Chapter 4 — Puppets Under the Lights

That weekend, Minh Long did not plan to leave the house, but on Sunday afternoon, his mother asked him to go to the attic to find the old electric fan that had been stored since last winter. His attic is where all sorts of unused furniture is stored, and is also where a few small cardboard boxes that his mother quietly moved from the wood workshop to here right after his grandfather passed away, items she couldn't bear to throw away but didn't have the courage to leave in the workshop along with other things.

Minh Long searched for a fan among a pile of dusty items, and accidentally touched a small carton box with one corner of the lid peeled off. He intended to push it aside to make way, but his eyes accidentally glanced through the gap and saw a familiar piece of painted wood inside.

He sat down, his hands trembling as he opened the lid of the box. Inside is a small puppet, only the size of a hand, shaped like a carp painted orange-red, the paint has peeled off in some places because of time. That was the first puppet Minh Long completed himself under the guidance of his grandfather, when he was seven years old. He still vividly remembers that afternoon, when his clumsy little carp, with its rough and uneven carvings, first glided across the water of his lake, and his grandfather clapped his hands and shouted as if it were the greatest masterpiece in the world.

"This one can be kept longer than the ones you make," he once teased, squinting his eyes and smiling. "Because I do it with all my heart, not with technique."

Minh Long sat in the dusty attic for a long time, holding a small carp puppet in his arms, tears silently falling that he didn't bother to wipe away. This was the first time since the funeral that he actually let himself cry because he missed him, without holding back, without trying to appear strong in front of anyone.

I don't know how much time passed, until his mother called out to ask if he had found the fan. Minh Long quickly wiped his face, hid the carp puppet in his coat pocket, then brought down the fan, trying to act normal as if nothing had happened.

But that night, when he was alone in his room, he took out the carp puppet and placed it on his desk, right next to Diem My's business card. Those two small things, one a memory of his grandfather, the other an invitation to return to the art he once loved the most, now lie next to each other as if waiting for him to make a decision.

On the first Monday of the week, Minh Long came to school earlier than usual, not necessarily on purpose, but his feet still automatically turned towards the schoolyard lake. The club hadn't practiced that morning, only Diem My was sitting alone on the lakeside, holding a notebook, writing something down, with a thoughtful look on her face.

Minh Long was about to turn away, but Diem My looked up and saw him first. "Hello," she said, sounding a little surprised but cheerful. "You're here so early."

"I... was just passing by," Minh Long replied, a familiar phrase he still used to defend, even though they both knew it wasn't entirely true.

Diem My smiled, did not expose that little lie, just closed the notebook and put it aside. "Do you want to sit for a moment? I'm calculating how much time it will take to prepare for the test performance at the Competition. Honestly, the more I calculate the more confused I become."

Minh Long hesitated, but eventually sat down, keeping a reasonable distance on the rock next to the lake shore. "How long until the show?"

"Five weeks," Diem My replied, her voice dropping. "Five weeks to turn nine kids who barely know anything into a group that can perform a complete performance in front of the whole school. Just hearing it sounds impossible."

The two were silent for a moment, only the sound of the wind blowing gently across the lake surface, creating ripples that reflected the morning sunlight. "I don't blame you if you still keep your decision," Diem My continued, her voice gentle but unable to hide her fatigue. "I just... sometimes I wonder if I'm trying to hold on to something that's time to let go. This club has survived largely thanks to your grandfather. Without him, we'd probably just be trying in vain."

That sentence touched something deep in Minh Long's heart. He looked down at the water, saw his dim reflection, and suddenly remembered what his grandfather once said, that the water puppetry profession does not belong to just one person, it belongs to an entire community, a cultural flow in which each person is just a small link, responsible for keeping that flow unbroken.

"My grandfather once said," Minh Long slowly spoke, his voice hoarse because he hadn't talked about him to anyone other than Tuan Anh for a long time, "this profession is not his alone, nor mine alone. He said that if one day no one had it anymore, that would be the real sadness, not the fact that he died."

Diem My turned to look at him, her eyes both surprised and touched that Minh Long voluntarily shared a memory about his grandfather, something he had always avoided. "So do you think we should continue?"

"I don't know," Minh Long replied honestly. "But I think... if you guys give up now, maybe my grandfather will be sadder than if the club disbands because they tried their best but failed."

It wasn't a promise of help, they both understood that, but it was the closest thing to sympathy that Minh Long had ever shown since the first afternoon Diem My came to his house. She didn't push further, just nodded slightly, her eyes softening. “Thank you for telling me that,” she said. "Whatever you decide, I will respect it."

The bell signaling the start of class rang from afar. Minh Long stood up, brushed the dust off his pants, and prepared to leave, but before walking away, he turned back, hesitated a bit and said, "What time will you practice tomorrow afternoon?"

Diem My was stunned, not daring to believe what she had just heard. "Four o'clock," she replied immediately, trying to keep her voice calm even though her heart was filled with an indescribable hope. "Why do you ask?"

"Nothing," Minh Long replied, turned around and walked away quickly before she could ask more, but the corner of his mouth curled up into a small smile that he didn't even notice until he had gone a long way.

That afternoon, while eating with Tuan Anh in the cafeteria, Minh Long recounted the conversation this morning, his voice somewhat hesitant. Tuan Anh finished listening, put down his chopsticks, and looked at you with searching eyes. "So you're going to watch them practice tomorrow afternoon?"

"I just asked the time," Minh Long defended, but his ears were already red.

"Yes, just asking about the time," Tuan Anh smirked, but then his voice softened and became more sincere. "I'm happy for you, Long. Not because you're about to return to puppetry, but because I see that you're starting to have something different in your eyes, like... coming back to life. For the past few months, I've been afraid that you'll forever be stuck in that cold shell."

Minh Long did not answer, just lowered his head to continue eating, but in his heart, something began to move, slowly but surely, like a stream of water quietly finding its way through a crack in the rock after being blocked for a long time.

In the afternoon, after school, Minh Long came home, quickly ate a bowl of rice, and then used the excuse of going for a walk to avoid his mother's questions about him looking unusually restless. He walked around the neighborhood, through the road leading to the dike, where he could see in the distance the rooftops of the water puppetry village, where his grandfather was born and raised before moving to the neighborhood near the school to make it easier to teach at the club many years ago. He stood there, looking at the sunset dyeing the entire sky orange, and wondered if his decision to ask about the club's practice time this morning was a step too hasty.

A part of him was still scared, afraid that if he stepped back into water puppetry, he would have to face so many memories at once that he couldn't bear it. But another part of him, the part that had been suppressed for the past eight months, was whispering something completely different — that perhaps it was avoidance that was making the pain last longer, not facing it.

He remembered what his grandfather had said when teaching him how to handle a puppet whose strings were stuck in the middle of a performance — a situation that any water puppeteer must learn to deal with. "Don't pull too hard, dear," he said, his voice calm even though they were both standing in cold water behind the curtain, trying to untangle themselves while the audience was still waiting ahead. "Tugging hard will only make the tangled strings tighter. Be calm, probe little by little, find the right place, then gently untangle it. Being impatient will only ruin the job."

Minh Long wondered, perhaps his pain was like a tangled string - the harder he tried to pull it free, the tighter it became. Maybe what he needs is not to avoid it completely, nor to force himself to turn back immediately, but to take small, slow steps, like the way his grandfather taught him to untie each knot one by one.

It was completely dark when he returned home. His mother was sitting in the living room watching TV, looked up and asked him where he was so late, and Minh Long simply replied "I went for a walk" before going up to his room. But before going to sleep, he took the small carp puppet out of his coat pocket, placed it carefully on the bookshelf, right at eye level when he woke up, a small action but for Minh Long, it had a much greater meaning than its simple appearance — as if he had just allowed a piece of memory of him to step out of the darkness, back into the light in his room, even if just a very small step.