Chapter 5 — Old Book Repairer In A Small Alley

The meeting of the people in the alley took place on a Saturday afternoon, right in the small yard in front of Mrs. Nu's tea shop - the only place in Do Paper Alley large enough for more than twenty households to sit together. People from the ward arrived, carrying a color-printed planning map, pointing out the boundaries of the area expected to be cleared: almost the entire alley, from beginning to end, leaving only a few large houses facing the main road.

Lam sat in the last row, holding a notebook in her hand, but her mind kept flickering between the compensation numbers read out and the handwritten words of Thuc Hien that she had memorized after several days of reading and re-reading. When the ward representative mentioned the name "Tinh Hoa Land Company, the unit that proposed and sponsored the beautification project", her hand clenched the edge of the notebook so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

"If you have an opinion, just say it," the ward representative said, his voice a bit tired from having to answer the same question from many different people. "This is the policy. The specific compensation plan will be announced later. People can rest assured, no one will be left empty-handed."

"How can you rest assured?" The owner of the watch repair shop next to Lam's house stood up, his voice annoyed. "My family has been here since my grandparents' lifetime. All the documents are handwritten and recognized by the old neighborhood group. Now, when we say clearance is clearance, how is that fair?"

The meeting lasted nearly two hours, ending in a tense atmosphere, with no one really more secure than at the beginning. Some people loudly demanded to see the original legal documents, others quietly sat and cried because they remembered the story of the clearance of a neighboring neighborhood a few years ago, where the final compensation price was only one-third of the market price, forcing many families to move to the suburbs to live in cramped rented houses. The old man selling do paper in the alley, the person Mrs. Nu mentioned the day before, sat quietly throughout the meeting, his hands trembling as he caressed a stack of newly spun do paper, as if he were caressing the very alley that had supported her family for three generations.

"My job is the same as yours," he told Lam when the meeting was almost over, his voice hoarse. "There are all kinds of things that people think they can throw away, but only when they throw them away do they regret it. This paper and my old books are the same. Without this alley, where would they put it and keep it?"

His words kept echoing in Lam's head all the way home, mixed with the sound of Mrs. Nu whispering in her ear about the name she had just heard. "I heard that the chairman of the board of directors of Tinh Hoa Land will personally come here next week to see the field. He is also from Tinh Hoa publishing house, the grandson of some famous poet in the past."

Lam paused. "Which poet's grandson is he?"

"Mr. Ung or something, I forgot his name, but his book was printed in the textbook when I was in school. His nephew is now very good at business, both publishing and real estate, I heard his name is Ung The Khang."

The name rang out, making Lam's whole body cold, even though it was still hot and sunny outside. Ung The Khang. Ung Boi Chau's grandson. The person who is the head of the same publishing house that printed Smog Suong Lac Ben sixty years ago, and now, is also the person behind the plan to clear Do Paper Alley - where her grandfather, who kept the secret of the true author of that book of poems, lived and worked all his life.

Could be just a coincidence. Tinh Hoa Publishing House is a large enterprise, expanding into real estate is not uncommon these days, and Tra Lang old town is certainly not the only area they are targeting. But Lam couldn't help but think of another possibility: that perhaps the Ung family knew, or at least suspected, that somewhere in this small alley there still existed evidence that could overthrow the entire literary legacy that their family had been inheriting and profiting from for six decades.

She returned to the workshop and sat down on the chair, her heart still beating fast. Her father was sitting under the lamp reading the newspaper. He looked up at his daughter, saw her uneasy expression, and immediately signaled to ask what was wrong. Lam recounted what he had just heard at the meeting, carefully observing his reaction when mentioning the name Ung The Khang.

After hearing this, Mr. Vinh's face darkened and his hand held the newspaper so tightly that it crumpled it. He reached for the notebook and wrote, his handwriting was stronger and more decisive than what Lam had seen in the past few days.

"They. Know. Afraid."

"Do you think they know what they're keeping here, dad?" Lam asked, his voice shaking.

Mr. Vinh shook his head, then nodded again, a familiar contradictory gesture, perhaps he meant he was not sure, but that possibility was entirely possible. He added: "Be careful. Be careful. Son."

That night, Lam lay on the mezzanine, looking up at the damp-stained ceiling, thinking about everything that had happened in less than a week: from the clearance notice posted at the beginning of the alley, to the unusually thick spine lining, to the stack of handwritten papers signed with Thuc Hien's name, to the name Ung The Khang suddenly appearing as a double threat - both threatening the historical truth that her grandfather had kept secret all his life, and directly threatening the roof, the alley, and life. her and her father's present.

She took out her phone, opened the photo of the literary conference flyer she had kept hidden a few days ago, and stared at the small print name in the bottom corner: Tu Duy Khoi, Faculty of Literature, head of the research and reprint project commemorating the sixty years of Smoke and Fog of Lac Ben. A question kept lingering in her mind: was this person another pawn in the Ung family's reputation protection system, sponsored by Tinh Hoa publishing house to carry out a grand reprint project, or was he really an independent researcher, honest enough to face the truth if she brought it before him?

She didn't have the answers, but she knew she didn't have many other options. The stack of papers in the spine of the book, the locked wooden box in the attic, the words her father painstakingly wrote word by word — all pointed in the same direction: this truth was too big for her alone, a bookbinder who had never studied formal literature, to verify and defend on her own.

The next morning, before she could change her mind, Lam put on the best outfit she had, carrying an envelope containing a few photocopies of the stack of papers - she was careful not to bring the originals, only copies, maintaining the principle of professional prudence. Before going out, she stopped by her father and told him to lock the workshop door. If anyone asked, tell her to deliver books to customers far away, no need to say anything clearly. Mr. Vinh nodded, reached out to hold his daughter's hand for a moment, his eyes both worried and as if conveying something that could not be written down on paper. In the end, he only wrote three short words, pushing the notebook towards her: "Hold. For. Mrs."

Keep her - Lam immediately understood that he was talking about Thuc Hien, the woman she had never met but had now become an undeniable part of her family's responsibility. She nodded, gently squeezed her father's hand one more time before turning to lead the car, her heart heavy but also strangely relieved, as if that responsibility, although heavy, was the only thing that could fill the void that she had silently carried with her for many years living a quiet life outside the bookstore window.

She rode her bike out of Do Paper Alley, heading towards the university where the leaflet listed the address of the Literature Department's office.

On the way, she passed by an empty lot at the beginning of the street, which used to be another old street, which was flattened a few years ago to build a high-rise apartment complex. The project advertising sign hung high with the words "Modern living space in the heart of the old town" - an irony that perhaps the people who wrote that slogan did not realize. Lam looked at that empty lot for a moment, then cycled faster, as if speed could help her leave behind the fear that one day, Do Paper Alley would also become a similar empty lot, a similar advertising sign, erasing all traces of an alley that had been associated with the bookmaking profession for three generations, with never-before-told literary secrets.

The morning wind blew across my face, carrying with it the remaining moisture from last night's rain. Lam tightened her grip on the steering wheel, the envelope of documents tucked neatly in the front basket, her heart both trembling and filled with a new determination that she had never felt so clearly during the twenty-seven years of living a quiet life between the four walls of Vong Chu shop. Part I of the journey — the part with just her, her father, and old pages — has ended. Ahead lies a much larger world, where she is about to learn to trust a stranger, confront a force with money and power, and protect not only the truth of a deceased woman, but the future of the very alley where she was born and raised.