On the morning of December 1, when the dispatch clerk set a bag of exchange items on her desk, she was numbering the stubs of last week's translation sheets, numbering them with the station pencil that had adhesive tape wound around its barrel, its point gone blunt so that it wrote half a size thicker than anyone else's; the bag was the bureau's, a return slip pinned to its string, and in the slip's "addressee" field her name was printed, and after her name, in brackets, a staff number she herself had not used in three years.
Inside the bag, three things.
One copy of the Regulations on the Use and Legal Status of Deep-Rendering Collection Results (Provisional), nine pages of body text, four of appendix, and in the top-left corner of the first page a blue stamp reading "provisional," stamped square, the blank margin the same width on all four sides.
One excerpt from the Joint Communiqué of the International Translation Affairs (Seventh Session) · Authoritative Chinese Text, two pages, the header printed "internal · for collation," the footer printed with the date of issue, the number of copies, and one small line of characters, that line two sizes smaller than the body text; she read it twice before she could read it, and what it said was "the authoritative Chinese text shall prevail."
The third thing was a photocopy of Zhou Shu's December 1 translation-class record. In the top-right corner of the copy a handwritten "submitted," the characters the translation-class instructor's, the pen pressed hard, the last stroke dragging out past its end and dragging a crease into the edge of the paper.
She read the appendices first, and when she'd finished she squared the nine pages of body text in order, and as she squared them pressed once with her palm along the spine side — an old habit of hers with documents; pressed that way, a page turned didn't carry the next one over with it.
The seventh article of the excerpt she later copied out whole into the soft notebook, and copying it she found that the whole passage held only two full stops:
The parties agreed that the relevant process was still under way, and that its completion would still need time; the parties reaffirmed that they would follow it with prudence, good faith, and patience, and stood ready, within that process, to bear responsibilities proportionate to their respective capacities, and called on all to maintain restraint and confidence.
When she'd finished copying she counted the characters: seventy-four.
She brought the photocopy over and set it beside the passage she'd copied. The line in the translation-class record was seventeen characters:
It says, you're not done setting it. It said it again. It sounded hurried.
In the soft notebook she wrote one line: seventy-four / seventeen. When she'd written it she set the pencil down on the paper and let it lie two seconds before lifting it away.
She squared the two sheets and stapled them once at the top-left corner. The last time, she had unstapled what she stapled; this time she did not.
Then she took the pencil and circled the "you" in the photocopy.
Circled, she pulled the excerpt pages toward her and drew a box beside the words "the relevant process." The box was empty.
She looked at the empty box for a while.
She turned to the excerpt's footer. The footer carried a number, six digits, the record number being cited. She counted: six digits. The number on the translation-class record was seven digits; the first six were the same as these.
With the pencil she put a dot under the footer line.
She had never seen the original of the translation-class record. She phoned the second floor of the laboratory building; the one who answered was the head of academic affairs, and he said the record was with the teaching group, and the teaching group came in only in the afternoon.
She said: then I want this one item off the copy.
He said: the copy is all there is.
She said: one item per report?
He said: one item per report.
She said: who reported it.
He said: the instructor.
She said: before reporting it, did anyone ask the child.
He said: no.
She said: then it was the child saying it herself.
He paused.
He said: if you want to put it that way, that works too.
She hung up. When she'd hung up she wrote in the soft notebook: unasked, self-reported. Under the words she drew a line.
At half past ten Comrade Tong phoned. First he gave his unit, then his name, then the document number, the three delivered at one even pace with no pause between; from the day she'd entered the bureau, every call of his had opened this way.
He said: this one's a copy to us; yours came through the station.
He said: the regulations go provisional from today.
She said: provisional for how long.
He said: not written.
She said: before, could deep renderings get into the text.
He said: before, they only went into the ledger.
She said: why can they now.
He said: now there's a procedure.
He said: two staff compilers sign, noting the time of collection, the persons present, and the record number of the original words, and it counts.
She said: and the ones that can't be checked.
He said: the ones that can't be checked don't count.
She said: then can this one be checked.
He paused.
He said: this one has two signatures.
She said: what they signed is what they heard.
He said: what they signed is what the child said.
She said: the same thing.
He said: the same in procedure.
When she said that, both ends went quiet. While it was quiet she heard paper on his end, the sound of someone in an office taking in newspapers, one flip and one shake.
He said: Engineer Lin.
She said: go ahead.
He said: this thing going up the line — it's a good thing.
She said: I know.
As she said it she heard for herself that the answer had come too fast, fast by half a beat; she rolled the pencil once across her finger and added nothing.
She said: that number in the footer is six digits.
He said: the type area prints six.
She said: and the seventh.
He said: in the appendix.
She said: who reads the appendix.
He said: the appendix is filed.
She hung up. Xiao Jiang came past her desk carrying an enamel mug, a ring of tea stains at the rim, one layer thicker again today.
He said: children's words can serve as documents now.
She said: they can.
He said: so from now on what they say has to stand.
She said: it didn't before.
He said: before it went into the ledger.
He laughed once at that and carried the mug off.
She didn't turn her head.
The document's countersignature block was on the last page. She counted: seven signatures, the first six in blue-black ink, all signed the same size, as if written inside the boxes; the last in ballpoint, three characters, the final stroke sweeping up at the end, longer than the six before it, longer by a little under half a centimeter.
She looked at it two seconds and turned the paper back to the first page.
Comrade Tong had passed on one sentence of Bureau Director Gu's.
He said: Bureau Director Gu said at the meeting, children's words can't stay drafts for good.
She said: the original words.
He said: the original words.
She said: was it minuted.
He said: it was. In the minutes.
She said: will the minutes go out.
He said: they go out.
She said: down to what level.
He said: down to every level that has children.
She didn't understand that one, and didn't press. In the notebook she wrote "the level that has children," and after it set down a question mark.
Before noon the division chief came to her for a thing.
What he wanted was the station's written opinion, two pages, stating that this excerpt of the communiqué raised no conflict with the sequence of translation sheets the station held.
She said: conflict meaning what.
He said: meaning don't write conflict.
She said: then what do I write.
He said: write what you measured.
She said: what I measured was translation sheets.
He said: translation sheets are enough.
She said: that sentence in the communiqué isn't a translation sheet.
He said: that's not ours to decide.
After she said that she said nothing more. She went back to her office and wrote the two pages, and when she'd finished crossed out one sentence in the third line — the crossed-out line read "the witness statement and the instrument-side record do not agree." She looked at the strike a while, then folded the paper once, folding it on the side without the strike.
In the afternoon she laid out the week's translation-sheet stubs by date.
In the to-verify square, the days with writing had not added any new ones.
She lined up the days that carried characters by date; the intervals were still the line she'd copied last time: 3, 2, 1, 4, 1, 2.
After it she wrote three more characters: no pattern. She looked at them two seconds, same as the last time, and did not strike them out.
She set this line beside the communiqué's seventh article and read the two together. After a while she turned the communiqué's page over and laid it on top of the translation sheets.
At two in the afternoon she went up to the third floor.
He Che was still there. The wheeled case stood in the corner, its handle not pushed down, and the third case still had that one loud wheel — she had known it by ear from the corridor.
He was revising the draft, red pen, and at each revision pasted a small slip beside it, the slips cut a little bigger than a matchbox.
She said: you heard.
He said: the bureau sent it down in the morning.
She held the excerpt pages out. He didn't take them, so she laid the paper on the desk, beside his printout.
He read. He read both pages through, and when he'd finished pulled the paper a little toward himself.
He said: this sentence — I'll cut it open for you.
On the slip he wrote: continuing. unfinished. responsibility.
He said: it matches the draft.
She said: does it match the person.
He didn't answer.
She said: the draft has a "you."
He said: I know.
She said: the communiqué doesn't.
He said: the authoritative Chinese text doesn't.
He said: I read it three times.
She said: when they changed it, they changed the address first.
He said: change the address and the sentence no longer needs changing.
She wrote the sentence down. Under it she drew a line, wider than the characters.
He said: in my set, second person is still zero instances.
She said: then what does this count as.
He said: it counts as yours.
He said: it doesn't enter mine.
She said: it's entered the international text.
He said: entering the text isn't entering the system.
After she said that she looked up at him. He was pressing the small slip flat, pressing with the side of his index finger, and there on the finger was a press mark, a fresh one.
She said: the box numbered fifty-one to one hundred — have you opened it.
He said: no.
She said: this translation-class record has one word in it, with "unnumbered" in brackets after it.
He set the pen down.
He said: read it to me.
She said: I won't read it. I'll show you.
She turned the photocopy over and put her finger on the line: what the teacher had written was "□ (unnumbered)," and after it, in brackets, four characters — an action, unfinished.
He said: actions divide into numbered and unnumbered too.
She said: how many are numbered.
He said: fifty.
She said: what number is this one.
He said: it has no number.
He said: the number's held; the entry is blank.
She said: then what is it.
He said: it's an action.
She said: what action.
He said: I don't know.
He said: everything I know is on those fifty cards.
He said: the cards are blank.
He said: the bureau wants me to add a chapter.
She said: on what.
He said: on deep renderings.
She said: I thought you wouldn't take them.
He said: the law takes them.
She said: and your system.
He said: mine goes in an appendix.
She said: does an appendix count as the system.
He said: an appendix doesn't count.
She wrote that down under "entering the text isn't entering the system," with one blank line between the two.
When he'd finished saying it he set his hand on the second card box, let it rest there a moment, and didn't lift the lid.
At six twenty in the evening she got home. Zhou Yu was standing at the entrance of the building, a kraft envelope under his arm, its mouth rolled twice.
He said: I filed.
She said: filed what.
He said: taking the child away for three days.
She said: when.
He said: mid-December.
She said: where.
He said: southeast Guizhou.
She said: how far.
He said: a flight first, then a car. Four hours by car.
She said: mountains.
He said: mountains.
He drew a printout out of the envelope, a stapled sheaf, the first page a table of contents, and under the contents a printed number, the number in the bureau's format — a format he had fitted onto it himself.
He said: tested four times a year. Four quarters, all below the detection limit.
She said: who tested.
He said: they did. Themselves.
She said: what's the detection limit.
He gave a number. She wrote it in the soft notebook and after it put two characters in brackets: self-tested.
She said: you trust the materials.
He said: I don't.
He said: I've been to two.
She said: both below the detection limit.
He said: the third I haven't been to.
He said: I plan to take her.
She said: take her to see what.
He said: to see her go two days without speaking.
She said: say it plainly.
He said: to see her quiet two days.
She didn't answer that.
She said: finish what you're saying.
He said: there's no underhum there.
She said: not measuring it doesn't mean it isn't there.
He said: I know.
He said: that's why I'm taking her.
She said: the station's record paper runs a baseline, flat — I've read two meters of it.
She said: the mountain kind I haven't read.
He said: neither have I.
When he'd said that, the two of them stopped. While they stood stopped the light in the stairwell went out, on its timer, and after it went the doorway had a dark patch in it.
She thought of the magnitude-seven of November 19; each time it came up, she pressed it back down.
He put the printout back in the envelope. At the bottom of the envelope there was one more A4 page, a map, one patch of ground circled three times in pencil, circled heavy, the third circle pressed down onto the ink.
She looked once and didn't ask.
When he was leaving, the map slid out of the envelope and fell on the concrete at the entrance. He didn't see it, and she didn't call out.
She bent, picked it up, wiped the dust off on her trousers, slid it into the kraft envelope, and put it at the very bottom.
From his pocket he took out a form. Printed, the format the same as the bureau's issue, the columns two millimeters narrower — a layout he had set himself.
He said: I follow the procedure.
She said: date the signature today.
He wrote it. When he'd finished he handed her the form. She signed in the guardian's column and capped the pen when she'd finished.
She said: forty-eight hours.
He said: forty-eight hours.
He folded the form twice and put it into his jacket pocket.
He said: the morning of the twelfth.
She said: phone me when you arrive.
He said: once a day.
She said: does she know where she's going.
He said: I told her it was a trip.
She said: she'll ask why there's no sound.
He said: she'll ask.
She said: what will you say.
He said: I'll say that's how the mountains are.
She didn't answer that.
When he'd said it he left. As he walked the envelope stayed under his arm, and one of the two rolls at its mouth had come undone.
She went upstairs and turned the desk calendar. December's page was blank paper, the dates printed, the squares empty.
In the square for the third she wrote one line: special services, 14:30.
She looked at it two seconds, then left one more blank line underneath.
On the evening of December 2 she brought the two pages home.
After dinner there were bowls left on the table; she pushed them further in and spread the excerpt pages in front of Zhou Shu. The paper's edge lay across the seam of the table.
Zhou Shu looked at the header first, two seconds.
She began to read. She read slowly, and at "its completion would still need time" she stopped a moment, then went on to the end.
When she'd finished reading she put the paper down.
She said: that isn't what I said.
She said: what I said was a lot uglier.
Lin Wanzhao said: what did you say.
Zhou Shu said: it says, you're not done setting it.
Lin Wanzhao said: and after that.
Zhou Shu said: nothing after.
Lin Wanzhao said: the draft has more.
Zhou Shu said: I don't remember it.
Lin Wanzhao said: which part was ugly.
Zhou Shu said: I said it was hurried.
Lin Wanzhao said: hurried.
Zhou Shu said: hurried doesn't sound nice.
She said: it was rushing somebody.
Lin Wanzhao said: rushing who.
Zhou Shu said: don't know.
She said: the one you all wrote is too nice.
Lin Wanzhao said: is nice bad.
Zhou Shu said: if it's nice, it isn't me saying it.
She said: who's this for.
Lin Wanzhao said: for grown-ups.
Zhou Shu said: which country's.
Lin Wanzhao said: many countries.
Zhou Shu said: will they understand.
Lin Wanzhao said: they sign.
Zhou Shu said: then where do I sign.
Lin Wanzhao said: there's nowhere for you to sign.
Zhou Shu said: then what am I.
Lin Wanzhao said: the draft.
Zhou Shu said: what's a draft.
Lin Wanzhao said: the thing they quote.
Zhou Shu said: and after they've quoted it.
Lin Wanzhao didn't answer.
She said: then do I still say things or not.
Lin Wanzhao said: say them if you want.
She said: even if I say them, they aren't me saying them.
Lin Wanzhao said: on the draft, it's you saying them.
Zhou Shu said: nobody reads the draft.
Lin Wanzhao didn't answer that. She reached over and moved the paper back an inch, back to the table's seam, parallel with the table's edge.
Zhou Shu stood up. Her bag straps hung one long, one short. Lin Wanzhao reached out and evened them, and didn't get them even.
She said: what time tomorrow.
Lin Wanzhao said: two thirty.
Zhou Shu said: oh.
She went into her room. Before she closed the door she lifted the door handle up — the handle had gone loose; lifted, it locked.
Lin Wanzhao put the two sheets back into the kraft envelope and tied the mouth shut.
She opened the soft notebook to the page with seventy-four / seventeen and traced the "you" once more. When she'd traced it the pencil tip stopped on the paper and pricked a small dot.
On the desk calendar, under the square for the third, the blank line was still there.
In the blank line she wrote one character: hurried.
She looked at it two seconds and did not strike it out.
She pushed the desk calendar back under the telephone, back to where it had stood.