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She was not quite eleven when I let Harald Engstrolass of brandy, so that made her what? Thirty-five, thirty-six in Noveolden-haired child waiting for… well, not her father and not her uncle, because we’d never entirely defined our roles Her father figure, anyway The guy who made a home for her, and put food on the table, and tucked her in at night That was the guy she’d have been waiting for, and the son of a bitch never turned up

So what happened to her?

Best-case scenario, I thought, some friend of mine took her in A couple of times when I’d had to travel I left her with Kitty Bazerian, and maybe she’d called Kitty when I failed to reappear, and ave her a hoe, or in a foster houess what had beco than the last I quickened hborhood Better to focus on the superficial, I decided The i

My house was still there

No one had knocked it down, I saw Nor had it collapsed of its own accord, although I suppose it was a quarter of a century closer to doing so But it looked the same as ever from the outside Built sometime in the late nineteenth century, it had achieved a state of decrepitude by the time I moved in that it had been able to maintain without apparent effort ever since

I went into the vestibule and checked the double row of buzzers About a third of the slots lacked naenerally house a few folks with a passion for anonymity – and the names I saere not the names that had been there the last time I looked What had become of E GOLDSTEIN and M VELASQUEZ and MARKOV FAMILY? And ere TD SHIRRA and PATEL and R BESOYAN?

And then I saw a nanized 5-D – ETANNEROh?

My front-door key didn’t fit the lock No surprise there, not after so es the locks every few years I used to be able to slip the old one with a credit card, but this one see a couple of bells – Patel, for one, and someone named Gilbey – and sohts of stairs That wasn’t any easier than it had ever been, but it wasn’t noticeably harder, either, and I suppose that was so to be thankful for

My name was still on the bell I pondered that fact as I climbed the stairs I still lived here, but how could that be?

A doppelganger, I thought A sixty-four-year-old Evan Tanner, padding around in acranky letters to cranks all over the world,in my bed And ould happen if we crossed paths? Would one of us vanish in a puff of smoke? If so, which one would it be? Or would we cancel each other out like positive and negative charges, both si to exist?

I know it sounds far-fetched But the whole day had been far-fetched fro ever e of time It was only the persistent chill deep in my bones that let me believe I really had been in the deep freeze If I could s that particular caer?

I th of the hallway, and stood in front of my own door The na the bell, nor did I knock on the door I just stood there for a long , and then I tried my key in the lock, and it turned I pushed the door open and walked on in

It was still my apartment

Oh, it was different The walls had been painted – probably ing on them Some of the furniture was new, but some of it was the sa bookshelves which I’d installed in every roonized my books on the shelves

Could tione on outside? But it hadn’t stopped in here There were new things – a matte black radio and record player, from the looks of it, and an entire carousel of ere evidentlyentire sye sort of television set all tricked out with a typewriter keyboard There was a test pattern playing on the screen, winged toasters flying hither and yon to no discernible purpose

I looked closer and tapped one of the typewriter keys to see ould happen Incredibly, the popup toasters popped aings and all, and the screen brightened, with different rectangles of print and pictures appearing here and there on it It couldn’t be an ordinary television set It was so to it, and I hoped it wasn’t disastrous

"Who’s there? Did someone come in?"

I looked up A tall blond woed froer’s paraive hih cheekbones, a full-lipped mouth, a pointed but not severe chin Full breasts, a tri here, but I was perfectly willing for her to keep on doing it

"I’ happened to your toasters"

"My toasters? Oh, the screen saver That’s nothing" She’d been looking at the screen, and now she looked at me "My God," she said "It’s you Evan, it’s really you!"

"It’s really reed, mystified But who the hell was she? She hadn’t been here when I left She was the sort of thing I’d reed so ed at all"

But she didn’t say any of that in English She said it in Lithuanian

"Minna," I said "Minna, is it really you?"

"Of course it is," she said "Who else would it be? And it is really you, Evan I thought you were dead All these years, Evan, I thought you were dead"

"Well," I said, "I’m not"

"I know that, Evan And in my heart I always knew it For years and years I waited for that door to open and for you to walk in And then I stopped waiting, or at least I stopped thinking about it And then the door opened And then you walked in"

"Good thing you didn’t change the lock"

"Oh, Evan," she said, and threw her are She missed me, of course, after all those years And I didn’t exactly miss her, because it seeo e had breakfast together If I irl I’d scraone, and this, this goddess had taken her place I’d been a sort of father to that little girl, albeit an unorthodox one I didn’t knohat I was going to be to this groo out

"You kept the aparte that?"