1956

[gwenchan]

 Fandom: Hetalia

Personaggi: HWS Ungheria, HWS Romania,

Rating: Teen and up audience

Additional tags: Alternate Universe_Humans, Minor OOC, Minor historical inaccuracy

Prompt: La strage dimenticata

 

The AVH was shooting on sight.

 

Erzsebeth could see them from outside her still broken window. The State Protection Authority on one side, protestors on the other. The image was somehow familiar. A policeman seemed to smile and wave at her as a flying projectile whistled inches past her head, crashing a porcelain vase on the shelf into pieces and adhering into the opposite wall.

Hand still gripped around the handle of a frying pan, Erszebeth pulled her arm backwards to charge the launch. She adjusted her aim, yelled in Hungarian and let go, sending the pan flying right at the police. She ducked before they could respond.

At her feet a man stirred to his senses, groaning.

 

***

 

"Care to explain why you broke into my apartment?"

Erzsebeth poured another cup of coffee, the radio a constant noise in the background.

The man from before curled his hands around his cup and shrugged. "It's not exactly quiet out there," he said, lips breaking into a sharp grin. "But I am sorry to have broken your window."

Erzsebeth huffed. She retrieved the sugar bowl put one, two spoonfuls into her coffee.

"Still not a good excuse to enter into someone else's home."

The man laughed. "I will make sure to knock next time," he said, tracing a quick cross onto his chest like kids used to do. "Though it didn't go too badly."

He nodded at his now empty cup and the box of cookies Erszebeth had pulled out from the pantry. After a moment of hesitation, Erszebeth poured him another.

"You are not from here. I heard it in your accent. If you are to be a guest, I want to know my guests' name."

"Andrei Ionescu at your service, Mrs"

"Miss. Erzsebeth Hedervary."

 

***

 

Since the day she was born, Erzsebeth Hedervary's life had been neatly divided into before and after.

There had been a life before the empire and one afterwards, though Erszebeth at the time was too little to remember anything safe from glimpses of maids and banquets in a villa just outside Budapest, that now hosted some kind of offices.

 

One life before a young Austrian scion asked for her hand in marriage and one life after, leaving behind horses and guns and hunting trips elbow to elbow with men to start acting like a proper lady in Vienna's highest circles. Lady Erszebeth they called her, going from a party to a concert and a soirée at the opera.

 

A life before Germany annexed Austria, a life after, from a bride to be to a disillusioned woman with no space for love anymore.

 

Roderich was a memory, a relict of a past life that wouldn't return. Erzsebeth had seen its last glimpses of glory before it came tumbling down.

All that could remind her of that time was gone. She had had a friend, once, someone with whom fistfight and hunt. He was gone too, after one last goodbye in which she allowed herself to be fragile one last time. She had cried, in Gilbert's arms, searching the boy she knew once in the soldier before her. He still resented her for having chosen another.

That man was gone too, lost like many others in Russian lands.

 

There had been a life before the war, another one, not the same in which papa fought and lost an eye, and one life after.

 

One life before the Soviets, a life after.

 

Now she was sure there would be one life before a man crashed through her window and one life after.

 

"And what is someone like you doing here?" She wondered out loud, glaring suspiciously at Andrei. He grinned.

 

"Looking for your virgins to suck their blood", he said. Erzsebeth stared back, unperturbed." I am neither young nor a virgin. You should search somewhere else, Dracula. Now, what are you doing it here?"

 

"I'm a student. Engineering. Well, I took a sabbatical. Travelling. Looking around," He made a wide and vague gesture around him. Erzsebeth snorted

 

"Not the best time to visit."

 

The echo of the shooting still going on the streets seemed to be perfectly timed as if to prove her right. The kitchen was luckily on the other side of the road. She closed the door nonetheless.

 

 

Andrei laughed. "What can I say? I'm a lucky man". He grabbed a biscuit, making it disappear into his mouth as if by a magic trick. As he stretched toward the trail to take another, Erszebeth slapped his hand away.

 

"Stop. Or you will spoil your appetite."

 

She didn't tell him she intended to host him for the night, at least; until things would calm down, really. She simply ordered Andrei to be useful and begin cutting the vegetables for dinner and to not touch anything else.

 

"And what about you?" he asked over the soup, with the same sharp smile. "Why aren't you with them?"

 

Erzsebeth couldn't answer. The only thing she knew was the time for revolutions was gone. Everybody who once knew her would have turned in their grave.

 

She didn't sleep that night. And not only because Andrei was a snorer. Not only to keep an eye on him because trust was good, but control was better.

 

 

***

 

Erszebeth frying pan was still where she launched it. It had been three days. She found it lying on a wall, another relict of the fights. it was slightly dented on the side on which it had hit the ground. She picked it up, examining it. There were traces of blood left on the metal. She cleaned it against the fabric of her skirt, brought it back in the kitchen, and left it to soak into soapy water, the radio giving the last updates in the background.

 

 

 

 

That much she could do.

 

 

Andrei had left just some hours ago, almost as soon as the cease-fire was announced and the roads went quite enough. Erzsebeth didn't tell him he didn't exactly have to, but neither she invited him to stay longer.

 

She had watched him disappearing behind the corner, with the fast pace typical of young people, then she had closed the door and returned to her errands. She needed to go grocery shopping soon.

 

 

***

 

The police didn't knock. They slammed the door open and marched inside like they owned the place, their boots clicking onto her pristine floor.

"I see good manners got lost to you," Erzsebeth commented, coolly. Even Andrei while breaking into her house had been more polite. He, at least, had had an excuse and even offered to repair the window afterwards. 

 

These policemen didn't. They didn't apologize. 

"Do you know this man?" the first one asked. He stuck a small photo right under Erszebeth's nose. It was small, quite anonymous, even a bit ugly, the kind of portrait found on passports and school Yearbook.

The face looking back at her was younger, but the reddish hair was the same. 

 

"No," she lied. 

 

"We have witnesses affirming they saw him exiting your house on the 28th of October. Maybe another look," the first guard pressed. 

 

Erzsebeth considered her options. Logically, she had no reason to lie when she did nothing willingly against the law. All she did was giving shelter to a passerby while gunplays were happening in the street. She did not pass or hide documents. A voice inside told her they did not care whether she did or not.

 

She took a deep breath. Once she could have won them in combat in a skirt and without breaking a sweat. She shouldn't be afraid of them. They were only mere soldiers. She had been the daughter of a count, her family tracing back for generations to when Huns still roamed Hungarian meadows.

 

She raised her head and adjusted her posture. 

 

"He broke into my house, looking for shelter. I would have too if people began shooting in the streets. I knocked him down. I do not like people entering my home uninvited. Then we had a coffee. I offered him dinner and a place to stay till things calmed down. It was the right thing to do."

 

The two men looked at each other. "Did he say something? Anything?"

 

"We did not talk about politics if that is what you are asking."

 

"We still need you to follow us to the station."

 

"And on what charges?"

 

The first guard made to touch her. Erzsebeth retreated with disgust. "Ma'am, do not worsen your situation. Please."

 

They were blocking the door. The window wasn't too far, but the days when she could think of hiding in the woods were gone. 

 

"After you."

 

She did not worsen her situation. Somewhere inside her, she wished she had

 

***

 

 

 

They interrogated her. They threatened her. They beat and tortured her.

 

Erszebeth always answered the same way. She made herself learn a lesson and repeated it like a kid before a professor 

 

Andrei Ionescu broke into her house to seek shelter from the firing on the street. She hosted him out of compassion. They didn't talk about politics. She had never seen him before. He did not tell her where he planned to go afterwards."

 

They asked the same thing the day after. She didn't change the answer. 

 

"Why did you throw a frying pan toward our men?"

 

"It was a momentary impulse." 

 

***

 

It didn't save her from being condemned to detention in a State prison. But it didn't mean she wasn't lucky. A combination of insisting on claiming ignorant, not finding any subversive material in her house, her past and the protection of her family name protected her from worse fates. 

It was still not good. But it could be much, much more terrible. 

 

The cell was empty but clean and there was even a small window - too little to pass through - up near the ceiling. Erszebeth flopped onto the bunk bed. Hearing the lock click closed, her stomach twisted. It wasn't fear; neither it was sadness. It was something she had felt the day she saw that soldier smile at her outside the window, subtle but persistent. An emotion she almost forgot: anger.

 

Anger against the Soviets. Anger against the Germans before them. Anger against the soldiers who came to arrest her. But, above all, what pained Erszeneth the most, what truly made her furious, was the knowledge she didn't do anything when she could have done so much more.

 

She didn't do anything and yet here she was. She had become a shame to herself. 

 

Gilbert would laugh in her face, telling her frequenting the little Austrian gentleman made her go soft. Had he been before her now, she wouldn't hesitate to slap him as he deserved.

 

But Gilbert wasn't there. He was gone, probably dead. She cried in his arms last time they met. She felt like crying now too. 

 

"What?" his ghost cackled in the dim light of her cell. He had always looked like the part. "What is that face? Since when did you become a pussy?" 

 

"Shut up!"

 

She punched him, cursing when her fist hit the wall with enough force the bruise. The ghost laughed louder. Even in her imagination, he still had the same horrible sound.

 

She cried louder in response. "Shut up! I am not! I'm not! I'm not!"

"Then prove it!" the ghost roared. 

 

 

"How?" Erzsebeth whispered, massaging her hurt hand. She was old. She was tired. She had been a lady, loved and revered, now she was only a woman feeling alone, terribly alone.

 

"Survive." the ghost ordered like it was the most obvious thing. "Unless of course, you forgot that too. Well, I wouldn't be surprised. With Erszi I wouldn't have any doubt. With you, on the other end ..."

 

"I will" she shook her head. "Don't be cocky, Beilshmidt. I will survive. You know it."

 

She would have. She had to, to restore her pride, to see a Hungary free again, and, above all, to cancel that smile from Gilbert Beishmodt's stupid face.

 

His ghost grinned. "Good. You still owe me a hunting trip."

 

***

 

Erzsebeth Hedervary was seven years older when Kadàr's government decided to release her along with all other political prisoners. She found her old apartment was sold in the meantime she enjoyed her cell. It was to be expected. 

 

It bothered her. It bothered her a lot. But the thought she could have lost more held back her hand. She asked whom it might concern to fix things. The hostel is small, empty but it is clean and the view of the Danube is quite breathtaking. 

 

It was one of the things she missed most. At her feet, it was her bag full of the drawings that helped the time pass a little faster. She hid letters in the picture, she carved messages and saved memories 

 

Outside was late, but she was not tired. She couldn't be. She had work to do.

 

***

 

"I thought you were dead."

The man across her had grey streaks in his hair and wrinkles drawing chicken feet around his mount and eyes, but there were no doubts he was the same Andrei she knocked unconscious and then hosted under her roof years ago. Soon it would be fifteen. 

He grinned. "I told you. Did you forget? I'm a vampire. They did not have any wooden stick."

 

She didn't reciprocate. "Coffee or tea?"

"Coffee, please."

 

She fixed two cups and cut two slices from the cake she bought. 

They didn't talk much, especially they didn't talk about politics. The times were not safe yet. Even more, she wasn't keen to relive those days. She'd rather know if Andrei had graduated. 

"Of course I did," he said. "But I couldn't have if it weren't for you. Thank you for not having sold me."

"I did nothing," she quirked an eyebrow at him. He laughed, spluttering coffee all around. 

"You did. Or I wouldn't be here now."

 

***

 

A letter came into the mail just a week ago, the handwriting familiar despite the years. A brief letter, but enough to make her lose her balance for a moment.

She had to read the signature two times to be sure eyes weren't playing tricks on her.

Then, she smiled. She should prepare.

 

She had an old friend to meet