Chapter 11 — Old Painting Restoration Workshop

Ms. Dieu Lan did not tell everything at that first meeting. After mentioning the part where Bach Nien agreed to complete the painting, she suddenly stopped, her old eyes looked down at the wooden box on the table with a clear tired look, as if searching through those memories had drained all her remaining strength.

"I'm sorry." She said, her voice hoarse. "I'm old, I'm no longer strong enough to tell it all in one session. There are parts of this story I'm not ready to tell today."

Mien Thu quickly nodded, not wanting to pressure her any further. "I understand. I'm sorry for making you tired."

"No, I'm not at fault at all." Ms. Dieu Lan waved her hand, her eyes softened as she looked at Mien Thu. "You have the right to know the truth, you are Bach Nien's grandchild. Just give me more time. I need to think, I need to mentally prepare before telling the rest - the hardest part to say."

Before leaving, she lent Mien Thu an old photo, with instructions to keep it carefully, and promised them to come back in a few weeks, when she was more ready. On the way home, Mien Thu sat silently in the car, clutching the envelope containing the photo like a treasure.

"Are you okay?" Nguyen Vu asked, glancing at her through the rearview mirror while driving.

"I don't know." She replied, her voice shaking a bit. "On the one hand, I feel relieved because I finally know part of the truth, knowing that my grandfather did it out of love, out of loyalty to his teacher, not for personal gain. But on the other hand, I still feel like something is incomplete. Ms. Dieu Lan said 'the hardest part' is still ahead. That makes me scared."

"Perhaps that part is related to the painting being put on the market, signed with a fake name, and sold through Chau Boi Long's gallery." Nguyen Vu speculated, his voice thoughtful. "Completing an unfinished painting for the sake of teacher-student love is one thing. But signing it with a fake name, then offering it for public sale as an original work, is a completely different story ethically and legally."

Mien Thu was silent, looking out the car window at the green rice fields passing by in the afternoon sunlight. She thought of her grandfather - the young man in the photo, crying all night before agreeing to complete the painting from his teacher - and wondered if he was the same person who signed a name that was not his own on the work, or if it was someone else's decision, beyond his control.

That evening, returning to the workshop, she couldn't sit still. She pulled out the entire stack of old diaries, this time reading them with a different concentration and understanding than before — no longer the curiosity of someone looking for clues, but the deep sympathy of a grandchild trying to fully understand her grandfather's feelings during the most difficult period of his life.

She found the third notebook, the one she had never read carefully because most of the pages were faded and the writing was difficult to read. This time, she was more patient, using a flashlight to look at each line, carefully decoding each word.

"December, 1963. It's been two months since the teacher passed away. I finished the rest of the painting at night, not daring to let anyone but Ms. Dieu Lan see it. My hands shook throughout the entire process, not because I was afraid of making a mistake, but because I was afraid I wasn't worthy touch the teacher's unfinished dream."

She turned to the next page, the handwriting became more rushed, and in some places it was blurred like water.

"January, 1964. The painting was completed. But Ms. Dieu Lan said her family still didn't have enough money to cover the debt from the months he was in the hospital. She asked if I could help more. I didn't know what else to do. I'm just a poor student, with nothing but my hands and a paintbrush."

Mien Thu stopped, her heart beat faster. She continued flipping, looking for the next part of the story, but here, a strange gap appeared in the diary - several pages were hastily torn apart, leaving only jagged edges of paper along the spine, like a silent scar in the flow of time.

She turned it over and over again, trying to find if any pages had fallen out, but to no avail. Those pages were gone, perhaps torn up by her grandfather a long time ago, as if he wanted to permanently erase a memory that even he himself did not want to face again.

The next intact page was recorded in June 1964, nearly half a year before the previous paragraph, and the tone was completely different — no longer tormented and tormented like before, but a heavy, dry silence.

"It's over. I don't want to write any more about this."

That's it. No explanation, no details, like a door closing between her grandfather and the pages of his diary.

Mien Thu sat quietly in the middle of the workshop, her hand trembling as she held the notebook, feeling as if she had just touched a wound that had healed but had never truly healed. Those torn pages certainly contained something he didn't want anyone to know — maybe details about signing a fake name, about an agreement with Chau Boi Long, about a decision that he had to risk his conscience to make.

She picked up the phone, intending to call Nguyen Vu to tell her about this discovery, but then put it down. It was late at night, and she needed some time alone to face the emotions swirling inside her before she could share them with anyone, even the person who was gradually becoming more important to her than she dared to admit.

The next morning, Thuy Chi came to the workshop and immediately recognized Mien Thu's dark eyes and unusually pensive expression. "Did you stay up all night reading the diary again?" The girl asked, her voice both reproachful and worried, placing the bag of bright sticky rice on the table.

"YES." Mien Thu nodded, not hiding it. "I found a few torn pages in a notebook. Right at the most important part."

"Tear it?" Thuy Chi's eyes widened. "Who tore that?"

"I think my grandfather tore it up himself." Mien Thu sat down and rubbed her temples, which were aching from lack of sleep. "As if he wanted to hide something forever, even from his future self."

Thuy Chi was silent for a moment, then sat down opposite her, her voice becoming serious, rarely seen in a girl who usually joked around. "Miss Thu, I don't know your family as well as you, but I think, maybe it's not something bad, but just a pain that he doesn't want anyone touch, even his relatives? Like... there are wounds, people don't hide them because of guilt, but because it hurts so much, every time it's mentioned, we have to relive that feeling every time."

Mien Thu looked at her young student and felt an unexpected warmth at those simple but sincere words of comfort. "Thank you." She said, her voice softening. "Maybe you're right. I just hope that when I know the truth, I can still look at him with the same eyes as before."

"I'll still look at you the same." Thuy Chi said firmly, without any hesitation. "Because I know better what he is than any piece of paper can tell."

That sentence, simple but firm, made Mien Thu feel a little more relieved. She stood up, made a pot of hot tea, brought it out and placed it in front of the painting "Vong Nguyet" like a recently formed habit - as if inviting the whole person in the painting to share a cup of morning tea with her.

She stood up, walked in front of "Vong Nguyet", looked into the eyes of the woman in the painting - eyes carrying wordless sadness that she now partly understood the meaning of. Perhaps, she thought, her grandfather, when he painted that face in the dead of night sixty years ago, also put into it all the pain, torment, and boundless love for his deceased teacher.

"Which pages did you tear out, sir?" She whispered in the quiet darkness of the workshop. "And what did you have to sacrifice to keep your promise to your teacher?"

She sat for a long time, trying to imagine her grandfather at twenty-six years old - just a few years younger than she is now - alone facing a big decision with no one to consult, no one to share the burden with. She wondered if she were in that situation, between loyalty to a deceased teacher and the thin line of professional ethics, whether she would have the courage to make the same choice. That question has no easy answer, and perhaps that is also the reason why her grandfather, for more than half a century later, never once dared to tell this story in its entirety to anyone, even the most private diary pages of his life.

Outside, the crescent moon still hangs in the night sky of Hanoi, quietly shining down Hang But alley, like a silent witness who has watched over many generations of the Bach Nien factory, keeping within itself secrets that only time can gradually reveal.