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“You have”, Lithuania had told Poland once, “a smile like an arsonist.”
They had been sitting in a grubby parlor early on in their acquaintanceship and – so much he remembers – Poland’s hair had been the brightest thing in the place. It had been luminous, hazy through the cigarette smoke and shining in the cool morning’s light. This is, somehow, a very important part of the memory.
Poland had snorted and wrinkled his nose, uncomfortable by the sudden and out-of-place observation. Up until that point, they had been discussing something entirely different.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
It means, Lithuania had thought but not said, that you would set yourself on fire just to watch the world around you burn.
~
Since then, life has provided Lithuania with enough opportunities to say this. He hasn’t done it, not yet, not really; fidgeting with the words and the occasion and the abstruseness of it all but for a long time it was the one true thing he knew about Poland.
You would set yourself on fire just to watch everyone around you burn.
If you were to burn, you’d make sure the world was to burn with you.
Please just give me those matches.
It’s become all the same thing over the years. One truth warped into different words, smiling out of different faces.
“Of f-cking course you care for him”, Estonia tells him when Lithuania is standing in his kitchen, having screamed bloody murder about Poland and every infuriating thing about him, his heart beating a rhythm of I quit, I quit, I quit against his chest bone. “Take a look at your face right now.”
Lithuania answers these days he is not sure if he cares for Poland or about him; it has all become so complicated, it has all blended into one thing, actually, and when did that start?
He is very grateful that Estonia does not laugh. He is also very grateful that Estonia does not point out to him that caring for someone and caring about someone are, in fact, the same thing. His gratitude lessens when Estonia says with a dry quirk of his lips, “It started the moment you laid eyes on him and saw a person, not just a way to spite Russia again.”
The thing is: Poland has made it a habit to carry matches in one pocket and gasoline in the other and it makes Lithuania’s hands itchy and himself a bit sick, sick with worry he won’t admit, so whenever Poland absentmindedly pulls out the matchbox and plays around with it, Lithuania has to fight seven different urges not to wrestle it out of his hands and throw it in the river.
The thing is: He almost does it once, but fortunately can restrain himself before Poland can do much else but look at him with a quirked brow. He awkwardly withdraws his hand and they carry on talking about unimportant business country stuff and inside his body Lithuania’s heart thumps, thumps, thumps and the green of Poland’s eyes is a meadow in spring.
Is Lithuania aware that this purely for business purposes acquaintanceship is growing to be something else, something a lot scarier with more heads? You could say that.
Is Lithuania eventually going to cut off some of the scary heads to revert this thorny thing back into something purely for business purposes? You could say he’s trying.
Is Lithuania afraid that Poland will someday catch fire and raze everything in his path, just to show the world, just out of spite? You could frame that and hang it on your wall.
What exactly is Lithuania going to do, then? When that moment comes? Easy. He is going to be the first one to burn.
People call Poland a phoenix, so Lithuania carefree laughs alongside them. People call Poland worse, so he is tempted, for the first time, to break a jaw. People call Poland a miracle and Lithuania hopes they don’t expect him to act like one.
He is still unsure about his words, whenever he tries to phrase them they come out wrong, careless.
You’re a walking-talking gasoline tank. One day, you’re going to come across a fire.
No, this is not true. Poland is perfectly capable of self-immolation, where he wants it, whenever he wants it. He doesn’t need someone with a match, because he is the match. And the red-powdery stripe that runs alongside the box, too.
All in all, Lithuania figures out after a sleepless night, it would be safe to say that Poland, in his simplest form, is the fire.
At no point he wonders how it has come to him lying awake at night pondering over his business partner.
He also does not wonder how his business partner ends up folded on one end of his couch in his living room, a pillow between chest and knees and intently listening to Lithuania’s little brother, who got hold of an ancient magazine full of personality quizzes.
“What is”, Latvia says with the same expression and weight of a detective demanding an alibi, “your favorite element?”
Poland does not ponder for a moment, but answers gunshot-like, not lacking any of Latvia’s seriousness. “Water.”
Lithuania almost drops the tray with the cheap 15-minute pastry when Poland’s voice floats in through the open kitchen door. Estonia catches his eyes for a fleeting second, a poorly-hidden, humor-less smile on his face and ooh, the irony.
After having dutifully replied to all questions, Poland is declared a ‘bubbly and spontaneous flirt’ and they eat warmed-up pastries in front of the telly. It’s some movie has Latvia has chosen and at every funny moment his head turns expectantly to see if they are all paying attention. Lithuania’s mind, meanwhile, is only half-focused on the task; his brain is still rewinding ‘Water, Water, Water’ in his head and also Poland’s bare ankle brushes his fingertips every two minutes. Poland is sitting side-ways with his back resting against the armrest and his feet on the couch (his shoes and socks lie discarded somewhere else), knees half-way drawn up to his chest, his arms slung loosely around them. The light of the television illuminates his face in soft blue and – Lithuania realizes with a start - for once, he looks vulnerable. Not like someone who is going to light something up in the next few minutes. Not a forest fire. Not a threat. Just Poland. It does weird things to Lithuania’s heart.
Somehow he is at ease in the midst of this strange family, shifting his position unconsciously and smiling at Latvia every time the latter turns his head to him, to confirm that yes, he is being attentive and yes, this scene was funny just then and yes, Latvia has chosen a good movie, a perfect movie and Poland likes it.
Latvia soaks up every of Poland’s smiles like desperately needed rays of sun.
His brother’s beaming face is enough to make Lithuania feel uncomfortable twinges of guilt. There always seems to be so much work, so little time for being together and really, when was the last time they have done something like this? Just watching a movie, eating, easily joking around, the comfortable drowsiness of night settling in around them. He can’t recall himself.
It’s probably been too much time. Somehow everything feels easier with Poland around.
~
So Poland stays. He doesn’t stay stay, he’s still got his own apartment and his own life and stuff to tend to, but he comes over for dinner two or three times a week.
Is it weird to see him suddenly sitting in the kitchen, eating Latvia’s gingerbread cookies that are actually destined to be eaten only at Christmas but since Estonia tends to be a stress-eater Latvia is making them all year round?
The first time, yes. The first time it comes as a shock; Poland’s poisonous green eyes find him as he steps into the room and Lithuania’s heart has to re-kick-start itself. As it turns out, seeing Poland unexpectedly in familiar surroundings causes it to miss a few beats.
The next shock only comes when Poland is over the fourth or the seventh or the nineteenth time, and it is not so much a shock as a startling realization of the lack of shock. What a weird feeling. Lithuania shakes his head and goes to make himself too black coffee.
He seldom thinks of fire anymore. Instead, slowly, the one truth gets replaced in his head, bit by bit, by actions Poland does or things he says or smiles he gives. And Poland smiles a lot.
He helps Latvia with the homework his boss has given him, the first steps to the whole nation business. He cooks Solanka for them all. One day, because Latvia’s in school and Lithuania’s in a meeting with Ukraine and Estonia is god-knows-where-but-also-very-occupied, Poland goes to home depot and chooses new curtains for the upstairs bathroom, which Lithuania finds out about in the following way:
He gets home with a migraine that night, dropping his keys on the table and sighing very loudly because they have been going back and forth on that issue and he has no patience left, when something crashes on the upper floor. Loudly.
His heart beat accelerates, his thoughts a frenzy, jumping wildly from Russia to burglars to the cat. That calms him a bit, until he remembers that the cat ran in front of the car last November and has thus been dead since roughly six months. (Latvia had cried. Estonia had offered to buy a replacement cat. Latvia had cried some more. It had been horrible and entirely bad for Lithuania’s nerves.)
Find a weapon or another object to defend yourself, orders his mind, sluggishly recalling a video about being home during a break in he once made them all watch, for emergencies. Things like these always happen when you least expect them, he thinks. That had also been part of the video.
He reaches for the broomstick next to the coat-hangers.
At least Latvia and Estonia are out, that’s something. Lithuania shudders briefly at the prospect of them both facing a burglary and continues his way up the stairs, as quiet as possible.
His fatigue is entirely gone.
His heart beats in his fingertips and he fastens his grip on the broomstick. The light is burning on the upper floor, so whoever is robbing them is fortunately not a professional. Have they heard him come in? They are counting on the house being empty, so at least they’re not prepared for heavy violence. Still, they probably have some kind of weapon.
If so, he is not laboring under the illusion his broomstick will provide him protection. Not against a gun.
He reaches the end of the stairs and carefully cranes his neck around the corner.
The bathroom door stands open, light spilling out. Lithuania strains his ears for any human sounds, breathing or footsteps, but there is nothing to be heard. Maybe they have left already through the window.
Scraping for courage, he takes a step towards the light. No reaction.
A few more and he is standing with his back against the wall next to the open door, trying hard not to breathe too loudly, mind racing. What if they do have a gun? If they have more than one gun? What is he doing facing potential burglars with a broomstick, anyway?
He is regretting every single one of his actions since he’s entered the house.
He isn’t Chuck Norris. He can’t knock out several people at once. He can’t even knock out one person, for heaven’s sake. He is going to die a bloody, agonized death.
Taking a deep breath and sending a quick prayer skywards, he turns to face the interior of the room, preparing to defend himself against, worst-case scenario, thugs with machine guns.
The broomstick describes an arc in the air and successfully knocks some shampoo bottles and toothpaste off the side shelf before clattering uselessly to the ground.
There is nobody in the room. Well, not really nobody. But no thugs with machine guns.
“Ah”, says Poland. He is lying on the floor; his one leg is stuck under the upturned cupboard, whose contents are emptied out on the floor around them. The curtain rod is halfway down, the new curtains on the floor next to him.
“Back-up.”
~
“One question, though-”
They are both sitting at the kitchen table with steaming mugs of tea Poland has made for them after insisting that he owes Lithuania something for freeing him from under the chest of drawers and helping him tidy the mess and replace the curtains.
(“You think you can even your debt by making me tea?” Lithuania has said jokingly in an attempt to break the tension, “I don’t know, it’s not even coffee. I just saved your leg from being crushed.”
“Shut it, it was only half-crushed, it wasn’t that bad. I totally could have lived with it.”
“Sure you could’ve.”)
Poland is leaning on his elbow, his face questioning.
“-if you thought I was a burglar, why didn’t you call the police?”
Now that the words are said out loud, Lithuania feels like the world’s prized idiot.
Calling the police is the most obvious, adult thing to be done in that situation. In any case more adult than confronting the intruders with a broomstick. But of course that didn’t occur to his migraine-addled, sleep-deprived brain.
“I don’t know”, he admits. “I may not be good in making decisions on a whim. At the time, it seemed like a sound thing to me: arm yourself.”
One corner of Poland’s mouth twists upwards. “Arm yourself as in grab the broomstick?”
Lithuania snorts, trying in vain to hide by ducking behind his mug. Despite being still a bit embarrassed, something warm uncurls in his stomach when he sees Poland grinning at him from the corner of his eye.
What is this, this is ridiculous, he thinks, his fingertips lightly tracing a pattern on the cool porcelain. He turns his head and can’t help but grin back.