The shed opened at a quarter to six and I got there at five-thirty because my bed was ten minutes on foot from the gate, ten minutes on foot that was the time I could think, and thinking meant not thinking about anything of my own, and inside the shed there was the noise of the first loom warming up, the smell of last night's stain remover, the yellow light of the neon tubes that never went off because switching them off and on cost more than the bill, and my station was the third row on the left, overlock machine number seven, and seven was not the lucky number in Chinese but it was the number I had been given eleven years ago, the one that had stayed mine, the one they had let me keep because nobody remembered anymore.

In the shed eighteen of us worked, and of the eighteen twelve were Chinese, six were Italian, and the Italians were the cutters and the warehousemen, we were on fast cutting and on packing, and the regime was twelve hours a day for seven days, and on Sunday the shed did not close, and if you didn't show up on Sunday they marked you in black and black meant that the week after they'd give you the night shifts. You kept your bed only if you worked.

At ten we had the fifteen-minute break and at ten on Monday morning, April twenty, the Strike Days were on their fourth day and at the gate there was a picket and at the picket a Sudd Cobas van, and on the van there were signs written in Italian and in Chinese, and the signs said 8×5 in big figures, and every morning I had read those signs from the same spot, from the window of the bathroom on the second floor, and every morning I had watched the van arrive at seven and stay until sunset and then leave, and every morning I had thought that van had nothing to do with me because I was number seven, and number seven did not strike.

But on Monday there was my townsman Lao Chen, who had walked out of his shed on via Pistoiese three weeks earlier and had signed, and after him two more had signed, and his two had become eight, and the eight had a platform with their name on top, and on Monday Lao Chen was at the picket and he had seen me through the window and he had made a small gesture, just one, with his open hand, and I had seen that gesture and I had lowered my eyes and then I had gone to machine number seven.

At ten I went out for the break.

I went out and did not go to the bathroom and did not pour tea from the thermos and did not say goodbye to any of the women from my line, and I crossed the yard and reached the gate, and the gate was open because it was break time, and at the van there was an Italian girl in an orange parka, and she had a form in her hand, and the form was plain paper, A4 size, and the girl looked at me and didn't ask me anything, and I said to her, in Italian, I want to sign. Her face didn't change and she passed me the pen. The pen was a blue ballpoint from the delivery notes, one of those the warehouseman leaves lying around, and I recognized the pen from the logo printed on it. I signed on the side of the van. I signed my name in characters and then, below, in pinyin. Lao Chen wasn't there, he'd gone to another picket, and that was better, because if he had been there I would have lowered my eyes like at the bathroom on the second floor, and instead in front of the Italian girl in the orange parka I didn't have to lower anything.

I went back in at ten fifteen, I went back on time, the shift continued, and the form folded in four was in the inner pocket of my apron, the only pocket that didn't open when you bent down.

In the evening, at the bed, I called my daughter who was in China where it was morning, and my daughter was eight years old and didn't understand about time, she asked me if I had already gone to bed and I told her no, that evening was evening, and then I told her that on Monday I would send her a bit more money than usual, because there had been an advance at work, and she asked me if an advance was a party word, and I told her yes, it was a party word, and she laughed. Then she hung up because her grandmother was calling her to eat.