There was one more thing Neil saw before he slipped his shoes back on without even tying them and hurried after Magdute out onto the street. Back in London, when he tried to make Veejay understand why a house full of Eastern European girls with cameras in the walls was not cool, it was creepy, and Veejay looked at him with his I-don’t-get-it eyebrow raised, it was the thing Neil couldn’t quite explain, the image that would stay with him forever, labeled “The House in Swindon” in the archives of his mind.
As Neil left the bathroom, a door in the hallway closed quickly—he hadn’t even noticed it was open. But before it closed he saw a girl with blonde hair wearing a going-out dress. Her makeup was smudged and she was carrying her shoes—Neil had the sense that she’d been tiptoeing. The girl turned quickly, her eyes flicked up and two fingers pressed against her lips, as if keeping them shut. For an instant they stared at each other. And as they did, an unwelcome flash of a memory came into Neil’s head: someone he’d known when he was a kid, her eyes red from crying, glancing up, startled, looking at Neil with the same sudden panic in her eyes. Some complicated psychological process was responsible for bringing her face to mind at just that moment, and Neil intended not to think too much about it. But he knew it meant one thing for sure: He was not going to call his father when he got back to London. He was not going to say that he’d finally delivered the Christmas present, or that he’d been chosen to go to Paris for the summer—which meant that the entire day had been a waste. But with that particular memory in his head, Neil knew there was no way he was going to be able to tell his dad about Barry and Magdute and the other girls all living in that house.
Magdute walked him to the bus station. They were quiet and Neil imagined the things he might say, how he might take charge of the situation and calmly, carefully tell her what he’d seen, downplaying things a little bit so she wouldn’t freak out. But each time he made up his mind to tell her about the camera, he wasn’t sure exactly how to start, or, when he’d decided on a way to begin, what had seemed simple became suddenly much more complex and nothing came out. So they kept walking and Neil said nothing, feeling the moment passing him by when, for a second or two, he had the chance to really be someone and life could tip like a seesaw toward—well, who knew what? That was the point. A life as a person with guts, the kind of person who, at the right historical moment, would be raising a peasant army or hurling paving stones at the Bastille, the kind of person Neil never quite managed to be.
“Barry’s really into that World War Two stuff, huh?” Neil said, because he had to start somewhere.
“Oh yeah,” Magdute said. “He’s totally obsession for this. He is going over all country for buying cigarette lighters of German army and such.”
“That’s weird,” Neil said.
“Yeah, totally,” Magdute said. The heels of her boots tick-tocked against the sidewalk, reminding Neil that time was running out. He took a breath.
“That’s a really beautiful church,” Neil said. Why was he talking about churches? Anyway, it was a lie. The church had the studied boringness of the interwar style.
Magdute looked up and squinted her eyes. The church was made of yellow bricks, squat and intent in its ugliness. God, he was such a moron. I think you’re being spied on in the shower, Neil said inside his head.
“Yes?” Magdute said. “I am not so much looking at this church before.”
They were a few blocks from the station, and Neil could see the bus was waiting. Magdute was standing, looking at the church sort of vacantly, like she was thinking of something else.
“There’s my bus,” Neil said. “I’d better run.” Magdute looked up the street.
“No, I think it will come only at three o’clock,” she said.
“Oh,” Neil said. It looked like his bus, but he didn’t argue. They walked slowly up the street.
“You know, I have really liked churches when I was young,” Magdute said. “I am thinking about becoming some kind of nun, how about that?” She laughed. “But now we are all fuckshit heathens, yes?”
“I guess so,” Neil said.
“This is what Barry says. This land is full of fuckshit heathens still praying on rocks and things. And when he says this I was looking all over for rocks and crazy English praying on them, but I’m not finding it so much.”
Speaking of Barry, Neil said in his head.
“Well, there’s Stonehenge,” Neil said. The line to get on the bus was getting shorter. He was starting to be certain that the little sign in the windshield had LONDON written on it. “I really think that’s my bus.”
“Is here?” Magdute said.
“Yeah, it’s right there,” Neil said. “Shoot, I’m really sorry, I have to run.” The door to the bus was closing. “It was really nice to meet you,” he said.
“Okay, good-bye,” Magdute said, and Neil waved over his shoulder as he sprinted up the street. The driver opened the door, and Neil dug in his pockets for his ticket. Coins and gum wrappers fell out.
“Hey,” the driver said. “You with her?” He nodded out the window. Magdute was waving her arms. She started up the street toward the bus, then hesitated, looking confused. She turned and went the other direction, but she was still waving and calling his name, like she hadn’t seen where he’d gone.
“Hang on just a second,” Neil said to the driver. He got off the bus and ran toward Magdute, who had an odd look on her face, like a kid lost at a shopping mall, hollering “Niii-yell!”
“Yeah?” he said. Her head turned toward him and the lost look disappeared.
“You are forgetting the present!” she said. Sure enough, Neil’s father’s package was still under his arm. He’d been holding onto it so tightly that there was a little imprint of an arrowhead on his wrist.
Magdute took a paper bag out of her purse and gave it to him, and Neil handed her the package. The bus driver honked the horn.
“Gosh, thanks,” Neil said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Okay, bye,” Magdute said.
Neil waved to her as the bus pulled away, but she didn’t seem to see.
{MAGDALENA}
Swindon, May
The shape of Neil disappeared into the layer of permanent fog that was all that was left of Magdalena’s vision beyond an arm’s length. The colors he had been melted their membranes and Magdalena was turning to go, when she remembered that her mother’s package was still in her bag.
She almost didn’t call him back—Magdalena hadn’t decided whether or not she ever wanted to see Neil’s face again. On the one hand it was unnerving. No one, not her mother or Lina or Ivan, as far as she could tell, had Magdalena’s name written on their skin. It didn’t say anything else about her, or give any explanation of how those particular letters had ended up under the eye of an American she’d never met before.