Collected Prose

looking everywhere for that book.”
    “It’s wonderful,” the young woman answered. “I just finished reading it.”
    “Do you know where I could find another copy?” R. asked. “I can’t tell you how much it would mean to me.”
    “This one is for you,” the woman answered.
    “But it’s yours,” R. said.
    “It was mine,” the woman said, “but now I’m finished with it. I came here today to give it to you.”

7

    Twelve years ago, my wife’s sister went off to live in Taiwan. Her intention was to study Chinese (which she now speaks with breathtaking fluency) and to support herself by giving English lessons to native Chinese speakers in Taipei. That was approximately one year before I met my wife, who was then a graduate student at Columbia University.
    One day, my future sister-in-law was talking to an American friend, a young woman who had also gone to Taipei to study Chinese. The conversation came around to the subject of their families back home, which in turn led to the following exchange:
    “I have a sister who lives in New York,” my future sister-in-law said.
    “So do I,” her friend answered.
    “My sister lives on the Upper West Side.”
    “So does mine.”
    “My sister lives on West 109th Street.”
    “Believe it or not, so does mine.”
    “My sister lives at 309 West 109th Street.”
    “So does mine!”
    “My sister lives on the second floor of 309 West 109th Street.”
    The friend took a deep breath and said, “I know this sounds crazy, but so does mine.”
    It is scarcely possible for two cities to be farther apart than Taipei and New York. They are at opposite ends of the earth, separated by a distance of more than ten thousand miles, and when it is day in one it is night in the other. As the two young women in Taipei marveled over the astounding connection they had just uncovered, they realized that their two sisters were probably asleep at that moment. On the same floor of the same building in northern Manhattan, each one was sleeping in her own apartment, unaware of the conversation that was taking place about them on the other side of the world.
    Although they were neighbors, it turned out that the two sisters in New York did not know each other. When they finally met (two years later), neither one of them was living in that building anymore.
    Siri and I were married then. One evening, on our way to an appointment somewhere, we happened to stop in at a bookstore on Broadway to browse for a few minutes. We must have wandered into different aisles, and because Siri wanted to show me something, or because I wanted to show her something (I can’t remember), one of us spoke the other’s name out loud. A second later, a woman came rushing up to us. “You’re Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, aren’t you?” she said. “Yes,” we said, “that’s exactly who we are. How did you know that?” The woman then explained that her sister and Siri’s sister had been students together in Taiwan.
    The circle had been closed at last. Since that evening in the bookstore ten years ago, this woman has been one of our best and most loyal friends.

8

    Three summers ago, a letter turned up in my mailbox. It came in a white oblong envelope and was addressed to someone whose name was unfamiliar to me: Robert M. Morgan of Seattle, Washington. Various post office markings were stamped across the front: Not Deliverable, Unable to Forward, Return to Writer . Mr. Morgan’s name had been crossed out with a pen, and beside it someone had written Not at this address . Drawn in the same blue ink, an arrow pointed to the upper-left-hand corner of the envelope, accompanied by the words Return to sender . Assuming that the post office had made a mistake, I checked the upper-left-hand corner to see who the sender was. There, to my absolute bewilderment, I discovered my own name and my own address. Not only that, but this information was printed on a custom-made address label (one of those labels you can order in packs of two hundred from advertisements on matchbook covers). The spelling of my name was correct, the address was my address—and yet the fact was (and still is) that I have never owned or ordered a set of printed address labels in my life.
    Inside, there was a single-spaced typewritten letter that began: “Dear Robert, In response to your letter dated July 15, 1989, I can only say that, like other authors, I often receive letters concerning my work.” Then, in a bombastic,