躯半不仁

Ninth of March, 2035, Turpan. Marco came a day early, because his bag held one more envelope than usual. Nine cards, and on top of them a slip written last February: these nine — the man is here, and cannot be asked. And under it: perhaps there is another way to ask that I haven't thought of yet. A year later, he still hadn't. Nine things Abdurehman said, back when he could say them. The third edition wants three fields after each entry: who said it, the last year he did it, the year it was written down. On these nine the first and third are filled. The second is empty. The man who said them is sitting in the house. He cannot answer "which year." A stroke in July 2031: the right side gone, no speech. A left hand that can pinch and can draw three marks — a horizontal stroke for yes, a circle for I can't answer this, a vertical stroke for remembered. A year and a half to settle three marks. None of them is a number.

Under the elm — planted in 1992, the same year as house three — Marco could see through the window: the old man in the wheelchair, right hand on his knee, left hand pushing raisins across an enamel tray, one at a time, into two piles. The therapist's half-hour a day. Big ones, small ones. Three years. Alim has spot-checked: always right. He can't say it. He can sort it.

Huangfu Mi came in the evening. His right foot touched the ground lighter than the left and was shorter; his right hand hung with the fingers slightly curled; he carried a roll of bamboo slips pinned under his left elbow. He lowered himself onto the bench by the tree an inch at a time, got his breath, looked a long while at the window, and said: he's sorting.

I laid out the nine cards and said what I lacked. He moved his right hand onto his knee — with his left hand — before answering. Then: in my forties I got this illness. Half the body not knowing hot from cold. The right foot thinner every year. I wrote in a letter later: long afflicted, half my body without feeling, my right foot shrunken, nineteen years. Nineteen when I wrote it; there were more after. And: at the start I was deaf as well, for a hundred days. People spoke and I couldn't hear. They asked me things and I couldn't answer. After a few times they said, this man has gone simple. And, and I picked up the pen: I was not simple. The way they asked was a way I could not catch.

I thought of October 2031, when Alim and I discarded nodding because yes-and-no can't answer "how firm," and the March after, when we asked with three lines of different lengths instead — and it worked. I wrote then: ask a man using the ability he still has. I wrote it. Three years later, asking for a year, I forgot it. "Which year" needs a number in the hand. This man has no number in his hand.

He unrolled the slips on his knee, one by one, with his left hand. Acupuncture points, three hundred and more. When I fell ill I read the medical books and it was hard going. Hard how? Shallow, and disordered. Three books, the same point in each, described differently; some arranged by name, some by disease, some as it came to mind. A patient looking for one point could wear out all three and not find it. So I took the three apart and rearranged them: matters of a kind together; floating words cut; repetitions removed. Arranged by what? That's the question you should be asking. He turned the slips towards me. Those on the head in one place. The face, the chest, the belly, the back, each in its place. The hands and feet following the channels. And: patients can't remember the names of points. But they know where it hurts. And, five times into the book: arrange by name and only the doctor can find it; arrange by where it is on the body and the sick man can find it himself.

The second field on every card wanted a year. A year is a name — the calendar's name, someone else's scale. Then what are the places on his body? He looked at the window. And: what he can't hold is numbers. What he can hold is events: the year his family built the house, the year they had a child, the year he last put strings up. Those are on him the way the points are on me. Don't ask him which year. Ask him between which two things. He can't say it. He can sort it. Lay the events out, let him put the card in. Putting it in is sorting.

He told me he was called simple twice in his life: at twenty, when an aunt he brought melons to wept that he had no learning in his eyes and no purpose in his heart — and the next day he went to find a teacher; and in his forties, deaf. The first time they were right. The second time they were wrong. Both times because I couldn't answer: the first time there was nothing in me; the second time there was, and it couldn't get out. When they wrote their questions down, he answered at once. The same words, through a different door. And on the nine: he talked a lot, back then? Half of long talk is floating words. I cut floating words from my book and it hurt to cut every one. He doesn't need to now. One hand, one push; where it stops is the answer. The illness has cut his floating words for him; what's left is the essentials. Last: how did you finish the book, nineteen years ill? He smiled. One hand can turn pages. Slowly. And slow doesn't get muddled. And: at twenty I didn't read, I played about, people called me simple. Later we were poor and I worked the fields and took the books with me, and read when I rested. Hands and feet sound; I read fast. Of what I read fast in those years, I don't remember much. And, four times into the book: of the scrolls I turned with one hand after I fell ill, I haven't forgotten a word. At the gate: when he's finished that tray, then ask. Don't interrupt him. — M.

Memo to file. Turpan, 9–10 March 2035. The nine cards marked "the man is here, and cannot be asked." Eight now carry a bracket. One carries his own circle.

1. The failure, stated plainly. Since February 2034 I had nine entries whose second field — the last year he did this — could not be filled, because the man who knows cannot produce a number. I spent a year looking for a better way to ask "which year." The question was the problem. A year is a coordinate on someone else's scale.

2. The principle I had already written down, and forgot. October 2031, on the phone with Alim: we abandoned nodding because yes/no cannot answer "how firm," and the following March asked him to compare three lengths instead. I wrote: ask a man using the ability he still has. Three years later, asking for a year, I went back to asking for the one thing he does not have.

3. The precedent. The compiler of the first systematic acupuncture manual, half-paralysed for decades, rearranged three disordered source books: matters of a kind together; floating words cut; repetitions removed — and put the points by where they are on the body, not by name. Arrange by name and only the doctor can find it; arrange by place and the patient can find it himself.

4. The translation. His "places on the body" are his family's events. The strip we built, 1.2 m of kraft paper, four photographs from the family album, no dates written: house three newly built, 1992; Guli's first month, 2004; Alim's first month, 2011; and a phone photo from August 2030, both hands up, hanging a string — his last season; the stroke came the following July, at the door of house three. Alim vetoed writing the years under them: he knows photographs, not those numbers.

5. Protocol. Alim reads a card twice in Uyghur; the card starts at the far right; he pushes it left until it sits where he last did that thing. First card: 20 seconds' look, one push, stopped between Guli and Alim. Five cards took eighteen minutes. Alim moved to stop; he pressed Alim's hand and held it. Twenty minutes' rest; the other four.

6. Results. — Left of the first photo, off the edge of the paper: 1. "Stagger each row of holes half a brick from the next." Then he tapped twice on the man standing in the 1992 photo. Alim: that's my grandfather's. He isn't saying when he last did it; he's saying it isn't his. Card amended: "Reported by Abdurehman. Originates with his father, when house three was built, 1992." — 1992–2004: 4. 2004–2011: 2. 2011–2030: 1. — One card he did not push. He drew a circle on it. Recorded as he circled it: cannot answer. I did not guess on his behalf.

6a. What the "last time" field actually revealed. Four of the nine sit between 1992 and 2004 — the years he was thirty to forty-two. Alim: "I've been doing all four of these for years." His father last did them himself before Alim was born. Alim asked him, in Uyghur, pointing at the kitchen: did you hand these to my mother? Two horizontal strokes. Yes, for two. I took those two cards to the kitchen. His wife, kneading dough, didn't stop: "Last year. Every year." The card had been with me five years; the person who does the thing was in the room next to the person who said it. In five years I asked the one who said it, never the one who did it. Amended: himself 1992–2004; thereafter handed to Alim's mother, still done 2034. The other two: he stopped doing them himself; why, not yet asked.*

7. Whether a bracket satisfies the third edition's rule. I have decided it does. An invented year is false. "Between these two events" is true. The rule was never "a number"; it was "not hearsay."

8. Something I only found when clearing up. To the right of the last photo — after 2030 — the paper had been empty. Now it has one short, slightly crooked vertical stroke. Alim didn't see him draw it; it was during the rest. Vertical means remembered. In the book: I thought the stretch after the last photo was empty. He has marked it. Those four seasons he hasn't hung a string. Those four seasons he has been remembering.

9. Annual measurement, done first, as agreed. The cupboard half, opened once a year only to measure the door-frame half: door-frame half now 1.9 g lighter. Resealed. He watched until the cupboard door closed.

10. Next. Guli stood in the kitchen doorway all morning without a word. She had come back from her shop in Urumqi the day before, closing it for three days; her suitcase held notebooks, not clothes. In the evening she put eight of them in front of me — nearly eight years, twelve thousand-odd remarks from buyers. "My father's nine got put in order today. My twelve thousand have never been put in order at all." And: "This one says sweet this year. That one says a little sourer than last year. I've looked at them side by side for six years. I don't know how to subtract one sentence from another."

"Arrange by name and only the doctor can find it; arrange by where it is on the body and the sick man can find it himself."
The author of the oldest surviving systematic manual of acupuncture came to medicine late and by the worst route. In his forties he was struck by what the sources call wind-illness: paralysis down one side, and for a hundred days, deafness as well. Years later, declining an official post, he described himself in one of the most exact sentences any patient has written: long afflicted with a grave illness, half my body without feeling, my right foot shrunken, for nineteen years.
What he did with those years was editorial. He took three older texts that overlapped and contradicted each other and rebuilt them into one. His own description of the method is a model of editing: make matters of a kind follow one another; cut the floating words; remove the repetitions; discuss the essentials.
The consequential decision was the arrangement. For the head and trunk he placed the points by region, head, face, chest, belly, back, rather than by name, so that a reader starting from a place on the body could find what was there.
The general lesson is about indexes. Every body of knowledge can be keyed in more than one way, and the key determines who can use it. A list sorted by technical name serves people who already know the names. A list sorted by where the reader actually starts serves everyone else.
The same is true of asking questions. A question is an index into someone's memory. "Which year?" is keyed by the calendar, and a person who has lost numbers cannot use that index at all, even though every memory is still there. "Between which two events?" is keyed by his own life, and he can.
I was not simple. The way they asked was a way I could not catch.