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“How funny,” I say, “that you improvised your way into the Royal Academy!” Oliver is not an avid improviser.

“Yes, respect, please!” So much depends on other people’s whims. Oliver says, “I don’t think they let me stay because I was terribly interesting to them, musically. Perhaps they decided I was teachable? I think my uncle explained that my parents were in danger of imprisonment and I could not go back, and I think he bribed them.”

Oliver falls silent. He seems to forget I’m here; his eyes focus on nothing, or something in his childhood, or something that didn’t happen. Finally he notices me and says, “Sorry, Alba. You don’t know me very well, and it must be strange for you when the conversation subsides. When you and I are both middle-aged we sometimes spend days talking intermittently, with long gaps between; we’ve already said so much that we can be quiet with each other.”

“It felt kind of weird, like you just got up and left the room.”

Oliver smiles politely. “I guess I just did a bit of time traveling without actually going anywhere. I was thinking about my home, when I was a boy in Shanghai.”

“Tell me.”

“When I was a child,” Oliver says, “our apartment was very tranquil. My mother and father were both poets. Mother had a small room near the kitchen that was stuffed with her books and papers, she liked to write there, and she would read in bed, the sheets were full of little black marks from her pens; she liked to write in her books. Father worked at the dining room table. It was a long one; he worked at the end nearest the window, and we ate at the other end, nearer the kitchen. In the middle of the table were piles of books, like a mountain range dividing the table; usually the ones he was consulting for his writing were on the writing side of the piles and books he wanted to show us were on the dinner side. He loved vintage computers. My parents were very organized people, but we lived in a two-bedroom apartment and there was too much stuff in it. They seldom left the apartment, and I was taught at home for long stretches of time because of the pandemics. When I did go to school, my parents worried.

“I had a desk near the window, just an arm’s length from where my father sat. When I wasn’t studying, we used to play video games together, old games that none of my friends played. My parents had many friends, and our apartment was where everyone came to socialize. Then there were times when no one came, and we did not go out; when I was small I didn’t notice, but as I got older I realized that these were the times when my parents were under house arrest. Sometimes boys at school would bully me because my parents were dissidents. I liked it better when there was no school.”

“Weren’t you lonely?”

“No, not at all. I had a friend in my building, Zǐ Yì, my best friend. To us, our building was the whole world. I still miss him.” Oliver falls silent. It’s getting dark, and I stand up to turn on the lamps. I turn back to Oliver, who is sitting, forlorn, staring at his hands in his lap. He looks up at me. “You would think I’d be used to this by now, but occasionally I remember that I was born in a particularly beautiful place and time, to parents who were kind and who loved me very much.” Oliver gathers himself, stands and says, “I’m sorry, Alba. I have a headache. I’m going to lie down.” I watch him as he walks up the stairs, heavily. I hear the door to his room shut. The house feels suddenly more lonely than it would if I were here by myself. I mix myself a hot toddy and get into my own bed, even though it’s not even seven o’clock yet. Down the hall, I hear Oliver pacing in his crowded room.

Wednesday, October 30, 2041 (Oliver is 13)

Oliver: On the day I leave Shanghai, my parents come with me to the airport to say goodbye.

Their friends have spent weeks foraging in the markets for clothing. Everyone told us that England was terribly cold and rainy, and my mother has done her best to procure galoshes, an anorak, mittens. I tried on all these strange items; some fit, some didn’t. “You’ll grow, they’ll fit,” she said. She packed every piece of clothing I owned. When I saw it all carefully laid out on the bed next to the backpack, I understood for the first time that my parents didn’t expect me to return.

After my mother finished packing, we stood together at the side of the bed, the massive, heavy backpack making a deep dent in the smooth surface of the blanket. “Can you lift it?” Mother asked. I am tall for my age, but I like gaming better than sports; I could barely raise it off the bed. “Okay, let’s see what you won’t need.” She began to remove everything, the piles less orderly this time. She packed a week’s clothing into the backpack. Then the anorak, which she was proud to have found; then some shoes.

“What about my books?” I have five real books that belonged to my grandfather.

“Leave them here, we’ll keep them for you.”

“Will you bring them when you come to visit me?” My parents had mentioned this visit several times. We had discussed all the things we would do when they came to London.

“Yes, yes,” my mother said. “Or we can send them to you, once you are with your uncle.”

“Okay,” I said, missing her already.

On my last evening, after we had finished eating supper, my father put two phones on the table in front of me, one the fancy Xiaomi I had been begging for, the other a cheap-looking, battered one. He took out his own Xiaomi and called up a hologram of a stylish young man sitting on a park bench, holding a baby.

“This is your uncle,” he said. “That’s you he’s holding. He went to England a month after that, it’s the most recent image I have of him.” The young man was laughing. The baby looked terrified. “Remember, your uncle will come to Heathrow and meet you. You can see, he looks like me, only not so handsome.” Father smiled. “You must call him Uncle Stephen. He doesn’t use his Chinese name now. He will call you Oliver.”

“He knows how to get in touch with us, if he wants to,” my mother said.

“Can I call you?”

“Yes. Use this, if you need to.” My father indicated the cheap phone, a brand I didn’t know. “This one is hacked—you can use it without anyone tracking it. It’s actually a very sophisticated phone,” Father said kindly. He knows I am a snob about electronics. “It’s very James Bond.” I turned it on. The screens just looked no-brand, nothing special.

My father turned on the Xiaomi. “This is the one you should show the officials. Look, your profile matches your new passport,” my father said. The holopassport rotated slowly, my new name encircling my head and shoulders, everything except my eye color and height quite untrue.

“Will Uncle Stephen take care of me?” I asked.

My father hesitates. “It was his idea for you to come to London and study music.”

“Don’t tell him anything,” my mother said with surprising force.

“Anything?”

“Don’t tell him about the time traveling,” my father clarified.