The Question at Every Table

The university gives you a map at the door of the Great Hall, and by eleven o’clock you’ve stopped looking at it. Every table has a sign, a bowl of sweets, and somebody who would like to talk to you.

So you ask them all the same question. How long have you been doing this?

At the engineering table, six years. “Since my first week here,” Bram says. He’s holding a small metal bridge in one hand. “I came for bridges. I’m still here for bridges.”

At the history table, twenty-seven years. “Since 1998,” says a woman in a red sweater. “You’d think I’d know everything by now.”

At the music table, nobody answers you, because the piano is too loud.

At the last table, Lucía laughs. “Three weeks,” she says. “Ask me something easy.”

So you ask her something easy, and she gets it wrong, and the student next to her corrects her, and the two of them argue about it while you eat one of the sweets.

Then Lucía asks you the question you haven’t asked yourself all morning.

“And you? What subject would you like to study?”

The piano stops. The hall goes quiet for about four seconds.

“I’m not sure yet,” you say.

“That’s fine,” Lucía says. “In March I said exactly the same thing, in a hall like this one, holding a map like that one.”

You fold the map and put it in your pocket.