Collection 4 - Kolya's Son

by LRH Balzer

  "Perfect, Mom! I've wanted to see that for ages!"

  "Mommy, does it have Yogi Bear in it?"

  "Uh, Dad? If you let me off here, I can walk back."

  "Quiet, everyone!" Norm breathed a sigh of contentment at the sudden silence. "Ah, Trish. Remember the good old days, when it was just you and me?"

  "Dad, it was never just you and Mom. Remember me?"

  "Ah, Trish. Remember when we only had one child? Who couldn't speak English, and whom I could pretend not to understand?"

  "I was never fooled, Dad."

  "Give it up, darling," Trish soothed. "We are outnumbered."

  "Four to two. It's not even close, Trish. I guess we should just give in."

  "Does that mean I gets to have pizza, Daddy?"

  "Tuesday, Misha. Tuesday." Norm glanced in the rear view mirror at his brood, noticed Illya huddled in the backseat of the station wagon, and smiled reassuringly. Illya looked away. But when Norm glanced back at him later, he saw the young man's eyes on him. Watching. Norm smiled again and Illya glanced down and away, but after a moment, Norm felt Illya's eyes on him again. Measuring. Evaluating. And however carefully he was trying to blend in, not at all comfortable.

  In the burger restaurant, Illya scrutinized the menu along with the rest of them, then ordered the same thing as Tony. When his food arrived, he sat across from Tanya and copied her way of eating the burger and French Fries. It occurred to Norm, as he watched him, that to anyone else in the restaurant, Illya appeared to be a part of their family and he was working hard to achieve that. He looked like them, dressed like them, and acted like them. There was only one flaw. He didn't smile.

  He sat at the movie theater between Tony and Norm, nervously shifting in his seat at the openness of his location, probably feeling vulnerable and a sitting target in the flickering darkness. He seemed to be watching a different movie than they were, finding none of the joy that set Misha and Tanya clapping, or the warmth and fun that the adults found in it.

  Yet, for some reason, when Tony caught his father's eye near the end of the movie and directed his attention to the motionless young man now captivated by the film -- a lone tear had dropped from the despairing eyes to lie unabashed on his cheek, his fingers clutching the band of his sweatshirt -- for some reason, the sight made Graham distinctly uncomfortable. No reaction would have been better than an incorrect one. This was the happy part. The part that made you feel good. Just as the characters in the movie had finally reached their goal and finally had the things they had been searching for and had found a way to get back home to Kansas...

  Not a good movie to take you to, was it? Not after what Trish told me. There's no way for you to go back home now. At least not legally. You'll always have to sneak in and out.

  Illya dutifully went into the ice cream parlor with them, but he seemed to have completely shut down his emotions and his responses. He didn't pretend to be one of them, and he would not even pick up the menu, shaking his head in refusal, his eyes shut. Not even Tony could convince him into ordering so much as a soda. Misha offered him a bite of his ice cream to no avail. Tanya offered him a straw to share her soda.

  Illya sat silently, not studying the restaurant or the people this time, his attention turned inward. He said nothing as they chatted about the movie, but at Trish's concerned inquiries, he finally admitted to having a headache. He looked worn out, the movie pulling emotions from him he hadn't wanted and obviously was unable to deal with.

  They finished their ice cream quickly and went home.

  When Norm tucked his youngest son into bed that night, Misha, almost asleep, turned and tugged on his father's sleeve. "Papa, I think our Ilyusha is like the Tin Man in the movie."

  "Why do you say that, Misha?" he whispered to the little boy as he bent down to kiss the frown from the child's forehead.

  "He needs a heart, Papa. Can we find him one?"

  *****

  Illya closed the door of his room behind him, breathing hard, grateful that the long draining evening was over. He opened his eyes almost warily, as if looking for the next hurdle to jump. But there was nothing but the silent cool-blue furnishings of his room to be seen.

  His room. The phrase mocked him silently, even as the few and small quasi-possessions he had in the room taunted him as well. A magazine on the bed table. A notebook he had been given on the desk, one of its pages half-filled with expressions he had come across in his reading that he did not understand and could not find in the dictionary. The Russian woman had told him to keep an accounting of such words and phrases, and she would explain them. Of course, he had done so. He did not know the repercussions of disobedience and it was not wise to discover them on such a minor item.

  She had explained two of the words already. He had written the meanings down so that she could see he had taken note of them and crossed them neatly off the list. Today, he had come across three more.

  A briefing. He did not understand the purpose or the reasons, but it was all an assignment. A briefing. It had to be. Just like the outing this evening, where it seemed he was to pretend he had a place in this household. He was playing a part for someone, unaware of the reasons or the intended results, and it seemed no one would tell him either.

  But it was all obviously an assignment and probably would soon be over. And then he would be gone from all of this. It was no different from any assignment he had taken for the KGB, except that they had kept him slightly more informed. Apparently U.N.C.L.E. had its own methods.

  After a few deep breaths, he had calmed down. He went to prepare for bed, brushing his teeth, showering quickly, refusing to look at the American possessions scattered over one half of the bathroom. He dressed for bed in clean soft pajamas, more outgrown clothes of the American, and went back to his room.

  He simply had to stop thinking that phrase. His room. He stared around the quiet space, thinking of all the places he had stayed in over all the years, but he had to admit, this was one of the most comfortable. It was a space of his own, not a made-up bed on a couch, or a cot in a dorm.

  And seemingly, there was privacy, too. Although he had tried, he had not found a single listening or surveillance device in the bedroom itself. In the common rooms, yes, he had found several, and they were all relatively easy to spot, once he understood where to look. But here -- none.

  The sound of the river came through the open windows, the rush of the water soothing. The light breeze was cool, smelling of cut grass, stirring the air in the room that was still warm from the heat of the day. He turned off his lights, too tired to read, and the bed welcomed him, the sheets cool, the light blanket warm, the linens clean and sweet-smelling, easing his pounding headache.

  No prison had a right to be this seductively comfortable. It was probably some sort of trap. He was fairly sure that it was dangerous to enjoy all this comfort, but he fell into an exhausted sleep while he was still puzzling out how to harden himself against it.

  6

  Sunday, June 25

  By the next day, the fifth day of his confinement, Illya felt the creamy painted walls of the house closing in on him.

  The Grahams were carrying on their Sunday activities, all of which he found frivolous and incomprehensible. Sunday mornings were a well-worn tradition in the home, beginning with several newspapers that were delivered by some anonymous service. Illya had seen guards carrying up newspapers from the road on other days, but the papers today were huge. He had thought at first that some calamity had occurred to be reported on, but apparently the expanded size was a regular Sunday event. Strange, since this was a holiday, of sorts. No one worked, except, of course, the ever present guards.

  The entire family tore at the papers, sharing sections, reading snatches to each other, and making editorial comments. Breakfast accompanied this activity and was also a long drawn-out affair, with much more food than Illya deemed necessary. At least the family left him in peace while they read and conversed and devoured scrambled eggs and bacon and
muffins and fruit.

  Every few minutes, Illya turned a page of the section they had given him, but he read nothing, staring with deliberately unfocused eyes at the newsprint. He drank a few swallows of the orange juice the woman insisted upon pushing on him and nibbled on some dry toast for appearance. But the only thing he had wanted was tea and he drank several glasses of it until someone commented on his thirst.

  Then, with no visible cue that he was able to observe, they all got up from the table, put their dishes on the counter, and wandered from the room. The woman and the girl left for their religious service. Tony said he would be in his room studying. Norm Graham was staying home with the little boy who had something called 'sniffles' and as they headed into the living room, he casually turned to Illya and said he was free to do whatever he wanted that day.

  What he wanted was to get away from them for a while. Illya escaped the house, slipping through the basement's patio door into the courtyard. The mid-morning sky held a murky haze that the sun was slowly dissolving. He skirted the pool, frowning at the clear blue water. He didn't understand how such a thing could be justified for one family and a few guards. But the whole house was like that. Rooms and rooms, most of them barely used.

  He had heard stories in Russia, everyone had, that Americans were rich, but none of the Russian immigrants he had known when he had been in America before had lived in this kind of luxury, or anything close to it. Even Waverly only lived in a flat, if a luxurious one high in the air, but Waverly was British. Perhaps one had to be American-born to reach this level of wealth, or marry into it, like the Russian woman had.

  He supposed his adopted father, Mikhail Zadkine, had been wealthy by Russian standards. As the head of the Kiev Artillery School, he was highly enough placed in the KGB that he had been entitled to a dacha in the country as well as the flat in Kiev, but the dacha had been small, not much more than a cabin, it had been hard to keep up as paint and materials to do so were always in short supply. There had been only one bath, and the water was cold.

  It was absurd that here he had a bath practically to himself and that there seemed as many baths as bedrooms in the house. And as many names for them: powder rooms, johns, master baths -- he had not even learned all the names and variations.

  He rubbed at his temples, trying to push back the day-old headache, as well as the memories. He had not been happy, per se, in Kiev, but at least he had understood his place. Zadkine had never left him in doubt as to his expectations and Illya had come to a late appreciation of that lack of ambiguity. He had a purpose there, had justified his place. But he had been given no purpose here, and he found the whole household, as well as his situation, baffling.

  What business had he to live in a place where the house had almost as many baths as residents? Where there were as many automobiles as adults? Where every other room seemed to have a telephone? Where the house had not only a television, but one that displayed the pictures in color?

  He was not American. He was not rich. He apparently was not on an assignment.

  He did not belong here.

  He walked across the wide lawns, perfectly clipped to a carpet-like height. Not a weed marred the fine blue-green strands or a stray blade of grass stained his shoes. He had seen a man riding a small tractor that cut the grass and sucked up the cut blades into a bag.

  A tractor to cut grass.. . when many Russians still farmed with horses and hoes?

  He stopped around a bend in the lawns to stare over a very large, green-colored, cement square. White lines were painted on the square and a white net swayed gently in the breeze. A tennis court. He had seen, at exclusive resorts in the Crimea, people carrying rackets, dressed in white clothes. Tennis was also a sport for the decadent rich. Of course they would have a tennis court. Two men played on it now and he stood for almost half an hour and watched the ball being knocked back and forth, back and forth. At least he had found one thing he could identify with.

  He wandered down past the boathouse to the river, his soul calmed a little by the swiftly moving water. Americans could live in large homes and tame the grass, but this river belonged to itself, wild and refusing to be tamed.

  Except for the dock that encroached upon it. The narrow wooden dock stretched far out into the river, occasional spray splashing droplets over its surface. Illya stepped out, feeling its comforting sway, and walked the long length. The water was dark, muddy, the river high and swollen with early summer rains. No clear blue water here. A predatory bird flew above the river, looking for fish. In the distance, he could see small boats, but here there were no boats tied to the dock and none close. The breeze from the water was cooling, bringing with it a feeling of wild recklessness as it skipped about, changing direction as it felt moved.

  If he sat at the very edge of this dock, he would see only the water and the distant bank. He could forget about the house behind him, the Americans who lived in it, and what they might have in store for him. He could imagine himself away from this prison. For prison it must be, however much they told him he had his freedom.

  He had no illusions that if he tried to leave, if he ran away, they would watch him with their cameras, pursue him in their cars and bring him back. Waverly had sent him here, for what reasons he did not know, and here he must stay. For the moment. He could not leave. There was no place for him to go, anyway. He could not go back to his home, not after his arranged death.

  His KGB training had taught him the value of escaping mentally and his soul craved a break. He sat on the edge of the dock, slipped off his sneakers and socks, and lowered his feet into the river. The water swirled around his ankles and soaked the cuffs of his jeans, but the river was bitterly cold and he shivered and withdrew his feet. Instead, he rested his chin on his drawn up knees, his arms wrapped around them, and watched the predator birds. Hawks? Kestrels? He did not know the names. But they were free. He hugged his legs tighter, curled his toes up in a belated attempt to warm them, let his eyes drift shut, and dreamed of home.

  *****

  "Mr. Graham? The guard stood deferentially in the doorway. Graham glanced up from reading the comics to his son and tousled the boy's hair. "I'll be right back, Misha."

  He paused outside the living room. "What is it, Nate?"

  "You should look at this, sir."

  At the serious edge to the man's voice, Graham sent Michael down to Tony's room and followed the guard into the Safe House. In the monitoring room, they stared at the image of Illya Kuryakin, apparently fast asleep, precariously perched on the very edge of the boat dock.

  "What the hell? He looks like a stray breeze is going to blow him over!"

  Nate shifted uneasily. "Sorry, sir. I know he looks asleep, but he was awake just a minute or so ago. We didn't have any orders to keep him away from the dock, sir, and he just walked down it --"

  "No, it's not your fault. I specifically told Illya to be careful there. To wear a life jacket. Damn it. What can he possibly be thinking of?"

  "Should I --"

  "No. He's my responsibility. Thanks to one Alexander Waverly," Graham said with a touch of bitterness. "There goes my peaceful Sunday morning at home, straight into a confrontation with an unsociable guest. I'll just go down and have a talk with him. Hopefully, I won't startle him right off the dock."

  "Sorry, sir," the guard said again, having stiffened at the mention of Waverly's name. If this Russian belonged to Waverly, and was damaged, he might as well just start packing for Antarctica now.

  "Don't worry about it. I'm sure eventually Illya will learn the house rules. Hopefully, he'll survive until then." Shaking his head, Graham strode outside, heading first for the storage room that held the boating equipment to get a life jacket. He had enough trouble teaching his own kids to stay away from the dock and the river. And though Illya was not one of his kids, Misha was, and his son was at that 'monkey-see, monkey-do stage' where he might mimic anything. If he didn't straighten Illya out, he'd only have trouble later with Misha. The last thi
ng he'd thought he would be doing this Sunday was remind a Soviet agent of their basic family rules. Kuryakin was proving to be a lot of trouble, in unexpected ways. "It's like having another four-year-old around," he grumbled to himself, setting off across the lawn.

  *****

  Illya was having difficulty dreaming of home. For one thing, putting his feet in the water had been a mistake. The icy water that had soaked his cuffs had turned them into chill bands around his ankles, reminding him of bonds. The breeze coming off the water cut through his T-shirt. Only yesterday the weather had been warm, very warm. Why was it so cold today? Simply because he wanted it to be warm? This country had no intention of welcoming him, even by having clement weather.

  Why should the country welcome him? No one else did. Alexander Waverly had not wanted him, and he was the only one who might. Illya had tried to be useful to the organization whose ideals he thought he believed in, but apparently his own worth was meager indeed. And it was possible he had totally mistaken the organization's true ideals.

  Kuryakin hugged his legs tighter and squeezed his eyes shut against the ache in his chest.

  It had been a mistake to ask Alexander Waverly for help. He had thought the U.N.C.L.E. chief might have a place for him in his organization, but it had taken the man two weeks to respond to his plea and then, instead of helping him, Alexander Waverly had killed him. Taken his country and his family away from him forever. And then after taking everything from him, Alexander Waverly had sent him away into this exile, not even keeping him a single day, despite the man's promise that he could stay.

  He didn't understand it. Why had Alexander Waverly sent him from New York? Was he supposed to be observing these people? Spying on them? Were they suspected of something? Then why wasn't he told what to look for?

  It was most likely the opposite. They were watching him. Waiting for him to slip up. To make another mistake. They were watching him every waking hour, even making him live with them, so they could observe him more. Alexander Waverly was a powerful man who did not have time to watch him, so he had sent him here to be watched. What was going to happen to him? Would he be kept here forever?