Illya Kuryakin

"Seven swans a-swimming," Napoleon muttered over reports and memoranda and budgetary documents, the paper detritus of a life typically seen as more glamorous and less administrative. Rarely does the public consider how much paperwork is involved either before or after a mission and generally in running an international law enforcement organization such as UNCLE, all necessary in order to document secrecy. "Six geese a-laying...five golden rings..."

"The problem with this time of year," I remarked, a trifle more caustically than I meant to, "are the jingles that apparently become lodged in every person's brain in this country." If it wasn't Napoleon humming, it was the girls in Radar or Translation spontaneously breaking into song, or carolers outside my apartment building, or the tinny music played over PA systems in department stores, overheard as you walked past their constantly-opening front doors.

"Heathen," Napoleon replied without looking up from yet another mission report. "'Tis the season and all that."

"Not if one does not celebrate the holiday," I retorted, shoving my chair back from my desk and standing to retrieve my coat and gloves.

"Would you prefer a rousing chorus of 'Dreidl Dreidl'? I'm sorry my repertoire isn't more extensive."

"Thank you," I refrained from rolling my eyes; Napoleon was still my superior, after all, "I shall leave you to your paperwork, and you may hum what you wish."

"Have a good night, Illya," my partner called sweetly after me as I left the office.

"Four calling birds, three French hens," I found myself chanting under my breath as I walked down to the subway to go back to my apartment, and I resolved then and there to put a jazz record on the instant I walked in my front door.

Some people choose to run. A recreational activity, or at least an excellent way to keep fit. Some people really, truly do enjoy running.

I don't think I'm one of them.

That said, if I go a day or two without running wildly for my life, gun in hand or fires raging behind me, it's an unusual day indeed. Hazards of the job, you see. It's usually short sprints--or mad, wild dashes as the case may be, and depending entirely upon your perspective--rather than anything prolonged, but I do end up running the occasional, er, marathon. I prefer the sprints. At least they're quicker.

April enjoys running; she runs a few miles every day, I know, before coming into the office, when not on a mission. Mark, I think, even enjoys it, or at least dutifully runs on his days off. Not Napoleon. He too runs for necessity, not for pleasure. I would suggest we both prefer keeping fit in other ways.

There are or have been many sayings in English that have made no sense to me whatsoever, particularly when I was studying in England and when I first moved to New York. This is not surprising; when learning any new language, there are always idioms and colloquialisms that do not translate well. And, of course, English English and New York English are two very different kettle of fish--in the vernacular.

That said, some sayings continue to annoy me, even after the facility I have developed with the language. One in particular that stands out is "I could care less." I have heard a few people say it in what I would consider the correct fashion, but for the most part when I have heard it, people say it the first way.

How does that make any sense? If you really could care less, why even discuss--or rather complain, as that is usually when the person is saying it--the situation? It is an entirely meaningless phrase.

I heard Napoleon say such a thing exactly once. If he still says it, he ensures not to do so within my hearing vicinity. I don't think he appreciates being lectured on English by me.

I--oh dear. I hesitate to mention this, and yet--and yet it is the first thing I thought of. Of which I thought.

It's not cheerful, not really. The first time I boarded a train and went away from home; it really isn't cheerful at all--and I don't mean to university, I mean away, away from my country and from the Soviet Union. I was going to do graduate work at the Sorbonne, completely foreign territory, that decadent West about which I had heard so much.

For weeks beforehand I existed somewhere between elation and trepidation, delight and fear. My emotions were much closer to the surface in those days, though I was usually able to keep a cool exterior. It was all very new.

And then at last the day arrived for my leaving, and I was on the train, looking out the window as it pulled away from the station. I would be homesick; my French and English would both be mocked; I would suffer a great deal of culture shock and confusion. I was sure of it before I left, and my prophecies would be proven true when I arrived, but in the meantime--in the meantime, I was going to have an adventure.

Over the years, I have had a fair number of nicknames, pseudonyms, and noms de guerre assigned to me. (I became used to "Illya" rather than "Ilya" only after living outside the Soviet Union for...quite some time.) Part and parcel with the job, in some respects; there are some weeks when I am assigned a new identity every day. Thankfully those weeks are few and far between--it really can be quite difficult at times to remember whether the individual I am portraying is supposed to be from England or New England when the day before I was playing at being somebody from Alaska.

The nickname used most often at work, however, is "Ice Prince." So dubbed by a cadre of the female employees, it appears--according to my amused co-workers Mark and April--to have spread amidst the rest of the staff, mostly the women though some of the men also use it. I'll believe it when I hear Mr Waverly call me such.

(I really do hope I never hear him call me as such.)

I believe they call me by this name because I do not flirt indiscriminately, nor respond as quickly to such light flirtation as some other Section Two agents. Namely my partner, Napoleon Solo; though Mark and the others--even April--are also quite susceptible.

It's a useful nickname--and persona--to adopt. It does make it easier to keep my personal space at work.

I'm actually quite good at dancing. I can foxtrot and waltz with the best of them; my twist is not to be sneezed at; and I'm usually quite quick at picking up new steps as needed. There have been occasions while working undercover when that ability has come in useful. Perhaps not quite as often as my partner Napoleon--whose tango has seen more use than is probably strictly necessary in the line of duty, but whose strasthpey is sadly lamentable--but I still find myself at more balls, dances, and clubs while working than one might believe of my line of work.

Then again, perhaps not. James Bond and Matt Helm have a great deal to answer for, really.

I am a passable dancer, yes. I have sometimes had to pretend I couldn't dance, often enough that most acquaintances, most people with whom I work, think that really I have no ability in that area. I prefer it that way, actually. Otherwise more women would probably ask me to take them dancing.

"Do you need anything?"

That was the third time Napoleon had asked the question since he showed up an hour ago. I had been slightly irritated by it the first time--I hate hearing that question at the best of times, everyone always asks that question when one is in hospital, he'd asked me the exact same thing yesterday when he visited. Now I was becoming downright annoyed.

"No."

"Are you sure?" My partner was wandering around the hospital room, inspecting corners and chairs and the gaudy bouquet of flowers the girls in Translation had sent me. "I could get you some more science magazines."

"I have plenty to read."

"Crosswords? Do you need the New York Times? I can run down to the gift shop and get you--"

"A nurse already brought me a copy."

"Grapes." He stopped by my bed, and I glared up at him. It really wasn't fair, that a prolonged bout in a freezing cold lake in Switzerland had left me with pneumonia and Napoleon with, apparently, nothing better to do than drop by my hospital room for some perverse form of mild entertainment. "You're always hungry, I could get you some grapes."

"Napoleon?"

"Yes, Illya?"

"Get out."

Napoleon, my partner, is a warm-blooded creature. He prefers the Mediterranean, the Riviera, beaches and sunlight and warm breezes. Women in bikinis or summer dresses and sandals, with sunny blonde hair. Whenever we are sent somewhere cold, wet, wintery, he complains.

I grew up in the cold, with winters that sometimes seemed as if they would never end. Snow glittering in the short-lived daylight, biting wind or a stillness so deep, so profound, that even the ice doesn't crack. Bone-marrow cold, so pervasive sometimes I felt like I would never warm up.

I--I don't miss that cold exactly. I enjoy warmth, greenery, women in colorful sundresses, even the occasional beach (no matter what Napoleon may say to the contrary). But there are times when New York is chilled, when I find myself on a Tibetan mountainside in the snow, when I am tottering along a glacier near the Antarctic, and it feels the tiniest bit like home.

Whenever I am at one of the UNCLE HQs on a Friday--and it does not appear to matter whether I am in New York, Tokyo, Berlin, or Reykjavik--I am always amused by how the staff there react. As if Friday were some magical day, the end of the working week, when everyone can at last relax and, in the American vernacular, "let their hair down."

It's not entirely true, of course; UNCLE always requires administrative staff, people to work in Translation and the labs and elsewhere, no matter what time of day or day of the week. But there are individuals who always work the night shift, or always work the weekends, and there are individuals who always work the Monday-Friday 9-5 shift, and by four o'clock on a Friday afternoon I can usually find Napoleon or Mark Slate flirting with a willing young translator or radio monitor (or, for that matter, April Dancer flirting with one of her own admirers).

It's not so true for Enforcement agents; we are more accustomed to working all hours; and all UNCLE staff are quite accustomed to being called in unexpectedly at three o'clock on a Saturday morning or two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon when an emergency arises. I've been at HQ too when the night shift is winding down and seen the same responses--not necessarily a more desultory reaction to duty, certainly no slacking on anybody's part, but...minds are not quite as firmly fixed on the responsibilities at hand, when the imagined delights of the future are so near.

We've all chosen this profession; we've all chosen to turn over a majority of our lives to looking after the rest of the world. But we all like a little rest and relaxation. Even me, I will admit.

In the end? Friday is really a state of mind.

I didn't have a whole lot when I was young. Possessions were...not well looked-upon in my country, shall we say. But children can make toys and play out of nearly anything, can't they? The world is their oyster. Sometimes almost literally, depending on how imaginative they are.

My grandmother told me stories, my mother had me help her cook, my father took me out on long walks and talked about both important and nonsensical things. He carved me toys out of scraps of wood--boats, people, animals, quick and deft little figures. I played with them while watching my mother and grandmother cook, cabbage rolls and perogies and sweets. Solo laughs at me when I wax nostalgic over the food I remember from birthdays or other special occasions; but then, he knows how much I enjoy food.

That's what I have left from my childhood, you see. A little carved boat and a wooden spoon.