The Brass Clamp

Chen Chi turned the brass clamp over in his hand. The velvet lining had worn smooth and shiny. He wiped away the last trace of dust with his cuff. When he looked up, the old woman had already unwrapped her scarf and laid her hand on the counter. Her knuckles were swollen and red.

“Three minutes.” She handed him a thin sheet of paper with the recipient’s name written in ballpoint. “My grandson goes to school at Dock Four. I’m on my way to see him.”

Chen Chi set the paper beside the clamp and pushed a low stool toward her. “Put your hand in, flat against the bottom. Don’t pull it out.”

The old woman settled onto the stool and slipped her hand into the clamp. The brass lid closed, leaving her wrist outside. The skin was loose enough to pinch up in a fold. Chen Chi moved around to the crank and rested his right hand on the wooden wheel, his palm fitting the groove worn into its rim.

“Your vision may go dark for a moment. It’s all right.”

He made the first turn. The gears engaged with a muffled clunk. The old woman’s shoulders drew inward. On the second turn, tiny beads of sweat appeared on the back of her neck. As the third turn came around beneath his palm, a low, sustained hum rose from the clamp. The light above them blinked. Old Wu was in the back room disconnecting the insulated cabinet; each time he loosened a terminal, the light blinked. The brass pendulum was still swinging, back and forth.

Three turns. Chen Chi released the crank and lifted the lid. The old woman’s fingers were blue with cold, the nail beds bloodless. She stared straight ahead. It took several seconds for her eyes to focus.

“I—things didn’t go dark. Just cold.”

“That happens to everyone.” Chen Chi peeled the pale gray strip from the groove in the counter and held it up to the light to check the scale. Three minutes, the full amount. He took the wax pot and pressed a round seal, then folded the strip into an envelope while the wax was still soft and added a small stamp.

“Keep it against your chest, not in a pocket. Don’t handle it on the way.” He passed her the envelope. “When you get there, give it to your grandson. He has to take it himself. Watch him swallow it before you leave.”

The old woman tucked the letter inside the lining of her padded coat and pressed it against her heart. Her knee cracked as she stood. “Master Chen, once this post office closes, where will I find you if I need time drawn again?”

“Right here,” Chen Chi said. “I’m taking over the place. Watch repairs. I’m keeping the sign.”

She nodded, then turned back at the door. “Have you put up that brass bell of yours?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll come and hear it when you do.”

She pushed the door open. The wind rushed in and flipped a registration sheet on the counter. Chen Chi weighed down its corner with the clamp, then bent to drag his toolbox out from beneath the counter. The stack of deduction slips was still at the bottom, its corners curled. The top slip was dated three years earlier. He left them alone and shut the lid. Reaching into his pocket, he felt the stiff folded edge of the deposit receipt and the teeth of the key. The key to this post office.

Old Wu leaned halfway out of the back room, pliers in his fist, sweat covering his forehead. “The pendulum’s still running. Once it stops, that’s it. Seventeen letters in the dead-letter room. Go through them. Anything that isn’t delivered by midnight gets opened, logged, and confiscated.”

“I know.”

“That little balance you’ve got left—” Old Wu pointed the pliers at Chen Chi’s chest. “You know how many more trips it’ll cover.”

Chen Chi said nothing. He pulled his badge out through his collar and pressed his thumb to the back. A reading appeared: nine hours and seven minutes. He smoothed the badge down, picked up his toolbox, and went into the dead-letter room.

The room smelled of camphor, old paper, and tarnished brass. Five wooden racks stood against the walls, a brown-paper envelope in each compartment. The writing on the registration cards had faded from blue-black to gray. He checked them in order. He still knew most of the addresses: the old warehouse at Dock Three, the asbestos mine’s family quarters, the night-shift bunkroom at Pump Station Five. Those could be delivered. He noted the route. Four others remained, their addresses crossed out in red, with CLOSED DISTRICT or RELOCATED written beside them and a return stamp on each card.

From the last compartment in the fifth rack, he drew a brown-paper envelope twice as thick as the others. He saw the handwriting on the registration card first: Ruan Xiuying, written with such care that every stroke might have been measured with a ruler. Recipient: Chen Chi. Address: No. 7, Tin Houses, District Seven, Lorne Station. Registered duration: sixty minutes. Sixty time-drawing records were attached, beginning on a date thirty-three years ago. One entry a day, for sixty days exactly. A little tick followed each entry, in blue ink, every upturned stroke the same.

He turned the envelope over. A line had been written very lightly in pencil on the back. He did not read it. He turned it faceup again and looked at the note at the bottom of the card: District Seven closed. Original item returned.

Old Wu had appeared in the doorway, the pliers hanging from his hand. “That one?”

“District Seven.”

“District Seven’s long gone. It’s a temporary medical ward now. They built it after the mine disaster.” Old Wu came over and glanced at the card. “Dead letter. Two choices: open it here and confiscate it, or use the old regulation. If the address no longer exists, the courier can redirect it to someone actually living there. Write it on the back, put your numbered stamp on it, and have a public official witness and record it. That one’s part of the seventeen too. The ward’s at Dock Seven. On your route.”

Chen Chi detached the registration card from his mother’s letter, folded it, and tucked it into the side pocket of his toolbox. Inside the box were only wrenches, the wax pot, and a sheaf of forms. No letters. He slipped his mother’s envelope into the innermost compartment of the large tin-lined pouch he wore against his chest, on the side nearest his heart. Then he packed the letters from the racks into the same pouch in route order, counting them one by one. Seventeen, including his mother’s. He pulled the pouch shut and fastened it. Through two layers of fabric, he could feel the hard edges of the envelopes.

“I’ve worked out the route for the other sixteen,” he said.

Old Wu watched him for a moment and shifted the pliers to his left hand. “Your mother, back then—”

“The route,” Chen Chi said, picking up his toolbox.

It was growing dark outside. The brass pendulum kept swinging in the back room. He pushed the door open. The wind was dragging the mooring line across the ground. He picked it up, looped it around the bollard once, then twice, and tied a slipknot.

Old Wu called after him, “Don’t forget to put up that bell.”

“I’ll leave you a set of keys when I do.”

He cast off the line. The gangway drew back. As the cabin door closed, he took one last look at the window, still lit. The pendulum’s shadow moved across it once, then went still.

The supply counter at Relay Station Three was cold. Chen Chi fastened the tin-lined pouch against his chest and counted out six letters: an old couple who looked after the pump house, two night dispatchers, a freighter mechanic, and a warehouse keeper. All six broke their wax seals in front of him, put the time strips under their tongues, signed, and left their thumbprints. The old couple gave him a pot of hot water as well. He did not drink it; he poured it into his flask.

Forty minutes out from the station, the asbestos mine appeared to the right of his viewport. The thruster was shaking. He eased the ship against a maintenance frame and propped up the port side. Before starting work, he unbuckled his safety harness, took the pouch off his chest, and hung it from the toolbox handle. He replaced the oil line and tightened the bolts. It took more than an hour. When he stood, he saw that a corner of the pouch was barely six inches from a hot pipe. The canvas was hot to the touch.

He opened the pouch and felt the letters one by one. The seventh was for the mine’s family quarters. Its wax seal was intact, but the paper had gone brittle. It crackled when he pressed it.

At the last house in the third row of brick homes, two strings of dried chilies hung by the door. The old woman put the strip under her tongue and closed her eyes briefly. Of the six minutes, twenty seconds came back. She said it was enough, enough to boil a kettle. She invited him in for rice porridge. He glanced at his watch and did not sit down.

Back in the cabin, he turned his badge over and pressed it. The reading: three hours thirty minutes. The navigator showed four hours back to Lorne Station, depending on the wind. He looked at the two figures side by side for a while, then tucked the badge away.

The medical ward at Dock Seven stood on the site of the Tin Houses. Its metal roof was painted white, and a thin thread of smoke rose from the chimney. Chen Chi went in and delivered nine letters to the beds. Nine people broke their wax seals in front of him, held the strips under their tongues, signed, and left their thumbprints. Then he went to the registration desk and told Nurse Shen he had an item to redirect under the old regulation. The original address no longer existed; he needed a public official to witness it. Nurse Shen said he should see the patient first.

A-Man’s bed was the second one by the window. He was eight. His cheeks were too thin to cover his cheekbones, and a needle was taped into the back of his hand. Almost nothing was moving in the drip chamber. Nurse Shen said he would not last until the rescue ship arrived. He was an hour short. She turned over the chart at the foot of the bed. His father was at the mine. There was supposed to be a ten-minute time letter, but it had never been sent. No one at the mine would make the trip for him.

Chen Chi did not unfasten the pouch. Through the canvas against his chest, he found the envelope twice as thick as the others in the innermost compartment and drew it out. He turned it over. The pencil was faint, worked into the grain of the paper after thirty-three years:

Wait until he’s taller than the mark on the doorframe before opening it.

He turned it faceup again. Four hours to get back. If he claimed those sixty minutes, he would have four and a half hours left. Enough to fly home, settle the accounts, put the key in the lock, and spend half an hour behind his own counter. The counter still needed a brass bell.

He turned the envelope over. “Nurse Shen, does the old regulation still stand? Time mail with an address that no longer exists can be redirected to a current resident. A note on the back, the courier’s numbered stamp, witnessed and recorded by a public official.”

Nurse Shen looked at him, took a ledger from beneath the desk, and opened it to a blank page. “It stands. Write it.”

He found a pen in the toolbox’s side pocket and wrote REDIRECTED on the back of the envelope. In the recipient field he wrote A-Man, slowly, then traced the name again. For the address he wrote Temporary Medical Ward, Dock Seven, Second Bed by the Window. He took off his badge, turned it over, and pressed it beneath his writing. A round stamp.

Nurse Shen took the envelope and entered the original item number, registered duration, reason for redirection, and witness’s signature in the ledger. At the final field, she paused. “I’m recording the full sixty minutes. It can’t be divided.”

“The full sixty minutes.”

Nurse Shen handed the letter back. Chen Chi broke the wax seal and drew out the time strip. Sixty drawings had accumulated into one whole strip, sixty minutes, row after row of time marks on its pale gray surface. Nurse Shen bent down. A-Man opened his mouth, and Chen Chi brought the strip to his lips. A-Man took it in. His throat moved. Nurse Shen held his wrist and counted for a while, then checked the diagnostic timer at the foot of the bed. She straightened. “Enough to wait for the rescue ship.”

Chen Chi nodded. He counted the nine signed receipts from the ward, together with the six from Relay Station Three, the one from the asbestos mine, and the one for his mother’s redirected letter. Seventeen. All accounted for. He stacked the forms and handed them to Nurse Shen. “Have the patrol ship take these back to the station for the ledger.”

Nurse Shen slipped them into the registration book. “The patrol ship comes through the day after tomorrow.”

A-Man felt around under the blanket, found a watch, and held it toward him. Nurse Shen helped him take it out. The case was worn shiny, a corner of the crown was missing, and it had stopped.

“For me?” Chen Chi asked.

“His father left it. He says you can fix it.”

Chen Chi took the watch and turned it over. A character was engraved on the back, worn down to a shallow line. He stood holding it for a while, then put it in his toolbox.

“I’ll wind it.”

A-Man watched him, then turned his face back into the pillow.

Chen Chi pulled the pouch shut and fastened it. All that remained inside was sealing paper and the empty brown-paper envelope.

At midnight, he was already on the return route. The bottom right corner of the navigation screen flickered, and Lorne Station’s beacon went dark. He switched to the station’s public channel and heard rows of relays cutting out. Then a faint sound, as if something had tapped a brass plate, and nothing. Only background hiss remained. The insulated cabinet had stopped. Over the next few minutes, the undelivered strips inside would fall apart into pale gray powder, to be logged and confiscated. He switched the channel off.

A single overhead light was on in the cabin. He found tweezers and a magnifying glass in the toolbox and rested A-Man’s watch on his knee. He opened the case. Fine dust had gathered in the movement, and a hairspring was bent out of place. With the tweezers, he eased it straight, cleared the old oily residue from the gears, and applied fresh oil. He put the hands back on. He held the watch to his ear and shook it gently. Nothing.

He looked at the back of his badge. The reading was no more than a thin sliver now.

He laid the watch flat on the empty pouch and turned the crown. Once, twice, three times, until it tightened beneath his fingers. He let go. The balance wheel began to swing, more and more evenly. The second hand started moving. He pressed the crown back in. The case rested on the pouch, its hands advancing one mark at a time.

He switched off the overhead light, leaving only the green glow of the navigator.