Chapter 1 — A Promise At The Cable Car Station

Linh pulled the last drawer out of her father's wooden cabinet, and a thin layer of dust fell onto her wrist. She didn't sneeze. Three months after his death, this room still had a way of making her catch her breath before she even found anything.

In the drawer there were only small things: a box of worn staples, two dead batteries, the warranty book of the old radio and a paper ticket with almost half of the right side torn off. Linh picked it up with two fingertips. The yellow paper is brittle, the torn edges have fibers sticking up like tree roots. On the remaining part is the number 17, below is a blurred line of blue ink: "High station. Before the cable stops."

She placed the ticket next to her father's death record. The two things had nothing to do with each other, yet her hand remained in the same position, as if if she let go, a question that had been stuck in the house for many years would fall to the floor and break.

Her father, Mr. Khai, used to work in the town's archives department. He is not someone who likes to travel, and has no reason to keep an old cable car ticket. In the last few years of his life, after quitting his job, he did all sorts of odd jobs: repairing locks, framing photos, and delivering goods to villages around Van Lo. Linh's mother passed away a long time ago, father and son lived together through pragmatic conversations. What will you eat today, how much will your electricity bill be this month, who will take you to the doctor?

Old stories are rarely mentioned. Linh only knew that her father had a debt related to the cable car line. He paid it off in installments, then sold the old house at the foot of the mountain to move to a smaller rented room. Every time she asked why the debt was not in his name but still had to be paid, he would answer: "If there are things that Dad agrees to do, he must complete them." That answer made Linh more angry than reassured.

She turned the ticket over. In the lower corner there is still a part of the circular seal left. Van Lo, test trip number 17. Date torn in the right place. A thought popped up: if the ticket was related to debt, perhaps there were still traces in the cable line's books.

Linh took out her phone and called the number written on the old business card she found under the needle and thread box. The listener was an older woman.

“Mrs. Nam's restaurant is at the lower station, right?”

“Who is that?”

"I am Linh, Mr. Khai's son."

On the other end of the line, there was the sound of bowls and chopsticks hitting each other and then silence. Mrs. Nam did not ask Linh what she was calling for. A moment later, she said: "Are you holding half the ticket?"

Linh sat up straight. “You know?”

"Know it exists. Don't know whose hands it is still in."

“Did your father send it to you?”

"No. He brought half to the shop twelve years ago and asked her if one day the Van Lo line closed, where would she find someone to keep the other half? She said he asked the wrong person. He still sat down and drank the entire cup of tea, then left a warning."

“What question?”

“If the cable stops running, give the tin box at the upper station to the person with the other half of the ticket.”

Linh looked towards the ticket on the table. “Which tin can?”

“You've never seen it.”

“So how do you know?”

"Because my father asked the same question every season when the cable car was periodically repaired. Some years he went up the mountain alone. Some years he didn't go, just stood under the station watching the cabins pass by. She thought it was a man's thing, so it was inconvenient to ask."

Linh felt a cold current running through her back even though the window was closed. “Is the cable line really about to close?”

"This weekend. They replaced the entire brake system and wiring. After the last trip, the upper station will be locked for several months."

“Do you know who holds the other half of the ticket?”

“A technician named Duy. His mother used to work with my father. If he hasn't left the mountain yet, I'll see him."

The call ended but Linh still held the phone to her ear. She opened her schedule. Three more days are the last day the cable line operates before being dismantled. She had two unused days of leave left, which she had saved to clean her father's room. She submitted her resignation letter that evening.

The next morning, Linh arrived at the lower station while dew was still covering the corrugated iron roof. Van Lo is not like the tourist photos online. The cable car station is located between the small market and the parking lot, the walls are painted a faded yellow color. A row of people carrying vegetables, gas cylinders, and boxes stood mixed with tourists carrying cameras. Each cabin can accommodate ten people, has a gray metal body, and glass doors scratched into thin lines.

Mrs. Nam's shop is set up next to the fence. She was pouring boiling water into the teapot, her hair tied in a low bun, her eyes looking at Linh through the steam.

“Sit down. I resemble my mother more than my father.”

Linh sat down on a plastic chair. “You told my father about the box?”

“She just told him exactly what he wanted to hear. My father is not an easy person to talk to when he's keeping a secret."

“He kept it a secret from even me.”

Mrs. Nam pushed the tea cup towards her. “He thought he was doing this to protect me.”

“Protection by letting your grandchild inherit an unknown debt?”

Mrs. Nam did not respond immediately. She looked up at the cable line shaking slightly in the wind, cabin number 6 passing overhead. “Debt is not just about money. Sometimes people owe an apology. Sometimes people owe it to themselves to say who did what. My father chose to pay with money because he thought that was the only part he could do.”

Linh took half the ticket and placed it on the table. “I want to meet Duy.”

“He's at the station.”

“Can you call for me?”

“He doesn't like being called while checking cables.”

“Then I wait.”

As soon as Linh finished speaking, a man wearing a blue technical jacket walked through the control gate. He is tall, broad shouldered but doesn't seem to be in a hurry. In his hand is a vibration meter and a tool bag strapped to his waist. He stopped at each cabin, gently tapped the door joint, checked the lock, and wrote the number on the board.

Mrs. Nam doesn't need a thread. “That's it.”

Linh stood up and walked to the fence. “Mr. Duy?”

The man turned back. He has a sunburnt face, short-cut hair, and a scratch running across his right knuckle.

“Do you need to buy tickets or send goods?”

“I am Linh, son of Mr. Khai.”

Duy's eyes stayed on her longer than was polite. The vibrator in his hand beeped dryly.

“I knew you would come.”

“Who said?”

"My mother."

Duy put the phone down on the railing and pulled out his wallet from his pocket. He took out a piece of ticket and folded it into quarters. His piece of paper was darker and the torn edges were jagged. When Linh placed her half of the ticket next to it, the two torn lines matched almost perfectly. The number 17 is consecutive. But the date on Duy's ticket is 2008, while Linh's has a different ink, seemingly 2009.

“Same ticket number, different date,” Linh said.

“My mother told your father to keep half of the test trip. Your father asked my mother to keep half the maintenance trip.”

“What day did you two arrange to deliver the box?”

“No one said.”

“So we go to the upper station to find a box without knowing its shape, location or recipient?”

“I didn't say we.”

“Don't you want to know why your family has to pay the debt for someone else?”

Duy picked up the vibration meter. “I know my family used to repay debt. I don't know how your father had anything to do with it.”

“My father was lost. I can't ask you.”

“And I can still ask my mother. But she doesn't want to mention it."

Linh observed him. Duy's silence does not seem like a defensive attitude; it's like someone who has asked many times but only gets answers that are cut off in the middle.

Mrs. Nam called out from the restaurant: "Cabin 17 is still available. If you two want to go up, take this trip. The wind will be strong in the afternoon.”

Duy looked up at the row of cabins slowing down as he entered the station. “I still have to check the system.”

“Can you check on the road?”

“You think I'm going to quit my job to find the box for you?”

Linh squeezed the ticket. “I think you won't let your mother continue to carry debt that doesn't belong to her.”

Duy did not answer. He looked at the number 17 painted red on the body of the cabin that had just stopped in front of the station platform. A delivery man stepped out, dragging a sack of corn. The cabin was empty again, the door automatically opened again.

He lifted the tool bag onto his shoulder. “I'm just going to the upper station. If you find anything, share it. Do not hide evidence, do not open the lock arbitrarily, and do not take the box out of the station."

"Okay."

“If the wind exceeds a safe level, I decide to return.”

"Okay."

“If you change your mind midway, I won't take you down on my own. We wait for the operations team.”

"I get it."

Duy entered the cabin first. Linh followed, sitting opposite the glass door. Mrs. Nam stood on the porch of the restaurant, one hand holding the teapot, the other hand raised as if to say something more. But the cabin is closed.

The cable pulling motor makes a deep buzzing sound. The floor vibrates underfoot. The lower station gradually recedes, the market roof shrinks into messy patches of color. Linh looked at the half ticket in her palm. Duy opened the auxiliary control panel and checked the brake light.

“Have you ever seen my father on the cable line?”

"Once. I'm young.”

“What did you say?”

“He told me not to stand close to the door when the cabin shook.”

“Just that?”

“And said one day, I would have to choose between keeping a promise to the dead and telling the truth to the living.”

Linh looked up.

Duy was still looking at the control panel. “I thought you said that to scare children.”

Outside the glass door, the cabin passes through the pine forest. The wind hits the metal body, creating hollow beats. Duy put the ticket in his wallet, but Linh saw that he still put his hand on his pocket as if afraid it would disappear.

A warning sound sounded on the cabin ceiling. Flashing orange light. Duy immediately stood up and looked towards the cable pillar ahead.

“What's wrong?”

“Don't know yet.”

The cabin slowed down between two mountain slopes, then stopped. The people accompanying them, who were already talking, all fell silent. A child started crying. Duy pressed the button to contact the station.

“Cabin 17 calls the lower station. I need wind and power status.”

There was only a squeak in response.

Linh looked through the glass window. The space below was deeper than she thought. The cable car vibrated, not strongly but enough to make her stomach contract.

Duy turned to everyone, his voice calm: "Everyone sit down, avoid the glass door. We're stopping safety checks. No one opens the door voluntarily.”

He spoke like someone who had done this hundreds of times. Linh sat down, still clutching half of the ticket. On the back, under the worn paper, she suddenly saw a line of small letters that she had never noticed before.

“Only,” she said, “the ticket has an extra date and time.”

He bent down next to her. The cabin vibrated again. Linh rotated the piece of paper in the pale light.

The line has only four numbers: 08:40.

Duy looked at it, his face changed. “It was the last maintenance shift my mother's.”

Outside the cabin, the wind whistled through the wires. The two halves of the ticket are next to each other, one half has the year 2008 written on it, the other half has the year 2009 written on it, but they both point to the same hour and the same trip.

Linh suddenly understood that her father's instructions were not to "find a box at the upper station". It was an appointment split in half, intentionally so that no one could complete it alone.

The lights in the cabin went out. In the dark, Duy reached out to hold the chair in front of Linh, not touching her but blocking her and the glass door.

“Don't look down,” he said.

“I'm not afraid of heights.”

"I know. But this time, the danger may not lie underneath.”

The communication channel turned on, an employee's voice from the upper station echoed intermittently: "Cabin 17, maintain your position. Someone just reported seeing someone in the old warehouse above the station.”

Duy looked at Linh. She looked back at him.

The tin box, if it really existed, could have been waiting there for twelve years. And it seems this time, it's not just two people looking for it.