Chapter 21 — Shrimp Street Without Name

It took Kien nearly a week of searching through many acquaintances to find the whereabouts of Ut Phuong, the former accountant of Kenh Ba cooperative. She no longer lives in Nam Can, but moved to a small town nearly two hours away, living quietly in a small rented house, selling lottery tickets to make ends meet. The person who informed Kien, a retired commune official, said that after the case, Ms. Ut Phuong was known as an accomplice even though she was not prosecuted, her old neighbors shunned her, and in the end she had to leave her hometown almost quietly.

Hai Yen decided to go meet her by herself, not asking Kien to go with her this time, because she felt that this was a meeting that needed privacy, there shouldn't be too many people, making Mrs. Ut Phuong more wary. She found the small boarding house at the address given to her, a row of affordable rooms located next to the town bus station, where car horns and sales calls rang out non-stop all day.

The woman who opened the door was over sixty, skinny, and her skin was tanned from many years of traveling on the streets selling lottery tickets. When Hai Yen introduced herself as Mr. Do Van Tien's daughter, Ms. Ut Phuong's eyes widened, her hand holding the stack of lottery tickets trembled, almost dropping the stack of papers to the ground.

“Oh my God,” she said, her voice choking. "Are you Yen? Uncle Tien's youngest daughter, Miss Nga?"

“Yes, it's me.” Hai Yen nodded, feeling a strange emotion rising inside her at the reaction of a strange woman who knew her entire family's name.

Mrs. Ut Phuong quickly invited her into the house, her hands were still shaking as she poured water for the guests. “I've been waiting for this day for a long time,” she said, her voice filled with emotion. "She kept thinking, maybe one day, someone in Uncle Tien's family would come back to find her and ask about the past. She waited and waited and waited, thinking there was no more hope."

Hai Yen sat down and observed the simple room, with only an old calendar and a few faded family photos hanging on the wall. “Miss Phuong, I want to ask you about the last days of the cooperative, about what you know but may never have had the chance to say.”

Mrs. Ut Phuong nodded, her eyes filled with tears but her voice became unusually steady, as if this was a moment she had mentally prepared for a long time. "Before telling you, I have to ask you a question. In the past few weeks, have you received strange messages? From a number you don't know who it is?"

Hai Yen's heart beat faster. "Yes. Is it you? You're the one who texted me?"

Mrs. Ut Phuong nodded, her thin shoulders shaking. "It's me. I happened to see you at the port the day you first returned, and immediately recognized you because you looked exactly like Uncle Tien, especially the way you frowned when thinking. She had an old phone number from when she was still keeping books for the cooperative, including the number of an acquaintance who used to work at the commune post office. She asked that person to find out your current phone number through a few circuitous acquaintances. I wanted to let you know, but I was afraid, I was very afraid, so I only dared to text a few short words."

“Why are you afraid?” Hai Yen asked, although in her heart she had vaguely guessed the answer.

“Because I know more than I dared to say ten years ago,” Mrs. Ut Phuong replied, her voice lowered, her eyes looking far away as if returning to a haunted time. “Back then, after the cooperative collapsed, people investigated her very harshly, because she was an accountant, people suspected her of helping hide books. She was afraid, she remained silent, just hoping to get through that stage, keep her life, keep peace for her small family. But she never threw away what she knew. She kept it, hidden it well, waiting for someone worthy to give it back to her.

Hai Yen remained silent, allowing Ms. Ut Phuong time to arrange her story, not wanting to rush in a moment that clearly contained so many pent-up emotions.

“I keep a notebook,” Mrs. Ut Phuong continued, her voice becoming steadier. “It was not the cooperative's official book, but a separate book that she wrote herself, because at that time she saw strange expenses, without a clear recipient name, and that did not match any items in the official spending plan. You're an accountant, you can't let mismatched numbers go by without recording them, even if just to keep track of them yourself.”

“Do you still have that notebook?” Hai Yen asked, trying to keep her voice calm even though she was almost holding her breath waiting for the answer.

Mrs. Ut Phuong stood up, went into the small bedroom, and returned a moment later with an old tin box, rusted in a few places. She opened the box, inside was a worn cloth-covered notebook, carefully covered with a layer of plastic, clearly kept with special respect for many years.

"I bring it with me every time I move house, hide it carefully, don't let anyone see it, even my husband and children don't know I still have this," she said, placing the notebook in Hai Yen's hands with both hands, as if handing over a heavy responsibility that she had carried alone for too long. “Now I give it back to you. You're the only one I think is worthy of continuing this.”

Hai Yen held the notebook, feeling its weight lay not only in material things, but in all the fear and silent perseverance that a strange woman had carried for ten years just because she believed that, one day, the truth needed to be given to the right person.

“Thank you,” Hai Yen said, her voice choked. “I promise to use it properly and not let your efforts to preserve it go in vain.”

“I believe you,” Mrs. Ut Phuong replied, smiling for the first time since the conversation began, a relieved smile of someone who has just let go of a heavy burden for a decade. “I just hope you're careful. The buyer over there is not the average person, my child. I heard rumors that they have relationships all the way to the province, even further.”

Before leaving, Hai Yen asked for Ms. Ut Phuong's new phone number, told her to keep in touch and promised to come back to visit when she had more specific results from what she found in the notebook. On the way back to Nam Can, she drove with the notebook carefully placed in a sealed bag next to the driver's seat, her heart filled with an indescribable feeling of both heaviness and relief - as if she had just taken on a greater responsibility, but at the same time had taken another step forward on the path to finding the truth that she had been pursuing for more than a month.

Stopping at a roadside rest stop to refuel, she couldn't help but immediately call Kien and recount the entire encounter, her voice still shaking with emotion. “She kept that notebook for ten years, Kien. Ten years of living in fear, being unjustly accused, having to leave my homeland, but still not having the heart to throw it away, just because I believe that one day someone will need it."

“Hearing it makes me feel choked up,” Kien replied, his voice also lowered. “There are so many people like you Ut Phuong, are you? Secretly keeping a small piece of truth, living your whole life in fear without daring to say it, just because you believe that one day it will be useful. The deeper you go, the more I see that this case is not just the story of your family and my family, but the story of an entire generation that has been forced to stay silent.”

“I need time to read this notebook carefully,” Hai Yen said, her eyes glanced at the sealed bag placed next to the passenger seat. “Tonight I will sit and compare it with my father's books to see if anything matches. If we find a clear connection between the strange expenses in Ms. Phuong's book and the symbols in my father's book, we will have a much more complete financial picture than we have now."

“Be careful when carrying that notebook with you,” Kien reminded, his voice serious. “After everything that has happened, I don't want it to be lost or fall into the wrong hands before you can copy it down in full.”

"I get it. The first thing when I get back to my room will be to take a photo of every page and save it on my hard drive, just like I did with my dad's notebook," Hai Yen replied, then looked at the clock, estimating the remaining time of the trip. "I will arrive before dark. Thank you for always being there every time I need to share.”

“That's what I want to do,” Kien replied, his voice gentle but sincere. “Please drive carefully.”

Hai Yen hung up the phone, stood against the side of the car for a moment, looking at the flow of traffic on the highway under the gradually yellowing afternoon sunlight. She thought about the journey ahead, about the notebook lying silently in a sealed bag next to the passenger seat, carrying a past that many people tried to bury or forget. She took a deep breath, got in the car, and continued her journey back, ready for a long, sleepless night ahead.