Tales of the End of the Century

The day the man in gray returned, Vasily, a light rain had just fallen in Elm Tree Gully. The rain was light, just enough to settle the dust on the dirt road, and the air was filled with the sweet, slightly fishy smell of damp earth and tender jujube leaves. The pebbles in the yard gleamed from the rain, each one a shade darker than usual. The flat, round pebble that the young man surnamed Ji had brought from the riverbank back home, now wet, showed a very fine white streak, like a line of water blown across the surface of a river by the wind. Bai Ye squatted under the jujube tree, examining each pebble one by one. He could recognize who had placed each one, when they had been placed it, and which pebble it was next to.

Old Hu squatted at the kitchen doorway, peeling garlic. An enamel mug sat on the threshold, the hot water inside emitting faint white steam. He peeled garlic much slower than before, not because his hands were less dexterous, but because there were more people in the yard recently, and the amount of garlic at each meal had increased several times. After the three people from the old industrial area stayed, they lived in the west wing and next to Zhao Zhiyuan. The woman who came from the brick kiln would help Old Hu pick vegetables every day. The man carrying the mug had chopped a small pile of firewood in the corner. He didn't chop it as well as Tie Niu, but each piece was stacked neatly. The tall man in the old military overcoat rummaged through the bottom of a chest under the cooling tower and found half a bag of soybeans, which he placed on the kitchen windowsill. Sometimes the three of them chopped firewood and picked vegetables, sometimes they watched Tie Niu practice throwing an axe with his left hand under the jujube tree, and most of the time they did nothing but sit on the stone in the sun or place a pebble next to the enamel mug on the threshold.

Bai Ye placed the enamel mug on the stone, stood up, and walked to the courtyard gate. At the end of the dirt road, beside a poplar stump, two figures were walking from the direction of the birch forest. The man in gray walked in front, his gait as always—foot first, each step firm and steady. Vasily followed behind, carrying a bulging old canvas bag over his shoulder and a net bag in his hand containing several enamel mugs. The mugs weren't new; each one had chipped enamel, and there were chalk marks on the bottom, some faded by rain, others still deeply imprinted. They had brought them back from the subjects who had been transferred from Project Aurora—not to take the mugs away, but because those people no longer needed them to confirm their identity. Some of the subjects had even picked a few wild dates along the way and stuffed them into the bottom of the mugs when they handed them to the man in gray.

Tie Niu stood up from under the jujube tree, placed the axe beside the doorframe, and walked to the courtyard gate. He reached out and took the net bag, taking out the jars one by one and placing them on the stone table. The man in gray put down his backpack, took out a toothbrush wrapped in red cloth, and placed it next to the jars. It was Korsak's toothbrush, which he had carried with him for so long, and now it sat among the jars that no longer needed confirmation. Vasily also leaned his old shoes against the foot of the stone table. He had traversed the abandoned transit stations and farms beyond the border, finding each of the people who had voluntarily written in chalk, telling them the direction of Elm Gully, and bringing back what they had left behind. Their steps were not weary like those of someone who had walked a long road, but rather like the figure deep in the mine tunnel, placing a reflecting mirror in the center of a kerosene lamp, walking step by step back into the depths.

Old Hu cooked dinner: noodles, minced garlic, and freshly tossed cucumber. The people from the old industrial area were still adjusting to the new tastes. The woman from the brick kiln placed her enamel mug on the edge of the stone table, took a bite of the minced garlic, and remained silent. Zhao Zhiyuan opened a packet of braised tofu brought by the young man surnamed Ji and distributed it to everyone. The tall man turned an enamel mug upside down and lightly touched the blurry characters on the bottom with his fingernail. He hadn't started writing yet. But he no longer needed to keep it hidden in the corner.

It was completely dark after dinner. The kerosene lamp hanging in the jujube tree was lit, its shade polished to a shine, its light filtering through the newly sprouted leaves and scattering across the pile of pebbles. Lan Susu placed the oscilloscope on the stone table, screen facing upwards. She had been tracking several extremely weak signals in the distance recently, moving very slowly and in uncertain directions. She turned on the antenna and scanned the surrounding area, picking out two previously unmarked coordinates from a large mass of noise. She whispered that there were others further away, overseas, near the warehouses that had been crossed out on the first batch of old supplies on the White Dove list, and it would probably be a long time before they reached them.

Bai Ye sat under the jujube tree for a long time. He placed his enamel mug on a stone and looked at the pebbles. Every slow signal that had appeared and then faded away was now recorded in this courtyard in another way—not waveforms, not frequencies, but pebbles. A pebble, a person. The man in gray placed the black basalt he brought back from the north, Vasily placed the pebbles he picked up from the border river, and the three people from the old industrial area each placed one—the man carrying the mug placed a small piece of cement from the foot of a cooling tower, the tall man placed an old nut used to hold electrical wires at the entrance of the electrical substation, and the woman placed a small ceramic bead fired in the red clay of a brick kiln. Zhao Zhiyuan had placed the gray pebbles he picked up from the overseas farm on the inside of the threshold from the beginning, and the young man surnamed Ji had also brought the paperweight used to hold bills at the supply and marketing cooperative counter a few days ago. Everyone was placing pebbles. Including that stranger who was still dozens of kilometers away and had just begun to look towards Yushugou.

Tie Niu walked over to him, took off his gloves, rolled them up, and stuffed them into his back pocket. He kept his own pebble at the innermost part of the jujube tree root, picked up by the gray-clad man on the north slope before he left. "This one was placed by the gray-clad man. This one was placed by Vasily. This one was placed by Zhao Zhiyuan. This one was asked by Lao Wei to be brought back by you." He pointed to each pebble with his left hand, ending with the last one. That pebble was the newest of all—the one Lao Wei had asked him to bring back, dug out from a corner of the mine for Bai Ye. It was flat and round, gray, with edges smoothed by rain. Bai Ye hadn't recognized it before, but now he saw it clearly; it was a type of igneous debris deep within the mountain.

Bai Ye stood up, bent down, and picked up the pebble. He mentally reviewed the location of all the pebbles; each pebble was different in shape, color, and texture, and each corresponded to a specific person. Most of these people hadn't arrived yet; some had just set off, while others were still inching forward along the chalk marks made by the white doves on the desolate beach beyond the border. Their jars might not have even had the character written on them yet, and their reflections in the mirror were still occasionally a beat behind. But every step they took was moving closer to this jujube tree—not being pulled there, but pushing aside the stone slab blocking the crack, walking this way themselves.

He gently placed the pebble entrusted to him on top of the pile of pebbles beside the jujube tree roots. It was the very top layer of the entire pile. Then he turned to look at the enamel mugs on the stone table—new, old, chipped, repaired. Each one was different, yet each sat on the same stone table. He reached into his pocket and touched the small round mirror; the outline of a bird on the tin back pressed against his fingertips. He took the mirror out and turned it right side up; the cracks cut his face in two, their reflections mirroring him, in sync. He turned the mirror over, back up, and placed it next to the enamel mugs. The igneous fragment he had found in the mine was placed on top, each pebble beneath it still quietly in its place. He knew new pebbles would be added later; this one, entrusted by Old Wei, was just sitting there for a while, briefly among them. When those still on their way entered the courtyard with their own stones, the pile would be stacked higher, each reflecting a different glimmer of light.