The document came in the afternoon.
Zhao Dehou rode it back from the commune, an oilpaper parcel lashed to the rear rack of his bicycle.
Three layers of oilpaper.
The outermost was tied off with hemp rope in a cross knot.
He had ridden thirty li of mountain road, and his trouser legs were flecked with mud.
The wheels ground over the crushed gravel at the village entrance, crunch, crunch.
Under the old locust tree, Lin Gensheng was squatting, smoking his pipe.
He saw Zhao Dehou's bicycle coming from a long way off. He knocked the bowl of his pipe against the sole of his shoe and stood up.
"Dehou, what is it?"
Zhao Dehou didn't stop.
The handlebars swung to one side to get around the old locust, and he tossed one sentence back over his shoulder.
"Meeting at the ancestral hall tonight. Tell every household."
Lin Gensheng tucked his tobacco pouch into his waistband.
He turned and headed straight into the lane.
He went to Qian Wanjin's place first.
Qian Wanjin was in the yard, turning corn to dry in the sun.
His wooden shovel was stuck in the pile, and when he heard Lin Gensheng's words, his hand stopped in mid-air.
"The document's come?"
Lin Gensheng nodded.
Qian Wanjin drove the shovel back into the corn.
He turned and went into the kitchen.
He stood at the stove and scooped up half a ladleful of cold water.
It ran down his chin, and he wiped it off with his sleeve.
His eyes were fixed on the old newspaper pasted to the mud wall behind the stove.
The corners of the paper had curled up.
He stared at it for a good while.
When he put the ladle down, its rim knocked against the stove with a dull thunk.
Lin Gensheng went next to Carpenter Song's.
Carpenter Song was planing a board in his yard.
Shavings lay curled all over the ground.
When Lin Gensheng had finished, he set the plane down on the bench.
He wiped his hands on his apron.
"Understood."
When he set the plane down, the blade was facing up.
He looked down at the blade.
Then he bent and turned the plane over.
Lin Gensheng went to Li Xiuniang's.
Li Xiuniang was feeding the stove.
The firelight from the hearth played across her face.
She heard him out without a word.
Her hands rubbed twice against her apron.
She glanced back toward the inner room.
Li Yan was bent over the table, doing her homework.
Her pencil stub was too short to pinch.
Li Xiuniang turned back and pushed another stick of firewood into the hearth.
"Understood."
Her voice was very soft.
Lin Gensheng went from house to house.
He stopped at every door.
From behind every door came the same answer: "Understood."
By the time dusk was falling, the ancestral hall was full.
Two oil lamps had been lit on the altar table.
Each time a flame jumped, the shadows on the wall shook.
Zhao Dehou stood in front of the altar table.
He was holding the document.
Mimeographed paper, the characters smeared in places.
He moved it closer to the lamp.
The hall slowly quieted.
Someone shifted on a bench.
Someone pulled his pipe out of his mouth.
Someone coughed and then swallowed it back.
Zhao Dehou read out the heading of the document.
He read out the issuing office.
He read out the date.
When he reached the four characters "household contract responsibility," his voice came slower than before.
The room went quiet.
So quiet you could hear the oil lamps on the altar table sputtering.
Pop.
Pop.
Half a minute.
Then the hall erupted.
"Really dividing it?"
"Who says so?"
"How's the land to be split?"
"By head, or by labor?"
The young ones all stood up.
Lin Jianjun sat in the front row, both hands gripping his knees, knuckles white.
He didn't stand.
The corner of his mouth twitched upward.
Then he pressed it flat again.
The older ones looked at one another.
Old Qian the Fifth rapped his pipe against the leg of his bench.
Bang, bang, bang, three times.
Then he raised the pipe stem and pointed it at the altar table.
"If the land's divided, who looks after the Yang Canal?"
Someone behind him took it up at once.
"Who looks after the Yin Canal?"
"How do we split the draft oxen?"
"Who drives the tractor?"
"The ones who died digging the canal that year, how's their land counted?"
Voice piled on voice.
No one could make out anyone else.
He Erniu was squatting beside the threshold of the hall.
Squatting.
Both hands tucked into his sleeves.
Eyes on the ground.
There was a crack in the floor that ran from the threshold all the way to under the front-row benches.
He stared at the crack.
Not moving.
Around him, people were arguing, red in the face, necks swollen.
He lifted his head and looked once.
Then lowered it again.
Zhao Dehou stood before the altar table and did not move.
He laid the document on the table.
Pressed both hands flat against the page.
The edges of the paper had turned faintly yellow from the heat of the lamps.
He waited a while.
Below, the arguing went on.
Someone had risen and was jabbing a finger toward the altar.
He waited a little longer.
On the altar table, a lamp's wick-ash flared and snapped.
He flicked it away with a finger.
"Let me say one thing."
Below, the noise gradually died down.
"I've finished reading the document. The policy has come down. The land is to be divided."
Zhao Dehou picked the document up off the table.
Folded it twice.
Tucked it inside his jacket.
The pocket over his chest bulged.
"How to divide it, we'll talk over together. The canals, the oxen, those come later. Tonight isn't about dividing land. Tonight is about everyone knowing."
He sat down.
Below, the murmuring started up again.
Like a pot of water set on the fire.
Not yet boiling.
But close.
Qian Wanjin sat in the third row, against the wall.
He hadn't said a word from start to finish.
When the man beside him spoke to him, he didn't answer.
His right hand was thrust into his pocket.
The fingers were moving inside.
In his pocket was an old abacus.
The beads were worn shiny.
He was moving them with his thumb.
Bead against bead.
A faint clicking.
No one heard.
Chen Yanqiu sat in the farthest corner of the hall.
His back against the old pillar.
On the pillar, the broken plaque that had read "Be Careful at the End and Remember the Origins" now showed, in the lamplight, only the first two characters: "Be Careful at the End."
His eyes were closed from start to finish.
Carpenter Song sat beside Chen Yanqiu.
He didn't speak either.
He took a small knife from inside his jacket.
Then fished a piece of wood from his pocket.
Head bowed, he carved.
Shavings fell onto his knees.
He brushed them off lightly with his hand.
When the meeting broke up, it was fully dark.
People filed out of the hall one after another.
Some walked fast.
Some walked slowly.
Some stood outside the threshold and wouldn't go.
They turned back, wanting to say something more.
The ones behind pushed them out.
Lin Gensheng was the first to leave.
His steps were very light as he went.
He reached the doorway of the hall.
The moon lit his face.
He caught his foot on the threshold.
Nearly fell.
Once he had steadied himself, he tilted his head back and gazed at the moon for a long while.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
Twitched again.
He was smiling.
When he smiled, his whole face crinkled into folds.
When He Erniu stood up, his legs had gone numb from squatting.
He held on to the doorframe for a moment.
Waited until the numbness passed before he left.
On his way out he paused for a step at the shrine hall door.
Looked back at the oil lamp on the altar table.
Then lowered his head and went.
His footsteps were very light.
Qian Wanjin was the last to leave.
When he passed the altar table he stopped.
Raised his head and looked at the two characters on the wall.
"Benevolence and Righteousness."
The ink gleamed darkly in the lamplight.
He looked at them for a while.
His right hand was still in his pocket, working the beads of an abacus.
Zhao Dehou was still sitting on the stool behind the altar table.
One man standing.
One sitting.
A square table between them.
"Brother Dehou."
"Mm."
"The land is really going to be divided."
"It really is."
"I'm going."
"Mm."
Qian Wanjin left.
His footsteps rang from inside the shrine hall all the way out past its doors.
Flagstones.
Gravel.
Packed dirt.
The sound grew fainter and fainter.
Zhao Dehou was still sitting there.
On the altar table, the lamp's wick had burned down to a stub.
The flame was shrinking.
The two characters on the wall, "Benevolence and Righteousness," were almost lost to sight.
He stood up.
Carried the oil lamp over to the square table.
Took the document from inside his jacket.
Unfolded it.
With one finger he slowly traced over the four characters, "household production responsibility."
The corner of his mouth did not move.
His eyes brightened for an instant.
Only an instant.
He blew out the lamp.
The shrine hall went completely dark.
He felt his way in the dark to the doorway.
Moonlight lay across the threshold.
He stood there for a while.
From far off, over by the old watchtower, came the sound of hemp rope slapping against brick.
Pa-ta.
Pa-ta.
The same rhythm as before.
The moon shone on the Yang Canal.
The water's surface threw back a bright white glare.
The water burbled and rushed.
It sounded louder than it had in the daytime.