第一百零八行

Seventeenth of February, 2035, Chengdu. A letter from Hami. Sender: Nurlan. Not a name I have seen — not among the hundred and seven, not among the two hundred and forty-five cards. Thick. Inside, three things. A two-page letter in Chinese, written very carefully, a few characters traced over twice. A photograph of two drying houses side by side, one with its wall-holes half blocked, one without. And a book. I knew the cover. The Two Ends, third edition. Top right of the flyleaf, in my own hand, the copy number: two. Copy two went to Aksu last April. To Luo.

The letter, in four parts. Who he is: Nurlan, twenty-seven, Hami, two drying houses, his father ran them twenty years, his father's back went two years ago and he took them over. How the book reached him: last autumn he went to Aksu to sell. An old man was sitting by the wall of the purchasing station — not buying, just sitting. When he had sold, the old man called him over and asked which way his drying-house doors faced. East. "An east door, you want to half-close it for that one hour in the morning." Why? No answer. The old man took a book from inside his jacket: take it home, read it, give it back. What he read: he got to the last page — titled someone has done these; the person recording them didn't ask — sixteen entries each marked hearsay, and under them: if anyone ever fills in the provenance of one of these sixteen, move it to the front, and write your own name beside it. He looked at that line a long time. The fourth part was two sentences. I tested number nine. I tested it for a year.

Wang Qingren came on the eighteenth. Sixties, a plain cloth robe, sleeves turned back. No book — a sheaf of drawings on very thin paper: the organs of the body, finely drawn, annotated, several labels struck out and rewritten, a few struck twice. He looked at copy two and said: this book has passed through two men's hands.

I read him entry nine as it stood: half-block the wall-holes and you can take down three days later without the colour going. Provenance: hearsay. Last year, when I asked Rehmanjan what year he last did it, he said everybody does it that way. What Nurlan did: two houses, both facing east, same size, same age. One with its holes half-plugged with mud, one untouched. Same batch, same day. Morning and evening, every day, into a notebook. Two pages of the year's record attached. Three results. The plugged house came down two and a half days later. The colour really was a little better — he photographed them side by side. And the third, written very large: the bottom layer in the plugged house got more mould. In the lowest three rows, two strings in ten grew white fur. In the unplugged house, not one. And his last line: so this entry is half right. The other half nobody said. And a few lines about his father. He said nothing when only one house was plugged; he came every evening on his stick, stood at each door, and went home. On the day they came down, Nurlan showed him the two white-furred strings. His father said: if you plug the holes, you turn the bottom rows. Why didn't you ever say? You never asked.

Wang Qingren put his drawings down. What that man did, I did. When I was young I read the medical books, and the more I looked at the drawings of the organs the more wrong they seemed. The books said the lungs had six lobes and two ears, the liver seven. Whether the man who drew them had ever seen one, the books do not say. And later men copied them, generation after generation. And, and I picked up the pen: to write a book without understanding the organs — is that not a fool telling his dreams? And: if the man who wrote it never saw it, however fine it reads, it is a dream.

What did you do? I wanted to look. I wanted to look and there was nowhere to look. And: I wrote: I long had the wish to correct it, and had no organs I could see. And: wanting to correct it and having nothing to look at — that went on for many years. And then? There was a year when an illness went through a district and a great many children died. They were buried shallow. Slowly. I went and looked. For ten days. I said nothing. I don't like to speak of it. And: but what I saw in those ten days was not what the books had drawn. And: the books had been wrong for hundreds of years, and nobody had gone to look once.

I turned back to last April's page — the rules of the third edition, entries without field two drop to the hearsay section; before dropping one, ask where the sentence came from — and said: all sixteen went down that way, and when I dropped them I imagined someone might one day fill in the provenance — by finding the person who first said it. That person can't be found. Yes. The young man from Hami did not go looking for that person. He went and did it himself. And, six times into the book: if you can't find the person who said it, go and be the first person to see it.

Last, he turned the drawings over one by one and stopped at the final sheet, the most written-on and the most struck-through. I enquired and verified for forty-two years. Forty-two years. And I know that what forty-two years produced has errors in it too. I looked up. I wrote in the book: there must still be places in it that are untrue or incomplete. If later men get the chance to see the organs for themselves, examine them closely and add to them — that would be my good fortune. If later men see, let them correct it. Yes. And: I'm not afraid of later men saying I was wrong. And, five times into the book: what I'm afraid of is later men copying me and not going to look. At the door, turning: the young man wrote "the other half nobody said." And: that sentence matters more than the half he proved. — M.

Memo to file. Chengdu, 17–22 February 2035. Line one hundred and eight was written by someone I have never met.

1. The chain of custody, which I did not design. Copy two of the third edition went to Luo in April 2034. Luo lent it to a stranger at the purchasing station — because the strings nearest the stranger's door had darkened slightly, and Luo asked which way his doors faced, told him to half-close them for an hour in the morning, couldn't say exactly how much or from when to when, and handed him the book instead of an explanation. Luo's reasoning, by phone on the 19th: the book can't explain it either. But its last page says the person recording it didn't ask. I wanted him to see that page. And: a man who sees that page knows the book isn't finished. Knowing it isn't finished is what makes him put his hand to it.

2. What was tested, and it is the right shape of test. Hearsay entry nine: half-block the wall-holes and you can take down three days later without the colour going — provenance "everybody does it." Two east-facing houses, same size and age, same batch, same day; one plugged, one not; logged morning and evening for a season. — Plugged house: 2.5 days later to take down. Colour better (photographed). — Plugged house: lowest three rows, 2 strings in 10 grew mould. Unplugged: none. The received rule was half right, and the missing half is a failure mode nobody had written down. — And the missing half was not unknown. His father, twenty years on those houses, said it on takedown day: plug the holes and you turn the bottom rows. Why didn't you say so before? You never asked. The rule had travelled; its second clause had not.

3. What I did, 20 February, exactly as the book instructed a stranger to do. Entry nine moved from the last page into the main text. The original black line not deleted. Three lines added: method, result, and this entry is half right; the other half is that in the plugged house the bottom rows must be turned. Under it, his name: Nurlan, Hami, tested in person 2034. And his own limit, which I copied in verbatim: I only tried it one year, in two houses. Other places' houses may not be like this.

4. The precedent, and the thing in it I want to keep. Forty-two years of enquiry and verification, and the author wrote into his own book that it must still contain errors, and that if later men get to see for themselves they should correct it. And: I am not afraid of later men saying I was wrong. I am afraid of later men copying me and not going to look. That is the whole function of the hearsay page. I wrote it as a confession. It was an invitation.

5. The move I had not imagined. When I dropped the sixteen, I pictured provenance being recovered by finding whoever first said it — which, for most of them, is impossible. He did not look for the source. He became the source. — If you can't find the person who said it, go and be the first person to see it.

6. Line 108, added 21 February. Nurlan, Hami, since 2034. Column two: tested hearsay entry nine in person for one year, and found the other half. In the book: the hundred and eighth person I have never met. He was not recruited by me; he was recruited by the last page of that book — a page I wrote about my own failures. And: I thought it was a confession. It was an invitation.

7. Why he did it, from his reply on the 22nd, and it is the part that matters most. "My father said plugging the holes is an old rule. I asked why, and he said everybody does it. The book also said everybody does it, and next to it wrote hearsay. I wanted to know whether what my father said was also hearsay." In the book: he wasn't testing the entry. He was testing his father. And: having done it, he knows his father wasn't half right; he had said half. The other half was in his father all along, and didn't come out because nobody asked. That is worth more than the entry: from now on he knows every old rule needs one more question after it. Under his four lines, one more, very small: next year I'd like to test number three. May I? My reply: you don't need to ask me. When you've tested it, tell your father first.

"There must still be places in it that are untrue or incomplete. If later men get the chance to see for themselves, examine closely and add to it — that would be my good fortune."
The book is a nineteenth-century physician's correction of the anatomical drawings that had been copied, generation after generation, in the medical classics. His complaint about those drawings is one of the most quotable sentences in the history of Chinese medicine: to write a book without understanding the organs — is that not a fool telling his dreams?
The harder part of his account is what it took. He wanted to check the drawings for many years and had no way to do it. His phrase is exact: I long had the wish to correct it, and had no organs I could see. When the opportunity finally came it was a grim one, and he says he does not like to speak of it — but what he saw did not match what had been drawn, and the drawings had gone unchecked for centuries.
What makes the book worth more than its corrections is that he does not present the corrections as final. After what he describes as forty-two years of enquiry and verification, he writes into the text that it will certainly still contain errors, and asks readers who get the chance to look for themselves to correct him.
I am not afraid of later men saying I was wrong. I am afraid of later men copying me and not going to look.
That is a precise statement of how received knowledge goes bad. It rarely goes bad because someone lied. It goes bad because each copyist trusted the previous one, and nobody in the chain went back to the thing itself. Every copy was faithful, and the error was preserved faithfully.
The remedy he proposes is not better authority. It is a standing invitation, written into the authoritative text, for anyone with access to the thing to override it.
If you cannot find the person who first said it, go and be the first person to see it.