Work Text:
Berlin should have seen it coming, really.
He'd been through a lot, of course. There had been years of the War, picking away at the countries of Europe, casting its Cities down and driving them to fight and argue, for the sake of their children. Berlin harboured explosions and bombs; his skin scarred with the constant reminders of the suffering his children had endured. The children of Berlin had suffered and died, and there was nothing that he had been able to do to stop it. Instead, Berlin bore the visible signs that his streets had fallen.
A City is not responsible for its humans' actions. A lesson that all Cities knew, but it still harmed them when a building collapsed, or a street was bombed.
Since the end of the War, when a human shot himself and was then burned in a bomb crater, Berlin had failed to placate the people who lived in him. He was a City with no control over his own borders.
The rest of Germany had been torn apart by political lines. Berlin wrote desperate, pleading letter to the Cities in every Land, begging that they work together to try and keep their country peaceful and together. Germany was the fallen country of the world; the Cities of Germany had failed their country, and the other Cities of Europe nursed their children through rebuilding. They couldn't help Germany now.
A City is not responsible for its humans' actions. Everyone seems to have forgotten about Braunau am Inn. Berlin ended with the tarnished name, now. Braunau remained silent. She felt the shame of her humans, but no one would remember her in the years to come.
Berlin knew that the end of the War was just the start of another battle.
Germany was still a struggling nation. Berlin was alone. Berlin was stranded, cut off from the rest of Germany. Berlin had pleaded with Hamburg and Wiesbaden. 'Please, please, my children are going to die, and I don't think I can take any more of these needless deaths, I can't do it, you have to help.' Hamburg and Wiesbaden listened. The relief came down the British Air Corridor and lasted for months. The din of planes flying overhead drilled into his ears and gave him the most unbearable headaches.
A City is not responsible for its humans' actions. But a City can reason with politicians, when it wants to. The plight of the human race, dictated by Cities.
It was only seven years since the War had ended when the rest of the world looked on as Germany tried to rebuild. Buildings were restored and the people sought to move on. They looked away as Berlin was split. The streets and buildings of Berlin had been marooned, an island split in four and surrounded by a sea of Soviet influence. Under the Soviets, with the British and the Americans, Berlin stood alone. Other Cities found themselves lured by the promise of Soziale Martwirkschaft and that finally, their country would be able to become great again. But there were the others - those humans who had been torn apart by war and fear. The Cities of Bergen-Belsen (the twins, living with the depression of their infamy), and Dachau and Malchow, all living in fear of a new rule, felt the pain and had taken to hiding. Niederhagen and Sachsenhausen, forced underground in shame. They knew that their country was changing in a way that not a single one of them wanted. Every City in Germany, though, had the fear that they were unable to stop the almighty force of the East.
Berlin had been in conversation via hastily-scribbled letters, with Cottbus and Rostock, well within the red rule of the Soviets, placating him and urging him to remain calm. Frankfurt am Main, Cologne and Aachen, though, were more scared in their tone, worried for the fate of their people. Berlin could feel their fear lifting from the written word. He could hear the voices of Hamburg, of Dortmund and Essen and Bielefeld and Stuttgart. He could already sense their hope fading.
A City is not responsible for its humans' actions. And Berlin couldn't have wanted this less if he tried.
(But he'd not tried enough; he'd let them cast invisible lines and borders in his streets and let them sit with their tanks and their orders, and he'd let other countries come in and dictate what should happen. He'd let it happen and he'd hidden away, ashamed and terrified for what he could not control.)
Berlin had sat and trembled in the dead of night, as troops moved to divide the East and West within him. He shook as the solitary soldier, with a paintbrush and a bucket, daubed ugly white lines in the middle of the street. By the morning, he could feel every part of his body racked with guilt and fear, as his people woke and found that their streets were decorated with angry, sharp barbed wire. He felt the jagged coils tighten around his throat and choke him. He couldn't even make it to his bed, lying on the floor in front of the extinguished fire and sobbing with the horror of what he was helpless to stop. The barbs cut into his neck and all across his shoulders and down his arms, becoming tighter and tighter and digging into his flesh as the confusion and panic spread across the streets. The anguish of the citizens of Berlin made him sick. Berlin knew, though, that this was only the beginning; that the barbs that caused his arms to cast blood onto the floor would manifest and morph into something grotesque and hideous.
Berlin slept. Berlin slept as his people tried to get used to this strange division. Roads would suddenly come to an end, and people met with others who forbade them from going any further. Lives were ripped apart. Berlin slept as families were torn to pieces with families being reported for illegal desertion of the city, fleeing to the West. Berlin slept as the nightmare began.
Berlin itched and ached with the harsh, painful wires. His skin was irritated, and he struggled to do anything save for lie in his bed and wonder where everything had gone wrong. Oh, how he remembered writing to Paris and London, on the dawn of the Prussian Empire. How he’d been so overcome with joy and emotion, at the new Empire giving him safety and security and a new future. Where the hell had everything turned for him? And why didn't he do more to stop it? The angry blue-green lines covered his body, the torment of those people who he had been unable to save during the War, now freshly decorated his skin. Like some sick reminder that he, Berlin, was the focus point of the whole of Europe; that he was the shame of the Cities his people had invaded.
(He followed orders. He'd only followed the orders through history. He ignored their screams and their pleads; the Cities who were his brothers and sisters. He wanted to remain glorious; to fly in the glory of war and to conquer and rule with his brothers and sisters. His family. Those screams haunted him, and they came back to haunt him now. He felt them all turning on him. The Cities saw this as just revenge for what Berlin had done.)
The wires on the streets lasted for five years, and then Berlin suffered anew. He had just grown accustomed to the constant scratch of the wire. He’d even managed to get out into the open, albeit hidden and leaving the people of the streets unaware of his presence, his arms perpetually covered with sleeves and scarves and whatever else he could find, and a large, woollen scarf around his neck to hide the scars of the barbs. He bent the walls and kept sheltered.
The wires were not enough for the humans. The wires were not enough to keep the politics of Europe satisfied.
A City is not responsible for its humans' actions. Berlin was not responsible for the giant concrete slabs, reinforced with steel cabling. Berlin was not responsible for what came next.
(Later, he wondered how Washington and London and Moscow had felt, knowing that their children were partly responsible for what was happening to him. He'd spend nearly forty years wondering.)
As the Wall was built, Berlin felt each hammer blow to his spine. Each vertebra became a foundation for another family torn apart - for another street split; for another house razed. Racked with pain, Berlin suffered for his citizens. He suffered for each and every person who was torn apart by politics that no City across the world had control over. The War had rendered Cities helpless for a time, and when they finally righted themselves and saw fit to pull together, it was already too late for Berlin.
Berlin cried. Berlin cried for the suffering. Berlin cried and felt his entire back become heavier and everything became a struggle. He struggled to stand, struggled to move. He was left for a time completely and utterly struck down with the pain of die Mauer digging into his back and across his shoulders. He longed for only the constant, scratching torment of the barbs, now. The Wall – the ugly, grey expanse of separation and passive-aggressive political disagreement, was now a constant ache on the back of Berlin.
The barbed wire around his neck, like a noose. The barbs cutting into his arms, like thorns. The Wall snaking down his spine, miles of angry concrete and stone, decorated with paint and slogans of Berlin’s children. The desperation of the people, longing for freedom.
A City is not responsible for its humans' actions. Berlin was not responsible for The Death Strip.
One hundred and thirty six of Berlin's children died at the Death Strip. Each time, those angry blue-green lines on his skin appeared. Berlin suffered. He mourned more needless, stupid deaths at the hand of humans who didn't know that what they were doing was tearing him up. The barbed wire from the streets was gentle compared to the gravel and the nails and the dogs and the watchtowers. Berlin’s wrists were struck with the bullets. Berlin didn't want his children to die. Berlin could not stop it.
Berlin was divided. He saw no end to the suffering. The wire coiled tighter around his neck, choking him. He struggled for breath, and as die Mauer grew in height and strength, Berlin feared that he would forever be the City of Europe that his brothers and sisters could no longer help.
A City is not responsible for its humans' actions. But a City can work to rectify the mistakes of the past. With a little willpower and an ally.
The Cities in Hungary and Austria had succeeded. Germany was soon to follow. The Iron Curtain was crashing down with an unstoppable force. The might of the Cities was to be reckoned with.
Berlin had heard of the children of Leipzig, with their covert meetings in churches, seeking to end the rule of the East on its land. The Montagsdemonstrationen of Leipzig were the catalyst. Leipzig was pushing. Leipzig was calling out to the rest of the Iron Curtain brothers and sisters. Berlin clung to the hope that maybe, finally, he would be free.
"Wir bleiben heir! Wir bleiben heir!" Berlin felt his heart grow stronger. The barbed noose around his neck slackening.
Berlin's children marched on Alexanderplatz, demanding that they be allowed to live how they wanted to.
"Wir bleiben heir! Wir bleiben heir!" The chants echoed and called across the Cities of Germany; the Cities of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, a rallying cry.
Prague had allowed the fleeing children of Germany to shelter in her embassies. Prague had taken care of them. Prague urged the rest of her brothers and sisters to do the same. Prague understood that there was no resistance now. The Iron Curtain was falling all around them, and Berlin needed to be liberated.
"Wir bleiben heir! Wir bleiben heir!" Berlin's blue-green lines just a faint trail. The scars healing away to nothing.
Dresden and the trains that rattled through her station, doors open to carry her children to the West. The police soon saw to that, but Dresden was pushing, pushing forward.
Berlin felt his lungs fill with hope. A mistake of an East German politician, and Berlin felt his lungs crackle with the running footsteps of Ost-Berliners. The checkpoints creaked open, die Mauer began to fall.
And Berlin cried as the decades-long ache in his back began to crumble, tearing the skin from his shoulders and hips, ripping great chunks out of his thighs and shins. The Wall had grown and manifested across his whole body, by the end, taking him over and rendering him completely incapable of anything. Berlin had hidden away, and he writhed in pain. A juxtaposition of the joy of his children, that he felt coursing through his veins. The families he'd seen split apart by that single line of white paint, now united once more. In his bed, he sobbed and yelled as he felt every hammer, every fist, every kick.
Who knew that liberty would hurt so much.
The children of Berlin took out their anger on the Wall that had split their lives so viciously. Berlin knew that it wasn't him they were angry at. Berlin knew that they'd seen what the Wall had done to him. Berlin knew they were tearing it down for him, as much as they were for themselves.
A City is not responsible for its humans' actions. A City can only hope that its humans' remember what they believe in.
Miles and miles away, in another country, Paris sat and watched the footage of the Wall being torn down. He flinched in sympathy for Berlin, sense memory of pain filling his mind. He drank. The only thing he could do. Atop the wall, a young German with a pick-axe, red coat clear against the dark of the Berlin night, blonde curls peeking out of the red hat he was wearing. Paris nearly choked. The camera switched to a different view of the Wall being torn down, and Paris cried.