The fourth winter after registration had come.
My trips to the factory offices were fewer. One word a day to report, some days none at all. The recorder wrote "not reported" in the square. When he'd written it he looked up at me once, and when he'd looked he bent back down. He said nothing.
The mill was changing its broadcast machine that season. The new one had arrived, the wooden crates unloaded beside the gatehouse in a layer of shavings. The old one's room had to be cleared. The clearing was Master Qiao's business.
The day before the eighth of the twelfth month, the recorder asked me to carry a message to Master Qiao. What hour the old machine would be hauled off — the broadcasting station should keep a man on. I went.
The gatehouse clock ran ten minutes slow; the gatekeepers all knew, and nobody set it. When I came in it was two fifty; the clock said two forty. Old Song was toasting slices of mantou on the stove; he had just flipped one over. He asked me to watch the door for him a while. I said I was carrying a message and coming straight back. He said no hurry, the heat mattered.
The boiler room let off steam and the broadcast went dumb. Half dead it was, that season — the new one not coming, the old one lingering on. I was the only one on the factory road. On the poplar's branches hung the skeleton of a kite from the year before last, the string still tangled on it.
I went around to the back first. The back window was still that back window. The first year I stood on tiptoe and my fingertips had just reached the sill's edge. This year, no tiptoe — I could lay my whole palm on it. Four years, that much grown.
The station door stood open. The wire on the lock hasp had been untied and hung on the doorframe, the two loops at its end still twisted.
Inside the door sat a person.
Not Master Qiao. A young one, twenty-odd, blue work clothes, the cuffs rubbed white. In his hands an empty tape reel, turned over, turned back, his fingers rubbing the hub.
Master Qiao's voice came from the inner room: you of the Sixth Session — what are you sitting out here for. Come in and help clear.
The man answered, and didn't move.
I stood in the doorway. Wang Chaosheng had spoken of someone once. On the day he turned twelve he locked himself into the broadcasting room. Recorded himself, recorded until he couldn't anymore. The day after saying this Wang Chaosheng took it back, said he'd never said it.
I asked, are you the Sixth Session?
He looked up. Mm.
The one who locked this room?
He thought a moment. Locked it.
Why lock it?
That day was my birthday, he said. Having said it he said it again, softly — that day was my birthday. The voice was mosquito-small, like he was listening to himself.
Master Qiao came out of the inner room hugging a stack of iron boxes. He told me the new machine arrived on the twentieth of the twelfth month, and the recorder shouldn't rush him. Then he took the wire off the doorframe, threaded it through the hasp, twisted the head twice, left it hanging loose, not locked.
The man watched me the whole time. After a while he asked, you're the Seventh Session?
Mm.
Reported up to what number?
Past thirty-six there's the number, no character, I said. The book's only printed to fifty.
He nodded, nodded several times. Same with us. Ours was like that too.
How far did you get? he asked.
Thirty-six, I said. Thirty-seven's empty.
I got to forty-four, he said. Forty-five didn't wait for me.
He laid the empty reel on his lap, both hands pressed on it. He said he was looking for a tape, the one recorded the day of his twelfth birthday.
Master Qiao, where's my reel.
No answer from the inner room. After a while Master Qiao said, that reel of yours — you carried it off yourself.
The one I carried off was empty, he said. Listened to it when I got home. Nothing of me on it. Just breathing.
Empty, and you carried it off for what.
The man didn't take that up. He said to me, that day I said one through fifty, in order. One word, one meaning reported. The machine turning. At fifty-one I said it too. The machine still turning.
He stopped a moment.
Next day I listened. Front was empty, back was empty too. In the middle, a stretch of breathing.
I asked what fifty-one was.
He didn't say it right away. He looked first at the inner room — Master Qiao was stacking iron boxes, not watching us. Then he picked the reel up again and rubbed the hub.
I can't say it anymore, he said. It's gone from my mouth. Gone once I passed twelve. You know how it is.
I know. The day you stop saying it, you stop. Don't go looking for it, I said.
Right, he said. Don't go looking for it.
He turned the reel over, characters down, pressed it on his lap, both hands on it.
What comes after fifty-one isn't more things, he said. One to fifty are things. Bright, water, go, up there. Past fifty-one are matters not finished.
I waited.
A Chinese word, said, is done. You say let go, the hand opens, done. Their words — the matter isn't finished, the word isn't finished.
He hunted for words. Couldn't find them, and changed his approach.
Like handing something over. The thing has reached your hand, and both hands are still on it. Neither one has let go. The word stays right there. Only when the matter settles does the word finish.
He gave me another example. Boiling water. The water not yet boiling, on the verge of it, the steam coming in gusts. What does Chinese call that? About to boil. Three characters, and it still needs the extra "about." Their word grows right on that stretch — one word, holding down the whole stretch from not-boiled to boiled. That stretch, he said, is the widest. The words all live in that stretch.
The fifty-first is the one handed over at the halfway, he said. I call it the last lesson. A name I gave it myself. That day I said it through once into the microphone. The machine didn't take it. The lesson isn't on the tape. The lesson is in me.
I asked why the last lesson.
That day was my last class, he said. After that I became one of the listeners.
He told me a little about that day. The door was bolted from inside; the bolt was rusted, and he worked it half forever before it went down. Master Qiao stood outside the door and didn't break it open; through the door he asked what time it was, said he ought to drink some water. The water came in under the door, in an enamel mug, dented in one spot.
He counted from one. A word, a meaning, roll call run in reverse. At thirty-some the sky outside the window went pale. At forty-six, he couldn't have said why, the tears came down. He said it wasn't hurting — the eyes did it themselves. At fifty he stopped a moment and drank some water. The water was cold.
Fifty-one he said. When he'd said it he waited, waited for the movement over there to go back, the same as every time. It didn't go back. He said it again. Still it didn't. Then he knew. A phone call, that end hung up, the receiver still humming in your hand, the person gone. He ran the rest of the tape out, drew the bolt, opened the door.
Master Qiao stood in the doorway, looked at him once, and said, back.
Just that one word. He said Master Qiao was sparing with words in those days.
Later Master Qiao told me about that day, once only, also in the twelfth month. Master Qiao said he stood outside the door most of the night. The door couldn't be broken — break it, and the sound gets in, and the child's words snap off. So he listened. Inside, one word, a pause, then another word. He couldn't understand them either; he counted the pauses. Counted till daybreak, and when the pauses ran longer than the words, he knew it was near the end.
Afterward the mill had him write a report. He wrote four characters: equipment undamaged. Nothing besides. When the people above asked after the child, he said the child was undamaged too. And that let the matter pass.
From the inner room Master Qiao coughed once. The man let his voice down a little.
He said he came back every year, only to stand at the door a while. This year he'd happened on the clearing, and Master Qiao had asked him to lend a hand. The reel, he said, he'd dug out from under the cabinet on the south wall. Empty. Not his.
I asked him whether he still listened, after all these years.
He listened. He kept a gate in the county town; the nights were quiet, quiet all the way through. The boiler room's steam, the water in the heating pipes, the hum of that one lamp at the gate — he heard them all. At night those sounds were all moving, one chasing the next. Listening, he could match them up.
Just no words anymore, he said. Having said it he turned the reel over again, characters up.
I asked, the ones past fifty-one — will the book print them someday?
It can't, he said. That's not a paper matter.
Then what?
You remember them, he said. Remember them on the mouth.
He asked me suddenly whether I'd come tomorrow. Tomorrow there was one last load of crates.
Come, he said. I'll say it once more. Keep it for me a little.
Say it once more, and I'll keep it, I said.
Keeping is enough. Don't write it, he said. Written down, it changes.
Master Qiao walked me out and pressed two fruit candies into my hand, the kind with the paper wrapper stuck to the candy. He said this Sixth Session one, once he sits he sits a whole noon — don't mind him.
I asked Master Qiao his name.
Surname He, Master Qiao said. The He family's, the third.
On the way back I thought of going to find Wang Chaosheng. Two years before, Wang Chaosheng had gone to be apprentice in his uncle's foundry, and his family had moved north of the line. I didn't go. One candy I ate on the spot; one I pocketed.
At home I dug out Dad's tape recorder. Dust had settled on the cover; I wiped it with my sleeve. The plug was behind the bed; I got my arm in and reached it.
I said the fifty-first word. Just once. Rewound, played back.
There was no me on the tape. There was the sand-hiss of the current, one dog outside the window, Mom moving about the outer room. No word.
I rewound the tape, boxed it, and wrote one character on the box: empty. Having written it I thought a moment, and added the date.
Mom came in and asked, what are you fiddling with.
I said, not fiddling with anything.
She said, sleep early. Her hands smelled of yarn oil.
That night I didn't sleep solid. I ran the lesson through in my head a few times. Handed over at the halfway, both hands still there. Once through, a little less. I counted what was gone, and got to sleep.
The next day was the eighth. I woke early; the sky was still dark. Mom was cooking porridge and I squatted by the stove watching the fire. Mom said, what are you going there so early for. I said, a matter at the pot. Mom didn't understand, and didn't ask again.
The mill cooked porridge too, one big pot in the gatehouse, dates in it. I carried a bowl and started for the broadcasting station. On the way the lamps weren't out yet, one after another, and the snow on the power poles had been combed by the wind into ridge after ridge.
The room stood emptied. The floor had been swept; a few wooden crates still piled in the corner, the shavings swept into one heap leaning against the radiator. He Laosan squatted there tying rope. The knots he tied were slipknots.
I set the bowl on the windowsill.
The fifty-first one you spoke of yesterday, I said.
His hands stopped a beat on the rope.
The fifty-first what?
Handed over at the halfway.
Both hands still there. I said it again.
He took the rope's end in his teeth, freed his hands, and started the posture of carrying something. Halfway through the posture, the hands came down.
The room had a smell of rosin in those days, he said. Off the reels. Anything else — can't get it back.
He stayed squatting, watching me. A long time.
I said that?
You did. The machine didn't take it. The lesson is in you.
He repeated it softly: the lesson is in me. Having said it he went still a beat, like a tape-listening ear meeting a voice it doesn't know.
From the inner room Master Qiao called: He Laosan, lend a hand — this one's heavy.
He stood, patted the dirt off his knees. Two steps on, he turned back and asked, little girl — what year did you register?
I said the year.
Not many years left for you, then, he said.
With that he went into the inner room. And never came out again.
I stood in the doorway and drank the porridge. The dates had sunk to the bottom; I didn't get them till the last swallow. I set the bowl back at the gatehouse — a stack of bowls stood by the big pot, and I set mine on the very top.
Master Qiao told me He Laosan came every twelfth month. Stood a moment at the door and left; ten-odd years, never ten sentences. This year, with the clearing, was the first time he'd sat down. He kept a gate in the county town, night shifts. His mother had gone early.
As he said it Master Qiao called into the inner room, told him not to touch the one with the electron tubes — it was precious. A voice answered inside.
While Master Qiao locked the door I looked once more. Wire through the hasp, the head twisted twice. Same as the first year; same, most likely, as the day he locked the broadcasting room.
At noon the snow came down another stretch. He Laosan carried the last load of crates onto the truck, straightened his back, and drew a handkerchief bundle from inside his coat. Wrapped in the handkerchief was a copper button, the kind off a uniform, rubbed shiny. He set the button in my palm.
I said, what's this for.
He said, to press the notebook. The notebook's corner likes to curl.
I said, the notebook's going back soon.
He said, then press books.
After the truck pulled out he didn't go inside either. He stood in the snow watching it out the gate, both hands drawn into his sleeves. I watched him from the gatehouse window; he stood until the snow had covered the wheel ruts, and only then walked off. The way he went doesn't lead to the county town; it's the small path behind the boiler room.
To this day I don't know where that path leads.
At home I dug out that dictionary. In the twelfth month, back when I was matching words with Wang Chaosheng, his page fifty-five had pencil marks; mine had none. I turned to fifty-one. The paper was white. I ran the pad of my finger from fifty-one to one hundred; not one mark on the paper. Slick.
When I'd finished feeling it through I closed the book and pressed it under my pillow. The next day I took it out again, slipped it back into its old stack, pulled out a thick one, and laid it on top.
The reel he wanted — I asked the recorder about it afterward. The recorder said the station's old tapes were handed up together, each year to its year; none could be taken privately. He asked what I was asking for. I said for nothing. He wrote something in his book, shielding it with his arm; I didn't see.
That lesson — two people ever heard it. Him, and me.
From the next day on, one was left. Me.
Supper was cornmeal mush. I ate two bowls. Mom asked whether the mill was busy. Busy, I said. She said, why was there no date in the porridge; I said the mill's porridge had them.
Nothing else was said.
After the eighth the new machine came. On unboxing day the shavings lay half a room deep, and I helped carry two armfuls. The sound the new machine put out was clean — a different flavor from the old one's. It played a stretch of opera, then read a notice through again. The sound was thin, touching nothing on either side.
On sound-test day Master Qiao coughed once before he spoke, the same as ever. He read into the microphone: all workers of the mill, please note. When he'd read it he asked me, how's that.
I said, crisp.
He said, the old one was stuffy. Like a layer of cloth in between.
He took the microphone's cover off, wiped it with a cloth, and clipped it back on.
I never told anyone about that lesson. I kept it on the mouth.
Kept it right to the year it was my turn to lock the door.