Chapter 2 — Makeup Artist for the Final Journey

The next morning, the funeral procession of Mr. Đặng Văn Cẩn left Vĩnh An at seven o'clock, when dew was still on the car's windshield. Hồ Nguyên Khang drove the hearse in the lead, at a steady speed, no more than twenty kilometers per hour all the way through the residential area, just like the unwritten rule here: drive slowly so that unfamiliar people could stop, take off their hats, or simply realize that a lifetime had just passed their street for the last time. An Nhiên sat in the last row of the funeral home's car, not because of a mandatory duty, but because of the habit she set for herself from the first year of her career: following as long as she could, to fully see the moment the face she had cared for left the sight of the living.

At the cemetery, when the grave was almost filled, Mr. Tin stood alone at the edge, holding the last handful of soil longer than the others. Before leaving, he looked for An Nhiên among the dispersing crowd, walked over, didn't say much, just gently squeezed her hand.

"You're still my dad. Thank you." An Nhiên just nodded. She had never found a better answer than silence to such words - saying "nothing" was too light compared to what was just given to her, and saying anything more was like she was taking credit for something that was originally just a duty.

In the afternoon, after cleaning up the room in final preparation for Mr. Can's case - changing the tablecloth, sterilizing the tools, noting in the internal file the type of foundation used so that next time if there is a similar skin case, you can look up faster - An Nhiên rode her bicycle back to her room, a small room on the third floor of an old apartment building about two kilometers from Vĩnh An. The room was nothing special: a single bed, an old desk close to the window, a few pots of stunted money plants because she often forgot to water them, and a small wooden shelf built by her father, brought from Gò Sao when she changed jobs, transported by bus for six hours, carefully wrapped in a sack so as not to scratch the edges.

She put down her bag, plugged in her phone, and saw a missed call from her father at noon. An Nhiên called back, put the phone to her ear and took off her shoes.

"Hello, dad."

"Yes, son. Dad called at noon and you were busy and didn't answer the phone. I thought you forgot to eat." Trần Hữu Lam's voice rang out, slow, slightly hoarse due to wood dust, mixed with the sound of a chainsaw in the background, meaning he was still at the workshop.

"I was paying an old man's funeral this morning so I turned off the bell. Dad was doing something and heard the sound of a saw."

"Dad is making an altar cabinet for Uncle Tu's house in the market. They ordered red oak wood, which is more difficult to saw than regular wood, making a lot of noise." There was the sound of him turning off the chainsaw. The background noise completely quieted down, leaving only the heavy breathing of the sixty-year-old man who had been standing at the machine for half the morning. "How are you eating? Have you been working a lot lately?"

"Normally, Dad, just fine." An Nhiên sat down on the edge of the bed, looking out the window, where the afternoon sunlight was pouring through the dusty glass. "Dad, remember to keep your stomach warm. Don't sit on the chainsaw for too long, it will hurt your back."

"Yes, I know." There was a short silence, the familiar silence between father and son, not because they ran out of things to talk about but because they both knew there was a bigger thing still there, never mentioned directly in the short calls at the end of the day. Then he asked, trying to keep his voice normal: "Are you still... okay with that job?"

"It's okay dad. I like my job." An Nhiên replied, the answer she had repeated countless times in the past six years, each time a little more certain, even though the first time she said it, at the age of twenty-three, she herself did not completely believe it.

Trần Hữu Lam once strongly objected when his daughter announced that she would quit her job as an accountant at a garment factory to study the profession of caring for the deceased, which at that time was loosely called "working at a morgue." He couldn't stop her - An Nhiên was twenty-three years old, and had been independent since eighteen - but for nearly a year after that, every call between father and son was short and awkward, as if he was afraid that if he said too much, he would blurt out what he really wanted to say: you did it for me, right, and I don't want you to live your whole life in mourning like I have lived for the past thirteen years.

Thirteen years ago, Lê Bạch Yến died on the highway, eighteen kilometers from Gò Sao, in an accident between the passenger car she was traveling in and a truck carrying construction materials that deviated from its lane at dawn. An Nhiên was sixteen years old at the time, waiting at home for her mother to return from a trip to pick up cosmetics in the big city for her bridal makeup salon. The phone call to announce the news came around noon, and everything after that, in An Nhiên's memory, became a series of disconnected images without sequence: her father slumped down on the steps of the house, the phone fell from his hand and broke the screen, the noise of neighbors in the alley, and three days later, a closed coffin at the town's small funeral home.

At that time, the funeral home had only one person in charge, he was old, used to handling normal cases, had no experience and did not have the necessary equipment to restore a face that had been severely damaged by a high-speed collision. He told the family, his voice apologetic but decisive, that it was best to keep the coffin closed, "so everyone remembers her as she was when she was alive." Sixteen-year-old An Nhiên at that time had no right to object, nor did she know enough to know that there was another option — that somewhere, there were people trained to do exactly what that funeral home said was impossible. She only remembers standing in front of the wooden coffin, placing her hands on the cold wooden surface, and realizing that would be the last time she would be near her mother, without a face to see, to remember, to carry.

For many years later, An Nhiên didn't tell anyone about how it haunted her - not to her father, not to her high school friends, not even completely to herself, until when she was twenty-two years old, she happened to read an article about the profession of body restoration abroad, about the techniques that can make a severely damaged face almost whole again under the hands of a professional. She read that article over and over again in a sleepless night, and by morning, she knew what she would do with the rest of her life.

"I won't stop you anymore," Trần Hữu Lam continued on the phone, his voice lighter, almost like a late apology. "It's just that sometimes I worry that you're doing it so hard... you don't have time to live for yourself. You're still young."

"I can live for myself, dad. I have friends and good colleagues. Don't worry too much." An Nhiên smiled to herself, even though her father couldn't see it. She briefly thought about Hồ Nguyên Khang, about the leather-bound notebook he used to take notes in, about the way he always left leftover lunch for her on days when she worked a long shift and didn't have time to eat, but she didn't say that to her father, it wasn't the right time.

"Yes. Next month is your mother's death anniversary, can you come home?"

That question, even though repeated every year, still made An Nhiên's chest tighten for a second. "I'm going home, dad. I'll take a break first and let you know the schedule later."

After hanging up the phone, An Nhiên sat still on the edge of the bed for a long time, looking at the afternoon sunlight changing from yellow to orange on the opposite wall. She stood up and opened the bottom drawer of the wooden shelf her father had made. Inside, she kept a few non-work-related items: a notebook from her student days, a few old photos, and a small tin box with a faded rose printed on the lid. It contained a few of her mother's old makeup brushes that her father, for some unknown reason, had quietly wrapped up and given to her when she returned home four years ago, without any explanation beyond 'Keep them and save them for later.'

She did not open the tin. She just picked it up, felt the familiar light weight in her palm, then put it back in its original position, pushing the drawer in. There are things she is not ready to touch, even after five years of working in a profession that makes her touch the losses of others every day.

The phone vibrates gently on the table. Message from Mr. Nghi: "Tomorrow morning there will be a new case, the old lady lives in Lò Rèn street, no relatives will come to receive her. Prepare yourself, this case will probably only be taken care of by the three of us."

An Nhiên looked at the message for a moment, then typed back: "Yes, I know, teacher. I will be there soon."

She put down the phone, stood up, turned on the desk lamp, and began preparing the equipment list for tomorrow, even though she had memorized the list for a long time. Outside the window, the orange light on the wall had faded to a blue-gray color of evening, and the sound of traffic on the street began to fade as the late hours of work passed.

There was a knock on the door, two short sounds then stopped, the type of knock An Nhiên recognized immediately without looking at the door. She opened the door and saw Hồ Nguyên Khang standing there, still wearing the dark gray uniform of the funeral home, carrying a plastic bag with two warm lunch boxes.

"I was passing by and stopped by to send some rice. The lady who owns the rice shop near Vĩnh An cooked some leftovers and told me to give it to someone so it wouldn't be a waste," he said, his voice was natural, as if it was just a coincidence, even though An Nhiên had long realized that the restaurant had never "cooked extra" on days when she worked a long shift and didn't have time to eat lunch.

"Let's go in and have a drink first, let me get the dishes." She stepped aside and opened the door wider.

Nguyên Khang didn't go in completely, just stood on the doorstep, passing the bag of rice through her hand. "Well, I still have to go home early. The old lady's sister on Lò Rèn Street must have prepared the car early. If we don't have relatives to pick us up, we'll have to take care of all the rituals." He stopped for a moment, looked at her, his eyes had nothing special other than the constant concern that had become a habit between the two of them for more than a year now. "I'll eat dinner and rest early. Tomorrow will be long."

"Yes. Thank you." An Nhiên replied, holding the rice bag with both hands, watching his shadow disappear behind the dark stairs, the steady sound of footsteps gradually fading away. She closed the door, placed the lunch box on the table, opened the lid, the hot steam rising up hit her face with the familiar smell of sour soup. She ate alone in a small room, slowly, heard the sound of car horns in the distance on the street, and thought, not for the first time, that there are cares that don't need to be called to be precious.