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section7mfu2019-07-30 08:14 pm
Hope Against Hope - PicFic July 30
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The image in the photograph was at once familiar and unknown. Napoleon Solo looked again at the old black and white photo of a man in shadows, the profile of someone he knew and … didn’t recognize.
Alexander Waverly sat in his place at the round table as he fussed with a briar pipe. The affect of being busy with something so insignificant struck Napoleon once more as a tell, like a gesture made by someone playing cards; it was perhaps the only one in Waverly’s armor.
“Is this … I mean, it looks like …” Napoleon stammered out his questions, eliciting a raised eyebrow from his partner. Waverly looked at his Russian agent, unsure of his response and sympathetic to whatever emotion it might expose.
“This is a photograph of my father.” Illya’s voice was emotionless, flat with too much effort to disguise any kind of reaction to seeing the man who had meant so much to him. It was so long ago…
Napoleon felt uncomfortable, not a usual thing for him. But this was Illya. Well, no, it wasn’t him, it was his father. He thought back on what he knew of the man’s demise.
“The artistic purges… wasn’t that …?” What words to describe what had caused so much pain for the Russian artistic community and their families? Illya shifted slightly in his chair at the memories, all of which were coming back to him now, unbidden… unwelcome.
“Yes, Stalin’s purge of the arts. It changed what was acceptable as Soviet music, art, architecture… all of it. Some were exiled to Siberia, others were executed. All it took was an accusation or a slight indication of something other than what was considered truly Soviet.’ Illya’s sigh was subtle, but the recollection of such hatred towards true art had fueled his own desire to listen to what was forbidden. Jazz had become his own brand of rebellion, basking in a perverse pleasure as he devised a way to hide his records beneath his bed, as though the KGB might knock on his door and accuse him of treachery.
“My father was taken, we never knew his fate. My mother was…’ now he fought back a surge of nausea at the memory of the man who changed his life.
“She was taken away, I never knew where. Only that the man who could have saved her did nothing.” Napoleon had heard some of this previously, during an early mission on Christmas Eve. He wondered why it was being revisited now, why Illya was having to recite his worst moments here. But then, there was the photograph.
Alexander Waverly harrumphed into his pipe, the bushy eyebrows popping up nearly to his hairline as he gathered his thoughts.
“We believe, er.. that is, there is some indication that, ahhh… Illya, we believe that your father is alive.”
Napoleon watched his friend for what seemed like a very long time. Illya’s expression was frozen, his eyebrows creasing his forehead in a quizzical expression that he knew so well. It had been several months since a chess game in Central Park had caused the Russian to think of his father; a man who resembled the elder Kuryakin had caught Illya’s eye, only to disappear from sight. It had been written off as one of those things, the ubiquitous phrase for what one is unable to explain.
But this… This was UNCLE saying that Nikolai Sergeyevich Kuryakin was alive.
Illya finally breathed, and for the first time in many years, he felt hope.
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There is a brief history related to this in Stille Nacht
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PS I liked what you did with the photo. Black and white is always so much more moody and noir.
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