The Third Bowl

Xu Shen pulled the door open a crack. He saw the lopsided basket in the snow first, then the young man's face. The young man had his shoulders hunched tight, with a little wet snow at the corner of his mouth, as though he'd said a great many things before being left with only that last request for water. Huangdou squeezed into the gap and barked at the load. Xu Shen held the dog back with his knee and told the man to step aside so the corner of the door wouldn't catch him.

Chen Sheng did as he was told and took his hand off the door. Xu Shen noticed a small red scrape at the base of his fingers and asked if he'd fallen. Chen Sheng shook his head. He'd come through fine, he said, but the jars hadn't been so lucky. He tried to grin, though his face was too cold to do quite as he wanted. Xu Shen turned back inside to ladle out some water. Asui had already cleared the low stool by the stove.

She did not ask how much he could pay. She simply told the young man to come in and stop standing where the dog was barking at him. Xu Shen said the bedding was all but packed away. His mother pointed to two boards by the wall and said those had yet to be put away. They were old partitions Xu Bo had made, with two wooden pegs along the edge for hanging clothes. Xu Shen had meant to put them with the rotten firewood the next day. Now he found it hard to say in front of his mother that there was nowhere to lay out a bed.

He turned sideways to make room. Chen Sheng pushed his basket back first so it wouldn't scrape the doorframe, then bent to take off his shoes. The toes of his socks had worn through, and the soles of his feet were soaking wet. A-Sui nudged a pair of dry straw sandals over by the stove and told him to wipe his feet with a dry cloth first. The young man hurried to say there was mud on his shoes and he shouldn't come in. Xu Shen took the wet shoes from him and asked what good a clean floor would do if he stood there freezing.

He smiled a little himself after saying it. When he hauled timber in town, nothing annoyed him more than being treated as a pair of feet that could only dirty the floor. Yet just now, as Chen Sheng edged forward, he'd looked at the threshold without thinking. The melting snow now trailed a dark line across the floor. He swept it away and found it less of a nuisance than he'd expected. Huangdou sniffed the wet shoes, stopped barking, and circled Chen Sheng's feet as though waiting for him to produce something to eat from his sleeve.

Chen Sheng moved the unbroken jars from the basket to the corner and counted twelve, his lips moving without a sound. Xu Shen asked what was at the other end of the pole. Chen Sheng said it was cotton cloth someone had entrusted him to deliver, wrapped in oilcloth and still dry when he'd felt it a moment ago. Xu Shen told him to leave it on a stone in the yard until his clothes stopped dripping. There was no sense crowding dry goods in with wet people. Chen Sheng was still uneasy and went back to the door for another look. Only when he saw that the oilcloth was tied shut did he sit down on the stool.

Asui added water to the pot. The remaining grains of rice had already burst open, and the edges of the radish were a little translucent. She spooned the soft pieces into the bowl, fished out a bit of root that had not cooked tender, and tossed it to Huangdou. He came over to sniff it, found it too bland, and looked at Chen Sheng instead. Thinking the dog wanted porridge, Chen Sheng bent over his bowl and explained that he had nothing else either. Asui could not help laughing. She said he had been here more than ten years and knew by now which visitors would have dried meat tucked in their belts.

“Then he's in for a disappointment,” Chen Sheng said. “I even finished my dry cakes on the road.”

He ate the first few mouthfuls quickly. Sensing someone watching, he slowed down and blew on the next spoonful for a long time. Xu Shen saw the back of his hand trembling and slid the bowl onto the low table, leaving him to hold it himself. His mother and the visitor talked easily back and forth, as though there had always been a place for a third bowl in the house. Xu Shen came home only a few times a year. Every time he found the sewing basket, the rice pot, and the dog, and somehow he had never imagined how familiar they might be to someone he didn't know.

Chen Sheng said he had come from Gaopu with empty jars for Ji'an Pharmacy. Xu Shen looked up. So this was what the unsealed wooden crates in the back courtyard were waiting for. He asked how many jars a pole could carry. Chen Sheng said twenty-four, with careful straw padding. It was heavier on the way there than on the way back. He usually made the round trip once a month and took short deliveries for people in Gaopu too. He could hardly call himself a seasoned hand at long routes. Today he had seen half the character 城, meaning city, on the sign and decided this must be the way.

Xu Shen said the main road was on the other side of the fork at the locust tree. From here, doubling back would mean another four li. The young man glanced at the dark window. His Adam's apple moved a little, and he didn't ask again about going on through the night. Asui put the lid on the pot and said the road would still be there tomorrow, but this was all the warmth left in the pot tonight. Best finish the food while it was hot. When Xu Shen heard her say it, he wanted to remind her that the moving cart was coming on the ninth. In the end he only stirred in two more thin sticks.

As the fire picked up, Chen Sheng's shoulders slowly relaxed. He asked where she was moving, and A-Sui said South Locust Lane in town. She had yet to walk down it herself and knew only that the sun reached it. Chen Sheng knew the lane. People often dried radishes at its entrance, and a sweet, sour smell greeted you as you passed. He told her that a left turn out of the lane would take her to the river. If she turned right, the first thing she would see was a rice shop with a very narrow front. A-Sui listened closely, even tracing left and right with a finger on the rim of her bowl.

Xu Shen cut in to say there was a strong wind by the river and she might as well stay away in winter. His mother's finger stopped. Then she turned her bowl around and asked Chen Sheng whether the rice shop sold millet loose by weight. Chen Sheng said it did. The owner was a little hard of hearing, so you had to speak up. Xu Shen could hear how neatly the two of them had gone around what he had said. He was annoyed, but he couldn't find a single reason to forbid his mother to buy millet.

When the bowl was empty, Chen Sheng felt inside his clothes and drew out a small sweat-stained cloth, then a packet of needles. He said he really had no money on him and wouldn't be paid for the trip until he reached the shop. He carried the needles to trade for small things. They were hardly worth the meal, but they were clean. A-Sui opened the packet and found ten needles of different gauges. She picked out the finest and held it up to the lamp.

Xu Shen was smoothing the door bolt when he heard his mother tell him to stop adding oil to the lamp, and turned his head to look. The lamp on the little table was a shallow, open clay dish, its flame leaning a little to one side. Asui snipped off the charred end of the wick and had Chen Sheng sit on the brighter side. She did not take the packet of needles as payment. She simply set a ball of fine thread that did not tangle easily beside his hand and asked him to do some work that needed good eyes.

By the oil lamp, Chen Sheng threaded seven needles and stuck them into a scrap of old cloth. His fingertips were so cold they barely did as he wanted, and one needle took four tries. A-Sui waited patiently. Xu Shen saw that his mother's sewing basket was already full of threaded needles, some with coarse thread and some with fine.

The threads were all different colors. One length was a brilliant blue, another so gray it disappeared against the cloth, and another had a tiny, tight knot at the end. Xu Shen had threaded needles for her as a boy too. Once he began working at the shop, he had plenty to do that called for good eyes and a steady hand, and she rarely asked him to help with a needle's eye anymore. He had assumed his mother sewed less now, yet the little patch of cloth she drew out from the bottom of the basket was crowded with needles.

“If you leave them there long enough, won’t they get tangled on their own?” he asked.

A-Sui said they did tangle, and when they did you could untangle them slowly. The neighbor children who came to thread needles liked to use long lengths. She kept them even when they were longer than she needed, since they would come in handy for bigger things. She pulled one out as she spoke, and sure enough the tail drew another with it. She set the two needles together, in no hurry, and told Chen Sheng to thread his own first. Xu Shen lowered his head and shaved away another sliver. A thin white curl fell from the end of the door bolt.

When his father was alive, there had always been people in this house too. Someone would come to borrow a plane; someone would shoulder wet timber here to wait for clear weather. His mother would add a ladleful of rice from the pot, even when his father was not home. Xu Shen remembered once deliberately refusing to open the door, standing inside and saying none of the adults were home. His mother had come out of the kitchen with an expression that left him feeling wronged for years. Today, as Chen Sheng returned the needles to the basket, he suddenly remembered again the door he had braced shut.

His mother didn't like everyone who came by. There was a hemp peddler who always paid for his sauce with bent coins. Asui scolded him every time and still lent him a pot to warm his food. That was what Xu Shen had found hardest to understand. He thought that scolding and then giving in left her neither satisfied nor any better off. As Chen Sheng threaded the seventh needle, his mother was looking closely for rust on the shaft. Finding none, she wrapped up the other three needles and pushed them back to him, asking if he could bring her a few large needles next time he passed through town.

The young man answered quickly, then hurried to add that if he couldn't find good needles for sale, he wouldn't dare bring back just anything. A-Sui said in that case he could leave it. A word from her was hardly reason to make a special trip. Xu Shen listened by the door, the corner of his mouth twitching. This time too, it seemed, the guest hadn't quite managed to take on a definite errand to repay her kindness. He tried the wooden bolt in the groove. He still had to lift the door a little, so he pulled it back out, as quietly as if he wanted no one to hear.

Once the bedding was laid out, Chen Sheng hurried to collect the bowls and nearly stepped on his wet shoes. One end had curled up in the heat of the fire, like an open mouth. He wanted to laugh, but hated to see the straw cord go to waste, so he picked up the shoes and worked it gently between his fingers. Xu Shen picked a length of fine hemp cord out of his tool bag and tossed it onto Chen Sheng’s lap. He told him to wait until morning to sew and spare himself stitching his toes into the shoes by lamplight.

A Sui gathered up her sewing basket and finally agreed to take off her outer robe. She scraped the last half-bowl of porridge into the small pot without asking whether it was being kept for the dog or someone else. Xu Shen brought over a layer of old cotton wadding and spread it on the boards. Realizing his mother was still trying to push the thicker end toward the guest, he switched its position himself and tucked the thinner part beneath the boards. She saw, said nothing, and did not change it back.

It was deep into the night. The wind pressed the window paper in and out. After lying down, Chen Sheng kept his face turned toward the courtyard. His oilcloth bundle was out there, and so was the dark. Xu Shen moved the lamp farther away and lay down on the narrow mat laid beside his mother's bed. All three people in the room seemed to be asleep, but Huangdou was awake, lifting his head every so often to listen. Whenever his claws scraped the floor, Xu Shen would open his eyes too and hear his mother's steady breathing just behind him.