Chapter 13 — Between Two Runways

The house is located at the end of a small slope on the outskirts of Bach Lung, the whitewashed walls are faded, the bougainvillea trellis covers the iron gate, completely different from the image Boi Thu remembers from eight years ago, when she only came here once, standing in the last row of the funeral, not daring to get close.

She stood in front of the gate for nearly five minutes before she had the courage to ring the bell, her fingers trembling slightly, not because of the distance — five hundred kilometers, an overnight bus trip, she had asked for two days off while waiting for the official duty schedule to be rearranged — but because she wasn't sure what she would be able to say when the other door opened.

During the night bus ride, she couldn't sleep, even though she tried to close her eyes many times. Outside the window, the street lights gradually thinned and disappeared as the car left the urban area, giving way to the thick darkness of successive fields and hills. She thought about how long she had put off this trip — not because of lack of time, but because every time she tried to make plans, she found another reason to postpone, until the near-miss at Tra Son tore through the shell of delay in just ninety seconds.

Bach Lung, when the car arrived early in the morning, looked completely different from her memories. The main road leading into town had been widened, a few new buildings had gone up where there was once just an empty lot, but when the taxi turned onto the slope leading to the suburbs, a familiar feeling suddenly rushed back, so intact that it made her grip the back of the chair tightly.

Dieu Thuc Van opened the door, his hair was more than half white, his face still remained delicate even though he was over fifty-five years old, looked at Boi Thu for a long time before speaking.

"You are Boi Thu, right? Mr. Thuyen's student."

"Yes, that's right." Boi Thu was a bit surprised because she remembered her immediately, even though it had been eight years and they had only met briefly at the funeral. "I'm sorry for coming suddenly without warning."

"It's okay. Go inside." She opened the gate wide, without any surprise in her voice, as if she had been waiting for this meeting for a long time, but just didn't know exactly when it would come.

Inside the house, soft light penetrates through the curtains, a small altar is placed in the corner of the living room, a photo of Doan Khac Thuyen smiling in a wooden frame, his face much younger than the last image Boi Thu remembers of him.

"Drink some tea," Dieu Thuc Van said, without asking, just pouring two small cups from an old ceramic pot. "What did you come here for? I guess it's not just a normal visit."

Boi Thu clasped her hands tightly around the tea cup, the warmth passing through her palms was not enough to soothe the trembling feeling inside. "Do you know what happened at Tra Son last week? A near-collision in mid-air."

“You read the news,” she said. "She still follows aviation news, even though it has been a long time since she was directly related to the industry. Old habits are hard to break."

"That incident reminded me of the night in Bach Lung," Boi Thu said, her voice slowing down, each word seemed to have to overcome an invisible barrier before leaving her mouth. "And I realized there's something I've never told anyone, even Uncle Thuyen before he passed away."

Dieu Thuc Van put down the tea cup, said nothing, just looked at her, waiting.

"That night, thirty seconds before losing contact with Echo Eighty One, I saw the light dot of that flight deviate from the center line on the radar screen. I was about to speak, but I didn't, because Uncle Thuyen was busy handling another flight, and I believe he must have seen it." Boi Thu spoke at once, afraid that if she stopped midway, she wouldn't have the courage to finish. "I came here today to tell you that, because I thought you deserved to know, and because I couldn't keep carrying it alone any longer."

The room was silent for a long time, only the sound of the wall clock knocking steadily, and the sound of the wind gently shaking the bougainvillea trellis outside the gate.

"What do you think that changes?" Dieu Thuc Van asked, his voice was not harsh, just an honest question.

"I don't know," Boi Thu said. "Maybe it won't change the conclusion of the investigation, it won't change the fact that the young student died. But I think it can change the way you look at the last months of his life, about the reason he decided to leave the industry. You weren't the only one responsible that night, although you probably never knew it, because I never said it."

Dieu Thuc Van stood up, walked to the altar, stood silently looking at her husband's photo for a while, then turned back to Boi Thu, her eyes now reflected something more complex than simple sadness.

"You know," she said, "in the last three years of his life, Thuyen rarely talked about that night, but once, just once, he told me that he wished he had asked you a question, right at that moment, instead of deciding everything for himself based on his own experience. He said he trusted his instincts so much that he forgot that there was someone younger sitting right next to him, who might have seen what he missed."

Boi Thu felt a choking rising in his throat, he couldn't hold it back anymore. "So you also..."

"He also has the same question as you, just in the opposite direction," Dieu Thuc Van said, his voice gentle. "He wondered why he didn't ask. I wondered why I didn't say. Those two questions, my dear, probably should have been met eight years ago, right in the radar room that night, but they were both silent, each in their own way."

She stepped closer, placed her hand on Boi Thu's shoulder, a warm gesture that made her unable to hold back any longer, letting the tears she had suppressed for eight years fall, without noise, just quietly, in the middle of the small living room with the smell of hot tea and the faint scent of incense from the altar.

After the excitement subsided, Dieu Thuc Van poured more tea for them both, then told Boi Thu about the last years of Thuyen's life — how he spent time tending to the garden behind his house, growing all kinds of vegetables and flowers, how he occasionally accepted invitations to speak to new classes of cadets at a nearby civilian training center, even though he never returned to sit in front of a real radar screen. "He told me, every time he came to talk to a student, he would repeat the same sentence over and over again, so much so that I knew it by heart: never let respect for someone with more experience keep you quiet when you see something wrong. I still don't fully understand the meaning of that sentence until today, when I heard you tell it."

Boi Thu sat quietly, holding a cup of cold tea, realizing that throughout the last years of his life, even though he never knew her thirty seconds of silence, Thuyen still found a way to convey the exact lesson that both of them should have learned together from that night - only he passed it on to strangers, and she, until today, had only learned it from his own story.

"Thank you for coming to tell me," Dieu Thuc Van said. "Not everyone has the courage to do it, even if they know it's the right thing."

"I'm sorry for being so late," Boi Thu said, her voice choked up.

"Better late than never," she said, smiling slightly, a sad but sincere smile. "And I think, if Mr. Thuyen knew you came here today and said this, he would be more proud of you than anything else you've ever done in your career."

Before leaving, Boi Thu stood for a moment in front of the altar, lit a stick of incense at Dieu Thuc Van's invitation, and looked at the photo of Thuyen smiling in the wooden frame. She didn't say what she wanted to say to him, just stood there, letting the thin incense smoke rise and gradually disappear into the quiet air of the room.

Coming to the gate, Dieu Thuc Van saw her off, standing under the bougainvillea trellis, the afternoon sunlight passing through the thin petals, spreading a patchy light on the tile floor.

"What are you going to do next?" she asked. "With records, you mean."

"I'm still thinking," Boi Thu said truthfully. "But I think after today, I'm a little clearer about what I need to do."

"Whatever you decide," Dieu Thuc Van said, gently holding her hand before letting it go, "I hope you remember that telling the truth is not to punish yourself again. It is to allow you, finally, to put that burden down."

Boi Thu nodded, walked out of the gate, and walked towards the slope leading down to town, where a taxi was waiting to take her to the bus station. She didn't look back at the house again, but she knew that, for the first time in eight years, she was leaving Bach Lung with something much lighter than what she had brought with her when she arrived.