Wow, here's a second chapter 0.0 This is the most motivated I've been to write in a while. There's a whole lot to research. I have some more new found respect for everybody who writes historical fiction. I've checked out three library books on the Cold War, have five to seven tabs open on the Berlin Wall...even so, I'm prone to overlooking certain points or misunderstanding. Just forewarning, though I am really trying to get this as historically correct as I possibly can. There's very little information I can get on the East Berlin, and my knowledge of how communism actually works is limited. There's lots about the West, and how America reacted to the Wall, but very little on the East. If anybody has something, that would be fantastic. I'm scavenging to the very edges of both library and internet for descriptions.
Oh, and speaking of limited knowledge, I am neither Protestant Christian nor Jewish. And I am so, so, sorry if I messed ANYTHING up. Please, please, PLEASE tell me.
Send me PM detailing your whole faith if you feel the need be. Give me a nine page message on how something should be depicted. I'm looking at what both sides of the Wall were like, stories, border troops, and sooner or later I'm going to have to see what communism is like. But, yeah. Heh. Sorry. Thanks.
He cocooned himself inside the large quilt of Mr. Edelstein's guestroom, cheek pressed to the pillow and teeth biting the inside of his lip, eyes so tightly shut that streaks of color shot behind his eyelids.
"Ludwig, szeretet," he heard Miss Elizabeta call softly from the other side of the door. "Are you awake?"
Yes, he was, didn't want to be but had been for the entire ugly night. He could count the number of hours of sleep he'd gotten in the past few days on one hand. He wanted to sleep. He really did. He was so tired all the time, too, and he wanted to escape, if only for a little while...
But the mind is a cruel, rebellious thing. It brought up his brother's face, sang his brother's words in his ears, sliced him open with the image of his brother alone on the other side of some terrible, apocalyptic wall, with the Soviets, away from him and probably more lonely and scared than Ludwig was...
The door creaked open, and he felt Miss Elizabeta's footsteps as she crossed into the room. The bed squeaked as she sat on the edge of it and brushed some light hair from his face.
"Ludwig," she repeated. "It's time to get up."
He might not be able to sleep, but he was proficient in feigning it. He curled further into the quilt.
Miss Elizabeta shook him gently. "Come on, drágám. Roderich and I have to go."
He turned over and looked at her at that, blinking. The soft morning light coming in from the window fell sweetly onto the floor, and he hated it for being so lovely.
"It's Saturday," he remarked in a flat voice. "What do you have to do?"
Miss Elizabeta smiled. "Rest, according to Yahweh. Saturday is the Sabbath."
Mr. Edelstein and Ms. Elizabeta were Jewish. It was exceptionally strange to him, as he and his brother were Lutheran Protestants and had known nothing else but Christianity. They weren't exactly devout Christians, but they still went to church most Sundays and, when summer was over, Ludwig was sent to Sunday School.
"I thought you told me that yesterday was the Sabbath," he said. He knew Ms. Elizabeta had said so. He remembered because she'd asked him to help clean, which he was more than happy to do in a vain effort to get his mind off Gilbert. She had been in a frenzy, leaving the house to go shopping, coming back and cleaning the house, occasionally joining Mr. Edelstein in the kitchen and cooking. It was chaotic to Ludwig's eyes.
"The Sabbath started," Ms. Elizabeta explained to him now. "Remember the candles?"
He nodded. She'd lit them at sunset. It was...well, it was definitely extremely important. He didn't quite know how, because he had ceased to understand what language she had switched to, but it seemed to be some kind of custom, and Gilbert had told him that all customs were respectable.
"The candles mark the beginning of the Sabbath with the commandments Zachor, remembering the Sabbath, and Shamor, observing the Sabbath. And then we drank the wine as celebration."
"Like what I do on Sundays with the Holy Communion, I think. But you don't believe in Jesus, so maybe not."
"No," she agreed. "You drink the Blood of your Christ. We drink wine in wait of ours."
"Gilbert told me there was only one God."
"There is. But we call to Him in different names and He answers in different ways. Get up, please, and get dressed. I would like to go to the morning service."
"But I'm not Jewish," he retorted indignantly.
"Yes, but Roderich and I agree that we certainly can't just leave you here alone. Think of it as going to church, only on a Saturday."
He made no response, just turned over.
"Ludwig," Ms. Elizabeta sighed.
"I'll be okay on my own," he said. "When Gilbert leaves for work, I'm alone all day and I'm fine."
"But you're not at your house anymore. Gilbert is -"
"I am perfectly aware of the current circumstances, Ms. Elizabeta. Thank you for the offer of joining you and Mr. Edelstein for your Sabbath celebration, but I'm not feeling well. I think I'd better stay here."
Her hand went to his forehead. He wanted to rip it off, but forced himself to remain civil. Her palm was cool against his skin, and rough with patting dough and the regular, daily toils of human life. She had big hands, like his brother's, and if he closed his eyes... if he closed his eyes and ignored the hard springs under his side, ignored the draft drifting over his face, ignored the stiffness of the quilt... he could almost imagine that everything was still okay.
Ms. Elizabeta flipped her hand, and he felt her knuckles roll against his skin. "You don't feel warm," she remarked, drawing her arm back. "Do you have a stomach ache?"
He shrugged and turned his face into the pillow. He didn't know why she was pushing him. If today was their day of rest, why wouldn't they let him stay in bed?
"Would you like me to stay?" she asked him.
"Don't worry about me," he mumbled. "I would hate to be an inconvenience."
"Don't say such a thing. I don't need to go every Saturday, and I can stay and Roderich can go this morning, and then in the evening we can switch -"
"I'd rather not be a trouble."
She gave him a pitying smile, but got up from the bed and went to the door. "We're not leaving just yet. There's some bread downstairs, if you're hungry..."
"Thank you, Ms. Elizabeta," he replied in blunt dismissal. The Hungarian woman shut the door, and he was finally, blissfully, alone again.
But the sudden presence and then sudden absence of another person next to him left Ludwig more upset than before. There was no stronger body emitting heat, no arm slung across him or big feet tossing sheets haphazardly onto the floor, no soft snoring...
His stomach twisted.
There was no other regular breath, no being jolted into consciousness and being told the most recent, fantastic dream, no hand to clutch to him if he had a nightmare...
The sparks behind his eyelids grew brighter.
No incoherent mumblings, no being accidentally steam rolled, no scent of dirt and sweat and metal...
His gut roiled. When he swallowed, something sweet and acidic rose in his throat. A chilling heat was cast over his skin, and he scrambled out of the bed and untangled himself from the quilt, throwing open the door with a slam and racing down the hall towards the bathroom before vomiting into the toilet. It made his throat burn and his legs weak, and his arms wrapped around his middle and he crouched over the toilet bowl, sobbing, barely able to breathe, which made everything worse.
He heard the door being pushed, and Ms. Elizabeta's sharp intake of breath.
"Oh, Ludwig, Ludwig, szeretet -"
He felt her hand on the back his neck, and he cried harder.
"Calm down," she kept repeating. "Shh, calm down, sweetheart. It's okay. It's alright."
He barely registered her picking him up, Mr. Edelstein coming in and helping him out of his clothes while Ms. Elizabeta turned on the shower. Water cascaded down his back, he was scrubbed, and then being helped into clean clothes. Mr. Edelstein sang, and it made his heart pang in the way that reminded one that something horrendous has happened.
"Oyfn pripetshik brent a fayerl,
Un in shtub iz heys,
Un der rebe lernt kleyne kinderlekh
Dem alef-beys…"
Ms. Elizabeta lifted him again and he clutched at the back of her dress, blubbering through sobs, snot bubbling under his nose and breath huh-huh-huffy with each inhale and exhale. He couldn't even help it. It hurt so bad.
He was dimly aware of being put back into a freshly-made bed, hands still firmly in Ms. Elizabeta's dress, because he didn't want to be alone, please, please, please don't leave me alone.
His name was repeated like a mantra, and he felt her hands running through his damp hair. His shuddering body pressed up against hers, so Ludwig didn't notice the tears running down her own face.
"It's okay," Ms. Elizabeta said again. "Miért itatod az egereket? Why do you give drinks to the mice? It's okay, it's okay."
The words were repeated countless times, even though they all knew that they were empty, hollow, and hopelessly, utterly, unspeakably broken.
"...Az ir vet, kinder, dem goles shlepn,
Oysgemutshet zayn,
Zolt ir fun di oysies koyekh shepn -
Kukt in zey arayn!
Zet zhe, kinderlekh, gedenkt zhe, tayere,
Vos ir lernt do;
Zogt zhe nokh a mol, un take nokh a mol,
Komets alef - o!
Oyfn pripetshik brent a fayerl,
Un in shtub iz heys,
Un der rebe lernt kleyne kinderlekh
Dem alef-beys."
"As you endure our years of suffering,
Their burden you will bear,
Be inspired by these little letters,
Their message for all to share.
"Listen carefully, remember, little ones,
What you're learning now,
Repeat it once again, again and yet again,
The sign under the Aleph is O.
"In the little hearth flickers a little flame,
Warmth spreads through the house,
And the rabbi teaches the little children,
The Hebrew aleph-bet."
Song: Oyfn Pripetshik. Yiddish.
szeretet - sweetheart (or something along those lines. Google Translate Hungarian).
drágám - dear (again, something along those lines. Hopefully. Google Translate Hungarian).
Also, currently writing Gilbert's POV. It won't just be Ludwig's.
:) Bye, thanks for reading!
xxSonoSveg