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Solo leaves her with the Russian like she’s an old carpetbag. He can’t take her with him, after all. She’s a fiancée now, which makes her worth about as much as luggage — one man’s property and not the other’s.
The engagement ring bites into her palm as she closes her hand tighter around it. Eventually she’ll have to put it on, but she can’t bring herself to do it yet. Play-acting at marriage feels just a little too much like imprisonment when she’s still so close to the Wall, with a KGB agent for a babysitter, of all the people in the world.
He’s still out there, she thinks as a salesgirl zips yet another dress up for her. He’s just standing around like he has any right being here in the first place, looming between her and her only exit. No matter how bad this situation in Rome is supposed to be, it can’t entirely change the state of the world, and just hours ago this very man had been chasing down her car like something out of Hell. He’s a nightmare, her nightmare, and she’s trapped with him.
But, Gaby reminds herself, she is not defenseless. She’s an asset, an agent, an ace-in-the-hole. And she’s out of the Eastern Bloc, which is the most important part. When Waverly had approached her, that had seemed like the only priority. Now, she thinks as she peers out the dressing room door at the Russian man, freedom tastes distinctly bitter.
She walks out while he’s preoccupied with accessorizing; she doesn’t want to give him the chance to rake his eyes over her body again, even if he is admiring his own work more than anything else.
“What’s your name?” she asks. He looks down at her, something akin to surprise on his stupid, impassive face, but does not speak. “If we’re supposed to be engaged I should know what to call you,” she says.
“Of course,” he says, setting down the pair of heels he was holding. “I am Illya Kuryakin. Very pleased to meet you.”
He holds out a hand for her to shake, but she doesn’t take it for two reasons. The first is that the politeness is just a farce, a fact they both know, and she doesn’t want to participate in it. The second is she’s still holding the damned ring in her hand and she can’t very well shake with her left when he’s offered his right.
“You already know who I am,” she says instead, crossing her arms across her chest.
“Gabriella,” he says tentatively, not sounding sure of the way her name feels in his mouth at all.
“Just Gaby,” she says, even though she’s loathe to offer him the familiarity. But she has never once in her life let anyone call her by her full name, and estranged though they might be, her uncle will know that.
He doesn’t repeat her, or say anything, but he does give a small nod, so she’ll assume he heard and understood her. Even though he’s something of a brute, he doesn’t seem stupid, and she supposes there’s some value in that.
“Try this,” he says, offering her another dress.
“Why do I have to try them on, if they’re all in my size?” she asks. She’s tired of dress-up. She wants to go to Rome. She wants out of Germany once and for all.
“There are many options. You must pick the ones you like best,” he says, motioning to the rack of dresses.
“What I want clearly isn’t a concern here,” she says, the words sharp and sour on her tongue. The remark cuts him a little bit, she can see by the way he looks taken aback. He seems caught off-guard by her on the whole. She wonders if he’ll give her a lecture on how women are meant to behave. She maybe even hopes he does, just so she can bite back a little harder.
Instead, he just fixes her with a look that is all too piercing. “Sometimes no,” he agrees, before continuing. “But you can pick your clothes at least.”
She purses her lips, arms still tight across her chest. “Fine,” she spits. “I don’t like this, or that,” she indicates the last dress she tried on. “I don’t like the wool. The colour’s fine.” He takes this into consideration and pulls a few more dresses off the rack for her. She takes the one she likes best, a green-and-cream linen dress with a matching coat, and retreats to the dressing room once again, depositing the ring into one of the fancy handbags he’s got lined up for her as she goes.
While she’s in the changing room, she stews over the whole interaction. If he’s only being amicable to get her to cooperate with him, he’s tricked her. On the other hand, this mission will probably require a certain amount of cooperation if it’s going to work out for them, so she can’t keep fighting every little thing he does just for the sake of it.
Is it better to be defeated or to just give up? She doesn’t like either option.
When she comes back out, he nods in approval, looking her in the eyes as he says good in a way that makes her want to rip the dress right off again. She flushes, the anger burning in her cheeks, and turns to the mirror. Being hot-tempered won’t accomplish anything. She’s got to keep even-keeled at least until they get to Rome.
He comes up behind her with the coat, slipping it on over her shoulders in an intimate gesture she’ll have to get used to. She can’t be shying away from his touch in public. So she tries not to set her jaw when he smooths the sleeves of the coat down, his hands coming to rest on her shoulders, weighing her down.
“Tell me why you are in love with me,” he says, softly and apropos of absolutely nothing. She bristles under his touch, knocking his hands off her shoulders as she turns around.
“Excuse me?” she asks.
“Your uncle will ask,” he says.
“Right,” she bites out. The cover story. “Can’t you come up with something, Mister Secret Agent?”
“It must be your words,” he says. “You are the one he knows.”
“He knows me well enough to know I’d never fall in love with somebody like you,” she says, and in his eyes there is a returning glint of – not hurt, but anger, which is probably the most interesting thing she’s seen in his face since she met him. He keeps his expression carefully schooled not to show emotions, and when he does smile or frown it’s like a pantomime – but that anger, it was real.
“Then… the story you tell must be good,” he advises, expression blank again.
“A story that good? Not possible,” she says, wanting to see if she can get on his nerves some more. He doesn’t take the bait, so she moves on. “I can’t think of a single thing, anyway. What’s a Russian architect doing in East Berlin? We don’t have summer resorts.”
“You have a wall,” he says.
She’s been trying to mimic his blank expression, but she feels her lip tug up in distaste. She peels the coat off and crosses back to the rack of dresses, picking up one that he didn’t set aside for her. “So you’ve come to build the Wall,” she says. “Doesn’t explain how we would’ve met.”
“You work in chop shop?” he asks. She narrow her eyes, not particularly feeling up to the task of defending the moral fiber of her friends at the auto shop. Not all or even most of their work had been illegal, but he’s clearly done his research. Taking her silence as confirmation, he continues. “Maybe my car breaks down.”
“No,” she interjects. “It doesn’t break down. It’s your fault.” She watches him carefully for a reaction as she says it, and thinks maybe she sees something there. For a second she grapples to come up with something suitably humiliating, and then it strikes her. “You drove into a tank.”
“I would not do this,” he says, a mounting edge in his tone.
“You didn’t even see it,” she continues breezily, finally having some fun with the entire exercise. The dress she’s picked out for herself is light and airy and bright orange, and she loves it a little bit. “But it was night time, to be fair to you.”
He sighs out his nose.
“You came to my shop, asked for the best, and—”
“I got you,” he says.
She manages a thin smile.
“How long have I known you?” he asks.
How long? she asks herself, panic tugging at her heartstrings. How long ago did it happen, this shoddy excuse at a love story? How long ago was she trapped, trussed, and caged? “For two years,” she mumbles.
“Too long,” he says.
“That’s when the Wall went up,” she says. “That’s when you would’ve been there.”
“I would not have stayed two years,” he says. “Six months.”
Not long enough, she thinks. But nothing would be, to fall in love with him.
“Anything else?” she asks.
“When is our wedding?” he asks, like he’s quizzing her.
“We haven’t set a date, or chosen a place,” she says, turning on her heel so she can give him a doleful, innocuous look as she continues. “I can’t think of these things until I know my father can be there to give me away.”
That gets her most of an actual smile from him – also interesting, but Gaby liked the anger better. It’s an easier code to crack.
“That’s good,” he says, seemingly satisfied with her performance as he stops his questions. She purses her lips. It doesn’t matter how sad she pretends to be, she knows her uncle and knows he won’t fall for the ploy. He’s not a romantic. He’ll see the visit for what it is: a miracle that she’s out of Berlin. The rest of the picture comes together by itself.
Still, he might believe that Illya is just some soft-hearted academic that she easily beguiled for her own benefit. He’d believe that, and more importantly he’d respect it, sick as that might be.
She looks Illya over once, twice. There’s nothing soft or easy about him, and that’s her biggest problem. Maybe she can find something to work with underneath that glacial, aloof exterior.
Digging the ring out of the handbag, she slides it onto her finger.
“It fits,” she says, drawing his attention. “Is my ring size on file?” She imagines him sneaking into her room while she sleeps, dressed head to toe in black, all gangly-limbed and conspicuous as he tries to fit her for a ring without waking her.
“No,” he says. “Call it luck.”
“So what have you heard about me?” she asks.
“Plenty,” he says.
“Then you have me at a disadvantage,” she says.
“It’s still a long way to Rome,” he says. “We still have time to get to know each other.”
And it’s the funniest, stupidest thing, but for just a second she’s really curious. She wants to know more about him – what makes him angry, and why. It’s not what she’s here for, and she knows she shouldn’t let herself wonder. It’ll be easier – for the mission, for her – if she thinks of him as someone without depths. Just a faceless enemy, one of thousands.
But some part of her knows she’s way past that, and another part of her thinks maybe she isn’t cut out for all the lies and betrayal that come along with being a secret agent.
Don’t overthink, Gaby, she tells herself. She holds up her hand, looking at the ring, to draw his attention back to it, the smallest smile pulling at the corners of her mouth as she speaks.
“So when do we leave?”