When the ground froze that winter, the recorder came to the house with a message. He propped his bicycle at the compound gate, an iron clamp hanging from the handlebar, and stood at the door without coming in. He said: the day after tomorrow, morning, come to the big house. He paused. He said: people from above are coming, about the words.
Mom came out of the inner room, flour still on her hands. Mom asked: what words.
He said: you'll know when you get there. He paused. He turned to glance into the compound and said: bring the booklet.
I chased him to the gate and asked: after they ask, do we still report numbers.
He swung onto the bicycle, the pedal spinning half a turn empty. He said: report. He paused. Questions first.
The wheels rolled over the frozen dirt of the compound, bumped twice, and went out the gate. Mom went back in to roll dough. She said: questions are questions. She said nothing more.
The day after tomorrow was a Sunday. The mill was off, and the kids in the compound were all home. Erya wasn't going. Erya had stopped reporting in the fall — she said her head was slow, the words wouldn't come out. Saturday afternoon I ran into her at the water room. She was holding a kettle under the tap. I said: they're asking questions tomorrow, are you going. She tilted the steam away from the spout, to one side. She said: what do questions have to do with me. The kettle filled. She carried it off, the bottom scraping the ground, sounding all the way to the back of the compound.
We had agreed to meet at the bridge. Wang Chaosheng got there first, squatting on the stone post, half a pencil clutched in his hand. He said: my dad sharpened it, both ends pointed. He held the pencil up for me to see. One end was pointed, all right; the other end had split in the sharpening, the wood fibers standing up. He said: the split end writes too, it just snags the paper.
The back street had been swept of snow, the shoveled piles banked along the sides, frozen hard as porcelain. All the way to the big house he dragged the pencil across the piles. One stretch, then a run of steps, then another stretch. By the street corner the piles carried a line of white marks. He said: this counts as signing in. Whoever didn't come, read the marks and you know.
The big house was the same big house as ever. The long table wore a white cloth, washed gray, a patch in the middle, the stitches crooked. A row of enamel mugs stood at the table's head, a ring of enamel chipped off every bottom. The thermoses were tied with red string, the silk banner rolled up and cinched with a rubber band. The windows were high; light came slanting down from above and landed in the middle of the white cloth. A stove burned in the room, the stovepipe bent one corner.
Two had come from above. One wore a blue uniform, the collar button fastened to the top; when he sat down he tugged his jacket hem straight. One carried a black bag, its corners worn shiny; coming in, he set the bag down first, against his leg. The uniform sat facing front, the black bag sat to the side, unzipped halfway, showing a stack of white paper inside.
The woman in the gray jacket called the roll. A name, an answer; beside each name she made a check mark. Seven of us from the compound sat at the east end. The paper-mill kids sat at the west end, two tables between us. When all were there she folded the roll in half and pressed it under an enamel mug. Then she walked a circle through the room and pushed both windows snug shut.
The uniform spoke first. He said: today, no reporting numbers. He paused. Today, questions.
He said: asking what. Asking which words you can't translate.
The room went quiet a beat. A lump of coal collapsed in the stove, one sound.
Wang Chaosheng spoke first. He said: we can translate all of them.
The uniform looked at him once. He said: all of them.
Wang Chaosheng said: all of them. He paused. It's just that nobody listens to us translate.
The one with the black bag smiled once, without letting it out. He drew the stack of white paper out and laid the sheets out one by one. The paper was stiff; it sounded as he laid it. At the seventh sheet a corner curled, and he pressed it flat with his palm.
The uniform said: this isn't a test. He said: the numbers in the back of your booklets — you've all seen them. Fifty-one and after. The stretch they couldn't print. The higher-ups want to know: that stretch — can you translate it or not. Those who can't, raise a hand. Hands raised, and it doesn't get printed after.
The boy sitting beside me said: there's nothing printed on the paper. How do we translate it.
The uniform said: that's why we're asking you. He paused. The words are in your mouths. Print or no print — that's yours to say.
Wang Chaosheng said: print it and we'll memorize it.
The uniform said: memorizing comes later. He laid his hand on the white paper. Today only one question. Can translate, can't translate.
The room went quiet again. The woman in the gray jacket stood and closed the windows another half. Wind came through the gap; the corners of the white paper lifted a little.
The uniform began reading out numbers.
He said: fifty-one. Those who can translate, don't move. Those who can't, raise a hand.
Nobody raised. The kids looked at each other.
He said: fifty-two. Hands.
A hand went up in the back row, straight as a pole — one of the fat kids from the paper mill. The uniform nodded toward the one with the black bag. The one with the black bag made a stroke on the paper.
Fifty-three. Fifty-four.
The hands multiplied. Some raised halfway, elbow planted on the table, the hand hanging. The uniform said: hanging counts as raised. Those hands all stood up. At the west end one kid kept switching hands — left hand up, a glance at the person to his right, switch to the right. The woman in the gray jacket walked over and pressed one of his hands down. He went on raising the pressed one and drew the other back.
At fifty-seven, Wang Chaosheng raised his. He raised it hard, his arm knocked over an enamel mug. The mug didn't roll; water sloshed out and soaked into the white cloth. The woman in the gray jacket came to wipe it. Wang Chaosheng's ears went red. He said: I only raised it for fifty-seven. Fifty-seven I can translate. The rest, I won't say I can.
The uniform said: one at a time.
Fifty-one was one I didn't raise.
When they read fifty-one, my palms were sweating. I sat with both hands pressed under my knees. I knew that number. The day we came back from the mountains in the fall, I had said it once in front of the recorder. I said: it says, you're not done setting it.
That sentence never went into the booklet. The recorder wrote two small characters in the corner of the page: to verify. Small as they were, I knew them.
The uniform read fifty-one again. He said: anyone who can't translate it.
I pulled my hands out from under my knees. I raised one.
While my hand was up I watched the tabletop. The water stain on the white cloth was drying, slowly. I held it up, and my arm didn't ache. I counted my breaths. At eight, the uniform said: good. Down.
The numbers after, I missed not one. Fifty-eight to one hundred, read faster. The kids who had raised hands didn't put their arms down, just held them up like doing exercises. Somewhere in the seventies he misread once, read sixty-four. A kid at the west end called out: wrong, past it. The one with the black bag rapped the paper with his pen. The uniform went back and reread. At one hundred he gathered the white sheets, tapped them on the table, squared the stack.
He said: hands raised, front and back together, a good half of you. He said: then that's how it goes. That back stretch won't be printed. The booklet gets rebound. The numbers stay. The words stay empty.
When the uniform said this, he watched the tabletop, not us. When he finished he drank a swallow of water. Setting the mug down, it clinked once.
The one with the black bag drew out another stack from the bag. Thin paper this time, mimeographed, handed out sheet by sheet. Printed at the head, three characters: Comment Slip. Two columns below. One column printed: numbers you can't translate. One column printed: reason.
The uniform said: numbers are easy. The reason — whoever can write it, write it. Whoever can't, press a thumbprint. A thumbprint is your reason too.
Wang Chaosheng wrote a whole string in the number column. His characters climbed out of the boxes again, half of each one outside. The reason column — he chewed the pencil over it a long time. The split end was in his mouth, tooth marks in the wood. He wrote: can't memorize them.
The boy beside me wrote no numbers. In the reason column he drew a circle. The woman in the gray jacket came over and asked: what does the circle mean. He said: they all mean the same. She didn't ask again. She left.
The paper-mill slips came in first. One wrote "we don't have them at home," one wrote "the teacher never taught it." One wrote: can't get it out, stomach hurts. When the one with the black bag reached the stomach-hurts slip, he looked up once at that kid. The kid hugged his belly, hurting for real by the look of it. He logged it too.
My slip lay open on the table. The number column was easy. I wrote one: fifty-one.
The reason column stayed empty.
The pencil was Wang Chaosheng's half. The split end snagged the paper, so I turned it around and used the pointed end.
I first wrote: It has not finished yet.
Five words. I stared at them a while. Wrong. What I'd said coming back from the mountains was, you're not done setting it. It was saying it to me. It brought its words to me, and I couldn't hold them. A thing I couldn't hold — writing "It has not finished yet" was speaking for it. Speaking for it, I wasn't fit. Its words reached me hot; my hand was cold.
I traced over the five words with the pencil point, traced them into one ink knot. When I finished, my fingertip had a black smear on it.
Couldn't hold them — why couldn't I. While I thought this, I thought of our cupboard at home. Two shelves. Plates on the top shelf, bowls on the bottom. Mom said: plates are for setting out where people can see; bowls are for our own meals. Only when guests came did the good bowls come out. The good bowls sat in other people's cupboards, holding other people's rice. Our bowls, rough, a little chip at the rim, held our rice, and that went smooth.
The words from number fifty-one on were bowls in that other cupboard. Good bowls. Our rice wouldn't go in. Force it in, the rice goes cold in the bowl, and the bowl is spoiled too.
I cleared a little space beside the ink knot and wrote:
These words are like other people's bowls — our family has no food to put in them.
Sixteen words. I counted when I finished: sixteen. None out of the boxes. The pointed end had worn a little blunt; the last two strokes came out thinner than the first.
The slips went up. The one with the black bag turned them one by one. At mine, he stopped, and handed the slip to the uniform. The uniform looked down at it once and didn't read it aloud. He slid the slip back into the stack and said: all collected.
The recorder came over to collect the mugs. Collected, he didn't go. He gathered up the stack of comment slips, carried them to the window, and, holding each slip by its corner, sheet by sheet, held them up against the light. His hands had chalk dust on them; white marks stayed where he pinched.
The woman in the gray jacket asked: checking what.
He said: whether it's come through. He said: the paper's thin, pencil presses heavy. This one — it's come through. He laid the ones that had come through off to one side, separately. Three sheets in all. Mine was one of them. From the back you could see the word for bowls, reversed, the strokes slanting left.
The uniform said: copy them over. What goes in the archive has to be clean on both sides.
The one with the black bag unzipped the bag all the way and drew a stack of paper from the inner pocket. Not like the white paper on the table. Thick, white, the edges trim, slick to the touch. He counted them and passed them to the recorder. The recorder sat down at the table's head to copy. He copied slowly, stroke by stroke, in a grown-up's hand. At mine, he stopped and looked up at me: bowls — bowls and chopsticks, that bowls. I said: mm. He bent back to it. Each sheet copied, he held it to the window once. He said: this paper doesn't come through.
Three sheets copied, two thick sheets left. The one with the black bag folded the leftovers and tucked them back into the inner pocket. He pinned the thin slips together with the fresh copies and said: originals attached at the back. The bag shut, zipper run to the end.
The recorder drew an awl and white thread from the iron clamp. He squared the stack, pressed it under his left hand, and drove the awl through. One hole, one pass of thread. Three holes done, the white thread went through, wound twice, and closed in a knot. Snipping the thread, the end sprang to the floor; he bent, picked it up, and put it in his own pocket.
Before leaving, the one with the black bag laid out one more sheet. He said: whoever raised a hand, leave your name. Later, when they check, it has to match the person.
The ones who had raised hands went up one by one to write. Wang Chaosheng wrote, out of the boxes. Some of the others wrote their own; some couldn't write, and the woman in the gray jacket gripped their wrists and steered them. When my turn came, the recorder opened the register, held the page flat, and said: copy this one. He paused. Write it properly.
I copied the name. The name in the register was the one I'd written the day I registered, at seven. Pencil, the last stroke hooked out long. This time I didn't hook it.
Collecting the sheets, I saw a line of characters at the head of that page. Six characters. The first two I knew: children. The middle two — bian, wei. Split apart I knew them both; together, I didn't. At the end, two more: a list.
I asked the recorder: what's bian-wei.
He squared the papers in his hand. He said: it's you children who raised your hands. He paused. He said: those two characters are no business of yours. Go play.
I passed the six through my head twice. Children. Bian-wei. A list. Twice, and I still didn't know them. Didn't know, then didn't know. I gave the pencil back to Wang Chaosheng. He said: keep it. He said: I've got a new one, pointed at both ends.
Coming out, Wei Dongquan stood at the foot of the steps. He hadn't come inside; he stood below the steps holding a cloth bundle, a square shape in the bottom of it. He waved us to the side. Above, people were carrying a table down the steps.
Wang Chaosheng asked him: Uncle Wei, the words that got deleted — do we still report them after this.
Wei Dongquan said: numbers, report as before. He paused. He said: the hand went up — that's your word now. Whoever asks later, say it that way.
Wang Chaosheng said: who's asking.
Wei Dongquan didn't take it up. He glanced toward the back courtyard. The door of the room where the booklets were kept was shut, the length of wire through the lock's hasp, its head twisted into two loops. He looked a while, turned, and left. The cloth bundle swung against his leg.
Going back, we passed Erya's window. Her curtain was open a crack. Erya was inside, watching us. Wang Chaosheng waved at the window. The curtain dropped.
Wang Chaosheng said: if Erya had gone, she'd have raised her hand too.
I said: she wasn't going.
He said: not going, then not going. He squatted in the snow and took out a marble to flick. Glass, a red flower inside. Two flicks, and he stood, hands thrust into his pockets. He said: I'm off. His mom wove afternoons; he had to get back and feed the fire.
That line of sign-in marks still stood on the snow piles. He went along, tracing each one deeper again. At the last one he said: complete. He tucked the pencil stub into his pocket, a small point pushing out through the cloth.
At night Mom knitted under the lamp. Red yarn; she said she was going to knit me a vest. A few stitches, then a glance at the booklet on her knees. The booklet held the words I had reported, the paper's edges gone yellow from oil.
Mom asked: what did they ask today.
I said: whether we could translate.
Mom said: could you.
I said: deleted. Fifty-one and after — deleted.
Mom's needles didn't stop. She said: deleted is deleted. She paused. She asked: have you eaten.
I said: yes.
Mom said: then go to bed.
I didn't sleep right away. I turned the blue booklet to the back. Fifty-one and on, fifty numbers, running down in order. On the paper now they were still empty numbers. Rebound later, still empty numbers. Empty means blank paper. Blank paper is cold; it doesn't snag the hand.
Before sleep I did one thing. Beside number fifty-one, with Wang Chaosheng's pencil, I set a small dot. Then I rubbed it once with my finger. The dot was still there.
I closed the booklet and pressed it under my pillow. Pressed flat, and then I slept.