七部小说 · Seven Novels

第 25 章 ——《剩下的》

我醒了。

倒数第二级台阶上头墙台上的那支蜡烛，已烧到第二道刻痕。我未睁眼便晓得这道刻痕，正如一个人凭一盏小灯在一面熟墙上投影的角度便晓得时辰。砖室自有它一种暗——一种柔和的褐色暗，淡茶的色，是我与哥哥十三岁与十二岁那年夏天躲雨时，苏州河边老货栈底窖那种色——而今晨，这暗里多了一桩小小的实在。有一个男人在其中呼吸。有一个男人，已数小时在其中、在我身旁呼吸。

风声在帆布床边。

他戴着瓷面具。他戴着手套。他不曾动过。

他的呼吸是他二月里在台座上教过我的「四进六出」，是唱歌时为开肋而不抬肩所取的那种数。他一直守着这数。透过它，像一支低音风琴踏板在一段旋律之下，他胸腔的肋骨在我背后准确依我所料的间隔上抬，又准确依我所料的间隔下落；而那张帆布床——一张行伍人的帆布床，长六英尺、宽二十八英寸，本为一人而造——容得下我们二人，只因我们已被他安排成两个括号的形状。

我把手放在那瓷上。

瓷是凉的。这是一件已罩在一个男人脸上整整九小时的物什的那种凉。安雅夫人——一九三五年里教他在左耳后打那只皮带结的人——曾在另一个场合对我说过，福州路那位道具师傅之所以将眼缝切在距鼻梁十九毫米处，正是因为十九毫米这个角度，恰好容一个男人在六步外看见一支烛，在十六步外看见一个人，而无论自哪一个角度，都不容那个人看见他的脸。这角度是一桩建筑。这建筑便是我掌心下的那一阵凉。

我说：我醒了。我饿了。

那回过来的嗓音，是他留给砖室的那种干而低的嗓音。魏先生五点会自四川北路那摊子上拎一份饭下来。他会拎着它走那四十二级台阶。他会把它搁在板条箱上。我们有这间砖室。

我们有这间砖室。

直到这一刻为止，我并未想到我会在今晨依旧有一间屋。虹口那栋弄堂屋——那栋有一架红木簧风琴、有那张林姨练了九天右手乐句的躺椅的弄堂屋；那架簧风琴是我一九三二年十月里，以我在明月社挣得的头三档登台费、二十块银圆为她买下的——昨日午时，已是第三户房角上一堆错色的碎砖。诺斯罗普飞机上那位十九岁的中国飞行员，午时把炸弹投在了错的街角。那街角是我们的。

那间砖室——第三面墙边那架贝克斯坦立式钢琴、墙台上那支蜡烛、帆布床边那只板条箱、第二只板条箱上那本账册、第三只板条箱上那只漆盒——便是剩下的。贝克斯坦做风声的钢琴，已两年零七个月。漆盒里收着他的日记。日记是合着的。

那本日记，我心想，第二附录上记着名单。我并未掀那盒盖。我晓得。他自一九三四年起便在日记里替死者记复本，用一种我未见过却被人告知过的笔迹，用一支铅笔——他在第二只板条箱上的一小块磨刀石上削过的铅笔。

我并未掀那盒盖。

我把额头放在瓷上。我闭上眼。瓷在我额下大约暖了半度，而我以脑中那一小块今晨并未在淹溺的、清明的部分想道，我便是那热。一颗活人的头能把一张瓷面具暖上半度。一颗死人的头不能。我便是那热。一九三七年八月第二个礼拜日凌晨四点四十五分的此刻，我在愚园路与万航渡路口百乐门下头的砖室里，是一张瓷面具的热。

他把右手——裸着的那只——放在我面颊的弧上。

他的右手是一个在贝克斯坦立式钢琴上弹了两年零七个月的男人的手。拇指下头那一垫上有二十九岁钢琴手该有的茧。手指长。皮肤干。这只手不曾做过它原本未在做的事。他只是托住我面颊那条弧。我面颊那条弧便是那条弧。

他说：今夜不要唱。

我说：不唱。

他说：魏先生在衣帽间替你搁了罗培斯先生折好的一张条子。条子上说，依杜先生一点钟那句话，百乐门本周末歇业。重开是八月的第二个礼拜三，是公共租界工部局不来干涉的第二夜。杜先生已定好了日历。

他说杜先生已定好了日历时，我便明白这「日历」二字之所指。青帮的杜月笙，已在一个礼拜六的下午第二个钟头里决定：那间于一九三二年八月第二个礼拜五晚八点开张的百乐门——在这座城在错的街角上吃了它第一串炸弹之后——将在同一月的一个礼拜三重开。杜月笙的日历不是这座城的。这座城的日历昨日午时已断。杜月笙的还在走。一个在杜月笙的日历底下、在台座上唱了五年零三个月暖中音的女子，于这礼拜日清晨，得了三日休。

三日便是三日。我在三日里，不会再有一位养母可端一碗白粥去送。我在三日里，不会再有一条弄堂可回。我在第三个礼拜三晚八点之后，会有的，是一张节目单、一纸合同、一张帆布床，与一个站在我所立的那一层底下两层、坐在钢琴前的男人。

我说：三日。

他说：三日。砖室里壶里有水。我去把水搁到火上。

他坐起身。他把那瓷搁在帆布床一侧——不是摘下，只是不再压在我额上——隔着那十九毫米的眼缝看着我。我也回看。隔瓷而看，这是我在烛火前十四个月的礼拜五里，已学会去读的一桩事。今晨瞳孔放大的程度，比我所见过的都更宽些。他昨夜，并未睡过。

他站起来。他自胡木匠搁在墙边、距第二只板条箱三英尺处的煤油炉旁的板条箱上，取了那件灰呢大衣，套在白衬衫外头，走向墙边铁三角架上的水壶。煤油炉在第三转旋钮处点上了火。蓝色的火环稳住了。他把水壶搁在火环上。壶里的水——昨夜六点魏先生从厨子备菜间冷水龙头里取的、提着一只锡桶走那四十二级台阶下来的水——慢了一分钟之后，开始发出水壶在沸腾前五分钟所发的那种细细的呼吸声。

我把胡木匠一九三五年二月里在文监师路与第二条弄堂口那间陆军剩余物资店买回的那条灰毛毯，拉到下巴底下。这毯子有冷藏间的气味，有街下二十英尺处砖头的那一种微微的矿物的冷，又微微有厨子凌晨一点在凳子上抽的檀香的气味。这毯子的气味，不是虹口的气味。这是一件我将不得不学着去归属的物什的气味。

我同那气味躺着。

过了一会儿，我对着暗说——因为我得把它说成一个句子，那句子才肯容我担着它走：总先生在四川北路与万航渡路口送我上了黄包车。他带我向南。把我送到新雅后，他就回头向北。他回到了第三户屋，因为总太太已在厨房替他摆了一碟腌萝卜。总先生在四川北路口、黄包车前对我说：「总太太替我摆了那碟腌萝卜。总太太不喜那碟子等。我午时会回。」总先生笑了那碟腌萝卜。总先生午时在第三户屋。总太太在第二户屋。总太太是去第二户屋给林姨送总太太做的那碗白粥的——总太太每日午时去给林姨送那碗白粥，自六月第三周林姨被嘱不要离开躺椅起，便是如此。那碟腌萝卜在碎砖里。总先生在碎砖里。总太太在碎砖里。林姨在碎砖里。那碗白粥在碎砖里。

到了末了，那嗓音已不是我的嗓音。是我自一个女人那里借来的嗓音——那女人曾在弄堂屋里对着浴室镜子，操练过三句她可以对着一面墙说的话。今晨，那面墙是一张瓷面具。

我把脸转向那墙。

我哭了。

我以一个一九三七年八月第二个礼拜日、在百乐门下砖室帆布床上、盖着虹口陆军剩余物资店灰毯的、二十二岁苏州女歌者哭法，哭了——这一日午时，那角弄堂口第三户屋厨房里的那碟腌萝卜本应在厨房里，总先生却不曾吃它。我无声哭了许久，依的是我十三岁那年、父亲被押去龙华东门时林姨教我的那种哭法。林姨那时把右手放在我背上说：阿良。哭，要无声。这国土只听得见声音。我们便不给它声音。我此刻便无声哭。这国土，今晨，正在听。

水壶发出水壶被自火上端下的那一声轻响。煤油炉上蓝色的火环灭了。水壶到了第二只板条箱上的木盘里。茶叶罐自墙台上下来。一勺入壶。木盘到了帆布床边。他在帆布床一侧跪下，像一个男人跪在一张铁框军官行床一侧的那种跪。他把裸着的右手放在我头侧。

他说：茶。

我转过身。我坐起来。灰毯落到我胯上。

他在木盘上搁了一只漆杯，那不是边缘第二象限处有缺的那一只。有缺的那只杯，搁在鸿翔先生五月里替我裁的那件银色登台旗袍的里衬缝中，旗袍挂在我们头顶上两级台阶的那道杉木衣杆上，连同里衬里另外十一样物事，缺杯是其中第十二样。那有缺的杯曾是林姨的。那是她七月第二个礼拜日在厨房桌前喝过的最后一只杯。我昨日午后从碎砖里把它拣了出来，用的是一只手，右手——因为左手攥着一根总太太一九三三年里替林姨别在头发上的发簪。

而木盘上的这只杯，对照之下，只是胡木匠在万航渡路与静安寺口杂货铺里、以三只一铜板的批数买回的那种漆杯。他斟了茶。他递给我。我喝了。茶是魏先生收在锡罐里的那种廉价安徽绿茶的二春。这不是有缺的那只杯。这是一只杯。

他说：第三段。第三段在第二只板条箱上的皮箱里。第三段是我们所有的。第三段会在十月第二周或十一月里，于首播那一刻播出。第三段，在此刻，亦便是写给林姨的那封信。

我把杯捧着。

第三段——我在三月里听过一次，当时他在贝克斯坦上、于凌晨一点半、灯第二根灯芯上弹过它，而那一回我并未把歌词写在五线谱底下。五线谱底下的歌词他一直留着。那歌词，他上礼拜对我说过，会是一份名单。这名单是他自一九二九年起便在日记里所记的——七个名字，七个让那些不便的领事们的便利得以服侍的男人。我那件银旗袍右胯里衬缝中、哥哥那封信折得比其余都小的——名单上的第七个名字便是姚三爷。

林姨不喜第三段。林姨听过它一次。是我七月第二个礼拜日傍晚六点在那架簧风琴上弹给她听的，只弹了右手，因为簧风琴的下层谱无论如何也及不到——那簧风琴是按降 A 调音的，而过门是升 C 小调。林姨听了四小节。

我说：林姨不喜第三段。

他说：不喜。

我说：林姨说：「这不是明月社的歌的路子。这是艺术歌曲的路子。你从哪里寻来一位作曲的？」林姨并不等我答。

他说：不等。

我说：林姨说：「我不是一个需要晓得的女人。」林姨把那只淡茶的漆杯搁回厨房桌上。那只边缘第二象限处有缺的杯，便是搁在银旗袍里衬里的那一只。那有缺的杯，便是我端到她手边的那只淡茶。她喝了它。

我把自己那只杯——那只素的——捧在胸前，在砖室冷藏间的呼吸里等着。

他说：她喝了它。第三段会是那只杯。

那一刻他不曾仁慈到假装这句话只是它字面上的那点意思。他以他在漆盒边、在日记前、在沉默里所定下事的那种干燥腔调说出。第三段，在一个虹口电台的首播上、以一个二十二岁苏州女歌者的暖中音播出——这女子在八月第二个礼拜日清晨曾立在一堆瓦砾旁，那瓦砾在八月第二个礼拜六的午时，还是一栋弄堂屋——这第三段将是我端到那教我无声哭泣的女人手边、那杯淡茶。

他把那只盛廉价安徽绿茶的漆杯搁回木盘。他取了水壶。他斟了第二杯。他递给我。水壶轻了些。我喝了。

他说：我要把手套摘了。

他摘下了左手手套。

一九三七年八月第二个礼拜日凌晨四点四十五分、在百乐门底下砖室里、帆布床上的这只左手，是一只少了第四指第二关节、第二关节于一九三四年二月被闸北第三家印刷厂卷掉的那只左手。第四指止于第一关节处。第一关节处是干净的。其上，是空气。他把这只手放在我胯上的灰毯上。这只手映在陆军剩余的灰色上，像一只搁在一个尚未讲完的故事边缘上的手。

我把右手放在他左手上。

我翻过它。

掌心是一个二十八岁钢琴手的掌心，是二十八岁钢琴手在掌上、在拇指下那一垫上会有的茧的那种掌心。少了第二关节那一截距离处的指节是平滑的——那是一道伤口在一九三四年还是一道伤口，到一九三七年已是一只手的形状的那种平滑。我把双唇凑在那一截距离上。我吻了那指节。那指节并不因了被吻便成另一只指节。那指节仍是那指节。

他足足九拍里不曾出一声。

我说：我今夜要睡在帆布床上。我要同你一道睡在帆布床上。我只求一件事。睡在帆布床上时，不戴这面具。

他足足九拍里不曾出一声。

他说：今夜不行。今夜我是钢琴前的那个男人。钢琴前的那个男人便是钢琴前的那个男人。不戴面具的那个男人，是首播之晨的那个男人。首播之晨，我是不戴面具的那个男人。今夜，这面具是这一刻。

这一句，我明白，并不是拒绝。这是一份日历。日历说：尚未。日历说：十一月里有一个礼拜三，我会在阿尔贝国王路百代的录音棚里被你看见；首播之夜在文监师路三楼，我会在控播室的玻璃后头被你看见；那个礼拜五的下午、在海关码头一艘挪威煤轮的甲板上，我会在黄浦江上吹来的风里被你看见；自那以后，这座城肯予我们的无论多少时辰里，我都会被看见。今夜，我尚不。今夜瓷便是这一刻——因为瓷后头那个男人，自一九三四年二月起，便不曾在任何另一个时辰里是另一个男人；而今夜的那个男人，是钢琴前的那个男人，是花了两年零七个月学着给一个尚未相识的歌者写第三段的那个男人。

我明白。我容这明白搁在我身上，正如我容这条毯子搁在我身上。那一刻，我并不推那份日历。

他把左手手套重新戴上。他自身旁板条箱上取了那瓷。他把皮带绕到左耳后头。他打了安雅夫人一九三五年里教他的那个结——那是一个法国海军军医，一九三四年在旧国泰戏院化妆间里教给一位俄籍管衣女总管的、小而平整的外科结，因为这结在汗里不滑。瓷便回到了瓷上。

他隔着距鼻梁十九毫米的眼缝看着我。我看着他。他在我身旁躺下。他把右臂垫到我头底下。他把左手放在灰毯上、放在我胯的弧上；略一斟酌，挪了半英寸，使第四指第二关节那一处缺，贴在胯骨上，而不贴在腹的柔软上。我感到这一桩细微的调整。我亦感到，这调整他斟酌了三拍才作下。

我把头放在他肩窝里、瓷面具与白衬衫接缝处。瓷是凉的。白衬衫是暖的。肩窝便是肩窝。

他说：我在这里。我会在这里。

我闭上眼。

睡意来之前，我想了好一阵——想自一九三四年起便收着哥哥那封信的手袋里衬袋里那一小张蜡纸；想他胸腔的肋骨依四拍上抬、依六拍下落；想一个人在一个失去了那位一九一四年在吴县河岸上给自己起名「阿良」的女人的礼拜六之后，要怎样清点剩下的一切。这清单是：一间砖室，一架贝克斯坦立式钢琴，一个做了钢琴前那个男人已两年零七个月的男人，一只漆盒，一本合着的日记——日记上是一份七个名字的名单，一只杯——边缘第二象限处有缺的、淡茶的，一段尚未唱出的第三段，一座在街角处关闭的国土。

我睡了。

我未做梦。

我醒了。

倒数第二级台阶上头墙台上的那支蜡烛，已烧到第三道刻痕——那是胡木匠一九三五年里用一柄小木工刀的刃，在烛台铁件上划下的第三道，是为了让那烛在砖室里任何一夜的延绵时辰里，都不至教这屋陷入暗。第三道刻痕意味着蜡烛点起后第二个钟头的后半。魏先生想必已来过、又走了。第二只板条箱上的木盘上有两只空碗：四川北路那摊子上五点钟的米粥，与一碗腌萝卜——是我睡着时不曾吃下的。

那碗腌萝卜。

我看着那碗。

碗旁的盘上，搁着他草字写的一张小纸：总太太七月第二个礼拜二做的。魏先生把第二罐收在厨房冷窖里。——风。

我闭上眼。

我睁开。

我把手放在那碗上。

我吃了。

腌萝卜是总太太的。是总太太七月里、在弄堂角上第三户屋厨房里、在她一九二九年在文监师路与第二条弄堂口买回的那只褐釉缸里腌下的。她把那罐搁在百乐门厨子储物室的冷窖里，因为魏先生——总先生第三房叔家这边的侄儿——逢礼拜三午时上弄堂来给林姨送一碗粥，回去时则带一小罐总太太那一周腌下的什么。这一罐自七月第二个礼拜二便在那冷窖里。腌萝卜自第三户屋厨房还是厨房时，便已在那里。

我慢慢地吃。萝卜是利的。卤是好的。我吃时，不去想昨日午时立在第二户屋门口、手中端着那碗白粥的总太太。我去想的，是冷窖里的那只褐釉缸，与魏先生——那位钢琴前的男人请他来、于今夕五点钟提着那罐走了四十二级台阶下来的魏先生。

风声在我身旁的帆布床上。

他戴着瓷面具。他戴着手套。他一直是帆布床上的那个男人。

我把右手放在他胯的弧上。他不曾醒。四拍上、六拍落的呼吸是稳的。一个两年零七个月不曾在另一具身体旁睡过、今夕却在另一具身体旁睡着的男人的呼吸，许是这砖室里今夕唯一一桩听起来与上一个礼拜五并不一模一样的事物。

我对自己说，以一个一九三七年八月第三个礼拜日凌晨两点四十五分、二十二岁苏州女歌者的嗓音：我亦在这里。

砖室便是剩下的。

我躺回去——在瓷一般的暗里、冷藏间的呼吸里、舌上萝卜利落的余息里——等那第三个钟头。我上头两层，百乐门关着。杜月笙的日历说，礼拜三晚八点。杜先生定了这日历，因为杜先生定了这日历。外头万航渡路上，一辆电车在三点四十五分驶过，发出一辆礼拜日清晨只载得六位乘客的电车那种微小而干燥的电叹息——这清晨之前的一日，这城曾在错的街角上。电车的叹息穿过砖头落下来。砖头接了那一叹。我接了那砖。

我捧住剩下的。

Chapter Twenty-Five — What Is Left

I woke.

The candle at the wall ledge above the second-to-last step had burned to the second mark. I knew the mark before I had opened my eyes, the way one knows the hour by the angle of a lamp's small shadow on a familiar wall. The brick room held its own dark — a soft brown dark, the colour of weak tea, the colour the cellars of the old godowns at Suzhou Creek had been the summer my brother and I had hidden from the rain there at thirteen and twelve — and the dark, this morning, had a small new substance to it. A man was breathing in it. A man had been breathing in it, beside me, for hours.

Feng Sheng was at the cot.

He had on the porcelain mask. He had on the gloves. He had not moved.

His breathing was the four-and-six he had taught me at the bandstand in February, the count one took, in singing, to open the rib without lifting the shoulder. He had been holding the count. Through it, like a low organ pedal beneath a melody, the rib of his ribcage rose against my back at exactly the interval I expected, and fell at exactly the interval I expected, and the cot — a soldier's cot, six feet long and twenty-eight inches wide, built for one man — held the two of us only because we had been arranged, by his arrangement, into the shape of two parentheses.

I set my hand at the porcelain.

The porcelain was cool. It was the cool of a thing that had been worn for the past nine hours over a man's face. Anya, who had taught him to knot the leather strap behind the left ear in 1935, had told me once, in a different context, that the prop-maker at Fuzhou Road had cut the eye-slits at nineteen millimeters from the bridge of the nose precisely because the angle of nineteen millimeters allowed a man to see a candle at six paces and a person at sixteen without ever, at any angle, allowing the person to see his face. The angle was a piece of architecture. The architecture was the cool against my palm.

I said: I am awake. I am hungry.

The voice that came back was the dry low voice he kept for the brick room. Mr. Wei will bring a meal at five from the Sichuan-Road vendor. He will bring it down the forty-two steps. He will set it at the crate. We have the brick room.

We have the brick room.

I had not, until that moment, considered that I would, on this morning, still have a room. The lane house at Hongkou — the lane house with the rosewood harmonium and the chaise where Auntie Lin had practiced the right-hand phrase for nine days, the harmonium I had bought for her at twenty silver dollars in October of 1932 with the first three sets I had earned at the Bright Moon — was, as of noon yesterday, a heap of broken brick the wrong colour at the corner of the third house. The Chinese pilot of nineteen at the Northrop had at noon dropped the stick at the wrong corner. The corner was ours.

The brick room of the Bechstein upright at the third wall, the candle at the wall ledge, the crate at the cot, the ledger at the second crate, the lacquer box at the third crate — that was what was left. The Bechstein had been Feng Sheng's piano for two years and seven months. The lacquer box held his diary. The diary was closed.

The diary, I thought, had on the second appendix the names. I did not lift the lid. I knew. He had been keeping the doubles for the dead in the diary since 1934, in a hand I had not seen but had been told about, in a pencil he sharpened on a small block of sandstone at the second crate.

I did not lift the lid.

I set my forehead at the porcelain. I closed my eyes. The porcelain warmed under my forehead by perhaps half a degree, and I thought, with the small clean part of my head that was not, this morning, drowning, that I was the heat. A living head warmed a porcelain mask by half a degree. A dead head did not. I was the heat. I was, at this hour of quarter to five on the second Sunday of August of 1937, in the brick room under the Paramount at the corner of Yuyuan and Bubbling Well, the heat of a porcelain mask.

He set his bare right hand at the curve of my cheek.

His right hand was the hand of a man who had played a Bechstein upright for two years and seven months. The pad below the thumb had the callus a pianist of twenty-nine had at the pad. The fingers were long. The skin was dry. He did not, with the hand, do anything that the hand was not already doing. He simply held the curve of my cheek. The curve of my cheek was the curve.

He said: Do not sing tonight.

I said: No.

He said: Mr. Wei has set a folded note from Mr. Lopes at the cloakroom. The note says the Paramount is, by Mr. Du's word at one o'clock, closed for the weekend. The reopening will be at the second Wednesday of August, at the second night the Settlement Council does not interfere. Mr. Du has set the calendar.

I understood, when he said Mr. Du has set the calendar, what calendar meant. Du Yuesheng of the Green Gang had decided, on a Saturday afternoon at the second hour, that a Paramount that had opened in August of 1932 on the second Friday at eight o'clock would reopen, after the city had taken its first stick of bombs at the wrong corner, on a Wednesday in the same month. Du Yuesheng's calendar was not the city's. The city's calendar had ended at noon yesterday. Du Yuesheng's continued. A girl who had sung the warm contralto on the bandstand under Du Yuesheng's calendar for five years and three months had, on this Sunday morning, three days off.

The three days were the three days. I would not, in three days, have a foster-mother to take a bowl of congee to. I would not, in three days, have a lane to come home to. I would have, after the third Wednesday at eight, a programme and a contract and a cot and a man at a piano two floors below the floor I would be standing on.

I said: Three days.

He said: Three days. The brick room has water at the kettle. I will set the water at the flame.

He sat up. He set the porcelain at the side of the cot — not removed, only no longer pressed against my forehead — and he looked at me through the eye-slits at the distance of nineteen millimeters from the bridge of the nose. I looked back. The looking-through-the-porcelain was a thing I had, in fourteen months of Fridays at the candle, come to read. The pupils were dilated this morning to a wider degree than I had seen them. He had not, last night, slept.

He stood. He took the grey wool coat from the crate beside the kerosene burner Mr. Hu the carpenter had set at the wall at three feet from the second crate, put it on over the white shirt, and went to the kettle on its iron trivet at the wall. The kerosene burner caught at the third turn of the knob. The blue ring of flame steadied. He set the kettle on the ring. The water inside the kettle, which Mr. Wei had drawn at six the night before from the cold tap in the cook's prep area and brought down the forty-two steps in a tin pail, began, after a slow minute, to make the small breathing sound a kettle made at five minutes before it boiled.

I pulled the grey blanket Mr. Hu the carpenter had bought in February of 1935 from an army surplus shop at the corner of Boone Road and the second lane up to my chin. The blanket smelled of the cold-storage room and the small mineral cold of brick at twenty feet below the street, and, faintly, of the sandalwood the cook smoked at one o'clock in the morning at his stool. The smell of the blanket was not a Hongkou smell. It was the smell of a thing I would have to learn to belong to.

I lay with the smell.

After a moment I said, into the dark, because I had to put it into a sentence before the sentence would let me carry it: Mr. Tsung set me at the rickshaw at the corner of Sichuan Road N. and Bubbling Well. He took me South. He went back North after he set me at Sun Ya. He went home to the third house because Mrs. Tsung had set a dish of pickled radish at the kitchen for him. Mr. Tsung said to me at the rickshaw at the corner of Sichuan Road N., 'Mrs. Tsung is at the dish of pickled radish for me. Mrs. Tsung does not like the dish to wait. I will, at noon, be back.' Mr. Tsung laughed at the dish of pickled radish. Mr. Tsung was at the third house at noon. Mrs. Tsung was at the second house. Mrs. Tsung had gone to the second house to take Auntie Lin the bowl of congee Mrs. Tsung had made — Mrs. Tsung had taken Auntie Lin the bowl of congee every day at noon since the third week of June, when Auntie Lin had been told not to leave the chaise. The dish of pickled radish is at the rubble. Mr. Tsung is at the rubble. Mrs. Tsung is at the rubble. Auntie Lin is at the rubble. The bowl of the congee is at the rubble.

The voice, by the end, was not my voice. It was a voice I had borrowed from the woman who had practiced, against a bathroom mirror at the lane house, three sentences I could say to a wall. The wall, this morning, was a porcelain mask.

I turned my face to the wall.

I wept.

I wept the way a Suzhou-born singer of twenty-two wept at the grey blanket of a Hongkou army surplus shop on the cot in the brick room under the Paramount on the second Sunday of August in 1937, when the dish of pickled radish at the kitchen of the third house at the corner of the lane had been at the kitchen at noon and Mr. Tsung had not eaten it. I wept without sound for a long while, the way Auntie Lin had taught me to weep when I was thirteen and our father had been taken to the East gate at Longhua and Auntie Lin had set her right hand at my back and said, Aliang. Weep without sound. The country listens for sound. We will give it none. I wept now without sound. The country, this morning, was listening.

The kettle made the small click of a kettle taken off a burner. The blue ring of flame went out at the kerosene burner. The kettle came to the wooden tray at the second crate. The tin of tea-leaves came from the ledge at the wall. A spoonful at the kettle. The wooden tray to the cot. He knelt at the side of the cot, the way a man knelt at the side of an iron-framed officer's cot. He set his bare right hand at the side of my head.

He said: The tea.

I turned. I sat up. The grey blanket fell at my hip.

He had set, at the wooden tray, a lacquer cup that was not the cup at the chip at the second quarter at the rim. The cup at the chip was at the inside seam of the silver gala qipao Mr. Hong Xiang had cut me in May, hanging on the cedar dressing-room rail two stairs above us, with its eleven other objects in the seam, of which the chipped cup was the twelfth. The cup at the chip had been Auntie Lin's. It had been the last cup she had drunk from at the kitchen table on the second Sunday of July. I had taken it from the rubble in the afternoon of yesterday, with one hand, the right, because the left had been holding a hairpin Mrs. Tsung had set, in 1933, in Auntie Lin's hair.

This cup at the wooden tray was, by contrast, only a lacquer cup of the kind Mr. Hu the carpenter bought, in three-for-a-copper lots, at the dry-goods shop at the corner of Bubbling Well and Jing'an. He poured the tea. He handed it to me. I drank. The tea was the second pluck of the cheap Anhui green Mr. Wei kept in the tin. It was not the cup at the chip. It was a cup.

He said: The third verse. The third verse is at the cot in the leather case at the second crate. The third verse is what we have. The third verse will, by the second week of October or November, go out at the hour of the inaugural broadcast. The third verse will, at this hour, also be the letter to Auntie Lin.

I held the cup.

The third verse — I had heard it once, in March, when he had played it at the Bechstein at half past one in the morning at the second wick of the lamp, and had not, on that occasion, written the lyric below the staff. The lyric below the staff he had been saving. The lyric, he had told me last week, would be names. The names were a list he had been keeping in the diary since 1929 — seven names, the seven men whose convenience the convenience of the inconvenient consulates served. The seventh name on the list at the inner seam at the right hip of my silver qipao — the brother's letter folded smaller than the others — was Yao Sanye.

Auntie Lin had not liked the third verse. Auntie Lin had heard it once. I had played it for her at the harmonium at six in the evening on the second Sunday of July, the right hand only, the left hand on the lower staff which the harmonium could not anyway reach because the harmonium was tuned to a flat A and the bridge was in C-sharp minor. Auntie Lin had listened to four bars.

I said: Auntie Lin did not like the third verse.

He said: No.

I said: Auntie Lin said, "That is not the way a Bright Moon song goes. That is the way an art song goes. Where did you find a composer?" Auntie Lin did not wait for me to answer.

He said: No.

I said: Auntie Lin said, "I am not a woman who needs to know." Auntie Lin set the lacquer cup of weak tea at the kitchen table. The cup at the chip at the second quarter at the rim is at the inside seam of the silver qipao. The cup at the chip was the cup of weak tea I had set at her hand. She drank it.

I held my own cup, the plain one, on my chest, in the cold-storage breath of the brick room, and waited.

He said: She drank it. The third verse will be the cup.

He did not, that moment, do me the kindness of pretending the sentence was less than it was. He said it in the dry register he kept for the things he had decided in the silence at the diary at the lacquer box. The third verse, going out on the inaugural broadcast of a Hongkou station in the warm contralto of a Suzhou-born singer of twenty-two who had stood, on the morning of the second Sunday of August, beside a rubble that had been, on the second Saturday of August at the hour of noon, a lane house, would be the cup of weak tea I had set at the kitchen table for the woman who had taught me to weep without sound.

He set the lacquer cup of the cheap Anhui green at the wooden tray. He took the kettle. He poured a second cup. He handed it to me. The kettle was emptier. I drank.

He said: I am going to take off the gloves.

He took off the left glove.

The left hand at the cot, at the hour of quarter to five on the second Sunday of August of 1937 in the brick room under the Paramount, was the left hand with the distance of the missing second joint of the fourth finger at the knuckle the third printing press at Zhabei had taken in February of 1934. The fourth finger ended at the first joint. The first joint was clean. Above it, the air. He set the hand at the grey blanket at my hip. The hand looked, against the army-surplus grey, like a hand at the edge of a story it had not finished telling.

I set my right hand at his left.

I turned it.

The palm was the palm of a pianist of twenty-eight who had the callus at the pad below the thumb a pianist of twenty-eight had at the palm. The knuckle at the distance of the missing second joint was smooth — the smoothness of a wound that had been, by 1934, a wound, and was now, by 1937, the shape of a hand. I set my lips at the distance. I kissed the knuckle. The knuckle did not, in being kissed, become any other knuckle. The knuckle remained the knuckle.

He did not say anything for the count of nine.

I said: I am going to sleep tonight at the cot. I am going to sleep at the cot with you. I am going to ask one thing. Sleep at the cot without the mask.

He did not say anything for the count of nine.

He said: Not tonight. Tonight I am the man at the piano. The man at the piano is the man at the piano. The man without the mask is the man for the morning of the inaugural broadcast. On the morning of the inaugural broadcast I am the man without the mask. Tonight the mask is the hour.

The sentence was, I understood, not a refusal. It was a calendar. The calendar said: not yet. The calendar said: there is a Wednesday in November when I will, in a recording booth at Pathé on Avenue du Roi Albert, be visible to you, and on the night of the inaugural broadcast at the third floor at Boone Road I will, behind the glass of the control room, be visible to you, and on the afternoon of that Friday on the deck of a Norwegian coal carrier at the customs jetty I will, in the wind off the Huangpu, be visible to you, and after that, for whatever time the city has consented to give the two of us, I will be visible. Tonight I am not. Tonight the porcelain is the hour because the man behind the porcelain has not, since February of 1934, been the man at any other hour, and the man tonight is the man at the piano, who has spent two years and seven months learning how to write a third verse for a singer he had not yet met.

I understood. I let the understanding sit on me the way I let the blanket sit on me. I did not, that moment, push the calendar.

He put the left glove back on. He took the porcelain from the crate beside him. He set the leather strap behind the left ear. He knotted the strap at the knot Anya had taught him in 1935 — the small flat surgeon's knot a French naval doctor had been teaching to a Russian wardrobe mistress at the dressing rooms of the old Cathay in 1934 because the knot did not, under perspiration, slip. The porcelain was at the porcelain.

He looked at me through the eye-slits at the distance of nineteen millimeters from the bridge of the nose. I looked at him. He lay down beside me. He set his right arm under my head. He set his left hand at the curve of my hip at the grey blanket, and, after a small consideration, moved it half an inch, so that the missing second joint of the fourth finger lay against the bone of the hip and not against the soft of the abdomen. I felt the small adjustment. I felt also that he had considered the adjustment for the count of three before making it.

I set my head at the hollow of his shoulder where the porcelain met the white shirt at the seam. The porcelain was cool. The white shirt was warm. The hollow of the shoulder was the hollow.

He said: I am here. I will be here.

I closed my eyes.

I thought, for a long moment before sleep took me, about the small wax paper in the inside pocket of the handbag in which I had kept, since 1934, the brother's letter; about the rib of his ribcage rising at four counts and falling at six; about the way one made an inventory of what was left after a Saturday in which one had lost the woman who had named one Aliang on a riverbank in Wuxian in 1914. The inventory was: a brick room, a Bechstein upright, a man who had been the man at the piano for two years and seven months, a lacquer box, a diary closed on a list of seven names, a cup of weak tea at the chip at the second quarter at the rim, a third verse not yet sung, a country closing at the corner.

I slept.

I did not dream.

I woke.

The candle at the wall ledge above the second-to-last step had burned to the third mark — the third mark Mr. Hu the carpenter had scored into the iron of the candle holder with the blade of a small carpenter's knife in 1935, so that the candle, on any night of the brick room, would not, in the lengthening hour, leave the room dark. The third mark meant the second half of the second hour after the candle had been lit. Mr. Wei must have come and gone. The wooden tray at the second crate had two empty bowls on it: the rice congee of the Sichuan-Road vendor at five, and a bowl of pickled radish I had not, in the sleep, eaten.

The bowl of pickled radish.

I looked at the bowl.

The bowl had, beside it on the tray, a small slip of paper in his cursive: Mrs. Tsung made this on the second Tuesday of July. Mr. Wei kept the second jar in the cold cellar at the kitchen. — F.

I closed my eyes.

I opened them.

I set my hand at the bowl.

I ate.

The pickled radish was Mrs. Tsung's. Mrs. Tsung had made it in July, in the kitchen of the third house at the corner of the lane, in the brown crock she had bought at the corner of Boone Road and the second lane in 1929. She had set the jar in the cold cellar of the cook's larder at the Paramount because Mr. Wei, who was Mr. Tsung's nephew on the third uncle's side, came up the lane on Wednesdays at noon to take a bowl of congee to Auntie Lin and to leave, in return, a small jar of whatever Mrs. Tsung had pickled that week. The jar had been in the cold cellar since the second Tuesday of July. The pickled radish had been there since the kitchen of the third house had still been the kitchen.

I ate slowly. The radish was sharp. The brine was good. I did not, while eating, think about Mrs. Tsung at the doorway of the second house at noon yesterday with the bowl of congee in her hands. I thought, instead, about the brown crock at the cold cellar, and about Mr. Wei, who had carried the jar down forty-two steps at five o'clock this evening because the man at the piano had asked him to.

Feng Sheng was at the cot beside me.

He had on the porcelain mask. He had on the gloves. He had been the man at the cot.

I set my right hand at the curve of his hip. He did not wake. The breath at four counts and six was steady. The breath of a man who had not, for two years and seven months, slept beside another body and was, this evening, sleeping beside another body, was perhaps the only thing in the brick room that did not, this evening, sound exactly as it had on Friday last.

I said, to myself, in the voice of a Suzhou-born singer of twenty-two at the hour of quarter to three on the third Sunday of August of 1937: I am here too.

The brick room was what was left.

I lay back, in the porcelain dark and the cold-storage breath and the sharp ghost of the radish on my tongue, and I waited for the third hour. Above me, two floors above, the Paramount was closed. Du Yuesheng's calendar said Wednesday at eight. Mr. Du had set the calendar because Mr. Du had set the calendar. Outside on Bubbling Well a tram went past at quarter to four with the small dry electric sigh of a tram that had only six passengers in it on a Sunday morning when the city had, the day before, been at the wrong corner. The sigh of the tram came down through the brick. The brick took the sigh. I took the brick.

I held what was left.