Ten days before my birthday, the snow stopped for two days, the eaves dripped, and the recorder came to the house.
He had the iron clamp-board with him, chalk dust still on his hands. He said, the booklet's going to print. The printer's set the type, and those above say it needs a tape to go with it. For the children coming after to hear.
Mom was at the stove, didn't turn. He said, the city studio, half a day only. Picked up and dropped off by car.
Mom said, she's stopped reporting already.
The recorder said, stopped is exactly why it has to be recorded now. From here on, everyone who reaches the age stops, one after another. If it isn't recorded now, the voice breaks off.
Mom asked, what will it look like, printed.
The recorder said, same as the blue booklet, paper whiter, characters one size larger.
Mom asked, is No. 37 in it.
The recorder opened the clamp-board and looked once. He said, it's in. He watched me while he said it. I didn't watch him. I watched the sheaf of paper clamped in the board; the topmost sheet was printed, and I knew half the characters.
Mom wiped her hands and went to the inner room for my clothes. What she brought out was the New Year one. The collar had fold-marks in it. On top of the cabinet sat Dad's tape recorder; when Mom went up on tiptoe for the clothes, her elbow passed once beneath it. I looked at it once. It had never sounded, not once; I looked anyway.
I said, I'm not going.
Mom said nothing, laid the coat over my shoulders. The recorder said, when it's done there's a copy kept for you. The printed kind.
So I went.
The shuttle bus was green, wooden-slat seats, the seat boards bit into your legs. Frost-flowered windows; I breathed on one, wiped a patch clear — outside was fields, and the fields ran backward. On the bus three children, one from each point. One sat up front and counted telephone poles out the window the whole way, got past three hundred, they crossed a bridge, the line broke, and he was unhappy a long time; his mother said, when we get there you can go on counting. One slept, leaned on his mother, six years old, brought along for the ride — his sister was the one recording; he came along to sleep. I sat in the middle.
The conductor came through punching tickets. Four punched; the stubs she dropped into an iron box. Shake the box, it rattled. I listened the whole way.
The city buildings stood taller than the factory office. The building had steam heat; through the door came a wash of warm air, the frost on the door glass melted and ran down the pane in water. We were taken up, fourth floor. The corridor was laid with rubber; walking made no sound. In the corridor men carried crates on shoulders, men squatted winding cable, cable in coil after coil, trampled underfoot. Someone called, rehearsal. Nobody moved.
The studio door was thick, padded with cloth, a small sign nailed to it: no admittance to outsiders. Two cotton door-curtains hung at the entry; you stamped your feet going in, the snow stamped off at the door.
First in was the pole-counter. His name was Xiaoman, from the paper-mill point east of town. The door was closed, nothing to see inside. The red light over the doorframe burned a short while, went out. Xiaoman came out pleased with himself, said it was quick, same as reciting a lesson. His mother asked, did you drink any water. He said no. His mother said, then why not.
The six-year-old was carried in, asleep and muddled. The red light stayed lit a long time before it went out. His mother stood in the corridor, her hand pinching the corner of the door-curtain the whole time; the patch of cloth she pinched had gone shiny.
My turn.
Two desks in the room. On the desk stood a microphone, taller than my head, capped with a layer of black cloth. In front of the microphone, a chair; in front of the chair, an X painted on the floor.
On the wall a clock as high as my arm, glass face, one red needle inside. In the four corners of the room a lamp squatted in each, big hoods, the light so even it left no shadow on a face. Rubber on the floor, run right up to the base of the walls, the seams taped with black tape, taped flat.
Behind the glass wall was a little room; the man in it wore headphones. In the glass was a round hole, stopped with a cork.
The one who ran the recording was a master in blue oversleeves. He sat me in the chair, told me not to touch the desk. Then he brought a wooden crate, set it upside down on the floor, and had me stand on it — otherwise, he said, the microphone won't reach your mouth.
He told me the rules. Red light on, no sound. Red light off, then report. He said, pretend there's no one in the room.
I said, there is someone in the room.
He said, pretend there isn't.
He went back behind the glass and spoke through it, the voice coming out of a small speaker on the wall, one cough first. Hearing that cough, I thought of Master Qiao. One cough before the notices went out — the same routine.
The master said, you read off the sheet. One entry, stop twice, then the next.
The sheet was in my hands. No. 1 to No. 50, the characters set in lead type. The first character printed largest.
The red light went out, and it began.
No. 1. I said it. Stop twice. No. 2.
The recording went slowly. The room was overheated, my throat ran dry. Somewhere in the twenties, the master said, have a swallow of water. Out from behind the glass came a cup of water, characters printed on the mug; the enamel mug scalded my hand once.
When No. 37 came, I stopped a little. On the sheet, this number carried a character. The one I hadn't finished writing that year — printed now, one character. I read it. It came out flat, same as every other character.
The master said, good. Go on.
I lost count once. Counting to thirty-nine, my mouth carried a forty-one out. The master said through the small speaker, come back, start again, no cutting. I re-reported from thirty-nine. Re-reporting, my face went hot; the man behind the glass couldn't see it, and still I lowered my head a little.
No. 44 was let go. Reading it, my palms sweated. Read, the master said, that one's good, breath steady. I looked at my hands. Breath or no breath, I knew that wasn't what it was.
Forty-nine. Fifty.
The master said, that's it. The red light went out, and a yellow light was lit.
I didn't move.
It came.
The way it comes, I know it. Like someone lightly pushing your back from behind — not hard, just not letting you sit up straight.
Today it came heavier than usual. Usually it spread itself over like water, spread even. Today it had planted itself at the door, and come in from there.
It said the word.
I said it after, once. My duty was to say it after. It one sentence, me one sentence, five years, every day like that.
When the word came out, both my hands were empty, and still I felt a thing in them, a thing handed over at the halfway. The word in the mouth has no length. Unspoken, nothing; once spoken, it filled a whole room.
What came after, I saw more than I heard.
A row of small lamps on the wall, lit together to the end, lit past the end, red going purple. On the cabinet behind the glass, two meters, the needles driven to the stop, driven past the stop and still driving, not coming back. In the speaker one long hum, a long one; the sound ended, and off its tail hung one more stroke. The red light went out.
The cables on the floor gave one twitch, snakelike. In the corridor people ran, ran past, ran back again.
The room went quiet.
Not the mountain quiet. In the mountains it's quiet outside and noisy in your ears. This time it was quiet in the ears. Like a row of looms in a workshop, running, and all at once every thread broke. That one instant of all-stopped.
I sat there and heard myself swallow. The swallow was loud enough to frighten.
How long the quiet lasted, I couldn't say. Maybe an instant, maybe half a day. Later the master said, breaker out to recovery, four minutes. That quiet in my ears ran longer than four minutes.
The man behind the glass stood up. The master pushed the door open, looked at the microphone first, then at me. He asked, you said something?
I said, I said it.
He said, said what.
I meant to say it. My mouth opened a little. The word wasn't there.
I said, the fifty-first one's.
The master stopped a beat. He turned toward the glass and said, stop, stop, stop. Turned back and asked me, there's no fifty-one on the sheet.
I said, there is.
He said, the sheet runs to fifty. He picked the sheet up and showed me. It truly ran to fifty. After that, white paper; behind the white paper, the cover.
I said, the printing lost it. Lost things are still in this world.
The master didn't take that up. He pulled out a little notebook and made one pencil note. Noted, he read it to me: seventeen twenty-one, equipment breaker tripped, cause under investigation. He said, that's how it goes in. He said, whatever you said, I didn't catch it; if you still want to say it, say it to me again.
I said, not saying it.
He said, fine, that's today done. Sit there, don't move.
They fixed it for over an hour. We children waited in the corridor; someone handed out candy, the paper wrappers stuck to it. Xiaoman smoothed every wrapper flat and stacked them in a sheaf. Mine went into my pocket; I didn't eat it.
The fixers went in and out. One in an electrician's vest made two trips, three trips. Behind the glass I heard someone on the phone: the tape's fine, the machine's fine, so what tripped. What the other side said, I couldn't hear. He pulled the cord out, plugged it back, called again.
The six-year-old slept again, on the long bench; his mother tucked her coat over him. Xiaoman asked me, did you get to fifty. I said, got there. He said he got there too, then asked, the blank paper after — did they have you read it. I said no. He said they didn't for him either. He said, then what's it printed for. I didn't take it up.
Fixed, the master called me back in, said two lines needed patching.
Rewound. No. 1 to No. 50, all there. My voice came out of the speaker muffled, like through a layer of cloth. Bright was still there, let go was still there; even my lost count and the re-report were there, the slip uncut, sitting as it happened. At fifty, said, the master pressed stop.
Played on past it.
Nothing in the speaker.
Not the hiss kind of nothing. The hiss is the machine's own moving; I know what hides under the hiss doesn't record. Dad's tape recorder I've listened to for years — under the hiss, empty, but the hiss itself is there. This time even the hiss had gone thin, like that stretch of tape had been dug out of it, dug clean, the two ends spliced in one place, the splice past finding.
The master rewound that stretch three times. Three times, the same. He drew the tape out and held it against the light, looking the tape face over for a crease, looked a long time, loaded it back, played again. Still that.
He said, your voice isn't in here.
I said, I said it.
The master looked at the meters on the cabinet. The meters were back, the needles standing straight. He said, child, there's nothing wrong with the tape. Nothing wrong with the machine either. He patted the cabinet, like patting a work animal.
The one with the headphones behind the glass spoke too, the voice coming out of the small speaker. He said, that instant just now — overload. Three machine rooms tripped at once. Fourth floor tripped, first-floor master control tripped too. He counted it up, said, thirty years, never a trip like this one.
The words they used I didn't understand. I just asked, where's what I said.
No one took that up. The master turned the tape box over, read the label on the box face, read it twice, turned it back. The one behind the glass took his headphones off and waved at me through the glass — meaning, a child needn't mind. I stopped minding. I sat on the wooden crate and didn't move, my feet on the X painted on the floor.
The X was painted in paint; at its edge a small patch of paint had worn off, showing yellow underneath. I stared at that patch of yellow. After a while, they said done, and had me go out.
The master rewound the tape and boxed it. He said, today's stretch — fifty entries, all complete. Enough to use.
On the bus back, those two children slept. Xiaoman's mother peeled him an orange; the orange smell pressed down the sweetness of the throat lozenges. Crossing the bridge I looked out; the pole-counting work had broken off at the bridge, and past the bridge it picked up again — counted to how many, I didn't count.
I didn't sleep. The candy in my pocket dug at my leg.
I thought of the twelfth month of the power-cut year. Not yet registered. The factory lost power a few days; every room lit candles, the wax ran down and gathered a ring in the candle stand. It said a new word, one that meant dark. When it said it, the candle flames stood a notch shorter. The night the power came back the whole yard cheered; I didn't cheer.
That character went missing. I hunted for it, ran it through my mouth once after once; what came out was all other characters — black came out, dim came out, none of them it. I drooped a few days; Mom felt my forehead, thought I was sick. Then I livened up again, and it counted as past. Telling people about it, Mom said, children forget a word — common thing.
Back then I didn't know it was it that took it.
Now I know. It takes things whenever it likes. Under the candles, once. Under the red light, once.
Home, and it was dark. From where the bus stopped to the house was still a stretch; the street lamps had half lit, the other half dark. Passing the broadcasting station, I looked up once at the back window. Dark in the window. The length of wire on the lock hasp — you couldn't see it; I knew it was there.
Through the door, Mom at the stove, the pot boiling, rattling its lid. She asked, did it record.
I said, it recorded.
She asked, did it go smooth.
I said, smooth.
The pot rattled. Mom didn't ask more. She's the kind who never chases a question; if you speak of something else first, she listens to that.
I dug the candy out of my pocket and set it on the table. Mom unwrapped it; the wrapper stuck and pulled off a layer with it. She smoothed the wrapper flat, two or three strokes, and pressed it into the knitting notebook. I said, why press that in. She said, good paper. It pads the patterns.
After supper I went to my room and pulled the light on. From under the quilt pad I felt out the handkerchief bundle, opened it; the copper button was inside, rubbed shiny. I buttoned it down onto the entry notebook. The notebook's corner had curled; pinned under, it lay flat.
I tried to say the word once more.
Mouth open. Hand up too, up to halfway — both hands there, the thing as if there too. At the mouth, what came out was something else. A flat word; it didn't even carry a le sound, just a flat word, said and done.
I tried once more. Hand to halfway, it came down first.
I thought of He Laosan miming the carrying, mimed to halfway, the hand falling. His was gone. Mine wasn't the same. My hand didn't fall. That downward pull in the hand was still there. I took it for the word, held it, held a while, and the palm sweated again.
I counted what was left in my mouth. No. 1 to No. 50, all there. No. 44 still there — let go still there, steady still there. Let go sat split across No. 14 and No. 20; the joined-up one was gone — the joined-up one never got printed that year. The ones that did print, not one missing. It takes what it wants to take; what's printed, it doesn't fancy.
Done counting, it was like a layer of ash settled in me. Counting, I went one by one, like a roll call. Every name called answered. The one not called — they don't even keep it a number.
I turned off the light and lay down. That quiet in my ears hadn't finished scattering; a little of the floor was left. Like a water jar run down to its floor — the last water at the bottom, sways once, sounds once.
Before, I only knew it gave. Gave words, gave voice, gave those matters without end. That it takes, I saw for the first time. It takes one away and leaves no mark. Not on the tape, not on the sheet — and not in my mouth.
Only in the hand. The handed-to-the-halfway feeling in the hand, still there.
Before lying down I turned the light on once more and looked at my palm. Two nail-marks pressed into it. When the thing was there, this hand was heavier than it is now.
I held the feeling and slept.
Next morning the recorder came, handed Mom a paper: yesterday's tape had been called up by those above. The original doesn't stay at the station. He said, the archiving of it is nothing we have a say in.
Three lines on the paper. First line a file number, one winding string. Second line: collection original under centralized jurisdiction. Third line, a date. Mom read it to me; read, she pressed the paper under the sewing basket.
Mom took the paper, didn't sign. She said, called up — and the copy kept for the child?
The recorder said, the booklet's kept, as promised. A tape is a tape. He paused, then said, what that tape looked like, I never saw. The crate it went out in, I saw — a wooden crate, cotton wadding laid inside. Over the wadding he pressed two more layers of newspaper.
Leaving, he stopped once at the door, turned and said to me, your No. 37 square — it's printed. Did you see it?
I said, saw it.
He said, then it was worth it.
The door shut. I listened to him go down the stairs, flight by flight, the steps even. At the bottom, he and Mom stood a while more in the yard, said half a sentence of something; through the window I couldn't catch it. He pushed his bicycle out; the chain rattled the whole way.
I went to my room, opened the entry notebook, turned to the line "201: let go." The half line for the meaning, I'd left empty that year. I took a pencil and set the point on that half line.
Held it a while, couldn't write.
Not that I didn't want to. The feeling in the hand, the moment it came time to write, drew back — like the thing held in the palm: ease your fingers one bit, and it drops.
I put the pencil away. Closed the notebook, moved the copper button to the middle.
On the windowsill, Mom's yarn dried in the sun. The red skein on the outside, sun-bright. The red was for the vest she's knitting me; the measure's been taken, pinned to a bamboo needle, cast not yet on. I looked a long time.
That little floor in my ear was still there — sways once, sounds once.