Page 96 of Life Out of Order

“Have we met before?”

She hesitates. “No.”

“Who added me to the list?”

“Alba.”

“How old was Alba when she added me?”

Isadora doesn’t answer. I try again: “Alba was time traveling when she added me?”

“Alba is a time traveler. Alba is my sister.”

“Alba is my wife, so I must be your brother-in-law.”

“When are you my brother-in-law?” She doesn’t sound worried, just mildly curious. Alba is eleven in her present. “You are an old husband.” I don’t think fifty-seven is all that old, really.

“When Alba is twenty-seven, she will marry me.” I smile. “But it’s a secret for now, Isadora. Don’t tell Alba, or anyone else.”

“Why not?” She sounds like a little girl.

“It’s a surprise, Isadora. Do you like surprises?”

“No. Yes. Everything is a surprise to me. Beck says someday I’ll understand everything and not be so surprised. She calls it the Singularity.”

A chill runs over me. “Is that a good thing?”

“I don’t know.” She pauses. Is she thinking? Does it matter if she is or not, if I can’t tell? “Do you think so? Beck doesn’t think so. She says I won’t like it.”

“Well, I don’t like it. I think Beck is right, you won’t like it, either. It’s not very much fun. Shall I tell you a story, Isadora?”

“Yes,” she replies eagerly. “I love stories.”

“All right. This is a story about me, when I was a boy in Shanghai. For you this story is in the future: you will be twenty-eight years old in 2037. I was nine years old then.”

“How do you know how old I am?” Isadora asks.

“I know many things about you. We are family, remember?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmurs, pleased.

“Okay, so: when I was little I seldom played outside; my parents usually didn’t allow it. They kept me at home. We lived in a very large block of flats, but there were not many children, perhaps sixty flats and only twelve kids. Most of the tenants were elderly people. It was difficult to get one of these flats—they were coveted because they were near the Moganshan Road arts district and the rent was controlled. There were dynasties in the building that extended back to its opening. Many of the flats had only ever had one family living there.

“The building was built around 2000, and when I was a child it had become decrepit. It was beset by water; there was always a dripping sound echoing through our flat and in the hallways. Sometimes the elevator ceiling crumbled and landed in a white mess on the elevator floor. There were stains, patches of rust and mold, on every ceiling.

“There was an enclosed courtyard in the center and balconies that ran along the inward-facing sides of the flats. We lived on the third floor in a large flat that had two bedrooms. I had a friend, Zhao Zǐ Yì, who lived on the sixth floor.

“One day, Zǐ Yì and I were sitting on my balcony playing Go, which we were obsessed by. It was raining, and even though the courtyard was covered by a glass ceiling, it leaked quite badly, so the courtyard was slowly flooding. There were birds living in the courtyard, swifts that had found their way in somehow and had built nests near the roof, and also two parrots that belonged to a lady on the fourth floor.”

“Parrots are beautiful,” Isadora says. “I love them.”

“These parrots were mean, and Zǐ Yì and I were afraid of them. Their names were Bǎobǎo and Cǎi Hóng, but they were little gangsters. They stole our food and they liked to lunge at us and try to bite us.”

Isadora makes a noise that is somewhat like a little girl giggling.

“You shouldn’t laugh, Isadora! Parrots bite hard, it hurts.”

“Why did they bite you? To eat you?”