A Heroine
The Weimar Republic
1926
They were flourishing culturally. Berlin was alive with sex clubs and kabarets. Music venues and art galleries sprung up everywhere. Inflation slowly crept down to something manageable and the economy worked itself back to something like normal. Women wore their skirts short and danced to the fast and infuriating jazz and had sex as they liked it.
Roderick was a cripple now, his divorce had left him wheelchair bound so Ludwig had invited him to stay in Berlin until he got back onto his feet. Roderick preferred the company of nobility and was often out of the house despite his useless legs. While Roderick was gone and Ludwig was busy with his new Republic, Gilbert languished in the house amongst his cousin's many instruments. He has taken a liking to a very sleek violin and sits in the Library amongst dark oak shelves full of leather bound books and new age pamphlets.
Its a Stradivarius, a masterpiece from the Golden Era and Roderick is going to behead him if he catches Gilbert playing it, but Gilbert has never played anything so well. Its perched on his shoulder and the bow in hand, Gilbert weaves his music. One note after another reverberates through the dim room. He isn't Roderick, who plays with such mechanical precision that the song's meaning is lost. Nor is he one of the Italian brothers who strike their booming organs. Nor is he America with his swinging, sexed up jazz. He doesn't care if there is a note or two out of place he doesn't care. The music is his, and that's enough.
He plays with the somber longing for his days of unbridled glory and bloodshed inflicted by the power of his own name. He aches for the days of chanting prayers echoing on vaulted ceilings and monks in robes and armor. He plays in whorls for the days when he ran alongside Elizaveta and fucked her in the fields and forests of Hungary. He plays like he's remembering his hands brushing down her hips and whispering over the valley of her breasts and his thousand year old muscle memory is full of jerky movements and hacking motions, but he remembers the grace of bracing himself on her shoulders as they crashed together.
When his hands shake, he stops and puts the Stradivarius away into her velvet lined case. His hands shake so deeply that when he gets dressed, he can't manage his best uniform or the dress boots he's shined so well he can see his own reflection in them. Instead he slides into a worn pair of trench boots and an old uniform that had come out of the factory cheap and thin. The olive and brown doesn't suit him, doesn't mark him as anything special and even his claret eyes look dull and well-worn.
He could wander anywhere dressed like this and no one will give another bedraggled, wandering soldier another glance. Europe is full of Veteran's and Europe is used to haunted eyes and jittery hands. Gilbert gets on a train and no one gives a damn. He ends up at Lake Balaton and knocks on her door, shivering the whole way.
When the wooden door behind the screen opens, it reveals that Elizaveta is as beautiful as the day she got married, but her coloring is how it was in the forests so long ago. Her dress is just as worn and cheap as his uniform is and the leggings underneath are as equally as stained as his trousers. Her boots are as worn as his and he knows that once again, they are equals. He has lost what remains of his empire, and she has lost two thirds of her people, two thirds of her land and her access to the sea. They're broken, and Ludwig and Roderick are both behind and ahead of them, and the loneliness is so deep he's desperate. He is so desperate to be broken with someone, anyone just to crush this hollow in him.
"Hey." He whispers. His shaking hands are jammed into his pockets, and his face is unshaven and what the hell is he thinking, doing this? But what the hell? He's desperate and they both know it.
"Hello." She says and the door opens for him.