Sect Year 2 · fourth month · day 30 · the rim of Sallow Basin
For three weeks the days ran the same way, and Lin let them.
In the cool of the morning, before the sun got its weight into the salt, he knelt at the foot of the rim and asked the faces their names. Some answered. Some did not. He called the answers up the slope to the masked men on the stones, who did not look at him, and then he moved along the rim and knelt again. At midday he sat in the shadow of the bronze with Pei, and they shared the cake of millet bread in halves, and then in quarters, and then in whatever pieces the cake would give. In the late afternoon the sun slid off the basin and the white turned the colour of old pewter. At dusk the rope came down with the skin, and Su’s voice came after it from the lip, and Lin called up the names of the day.
Su answered each name with one word, yes or again. She didn’t argue with a name. She only asked him to say it twice, so that she could be sure it was the same both times. He said each one twice. It was the only conversation they had, and it was enough to tell him that she was still writing. One evening she asked whether Pei was eating. He said yes. She asked him to say it…
