Chapter 13 — Late Night Radio

The next morning, Vy woke up earlier than usual. Instead of sleeping to make up for the night shift as usual, she searched the small wooden box stored in the corner of her father's office cabinet - where he still kept a worn leather-bound notebook, recording phone numbers and names of former colleagues in the radio industry throughout the Central provinces, from the time when they were written with a pen and ink, in neat handwriting according to the habits of a generation not yet accustomed to storing numbers in mobile phones. She flipped through the pages, her fingers stopping at the names her father had mentioned at family meals the day before - professional friends he knew from radio conferences across the region, people who sometimes called to check on each other during Tet, loud and cheerful voices echoing from the speakerphone of the landline phone in the living room.

She stopped at a name circled with a red pen, with a small note next to it: "Loan - Provincial Radio and Television Station, in charge of content, old classmate." Vy vaguely remembered Ms. Loan visiting the station once when Vy was young, a woman with a bright voice, often laughing loudly, carrying a bag of her province's specialty cakes every time she passed through Cam Duong on business. She dialed the number, her heart beating fast because she wasn't sure if the phone number from more than a decade ago was still working or not.

After a few rings, the phone was picked up on the other end of the line, and an elderly woman's voice rang out, a bit wary because of the unfamiliar number. "Hello, who is it?"

"Yes, hello. I am Tuyet Vy, daughter of Uncle Hieu, Dai Cam Duong." Vy said, her voice a bit nervous. "I found your phone number in my dad's notebook. I wonder if you still remember my dad."

There was a short silence, then the woman's voice broke with emotion. "Oh my god, Mr. Hieu's daughter! I remember, why can't I remember? My father and I were in the same radio training class in the nineties, and were very close. I heard the news of his death and wanted to call to express my condolences, but I kept procrastinating, and then forgot my old phone number. I'm so sorry."

After a few minutes of asking back and forth, Vy gradually told about the reason for the call — about Do Bao Toan, about the digitalization plan, and about the fear that her father's program might no longer exist. Ms. Loan listened silently, occasionally letting out a heavy sigh over the phone, and when Vy finished speaking, her voice became slow, carrying a nuance that Vy had never heard from a new stranger - the nuance of someone who had gone through the exact road Vy was about to enter.

"Miss Dai, three years ago the same thing happened," Ms. Loan said. "The same new general manager, the same charts, the same numbers, and the same loud talk about converting numbers. Her station's late-night program, a radio program nearly twenty years old, just like her father's program, was cut down to thirty minutes per night, then six months later it was completely cut, replaced by music that automatically played all night, interspersed with timed commercials. The host of that program, her best friend, then had to switch to being an editor for the daytime news, but She's never been as happy as she was when she was hosting the night show. She told me that something in her body had turned off since the day the show stopped broadcasting, even though her new job and salary were still fine and steady.

"So after cutting, can anyone object?" Vy asked, her voice quiet, afraid of the answer but still needing to know.

"Yes, listeners called the station and complained a lot. Some even wrote letters directly to the board of directors," Ms. Loan replied, her voice a bit bitter. "But you know what, those letters, those calls to reflect, were not included in any revenue reports. The board of directors listened, nodded, thanked, and then kept the decision, because on paper, the number was still a number. What her station lacked at that time was some evidence strong enough, specific enough, to prove the value of the program in the language that the board understood — not empty emotions, but something they could not dismiss. quit easily."

That sentence stuck in Vy's mind all morning, like a seed that had just been sown into a land that was parched with anxiety. She thanked Ms. Loan, promised to keep in touch, then hung up, sat quietly for a long time at the small table in her father's office, looked at the leather-covered notebook open in front of her, thought of the phrase "something they cannot get rid of easily" and wondered, for "Sleepless Waves", what that thing would be.

In the afternoon, after stopping by Ms. Xuan's restaurant to eat a bowl of porridge before shift, Vy arrived at the station two hours early, stopped by Mr. Cao Viet Binh's office on the third floor, and knocked lightly on the door. He was sitting alone, the desk lamp shining down on a thick stack of files, his face had the tired look of someone who had been sitting there very early.

"Come in," he said, his voice somewhat warmer when he saw Vy, pushing the stack of files aside as if to make room for conversation. "Is there something wrong?"

"I want to ask you something," Vy said, sitting down in the chair across from his desk. "About the program, about what we can do. But before that, I also want to ask... how did you and my dad work together in the past? I realized, I know very little about that time, even though you have always been by my side for the past eighteen months."

Mr. Binh smiled slightly, a smile that was both nostalgic and a little surprised at the question, leaning back in his chair, his eyes looking far away toward the window where the afternoon light was fading. "No one's asked me that in a long time," he said, his voice slow. "My three children and I joined the station in the same year. At that time, the station was still very small. There was only one studio, recording with tape. Every time a recording failed, we had to rewind it from the beginning, wasting a whole roll of tape. At that time, our three children were the newest and youngest, but their voices were more mature than those who had been in the profession for more than ten years. He and I were close because we worked night shifts and shared a small room near the station for convenience. There were nights when we ran out of money and the two of us shared instant noodles and ate together. discuss the narration for the next day's program."

He stopped, looked down at his hands, his fingers had age spots. "One year, the station had very serious financial difficulties, just like now, even worse - there were months when there was not enough money to pay salaries on time. At that time, I was planning to quit my job and go work for a private advertising company, with a salary three times higher. I remember the night I told my father that story, he didn't stop me, didn't say anything moral, just invited me to sit and listen to the entire program he hosted that night, a normal program, nothing special. After the program, He asked him exactly one question: 'Binh, after listening, do you think what you just did made sense?' He answered yes. He said: 'Then stay, the money will be fine, but you may not get this meaning if you look elsewhere.' I've stayed ever since, nearly thirty years."

Vy remained silent, feeling an emotion rising in her chest, imagining a young Cao Viet Binh in the past, standing at a crossroads, kept by her father with the very thing she was now trying to protect. "So what now..." she hesitated, not knowing how to phrase the question without offending.

"Why don't you dare tell Mr. Toan directly now like your father once told you?" Mr. Binh smiled sadly, reading Vy's thoughts even though she had not finished her sentence. "Vy, that time was different, now it's different. Mr. Toan is not a bad person, don't think so. He's just doing the right thing the group assigned him, under pressure from above that you can't see. I'm no longer in a position to talk to him with emotion, because I know, if I just talk about feelings, about legacy, he will listen, will nod in respect, but in the end the decision is still based on numbers. I've thought about it many nights, and I think the only way to save your program is not to fight him, but to give him a reason, in his own words, that this program is worth keeping."

That sentence echoed almost exactly like what Ms. Loan had said on the phone that morning, making Vy feel a strange but certain coincidence, like two strangers, from two different ends of the same story, pointing in the same direction.

"I just talked to an old friend of yours who works at a nearby provincial station," Vy said, briefly recounting what Ms. Loan shared. "She said the same thing as you, that she needed some strong evidence, not just emotions."

Mr. Binh nodded, his eyes brightened a bit. "Then we have a direction to start. Just think, think carefully, I will support you fully. Only this time, I can't just rely on touching letters anymore, I need something that Mr. Toan can't push aside with just a look at the chart."

Vy left Mr. Binh's office when it was completely dark, carrying both a new burden and a faint ray of hope that was much more real than the empty feeling of the previous few days. She walked slowly down the hallway toward studio B, past the large window where the city lights of Cam Duong were starting to light up in small beams along the coastal road.

Not far away, in another corner of the city, in a low factory area hidden behind a row of trees, a man had just woken up, preparing for the work shift that was about to begin. The small room he rented was on the ground floor of an old four-level building, with only a squeaking ceiling fan, a single bed, and a wooden table where he still kept his old radio, always tuned to a familiar frequency. He didn't turn on the lights, just sat in the pale light coming in from the small window, quickly eating a bowl of cold rice with a few pieces of fried eggs he had prepared the night before, chewing slowly in silence, no TV, no music, only the distant sound of traffic echoing from the main road.

He's lived alone for many years, ever since his short-lived failed marriage, which he rarely talks about, even to himself. His colleagues on the same shift also rarely spoke, most of the time silently watching the rows of numbers on the control panel, occasionally exchanging a few short sentences about pipeline pressure, equipment maintenance schedules, and a stopcock that needed to be replaced. None of them knew about "Sleepless Waves", about the calls he still made on nights when he had a short break between shifts, standing nestled in the corner of the concrete yard outside the control area, his voice lowered so no one could hear, like a secret ritual that belonged only to him.

Tonight, as he put on his protective jacket to prepare for his shift, he touched the phone in his breast pocket, feeling like it was a small talisman, carrying the vague promise that, if he had a spare moment between the long hours of watch, he would find a way to call in, to hear again the voice that had become the only anchor keeping him from drifting completely into the loneliness of the work he was doing. He thought of the story she told last night on the air, about the big changes that were coming to the show, and a silent worry rose in him — the worry of someone who was about to lose the only thing that kept his long nights meaningful, even though he had never said it out loud, not even to the very person who kept that light for him every night.

He walked out of the motel room, locked the door, and walked towards the factory where the meters were waiting for him to come to work, carrying in his heart a silent determination no less than the determination growing in Vy's heart on the other side of the city - that no matter what happened, he would find a way to hold on to the fragile thread connecting him to that voice, in any way he could, no matter what that way was, he didn't really know yet.