Ghostwritten

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Authors: David Mitchell
rolling down the shutter when I heard the phone ringing inside. Damn! My first impulse was to pretend I hadn’t heard it, but then I knew that I’d be spending the whole evening wondering who had been trying to ring. I’d probably have to start phoning around to people just to see if they’d phoned
me
, and if I did that I’d have to explain why I hadn’t answered in the first place.… Damn it. It would be easier just to open up the shop again and answer it.
    I’ve thought about it many times since: if that phone hadn’t rung at that moment, and if I hadn’t taken the decision to go back and answer it, then everything that happened afterwards wouldn’t have happened.
    An unknown voice. Soft, worried.
“It’s Quasar. The dog needs to be fed!”
    Excuse me? I listened for more. The static hiss sounded like the crashing of waves, or could it be the noise of a pachinko arcade? I didn’t say anything—it’s best not to encourage these crank callers. There was nothing more. As though he was waiting forsomething. So I waited a little longer, and then I hung up, puzzled. Oh well.
    I had my back to the door when it opened. The bell jingled, and I thought, “Oh no, let me out of here!” I turned around, and when I looked up I almost fell backwards over a limited edition box set of Lester Young. The floor of Takeshi’s Jazz Hole swelled.
    It’s you!
Peering into the dimness of my place.
    She was speaking to me. She was actually here. She’d come back alone. I’d imagined this scene so many times in my head, but each time it was
I
who started things. I almost didn’t catch what she was saying. She’d actually come back!
    “Are you still open?”
    “—yes!”
    “You don’t seem very open. The lights are off.”
    “—yes! Erm, I was getting ready to close, but until I close, I’m very completely open. Here!” I switched the lights on again. “There.” Wishing I sounded cooler. I must look like a junior high school kid.
    “Don’t let me stop you going home.”
    “Don’t let—no, you’re not. Erm, I. Take your time. Please. Come in.”
    “Thank you.” The her that lived in her looked out through her eyes, through my eyes, and at the me that lives in me.
    “I—” I began.
    “This—” she began.
    “Go on,” we both said.
    “No,” I said. “You go on. You’re the lady.”
    “You’re going to think I’m a nutcase, but I came in about ten days ago, and—” She was unconsciously rolling on the balls of her heels. “And there was this piece of music you were playing.… I can’t get it out of my head. A piano and a saxophone. I mean, there’s no reason why you should have remembered it or me or anything.…” She trailed off. There was something odd about the way she spoke. Her accent swung this way and that. I loved it.
    “It was two weeks ago. Exactly. Plus a couple of hours.”
    She was pleased. “You remember me?”
    I didn’t quite recognize my own laugh. “Sure I do.”
    “I was with my revolting cousin and her friends. They treat me like an imbecile because I’m half-Chinese. My mother was Japanese, you see. Dad’s Hong Kong Chinese. My home’s in Hong Kong.” Nothing apologetic about the way she spoke.
I’m not pure Japanese and if you don’t like that you can stick it
.
    I thought of Tony Williams’s drumming in “In a Silent Way.” No, I didn’t
think
of it. I felt it, somewhere inside.
    “Hey, that’s nothing! I’m half-Filipino. The music was ‘Left Alone’ by Mal Waldron. Would you like to hear it again?”
    “Would you mind?”
    “ ’Course I wouldn’t mind.… Mal Waldron’s one of my gods. I kneel down to him every time I go to the temple. What’s Hong Kong like, compared to Tokyo?”
    “Foreigners say it’s dirty, noisy, and poky, but really, there’s nowhere like it. Not anywhere. And when Kowloon gets too much you can escape to the islands. On Lantau Island there’s a big Buddha sitting on a hill …”
    For a moment I had an odd

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