“By the way, how old are you?” the old man asked, standing by the table with arms folded and looking directly into her eyes.
“I’m twenty now,” she said.
“Twenty now,” he repeated, narrowing his eyes as if peering through some kind of crack. “Twenty now. As of when?”
“Well, I just turned twenty,” she said. After a moment’s hesitation, she added, “Today is my birthday, sir.”
“I see,” he said, rubbing his chin as if this explained a great deal for him. “Today, is it? Today is your twentieth birthday?”
She nodded.
“Your life in this world began exactly twenty years ago today.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, “that is true.”
“I see, I see,” he said. “That’s wonderful. Well, then, happy birthday.”
“Thank you very much,” she said, and then it dawned on her that this was the very first time all day that anyone had wished her a happy birthday. Of course, if her parents had called from Oita, she might find a message from them on her answering machine when she got home from work.
“Well, well, this is certainly a cause for celebration,” he said. “How about a little toast? We can drink this red wine.”
“Thank you, sir, but I couldn’t, I’m working now.”
“Oh, what’s the harm in a little sip? No one’s going to blame you if I say it’s all right. Just a token drink to celebrate.”
The old man slid the cork from the bottle and dribbled a little wine into his glass for her. Then he took an ordinary drinking glass from a glass-doored cabinet and poured some wine for himself.
“Happy birthday,” he said. “May you live a rich and fruitful life, and may there be nothing to cast dark shadows on it.”
They clinked glasses.
May there be nothing to cast dark shadows on it: she silently repeated his remark to herself. Why had he chosen such unusual words for her birthday toast?
“Your twentieth birthday comes only once in a lifetime, miss. It’s an irreplaceable day.”
“Yes, sir, I know,” she said, taking one cautious sip of wine.
“And here, on your special day, you have taken the trouble to deliver my dinner to me like a kindhearted fairy.”
“Just doing my job, sir.”
“But still,” the old man said with a few quick shakes of the head. “But still, lovely young miss.”
The old man sat down in the leather chair by his desk and motioned her to the sofa. She lowered herself gingerly onto the edge of the seat, with the wineglass still in her hand. Knees aligned, she tugged at her skirt, clearing her throat again. She saw raindrops tracing lines down the windowpane. The room was strangely quiet.
“Today just happens to be your twentieth birthday, and on top of that you have brought me this wonderful warm meal,” the old man said as if reconfirming the situation. Then he set his glass on the desktop with a little thump. “This has to be some kind of special convergence, don’t you think?”
Not quite convinced, she managed a nod.
“Which is why,” he said, touching the knot of his withered-leaf-colored necktie, “I feel it is important for me to give you a birthday present. A special birthday calls for a special commemorative gift.”
Flustered, she shook her head and said, “No, please, sir, don’t give it a second thought. All I did was bring your meal the way they ordered me to.”
The old man raised both hands, palms toward her. “No, miss, don’t you give it a second thought. The kind of ‘present’ I have in mind is not something tangible, not something with a price tag. To put it simply”—he placed his hands on the desk and took one long, slow breath—“what I would like to do for a lovely young fairy such as you is to grant a wish you might have, to make your wish come true. Anything. Anything at all that you wish for—assuming that you do have such a wish.”
“A wish?” she asked, her throat dry.
“Something you would like to have happen, miss. If you have a wish—one wish, I’ll make it come true. That is the kind of birthday present I can give you. But you had better think about it very carefully because I can grant you only one.” He raised a finger. “Just one. You can’t change your mind afterward and take it back.”
She was at a loss for words. One wish? Whipped by the wind, raindrops tapped unevenly at the windowpane. As long as she remained silent, the old man looked into her eyes, saying nothing. Time marked its irregular pulse in her ears.
“I have to wish for something, and it will be granted?”
Instead of answering her question, the old man—hands still side by side on the desk—just smiled. He did it in the most natural and amiable way.
“Do you have a wish, miss—or not?” he asked gently.
“This really did happen,” she said, looking straight at me. “I’m not making it up.”
“Of course not,” I said. She was not the sort of person to invent some goofy story out of thin air. “So…did you make a wish?”
She went on looking at me for a while, then released a tiny sigh. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “I wasn’t taking him one hundred percent seriously myself. I mean, at twenty you’re not exactly living in a fairy-tale world anymore. If this was his idea of a joke, though, I had to hand it to him for coming up with it on the spot. He was a dapper old fellow with a twinkle in his eye, so I decided to play along with him. It was my twentieth birthday, after all: I figured I ought to have something not-so-ordinary happen to me that day. It wasn’t a question of believing or not believing.”
I nodded without saying anything.
“You can understand how I felt, I’m sure. My twentieth birthday was coming to an end without anything special happening, nobody wishing me a happy birthday, and all I’m doing is carrying tortellini with anchovy sauce to people’s tables.”
I nodded again. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I understand.”
“So I made a wish.”
The old man kept his gaze fixed on her, saying nothing, hands still on the desk. Also on the desk were several thick folders that might have been account books, plus writing implements, a calendar, and a lamp with a green shade. Lying among them, his small hands looked like another set of desktop furnishings. The rain continued to beat against the window, the lights of Tokyo Tower filtering through the shattered drops.
The wrinkles on the old man’s forehead deepened slightly. “That is your wish?”
“Yes,” she said. “That is my wish.”
“A bit unusual for a girl your age,” he said. “I was expecting something different.”
“If it’s no good, I’ll wish for something else,” she said, clearing her throat. “I don’t mind. I’ll think of something else.”
“No, no,” the old man said, raising his hands and waving them like flags. “There’s nothing wrong with it, not at all. It’s just a little surprising, miss. Don’t you have something else? Like, say, you want to be prettier, or smarter, or rich: you’re OK with not wishing for something like that—something an ordinary girl would ask for?”