Wrapped 'Round in Kindness
.
Now if only Dr. Pisani knew I was writing this...
Title: Wrapped ‘Round in Kindness
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Characters: America, England, Canada, alternating with the English composer Benjamin Britten
Words: 6600
Rating: PG-13. One set of scenes is cute and light. The rest is Peter Grimes.
The Erae: On one side, 1700; on the other, 1942-1945.
Summary: Harpsichords, bunnies, and ominous poetry. Bring the branding iron and knife // For what’s done now is done for life.
Wrapped ‘Round in Kindness
axis powers hetalia
Mithrigil Galtirglin
19 December, C.E. 1700
It’s a box on stilts.
No, really, it’s a box on stilts. Three stilts. It’s about as long as England is tall, and as tall as America and a head taller than Canada if you count the box part. It looks big enough that America could hide inside it but it wouldn’t be comfortable, it’s a triangle and that means he’d either have to curl his feet up or fit with his head at the pointy part and America doesn’t think he’s that small anymore. So it’s not a dead-person box. Unless there are dead triangle-shaped people. And England wouldn’t bring a dead-person box into the living room and leave it there.
Or maybe he would. England can talk to dead people like he talks to faeries. Maybe he needs to talk with the person in the box. And that’s really scary but it’s not like America’s going to tell anyone he’s scared. And it’s nighttime (England’s back late, this time, late and cranky, there was something wrong with the tide, he said) and nighttime is when the ghosts like to come out. So he’ll just not go anywhere near the box.
Except it’s a really pretty box. The legs are smooth and carved into shapes that are like feet but not, more like vines, and they curl around the corners that support the top. The box part is smooth all around, has a lip and long dents where it’s supposed to open (two places? Three? The wider section is lower than the rest) but even though America can reach it he can’t push it high enough and see inside at the same time. The whole thing is made of shining wood that’s not really red and not really black, more like the color America’s breeches turn when he can’t scrub the blood from his skinned knees away, except it’s pretty. Maybe it doesn’t have a dead triangle-shaped person in it. Maybe it has something better in it like trebuchets for America’s toy soldiers or paints for his room or good breakfast food (because breakfast is the only good food that England makes and he makes a lot of it) or bunnies. Yes. Bunnies. There are bunnies in the box, it’s a big enough box for bunnies, except the bunnies should be free.
So America has to open the box. Especially if there are bunnies inside it. It’s as tall as he is, though, he needs a chair to stand on, there’s a stool right next to the box-on-stilts and it’s made of the same kind of wood as the box so maybe he’s supposed to open it. He picks up the stool and plunks it down so he can stand on it and get the top of the box open, it’s-not a really stable stool, the top of it spins around and the cushion is sinking and-
“America!”
Oops.
For a second there America is lifted up even higher, but then he’s turned around and England is carrying him tightly (England’s so big, America wants to be that big someday, and he will, he knows it) and is somewhere between frowning and saying something like he always says, “America, you could have fallen off and hit your head,” this, that, the other thing.
“But what about the bunnies?” America says.
England’s eyebrows are in the shape that means there probably aren’t bunnies in that box. Or anywhere else. Unless they’re surprise bunnies. But even if they’re surprise bunnies they can’t be happy in that box, there’s no grass in there and it must be like being locked in a closet and that’s not fun-
“Come now,” England says instead, and he swings America around a little, turns, starts leading him through the door out of the drawing room (why’s it called a drawing room if you can’t draw on the walls, though?). “Canada’s already in bed, and didn’t you want me to finish telling you about Prospero and Ariel?”
Okay, maybe the bunnies can wait a little.
But even when he’s nuzzling into England’s neck as he’s carried out the door, it means he’s staring at the box. “I promise I’ll free you later, bunnies,” he whispers and uses England’s fluffy collar to muffle that. England still smells like the sea, like time and tar and freedom, or, well. If time and freedom had smells they might smell like England. Tar has a smell, though.
Also, America really wants to say, you don’t have to carry me, except England was away for so long this time and America missed him. So it’s okay. And he holds on tighter, so England makes this little “oof” sound and holds on tighter too.
When they get to the room America and Canada share (not because the house isn’t big enough but because it’s warmer that way, and it’s December now), Canada’s already curled up under the blankets. America wriggles out of England’s arms and steps onto the bed, kicks off his slippers, and starts telling Canada, “There are bunnies in the drawing room. In that really big box.”
Canada just makes a sleepy noise and twitches his nose.
“Rabbits?” England asks from the hearth, where he’s gathering up the stones that have been warming there to put on the foot of the bed. “In what box?”
“The box on stilts,” America says. Is England pretending not to know about it?
England laughs, deposits the wrapped-up stones on the covers. America snuggles closer to them, and to England because he’s sitting close to them too. “There are no bunnies in the harpsichord,” England says.
“How do you know until you open it?”
“I’ll show you in the morning. Now, where’d we leave off with Prospero…?”
Canada yawns, loudly.
“But I want to know now,” America says.
-
15 August, C.E. 1942
“I’m going to write an opera,” the petitioner says, “and it is going to be about precisely why I don’t want anything to do with this war.”
England raises his eyes, intrigued-and then lowers them, to assess the names and dates and credentials on the page before him. Britten, Edward Benjamin, it begins in the topmost, and this is an appeal. He’s already been turned down once-certainly the type to put the conscientious in conscientious objector.
“Oh?” England says, and then actually looks at the young man.
Edward Benjamin Britten has a thin, resolute face and eyebrows that seem perpetually downturned. His hair is curled more than slightly, pushed off his face but not with pomade-he’s dressed sensibly as well, in earth-tones, tweed. Skinny legs, like England’s. A direly set mouth and a branch of a nose. Too young to be a gentleman but that’s changing, isn’t it.
His answer is, “Yes, I’ve already begun work on it.”
Edward Benjamin Britten. Royal College of Music. An extensive collaboration with-oh. Auden, in the States.
England asks, “On what subject?”
“George Crabbe, The Borough,” Britten answers. “His Peter Grimes character, in particular. I can’t very well write that if you conscript me, or send me to prison.”
“No,” England says, “you can’t,” but that’s not in any way permission and his tone makes that clear. He turns over another page of the form, to Britten’s prior application. “But we have always put off our dreams and aspirations for the sake of the nation.”
“The nation is more than its safety,” Britten says. “You are more than your land and your people. You are your history. You are your future.”
Edward Benjamin Britten. England turns another page. “You’re more than a pacifist, aren’t you.”
Britten’s answer is to nod, just once, and keep his eyes lowered. “My objection isn’t just to the war itself. I know that you have to defend yourself against the aggressors,” he says, plainly eschewing the word enemy, and then, corrects, “that we must defend ourselves. My objection is to the existence of war, the presence of war.”
“Are you religious?”
“No,” he says, very quickly. “Well yes, but that’s not why. I know, I know because they asked me in my initial interview, you ‘have the army to defend the land’. That’s something God can’t always provide for,” he adds wryly, looking up a touch. “He helps those who help themselves, does he not? He helps those who try and make His world better, who try and bring Him out in humanity, who bring out the image of Himself that He built us on. And for some of us, that’s their devotion, that’s them…that’s them fighting to keep Him alive in us all. And for others of us, there is art.”
“And you cannot create art in prison,” England says.
Britten-laughs, after a fashion. It is not much of a laugh at all, a short, veiled, breathy sound. Like Japan’s, in a way, only not deliberately muffled. “You can,” he says, “you can create anything at all in prison. But it won’t reach nearly as many people. And I already have my lead tenor-and you let him object, so why not me?”
-
19 December, C.E. 1700
“But this rough magic I here abjure,” England is saying, it’s from memory but it’s like he’s reading a book, “and, when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for-“
“Canada’s asleep,” America says.
“So he is.” England reaches down, tugs the comforter a little higher on Canada’s body, which also pulls it over America’s neck but America pushes it back down again, looks up hopefully.
“Can I see the bunnies now?”
“I told you there aren’t any rabbits in the harpsichord.” The blankets shift higher on America again, and England ruffles his shoulder. “And besides, it’s time for you to sleep too.”
“I’m not tired.”
Maybe England’s not as cranky as he seemed to be when he got off the ship and had the box brought in and everything, because he doesn’t just say yes you are. He does sigh, though, and bend over to kiss America between the eyes, then Canada, who shuffles and murmurs something and flings an arm out under the covers. Canada grabs America’s shift and America can’t help whining a little, it’s like they expect him to sleep or something. “I’ll show you in the morning, all right?”
“But the bunnies might be ghosts by morning.”
“There aren’t any rabbits in the harpsichord.”
“What’s a harpsichord?”
“I’ll show you in the morning,” England says, again, slower, maybe a little angrier. His forehead is wrinkly like the blankets and America wants to smooth it out.
“So you won’t be gone in the morning?”
“I just got here,” England says, like America should know.
“Doesn’t mean you won’t be gone in the morning.” America pouts, tries to cross his arms and sit up straight at the same time but that doesn’t really work.
That…that changed the way England’s face was knotted. It’s softer now, smoother, a little. America manages to sit up, now, leans in, peers at it.
“I’m tired,” England explains, whispering, and leaning just a little closer to America as well, making a point, a serious point. “Very tired. I just sailed in, and I want to sleep, and I can’t sleep unless I know you’re sleeping.”
That was…that was really convincing. So America tries to say this the same way and look at England the same serious way England just treated him. “I’m not tired,” he starts, “and I won’t be able to sleep until I know what a harpsichord is. And why there aren’t any bunnies in it.”
And it does work, because even though England’s sighing again, he comes out of it smiling and shaking his head, a little. “And you’ll try and find out on your own if I go to sleep without making sure you do, won’t you.”
America nods firmly, grins. “Uh-huh!” That’s exactly right.
England groans a little (quietly, though) and gets up from the bed. “Don’t wake your brother,” he says just as quietly, and steps back, padding quietly out the bedroom door and gesturing for America to follow him. And maybe America’s not as quiet as he should be scrambling out of the bedclothes but Canada doesn’t wake up or anything (or at least America doesn’t think so) and he’s caught up with England before England’s made it back to the drawing room.
“At least it’s not an organ,” England is saying by the time they actually get there, and America stands on tiptoes to see inside as England opens the box, then pulls a kind of cane out of it to hold the lid up at an angle. “You see? No rabbits.”
“…um,” America says.
It’s really very pretty inside the box. The underside of the lid is painted, has these crisp carvings of vines and flowers in green and gold and pink (like England’s eyes and hair and his face when he gets angry sometimes). But the actual box part of the box is more interesting, it has these…wires, lots of wires in straight lines like rows of corn or cotton, starting out thick at the long part of the triangle and getting thinner and shorter. And there are these…wood buttons on top of every string, at the thickest part of the box, the part with the lip that hangs over. It looks very complicated. America wants to take it apart and-
“Don’t touch,” England says, taking America’s wrist and pulling his hand away from the strings. “That’s not how you play it.”
“It’s for playing with?”
“It’s for playing music on. Like drums and reeds and fiddles. Or singing, I suppose. But a harpsichord has to stay in one place, and this one is going to stay here.”
America smiles. Even if he’s not very good at music he does like the songs he’s heard from England and France and Cherokee and Iroquois and he’s made up a couple of his own. Well. Actually he’s just changed the words to a few of theirs. But he thinks they’re good words. “Show me how to play it!”
The spinning stool is only big enough for one, so England hauls over the Windsor chair and tucks the desk part of it away so America can sit too. America’s feet don’t reach the floor but England’s do and he lifts the other lid and oh, those are buttons, real black and white buttons and knobs and dials and America wants to push all of them.
England has to touch his America’s hands again to make him stop. “Watch me,” he says, and he reaches over, pulls one of the knobs and then flexes his knuckles, rests his fingertips on some of the long black buttons. His hands are curled funnily, like crabs. And then he presses down and-
Oh. This is better than bunnies. It’s sounds, lots of sounds at once! They’re plinking things and they pop in the air like bugs and bubbles and sparks and America figures out that when one of England’s fingers hits the black and white buttons that’s what makes the sounds come out which means he must be moving his hands really really fast but it’s hard to watch because he’s also trying to listen-it’s a dance, he’s playing a dance, like France plays on the oboe and Iroquois did on the drums. America stands up on the seat of the Windsor chair and dances too, he can clap his hands every three beats maybe and it won’t sound so bad, and it doesn’t sound so bad so he keeps doing it and is glad he’s not wearing his stockings anymore even if the chair is all cold because then he’d slip.
“Don’t wake your brother,” England says, even though he’s still playing-you can play this thing and talk at the same time! France can’t do that on the oboe! So America stops clapping (or at least clapping so loudly) and-stops dancing too, when he realizes that where he’s standing he can see into the string-filled part of the box. And those wooden buttons on the inside, not the ones that England’s pressing but the ones that the one’s he’s pressing are pressing-those are moving, and something’s making the strings move, that must be it!
The song gets to a point where it’s a lot of notes at once and sounds like home or a stopping place (America’s not sure how, especially since he wants to keep dancing, there shouldn’t be stopping-places in music at all!) and England looks up at him. He looks-he looks proud and happy and yes maybe a little tired but proud and happy and that’s important. He darts his eyes at where America was looking, inside the box part of the harpsichord, and then up again. “Watch,” he says, “this is how it works; you press a key like this,” he does, “and it pushes up a dowel on the inside. And the dowel has a plectrum-kind of like a pick or a fingernail, on it, and that hits the-“
America bends down and presses all the keys he can hit. At the same time.
“-string,” England sighs. “America, if you hit all of them at once, you will wake up Canada and you promised me you wouldn’t. Also, you’ll break it, you have to be careful, I know how strong you are-“
America grins, and blushes, well a little. He likes it when England remembers that.
“-so try hitting only one at a time.”
“But you can hit lots of them at once, I saw you do it-“
“That takes practice,” England says, “and patience-“
America hits with only one hand this time. All five fingers and his palm, though. The sound is really funny, like glass breaking. So he does it again. Crunchy! Like pebbles and dancing and-
…oh. The proud and happy parts of England’s face are gone and now he just looks tired again.
-
2 August, C.E. 1943
Saint Matthew’s in Northampton is an odd place to hear the choir going on about a dead man’s cat. The cat’s name is Jeoffry. The music is ominous, occasionally bombastic, dissonant. Compellingly dissonant, England dares to say. Aloud, even, to Britten, who sits at his right hand.
“Thank you,” Britten replies.
The custom of discourse-during-performance has changed over the years. When theatre was young and England was not, music was the dressing of the scene and not its focus. Hawkers hawked and groundlings laughed and men plotted war in the balconies, and these days are gone, centuries gone. But it was Richard Wagner who blacked out and silenced the house, and Wagner is the province of the enemy, and so England feels no qualms in asking Britten “And how is the Borough opera coming along?” even as the treble soloist still sings:
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
Britten considers this shyly for a moment, head inclined toward the pews, almost into the shadows of the patrons sitting in front of him. “Slowly. I’ve had other projects. And it takes work to mount an opera, I’m sure you remember.”
“I do,” England says, and does. The organ accompaniment to this piece is winding, appropriate to the sinuous motions of a cat. England still prefers the harpsichord but no one uses it anymore. “I’ve read the poem,” he goes on. “Your hero’s quite a scoundrel.”
“Peter Grimes is not the hero,” Britten says. “Well. He’s becoming it. Of the opera at least. But he’s not heroic. He doesn’t…do, anything heroic.”
“I thought you said the opera would be about the war.”
“Abstractly,” Britten says. “About the humanity that creates war.”
England nods, can appreciate that. The treble sings-beautifully, For this is done by wreathing his body seven times ‘round with elegant quickness.
Britten says, so quietly, deferent and near, “I’m not…I’m not trying to tell people that Peter Grimes was a good man, or that the people were wrong to condemn him or fear him. He’s not a good man-he’s negligent, and he’s abusive to those boys…they do die because of him, you know, just not directly. One of thirst, out at sea, water everywhere but none to drink. And the other falls, because he is afraid of staying with him. He didn’t kill them, but he’s still responsible for their deaths.”
“Are the boys to be sung by trebles?” England asks. If this choir piece is any indication, Britten has a remarkable facility writing for the voices of children.
“No,” Britten says, “the apprentice boys have no voices. If the boys had voices, you’d know whether Grimes was good or bad, wouldn’t you?”
England remembers this poem now. A madman wrote it, when the world was mad as well. For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually - Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
-
20 December, C.E. 1700
America wakes up with the sun, after dreaming of bunnies that speak like harpsichords. (He’s actually never heard a bunny make noises like cows and horses and dogs and birds do-how do they talk to each other? Maybe they do talk like harpsichords, just not when America can hear them? Or they speak with their feet, their feet make a lot of sound…) Canada’s not next to him in bed, though, and his side of it is pulled neat up to the corner.
…actually, someone is playing with the harpsichord.
So America rolls out of bed and starts running to the drawing room without even putting his stockings on (even though the floor is really really cold!) and he’s ready to clap and dance again even if the music’s not as fast or crunchy this time.
“Keep your hands arched like this,” England is saying to-to Canada, who’s sitting on a book on top of the spinny stool while England’s on the Windsor chair next to him. They’re both playing the buttons-keys, America remembers, England said they were keys-and Canada’s concentrating really hard. It sounds like they’re playing the same thing only on different levels or at different heights, and Canada’s putting his fingers down a little later than England so the lower sounds must be to the left and the higher ones to the right, “Good,” England says, “very good,” and it’s not to America.
America wants to play too.
He runs across the floor and hops next to Canada and plops his hands onto the keys again (there are two rows of keys, does that mean two people can play together?) and looks up at England and smiles and says just that, “I want to play too!”
England looks at him sternly, even more cross about it than he was last night- “America, you had your turn. This is Canada’s turn to learn to play. Why don’t you go get washed up and dressed, it’s almost time for breakfast.” And that…that didn’t even sound like a question.
“But you’re here!” is all America can say. “How can you be here and not play with me?”
“America, go get dressed.”
Well, fine. He’ll go get dressed. His feet don’t make much noise stamping toward his room but the door makes plenty. One big thump. Almost as loud as the harpsichord. Which England is still playing. With Canada and not America. And it doesn’t even sound like music, it just sounds like the same sounds over and over and over.
America gets washed up outside, like England told him to, and gets dressed, and even finishes making up the bed. Even Canada’s side. And he feels a lot better after leaving a dead frog under the covers.
-
7 June, C.E. 1945
To hell with all your mercy!
The allegory is plain. The music is frightening. England does not care for it, knows he is not meant to care for it, he’s meant to appreciate it, and he can appreciate that it was written and he can hate that it had to be, and so England does both. Because he can.
The titular character’s voice is grating, lean, dry-dry, on this stage of Sturm und Drang and oh, Master Britten, don’t you dare presume that England will let that go unnoticed, not that and not all the drawn out E-flats of hell after hell after hell.
I assure you, England thinks, decisively, I know where we’re all going.
A thousand unseen voices demand, Peter Grimes, Peter Grimes, and they keep demanding it until the man is told to go out and kill himself at sea. That it would be best to take his boat and sink it.
The townsfolk watch, from shore. They watch, and they accept, and they do not care, and they sing about it. Opera-in-idleness, spectators of a man undone.
England is profoundly uncomfortable-despite his awe, at the craft, at the audacity of it-when he offers Britten his congratulations. Britten is much the same, becardiganed and just as ill-at-ease.
“Was it worth letting me off the hook?” he asks England, shaking the Nation’s hand.
“Undoubtedly,” England answers. “Though I wish you’d written it sooner.”
“I had other commissions,” Britten says, letting go. “Have to make a life for myself, you know.”
“Yes.”
“And I have someone to support,” Britten adds. “Or someone to support me, now, I suppose.”
“The tenor.”
“Yes.”
“He is of remarkable character,” England says diplomatically, because he cannot comment on the quality of Pears’ voice, not aloud, and certainly not now.
Britten nods, agreeing, perhaps understanding. “Why do you wish I’d written it sooner?”
“It might be too late to learn from it,” England says. “Or perhaps its lesson will be conflated with another. I can’t know. And I know that the people who need most to hear this story would not have listened long.”
“That’s the trouble with opera,” Britten says. “You have to listen to it.”
England laughs-it turns into a laugh they share, and the laugh dapples off into hissing, sighing, from both of them, until the murmuring crowd, criticising and commenting, stifles it entirely.
“You’re welcome to drop in and commission me, if you have a mind to,” Britten says. “I don’t have much nagging at me this month.”
“Potsdam,” England apologises. “I will be in Potsdam,” letting America end the war.
“Bring the branding iron and knife // For what’s done now is done for life,” Britten says. Or said.
-
20 December, C.E. 1700
Canada is crying himself to sleep, in England’s bedroom. Canada doesn’t like dead things.
Good, America thinks, and thinks maybe he could kill the harpsichord too so Canada doesn’t like it anymore.
America’s not sleeping. America’s balled up on his side of the bed (he doesn’t mind dead things even though he minds ghosts, a lot, a lot a lot, and he doesn’t think the frog has a ghost (but what if it does and what if it’s angry with him?) but he’s still not going to sleep where the dead frog was because it smells funny. He can still hear Canada, a little, England’s door must be open-yes, it is, if America squints he can see a little bit of candlelight from the hallway because his door is open too.
Stupid Canada. Stupid harpsichord. Stupid everything.
-“Stupid frog,” America adds, because it still smells funny. Death must smell funny. Or maybe just frogs.
After a while, the sounds of Canada whimpering get quieter and quieter and then they stop. The hearth is louder than them now. America should probably go over and gather up the stones to put in the bed because it’s actually really cold tonight, maybe even colder inside than it is outside. But America’s mostly warm where he is even if it smells like dead frog (he really should have thought this through a little more), and he knows that if he gets out from under the covers it’ll take even more time to get warm again because the covers won’t be warm anymore either. England always brings the stones to the bed… Maybe I should make blankets that warm themselves, America thinks, so they don’t need any stones or fire or anything. And they’d stay warm for longer too. But I can’t just set the blankets on fire because there won’t be any blankets anymore. He turns his face into the pillow shams. They’re cold and dim and a little shocking, and he shivers.
“America?”
It’s England, in the doorway. America wants to see him but it’s warm under here, so he doesn’t look. Or make a sound. But it’s England and England’s so big and so smart, he knows America’s here anyway, and soon the mattress of the bed is sinking a little near America’s feet because England must be sitting on it.
“America,” he says again, closer. “America, how did a frog get into your bed?”
“It was a squirrel,” America says to the pillows. It feels a little warmer where he breathed and he moves closer to it.
“A squirrel,” England repeats. He doesn’t believe America, and he sounds it.
America has to lie better. “A squirrel,” he tells the pillows again. Maybe it’s more convincing?
England makes a hmm sound, and America hears a little tapping too, like fingers on keys. Oh. That’s where that hand-gesture comes from, when England drums his fingers on his knees or on the desk or on the table, it’s like the harpsichord. Stupid harpsichord. “And how did a squirrel get in your bedroom?”
“Through the window,” America says.
“And how did it open the window?”
“It was open.”
“It’s December.”
“…I was hot?” America tries. And then he remembers that he’s under lots and lots of blankets right now and he’d really love if there were hearthstones piled up at his feet. And maybe Canada to sleep close to because Canada’s warm too. Or England. Maybe England will sleep in here tonight because Canada’s not here? Or maybe England doesn’t like the dead frog smell either.
Maybe England thinks America is bad.
“Well, if you were hot,” England’s saying, “maybe I should put the fire out for tonight.”
-no no no he really does-
“No!” America says, and that’s a mistake, he shouldn’t have said it and shifted like that because now it’s colder under the blankets and they’re not covering his feet as well and there still aren’t any stones (also maybe he kicked England). “I mean,” he tries again, “I mean I might be cold tonight. So don’t put the fire out?” And then he remembers, “…please?”
England sighs, and it’s not the happy sigh, it’s the America you’re in trouble sigh. “I don’t know,” he’s saying, smartly, innocently, “what if the squirrels come down through the chimney this time? I don’t want them to burn up….”
America shuffles under the covers more, tries to get warm again-doesn’t work, though, now the top of his head is cold, he’s scrunched up the blankets. “Maybe it wasn’t a squirrel?”
“Oh?”
“Maybe it was the faeries?” America tries. England can see ghosts and faeries, maybe if they’re actually real the faeries will cover up for him.
“Oh,” England says again. America peeks out from under the hem of the blankets-England’s eyes are turned up the way they often are when he talks to the faeries, because they’re usually a little behind and over his head. He listens to them for a bit, then nods, and leans a little forward to look America in the eyes. “The faeries say you did it.”
America groans. And ducks under the blankets again.
England’s hand catches the hems, though, and pulls them down so America’s eyes and nose are exposed. He looks…when he’s sad and angry the green of his eyes is still shiny but different, somehow, less like seaweed (which isn’t the right color but still pretty close) and more like glass. And that’s how he looks, like glass with bubbles and cracks in it and America wants it to stop.
“Why’d you make your brother cry, America?”
“I didn’t know he’d cry,” America says. It’s true. But it’s a little muffled since his chin is still under the blankets and when he looks into England’s eyes he thinks he might have to say it more or say it again or say something, anything-he nudges the blankets down a little more and puts his cheek near England’s hand (so warm) and tries to say it, tells the whole truth, “You were teaching Canada to play the harpsichord and you were cross with me and you weren’t playing with me and you’re never here, you’re always with India or the islands or you’re just not here or you’re back at your house and then when you are here you don’t pay attention to me and I just want you to be here and.” No. America shouldn’t cry too. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. “And I want. I. I want you to pay attention to me. But I didn’t mean to make Canada cry, I was just angry and I-”
America has always liked how England’s hands feel. It’s like they’re old but they pretend not to be, they’re scratchy in some places like unsanded wood but so soft in others, softer than spun cotton and hair and shoe leather and always warm, always always warm. England puts his palm against America’s cheek and his fingers through America’s hair and America turns over to trap it on the pillows with his chin and his neck. Stay here. Stay here.
“-I thought you liked everyone else better than me.”
“No,” England whispers, “no, I could never,” and America thinks that maybe his cheek isn’t enough to keep England’s hand there so he grabs his wrist too. And now his knuckles are cold but England’s skin isn’t and maybe that will change everything.
“I want it to be just us,” America says (because if he doesn’t say it he thinks he’ll cry and he doesn’t want to cry), “I want it to be just me, just you and me in the whole world.”
England…doesn’t say anything, but the pads of his fingers shift a little, and then again, so America holds him tighter. And it does make things warmer, a little, but his other cheek is cold, so cold, is he really going to make America sleep without the fire tonight? (America really should work on making a blanket that keeps itself warm…)
“Can it?” America tries. “Can it be just us?”
“But then what would happen to Canada?” England asks. “He’s your brother, don’t you want him to be safe?”
Stupid Canada. But America can’t really say no to that, he loves Canada, just…just not as much as he loves England. “The faeries can take care of him,” he tries. “I want it to be just you and me.”
England laughs-why did he laugh?, that’s not funny, it’s true!-and leans over to turn his cheek to the pillows and kiss America between the eyes. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he says, a little before he’s pulled back and up again. “Can you wake up early tomorrow morning?”
“Why?”
“Because if you promise to let me teach Canada how to play the harpsichord, I’ll take you hunting and teach you how to shoot a gun.”
“Really?” America springs up and-oh, he forgot, it’s cold, and he’s still holding England’s wrist which means that-ow. His shoulder-England’s chest. “Sorry!”
But England doesn’t make him let go or anything, just grimaces a little. “I-really,” he says, “if you promise me and your brother you’ll let us have time together too. And you must never, ever use the guns while I’m not here.”
“Of course I won’t!” Forget the cold, America flings everything down and hugs England so tight, so tight because he can and he wants to and someday maybe it will be just them, this way. “And I won’t shoot Canada either!”
England-shivers. And it’s not a good shiver. “I never thought you would,” he says, a little low. “But you have to swear it.”
He’s holding America just as tight, with his hands in America’s hair and his cheek under America’s nose. America could promise him the whole entire world, like this. (Except maybe the bunnies, because the bunnies should be free.) “Does that mean another oath in Latin?” he asks, though, because it’s hard to say things in Latin…
“No,” England says, “this is just you and me,” and America says a thousand I promise-es into England’s ruffled collar.
-
-------
-
This is England’s harpsichord, or something like it.
Benjamin Britten is, as described, a composer of the 1930s-70s. He’s a fascinating figure of this era-a pacifist and conscientious objector, but not quite an activist.
The second of the Britten scenes takes place at St. Matthew’s Northhampton during the premiere of Rejoice in the Lamb, which is based on the Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart, who was, in fact, institutionalized just before England’s world went mad. The excerpt of Britten’s composition that is playing during this scene can be listened to here. Also, the cat is really really cute.
The third of the Britten scenes, of course, involves the opera itself.
His lead tenor, life partner, and muse was Peter Pears, with whom Britten collaborated on nearly all of his vocal works, and they devoted themselves completely to the furtherance of the others’ career. Here is a selection from the mad scene, with Pears as Grimes, and here is the libretto of the entire opera.
And as for the composer’s own words on the opera, well, ”The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual. […] By the time you are done with the opera-or by the time it is done with you -you have decided that Peter Grimes is the whole of bombing, machine-gunning, mining, torpedoing, ambushing humanity which talks about a guaranteed standard of living, yet does nothing but wreck its own works, degrade or pervert its own moral life and reduce itself to starvation.”
Also, regarding the title, From Peter Grimes, Act II:
In dreams I’ve built myself some kindlier home
Warm in my heart and in a golden calm
Where there’ll be no more fear and no more storm.
And she will soon forget her schoolhouse ways
Forget the labour of those weary days
Wrapped round in kindness like September haze.
The learned at their books have no more store
Of wisdom than we’d close behind our door.
Compared with us the rich man would be poor.
I’ve seen in stars the life that we might share:
Fruit in the garden, children by the shore,
A fair white doorstep, and a woman’s care.
But dreaming builds what dreaming can disown.
Dead fingers stretch themselves to tear it down.
I hear those voices that will not be drowned.
Calling, there is no stone
In earth’s thickness to make a home,
That you can build with and remain alone.
.
Now if only Dr. Pisani knew I was writing this...
Title: Wrapped ‘Round in Kindness
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Axis Powers Hetalia
Characters: America, England, Canada, alternating with the English composer Benjamin Britten
Words: 6600
Rating: PG-13. One set of scenes is cute and light. The rest is Peter Grimes.
The Erae: On one side, 1700; on the other, 1942-1945.
Summary: Harpsichords, bunnies, and ominous poetry. Bring the branding iron and knife // For what’s done now is done for life.
Wrapped ‘Round in Kindness
axis powers hetalia
Mithrigil Galtirglin
19 December, C.E. 1700
It’s a box on stilts.
No, really, it’s a box on stilts. Three stilts. It’s about as long as England is tall, and as tall as America and a head taller than Canada if you count the box part. It looks big enough that America could hide inside it but it wouldn’t be comfortable, it’s a triangle and that means he’d either have to curl his feet up or fit with his head at the pointy part and America doesn’t think he’s that small anymore. So it’s not a dead-person box. Unless there are dead triangle-shaped people. And England wouldn’t bring a dead-person box into the living room and leave it there.
Or maybe he would. England can talk to dead people like he talks to faeries. Maybe he needs to talk with the person in the box. And that’s really scary but it’s not like America’s going to tell anyone he’s scared. And it’s nighttime (England’s back late, this time, late and cranky, there was something wrong with the tide, he said) and nighttime is when the ghosts like to come out. So he’ll just not go anywhere near the box.
Except it’s a really pretty box. The legs are smooth and carved into shapes that are like feet but not, more like vines, and they curl around the corners that support the top. The box part is smooth all around, has a lip and long dents where it’s supposed to open (two places? Three? The wider section is lower than the rest) but even though America can reach it he can’t push it high enough and see inside at the same time. The whole thing is made of shining wood that’s not really red and not really black, more like the color America’s breeches turn when he can’t scrub the blood from his skinned knees away, except it’s pretty. Maybe it doesn’t have a dead triangle-shaped person in it. Maybe it has something better in it like trebuchets for America’s toy soldiers or paints for his room or good breakfast food (because breakfast is the only good food that England makes and he makes a lot of it) or bunnies. Yes. Bunnies. There are bunnies in the box, it’s a big enough box for bunnies, except the bunnies should be free.
So America has to open the box. Especially if there are bunnies inside it. It’s as tall as he is, though, he needs a chair to stand on, there’s a stool right next to the box-on-stilts and it’s made of the same kind of wood as the box so maybe he’s supposed to open it. He picks up the stool and plunks it down so he can stand on it and get the top of the box open, it’s-not a really stable stool, the top of it spins around and the cushion is sinking and-
“America!”
Oops.
For a second there America is lifted up even higher, but then he’s turned around and England is carrying him tightly (England’s so big, America wants to be that big someday, and he will, he knows it) and is somewhere between frowning and saying something like he always says, “America, you could have fallen off and hit your head,” this, that, the other thing.
“But what about the bunnies?” America says.
England’s eyebrows are in the shape that means there probably aren’t bunnies in that box. Or anywhere else. Unless they’re surprise bunnies. But even if they’re surprise bunnies they can’t be happy in that box, there’s no grass in there and it must be like being locked in a closet and that’s not fun-
“Come now,” England says instead, and he swings America around a little, turns, starts leading him through the door out of the drawing room (why’s it called a drawing room if you can’t draw on the walls, though?). “Canada’s already in bed, and didn’t you want me to finish telling you about Prospero and Ariel?”
Okay, maybe the bunnies can wait a little.
But even when he’s nuzzling into England’s neck as he’s carried out the door, it means he’s staring at the box. “I promise I’ll free you later, bunnies,” he whispers and uses England’s fluffy collar to muffle that. England still smells like the sea, like time and tar and freedom, or, well. If time and freedom had smells they might smell like England. Tar has a smell, though.
Also, America really wants to say, you don’t have to carry me, except England was away for so long this time and America missed him. So it’s okay. And he holds on tighter, so England makes this little “oof” sound and holds on tighter too.
When they get to the room America and Canada share (not because the house isn’t big enough but because it’s warmer that way, and it’s December now), Canada’s already curled up under the blankets. America wriggles out of England’s arms and steps onto the bed, kicks off his slippers, and starts telling Canada, “There are bunnies in the drawing room. In that really big box.”
Canada just makes a sleepy noise and twitches his nose.
“Rabbits?” England asks from the hearth, where he’s gathering up the stones that have been warming there to put on the foot of the bed. “In what box?”
“The box on stilts,” America says. Is England pretending not to know about it?
England laughs, deposits the wrapped-up stones on the covers. America snuggles closer to them, and to England because he’s sitting close to them too. “There are no bunnies in the harpsichord,” England says.
“How do you know until you open it?”
“I’ll show you in the morning. Now, where’d we leave off with Prospero…?”
Canada yawns, loudly.
“But I want to know now,” America says.
-
15 August, C.E. 1942
“I’m going to write an opera,” the petitioner says, “and it is going to be about precisely why I don’t want anything to do with this war.”
England raises his eyes, intrigued-and then lowers them, to assess the names and dates and credentials on the page before him. Britten, Edward Benjamin, it begins in the topmost, and this is an appeal. He’s already been turned down once-certainly the type to put the conscientious in conscientious objector.
“Oh?” England says, and then actually looks at the young man.
Edward Benjamin Britten has a thin, resolute face and eyebrows that seem perpetually downturned. His hair is curled more than slightly, pushed off his face but not with pomade-he’s dressed sensibly as well, in earth-tones, tweed. Skinny legs, like England’s. A direly set mouth and a branch of a nose. Too young to be a gentleman but that’s changing, isn’t it.
His answer is, “Yes, I’ve already begun work on it.”
Edward Benjamin Britten. Royal College of Music. An extensive collaboration with-oh. Auden, in the States.
England asks, “On what subject?”
“George Crabbe, The Borough,” Britten answers. “His Peter Grimes character, in particular. I can’t very well write that if you conscript me, or send me to prison.”
“No,” England says, “you can’t,” but that’s not in any way permission and his tone makes that clear. He turns over another page of the form, to Britten’s prior application. “But we have always put off our dreams and aspirations for the sake of the nation.”
“The nation is more than its safety,” Britten says. “You are more than your land and your people. You are your history. You are your future.”
Edward Benjamin Britten. England turns another page. “You’re more than a pacifist, aren’t you.”
Britten’s answer is to nod, just once, and keep his eyes lowered. “My objection isn’t just to the war itself. I know that you have to defend yourself against the aggressors,” he says, plainly eschewing the word enemy, and then, corrects, “that we must defend ourselves. My objection is to the existence of war, the presence of war.”
“Are you religious?”
“No,” he says, very quickly. “Well yes, but that’s not why. I know, I know because they asked me in my initial interview, you ‘have the army to defend the land’. That’s something God can’t always provide for,” he adds wryly, looking up a touch. “He helps those who help themselves, does he not? He helps those who try and make His world better, who try and bring Him out in humanity, who bring out the image of Himself that He built us on. And for some of us, that’s their devotion, that’s them…that’s them fighting to keep Him alive in us all. And for others of us, there is art.”
“And you cannot create art in prison,” England says.
Britten-laughs, after a fashion. It is not much of a laugh at all, a short, veiled, breathy sound. Like Japan’s, in a way, only not deliberately muffled. “You can,” he says, “you can create anything at all in prison. But it won’t reach nearly as many people. And I already have my lead tenor-and you let him object, so why not me?”
-
19 December, C.E. 1700
“But this rough magic I here abjure,” England is saying, it’s from memory but it’s like he’s reading a book, “and, when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for-“
“Canada’s asleep,” America says.
“So he is.” England reaches down, tugs the comforter a little higher on Canada’s body, which also pulls it over America’s neck but America pushes it back down again, looks up hopefully.
“Can I see the bunnies now?”
“I told you there aren’t any rabbits in the harpsichord.” The blankets shift higher on America again, and England ruffles his shoulder. “And besides, it’s time for you to sleep too.”
“I’m not tired.”
Maybe England’s not as cranky as he seemed to be when he got off the ship and had the box brought in and everything, because he doesn’t just say yes you are. He does sigh, though, and bend over to kiss America between the eyes, then Canada, who shuffles and murmurs something and flings an arm out under the covers. Canada grabs America’s shift and America can’t help whining a little, it’s like they expect him to sleep or something. “I’ll show you in the morning, all right?”
“But the bunnies might be ghosts by morning.”
“There aren’t any rabbits in the harpsichord.”
“What’s a harpsichord?”
“I’ll show you in the morning,” England says, again, slower, maybe a little angrier. His forehead is wrinkly like the blankets and America wants to smooth it out.
“So you won’t be gone in the morning?”
“I just got here,” England says, like America should know.
“Doesn’t mean you won’t be gone in the morning.” America pouts, tries to cross his arms and sit up straight at the same time but that doesn’t really work.
That…that changed the way England’s face was knotted. It’s softer now, smoother, a little. America manages to sit up, now, leans in, peers at it.
“I’m tired,” England explains, whispering, and leaning just a little closer to America as well, making a point, a serious point. “Very tired. I just sailed in, and I want to sleep, and I can’t sleep unless I know you’re sleeping.”
That was…that was really convincing. So America tries to say this the same way and look at England the same serious way England just treated him. “I’m not tired,” he starts, “and I won’t be able to sleep until I know what a harpsichord is. And why there aren’t any bunnies in it.”
And it does work, because even though England’s sighing again, he comes out of it smiling and shaking his head, a little. “And you’ll try and find out on your own if I go to sleep without making sure you do, won’t you.”
America nods firmly, grins. “Uh-huh!” That’s exactly right.
England groans a little (quietly, though) and gets up from the bed. “Don’t wake your brother,” he says just as quietly, and steps back, padding quietly out the bedroom door and gesturing for America to follow him. And maybe America’s not as quiet as he should be scrambling out of the bedclothes but Canada doesn’t wake up or anything (or at least America doesn’t think so) and he’s caught up with England before England’s made it back to the drawing room.
“At least it’s not an organ,” England is saying by the time they actually get there, and America stands on tiptoes to see inside as England opens the box, then pulls a kind of cane out of it to hold the lid up at an angle. “You see? No rabbits.”
“…um,” America says.
It’s really very pretty inside the box. The underside of the lid is painted, has these crisp carvings of vines and flowers in green and gold and pink (like England’s eyes and hair and his face when he gets angry sometimes). But the actual box part of the box is more interesting, it has these…wires, lots of wires in straight lines like rows of corn or cotton, starting out thick at the long part of the triangle and getting thinner and shorter. And there are these…wood buttons on top of every string, at the thickest part of the box, the part with the lip that hangs over. It looks very complicated. America wants to take it apart and-
“Don’t touch,” England says, taking America’s wrist and pulling his hand away from the strings. “That’s not how you play it.”
“It’s for playing with?”
“It’s for playing music on. Like drums and reeds and fiddles. Or singing, I suppose. But a harpsichord has to stay in one place, and this one is going to stay here.”
America smiles. Even if he’s not very good at music he does like the songs he’s heard from England and France and Cherokee and Iroquois and he’s made up a couple of his own. Well. Actually he’s just changed the words to a few of theirs. But he thinks they’re good words. “Show me how to play it!”
The spinning stool is only big enough for one, so England hauls over the Windsor chair and tucks the desk part of it away so America can sit too. America’s feet don’t reach the floor but England’s do and he lifts the other lid and oh, those are buttons, real black and white buttons and knobs and dials and America wants to push all of them.
England has to touch his America’s hands again to make him stop. “Watch me,” he says, and he reaches over, pulls one of the knobs and then flexes his knuckles, rests his fingertips on some of the long black buttons. His hands are curled funnily, like crabs. And then he presses down and-
Oh. This is better than bunnies. It’s sounds, lots of sounds at once! They’re plinking things and they pop in the air like bugs and bubbles and sparks and America figures out that when one of England’s fingers hits the black and white buttons that’s what makes the sounds come out which means he must be moving his hands really really fast but it’s hard to watch because he’s also trying to listen-it’s a dance, he’s playing a dance, like France plays on the oboe and Iroquois did on the drums. America stands up on the seat of the Windsor chair and dances too, he can clap his hands every three beats maybe and it won’t sound so bad, and it doesn’t sound so bad so he keeps doing it and is glad he’s not wearing his stockings anymore even if the chair is all cold because then he’d slip.
“Don’t wake your brother,” England says, even though he’s still playing-you can play this thing and talk at the same time! France can’t do that on the oboe! So America stops clapping (or at least clapping so loudly) and-stops dancing too, when he realizes that where he’s standing he can see into the string-filled part of the box. And those wooden buttons on the inside, not the ones that England’s pressing but the ones that the one’s he’s pressing are pressing-those are moving, and something’s making the strings move, that must be it!
The song gets to a point where it’s a lot of notes at once and sounds like home or a stopping place (America’s not sure how, especially since he wants to keep dancing, there shouldn’t be stopping-places in music at all!) and England looks up at him. He looks-he looks proud and happy and yes maybe a little tired but proud and happy and that’s important. He darts his eyes at where America was looking, inside the box part of the harpsichord, and then up again. “Watch,” he says, “this is how it works; you press a key like this,” he does, “and it pushes up a dowel on the inside. And the dowel has a plectrum-kind of like a pick or a fingernail, on it, and that hits the-“
America bends down and presses all the keys he can hit. At the same time.
“-string,” England sighs. “America, if you hit all of them at once, you will wake up Canada and you promised me you wouldn’t. Also, you’ll break it, you have to be careful, I know how strong you are-“
America grins, and blushes, well a little. He likes it when England remembers that.
“-so try hitting only one at a time.”
“But you can hit lots of them at once, I saw you do it-“
“That takes practice,” England says, “and patience-“
America hits with only one hand this time. All five fingers and his palm, though. The sound is really funny, like glass breaking. So he does it again. Crunchy! Like pebbles and dancing and-
…oh. The proud and happy parts of England’s face are gone and now he just looks tired again.
-
2 August, C.E. 1943
Saint Matthew’s in Northampton is an odd place to hear the choir going on about a dead man’s cat. The cat’s name is Jeoffry. The music is ominous, occasionally bombastic, dissonant. Compellingly dissonant, England dares to say. Aloud, even, to Britten, who sits at his right hand.
“Thank you,” Britten replies.
The custom of discourse-during-performance has changed over the years. When theatre was young and England was not, music was the dressing of the scene and not its focus. Hawkers hawked and groundlings laughed and men plotted war in the balconies, and these days are gone, centuries gone. But it was Richard Wagner who blacked out and silenced the house, and Wagner is the province of the enemy, and so England feels no qualms in asking Britten “And how is the Borough opera coming along?” even as the treble soloist still sings:
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
Britten considers this shyly for a moment, head inclined toward the pews, almost into the shadows of the patrons sitting in front of him. “Slowly. I’ve had other projects. And it takes work to mount an opera, I’m sure you remember.”
“I do,” England says, and does. The organ accompaniment to this piece is winding, appropriate to the sinuous motions of a cat. England still prefers the harpsichord but no one uses it anymore. “I’ve read the poem,” he goes on. “Your hero’s quite a scoundrel.”
“Peter Grimes is not the hero,” Britten says. “Well. He’s becoming it. Of the opera at least. But he’s not heroic. He doesn’t…do, anything heroic.”
“I thought you said the opera would be about the war.”
“Abstractly,” Britten says. “About the humanity that creates war.”
England nods, can appreciate that. The treble sings-beautifully, For this is done by wreathing his body seven times ‘round with elegant quickness.
Britten says, so quietly, deferent and near, “I’m not…I’m not trying to tell people that Peter Grimes was a good man, or that the people were wrong to condemn him or fear him. He’s not a good man-he’s negligent, and he’s abusive to those boys…they do die because of him, you know, just not directly. One of thirst, out at sea, water everywhere but none to drink. And the other falls, because he is afraid of staying with him. He didn’t kill them, but he’s still responsible for their deaths.”
“Are the boys to be sung by trebles?” England asks. If this choir piece is any indication, Britten has a remarkable facility writing for the voices of children.
“No,” Britten says, “the apprentice boys have no voices. If the boys had voices, you’d know whether Grimes was good or bad, wouldn’t you?”
England remembers this poem now. A madman wrote it, when the world was mad as well. For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually - Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
-
20 December, C.E. 1700
America wakes up with the sun, after dreaming of bunnies that speak like harpsichords. (He’s actually never heard a bunny make noises like cows and horses and dogs and birds do-how do they talk to each other? Maybe they do talk like harpsichords, just not when America can hear them? Or they speak with their feet, their feet make a lot of sound…) Canada’s not next to him in bed, though, and his side of it is pulled neat up to the corner.
…actually, someone is playing with the harpsichord.
So America rolls out of bed and starts running to the drawing room without even putting his stockings on (even though the floor is really really cold!) and he’s ready to clap and dance again even if the music’s not as fast or crunchy this time.
“Keep your hands arched like this,” England is saying to-to Canada, who’s sitting on a book on top of the spinny stool while England’s on the Windsor chair next to him. They’re both playing the buttons-keys, America remembers, England said they were keys-and Canada’s concentrating really hard. It sounds like they’re playing the same thing only on different levels or at different heights, and Canada’s putting his fingers down a little later than England so the lower sounds must be to the left and the higher ones to the right, “Good,” England says, “very good,” and it’s not to America.
America wants to play too.
He runs across the floor and hops next to Canada and plops his hands onto the keys again (there are two rows of keys, does that mean two people can play together?) and looks up at England and smiles and says just that, “I want to play too!”
England looks at him sternly, even more cross about it than he was last night- “America, you had your turn. This is Canada’s turn to learn to play. Why don’t you go get washed up and dressed, it’s almost time for breakfast.” And that…that didn’t even sound like a question.
“But you’re here!” is all America can say. “How can you be here and not play with me?”
“America, go get dressed.”
Well, fine. He’ll go get dressed. His feet don’t make much noise stamping toward his room but the door makes plenty. One big thump. Almost as loud as the harpsichord. Which England is still playing. With Canada and not America. And it doesn’t even sound like music, it just sounds like the same sounds over and over and over.
America gets washed up outside, like England told him to, and gets dressed, and even finishes making up the bed. Even Canada’s side. And he feels a lot better after leaving a dead frog under the covers.
-
7 June, C.E. 1945
To hell with all your mercy!
The allegory is plain. The music is frightening. England does not care for it, knows he is not meant to care for it, he’s meant to appreciate it, and he can appreciate that it was written and he can hate that it had to be, and so England does both. Because he can.
The titular character’s voice is grating, lean, dry-dry, on this stage of Sturm und Drang and oh, Master Britten, don’t you dare presume that England will let that go unnoticed, not that and not all the drawn out E-flats of hell after hell after hell.
I assure you, England thinks, decisively, I know where we’re all going.
A thousand unseen voices demand, Peter Grimes, Peter Grimes, and they keep demanding it until the man is told to go out and kill himself at sea. That it would be best to take his boat and sink it.
The townsfolk watch, from shore. They watch, and they accept, and they do not care, and they sing about it. Opera-in-idleness, spectators of a man undone.
England is profoundly uncomfortable-despite his awe, at the craft, at the audacity of it-when he offers Britten his congratulations. Britten is much the same, becardiganed and just as ill-at-ease.
“Was it worth letting me off the hook?” he asks England, shaking the Nation’s hand.
“Undoubtedly,” England answers. “Though I wish you’d written it sooner.”
“I had other commissions,” Britten says, letting go. “Have to make a life for myself, you know.”
“Yes.”
“And I have someone to support,” Britten adds. “Or someone to support me, now, I suppose.”
“The tenor.”
“Yes.”
“He is of remarkable character,” England says diplomatically, because he cannot comment on the quality of Pears’ voice, not aloud, and certainly not now.
Britten nods, agreeing, perhaps understanding. “Why do you wish I’d written it sooner?”
“It might be too late to learn from it,” England says. “Or perhaps its lesson will be conflated with another. I can’t know. And I know that the people who need most to hear this story would not have listened long.”
“That’s the trouble with opera,” Britten says. “You have to listen to it.”
England laughs-it turns into a laugh they share, and the laugh dapples off into hissing, sighing, from both of them, until the murmuring crowd, criticising and commenting, stifles it entirely.
“You’re welcome to drop in and commission me, if you have a mind to,” Britten says. “I don’t have much nagging at me this month.”
“Potsdam,” England apologises. “I will be in Potsdam,” letting America end the war.
“Bring the branding iron and knife // For what’s done now is done for life,” Britten says. Or said.
-
20 December, C.E. 1700
Canada is crying himself to sleep, in England’s bedroom. Canada doesn’t like dead things.
Good, America thinks, and thinks maybe he could kill the harpsichord too so Canada doesn’t like it anymore.
America’s not sleeping. America’s balled up on his side of the bed (he doesn’t mind dead things even though he minds ghosts, a lot, a lot a lot, and he doesn’t think the frog has a ghost (but what if it does and what if it’s angry with him?) but he’s still not going to sleep where the dead frog was because it smells funny. He can still hear Canada, a little, England’s door must be open-yes, it is, if America squints he can see a little bit of candlelight from the hallway because his door is open too.
Stupid Canada. Stupid harpsichord. Stupid everything.
-“Stupid frog,” America adds, because it still smells funny. Death must smell funny. Or maybe just frogs.
After a while, the sounds of Canada whimpering get quieter and quieter and then they stop. The hearth is louder than them now. America should probably go over and gather up the stones to put in the bed because it’s actually really cold tonight, maybe even colder inside than it is outside. But America’s mostly warm where he is even if it smells like dead frog (he really should have thought this through a little more), and he knows that if he gets out from under the covers it’ll take even more time to get warm again because the covers won’t be warm anymore either. England always brings the stones to the bed… Maybe I should make blankets that warm themselves, America thinks, so they don’t need any stones or fire or anything. And they’d stay warm for longer too. But I can’t just set the blankets on fire because there won’t be any blankets anymore. He turns his face into the pillow shams. They’re cold and dim and a little shocking, and he shivers.
“America?”
It’s England, in the doorway. America wants to see him but it’s warm under here, so he doesn’t look. Or make a sound. But it’s England and England’s so big and so smart, he knows America’s here anyway, and soon the mattress of the bed is sinking a little near America’s feet because England must be sitting on it.
“America,” he says again, closer. “America, how did a frog get into your bed?”
“It was a squirrel,” America says to the pillows. It feels a little warmer where he breathed and he moves closer to it.
“A squirrel,” England repeats. He doesn’t believe America, and he sounds it.
America has to lie better. “A squirrel,” he tells the pillows again. Maybe it’s more convincing?
England makes a hmm sound, and America hears a little tapping too, like fingers on keys. Oh. That’s where that hand-gesture comes from, when England drums his fingers on his knees or on the desk or on the table, it’s like the harpsichord. Stupid harpsichord. “And how did a squirrel get in your bedroom?”
“Through the window,” America says.
“And how did it open the window?”
“It was open.”
“It’s December.”
“…I was hot?” America tries. And then he remembers that he’s under lots and lots of blankets right now and he’d really love if there were hearthstones piled up at his feet. And maybe Canada to sleep close to because Canada’s warm too. Or England. Maybe England will sleep in here tonight because Canada’s not here? Or maybe England doesn’t like the dead frog smell either.
Maybe England thinks America is bad.
“Well, if you were hot,” England’s saying, “maybe I should put the fire out for tonight.”
-no no no he really does-
“No!” America says, and that’s a mistake, he shouldn’t have said it and shifted like that because now it’s colder under the blankets and they’re not covering his feet as well and there still aren’t any stones (also maybe he kicked England). “I mean,” he tries again, “I mean I might be cold tonight. So don’t put the fire out?” And then he remembers, “…please?”
England sighs, and it’s not the happy sigh, it’s the America you’re in trouble sigh. “I don’t know,” he’s saying, smartly, innocently, “what if the squirrels come down through the chimney this time? I don’t want them to burn up….”
America shuffles under the covers more, tries to get warm again-doesn’t work, though, now the top of his head is cold, he’s scrunched up the blankets. “Maybe it wasn’t a squirrel?”
“Oh?”
“Maybe it was the faeries?” America tries. England can see ghosts and faeries, maybe if they’re actually real the faeries will cover up for him.
“Oh,” England says again. America peeks out from under the hem of the blankets-England’s eyes are turned up the way they often are when he talks to the faeries, because they’re usually a little behind and over his head. He listens to them for a bit, then nods, and leans a little forward to look America in the eyes. “The faeries say you did it.”
America groans. And ducks under the blankets again.
England’s hand catches the hems, though, and pulls them down so America’s eyes and nose are exposed. He looks…when he’s sad and angry the green of his eyes is still shiny but different, somehow, less like seaweed (which isn’t the right color but still pretty close) and more like glass. And that’s how he looks, like glass with bubbles and cracks in it and America wants it to stop.
“Why’d you make your brother cry, America?”
“I didn’t know he’d cry,” America says. It’s true. But it’s a little muffled since his chin is still under the blankets and when he looks into England’s eyes he thinks he might have to say it more or say it again or say something, anything-he nudges the blankets down a little more and puts his cheek near England’s hand (so warm) and tries to say it, tells the whole truth, “You were teaching Canada to play the harpsichord and you were cross with me and you weren’t playing with me and you’re never here, you’re always with India or the islands or you’re just not here or you’re back at your house and then when you are here you don’t pay attention to me and I just want you to be here and.” No. America shouldn’t cry too. He doesn’t. He doesn’t. “And I want. I. I want you to pay attention to me. But I didn’t mean to make Canada cry, I was just angry and I-”
America has always liked how England’s hands feel. It’s like they’re old but they pretend not to be, they’re scratchy in some places like unsanded wood but so soft in others, softer than spun cotton and hair and shoe leather and always warm, always always warm. England puts his palm against America’s cheek and his fingers through America’s hair and America turns over to trap it on the pillows with his chin and his neck. Stay here. Stay here.
“-I thought you liked everyone else better than me.”
“No,” England whispers, “no, I could never,” and America thinks that maybe his cheek isn’t enough to keep England’s hand there so he grabs his wrist too. And now his knuckles are cold but England’s skin isn’t and maybe that will change everything.
“I want it to be just us,” America says (because if he doesn’t say it he thinks he’ll cry and he doesn’t want to cry), “I want it to be just me, just you and me in the whole world.”
England…doesn’t say anything, but the pads of his fingers shift a little, and then again, so America holds him tighter. And it does make things warmer, a little, but his other cheek is cold, so cold, is he really going to make America sleep without the fire tonight? (America really should work on making a blanket that keeps itself warm…)
“Can it?” America tries. “Can it be just us?”
“But then what would happen to Canada?” England asks. “He’s your brother, don’t you want him to be safe?”
Stupid Canada. But America can’t really say no to that, he loves Canada, just…just not as much as he loves England. “The faeries can take care of him,” he tries. “I want it to be just you and me.”
England laughs-why did he laugh?, that’s not funny, it’s true!-and leans over to turn his cheek to the pillows and kiss America between the eyes. “I’ll make a deal with you,” he says, a little before he’s pulled back and up again. “Can you wake up early tomorrow morning?”
“Why?”
“Because if you promise to let me teach Canada how to play the harpsichord, I’ll take you hunting and teach you how to shoot a gun.”
“Really?” America springs up and-oh, he forgot, it’s cold, and he’s still holding England’s wrist which means that-ow. His shoulder-England’s chest. “Sorry!”
But England doesn’t make him let go or anything, just grimaces a little. “I-really,” he says, “if you promise me and your brother you’ll let us have time together too. And you must never, ever use the guns while I’m not here.”
“Of course I won’t!” Forget the cold, America flings everything down and hugs England so tight, so tight because he can and he wants to and someday maybe it will be just them, this way. “And I won’t shoot Canada either!”
England-shivers. And it’s not a good shiver. “I never thought you would,” he says, a little low. “But you have to swear it.”
He’s holding America just as tight, with his hands in America’s hair and his cheek under America’s nose. America could promise him the whole entire world, like this. (Except maybe the bunnies, because the bunnies should be free.) “Does that mean another oath in Latin?” he asks, though, because it’s hard to say things in Latin…
“No,” England says, “this is just you and me,” and America says a thousand I promise-es into England’s ruffled collar.
-
-------
-
This is England’s harpsichord, or something like it.
Benjamin Britten is, as described, a composer of the 1930s-70s. He’s a fascinating figure of this era-a pacifist and conscientious objector, but not quite an activist.
The second of the Britten scenes takes place at St. Matthew’s Northhampton during the premiere of Rejoice in the Lamb, which is based on the Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart, who was, in fact, institutionalized just before England’s world went mad. The excerpt of Britten’s composition that is playing during this scene can be listened to here. Also, the cat is really really cute.
The third of the Britten scenes, of course, involves the opera itself.
His lead tenor, life partner, and muse was Peter Pears, with whom Britten collaborated on nearly all of his vocal works, and they devoted themselves completely to the furtherance of the others’ career. Here is a selection from the mad scene, with Pears as Grimes, and here is the libretto of the entire opera.
And as for the composer’s own words on the opera, well, ”The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual. […] By the time you are done with the opera-or by the time it is done with you -you have decided that Peter Grimes is the whole of bombing, machine-gunning, mining, torpedoing, ambushing humanity which talks about a guaranteed standard of living, yet does nothing but wreck its own works, degrade or pervert its own moral life and reduce itself to starvation.”
Also, regarding the title, From Peter Grimes, Act II:
In dreams I’ve built myself some kindlier home
Warm in my heart and in a golden calm
Where there’ll be no more fear and no more storm.
And she will soon forget her schoolhouse ways
Forget the labour of those weary days
Wrapped round in kindness like September haze.
The learned at their books have no more store
Of wisdom than we’d close behind our door.
Compared with us the rich man would be poor.
I’ve seen in stars the life that we might share:
Fruit in the garden, children by the shore,
A fair white doorstep, and a woman’s care.
But dreaming builds what dreaming can disown.
Dead fingers stretch themselves to tear it down.
I hear those voices that will not be drowned.
Calling, there is no stone
In earth’s thickness to make a home,
That you can build with and remain alone.
.