Chapter 3 — Puppets Under the Lights

That Thursday, Nguyen Du school held a whole school meeting during the weekend activities to disseminate plans for the inter-school Folklore Competition that would take place at the end of the semester. Minh Long sat in the last row of the auditorium, half listening and half not, until the vice principal mentioned a line that made him suddenly sit up straight.

"This year, the School Board will reconsider maintaining funding for clubs whose number of members and activities do not meet the minimum requirements," the vice principal said, his voice monotonous as if reading an administrative document. "That includes the Water Puppet Club, which currently has only nine members and has not had any performances during the past semester. The school will decide at the end of next month, based on the clubs' test performances at the Competition."

The whole hall stirred for a moment and then fell silent when the teacher moved on to another topic. But Minh Long couldn't concentrate on listening anymore. He turned his head to look around, and saw Diem My sitting in a row of chairs not far away, her back straight, her hands clasped tightly together on her thighs, her face trying to stay calm but unable to hide the panic that flashed in her eyes.

Leaving the hall, Minh Long happened to walk in the same direction as the group of Water Puppet Club who were gathering to discuss the news they had just heard. "So if the test performance at the Competition is bad, the club will be considered disbanded?" a girl asked, her voice worried.

"Probably," another boy replied, sounding bored. "And now we can't even control a puppet properly, let alone perform for the whole school to see."

Diem My didn't say anything, just bit her lip and looked down at the tile floor. Minh Long passed by, deliberately walking faster so as not to hear more, but those words still followed him back to the classroom, creeping into every corner of his thoughts all afternoon.

After school in the afternoon, instead of going straight home as usual, Minh Long circled around the school yard lake area, telling himself it was just a convenience, even though in his heart he knew clearly that it was a clumsy lie to himself. The club is practicing, more crowded than usual, the atmosphere is clearly tense after the news just received from the meeting.

Diem My is trying to instruct two new members how to coordinately control a long dragon puppet, a type of puppet that requires two people to hold the pole at the same time so that the dragon's body curves softly on the water surface, spraying small jets of water simulating a dragon spraying water - one of the classic and most difficult acts of traditional water puppetry. But the other two kept missing each other's rhythm, causing the dragon to jerk and sink, looking like a lifeless piece of driftwood.

"Slow down, slow down a bit," Diem My said, her voice hoarse from having to repeat it all the time. "Player A must wait for partner B to lift the pole first before pushing it down, not at the same time."

But the next try was exactly the same. The dragon jerked again, its head completely submerged in the water while its tail rose high, an image completely contrary to the flexibility that the puppet should have.

Minh Long stood behind a familiar almond tree, observing, the feeling of uneasiness in his heart growing bigger and bigger. He knew exactly where the problem lay—it wasn't just the hand rhythm, but the way the two pole wielders were standing in the wrong position relative to each other in the water, so that their amplitudes of motion could never match no matter how hard they tried. That was a basic mistake that his grandfather had corrected for him with just a single sentence since he first learned to control double puppets at the age of twelve.

"It's not about hand tapping," Minh Long blurted out, just loud enough for him to hear. But then, when the dragon once again twitched right in front of him, and he saw the look of disappointment on the faces of the other two students, something inside him jumped out of control.

"You two are standing in the wrong place," he said louder, stepping completely away from the tree, making the group startled and turned to look. "The person holding the pole first must take half a step back to the left, standing in line with the shoulders of the person holding the pole behind, not diagonally. Standing diagonally, the amplitude of both people's arms will always be different, no matter how correct the rhythm is, they will not match."

The whole group looked at him in shock, so silent that Minh Long could clearly hear the sound of water gently lapping against the edge of the lake. Diem My was the first to break the silence, her eyes lit up as if she had just found something precious. "You... you're Minh Long, right?" she asked, her voice almost trembling with surprise and joy.

Minh Long suddenly realized what he had just done, and a wave of embarrassment came immediately. "I... don't mean to intrude," he stammered, taking a step back, "it's just that I see you two keep doing the same thing wrong, and you can't fix it."

"Can you point again?" Diem My stepped closer, her eyes so earnest that Minh Long could not bear to turn around and leave immediately like he intended to do. "Please, just this once will do. We've been doing trial and error all week."

The two friends holding the puppet pole also looked at him with equally pleading eyes. Minh Long stood there, between waiting eyes, feeling like he was standing at a crossroads where any choice would take him further away from the comfort zone he had tried to build around himself over the past eight months.

Finally, he walked closer to the edge of the lake, not completely entering the water, just standing on the shore, pointing his finger to guide. "You hold the first pole, back to the left, that's right, now keep this distance. You hold the tail pole, look at the other person's shoulder, don't look at the puppet, just look at the shoulder to know when to lift and when to lower." He paused for a second, then added, his voice suddenly low as if remembering what someone had once told him, "Don't try to control the puppet. Let it follow the rhythm of your breathing."

The two students followed, awkward at first, but after just a few tries, the dragon began to undulate much more smoothly, its head and tail now moved almost in sync, small jets of water shot out from the dragon's mouth, creating a sparkling arc in the afternoon sunlight. The whole group shouted with joy, Diem My clapped her hands endlessly, turned to look at Minh Long with eyes of deep gratitude.

"Thank you so much," she said, her voice sincere. "You just helped us solve a problem we've been struggling with all week."

Minh Long didn't respond right away, just stood there watching the wooden dragon glide across the water, a feeling of both warmth and pain rising in his chest at the same time. Warm because of the familiar feeling of teaching, just like the way his grandfather once stood by his lake and taught him many years ago. It hurt because that familiarity reminded him that the person who taught him all of this was no longer there.

"I have to go home," he said quickly, turned and walked away before Diem My could ask anything else, before he could let the emotions in his heart spill out into words he wasn't ready to say.

But this time, when walking away, Minh Long did not feel as relieved as the previous rejections. Instead, there was a new, much more complicated tension — the feeling of someone who had just opened a door that he had tried to lock tightly, and was now no longer sure whether he could close it again.

That night, Diem My texted the phone number she found through a classmate, with just a few lines: "Thank you for this afternoon. I know you said you don't want to get involved, but if you change your mind, our club always welcomes you. You don't need to reply to this message, I just want you to know that."

Minh Long read the message three times in a row, his finger hovering over the screen for a long time, typing and deleting a few unfinished replies, before finally turning off the phone screen without sending anything. But he didn't delete that message, letting it lie in his dialog box, like a business card still lying on his desk, waiting for a decision that he knew he couldn't postpone forever.

He lay down on the bed, his head resting on his hands, his eyes looking up at the familiar yellow-stained ceiling, and let his mind drift back to that afternoon, to the feeling of standing at the edge of the pond pointing at directions, to the way two students' eyes lit up when the wooden dragon finally glided smoothly as it should. He had forgotten how sweet that feeling could be — the moment a difficult technique suddenly took shape, when all the disparate explanations suddenly connected into one smooth, living movement. His grandfather often called it "the moment the puppet woke up," the moment when an inanimate piece of wood suddenly acquired its own spirit, carrying the breath of its operator.

Minh Long wondered, if he were still alive, what he would say about this afternoon. Perhaps he would laugh, his familiar gentle smile, and tell him that he had just done exactly what a good artisan should do - not keeping his craft to himself, but sharing it with those who truly wanted to learn. But he will also understand, more than anyone else, that for Minh Long right now, every time he touches the water puppet show, it means touching the fresh pain of loss, and not everyone is brave enough to do that, even just once.

He turned over, pulled the blanket up to his shoulders even though it wasn't cold yet, trying to force himself to fall asleep before those chaotic thoughts could prolong another sleepless night. But before falling asleep, he still thought, very softly, that maybe Tuan Anh was right — that avoiding forever was not the only way, and perhaps not the best way, to keep someone he loved so much in his memories.