The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina

Author:Laura Imai Messina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2021-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

That same night, Yui remembered a Friday five years earlier.

Her daughter was nearly two and they were on the train; she was screaming and Yui was trying, unsuccessfully, to calm her down. Now, looking back, she couldn’t say whether they were howls of joy or distress, whether she wanted something Yui wasn’t giving her (a cookie? her phone?), or whether she was excited and expressing that in the only way she knew. Whichever it was, her voice was high-pitched and loud; it pressed against the walls of the train car, and there was no sign she was going to let up soon.

Then somebody shouted, “Urusai!” Shut up!

Yui turned around in the car and saw a man with a heavy stomach, a white mop of hair, and large thin-framed glasses that encircled his eyes. Eyes that were neither good nor bad. Just eyes.

Even before turning, Yui had instinctively said sumimasen. She was so used to apologizing before doing anything else. When you had children you had to learn quickly to bow your head and seek forgiveness. It was just a few words, at the end of the day.

The thing that had been astonishing though, and that was coming back to her now, was the reaction of everybody else, including Hana. A silence had trickled over the carriage like honey, and everybody held their breath. And then, from the back of the train, from the mouth of a person of whom she could see only a small section of white hair, a song emerged.

Zō-san zō-san . . . Little elephant, little elephant, with a long, long nose.

And, as the song progressed, the voice cracked slightly in laughter. The most astonishing thing was that after the second verse, another voice joined in, then another. Yui was moved, and the elephant emerged, vivid in her mind, with its trunk, its heavy feet, and the rest of its clay-like body.

Now the entire carriage seemed to be singing. It was as though she and her daughter had been parachuted into the middle of a wonderful party.

The man who had tried to mute her daughter had himself fallen silent. In his attempt to turn off one switch, he had inadvertently flipped another.

And now, switching off her bedside lamp, Yui smiled and thought that her daughter had a truly phenomenal power. Actually, she thought all children— without exception—were miracle workers.

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