Embers of the Broken River

Chapter 20 Old Cui

Shangguan threw the rolled-up paper on the worktable and turned to leave.

Footsteps echoed across the blue bricks of Shufang Street, turning out of the alley and fading into the distance. Old Cui didn't look up. His hand remained on the jujube wood tablet, his fingertips tracing the grain, feeling the coolness seeping from deep within the wood. The scroll of paper rested on the workbench, weighed down by a paperweight. He didn't rush to open it.

None of the printing blocks he's carved over the years are ones he wanted to carve. Account books, calendars, notices—he carved whatever others asked him to. He'd lay out the template, trace it, and then cut. One character after another would jump off the block, none of them having anything to do with him.

He put down his teacup and reached for the rolled-up paper.

The twine was tied with a slipknot. He pinched the end of the twine with his fingers and pulled gently to open it. He unrolled the paper and laid it flat. The paper wasn't large, about a foot square. On it was a drawing: triangles of numbers. One number in the first layer, two in the second, three in the third. The layers grew denser, until the seventh layer was completely covered in numbers. The single "1" at the top stood alone. The numbers at the bottom were huddled together, but each one was clearly visible.

He pressed the paperweight against the edge of the paper. He wasn't looking; he was counting.

His fingers moved down from the top. First layer, one number. Second layer, two. Third layer, three. He stopped at the seventh layer; the numbers were too close together for his eyes to follow. He counted three times. The first time, he missed one, realized something was wrong halfway through, and started again. The second time, his fingers followed the numbers down, stopping at the seventh layer, where the spacing became the narrowest, like the rim of a brick kiln. The third time, he didn't use his eyes. He took his hand off the paper, placed it on his knees, and closed his eyes.

He was mentally going through the diagram.

He honed his skills by carving arrow shafts. The numbers were engraved on a round surface; the eyes couldn't see the whole thing, so he had to feel it. The more he touched it, the more the numbers would form in his mind when he closed his eyes. After a short while, he opened his eyes. He traced the numbers on the paper with his fingers, starting from the first number and working his way down through seven layers. He then clenched his fist.

He recognized the shape of the numbers stacked up.

He didn't recognize the numbers. He didn't know what the numbers were called, nor did he know the relationship between them. But he recognized the "shape." The way they were stacked together was like the brick kiln his grandfather built.

My grandfather worked in a kiln in Hebei. When he was seven, his grandfather took him to see the kiln entrance and pointed to the cross-section of the brick kiln, saying: "When building a kiln, the bricks must be staggered. Each brick must overlap the joint between the two bricks in the previous layer, and they cannot be aligned. If they are aligned, the kiln wall will crack along the joint. They must be staggered so that the pressure can be distributed."

My grandfather died that winter. The kiln collapsed. The kiln builders had aligned the brick joints perfectly, not misaligned them. The kiln walls couldn't withstand the heat and split in two along the joints. My grandfather was trapped under the bricks; when they pulled him out, his hand was still reaching out. On the joint of his right ring finger was a burn scar, like a copper coin.

He remembered that hand. For a kiln worker, the hand is the ruler.

He looked at the picture for a long time, then picked out the jujube wood board from the toolbox.

He had stored the wood for half a year. He cut three pieces from the same jujube tree, and kept them, wanting to carve something worthwhile. What would be worthwhile, he himself couldn't say. Perhaps a scripture, perhaps a painting, perhaps a book still being read a hundred years later. He knew he might never carve such a book in his lifetime, but he had to keep the printing blocks. To leave something to look forward to.

He now lay the plate flat on the worktable. His hands were shaking as he picked it up.

Apprentice Chu Xiaosong saw it while squatting beside the pile of scrap metal. He recognized this kind of trembling. His master's hands would tremble when he was hungry. Last year, when Caihe was flooded and grain prices skyrocketed, his master ate only one meal a day. When he held the bowl, his hands trembled so much that the soup spilled on his trousers. His hands would also tremble when it was too cold. But this was a different kind of trembling. It wasn't from hunger or cold.

Chu Xiaosong remained silent. He squatted by the pile of discarded blueprints, watching the craftsman hold up the blueprints to the light from the window. The craftsman was checking the spacing. How much space should be between the first and second layers, and between the second and third layers? He memorized it by simply gesturing with the first joint of his index finger; his fingers were more accurate than a ruler.

Others would trace a pattern before carving. The master didn't. Chu Xiaosong knew why: the master was illiterate, and tracing would only make the pattern worse. The master would just start carving directly, having already planned the path in his mind, and then carving stroke by stroke. This was something he honed by carving arrow shafts. Arrow shafts were never given a pattern to trace; the officer would throw a blank shaft in front of you, give you a number, and you'd start carving immediately.

He saw his master pick up the scimitar and examine the blade under the lamp. The master never sharpened the blade before starting work; he always sharpened it after finishing. The blade produced when his tendons were most relaxed was the most even in edge.

The tip of the knife rests against the top of the board. The position of the first number. Penetrating to the very core.

The sound of the knife was very soft. Softer than the sound of the Cai River flowing outside the window.

Old Cui's blade followed the grain of the wood. The jujube wood had a fine but uneven grain; the blade moved smoothly along the grain, but needed to be more controlled against it. His experience carving arrow shafts honed his skills; the direction of the wood grain on the round surface was constantly changing, requiring several changes of direction to carve a single number. His wrist rotated slightly under the lamplight. The blade reached the third layer, pausing briefly at the middle number. It wasn't hesitation. His hand knew this number was larger than the ones on either side. Just as his hand knew that the character "甲" (jia) on an arrow shaft, "五百" (wubai), was larger than "甲" (sanbai). This sense of size was in his hand, not in his mind.

He continued carving.

The sound of the Cai River outside the window grew louder. Last night, the water rose again upstream, and today it reached the south of Bianjing city. Someone in the street was shouting that the water was rising. Chu Xiaosong glanced back at the doorway; the water hadn't yet reached the threshold, but it was already rising in the drainage ditch, the yellowish-brown water swirling with mud and sand.

"Master, water!"

Old Cui didn't respond. The blade reached the fifth level. His fingers pressed against the hilt, his knuckles turning white.

He remembered his grandfather's hands. Those hands emerged from the pile of bricks, fingers spread, as if still measuring something. He remembered them for forty years. Now, his own hands were measuring on the board. He suddenly understood: hands don't measure with the hands, they measure with their lives. His grandfather had measured the load-bearing capacity of the brick kiln with his life. His hands on this board weren't measuring wood, but all the words he had never carved in his life.

The sixth layer. The numbers are denser now. The blade needs to penetrate even shallower. He raised the blade slightly. Half a step deeper. No one in Bookshop Street could do that; penetrating half a step requires a hand so steady the blade almost floats on the wood's surface. He'd done it for seven years. The calluses on his fingers were more precise than a ruler.

The last layer. The last number. It's "1". All alone, just like the one at the top.

He aimed the blade at that spot. His fingers tightened. The blade pierced the wood to a perfect depth.

Suddenly, shouts erupted outside the window: "Water's flooding the streets! Water's flooding the streets!"

Chu Xiaosong rushed to the door. Water overflowed the threshold and flooded the front hall. Master Yu was cursing next door. Old Sun ran upstairs with his scripture books in his arms. The lights in the restaurant across the river went out, and the sounds of water and shouts mingled together in the darkness.

Old Cui lifted the carving knife from the engraving block. Only the instant the blade left the block did he feel the pain in his wrist. Lamp oil. The lamp had burned out, the wick had fallen, and hot oil had splashed onto his wrist. He hadn't felt it until now. He hadn't looked at the burn. He was looking at the engraving block.

All seven layers of numbers were engraved. No tracing was done. No ruler was used. It was all done by hand.

He picked up the slab, his fingers running from the first row to the last. His fingertips traced each cut, the numbers arranged beneath his fingertips. He didn't recognize them. But he recognized their shapes. The way they were stacked together resembled the brick kilns his grandfather had built.

Chu Xiaosong turned around and saw his master holding the printing plate up to the lamp. The oil lamp had already gone out. The floodwaters outside the window reflected the moonlight, and streaks of water shone onto the printing plate. The knife marks showed varying depths in the water, and the seven layers of numbers looked like seven steps from top to bottom.

"Master, the water has flooded half the street."

Old Cui stood up. He covered the woodblock with a dry cloth and wrapped it tightly. The master and apprentice scrambled for their tools in the darkness. Old Cui carried the freshly carved jujube wood block to his arms and waded through knee-deep water to get out. He glanced back at the doorway. There was still a bowl of tea untouched on the workbench. The tea had gone cold. Moonlight shone on the rim of the bowl, and the dark lines drawn by his fingernail glittered in the water. He didn't go back to get the tea. He carried the block to higher ground, the floodwaters of the Cai River behind him, and the night of Bianjing before him.

The bookstore had a small attic at the end of the street, usually used for storing odds and ends; the stairs were so narrow that only one person could go up and down at a time. He climbed up in the dark, placed the printing blocks on top of the pile of junk, and covered them with an old felt cloth. He sat on a straw mat used for binding discarded pages all night. The sound of water outside never stopped all night. As dawn approached, the water began to recede. He descended the stairs, the workbench soaked in water, its legs covered in a layer of mud. He wiped the legs clean, raised them again, and carried the printing blocks down from the attic. The jujube wood printing blocks, kept warm in his arms all night, hadn't been soaked.

But the first block carved that night of the flood was destroyed on the third day.