Chapter 13: What Page One Says

Jinyu did not breathe for the length of three heartbeats.

Under her father's name ran a date, three years old, and a sum.

"Three hundred yuan."

Beside the sum was a small red tick, and beside the tick a red thumbprint, and beside the thumbprint a line in Qiao's tiny hand.

"Repaid April. Envelope through the door slot of the Tingsong, no name. Receipt: none, owner not told."

The lamp hissed.

Jinyu read the line a second time, with her finger under each word.

"April," she said.

"Yes."

"The stove cracked in April. The lease was due on the fifteenth."

"I know."

"I stood in the kitchen and I found it on the floor under the slot."

"I thought Ruolan had done it and was too proud to say."

"I lit a candle to her for three months."

"Ruolan didn't send it," Qiao said. "I did."

Jinyu looked up.

Qiao sat on the edge of the bed with her hands pressed between her knees and her glasses crooked on her nose.

She looked like a woman waiting for a verdict.

"Your father put three hundred yuan into the Hengtai Bank in the winter of 1929," Qiao said.

"Everybody on this lane did what he did."

"Small sums, for the roof, for a wedding, for a coffin."

"The bank gave a paper for each. The paper said deposit."

"Mingshan wrote it down in the private book as a loan to the bank, with no date to pay it back."

"He lent the money on to his friends, and he kept the profit."

"I found the private book two years ago when I was copying the accounts."

"I stood in the back room with it in my hands for an hour."

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