Tales of the End of the Century

The corridor wasn't long, but it was very narrow, so narrow that shoulders almost brushed against the walls. Every few steps, there was an emergency light that had long since gone out, its shade filled with dust. Bai Ye walked sideways, the beam of his headlamp shining on the fire door at the end of the corridor. The door wasn't locked, and a very faint light shone through the crack—not the warm yellow of a kerosene lamp, nor the silvery white behind a mirror, but an older, more ancient blue—like someone had lit an alcohol lamp very, very deep underground, the wick almost burned out, the flame reduced to a tiny speck, seeping out through frosted glass.

He pushed open the fire door. Behind it was a small observation room, even smaller than the one in the backup camp, so small that it could only fit a metal table and a folding chair. On the table sat an alcohol lamp, its wick burned down to a last wisp of blue flame, and beneath the lamp base lay a torn fragment of the subject's list. Most of the names on the list had been crossed out, leaving only the last two. Next to one of the names, two words were written in pencil: "Still here."

Tie Niu followed in from behind, his headlamp sweeping across the other side of the observation room. Two people were crouching in the corner. One was tall and thin, wrapped in an old cotton overcoat whose original color was no longer discernible. An enamel mug rested on his lap, the bottom of which bore chalk writing, blurred into a white blob. The other, shorter, huddled beside him, clutching a piece of chalk that was almost too worn to hold. The tall, thin man looked up at Bai Ye, his lips moving but no words coming out. The shorter man pushed the chalk half an inch to his side, as if waiting for someone to take it from him.

"Sergei came," the tall, thin man finally spoke, his voice hoarse, each word sounding as if crushed and pieced back together. "He changed the wick, put the list under the lamp base, and told us someone would come to open the door. He said he couldn't open it himself—he wanted to stay at the end of the pipe and draw an arrow. He said once the arrow was drawn, the door would open by itself." Bai Ye sat down, pulled the enamel mug from his backpack's side pocket, and placed it next to the alcohol lamp. Bottom up, so the blurry white characters faced the flame. He took out the updated participant roster from Lan Susu and placed it on the table, flipped to the last page, pointed to the newly added line at the bottom, and asked if it was the third name. The tall, thin man looked down at his own fragment and Lan Susu's registration column, and after a long while, said that the person was no longer there—not gone, but had extinguished his lamp for too many years, and the last time he wrote on the bottom of the mug, he could only manage half a stroke. He had kept the mug and chalk for him for far too long.

"He put his jar over there with you." The short man placed a piece of chalk on the table and pushed it half an inch closer to White Night's jar. "He said one day someone would come with a roster and add this line for him. He said it didn't need to be complicated—just two words."

Bai Ye took the chalk and added two words next to the third name on the list. The same words Sergei had written on the last page of the backup library, the same words Old Wei had carved with his fingernail on the iron gate frame, the same words that had been repeatedly traced on the bottom of the vat. He turned the chalk over; on the back, he had also carved a tiny arrow, pointing in the same direction as the arrow Sergei had drawn deep in the pipes for years but hadn't had time to add. He placed the chalk upside down on the table, the arrow pointing south.

Lan Susu placed the oscilloscope on the tin table and turned it on. On the screen, the two long-forgotten signals from the observatory were moving extremely slowly toward Yushugou. They no longer hesitated. She traced over the line of pencil writing on the edge of Sergei's drawing that had been soaked in water, and then filled in the last page of the roster with the two newly registered names and the one with only half a stroke. She closed the roster and placed it next to the alcohol lamp; the flame flickered slightly before settling down again.

Tie Niu found something in the corner of the observation station—a tin box tightly wrapped in tarpaulin. He lifted it onto the table, pried open the rusty lock, and inside were neatly stacked dozens of pieces of chalk, three rolls of unopened reflective rope, a spare set of alcohol lamp wicks, and a hand-drawn map. The map depicted the entire route from the depths of the mountains to Yushu Gully in red ink, with arrows marking every fork in the road. At the bottom was a sheet of paper with only one line of text: Russian, in blue ink, the handwriting steady.

Lan Susu took it and read it aloud: "These are the last batch of observation stations without lights. Observations are no longer needed. Just replace the arrows." She looked up at Bai Ye. "Sergei knew he wouldn't have time to finish. He left the chalk for those who came after him—not for the people already at the observation station, but for the person who pushed open the door."

Bai Ye looked down at the line of text. Sergei had spent years drawing arrows, a line stretching from the outskirts of the mining area to these forgotten observation posts. After drawing the last arrow, he couldn't go any deeper, so he stopped, rubbed his hands, and gripped the chalk tightly again. He put the paper back in the box, picked up a half-used industrial crayon, and drew a new arrow on the wall—not Sergei's precise engineering markings, but the same chalk markings that Bai Ye had drawn on the cooling tower's exterior for years, neither like road signs nor markers. The arrow pointed to Elm Gully.

The tall, thin man stood up and carried the enamel mug back from beside the alcohol lamp. The chalk marks on the bottom of the mug were slightly whitened by the heat of the lamp. He turned the mug upside down, facing himself. This was the first time he had seen his face, no longer needing to be refuted, reflected in a mirror beyond the mirror. He put the mug in his lap, stood up, and together with the shorter man, tidied up the pile of canvas mats that had been lying at their feet for years. Tie Niu carried the box of chalk stubs and reflective rope outside and walked back down the corridor. Lan Susu carefully folded Sergei's last route map and put it into a waterproof bag.

As Bai Ye left the observation room, he lowered the wick of the alcohol lamp a little more, letting it burn longer. Then he tapped three times on the wall next to the fire door with his finger—paused for a long time, then tapped three more times. He stood up, the beam of his headlamp cutting back into the darkness of the deep corridor, heading towards the newly emerging frequency further south of the observation station, on the southwestern edge of the mountains.