This story is a sequel to Promises, and I recommend you read it first.
By Periwinkle
2093 words
He should sell the house. Everyone kept telling him that. But something in him wouldn’t let go of it. Maybe it was the hope that Illya would come back, even though he knew that his Russian - well, “his” no longer - had meant what he said. Once that man had walked out of the house, he had been gone for good. Lock, stock and Ukrainian books.
But something in Napoleon couldn’t accept the finality of
it. The two of them had been partners for so many years finally reaching a
point where they could buy a house and retire together. For months they had
looked for just the perfect place until they had found this lovely clapboarded
New England Cape Cod, close enough to
He sighed, and finished his coffee quickly. It was time for him to get to work. And wasn’t that an irony? Illya had left because Napoleon had put U.N.C.L.E. ahead of his partner. He had promised Illya he’d retire, spend more time with him, but the siren call of the office had kept luring him in. And that, in the end, is what had split them up. His priorities had been all wrong. It should have been his lover, then work, and not the other way around. But without Illya there Napoleon was going into U.N.C.L.E. more than ever, almost every day in fact, working as hard as he could, trying to keep himself from thinking of the bare spots, the empty areas in the house, all of them mute testimony to Illya’s absence.
He stood up from the table and rinsed his cup in the sink. The kitchen was bright and sunny, awash in natural light and the pale blues and yellows they had painted it. Not for them the current colors then in vogue – turquoise and brown. This was a softer, calmer place, just perfect for relaxing and talking. Or it would have been if there was someone other than himself to talk to.
It was time to sell the house.
-/-/-
Illya sighed to himself once again. He’d been internally sighing for the last half hour as he rode in his coworker Ashley’s car. He wasn’t sure why he was agreeing to accompany her this afternoon except that when she had asked him for a favor he had run a mental tally and realized that he owed her a few.
She was talking about buying a little house for herself and felt the need to bring someone along to look for structural defects while she cooed over cute porches and charming kitchens.
He sighed yet again. He had bought a house himself once and he did not want to be reminded of the house hunting. It caused too large a lump in his chest.
So here he was in her car traveling around the countryside. There had been a few nice homes on his side of the road. He couldn’t see any on the left side because when he looked in that direction Ashley’s big hair, held up with a banana clip, blocked his view. He was reminded of the troll dolls that the kids carried around the local school. Thankfully, Ashley, who was actually a well-respected researcher, had abandoned her “Flash Dance” sweaters for the day in favor of something by Donna Karan, making her look much more like a prospective home owner and less like a teen barfly.
Illya had no interest in owning a home ever again. He’d been down that route before, thank you, and still had bittersweet memories of that experience. But for some reason Ashley had felt that having a male along would cause her to be treated with more respect by the real estate agents. And he had noticed a few things in some of the houses worthy of bringing to her attention.
He closed his eyes for a few minutes, trying to escape the sounds of the BeeGees. He had liked the group somewhat before he had entered Ashley’s car, but three hours of falsetto was beginning to get on his nerves. Closing his eyes didn’t serve to shut the sound out; it still penetrated through, along with his companion’s off-key accompaniment. To make things worse, Ashley had a bad habit of whipping her little Toyota Tercel around the curves in the road without warning, causing his head to roll sharply without warning from side to side.
Giving up trying to relax, he opened his eyes and caught a glimpse of the scenery passing by. Startled, he sat up in the seat of the car and looked more closely at the buildings they were passing.
It couldn’t be. It really couldn’t be. The scenery looked like the little town near the house that he had bought with Napoleon. The house he had sworn never to return to. Of course, he reassured himself, it was unlikely that it was “their” house Ashley was looking at; although as far as he knew Napoleon had never sold it. Not that Illya ever enquired, but if it was ever sold Illya would have received half of the proceeds. While Napoleon didn’t know where Illya was, U.N.C.L.E. did, and they would have seen that he got it.
“Ashley,” Illya said, steeling his voice to be calm. “Where is this house we are going to? And do you know anything about it?”
She glanced at him briefly and then returned her eyes to the
road. “I don’t know much, just that it’s
a bachelor’s pad, in good condition, white exterior with blue shutters and on
Illya swore to himself in five different languages then wondered if there was a way to get out of the car without attracting Ashley’s attention. Of course, she would probably wonder if he threw himself out of a moving vehicle. Maybe he could get suddenly and violently sick? His stomach was sending messages that it was more than willing to cooperate with the idea. But in the end he decided he was stuck going there. The only reassuring thought he had was that Napoleon wouldn’t be present; the realtor would be the person handling the open house.
Ashley pulled into the drive, shifted the car into “Park,” and pulled the parking brake’s handle up. She started to get out of the vehicle while Illya, staying in his seat, looked around for a moment. The front yard looked just the same as it had two years ago when he had walked out. Someone had maintained the gardens that he had lovingly planted – Illya doubted Napoleon had done it, he probably had hired a gardener – and the house’s paint was fresh and bright. There was a pang in Illya’s heart as he remembered the joy with which he and Napoleon had painted the house when they bought it. They had been splattering paint accidentally and the job turned into a paintbrush fight, leaving them as covered by white paint as the brushes had been.
He reminded himself of why he left. Of how Napoleon couldn’t make time for him. How Napoleon had to keep going to U.N.C.L.E. Of the loneliness Illya had felt when Napoleon left a few too many times and the heartbreak of knowing that he had taken second place in Napoleon’s list of priorities.
“Illya?” Ashley roused him from his memories. She had opened the passenger door for him and was standing by it, obviously wondering why he hadn’t exited.
“I’m sorry, Ashley. I was reminiscing. I used to live in this area some time back.”
“Oh, good. Then you can tell me about the area and what there is to do and such!” she exclaimed.
“I’m afraid I didn’t do much,” he replied. “I’m not the social person you are.”
“That’s okay,” she said, and she patted his arm. Illya got out of the car and they proceeded up to the sidewalk to the familiar door where the realtor greeted them. Thankfully, thought Illya, it wasn’t the same agent that had sold the two of them the house. That would have been hard to explain.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the realtor was giving him a quizzical look. He shrugged it off and went into the house.
Nothing had changed. Napoleon had left everything as it had been when Illya left. It brought a pang of nostalgia to Illya, even while he felt as if he was standing in a museum display or a time capsule. There was the bare space where the coat rack had been until Illya had taken it with him. The couch in the living room. All was unchanged. He wasn’t sure what that said about Napoleon, but it felt almost as if he was just waiting for someone to come. For Illya to come. Otherwise, why hadn’t Napoleon filled the bare spaces where Illya’s stuff had been?
He left Ashley looking around the kitchen, marveling at the blue and yellows that the two of them had chosen, and went to the library. There was a little bit of a sign of change here. The empty bookshelves had a few books on them, ones that Napoleon had probably purchased. But the desk still was just as it had been, even to the pictures on it.
The pictures.
He turned, looked behind him and there it was. The large picture of the two of them, taken during their first year of partnership, was hanging where they had placed it when they moved in. Now he knew why the real estate agent had looked at him strangely. She must have recognized him.
Hanging the picture had been the first thing they had done in their new house. He remembered Napoleon saying something about how the house was where they would finish out their partnership and the picture would commemorate where they had started it.
Well, Illya had certainly finished the partnership, hadn’t he? But not in the sense that Napoleon had planned. Napoleon had been thinking in terms of them growing old and gray together, bathed in their love, not in terms of angry, bitter words and abrupt endings.
His curiosity drove him to the bedroom and there on Napoleon’s dresser were the other pictures of them, along with pictures of Mark and April and of other friends. Napoleon had not taken any of them down.
Illya sat in the armchair and let it sink in. He could smell a faint trace of Napoleon’s aftershave mixed with his hair gel and it spoke of home, caring and good times to him. He could feel something starting to tear in his heart. Some emotion that he couldn’t put a name to. Loss, loneliness, regrets?
It was closing on dusk when Ashley reached the bedroom on her tour and found him holding a picture. She looked at his face for a moment and then softly said, “This was your house, wasn’t it?” He just nodded.
“He was close to you?”
“Yes,” Illya said quietly. “He was my partner.” The word “partner” brought another flood of memories into his mind. The hole in his heart grew a little larger with the deluge.
She could see that he was lost in his past and sensed he needed to be left alone, so she moved on to the next room. After Ashley left, he stood up and retreated to the kitchen, not at all surprised when he found the bottle of vodka in the freezer. After pouring himself a glass he went and sat down in the living room.
Ashley came to get him a short time later. “Shall we leave now?”
He raised his head and looked at her. “No, I think I’ll stay here if you don’t mind. There’s someone I have to wait for.”
She nodded, said good-bye and left.
Illya sat down, holding his glass. When the realtor came to ask if he was leaving, he explained that he was the other owner of the house. Once she was satisfied that he had a right to be there she went to her car and left him behind, alone in the house.
He sat there on Napoleon’s couch in the approaching gloom,
drinking the vodka, listening for a familiar step.