It was three a.m. when Illya located his partner sitting outside on the stoop next to U.N.C.L.E. HQ smoking a cigarette and looking somewhat melancholy.
He sat next to him, and was offered a smoke, but passed. "I prefer my Turkish blend."
Nothing was said for a few minutes as they simply listened to the silence on the vacant street, disturbed only by the passing of a taxi now and then.
"You are still bothered about Clara; that look is still on your face. Though the physical chain that joined you both was broken in Italy, you are still bound by it."
"No kidding," Napoleon said, taking a long drag on his third cigarette.
"I told you not to think too much about what might have been. It does no good to dwell on the past."
"This coming from a man who won't even tell me his past? You seemed awfully comfortable with those gypsies back in the Balkans. Were you really telling the truth to Emile that you bought that Eagle medallion in Rome?"
Illya repeated his words. "A lie is sometimes more helpful, as every gypsy knows." *
"Wait, you're saying you were lying, and you really are a gypsy?"
"Partly."
"Partly true or that you're part Gypsy?"
"Pehaps," Illya smiled enigmatically. "Some things are better left unsaid."
"Ever elusive aren't you? Makes more sense as that head of yours can't be filled with that much obscure knowledge."
"Enough that it got us out of trouble."
"No, you coming along got me out of trouble. I never said thank you."
"My friend, thanks are unnecessary. You being so forlorn bothers me; I am unaccustomed to you being that besotted with a woman. She is married, there is no place for you in her life. That is the way of things."
"I suppose you're right." Napoleon tossed his cigarette to the sidewalk, extinguishing it with his heel.
"I am not well versed in matters of the heart, but I have had mine broken a few times. As I said, it is best not to dwell on the past, my life though saddened, was made all the better for the experience."
"So you believe in Tennyson's philosophy. "It's better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all."
"Yes, I suppose I do. Just think how life would have been had you not met Clara. The love that you felt for her, the joy of being with her never would have been. Yet by knowing her, though she was lost to you, your life was all the more richer."
"Sometimes you can be a pretty smart Russian."
"Obscure knowledge."Illya winked. "Now I think it is time we go home and get some sleep. Tomorrow is another day."
"It already is tovarisch, it already is."
.
* "The Terbuf Affair"