A hundred days before my twelfth birthday — that count I set myself.
The calendar hung behind the door. Mom tore off a page every morning. While she cooked I carried the calendar to the windowsill and flipped through. I flipped to the page of my birthday and counted back, a hundred pages. On the hundredth page I folded a corner, then was afraid Mom would see, so I unfolded it and pressed a mark in with my fingernail.
That day I found a notebook. A forms booklet from the grain station, brought home by Dad, the page foot printed with two characters, pack one. The squares were printed in, ten rows to a page. I wrote with a pencil stub; the pencil had gone short, so I fitted it with a length of bamboo tube.
I went to the recorder first. He sat at the recording point, an iron clamp holding a stack of slips.
I asked him: important words, written down, left for people to read once a person's gone — what's that called.
He looked up at me. Longer than usual.
He said: who's gone.
I said: Grandma San in the back yard. Her family found a notebook of hers, and everyone said it was a good thing she'd written it.
He set the iron clamp down on the table. Set it down very lightly.
He said: that's called a will.
He said: you're not to write one of those.
I didn't move.
He said: write one if you like. Don't show it to people who don't know you.
Back home I wrote two characters on the cover: a will. I'd got one of the characters wrong — where, I didn't know at the time. Wrong or not, I didn't change notebooks. The notebook had thirty-eight pages, I'd counted. Enough.
The dictionary was issued by the bureau, one to each of us. The Little Dictionary of Children's Tongue, green cover, thicker than an exercise book, white paper, a smell of ink. The recording point handed them out, on a Friday, handed down together with the booklets, and everyone carried a stack home. My copy had a water stain soaked into the bottom right corner — rain on the way back; the other drops did nothing, only that one soaked in. Rough to the touch. The first page was number one, the number printed at the top left, the word underneath.
I wrote against the dictionary. Two a day — a hundred days to finish.
Number one, bright. I wrote: when the power goes out.
Number one I wrote slowest. When it was done I looked at it a while. That day was also the day I first heard it. That I didn't write.
Number nine, slow. I wrote: steaming buns, waiting for the steam to round over the pot.
Somewhere in the twenties, steady. I wrote: the bowl set on top, no rocking.
Number thirty-one, press. I wrote: the stone on the pickle jar.
Some words wrote easy. Some I thought about for a day. The ones I couldn't think of, I left the number empty, wrote the next one, came back to fill in.
I set myself a rule: two a day, no more. On a day I wrote more, I wrote one fewer the next day. Once I wrote four in a day; the next day I wrote only one, and when it was done my hand itched to write more. I shut the book, pressed it under my pillow, and sat a while.
The wrong ones I erased. The eraser had been cut to a small corner and worn bald; I shaved a fresh layer with a blade.
Number thirty-seven — the dictionary had a word there, but I couldn't write my line. I turned to the blue booklet; the number thirty-seven square still had its half of a speech radical. I set the two books facing each other and looked a while. Neither one moved.
Farther down, number forty-one, go. I wrote: Dad pushing the cart out of the lane, the moment he looks back.
At forty-four I stopped a beat while writing. Forty-four. I knew that number; I couldn't say where from. When I'd written the line, I pressed a mark in the page edge with my fingernail.
With eighty days left, I was in the forties.
Seventy days left, the sixties. School handed out a notice about the vaccination shots; on the back of the notice I did the sum — two a day, to reach two hundred I'd write right up to the day before my birthday, not a day to spare.
When I reached number fifty, something happened.
Fifty done, I turned the page. The page was white.
I turned another. White again.
I turned through sheet by sheet. The paper very white, whiter than the printed pages, not even a number at the page edge. Past five sheets, the page foot showed a number again: one hundred and one.
I shut the dictionary and opened it again, counted from fifty-one to one hundred. Fifty numbers, five sheets, blank. I pressed with a finger and counted twice.
My first thought was missing pages. Textbooks missed pages all the time — the bindery skipped them, you could go trade. I put the dictionary in my schoolbag and went to the recording point.
The recorder was cutting paper. The cutting blade held down; he wiped his hands first.
I turned the dictionary to page fifty-one and pushed it over.
I said: fifty-one to one hundred — they're blank.
He turned. Not fast, one sheet at a time. When he'd finished he pushed the dictionary back.
He said: they all are.
I said: every copy like this?
He said: every copy.
I said: then it's missing pages. Can I trade it?
He said: nothing's missing.
He said: it can't be printed.
I said: the back of the blue booklet has numbers. Numbers, no words.
He said: the booklet is the booklet, the dictionary is the dictionary.
I said: why can't it be printed.
He squared the cut sheets and tapped them once on the table.
He said: they asked you.
I said: when did they ask.
He said: a while ago.
He stood to lift the thermos. The water had been boiled a long time before; it roared going in.
I said: I don't remember.
He finished filling, pressed the stopper in, pressed twice.
He didn't take it up.
After a while he said: two hundred is the end. Nothing after.
I put the dictionary back in my bag. As I went out he said behind me: those five pages — don't fold them.
I didn't look back. On my copy, page fifty-one, my fingernail had already pressed its mark.
The next day in class I turned the dictionary under the desk, to where the blank pages were. The teacher came over and drew it away. He stood at the edge of the lectern turning it, came to page fifty-one, stopped.
He said: torn out?
I said: printed that way.
He turned another sheet, stopped again. He turned all five, turned back to one hundred and one, looked, turned back.
He asked: who tore them.
I said: nobody tore them. Every copy is like this.
He shut the dictionary, came over, returned it. Returning it he gave me one extra look and asked nothing more. After class he called me over and asked where the dictionary was issued from. I said the bureau. He said, understood. He said: don't fold the pages. He turned to wipe the blackboard, stopped halfway through, went on wiping.
Coming back from the recording point, I went to find Wang Chaosheng. His home was behind the boiler room, his dad's work clothes hung drying at the door. His mom had gone south, buying cloth, promising to be back for New Year. He was alone in the room; half a pot of porridge in the pot, cold.
I said: let me see your dictionary.
He pulled it out from under his pillow. His copy had curly corners; it had been pressed under a brick.
I turned to fifty-one.
Blank.
I turned it around to show him. He looked into the pot.
I said: yours is blank too.
He said: knew that already.
I said: you knew?
He said: third day after they came down, I'd flipped to the end.
He took the dictionary and riffled from fifty on, to one hundred and one, and pressed it flat.
He said: I ran out at forty-six. Past forty-six I can't remember.
He said: those five pages are nothing to do with me.
He threw the dictionary back beside the pillow. The brick slid off the bed; he picked it up and pressed it back on.
He said: lend it to me for one night.
I said: what for.
He said: it's useful.
I said: useful how.
He said: your will's got none of my characters on it. Nobody wants it.
I didn't understand that one. I let it go.
I lent it one night; he gave it back the next day. Returning it he pushed a marble into my hand — the one with the red flower — and said, for the wear. Home, I turned to the fifty-five page. On it a line of pencil, erased, the impression still there. Slanting. The impression of four characters.
I went to find him. He was squatting behind the boiler room, drawing squares on the ground with chalk.
I said: fifty-five — what'd you write.
He said: just playing.
I said: wrote what.
He crumbled a length off the chalk stub.
He said: blank pages are the best to write on.
He said: nobody checks blank pages.
I said: checks who.
He stood and clapped his trousers. Clapped, he started back, walked two steps and stopped.
He said: it's not real anyway.
I said: if it's not real, why write it.
He said: real or false, look at the paper. The paper's real.
From his pocket he drew three slips, cut from cigarette packs, one word to a slip, his characters, out past the squares. He said these three had gone out the door already — one slip for two marbles.
I said: it never said those words.
He said: whether it said them — that's not on the paper.
He said: what's on the paper is all real.
He put the slips back in his pocket and pressed once. The word on the first slip I'd looked at; it wasn't in the dictionary, wasn't in the blank range, wasn't in any range. Written to fill the square, stroke by stroke, gone over.
I said: write like that, and the numbers scramble later on.
He said: won't scramble. Their numbers, my numbers. Each writes his own.
He left. The squares on the ground were half drawn; half a square left empty.
That night I pressed the fifty-five page under the glass sheet. Pressed two days; the impression faded some, didn't go down.
Once I carried slips over to the broadcasting station. Master Qiao was inside adjusting things, the machine running, hissing. He undid the wire on the door's lock hasp and had me set the slips on the table. The lamp on the table wasn't lit; he knocked it twice; it lit.
He asked: still keeping words lately.
I said: keeping.
He said: keep them on paper. Paper holds.
I said: I know.
He turned the knob one way and back; the hissing followed, louder, then softer. He said: this machine — the full ones, the empty ones, it's played them all. Saying it he wasn't looking at me; he was looking at the knob.
I pressed the slips under his tea mug and came out. Going out he called one more thing after me: walk slow, it's dark on the way. When I left I twisted the wire back the way it was, the head twisted twice.
Fifty days left, I reached number one hundred.
In between I ran a fever two days, lay down, dropped four words. Once I was well I made up three a day, made up two days; a callus rose on my hand. Mom felt my hand, turned it over and looked.
She said: writing what.
I said: homework.
She counted her stitches. At the cuff she counted close. Finishing a round she said: done writing, sleep early.
One night, counting stitches, she said a word suddenly. She said: slow.
I looked up.
She said: you said it when you were little. You said slow, three times. I remembered having that one.
I said: it's still slow now.
She said: oh.
She counted her stitches again. Two rows counted, she said: sleep. I didn't sleep. I wrote the slow line over again; when the second copy came out the same as the first, I kept one line.
The knitting notebook was under her pillow. I'd seen one corner of it, a blue-threaded edge. I didn't draw it out.
Forty days left, three lines still empty. One line I squatted by the stove thinking about; the kettle was sounding on the stove lid; I listened to a whole kettle of water, from sounding to not sounding, and didn't think of it. One line was thirty-seven; I knew the word, couldn't write the sentence under it. One more line, I couldn't even bring the word back — only a feeling was left, that the word had stayed in the mouth once, it was round, it sank downward. I left that line empty too. Three lines empty; I traced the numbers over once, traced them thick, so you could see the places were being kept.
Wei Dongquan came to the mill once that month. He sat half a day at the recording point, the cloth bundle on his knees, square. Leaving, he saw the notebook in my arms. Cover up, its two characters facing him.
He reached out his hand. I gave him the notebook.
He turned three pages. Not fast. Done, he shut it, pressed once on the cover, returned it.
He asked: written to which number.
I said: the ones I could write, written. The ones that won't write, a few still.
He said: the ones that won't write — don't force them.
He said: forced out, it isn't it anymore.
He said: this doesn't get registered.
I said: I know.
He said: don't show it to the ones who want things.
I said: nobody wants it. What they want isn't on it.
He looked at me once. That look ran longer than usual.
He said: the words are yours.
He said: this book, even more.
He lifted the cloth bundle and went. At the door he stopped a moment, didn't look back, said something; the wind outside the door was loud, I didn't catch it. I didn't ask.
Thirty-eight days left, the power went out at night. I wrote by candle. The wick had knotted into a lump; I picked it open with a needle and wrote on. Wax dripped onto the cover, hardened into one bead, yellow; I picked at it once, it didn't come off, so I left it.
The day before my birthday, I reached number two hundred.
Number two hundred was listen. I wrote: that one sound of Master Qiao locking the door.
Done, I counted the notebook from the start. One to fifty, line by line. The fifty-one line I left empty; fifty to one hundred, five lines of empty squares. One hundred and one to two hundred, line by line. Counted, I counted the empty lines again. Fifty-three lines. Fifty in the middle, three kept for places.
I spread the dictionary open too, set it facing the notebook. The blue booklet at the far end. Three books laid in a row.
The back of the blue booklet: numbers printed to fifty, after that numbers with no words.
The dictionary, fifty-one to one hundred: not even the numbers.
My notebook: five lines of empty squares.
I looked a long time. Couldn't see anything in it. I opened the blue booklet, turned to the number thirty-seven square. The half speech radical was still there; the strokes hadn't faded. With a pencil I set a dot beside the square, pressed light; the paper kept a pit.
I put them away — the dictionary under the pillow, the will into the crack of the bed boards, the blue booklet folded inside the arithmetic textbook.
Lights out, I drew the dictionary out again. Turned past number two hundred.
There was more white after. Three sheets, the binding's leftover; no squares on them either, just white paper.
I felt out the bamboo-tube pencil. On the first line I wrote: two hundred and one.
The number written, I thought for the word. One I knew, that wasn't in the dictionary — the first was let go. The thirty-seven square I'd kept a half speech radical in, never written whole. This word wasn't under any number.
I wrote the two characters of let go.
I wrote them fast; few strokes. Done, they sat behind the number, looking one size smaller than the other words.
Done, the meaning underneath was due. I thought a long time. The bowl one I could think of; the stone one I could think of. This one — I held the pen up and couldn't.
The lamp wick jumped once. I shut the notebook and slept first.
The half line underneath, I left empty for now.