After New Year I began counting le.
The le at a sentence's end — that one. You say a sentence, the sentence carries a le, it counts as one.
The first day I counted eleven. Morning, "eaten." Noon, "written." Dark, "slept." Eleven.
The third day, four.
The seventh day, one. That one I'd learned from Wang Chaosheng. He said the foundry's talk wears the voice out. I said, mine wore out once.
Later that one went too.
It wasn't that I couldn't get it out. It was that a sentence, coming out of me, turned a corner on its own. Mom had me watch the kettle. I looked once and said, the water's boiling. Mom said, it's boiled — pour it. I said, boiling. The kettle was still steaming. The two of us watched the steam a while. Mom lifted the kettle off.
When school started I was in fifth grade. In Chinese class we made sentences, the teacher starting them with "already." My turn came; I stood up. The sentence was there, the thing was there, and at "already" the road broke. I stood half a minute. The teacher said, sit down and think some more.
I sat and thought through a whole period. Never got through it.
My deskmate worried for me; at break he coached me: I've already finished my homework — say it after me. I said it after him: I'm doing my homework. He looked at me. I looked at him. He said, that's no good. I said, it's going fine. He couldn't keep on.
After class the teacher called me over, just the two of us. She didn't mention the sentences. From her drawer she took a pear-syrup candy and handed it to me: suck it, don't chew. She bent to her marking, marked two books, looked up at me once. When the candy was half melted she said, go on home. I said, going. She startled a little, waved her hand, didn't laugh, didn't correct me.
For that sentence exercise I wrote: the sky has already gone dark. The characters were put there by my hand; they weren't said out by me. The teacher marked a check, marked a date.
Dr. Qu's room had been torn down long before; the clinic was up at the north end now. On the way, Mom leading me, I ran the words I meant to say through my head. When we got there the woman in the gray jacket had got there first — the one who'd called the names the year we registered. Her bicycle was propped at the door; its bell was dumb; press it down and it didn't rise.
The room smelled of Lysol, heavier than before. In the next room someone coughed — one cough, then a long still spell. That voice asked, this child too, come to her day? The gray-jacketed one said, one after another, all in line.
She asked me a few more. Did it snow last year. I said, it's snowing — I stuck; I changed it — it snowed, that stretch. She wrote. What she wrote I couldn't see. She had me say yesterday.
I said, I'm eating noodles.
She said, what you ate yesterday — say "eaten."
I said, eating.
She waited. She didn't correct me again. She opened the little notebook and wrote. As she wrote, the elastic band around her wrist slipped off; she slipped it back and went on writing.
She said, the day's close now. Home, and wait.
Mom asked, does she still go to school.
She goes, she said. Whichever day it turns out to be, she goes up to that one.
As we left she stopped in the doorway and turned back to tell Mom: the day you stop saying it, you stop. Don't go looking for it.
Mom said, I know.
That sentence she'd said once, the year we registered. This time, having said it, she swung onto the bicycle with the dumb bell and rode off. This time she didn't say it a fourth time.
The le wouldn't cross, so I found stand-ins. When a thing was over, I said, done. The water boiled — boiled done. Mom understood. Wang Chaosheng understood. Others didn't.
Buying soy sauce at the shop, the clerk asked, fill it full? I said, it's filling. She said, filling is how much? I said, filled done. Someone behind me in line said it for me — fill it full. The clerk looked at me once, said nothing, and filled it full anyway.
On the sixth of the first month Wang Chaosheng came by. Work gloves issued by the foundry, two pairs; he brought our house one pair, said he was collecting a debt on the way.
He stood in the doorway, didn't come in. Half a head taller than me now; the chilblain scars still on the backs of his hands. His talk had gone short.
He said: collecting.
Mom said, come in and drink something hot.
He said, I'm on shift.
I heard it. His le was gone too.
I asked, are you still at school.
He said, no — he caught, changed it — not going anymore. Then said: not going.
Mom took the gloves. He stamped his feet in the doorway, the old habit from before. Done stamping, he asked me, that book of yours still around?
I said, around.
He said, keep it. Don't trade it.
He patted his pocket. The pocket was flat. He walked off into the snow, the right foot dragging half a heel, one footprint big, one small.
Mom put the gloves away in the cabinet. Canvas palms, rubber backs. Wear them for work, she said.
At night I woke once, right on the hour, no need for a watch. Awake, I listened a while. Inside there was only Mom's needle; outside, only wind; nothing else to hear. In the daytime Wei Dongquan had said he wakes at three at night. I counted my breaths, got to the thirties, slept.
The day the old machine was hauled off I went to watch. The truck backed into the yard; a few men carried. The tube set went up onto the truck, the ropes cinched around it, bowed into a bend. Master Qiao stood at the side, hands in his sleeves. He said, twenty years I waited on it.
Said it, and walked toward the room; at the door he stopped again, turned back to look at the hook on the beam that used to hold the microphone cord. Nothing hung on the hook now.
The truck rolled out, wheel ruts pressed on wheel ruts.
I sat a while in the gatehouse. On Old Song's stove it was wowotou slices toasting now; he broke one off for me. It lay scorched side down; I turned it over and bit. Old Song said, the cold ones taste best. I said, it's cooling.
Old Song laughed once and didn't answer. He'd got old too; his gatekeeping had gone looser and looser — whoever came, he had them register; registered, he let them in.
Reporting stopped on the tenth of the first month. The recorder had me hand the blue notebook back. Before handing it over I went through it once more. The first year's pages, words thick, two a day. The third year's pages, one a day, then one every other day. The last page: one square with a character in it, the character bright. The squares after it ran empty to the page's end.
I smoothed the curl out of the corner before I gave it to him. The blue notebook, start to finish — thirty-seven still empty. He took it, drew the awl out of his pocket, tapped it twice on the table, knocked no dust from it, and put it away again.
He set the notebook into the stack, squared it, tied the rope around it. Tied, he sat back, and said, your thirty-seven — I'm keeping the number.
I said, mm.
He said, print more later. When it's printed, they'll keep a copy for you.
I said, all right.
He bent to his stack of papers and didn't look up again. I stood a while, and went out. The snow had started melting; water came off the eaves drip by drip, even.
He said, what about the pencil stubs.
I shook two out of my sock. The first year four had gone in; two had worn away. The last one's point gone bald.
He said, keep those.
Wei Dongquan was there too. He sat behind the table at the recording point, the cloth bundle not in his hands — it sat on the windowsill, still square. He asked the recorder, what time is it.
Four.
Four, he said. I wake at three at night.
He told a little of that year. Not that he meant to — nobody stopped him, and the talk ran down on its own. It was the tapes again: which year handed up, which year into storage, which year the count came up a box short. He never turned a notebook for the dates; they came off his tongue open-mouthed, the dates alive on him. Halfway through he stopped. Said, where had I got to. I said, the year they went into storage. He went oh, didn't pick it up, and left. Leaving, he lifted the cloth bundle off the windowsill, weighed it in his hand first, and only then slung it on.
He said, waking is good too. Wake, and listen a little. Listen to what, he didn't say.
The one who came to collect the relay papers came on the sixteenth of the first month. He opened with the same sentence as before: before the session runs out, her right of relay terminates.
The right of relay.
I knew the words one by one. Relay. Rights. Put together, I didn't know them. I stood there stuck. The man had already turned to Mom: the ones registered before, closed out one by one; the paper had to be kept moving. All the while his hand rubbed that kraft-paper folder, rubbed it shiny at the corners.
Mom signed. Done signing, she asked, closed out — what does that make her.
The man said, a student.
He sat a while longer and drank a swallow of water. He asked Mom whether anyone else in the house had ever registered. Mom said, just this one. He went through the folder, drew out a page, looked once, closed it again. Before it closed I caught the red stroke across it, one line, straight across. He put the folder away and said, it goes like this at the age, one after another. The tone was the tone of reading out the weather.
That was that.
No mountain, no factory offices, and the days opened into a wide stretch. I learned from Mom to sort the greens, learned to tell one yarn from another. The red one Mom was knitting had come out of an old sweater taken apart. The unraveled yarn kept its old bends; knitted up as far as the sleeve, the bends hadn't flattened yet.
Later Mom took me to the co-op for cloth, for spring clothes. People pressed against people; the bolts lay rolled along the counter. Mom had me feel one. Said, this one's thick. I felt it. Said, it's thick. The clerk said, the child talks like a book. Mom said, mm, talks well. Six feet cut, and the odd inch thrown in. On the way home the snow started up again; the bolt in my arms, the longer I held it the heavier.
The housework never came to an end. Wipe the cabinet, work the dough, steam the bread. I fed the fire, Mom kept the ladle. Oil in the pan, Mom said, watch the oil. I watched. The oil lay flat at first, then wrinkled, ring after ring walking in toward the middle. I said, it's rippling. Mom said, halfway rippled. Wait a bit. So we waited. When the half became the whole, the meat balls went in, crackling.
Between the half and the whole, no word was in charge. I thought it in my head. Thought it, and didn't say it.
One night I said, Mom, there's a thing I want to say.
Mom's hands didn't stop. Say.
I traded words for things once.
Mom's needle stopped a beat. One beat.
I said, I traded seven marbles. One with a red flower in it. And half a pencil, a small piece of eraser, two candies. The kind with the wrapper stuck to them. The candies were eaten long ago.
Mom said, and the marbles.
Just the one with the red flower left.
Where is it.
I said, under the pencil case. Said it, and went to look. Under the pencil case, nothing. We hunted with the flashlight; clods of dirt rolled out from under the bed. In the end it turned up in the hollow of the bed leg — the glass worn frosted, the red flower still inside, no longer true to see.
I set the marble on the table.
Mom looked once. Said, put it back.
I put it back. Mom knitted two stitches and said, the day you traded, I was up at the bridge head. I saw you.
I said, why didn't you call me.
Mom said, I was thinking how I'd put it to you at home. You talked of something else first, so I never said it.
The needle, one stitch, one stitch. I meant to ask which day, and couldn't bring back which day. The le of that day wouldn't come out of me. I said, you're still holding it.
Mom said, holding it.
After that neither of us said more.
Two days on, Mom took out her knitting notebook, opened to a page in the middle, spread it under the lamp for me. The paper had soaked oil; the writing was still clear. Mom said, the hardest entry — here. I couldn't read all of it. Mom said, it's what you said. I said, it's me saying it. Mom said, saying it.
Mom closed the notebook and put it away in the farthest inside of the cabinet. Putting it away she drew the rubber band off first, hung it on her wrist, laid the notebook flat, and worked the band back on.
Later I said it once more. I said, Mom, one sentence. It isn't it saying. It's me saying.
Mom laid the knitting on her lap and looked at me.
I said, I shouldn't have traded.
This sentence carried no le. Needed none. It came out of me, and not one word stuck.
Mom looked at me a while. Said, I know.
Said, sleep. Tomorrow I'll sew your button on.
Next day she really did sew one on. The second button of my coat; the old one had hung loose half a year.
Talking with Mom took a shape, little by little. I said, Mom's knitting the sleeve. Mom said, knitting it. I said, Dad's at work. Mom said, at it. The year the mill changed its machine, I said, the mill's changing its machine. Mom said, changing it.
Dad's watch had been in for repair once and ran slow coming back. I said, Dad's watch is running slow. Mom said, slow, yes — he's set it right twice.
Once, these would have had to carry a le or an over. Now they carried nothing. Mom never corrected me. The recorder had corrected me once; after him, nobody.
One time I tried "already" on my own. In my head I set the word in place, meaning to tell Mom, you already—
At "already" the sentence went out. Not that I'd lost it — the word couldn't be held. The hand can hold a marble. It can't hold this. I changed it and said, you finish one sleeve.
On the back of my arithmetic notebook I wrote le. Filled a page. Read it over aloud: every character known, and not one would go into a sentence. Mom came in to gather the bowls, looked once, didn't ask. She tore the page out, folded it, and tucked it into her knitting notebook.
I said, what do you keep it tucked in for.
Mom said, tucked.
The notebook's printed lines had gone crooked, row leaning on row. The le I wrote stood straight, every one upright. Upright on the paper; gone from the mouth.
The good came out. The le didn't. Mom said, finished one, you have.
That sentence she said for me. Just the once.
I counted the days. The day He Laosan locked the door was his twelfth birthday. My twelfth — I could count it to a day too. I never ran that sum with Mom, and Mom never ran it with me. No clock in the house kept true time: the alarm ten minutes fast, Dad's watch ten minutes slow. The days sat in between, neither fast nor slow.
The first spring wind came in through the window crack and leaned the lamp flame over. Mom papered the crack, two layers, the outer layer pasted outside the inner one.
At night, sleepless, I ran He Laosan's lesson through. Around the eighth of the twelfth month, every run-through lost a little — I had to count along to get to sleep. This time I ran it through. Handed over at the halfway, both hands still on it, neither one let go.
Done, I counted.
Not one missing.
I opened my eyes and shut them to a slit. The outer room's lamp still lit, Mom's needle one stitch, one stitch. The sleeve nearly at its end.
I said, Mom, it's not knitted done.
Mom said, knitting it.
I said, mm. Knitting it.
The lamp wick hissed. I counted the day's sentences. Carrying a le: one.
The one Mom said.