The stairs up to the apartment were dark, and there was a row of mailboxes with Russian letters on them. That was the kind of artifact Professor Piot especially loved. The Soviet Union might be dead, but Lithuanian postmen still had to read Cyrillic to deliver the mail. Neil climbed the stairs. Someone had spray-painted BROOKLYN in big letters on the wall.
He found the door and double-checked the number, then remembered to swallow his gum. He knocked. A woman opened the door with a big smile on her face that went away as soon as she saw him. She said something in Lithuanian.
“Hi,” Neil said, “I’m Neil. We spoke on the phone yesterday, and I—Sorry, do you speak English? Is this number thirty-four?”
“Yes,” she said. “You are who?”
“Neil,” Neil said. “Neil Beart. I’m Rick’s son. We spoke on the phone—”
“Ah,” she said. Then, “Ah, Ni-yell! Hello! And very welcome!” She said his name just like Magdalena did. “Yah, I’m sorry, I am not even understanding you will be here. Ah, this is great. Your father is arriving, yes?”
“Oh, no, actually. My dad’s still back in the States. I’m here on my own.” Dijana seemed surprised to hear that. “Sorry, I guess I didn’t really make that clear on the phone.”
“This is you on the phone?” Dijana said.
“Yeah,” Neil said.
Dijana stared at him a moment, then she started laughing in a way that left her steadying herself against the wall. Neil stood in the hall uncomfortably, wondering what the neighbors would think. Magdalena couldn’t possibly have missed all the commotion; he wondered why she hadn’t come to the door. It was then that he noticed that Dijana was awfully dressed up. She had on a red checkered skirt and matching high heels and a flower in her hair.
“I am thinking all the time this is Rick who is calling.”
“Gosh, I’m really sorry,” Neil said. “I should have explained better.”
“Come in, come in. I am making you stay in the door. Ah, the famous Ni-yell. No, this is great. On phone you have really voice like your father is all.”
The apartment smelled like something good was cooking slowly. The furniture inside was covered in lace. “I brought you these,” Neil said. He hadn’t been able to decide between flowers and wine, so in the end he bought both.
“Wow, so nice,” Dijana said.
She led him into the living room, which was small and doubled as a pantry. There were neat rows of pickles in jars and some containers of cooking oil under the TV. Porcelain dishes lined a glass case, and the lace curtains were drawn, diffusing the sunlight outside. There were plates of cold fish and mushrooms covered in plastic wrap on the table. Neil wondered if Magdalena was still at work. Dijana brought beet soup in on a tray.
“Oh, let me help you with that,” Neil said. There were only two bowls.
“No, no, sit. Eat.” She uncovered the plates of fish and poured them each some wine.
“Is Magdalena around?” Neil asked.
“Magdalena? No, she is in Swindon still,” Dijana said. “To health and thank you for visiting.” She touched her glass to his. “And also to your father.”
“Cheers,” Neil said. He accidentally banged his glass into Dijana’s. Had he misunderstood? Wasn’t Magdalena home to help her mother with the pizza restaurant?
“So you are liking Vilnius?” Dijana said.
“Oh yeah. Such a beautiful city,” Neil said. He’d gone with Magdalena to the counter and he’d bought her the bus ticket himself—Paris through Warsaw to Vilnius—so it wasn’t like the whole thing had been a story made up to get his sixty euros. She should have gotten there by last Thursday at the latest. Why didn’t her mother know she was home?
“Oh, yah, is very beautiful city, especially in center,” Dijana said. She brought a spoonful of soup to her mouth, then started laughing again and put it down. “Ah, Ni-yell. You must think so funny of me, all the time thinking it is your father coming visiting.”
“No, it was my fault,” he said. “I guess I didn’t really introduce myself.” Had something happened to Magdalena on the way home from Paris?
“Actually this day when you called, I am just thinking to your father, and thinking how nice if he is phoning me sometime. And then I’m hearing him on telephone, and wow, so amazing! And he is here in Vilnius, such nice surprise! But it is you are here now and—ah! You must think I am some funny person, how I look. You see, I have worn these things special.”
“You look really nice,” Neil said.
“Yah, your father is giving me these things, they are from his aunt.”
“Really?” Neil said. What exactly had Magdalena said at the train station? She was going home to Vilnius, she’d said that for sure. She’d lost her job in Swindon. She hadn’t had money for the bus ticket, so she probably didn’t have enough to be buying food for the last—what? Eight days? She’d seemed awfully hungry at the station. Was eight days long enough to starve? Good thing she wasn’t super skinny. God, he was such an idiot. Why hadn’t he insisted on giving her some extra cash for the trip?
“Well, he is giving me the skirt, yah, and the shoes also are from this aunt to your father. I think they are really old things. Really good value.”
“Gosh, yeah, I guess so,” Neil said. He took a deep breath and tried not to freak out. Magdalena was probably staying with friends. Maybe she wanted a little vacation before her mother put her to work making pizzas. But something wasn’t right. Wouldn’t she have told her mother she was planning to come home?
“She have some good style, this aunt to your father,” Dijana was saying. “I’m finding everything what I wear tonight in her closets. Your father, he’s asking me to clean them and saying to keep all what I want. It is cool, yah?” Neil nodded and smiled as if what she was saying were really interesting. The skirt Dijana was wearing looked like it was meant for square dancing and had a silver Navajo belt to go with it. Neil could almost remember that skirt from a dress-up raid on Nan’s closet when he and his cousins were kids. But he couldn’t imagine that Nan had ever worn the shoes—red and witchy-looking with heels that left gashes in the carpet.
“Oh, yeah. Retro,” Neil said. It was surreal. He was having dinner with Magdalena’s mother, discussing the things in his great-aunt’s closet. It wasn’t the way he’d expected to spend the evening. He didn’t want to cause Dijana a lot of worry, but the more he thought about it, only half-listening as she went on about Nan’s old clothes, the more likely it seemed that Magdalena hadn’t been telling either of them exactly the truth. Obviously she wasn’t still in Swindon, but something must have happened between Paris and Vilnius, because she hadn’t come home either.
“So, have you heard from Magdalena recently?” Neil asked, doing his best to sound casual while Dijana filled his plate with the last of the fish.
“This is only for beginning,” Dijana said. “Eat, eat, the chickens will be cold.”
“Mmmm, wow, this is really good,” Neil said, swallowing whole a large piece of salmon. “So, Magdalena. Have you heard from her?”
“Oh, yes, she is sending me one phone text on Wednesday, saying she is very loving England.”
“Really?” Neil said. At least she was alive.
“Yes, and she is going with her boyfriend to be sleeping in tents, how do you say?”