How Far the Sun Has Fallen

On the twenty-first day of the fourth month, the locust trees in Nanhuai Lane came into bloom. The wind came in from the mouth of the lane, blew first across Guiniang's rice sieve, passed through the clotheslines in the courtyard, and finally settled in Asui's scallion pot. She picked up a blossom between her fingertips, white as a grain of uncooked rice. She smelled it, then set it on the windowsill for Fang Xiao to see for herself when she came home.

Before Xu Shen went out to work that morning, he said he would not be home for lunch, and would send word if anything changed that evening. He did not explain his destination down to every lane, and his mother did not ask. She sat and slowly finished her own porridge, drinking half while it was hot and letting the remaining half cool to feed Huangdou. The dog ate slowly, rice clinging to its whiskers, then raised its head for her to wipe them.

Gu Qin was going to the south of town to stock up on needles, and Asui stayed behind. Her knees had ached a little the night before. She wanted to get her fill of sunshine and then sit by the bridge for a while. Gu Qin handed her a new needle to look at and said they were cheap today. Did she want any? Asui looked at the eye and asked for just one with a large eye, since she still had fine ones at home. Gu Qin put it away and, on her way out, took the little jar of radishes Asui had for Daxiu, at the same price as last time. There was no extra jar thrown in to leave room for favors.

She went to the river afterward, taking her walking stick and feeling no need for her son to see how steadily she walked. The boat loaded with jars beneath the bridge had turned around. The boatman was squatting in the stern eating. When he saw her looking, he raised his bowl and smiled at her. She didn't know him and smiled back. Then she crossed the bridge, sat down by a stone in the shade, and listened to the water slap against the rocks along the bank.

The theater booth was still at the east market, closed for the day. She felt no disappointment. She sat for an hour, then got up and went home, buying two tender cucumbers on the way. She would dress one for a cold dish and save the other to eat at her leisure in the morning. She knew Xu Shen didn't like things too sour, so she served out her own half first and put in a little more vinegar. She ate until the back of her tongue went soft, as though she had tasted one of the flavors of spring in the city all over again.

The tea shelter in the hills closed early that same day. Liu Lan sold two kettles of tea and left the next pot of water unfilled. Daxiu wasn't coming today, and Liu Lan wanted to go home and finish the spring garment she'd only sewn one sleeve onto. Zhou Qiao's child came to ask for a light, saying his father couldn't get the damp wood in the stove to catch. She gave him two pieces of dry wood and let him take them home. As the boy walked off with the wood in his arms, the road sign made a little sound in the wind. The bottom nail still held.

As Liu Lan was about to close up, she ran her fingers over a corner of the low platform. There was indeed a new splinter sticking up. She covered it with her handkerchief and laid a small scrap of wood beside it as a marker for Xu Shen to plane it down the next time he came. This time there was no need to set aside a whole day's plans to come to someone's rescue that night. She snapped the lock shut and hung the key back at her waist. Halfway home she remembered the tea she hadn't finished and kept walking.

Chen Sheng had already passed through Gaopu and taken this round of goods to a few villages closer by. He hadn't bought a donkey. The shoulder pad his sister-in-law had sewn was too thick, and once it grew damp with sweat it rubbed his neck. He stopped beneath a tree, took out a layer, and stitched the edge back himself. The stitches were still uneven, but the pad sat right when he shouldered his load. A passerby asked if Qinglan was far. He pointed out the road and asked if the man was trying to catch a cart. If he was walking, he ought to take a look at the sky.

A-Sui heard none of this. She sat under the south window and cut the canvas left over from the four palm guards into small patches. The thicker pieces went into the bottom of the sewing basket as padding, and she saved the thinner ones for mending bags. Only a few empty holes remained in the old needle cloth. It didn't feel as though anyone were missing. She drew out a fresh length of heavy thread and slipped it through the eye of the new large-eyed needle on the first try.

Xu Shen's job that day was to repair a little kitchen shelf. It was a small job, but the underside had been exposed to steam for years, and he couldn't wedge the new wood in tight. He measured the actual space and left a gap. The owner complained that it showed. Xu Shen asked him to try it again after heating a pot on the stove. The water came to a boil and the grain absorbed the moisture little by little. Xu Shen waited in a crouch until he saw the gap was still wide enough to keep the shelf from pressing against the wall. Only then did he secure the last wedge.

When he finished the job that afternoon, he went to the Ren shop to buy two lengths of narrow stock. Wei Ce was there measuring a window with a new apprentice. Wei Ce told the boy to measure again if he was unsure and to stop using someone else’s assurance to gloss it over. The boy flushed. Xu Shen stood outside without speaking for either of them. He waited for Ren Quan to bring the wood and paid the asking price.

Ren Quan asked how things had been lately. He said work was scarce, but enough to feed him. Ren Quan glanced at the tool bag on his shoulder and said there was a piece of timber tomorrow that needed two people to carry it. Could he spare half a day, at the usual daily rate? He checked his schedule and said he could come in the afternoon; he had a box to deliver in the morning. Ren Quan nodded. He did not suggest that he return to the shop and reopen his old workbench, nor did he put that winter behind them forever.

After leaving the shop, he went to the East Market to find Du Yin. She was hanging newly arrived cloth on a temporary wooden rack. They had yet to settle the dimensions of the portable one, so he had held off making it. They looked at the space together. She said it should be half a foot wider than the one there now, with enough room at the entrance for one person to pass. He took out his rule, measured, and marked the dimensions on a piece of scrap wood, then asked her to try pushing it open and closing it again.

She reached out to push it, and her sleeve caught on an old nail and almost tore. He hurried to pull out the nail and checked the spot with the back of a finger. Du Yin said that once the rack was made, she'd like a little leaf on the back, just because she thought it would look pretty. He looked up and smiled quite suddenly, asking what kind of leaf. Any kind, she said, as long as it didn't grow out into the way. Xu Shen made a small mark in the corner of the scrap wood, in no hurry to put a blade to the actual timber.

That evening he brought home a tiny wooden pendant he had made from his own short offcut, old grain on one half and a shallow leaf on the other. He neither tied it to Du Yin's door nor handed it to his mother for her opinion. He fastened it inside his tool bag. As he walked it brushed silently against the short chisel. He could feel it only when he reached into the bag, as if amid all the work he had to get right for other people, he still had an inch of wood to please himself.

A light rain began at dusk on the twenty-third day of the fourth month. Xu Shen was delivering a case in the north of the city. It was already late when the rain came, and mud clung to his shoes. He bought a bowl of noodles at a familiar stall. When he finished, he asked someone else headed for the west gate to take word home that he would be a little late, that he had eaten, and that there was no need to hold dinner for him. The man knew Fang Guiniang and agreed to leave the message at the door. There was no need to knock his way through to the bedside.

When A-Sui got the message, she had a small pot of vegetable congee on the stove. She served herself a bowl and left plain water in the kettle for him. This time she ate the congee hot instead of covering it and waiting for it to cool. Du Yin came to return the scissors, saw her eating alone, and sat down for half a bowl herself. They talked about how radishes were getting cheaper in the south of the city, and how the ears on the cat Guiniang's niece had drawn actually sat at different heights. Neither of them was in a hurry to call it the sort of meal a family would share.

By the time Xu Shen came home, a few lamps had been lit in the lane. Huangdou heard his steps first and barked twice behind the low barrier. His voice was low and hoarse now. When he was young he could bark without stopping until it seemed to carry to the end of the mountain road. Asui called from the window to ask who it was. Xu Shen said it was him. His voice passed through the fine rain and fell into the room like an ordinary thing she did not need to recognize over and over.

He wiped his shoes outside the door. His mother moved the lamp a little closer and warned him about the pot she had just set by the threshold. It held a mint plant she had put in herself. The person selling seedlings by the river had told her the leaves smelled good when rubbed, so she bought one to try. Xu Shen bent down and touched the tip of a leaf. The cool scent stayed on the pad of his finger.

There were no two rice bowls neatly set out in the room. The sewing basket was under the window, and the little kettle was still warm. His mother told him to wait until the beginning of the month to collect the Changs' rent for the fifth month. There was no need to count it ahead of time. He said what was left of the last few days' wages should go toward keeping enough for the household first, and he could start paying back her five hundred and ninety bit by bit after he finished the next job. She said she understood, reached over to lift his wet tool bag onto the shelf, and didn't make him tell her again that night.

He sat down to change his socks. A-Sui set the returned straw shoes beside his feet and said one of the ties had come loose. She would braid it again herself tomorrow. Xu Shen wanted to look at it first, but she told him to dry his hair. Huangdou shifted to make a bit of room for his feet. The dog didn't move far, so he set his feet a little to one side and settled himself.

The rain fell softly on the tiles, nothing like the startling noise that night when snow had broken branches. Someone still opened and closed the old door in the mountains. At the Zhou home at Locust Tree Fork, the stove fire lit only their own doorway. The tea shelter was already locked tonight. No one was keeping an all-night vigil for someone who had yet to arrive. A-Sui left a crack in the window, and the scent of locust blossoms entered with the rain. She listened to her son talk about a tiny leaf, but grew sleepy halfway through and, leaning against her pillow, slowly closed her eyes.

Xu Shen stopped talking and waited for his mother's breathing to settle, then moved the lamp a little farther out. He left it burning. He still had to set his wet shoes out and finish a narrow edge on the little box for tomorrow. The door closed, the bolt dropped softly, and Huangdou sighed. Someone was traveling in the distance, and a dog barked again. After two barks it fell quiet, and the night spread wide between the town and the mountains.