Читать книгу: «Tokyo Cancelled»

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Arrivals

Chapter 2 - The Tailor: The First Story

Chapter 3 - The Memory Editor: The Second Story

Chapter 4 - The Billionaire’s Sleep: The Third Story

Chapter 5 - The House of the Frankfurt Mapmaker: The Fourth Story

Chapter 6 - The Store on Madison Avenue: The Fifth Story

Chapter 7 - The Flyover: The Sixth Story

Chapter 8 - The Speed Bump: The Seventh Story

Chapter 9 - The Doll: The Eighth Story

Chapter 10 - The Rendezvous in Istanbul: The Ninth Story

Chapter 11 - The Changeling: The Tenth Story

Chapter 12 - The Bargain in the Dungeon: The Eleventh Story

Chapter 13 - The Lucky Ear Cleaner: The Twelfth Story

Chapter 14 - The Recycler of Dreams: The Thirteenth Story

Chapter 15 - Departures

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

Copyright

About the Publisher

ARRIVALS

THERE WAS CHAOS.

Will someone please explain why we are here?–What are we going to eat? Who has thought of that?–Who is in charge here? Let me speak to him!

A 747 had disgorged its 323 passengers into the middle of a vacant, snow-brushed tarmac expanse, left them to trudge across it through the cold and the floodlit glare to a terminus whose neon name was only illuminated in patches and anyway was in a language most of them could not read; had abandoned them, in short, in the Middle of Nowhere, in a place that was Free of Duty but also, much more importantly, devoid of any obvious egress, like a back corridor between two worlds, two somewheres, where people only alighted when something was seriously kaput with the normal eschatological machinery.

Do you realize I have a vital meeting tomorrow morning? I haven’t got time to be here!

Sir: we have already explained it to you several times. This snowstorm breaks all of Tokyo’s records. The city is blanketed, completely inaccessible. Do you understand? Absolutely no possibility of landing there. Everywhere in this hemisphere planes are lurching as we speak, U-turning, overnighting where they can. We cannot argue with the weather. These things happen.

Three hundred and twenty-three people clamoured for a hearing for their unique Woes. My husband is waiting for me at the airport. I’m only going to get one honeymoon. I have to be back in New York on Friday: my vacation is Over. Over. This cannot be happening. Heads in hands, bloodshot eyes towards heaven.

A queue formed, of sorts, at the one open desk where a man tried to hold off the snaking, spitting vitriol long enough to find a solution. We understand Madam it’s very late yes the little one looks quite unhappy please bear with us.

People checked for passports, money. Do Americans need a visa to be here?–What are the hotels like? Where can we sleep?–

What is the problem here?

The man stood on his chair. Hands raised to beat down the voices, you had to give it to him he wasn’t going to let himself get intimidated, Can you please listen?

I don’t know if any of you has read the newspapers recently but if you have you will know you’ve just landed up in the wrong place at the wrong time–latecomers to the world fair, no room at the inn. Everyone is in town right now and there isn’t a hotel room in the entire city. Well what were you expecting? Every world leader is here and ten thousand journalists and forty thousand demonstrators. Don’t you people watch the news? We’ve had water cannon and barbed wire and rubber bullets and all kinds of other frolics. In our streets! What I Am Trying To Say ladies and gentlemen is that the city is full to overflowing, getting proper accommodation is going to be a problem for you and there’s no point getting hysterical about it. We should be able to get you on a flight in the morning–the worst possible scenario is that you have to spend a few hours here and that, I am confident enough, is not going to kill you–but don’t worry, calm down! we are going to do our best to make sure it doesn’t happen.

The crowd detested him already and as he abused them in this manner a wave of foul language gushed from their several mouths, shivered and swelled and crashed over him full of lonely feelings and terrible thoughts. He was undeterred:

I would like you all to know that my wife is a travel agent and I have already informed her you are here and that you’d all like a place to stay for the night. She’s at home as we speak calling round all the hotels for you and trying to sort you out. We’ll do it first-come, first-served and we’ll try to get you in bed as soon as possible.

The place felt like an emergency ward. Captions on the departure board rustled frantically–TOKYO CANCELLED TOKYO CANCELLED TOKYO CANCELLED–and the packed baggage carousel squeaked like an anxious heartbeat monitor under the weight of hundreds of suitcases it had not been expecting.

You don’t understand. I need to get out of here right now. I was never supposed to be here. I’m presenting at a conference in eight hours.

No–excuse me all of you–excuse me!–sorry sir you’d better make your phone calls now. I don’t think it’s likely you’ll be anywhere but here in eight hours. Can you all try and remain calm please! Thank you!

Somebody made the discovery that mobile phones worked. Even here! The tumult diminuendoed into urgent private consultations and intimate reassurances: No I may not be there tonight, they’re telling us tomorrow now, Of course I’m safe no this place stinks but the people look OK. Yes tomorrow I promise I think you ought to warn Bob that he may be doing the presentation–yes get him out of bed for God’s sake!–the file is on my computer. My Documents. I love you too. Sir would you mind if I made a really quick call from your phone? It’s just that it’s really important.

OK good news ladies and gentlemen! We have ten double rooms in a hotel downtown. Yes Madam I think that’s a good idea there’s no point your little one staying up please go this way. Three star. Nine more people please! Sorry that’s the best we can do for now. We will call you all in the morning. By 8 a.m.

People filed out into the cold, foreign night, got into a minivan, were gone. ‘At least he looks as if he’s in control’ spread between people, maybe it’s best to just wait like he says. Wry smiles passed between strangers sharing their Why does it always happen to me!

If the company had sent me here I’d be in the Hilton…

It only happened when it was absolutely crucial that everything go smoothly, on the one day: that constant small-minded cattiness of the cosmos, the incompetence of people with insufficient awareness of the importance of Things who are unfortunately indispensable in the system, you have no choice but to depend on so many people who don’t know and don’t care.

We’ve just found a hotel out of town that can take eighty of you! This way! Quickly. Thank you. Fifty. You’re together? Seventy. Seventy-eight. Thank you. No I’m sorry Sir they told us strictly no more you’ll have to wait for the next place.

The crowd diminished slowly, the noise separated out from its hubbub into discrete conversations and exclamations. Ruminations. People were Taking Stock. Tokyo tomorrow night that means I miss the connection the next one is Thursday which means I have to spend a couple of days there God I’ve always wanted to see Tokyo! The snowstorm was like a wall across a highway that brought cruise control to a whiplash standstill: but as you thought about it there were ways around it, through it even, and the other possibilities started to seem more, well, felt. Fists and tempers were still shaken at the blatant injustice of it all, but around the airport hall the mutant seed of force majeure was already sprouting up through the edifices of cherished Plans, cracking the walls and floors until they crumbled in a cloud of dust which, as it cleared, revealed something new. Well anyway what can you do?–I think the insurance covered this.–We’ve just got to see what time we get out of here in the morning.

Buses and taxis bustled outside, headlights clipping the snow, and the man on the desk, phone cocked between shoulder and ear, hands busy on the keyboard, produced regular triumphant announcements: guesthouses and bed-and-breakfasts and undocumented hotels that the global visitors had missed. It was late: lights went off in the Duty Free stores and the snack bar closed. Someone summarily extinguished CNN’s airport news service, and grandiose light boxes advertising American Express and The Economist flickered, and became dull. Middle-aged women with headscarves and mops started to trace epic shiny corridors from one end of the floor to the other, shaking themselves free of detritus–plastic cups, newspapers, baggage tags–each time they turned around. An assortment of almost unnoticeable people–who were those people?–settled down in various shadowy corners to sleep on vinyl chairs.

Thirteen people were left, muted by fatigue, able only to stand and try to follow the curlicue meanderings of the phone conversation that contained their future. Full too? OK. And no dice with the Sunshine Hotel. Yes, I remember. What other options do we have? Really. Yes I know what time it is. No I think you’re right. You’re sure there’s nothing else? OK. Thank you so much. Thank you. I’ll see you later. He put down the phone slowly, tenderly.

Ladies and gentlemen I apologize for the time you’ve had to wait here, you’ve been very patient. Now I’m afraid that there doesn’t seem to be a single place left for you people to stay. We really have tried everywhere but as I said to you earlier it’s not a good time to be looking right now. I haven’t got anything left to suggest. I’d invite you all to spend the night at my place but unfortunately my wife and I have only a one-room apartment and I’m not sure that you’d be very comfortable there. So I think that–I’m really sorry about this–you’re going to just have to do the best you can right here. Now the good news is–I’ve just got the schedule confirmed–your flight is leaving at 09.55. The snowstorm has already subsided in Tokyo. Check-in time is 7.30. So it’s really just a few hours. I’m really sorry.

It wasn’t his fault. No point making a fuss. This place was depressing and dead but what could you do? He’d tried his best. Just a few hours, as he said. He picked up his jacket and left. Good night. Good night. Night.

The baggage carousels were still and silent, and in the half-light there stood security people with guns and military uniforms. The great windows of the building revealed nothing but blackened copies of the hall where they stood, with a huddle of thirteen in each one. They felt an inexplicable need to stay close, as if during the reconstitution of themselves around this new Situation a sort of kinship had emerged. They moved towards the chairs like atoms in a molecule, no closer but also no further away than their relationship dictated.

They sat. Wearied smiles were exchanged. An American woman spoke. I’m going to see what the little girls’ room has to offer. Another woman joined her. Everyone faced each other on rows of chairs, three sides of a square.–I was supposed to be on my way to Sydney by now. My brother’s wedding. Maybe I’ll still make it.–Everyone had a story.

(One man watched in fascination as, in the distance, an astounding, prehistoric kind of thing, a land mollusc, a half-evolved arthropod, all claws and wing cases, limped slowly from one side of the hall to the other. An insect, surely, but from here it looked the size of a rat. No one else seemed to notice.)

The two women returned with water bottles and packets of snack food. The guards got us these. It’s something, anyway. Toilets are OK if anyone was wondering.

You know this is the first night I have spent away from my wife in fifteen years of marriage. Can you imagine? (A Japanese man with his tie loosened.) Every night for fifteen years I have slept next to her. It feels strange to think of her lying alone on one side of the bed right now. Lop-sided. If she only knew I am spending the night with so many new friends–and so many pretty ladies!–boy what would she think! Oh-boy-oh-boy-oh-boy! The first night I ever spend away and here I am staying up through the whole night! This is wild.

I haven’t done this for years.

There was little to say, but an undeniable warmth. People passed round peanuts. A large middle-aged man with remarkable crevasses across his face accepted the last cigarette of the backpacker girl next to him and they smoked slowly, occasionally dropping ash into the empty Marlboro box she cupped in her hand. No one spoke. The guards dozed with rifles sticking up between their legs.

You know friends I don’t think we know each other well enough to sit in silence. Have to go through a lot before you can do that. But we shouldn’t ignore each other. Don’t you agree? Let me make a humble suggestion–maybe you don’t agree–but I was thinking just wondering to myself: Does anyone know any stories?

When I was a student we used to tell stories in the evenings. No money for anything else! I’d love to hear some stories again. It calms you down, you think of other worlds. And before long we’ll all be ready to check in for our flight. What do you say?

I don’t know any stories. I’m not very good at that kind of thing.

But everyone felt it was good there was talking.

Look sir you’re not going to tell me that! Everyone knows stories! I just told you I slept in the same bed as my wife every night for the last fifteen years in the same bedroom of the same flat in the same suburb of Tokyo–and look at all you different people! You just have to tell me how you travel to work every morning in the place where you live and for me it’s a fable! it’s a legend! Sorry I am tired and a little stressed and this is not how I usually talk but I think when you are together like this then stories are what is required.

Someone spoke: I have a story I can tell.

Simple, just like that.

THE TAILOR The First Story

NOT SO LONG ago, in one of those small, carefree lands that used to be so common but which now, alas, are hardly to be found, there was a prince whose name was Ibrahim.

One summer, the usual round of private parties and prostitutes became too tedious for Ibrahim and he decided to go on a voyage around the provinces of the kingdom, ‘to see how those villagers spend all their damned time’. So he packed clothes and American one-dollar bills (for letting fly from the windows of his jeep) and set off with his young courtier friends in a jostling pack of father-paid cars, whooping and racing.

Despite themselves, the young men fell silent when the ramshackle streets of the outskirts of the city finally gave way to open countryside. The smooth, proud highways built under the reign of Ibrahim’s grandfather began to loop up into the hills and, as the morning mists cleared, the city boys looked out on spectacular scenes of mountains and forests. For several hours they drove.

By early afternoon they had travelled a great distance without a single halt, and as they approached a small town Ibrahim pulled off the road and stopped. The scene was all polo shirts and designer jeans amid the slamming of car doors, the stretching of limbs, the pissing behind bushes–and the townsfolk quickly assembled to find out who these visitors were. ‘Certainly they are film stars come to make videos like on MTV,’ they said to each other as the band of young men strode onto the main square of the town, sun glaring from oversized belt buckles and Italian sunglasses. Goats and chickens whined and clucked their retreats, as if to clear the set.

On the minds of the young men was food; and very soon orders had been placed, chairs brought from front rooms and the local inn, and they were sitting sipping coconut juice in the shade of a wall. Around the square, the whole town stood and watched. Children stared, shop owners came out onto the streets to see what was going on–and a number of youths who were no younger or older than these visitors stood wondering who the heroes could be, and committing to memory every gesture, accoutrement, and comb-stroke.

The food was brought and Ibrahim and his companions began to eat vigorously. The boldest of the villagers stepped forward and addressed them,

‘Please, kind Sirs, tell us: Who are you?’

None of the courtiers knew what to say. Which was more sophisticated: to tell the truth, or to remain silent?

Ibrahim himself spoke.

‘We have come from far away, and we are very grateful for your kindnesses.’

What a fine answer that was! The local people felt their civic pride swell, and the prince’s companions thought once again to themselves, ‘That is why I am me and he is a prince.’ As women brought more and more food, the sun’s rays seemed to glow more yellow with the harmony that could exist between these two groups who seemed to have so little in common.

The meal was over; and with much wiping of hands and mouths the party left their plates and large piles of dollars behind and began to explore the narrow streets of the town, followed by a crowd of excited townsfolk.

They saw small houses with children playing and women sweeping, stalls piled high with fruit and vegetables, and shops of shoemakers, butchers, and carpenters. Finally, at the end of an alleyway, they came to a little store hung out front with robes and dresses: the tailor.

‘Let’s see what this fellow has to offer,’ said Ibrahim. A bell rang as they opened the door, and they pushed past it into a gloomy room overflowing with clothes. The tailor rushed forward to greet them.

‘Come in, come in gentlemen, plenty of room, please!’ He hastily pushed things out of the way to make space for them to stand. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘What is your name, tailor?’ asked Ibrahim.

‘Mustafa, at your service, Sir.’

‘You live here alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what do you make?’

‘I make anything and everything that can be worn. The people here are poor, so mostly it is simple work. Cotton dresses for the ladies. Shirts for the men. But I can see you are grand visitors. I will show you something special.’

He went to the back of his store and took out a large packet wrapped in brown paper. The young men drew around as he reverentially laid it out on the workbench and untied the string. He slowly unwrapped it, and there, inside, glowing with pent-up light, was the most magnificent silk robe any of them had ever seen. Cut in the traditional style, it was intricately patterned, delicately pleated, and slashed on the sleeves and flared skirts to reveal exquisite gold brocade beneath. The web of stitches that covered the whole robe, holding it in its perfect shape, was entirely invisible, and all the sections fitted together without a single break in the pattern.

The men stared, taken aback at this unexpected splendour.

‘This is a fine piece of work, tailor. There are too few people in our country who have respect for these old traditions,’ said Ibrahim.

‘Thank you, Sir. This is the achievement of my lifetime. It has taken me years to save the money to make this. It was my own little dream.’

Ibrahim gently felt the textures of the shimmering robe.

‘Tailor, I would like you to make me a robe even more magnificent than this.’

Ibrahim’s companions were amazed. Was he in earnest? They had never seen this seriousness in him.

More amazed still was the tailor himself.

‘I am deeply honoured, Sir, at your request. But may I ask first–please do not misunderstand me–who you are and whether you are sure you can afford what you ask for. These materials come from far away and are now very rare. I will need to travel to meet with merchants. They will have to send out orders far and wide. It will take six months, and–’

‘Do not worry. I am Ibrahim, eldest son of King Saïd. I will see that your expenses are covered and you yourself are handsomely paid for your pains. Please embroider the robe with the royal stag and crescent moon, and deliver it to the royal palace when it is finished.’

The tailor was moved.

‘Your Highness, I will do what you ask. You will not be disappointed. I will make the most splendid robe you have ever seen, and I will bring it myself to your palace.’

‘I thank you, tailor. I have every confidence in you.’

And with that, they left.

For several weeks the tailor did not sleep as he made the arrangements for the new robe. First of all he needed a bank loan to cover the enormous costs of the materials he was to buy. Luckily, news of the fabulous order had immediately spread across the town and the quiet tailor had acquired a new fame. Within a few days he had managed to find funds and take on an assistant to help with the work. He set off immediately on a tour of the surrounding towns to look at the finest fabrics, and when nothing was satisfactory he sent the incredulous merchants away to find better. Normally a thrifty and reclusive man, the tailor suddenly became bold and extravagant in the accomplishment of this fantastic project. He bought books of old artworks to ensure he had understood every nuance of the traditional styles. The usually silent alleyway outside his shop became crowded with the vans and cars of merchants bringing samples and deliveries. The racks inside were packed away to make space for the accumulating piles of luxurious silks and brocades.

He meditated on the antique familiarity of the royal crest until it came to life in his head as a magnificent design: while the stars circled at the edges and a grand city twinkled in the distance, the whole chain of animal life arranged itself among the trees to gaze upon the stag who stood alone in a clearing, silvery in the silken light of the crescent moon.

For days at a time the tailor would not move from his workbench as he drew and cut, pinned and sewed. New lamps were brought in to allow him to carry out the intricate work at night, and with astonishing rapidity the flimsy panels of silk assembled themselves into a robe as had not been seen since the days of the old court. After four months the job was finished, and the robe was carefully laid out in the workshop, complete with its own shirt, pantaloons, and matching slippers. The tailor rented a small van, loaded up his precious cargo, and set out for the capital city.

The skies were full of the radiant expectation of morning when the tailor made his approach to the royal palace. In the busy streets trestle tables were juddered and clacked into readiness, and a procession of vans spilled forth the goods that would festoon their surfaces: sparkling brassware, colourful fabrics, beeping alarm clocks, and novelties for tourists. People were everywhere. Men smoked and talked by the side of the road, waiting to see how the day would progress, village women found patches of ground to arrange displays of woven bedspreads and wicker baskets, and boys hawked newspapers full of morning conversation.

As he drove through the unfamiliar streets the tailor felt elated by the crowds. ‘What wonders can be achieved here!’ he thought to himself. ‘Everywhere there are great buildings housing unheard-of forms of human pursuit, new things being made and bought and sold, and people from all over the world, each with their own chosen destination. Even the poor know they are treading on a grander stage: they look far into the future and walk with purpose. What clothes might I have made had I spent my life here!’

The road leading to the royal residence was generous and pristine, with lines of trees and fountains converging in the distance on the domed palace that already quivered in the heat of the morning. The tailor stared at the big cars with diplomatic license plates, marvelled at the number of people that worked just to keep this street beautiful and clean. He arrived at the palace.

At the entrance, two guards signalled to him to stop. Their uniforms were tight-fitting, made of fabrics the tailor had never seen, and packed with a fascinating array of weapons and communications devices. ‘What is your purpose?’ The tailor explained.

‘Do you have any paperwork? A purchase order from the palace?’ ‘No.’ The tailor hesitated. ‘It wasn’t like that, you see–’ ‘Every delivery must have a signed purchase order from the appropriate department. Go away and obtain the necessary documentation.’ The tailor explained his story again. ‘Please inform Prince Ibrahim that I am here. He is expecting me. My name is Mustafa the tailor. He has ordered a silk robe from me.’

‘Please leave at once and do not come peddling to the king’s palace.’ ‘Will you speak to the prince? He will remember me…’ But the guards would listen no more. The tailor had no option but to get back in his van and drive away.

He camped in the van and came every day to the palace to wait outside the gates. The guards proving intransigent, he scanned the windows for signs of the prince’s presence, looked in every arriving car for any of the faces that had come to his shop that day, tried to imagine how he would get a message into the palace. All to no avail.

Where could he go? He owed more money than he had seen in his whole life, and it was unlikely that anyone except the prince would buy such an extravagant, outmoded robe. All he could do was to wait until someone vindicated his story.

He ate less every day in order to save his last remaining coins, and he became dirty and unkempt. By day he sat and tracked every coming and going with eyes that grew hollow with waiting. By night he had nightmares in which the prince and his band of laughing noblemen walked right by him as he lay oblivious with sleep.

The van became an expense he could not support. He drove into the desert to hide the robe, which he wrapped carefully in paper, placed in an old trunk, and buried in a spot by some trees. And he sent the vehicle back.

He became a fixture by the palace gates. The guards knew him and tolerated his presence as a deluded, but harmless, fool. Passers-by threw him coins, and some stopped to listen to his story of when the royal prince had once come to visit him and how he would one day come again. He became used to every indignity of his life happening in the full view of tourists and officials.

At night when the streets were free he wandered the skein of the city. His face shadowed by a blanket, he trudged under spasmodic street lights, and gazed into shadowy shop windows where mannequins stood like ghosts in their urban chic. Everything seemed to be one enormous backstage, long abandoned by players and lights, where dusty costumes and angular stage sets lay scattered amid a dim and eerie silence. There danced in his head the memory of a search, a saviour, but it too was like the plot of a play whose applause had long ago become silence.

Years passed. He knew not how many.

One night, as he walked past a cheap restaurant where taxi drivers and other workers of the night sat under a fluorescent glow shot through with the black orbits of flies, he saw that there were some unaccustomed guests eating there. A crowd of men sat eating and drinking and laughing with beautiful women, all of them in clothes not from this part of town. And with a shock that roused him from years of wearied semi-consciousness, he realized that one of them was Prince Ibrahim.

‘Your Highness!’ cried the tailor, rushing into the restaurant and flinging himself to the floor. Everyone looked up at the bedraggled newcomer, and bodyguards immediately seized him to throw him out. But the prince interjected, looking round at his friends and laughing, ‘Wait! Let us see what this fellow wants!’

Everyone fell silent and looked at the tailor as he stood in the centre of the room, fluorescent lights catching the wispy hair on the top of his head.

‘Your Highness, many years ago you came to my tailor’s shop in a small town far from here and ordered a silk robe with your royal insignia of the stag and crescent moon. I spent four months making the finest robe for you, but when I came to your palace no one believed my story or allowed me to make my delivery. I wrote you letters and waited for you day and night, but all to no avail. I have spent all the years since then living in the gutter and waiting for the day I would find you again. And now I appeal to your mercy: please help me.’

Everyone looked at Ibrahim. ‘Is he speaking the truth?’ one of the men asked.

The prince looked irately at the tailor, saying nothing. Another man spoke up.

‘I was with you that day, Prince. The tailor’s story is true. Do you not remember?’

The prince did not look at him. Slowly he said: ‘Of course I remember.’

He continued to stare at the insignificant figure in the centre of the room. ‘But this is not the man. He is an impostor. The tailor I saw that day never brought what I ordered. Get this cheat out of here.’

And the bodyguards threw the tailor into the street.

But the prince’s companion, whose name was Suleiman, felt sorry for him. As the party of men and women heated up behind steamed-up windows and its separate elements began to coalesce, he sneaked out to catch up with him.

‘Sir! Stop!’ The tailor turned round, and Suleiman ran up to meet him.

‘Allow me to present myself. My name is Suleiman, and I was present when the prince came to your shop several years ago. I feel partially responsible that you are in this situation. Tell me your story.’

Standing in the dark of the street, the tailor told him everything. Suleiman was much moved. Overhead, the night sky glistened with stars like sequins.

‘Listen Mustafa, I would like to buy this robe from you myself. I know it will be an exquisite object, and I feel unhappy at the idea that you will continue to suffer as you are now. Take my car, fetch the robe, bring it to my house, and I will pay you for it.’

In the splendid steel surrounds of a black Mercedes the tailor flew along the smooth tarmac of the national highway as it cut into the rippling desert and its lanes reduced from six to four, to two. He watched the prudently designed cars of the national automobile company flash past each other in 180-degree rectitude, and, fighting off the drowsiness of the heat and the hypnotic landscape in order to concentrate on the road, he looked out for the lone group of trees under which he had deposited the trunk.

When at last the Mercedes came to rest at the spot, he was surprised to see that there was a crowd of people there. It looked as if some sort of major construction was going on. Muddy jeeps were parked around the area, and under the blinding glare of the sun a team of men painstakingly measured out the land with poles and ropes while local people stood around and watched. Terror wrung the tailor’s organs as he approached one of the spectators to ask what was happening.

‘You don’t know? A great discovery has been made here! A poor villager found a trunk containing a magnificent silk robe right in this spot. He took it to the city where an antique specialist identified it as royal ceremonial wear from the eighteenth century. He sold it to a French museum, who paid seven million dollars! Now everyone is looking for the rest of the treasure!’

What could the tailor say? Which of these people who laboured all around him in pursuit of some ancient hoard would believe his unlikely story? All he could do was to climb slowly back into the Mercedes and return to the city.

Eventually the car returned to the leafy streets it knew well, all iron railings and columns, and the tailor found himself climbing the stone steps to the mighty front door of Suleiman’s residence. He was greeted by his would-be patron’s wife, who welcomed him warmly, sat him down and surrounded him with a plush arrangement of mint tea and sweetmeats. Finally Suleiman himself entered.

‘You return empty-handed, tailor! How could this be?’

The tailor told him what he had found. Suleiman, looked at him with some uncertainty.

‘How do I know that there ever was a robe?’

The tailor had no answer.

The three of them sat in a tense silence that was flecked only with the occasional sound of cup on saucer. Finally the tailor got up to leave. Suleiman took him aside.

‘My good fellow. You do seem honest enough, but given the circumstances, I don’t know if I can really help you. Here’s some money for your board and food. I hope your lot improves.’

Once a year in that land there was a festival whose name roughly translates as the ‘Day of Renewal’. This was an ancient custom, a day of merrymaking and of peace between all citizens. Gifts were given to children, prisoners were set free, and there were public feasts. All the royal residences were opened up to the general public, who could enjoy food and music in the gardens. Everyone was happy on that day: there was handshaking in the streets between strangers, flags fluttered gaily from every rooftop, and the sky became thick with kites. Of late, foreign corporations wishing to show their commitment to the nation had become particularly extravagant in their support for this festival. Pepsi gave out free drink in all public places, Ford selected ‘a worthy poor family’ to receive the gift of its latest model, and Citibank surprised its ATM customers with cash prizes given out at random throughout the day. And, in the afternoon, the king would hear the cases of those who were in need of redress.

The tailor came to the palace early, but there was already a row of aggrieved citizens waiting. As each one arrived, a kindly attendant noted down the details of the case. Then a bailiff called them, one by one. At length, it was the tailor’s turn.

At the far end of the vast marble room, the king sat on a throne surmounted by a canopy of silk and jewels. Down either side sat rows of learned men. To the right of the king was Prince Ibrahim. His blue pinstriped suit contrasted elegantly with his sandstone face, on which a shapely beard was etched like the shadow of butterfly wings.

‘Approach, tailor,’ said the king patiently. ‘Tell us your matter.’

Pairs of bespectacled eyes followed the tailor as he walked across the echoing expanse towards the throne in the new shoes he had bought for the occasion. He stood for a moment trying to collect himself. And then, once again, he told his story.

As the king listened, he became grave.

King Saïd believed that the simple goodness and wisdom of village people was the best guarantee of the future prosperity and moral standing of the country. The possibility that his own son might have taken it upon himself to tread down this small-town tailor was therefore distressing. The prince’s lack of constancy was a continual source of disquiet for the king, and the tailor’s narrative unfortunately possessed some degree of verisimilitude. On the other hand, he received many claims of injustice every day and most turned out, on inspection, to be false.

As the tailor finished, he spoke thus:

‘This is a case of some difficulty, tailor. There is much here that it is impossible for me to verify. What say you, my son?’

‘As you know, my Lord and Father, I have the greatest sympathy with the needy of our land. But his story is preposterous.’

‘Is it possible that you could have failed to recall the events of which the tailor speaks?’

‘Of course not.’

King Saïd pondered.

‘Tailor, our decision in this case will hinge on your moral character. It will not be possible today for us to verify the details of what happened so long ago, the fate of the clothes you say were made, or your financial situation. I am therefore going to ask you to demonstrate your moral worth by telling us a story. According to our traditions.’

Utter silence descended on the room, and all watched the tailor, expectantly.

‘Your Highness, I have now been in this capital city for some time. And I recently met another tailor who told me the following tale.

‘There once came to his shop a wealthy man who was about to be married. This man ordered a luxurious set of wedding clothes. The tailor was honoured and overjoyed and went out to celebrate with his family.

‘It so happened that the bridegroom had a lover, a married woman from the city. Each visit she made to him he vowed would be the last. But he never seemed to be able to broach the subject of their rupture before their clothes and their words had dissolved between them and they were left only with their lovemaking.

‘Ignorant of this, the tailor began to order the finest fabrics for the wedding clothes. But as he set to work on the new garments, the cloth simply melted away as he cut it. Again and again he chalked out designs–but each time the same thing happened, until all of the valuable cloth had disappeared.

‘When the bridegroom came to collect the clothes he was furious to discover they were not ready, and demanded an explanation.

‘“I think the explanation lies with you,” replied the tailor. “Since your wedding clothes refused to be made, I can only suppose you are not ready to wear them. Tell me this: what colour are the eyes of your bride-to-be?”

‘The bridegroom thought hard, but the image of his lover stood resolutely between him and the eyes of his betrothed, and he was unable to answer.

‘“Next time you come to me for clothes,” said the tailor, “make sure you are prepared to wear them.”

‘With that, the young man left the tailor, called off his marriage, and left the city.’

The tale hung in the air for a while, and dispersed.

‘What do you say, scholars, to the tailor’s story?’ asked the king.

‘Sire, it is a fine story, constructed according to our traditions, and possessing all the thirteen levels of meaning prized in the greatest of our writings.’

‘My son, what do you think?’

‘There is no doubt,’ replied the prince, ‘that this fellow is accomplished in the realm of fantasy.’

The king looked pained.

‘I myself feel that the tailor has proved himself to be a man of the greatest integrity and probity. Such a man will never seek to advance himself through untruth. Tailor, I can see there has been a series of culpable misunderstandings as a result of which you have suffered greatly. Tell me what you would like from us.’

‘Sire, I am sunk so low that all I can ask for is money.’

‘Consider it done. We shall settle all your debts. Please go with this man, my accountant Salim. He will tell you what papers you need to provide and will give you all the necessary forms to fill in. We are heartily sorry for the difficulties you have had to encounter. Go back to your village and resume your life.’ Mustafa the tailor was anxious to leave the city, whose streets had by now become poisoned with his memories. But he did not wish to return to his village. It seemed too small to contain the thoughts he now had in his head.

He took up residence in a distant seaside town where he made a living sewing clothes and uniforms for sailors. In the afternoons, when his work was done, he would sit by the shore looking into the distance, and tell stories to the masts of boats that passed each other on the horizon.

Faces were in shadow. The ceiling lights were far above their heads, and not all of them still worked. You could not really tell what people were thinking. Perhaps the game was slightly outlandish, perhaps it was not for everyone. Some would surely fall asleep–or pretend to do so. There would be a loner who would stroll off, unnoticed, to the gloomy recesses of the arrivals hall only to discover there a listless and yet thoroughly absorbing interest in the health warnings posted on the wall, the rows of leaflets outlining visa requirements, tobacco and alcohol allowances, and the lists of objects prohibited in hand luggage. Surely!–for in everyone’s head there were still so many Issues of purely private concern that twitched distractingly, that flickered behind the glass of vacant stares.

She spoke with authority:

Next!

She was broad and tall, she sat back in her seat with some abandon, hands on the back of her head, elbows wide. The kind of person who liked groups, not afraid to rally people she had only just met. There was an ease about her: she had already taken off her high heels. There were smiles all around but she did not give up.

Who will be next?

THE MEMORY EDITOR The Second Story

IN THE CITY of London there was once a wealthy stockbroker who had three sons. Even when they were all still young, everyone could see that while the first two sons were able and hardworking, the youngest, Thomas, had his head in the clouds.

Thomas liked nothing better than to bury himself in history books and read of how the world was before. He thrilled at the struggles of Romanovs and Socialists and put his face close to black-and-white photographs of firebrand Lenin and little haemophiliac Alexei, trying to envisage the lives that hid behind the scratched surfaces and foreign-seeming faces. He read of places that were now summer holiday destinations where millions were killed just a few decades ago, and wondered at how death had in that short time become so exotic. He could never quite become accustomed to the idea that people were growing old long ago when the world was so much younger; so he knew he had not truly understood the scale of time.

One day Thomas sat in his customary reading seat in the Islington Public Library, not two minutes from the monumental black front door of his father’s Georgian townhouse that sat in a serene row of precisely similar houses on Canonbury Square. He read of the slow rot in the Ottoman Empire, of schemes hatched in Berlin, London, and St Petersburg to divide the imperial carrion, and of Bulgarian and Romanian revolutionaries studying poetry and explosives in Paris. The library was still save for a few occasional page-turners and the strenuous silence of the librarian who wheeled a cart of books and re-shelved them under Crime and Local Interest. Thomas thought of Thrace and Thessaly.

An old woman entered the library and sat down next to him. She lowered herself slowly into her seat and began to lay out things: a raincoat (on the back of her chair), a handbag, an umbrella in a nylon sleeve, a stick, a set of keys, a Tupperware lunchbox. The ritual was so deliberate that Thomas could not shut it out of his head, and he wished she had not chosen that particular place.

He tried to concentrate on sensational insurgencies and brutal massacres but now she had unwrapped the tin foil from her egg sandwiches and the smell was banishing the past. NO EATING said the big bright sign with the green logo of the Borough of Islington: Thomas looked hopefully around for someone who might enforce the rule, but suddenly there was no one else there. The old woman began to mash her bread noisily with toothless gums and he stole at her what was calculated to be an intimidating glance. He saw that she was blind.

‘I can see’–she hesitated, as if playing with his thoughts–‘you don’t like me being here.’ She spoke loudly, oblivious to the silence of the library. Thomas felt ashamed. She was fragile and tiny.

‘No it’s not that. It’s just–’

‘You don’t think I should eat egg sandwiches in a library. Luckily there’s no one here to catch me!’ She shot him a conspiratorial grin. ‘And anyway, a blind woman is not likely to drop her mayonnaise on the pages of a book, is she?’ Her eyes were like marble.

‘You are reading about the past. Making mental notes of dates and names, fitting together all the little things you know about a place and a time. Trying to remember what happened long ago. But here’s a question. Can you remember what will happen? In the future?’

She seemed to expect an answer.

‘Clearly not,’ Thomas ventured. ‘Remembering is by definition about the past.’

‘Why so? Is to remember not simply to make present in the mind that which happens at another time? Past or future?’

‘But no one can make present that which hasn’t happened yet.’

‘How do you know the future hasn’t happened yet?’

‘That’s the definition of the future!’ Thomas’s voice betrayed frustration. ‘The past has happened. It is recorded. We all remember what happened yesterday. The future has not happened. It is not recorded anywhere and we cannot know it.’

‘Isn’t that tautology? Remembering is the recollection of the past. The past is that which can be recollected. Well let me tell you that I am unusual among people in being able to remember what has not happened yet. And the distinction between past and future seems less important than you might imagine.’

Thomas stared at her. He assumed madness.

‘For you, the present is easy to discern because it is simply where memory stops. Memories hurtle out of the past and come to a halt in the now. The present is the rockface at the end of the tunnel where you gouge away at the future.’

There was still no one else in the library. They talked naturally, loudly.

‘I, on the other hand, was born with all my memories, rather as a woman is born with all her eggs. I often forget where the present is because it is not, as it is for you, the gateway to the future. My future is already here.’

‘So tell me, if I am to believe you, what I am going to do tonight, when I leave this library.’

‘You make a common mistake. I didn’t say that I know everything that will ever happen. I said only that I already possess all my memories. (And they run out in so short a time! I have lived through nearly all of them, and now there remain just a few crumbs in the bottom of the bag.) Still, I do have more memories of you.

You will spend your life in the realm of the past You will fail entirely to keep up with the times But your wealth will make your father seem poor A mountain of jewels dug from mysterious mines.’

Thomas thought over the words.

‘What does all that mean? Can you explain?’

The old woman gave a flabby chuckle.

‘Surely you can’t expect me to tell you more than that? Isn’t it already encouraging enough?’

She put the lid on her lunch box.

‘Anyway. It is time for me to take my leave.’ Her possessions found their way back into her bag and she stood up, slowly and uncertainly. ‘But I have just remembered what will happen to you tonight. My mind is more blurred than it once was. You are going to have an encounter with Death. Don’t worry–you will survive.’ She smiled at him–almost affectionately–and departed.

Thomas could not return to his books. He sat for a long time reciting the woman’s words to himself and wondering about his future. He left the library in a daydream and wandered home. Full of his thoughts he rang at the wrong bell. A hooded figure answered the door, black robes billowing around its knees and only shadows where its face should have been. The figure carried a scythe. Made of plastic. Thomas remembered it was Halloween.

Not long afterwards, Thomas’s father received a big promotion. He worked for a small but thriving investment firm in the City that had made a name for itself in private financial services. He had joined the firm twelve years ago from Goldman Sachs and had from the outset consistently delivered better returns to his clients than any of his peers. Tall and attractive, with an entirely unselfconscious sense of humour, he also had a talent for entertaining the high net-worth individuals that were the firm’s clients. Now the board had asked him to take the place of the retiring managing director. He had agreed unhesitatingly.

In celebration of this advancement, Thomas’s father took the entire family to the Oxo Tower for dinner. They drove down from Islington in the car, crossing over Blackfriars Bridge from where the floodlights on St Paul’s Cathedral made it look like a magnificent dead effigy of itself. The restaurant was a floating cocoon of leather and stainless steel with lighting like caresses, and their table looked down over the row of corporate palaces that lined the other side of the Thames. Thomas thought his father looked somehow more imposing even than before. His mother had put on a new sequined dress and talked about the differences in the dream lives of modern and ancient Man as described in the book she was reading about Australian Aborigines. Champagne was poured. They all clinked glasses.

‘So here’s to the new boss,’ proclaimed Thomas’s father.

‘I’m so proud of you, darling,’ said his wife, kissing him on the cheek.

‘I can tell you boys: investing is a great business. A great discipline. It forces you to become exceptional. Most people are just interested with what’s going on now. Getting a little more, perhaps. But basically turning the wheels. When you’re in investment you have to be completely sceptical about the present, aware that there is nothing that cannot change, no future scenario that can be discounted. You exist on a different plane, predicting the future, making your living by working out how other people will be making their living tomorrow. And not only that, but making that future materialize by investing in it. There’s no sphere of knowledge that’s not relevant to this job. It might be water, it might be toys; it could be guns or new kinds of gene. The whole universe is there.’

His wife looked lovingly at him through mascara-thick lashes. Sculpted starters were brought that sat in the middle of expansive plates and seemed inadequate to the three brothers.

‘So tell me, boys–you’re all becoming men now–what is it you’d like to do with your lives? What is your ambition?’

The eldest spoke first.

‘Father, I have been thinking about this a lot recently. I think after I’ve finished at the LSE I’d like to get a couple of years’ experience in one of the big management consulting firms. I think that would give me a broad exposure to a lot of different industries. Then I can do an MBA–maybe in the US. At that point I’d be in a really good position to know what direction to move in. But what I’d really like to do–I say this now without much experience–is to run my own business.’

‘Sounds good, son. Make sure you don’t get too programmatic about things. Sometimes the biggest opportunities come at really inconvenient times. If you’ve planned your life out for the next twenty years you may not be able to make yourself available for them. Next!’

The second son spoke.

‘Father, I want to work for one of the big banks. The money industry is never going to be out of fashion. I can’t see the point of working in some shoe-string business for just enough to live on. The only respectable option to me seems to be to work damn hard and earn serious money–and retire when you’re forty.’

‘Well I’m forty-nine and I haven’t retired yet! Remember that it’s not enough simply to desire money very much. You have to be good at earning it. But I’m sure you will be. So finally to young Tom. What about you?’

Thomas looked around at his whole family, his eyes glinting with champagne.

‘I will surpass you all,’ he said. ‘I will make you all look like paupers.’

The paterfamilias smile vanished.

‘Oh really, Thomas. And how are you going to do that?’

‘You will see. One day you will see my mountain of jewels.’

His father’s voice became unpleasant.

‘Thomas, I’m just about sick of your stupid talk and your irresponsible, lazy behaviour. How dare you talk to me like that when you haven’t got the first idea of the world–especially on a night like this!’

His mother continued.

‘Your father and I never stop condoning what you do, tolerating your insolence and absent-mindedness. But sometimes I think we go too far. Do you realize who your father is? He is not just some average man who can be talked to like that. I don’t know how a member of your father’s and my family came to act like you. Think like you.’

Thomas’s brothers looked under the table. Waiters glided around in practised obliviousness. ‘Sometimes the future is not just an extension of the past according to rules we all know,’ said Thomas. ‘Look at revolutions, the collapse of empires. I think that something will happen to all of you that you have not even thought about. And you will not have devoted one minute of your lives to preparing yourselves for it. I don’t even know what it will be. But I know it will happen.’

The silence that followed was the silence of Thomas’s father’s rage. When he spoke it was with a self-restraint that burned white.

‘Thomas, when we go back home tonight I want you to pack your things and get out of our house. I will not have some mutant element in our home. Our family will not be abused by someone who is ungrateful, someone who likes thinking about the destruction of his brothers and parents. You will get out. Do you understand?’

Thomas nodded slowly, amazed and aghast that things had gone this far.

His father left the table and did not come back for half an hour. No one spoke as they drove home.

The family went to bed with raw feelings and empty stomachs. Thomas’s mother whispered to him that they would discuss all this in the morning. But Thomas could not bear the idea of waiting for such a discussion. He lay still until he could hear no movement and then silently got up, packed some clothes by torchlight into a school sports bag, and crept downstairs. He took two antique silver picture frames he had once helped his father choose for his mother’s birthday in a gallery on Ladbroke Grove, a gold pocket watch that was on display in the drawing room, and his father’s state-of-the-art SLR camera that had lain untouched in its wrappings for the last year. He disabled the burglar alarm, undid the locks on the heavy oak front door, eased it open, and stepped out.

The moon was so bright that the streets seemed to be bathed in an eerie kind of underexposed daylight that was even more pellucid for the absolute quiet. Insomniac houses and Range Rovers blinked at each other with red security eyes. Thomas wandered aimlessly, up to the point where gentility broke and the streets opened up around King’s Cross station. He bought a bag of greasy chips in an all-night kebab shop and sat in his coat on a bar stool at a narrow strip of tabletop looking out through his own reflection at the sparse traffic of taxis and night shelter regulars. He studied a much-faded poster of Istanbul hanging on the wall next to him, the skies above the Hagia Sofia unnaturally turquoise and the cars on the streets forty years old.

He left and wandered aimlessly around the station. It was late November, and morning came before the sun. Timetables took hold again as commuters arrived in waves and departed in buses and taxis. Eventually it grew light, and the shops opened.

Thomas went to a pawn shop. He removed the photographs from the frames and placed his items on the counter. The shop owner offered him £2,000. At the last minute he decided to keep the camera, and took £1,750.

Next to the pawn shop was an advertisement for a room for rent. Thomas called the number from a phone box; a woman came downstairs in her slippers and showed him up to a single room overlooking the station. He paid her £600 for the deposit and first month’s rent and closed the door behind her. He sat on the bed and looked at his photographs. One was of the wedding of his mother’s parents, both of whom had died before Thomas was born. The other was a studio portrait of the same couple with a baby–his mother–in a long white christening robe. Between the two photographs the man had developed a long scar on his right cheek that Thomas had never noticed when he had looked at them before.

For several days Thomas walked everywhere in the city taking photographs of his own. He went to the sparkling grove of banking towers that sat on the former dockyards among the eastern coils of the Thames and took pictures that were rather desolate. He took photographs of pre-Christmas sales in Covent Garden. He photographed Trafalgar Square at 4 a.m.

He called his mother to say ‘Hello’. She was frantic with fear and pleaded with him to come home. He said he would at some point.

One day he was sitting having lunch in a cheap sandwich shop in Hackney. A woman sitting at the table next to him asked, ‘Are you a photographer?’ He looked at her. She gestured towards the camera.

‘Not really. I take pictures for fun.’

‘What do you take pictures of?’

She wore lithe urban gear that looked as if it had been born in a wind tunnel.

‘I don’t really know.’ He had not talked to anyone for several days and felt awkward. He thought for a moment. ‘I am trying to live entirely in the realm of the past. Trying to take pictures of what there was before.’ He looked at her to see if she was listening. ‘But I don’t seem to be able to find it. Sometimes it’s not there anymore. And sometimes when it is there, I can’t see it.’

She looked at him inquisitively.

‘How old are you?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Do you need a job?’

‘Actually I do. I have no money.’

‘Can you keep secrets?’

‘I don’t know anyone to tell secrets to.’

‘Come with me.’

She led him to an old, dilapidated brick building with a big front door of reinforced glass that buzzed open to her combination. They stepped into a tiny, filthy lift and she pressed ‘6’. They were standing very close to each other.

‘I’m Jo, by the way.’ She held out her hand. He shook it.

‘I’m Thomas. Pleased to meet you.’

The lift stopped inexplicably at the fourth floor. The doors opened to a bright display of Chinese dragons and calendars. Chinese men and women worked at sewing machines to the sound of zappy FM radio. The doors closed again.

On the sixth floor they stepped out into a vestibule with steel walls and a thick steel door. There were no signs to indicate what might lie inside.

‘Turn away please,’ said Jo.

He turned back to face the closing lift door as she entered another combination. He heard the sound of keys and a lock shifted weightily.

‘OK. Come on.’

He turned round and followed her inside. Computer lights blinked in the darkness for a moment; Jo pulled a big handle on the wall and, with a thud that echoed far away, rows of fluorescent lights flickered on irregularly down the length of a huge, empty expanse. The floor was concrete, speckled near the edges with recent whitewash whose smell still hung in the air. The large, uneven windows that lined one wall had recently been covered with thick steel grills. Near the door stood three desks with computers on them and a table with a printer and a coffee maker.

‘Have a seat, Thomas. Coffee?’

‘Yes please.’

She poured two mugs.

‘We are setting up probably the most extraordinary business you will ever encounter. I’d like your help and I think you’ll find it exciting. Your interests will qualify you very well for the task and I’ll pay you enough that you’ll be satisfied. I will need from you a great amount of effort and imagination–and, of course, your utter secrecy. OK?’