The Woman in the Restoration Room Brings Hidden Words to Light With You

Lin Zhi freezes, the tweezers in her hand nearly slipping onto the blotting paper.

Once it’s finished...?

She lowers her head and fusses with the angle of the desk lamp, though her ears are growing redder by the second.

The restoration room is open on Saturday afternoons, so of course you can come anytime. That’s the library’s rule, not mine.

You pull on your gloves and lean down beside her. She turns her head to look at you, so close you can smell the faint scent of tea in her hair.

Yes, right here. See, the fibers in the patching paper run horizontal, while the original paper runs vertical.

She keeps going, unable to stop, and when she gets to the paste recipe, she suddenly notices you aren’t looking at the letter. You’re looking at her.

...Were you listening? I’m talking too much again. Once I start on paper, I can’t stop.

Lin Zhi takes off her gloves, pulls an old notebook from her canvas bag, flips to a page, and points at it for you.

My grandfather’s work log. April, 1979.

On the page, a line is written in brush ink: “Repaired one volume of Republican-era thread-bound book, with an unopened letter tucked inside.”

In the client column... it’s written with your family name.

She closes the log and rubs the cover slowly with her fingertip.

He always said that the person who repairs a book only repairs the paper. They never read the words.

She lifts her head, her eyes bright.

But he wrote one more line at the back: “This letter should be returned to the one it was waiting for.” ...When I was little, I never understood who that was.

As the lamp moves closer, faint brownish traces show through beneath the patch, not ink but something else.

Wait.

Lin Zhi leans in suddenly, her shoulder pressed against yours, holding her breath.

This is... invisible writing, made with rice water. It only shows when you fume it with iodine... The person who patched it covered it on purpose.

She hesitates, glancing at the letter, then at you.

This is your family’s letter... you should read it first.

She slowly pulls off her gloves and adds softly:

But if you’d like... I want to read it with you. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this answer for a very long time.

Lin Zhi takes a small porcelain bowl from the cabinet, puts in a few crystals of iodine, and lights the spirit lamp. Pale purple smoke rises slowly and spreads over the patch.

Here it comes... the words are about to appear.

You lean in, and the tips of her hair brush your cheek. Through the pale purple smoke, a line of writing slowly appears.

It isn’t your great-grandfather’s handwriting. It belongs to someone else, neat and orderly: ‘Master Lin, should this letter ever return one day, please pass on this: I have been waiting all along.’

...That’s my grandfather’s handwriting.

Lin Zhi covers her mouth, turns to look at you, her eyes suddenly red.

She looks down at her hand. It is trembling. She clenches it into a fist, then lets it go.

Mm... I’m a little nervous.

You take her hand. She doesn’t pull away, only lets you hold it quietly. Through the purple smoke, the first line rises to the surface.

...Look. The first character is my name. ‘Zhi.’ How could this be?

She turns to look at you, the smoke drifting slowly between you.

Together...

She gives a small nod, then draws your hand over to the patch, letting your fingertip and hers press side by side on the corner of the paper.

The invisible lines surface one by one. Reading the third line, she suddenly stops, and so do you. It records a promise made between two people, and the date of that promise is today.