Chapter 24 Deviants

Poland!

"Mój Bój," Maria grumbled into her headset as she sat outside of the café, "They're like so gross. Muti comes over, Vati throws some money at me and tells me to go out before she can even say 'Tag' to me! Then he drags her into the bedroom, like, in the middle of the day!" She rolled her eyes. "I tried calling and texting and no one's getting back to me. It's been like three hours already! They have to stop doing it long enough to like get some lunch or something!"

"I think you should go back home, like, now, and surprise them! That would be like totally hilarious!" Feliks Łukasiewicz started giggling. He twirled his hair, studying how he looked on the webcam.

"Nie, that would be disgusting! Knowing my parents are doing it is bad enough; I don't need to hear or see it!" Maria shuddered, and the Republic of Poland laughed at her squeamishness.

"But seriously, chickie, it's a good thing your parents still, like, love each other." Feliks tried to look wise. "Too many mortals grow up with parents who hate each other or barely interact. And those are just the ones who, like, stay together! Even nations in personal unions and alliances can grow indifferent or downright hateful towards each other over time. So like just let them have their little reunion, tak?"

"Tak, tak, I know I should be grateful and all that stuff, but it's just so creepy this time, like he couldn't wait to get his hands on her. He couldn't even pretend that she might have wanted to see me or do something before getting into bed with him!" Maria scowled, recalling how Vati shot her a warning glance as he embraced Muti when she tried to greet her mother. "He's so selfish. Horny old goat."

Feliks snorted and rolled his eyes. "Girl, my sister Gdansk could tell you stories about your dad when he was like the Kingdom of Prussia. Talk about selfish and horny!" He paused and flipped his hair. "On second thought, you, like, shouldn't hear those stories, I mean, we shouldn't even be like talking about stuff like this at all!"

"Wujek Feliks, no one else would understand," Maria pleaded1. She had thought of Poland first, when she had left the apartment, disgusted and hurt by her parents' behavior. Ever since she had friended him on Facebook, she had found it easy to turn to him when she wanted to speak to an adult. She loved Onkel Ludi, but he was always busy and he seemed uncomfortable talking about personal matters. The same with Tante Monika, and she didn't feel close enough to her other German relatives to talk about her frustrations. Onkel Vash was out of the question; even though she knew he loved her, she feared his way of solving problems would cause more trouble.

But Poland was different. He was like her online friends, up on current trends and slang, easy to talk to, yet capable of giving support and advice that showed more experience and insight than the average mortal teen could give her. Ever since he had taken an interest in her four years ago in Vienna, she had felt like she had found an adult friend who treated her like an equal, but with a sense of playfulness and fun that she missed. Best of all, he knew secrets, and even though he frequently said he shouldn't be telling her such things about other nations and states, he ended up sharing them anyway.

"You know, I really liked that drawing of Germany you put up on deviantArt!" Feliks had decided to change the subject. "That was like, really good! Have you shown it to him?"

"Tak, I made a print of it and gave it to him for his birthday. Onkel Feli really liked it also!" Maria smiled, remembering how touched and pleased Onkel Ludi had been by the portrait. But she had been even more thrilled when Northern Italy had praised it. It hadn't been his usual giddy ramblings, but really intelligent remarks about her use of light and shadow. He had said she had a genius for showing the soul in the eyes, and she had blushed.

"Girl, if Northern Italy liked it, then you know it's good. You should set up your own website and like do commissions. That is, if you aren't still set on biology."

"I don't know," Maria sighed. Her science and maths classes were getting harder. "I looked at what it means to study marine biology and I don't think I can do it."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that! You're like, an entity, you can study whatever you want and it doesn't matter! You could go to, like, art school and not worry about whether you can make a living because you already, like, have one!"

Maria looked bleakly into the webcam. "It sounds great, but then I realize I'm going to be stuck in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern forever. And I hate the people there, I really do! I wish I were mortal, Wujek Feliks, so I could leave and live wherever I want."

"You can't say that, chickie!" Poland widened his eyes. "If you were mortal, you'd really have to worry about what you'd like do for a living, and moving wouldn't be as easy as you think. They've got, like, laws and requirements and all!"

"I don't care," Maria mumbled. "At least then it would really matter about the grades and the Abitur. Right now, I feel like I'm doing it just because my family wants me to, and it's not even like they could brag about me becoming a doctor or professor. I'll just end up in the family business, serving a bunch of mortals I don't even like. For as long as there's a state and a nation."She shuddered.

"It's not that bad, chickie." Poland pleaded. "If you were mortal, you'd have to worry not just about making a living, but like death. Even if you were a devout believer in some kind of afterlife, there's like no proof that your spirit lives after your body! And then there's like aging and disease and—"

"And having real children and watching them grow up. Having a whole world of mortals to meet, make friends with, fall in love with. And traveling wherever you want and staying as long as you like. And knowing that you don't have to have the same loves and hates that people had two hundred years ago, because that was the past. And when you die, knowing it's all over, and you don't have to worry about history anymore." She dropped to a whisper. "Wujek Feliks, I'm being serious here. How can you be friendly with Onkel Ludi after what he did to you, back then…?"

Poland paused. Maria watched his expression change and glimpsed how old he actually was and how history narrowed his eyes and pinched his mouth. He took a deep breath. "Because in 1970, a German mortal named Willy Brandt came to Warsaw and dropped to his knees before the memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And he wasn't just any mortal, chickie, he was West Germany's chancellor. Your Onkel Ludwig was with him also, and that was when he apologized to me and I knew he was totally sincere. I forgave him not only because I'm a good Catholic, but because I knew him, like, way back when. He wasn't just some Aryan poster boy in an SS uniform; he was also that sweet, smart kid at the Hambacher Fest, who wanted to be a progressive, modern nation where my people could be safe and, like, maybe even free.2 So, tak, chickie, I could forgive him, because I wasn't, like, just some mortal who could only see like a part of the past."

"What about my father?" Maria had never heard Poland speak about Vati with such sincerity or warmth.

"Your father and I signed a treaty back when he was East Germany. He apologized to my sister Gdansk back in, like, 2000 for what he did to her when he possessed her. But has he like actually said or done anything to indicate he is truly sorry and he wishes to repent for what he did to me? Nie." Feliks flipped his hair back.

Maria sat back in her chair. It was hard to reconcile Vati, who loved her and Muti, with Prussia, the tormentor of her only adult friend. But it was true; the history books showed it and Poland had told her enough stories to flesh out the mortals' accounts. Then she remembered the cruel, smug look on Vati's face when he told her how he had shut up the bullies' families in Neustrelitz and shuddered. Maybe it wasn't such a leap between the two sides of her father after all.

"Well, chickie, Kasia's coming over so we can make like a ton of pierogi," Poland sighed. "Liet's down in the basement, getting the sour cherries, mushrooms, and sour cabbage out for the fillings. We're gonna be kicking it with the vodka, too!"

"Sounds fun." For a second, Maria imagined herself there, listening to Ukranian disco music, laughing and gossiping with Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine, as they filled pierogi and ate them. She was going back to an apartment with her parents so busy doing God-knows-what in the bedroom that she'd probably have to make a sandwich for dinner.

"Aw, chickie, like don't sound so down! And get that crazy mortal talk out of your head, it like scares me. Do something fun, like draw or something." Poland startled and turned. "Liet! Don't break the jars! Gotta go, girl. Porozmawiamy później!"3

Maria said goodbye and got offline. She took the bus back to the apartment and entered without knocking; she figured her key turning in the lock was signal enough to her parents. No one was in the living room or kitchen; the lights hadn't even been turned on against the approaching dusk. "I'm home!" She called. "Like don't get up or anything!" She heard some shifting and mumbling coming from Vati's bedroom and rolled her eyes.

She went into the kitchen, started to heat some water in the microwave, and pulled a cup of ramen noodles out of the cupboard. She'd have that with a chicken sandwich for dinner, she reasoned. She assembled her meal and gazed at the bottles of beer in the pantry. Normally, she never drank one without Vati's permission, but she was about sixteen, and she felt she deserved one. She grabbed a bottle and her other food and sauntered down the hallway to her bedroom. As she passed by her father's bedroom door, she shouted, " So I guess this means no Schwerin this weekend? I'm going to eat dinner in my room. Hope you're enjoying your visit, Muti!" Her tone sounded a little mean, but so what? She thought. Why should she be the only one who felt snubbed?

Maria ate in her room and then turned to her computer. She checked her deviantArt account, reviewing her work. Most of them were portraits of her family, mostly in caricature, but there were realistic ones too, like the portrait of Germany. She got an idea; she connected her tablet to her laptop, pulled up the manga software Japan had sent her for her birthday, and began to play with it. In a couple of hours, she had the first strip of a comic that amused her. She posted it on deviantArt, and then went to tumblr and posted it there. She smiled smugly, feeling a lot better about her schleißlich day.

I love writing Poland ^^. What do you think Of Maria's attitude in this chapter? I look forward to your reviews!

1 Polish: Uncle

2 The Hambacher Fest was a democratic political rally disguised as a county fair that took place in May 1832 near Hambach Castle in the present day state of Rhineland-Palatinate (back then, it was in Bavaria). The participants supported liberal ideals such as freedom of speech and the press, liberty, and increased political and civil rights. Polish emigrants participated in the "fair" and this was considered the highlight of pro-Polish sympathy among the German liberal movement. I like to think a preteen Ludwig would have been inspired and touched by this event and maybe he had even seen Feliks there. Who knows, maybe he even promised him safety or his freedom? There might be a one-shot fanfic in there…

3 Polish: Talk to you later!