Chapter 372: The Roll-Up Door Comes Down Early

April 13, 4:00 p.m. The noodle-delivery tricycle had just left. Two sacks of flour sat at the doorway, flat on the ground below the steps.

He Xiufen tucked the hem of her apron into her waistband, bent over, grabbed the mouth of a sack with both hands and tried to lift it. It didn't budge. When she straightened up, she braced herself against the doorframe. Her back had been bent over all yesterday morning. Today it wasn't cooperating.

Footsteps on the stairs.

Lu Jibai had his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows. He stepped around her, hoisted the outer sack against his chest, and carried it into the kitchen with his shoulders set, setting it on the wooden pallet against the back wall—an inch off the floor, two bricks underneath to keep out damp. He came back for the second sack.

"Fifty jin each?" He Xiufen followed behind him.

"Fifty each."

"In the old days, the delivery man carried them all the way in before letting go. Now the truck stops at the alley mouth, honks once, and drives off. Doesn't even get out."

The second sack settled into place, and he straightened up. His shirt front, trouser legs, and shoes were dusted white. He Xiufen flattened her palm against his sleeve and wiped. The white didn't come off—it smeared.

"Don't move." She pushed his hand down as he started to brush at it. "The more you pat, the deeper it works into the cloth. Use a brush tonight."

"It's fine if it's on there."

"Where you're meeting people tomorrow is none of my business. This afternoon, that shirt is my kitchen's business."

The deliveryman had clipped a form to the sacks—a three-part slip, the middle copy for whoever received the flour. He Xiufen pulled it out, shook it open, glanced at it, and handed it back.

"Read it to me. My glasses are in the upstairs drawer, and I don't feel like going up right now."

He read: "Flour, two sacks, one hundred jin. Date, April thirteenth. Signature of recipient."

There were barely a few lines on the paper, but she still made him read it to the end before she took the key ring off the wall hook—a ballpoint pen dangled from it, its barrel wrapped twice with tape—and wrote "He Xiufen" in the signature line, stroke by stroke, no shortcuts.

"Two hundred twenty. Settled at month's end." She folded the slip into her apron pocket. "You pick a good time to come down. I was just wondering who I'd get to move these two sacks."

"I heard the truck."

"Plenty of people heard the truck." She turned back to the stove. "Go upstairs. Don't stand around in my space."

"I'll carry the chairs out for you."

"No. Once they're out in the sun, the moment noodles hit them they go stiff. You people sit more than you stand. Don't play helper."

He didn't argue, but he didn't go upstairs either.

She wiped down the stovetop with lye water first, then went over it again with hot water. The rag worked through the basin, folded into two layers, pushed from one burner to the other, working the greasy spots twice. The white tiles around the stove were ones she'd laid herself. There was one cracked one near the middle—other people couldn't get them straight, but she had. Four tables downstairs, plus a smaller one by the door. The chair legs all wobbled; paper scraps were wedged under the stools.

Lu Jibai stood outside the stove area, not stepping in. The ring around the stove was her territory. Anyone who'd offered to help, she'd turned them back—politely, but firmly.

A chair creaked upstairs, then silence.

"At lunch she didn't finish her noodles." He Xiufen kept wiping as she spoke. "She's been writing on that Qinghe paper till now."

"The demand notice," he said. "The appraisal fee line."

"What fee."

"The appraisal fee the Center advanced. The judgment says the defendant bears it, but doesn't specify when or where to pay. A demand notice has to state the amount, the account, and the deadline."

"Even judgments forget things." She rinsed the rag in the water. "You go upstairs and write your own things too. Do your firm's work. Don't waste time down here with me."

"What about the case due on the twenty-third?" She wrung out the rag and asked again.

"The appeal period runs to the twenty-third. No word so far."

"Is no word a good thing?"

"No word is just no word."

Someone upstairs was on the phone, voice kept low, talking for a while, then it cut off. He Xiufen glanced at the ceiling. "That's Qinghe. Three times a day. More punctual than my noodle customers."

He didn't move. She stopped pushing too. She emptied her apron pocket onto the table corner—one-yuan coins stacked in one pile, fifty-cent coins in another—flipped open the metal tin lid, and counted twice.

"Say what you came to say." She didn't look up. "Standing there like a post—am I running a noodle shop or not?"

"Director He. The evening of the eighteenth. Is anyone booked in?"

The rag stopped on the edge of the stove.

"The eighteenth." She looked up. "Evening."

"Evening."

"Who told you anyone was booked?"

"No one. I'm asking."

"No." She smoothed the rag flat, folding one layer over another, her movements slowing. "Nobody on this street books a bowl of my noodles five days out. The evening of the eighteenth is empty. What's this about?"

"That night, could the roll-up door come down a little early?"

"Early. What time?"

"Before seven."

He Xiufen wiped her hands on her apron. The rag lay there, and she didn't reach for it.

"Door down before seven means losing the late dinner service. Seven-thirty people start coming in, eight it's full, nine the second wave." She tallied it up for him. "A wave runs seventy or eighty, good nights over a hundred. In a year, the only days I close early are: Lunar New Year's Eve, Mid-Autumn, and when my sister's family holds something."

"I've counted."

"You counted and you still said it."

"Yeah."

"Why."

The door pushed open half a foot. An old man leaned in, his cap pulled low.

"Any noodles?"

"Kitchen opens at five!" He Xiufen's voice shot up. "The stove's cold right now, nothing in the pot but water."

"I'll wait."

"If you're waiting, sit at that table outside. I'm mopping in here—every muddy footprint is one more pass for me."

The old man sat at the small table by the door, took off his cap and set it on the table corner, and rested both hands on his knees. He Xiufen poured him half a bowl of hot water from the thermos and carried it over. She set it down. "Water's free." Coming back, she straightened the chairs one by one. By the third chair she spoke again.

"At five the fire starts, and I won't have time for idle talk. Twenty minutes. Say what it is."

"I need to tell her something at the door. There'll be people."

"People." She let the word sit in her mouth. "Telling someone something, and you need my roll-up door for it."

"Yes."

"The wave you miss, I'll make it up."

"Make up what." She draped the rag over the basin rim. "You think I'm short your hundred yuan?"

"No."

"Then don't mention money. Mention money and the whole thing curdles."

"You don't say it, and I still see it." Her palm swept the tabletop once. "On the tenth, when you came back at noon and went upstairs, your right hand never left your pocket. You took those steps slower than usual. Whatever you bought, you've kept it in your pocket three days and don't find it heavy."

He said nothing.

"I don't ask." She pulled her hand back. "Ask too much, and the upstairs tenant stops coming down for noodles."

"What about the light?" he said.

He Xiufen raised her eyes.

"You close up, you have to leave something." She said, "The lamp over the door—should it stay on?"

"It should."

"They changed the bulb two years ago. The shade's tin—it rattles every time it rains." She tilted her chin toward the lintel. "When I pull the door down I hit the lamp switch by habit. Twenty years, every night the same. How late do you want it on?"

"Until she goes."

"What if she sits there till midnight."

"Then it stays on till midnight."

"The electric bill's on me, I suppose." She waved off her own question. "Don't answer. That lamp doesn't burn a few cents a month."

She picked up the rag, wrung it dry, and hung it on the basin rim.

"Have you told her yet?"

"Not yet."

"You came to ask for my door before even telling her."

"Settle the door first. Then tell her."

"Settle the door first." She repeated the line, her voice lower. "This sign over my door has hung here twenty-some years. If anyone wants to use my doorstep for something, I always ask one question first: does the person it concerns know?"

"She will know."

"I don't want 'she will know.' I want: she's nodded her head."

"I'll tell her on the seventeenth."

"And if she doesn't come after you tell her?"

"The door comes down all the same. The lamp stays on all the same."

"And you stand on those three steps alone."

"Yeah."

He Xiufen carried the basin to the door and flung the water into the drain gully, cleanly. She set the basin upside down against the wall, then came back and nudged the small mat at the door straight with her foot.

"On the eighteenth, the kitchen still opens at noon—I'll do lunch. No dinner." She said, "At seven I pull the door. Once it's down, I won't touch the lamp. I'll do my accounts inside, and when they're done I'll go upstairs. Whatever happens outside, I won't look."

"And if someone asks the next day?"

"This street has more eyes than cameras." She gave a short laugh. "The next day someone will ask for sure: Director He, how come you closed early last night?"

"What will you say?"

"I'll say the stove broke, took half the night to fix." She looked at him. "Want me to add a line—that the man fixing my stove was wearing a dress shirt."

"No need."

"Then that's the line. The stove broke."

"Thank you."

"Thank me for what. At my age, I see what's in front of me; what I can't see, I leave alone."

"Keep two bowls of noodles."

"I keep them, and you say no need—is that it?" She lifted her eyes. "The noodles stay. This shop only does noodles. Keep them warm on the stove; if they cool, take them up and reheat them yourself. You know how to work that little burner upstairs."

"I do."

"Know how, and I've barely seen you use it twice."

She pushed away the last streak of oil at the stove's edge, dropped the rag in the basin. The water gave a soft sound.

"That lamp's not high wattage," she said.

He looked at her.

"It lights the steps." She nudged the basin against the wall. "On the night of December eighteenth, you stood outside the door and said that. I was standing inside, behind the door. I heard it."

The white powder on his sleeve had smeared into a streak, running up along the seam. Neither of them bothered with it now.

"That night I stood behind the roll-up door, listening to the two of you leave, listening until you'd reached the alley mouth before I turned back." She said, "Whatever you mean to say, I won't weigh it for you. It's your own affair."

"Yeah."

"A quarter to five."

He turned and walked to the foot of the stairs. The sign on the wall still read "Zhengping Law Firm," its letters polished daily until they shone.

"Jibai."

He stopped and looked back.

He Xiufen stood outside the stove ring, one hand still resting on the basin rim.

"What you're going to tell her—it's more than one line, isn't it."

He stood still for a moment.

"More."

At five to five, the burner under the stove whooshed to life—blue, curling around the pot bottom. The old man at the door picked his cap up and put it back on. "Open yet?"

"Open." He Xiufen set the pot on the flame and glanced toward the stairs. No one was there.