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Gaby is ten when she realizes her father isn’t coming for her.
She hasn’t sent any letters (they would’ve been read anyways), her foster parents try to encourage the thought, but one morning Gaby wakes up, rolls over, stares at the wall and thinks, he isn’t coming for me. It’s as simple as that.
There’s precious little time to devote to wondering where he is and what he’s doing. There’s ballet school, there’s helping out her foster father’s garage, dodging soldiers and tanks in the street and eating contraband peaches in back alleys. There’s life to live, and it’s a cramped, grubby life maybe, but it’s hers. Fathers who disappear don’t enter into it.
(Survivors of regimes must be practical.)
Then her foster father dies, and her foster mother soon follows. She’s nineteen years old, has a ballet career that ended before it’s begun and a crumbling garage to her name.
In the darkest parts of the night, Gaby wishes (hopes, dreams, prays uselessly ) for someone to come, someone to help her, so she doesn’t have to carry it all on her own. She thinks of the father that disappeared and wonders what would happen, now, if she wrote him a letter, or even Uncle Rudi, somewhere in Italy.
Uncle Rudi did come to see her, once, before the Wall went up. He brought her a doll she was too old for, a dress that didn’t fit, and a smile and pat on the head. Her foster parents had watched him warily and it wasn’t until she was twenty-three and looking at the scars on an American spy that she knew the cause.
Someone does come. But it’s not her father, not her uncle, but an Englishman with kind, sharp, shrewd eyes hidden behind glasses and the quick, clever hands of a clockmaker. He offers her a deal ( my dear girl, he calls her and seems to mean it without condescension) and a promise: five years, and they’ll get her out.
(Survivors of regimes can’t be choosy.)
So she builds cars, passes packages to others when passing them in the street, outfits engines with contraband and papers hidden inside the lining of the seats. She learns codes and where the safe houses are, learns to speak English with only the faintest trace of an accent, looks at the stars over the Wall and thinks of a flat in London, books in whatever language she wants, tea that she doesn’t have to hide when someone comes over.
(When Napoleon tells her of her father’s success in America;brand new family, pretty little house, fat little dog, her hands curl into fists at her sides for a moment. The slap she gives her father upon meeting him again is not completely feigned.)
Italy is warm, overly so, with such a dazzling array of luxury Gaby gets dizzy trying to look at it all at once. She eats fruit, drinks champagne, revels in light cotton dresses, stays in bed for as long as she can before Illya starts to make disapproving noises. Napoleon seems amused by her (apparent) greed and buys her gelato and ices under Illya’s severe ( jealous? ) gaze.
(If the mission fails, she knows Waverly has other agents to take her place. He might like her, even be fond of her, but he won’t choose between her and the mission. And it’s not like she’ll live long even if she does make it back to Germany, if the USSR knows about her.)
She isn’t sure whether or not she likes Napoleon and Illya, though Napoleon did get her over the Wall, and Illya apparently doesn’t know what to make of her (he put her to bed after she nearly killed them both wrestling him to the ground, she remembers huge warm hands and a quiet voice saying, good night little chop shop girl ). They seem to think she needs protection and while Gaby appreciates the thought, it isn’t entirely necessary.
She doubts either of them will compromise their respective missions for her, especially when she turns.
She is half-drowned, battered, bleeding and bruised, her pretty orange dress is ruined and in tatters, but she’s curled into Illya’s side as Napoleon dozes on her left and honestly? There are worse positions to be in.
Waverly is watching the three of them, Gaby knows the wheels are turning behind those kind, clever eyes but she doesn’t care which direction they’re turning in, it’s been five years and her time is up, she can go , England is waiting.
She thinks of leaving Illya, leaving Napoleon and something under her breastbone aches.
They came back for her. After a lifetime of being left, they came. Gaby isn’t sure how willing she is to give that up now.
The mission is what counts, MI-6 hammered into her, the mission is what matters , and Gaby looks at Illya, looks at Napoleon and thinks, to hell with the mission. This is what I want.
Fast cars and vodka, gelatos and Russian lessons, a road to run down and never ever stop.