"To Be Master"~ for the Short Affair

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Challenge: The Short Affair

-Prompt Word #1 - Slogan

-Prompt Colour – Blue

Author: mrua7

Title: To be master

Word count: Approximately  925

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "It means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "'whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master--that's all."

--Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

Illya Kuryakin wasn’t happy, and it could be seen on the usually difficult to read Russian’s face. His eyes were filled with a sadness, calling up memories that haunted him from long ago.

He pushed his way through the throng of protesters carrying their placards filled with slogans like, “Commies Go Home” and “Go Back to the Gulag.” It was a mentality he simply couldn’t understand, though it was nothing new to him. They were merely words, but it was the sentiments behind them that worried him. He equated it to the fear mongering of the Nazis back in World War II.

Though only a child, he heard his elders talk about how certain Hitler who stirred up a hatred of the Jews, the Russians and anyone else who didn’t meet his stilted Aryan standards of human perfection.

Illya recalled once being confronted by a German officer while playing in the yard of the family dacha just outside Kyiv.

The ground was getting harder as the cold weather was approaching, and soon he’d have to up give practice. Perhaps, Illya thought, if he got a piece of charcoal from the fire and a flat piece of wood, he could continue to do his lessons inside when the snow began to fall.

He thought about going to look for something in the woodpile when a pair of shiny black boots stepped on the ground in front of him, ruining his writings in the dirt.

Illya slowly looked up; the remnants of the late afternoon sun blinding him a bit as it  silhouetted the tall figure standing there.

The boy lifted his hand to shade his eyes.

“Hallo meine Kleine.” A voice emerged from the shadow, greeting him in German. “Sind Ihr Vater und Brüder heute nach Hause_hello little one. Are your father and brothers home today?”

“Nein, Mein Vater ist tot und ich habe keine Brüder_no, my father is dead and I have no brothers.” Illya lied, replying in German. “I am the oldest.”

He had a gift for languages and would often practice his German and French with his grandmother.

Illya answered the soldier as he’d been taught to by his father if a Nazi appeared, asking questions. He would obey, never asking why. He knew better than to offer the truth to this man, as he’d seen neighbors...fathers, uncles and brothers found out and taken away by the soldiers, never to be seen again. *

The soldier tried taking him, but his mother Tanya defiantly intervened and got him safely into the dacha.

Illya realized years later the officer was possibly thinking of sending him off to the Lebensborn program, where blond-blue eyed children fitting the physical Aryan ideals were adopted out to childless German couples.

Fear was the Nazi’s greatest asset to keep people they thought of as inferior beasts under control. Fear was what allowed some of them to be led off so easily, like mindless herds of sheep to the slaughter.

Fear cleared the mind of all rational thought and Hitlers minions looked upon the Russian people as nothing but inbred simpletons, not even worthy of being crushed beneath the boots of the Third Reich, as were so many others.*

Illya Kuryakin looked around the room,while listening to the hate and fear being spewed by the speakers as they each took their turn at the podium.

Across the room he spotted his partner and made his way to him.

“You okay chum?” Napoleon asked.”You don’t look so good.”

“This is bringing back too many bad memories.”

“The war?”

“Yes, it seems ignorance and hatred still abound, in spite of the world’s best efforts.”

Napoleon looked into his partner’s eyes, not liking what he saw. “Tell you what, nothing is going on here, just the same old rhetoric. I’ll have the other team come inside. You and I can call it a day, we’ll report to the Old Man and then what say we go get a drink. You can talk about it and get this out of your system.”

Kuryakin shrugged. “I can manage. I have dealt with worse than this lot as you recall. They are but words."

“Yeah, let’s hope these people don’t turn into a bunch of Nazis.”

“I would think the United States government would not let that happen.”

Napoleon shook his head. "Though what this bunch is saying chills me to the bone; they’re protectect by their first amendment right to freedom of speech pal. Still I don’t think anything like Kristallnacht would happen, but then again I could be wrong."

“One could only hope you are not incorrect in your assumptions,”Illya hesitated,” Demonstrations such as this would not be allowed in my country and maybe that is not a bad idea at times like this.”

“We need to get you out of here before someone overhears you and you get slugged Illy...buddy, or before I end up hitting someone myself.”

Solo quickly guided his partner through the cheering crowd just as someone from the John Birch Society stepped up to the podium; the tone of the rally was beginning to change, seguing from anti-Communism to lecturing on its opposition to the soon to be passed Civil Rights Act.

Napoleon had a feeling the American people were going to be in for a long haul…

*ref.”Hearth and Home” (link)

Comments

[jantojones.livejournal.com]

What an amazing story!

I have never understood how nations who fought for freedom could behave in exactly the same manner as those they fought. Of course, those fears and hatreds came from the top. The same thing is happening again with the demonisation of all Muslim people because of the actions of the radical few. It must have been so difficult for people like Illya in the America of the 60s.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That's why MFU was so radical at the time having a Russian and an American not only partners and friends during the Cold War era...though Illya's accent eventually disappeared and became more British. But I don't really think it was to downplay his character being Russian...every time his name was said, we were reminded.

People of Russian backgrounds who emigrated here had communities they could retreat to and live in relative comfort. That's always been so here, as in other places. People stick to their own, in their own neighborhoods, but as time passes, new groups of people move in.

Illya being a very clever spy and linguist wouldn't have really had any trouble I think as he would just blend in or stick to the shadows. He could also at the snap of a finger change his accent along with his ethnicity....not that it probably didn't bother him, but still it was a survival technique.

Actually those 'fears and hatreds' don't always come from the top. It comes from those who infiltrate from within, the way the poor fools are being radicalized today, and who have delusions of being at the top and remaking the world to reflect their demented views. There are elements in almost all societies who hate and spew evil, some of it comes from the top, but not all.