Pang's Test

The assignment was placed on his desk on Monday morning.

It was placed there in person by Director Pang, who had, in seven weeks, never once entered the small office of the General Office's clerks. He walked in at eight forty-eight. He did not greet anyone. He walked directly to Lin's desk. He set down a thick green folder. He said: "Section Member Lin. The annual budget proposal for the General Office. First draft. Two weeks."

He looked at the desk for one second longer than he needed to. Then he turned and walked out.

The room — Section Member Ye, Zhang Xiaodong, and, after a beat, Lao Wei — was very quiet for almost a full minute.

Then Zhang Xiaodong said, with his cheerful warmth that had become, in the past month, slightly less convincing: "Wow, Xiao Lin! The annual budget. That is a — significant assignment."

"Yes."

"Director Pang must have a lot of confidence in you."

"He must."

"Well — congratulations!"

Zhang Xiaodong returned to his desk. Section Member Ye, at her desk, did not look up but moved one of her files three centimeters to the right with a particular flatness of motion that, in the small economy of the office, communicated: *be careful.*

Lao Wei did not look up at all.

Lin opened the folder.

#

He understood, by ten that morning, the shape of what he had been given.

The General Office's annual budget proposal was a document of approximately eighty pages. It was prepared each year by the Office, submitted to the city government's finance committee, reviewed by both the Mayor's office and the Party Secretary's office, and then negotiated through a series of meetings and revisions until a final figure was agreed in late January.

The folder Pang had placed on his desk contained: last year's final budget; the previous three years' final budgets for comparison; the Office's mid-year financial report for the current year; the standing instructions on what categories of expenditure the budget had to address; and a single typed sheet — Pang's own, signed in the upper corner — listing nine *priority items* that Pang wanted included in the new draft, with the targeted figures.

The nine priority items were the trap.

Lin saw it within twenty minutes.

Six of the nine items were ordinary. They would pass the finance committee without difficulty.

The remaining three items were — unusual.

The first was a large new line for *external consulting services on policy research* — fourteen million yuan, more than triple the previous year's figure. The second was a substantial increase to the existing line for *liaison and coordination expenditure* — nine million yuan added, with no narrative justification provided in Pang's note. The third was a new line for *special projects, classified* — four million yuan, with the standing instruction that the line would not be itemized in the public version of the budget.

Three lines. Twenty-seven million yuan. All three of them — Lin understood, sitting at his desk with the folder open in front of him at ten in the morning — were lines that, if approved in the form Pang had specified, would create pools of money over which Pang would have substantial discretion.

These were not ordinary budget items. These were instruments.

And the construction of them, in the first draft of the General Office's budget proposal, was Pang's *clerk's* responsibility. Pang's clerk would, in producing the draft, write the narrative justifications. Pang's clerk would, in producing the draft, sign the cover sheet. Pang's clerk would, if anyone in the finance committee or elsewhere later raised questions about the three unusual lines, be the person whose signature was on the document.

The trap was visible from the first reading.

If Lin produced the draft as Pang had specified — including the three instruments — he would be, in writing, a party to whatever Pang intended to do with them. If those activities were, in any future year, examined by an investigation committee, Lin's signature on the first draft would establish that he had known.

If Lin produced the draft *without* the three instruments, he would be defying his director's direct written instruction.

There was, on the surface, no good answer.

He sat at his desk for forty minutes without writing anything. He read each of the past three years' budgets. He read the standing instructions. He read Pang's typed sheet again.

He thought: *This is a problem I have not encountered before.*

He thought: *If I solve it on my own, I am — solving Pang's problem, which is not the same as solving my problem.*

He thought, finally: *I need help.*

He stood up. He told Lao Wei, "I am going to go and read this where it is quiet." Lao Wei did not look up. He said: "Take the rest of the morning."

#

He went to the public library. The first floor reading room. He took a seat at the corner table by the windows. He opened the folder. He stared at it for an hour.

He thought, slowly, about the structure of the problem.

The problem was not, in its essence, the three lines. The three lines were the visible part. The problem was the relationship — the relationship in which a director places a thing on a clerk's desk that the director does not want to put on his own desk, and the clerk understands that the question is whether the clerk will accept the thing or refuse it.

There was, Lin thought, a third path.

The third path was: produce two drafts.

The first would be the draft Pang had requested. Exactly as specified. Three peculiar lines, full figures, narrative justifications carefully written. He would produce this draft.

The second would be a draft of what the budget *should* be — without the three peculiar lines, with conservative figures throughout, justified in language that would survive scrutiny by any finance committee. He would produce this also.

He would submit the first draft to Pang.

He would archive the second on a thumb drive in a hollow book in his boarding house room.

If, in any future year, the first draft became evidence in an investigation, the second draft would be the proof that Lin had understood what he was being asked to do, had done it under direction, and had — on his own initiative — produced a record of what the honest version would have looked like. The second draft would not exonerate him. But it would establish that he had not been a willing party.

It was a survival solution. It was the solution of a young man who had not yet earned the standing to refuse outright, and who had decided that if he could not refuse, he would at least leave a record.

He sat for another twenty minutes.

Then he closed the folder. He put it under his arm. He walked back across the bridge to the office.

He did not return to his desk. He went, instead, to Lao Wei. Lao Wei was alone. Section Member Ye was at lunch. Zhang Xiaodong had gone, with great cheerfulness, to a meeting on the third floor.

Lin closed the door behind him.

He set the folder on Lao Wei's desk.

"Lao Wei," he said. "I need to ask you a question that I cannot ask in this room. I will ask it as carefully as I can. You may answer it, or not. If you do not answer it, I will not be offended."

Lao Wei looked up.

"Speak."

"If I were to produce, on my own time, a second draft of a document — a draft that no one has asked me for, that I will not submit to anyone, that I will keep in a private place — for the purpose of preserving my own record — would you advise me to do this, or would you advise me to do it twice."

Lao Wei looked at him for a long moment.

Then Lao Wei said, slowly: "Three times."

"Three times?"

"Once for your own records. Once you will give to me, in a sealed envelope, with no markings, which I will keep in a private place that is not in this building. Once you will hide somewhere none of us know about, that you will not tell either me or yourself about, in the sense that you will not return to it for ten years. Three copies. Three locations. Two of them outside your own access. Do you understand."

"I understand."

"Good. Go and do your work, Xiao Lin."

"Yes, Lao Wei."

He picked up the folder. He went to his own desk.

#

He wrote two drafts.

He wrote them in parallel. The first draft, the one for Pang, he wrote during work hours, openly. The second draft, the one for himself and for Lao Wei and for the third hiding place that he had not yet chosen, he wrote in the evenings, in the boarding house, by hand, on plain paper.

The first draft was good. He wrote each of the three peculiar lines in language that was technically accurate, that contained the specified figures, and that was — in its narrative justifications — exactly compliant with what Pang had requested. He did not bury the lines. He did not soften them. He wrote them clearly and competently.

The second draft, the one he wrote at home, he wrote without the three peculiar lines. The funds that would have gone into them he distributed across ordinary budget categories with conservative figures. He wrote narrative justifications for each.

He copied the second draft, on the third evening, three times by hand. He sealed one copy in a plain envelope and gave it to Lao Wei the next morning, in the corridor between their offices, without speaking. He hid one copy in the hollow book on his shelf — the same book that already contained the butcher-paper map. The third copy he gave, two days later, to Su Wanyin.

He did not tell her what it was.

He gave it to her in a sealed envelope at the end of a Thursday evening reading group at the Eastern Hall, with the words: *Please keep this. Do not open it. Do not ask me what it is. If, in some year, I ask you to give it back, please give it back. If, in some year, I am — not able to ask you — please open it then.*

She took the envelope.

She looked at it for a moment. She looked at him.

She said: "Yes."

She did not ask anything else.

She put the envelope into her bag.

#

He submitted the first draft to Pang on the fourteenth day, at four-eleven in the afternoon.

Pang received it. Pang looked at the cover page. Pang said: "Sit."

Lin sat.

Pang turned to the first interior page. He read. He turned. He read. He turned. He read the entire eighty pages in front of Lin without speaking, the small mechanical sound of paper being turned the only sound in the room. It took him nineteen minutes.

When he reached the last page, he closed the folder. He set it down on the desk. He folded his hands on top of it.

He looked at Lin.

"This is a competent draft, Xiao Lin."

"Thank you, Director."

"You included the three priority items I specified."

"Yes, Director."

"In the language I asked for."

"Yes, Director."

"You did not — soften them. You did not bury them. You did not, in the narrative justifications, write anything that would suggest that the figures were inflated or the categories unusual."

"No, Director."

"You wrote them — exactly — as I had requested."

"Yes, Director."

There was a small silence.

Then Pang said, with no inflection at all: "And were you tempted, Xiao Lin, to write them differently?"

Lin had had two weeks to prepare for this question. He had decided, on the fifth day, that when it came he would tell the truth.

"Yes, Director."

"Mm."

"I considered, on the second day, writing the lines in language that would obscure their unusual character. I rejected this approach because I judged that obscuring them would be — taking on judgment that was not mine to take. I considered writing the lines in language that emphasized their unusual character, as a kind of warning. I rejected this approach because it would have been — disobedient, in a way that did not serve any purpose. I considered, on the fourth day, requesting that the figures be revised. I rejected this approach because I judged that the request would be a refusal, and that I have not — at this stage of my career — earned the standing to refuse."

"And so."

"And so I wrote the draft as you requested. Cleanly. With the figures you specified. With the language you specified. The draft is what you asked for."

"Mm."

Another small silence.

"You are aware," Pang said, "that the three priority items will be — examined, in the finance committee."

"Yes, Director."

"And that the draft you have submitted will be revised, by my office, before it goes upward."

"Yes, Director."

"And that, in the final version that goes upward, the figures and the categories and the narrative justifications may be — different — from what you have submitted today."

"Yes, Director."

"Your name will not appear on the final version."

"I had not assumed it would, Director."

"Mm."

Pang looked at the folder on his desk.

"Xiao Lin," he said. "I am going to ask you one more question. You may answer it however you choose. There is no right answer."

"Yes, Director."

"Did you — at any point, in the past two weeks — produce a second draft of this document?"

Lin's heart, for one beat, stopped.

He had prepared for this question also. He had decided, the night before, on a careful answer.

"Director," he said, "I produced, during my preparation, several discarded drafts of various sections. I keep handwritten notes during the drafting of any document of this size. The notes include — preliminary versions, alternative phrasings, sections I rewrote. I have, at home, a working notebook from the past two weeks. Whether any of those preliminary materials constitute a *second draft* in any meaningful sense, I would say — no. They are working notes."

Pang looked at him.

The silence this time was longer.

Then Pang said, slowly: "That is — a careful answer, Xiao Lin."

"Yes, Director."

"It is the answer of a man who has, perhaps, been advised by someone."

"It is the answer of a man who thought about the question for some time."

"Mm."

Pang nodded. He picked up the folder. He set it on the corner of his desk.

"You may go, Xiao Lin."

Lin stood. He bowed his head. He turned to the door.

At the door he stopped, half-turned, and looked back.

Pang was already opening the folder again, his red pen in his hand. Pang did not look up.

But Pang said, to the desk, to the air, to nothing in particular:

"Whoever advised you, Xiao Lin, advised you well. Do not — under any circumstances — burn the working notebook. Keep it. Keep it for ten years. You will not need it. Keep it anyway."

Lin's face did not change.

"Yes, Director."

He went out.

#

In the corridor outside Pang's office, he walked twenty paces, turned a corner, and stopped at a window. He stood for a moment looking down into the courtyard. The camphor trees were half-bare now. The yellow leaves had piled up in the corners of the courtyard against the stone walls. A sweeper was moving through them with a long bamboo broom, working the leaves into small piles.

He thought: *Pang knew.*

He thought: *Pang knew, possibly from the moment I sat down. Possibly before. He had observed me for two weeks. He had known what kind of clerk I was. He had known I would produce a second draft. He had wanted to know whether I would lie about it directly, lie carefully, or admit it.*

He thought: *I gave him the careful answer. He has accepted the careful answer.*

He thought: *He has also, at the door, told me — in the only language directors and clerks have — that he approves of what I did.*

He thought: *Or he has told me that he is filing this knowledge for use in some future moment when he needs to use it against me.*

He thought: *Or both.*

He walked back to the small office.

He sat at his desk. He picked up the next document. He worked.

Lao Wei did not look up.

But at five-fifty, when Lao Wei stood up to leave for the evening, he passed Lin's desk and dropped a small foil packet of tea on it without slowing.

Tieguanyin. The same grade as the first day. The fourth packet in nine weeks.

Lin did not pick it up immediately. He worked for another twenty minutes. Then, before he himself left for the evening, he opened it, made a single cup of tea, and drank it standing at the window of the small office, looking down at the courtyard.

He thought: *I have been here sixty-eight days.*

He thought: *I have just survived a test. I do not know who set it, in the deeper sense. But I have survived it.*

That night, in the boarding house, he wrote one paragraph in his daily-record notebook:

*Submitted. Pang knew. Pang did not punish. Pang advised — at the door, in the only way he could — that the notebook be kept. The thing is filed. I am now a slightly different clerk than I was two weeks ago. I do not yet know what kind.*

He closed the notebook. He went to bed.

He slept poorly. In the small dark hours of the morning he woke once, and lay looking at the ceiling, and thought — for the first time consciously, though he had been circling the thought for weeks — that he was no longer the same young man who had walked across the street to the marble lobby of the municipal government building on a humid August morning. Some piece of him had, in the past sixty-eight days, been replaced. He did not yet know what piece. He did not yet know what it had been replaced with.

He thought: *This is what Lao Wei meant. This is what he meant when he said that the smart ones either learn or they break. The learning is a kind of breaking. Just slower.*

He turned his face to the wall.

He slept until morning.

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