[ECHO ARCHIVE · LAYER 3 · 18.2% DECODED · KEY: LIVE SOUND FROM THE 2008 SUMMER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY BROADCAST]
Day 83, 03:11:44, step 86.
At seven twenty in the morning the June 13 frame enters the archive, this round S-11 and S-17. Two local items inside: one on exam sites for the high-school entrance exam, one on a compound's water pipes replaced. Xiao Gao checks three place names, one of them that compound; he circles the entry and says he checked it once last week — twice matched now.
Ye Zhen's table was finished this morning. It took her three weeks.
She worked from three screens: one for the frames, one for the coordinate table, one for the present-day registration system. The coordinate table she printed twice — one taped to the partition, one kept for Zhou Yansheng.
In her index database, the entries locatable from 2079 frames to present-day entities come to two hundred fourteen in all, every one a doorplate or a signboard. Forty-seven of the two hundred fourteen fall in a single block: Bushi Street, plus the two streets that run into it. Every one of those forty-seven addresses today holds a registered business.
The April 25 frame gave that street a full segment. She cut the picture open grid by grid, one coordinate to a signboard; the shops she could make out came to thirty-one.
I helped her run one enhancement pass on that April 25 frame once — two hours of it. Afterward she went through recognition again: thirty-one still.
She says the enhancement was useful. I say, did it make out two more? She says no. Says what was useful: it made out the pattern of the flowered cloth on the tricycle — blue ground, white dots.
She says she wrote that down.
The remaining sixteen she can mark on the picture too — at those sixteen positions there are doors, roller shutters; before one door a tricycle is parked, flowered cloth over its bed. Only the signboards can't be made out.
For each of the forty-seven she marks a year: the year that shop first entered any electronic system. The year of its electronic license, the year of its first electronic payment, the year it first turned up on some platform — whichever came first is the one that counts.
When the year could be either, she takes the earlier, then adds a bracket in the remarks field naming the other system. So that if someone checks later, they can trace it back, she says.
I say what's "someone checks" supposed to mean.
She says someone is going to check sooner or later anyway.
All thirty-one have one. The earliest is 2004; the latest, December 2038 — a hardware store that only put up a payment code that year, and the first payment it took was sixteen yuan.
The sixteen: not one. Among them a needle-and-thread shop whose license was issued in 1997, a paper booklet, never replaced to this day. The photo on its card in the archives office is black and white, one inch, the person younger than she is now.
She confirmed these sixteen one by one. She took a day and a half off, went to the market-supervision archives to go through the paper cards, spent two days at it, and copied out the underlying records of all sixteen. Copied in pencil; the archives office doesn't allow fountain pens.
She photocopied the sixteen cards and brought them back. The copies come out dark, the characters lighter than the originals. One of the originals, she says, carries a red stamp, from 2001; in the copy it is a patch of gray.
She went to find out when these sixteen would have records. What came back was a single document: province-wide electronic registration of individually owned businesses, in two batches — batch one to be completed by the end of 2042; batch two closing December 31, 2043; unregistered past the deadline, treated as automatically deregistered.
She memorized the document's number — eleven digits — and recites it in one breath, no stop in the middle.
All sixteen of these fall in batch two.
She then took the forty-seven and ran them against Layer 3. When the directory had been decoded to 13,489 rows, nine could be matched, by registered-address doorplate plus enterprise name.
Of the nine: seven show "in operation." Two show "deregistered."
The seven in-operation ones all sit in the thirty-one above. The two deregistered ones all sit in the sixteen below.
She wrote the three steps on a single sheet of paper. The sheet's title: The Absentees · First Version · June.
Sixteen lines of body text, A4, single-spaced; each line one entity name, one address, one blank year field.
At the bottom of the sheet she drew a horizontal line, and below it, on a new line, wrote only: "Also: 1."
She carries it to Zhou Yansheng.
She stands; forty minutes without sitting. The chair she brought over herself — brought it, and didn't sit in it.
Zhou Yansheng reads it for forty minutes. He reads slowly, line by line; as he reads his right index finger rests on the paper, moving down an inch, stopping, moving down another inch.
Done, he looks up and says, of these sixteen, how many have shut their doors.
Ye Zhen says three.
He says then thirteen remain.
She says thirteen.
He taps the blank year column with his finger and asks why the column is blank.
Ye Zhen says because they don't have one.
He says then write "none" in it.
Ye Zhen says once it's written in, it becomes a number.
He gives her one look and draws the finger back.
He says, batch two is automatic deregistration. It is not automatic disappearance.
She says the directory doesn't have them. Neither do the frames.
He lets that pass. He turns the sheet over and looks at the back; the back is blank.
He asks where the 214 came from.
Ye Zhen says, all that could be located.
He says, and how many can't be located.
Ye Zhen says she doesn't know.
He says, then the denominator is unknown.
Ye Zhen says yes.
He says, then how do you get to say "all."
Ye Zhen says she didn't say all. She said of these forty-seven.
I say, and where does forty-seven come from.
Ye Zhen says forty-seven is every registered business in this stretch — not one more, not one fewer.
I say the thirty-one were made out off signboards. The ones whose signboards you can't read — do they count as absent, or as unreadable.
She says they count as not seen.
I say some of the sixteen may still be open — their signboards just didn't make it into the picture.
She says yes.
I say then this can't be called—
She says that's why she wrote "first version."
She says for the second version she'll do three blocks.
I say how do you do three blocks.
She says one in the neighboring county, one in the city, one in another province. The other-province block she has no full street segment for; she can only wait for some frame to give another street.
I say how long a wait.
She says she doesn't know. Says this work was always made out of waiting.
She pulls the sheet back and squares it. Squared, she erases "June" from the title and changes it to "June · to be continued." Says she pressed too hard; the paper fuzzed.
She puts the sheet in a folder. On the folder's spine, in pencil, three characters: "unmatched."
She puts the folder back in her own cabinet, innermost shelf, with her own things, apart from the institute's. Her cabinet has no lock.
I ask what's under that line.
Ye Zhen shuts the cabinet door, presses her hand on it once.
She says there's one more.
I say why write it outside.
She says she doesn't fit the sample.
I say which condition doesn't she fit.
She says the backfill one.
I don't ask again.
Lao Song came over that afternoon to ask. Plastic ruler under his arm, standing beside Ye Zhen's station.
He says, "Do I count as on the list."
Ye Zhen looks up at him for three seconds. She says: "You have social security, a fund account, a phone number. You're in."
Lao Song says oh.
He stands a bit, then says: "What about my mother-in-law. She doesn't have a phone — hers is one of those old-folk phones, calls only."
Ye Zhen says go get her one.
Lao Song says, "And that'll do it?"
Ye Zhen says, "By the first version, yes."
Lao Song says, "What's 'first version' mean."
Ye Zhen says, "It means it isn't finished."
Lao Song pulls the ruler out from under his arm, measures the air above the table edge, doesn't really measure, tucks it back. He says he'll go back over the weekend.
Before leaving he turns back once more: "What's fastest to get."
Ye Zhen says a phone number.
He says she can't use a phone.
Ye Zhen says she doesn't have to; the card can stay with you.
The third week of June she goes back to the neighboring county again. Her sister isn't at the shop; the old woman next door, the one who sells needles and thread, opens the door for her.
The old woman says, "Your sister was right here last month."
Ye Zhen says, "I know."
The old woman says she hasn't seen her these last few days.
Ye Zhen says she went to restock.
The old woman says oh, restocking runs several days. The fiber modem is still here, under the counter, cord unplugged. Plugged into the power strip is an electric fan; a layer of dust on the blades, the dust dry.
She doesn't unplug the fan.
Back at the institute she writes after the fourth line of the "backfill" column: "not powered."
She says the shop's membership book is still in use — paper, stamped. Last line June 3, one stamp, the date on the stamp unreadable. She says she thumbed through: the first pages are her sister's hand; the later pages changed hands.
She says she didn't turn any further.
On Adebayo's whiteboard, of the three blank lines one got a name written in and crossed out — Xiao Gao's. The first line is still his own name. On day 90 he wins his ninth match. The ninth he wins off Xiao Gao. The money is cash, twenty yuan, crumpled; Xiao Gao takes it from his trouser pocket and smooths it flat before handing it over. Adebayo clips it into a notebook whose cover carries a bank advertisement.
In the canteen he sits alone at one table — the one against the wall, facing the wall. Xiao Gao carries his tray past me, swerves, goes around the other side.
That noon Lao Song sits with me. He chopsticks two meatballs onto my tray; I say I don't eat them. He says if you don't, I will. Chopsticks them back.
He says the canteen's meatballs are smaller than last month. I say I hadn't noticed. He says smaller by a full ring. He takes the plastic ruler from his pocket, holds it above his tray, doesn't truly measure, puts it away.
The June 18 frame came in on day 88. Forty minutes; I go through it twice, the second time at four times speed.
Nothing.
In the duty log's remarks column, on the line beneath the last one, I write six characters: 06-18, no.
Once, flipping through the ledger, Tong reaches that page and asks what the bottom line is. I say nothing much. He says it reads zero-six-one-eight. I say it's a frame number. He says oh. He doesn't ask again, and doesn't erase it.
The lock on the third-floor room was changed, to a keypad kind. Tong says he wasn't given the code. I say you don't need it. He says he doesn't go up to the third floor.
The east room on the third floor has gained a table. New; the plastic film on the corner not fully peeled, two strips left. No computer on it; a power strip, a lamp; the lamp's bulb warm light.
The man in the light-gray shirt is sometimes in. When he is, the door is shut.
Tong asks which department he's from. I say I don't know. Tong asks where he eats, then. I say I don't know. Tong says he mopped the third-floor hot-water room yesterday.
Since April, one postcard a month has been coming to Tong: the same person's hand, only one date on it, postmarked in another city. He keeps it with those three letters; three postcards now. He says he doesn't plan to reply.
Nian plays forty minutes a day now. When she plays I sit in the living room and don't talk. The staccato in the third section is still heavy; when she finishes she says it herself: heavy again. I say mm. She says she practiced forty minutes today. I say I know.
The gray jacket on the canteen chair across from me — on the seventh day someone folded it and set it on the windowsill. On the eleventh it was gone. I asked Tong; Tong says he wasn't the one who folded it.
I say, of those sixteen, any you know?
She says at three of them she's bought things.
I say which three.
She says a needle-and-thread shop, a shoe-repair place, and a tofu shop. The tofu shop, her brother-in-law goes to now.
I say oh.
The June 20 frame came in on day 90. In it: a report on the high-school entrance exam, one district's rainstorm warning, one item on some fruit trees' harvest shortfall. Xiao Gao checks four place names; all four match; he tapes the slip to the end of his list without crossing off a single item.
Day 90, morning, Zhou Yansheng calls Ye Zhen in.
I'm in the next room, door open; I hear the second half. Shen Yi stood at the doorway once, didn't come in, stood about ten seconds and left. As he left, Zhou lifted his head a little.
Ye Zhen says: "I only did the Bushi Street block."
Zhou says: "One block is enough."
A pause.
Zhou says: "We're not publishing."
Ye Zhen says: "This is the first version. I can do three blocks."
Zhou says: "Without an explanation, you're manufacturing an underclass."
Ye Zhen says: "But the list closes in 2043."
Zhou says: "Then all the more reason not to say it."
After that, no sound. When I go in, Ye Zhen is already out, the folder under her arm, spine outward, the three characters facing me.
She says he told her to hold it for now.
I say mm.
She says she's holding it for now.
I saw her sheet once more afterward, when she wasn't at her station. I read only the sixteen lines, didn't look below them. When I finished I put it back, at the same angle as before.
That afternoon I pass her station. The sheet lies open on her desk; what she's looking at is not the sixteen lines but the horizontal line beneath them. Her hand rests on the edge of the paper, not moving.
Tong once asks her what's written on that folder. She says three characters. He says which three. She says "unmatched." Tong says oh; says he has nowhere to put his postcards either.
At night, 03:11:44, step 94. Tong finishes writing and pushes the book back.