by LRH Balzer
"I'll be fine. We both are moving a little slowly these days."
"You both have every reason to be moving slowly. Your friend gave me the rundown on your injuries." Antonio's eyes narrowed. "You don't mind, do you?"
"No, that's fine. It's not like you—" Napoleon paused, not sure where he was heading with his statement. "Anyway, I appreciate you taking him in like this. It means a lot to me."
"He is my son's friend. He is always welcome in my house." Antonio spread his arms open, gesturing to the room. "In answer to your comment, your mother loved Christmas, yet rarely had the opportunity to decorate as she wanted to. Customs differ from place to place, and we had to be careful to blend in wherever we were living. I started to do this when I returned to Canada... I think of her when I'm putting up the tree and the lights." Antonio looked like he was going to say something more, then sat back in his chair and stared at the flickering flames in the fireplace. The pipe in his hand reminded Napoleon of Waverly's, except his father's was lit, the pungent smoke gently exotic, mixed in with the scent of the evergreen tree.
Illya shivered abruptly, and Napoleon looked back to him, resting his hand on the blanket above Illya's heart until his partner seemed calmer. "How long ago did he take the medication?"
Antonio glanced at his watch. "About two hours. I looked at the bottle and he's not due for more until later this evening."
"Thank you. I appreciate you keeping an eye on him. His family—we were concerned that he was okay. I phoned them from the airport in Toronto and told them where I was heading. If you don't mind—?" Napoleon pulled out his U.N.C.L.E. transceiver, calling into the New York office, which transferred him to Washington. "Norm?" he asked softly.
"Did you find him?" came the quick question.
"Yes. I was right. He's here. Safe. Sleeping at the moment."
"Are you coming back right away or spending the night?" Graham asked.
"You are welcome here," Antonio said quickly. "I have enough bedding."
"Thank you." Napoleon thumbed the transceiver. "Norm, we'll be staying here. I'll talk to Illya in the morning, and then I'll let you know when we'll be returning."
"He's okay?” Trish's voice replaced her husband's. "Napoleon?"
"He's sleeping, Trish. I'll talk to him in the morning."
"Okay. Thank you, Napoleon, for looking for him."
"No problem. I'll call you in the morning," he repeated.
"Have a good sleep," Trish said, then Norm took the transceiver back.
"Is everything all right there? " Norm asked. "With your father?"
"Yes. He seems quite well," Napoleon answered, deliberately misunderstanding the question. Good night, Norm." He signed off and closed the pen-like device.
"I admit to being surprised that you came here," Antonio ventured. "I didn't exactly get the impression you were comfortable on your last visit."
Napoleon shrugged. "Maybe not comfortable, but it went better than I had thought." He looked down at his partner. "Illya liked it here."
"Is that why you think he came here now? Because he likes it here?"
"No. I think he came here because he can't find his mother and he didn't know where to look. He knows you have been looking for my—for your wife for many years, and you might be able to suggest to him where he can start his search."
"Close," Antonio conceded.
Napoleon waited a moment, then asked, sharply, "Then why did he come?"
Illya stirred beside him, clearing his throat, his sleep-fogged voice rough. "Because, my friend, Antonio knows what it feels like inside your heart when you have run out of places to look."
Antonio smiled grimly, and looked over to Napoleon "I have no easy answers for Illya. In all likelihood, his mother died during the attack of the Germans on Kiev in 1941. And in all likelihood, your mother died in a concentration camp in Germany in the fall of 1942. All that is possible is to leave your name with the Red Cross and other groups and hope that one day, if they have survived, that you will find them."
Illya opened his eyes then, meeting Antonio's. "Thank you for your candor. It is much easier to accept advice from someone who has traveled the same road."
"I hope your nightmares stop, but not your memories of your mother. They are to be treasured, as I remember my wife and everything she meant to me." Antonio rose and set another two logs on the fire.
"I'll put on some coffee, Napoleon. I'm sure you'd like to talk to your partner."
"I would. Thank you." He waited until Antonio had moved into the kitchen before looking back down at Illya. "So even after speaking to him, you still dreamed?" he asked, forgoing the idle pleasantries that Illya detested.
"Yes." The Russian shifted on the couch until he sat partially upright, one eyebrow raising when he realized Napoleon had no plans to move to the other chair, but remained sitting on the edge of the couch at his side. He stretched his legs out behind his partner. "I dreamed. But my mother was not in this dream."
"But Mother Fear was," Napoleon guessed, then nodded at Illya’s grimace. "If it helps at all, I found out a bit more about her. She was born Mabel Packard in Detroit, Michigan. At the time of her death she was 39 years of age, according to her Thrush dossier, which I believe is a few years off. She has several degrees in psychology and was employed by Thrush as a teacher at their school for the express purpose of manipulating the young minds in her charge to see things the 'Thrush' way."
"She excelled," Illya said, dryly.
Napoleon studied him for a moment, then forged ahead. "At the Figliano school, what happened between you two?" He watched the expressions flitter across his partner's supposedly unreadable face, pleased that he could see them. "What did she do?"
Illya frowned suddenly, his head tilting down as he massaged his shoulder. "She... It's difficult to put into words, Napoleon. I was drugged, so my impressions of what happened are bound to be inaccurate, as are my memories."
"What do you think happened? What do you recall as happening?" Napoleon persisted.
Illya tucked the blanket around his legs, drawing his knees closer to his chest, which gave Napoleon more room to slide back further on the couch and get comfortable at the opposite end.
"What's not in the report?" Napoleon asked quietly, once Illya seemed to be settled.
Squaring his shoulders, Illya looked up, meeting his steady gaze. "Mother Fear appeared to function quite adroitly at her job. She wanted to know where the Western Hemispheric Conference was, and also I remember questions about the future head of U.N.C.L.E. Africa and security at our other site in Switzerland."
Napoleon nodded, understanding the reference.
"She threw the tea in my face. It stung, but wasn't quite hot enough to scald my skin, just redden it. She asked me about my mother, and I suppose that something in my reply piqued her interest. She left the room for a while, leaving her two henchmen to strip me." Illya looked away, his eyes unfocusing slightly as he went back to that afternoon. "She was gone quite a while, and they left me there, chained to a hook on the floor, just wearing boxers and my socks. The tea had been drugged, and even though I had only had a sip, it was vile tasting. It took a while to act."
"You mentioned all this in your report. She came back with a strap and a riding crop."
"Yes. She had some information, as well. She seemed to know my mother's name and where she had disappeared from. She knew about my brother, that his body had been found and identified, but not hers. She said Thrush had my mother and many of the other women from Kiev, and they were being used as breeders, having children who were being educated in Thrush schools around the world. She said my mother was well respected in the Thrush dynasty. But she missed me. She had orders out to look for me and bring me to her. Mother Fear said she would gain favor in Thrush's eyes if she could show them I was worthy of living and being returned to my mother. Telling the location of the conference would be a sure way for me to be reunited with my mother."
Illya seemed to pause there
, his mind back on the conversation, and Napoleon cleared his throat and asked, "How long did that go on for?"
Illya shrugged. "I've no idea. I wouldn't tell her anything, even drugged. Then she started talking about my mother as though she knew her, called her by her given name, mentioned my brother and how his death had hurt her so much. How my death would sadden her." Illya sighed, and yawned, then tried to draw energy to continue. "I didn't respond. Then it started changing, but I can't remember much about it. I just remember Mother Fear saying that she would like to be my mother and—"
"What?"
"This was after she had strapped me. My back was in agony. It was hard to concentrate and my head was still woozy from the drugs."
"What did she say?"
"It's not so much what I remember her saying, it's what she started doing. With her hands. And she was kissing me—kissing it better, she said. Mama is kissing it all better. I remember her tongue on my chest, on my back, licking the blood. Mama is making it better—Mama—" He stumbled to a halt, repulsed by his memories, and Napoleon got up and moved closer to him again, ignoring Antonio standing in the doorway, holding a tray with hot drinks.
"Illya? What else?"
"She started saying she was my mother. She started caressing me, making disgusting comments geared to shock me, I suspect. She asked me if I wanted to sleep with her, since she reminded me of my mother. All boys want to sleep with their mother, she said. This was my chance and she wouldn't tell my mother. It would be our secret." Illya buried his face in his hands. "Just like with Miep, remember, Napoleon? Miep Van Daan, when I was a child? Remember her saying to me 'Promise not to tell?' and I started remembering it later? Well it was like that. She said it over and over like some damned chant. 'Our little secret.' "
"Did anything happen?"
"What do you mean? Did I sleep with her? Did I fantasize about my mother while burying myself inside of her?" Illya dropped his hands and looked up at Napoleon. "I have no idea what I did. I can't remember a fucking thing after that, not until I woke up in the cell feeling like I had been branded." He shrugged. "Maybe I had. Maybe it happened. I don't know."
"So she's been haunting your dreams because you can't remember."
"I guess. I don't know. Damn, I'm tired." Illya rested his head against the side of the couch, the energy drained from his body. "I'm just too tired to figure it out. I'm just too damned tired."
"Do you want to hear my take on this?"
"Sure. Why not?" Illya mumbled, his eyes closed.
"I saw what condition you were in when I found you in the cell. You were in severe agony from the marks on your back. You could hardly move. Now I don't claim to know much about your love life, but could you have really made love to her in that condition? Drugged and in intense pain? I doubt it." He leaned over and tilted Illya toward him. "Lie back down. You need to rest."
"Famous last words," Illya murmured, but complied, shifting his body back along the couch until he was flat again, his head on a pillow.
Napoleon took the pills Antonio wordlessly handed him, and a glass of water and coaxed his partner into taking them. "Nothing happened, my friend. I'm positive that if you didn't tell her the location of the conference, there was no way in hell you would have slept with her."
"Yeah?" Illya said, a smile about his lips. "What about you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Would you have slept with her?"
"Nah. Not my type."
Illya nodded sleepily, grimacing at a pain on his chest, one hand absently rubbing a spot on his left biceps. "I didn’t know you didn't have a type."
They joked for a few minutes more, the conversation turning to other matters, then the medication went into effect and Illya finally fell asleep.
Antonio had retreated to the kitchen, but came out when he heard Napoleon sigh in relief. "A difficult time," he said softly, handing Napoleon a fresh cup of coffee.
"Each encounter with Thrush—or whoever we're after at the time—has its own set of problems. The worst of it, though, is when they touch on us personally, on some area that is raw." Napoleon glanced up. "I suspect you know this already. You were doing this before I was born."
"True. But no man has the experiences of another."
Napoleon laughed quietly. "You sound like my partner. He has a wealth of expressions." He sipped on the hot coffee.
Antonio resumed his seat by the fireplace. "He's been badly hurt. He has needed this time, to talk to you, to rest, to find himself."
Somehow, the next hour passed before Napoleon was really aware of it. Much of it was spent in silence, listening to the snap and hiss of the fire and his partner's quiet breathing, watching the light of the flames play on the pale features. He couldn't bring himself to move away from Illya's side, and when he finally looked up to meet his father's calm, reflective eyes, he realized that he himself had been rejuvenated by the time. He had needed a balance between this and the haunting memory of his partner's life flickering away beneath his hand, knowing the end had come.
But it hadn't. His mind had known it and now the rest of him knew it as well. Illya was alive—they both were. Their injuries would heal. Tomorrow they would go to the Grahams' and the day after would be Illya's birthday. For the first time, there would be a celebration for his partner's life, not a memorial service for his death.
"Do you wish to sleep here in the living room? I can bring the sleeping mat here from the spare bedroom, if you'd like, or would you prefer to sleep in my guest room?" Antonio asked.
"Thank you. Here is fine."
Together they brought the mattress and blankets out, setting up the bed a few feet from the couch. Napoleon went into the bathroom to wash up and change into his pajamas, taking his own medication.
He'd checked his arm and it was healing nicely. Tomorrow he would forego the sling.
Antonio watched him stretch out along the mattress, then turned out the lights. "I know this wasn't planned, Napoleon," he said before he went to his bedroom, "but thank you for coming. Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas, Dad," Napoleon said, into the darkness. "Thank you for your hospitality."
"You're welcome. Sometimes, hospitality is all we can offer another."
Napoleon listened to his steps down the hallway, then the bedroom door close. He carefully rolled onto his good side. Sleep came quickly.
* * * * *
The streets were strangely silent, only the sound of hissing steam from the dying fires, and the brush of wind through the barren trees and bombed out buildings. He heard crying, too, a child's long-exhausted whimper.
The air smelled, though, of gasoline and blood and fire, all mixed together with the smoke that settled along the ground, swirling like an angry snake, instead of rising like it should and dissipating.
He lay on the broken cement, his cheek against the rough surface, staring out at nothing. No one was there. No one had come. She hadn't come back for him. Mama was gone. He was hungry. He was tired. He wanted to go home, to his apartment, to his bedroom, to his little bed that he shared with his brother. Even his brother had disappeared. Mitya had been hurt and was crying, and then Mitya lay down and didn't move.
He had tried to find Mama then, to tell her that Mitya wouldn’t move, but he couldn't find her.
Time stretched on.
Finally he stood, dragging himself to his feet, walking along the middle of the road looking for Mama. He had no idea how far he had gone. He had cried for a long time... he was hungry. He was thirsty. He wanted his Mama and Mitya.
Then he saw her. She was at the end of the street, waving at him, calling to him. "Lusha! Come here, darling! Come to Mama."
He smiled and cried, stumbling forward to her, trying to see her through his tear-blurred vision.
The bomb landed and she shattered across the landscape, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces until the wind picked up the tiny sparkles of her life and pulled them upward into the night.
Then the no
ise started.
He tried to turn but it was too late. Caught in a moment, he twisted from its path, turning, turning. The rumble grew worse, like an earthquake of deadly proportions, the ground heaving as it rent in two. The monster descended on him, breathing fire bombs that snaked out and burned him. He felt the fatal force hit his body, heard the screech as it attacked him, felt his body sail into the air. Then darkness, pain and nothingness.
Illya woke slowly, drifting from the dream to the present, from oblivion to the recognized warmth and safety of a friend's arms. His eyes flickered open; for a long moment, he didn't move, absorbing the security and peace, his eyes gradually focusing the raging fire into the contained glow from a fireplace.
I'm drugged, he thought, remembering the pain tablets he had taken with the water. He raised his head, closing his eyes against the dizziness and sensations overwhelming his brain. The soft murmur of sounds took on form and meaning, transforming into Napoleon's mumbled words of reassurance.
He tried again to open his eyes, and saw his fingers clenched into tight fists, still reacting to the fear of the dream.
I'm improving, he thought, with a choked laugh that seemed to distress his partner. At least Mother Fear wasn't in it this time. And my mother no longer calls for me.
Unfortunately, he was still dead at the end of it. Sometimes, two out of three isn't enough.
* * * * *
Toronto, Ontario
Boxing Day, December 26,1965, 6:00 p.m.
The cab cruised through the downtown streets, largely deserted on the holiday Sunday, except for those heading to evening services at the large, stoneworked churches or to visit family and friends. The cab passed through the snow-lined streets and they absently staring at the multi-colored lights of the houses, before it found the freeway and whisked them to the international airport.
Illya stared out the window silently, resting his head against the cool glass. The visit with Antonio Solo had been more than he had hoped for. He had not found his answers, but Antonio Solo had offered practical advice and a dose of reality. If nothing else, it had been pleasant to see Napoleon and his father sitting peacefully over breakfast, exchanging stories of several family members of the Solo clan that Illya knew nothing about—and really had no desire to meet, once he had heard the anecdotes.
