Illya Kuryakin sat alone, well not exactly alone, he had the company of a beautiful but small bottle of Moskovskaya vodka keeping him company. At the moment it had become quite an intimate relationship between the two of them after his long day of walking around Moskva and going to the ballet.

In front of him on the coarse wood table were assorted zakuski_snacks that he had treated himself to so that he could enjoy a good Russian vodka, the Russian way. He munched on bits of pickled cucumbers, smoked herring, brown bread and the dearest addition to the repast, red caviar.

In Russia one eats such things while drinking chilled vodka to enhance the flavor of the drink. But when he tried doing this during his time in Great Britain, the few drinking companions he had would torment him over it. Telling him "toss the vodka to drink whiskey like a real man!"

The comments about the food, however, were quite rude and he tired of them and for that reason he ceased attempting to eat zakuski when with his drinking companions.

He sampled the whiskey just to be amicable and found it better than the cheap Swedish vodka that was available to him, but he remained loyal to the vodka anyway, swill vodka he called it. He was after all a Russian and prone to melancholy, and drinking the swill suited his sometimes dark Russian moods better than anything else, yet there were even times when that it wouldn't help when he slipped into one of his darker states.

Tonight he was definitely in a fit of melancholia and was nicely drunk on more than half the bottle of vodka. He had agreed to leave his country and work for U.N.C.L.E. one month ago and now it would soon be time to leave and begin training for his new job. He knew what that job would be, as Alexander Waverly in his interview told him at least that much, but where he would work or with whom, he had no idea. Illya was only sure that he would be cut off from Russia and its people and that was weighing heavily on him tonight. His last night.

The Directorate had informed Kuryakin that he would be permitted to retain citizenship, as well as his military rank, was warned his only hope of coming back to Russia was to be recalled for active military service in time of war or if U.N.C.L.E. reneged on its deal with GRU. Either way, Illya knew he would be under a sentence of death if he returned to the Soviet Union, as they would never trust him again.

He never really had a choice in the whole matter as one does what one is told in the GRU, even if they are making it look like you are being given a choice. It was more like "choose what we tell you to choose or else!"

Yet he had paid his two rubles now and gotten out of GRU alive, something that was unheard of. Once you were in, you were in for life, or until you died. Any one else who had tried to leave the GRU saw their end in the blast furnaces somewhere south of Moskva, near Serpkov, or so he and his fellow trainees had been told this when first recruited to the military intelligence.*

He wondered what kind of life he would have outside of Russia? Would this job with U.N.C.L.E. be just the same as with GRU...living with a sword of Damocles over his head or would it be different?

The man Waverly was not like his superiors in GRU, he seemed almost fatherly. But first impressions could be wrong and looks deceiving so it all remained to be seen. He realized that this would not be a new chapter in his life; he thought of it more as a whole new book yet to be written.

To Illya's surprise, once he had signed his contract with U.N.C.L.E. he was immediately on their payroll, at half pay Waverly told him, until he was sent for. Alexander Waverly handed him his first pay check then and there. The young Russian's eyes opened wide when he saw the amount.

"This is half pay?" He questioned.

Waverly smiled, knowing his new recruit was not displeased with it, but perhaps was taken off guard was the more appropriate reaction.

Illya's eyes were wide with surprise. The pay was not exorbitant, but to a poor man such as he, it was substantial and much more than his pay from the government!

He was careful with the money, as he had always tended to be frugal simply because he needed to be all his life; with it though he purchased only a few pieces of new clothing, a good coat, and two books. It paid for his small, private room to live in while he waited. The money also enabled him to eat fairly well, and not subsist on the near-starvation diet he had been so accustomed to. He did not overeat; but he did eat better food. He had been given a month to get his affairs in order, which he did not need, but none the less he used the time to his advantage.

While waiting, Illya was careful where he went and with whom he spoke, as he was certain that he was being watched by both KGB and GRU. He would see them slide out of view as he turned, or standing watching him as they peered over a copy of a newspaper in their hands. He was still a Russian, but he in essence, was a man now without a country and had been transformed to the status of outsider and a potential threat as soon as he had signed the contract.

He had no one here, no family, no real friends. The only man who had seemingly befriended him as a boy was Viktor Karkoff; taking him under his wing and removing him from the doom of that State Orphanage. Viktor saw something in him and saw to it that the boy received a good education; sending him to University, then the Sorbonne; grooming the young Kuryakin to someday to take a place in the Directorate. Illya was grateful for all that Viktor had given him. If it had not been for Karkoff's intervention; he would have likely ended up as a menial laborer on some farming cooperative in the middle of nowhere.

He understood now that Karkoff had only been using him for his own means, and was never really a friend and after the trouble in Paris, he heard nothing again from Viktor. Illya presumed, thanks to Katiya Revchenkov's prophetic warning, that Viktor Karkoff was now more than likely his enemy.**

Illya took the time spending his last day walking around Moskva, seeing the sights, embedding every detail in his memory. He could not bring himself to go back to Kyiv; no, too many painful memories there to haunt him like spectres in the night. It was bad enough they sometimes crawled from the grave into his dreams...he did not need to see a physical reminder of them.

He strolled Krasnay Ploshchad_Red Square like a tourist, staring in awe at the colors of St. Basils, and inside the Kremlin walls...the Cathedrals of the Assumption, Annunciation and St. Michael the Archangel. He didn't go there for religious reasons as he was an atheist, he simply found the architecture beautiful. He paused for a moment in his wanderings, listening to the the church bells as they sounded, echoing across the square. He looked at his watch and sighed, he still had enough time.

He went to the Tretyakov Gallery to view the great masterpieces of Russian artists that spanned back the the 11th century, he wandered through Novodevichy Cemetery, where many of Russia's famous writers and poets lay buried. These places were but small bits and pieces of the life that he would never see again.

Lastly, Illya treated himself to an early evening at the Bolshoi, seeing Ekaterina Maximova in Don Quixote...and that brought back a whole other set of memories from his days at University in Ukraine. There someone decided he should study ballet.

He smiled to himself remembering his teacher. No one had ever quite heard such language from the petite Madame Stolanskaya, when she described his dancing skills, or more so his lack of them. That part of his education did not last long. After the dance debacle, he studied gymnastics, showing a much better aptitude for the sport. Had it not been for knee injury he would have made the Olympic squad, not first string but still an Olympic competitor. He had no regrets as life presented it with its challenges, and withdrew them as well.

There were many things that he reflected upon as he headed back to his apartment, his training, his time in the Navy, all his schooling and yes, even Katiya Revchenkov...that was one of the biggest mistakes he had ever made; a careless infatuation that could have cost him his life.

There were many life-lessons he had learned, some the hard way, and now going to work with this new organization he hoped that all he had learned here in the Soviet Union would serve him well. It was still after all the world of espionage, and that world he lived in was one of loneliness and secrecy. These were two things he was very well acquainted with.

Illya continued drinking his vodka and abandoned the food; simply letting the stupor now take him. He crossed arms on the table, and laid his head down for a moment.

His thoughts now drifting to a place he did not want to go...to those memories that lay buried for so long. The ones he hid along with his emotions and would rarely set free. Perhaps he had stared at the icons in the churches too long that day, reminding him of his grandmother...his babushka and how religious she had been. He remembered the icons that hung on the walls of their dacha and watching as she stood before them crossing herself as she prayed.

Visions of his father Nicholaí, his mother Tanya, his siblings Dimitry, Misha, Sasha...little Katiya, his Baba, Uncle Vanya, his only cousin, Anastasiya called out to him. They were all gone. Everyone. Their bodies and their ashes gave new life to the soil in places outside Kyiv; where though, he never knew for sure. He didn't want to think of them, yet they forced themselves into in consciousness.

He began to sob. The gates finally opened, letting free his tears; the pent up grief he had held back for so long, unlocked by his sadness and the Moskovskaya. Illya let himself cry as he had never truly permitted himself to mourn the loss of his family even as a young boy.

All that he had ever known and loved had been taken away from him, and now he was losing his country too.

"Perhaps it was time to just say goodbye to them and now to Russia as well," he thought in a haze of drunkenness. If he said goodbye, perhaps the ghosts would stay behind here in Russia and not follow him anymore; they were constantly in his dreams yet Illya tried to convince himself there was no such things as ghosts.

Tomorrow he would board his flight and begin his new life and as well as his banishment. He was to return to England and begin learning the ways of U.N.C.L.E. under the tutelage of a man named Harry Beldon. What was he like, what could the man teach him that did not already know? What would this new adventure hold in store for him? Would it be "life" as Alexander Waverly had said, or would it be "death" after all.

Zhizn' ili smert'...life or death. Only the fates knew that answer.

Illya Nickovich Kuryakin raised one last glass of vodka in a toast.

"Proshchaí papa, mama, moy brat'ya, moy sestry. Proshaíte babushki,my dyadya,...moy dvoyurodnoi í Rossiya, kotoroya byla mat' so mnoí, kogda yo byl nikto. Segodnya ya nahozhus' zdes' iz-za tebya_ goodbye papa, mama, my brothers, my sister. Goodbye grandmother, my uncle, my cousin. Goodbye Russia, you were mother to me when I had none. Thank you. Today I am here because of you..."

He downed the vodka and hurled the glass across the room, smashing it to pieces against the wall then reached down, putting the empty bottle of vodka on the floor beneath the table as was tradition.

Illya Kuryakin then passed out.

.

* "Inside the Aquarium: Making of a Top Soviet Spy," Viktor Suvorov

** ref "First Kill"