Sect Year 1 · twelfth month · day 30 · the capital, lodging by the Archive wall
Su read to him at dawn, the way she did on the last morning of every month. She sat on the end of her cot with the bound book open across her knees and the grey light from the shutter falling over the page. She read the month back in the flat voice she kept for the record, without comment, so that nothing could later be said to have been softened. She had done it since the first month of the record. Lin had never once asked her to stop.
“Third day,” she read. “He slept on the cot by the shutter. Said he had counted the mornings. Said nothing else.”
She turned the leaf. The paper made the small dry sound it always made.
“Fifth day. He copied the index. Asked whether he hears his bell each morning, he said yes. He said it is the first thing he hears.”
“It’s true,” said Lin, and his voice came out level, which was the only part of it he could manage.
“I know it’s true. You told me so.” Su took up her pen, dipped it, and wrote the line again in the margin, very small, in the same even strokes as the rest of the page. Says it is true. She blotted it. Then she turned the leaf again and went on, past the copy hall and the lamp-hall and the bowl…
