Before the Door Fell

Huangdou woke first. He gave no bark, just raised his head from between his forepaws and pricked his ears toward the door. Chen Sheng heard a sharp crack in the courtyard, like a shoulder pole being snapped in two, and sat up at once. Half asleep, he still thought he was in his brother's house in Gaopu. He reached for the cloth pouch of needles, touched an unfamiliar wooden peg, and only then remembered the cotton cloth was still out in the snow.

The room was too dark to make out the foot of the bed. The lamp had gone out, leaving only two red points in the stove opening. Chen Sheng was afraid of waking anyone. He felt for the straw shoes and slipped them on, leaving his old shoes where they had been drying, still only half dry. He thought he would be out for just a moment. He could drag the oilcloth bundle into the corner by the door and spare Xu Shen the trouble of making room for him again. But the bolt was tighter than he remembered. He steadied the door with both hands and lifted it first, as he had seen done earlier in the evening.

As he drew out the wooden bolt, the wind squeezed in at once. The foot of the door seemed caught in something. He pulled again, and suddenly it sank beneath him. The lower pivot dropped into the worn, softened wooden socket, and the upper end slid off the rim of its socket. The whole door tilted into the courtyard. Chen Sheng felt a heavy rush of air beside his shoulder. Before he could move his hands, footsteps rushed up behind him, and Xu Shen braced the door’s crosspiece with his arm.

“Don't push it out!” he said under his breath, as if raising his voice would make the door heavier.

Chen Sheng eased off at once, and the two men were squeezed into a narrow gap. The door leaned against Xu Shen's shoulder, its other corner resting in the snow just where it stopped Chen Sheng from changing his grip. Each tried once, and neither dared force it upward. A-Sui threw on her jacket and got up, feeling for a long piece of firewood by the stove to prop it with. Her son barked at her to stop, and she stood there stunned. Huangdou came over too, and none of the three had a hand free to shoo him away.

Xu Shen caught his breath and told Chen Sheng to kick the empty basket outside the door out of the way, then drag the low stool closer with his foot. The damp cloth for wiping feet was still draped over it. Chen Sheng flung it over his own back and finally cleared half a foot of space. Xu Shen slowly eased the door brace down onto the edge of the stool. Once the weight lifted from his shoulder, he told Chen Sheng to go around outside and hold the upper end. One at each end, they lowered the door flat. Neither of them took the weight of the whole door in one go.

A-Sui stood inside, watching the light off the snow spill through the empty doorway. The wind sucked at the sparks and the glow in the stove shrank at once. She went to look for the rope they used to tie the chest, but after two steps her knee felt as if a blunt needle were pressing into it. She had to catch the edge of the table to steady herself. Her son’s back was turned, but he seemed to hear that momentary pause. Without turning, he told her the rope was under the table, he could get it, and she should sit back down.

His voice was still stiff. A-Sui did not sit on the bed as he had said, but took a low stool by the stove and first gathered the scattered kindling. When Xu Shen brought the door panel inside, she passed him a length of dry rope from beside the stool, saying not to use a wet one, since wet rope would loosen again by dawn. He reached out and took it, no longer telling her to tuck her hands back under the quilt.

Asui stirred up the stove fire and relit the oil lamp. With the lamp cradled in his hands, Chen Sheng finally went out to get the cotton cloth. Sure enough, a branch had snapped off in the yard and was pressing against the edge of his load, and a pool of water mixed with snow had gathered on the oilcloth. He steadied the lamp, let the water run off along the fold, and undid one corner of the outer wrapping. The cloth inside was still dry, and the fine string the cloth shop had wound around it had not changed color. He let out a long breath and hurriedly wrapped it up again, as if even his warm breath could dampen the dry goods.

Xu Shen told him to put the bundle on the board by the bed. Huangdou was just about to lie down there and had to be moved. Chen Sheng felt bad and said he should have held the door more firmly. Xu Shen crouched to feel the lower pivot, picked out a pinch of soft old wood, and dropped it on the floor for him to see. The old pivot block had long since worn into a lopsided socket. Tonight's fall had only finished the job. Earlier that day he had meant to shave the bolt until it slid smoothly. Once his mother left, all the door had to do was shut.

The upper pivot was intact, but the lower socket could no longer bear the weight. If he stuffed a random piece of wood into the worn socket, the door would still lean. If he planed down the foot of the door, the panel would stand straight, but the wind would come in underneath. Xu Shen probed two spots with the tip of his chisel and paused to look for a hard piece of wood in the corner that might serve as a shim. Chen Sheng had already pulled open the oilcloth wrapped around the cloth, thinking he could use one corner to cover the open doorway for now.

“You can't cut that,” Asui said first.

Chen Sheng put a hand on the cloth too. He’d only meant to see if they could borrow a corner of it. Faced with actually cutting it, he didn’t dare. The cloth and the oilcloth both belonged to someone else, and the shopkeeper trusted him to deliver them as they were. He moved the bundle aside, his ears burning. Xu Shen gave him time and simply asked him to fetch the torn mat behind the door. It took the three of them a while to hang it crosswise. It left gaps, but at least the wind no longer blew the flames straight into the room.

Asui asked how hard the wood had to be. Xu Shen said ordinary dry firewood wouldn't do, for fear the pivot would wear in deeper again. She pointed behind the stove and said there was a piece of hardwood left over from the mill axle. Xu Shen felt for it and pulled it out. One side was coated in old ash, yet the heart of the wood was still sound. He recognized it as a piece his father had left behind. As a child he'd thought it heavy and once used it to weigh down the corner of a mat where beans were drying. It had been there for years, and in all his trips up the mountain he'd only ever thought of it as a lump of wood that couldn't be moved.

He shaved off the softest part of the old pivot and chiseled the hardwood into a bearing that could support it. The wood was dense and the chisel small. At the first hammer blow, the web between his thumb and forefinger went numb. Chen Sheng held the lamp. His teeth clicked together every now and then from the cold, but he wouldn't put it down. Whenever the chisel looked like it might slip, he moved the light a little to the side. At first he moved it too quickly, making the shadows jump. Xu Shen put up with it twice before finally telling him to light his hand and leave the choice of where to cut to him.

Chen Sheng murmured that he understood, then kept still. After a while his arm ached too much to hold up the lamp, so he switched hands and kept the flame in the same place. Only then did Xu Shen notice how red his knuckles were with cold and ask how much longer he could hold it. Chen Sheng said he could manage, but Xu Shen told him to set the lamp somewhere steady and prop it up from behind with a jar so he could sit and still give him light. When he'd watched his father work at night, he'd always assumed the person standing beside him holding the lamp must have had it easier than the one gripping the chisel.

Asui brought half a bowl of warm water from the stove and told them to take a sip each. As Xu Shen took it, the edge of the hardwood opened a thin cut across the back of his hand. When the water touched it, he couldn't help drawing a sharp breath. She heard and reached to look, but he pulled his hand back. She let him, putting a clean cloth beside his leg. She said that in the old days the only way she knew Xu Bo had hurt his hand was when she heard him take a breath like that. Whenever she asked, he always said he was fine.

Xu Shen wrapped the cloth around the back of his hand and, unwilling to answer, struck the chisel a few times in silence. Only when shavings had piled up on his knees did he ask whether his father had refused to listen in those days too. A-Sui said sometimes he listened and sometimes he got annoyed, just like you with that look on your face now. She looked down to poke the firewood, but a little smile showed at her lips. There was nothing Xu Shen could do about that smile, so he slowly brought the rim of the socket back into line where it had strayed.

Chen Sheng stared at the wooden block and asked how much work a job like this took in the city. Xu Shen said it depended how far the damage went. Give a figure without looking and people were likely to curse you later. It came out naturally enough, but the pile of stepping stones at the pharmacy entrance, their height still unsettled, flashed through his mind. That was for after he got back to the city. He put it out of mind and probed the new socket with a thin stick to see whether the lower pivot would slide to one side again when he set it in.

The sound of the snow beyond the mat grew softer, but everyone in the room was tired. At some point A-Sui had fallen asleep against the edge of the bed, a length of cloth still draped over her hand. She had slept through unruly nights before, yet now she looked a little smaller than Xu Shen remembered. He moved the fire farther from her feet in case she brushed against it in her sleep, shifted closer to the doorway himself, and took Chen Sheng's end of the board to try lifting it.

They failed to fit it the first time. The upper pivot almost entered its socket, but the lower end caught against the corner of the stool. They drew back and leveled the support beneath the door again. Chen Sheng was anxious to make room for his hands, and Xu Shen wanted to hurry too. As he strained with his shoulder, the door’s edge scraped a long sound across the ground. He stopped and lowered his head to catch his breath. Only after a while did he say they should put it down first. If they were not standing securely, forcing it up would only mean dropping it again.

They rested, each rubbing his hands. On the second try they took away the stool first and put a round log under the door. Xu Shen supported the upper pivot while Chen Sheng braced the lower end with his knee. The door rolled on the log to where it belonged, and the wooden pivot finally sank into the new bearing. Xu Shen let go and the door stood on its own. Neither man trusted it at once. They held it a while longer before stepping back, one after the other.

The bolt still caught a little at the end of the slot. Xu Shen planed down its beveled corner, blew the shavings away, and pushed it in. It clicked, more quietly than any of the hammering and chiseling all night. He drew it out and slid it home three times. Once the torn mat came down, the wind came in only through the usual cracks and the fire inside stood up again. Chen Sheng ran a hand over one of the door braces as though touching a fellow worker who had finally agreed to stand steady.

Xu Shen looked at the new wooden pivot block and felt a solid swell of pride. Given a night and an old scrap of wood, he could set a little thing like this right. With a whole new door like the pharmacy's and all the materials at hand, what couldn't he do if only someone trusted him with the job? He kept the thought to himself and put away the chisel with its slightly rolled edge, meaning to sharpen it as soon as he got back to town.

The sound of the door being tried woke Asui. She didn't ask how late they'd worked, but steadied herself against the bed, stood up, and slid the bolt in herself. At that point she usually had to lift the door, and her arm would ache for a while afterward. Tonight she was halfway through lifting before she realized there was no need, and her hand hung in the air for a moment. Xu Shen waited for her to praise him. She went first to check Chen Sheng's bed of boards and said the lamp was out and they might as well get a little more sleep before it was fully light.

This time she left them to put away their own tools and did not feel about for the ladle to fetch more water for all three of them. She went back to bed, turned her face away, and was soon fast asleep. Xu Shen moved the two pairs of wet shoes to where there was still some warmth and used their soles to weigh down the curled edge of the straw mat. Chen Sheng lay on the boards with one hand still resting on the corner of the cotton bundle. Before closing his eyes, he nodded to Xu Shen. There was no more knocking of wood outside the door, only the occasional sound of snow falling from a distant branch, and no one got up for that.