The City of Mirrors
Page 120

He tipped his face to the sky. The stars were subdued, veiled by a moist sea air that made them seem to waver. He brought his thoughts to bear upon a single star, as he had learned to do, and closed his eyes. Amy, can you hear me?
Silence. Then: Yes, Lucius.
Amy, I’m sorry. But I think that I am dying.
* * *
47
A spring afternoon: Peter was working in the garden. Rain had worked through in the night, but now the sky was clear. Stripped to his shirtsleeves, he jabbed his hoe into the soft dirt. Months of eating from the canning jars while they watched the snow fall; how good it would be, he thought, to have fresh vegetables again.
“I brought you something.”
Amy had snuck up behind him. Smiling, she held out a glass of water. Peter took it and sipped. It was ice cold against his teeth.
“Why don’t you come inside? It’s getting late.”
So it was. The house lay long in shadow, the last rays of light peeking over the ridge.
“There’s a lot to be done,” he said.
“There always is. You can get back to work tomorrow.”
They ate their supper on the sofa, the old dog nosing around their feet. While Amy washed up, Peter set a fire. The wood caught with crackling quickness. The rich contentment of a certain hour: beneath a heavy blanket, they watched the flames leap up.
“Would you like me to read to you?”
Peter said he thought that would be nice. Amy left him briefly and returned with a thick, brittle volume. Settling back on the sofa, she opened the book, cleared her throat, and began.
“David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens. Chapter One. I Am Born.”
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
How wonderful, to be read to. To be carried from this world and into another, borne away on words. And Amy’s voice, as she told the story: that was the loveliest part. It flowed through him like a benign electric current. He could have listened to her forever, their bodies close together, his mind in two places simultaneously, both within the world of the story, with its wonderful rain of sensations, and here, with Amy, in the house in which they lived and always had, as if sleep and wakefulness were not adjacent states with firm boundaries but part of a continuum.
At length he realized that the story had stopped. Had he dozed off? Nor was he on the sofa any longer; in some manner, unaware, he had made his way upstairs. The room was dark, the air cold above his face. Amy was sleeping beside him. What was the hour? And what was this feeling he had—the sense that something was not right? He drew the blankets aside and went to the window. A lazy half-moon had risen, partially lighting the landscape. Was that movement, there, at the edge of the garden?
It was a man. He was dressed in a dark suit; gazing upward at the window, he stood with his hands behind his back, in a posture of patient observation. Moonlight slanted across him, sharpening the angles of his face. Peter experienced not alarm but a feeling of recognition, as if he had been waiting for this nighttime visitor. Perhaps a minute passed, Peter watching the man in the yard, the man in the yard watching him. Then, with a courteous tip of his chin, the stranger turned away and walked off into the darkness.
“Peter, what is it?”
He turned from the window. Amy was sitting up in bed.
“There was somebody out there,” he said.
“Somebody? Who?”
“Just a man. He was looking at the house. But he’s gone now.”
Amy said nothing for a moment. Then: “That would be Fanning. I was wondering when he’d show up.”
The name meant nothing to Peter. Did he know a Fanning?
“It’s all right.” She drew the blanket aside for him. “Come back to bed.”
He climbed under the covers; at once, the memory of the man receded into unimportance. The warm pressure of the blankets, and Amy beside him; these were all he needed.
“What do you think he wanted?” Peter asked.
“What does Fanning ever want?” Amy sighed wearily, almost with boredom. “He wants to kill us.”
—
Peter awoke with a start. He’d heard something. He drew a breath and held it. The sound came again: the creak of a floorboard underfoot.
He rolled, reached his right hand to the floor, and took the weight of the pistol in his grip. The creak had come from the front hallway; it sounded like one person; they were trying to keep quiet; they didn’t know he was awake; surprise was therefore on his side. He rose and crossed the room to the front window; his security detail, two soldiers stationed on the porch, were gone.
He thumbed off the safety. The bedroom door was closed; the hinges, he knew, were loud. The moment the door opened, the intruder would be alerted to his presence.
He pulled the door open and moved at a quickstep down the hall. The kitchen was empty. Without missing a stride, he turned the corner into the living room, extending the pistol.
A man was seated in the old wooden rocker by the fireplace. His face was turned partially away, his eyes focused on the last embers glowing in the grate. He appeared to take no notice of Peter at all.
Peter stepped behind him, leveling the gun. Not a tall man but solidly built, his broad shoulders filling the chair. “Show me your hands.”