On the 13th day of the second month, he was in a library in Kaliningrad. Even though he was the only person in the vast stone library, he didn't feel alone at all. Not here, not amongst the shelves and shelves of books, every single last one written by him, about him, for him. Surrounded by so many awesome books, how could he possibly feel alone? Even if he was in Russia on the eve of Valentine's Day with no plans for tomorrow, he wasn't lonely at all, because he had his library.
There had been a new addition to his library, a new set of shelves that he didn't remember setting up. Beside the shelves, boxes, stuffed haphazardly with even more books. Normally, he would shelve them away, his journals, once he was done with each book, but he'd built up quite a backlog while he was staying at Russia's place, not least because every journal he'd completed during that time had been confiscated.
It was some time in the mid-nineties before it occurred to him to return to his little flat in East Berlin to see if he'd left anything behind in his haste to move in with West. There, in the middle of his living room, covered in a thinner layer of dust than the rest of the untouched flat, lay a few large boxes. Once he'd ascertained that they weren't booby trapped, he'd opened them, finding inside all of his Soviet era journals.
With pages ripped out, words blanked out with black ink, censored.
He'd nearly burned them then; he'd felt so violated, and the memories were so fresh, and all he wanted was to forget, forget everything, the decades spent and wasted. But he had them shipped to Kaliningrad instead, because for better or for worse, they were his precious history after all.
Time passed. Time healed, but brought with it new traumas and sorrows. He found himself looking back, back in those boxed journals to remind himself that things were far better now. Only they weren't, not everything. Edited and fragmented as they were, his journals reminded him of the there were joyous times amidst the nightmares, just like any other time period in his history. And he found that, if he felt so inclined, he could piece together what had been removed from memories evoked by reading the fragments.
So he started restoring the journals, in his spare time, whenever he was feeling particularly invisible, whenever West made him feel like he was the source of all his troubles, whenever the world forgot that there was ever a Prussia. He worked on them, reminiscing on the times when he'd felt a little… wanted.
He supposed that was why he started visiting Russia. Not just Kaliningrad, but Russia proper, hoping to bump into that guy. Then they would go out and grab a vodka and sit and talk about the old days.
It wasn't that he liked Russia very much. In fact, he still held a significant grudge. But Russia was the only one from the old house who would reminisce happily about those Soviet times. Russia was the only one who would listen to him rant about the terrible things, the sad things that he never wanted to record in his books. It was probably a little dangerous that Russia would listen so intently to all he had to say, and he tried his best to say nothing important, but he couldn't stop himself if he wanted to now, because it made him feel that little bit… special.
He wondered if Russia would turn up today. Not that he'd been looking to meet up with that guy. If he had, he would have gone to Moscow, or Saint Petersburg, not out here to Kaliningrad, to his library.
Right, his library. He had books in boxes and empty shelves, and since he was here and he had no other plans, he might as well start with the shelving.