Valenka has some thoughts and troubling dreams.


Valenka steps out on the balcony, and breathes in the first breeze gusting over Paris.

She is very wary of balconies these days, but Kratt checked it for her and it quelled most of her unease. She leans her forearms on the black curled ironwork railing, and roams her gaze over the distant horizon bathed in the late afternoon sun. If she squints, she can see tall grey clouds, like far away cities in the sky, over the mountains. She can hear music, just barely, somewhere in the distance.

The late summer days, when the air already carries a crisp edge of autumn in the mornings and evenings, were always her favourite. She finds home in the browning colours, in the bright spots that shine all the better against the greying cutout.

The hotel they're staying at is not as tall as to grant her a view like those she had in Manhattan or London, but she can still see the city span beyond sight in every direction, and find momentary peace in the openness of her range of vision. In the scattered sunlight she sees rooftops and green patches and people, and she breathes in the muffled bustling of activity with anticipation coiled tight in her chest.

Sometimes, she feels like she called the storm upon them.

The catastrophic failure of their group is recent, fresh on their skin like a bright red scar. Their lives are still upside down, they're trying to adapt to all the changes they had to go through, they had to pick up again habits long-forgotten.

The last few years, filled with cosy routines, steady flows of money and luxuries, and only her lover's moods and headaches to worry about, have sunk roots into her as a sort of lethargic restlessness that just begged to be shaken. She got what she wanted, in a way.

Early on, very early on, she used to smell like chamomile, have dirt under her nails, and make things grow. She made red carnations and orchids bloom in the autumn, and her babushka used to praise her like a miracle-worker. Her grandmother never made fun of her for blowing on plants thinking she could warm them up, for mourning the withered stumps in the winter.

Since she's left her homecountry, her life has been too nomadic for that. She had to scrap up every ounce of talent to manage scams, study at night to give off the impression that she actually finished school.

She used to outdrink men all sizes and tie her hair up to get elbow-deep into the dirty work. She used to run and swim every day because quick legwork makes for quick kills, and the only plants she handled were in the form of toxic extracts.

She used to smoke, just for show at first, just because men would offer her cigarettes and they'd listen to her if she smoked with them. Then she got a taste for it that burned off her other tastes like a short-circuit killing lightbulbs. Living the way she lived, constantly exposed, constantly leaving places behind, constantly passing on food just to travel and dress the part, it had been a mundane miracle that she never got into the heavier stuff.

She liked that life, in a way. Somehow it felt less alien than just asking for anything she'd like to have and not even have to touch her own savings; less alien than a nightstand with no lipstick-stained stubs filling the ashtray. She felt more her own when she owned nothing but her skin and bones: she could be fearless, she had nothing to lose. No praise, no illusion of home to tie her back. No one to please but herself.

Le Chiffre made it an art of binding the desperate to himself, with small favours and small charms and small pay checks. He took her in like a stray, and sometimes she's angry at herself for allowing him to get under her skin like he did, to cage her in the hot-and-cold grip of his affections. For worrying about him like she does.

When disaster hit, she searched herself for the desire to leave, and she couldn't find a scrap of it. She knows very well how little loyalty pays in their world, and she was never less sure of her role. More than ever divided into waiting for orders – any order, any chance for action – and waiting for something to bend so far it breaks, she can just wait, and play petty games of matchmaking.

In all this, knowing that Paris always has the same grip on her is somewhat comforting. She raps the beat of The River with her knuckles on the railing and sighs; comfort never meant safety to her, after all.

Showing their faces around Europe is anything but wise right now, but she has no idea if there's anywhere they could be safe, so hiding in plain sight could actually be a good course of action. They're good at that, they always have been.

They are, of course, here for business. What they've been trying to do for the last two months, beside making back as much money as possible and hide it like squirrels on the brink of winter, has been working to crawl back into the shadows after being so harshly exposed.

Every time Le Chiffre phrases it like that she gets the mental image of a vampire chasing after the lid of his coffin, shrieking and blistering in the sunlight, irreparably damaged like a turtle stripped of its shell. She'd pause and cringe, and tell herself to stop watching creepy midnight blockbusters and Discovery Channel on the same evening. She's unfortunately prone to getting bored and restless at the unholiest hours, so it's often all hotel TV service has to offer her.

She walks away from the railing and ducks under the curtains into the room again. It's quite nice, actually, only very beige and very empty, hence the TV left on as surrogate human companionship. Also, she likes the sound of French.

She read a theory once – or maybe Le Chiffre told her – about how Russian speakers can easily pick up the pronunciation of any other language because the sound range of Russian is the widest possible. However the information came to her, it still hasn't enabled her to speak French in front of Parisians without wanting to crawl in a hole and die. And she already had her dose, as Le Chiffre and his perfect-yet-charmingly-accented French started tackling business right off the plane, leaving all hotel-related issues to her and a very restless Kratt.

In retribution, she had booked only one room for all three of them. Aside from the obvious implications, she honestly had no idea where she was paying from, and thought it best not to splurge. Punching in the code, she had felt that old thrill of fear like the first few times she had used stolen credit cards and a skimmer to get by.

Nonetheless, Kratt had gifted her decision something like five whole seconds of wide-eyed, red-eared attention, and she had smirked smugly at the receipt as they walked the spacious lobby to the escalators. It had considerably lessened the feeling that nothing had changed and she was still a kid getting by with stolen money, which she appreciated.

Then, Kratt had gone back to trying to hide how worried he was. Even if she'd reminded him that Leo and his guys were chauffeuring their boss around, so he was safe, Kratt had kissed her apologetically – and too quickly and still hesitantly – and skipped off after Le Chiffre right after dumping their light luggage in a small pile in the middle of the room. Where it currently sits, untouched.

She walks to the bed and lets her body drop on it, arms wide, occupying the whole of it. It's springy, and big, and not bad at all. She contemplates the idea of a nap: she hasn't mastered the art of sleeping on planes yet, and the five hours spent flying are catching up on her.

She thinks about Le Chiffre, so often tossing and turning in bed and spending nights working up his ELO on because he can't fall sleep, and then out like a light on the first moving vehicle of sorts.

He must be one of those people born to travel, Valenka thinks somewhat drowsily, the kind that just picks languages wherever they go, like collecting pretty stones.

He was probably meant to leave his homecountry, and take his trouble-magnet genius ass around the world, much like she felt she was meant to flee Russia, and much like Kratt was meant to take the first job that could take him out of Germany.

The difference is that she has no idea what homecountry that would be: he never talks about the past, nor answers questions about it. Never does, never had. Not that, with the conjoined effort of deftly deflecting questions and Kratt's menacing glare, anybody bothers to try anymore. Their newer associates, sometimes, when very drunk. Everyone wants bedtimestories when drunk.

Valenka had given much thought about how, over time, his mysteriousness had brought each one of them to build their own little version of Le Chiffre's story. A create-your-own-boss thing, like playing with paper-dolls. She had noticed, talking to some who were less private than Le Chiffre about their lives and less careful about their alcohol intake, that almost everybody's version mirrored their own past one way or another.

It was evidently very important to them to see the person they worked for as someone who shared their experiences. She had found it peculiar and sort of endearing, if not a bit silly, at first.

At least until it made her think about how, when the nightmares jolted her awake shaking and sweating, she would actually do pretty much the same: she'd make up stories, playing them in her mind like movies, vivid dream-like fantasies to lull herself back to sleep.

She closes her eyes, smiling self-indulgently. In her imagination the three of them are children together, and they go everywhere as an unshakable, inseparable trio. Together, they solve all her recurring dreams for the better.

Once, at an unremarkable point of childhood, she had seen a cat circled by stray dogs. The cat was a scrawny thing, maybe old or ill, and judging by the chewed ears and missing eye, she had been sure it had seen its share.

Valenka remembers her pudgy, dirty-nailed fingers gripping excitedly on the wire-mesh fence separating her from the scene; she had been so sure it'd get away, leap right on a dog's nose and away to safety, on a roof. Cats were supposed to wander roofs, weren't they? Swift and untouchable, like shadows.

Yet the dogs had closed in, growling like hell-beasts from a nightmare, sharp teeth dripping brown drool. She remembers the unforgiving clarity of her first cold dip into inevitability: the cat was not getting away.

The man she was taught to call papa had held her back by the hood of her coat. He prevented her from climbing the fence and walk into a pack of famished strays, just like a sensible father would.

He'd also held her there, and forced her to watch the whole of the cat's end. She remembers how she wanted to jam her fingers in her ears, but they were locked on the fence, gripping it like ivy roots on a wall, and she couldn't move them at all. She knows it screamed in agony and panic, like any creature would; yet in her memory, the cat has no voice.

Her step-father had wanted to toughen her up, teach her a lesson. But there were no comforting arms around her while she stood frozen and watched, blinding cold sun drowning in pooling blood, no explanations about the circle of life or whatever.

There was nothing, and she had to get used to it. Violence simply happens, if you're involved you fight or you run, you kill or get killed; if you're not involved you stand aside and let it happen.

She's not sure those have been the actions of a sensible father, or someone attempting to be. Her step-father never tried very hard. She had been so angry she couldn't even cry. It had been the first time she felt something so strongly it dried up her tears: she didn't want to watch it happen and not do anything about it.

In that moment she had vowed to never stand and watch again, a vow as passionate as is was short lived: life had made sure to kick those silly dreams of chivalry out of her, and place self-preservation first on her priority list. She assumes that's why, later in life, she took agency the wrong way and became a perpetrator of violence. Yet, even as an adult, she'd still catch herself grow angry about that stupid half-blind cat, with all the bitterness of ill-healed scars.

In the story she plays in her head like a cheesy Sunday-night movie, seven year olds Kratt and Le Chiffre are with her, holding each of her hands. Kratt's head is shaved like a young monk's, Le Chiffre's scarred eye is heartbreaking in his round child's face; they're clad in black like their adult counterparts, and she is dressed in pink and yellow and has dirt under her nails.

No one is praising her for insignificant miracles, but no one is keeping her still and attempting to teach her shitty lessons either. Kratt is strong, and Le Chiffre is smart; she's sure that, with them there, they could have come up with something, they wouldn't have been powerless.

The fantasy sours up when she can't think of anything she has to add to the group, of a reason for her to be there.

But it's my memory, she protests, frowning and turning on her side, but she's already slipping into disturbed dreams, and her voice is much younger, much ripe with helplessness, I have to be there.

In her imagination, the cat lunges at her and she sees its blind eye is greyish-blue, and it screams in her lover's voice.