不自言

Twenty-fifth of April, 2038, a Sunday, ten in the morning, Qingshen, Sichuan. An hour and a half from Chengdu; past Meishan both sides of the road are bamboo, taller than houses, tips bending one way, rustling. Then the Min: wide, green, slow, a thin mist on it. Ten years in Chengdu; I've seen this river at Dujiangyan and at Leshan and never once stopped on this stretch. An old street by the river under a new stone sign: Bamboo Weaving Street; baskets, fans, lanterns, strands as fine as hair. My mother said it was once all craftsmen: bamboo weavers, a smith, cotton fluffers. Only the weavers are left. At the last shop, no sign, an old man on a little bamboo stool, back to the street, a canvas on his knees, splitting bamboo: the knife bit, his hand pushed, and the cane split in two with a hiss, the halves exactly equal. Lin Xiushan? The knife stopped. A long time before he turned: sixty-odd, sunburnt, heavy brows, my mother's eyes, drooping a little at the corners. He looked me up and down. "You're Xiao Ke." Not a question. "You look like your mother. Not the eyes. The mouth. Come in." Two steps, and over his shoulder: "I've waited ten years for you."

Lunch by my aunt: twice-cooked pork, bamboo shoots, a bowl of bean curd, a winter-melon soup; my uncle said almost nothing and kept filling my bowl; my aunt asked was America cold, where did I live in Chengdu, and wiped her eyes on her apron. Then up the hill with a sickle, incense and firecrackers. Halfway up, in bamboo, a low mound; on the stone, freshly re-painted in red this Qingming: the tomb of our late mother Zhou Suzhen; below: daughter Lin Xiufen, son Lin Xiushan; erected October 1995. My mother's name carved in stone for forty-three years, cut while she was in New Jersey carrying me. He cleared the new shoots, swept the slab, lit incense, stood aside: "Kneel to her. For your mother, and for yourself." I knelt on wet leaves and touched my head to the ground three times, then held my phone up to the stone with the 1993 photograph on it: a thin woman with a great bow across her shoulder. Behind the grave, in the bamboo, a young woman of twenty or so in plain old-style clothes, a closed book with a finger in it. "Wang Fu. Also of Qingshen. At sixteen I married into Meishan." Ten years, the living and the dead. "He wrote that later. Ten years after I'd gone. Your mother is this family's daughter? She has always been here."

Back at the house my uncle brought out a box he had woven himself, its lid woven with a flower identical to the one on the little basket on my shelf in Chengdu, bought my first year from a stall that said "Qingshen weaving". "That flower is ours. My father's generation wove it." Inside, letters standing in a row, each dated in pencil, 1996 to 2038: forty-three. "Your mother's. One a year, arriving before Qingming, with money to keep up the grave. Not one year missed." 1996: "A boy, Xiao Ke, seven pounds two. Like his father; the mouth is mine." 1997: he walks, falls, doesn't cry. 2008: "I sew at home, thirty-five cents a piece; Xiao Ke does homework beside me and sometimes snips the threads." I don't remember snipping threads. She does. 2029: "Xiao Ke has gone to China, to Chengdu. Don't go and find him. He doesn't know where our family is; I never told him. Wait till he asks. If one day he asks, then tell him." And 2038: "The quilt is done, with Mother's old cotton. Xiao Ke asked." — M.

Memo to file. Qingshen, 25–26 April 2038. The other copy.

1. Arrival. Bamboo past Meishan; the Min, wide and green. An old craftsmen's street, now only weavers. At the last shop my uncle, splitting cane into exact halves. "You're Xiao Ke. Not the eyes, the mouth. I've waited ten years for you."

2. The grave. A low mound in bamboo halfway up the hill; the stone re-painted each Qingming: Zhou Suzhen; daughter Lin Xiufen, son Lin Xiushan; October 1995. My mother's name cut in stone while she carried me in New Jersey. "Kneel to her, for your mother and for yourself." Three times; then the 1993 photograph held up to the stone.

3. The precedent. Wang Fu of Qingshen married Su Shi at sixteen and died at twenty-six. "At first she never said she could read; she sat by me all day while I read and I didn't know she understood. Later, whatever I forgot, she remembered." She listened behind a screen to his visitors and afterwards told him who said both things at once and who came too fast and would leave as fast. Ten years after her death he wrote: ten years, the living and the dead.

4. The box. Woven by my uncle, its lid flower identical to the one on the basket I bought in Chengdu in my first year: "That flower is ours." Forty-three letters, 1996–2038, one each spring before Qingming, with money for the grave, never a year missed. I never knew.

5. My life, kept on the other side. 1996: a boy, Xiao Ke, seven pounds two, "the mouth is mine." 1997: walks, falls, doesn't cry. 2002: better English than Chinese; "let him study first." 2008: thirty-five cents a piece, forty a day; "he does homework beside me and snips threads." 2014: Columbia, full scholarship; "his father told the factory; I told no one; I'm writing to you." 2019: half his first month's pay sent home; "I stopped taking work." 2022: "Lixin went last winter. Twenty-six years at the factory. Xiao Ke came back a few times and left again; he's busy. I'm on my own. Don't worry." I don't remember snipping threads. She does.

6. 2029. "Xiao Ke has gone to Chengdu. Don't go and find him. He doesn't know where our family is; I never told him. Wait till he asks." My uncle sat at his door all afternoon with that letter: "My nephew an hour and a half away, and I couldn't go."

7. Ten years of me. Every letter after had me in it: a canal in Chengdu, Xinjiang, a family drying raisins in Turpan, a book, the fourth edition with my name on it; last year: "the fifth won't carry his name; it will carry the doers', and mine and his father's are on it."

8. 2038. "This year a little more: plant some bamboo by Mother's grave. The quilt is done, with Mother's old cotton. Xiao Ke asked. He's back in Chengdu next month; take him to see her." Four characters: Xiao Ke asked. She had waited ten years for them.

9. The Wall Street version. Monthly reconciliation with counterparties: our book, their book, line by line. Starting out I thought it a formality; our book was right because it was ours. Once their book had a trade ours didn't; three days later, our omission. The old trader: "Don't think yours is the only book. The other side has been keeping track of you all along, sometimes better than you."

10. Behind the screen. Wang Fu: "For his first years he didn't know I could read; I never said. Once he got stuck halfway through a passage and paced the room, and I recited the rest. He stared at me." Why not say sooner? "What use? When he needed it, I was there." "He was young, remembered nothing, trusted everyone. I remembered for him." I thought I'd walked alone these ten years; someone stood behind the screen, one letter a year, keeping track.

11. The line. "Not saying isn't not knowing. Some people keep track of you and never say. What you forget, they remember, and they bring it out only on the day you ask." Of the pines: "He planted many on the hill by my grave, a thousand li away, and never saw one grow. Your mother wants bamboo planted here; she can see it. Photograph it for her."

12. The bow, and next. On my uncle's wall my grandmother's great bow, its sinew string slack, paint half gone, the mallet's head worn bright. "Nobody here can fluff any more." I touched the string: no sound. To my mother: the stone, the incense, her carved name; the bow. "That bow is what I woke to as a child." Then: "Touch it for me." Next morning we carried three bamboo saplings up and planted them by the grave; her reply: "Next Qingming I'll come and see for myself." In forty-four years, the first time she has said she will come back. On the road to Chengdu, Kamil, low, coughing in the background: "My father wants to see you. There are things he hasn't told Eli; he has to say them while he still can, with you there. I have to put my ear to his mouth now. Some of his words only the old people use; I can't catch them all."

"At first she never said that she could read. Later, whenever I forgot something, she remembered it."
Wang Fu, from Qingshen near Meishan in Sichuan, married Su Shi at sixteen and died at twenty-six. In the epitaph he wrote for her, he recorded that she had never mentioned she could read; she simply sat by him while he studied, and only later did he discover that she remembered what he forgot and knew the books he asked about. She also listened from behind a screen to his visitors and told him afterwards whom to trust. Ten years after her death he wrote one of the most famous elegies in Chinese, "Ten years, the living and the dead."
Some records are kept on the other side without our knowing. A trader learns this in reconciliation, when a counterparty's book turns out to contain a trade his own book missed. Families learn it later, when a box of letters reveals that someone has been writing down one's life, year by year, more completely than one ever remembered it.
The people who keep such records often say nothing about them. They are not hiding what they know; they are waiting until the record is wanted, until someone finally asks.
"Not saying isn't not knowing. They bring it out only on the day you ask."