Chapter 22The One That Was Never Chosen

A roll of paper lay open. The corners had frayed from handling, and the fold in the middle was nearly torn through.

The sheets were copied by hand. Each page showed one person in profile, the lines fine, running from the crown of the head to the ankle. At the shoulder, elbow, knee and wrist there was a small number each, in millimetres. Page three showed a person standing side-on, the left hand holding the right elbow. Page four was the back. It had only a line for the spine, and the numbers ran down it, each one larger than the one above. On page seven the number at the knee had been changed once. The paper was thinner where it had been changed, and when it was held to the light, the writing underneath could be seen. On the first page, at the top right, was the title, two characters. Half of the writing had been scraped away with a fingernail, and the scraped place was whiter than the rest. The last page was blank except for one line, drawn from one edge of the sheet to the other. The line had no numbers on it.

The roll had once been held by a rubber band. The band had gone stiff and snapped on one side, the break facing up. Beside it lay a soft tape measure, plastic, its markings worn too faint to read. A short length at the zero end had been cut off. The cut was very even.

This roll came into the archive only later. When it came in, it was wrapped in kraft paper, and on the paper was written: Returned. Filed. The edge of the wrapper had been torn, the tear facing inward.

At one corner of the paper was a fingerprint. It was small, and the ridges of the fingertip had been pressed flat.

High above the door was a window. Through it, in the sky to the north by west, more than half of the disc was lit. Its edge was pale violet. The black mouth was beside it, a little higher, with a very fine white ring round its edge. A lamp by the door lit the floor but not the desk.

The drawer had been pulled open that morning. The borrowing log had one line: a number, no name. The signature box was empty. The desk lamp was off. Light from the window fell across the desktop, and the window frame cut it into four pieces, each one white.

The queue ticket can testify to how the fold came about. The ticket was grey paper with a hole punched at its edge, and its number was two hundred and seventeen. Taken at seven fifty-two. Called at eleven forty-seven. Four hours lay between the two, and the ticket had no other writing on it.

On the floor of the queue, a white circle had been stuck down every metre, with a number written inside each. That day he stood in one of the circles for four hours. The people in front shuffled forward one after another, and his feet never left his own circle. The people in the line were carrying different things. One held a carton, its opening tied with string. One held an umbrella, its tip dripping. One had the cuffs turned up three times, showing a length of thin wrist. The person at the very front had both hands in their pockets and was carrying nothing.

The manuscript was held against his chest, both hands pressing the two ends of the paper flat on his coat, so that the crowd would not crumple it. That was how the fold was pressed in.

Later someone pressed the fold with a palm. It would not lie flat. When the hand let go, the edge sprang back, lightly, again and again. The knuckles of the hand that pressed were fleshy.

The rejection slip was still tucked in with the paper. It was a three-part form, and only the original copy was left. The form was printed with these headings: Applicant, Title of submission, Date returned, Handled by, Authorised. The applicant box read: Clothing shop, body measurements. The handled-by box was empty. There was no “Grounds” box. That box had been added later, and the layout of this form did not include it.

The authorisation box bore a red stamp, square, with nothing on its face.

A routing slip was also there, with three boxes. The first counter had stamped “Forward to Counter Two”, and the second counter had stamped “Forward to Counter Three”. The third box had no writing, only a red stamp.

The woman at the second counter took the slip. She lifted her head, glanced at the person standing opposite, and lowered it again. She pinched the lower right corner of the slip and folded it, and only then stamped it. The fold ran from the outside edge inward.

The times had been written down one counter at a time. First counter: eleven fifty-two. Second: twelve twenty. Third: twelve forty-one.

The third counter stood a head taller than a person. Whoever stood opposite had to look up. The person behind the counter did not. They pushed the paper back without lifting their head.

The sentence that asked why was not in the record. The record held only a date, and a red stamp.

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The forms were revised three times after that. The revision record was printed on the last line, in very small type:

Version One: no grounds box. Version Two: added a “Grounds” box, required, with the number to be given. Purpose: so that every applicant knows why they were returned. Version Three: added a “Provenance” box. Grounds must cite provenance.

This was the first rule he set after he took over. The memo was written on a slip of paper, under the statistics sheet on top of the cabinet: From this day on, every return must state its grounds. The date on the slip fell in spring.

The grounds box was typed on a typewriter. Each number had to be struck twice, because a first strike came out too faint, and the counter would send the form back.

Grounds had to be numbered, and the numbers had to be looked up in the drawers, and the papers in those drawers each had a number of their own. Of these, the copy of the Standards was printed most neatly:

“Standard Seven-Three. Any grounds must be an item already recorded by this archive, and its number must be given. Clause Two: footwear, clothing or objects that are damaged are not approved. Clause Five: anything without provenance is ruled invalid.”

Standards One to Seven were bound into a thin booklet. The binding thread was white, and the back cover had no writing on it.

The grounds written were Standard Seven-Three. Standard Seven-Three cited “Precedent Forty-One”. Precedent Forty-One recorded an old matter: an item had been returned for having no provenance, under Standard Seven-Three, Clause Five. Its provenance was the number of another drawer. Open that drawer, and there was another number. Beneath each precedent hung the later precedents. The more that hung, the thicker the drawer. Beneath Precedent Forty-One hung twenty-three items. Beside the number of one of them was a pencil question mark, and nothing was written beneath it. Those hanging below were some returns and some approvals. More hung on the returns side.

For an applicant to learn why they had been returned, they had first to find Standard Seven-Three, then Precedent Forty-One, then that drawer. Few managed it.

On the far wall of the archive room was a genealogy chart, pinned up. The lines were in pencil, and the end of each line joined the number of another drawer. Past the third level the lines stopped branching. Only one line went on down, all the way to the bottom of the cabinet. The lower right corner of the chart had never been finished.

The steel cabinets of the archive room ran from the floor to the ceiling, forty-three drawers, the labels one after another. Some labels gave a year; some gave only a number. The drawers that carried years were the thickest. Between the cabinets only a gap was left, wide enough for one person to pass sideways.

In the bottom drawer was the earliest precedent: a slip that read “Accepted”, with no grounds, no number, and the signature box empty.

The record of the Standards revision meeting had one line. Agenda: whether to accept verbal grounds. Outcome: not accepted.

In the twenty-fourth drawer was a letter of thanks. The writer said that Clause Two had set out what his manuscript lacked. He revised it, and it was approved the second time. The sheet had been torn from a notebook, and the torn edge was uneven. On the back of the letter was a receiving stamp, red and square.

On top of the cabinet lay a statistics sheet. This year, four hundred and twelve submissions were assessed: fifty-eight approved, three hundred and fifty-four returned. On a separate line: returned as a knock-on effect, six hundred and fifty-five. A note in small print: any submission that cites a returned item as its provenance is returned with it, without assessment.

More had been returned than assessed. No one had circled this line, and no one had crossed it out.

※

In the innermost drawer of the archive room was an anonymous assessment record.

The applicant box was empty. On the day it was delivered, the person at the window did not ask for a name, and the number printed on the ticket was zero. On the delivery receipt, the receiver box carried a system number. The envelope was white, with no sender, and a square stamp on its back. The processing time box read: zero days. The submission title box gave the title, two characters, scraped but still legible. Grounds for assessment: Standard Seven-Three, Clause Five. The outcome box bore a red stamp with nothing on its face. Beneath it a line had been typed: No provenance, ruled invalid. The assessor box carried a system number, not a name.

He had designed this form himself. It was filled in like the others, box by box, with no corners cut.

In the same drawer was an appeal form. It had three rows: Appellant, signature. Recommender, must hold provenance, signature. Review.

The second row was empty.

Printed beneath the form: Rule Nine. An appellant may not also be the recommender.

In the blank margin beside Rule Nine was a line in pencil, the writing small and lightly pressed: Holders of provenance, one person.

On the back of the form the procedure was printed, in four steps. Step one, take a number. Step two, recommender signs. Step three, review. Step four, outcome. The back also carried a list headed “Holders of provenance”. The list had one line. In the holder box was printed a title, not a name: Academician. That line had not been crossed out or changed.

The floor tiles in front of the appeals window had worn down a layer and were paler than elsewhere. There were two pale patches, one in front and one behind, and the front one was paler than the back. The edges were very even. The foot that had worn the front one had never moved. At the window, the ticket machine was lit, and it had not issued a number.

On the day he went to appeal, the window had a new shift. The new person glanced at the list, said nothing, and pushed the form back. It came back face up, with Rule Nine facing him.

In the register at the appeals window, the appellant box bore a full signature. Its last stroke trailed long, and where it ended the pen had pressed a mark into the paper.

The review box bore a red stamp: Not admitted.

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At the bottom of the same drawer lay the stub of an application to perform in a square.

Stone Steps Square: every Saturday night, forty minutes, dancing on the steps. The first page was for names, the second for times. On the third page, a line in small print: Footwear for the performance. Attach a photograph. Check the specifications. The fourth page held the rules. Rule One: volume, not above the sixth notch. Rule Two: no fencing may be erected. Rule Three: neither end of the steps may be occupied.

The photograph was pasted at the lower right of the third page. It showed a pair of black street-dance shoes, set on the edge of one stone step. The toe of the right shoe had worn a hole through. The hole was black, with white threads curling up at its edge. By the scale of the photograph, the hole was about seven millimetres across. Behind the shoes were the steps. The corner of the bottom step had been patched with cement, a paler colour than the stone.

On the photograph was a pencil circle, drawn around the hole. It was made in two strokes; the second lay over the starting point of the first.

On the front of the stub, the grounds box read: See internal record. The original copy box read: Sent. The receipt box was empty. The date returned box read: July. Halfway down the form was a box headed Processing time. It read sixty-one days. The stub had been kept in a grey envelope, which read: Stone Steps Square. For the applicant. No name was written.

On the back of the stub was the internal record: Standard Seven-Three, Clause Two. Footwear damaged. Not approved.

The red stamp in the authorisation box was square, with nothing on its face. In the blank beside the specifications box was a line of small pencil writing: Toe. The writing had no punctuation.

In the same drawer were eleven more stubs. The grounds box on each read: See internal record. On one of them the photograph showed a new pair of shoes, with a pencil circle on the laces, enclosing the knot.

On the returns list for that year, each line had a small pencil tick after it. The ticks had been added later, in pencil a shade fainter than the names. On the list, the name on this line was written very neatly. This line had a tick too.

In Cabinet Three of the archive room lay the plate for that stamp: a square block of copper, face up, with nothing on it. A sheet was pasted on the cabinet door. It read: Borrowing must state provenance.

※

In the exhibition hall the red tape had been wound round and round, each turn over the last. A row of very small numbers was printed on the tape, repeated every inch. Among the numbers, every few, was a square stamp with nothing inside it. It was the same plate as on the stubs.

Neither of the two iron doors had a handle. Beneath the gaps at their feet lay a line of grit, joined to the line on the mosaic slabs.

On the floor were six labels, laid out in front of the plinth, all blank. On the wall was a display regulation, half covered by tape. The one visible line read: …items, labels to be left blank.

The words on the plinth were half covered by tape. Only the last two characters showed: provenance.

The names on the wall were in cold gold, eighteen to each wall. Beneath each name was a line of small numbers, written the same way as the numbers on the archive drawers.

On the back of an empty picture frame hung a number card. There was nothing in the frame. On the back of the card was written where it was kept: Cabinet Five, slot Nineteen.

There were six rows of audience seating, twelve chairs to a row. The red tape on the chair backs was wound at shoulder height, and not one chair differed. On the seat of the seventh chair in the third row lay a little white lime dust, the same colour as the grit in the gaps of the doors.

The hall had thirty-two lights, twenty of them on. The ninth light shone on an empty display case. On the white cloth inside, there was nothing.

Under the floor ran thick steel beams, one every two metres. The rivets along the beams were set in a single row, and none was missing.

On the mosaic slabs at the centre of the hall, the grit ran in a line all the way to the middle. The distance between each grain was the same. The line stopped at the edge of the middle slab. It passed in front of the empty case without a bend. No one swept them.

※

At Counter Three that year, a stack of rejection slips lay on the counter. A square stone paperweight sat on top, its face worn very flat.

The ink pad stood with its lid open. The ink paste had formed a crust, its edge curled up. The lid was copper. When it was shut it made no sound, and each time he opened it.

He pushed the papers with his right hand. One at a time, across the counter, as far as the hand of the person opposite. As each one moved, its edge brushed the desk, with a single sound. His eyes fell on the upper right corner of the paper, where the authorisation box was.

The people who came to ask stood on the other side of the counter. Most of them had their heads raised. The counter was high, so their faces were above the counter top, and only their chins showed. He pushed one across. That person took it and walked away. The next person stepped up. Whoever came to ask got one pushed across.

On the right of the counter stood a stapler, its opening facing him, its staple box full. Each day, the one to arrive before him was the woman at Window Two next door, the one who handled filing. She had set the stapler there, where his right hand could reach it without stretching. He did not look up to see who had put it there. On the desk at the window next door there was only one pencil, its point facing this way.

Three different people had worked the first counter. The second counter had always been hers.

His chair was a swivel chair; sitting down, it turned half a circle. Each time he turned it back and stopped it square to the counter. Under the desk was a wooden footrest, worn into two shallow hollows where the feet pressed, one higher than the other.

That day he pushed back seventeen. The seventeen were these: five pieces of sheet music, two sets of drawings, one roll of charts, two rolls of poetry manuscripts, four applications, one ledger, one wooden box, and one bundle of cloth, unopened. Before each one was pushed out, two characters were written in the authorisation box. The second character was small, and its last stroke was cut short, not trailed out. The red stamp was placed beneath the characters, square. At midday he lined up the papers he had pushed, by thickness, the thickest underneath, the authorisation boxes uppermost. When he ate bread, crumbs fell on the stubs, and he flicked them one by one with his thumb to the edge of the desk.

The stubs were taken to the window next door. The woman took them, lifted her head, glanced at where the stapler was, and lowered it again. She pinched the lower right corner of each one and folded it, and only then put it in the drawer. The fold ran from the outside edge inward.

The eleventh could not be pushed across. That roll was thicker than the others. It would not flatten, and it stuck against the counter instead of sliding. The person took it in both hands, held it to their chest, and left. On this side of the counter, he did not look up.

In the afternoon, two more people came to ask about the same thing. The two stood in the same spot, and what was handed across was the same kind of paper.

The queue was still outside the door. The line for the third counter bent past two counters from the entrance and ran all the way to the stairs. On the floor, a white circle was stuck down every metre. At the bend, one person crouched to tie a shoelace, pulled it tight, and stood up. The queue did not stop. Each time the calling machine sounded, a number jumped up on the screen, and the gaps between the jumps were all the same length. Whoever was called came up, stopped, and handed over the paper.

He worked by the rules. Which clause called for what, he did not need to look; his hand knew it.

Before going off shift, the woman squared the edges of the stubs, put them back in the drawer, and pushed the drawer shut. The drawer made no sound.

In the register, that day ran to seventeen lines. In the last box of every line was written only the second of the two characters.

That clerk pushed back seventeen papers that day. He did not remember any one of them.