The City of Mirrors

by Justin Cronin

  YOU ARE ENTERING THE RED ZONE.

  PROCEED AT OWN RISK.

  WHEN IN DOUBT, RUN.

  If you only knew, he thought. Then he began to walk.

  11

  Sara returned to the orphanage before the start of her morning shift. Sister Peg greeted her at the door.

  “How is she doing?” Sara asked.

  The woman looked more harried than usual; it had been a long night for her. “Not very well, I’m afraid.”

  Pim had woken up screaming. Her howls were so loud that they had awakened the entire dormitory. For the time being, they had put her in Sister Peg’s quarters.

  “We’ve had abused children before, but nothing so extreme. Another night like that …”

  Sister Peg led Sara to her room, a monastic space with just the bare-bones necessities. The only decoration was a large cross on the wall. Pim was awake and sitting on the bed with her knees tight to her chest. But as Sara entered, some of the tension released from her face. Here is an ally, someone who knows.

  “I’ll be outside if you need me,” Sister Peg said.

  Sara sat on the bed. The grime was gone, the mats in her hair teased straight or cut away. The sisters had dressed her in a plain wool tunic.

  —HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY? Sara wrote on the chalkboard.

  —OK

  —SISTER SAID YOU COULDN’T SLEEP.

  Pim shook her head.

  Sara explained to Pim that she needed to change her dressings. The girl flinched as Sara eased away the bandages but made no sound. Sara applied antibiotic salve and a cream of cooling aloe and rewrapped her.

  —I’M SORRY IF THAT HURT.

  Pim shrugged.

  Sara looked her in the eye. IT WILL BE OK, she wrote. Then, when the girl did nothing: IT GETS BETTER.

  —NO MOR NITEMERES?

  Sara shook her head. “No.”

  —HOW?

  There was, of course, the easy thing to say: Give it time. But that wasn’t the truth, or at least not the whole truth. What took the pain away, Sara knew, was other people—Hollis, and Kate, and being a family.

  —IT JUST DOES, she wrote.

  It was nearly 0800; Sara had to leave, though she didn’t want to. She packed up her kit and wrote:

  —I HAVE TO GO NOW. TRY TO REST. THE SISTERS WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU.

  —COME BACK? Pim wrote.

  Sara nodded.

  —DO YU SWEAR?

  Pim was looking at her intently. People had been throwing her away her entire life; why should Sara be different?

  “Yes,” she said, and crossed her heart. “I swear.”

  Sister Peg was waiting for Sara in the hall. “How is she?”

  The day had only just started, yet Sara felt completely drained. “The wounds on her back aren’t the real problem. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has more nights like that.”

  “Is there any chance of finding a relative? Somebody who can take her in?”

  “I think that would be the worst thing for her.”

  Sister Peg nodded. “Yes, of course. That was stupid of me.”

  Sara gave the woman a roll of gauze, boiled cloth pads, and a jar of ointment. “Change her dressings every twelve hours. There’s no sign of infection, but if anything starts to look worse, or she gets a fever, send for me right away.”

  Sister Peg was frowning at the objects in her hand. Then, brightening a little, she looked up. “I meant to thank you for the other night. It was nice to get out. I should do it more often.”

  “Peter was happy to have you there.”

  “Caleb has grown so much. Kate, too. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how lucky we are. Then you see something like this …” She let the thought pass. “I’d better get back to the children. Where would they be without mean old Sister Peg?”

  “It’s a good act, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “Does it show? I’m really just an old softie at heart.”

  She walked Sara out. At the doorway, Sara paused. “Let me ask you something. In the course of a year, say, how many children get adopted?”

  “In a year?” The woman seemed startled by the question. “Zero.”

  “None at all?”

  “It happens, but very rarely. And it’s never the older children, if that’s what you’re asking. Sometimes a baby will be left here and a relative will come and claim it within a few days. But once a child has been here a while, the odds are good they’ll stay.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  Her eyes searched Sara’s face. “The two of us aren’t so very different, you know. Ten times a day our jobs give us good reason to cry. And yet we can’t. We wouldn’t be any use to anyone if we did.”

  It was true; but it didn’t make Sara’s heart feel any less heavy. “Thank you, Sister.”

  She headed for the hospital. Her mood was bleak. As she entered the building, Wendy urgently waved her over to the desk.

  “There’s somebody waiting for you.”

  “A patient?”

  The woman looked around to make sure she wasn’t overheard. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He says he’s from the census office.”

  Uh-oh, thought Sara. That was fast. “Where is he?”

  “I told him to wait, but he went to look for you on the ward. Jenny’s with him.”

  “You let Jenny talk to him? Are you nuts?”

  “There wasn’t anything I could do! She was standing right there when he asked for you!” Wendy lowered her voice again. “It’s about that woman with the abruption, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s hope not.”

  At the door to the ward, Sara took a clean smock from the shelf. Two things worked in her favor. The first was her rank. She was a doctor, and although she didn’t like to do it, she could throw her weight around if she had to. A certain peremptory tone; veiled or not-so-veiled references to unnamed persons of substantial influence; the mantle of the higher calling, busy day, lives to save: Sara had learned the tricks. Second, she hadn’t done anything illegal. Failing to file the proper paperwork was not a crime—more like an error. She was safe, more or less, but this wouldn’t help Carlos or his family. Once the fraud was discovered, Grace would be taken away.

  She stepped into the ward. Jenny was standing with a man who possessed the unmistakable look of a bureaucrat: soft, balding, and flat-footed, with pasty skin that rarely saw sunshine. Jenny’s glance met hers with a look of barely concealed panic: Help!

  “Sara,” she began, “this is—”

  She didn’t let the girl finish. “Jenny, could you please check the laundry for blankets? I think we’re running low.”

  “We are?”

  “Now, please.”

  She scurried away.

  “I’m Dr. Wilson,” Sara said to the man. “What is this about?”

  The man cleared his throat. He seemed a little nervous. Good. “There was a woman who delivered a girl here four nights ago.” He fumbled through the papers he was holding. “Sally Jiménez ? I believe you were the doctor on duty.”

  “And you are?”

  “Joe English. I’m from the census office.”

  “I have a lot of patients, Mr. English.” She pretended to think. “Oh, yes, I remember. A healthy girl. Is there an issue?”

  “No birthright certificate was filed with the census form. The woman has two sons.”

  “I’m sure I took care of it. You’ll have to check again.”

  “I spent all yesterday looking for it. It definitely wasn’t sent to my office.”

  “Your office never makes mistakes? Loses paperwork?”

  “We’re very thorough, Dr. Wilson. According to the nurse at the desk, Mrs. Jiménez was released three days ago. We always talk to the family first, but they don’t seem to be home. Her husband hasn’t been to work since the birth.”

  Dumb move, Carlos, Sara thought. “I can’t be responsible for people once they leave here.”

  “But you are responsible for filing the
proper documentation. Without a valid birthright, I’m going to have to move her case up the line.”

  “Well, I’m sure there was one. You’re mistaken. Is that all? I’m very busy here.”

  He regarded her for an uncomfortably long moment. “For now, Dr. Wilson.”

  Wherever the Jiménez family had gone, Sara knew it wouldn’t take long for the census office to track them down. There were only so many places to hide.

  She tried to put them out of her mind. She’d done her best to help, and the situation was out of her hands. Sister Peg was right; she had a job to do. It was important, and she was good at it. That was what mattered most.

  In the middle of the night, she awoke with the feeling that a powerful dream had ejected her from sleep. She rose and checked on Kate. She felt certain that her daughter had been in this dream, if peripherally; she had not been the focus—rather, a witness, almost a judge. Sara sat on the edge of her daughter’s cot and watched the night pass through her. The girl was deeply asleep, her lips slightly parted, her chest expanding and contracting with long, even breaths, filling the air with her unmistakable scent. At the Homeland, in the time before Sara had found her again, it was Kate’s smell that had given her the strength to go on. She’d kept a baby curl in an envelope, hidden away in her bunk, and each night she had taken it out and pressed it to her face. This act was, Sara knew, a form of prayer—not that Kate was still alive, because she’d believed absolutely that her daughter was dead, but that wherever she was, wherever her spirit had gone, it felt like home.

  “Is everything okay?”

  Hollis was standing behind her. Kate stirred, rolled over, and then was quiet again.

  “Come back to bed,” he whispered.

  “I can sleep in. I’m on second shift.”

  Hollis said nothing.

  “All right,” she said.

  When dawn came, Sara was wide awake. Hollis told her to stay in bed, but she got up anyway; she wouldn’t return from the hospital until after dinner and wanted to take Kate to school. She was half-drunk with exhaustion, although this fact did not seem like a compromising influence on her judgment but a source of clarity. At the door of the school, she hugged her daughter tightly. It did not seem so long ago that Sara had needed to kneel to do this; now the crown of Kate’s head reached Sara’s chest.

  “Mom?”

  The hug had gone on for some time. “Sorry.” Sara released her. The other children were streaming past. She realized what she was feeling. She was happy; a weight had lifted from her heart. “Go on, kiddo,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

  The records office opened at nine o’clock. Sara waited on the steps in the dappled shade of a live oak. It was a pleasant summer morning; people were striding past. How quickly life could change, she thought.

  When the clerk unlocked the door, Sara rose and followed the woman inside. She was older, with a pleasant, weathered face and a row of bright false teeth. She took her time situating herself behind the counter before looking Sara’s way, pretending to notice her for the first time.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I need to transfer a birthright.”

  The clerk licked her fingers and removed a form from a slotted shelf, then placed it on the counter and dipped her quill in a bottle of ink. “Whose?”

  “Mine.”

  The woman’s pen halted over the paper. She raised her face with an expression of concern. “You seem young, honey. Are you sure?”

  “Please, can we just do this?”

  Sara sent the form to the census office with a note attached—Sorry! Found it after all!—and went to the hospital. The day passed quickly; Hollis was still awake when she got home. She waited until they were in bed to make her announcement.

  “I want to have another child.”

  He rose on his elbows and turned toward her. “Sara, we’ve been through this. You know we can’t.”

  She kissed him, long and tenderly, then drew back to meet his eyes. “Actually,” she said, “that’s not exactly true.”

  12

  Ten moves, and Caleb had Peter completely boxed in. A feint with a rook, a knight cruelly sacrificed, and the enemy forces swarmed over him.

  “How the heck did you do that?”

  Peter didn’t really mind, though it would be nice to win once in a while. The last time he’d beaten Caleb, the boy had had a nasty cold and had dozed off midway through the game. Even then, Peter had barely eked out the victory.

  “It’s easy. You think I’m on defense, but I’m not.”

  “Laying a trap.”

  The boy shrugged. “It’s like a trap in your head. I make you see the game the way I need you to.” He was setting up the pieces again; one victory was not enough for the night. “What did the soldier want?”

  Caleb had a way of changing the subject so abruptly that sometimes Peter struggled to keep up. “It was about a job, actually.”

  “What kind?”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure.” He shrugged and looked at the board. “It’s not important. Don’t worry about it—I’m not going anywhere.”

  They were listlessly moving pawns.

  “I still want to be a soldier, you know,” the boy said, “like you were.”

  From time to time, the boy brought this up. Peter’s feelings were mixed. On the one hand, he had a parent’s intense desire to keep Caleb away from any danger. But he also felt flattered. The boy was, after all, expressing interest in the same life he had chosen.

  “Well, you’d be good at it.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “Sometimes. I liked my men, I had good friends. But I’d rather be here with you. Plus, it looks like those days are over. Not much need for an army when there’s nobody to fight.”

  “Everything else seems like it would be boring.”

  “Boredom is underrated, believe me.”

  They played in silence.

  “Somebody asked me about you,” Caleb said. “A kid at school.”

  “What was the question?”

  Caleb squinted at the board, reached toward his bishop, stopped, and moved his queen one space forward. “Just, what it’s like, you being my dad. He knew a lot about you.”

  “Which kid was this?”

  “His name is Julio.”

  He wasn’t one of Caleb’s usual friends. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him you worked on roofs all day.”

  For once, Peter held Caleb to a draw. He put the boy to bed and poured himself a drink from Hollis’s flask. Caleb’s words had stung a little. Peter wasn’t truly tempted by Sanchez’s offer, but the whole thing had left a bad taste in his mouth. The woman’s manipulation was transparent, as it was meant to be—that was the genius of it. She had simultaneously aroused his natural sense of duty and made it clear that she was not a woman to be messed with. I’ll have you in the end, Mr. Jaxon.

  Just you try, he thought. I’ll be right here, reminding my kid to brush his teeth.

  They were reroofing an old mission close to the center of town. Empty for decades, it was now being converted to apartments. Peter’s crew had spent two weeks dismantling the rotted belfry and had begun to strip off the old slates. The roof was steeply pitched; they worked on twelve-inch-wide horizontal boards, called cleats, anchored by metal brackets nailed into the sheeting and spaced at six-foot intervals. A pair of ladders, lying flush with the roof at the ends of the cleats, acted as staircases connecting them.

  All morning they worked shirtless in the heat. Peter was on the uppermost cleat with two others, Jock Alvado and Sam Foutopolis, who went by the name Foto. Foto had worked construction for years, but Jock had been there just a couple of months. He was young, seventeen or so, with a narrow, acned face and long greasy hair he wore in a ponytail. Nobody liked him; his movements were too sudden, and he talked too much. It was an unwritten rule of the roofing crews not to remark on the danger. It was a form of respect. Looking down, Jock like
d to say stupid things like “Wow, that would hurt” and “That would most definitely fuck a person up.”

  At noon they broke for lunch. Climbing down was too much trouble, so they ate where they were. Jock was talking about a girl he had seen in the market, but Peter was barely listening. The sounds of the city drifted upward in an aural haze; from time to time a bird floated past.

  “Let’s get back to it,” Foto said.

  They were using pry bars and mallets to chip out the old tiles. Peter and Foto moved to the third cleat; Jock was working below them to the right. He was still talking about the woman—her hair, a certain way she walked, a look that passed between them.

  “Will he ever shut up?” Foto said. He was a thick, muscular man, his black beard sprinkled with gray.

  “I think he just likes the sound of his own voice.”

  “I’m going to throw his ass off this roof, I swear.” Foto glanced up, squinting into the sun. “Looks like we missed a couple.”

  Several tiles remained along the ridgeline. Peter slid his bar and mallet into his tool belt. “I’ll go.”

  “Forget it, lover boy can do it.” He yelled down, “Jock, get up there.”

  “I’m not the one who missed those. That was Jaxon’s section.”

  “It’s yours now.”

  “Fine,” the boy huffed. “Whatever you say.”

  Jock unclipped his harness, scrambled up the ladder to the uppermost cleat, and wedged his pry bar under one of the tiles. As he lifted the mallet to strike, Peter realized he was straight above them.

  “Wait a sec—”

  The tile popped free. It sang past, narrowly missing Foto’s head.

  “You idiot!”

  “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Where did you think we were?” Foto said. “You did that on purpose. And clip in, for Christ’s sake.”

  “It was an accident,” Jock said. “Calm down. You’ll have to move.”

  They shifted to the side. Jock finished up and had begun to climb down when Peter heard a pop. Jock let out a yelp. A second pop, and with a loud clatter the ladder rocketed down the roof with Jock still attached. At the last second he lunged clear and began to slide down the roof on his belly. After his first cry, he hadn’t made a sound. His hands were madly searching for something to grab hold of, his toes digging into the tiles to slow his descent. Nobody had ever fallen that Peter knew of. Suddenly this seemed not possible but inevitable; Jock was the one chosen.