Charles doesn’t approve? I ask.
She tells me about how her father would rather she went into medicine, or law. Something prestigious, yet lucrative. Or if she was adamant about the music thing, the least she could do was become a performer of classical music, not this pop malarkey.
She’s nearly done saving up to move to Tokyo, she tells me. The music scene there is better than it is in Taipei. And, more importantly, her mother is out there.
A few more weeks, and she’s on a plane out of here.
The information slaps me in the face. A few more weeks? What am I going to do when she’s gone?
Because, let’s face it, I like this girl.
I half-think about telling her she should stay, but instead I ask her why she doesn’t just ask Charles for the money, seeing as he clearly has enough to spare. Easy.
And she tells me she doesn’t want to take money from him, or anything else for that matter, because a) he treated her mother like shit, b) she wants to prove to him that she can make it on her own without his money, and c) she wants to be able to support her mum with her own money eventually.
I think about my own mum, and how she would guilt trip me for moving away to London, telling me how loyal and good her friends’ sons were because they stayed at home to look after their parents.
I ask Akemi what happened between Charles and her mother.
She tells me her mother needed to move back to Japan when she was little, because her father, Akemi’s grandfather, was in bad health. He needed looking after, and even though she begged and pleaded, begged and pleaded, Charles refused to move with her.
Because he was never going to leave Taiwan. His life was here, and if that’s what she wanted to do, fine, he wasn’t going to stop her.
So she left.
Akemi says, That was around seven years ago. And because my dad was the one who could provide for me better, I stayed with him. Even though I desperately wanted to be with my mother.
We visited her every school holiday, she says. Or she would come here.
Then she adds: But it’s not the same really.
We sit in silence for a bit, and the meaning of our conversation balloons.
Do you know that saying, every man has his double? I ask Akemi, as we sit at the breakfast bar in Charles’s kitchen, munching on some strawberries.
I think I’ve heard it somewhere before, she says.
I ask, What do you make of it?
She says, I read once that the universe is infinite. And if the universe is infinite, then there’s infinite possibilities that there are planets like ours out there – planets that developed exactly like ours, with people on them exactly like us, but with the tiniest differences.
She picks up a strawberry from the dish, plump and red, and takes a bite. Like, maybe that little scar you have in the corner of your left eye, maybe there’s a Sean in another galaxy that has that scar in the corner of his right eye. And maybe there’s an Akemi somewhere in space, that plays the guitar instead of the piano, and stayed with her mother instead of her father.
Interesting, I say. But what about on this planet. Do you think we all have a double on Earth?
There are around seven billion people in the world, right? she says. I suppose the chances of one of those people looking like you, or me, are pretty good.
Yeah, I say, but looking exactly like us? With another Sean that has that scar in exactly the same spot? And the exact same tattoo?
She looks at me, bemused. Why are you asking me all this?
And I say, Oh, no reason.
F
ORTY
-F
OUR
I watch a picture of myself appear like magic, warping and wobbling under chemical ripples as I swirl it around with tongs.
Except it’s not really a picture of me, but a picture of Other Me – a portrait I made of him when we had hot pot in the canteen the other night.
And this, this is straight-up proof that I am not imagining this guy, or going crazy.
I hang the picture to dry on the line, flip on the lights.
It’s not a candid picture, I asked him if I could make his portrait. And unlike me, he didn’t arch his eyebrows to make his eyes look bigger – which has the effect of making me look surprised all the time – or throw out a cheesy grin to avoid the probability of looking awkward in a photo.
In this picture, he’s just staring straight into the lens. Eyes smiling. A slight upturn at the corners of his mouth.
No lie, I am still creeped the hell out.
But on the flip side, this guy, this other me, he’s like…
A better me.
