“Are you going to ask a question?” She groans as she lifts her arm to grab the lever.
“I’ve asked it.”
“You’re not going to tell me what it is?”
“Will this time be different?”
“That’s your question? Will this time be different?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. But if you don’t like the answer, and you want me to spin again, you’ll have to give me another coin.” She grins.
“Okay.”
“How many times can we spin?”
“Thirty-six.” He has used four coins in London for the black market, the Savoy, Wild, and the one he gave to Nick. That’s a lot. Plus a fifth one to the station agent yesterday. “Are you going to spin or not?”
She pulls the lever. There’s a grinding sound of the gears ripping. The wheel spins and spins and spins and spins. They watch it for a long time until it finally stops moving.
Try again, outlook hazy, the groove marker says.
She sticks out her hand. “Another coin, please. It says try again.”
Julian produces another coin. She goes to pull the lever, but it won’t catch on a gear and won’t spin. “Oh, no,” she says. “We broke the Dream Machine.”
He stands, looking at it grimly.
She hands the coins back. He gives her his good arm. “Let’s go home. You look exhausted. I’ll go back out by myself to get our Christmas rations. I’ll get everything today so we’ll have enough for the holiday. I’ll get eggs. Is there some whisky in the house?”
“Eggs and Scotch, what a combination. Maybe we can make Scotch eggs, hardy-har-har.”
“Hardy-har-har,” he echoes, his arm around her, leading her away. “Did you ever ask the Dream Machine anything?”
“Never,” Mia replies. “I never wanted to know my future.”
“You wanted to once.” Have the smell of death be built in, like a death hack. That way, everybody would know right away what was coming.
You’d want that?
To know exactly when you were going to die? Absolutely, Josephine said. Who wouldn’t?
“No, not me,” Mia says. “It must’ve been one of your other girls. It’s easy to get confused, you’ve had so many.” She smiles. “What if the machine told me something I didn’t want to hear? I saw the faces of the people who asked it questions. The faces of those who received the right answer never looked as bright as the black expressions of those who got the wrong one.” Holding on to him for support, she falls quiet as they walk. “Kind of the way you just looked,” she says, “when you asked your seemingly innocuous question. What did you mean, will this time be any different? Will what be different?”
“Nothing,” says Julian.
Mutely she stares at him. Something pulls and tears behind her eyes, some alteration laced with the inexpressible truth.
27
Cargo Cult
WHEN HE COMES BACK LATER THAT NIGHT ON CHRISTMAS Eve, after getting the rations, Mia stands with her hand on her hip, thrusting her little notebook at him, open to the back page, where he had scribbled some words and forgot.
Welcome, you said, in any language
smiling at me from your metal hedges
And I said
I want out.
The dream machine is broken.
The box in which I live with you
Is nothing but
A cargo cult.
On the edges flowers, true,
But inside hollow.
I ask you please
I beg you please—
just let me out.
“Did you write this?”
He puts the bags down.
“Did you write it for me?” She tuts in disgust. “Like a love poem?”
“Well, it is a poem,” Julian says. “And it’s about love.”
“This is about love? About a love that’s run out?”
“Not run out.” Running out.
“Is this what you think of me? That I’m a hollow box?”
“No,” he says.
She jabs the paper with her angry finger. “It says so right here.”
“Can I explain?” But he can’t explain. Look for me in the box with you, says Mark Antony to his dead Cleopatra. That’s where I will be.
“Why do you say the Dream Machine is broken?”
“I didn’t write that today.”
“It reads like some final thing.”
“It’s just a poem.”
“About real things!” She’s yelling. Mia is yelling at him. They stand in the cold kitchen. She starts to cry. “Why—why did you get me away from London if all you wanted was out? You could’ve left me there, where I belonged, and been out!”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to be with you, Mia.”
“What did you mean, then?”
Clutching his busted forearm, he stands with his head deeply bowed. “I just wanted you to be with your mom on Christmas. We can come back to London in the new year if you want.” He starts