To Play, To Dream
by Charlie Kirby

The woman stood in the doorway of the small dacha and looked out into the dry grass. This late in the year, it was yellowed and brittle, like her hair, like her spirit. She watched her children playing, finding joy in just simply being alive. She and her parents had done their best to shelter them and hide the horrors of war from them. But they knew.

At least her little one did. She smiled at the thought. He was her first born, but small. He's always been small and hungry. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't keep him satisfied. As a baby, she felt she nursed him twenty four hours a day. As a toddler, she always had to be vigilant to keep him from eating things he shouldn't. Now as a little boy, he knew better and he understood. He watched her with wise blue eyes, knowing the younger children and the adults needed the food just to survive while he, in the middle could merely watch. He never begged, he never cried, he just watched.

She smiled at her little ones as she walked through the knee high grass to where they were sitting. Taisia was playing with her little doll that her grandmother had made from rags. Vyetka was content pushing a tin can around. His grandfather had knocked it into a square shape and painted it to look like a truck. It was her baby's pride and joy.

"Illyusham , my little one?" She knelt beside the seven year old, brushing his sun streaked blond hair out of his eyes. "What are you doing?" She looked down at the tiny twigs, tied with bits of grass. "What do you have there?"

"Soldiers, Mama."

"Brave Russian soldiers, like your papa?"

"Nein, German soldiers."

"What... what did you say, Illya?"

"Nein, it means no." He had them lined up in straight rows, well, as straight as a seven year old could manage.

"Illya, when did you see German soldiers? Where?" Panic seized her. If they had somehow gotten this far inland, all of their country was their victim.

"Back home, in Kiev. They used to march, like this." He jumped to his feet and marched, his legs and back straight. She caught him in her arms and held him close to her. As usual, he permitted it for only a moment before he squirmed to break free. She held him back at arm's length, studying that solemn little face. He never laughed very much, even when he was playing.

"Illyusha, I want you to promise me something, my love."

"Yes, Mama."

"Never, ever pretend to be a German. They are against everything that your father and your country are dying for. We must never surrender to them, not an inch, not an ideal. Do you understand?"

He nodded and she knew he didn't. But she knew he didn't need to, such was the trust of a young child. She reached in to the pocket of her worn sweater and pulled out an apple, offering it to him with a smile.

He took it and immediately looked to his younger siblings, obviously trying to make a decision of which one to give it to.

"No, Illyusha, that's yours, just yours... if you promise." She could see the struggle in his eyes and then he was gone, off to a secret place that only a child could find, to savor his prize and think about their conversation. She wondered if he'd even remember it by supper time.

Illya Kuryakin stared hard into the mirror and into the cold dead eyes of Colonial Nexor. He adjusted the scar slightly, tripled checking its position against the dossier photo he had hanging up next to the mirror. He pressed it into place as a memory stabbed his mind. A memory, the taste of apple and a half remembered promise that he'd once made.

He smiled sadly at his reflection, now resplendent in its Nazi uniform and whispered. "I'm sorry, Mama."