The City of Mirrors (The Passage 3)

“I’m sure it did. Was it your dog or a neighbor’s? A stray, perhaps?”

Her expression grows irritated. Not irritated: exposed. As he watches, she reaches with her other hand to the scar and covers it with her palm. The gesture is involuntary; she isn’t aware that she is doing it, or is only partly cognizant.

“Professor, I fail to see the point in all this.”

“So it was your dog.”

She startles.

“Forgive me, Miss Tripp, but if it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be so defensive. The way you covered your hand just now? It tells me something else.”

She moves her hand away deliberately. “And what’s that?”

“Two things. One, you believe it was your fault. Perhaps you were playing too roughly. Perhaps you teased him, not meaning to, or maybe a little. Either way, you were part of it. You did something, and the dog responded by biting you.”

She shows no reaction. “And what’s the other?”

“That you never told anyone the truth.”

The look on her face tells Logan that he has hit the mark. There is a third thing, of course, that has gone unstated: the dog was put down, perhaps unjustly. Nevertheless, after a moment passes, she breaks into a grin. Two can play at this game.

“That’s quite a trick, Professor. I’ll bet your students love it.”

Now he’s the one who smiles. “Touché. But it’s not a trick, Miss Tripp, not entirely. The point is a meaningful one. History isn’t what you had for breakfast. That’s meaningless data, gone with the wind. History is that scar on your hand. It’s the stories that leave a mark, the past that refuses to stay past.”

She hesitates. “You mean…like Amy.”

“Exactly. Like Amy.”

Their eyes meet. Over the course of the interview, a subtle shift has occured. A barrier has unexpectedly fallen, or so it feels. Logan notes yet again how attractive she is—the word he thinks of, somewhat old-fashioned, is “lovely”—and that she wears no ring. It has been a while for him. Since his divorce, Logan has dated only occasionally and never for long. He does not still love his ex-wife; that isn’t the problem. The marriage, he has come to understand, was really a kind of elaborate friendship. He isn’t sure quite what the problem is, though he has begun to suspect that he is simply one of those people who is destined to be alone, a creature of work and duty and not much else. Is his interlocutor’s flirtatious manner merely a tactic, or is there more to it? He knows that he is, for his age, passably appealing. He swims fifty laps each morning, is still blessed with a full head of hair, favors pricey, well-tailored suits and somewhat splashy ties. He is aware of women and maintains a certain courtly style—holding doors, offering his umbrella, rising when a female companion excuses herself from the table. But age is age. Nessa calls him “Professor,” the appropriate mode of address, yet the word also carries a reminder that he is at least twenty years older than she is: old enough, technically, to be her father.

“Well,” he says, rising from his chair. “If you’ll excuse me, Miss Tripp, I’m afraid I’ll have to stop there. I’m running late for a lunch engagement.”

She seems caught off guard by this announcement—jarred from some complex mental state by this ordinary detail of a day. “Yes, of course. I shouldn’t have kept you so long.”

“May I show you out?”

They make their way through the silent building. “I’d like to talk more,” she says, as they are standing on the front steps. “Perhaps once the conference is over?”

She retrieves a card from her bag and hands it to him. Logan glances at it quickly—“Nessa Tripp, Features, Territorial News and Record,” with both home and office numbers—and slips it into the pocket of his suit coat. Another silence; to fill it, he offers his hand. Students flow by, singly and in groups, those on bicycles weaving through the stream like waves around a pier. The air is alive with the buzz of youthful voices. Nessa lets her hand linger an extra second in his, though perhaps it is he who does this.

“Well. Thank you for your time, Professor.”

Her watches her walk down the steps. At the bottom, she turns.

“One last thing. Just for the record, the dog wasn’t mine.”

“No?”

“He was my brother’s. His name was Thunder.”

“I see.” When she says nothing else, he asks, “If you don’t mind my asking, what became of him?”

“Oh, you know.” Her tone is casual, even a little cruel. She raises her index fingers to make air quotes. “My father took him to ‘a farm.’ ”