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Everyone was real sorry. They had been partners a long time after all. The women touching his arm, the men calling him ‘buddy’. Once that stopped things would be easier.
But then Mr Waverly found him in the office. Illya’s desk an empty, silent presence which they both avoided.
“Take the next two weeks off Mr Solo.”
“I’d rather not sir.”
“That’s an order.”
“Yes sir.”
There wasn’t any need for the enforced leave. He had lost countless colleagues, even a partner once before. You expected it, you got used to it. Still, he had found it hard to concentrate on the paperwork this morning, constantly haunted by an idea that there was something he had left undone. Perhaps a few days to catch up on sleep, to call up Elaine or maybe Jennifer would do the trick.
Back at his apartment he sat on the couch and closed his eyes.
Soon the warm Caribbean waves gave up their treasure. Face upturned to the sun, fair hair a cloud, blue shirt heavy with water, deposited on the white sand. Eyes closed and no breaths troubling the thin frame. And Napoleon a long way down the empty beach, trying to make out the shape amidst the lapping waves, heard the insistent peeping of a young sea bird.
He was woken by the communicator in his breast pocket and the dream melted away. It was Mr Waverly’s secretary. He hoped it was an assignment.
“Sorry to disturb you Napoleon. Just wanted to let you know that we heard from the Agency lawyer about Illya’s will. He left everything to you. No hurry but you need to see about sorting out his apartment.”
“OK Lisa, no problem. Thanks honey.”
He turned to ice suddenly. So cold, his hands shaking as he snapped the communicator off. His stomach a knot. A whisky. A bit early but it warmed him as sure as a flame. He must be really tired or else going down with something.
Something.
Sort something out.
Sort things out.
Sort out Illya’s things.
Illya left everything to him. Why did he have to go and do that?
One more whisky and his eyes were closing again. One more whisky and he was resuming his trek down the mile long beach, the warm breeze gathering strength against him. Wondering why the more he walked the further from the still blue form he was.
A stiff neck from sleeping in a chair. How did it get to be evening and nothing done? But all he could find it in himself to do was get into bed where the night passed in a long exhausting journey beset by monsters and fire and tall engulfing waves.
But morning came.
He hadn’t been much into Illya’s apartment. Picked him up and dropped him off countless times. But inside hardly at all. Three times.
First time.
He had helped him move in. Back when they scarcely knew each other. Driven him here with his two half empty suitcases and a box of Napoleon’s unwanted plates and cups. Napoleon had wondered then if they would ever make a successful partnership the young Russian was so quiet, hardly saying a word.
Though as he came to know Illya’s temperament he learned to feel privileged that the cautious reserve toward him had so quickly softened.
Napoleon appraised the tiny apartment. One room with a small kitchen area, a bed, a wardrobe, some other bits of UNCLE issue furniture. A bathroom coming off the room as an afterthought. He would fit Illya’s possessions into the two suitcases on top of the wardrobe. He could take everything away now and not even notice it in his own place.
He hesitated. It seemed too final an act. After all they had never found the body. He stopped himself thinking along these lines. It was the damn dream that was doing it. Before that he had completely accepted that Illya was dead.
Dead.
Now suddenly the worst thing was the cup. His cup. It was a plain white mug and it sat by the sink with an inch of black coffee at the bottom. Napoleon turned cold again at the thought of Illya glancing at his watch, putting down his coffee and picking up his suitcase. Expecting to be back.
He pulled one of the cases off the wardrobe and laid it open on the rug. If he hadn’t come to pack up Illya’s things why had he come?
He opened the wardrobe. The suits hung in a row. Mostly black, but a few grey. Shirts, mostly white, pressed and stacked on a shelf. A row of ties, some of them alarmingly Soviet from the early days, the later ones sleek and black. He ran his finger down the silk of one of the ties. Surely he had done harder things than this without a second thought?
He packed up the suits first, then the shirts, then the ties. He opened the chest of drawers near the wardrobe. On seeing the collection of black polo necks he stopped, suddenly at the end of his energy. He must be going down with something after all.
He sat down in the fireside armchair. Sitting there reminded him of the second time he had been to Illya’s apartment. It was when they had been partners for just a year. He had stayed for a couple of days that time and spent much of it in this chair.
Second time.
THRUSH had tortured Illya. Napoleon had got him out but not before Illya had been assaulted for more than a day.
Illya being Illya, he had walked away from the scene, shrugging off what had happened and refusing to allow a doctor to so much as take his pulse. He said he was fed up with being poked and prodded and anyway he felt fine.
Napoleon, knowing by then how pointless it was to argue with him, drove his friend home. He wanted to keep an eye on him though and ignoring all protests he refused to leave.
Illya slept through almost all of the first day and Napoleon watched over him from the armchair. At first he felt foolish, Illya clearly needing nothing from him. But he did not insist Napoleon leave and he knew from his own experience that these things took a while to hit home sometimes.
After about a day Illya began to go down with a fever. Not a particularly bad one but enough to weaken him further and interrupt his rest. Naturally Illya would not allow Napoleon to do anything more for him than bring him a glass of water or some soup from the corner deli, thanking him for each small kindness.
Finally Illya had drifted off to sleep. Seeing him finally at rest Napoleon dozed as well. He was woken by a terrible cry that made him reach automatically for his gun. But the cry came from Illya. Only half awake, unable to escape from a nightmare or a memory. Napoleon had gone to him and gathered him into his arms before he had even fully woken himself.
As if that was the thing he had come to do and it was about time.
“Illya, its OK. You’re safe now. I’m here,” he had whispered again and again, rocking him in a gentle motion. Finally Illya relaxed against him, his head on his shoulder offering the tangle of fair hair to stroke and troubled forehead to kiss. Which he did. To his own surprise his body had begun to respond to the one in his arms and he realised that Illya, now awake, was looking at him with curious blue eyes.
“Napoleon,” he had said in a way which was a question, a statement, an exclamation of surprise.
Napoleon slowly released him. Laying him back on the pillow, telling him he’d had a nightmare, to go back to sleep. They had never spoken about the incident. In fact Napoleon would not admit to himself that there had been an incident to speak of. So why now, as he sat in the armchair looking at Illya’s clothes in the suitcase, could he think of nothing else but the feel of Illya’s body against his all those years ago?
The dream just wouldn’t quit.
The sun was high in the sky when Napoleon overcame the obstacles to reach Illya. Driftwood, washed by the sea, dried by the sun, he could have simply been asleep, as was his way, with an arm reaching up over his head. Fingers accustomed to looking for pulses found none at Illya’s throat.
Napoleon laid his lips against Illya’s, trying to breathe his life into him. The increasingly desperate chest compressions had no effect, neither did the lips respond to his kiss. In the end it was the exhaustion of these efforts that woke Napoleon. That woke Napoleon with one thought. He couldn’t bring him back. Just when he had realised something important.
Once fully awake the clarity vanished. He was not sure anymore what was so important and he dully got out of the chair. It didn’t matter anyway. Not now. He finished packing the first suitcase.
When he came to the drawer of Tshirts, shorts, socks he finally asked himself what he was going to do with all this stuff.
Illya’s things.
He realised he was going to keep two suitcases of Illya’s things forever.
He clicked the case shut and pulled the second one off the wardrobe. This one for books and the unclassifiable detritus of life. Like a spare pair of reading glasses on the night table. Napoleon turned them over in his hands. The black rimmed spectacles were as personal to Illya as the hair on his head. He smiled, Illya could never keep track of his glasses. Napoleon was forever finding them in Mr Waverly’s office, hotel bathrooms and on the dashboard of his car.
This wouldn’t do. If he was going to fall into a reverie over every little thing he would be there all week. He packed the glasses carefully away. Then he pulled the books off the shelf. Mostly tremendous Russian tomes that had travelled with him from the Soviet Union. Some poetry. Some American literature.
A bottom drawer like a surreal painting was full of strange objects. Quite a few of them used to be Napoleon’s before he had decided they were beyond saving and thrown them out, or tried to. Only someone who had grown up with absolutely nothing would insist on keeping these things. A half functioning watch, a weird sort of Swiss thing that went ‘moo’ when you turned it over, a snorkel, a prediluvian camera and so on.
He clicked shut the second case. All that was left now was the bed linen, the toiletries and kitchen equipment. These could be thrown away or left for the next tenant.
Then he saw the last case. It was on top of the bookshelf half hidden in the shadows. A small brown hand luggage case, battered and well-travelled . He pulled it down and took it to the armchair where he balanced it on his knee to open it. He knew what it was and its paint-splattered surface reminded him of the last time he had been to Illya’s apartment. Third time.
It had been three or four months ago and Illya had decided to decorate his apartment during some leave time. Napoleon had gone over to help. Because he was bored, as he said at the time. Or was it, as he now began to suspect, that he wanted Illya always at his side?
My Illya.
Illya had said, ‘How many spies does it take to paint a wall? Two. One to paint the wall, one to mix the martinis.’ It had been a good day. Napoleon painted the tops of the walls, Illya the bottom and they met in the middle. They had beers and listened to music and talked their usual nonsense. But when evening came Napoleon caught himself watching Illya. Bare feet, in old jeans and Tshirt, his hair in his eyes as he dipped his paintbrush into the paint tin. He felt a wave of affection toward his friend and suddenly wanted to take care of him.
He suggested quitting for the day and Illya immediately stopped work as if he had been given a direct order. Illya closed the tins and washed the brushes and then sat down on the floor leaning against his bed with a beer while Napoleon ordered a takeaway, prepared plates and cleared a space for them to eat. The sort of thing he would do as second nature for any of the beautiful women he had wined and dined in unusual circumstances.
When he was opening a bottle of wine he saw that Illya was smiling at him and he asked him why. Illya said teasingly, “You are very good at this. I might consider having sex with you.”If you couldn’t crack a harmless joke after years of close friendship when could you? But Napoleon froze, as if a sensitive nerve that he didn’t even know was sensitive had been attacked. Illya, of course, had spotted his distress.
He had laid his hand on his arm and said. “Its just my way of saying thank you.”
It was OK again after that but.......
It was later on that evening when Illya had pointed out the case. He said it was where he kept his papers, so Napoleon would know, in case anything should happen to him. Napoleon offered to keep the papers in his own safety deposit box but Illya refused saying he also kept personal things in there. Keepsakes of his family, letters and photographs.
It had saddened Napoleon to think of a lifetime of memories in this little box and that was how he felt now as he looked at the yellowing picture of Illya’s parents. It must have been taken when Illya was very small and not long before they died. He looked very much like the mother he had never known. There were other photographs as well, one of a woman he felt was a grandmother, another of a boy so obviously Illya at six or seven. There were ancient letters in Russian amongst the treasures and small pieces of gold and silver in cardboard jewellery boxes. He looked quickly through the more official papers and that was when he found the photograph.
It was a picture of Napoleon and Illya together. It looked like it had been taken a couple of years ago at an UNCLE social occasion, although Napoleon had never seen it before. It seemed to have been taken without the knowledge of either agent as neither appeared aware of the camera. In fact it was a simple picture of them talking. Illya seemed to be engaged in a detailed description of something judging by the expansive gestures of his hands and Napoleon was listening with an affectionate smile on his face.
What struck Napoleon though was the way their eyes were locked during the exchange revealing a complete absorption in one another. In any other couple he would have thought........He turned the picture over and a shiver ran through his whole body and he turned to ice again. In Illya’s careful hand was written the phrase, ‘I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me.’
He eventually recalled it from a TS Eliot poem he had once read over Illya’s shoulder on an aeroplane. It was a poem about a man who drifted through the years of his life never finding the courage to declare his feelings to the one he loved.
Napoleon did not pretend otherwise. He was looking at a simple declaration of love and loss from Illya to him. Written knowing that the secret would only be revealed if he died before Napoleon.
When it was too late.
Too late to hold him, kiss him, make love to him, treasure him. He had come to rely on the unquestioning commitment and friendship that Illya had given him, he had not guessed at what lay silently behind it. He wondered at his own blindness, at his extraordinary ability to hide from his friend’s feelings. And from his own.
Until it was too late.
Suddenly the tears that had been just behind his eyes since his return from the Caribbean began to escape in cold rivulets. He wasn’t used to crying, it took all of his concentration to stifle the sob rising in his throat. He covered his face with his hand. He didn’t hear the key in the lock.
“Napoleon.”
He heard Illya’s voice and knew it to be his imagination tormenting him. Until the awareness of the presence of someone else in the room became too strong to ignore.
It was Illya. Illya.
He checked in all the ways he could that the dream wasn’t intruding on his increasingly unrecognisable reality. It was Illya. Thin and pale, dressed in borrowed clothes, supporting himself with a hand on the wall, watching him intently. Napoleon sniffed. For a moment it was easy to slip into their old rhythms.
“Well dammit, Illya. You couldn’t phone?”
“I would have if I’d known my place was going to be ransacked,” came the sharp if shaky retort.
“What happened to you?”
“Vincenze, a double cross.”
“Illya,” he said softly.
“Napoleon.”
Napoleon quickly put the picture and the case aside. He went to Illya with the intention of getting him to sit in the armchair. But while the smaller man leaned into the arm he offered in support he did not move. He had not taken his eyes from Napoleon. He reached and touched Napoleon’s cheek.
“Are you crying for me Napoleon?”
Napoleon sighed, closed his eyes and pulled Illya into his arms. It was the most difficult thing he had ever done and the easiest.
“I’ve fallen in love with you,” he said and the seabirds and the breeze and roar of the sea all fell silent. But he didn’t know if Illya heard because just then he passed out gracefully into Napoleon’s arms.
Napoleon lowered him to the floor supporting him with an encircling arm. He watched him carefully. He was worryingly grey and his breaths rapid.
But alive.
He wondered nervously if his confession had been heard and if it had how would Illya react? All the conclusions he had reached about Illya’s feelings when he thought he was dead evaporated. All he really knew for sure was that Illya kept a photograph of the two of them in a case.
Illya’s breathing began to ease and his colour returned as he slipped into sleep. Napoleon brushed his hand against Illya’s cheek and it was enough to make the eyelids flicker open. Blue eyes regarded him thoughtfully.
“OK?” Napoleon asked smoothing Illya’s fair hair away from his face. It had grown long and wayward.
Illya nodded looking surprised. “Am I to take it you have missed me Napoleon?” The sardonic query so typical of Illya ached with an emotion that did not escape Napoleon, anxious for any clue.
He stopped caressing the hair and laid his hand on Illya’s cheek. “Yes, Illya, you may take it that I missed you.”
Illya took a breath and reached for the hand that softly touched his face and kissed the inside of the palm.
“And have I missed anything else important?”
“Yes, Illya,” answered Napoleon deciding to risk it and leaning down to kiss Illya’s lips. He realised that this was the thing he meant to do ages ago. Illya’s arms reached around him.
“What have I missed?”
Napoleon smiled and whispered. “The sound of the mermaids singing to you.”
End
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