Chapter Text
Moscow 1945
Gaby Teller was already running to the door when her mother grabbed her sleeve and spoke to her in German, which she liked, because everybody else was speaking Russian.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Find the cat,” Gaby huffed, frustrated, and tried to yank herself out of her mother’s grip.
“No. You are not going to the drawing room. Is that clear?” her mother said vigorously and kneeled down to her level. “You have gravy on your cheek.”
Gaby wrinkled her nose when her mother wiped her cheek with a handkerchief. “But the cat.”
“The cat has to wait,” her mother said. ”They are having a party. It’s no place for little messy girls like you.” She smiled. Gaby huffed and frowned. “Liebchen, we are going to be here for a while, so you need to be patient and stay out of trouble. Can you do that to me?”
Gaby twisted herself in the dress she didn’t like. The sleeves scratched her. Her milkmaid braid was tight and she had only got a very tiny piece of cake. Pretty much everything that could be wrong according to a seven year old was wrong. And now she had been separated from the only thing she liked in this big, bleak house besides the cake: the cat.
“Gaby?” Her mother waited.
“Yes,” Gaby huffed.
”Good,” her mother sighed. “If you are nice, there may be a second piece of cake for you.”
Gaby was already smiling a bit.
“But you can’t go to the drawing room,” her mother reminded her. “Promise me.”
“Yes,” Gaby muttered and wasn’t very pleased.
“Say it properly,” her mother asked for a confirmation.
“I won’t go to the drawing room,” Gaby promised unwillingly.
“That’s a good girl,” her mother said and stood up. “Stay in this part of the house. And don’t be in anybody’s way.”
Gaby nodded quickly and went. She stopped behind the corner and peeked back, a little mischievous grin on her face. Her mother, in white apron, returned to the kitchen and Gaby slipped out to the drawing room. She sneaked behind the people and circled the room against the walls. She walked in the foyer and climbed to sit on the stairs. It was good place to observe the party and not be in the way. Gaby pressed herself against the railing when an older couple walked down the stairs and she expected to be asked to leave. But the man merely patted her head awkwardly, smiled and said something in Russian. The little actress in Gaby smiled back immediately because that they were expecting it and she played her little part well. It took only a few minutes longer for the cat to come and then everything was fine again. Maybe her mother didn’t want her to be in the party, but she couldn’t get into trouble by sitting on the stairs, and she also kept the cat entertained. It purred on her lap and Gaby stroked its silky soft yellow fur.
Then Gaby saw the boy across the room and giggled. She giggled because of the bandage on the right side of his face. Her mother had told that the boy was home from a boarding school because he had fallen down the stairs. Gaby was sure that falling down the stairs looked like somebody would do cartwheels down the stairs and she had giggled then too. Her mother had given her clip on the ear. Still she found the concept funny. The boy himself was not funny, only serious. But the party was to Gaby’s thinking quite boring, so maybe the boy thought that too. Everybody was just talking and walking slowly around. It was dull. Gaby would’ve preferred if there was dancing.
The boy looked across the room straight at Gaby. She bit her lower lip and squeezed the cat a little tighter. He would most certainly recognize her as a spy and turn her in. And then it would be back to the kitchen and a certain clip on the ear. But to Gaby’s relief the boy didn’t do that. He only watched her for a while, looking serious, and then turned his head away. Gaby thought that he looked like the religious icons that were in every home in here. He was blond and blue eyed. Gaby couldn’t be an icon. Her cheeks were too chubby and she couldn’t ever sit in one place long enough for somebody to paint an entire picture of her. But the boy looked like he could sit still that long. Gaby wrinkled her nose and focused on the cat. It purred and lay limp in her lap.
Finally Gaby got tired. The cat was so warm and the purring so relaxing. She separated from it and returned to the back of the house to the world of servants. She went in a little parlor, curled up in an armchair and fell asleep. She didn’t wake when her mother carried her in to bed.
***
Gaby woke in the middle of the night because of a loud noise. Her mother woke next to her and set her hand protectively on her side.
“What is it?” Gaby asked.
Her mother shushed her and listened. There were Russian yells in the air.
“Fire.” Her mother then exhaled. “We have to go. Put your shoes on. And a coat.”
Gaby yanked her shoes on and then her mother dragged her along the dark corridor. They ran through the kitchen. There were other people there. Gaby couldn’t see any fire, but everybody was speaking or yelling in fast Russian which she couldn’t understand and people looked scared.
“Come,” her mother ordered and pulled her toward the kitchen door.
Gaby followed but turned to look at the drawing room’s door when there was a loud and terrified scream that shook the whole house. That frightened her. Outside there was thin layer of snow still on the ground, but her breath didn’t steam. Still, Gaby was happy to have the coat over her thin nightgown. Her mother pulled her farther from the house and they stopped in a crowd of other kitchen staff. Only then Gaby could see the flames. People were running around. There were several black cars in the yard and men in dark suits. Gaby leaned closer to her mother and her warmth. Then she remembered the cat. The cat was still inside the house. She couldn’t leave the cat.
Gaby’s fingers slowly separated from her mother’s hand and she glanced quickly to Gaby. But because she was still there and they were fine she turned her face back to the others. Gaby took a few cautious steps away and then she ran. She was almost back to the kitchen door when her mother yelled for her.
There was nobody in the kitchen, but there was smoke coming under the drawing room door. The cat was more important than her fear, and Gaby ran through the door. She gasped when she saw that the other side of the room and the foyer were in flames, bright orange everywhere. The heat burnt her face and she had to turn away. Gaby could hear somebody grunting something and it made her instantly crouch behind the couch. It wasn’t a scared grunt, it was angry one. Two men hurried across the room. They were wearing long coats and they had guns. Gaby wanted to cough, but her instincts said she couldn’t. The men went and Gaby couldn’t see the cat.
She knew she had to return to the kitchen and outside. But before she could, she saw the boy. He stood up behind an armchair very close to where the men had just been. Gaby gestured to him to quickly come to her. She didn’t want him to burn even if the cat was more important to her. He ran across the room with a coat over his pajamas. There were voices behind the kitchen door and he stopped Gaby from opening it. Gaby turned to him angrily because they needed to leave, but the boy looked scared as he stared at the kitchen door. Gaby didn’t understand what they were saying behind the door, but the boy did. And if he didn’t want to go there then Gaby believed that they shouldn’t. He had fallen down the stairs and lived through it. In Gaby’s mind that was a very impressive thing to do, so she was convinced.
The room was hot and Gaby wanted to cough. She remembered the cellar she had been told not to go into anymore. So Gaby grabbed the boy’s wrist and yanked him along. She pulled him to the servants’ part of the house, peeked in the dark corridor before going there, and then opened the cellar door. Gaby could hear a sad moan and she looked around frantically. It was the cat, hiding under a chair by the wall.
“Go,” Gaby said to the boy. He probably didn’t understand her German, but she had motioned towards the door, and apparently he wasn’t stupid, because he did as she told him.
Gaby kneeled on the floor and reached for the cat. It was scared and scratched her. Gaby gasped at the sharp pain on her hand but ignored it and grabbed the cat almost furiously by the scruff of its neck and yanked it forcefully to her arms. She had returned to a burning house because of that cat and the cat was coming with her, whether it wanted to or not! She ran in the cellar and pulled the door closed behind her. Gaby guided them between shelves to a small door and into the chaos outside.
Gaby squeezed the cat tightly and finally coughed. She could smell the smoke on her coat. There were Russian yells in the night air, the flames illuminated the darkness, firetrucks started to come. Gaby felt like there were more people than at the party. She turned to the boy, but he had disappeared somewhere in the crowd. Gaby moved farther from the house and wandered among the people.
She heard her name called out and saw her mother running to her. She was crying and looked terrified. “Where did you go?” she shouted, and kneeled on the wet ground. Gaby felt bad because her knees were going to get wet.
“I was getting the cat,” Gaby said, and suddenly the chaos, the fire, and her angry and sad mother made her want to cry.
Her mother looked at her with her eyes wide, then at the cat, then back to Gaby. “Stupid girl,” she yelled and Gaby started to cry. “Stupid, stupid girl. Have you any idea what could’ve happened?” she cried and grabbed her shoulders tightly. “Don’t you ever again do anything that reckless again.” Then she pulled her into a tight hug. Gaby could hear the cat moan, but she didn’t care. In the middle of the chaos her mother’s hug was safe and comforting. She leaned her head against Gaby’s head and stroked her back.
***
Illya Kuryakin ran away from the house. He couldn’t stay there. His mother had pushed him out of the door and told him to run as far as he could and then stayed inside to give him head start. And now he was finally out of the burning house. And he needed to run, because he had promised his scared mother he would do so. Illya needed to stop to catch his breath. He looked behind him and panted. The glow of the fire had disappeared behind the trees. He didn’t know where he was going but he would figure it out. He only needed to get across the forest first. The temperature dropped, snow started to fall, and it covered his footsteps.
Illya struggled through the shrubbery and across the clearing. Then the trees were all big and dark and after that there were just birch trees. He stopped to lean against the white bark to rest for a little while, before continuing. And finally, when dawn was breaking on the horizon, he could see the forest’s end. Illya stopped on top of a steep hill. There was road below it. Maybe a car would come. He started climbing slowly down the hill. But he was tired, as any eleven year old would be who had been running across the forest for hours. His shoe slipped and he fell. The hill was steep and gravity took him. It was nothing like falling down the stairs. He was rolling down without any control. Illya had just noticed that there were rocks ahead before everything was already gone.
Moscow 1963
Oleg Kuznetsov woke at the phone call in the middle of the night. He grunted something on the phone. It wasn’t really even a word. Nina turned next to him in her sleep.
“We have a problem,” Parkov said in the other end of the line. He didn’t introduced himself, but Oleg recognized his voice.
“What?” he grunted. “What is so big that you need to call me in the middle of the night?”
Parkov took a deep breath on the other end. “Andropov,” he said. “He blew his brains out about two hours ago.”
Oleg huffed. The news didn’t surprise him. Andropov had been heading to the grave a long time now. He had no sympathy towards anybody who poisoned himself with alcohol and then cried about how it ruined his life. “We are lucky to get rid of that bastard,” he said.
“Well, that bastard left quite a shit storm after him,” Parkov informed. “He went and told everything that was bothering him to some reporter. It’ll be all over the news tomorrow.”
Oleg gritted his teeth. This was going to be one hell of a mess.
“I called to let you know. You should brace yourself and think about what you are going to say,” Parkov said.
“About what?” Oleg asked bored.
“Kuryakin,” Parkov said. “He told everything about that mess.”
Oleg slammed the phone down. He should have known that this was one problem that wasn’t going to stay buried.
East Berlin 1963
Napoleon Solo walked through a dingy garage in his smart three-piece suit. He went to the farthest corner of the place and stopped at the raised car. He could see two legs under it.
“Werden sie tee und gebäck anbieten?” he asked.
Gaby appeared from under the car and glared at him. “I’m going to offer you my fist,” she said and crawled up. “What are you doing here, Solo?” she asked and rested her hands on her hips.
“Is that really a nice way to greet an old friend?” Napoleon asked with a little grin on his face. He walked behind Gaby’s desk and sat in her chair. “You can’t be mad anymore. It’s been ages.”
“It’s been five months,” Gaby said sure about it. “And of course I am. I loved that car.”
“You had just gotten that car,” Napoleon reminded. ”There’s no possible way that you could love something that quick.”
“Well, it was a new car,” Gaby huffed then.
“No, it wasn’t,” Napoleon said. “It was a piece of junk. Maybe in a time it could have been fixed to be an adequate car.”
“And now it’s in the bottom of the Spree thanks to Mr. I-just-have-a-small-proposition-easy-job- it’s-not-like-anybody-even-has-a-gun-in-there,” Gaby huffed and crossed her arms on her chest, glaring at Napoleon. They had known each other for two years and Gaby had pretty much regretted everything that she had done with him. And still she somehow always went along with his stupid propositions. It was mainly because he bought her presents and she was bored. “What did you bring me?” Gaby asked, sniffing.
“Something sweet for my sweet,” Napoleon said smoothly and handed a box of chocolates to her. “From Switzerland.”
Gaby huffed a little approving huff and grabbed the box. She opened it, because she wasn’t a very patient person, and took one piece. She could taste the Swiss handicraft. “So, what brought you here?” she asked when her mouth was empty and she had decided that there was no harm in hearing why he was there. She was sure that there was a new stupid plan to make money and get in the situation where somebody threatens to shoot him. Napoleon’s plans somehow always ended up there.
“A few paintings,” Napoleon said, “at the west side of the wall.”
“Did you cross the border only to visit me?” Gaby asked and tilted her head. “I feel like I should be moved by this,” she said sarcastically.
“Now, are you going to make that tea and offer some biscuits?” Napoleon asked impatiently.
Gaby rolled her eyes. When they were drinking tea and eating biscuits moments later she spoke again: “Where are you going to go next to misbehave? Don’t say it’s somewhere warm. I might get upset.”
“Quite the contrary,” Napoleon assured her. “I’m going to Russia.”
Gaby frowned. “What could there possibly be that you want?” she wondered. “A Fabergé egg?”
“A man,” Napoleon said.
“Are you in love?” Gaby smirked.
“No. But this much money, I could be,” Napoleon said. “Seventy thousand dollars, to be exact.”
“I don’t understand. Is some man just giving this money to you?” Gaby asked and sat on the edge of the desk with her tea cup in her hand. She swiped a strand of hair under the scarf on her head.
“No. I need to find a suitable man, take him to Paris, and then a women will give the money to me,” Napoleon said. “Easy job.”
“I know that sentence,” Gaby breathed out. “I have heard that sentence. You said it always so lightly and smiling and then somebody’s car gets driven in to a river, shots are fired, and somebody spends weeks afraid that Stasi will drag her in for questioning.”
“You are exaggerating,” Napoleon said.
“I really am not,” Gaby retorted. “But tell me more anyway. Is some wife looking her husband?”
“Mother and son,” Napoleon corrected. “Quite a nasty case, in fact: some big politician stepped on the wrong toes too many times and the KGB made a quite showy visit to his house. The man was taken, sent to Siberia, and eventually died there. The wife was beaten half senseless. There was a fire. They also tried to take the son, but somehow he managed to escape from the burning house and from the KGB. He was eventually found a few days later; beaten, bruised, and dead. He was buried, and the heavily drugged mother was shipped to relatives in France,” Napoleon told her, and Gaby’s biscuit had stopped halfway to her mouth. “But now, only few months ago some ex KGB operative committed suicide and before that, in some weird moral madness, confessed all sorts of things to a journalist working for a well-known newspaper. It’s a god damn shit storm that hit there. Turns out that they never actually did find the son of the politician and the body they buried is somebody else. This point is, the story is already public; the mother hears about it and orders them to exhume her son’s grave. Now what do you think they find out?”
“It’s the wrong boy,” Gaby guessed and finally took a bite from her biscuit.
“It’s the wrong boy,” Napoleon confirmed happily. ”There was a healed fracture on his leg and the real son hadn’t ever broken his leg. So, the mother is a rich heiress, and now she is offering a hefty sum to whomever brings her son home.”
“But what do you have to do with a case like that?” Gaby wondered. “Surely the boy just goes there by himself.”
“This has been news in Russia for over two months and they still haven’t found the real son,” Napoleon explained. “A few have tried and failed. And I don’t want to be depressing, but the sad fact is that the boy is dead. It’s been eighteen years. If he were alive, he would’ve already found his mother.”
“Eighteen years,” Gaby sighed. “I expected something fresher.”
“But that’s the whole beauty of the case,” Napoleon said thrilled. “It’s a long time. People change, faces change. Everybody can be taught to be anybody.”
”Have I understood this correctly? You are going to forge an entire human being and then con some grieving mother?” Gaby asked.
“It sounds bad when you say it like that,” Napoleon said. “But in a nutshell, yes, that is what I’m doing.”
“That’s a new low, even for you,” Gaby spat and lifted her chin.
“You don’t know if the mother doesn’t get attached to her fake son,” Napoleon pointed out. “And who doesn’t want a rich mother? I feel like everybody wins here.”
Gaby shook her head and frowned. At least this was all happening far away from her so she didn’t get shot.
“And now I’m going to Moscow to find out everything about the family and find somebody who I can train to be Illya Kuryakin,” Napoleon said.
Gaby swallowed her tea too quickly and coughed. “Kuryakin.”
“Yes,” Napoleon nodded.
“Moscow. Eighteen years. Fire,” Gaby repeated.
”Yes,” Napoleon said. ”Why are you repeating my words?”
“I know these people,” Gaby said and smiled a little at the surprise that she actually remembered. “I have met them. I was there, in the fire. I saw him.”
”You have met the real Illya Kuryakin?” Napoleon asked slowly.
“Not really properly met, but I saw him,” Gaby said. “And it was long time ago.”
“Tell me everything,” Napoleon insisted. “How?”
“My mother worked there, maybe a month, in the kitchen,” Gaby explained. “We went to Russia because of my father’s work and then he just left us,” Gaby said and noticed that it still bothered her, after all these years, but she continued: “And so my mother needed to find some work to support us and she worked in a few different kitchens. The last place was their house. I was there maybe five or six times; when my mother couldn’t get a babysitter. Of course I was mostly in the back of the house with the staff, but I was there that night before the fire. There was a party.” The memories started to surface and connect to each other and form a picture in Gaby’s mind; her scratchy dress, the cake, the cat, the boy.
”And?” Napoleon hurried her.
”We were spending the night because the party lasted so long,” Gaby continued. ”There was a fire. Everybody shouted in Russian and I didn’t understand anything.” She bit her lower lip and remembered. “And I returned to the house to get the cat.”
“The cat?” Napoleon asked.
“Yes,” Gaby said. ”I was seven. At least the cat was a living creature. I could have returned to save the cake.”
Napoleon smiled. ”Now, can you skip to the part where there is an actual Illya Kuryakin?”
“He was at the party. Normally he was in boarding school, I think, but he had hit his head and was home to recover. He had a big bandage on his face,” she said, and then laughed.
“What?” Napoleon wanted to know.
“He had fallen down stairs; that’s right,” Gaby said and smiled. “And I thought that it must have looked like somebody doing cartwheels down the stairs.”
“It’s not really that funny if you have ever fallen down the stairs,” Napoleon assured.
“Like I said, I was seven,” Gaby reminded. ”Things are a different kind of funny then.”
“So you have met the boy,” Napoleon muttered. “And the family.”
“Quite sad that he’s dead,” Gaby said sullenly and bit her lower lip again. “He looked like those religious icons. I remember that.”
Napoleon nodded and looked like he was thinking. “Gaby Teller,” he finally sighed, “the plan is now this: we will go to Russia. You have knowledge that could be useful along the way. You know the house and the family and that will make this con believable and perfect.”
Gaby lifted her brows. “To Russia?” she huffed. ”And how do you think that will happen? Do you want me to glide over the wall maybe?”
Napoleon frowned. He had temperately forgotten that important piece of his con was living in a country where you just couldn’t leave like that, even if you wanted to. “Maybe not glide,” he muttered. “I’m not sure yet. But it’s still happening now,” he decided. ”Take what you need, you’re not coming back.”
“Are you serious?” Gaby asked disbelievingly and looked, a little fearfully, around to make sure there wasn’t anybody there. “You are going to get me on the other side?”
“I’m sure it’s already time,” Napoleon said. “I have watched your life here for two years. It’s small and bleak.”
“Well, thanks,” Gaby groused.
“And now we change that,” he said. “We are leaving to the west.”
“I thought that we were going to Russia,” Gaby pointed out.
Napoleon sighed and shook his head. “First there, then west. Don’t take everything so literally.”
Gaby huffed a little and tried to look annoyed. But it was hard, because she wanted to jump for joy. It was completely possible that she would die in the next twenty-four hours, but at least she would die trying to escape. And Gaby was fine with that.
“What happen to the cat?” Napoleon asked suddenly.
”I took it,” Gaby said. ”The house was on fire, the family gone, and nobody cared about him.”
“You stole the cat,” Napoleon said, smiling. He almost winked at her like a crime partner.
“Well, yes,” Gaby confessed. “But I went into a burning house to save it. Nobody else went there. I earned that cat,” Gaby informed him sharply.
“I'm sure you did,” Napoleon nodded and stood up. “Take your things.”
Gaby took a picture from her desk and her Swiss chocolate and they left. She never came back.
***
Gaby thought that in the end it was much less dramatic than she had imagined. All it took was Napoleon to work his forger magic all night and Gaby to not bother him. In the morning Gaby crossed the checkpoint with an American, one brown leather bag and very good fake papers. She looked behind her and regretted that a little, because it would’ve been so much classier to leave without looking back.
“Welcome to the west,” Napoleon said and offered his arm to Gaby. She took it and smiled.