You know those aptitude tests that they give you in high school? The ones you take to find out what you might be good at as a possible career? Mine indicated that I would do well in small places, but I'm pretty sure they weren't talking about a parking attendant's kiosk. Still, I have the feeling that the examiner took one look at my blonde hair and my breasts and decided it was all I was good for until some man married me and made me whole. Can you believe people actually think that way in this day and age?
First off, my name is Candace Willis and I'm not stupid. I graduated at the top of my class in Vassar, not that any man would ever ask me that. They start at my head and stop at my chest and that's about as far as they go. Just once I'd love to meet a man who actually looked me in the eye and not the breast when he talked with me.
I work for UNCLE, which sounds pretty exciting...not that you can tell anyone, of course. That's one of the downsides of working for a secret organization. Instead, my friends think I work for a nightclub called the Masque Club, which is also pretty cool. It's a private club and one of the entrances to UNCLE HQ. It's the one that most of our regular employees use with the exception of the Section Two guys.
Lots of people take one look at us and think we are just too stupid or unmotivated to want more out of life. We must be all time losers for working as parking attendants. That couldn't be further from the truth. Most of us are above-average intelligence. We just have our own reasons for taking this sort of job.
Sammy, for instance, is a reader and always has a book going. There aren't too many jobs that pay you, offer medical, dental and retirement and let you read. Casey, he's taking extension courses towards his Masters degree. Me, I'm writing the Great American Novel, one that speaks of the inequalities facing women. In my book, we are actually on equal footing with men, hence the need to classify it as fiction.
Most of the time, the days are ours to do as we see fit, but every once in awhile, things heat up. The worst is when the Big Man upstairs. ..um, I talking about Waverly, not God, sorry. ..decides to use the parking garage for a hostage exchange or to move someone. Then there are Section Three agents wandering all over the garage. Always exciting in the same way stock car racing is exciting.
They're all testosterone-driven gorillas with more muscles than brains—trust me on this one. When you add the Section Twos into that batch, the tension gets higher, mostly between the two departments. They don't always get along as well as they could. It's the basic Law of Attraction. That states that people's thoughts, conscious or otherwise, dictate the reality of their lives. In short, like attracts like, but it can also repel like. By putting a lot of attention and thought into something you don't want means you'll probably get that too, along with the stuff you do want. So we constantly have Sections Two and Three knocking heads with one another. It's not always pretty.
So, this morning, I'm at my locker and the loudspeaker comes on. I don't usually pay much attention to it, but in the locker room, it's hard not to. I realize with a start that it's paging me to Conference Room Five. In all my years here, I've never been paged, not once, and all my fellow employees are looking at me like I've suddenly developed either a third hand growing from my head or some kind of fatal disease.
"Candace, what's up?" Rose asks. She's this quiet secretary and I really like her. She's just what you'd call a nice person, if by nice you mean she lets guys walk all over her. I wouldn't treat a dog the way guys take advantage of her. I try to get her to stick up for herself, but she's worried about being an old maid and she says you have to take the bitter with the sweet. Not in my world—ever! I'd rather live life alone and on my terms than be an extension of any man.
"I don't know, but I'll find out," I say, and close my locker with a firm hand. She jump and then laugh self-deprecatingly. Poor thing is already beaten.
When I walk into the room, I nearly vapor lock at the sight of who's seated at the table. It's Mr. Waverly himself. I've never even really met him before, only seen him occasionally being driven past. And there's Solo and Kuryakin. There aren't many of my fellow creatures who wouldn't instantly surrender any aspect of their body or soul to either of these guys, although I can't understand why. Okay, so neither of them is hard on the eyes, but Solo has a bad reputation around the office. He's got more volumes of little black books than the New York library has biographies. Kuryakin, he's about as easy to read as a book with blank pages. Nothing, with a side order of nothing; there's just nothing there. You get the idea. I don't know if he's not interested or just bored. It's just impossible to tell with him.
Solo gets to his feet instantly and pulls out a chair—the consummate gentleman. His partner looks at him for a minute and goes back to his file, those baby blues hidden behind these buck-ugly, black-rimmed glasses. My dad calls them birth control glasses. ..but I think that's just for women. I don't know what he'd call Kuryakin's.
Anyhow, I murmur a thank you to Solo and sit, trying to behave and act like I'm happy to be stuffed into a room with three suits.
"Miss...Willis." It takes Mr. Waverly a minute to remember my name. "We have a small task for you. You will need to instruct Mr. Kuryakin in the finer points of your job."
Like I could have refused. This is THE top guy. What he wants, he gets, but the finer points? Who the hell is he kidding? I'm a parking garage attendant; there are no finer points to my job. Then I realize what he's saying. .. Kuryakin? In the box? With me? Oh, dear lord, I realize that this is God's way of getting back at me for that paper I wrote in Great Religions of the World. What a sore head!
It takes me a minute to realize that I've summarily been dismissed, but then both agents are on their feet and moving. As Kuryakin gets closer to the door, I hear Waverly. "And Mr. Kuryakin, try not to muck this up."
I would have snapped some off the cuff remark back at Waverly if he'd said that to me, but the Russian just nods and leaves. I head back to the locker room and discover there are about a hundred women sitting there, apparently waiting for me. I didn't know this many women even worked for UNCLE.
"So?" Rose is right there.
"I have to train Mr. Kuryakin." The squeal I half expect, but not the look in Rose's eyes. She grabs my hand and smiles.
"He's a very nice man, Candy. I know how you get, but he's not like the rest."
I don't ask how she knows this; I'm still trying to decide what the hell to do with him. Eight hours in a very small space with a man most women would give their eyeteeth for and he can't even make decent conversation. ..Lord, make me strong.
He is waiting for me when I get to The Box. Casey was staring at him, sort of awe struck. He opens the door when he sees me and steps out.
"It's all yours, Candy." He practically takes off running in the opposite direction and I sort of smile as I enter. Technically, the Box is supposed to be manned by two people, one for incoming and one for outgoing, but because this is a private organization, there's not the need.
"Candy?" Kuryakin says as he clears off and settles into the obviously unused chair.
"Short for Candice, which I prefer, Mr. Kuryakin." I reached for the clipboard to start the daily check. Usually I just sort of glance at it and toss it aside, but it is procedure and he needs to be shown it.
"Please call me Illya." He pronounces it with three syllables instead of two like I hear most people, even his partner, use. It seems a little more musical when he says it.
Okay, so it takes a grand total of about half an hour to show him the ropes. I'm a parking garage attendant, not a rocket scientist. My job just isn't that hard. What is hard is the boredom. Usually I'd have dragged out my pad of paper and started writing by now, but that would be rude, even for me.
One thing I'm really happy about is that he's not an Aqua Velva man. Sammy wears enough cologne to stink up most of this part of the city. Casey, on the other hand, should wear something. Kuryakin just smells, I don't know, clean. And he's not all glued in place with that greasy kid stuff, as the ads call it.
"So what's the most exciting place you're ever been?" I decide that might be an innocent enough question that he might actually consider answering it. Up to now, most of his conversation had been limited to monosyllables. I give him credit, though; he hadn't studied my chest yet. He looks me dead in the eye every time we speak. It's actually a little unnerving.
"With or without people shooting at me?"
I hadn't thought of that. "Without."
He thinks for a moment and then, "Paris."
"The City of Lights," I answered and then realize how stupid it sounds. "How old were you when you visited?"
"Just nineteen." He keeps looking around, his attention never focused on anything for more than a few seconds. Guess that's what keeps Section Twos alive.
"Your parents must have really trusted you." At nineteen, mine barely trusted me to cross the street, much less live in a foreign country. My father still didn't think I had enough common sense to come out of the rain—and this is my own father!
"My parents had no say in the matter. It was for schooling, the Sorbonne."
Guess my surprise showed in my eyes as just the corner of one side of his mouth curled as I said, "You must be really smart to be accepted there."
"You misunderstand; I was sent, but I was never accepted. It was the State's decision." It takes a minute for me to realize the impact of those words. No, as a Russian, he wouldn't be accepted, not really. Even though Russia helped to liberate the French in World War II, they were still not well liked by the French—as if the French like anyone.
Then I suddenly realized something. This was someone who didn't have any say in his life. He did as he was told, by his government, by his countrymen. I'd be willing to bet even coming to UNCLE wasn't his decision. There was no room for debate in his life, no arguments, no choice. Every movement, every action, every consequence was watched and gauged. For once, I'd found someone even more downtrodden than a woman.
"What's your degree in?" I watched a car drive in. The driver pulled up, flicked an UNCLE ID badge and drove on. That was my big excitement for the morning.
"Quantum Mechanics," he replied, slipping out of his jacket. The Box is claustrophobic with just one person, add to and it can be stiflingly hot. The black of his shoulder holster stood out against his white shirt and it looked every bit as uncomfortable as the bra and girdle I was duty bound to wedge myself into every day.
"You have a BS in Quantum Mechanics and you work as a field agent?"
"PhD, actually. Cambridge." His eyes flicked to mine and then back out into the garage.
"I'm kind of surprised," I said after a pause.
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. I was always told that the Soviet Union wouldn't let anyone out from behind the Iron Curtain and that the schools teach there's no such thing as free will. And yet you've studied all over the place—and quantum mechanics, of all things! Doesn't the Comintern have an ideological objection to the Uncertainty Principle? It takes determinism out of science and lets free will back in."
He looked surprised. It's no wonder. Not many people expect parking attendants to be up on quantum theory. But all he said was, "We Russians are a pragmatic people. So long as the science works, ideology will accommodate it. Besides, we do believe in free will. The Soviet state exists according to the will of the people."
"But the will of the people isn't the same as individual free will. It's just a political excuse to justify totalitarianism!"
That discussion kept us going for nearly two hours, neither of us willing to concede an in inch to the other. It was the most fun I'd had in The Box since I started. I stopped thinking of him as an agent and more as a person. Certainly, he is attractively-packaged and brilliant, but still a person. And just as much a victim as any woman in America was.
And there wasn't a subject he shied from, art, poetry, music—they all fascinated him as much as science and politics. He spoke intelligently, but carefully, as if weighing each word before saying it. That could also be because English isn't his first language, but I had the feeling it was more due to caution. This was a man who was used to being scrutinized and examined. And I found myself wondering if anyone even bothered to listen to him while they were doing all this observing.
"Where did you study?" he asked curiously.
I guess my surprise showed in my eyes as just the corner of one side of his mouth curled. "What makes you think I went to any university?" I asked curiously.
"You're very intelligent," he replied. "I can't think of any reason you wouldn't go. Except perhaps money?"
"Or because I'm a woman?" I decided to draw a line in the sand just to see where he stood.
"What difference does that make?" he asked, obviously puzzled. That was refreshing.
I just looked at him. "Why should a woman want to be educated?" It wasn't kind of me, I know, but I wanted to hear what he had to say. "We're not good for anything except keeping house or typing letters or cleaning out bedpans." I didn't keep the sarcasm out of my voice.
His eyebrows drew together and I could almost hear his brain buzzing away. "But this is America, the 'land of opportunity.' Where anyone can be whatever they want. Or so the story book goes."
Obviously he'd bought the party line. "Oh, see that's where you all have it wrong."
"Really and why is that?"
"What if I wanted to be doctor, or a lawyer or a scientist?"
"You should be able to attain anything that you set your mind to. To do otherwise would be counterproductive." He nearly added, 'to the Party,' but caught himself at the last moment.
"What about an UNCLE agent?" I added coldly. It was UNCLE's police that there are no women field agents. They seemed to think we didn't have the temperament for it.
"If that is what you wish, I see no reason why that choice should be refused you."
I couldn't help it. I laughed. "Oh, Illya. .. If I walked in there," I waved a hand toward the offices, "and said I wanted to be an agent, they'd pat me on the head and tell me that was nice, but I should go back to my parking lot. 'Women can't be agents.'"
He opened his mouth, and then closed it again without speaking as I continued. "UNCLE prides itself on its broadmindedness—there are agents of every race, creed, color...nationality, and religion in there," I pointed at the offices again, "but not one of them is female. We're too soft, too timid, too weak, too easily manipulated, and too emotional." My voice got a bit louder as I warmed to my subject. "THRUSH has female agents; why doesn't UNCLE?"
He leaned back in his chair and watched, curious, as I kept on. It was like I had all these things to say and someone finally willing to at least listen to me without interrupting. "All things being equal—as if they ever would be—if a woman can pass all the requirements to be a field agent, survival school, the languages, the marksmanship. .. Why shouldn't she be allowed a chance to be a field agent?"
"You're very adamant about this, aren't you?" he asked quietly.
Oh, hell. I'd blown it now. I'd managed to keep my opinionated outspoken mouth shut long enough to get the job with UNCLE, to keep it this long, and now. .. Oh, well; in for a penny, in for a pound. "There is no reason a woman can't. .."
"I agree."
". ..be any. ..You what? What did you say?" I did the proverbial double take and he smiled.
"I said I agree."
I just stared. He brushed the hair off his forehead and shrugged, his eyes narrowing with thought. "During the Great Patriotic War at Stalingrad, the most feared snipers, the ones who logged the most kills, who would lie in the snow for hours waiting for the perfect shot, were women. Lyudmila Mikhailivna Pavlichenko, who is from Kiev, had over 300 confirmed kills. Also any number of women served with the underground and with the French Resistance. They fought as fiercely and as well as any man." He shrugged. "But they had no choice; it was fight or die. In the natural world, it is quite often the female of the species that is the most feared. Lionesses do all the killing, not lions, and you never hear anyone say, 'Don't get between a father bear and his cubs'. Rather it is the female bear you must fear."
"But. .." Even when he didn't say it, it hung in the air like some giant stink.
"Do you believe that most women would be willing to suffer what some of us suffer—the pain, the deprivation, the torture? The possibility of death—or worse? Would women be willing to put their lives in abeyance until they retire from the field? Assuming they survive that long. What about marriage or children? Most women's children would be at university and you would just be starting out, trying to raise a family if you could have children at that age, and deal with the often unpleasant side effects of the job."
"What about them? " I asked. "The men are willing to wait. Or else they leave the field early. A woman could do the same."
Abruptly, an ambulance pulled in and I waved them through. The fact that the siren wasn't going was bad news. "Illya, will you drop the front gate please?"
"Why?" He did it even as he was asking. Not questioning, but asking. He needed to know the reason behind everything. Something I hadn't expected from someone with no free will.
"It's standard procedure to secure the perimeter. That ambulance is bringing a Section Two in. We like to have the place secured before transferring him to Medical." And I smiled a sad little smile. "And it's a sign of respect. The siren being off means you've lost one of your men."
He started for a moment, his hand going to his breast pocket. He pulled out a pen and twisted it open. Not a pen, a communicator, I chided myself. Five years with UNCLE and this was the first time I'd actually seen one. "Open Channel D, please. Napoleon?"
"Yes, Illya?" His partner's voice sounded a little tinny and sort of harried.
"What happened?"
"How did you know? THRUSH anticipated us. We lost three agents." A pause. "You might as well come up. We are going to need to re-think this. Solo out."
Illya tucked the pen away and looked intently at me, then back at the ambulance. "Are you saying a woman would be willing to give her life, not to her country or her family or her own beliefs, but for UNCLE's goals?"
"Are you saying a woman shouldn't be allowed that privilege?"
He turned back, gazing at me intently and then smiled. "I have enjoyed talking with you, Candace. Perhaps we can meet again to continue our discussion."
"There's a new exhibit at MoMa this weekend," I blurted out. "You interested?"
"Very." He formally shook my hand and then he was gone, leaving a gaping hole in The Box—a hole that I hadn't even noticed before. It wasn't due to him physically not being there, although that was certainly a part of it. It was more that for the first time in my life, I'd found a man I could approach on the same level and he didn't want to bed me or seduce me or even subjugate me. He just wanted to talk. How fucking refreshing was that? I couldn't help but think if there were a few more Russians like him in the world, we might actually be able to find peace with the USSR.
I watched him cross to the ambulance and kneel down beside the gurney. He pulled back the sheet and touched the dead agent's face. His lips were moving, but of course I couldn't hear anything. It looked to me like the 'godless Communist' was praying, but who knows? What I did know is that sometimes even the blankest of pages isn't blank at all; you just have to look them with fresh eyes and be prepared to see.
And I know that eight months later, April Dancer graduated from Survival School.
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