson with her mother had been words about space. There was "la lune" in French, "der Mond" in German, and of course the Hungarian word Anya had been yelling, "hold". To say the little girl was excited for the moon landing was an understatement.
Vanya translates the English to Russian as they watch the American astronaut take the first step on the moon, Anya cheering loudly in excitement. "Papa, Papa! When is the Soviet Union going to put someone on the moon?"
"Близо́к локото́к, да не уку́сишь," he chuckles, and that seems to satisfy her. It only seems easy. Both nations know how much work something like this took.
Erzsi leans against his chest, one arm holding her close. She thought he had taken it well, news that Alfred's country had beaten him to it. But what worried her was their daughter. She was human, there was no two-ways about it. In the dark of night Erzsi had hoped that maybe there would be a new country, and she had even caught Vanya checking on the political stability in some parts of the expansive Soviet Union, but there was no such luck. She was just a little girl.
They hadn't told her they were countries. Most of the townsfolk didn't know, and the tutors who did know were given very careful and very threatening instructions by Vanya on what they could and couldn't reveal. Because Anya didn't know any other life, she thought nothing of so many people from so many countries living together. Never realized that they didn't age.
But it wasn't the life Erzsi wanted for her daughter. She wanted Anya to be free, to see the world, like they had, before the Warsaw Pact. She wanted Anya to meet other people, to meet real Hungarians. Anya would like Budapest, she knew she would, but Erzsi wanted her to know the free Budapest her mother had grown up in, a proud capital of a free Hungary.
Vanya does his best, but it just isn't what she wants for Anya.
In the little ballet studio Vanya had had put together for Erzsi, she practices with her daughter. Anya is really good, there's no way around that fact. She's been dancing for so long, but possess a natural grace. Every move the little girl makes is practiced, perfect, making Erzsi so proud to know that this is her girl.
"Mama, are you ok?" Anya caught her mother's reflection in the mirror, running over to check on her mother. The little girl wraps her thin arms around Erzsi's legs, burying her face in her stomach. Erzsi strokes the carefully pulled back hair. She doesn't like letting on to how much she worries.
"Mama is ok. I was just thinking."
"About what?" There they are again, those eyes shining up, that happy smile.
"How much I love you," she whispers, leaning down to hug the girl at Anya's height. That little body pulls her to it, small arms wrapped tightly around Erzsi's neck. Anya buries her face in her mother's hair and the Hungarian nation can feel the wide smile, can feel her daughter's love like electricity coursing through their bodies, and so she hugs right back to show how much she cares for her baby.
"Mama?" Anya asks, pulling back. "Why am I an only child?"
In the mirror Erzsi doesn't miss Vanya's body in the doorway. "You're a gift honey. People like Mama and Papa aren't suppose to have any children, but we have you, our little blessing. But we only got one blessing, and I'm so glad it was you." They both know Anya wants a sibling, but they have no choice in this matter. Still, the little girl nods, then notices her father, running to him.
Vanya throws her in the air, kissing everywhere on her face. "Papa, yucky!" Anya cries out, and they all laugh at that.
It still makes Erzsi laugh, how uncreative Vanya is in bed. Gil isn't kinky, but he is always up for trying something new. Roderich, well, Roderich liked the missionary position just fine, with few deviations. There were the two days Erzsi decided fuck the world, I'll fuck Francis, and leave it to the French nation to teach her more in those forty-eight hours than years of marriage. And though it was only once, because Lutz was nervous about his first time, she's sure he must be braver in bed now, letting his wild side out sometimes.
But Vanya is terribly uncreative, as she finishes untying him, coming down from her last sexual high. Erzsi tends to be the one who ends up suggesting sex on the desk, sex on the table, how about some bondage? She likes tying him up, feeling like for a few brief minutes, she owns him. That makes sex even better.
"You," he murmurs, suddenly grabbing her with newly freed arms and pulling Erzsi to his chest, "are always full of surprises." Vanya kisses her lips, deeply, and though they've just finished having sex there's a need there that just never goes away, their teeth clashing, tongues fighting. Russian hands squeeze the Hungarian ass, making her cry out in delight.
"And you have an early train tomorrow." She kisses him once more before standing to hide the rope; no reason to leave it out where Anya might find it.
There's a blackout on something in the news, they both know that, but Vanya has only heard whispers of what it is. His officials called him back to Moscow for a month, the longest request since the last great war, and he hopes to get some news on what's happened in his time spent there.
"Come with me," Vanya purrs from the bed, and Erzsi turns to admire the sight. The sheets barely cover his manhood, from where they're tossed over his hips, one leg bent up. She loves his legs, they're wicked strong. They can have sex standing, nothing to lean against, and those legs keep him going like nothing else. The skin is pale and creamy, probably never exposed to direct sunlight, and soft as can be. He's watching her watch him, her eyes taking in that broad chest. He's got more definition in his muscles now, from chasing around Anya, from lifting her and carrying her, in his chest and arms. But the lines are still soft to the touch as Erzsi makes her way to him, running one hand up from his navel to shoulder, her fingers grazing a nipple. "Come with me to Moscow," he repeats.
They've had this discussion every day since he got the summon. "I can't," she whispers, shaking her head, and one of his strong hands strokes her neck, her shoulder. "I have to stay with Anya." Erzsi would go, despite all her anxiety about the capital city. She would go, but they both know it's too dangerous of Anya. Their Russian protector only has control here in his house. They won't risk her.
"I will miss you," Vanya whispers, and there's something raw there as Erzsi lays on his chest, their exposed flesh warming each other. He kisses her more slowly this time, his hands tracing imaginary lines on the small of her back.
"Hurry home." Her hands cup his face, and Vanya smiles, kissing the fingers. "This bed is too big without you in it, and I hate being cold." It's code for I love you.
They're sitting in the schoolroom doing homework when there's a shuffling at the front door. "Finish first," Erzsi tells her daughter, going to see what's happened, and Anya patiently stays, adding and subtracting numbers. Making her way to the front entryway, Erzsi sees her lover handing his suitcase to Toris, speaking quickly to his sisters. When his eyes move up, he sees her.
Within seconds she's run into his arms, and he lifts her into the air so that they're faces are level as she kisses Vanya, pulling his head to hers. The other nations leave before they break apart for air, so used to these two by this point.
"I missed you," Erzsi says in a voice that's too high, her throat tight from longing and the tears she wouldn't shed on lonely nights. He kisses her again.
"I missed you so much," Vanya tells her as he lets her down, hugging her close. "I thought of you every minute we were apart. I'm glad I'm home, with you."
They make their way to the schoolroom, where Anya greets her father with great enthusiasm, but is told to finish her work if she wants her gifts at dinner. Never able to disobey her father, she happily finishes with her math before moving on to geography. As they leave, Vanya's strong hands pulling one of Erzsi's small ones along, they make their way quickly to their bedroom, barely getting in the door before all clothes are torn from their bodies. They don't have the patience to make the small trip to the bed, so Vanya takes her against the wall, Erzsi's fingers pulling and digging at his skin that's always so warm.
His lips are everywhere, her neck, her shoulder, her breasts, like he's some sort of starving man. Vanya is always desperate for her, like he could never get enough of his little Hungarian. Erzsi buries her fingers in his hair, pulling painfully at it as she comes, screaming his name. She needs him too now, has forgotten how to live without him. As Vanya finishes, filling her, their foreheads pushed together, Erzsi can't remember what it was like before this. Before Anya and this bedroom and the love they share. So many years have passed.
Under the sheets Vanya whispers everything to her, about the assassination attempt on the leader of the Soviet Union, about the blackout to hide the news. He tells her all the things he never knew had happened over the last ten years, all the things he learned have happened in her country. Erzsi cries, and Vanya holds her close, kissing her and apologizing for saying such things. But he had to know her country was alright, her people were alright, that he wouldn't lose her.
Her fingers find his lips, and it's time to stop thinking. Time to imagine warm days in a field of sunflowers, Anya laughing in the background somewhere.