After school started the days got short. By half past four it was going dark. By five thirty, when the broadcast read the weather, you couldn't make out a face in the courtyard.
We reported at the same old place. Master Qiao cleared a little more of the half table — enough now for two schoolbags.
He didn't ask what we were reporting. He moved his soldering iron over to the windowsill and said: don't touch the metal stand. It's hot.
I skipped the last two afternoon classes. The homeroom teacher didn't ask. She drew a circle in her book, behind my name.
I asked what the circle was for. She said: it looks nice.
I said: then I won't come every day.
She said: if you don't come every day, I'll draw one every day.
I had nothing to say to that.
Before Master Qiao played a notice, he coughed first. Then he pressed the switch. The cough was louder than the notice.
People in the courtyard said, when you hear the cough, something's up.
Once he told us not to run around indoors. We weren't running. He said it anyway.
He said: the two of you together are louder than a whole class.
Wang Chaosheng said: just me.
Master Qiao ignored him.
Erya stopped coming. Her mother told people in the courtyard, she's slow, can't get the words out, no point going.
Erya just jumped elastic in the courtyard. One end tied to a tree, the other end she held herself.
Once I walked past and she called: hey.
I didn't stop. I looked back once. She picked the elastic up again and kept jumping.
A few days later she cut me off in the courtyard. She asked: what do you do at the mill office?
I said: report numbers.
She said: report what numbers?
I said: numbers.
She went oh. She looped the elastic over my wrist and said: hold it for me.
I held it for a while.
The pairing was set in early October. That day we were both there.
I reported first. I reported two. He went after me and reported six.
When the recorder finished writing, he looked up. He looked at me, then at him.
He said: you two report together.
I said: how together?
He said: he says the words. You say what's between the words.
Wang Chaosheng said: between what?
The recorder said: never mind. You just let them out.
He put down his pen and said: begin.
Wang Chaosheng opened his mouth and reported. Fast, one after another: Bright. Go. Press. East.
I waited for him to finish.
I said: it says there's a bright thing walking in the east.
The recorder wrote.
Wang Chaosheng said: I didn't say east side.
I said: you said east.
He said: I said east. Not east side.
The recorder said: keep going.
The rules got set over those two days. No prompting each other; no turning back to ask; no putting in what you didn't hear yourself; what doesn't connect gets thrown out.
The recorder said: throwing out costs nothing. Filling in costs.
Wang Chaosheng asked: costs what?
The recorder said: no more reporting today.
Wang Chaosheng stopped asking.
Once he reported five: North. Go. Slow. Down. Bright.
I said: it says there's a walking thing in the north, slow, going bright downward.
The recorder wrote. When he finished he asked: what's "bright downward"?
I said: don't know.
He said: next one.
Once he reported nine. The nine words were jammed in my mouth, none of them touching.
I said: won't connect.
He said: wait a bit more.
I waited a long time. Long enough that Master Qiao set his soldering iron down.
I said: won't connect.
He closed the book and said: that's it for today.
On Fridays he still stitched the sheets into a stack. Three holes with the awl, and before punching he pressed the paper down flat, leaving a crease.
When he finished he asked: is this week complete?
Wang Chaosheng said: complete.
I said: not complete.
The recorder looked at me.
I said: there's one day's numbers I can't remember.
He said: then write "can't remember."
He really wrote it in that column, three characters: can't remember.
The first week, nothing connected.
He reported too many. Once he reported eleven. I caught four.
He reported the other seven again, louder. Master Qiao tapped on the window from outside.
I said: too many.
He said: if I heard it, I have to report it.
I said: won't connect.
He said: that's your problem.
I said: then throw it out.
He said: why throw out my words?
I said: won't connect.
He went quiet. He took the pencil stub out of his mouth and pressed it flat in his palm.
Once the recorder told him to keep it down. There were other people in the room that day.
He reported in a squeezed voice. One line in, he stuck.
He said: can't get it out.
The recorder said: why not?
He said: when it's small, it's not there.
The recorder said: then be louder.
So he was loud. Everyone in the room looked at him. He didn't look at them.
Once he asked me: what are we, do you think? You and me.
I said: don't know.
He said: like weaving.
I said: what?
He said: my mom said it. One thread doesn't make cloth. A warp thread, then a weft thread — that's when it becomes cloth.
I said: who's the warp?
He said: I'm the warp.
I said: then I'm the weft.
He said: weft works too.
His mother was in the weaving shop, three shifts. His father was in the boiler room. At his house you had to shout to talk, the machines were that loud.
He said his big voice was trained into him from small. I didn't believe it. He said, if you don't believe me, come to my house and listen.
I didn't go.
His family lived in the row behind the boiler room. He said the walls of the room were warm, and in winter his mother set the dough basin against the wall to let the dough rise.
I said: so your house is warm.
He said: warm, sure. Loud.
I said: loud and you can still sleep?
He said: I sleep fine. The second my mom yells, I'm up.
Mom asked: who's the one you report with?
I said: Wang Chaosheng.
She said: he's loud.
I said: mm.
She said: his mother's in the weaving shop.
I said: mm.
She said: don't you two go shouting in other people's rooms.
I said: mm.
She didn't say anything after that. She opened the knitting notebook, then closed it. Didn't write.
Once I tried teaching him. I said: don't pop them out one at a time. Try putting two together.
He put two together. He held it in so long his face went red.
He said: can't.
I said: why not?
He said: put together, it turns into my words.
I said: what's wrong with your words?
He said: my words don't count.
I said: do my words count?
He said: yours, he writes down.
I said: oh.
A few days later the recorder changed how he kept it. He drew one line down a page — left side for Wang Chaosheng's words, right side for what I connected.
He said: this way you can see which words got in.
Wang Chaosheng asked: how many of my words got in?
The recorder said: three out of five.
Wang Chaosheng said: where's the other two?
The recorder said: didn't get in.
Wang Chaosheng stopped talking.
Once he reported a word I had never heard.
I waited for it to settle by itself. It didn't settle.
I said: this one I don't know.
He said: me neither. I heard it. I don't know what it is.
The recorder said: then report "don't know."
He said: you write that down too?
The recorder said: write it.
So he reported it: don't know.
And the recorder wrote it in the book.
Once the recorder had us stand apart. Me outside the door, Wang Chaosheng inside, reporting through the wooden door.
The door was shut. On the door panel was a patched scar, standing a little higher than the wood around it.
He reported from inside: Bright. Press. Go. North.
I said from outside: it says there's a pressed thing in the north, walking toward the bright.
The recorder pushed the door open. He looked at me once, then at Wang Chaosheng once.
He said: again.
That day one line went into the book, a line I couldn't read. When he finished writing he closed the book.
Once the recorder said: switch and try.
I reported the words: Press. East. Steady.
Wang Chaosheng waited a long time. He said: it says something pressed in the east.
The recorder said: and the steady?
Wang Chaosheng said: steady won't connect.
The recorder said: why won't it connect?
Wang Chaosheng said: I don't know where it's steady.
He flung the pencil stub onto the table. It bounced and rolled to Master Qiao's feet. Master Qiao picked it up, blew the dust off, and handed it back.
My blue booklet was still number thirty-six. Number thirty-seven sat empty.
Once Wang Chaosheng leaned over and saw it. He asked: how come the number's empty?
I said: haven't thought of one.
He said: then leave it empty for now.
I said: mm.
He said: empty looks bad.
I said: bad or not, it stays empty.
He went oh and turned back to his own book. His book was up to forty-six, the characters jammed together, some of them pushed out past the printed squares.
The recorder said it once: every word that goes in a book takes a number. When the book reaches fifty, there are no more words after that.
Wang Chaosheng asked: what then, no more words?
The recorder said: print more later.
That sentence I kept for many years.
Once Mom read me the words in her book. She read four, slowly.
I waited for them to connect by themselves. I waited a while. They didn't.
Mom said: did they connect?
I said: no.
She said: listen again.
She read them once more. Still nothing.
I said: what you're reading isn't it.
She said: what I wrote down is what I read.
I said: once it's written down it changes.
She went oh, closed the book, and put it under the sewing basket.
The time it connected was at the end of the month.
That day he reported seven. When he finished he went silent.
The seven words lined up in my mouth for a while. When they were lined up, I spoke.
I said: it says, not quite there yet. A little bit more and it'll be steady.
The recorder's hand stopped for a moment. He wrote. When he finished he asked: a little bit more of what?
I said: don't know. It didn't say.
He said: steady — what's steady?
I said: that same one. The one that's been setting a long time.
He didn't ask again. He put down his pen and said: that'll do.
Outside the door my palms were all sweat. I wiped them twice on my pants.
Wang Chaosheng said: what's wrong with your hands?
I said: nothing.
He said: you connected it.
I said: mm.
He said: I didn't do anything either.
I said: mm.
He swung his bag onto his shoulder, took two steps, and looked back — I was still standing in the same spot. He said: come on.
He dug two candies out of his pocket. Fruit candies, the hard kind, one each.
The wrapper stuck to the candy, wouldn't peel off clean. He stuck his whole candy in his mouth, wrapper and all.
I said: paper.
He said: doesn't matter.
I let the candy melt, then crunched it. The crumbs stuck to my bottom teeth until night.
Wang Chaosheng said his had melted long ago, wrapper and all. He said: melted, then it doesn't poke.
He never ran short of things. There was always something in his pockets: marbles, tin scraps, half a piece of chalk. He gave the half chalk to the recorder.
The recorder said: I have my own.
He said: words can be traded too.
I said: traded for what?
He said: last time I traded some words to the compound across the river. Three marbles.
I said: who wants your words?
He said: they do.
I said: for what?
He said: don't know. They said writing them down looks nice.
I said: oh.
Around then he kept bringing up "the last batch."
He said: the last batch doesn't come anymore.
I said: where did they go?
He said: don't know. If you don't come, it means you've grown up.
I said: grown up and you stop coming?
He said: my mom says so. My mom says when you're grown you get sensible.
I said: is sensible the same as not coming?
He said: I don't know either.
The day it happened was overcast. A small rain, not much, landing in the enamel mug outside the window, circle after circle.
We got there early. Nobody in the room. The door open.
Wang Chaosheng sat on the table, both legs swinging, heels knocking the table leg, one knock after another.
He said: I heard a thing.
I said: what thing?
He said: about the last batch.
I said: what last batch?
He said: the batch older than us. One of them, on the day he turned twelve, locked himself into the broadcasting room.
I said: lock in and do what?
He said: record.
I said: record what?
He said: record himself. Record until he couldn't understand anymore.
I said: did it take?
He said: Master Qiao says it won't take.
I said: then why did he keep recording?
He said: he still wanted to.
I asked: where is he now?
Wang Chaosheng opened his mouth.
The door opened.
The man in the dark jacket came in. He carried a paper bag in his hand, walked to the table, and set the bag down.
He glanced at us. He said: report yours.
So Wang Chaosheng reported. He reported: Bright. Go. Press. East.
I took it: it says there's a bright thing walking in the east.
The man listened, then nodded. He picked up the paper bag and left.
His soles were soft. Once he was far, you couldn't hear him.
Wang Chaosheng didn't go on. I didn't ask.
We finished reporting, got our books back, came out. The rain had stopped. Water lay in patches on the ground; a step in it came up mud.
By the boiler room I asked: what were you going to say?
He said: what?
I said: you opened your mouth.
He said: forgot.
His shoes were wet; every step went squelch. Even without him saying so, I didn't ask again.
Once I went around the back of the broadcasting station alone. The window back there was high too.
I stood on my toes. Arm up, fingertips just catching the windowsill — past that, nothing.
There was dust on the sill. I ran my hand across it; one black stripe on my fingers.
Inside, something moved — Master Qiao shifting things around. I listened a while. Couldn't make out anything.
I put my hand down.
That night I did some counting.
I'm seven this year. To twelve, five more years.
How many days is five years, I couldn't work out. On the back of the blue booklet I drew five strokes.
The fifth stroke went crooked. I erased it and drew it again.
Mom came in to collect the laundry. She saw the book and asked: drawing what?
I said: numbers.
She said: what numbers?
I said: days.
She went mm and went to get her knitting notebook. She didn't ask again.
That night I woke once. The room dark, the broadcast long off. I lay and listened.
Nothing. I pulled the blanket up and slept again.
A grown-up in the courtyard asked us: you two run to the mill office every day — did you get made cadres?
Wang Chaosheng said: yes.
I said: no.
The man laughed and said: about the same.
I didn't understand "about the same."
Once the recorder asked: how many connected this week?
I said: three.
He said: you remember it clean?
I said: clean.
He opened the book and counted. He said: it's three.
He closed the book and said: good.
I didn't know why he had to say "good."
The next day we reported together as usual. He popped the words, I connected.
If it wouldn't connect, we started over. Three tries and still nothing, the recorder said: that's it for today.
Passing the broadcasting station after school. The door shut. Through the lock's hasp ran a piece of wire, its end twisted twice.
The windows were too high to see in. On the sill sat an enamel mug, tea stains in the bottom.
I stood and looked for a while.
Wang Chaosheng said: let's go.
I said: oh.
I took two steps. Behind me he called out once.
He said: if you ever go lock a door too, I'll wait outside for you.
I said: waiting for what?
He said: waiting for it to finish recording.
I said: oh.
I looked back once. He was still standing there, schoolbag in his hand, hanging down.