March 26. Eight a.m. I sat down at the fifth desk.
An index card was tucked into the first page of the fifth bundle. Three days ago, the day I first opened the box, I saw that card. One line was written on it. Do not read to the end. That day I took the one line for a preservation keeper's caution. A note among those charged with preservation not to spread material open carelessly.
Breaking that caution, I read to the end. To preserve I had to know what was written, to know I had to read, and to read one ends up going to the end — so I made my excuse that day. I made it knowing dimly that it was an excuse. After reading to the end I read out my last digit from the last line of the fifth bundle, and the place read out became a line in the body field.
Today I looked at the card again. Do not read to the end. The same one line as three days ago. Only the line that three days ago read as do not read read differently today. It was after three days of learning what reading is. Read and it grows. Read and it spreads. The place read becomes a place written. Do not read to the end was do not let it grow to the end. Do not let it spread to the end.
But I could not not read. Because preservation was my work. To preserve I had to read, and reading spread it. Preserving and spreading were one motion of one hand. The warning do not read to the end was, to a preservation keeper, the warning do not preserve. If the preserving hand was the spreading hand, then preservation meant to save material was making material grow.
The previous keeper must have seen this card too. If she was the one who filled the fifth bundle to the end, the one who tucked this card into its first page was also the previous keeper. She read the four bundles to the end, and having read to the end began writing her own bundle, and into the first page of her bundle she wrote and tucked do not read to the end. The warning she broke, she left for the next person. A warning left knowing it would be broken. A hand that read the four bundles and broke it, knowing the next hand would break it too.
The four old bundles may have had the same line. The first page of the surveyor's bundle, of the lighthouse keeper's, of the librarian's, of the telegrapher's. If the four hands were each ones who wrote their logs to the end, the four hands too must have begun writing only after reading something before them to the end. The line do not read to the end, the four hands too saw somewhere, and the four hands too broke it. The hand that measured the shaft to the end, that recorded the tide to the end, that read the word to the end, that received the dispatch to the end. The words to the end were common to the four hands' logs, and the hand that went to the end was set in the place read to the end. The card's warning was not left for one person but left in advance for every hand that goes to the end.
The next hand was me. I broke it. I broke it knowing I would. As the previous keeper had, making an excuse. The excuse that preservation was duty. The excuse of duty was solid. The head archivist had ordered preservation and said to transfer it when done. Not to do an ordered task was dereliction. To fulfill the duty I had to preserve, to preserve I had to read, and reading spread it. Duty compelled the spreading.
That breaking it required an excuse caught in me. There was no breaking without an excuse. The previous keeper broke it with the excuse of preservation, and I broke it with the same excuse. That the excuse was the same meant the place of breaking was the same, and that the place of breaking was the same meant the end was the same. The previous keeper, having read to the end, was set in the place read to the end. Standing in the same place with the same excuse, I was going to the place the previous keeper went. The excuse seemed to make the breaking lighter, but the place the lightened hand reached was the same place the previous keeper's hand reached.
It was not that there was no way not to read. If I did not spread the five bundles open, did not look at the last page, and put them back into the box as they were and sent them up to headquarters, my hand would read no further. But the handover sheet required the last entry, and to write the last entry I had to read the last page. The way of transferring without reading was the way of leaving the handover sheet blank, and a blank handover sheet was not accepted.
What it is not to be accepted, the head archivist showed me yesterday. Seeing the last-entry field blank, he asked whether I had not written it yet. Leave it blank and he asks, ask and one must write, write and one must read. The way of leaving blank led to the way of being asked, and the way of being asked led to the way of reading. At the end of the way of not reading there was reading too.
In the afternoon I decided to write the handover sheet's last-entry field. If leaving it blank meant being asked, and being asked meant having to write, it was better to write. I opened the last page of the fifth bundle. One line in which my last digit was joined to the previous keeper's number. As I went to read the last digit, one more figure had come below it. A figure that had not been there until yesterday.
I read the newly come figure. The first two characters were the archive's code, the last two my number. Below the last line of the fifth bundle, the first line of the sixth bundle had begun to be written. My one line that grew in the body field yesterday had come onto the paper today too. Yesterday I had written that the line inside the terminal and the line on the paper grow at the same rate; today the line inside the terminal had crossed over onto the paper.
If the first line of the sixth bundle had come onto the paper, the sixth bundle too had to have a first page. The first page had to have an index card tucked in. As the previous keeper had written and tucked do not read to the end into the first page of the fifth bundle, I too would have to write something and tuck it into the first page of the sixth bundle to leave it for the next hand. There was no next hand yet. In the archive there were only the head archivist, the two assistants, and me, and the one seated at the fifth desk was me. The one who would next sit at this desk, I did not know. The card to leave for one I did not know, I had not yet written.
What I could not write grew by one more. I had left the author field blank, left the last-entry field blank, and now left the sixth bundle's index card blank. The blanks came to three. A box with no recipient, five cards with no author, a handover sheet with no last, and now a sixth bundle with no next hand. The blanks ran on as one line, and at the end of the running blanks was my place. As the previous keeper had left the recipient field blank for me, I too would leave somewhere blank for the next hand. Only without knowing who the next hand was.
What to write in the last-entry field I again could not tell. Was the last entry the previous keeper's last line, or my first line newly come below it? The last of the fifth bundle was joined as one line to the first of the sixth, and at the joined place the last and the first were the same line. The place of ending was the place of beginning. I went to write does not end in the last-entry field, and could not write that either, and stopped my hand. To write does not end was also to write, and written, that line too would grow.