Chapter 422: That Night

July 1, 9:50 a.m. The gate of the third house stood open.

By now they knew the way from the village entrance by heart: past the old locust tree, down two concrete steps, around the two-story village committee building. The sun had cleared the rooftop, and the shadow of the back-row houses still lay across the gateway. The gate of the fourth house was open too. A woman came out with a basin, tossed the water out, glanced at them, leaned the basin against the wall, and went back inside.

Pang Chunlai sat on a low stool just inside the doorway, an enamel mug at his feet. The old electric scooter's spot in the yard was empty, a dry patch on the brick floor where it usually sat. He Xiufen called out "Old Pang" from the gate. He stood, bracing a hand on the edge of the stool, and stepped aside to let them pass.

They went in. He waited until both had crossed the threshold, then pulled the door shut and slid the bolt down from the top, pressing it firmly with the heel of his hand.

Inside was cooler than outdoors. The small rear window was covered with plastic sheeting; he reached up and smoothed down a hanging corner.

"The window's thin. You can hear through from outside," he said.

Two extra small stools had been set out, their seats wiped clean and still faintly damp.

He Xiufen took the bundle of dried noodles from her cloth bag and placed it by the stove. "Brought these."

"Leave them there," he said.

He poured out half his mug of water onto the ground past the doorstep, refilled it from the thermos, set it by her hand, and poured a mug for He Xiufen too. That done, he sat back on his stool, hands on his knees. The skin on the backs of his hands was loose, his knuckles thick, the creases in his nails packed with gray that would not wash out.

"You came by the bus?"

"By bus," He Xiufen said.

"Many people on it?"

"No. After the town it was just the two of us."

He made a sound of assent, his eyes falling to the floor near her feet.

"My son's on day shift today," he said. "Won't be back till evening."

"Whatever is said today stays in this room. We won't repeat it in the village," He Xiufen said.

He nodded, very slightly.

"No rush. Start wherever the memory comes."

She reached into her bag and touched the notebook but did not take it out.

He picked up his mug and took a sip, then held it without setting it down.

"That night, a vehicle came and swapped the water buckets."

"The pump had to be shut down once during the night around then and restarted," he said. "If the air in the pipes didn't get out, the water came up white. I got up in the middle of the night to throw the switch. The switch was on the wall behind the door, within arm's reach."

"Those years I was the only one who looked after the pump house. I had one key. If anyone had no water, they'd holler from outside the wall."

"On the night of the twentieth, I got up sometime after one. I didn't turn on the light. I felt my way along the wall. The pump house door wasn't locked—one push and it opened."

He paused.

"Things had been moved in during the day. That evening, passing the back gate at dusk, I'd seen two cardboard boxes by the foot of the wall, covered and tied with rope. I didn't think much of it. People were always stacking things there."

"The pump house is two steps from the back gate. I turned the corner and—there was a vehicle parked at the back gate."

He stopped again.

"The front end was pointed at the gate. No lights, not one. No moon either, but there were stars—shapes you could make out, faces you couldn't." He rested the mug on his knee. "I had a flashlight in my hand. I didn't dare press it."

"Two men. They were carrying buckets down from the truck. Small buckets, white, two in each arm, stacked against their chests, carried just like that." He drew his arms toward his chest, moving very gently, as if afraid of bumping something. "Carrying them inside. The back gate was already open—they'd pushed it open themselves. Once a bucket bottom knocked against the threshold. Thud. Both of them stopped, then went on carrying."

"How many trips inside?" she asked.

"I lost count. Back and forth." he said. "At one point they both stopped, stood still, didn't speak. I thought they were leaving. After a while they started carrying again."

"I stood at the foot of the pump house wall, not daring to move, until my legs went numb."

He Xiufen nudged the mug a little closer to his hand; he did not reach for it.

"What was in the buckets—you didn't look?"

"They were covered. I didn't dare step closer." He said, "I was afraid they were stealing water. Or that they were from the factory making a delivery. Those days, any vehicle that came to the village, I asked nothing. Ask one question and they'd remember you for it."

He took a breath.

"They carried loads in, then carried loads out. What came out was also small buckets. On one trip a man carried two in each hand, stacked high, walking slowly."

"I never saw their faces. Their backs were to me the whole time."

"How long?" He Xiufen asked.

"Hard to say. From the time they started carrying to when they left, I stood at that wall the whole time. Around twenty minutes."

He Xiufen asked nothing more. The room was quiet for a while. From beyond the back wall came the sound of chickens scratching the dirt.

"Nobody from this back row comes out after dark," he said. "After eight, the lights go out one by one. That night I was the only one awake. The road to town—traffic in the daytime, usually nothing at night. If there was a vehicle, I'd take an extra look."

"Near the end, one sound." He raised his hands, pressed the back of one against the palm of the other, and slowly pulled them apart. "A long rip. Tearing tape. A long tear."

"That was the sound I remember clearest. After that rip, the two of them stopped talking and got in the truck."

"The truck headed toward the road to town. Drove slowly, no horn. Only past a certain point did the lights come on. Once the lights were on, the truck picked up speed."

"I didn't dare throw the switch that night. I waited until the next morning. After I did, I went in through the back gate and took a look: rings of water marks on the floor. The two cardboard boxes by the wall—gone."

"That morning I looked at the back gate again. On that cement ramp there were two wheel tracks, wide ones, the tires still wet. Later it rained, and they were gone."

"I didn't tell anyone about that night. The next day I pumped water as usual. Whoever hollered for water, I went."

She pulled her hand from the bag and folded both hands over her knees.

On the stone steps outside the noodle shop on April 18, Lu Jibai had said, from half a step away: the tape on the mouth of one box wasn't the strip from the night before. She pressed that thought down. She did not ask, and she did not write it in the notebook.

The phrase "swapped the water buckets" was Pang Chunlai's own. She hadn't asked about the truck, hadn't asked about the men, hadn't asked about the buckets. The name for that night was his own doing. She also didn't ask whether his son knew. To ask would be to drag that person into this room with them.

"And after that?" She asked only this.

He switched his mug to the other hand.

"The third day, your father came."

"The first two times, I didn't much want to deal with him." He said, "The first time he stood at the pump house door and asked if the well water tasted sweet. I said taste it yourself. He scooped up a ladleful and drank it, put the ladle back, and said it was bitter. I said it's been bitter all these years. Then he left."

"The second time he brought a bag. He squatted on the steps copying something all morning. I was inside cooking noodles. I didn't call him. At noon when he left, he said from outside: 'Old Pang, I'll come again.' I didn't answer."

"The third time he came, he was early, before the sun reached the wall. He sat on those steps the whole morning and didn't even ask. I poured him half a mug of water."

"He drank two mouthfuls, then asked me something."

He raised his head and looked at her.

"He said, Old Pang, do you have a piece of paper with a name written on it."

"I said no."

"He said, what about a blank one? Write one. Write down what you saw."

"I said I didn't dare."

"I told him about that night. And the moment I finished, I regretted it."

He didn't go on. She didn't press. The light in the room came through the plastic sheeting and fell on the back of his hand where it rested on his knee.

"My son had been at the factory three months that year," he said. "He started after the New Year, got on the line in March. I'd asked around to get him that job. I bought him rubber boots and a quilt. If he lost that job, he'd come back and squeeze into this one room with me and eat from my bowl."

"I didn't tell your father any of that. He saw it himself." He went on. "He pulled the notebook from his bag—hard cover, leather worn pale, corners curled, papers tucked inside. He uncapped his pen and wrote stroke by stroke. Wrote slowly."

"After one line, he looked up at me."

"I waved my hand."

"So he crossed my name out for me. One hard stroke. So hard the paper was raised on the back. Only after he finished did he look up."

"Below it he added a small line. What it said, I didn't ask. I don't know many characters, and even if I did, I wouldn't look. When he was done, he closed the notebook, fastened it, put it back in his bag."

"He said, then I won't write you in."

"He said, once it's written down, they'll come asking. If you keep quiet, that piece of paper becomes your crime."

"With that, he stood. At the yard gate he looked back and said: 'The water business—don't tell anyone I was the one asking.'"

"He left that half mug of water on the steps, unfinished."

She thought of the hardcover notebook, the crossing-out: a ridge raised on the other side of the paper, only half a name left, a line of small writing beside it. So that's how it was done—not that a person had been missed, but that someone had taken him off the paper.

"After that, in the winter that year, I heard he was in trouble," he said. "Big trouble. Nobody in the village dared mention it. I moved the vat from the yard into the house and never thought of him again. In nine years nobody asked me anything, and nobody in the village ever spoke of it. Year after year I lived as if I'd been asleep in this room that night."

He finished. The room fell quiet. From the yard next door came a cough, then the clink of bowls.

After a while.

"I didn't dare back then," he said.

He looked down at his hands and stared at them for a time.

"He's dead. I'm still alive."

He Xiufen's hand rested on the dried noodles by the stove and did not move. She wanted to say "It wasn't your fault," but the words stopped at her lips—if she said that, who exactly would she be excusing? She couldn't fully sort that out.

She took the notebook from her bag and set it on her knees without opening it.

"Uncle," she said, "I'm going to write down what you've said. Once it's written, I'll take it to court—to petition for a review of my father's case, at the Jiangzhou Intermediate Court. The court may send someone to ask you about it. They may not. Today you decide whether to speak, and where to stop. If you want to change your mind right now, I'll put the notebook away."

He looked at her for a long moment.

"Your father sat with me just like this, you know," he said. "First he told me what would happen if I spoke."

"After he asked that question, I never gave him my name. When he left, he turned back and nodded at me once."

He pressed his hand against his knee, as if pressing something down.

"NINE YEARS LATER, I'VE FINALLY RETURNED THAT NOD."

He raised his mug, drained the last mouthful, and set it on the table with a knock.

"Write it," he said. "When it's done, read it aloud to me."