Chapter 23 — Late Night Radio

Saturday's sky was sunny all day, not a single gray cloud in the Cam Duong sky, as if the city itself was waiting with bated breath, unwilling to let a sudden rain ruin the efforts of many days of preparation. In the afternoon, when Vy arrived at Cam Duong Beach Square, she stood still for a moment before the scene before her eyes - the stage was completely set up, a large backdrop printed with the image of her father's familiar old microphone enlarged in the night sky dotted with hand-painted stars, two rows of large speakers placed on both sides were ready, and rows of plastic chairs were arranged in neat rows in front, extending all the way to the stone embankment overlooking the sea.

"What do you think?" Thao Nhi ran over, sweat beaded on her forehead but her smile couldn't hide her extreme excitement, still holding the walkie-talkie to contact the technical team. "It's four o'clock in the afternoon and someone is already waiting, sister, there, you two are sitting in the front row."

Vy looked in the direction Thao Nhi pointed and saw two older women sitting on a plastic chair, carrying a hand fan, fanning and chatting loudly, their eyes occasionally looking towards the stage with undisguised excitement. That feeling - the feeling of seeing real people, flesh and blood, coming here just because of a radio program they listened to on the old radio every night - made Vy's chest strangely tight, both happy and scared, as if for the first time she saw clearly, specifically, the form of the invisible thing she had been calling "listeners" for the past eighteen months.

By seven o'clock in the evening, when the last sunset light disappeared behind the sea horizon, the square was almost full of seats, and people continued to pour in, standing in layers behind the rows of seats, spilling out onto both sides of the aisle. There were families with small children, old couples holding hands and slowly walking forward, and a group of young people, perhaps only knowing about the program through clips Thao Nhi posted online, curious to see what the "late night talk radio station" looked like in real life. The light from the stage, from Thao Nhi's small lanterns displayed along both sides of the entrance, mixed with the street lights and the moonlight just rising from the sea, creating a space that was both cozy and splendid, different from the familiar quietness of studio B but carrying a strangely close light, like the whole city was lighting up a common lamp together.

Hai Duong stood behind the sound control desk next to the stage, headphones close to one side, his eyes never took his eyes off the flashing indicators on the mixer screen, occasionally raising his hand to signal the technical team to adjust a speaker angle. When he saw Vy walking by, wearing light makeup and the simple white shirt she often wore in the studio, he looked up, smiled, his voice reassuring. "Everything's fine, Vy. The FM connection, the livestream, and the anonymous phone line, I've checked three times already. Just go up there, do it like you do every night, just pretend this is just a slightly bigger studio."

At exactly eleven o'clock at night, the stage lights turned on, and Vy stepped out, standing in front of the microphone placed on a simple wooden stand, intentionally designed to look exactly like her father's old microphone in the studio, to retain a familiar feeling even though the space was completely different. She looked down at the crowd, hundreds of faces looking up at her under the lights, and for a brief moment, she felt her legs turning to stone, her throat tight, the fear she had been trying to overcome for the past few days suddenly coming back stronger than ever.

But then, her eyes accidentally stopped at the front row, where Mr. Phan Dac Ngo sat, his back straight, wearing the oldest but flattest shirt he had, his hazy eyes shining with an unconcealed expectation, his sinewy hands clasped tightly together on his thighs. Those eyes, that toothless smile, were like an anchor pulling Vy back to herself, reminding her that this was not a stage to perform, but just a larger studio, where real people were waiting to be heard, just like every other night.

"Hello Cam Duong," she said, her voice, though still a little shaky, had found its familiar, warm rhythm. "This is the Sleepless Wave, and tonight, for the first time in twenty-two years, we no longer just talk through invisible waves, but sit here together, under the same sky, by the same beach, to listen to each other."

The applause rang out loudly, lasting longer than Vy expected, and in that moment, all the remaining fear in her disappeared, giving way to an unprecedented flow of warm energy. The program followed the familiar format - reading listeners' letters, playing requested songs through the loud speaker system throughout the square, receiving phone calls from anonymous lines like every night - but this time, each letter was read, each story was told, hundreds of people silently listened, laughed, and shed tears in the same moment, creating a collective emotion that Vy had never experienced throughout her career.

Near midnight, Vy invited Mr. Phan Dac Ngo up on stage, helped him step by step up some temporary wooden stairs, and brought him to stand next to the microphone. He stood there for a moment, looking out at the dark sea in the distance, where the steady sound of the waves mingling with the whispers of the waiting crowd could be heard, then he began to tell, his voice trembling at first but gradually strengthening, about the nights he still went out fishing, about the storms he had survived, about his deceased wife, about the loneliness of his old years, and about the small radio, with the voice of Lam Trung Hieu and later of Vy, has become the only friend that keeps him from feeling left behind by time.

"This old man has no children or grandchildren nearby," he said, his voice choking mid-sentence, "every night there is only this radio. But thanks to it, I feel like I'm still listened to by someone, I'm still a person with a voice, not just an old man forgotten by the city." He stopped, quickly wiped away a tear, then smiled, a toothless but radiant smile. "Thank you guys. Thank you for this radio. I'm able to live until today, partly thanks to it."

The square was silent for a moment, then erupted into a round of applause, some people wiped away their tears, some hugged the people next to them, and Vy, standing next to Mr. Ngo, felt her own tears rolling down uncontrollably, no longer trying to maintain any professionalism, just letting her true feelings fully appear before everyone.

In the distance, near the guest area set up in a small covered corner, Do Bao Toan stood quietly among several senior station staff, his arms crossed over his chest in the habit of someone who is used to observing and evaluating rather than letting emotions control him. But when Mr. Ngo finished speaking, when applause rose up throughout the square, Vy, from the stage, happened to meet his eyes, and realized that, although he still maintained his familiar calm expression, something had moved in those eyes - a surprise mixed with emotion that he could not completely hide, like a person who is used to seeing the world through numbers and suddenly encounters something that cannot be converted into any table.

Mr. Binh, standing next to Do Bao Toan, glanced over slightly, saw that expression, said nothing, just smiled to himself, a discreet smile of someone who had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

The program continued, Ms. Xuan, from the corner of the square where she set up a small porridge basket, busily scooped up bowls of hot porridge to distribute to those standing nearby, occasionally looking up at the stage, her eyes could not hide her pride when she saw her granddaughter standing there, confident, shining in her own unique way, no longer the timid shadow of the first days of taking over the program.

Nearly one o'clock in the morning, when the program was about to end, Vy read the last letter of the night — a letter from a single mother working the night shift at a garment factory, telling about the nights she drove while listening to the program to keep from falling asleep, about how Vy's voice accompanied her through the most difficult years. Reading the last sentence, Vy's voice choked slightly, and she looked out at the night sea, where the moonlight was spreading a long silver streak on the water, wondering, somewhere out there, in the darkness of a certain shift, whether White Night was listening, just as he promised.

But she didn't know, less than ten kilometers away from that square, in a completely different place with sparkling lights and warm applause, a series of events was silently taking place, about to tear apart the peace of this night in a way that no one could have predicted, and would pull both her and the crowd that was passionately listening, into a moment of tension unprecedented in the history of "Sleepless Waves".