Hedwig Oneshots

A Very Happy Hanukkah

For the first time in a very, very long time, Yitzhak woke up with a smile on his face. Tonight would be the first night of Hanukkah. His first Hanukkah with Hedwig, his new wife.

Oh, Hedwig. How he loved her, how he hated her. He remembered the night they had met. Yitzhak was the opening act for her band, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. As Krystal Nacht, he was most definitely a star. Krystal was beautiful, sparkly, feminine, blonde and violet wig as pristine and flowing as that of a new doll's hair fresh out of the box. How wonderful he had felt that night. The pure love the audience was giving him, the cheers, the laughter, the smiles. Not of mockery, but of true joy.

Yitzhak knew no greater pleasure than this.

That rush of dopamine continued throughout the night. After his performance, Hedwig refused to go on, and Yitzhak cheekily found this quite flattering. Yitzhak also had to admit that he was beginning to be somewhat attracted to Hedwig; her gorgeous femininity, the control she had over people, the confidence she faked so well Yitzhak could've sworn it was genuine. Yitzhak longed to be with her, to escape the hell he was living in Zagreb.

He did not "beg," as Hedwig claimed, to go with her, although Hedwig was right that Yitzhak was desperate to leave Croatia and achieve fame and success. Was it selfish of Yitzhak to admit he had talent? Perhaps. But he knew it was to his advantage, and he would be happy that people should indulge in his natural gifts.

What Yitzhak was not prepared for was Hedwig's request that a wig never again touch his head. At that moment, his soul felt crushed, confused, and angry at the same time. To deny Yitzhak of Krystal was to deny a starving man food, a loving mother her child, a flower rain and sunlight. Very reluctantly, Yitzhak agreed. His voice could be his saving grace.

And so, two weeks later, he and Hedwig had married in the band's trailer. Krzysztof was an ordained minister, though the wedding was not religious. Yitzhak quickly realized that Hedwig's love for him was purely sexual, a fetishization of his femininity, something Hedwig was quite good at but felt she needed more of. To her, this doe-eyed, shy, submissive, gentle man with a beautiful voice possessed more femininity in his pinkie toe than Hedwig felt she had in her whole body, and she was green with envy because of it. She, for the most part, enjoyed the sex they had as to her it proved that Yitzhak's masculine body would stop him from achieving this high feminine power. She thought all too much about her own body that Yitzhak's opinion on it did not matter to her.

So Yitzhak somehow did love Hedwig, in a quiet, numb sort of way. But maybe this Hanukkah would rekindle the flame at the start of their marriage four months earlier, that flame which lasted about one passionate week.

Later that day, in the hours when the sun reaches just the top quarter of trees and the world is drenched in golden light, Yitzhak took the menorah out of his messenger bag, which held all of his worldly goods. Old wax clung to the sides of it from Hanukkahs past. Yitzhak smiled and traced his finger over it. Memories came flooding back of his mother lighting the menorah and singing the Hanukkah blessing in her warm, low voice. He had been happy in those early years, until his mother had tragically died after being mistaken for Goldie Hawn while out shopping for some perfume and some crazed fans had mobbed her. Then, Yitzhak was sent to the orphanage, as he had no other family. All he had with him was his menorah and the record Barbra Streisand's Greatest Hits, which had been a gift from his mother.

In the orphanage Yitzhak did not exactly fit in with the other boys. They were tough, aggressive, and interested in violence, the very thing that had killed his mother. So he clung to the Jewish faith and Barbra. They were only allowed to play music on Saturdays, and since he surely would've been beaten up if the other boys heard him listening to Barbra Streisand, Yitzhak would shuffle up to the attic at the top of the orphanage, which was home to the cat, who was known by the matron simply as Pussy. Yitzhak renamed the little black cat Dolly, after Dolly Parton as well as Barbra's character, of course. So every Saturday he'd slip past the others, and find refuge with Barbra, Dolly, and the menorah.