Chapter Fourteen: Bathhouse, Ration Tickets, and Short Poems
When Xu Chengjun returned to the Workers, Peasants, and Soldiers Guesthouse, the sun had already slipped behind the mountains.
As the wooden door creaked open, the kerosene lamp in the hallway flickered violently.
Xu Chengjun tossed his canvas bag at the foot of the bed in Room 302, just as the sound of running water echoed from the adjacent bathhouse.
Amid the noise came a man's shout: "Last bucket of hot water!"
"Just arrived at the guesthouse?" The uncle on the bed diagonally across poked his head out, clutching a washcloth, soap suds still clinging to his earlobe.
"Better get to the bathhouse quick, or you’ll have to wash in cold water."
Xu Chengjun grabbed his enamel mug and a change of clothes. As soon as he stepped into the corridor, a wave of steam hit his face.
The bathhouse was a large open room, water pooling on the cement floor, more than a dozen shirtless men crowding under four faucets. Some poured water over themselves with tin buckets, others squeezed blackheads in front of the mirror, the air thick with the scent of cheap soap.
"Excuse me, coming through!" A young man in army pants, carrying a kettle, squeezed past. "The boiler man says hot water's only on till eight tonight—if you want to wash, hurry up!"
Xu Chengjun quickly claimed a faucet by the window. No sooner had he adjusted the water to a comfortable warmth than a bespectacled young man rushed over with a bucket. "Comrade, could you spare some hot water? If I don’t scrub this ink stain now, it’ll seep into the fabric." He pointed anxiously at the ink spot on his blue shirt, sweat beading on his brow.
"Go ahead," Xu Chengjun said, stepping aside as the young man poured hot water over his shirt.
"Thanks!" the young man said as he scrubbed. "I’m with the provincial newspaper—deadline's tomorrow, and this shirt’s borrowed from a colleague."
Xu Chengjun perked up. Ah, time to network!
Just as he was about to strike up a conversation, the bathhouse was plunged into darkness. Someone cursed, then came the scratch of a match. In the dim, flickering flame, people groped their way out—underwear on backwards, slippers mismatched—amid a chorus of laughter and complaints.
---
When Xu Chengjun returned to his room, the other three beds were now occupied.
The old man by the door circled job postings in the newspaper with a red pen, mumbling to himself: “Textile factory hiring apprentices, meals and lodging included…”
The young man in the top bunk combed his hair in front of the mirror, the sharp scent of hair cream making everyone sneeze. He turned out to be a supply salesman, carrying two boxes of Phoenix brand cold cream as samples.
"Had a good wash?" The uncle across the aisle handed over an enamel mug half-filled with strong tea.
"I saw your bag says 'Fengyang.' Is the wheat almost ready for harvest over there?"
"About half a month to go," Xu Chengjun replied, his fingers brushing the chipped rim of the mug. "Have you been there, Uncle?"
"Passed through hauling coal two years ago," the uncle said, fishing a hard, dry bun from a cloth bag under his bed. "Want to trade something for it? I bought this with Shanghai grain coupons—softer than the coarse grain buns."
In 1979, grain coupons were still divided between local and national; Shanghai coupons were hard currency elsewhere.
Xu Chengjun pulled out two national grain coupons—one for each bun—and offered, "Trade for two? I’ve got some pickles too."
Eyes brightening, the uncle handed him two white buns. "Deal! These have milk powder in them—only available with industrial coupons at the supply cooperative!"
---
Chewing the white buns with pickles, Xu Chengjun opened his copy of People's Literature.
He’d borrowed it from the commune library the previous month; the cover was already worn at the edges.
There was a story by Wang Zengqi inside, "Ordination," which captivated him—especially the section on Minghai's initiation. He traced the margins repeatedly with his pen.
He suddenly remembered what Old Xu had said: "Life is like grass in the fields—it grows in harmony with the seasons."
---
By the time he finished editing his draft, it was deep into the night.
The cicadas outside had fallen silent, only the clock’s pendulum ticked in the hallway.
---
Xu Chengjun went over the doubtful parts again, smoothing them out. When he finished, he massaged his sore wrist, his gaze falling on People's Literature in the corner of the desk. The phrase "time flows slowly" from "Ordination" crashed into his mind.
He pulled out a scrap of paper and a pencil, writing four words: “Time is water.”
A draft from the corridor slipped in through the window crack, making the candle flame tremble.
Xu Chengjun’s pen quivered with it, and memories of days in Fengyang, nights spent revising drafts, the turmoil on the road, and the sun that shone on government papers in his past life seemed to pour out through the tip of his pen.
Time is water, flowing over unfinished ruts
Some stones are polished into moonlight
Some sharp edges become the bones of a riverbed
---
He wrote feverishly, the paper punctured in several places by the pencil.
The salesman in the top bunk turned over and muttered, "Who’s still awake?"
Xu Chengjun held his breath, waiting until the man began snoring before he continued writing. By the time dawn crept across the page, he discovered he’d filled three sheets.
---
"Did you write this?"
Xu Chengjun jumped, startled. When he looked up, the young man from the provincial newspaper was standing at the table, holding his draft, eyes wide in amazement.
It turned out the young man had gotten up in the night, spotted the candlelight, and couldn’t resist picking up the poem to read.
"Just scribbling," Xu Chengjun said, trying to snatch the paper back, but the young man held it fast.
He cursed inwardly: You really are forward!
"The mud on the tip of the shoe," "the stars shaken from your lashes"—this is brilliant! The young man raised his voice so high that everyone in the room woke up.
The old man by the door shuffled over, reading glasses slipping down his nose. "Read it aloud—when I was young, I loved listening to opera verses."
The young man cleared his throat and read in the dawn light.
When he reached, "All the unspoken 'afters' / the sound of pages turning softly in the breath," the first rooster crow called from the bathhouse, and the papered windows began to pale.
"Send it to the Hefei Evening News!"
He pressed the poem back into Xu Chengjun’s hands. "The literary supplement is currently soliciting poems on the 'New Era' theme. This one is really good!"
"Do you think it’ll work?" Xu Chengjun wasn’t sure what the selection standards for poetry were these days.
In his own opinion, the poem was surely peerless, unmatched in the world!
But it wasn’t up to him.
"I’ll submit it for you!" the young man patted his chest. "My cousin’s an editor for the supplement—he said just the other day they’re short on poems with the scent of earth."
The old man by the door suddenly chimed in: "I understood the line about 'time is sugar'—like my wife. When she was young, she always thought life was bitter, but now she laughs every day, counting the sizes of our grandson’s shoes."
Xu Chengjun’s mouth twitched.
Still,
He’d been thinking of forty years of time as he wrote, never expecting the old man would read it as the taste of daily bread and oil.
---
At breakfast, Xu Chengjun carefully copied the poem onto lined manuscript paper.
The corn porridge in the canteen was so thick you could stand chopsticks in it. He chewed the white bun he’d traded for pickles.
People at the table chatted about "new projects approved in the Special Economic Zones" and "self-employed people can get business licenses now," and suddenly he felt the word "time" on his scrap paper seep into reality with the morning light.
"Really going to submit it?" The salesman leaned over, crumbs of fried dough scattering onto the paper. "If it gets published, you’ll be the cultured man of our guesthouse."
---
"Why not give it a try?"
Xu Chengjun folded the manuscript into a neat square and tucked it into the pages of People's Literature.
If I don’t send it, what did I write it for?
...
The sound of water from the bathhouse drifted through the corridor again, but this time, no one was fighting for hot water.
Xu Chengjun gazed out at the poplars beyond the window; dewdrops slipping from the leaves, as if someone were counting the ticks of time.
He felt the grain coupons in his pocket—six remaining.
As for the poem, whether it got published seemed not so important anymore.
What mattered was that, as he wrote "the mud on the tip of the shoe," he remembered the ridges of the fields in Fengyang; writing "the stars shaken from your lashes," he saw the lights of Bengbu station.
These were all gifts from time.
And time, quietly, shone upon the little poem:
Time
By Xu Chengjun
Time is water, flowing over unfinished ruts
Some stones are polished into moonlight
Some sharp edges become the bones of a riverbed
Time is a tree, rooting itself in waiting
Growth rings are secret letters
Every fallen leaf hides the fingerprint of spring
Those who hurry say time is a whip
Lashing shadows forward
Those who pause say time is sugar
Melting slowly in the wrinkles to reveal the first sweetness
It will wear away the glaze of vows
But will also piece broken porcelain
Into clearer windows
So the light that slips in
Recognizes the direction you once stumbled toward
Some brew it into medicine
Curing the ache of old obsessions
Some ferment it into wine
And fall drunk among the growth rings they planted
But time is never just a measure
It’s the mud on your shoe tip as you bend to tie your laces
It’s the stars shaken from your lashes when you raise your eyes to the clouds
It is all the unspoken "afterwards"
The sound of pages softly turning in the breath