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good reason, was
wondering why.
     
    ‘I got a letter yesterday,“ I began.
     
    He nodded.
     
    ‘It was from Vida Winter.“
     
    Father raised his eyebrows but waited for me to go on.
     
    ‘It seems to be an invitation for me to visit her. With a view
to writing her biography.“
     
    His eyebrows lifted by another few millimeters.
     
    ‘I couldn’t sleep, so I came down to get the book.“
     
    I waited for Father to speak, but he didn’t. He was thinking, a
small frown creasing his brow. After a time I spoke again. “Why is it kept in
the cabinet? What makes it so valuable?”
     
    Father pulled himself away from his train of thought to answer.
“Partly because it’s the first edition of the first book by the most famous
living writer in the English language. But mostly because it’s flawed. Every
following edition is called Tales of Change and Desperation. No mention of
thirteen. You’ll have noticed there are only twelve stories?”
     
    I nodded.
     
    ‘Presumably there were originally supposed to be thirteen, then
only twelve were submitted. But there was a mixup with the jacket design and
the book was printed with the original title and only twelve stories. They had
to be recalled.“
     
    ‘But your copy…“
     
    ‘Slipped through the net. One of a batch sent out by mistake to
a shop in Dorset, where one customer bought a copy before the shop got the
message to pack them up and send them back. Thirty years ago he realized what
the value might be and sold it to a collector. The collector’s estate was
auctioned in September and I bought it. With the proceeds from the Avignon
deal.“
     
    ‘The Avignon deal?“ It had taken two years to negotiate the
Avignon deal. It was one of Father’s most lucrative successes.
     
    ‘You wore the gloves, of course?“ he asked sheepishly.
     
    ‘Who do you take me for?“
     
    He smiled before continuing. “All that effort for nothing.”
     
    ‘What do you mean?“
     
    ‘Recalling all those books because the title was wrong. Yet
people still call it the Thirteen Tales, even though it’s been published as
Tales of Change and Desperation for half a century.“
     
    ‘Why is that?“
     
    ‘It’s what a combination of fame and secrecy does. With real
knowledge about her so scant, fragments of information like the story of the
recalled first edition take on an importance beyond their weight. It has become
part of her mythology. The mystery of the thirteenth tale. It gives people
something to speculate about.“
     
    There is a short silence. Then, directing his gaze vaguely into
the middle distance, and speaking lightly so that I could pick up his words or
let them go, as I chose, he murmured, “And now a biography… How unexpected.”
     
    I remembered the letter, my fear that its writer was not to be
trusted. I remembered the insistence of the young man’s words, “Tell me die
truth.” I remembered the Thirteen Tales that took possession of me with its
first words and held me captive all night. I wanted to be held hostage again.
     
    ‘I don’t know what to do,“ I told my father.
     
    ‘It is different from what you have done before. Vida Winter is
a living subject. Interviews instead of archives.“
     
    I nodded.
     
    ‘But you want to know the person who wrote the Thirteen Tales.“
     
    I nodded again.
     
    My father put his hands on his knees and sighed. He knows what
reading is. How it takes you.
     
    ‘When does she want you to go?“
     
    ‘Monday,“ I told him.
     
    ‘I’ll run you to the station, shall I?“
     
    ‘Thank you. And—“
     
    ‘Yes?“
     
    ‘Can I have some time off? I ought to do some more reading
before I go up there.“
     
    ‘Yes,“ he said, with a smile that didn’t hide his worry. ”Yes,
of course.“
     
    *       
*         *
     
    There followed one of the most glorious times of my adult life.
For the first time ever I had on my bedside table a