Headcanon that Mila was not a housekeeper in the usual sense, but rather a housekeeper in the John le Carré spy jargon sense.
Fact 1: Mila can’t cook.
Evidence: She says herself that she is not much of a cook in ‘The Dogs of War.’ Also, Garak wouldn’t eat her food in ‘What You Leave Behind.’
Fact 2: Mila doesn’t clean.
Evidence: Of the messy basement in Tain’s house where she lives, she says “This place hasn’t
been cleaned in years” (’The Dogs of War’) rather than something more like “I haven’t cleaned this place in years.”
Fact 3: Mila is consistently referred to as Tain’s housekeeper (and confidant) in ‘Improbable Cause,’ ‘The Die is Cast,’ and ‘The Dogs of War.’ So she is definitely a housekeeper - unless, of course, that is just her preferred cover story and she’s really the Obsidian Order’s top sniper or something. Which is also a VERY good headcanon, but for the moment let’s just go for the simplest explanation.
In le Carré’s novels, the housekeepers are a department of the British intelligence service, and they are in charge of the financial aspects of espionage as well as internal affairs within the service. (I’m going off of the definition given on the jargon section of the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy wikipedia article, as well as my memories of a handful of his works, but feel free to correct me on this definition if you think I’ve missed some nuance.)
So basically, Mila doesn’t clean… except for organizing and orchestrating all of the OO’s cleanup and coverup operations. She can’t cook… but she can cook the books when money has to flow clandestinely from one shady source to another. She can’t sew either (Garak definitely doesn’t get it from her)… unless it is to sew someone’s lips shut with blackmail material or to patch holes in an agent’s cover stories.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk! ^_^
