七部小说 · Seven Novels

第 11 章 ——《俄罗斯调子》

七月变作八月，八月变作九月，日历做着日历该做的事——在一座假装尚未走到季节末尾的城里。

我于七月二十四日午夜下去。我于七月三十一日下去。我于八月七日、十四日、二十一日下去，到二十一日那一晚，冷藏间的厨子已经在最低一格板条箱上替我搁下一小碗大麦凉茶，好叫我两点回上来时顺手取了喝——因为他自作主张，断定我会渴，而我确会渴。

他不开口。他把碗放下。他回到他的小凳上。我在倒数第二级台阶上喝那碗大麦茶。我把空碗放回板条箱。八月第二个礼拜起，厨子的颔首后面多了一个极小的动作——他烟斗最轻微的一沉，对一桩他正被默许替我做的事最轻微的承认——而我便也回他两个颔首。我们正经营着一段我用我们共通的任何一种语言都无从描述的交情。

课就是课。

第一段已成了第一段。第二段已成了第二段。升 C 小调的过桥，到第六个礼拜五，已成了我喉咙里有一条路走得通的东西;进过桥时，我不再想这是过桥。我便唱了。到第七个礼拜五，他写出了第三段;第八个礼拜五，他改了一遍;第九个礼拜五，他又改了一遍——因为我第八个礼拜五偶然换的半口气，告诉了他一桩他写时尚不明白的事。

第九课上他不曾说谢谢。他说:第二段已经写完了。第二段是你的。我懂得，这就是谢谢在一间砖室里——一个三年来未曾被人谢过的男人——所采的形式。

安雅在礼拜六下午替我梳头。她不问我礼拜五去过哪里。她把我转向镜子，说今晚你像个女人，不像个女孩了——她在闷得无聊的礼拜天里也是这么说的，只是这些礼拜六下午，她说得像一个人说一桩她已经看了几个礼拜、并已决定不去点破的事。到八月中旬，她替我扣那对珍珠耳坠时，坠子比七月低了半厘米——因她的指尖已极轻微地不再向我的耳垂讨准许了。这桩事我们不打算谈。

热便是热。上海的八月，是那种一个女人停下脚步便有一层薄漆似的细汗铺过锁骨的热;而这层汗在两节之间是退不下去的，无论后台化妆间的窗子向天井开了多久。银色旗袍领口先得了汗。鸽灰色的得在腋下。深蓝那件我已不再上身。到八月，我衣架上有三件旗袍接缝处带了夏天那种干硬的小盐渍，而安雅在礼拜六下午用一方薄纱、一点不算多的水，在黄铜面盆里替我擦了出来，礼拜天午前便在走廊的绳子上晾干了。

白珠在第三个礼拜瞧了出来。

头两个礼拜她什么都没瞧出来，因为头两个礼拜里，白珠正在斟酌她瞧出来这一桩究竟能不能帮上忙。到八月第三个礼拜五，她已斟酌好了。十一点半，她上了化妆间，小碟里端着一对凉了的小笼包——她从厨房里顺出来的——脱了鞋坐在贵妃榻上，吃了一个，看着镜子里的我，说:「歌还是歌。」

「还是歌。」

「是一首带了一个男人的歌。」

「是——」

「Baby，」她不曾抬高嗓子。「我不是在问。我是在记。你已有九个礼拜在礼拜六的第二节迟到。菲律宾的小伙子们瞧出来了。他们不说。Tony 每个礼拜三问我你可还好。我每个礼拜三告诉他你好。到十月他便不再问了，因他已断定这不关他的事。他们一旦不问，便要开始看。他们正在看你。我告诉你，是好叫你在我不在的日子里，自己记得。」

「谢谢你，白珠。」

「Sweetheart。」她把穿着丝袜的脚搁上贵妃榻。「姚三爷自浦东回来时，我得有一桩关于你的、既是真的、又不是它本来那桩事的话好告诉他。到十月第三个礼拜五，我得知道我要替你撒的是哪一桩谎。可好?」

「可好。」

她拿了第二个小笼包。她把我那杯剩的水喝尽了。她朝门口走时说:「若在十月里某一时刻，这首歌愿意变成一个有名字的男人，那名字我不必知道。我只需知道，那男人不是伊藤健介。」

「他不是伊藤健介。」

「好，baby。好。我问的就是这一桩。」

她走了。

伊藤健介。这名字到八月中旬，已经开始在乐池里以菲律宾人那种小心的方式被提起——他们就是这么提一位坐在七号桌上的客人的名字的。少佐已连续三个礼拜五坐在七号桌。他不曾点过威士忌苏打以外的东西。他不曾递过名片。他不曾送过花。他只是出席——便衣，早到，趁包厢尚未坐满之前，两个礼拜五都待到第三节散场。在《五月小雨》的过桥上，他用左手两指敲了一下掌根——一种知道自己身处一间屋子里的男人那种轻拍——其余任何一小节上他不曾拍过。我在过桥上感到了那一拍，落在我锁骨上。我的锁骨，到第七个礼拜，已成了它自己的一件小小乐器。它听见这间屋子。

第三个礼拜五第二节散场后，Jimmy King 在乐池后头的小办公室里说:「Honey，坐七号那位是个海军的人。我不晓得是哪国海军。我晓得是海军。五年里，这家馆子来过两位海军的人。两位都是来买人的。他若递了名片，你把名片交到我这里。我不要从迎宾那儿听到这名片的事。」

「我把名片交给你。」

「好。十一月七日那一晚新歌的过桥，我把你的名字写上去了。百代的星探要在场。是白珠安排的。第三个音不要压。第三个音是你的。他不必压。星探早晓得了。你怎么替你自己唱便怎么唱。」

「我便这么唱，Jimmy。」

我走到走廊里。菲律宾小伙子们正在调音。Tony 举了举他的单簧管打招呼，不曾说什么。Tony 在七个礼拜里，已停了问、开了看——白珠告诉过我他会如此。被 Tony 看，是这幢楼眼下加在我身上诸般注视里最温柔的一种。

台上我穿银色旗袍唱第三节。过桥的第七小节上，我在右胯里子的接缝处感到我兄长那封信细小的干燥分量。九个礼拜来我未曾把它从衬里取出来过。这封信留在丝绸里。丝绸暖在信上。信暖在丝绸里。这封信已成了银色旗袍替我办的、不必我开口求它的一桩事。我带着信在胯上、死人名单贴在信上、缝线把这两样一并兜住，唱了出来，第三个音咬得轻、咬得低，不曾压，而七号桌那位便衣的海军人在那一拍上不曾换气，包厢里姚三爷照旧抬了两指。姚三爷在每一段过桥的第三个音上都抬两指，不管那第三个音有没有压。姚三爷是浦东一个渔村里长大的人，不晓得过桥还分小节。

唱完那一节，我上了楼。

我于十月二十八日午夜下去。

冷藏间还是冷藏间。厨子坐在小凳上抽他的烟斗。碗搁在最低一格板条箱上。下去时，我不再数台阶。七个礼拜来我都不曾数。砖还是砖。拱还是拱。烛是一支新烛。椅又向南挪了——挪了半英寸——像一个人随四季把钟拨前拨后那样。他在钢琴远端那侧。我看不见他。七个礼拜来，我都不曾见过他。

谱架上的乐谱是第二乐章，第十一稿。过桥下头的歌词上有一处新添的小批注，红墨:过桥第三小节，在第二礼拜五的嗓子里，比第一礼拜五的嗓子慢半拍。压住。

我坐下。

「你来了，」那嗓音说。

「我来了。」

「《五月小雨》的过桥你唱了九个礼拜。九个礼拜里，你不曾压第三个音。」

「不曾。」

「Jimmy King 已把你写进十一月七日。星探是那个葡萄牙小伙子的上司。星探名叫 António Sá。他是百代的录音总监。十月十一日他来听过你的第二节，十月十八日也来听过。两个礼拜六里，他已听见了他七日会听见的东西。八日他便会向你开出一份两面唱片的合同。九日白珠会告诉你。你会想答应。」

「你怎么晓得。」

「木工胡师傅认得百代的录音工程师。那录音工程师是个德国人，叫 Mendelsohn，一九二九年在音乐学院替我改过声部进行。一九三三年他离开汉堡，一九三四年来了上海。每月第二个礼拜六，他在他自己装的一台无线电上听百乐门。我告诉你，是因为——容我说——你该晓得是谁听见了你。不是包厢里那些桌子上的人。他们五年之内便会记不得你了。Mendelsohn 和我会记得。十月里 António Sá 加入了我们。这队伍小。这——容我说——够用了。」

我端着水坐着。

「七日你替 António Sá 唱，」他说。「你唱《小雨》的过桥。你绝不可——无论任何情形之下，这是我唯一禁的一桩——唱第二乐章。第二乐章尚不该交给百代。第二乐章是为来年七月那个礼拜六的盛大堂会留的。撑住第三段的那个信号撑得住，是因为它尚未被人听过。你可明白。」

「我明白。」

「你去百代签合同那一日，你便唱百代的曲目里挑一首。第二乐章等着。第二乐章倘由你在百代、在错的礼拜、错的年份里唱出来，便成了架子上一张黑碟，而不是那一夜该是的那桩东西。可好。」

「可好。」

「好。来。坐。喝。我们做第三段。」

我喝了。我们做了。

第三段藏着名字。四个名字，红墨写得极小，凭一支烛可被错认成谱表上头的换气符。这四个名字在纸上不是名字。是记号。在任何没有密本的人读来，都是记号。密本——他在第二个钟头说——在日记里，日记在那只箱子里，箱子上着锁，他会在不是今夜的某一夜把密本给我。我并不需要它。我需要的是把第七小节唱得仿佛这四个记号便是换气。到明年八月，这些记号在我所唱的任何屋子里，都会被晓得密本的人听见;晓得密本的人会经杜先生之邀坐在堂会的客席里;这些记号便会做下它们被造出来要做的事。

「好，」我说。

他在屋子远端的钢琴上把第七小节弹给我听了两遍。他弹得干净，左手在那一个他够不着的十度上短了一截。九个礼拜里他不曾就这只左手说过一字。这只左手，在我们之间，是这份谱本来就为之而写的一桩事。

他第三遍弹下了第七小节，而在第三遍与第四遍之间，他做了一件我只听他做过一回、自此以后再不曾听他做过的事。

他哼了起来。

他极轻地哼了两小节，在一个人停下留神这间屋子时哼给自己听的、那种柔软的俄式八度音区里。这两小节是一段我自一九二五年起便不曾听过的旋律——十一年前，在四川北路一家烟纸店楼上的弄堂阁楼里。我兄长一个礼拜天下午带我去那儿见他的朋友、纺织工人 Volodya;Volodya 隔着一杯伏特加哼过这同样的两小节，用他天津口音的俄式国语说:这是一九二二年我母亲在自哈尔滨来的路上唱给我的歌。这是一首唱给在路上的孩子的歌。

两小节停了。

他听见了自己。

「请你见谅，」他说。极轻地。「我方才在想——容我说——别的事。」

「我没听见，」我说。

他顿了一顿。

「你听见了，」他说。「你若愿意，你也可以没有听见。这是你的选择。我不与你争。无论如何，我不会再哼一遍。多谢你这点周全。」

「多谢你。」

小桌上的灯定住。碟子里的烛定住。我不抬头。我不向屋子的西端转过身去。这两小节在我喉咙里，我并不曾把它们唱出来。它们自一九二五年起便在我的喉咙里。那是一个自哈尔滨走在路上的小孩唱的小调，而到我十三岁那年，他已成了四川北路弄堂阁楼里的一个男人，一九二九年十月死在杨树浦纺织厂一场劳工示威里——那是我末一次听他哼这两小节之后的三个月。一九三六年十月二十八日凌晨一点，在我地下室钢琴远端的这一位男人，在他童年里，自另一个十年里的另一个女人那里听过这同一首歌。我们两人之中，今夜必有一人晓得这件事。这一人会是我。

我不说。我端着水坐着。我让烛定住。我让第七小节回到第七小节。

「唱第三段，」他说。

我唱了。

我把那四个换气符当作换气，唱进了第七小节，我把它们撑作换气，他在第二遍唱时不曾在边角写一个字。他不写，是因为他没什么可写。第八小节上他停了琴，任我把那最末一个母音撑到它已不再是母音、已成了这间屋子。

「是一点钟了，」他说。

「是。」

「走。这时辰，万航渡路那个点灯的人离街角还差四盏。头一辆黄包车，是左轴吱嘎响的那个车夫。不要他。第二辆，过三分钟来，是那位上了年纪的师傅，他已两个月每天六点替他的车轴上油。坐他的。第三辆——你见了便晓得是第三辆。不要第三辆。」

「我不要他。」

我立起。我今夜不曾朝拱门那边走。

「风声。」

「嗯。」

「那两小节。」

他不出声。

「这一辈子里，我不会请你唱它们，」他说。「这一辈子里，我不会在钢琴那一头再哼一遍。我已经九年不曾哼了。我要在这份功课里，把它们忘掉。你呢——你会记得，因记得是你的。这是我今夜能给你的。我——容我说——很抱歉给了你这一桩。」

「这不是一桩该抱歉的事。」

「是。走罢。」

我便走了。

到了拱门口，我把手按在砖上。我不回头。我今夜未曾见过屋子的西端。我听见了一首十一年来不曾听见的歌。我在乐池上、第三节、第三小节里，在右胯的丝绸上感到了我兄长那封信细小的干燥分量。这封信和这首歌，在我正要离开的那间屋子里，是同一张纸。这张纸上写了两个名字。一个名字是沈阿淮。另一个我尚未得到。我已开始懂得——它会在那只挂在帆布床钩上的箱子里、那本日记里。

我上了楼。

楼梯顶上厨子把烟斗举高了半英寸。我把手抬高了半根手指。我在倒数第二级台阶上喝那碗大麦凉茶。我穿过厨房，上后楼梯，沿走廊走到我的门前。

梳妆台上，又是一张纸。

是百代的五线谱纸。是那一手刷过的草书。是红墨。纸上那一行，只两个字长。

Goodnight，婉吟。

我读了两遍。

七个月以来他替我改小节，从不曾用我的名字。这幢楼里的男人用我的名字有三种方式:门房叫苏小姐，乐队领班叫婉吟，包厢里的客人按他们舌头能拼出来的音节叫去。地板下这位男人到这个礼拜五为止，这三种都不用过。他用的是歌。他用的是第三个音。他用的是那半口气撑住了。他不用过我的名字。

我第三遍读了那两个字。

我并不记得告诉过他我的名字。

也许是门房，在一九三五年某个礼拜二，告诉过他。也许是菲律宾人。也许是安雅——安雅会的，在一九三四年她尚未停手按那道暗板的时候。胡师傅在一九三二年就知道我的名字，因我在三号录音棚门口与经理陆先生签合同的那一天，胡师傅就在门外。这幢楼里一九三四年便知我名字的男人有六个。这六人中任何一人都可能给了他。

是哪一个，并不是问题。

问题是，他在这个礼拜五里，在他自己私下的账上，断定他替自己编排起的那份功课——凭着撑住第三段、凭着那四个换气符、凭着那两小节自一九二二年哈尔滨路上来的歌——已经挣得了我这名字被使用一次的权利。

我把这张纸对折了。

我把它放进手袋里头那个夹袋，塞在新雅那张条子——订座非订座，订座乃情面——之后，塞在那半口气撑住了之后，而前头不放别的，因兄长那封信在我的右胯上、在旗袍的衬里里、在它会一直留到来年七月二十五日旗袍被脱下来那一日为止的地方——而到那一日，许多桩我在十月这个礼拜五尚未学会怕的事，便已经发生了。

我穿上街上的外套。我把门带上。

街角点灯的人离路边还差四盏灯。头一辆黄包车是左轴吱嘎响的;我挥他走了。第二辆，过三分钟来，是位上了年纪的师傅，车轮在六点钟上过油。我坐了他的车。他按报价把我送到虹口那条弄堂，二十五分钟里不曾说过话。第三辆停在愚园路与静安寺路口——一个约莫三十岁的男子，看着第二辆车拐进弄堂，他不动;两分钟后我在弄堂口回头去看，他已不在路边。

那一夜，我未再朝路边看第三回。

弄堂屋里林姨睡在贵妃榻上。鸦片烟枪是冷的。风琴上的茉莉，下层瓣已经黄了。今日右手的乐句不曾练过;风琴的盖是合着的。我坐在她对面那张贵妃榻沿。我不曾喊醒她。

我从手袋里取出那张只两个字的字条。我借灯光读它。Goodnight，婉吟。这名字是艺名。这名字是乐队领班叫我的名字。这名字是门房叫我的名字。这名字，在那之后，是一九二七年一个十三岁的女孩在合同上被人写下的名字——那个人付了她父亲九十块大洋，在她受训第八天断定苏婉吟——苏氏轻声细语者——是个卖得动的名字。地板下这位男人今夜用了它。他用它的理由，跟一个男人用艺名的理由是一样的。他用它，是因为那一个名字尚不属于他用——而且在这一辈子里，也未必属于他用。

我把字条折好。我放回去。我穿着内衣躺下，听蝉鸣——它们今年还未停。到第三个礼拜，十月开始转冷时它们便会停。一九二五年十月的第三个礼拜，它们也已停了——四川北路烟纸店楼上的弄堂阁楼里，天津口音的俄国人 Volodya 哼了两小节，说这是一九二二年我母亲在自哈尔滨来的路上唱给我的歌的那个时候。那两小节在我喉咙里。我今夜不唱它们。我把弄堂留给蝉。我睡了。

夜里我梦见一条路。那是一九二二年自哈尔滨来的路。我在路上。我八岁。我兄长在我身后的路上。我们都还是小孩。我们朝南走。一个女人在前头某处唱着，唱那两小节，用一种我不会说的俄语。那两小节是一首唱给路上的孩子的摇篮曲。这女人不是我母亲。这女人是地板下那位男人十四岁时的母亲。在梦里我懂了。在梦里我不曾转身去告诉我兄长。在梦里我兄长早已不在，正如他一九二五年里早已不在，正如他一九二七年里早已不在，正如自一九三六年六月十二日那张陌生笔迹的纸条出现在我梳妆台上起、我所做的每一个梦里他都早已不在。

我五点醒来。蝉鸣停了。弄堂还是弄堂。

我走到风琴前。我掀起盖。我只用右手，弹了那首给名字命名的歌、那第二乐章的第一句。我弹了两遍。我把盖合上。我回到床上。我一直睡到八点。

那右手是我自己的。

Chapter Eleven — The Russian Tune

July became August, and August became September, and the calendar did its work the way calendars do in cities at the end of the season they are pretending not to be in.

I went down at midnight on July twenty-fourth. I went down on July thirty-first. I went down on the seventh of August and the fourteenth and the twenty-first, and by the twenty-first the cook in the cold-storage room had begun to set a small bowl of cold barley tea on the lowest crate for me to find on my way back up at two, because he had decided, without asking, that I would be thirsty, and I would.

He did not say so. He set the bowl. He returned to his stool. I drank the barley tea on the second-to-last step. I put the empty bowl back on the crate. By the second week of August the cook's nod had a second small motion behind it — the smallest dip of his pipe, the smallest acknowledgment of a thing he was being permitted to do for me — and I had taken to nodding back twice for it. We were conducting a friendship I would have been unable to describe in any language we shared.

The lessons were the lessons.

The first verse had become the first verse. The second verse had become the second verse. The bridge in C-sharp minor had become, by the sixth Friday, a thing my throat had a route through; I no longer thought, going into the bridge, this is the bridge. I sang it. By the seventh Friday he had written the third verse, and on the eighth Friday he had revised it, and on the ninth he had revised it again because the half-breath I had taken on the eighth, by accident, had told him a thing about it he had not understood when he had written it.

He did not say thank you on the ninth lesson. He said: the second verse has been finished. The second verse is yours. I understood that this was the form thank you took in a brick room where the man had not, in three years, been thanked.

Anya combed me out on the Saturday afternoons. She did not ask where I had been on the Fridays. She turned me toward the mirror and said you look like a woman tonight, not a girl, the way she said it on Sundays when she was bored, except that on these Saturday afternoons she said it the way one says a thing one has been watching for some weeks and has decided not to mention. By mid-August the pearl drops, when she fastened them, hung half a centimeter lower than they had hung in July, because her fingers had stopped, very slightly, asking permission of my earlobes. We were not going to discuss this.

The heat was the heat. August in Shanghai is the heat that lays a small lacquer of sweat across a woman's collarbone the moment she stops moving, and that does not lift, between sets, no matter how long the dressing-room window has been open onto the airshaft. The silver qipao got the sweat at the collar. The dove-grey at the underarm. The dark blue I no longer wore. I had, by August, three qipao on the rack with the small dry salt-stiffness of summer at the seams, and Anya, on Saturday afternoons, sponged them out at the brass washbasin with a thin gauze and not enough water, and they dried on the line in the corridor by Sunday at noon.

Pearl noticed in the third week.

Pearl noticed nothing in the first two weeks because Pearl is, in the first two weeks, deciding whether her noticing it will help. By the third Friday in August she had decided. She came up to the dressing room at half past eleven, with a pair of cold xiao long bao on a saucer she had stolen from the kitchen, and she sat on the chaise with her shoes off and ate one and looked at me in the mirror, and she said: "The song is still a song."

"It is still a song."

"It is a song with a man."

"It is — "

"Baby." She did not raise her voice. "I am not asking. I am noting. You have been late to the second set on Saturdays for nine weeks. The Filipino boys have noticed. They have not said. Tony asks me on Wednesdays whether you are all right. I tell him on Wednesdays that you are. He is going to stop asking by October because he has decided it is not his business. They stop asking and they start watching. They are watching you. I am telling you so that you may, on the days I am not here to tell you, remember it."

"Thank you, Pearl."

"Sweetheart." She put her stockinged feet up on the chaise. "When Yao gets back from Pudong I am going to need to be able to tell him a thing about you that is true and is also not the thing it is. By the third Friday of October I will need to know what to lie about. Yes?"

"Yes."

She took the second dumpling. She drank the last of my water. She said, on her way to the door: "If, at some point in October, the song would like to become a man with a name, I am not going to need the name. I am going to need to know that the man is not Itō Kensuke."

"He is not Itō Kensuke."

"All right, baby. Good. That was the question."

She went.

Itō Kensuke. The name had begun, by mid-August, to come up at the bandstand in the small careful way the Filipinos used a name when the man with the name was at Table Seven. The Major had been at Table Seven for three Friday nights now. He had ordered nothing past whisky-and-soda. He had not sent a card. He had not sent a flower. He had only attended — in plainclothes, early, before the gallery filled, staying both Fridays through the third set. He had clapped, on the bridge of Drizzle of May, with two fingers against the heel of his left hand — the soft clap of a man who knew he was in a room — and had not clapped on any other measure. I had felt the clap, on the bridge, against my collarbone. My collarbone had become, in the seventh week, a small instrument of its own. It heard the room.

Jimmy King said, after the second set on the third Friday, in the small office behind the bandstand: "Honey, that man at Seven is a Navy man. I don't know which Navy. I know it's Navy. We've had two Navy men in this house in five years. Both of them were buying somebody. If he sends a card, you bring me the card. I do not want to know about the card from the maître d'."

"I will bring the card."

"Good. I have written you in for the bridge of the new song on the seventh of November. The Pathé scout will be in the house. Pearl arranged it. Don't lean on the third. The third is yours. He does not need to lean. The scout knows already. You sing it like you sing it for yourself."

"I will, Jimmy."

I went out into the corridor. The Filipino boys were tuning up. Tony lifted his clarinet in greeting and did not say anything. Tony, in seven weeks, had stopped asking and had begun watching, the way Pearl had told me he would. Being watched by Tony was the gentlest of the watches the building was now keeping on me.

On stage I sang the third set in the silver qipao. At the seventh measure of the bridge I felt, against the inside seam at my right hip, the small dry weight of the brother's letter. I had not, in nine weeks, taken it out of the lining. The letter had stayed against the silk. The silk had warmed against the letter. The letter had warmed against the silk. The letter had become a thing the silver qipao did, without my asking it to. I sang with the letter at the hip and the dead list against the letter and the seam holding them both, and the third syllable came out small and low and unleaned, and at Table Seven the Navy man in plainclothes did not breathe through it, and in the gallery Yao Sanye lifted two fingers anyway. Yao Sanye lifted two fingers at the third syllable of every bridge whether the third syllable had been leaned on or not. Yao Sanye had been raised in a Pudong fishing village and did not know that a bridge had measures.

After the set I went up.

I climbed down at midnight on the twenty-eighth of October.

The cold-storage room was the cold-storage room. The cook was on his stool with his pipe. The bowl was on the lowest crate. I did not, on the descent, count the steps. I had not counted in seven weeks. The brick was the brick. The arch was the arch. The candle was a fresh candle. The chair had been moved south again — by half an inch — the way a man moves a clock forward and back across the seasons. He was on the far side of the piano. I could not see him. I had not, in seven weeks, seen him.

The score on the music desk was the second movement, draft eleven. The lyric below the bridge had a small new annotation in red ink: the third measure of the bridge is, in the second-Friday voice, half a count slower than the first-Friday voice. Hold it.

I sat.

"You came," said the voice.

"I came."

"You have been on the bridge of Drizzle of May for nine weeks. You have not, in nine weeks, leaned on the third."

"No."

"Jimmy King has written you in for the seventh of November. The scout is the Portuguese boyfriend's boss. The scout's name is António Sá. He is the recording director at Pathé. He attended your second set on the eleventh of October and your second set on the eighteenth. In two Saturdays he has heard what he is going to hear on the seventh. He will offer you, on the eighth, a contract for two sides. Pearl will tell you on the ninth. You will want to say yes."

"How do you know."

"The carpenter Mr. Hu knows the recording engineer at Pathé. The recording engineer is a German named Mendelsohn who corrected my voice-leading at the Conservatory in 1929. He left Hamburg in 1933 and came to Shanghai in 1934. He listens, on the second Saturday of every month, to the Paramount on a wireless he has built himself. I am telling you because — let me say — you should know who has heard you. Not the gallery tables. They will not, in five years, remember you. Mendelsohn and I will. António Sá has, in October, joined us. It is small. It is — let us say — adequate."

I sat with the water.

"You will sing for António Sá on the seventh," he said. "You will sing the bridge of Drizzle. You will not — under no circumstance, this is the only thing I forbid — sing the second movement. The second movement is not yet for Pathé. The second movement is for the Saturday in July next year, the gala. The signal that holds the third verse holds because it has not yet been heard. Do you understand."

"I understand."

"When you go to Pathé to sign the contract, you will sing one of the Pathé canon. The second movement waits. The second movement, sung by you at Pathé in the wrong week of the wrong year, becomes a black disc on a shelf and not the thing it has to be on the night it has to be. Yes."

"Yes."

"Good. Now. Sit. Drink. We will work on the third verse."

I drank. We worked.

The third verse held the names. Four names, in red ink so small they could be, by a candle, mistaken for the breath marks above the staff. The four names were not, on the page, names. They were marks. They were, in any reading by anyone who did not have the cipher, marks. The cipher was — he said, at the second hour — in the diary, and the diary was in the trunk, and the trunk was locked, and he would, on a night that was not this one, give me the cipher. I did not need it. I needed to sing the seventh measure as if the four marks were breath. By next August the marks would, in any room I sang them in, be heard by the people who knew the cipher; the people who knew the cipher would be in the gala audience by Du's invitation; and the marks would do the work the marks were made to do.

"Yes," I said.

He played the seventh measure for me twice, on the piano on the far side of the room. He played it clean, left hand short by the spacing of a tenth he could not span. He had not, in nine weeks, said a word about the left hand. The left hand was, between us, a thing the score had been written for.

He played the seventh measure a third time, and between the third time and the fourth he did a thing I have heard him do exactly once and have not heard him do since.

He hummed.

He hummed two bars, very softly, in the soft Russian-octave register a man hums in to himself when he has stopped paying attention to the room. The two bars were a melody I had not heard since 1925 — eleven years ago, in a tenement on Sichuan Road North above a tobacco shop. My brother had taken me there one Sunday afternoon to meet his friend Volodya the textile worker, who had hummed the same two bars over a glass of vodka and had said, in his Tianjin Russian-accented Mandarin: this is the song my mother sang to me on the road from Harbin in 1922. It is for a child who is on the road.

The two bars stopped.

He had heard himself.

"I beg your pardon," he said. Very quietly. "I had been thinking — let me say — about something else."

"I did not hear it," I said.

He paused.

"You did," he said. "You may, if you wish, not have heard it. That is your choice. I will not contradict it. I will, in any case, not hum it again. Thank you for the courtesy."

"Thank you."

The lamp on the small table held. The candle in the saucer held. I did not lift my head. I did not turn toward the west end of the room. The two bars were in my throat without my having sung them. They had been in my throat since 1925. They were the small song of a boy on a road from Harbin who had become, by the time I had been thirteen, a man in a tenement on Sichuan Road North, killed in October of 1929 in a labor demonstration at the Yangshupu textile plant, three months after the last time I had heard him hum. The man on the far side of the piano in my basement, at one in the morning on October twenty-eighth, 1936, had heard the same song in his childhood from a different woman in a different decade. One of us was going to know it tonight. The one of us was going to be me.

I did not say so. I sat with the water. I let the candle steady. I let the seventh measure return to the seventh measure.

"Sing the third verse," he said.

I sang it.

I sang it with the four breath-marks in the seventh measure, and I held them as breath, and he wrote nothing in the margin on the second singing. He did not write because he had nothing to write. He stopped the playing on the eighth measure and let me hold the last vowel until it had stopped being a vowel and had become the room.

"It is one," he said.

"Yes."

"Go. The lamp-lighter at Wanhangdu is, at this hour, four lamps from the corner. The first rickshaw is the puller with the squeak on the left axle. Do not take him. The second rickshaw, three minutes later, is the older man who has, for two months, oiled his axle at six. Take him. The third is — you will know the third when you see him. Do not take the third."

"I will not."

I stood. I did not, this evening, move toward the arch.

"Feng Sheng."

"Yes."

"The two bars."

He was quiet.

"I will not, in this lifetime, ask you to sing them," he said. "I will not, in this lifetime, hum them again on the far side of the piano. I have not hummed them in nine years. I will, in this discipline, forget them. You will, on the other hand, remember them, because remembering is yours. That is what I can give you tonight. I am — let me say — sorry to have given it."

"It is not a thing to be sorry for."

"It is. Go."

I went.

At the arch I put my hand on the brick. I did not turn. I had, this evening, not seen the west end of the room. I had heard a song I had not heard in eleven years. I had, on the bandstand at the third measure of the third set, felt the small dry weight of my brother's letter against the silk at my right hip. The letter and the song were, in the room I was leaving, the same paper. The paper had two names on it. One of the names was Shen Ahuai. The other I did not yet have. It would be, I had begun to understand, in the diary in the trunk on the hook by the cot.

I went up.

At the top of the stair the cook lifted his pipe by half an inch. I lifted my hand by half a finger. I drank the barley tea on the second-to-last step. I went through the kitchen and up the back stair and along the corridor to my door.

On the vanity there was, again, a single piece of paper.

It was on Pathé staff paper. The hand was the brushed cursive. The ink was the red. The line on the paper was two words long.

Goodnight, Wanyin.

I read it twice.

He had not, in seven months of correcting my measures, used my name. The men of the building used my name in three ways: the doorman in Miss Su, the bandleader in Wanyin, the gallery tables in whatever syllables their tongues could manage. The man under the floor had used, until this Friday, none of them. He had used the song. He had used the third syllable. He had used the half-breath holds. He had not used my name.

I read the two words a third time.

I did not remember telling him my name.

The doorman had told him, perhaps, on a Tuesday in 1935. The Filipinos had told him. Anya had — Anya would have, in 1934, before she had stopped pressing the panel. Mr. Hu had known my name in 1932 because Mr. Hu had been at the door of Studio Three when I had signed my contract with Mr. Lu the manager. There were six men in this building who had known my name in 1934. Any of them could have given it to him.

The asking of which was not the question.

The question was that he had, this Friday, decided that the discipline he had organized himself into had — by the holding of the third verse and the four breath-marks and the two bars from a road from Harbin in 1922 — earned, in his own private accounting, one use of my name.

I folded the paper in half.

I put it in the inside pocket of the handbag, behind the slip from Sun Ya — the order is not an order; the order is a courtesy — and behind the half-breath holds, and in front of nothing, because the brother's letter was at my right hip, in the lining of the qipao, where the letter would stay until the qipao came off on the twenty-fifth of July next year, by which date a great many things would have happened that I had not yet, on this Friday in October, learned to be afraid of.

I put on my street coat. I closed the door behind me.

The lamp-lighter at the corner was four lamps from the curb. The first rickshaw was the squeak on the left axle; I waved him on. The second rickshaw, three minutes later, was an older man with a wheel oiled at six. I took him. He took me to the Hongkou lane at the listed fare and did not, in twenty-five minutes, say anything. The third rickshaw was at the corner of Yuyuan and Jing'an — a man of perhaps thirty who watched the second rickshaw turn into the lane and did not move and was, when I looked back at the corner of the lane two minutes later, no longer at the curb.

I did not, that night, look at the curb a third time.

In the lane house Auntie Lin was asleep on the chaise. The opium pipe was cold. The jasmine on the harmonium had browned at the lower petals. The right-hand phrase had not been practiced today; the lid of the harmonium was closed. I sat on the edge of the chaise across from her. I did not wake her.

I took the two-word note out of the handbag. I read it in the lamplight. Goodnight, Wanyin. The name was the stage name. The name was the bandleader's name for me. The name was the doorman's. The name was, behind that, the name a thirteen-year-old girl had been given on a contract in 1927 by a man who had paid her father ninety silver dollars and had decided, on the eighth day of her training, that Su Wanyin — Su the Softly-Murmuring — was the name that would sell. The man under the floor had used it tonight. He had used it for the same reason a man uses a stage name. He had used it because the other name was not yet — and might not, in this lifetime, be — his to use.

I folded the note. I put it back. I lay down in my under-things and listened to the cicadas, which had not yet stopped for the year. They would stop, by the third week, when October began to go cold. They had stopped, by the third week of October in 1925, in the tenement on Sichuan Road North above the tobacco shop where Volodya the Tianjin Russian had hummed two bars and had said this is the song my mother sang to me on the road from Harbin. The two bars were in my throat. I did not, this night, sing them. I let the cicadas have the lane. I slept.

In the night I dreamed of a road. The road was the road from Harbin in 1922. I was on the road. I was eight. My brother was on the road behind me. We were both children. We were walking south. A woman was singing, somewhere ahead, the two bars, in a Russian I did not speak. The two bars were a lullaby for children on the road. The woman was not my mother. The woman was the man under the floor's mother, when the man under the floor had been fourteen. In the dream I understood this. In the dream I did not turn to tell my brother. In the dream my brother was already gone, the way he was already gone in 1925, the way he was already gone in 1927, the way he was already gone in every dream I had had since June twelfth, 1936, when a slip of paper had appeared on my vanity in a hand I had not recognized.

I woke at five. The cicadas had stopped. The lane was the lane.

I went to the harmonium. I lifted the lid. I played, in the right hand only, the first phrase of the second movement of the song that named the names. I played it twice. I closed the lid. I went back to bed. I slept until eight.

The right hand had been mine.