The Summons

> *This page is stained with water, blotched from top to bottom; much of the script is illegible, and only the middle section can still be read. It records the matter of Song Gong's appointment. According to the separate register of the Selection Hall, the City God of Henan Prefecture fell vacant that year, and the Selection Hall enfeoffed a new incumbent after the prefectural examination; a section at the end of the roll, "The Appointed One Declines," agrees with what this page records. The water stain stops at the two characters "城隍" (City God); it is suspected that a teacup was overturned there that day, but this can no longer be verified. (A note by the descendants: after Song Gong took office as City God, this page was once enshrined in the temple; pilgrims washed the stele with tea water, hence the mark.)*

The hall was quiet for a long time.

The one at the head, of imperial bearing, looked at me. His gaze was not heavy; it rested on me as on an object that had stood on the table a long while. I stood with my hands at my sides, waiting for him to speak.

Water dripped in a corner of the hall, one drop, then another. I could not tell where the water came from; it fell on the brick, and the echo was faint.

I stood and looked at the hall a second time. The first time I had come in, I had only minded taking my seat and had not looked closely. Standing now, I saw the things in the hall—on the table at the head there was no document, only an inkstone, a brush, and a lamp. The flame was still; there was no wind, and it did not stir. Of the officials on either side, some sat, some had their eyes half closed, as if in trance, or as if asleep. The pillars were very tall, unpainted, the wood showing its own color, dust gathered in the cracks.

I looked a while, then drew my gaze back.

"Song Tao," he said.

"Here," I answered.

He looked at me, looked a while longer, and then spoke slowly, in a voice not loud, yet every word of it was plain in the hall:

"Henan lacks a City God. You are fit for the post."

No one in the hall spoke.

I stood, not moving. Those words fell, fell on me, and I felt all at once that this was what I had been waiting for all along. From the moment I set foot on that earthen road, from the moment the horse's hooves fell soundless, from the moment I saw Wang Laoliu walk past with his head down, I had been waiting for an answer. Now the answer had come, and I could not say whether I was relieved, or something else.

I lowered my head and looked at my own hands. They were dry, no sweat. I had died once; my hands were dry.

And then I remembered: my hands were dry. In those days of illness my palms had always been damp; when my mother wiped my body and came to my hands, she would always pause, turn my hand over, look at it, turn it back. She said my palms always sweated; it was a sign of weakness. Now, standing in this hall, my hands were dry as a piece of wood that had been set aside a long while.

I had guessed it already. I had guessed it long ago.

From when? I cannot say. Perhaps when I stood at the city gate and recognized the two characters "考选" (Selection); perhaps when I reached out and touched the frozen ink in the inkstone; perhaps when the small line of script on the back of the question sheet fell into my eyes. These things came one after another, like water running from high to low, no break anywhere, and I followed them and saw where they led.

But to guess, and to hear, are two different things.

I raised my head and looked at the one at the head, of imperial bearing. His face was hidden in the grey light of the hall; I could not see it clearly. I opened my mouth, wanting to say something, and did not know where to begin. The hall fell quiet again; the dripping went on, one drop, then another.

"Will you take the post?" he asked.

I knelt, and kowtowed once.

"Song Tao thanks you for the appointment."

The bricks of the hall were blue, and the cold rose up from my knees. I lay prostrate, and did not rise at once. I thought of the morning I had left home—my mother standing in the doorway, not following me out. She stood inside the door, watched me mount the horse, watched the grey-clad man lead the horse away; she did not follow, and she did not call out.

She knew before I did.

I lay prostrate, thinking of my mother. In those seven days by the sickbed, she kept watch over me, not sleeping at night, sitting by the bed doing needlework. When I drifted in and out, I heard the sound of the needle passing through cloth—shh, shh, one stitch then another, a very old sound. She fed me medicine; when it cooled, she tasted it, and fed me again. She never asked how ill I was, and never asked what I dreamed.

She had known all along. She sat by my bed those seven days, doing her needlework, waiting for me to understand it myself.

I lay prostrate, and after a while raised myself. The officials at the head looked at me, their gazes falling and moving away, as at a thing that need not be looked at again.

I knelt, and in my mouth there was a sentence that rolled on my tongue and was swallowed back. I wanted to speak of my mother—my mother is seventy, with no one to care for her. But the hall was very quiet, and the sentence pressed beneath my tongue and would not come out. Not that I dared not; the time had not come. I knelt with lowered eyes, waiting for the head to speak.

The one at the head, of imperial bearing, did not speak at once. He sat with lowered eyes, as if looking at something, or as if thinking of something. No one in the hall spoke; there was only the dripping, one drop, then another.

I knelt with my head bowed, looking at the blue brick before my knees. In the crack of the brick ran a fine grey line, straight, running out to the foot of the pillar. I counted along that line; at the seventh brick it broke off, as if something had swept across it.

The hall was still. I heard the sound of my own robes stirring, very faint. After a long time—perhaps not long; there was no water-clock in the hall, and I cannot say—one of the officials at the head shifted his body, the cloth whispering. Another shifted. As if an object that had stood a long while had been stirred by a wind.

Then the one of imperial bearing spoke. The voice was not loud; it was the same sentence:

"Song Tao, withdraw and wait outside the hall for the decree."

"Yes."

I kowtowed once, rose, stepped back two paces, and turned to walk out of the hall.

When I reached the door of the hall, I paused. The sky outside was grey, no sun, like a well. I stepped over the threshold and stood under the eaves, and drew a breath. Under the eaves stood a vat; the water in it was full, the surface level, mirroring the grey sky. As I passed, I glanced at it; the water mirrored a stretch of grey, nothing else.

Behind me, inside the door of the hall, a low murmur rose.

Very faint, very faint, as if several people had drawn together and were speaking with their voices pressed down. I stood under the eaves and heard it. The voices were small, so small I could almost not make them out—but I heard them. Someone said:

"Another one."

I stopped.

I turned my head. The door of the hall had already closed. A little grey light showed through the crack; the voices inside were shut in by the door, no longer audible. I stood under the eaves, looking at that door, and after a while drew my gaze back.

Another one.

Slowly I walked down the steps. Step by step, the corners of the blue bricks worn round; my feet were steady on them. I thought of those two words, of that moment of stillness in the hall, of that sentence "wait outside for the decree." Wait for what decree? I did not know. I only knew that those two words had fallen into my ear like a grain of dust falling on still water—light, yet it spread a ring.

When I reached the foot of the steps, I stopped. The ground of the courtyard was packed earth, very level. No trees, no flowers; at the foot of the wall grew a few tufts of grass, the leaves grey, as if they had never held dew. I stood a while, then looked down at my shoes. The shoes were my mother's work, soles of layered cloth, the stitching dense and even. That morning when I left, she squatted in the doorway and tied the laces tight, saying, "Walk steady on the road." I had walked this whole road, and the soles were barely worn.

I stood, and thought again of what had happened in the hall. The dozen or so officials—I knew none of them, only Guan Zhuangmiao. Lord Guan sat at the head and, from beginning to end, did not look at me once. When I entered, his eyes were lowered; when I gave thanks, his eyes were lowered; when I withdrew, his eyes were still lowered. In that instant when I stepped out of the door, in the corner of my eye I seemed to see him raise his eyes once, and let them fall again—fall beside me, on the seat where I had sat.

That seat was empty. I had sat in it half the session; now it was empty.

There was wind in the courtyard, passing under the eaves, and it did not stir the water in the vat. I stood at the foot of the steps, waiting.

I stood at the foot of the steps, waiting.