balletrat | (no subject)

*Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, sulks Rick Blaine drunkenly, she walks into mine.*

Classic line, classic, *mutters Andrew.*

*Meg almost turns her head to comment - and then is arrested mid-motion, as the screen fades in from Rick to a shot of the Arc de Triomphe.*

*Ilsa remarks about picking a time like this, with the whole world crumbling, to fall in love. Rick agrees, and wonders aloud where she was, say, ten years ago.*

*Andrew glances at Meg again.*

*Meg glances over at Andrew at the same time; seeing him looking at her, she drops her eyes.*

Ten years ago? Let's see . . . yes, I was having a brace put on my teeth, *says Ilsa, saving Meg from having to come up with any answers of her own.*

*A little later: Rick has asked the train conductor if he can marry them, and Ilsa's just stopped crying. I love you so much, she says, and I hate this war so much...*

Oh, it's a crazy world. Anything can happen. If you shouldn't get away, I mean, if, if something should keep us apart, wherever they put you and wherever I'll be, I want you to know that I -

*Meg fixes her eyes steadily on the screen.

She's getting rather a feeling of deja vu.*

*So's Andrew, maybe.*

*It's a crazy world. Anything can happen.*

You don't know the half of it, *he mutters, barely audible.*

Crazy universe, *Meg murmurs; and on the screen the scene shifts to a train station, and Rick waits for Ilsa, who will never appear.*

* * *

*It's later, and the bar is in full swing. Rick is breaking up a bar fight between a German officer and a French officer who'd had a difference over women and politics (specifically, over Yvonne).*

*Andrew's been trying to translate the French, with help around the edges from Meg.*

*And, appropriately enough, the camera soon pauses to focus on an elderly couple learning English.*

Liebchen, uh, sweetness, what watch?

Ten watch, *answers the wife, as Meg starts to snicker.*

Such much?

*And the Hungarian girl Annina is talking to Rick about a moral dilemma. If someone loved you very much, so that your happiness was the only thing that she wanted in the whole world, but she did a bad thing to make certain of it...*

Nobody ever loved me that much, *says Rick; and Meg wonders if he considers that a good thing, or a bad.*

Oh, but if Jan should find out! *cries Annina.* He is such a boy. In many ways I am so much older than he is.

*Meg sneaks a sideways look.*

*Andrew's watching the screen.*

*Where Rick is saying: Yes, well, everybody in Casablanca has problems. Yours may work out. He excuses himself brusquely, and Annina murmurs a toneless thank-you.*

Salaud, *Meg murmurs.*

Wait for it, *Andrew mutters back, gleefully.*

*Meg waits - and watches as Rick walks into the gambling room, and promptly proceeds to blatantly weight the tables in favor of Annina's young husband.*

Say, you sure this place is honest? *a customer complains.*

*Renault calls it, really: As I suspected, you're a rank sentimentalist.*

*Andrew is looking positively smug.*

*Meg pulls a face at him, as a group of Germans begin to sing their national anthem.*

And how many pretty young wives didn't he save from Renault over the past however many years, *she starts to mutter - and then stops, her attention caught, as Victor Laszlo fills the screen.

And begins to lead the room in the Marseilleise.*

*Andrew is already making shushing noises before Laszlo starts, but that rapidly becomes irrelevant.*

*The Marseilleise is drowning out Deutschland Uber Alles quite satisfactorily.*

*He LOVES this bit.*

*It's safe to say that Meg is enthralled, at the very least.
Allons enfants de la patrie
Le jour de gloire est arrive
Yvonne leaves her German officer sitting at the table to stand up and sing at the top of her lungs.
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé
A good two-thirds of the cafe is singing by this point.
Entendez-vous dans nos campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras.
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!
Meg is not singing; but a close observer might notice her lips moving.*

*And the look on Meg's face isn't too far removed from the look on Yvonne's --*

*The song comes to an end. There's applause, and cheers, and Yvonne choked with emotion and flinging defiance in the Germans' faces, Vive la France! Vive la democracie! and the crowd echoing her.*

Vive la France, *Meg echoes, softly.

She may or may not be aware she's done it.*

*Meanwhile, Strasser is busily Naziing about and ordering the place shut down.*

*And Renault seizes on a pretext: he is shocked, shocked to discover that there is gambling going on in here. Even as a croupier hands him his winnings.*

*Meg still looks somewhat pensive, as the film rolls on, but that earns a light snicker.

She sobers again, though, when Ilsa penetrates Rick's room - and, in desperation, pulls out her gun and threatens to shoot.*

*And for a moment, there's a look of admiration in Rick's eyes.*

*Andrew kind of gets that.*

*He glances over at Meg.*