The Sound of Paper

**【County archives】Deposition of Wang, seventh statement. Interrogator: the vice-prefect's office. Scribe: Zhao. Attached: one testimony of A-fu, one testimony of Wang Shi of the West Market. The scribe's annotation at the end was added afterwards.**

When Your Honor asks of those days, this student tells what he knows.

On the twenty-first of the ninth month, this student left the lane and went to the West Market. The market was busy, selling everything. This student pressed through the crowd and walked the length of it twice, and did not find the Daoist. He stopped a candy-seller and asked: "Is Master Zhang of Qingyan Temple about the market today?" The man waved his hand; he had not seen him. This student walked the length of it twice more. The sun climbed, and in this student's heart, oddly, he felt easier — if the man could not be found, perhaps there was nothing to find. This student stood before the powder stall a while, when someone called to him:

"Master Wang."

This student turned. It was Wang Shi, who sold face powder on the West Market. Across the stall she looked him up and down, and said: "Young master's color is poor. Where are you off to?"

This student said: "Just walking."

Wang Shi made a sound of acknowledgment, then said: "Young master, when you passed this way a moment ago, a smell came off you from far off." This student's heart tightened; he asked: "What smell?" Wang Shi thought a moment, and said: "Hard to say. Like something pressed away for years, turned out into the sun. Does your household keep some old thing at the bottom of a chest?" This student made no answer, and walked on.

This student sat in the market till the sun slanted west. He drank two bowls of tea at the stall, and the tea had no taste. Two cloth-dealers at the next table were talking; one said "the Wang family study has kept its door shut these days," and the other said "perhaps they are keeping someone." This student sat less than two paces from them, yet they spoke as if he were not there, and when they had done they went on to cloth prices. This student thought of going over to ask a question; his foot lifted, then set down again. Ask — and say what?

This student's heart was in a tangle, one moment for going home, the next against it. When dusk came, the tea stall began to close, and this student had no choice but to go back.

At the gate his wife met him, saying: "The young master is back. The meal is still warm." This student said: "I have eaten." She smiled and asked no more, and turned to tidy things. This student watched her back, and his heart softened a little — she had treated him no way but well. These last days this student must have been bewitched, to suspect her so. Thinking thus, he went into the study.

At night this student blew out the lamp and lay down. After a day of walking, his head no sooner touched the pillow than he sank.

This student was wakened by a sound.

It was not the sound of someone at the bedside. It was a voice. Very faint, indistinct, as if spoken through a quilt. This student first thought he had misheard, and held his breath to listen — it was her. She was talking in her sleep.

This student had never known her to talk in her sleep. By day she slept without stirring, hardly turning over. Yet now she spoke. The voice was low, muffled, as if consulting with someone. This student strained his ears, and caught only a few words:

"...Is the painting done yet..."

This student's heart went cold, and his sleep was gone. What painting did she mean? He did not dare to move; he lay and listened, and she spoke a few words more, then fell silent. This student had just begun to breathe again, when he heard — the sound of paper.

Shh. Shh.

It came from her side of the room. Like something being turned. Once, twice, unhurried, like a man turning pages one by one. Yet not like pages — the sound was thicker than paper, rougher, drawn out long, shh — shh —, as if something in the dark were spreading a skin flat, and spreading it flat again. Then this student remembered Old Li's words — Old Li said the sound was like a butcher scraping hide. At the time this student had not believed it. Now, listening to this sound of paper, gooseflesh rose over his whole body in layer after layer. This student thought: a skin, spread flat, and spread flat again — what is it waiting for?

This student lay still, not daring to move or make a sound, eyes shut, ears pricked. The sound of paper came once, twice, in the dark, unhurried. This student did not know how long it lasted. Then the sound of paper stopped. The room was still a moment.

And then he heard her say — this time, plainly, like sleep-talk, yet not like sleep-talk:

"...One stroke still missing..."

A buzzing went through this student's head. The smell of paper and ink — he did not know when — had turned thick enough to choke. Not the faint smell that clung to her by day — this filled the whole room, like a stack of paper soaked in water and shut up for three days and nights, and opened. This student's throat closed; he wanted to move, and could not.

Of that night this student hardly knew how it passed. He only remembered lying stiff, listening to his own heart, till the window paled.

At dawn the paper-sound was gone, and the smell was gone. She sat up as she did every morning, stretched, and smiled at him: "The young master slept very well."

This student looked at her, his throat dry. He asked: "Did you say anything in the night?"

She thought a moment, and said: "No. I slept the whole night. The young master must have misheard."

This student asked no more.

He looked down and saw the plum handkerchief in the needle basket. She had been embroidering it for nearly five days. On a whim he took it up and looked — six petals. But at the edge of one petal a new thread showed, and on close look, a seventh petal, just begun. This student looked at it a long while, set the handkerchief down, and walked out of the study.

At the courtyard gate, he stopped.

He turned and looked at the study window. The paper was pasted over; he could not see inside. This student knew that at this moment she was likely still sitting by the window, head bowed, stitching that branch of plum, stitch by stitch. He looked at that window, and stood a long while. That morning he had not eaten breakfast, and felt no hunger.

This time, he did not mean to turn back.

This student was going to Qingyan Temple.