Chapter 3 — Makeup Artist for the Final Journey

The alley leading to the boarding house on Lò Rèn Street is so narrow that the ambulance had to park outside the alley, more than a hundred meters from Mr. Kiều Thị Nhẫn's house. An Nhiên and Hồ Nguyên Khang walked in carrying a stretcher. On both sides of the alley were moss-stained walls, electrical wires tangled above their heads, and the typical musty smell of long-standing dormitories with no sunlight for more than half a day. Several neighbors stood huddled in front of the door of room number seven, silently watching as the two people walked forward, some put their hands to their mouths, some just bowed their heads.

The woman standing closest to the door, over fifty years old, wearing an old Ba shirt, was the one who called to report the news this morning. She introduced herself as Mai Thị Loan, who had lived in the opposite room for twelve years. Her voice trembled but she tried to keep coherent.

"This morning I knocked on the door to give porridge as usual, but there was no answer. Mrs. Nhan has weak legs these days and rarely goes out. I stop by once every day in the morning and once in the afternoon. I kept knocking and didn't hear any sound, so I asked my son to pry the door open." She wiped her eyes with her hand. "You're lying on the bed, like you're sleeping, miss. You must have left at some point in the night, it's quiet, there's no mess on the bed or anything."

The room is less than fifteen square meters, the furniture is surprisingly neat for someone living alone at the age of ninety-one: a small wooden bed next to the wall, a two-door wardrobe with peeling paint, a small altar with a photo of an elderly man - probably her husband, who passed away a long time ago - and on the table, a stack of old books carefully wrapped in newspaper, the spines of the books worn but not dusty. An Nhiên immediately realized that it was not a neglected room, but a room of a disciplined, albeit lonely, person.

Mr. Nhan lay on his side, his hands clasped in front of his chest, his face calm, with no signs of a violent death. An Nhiên and Nguyên Khang did the necessary procedures, gently placing the old man on a stretcher, and while packing up a few personal items according to procedural requirements — because there were no relatives, the ward government would temporarily keep the records and some papers — An Nhiên noticed that in the altar drawer there was an old black-and-white photo album, capturing a group of about a dozen children standing in front of a corrugated iron house, in the middle was a woman much younger than Mr. Nhan is now but whose eyes were still recognizable.

"In the past, Mrs. Nhan took care of orphans." Ms. Loan stood behind, looking over An Nhiên's shoulder. "In the post-war period, it was very difficult. She adopted countless children in this neighborhood, some whose parents had died, some whose parents had left to work far away to send them back. She was not rich. She sold tea at the market to raise the children. Those who grew up had a job and then moved away. Few of them still came to visit. She has lived alone for twenty years now."

"So now none of them are still in contact?"

Ms. Loan shook her head, her voice lowered. "There's a guy named Nam who sometimes stops by, bringing rice and medicine. But he's working far away. Last month, he said he was coming back. I don't know if he'll make it in time." She looked down at Mr. Nhan on the stretcher, her voice choked. "Poor woman, living all my life taking care of other people, when it's time to leave, there's no one around."

An Nhiên did not answer immediately. She looked at the black and white photo album in her hand one more time, then gently placed it in a separate file bag, not the ward's temporary bag, but the bag she brought with her was for the items she thought the family — if anyone came — would need to see first.

*

In the afternoon, in the preparation room in Vĩnh An, Mr. Lê Thành Nghị stood with An Nhiên in front of the operating table, saying nothing for the first few minutes, just watching her work. He had warned her this morning that this case would not have anyone coming to do the procedures to hire the service, there would be no specific contract like other cases - the ward government would cover the minimum costs according to regulations for bereaved people without relatives, and Vĩnh An, according to a long-standing agreement between Mr. Nghi and the ward, still accepted cases like this, although the remuneration was almost insignificant compared to the effort.

"Since when do you do shifts like this, teacher?" An Nhiên asked, her hand still mixing foundation color for Mr. Nhan's thin, wrinkled, pigment-lost skin.

"Since the opening of Vĩnh An," Mr. Nghi replied, his voice calm as if he were talking about a normal technical process. "Thirty years ago, my father - the founder of this place - told me a sentence, I still remember it: no one deserves to be seen in a state they don't want to be remembered. But that sentence is not enough. There is another part I added myself later: no one deserves to go without someone to take care of them, even if that person has no one to take care of them anymore." An Nhiên nodded, did not say more, continued working. Mrs. Nhan's skin had become very thin with age, and tiny capillaries were clearly visible under the epidermis, requiring a particularly thin layer of primer to not clog the natural wrinkles that had been a part of her face for decades. She worked more slowly than usual, not because the technique was more difficult, but because something in the morning's collection of black-and-white photos made her want to spend more time with Mr. Nhan than she did with other cases—as if she were personally making up for the years without anyone by her side.

She remembered what Ms. Loan said about Mr. Nhan selling tea to feed orphans, and wondered if among those dozens of children, now grown up and scattered everywhere, anyone still remembered the face of the woman who gave them a home. She chose a light lip tone, close to her natural color, and did not apply dark lipstick - Mr. Nhan, according to Mrs. Loan, had never worn elaborate makeup, and was only used to wearing a bandana around his head when selling tea at the market all his life.

"Do you think we should find a way to contact that person named Nam?" An Nhiên asked while combing Mr. Nhan's thin silver hair, tying it into a bun the way Ms. Loan described how she used to bun it every day.

"I asked the ward to find a way to report the news, but the old phone number is unreachable. Perhaps tomorrow's funeral will only have a few neighbors coming to burn incense." Mr. Nghi stopped and looked at An Nhiên for a moment. "Don't be sad about that. I do my part, the rest is not always in my hands."

*

The next morning, the ceremony to visit Mrs. Kiều Thị Nhẫn took place in one of the smallest rooms in Vĩnh An, with only Mrs. Loan, two other neighbors in the neighborhood, and a simple wreath bought by Mrs. Loan herself and a few people. There was no loud ceremony music, no long procession of vehicles, only the low chanting of an old monk invited from a nearby temple, who knew Mr. Nhan through the times she went to the temple to do meritorious deeds many years ago.

An Nhiên stood in the corner of the room as usual. Nearly nine o'clock in the morning, when the ceremony had begun halfway, a young man, about thirty years old, sweat drenched the back of his shirt, hurriedly walked in, stopped in the middle of the door when he saw the coffin. It was Võ Đắc Nam - Mrs. Loan recognized him immediately and ran to hold his hand.

"I just got off the bus and ran straight here when I heard the news. I'm sorry, I couldn't make it home in time." His voice cracked, his shoulders trembled. He walked up to the coffin, stood for a long time looking at Mr. Nhan's calm face, then knelt down, clasped his hands, unable to say another word.

An Nhiên looked at that scene from afar, feeling something relieved in her chest, not necessarily joy, but like a void that had just been partially filled, although it could never be completely filled. She thought of the sentence Mr. Nghi said yesterday — your job is complete, the rest is not always in your hands — and for the first time in many months, she felt that sentence was true in a concrete, not abstract way, right before her eyes.

After the ceremony, when everyone had left, An Nhiên returned to the preparation room to clean up. She took the black and white photo album out of her file bag, looked again at Mr. Nhan's youthful face among the group of orphans, then brought it out and gave it to Võ Đắc Nam before he left Vĩnh An.

"You keep this. I think she'll want you to have it."

Đắc Nam received the photo album with trembling hands, flipped through each photo, stopping for a long time at the photo with his face as a child, standing next to Mr. Nhan, both of them smiling. He couldn't say anything, just nodded and bowed solemnly to An Nhiên before walking out the gate, the photo album clutched tightly to his chest like something precious that had just been saved from oblivion.

An Nhiên stood at the gate, watching his shadow disappear into the street lined with black stars, then turned back inside. The noon sun shined through the corrugated iron roof, casting a long streak of light on the tiled floor of the waiting room, where Ms. Loan's simple wreath was still placed, the white chrysanthemum petals slightly wilted at the edges. She bent down to pick up a few flower petals that had fallen on the floor, gathered them into a small handful, carried them to the trash can behind her, then returned to the preparation room and began taking notes in the internal book: the name of the deceased, the date of work, the type of foundation used — as with every other case, no additions, no subtractions.