“The girls help. You’ve got to use the words, you know. You’ve got to speak. A new language, a new girl, sometimes the other way around. Take Lithuanian. Filthy language, but I just had to have little Magdute here.”
Barry chuckled. Neil wasn’t sure, but he might have chuckled too. His hangover was making him sweat.
“For Polish I have Zosia, for Bulgarian there’s Desislava, Veronika for Czech, but for Ukrainian, nobody. Little Galya lied to me, didn’t she?”
“She was Russian,” Magdute said.
“Stupid cunt,” Barry said. “But what can you do? Some of these girls’ll put on a real show for a place like this, eh? Rent-free. And I have such a hard time saying no.” Another wink. “You know, that Baltic charm. Ees veery nice, yah?” he said, in perfect imitation of Magdute’s accent. Neil’s mouth tasted vinegary. He was sweating a lot. “Am I right?” Barry asked.
“Oh yeah,” Neil said. He wasn’t exactly sure what they were talking about.
“Just no Russians. I have a rule against Russians. Germans too. Goddamn Bolsheviks and Nazis, yeah?”
Neil really needed some gum. His mouth tasted like something had died in there. He finished his lemonade.
“I have to go to work,” Magdute said.
She left the room, and Neil looked at his watch—which actually wasn’t there, he’d forgotten to put it on that morning—and said, “I’d better be going too.”
“Right-oh,” Barry said. Then, with Magdute out of the room, he scooted his chair toward Neil again and said, “Listen here. Wouldn’t you like to stay a bit? For a historian—I’ve got a few things that might be of interest.”
“I can’t,” Neil said. “The bus, it’s at three, I think, three fifteen . . .” Barry was nodding.
“But there’s another bus you know. Tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got to get back.” A warm drop of sweat broke free of Neil’s armpit and rolled down his side. It hesitated for a moment on his ribs, then gathered momentum and rolled purposefully down into his underwear.
“I’ve got a bit of footage from the Kriegsberichter film crews—official cameramen for the Waffen SS. Himmler at the horseraces, a burlesque show in Minsk—that one hardly for official purposes. Real collector’s items.”
“Wow, I’m sure,” Neil said.
“Spend the night,” Barry suggested. “We can set up the projector.”
“Gosh, thanks,” Neil said. “But I’ve got a paper to write.” Which was possible, even likely, but at that moment he couldn’t remember whether or not it was true.
“I’m only joking,” Barry said, thumping Neil on the arm and leaning back in his chair. “Only ladies welcome here, yeah?”
Neil could feel his thoughts banging along behind what was actually happening, like a kid pulling a tin can on a string.
“Can I use your bathroom?” Neil asked.
“Left and left again,” Barry said, pointing toward the hallway.
The house was strangely noiseless. Neil’s socks left footprints in the thick carpet, but his steps didn’t make a sound. In the silence, Neil could almost hear his breathing reverberate against his bladder, stretched tight like a drum.
Neil flushed, then stood at the sink, letting the cold water run over his hands. Finally he had a chance to look at himself in the mirror. Nothing out of the ordinary about his face, although it was hard to tell; the mirror was more like a plate of tinted glass than a real mirror, as if it hadn’t been intended for actual use. Like the rest of the house, the bathroom had an impersonal feeling. It was clean enough, but clean in a way that left a film over everything. Soaps shaped like sea horses sat unwetted in a dish and there was a little silver padlock on the medicine cabinet. Only an eye pencil without a cap that had been left beside the sink gave any sign that the bathroom had been used.
Neil splashed some water on his face and cupped his hands to drink. The water had the same plasticky taste as the water in London and it left his tongue feeling chalky. He needed some mouthwash or a dab of toothpaste, anything to cut the taste in his mouth, a sign of what was surely inexcusable breath. He looked closely at the padlock on the medicine cabinet and saw that it wasn’t entirely closed. He opened the cabinet.
It could have been a TV commercial, Neil thought. The medicine cabinet was empty, except for a tin of Altoids sitting like the Holy Grail on the middle shelf. Curiously Strong Peppermints when you need them most. The box had obviously been there for a long time, it was stuck to the shelf. But Altoids don’t go bad, and when the lid wouldn’t open Neil worked his fingernails under the lip, which was a little rusty. It always bothered Neil when people groped around in Altoids tins and ended up touching every one of them. He got the lid open and looked inside. There were no little white candies. Just a bundle of black wire cinched with a red elastic hair band. Neil nudged the wire with his fingernail. One end led out through a little hole drilled in the back of the Altoids tin and disappeared through another hole cut into the wall. The other end of the wire attached to what Neil thought at first was the cap of a black magic marker, wedged sideways into the box. Another little hole had been cut out of the front of the tin, and when Neil leaned in to look at it he saw the glass eye of a tiny camera lens staring back at him. It was pointed in the direction of the shower, and Neil noticed that what he’d thought was a mirror on the outside of the medicine cabinet was actually translucent from the inside. There was a bit of paper stuck to the underside of the shelf.
naerata
u?miechnij si?
pasmaidiet
?ypsokis
smile
it said.