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hide behind. From time to time, distant streaks of lightning attacked the ground and cracked the sky with light. Ko wondered who would inform his wife if a flash of electricity from the sky should hit him.
    Then he came to a small town with an ice-rink and four churches, several stores and two schools. It also had an empty cafe with five dusty booths, a counter with nine stools and living quarters for the owner. The business had been dead for a long time. The bank that owned it wanted to recover some of its money, so it set a low price and lent Ko some money. He bought it and then pumped pails of water to scrub the long mirror, the windows and chairs, the range and the oven.
    On opening day, the café leaked aromas of hot coffee, fresh-baked bread and sugar-glazed doughnuts onto the street.
    At mid-morning, the bell over the door tinkled and in strode the seed-and-feed storekeeper, a man with an ample belly. After coffee and apple pie, he exclaimed, “Welcome to our town! This tastes wonderful!”
    â€œVery ordinary,” Ko said modestly. “You like?”
    â€œOf course. People will fill your place in no time. I guarantee it!” Then he leaned close. “Sure hope you’ll stay. Other China men tried to run this place, but they claimed it was haunted and quit.”
    Ko gulped.
    â€œDidn’t the bank warn you? Years ago, this cafe was so busy that the China man hired a farm girl as a waitress. She worked six days a week, from dawn to dusk. Then he sold the business and returned to China. But the girl had secretly fallen in love with him, and in her sadness she doused herself with kerosene and lit a match. You believe in ghosts?”
    Ko just shrugged and let the question go unanswered.
    That night, he fell into bed after a steady stream of lunch, coffee break and supper customers. At midnight, a loud crash awoke him. In the kitchen, a dinner plate lay broken on the floor. He frowned. He had washed the dishes in a soapy hurry, so maybe the plate hadn’t been stacked properly. He swept up the pieces and went to sleep.
    The next night, another noise awoke him. In the dining room, a chair had toppled over. Maybe it hadn’t been properly balanced when he swung it onto the table to mop the floor. He set it upright and went back to bed.
    On the third night, before going to sleep, Ko fried a steak and made toast, coffee and gravy. He set out cutlery and a napkin and placed the food near the stove to keep warm. Then he switched off the lights.
    That night, nothing disturbed him.
    From then on, Ko put out a meal each evening. It might be a chicken leg or a hamburger, a slice of roast or beef tongue —whatever the daily special was. In the morning, the food would still be sitting there, cold and dry. He shrugged and concluded ghosts did not eat but could enjoy the aromas instead.
    Five years went by, and then another five. Ko developed a steady routine. He kneaded dough for bread early in the morning, he chopped a week’s supply of wood every Sunday, and he planted a garden of lettuce and tomatoes. In the summer, the oven and stove roasted him; in the winter, he brought in ice from outside and melted it for drinking water. The townspeople were friendly, but no one invited him home, so he sat alone at nights. He longed to return to his wife and China, but his debt to the bank wasn’t paid off yet.
    When chores were finished, he wrote letters to his wife describing the work of the cafe. He never mentioned leav­ing out food in order to keep the peace. Their wedding portrait stood close by, and one glance at her face always eased his loneliness. He had always hoped to start a family, but grimly realized that time was hurtling by without any regard for him. In the mirror, his reflection showed many gray hairs.
    One night, a weary Ko left the sink cluttered and fell into bed without washing everything. The next morning, he found all the dishes clean and dried.
    Another day, he overslept