So, here's chapter two... Beware! The timeline is not the same as in chapter one...
Many thanks to Franziska and Elizabeth. Hey guys, I just hope I'm not giving you too much headaches!
Usual disclaimers here... and I don't own the rights of the books by Alexander Von Humboldt!
Salzburg, Von Trapp's villa, June 17th 1937, late at night
"Damn woman! How does she dare!" Georg von Trapp spat furiously as he entered his study. He had not felt such an anger for years! Everything was perfect until that bloody nun came in the house this afternoon. She had spent less than an entire day here and she already wanted to make a revolution. How did she dare? How could she be willing to destroy the discipline he had imposed painfullyto his children and above all to himself during all these years? Sitting down on the couch where he had left the book he was reading, he lit a cigarette, trying to calm himself down. Still, honestly, he was not mad at her for disobeying his orders. More, the way she managed with the "pinecone" thing had been quite amusing. And more surprising, the children seemed to like her already. Maybe she would give them the affection that none of the former governesses had shown them and that he was not able to give them at all. That was the problem. It was not that he did not love his children, not at all. Actually he was afraid. Afraid of not being a good father. Afraid of not showing the image they wanted to see. Agathe had left him with seven children and he did not know how to raise them. Besides, whereas she was still there, he managed to live peacefully in a house he hated so much in his young years, far from the seas. However, she was not there anymore, and that house seemed more and more like a prison to him, just like in his young years... So, he used to get away as much as he could, letting the kids alone with governesses, escaping to Vienna. What? Since when had he been calling the children "kids"? What was happening with him? He had not felt so confused since... Damn it... It was so easy at that time...
Maria went to bed, trying to calm herself down. "What an awful man!" she said out loud. How could he do that to his own flesh and blood? It was just irrational and cruel... His grief should not be an excuse to make his children suffer. As if they were not grieving at all! "Coward!" she mumbled turning in her bed. She remembered one of his first numerous outraging answers. "I am afraid you do not look like a nun at all." She sat up, unable to find sleep. "Jerk!" she thought. She looked up immediately, her face showing growing shame. Wait, since when had she said or thought such an awful word? Fortunately, sister Berthe was not here... Nevertheless, she thought she had lost that bad habit long ago. Not only was that stupid guy was infuriating her because of his behaviour but here he was, waking up remembrances long forgotten. "Oh crap, another bad word. Oh no, another one!" She mused in her shame. "If Mani could hear me... He would surely laugh at me... For sure..." She smiled fondly at the remembrance, taking an old photography out of her Bible. There were five people on it, smiling broadly. It had been taken in summer for her seventh birthday. She was there with here blond tresses and a nice blue dress, sitting proudly on a young man's lap. He had a beard and ruffled hair and only wore a white shirt. Next to them, on their right, was a blond couple, a sweet woman and a large man with a big beard. Then, on their left stood a dark-haired man with a moustache who was playing with her tresses. If she remembered Mani perfectly, she was not able to remember the others' name, unfortunately..."Sorry, Captain von Trapp, I have met real sea Captains once, and I am afraid that you do not look like them at all... And you cannot be compared to Mani especially, I can tell." With that, she made a face at the door where the Captain had stood earlier and tried to find some sleep
He just could not sleep. Damn, he had not thought about that time for so long! What was happening to him? He lit the bedside table and resumed reading again. Unfortunately, Alexander Von Humboldt's description of the marvellous land called now Columbia did not captivate him as it used to do... So he stood up and went out on the balcony. The storm had cooled the atmosphere a bit and seemed to move towards the mountains now, leaving a clear sky brightening with stars behind him. He breathed heavily, aspiring the now fresh air, trying to put his ideas in order. It then struck him. THAT was the problem. That damn nun, her stubborn behaviour was waking up his old self little by little. It was not the Georg von Trapp, loving husband of sweet late Agathe but also a proud aristocrat, the eldest of a noble family who tried cautiously to honour his title and condition as much as could to please her. Not all. It was Georg Mani von Trapp, the rebel son of late Emanuel von Trapp, Captain of an Austrian submarine during the Great War, a young man who prefered to spend time with his Hungarian, Czech or Jewish pals than assuming his social position... His old self that died just after the war, he thought. He always thought his old self had died after the war. But apparently he had been wrong. And here he was, full of frustration, full of anger again. Being married to Agathe helped him to put those feelings aside. More, he believed at that time that the injuries had been healed. Nevertheless her death proved him wrong : in order to avoid the relapse, he instituted a severe discipline to his children and himself, a discipline he had never imposed on the Wotan, how ironic! Lighting a cigarette, he tried to think about something else, about his trip to Vienna where he would see beautiful Elsa Schraeder, the woman who helped him to find the strenght to live again, who he desired so much. Maybe he would be able to forget everything, the war, Agathe's death, in her arms. Maybe... He looked thoughtfully at the burning cigarette: his children did not know he was smoking again for he had stopped since Friedrich's birth, and he did not want them to. It was one of his numerous secrets along with his inner politic ideas, his deeds during the war, his real life as a rebel cadet in the Austrian Navy. Seeing that his cigarette was entirely consumed, he proceeded to go back to sleep. Before he turned off the light, he took a small photography out of Humboldt's book. It had been taken for the kid's birthday in July 1919, just less than eighteen years ago. He smiled as he remembered the scene, Max playing with her tresses, Ivan laughing loudly at some bad joke, Sveltlana trying to calm her husband down, smiling broadly and the little girl, sitting proudly on his lap... At that time, he seemed to know how to deal with kids, which he was unable to do now with his own flesh and blood. Putting the photography back, he turned the light off and tried to find some much-needed sleep.