“Stop it, Charles.”
“We were very good together,” I say. “We must have pleased our Passengers because we were so good. To see you again — it was like waking from a dream, and finding that the dream was real, the girl right there -”
“No!”
“Let’s go to your apartment and begin again.”
She says, “You’re being deliberately filthy, and I don’t know why, but there wasn’t any reason for you to spoil things. Maybe I was with you and maybe I wasn’t, but you wouldn’t know it, and if you did know it you should keep your mouth shut about it, and -”
“You have a birthmark the size of a dime,” I say, “about three inches below your left breast.”
She sobs and hurls herself at me, there in the street. Her long silvery nails rake my cheeks. She pummels me. I seize her. Her knees assail me. No one pays attention; those who pass by assume we are ridden, and turn their heads. She is all fury, but I have my arms around hers like metal bands, so that she can only stamp and snort, and her body is close against mine. She is rigid, anguished.
In a low, urgent voice I say, “We’ll defeat them, Helen. We’ll finish what they started. Don’t fight me. There’s no reason to fight me. I know, it’s a fluke that I remember you, but let me go with you and I’ll prove that we belong together.”
“Let — go -”
“Please. Please. Why should we be enemies? I don’t mean you any harm. I love you Helen. Do you remember, when we were kids, we could play at being in love? I did; you must have done it too. Sixteen, seventeen years old. The whispers, the conspiracies — all a big game, and we knew it. But the game’s over. We can’t afford to tease and run. We have so little time, when we’re free — we have to trust, to open ourselves -”
“It’s wrong.”
“No. Just because it’s the stupid custom for two people brought together by Passengers to avoid one another, that doesn’t mean we have to follow it. Helen — Helen -”
Something in my tone registers with her. She ceases to struggle. Her rigid body softens. She looks up at me, her tear-streaked face thawing, her eyes blurred.
“Trust me,” I say. “Trust me, Helen!”
She hesitates. Then she smiles.
In that moment I feel the chill at the back of my skull, the sensation as of a steel needle driven deep through the bone. I stiffen. My arms drop away from her. For an instant I lose touch, and when the mists clear all is different.
“Charles?” she says. “Charles?”
Her knuckles are against her teeth. I turn, ignoring her, and go back into the cocktail lounge. A young man sits in one of the front booths. His dark hair gleams with pomade; his cheeks are smooth. His eyes meet mine.
I sit down. He orders drinks. We do not talk.
My hand falls on his wrist, and remains there. The bartender serving the drinks scowls but says nothing. We sip our cocktails and put the drained glasses down.
“Let’s go,” the young man says.
I follow him out.