Chapter 5 — Shrimp Street Without Name

The coffee shop Kien chose is hidden in a small alley about a five-minute walk from the port gate. It is a toad-style shop with a corrugated iron roof, plastic tables and chairs placed under an almond tree canopy, and the customers are mainly loading and unloading workers taking advantage of their breaks. It's not the place people choose to meet their partner, but the place they choose when they don't want anyone to notice who they're meeting.

Hai Yen came first, chose a table in the corner, turned her back to the wall. Kien arrived a few minutes later, still wearing his moss green customs uniform, carrying a faded cloth bag. He sat down, ordered two cups of iced coffee, then remained silent for a while as if considering where to start.

“Thank you for coming,” he said finally. “I know it sounds a bit strange, a customs officer suddenly made an appointment to meet with an inspector outside of work hours.”

"It's okay. I also need to learn more about this area." Hai Yen replied, keeping her tone neutral. "You said yesterday you heard me ask about the old farming area code, what did you remember?"

Kien pulled out a small notebook with a worn plastic cover from his cloth bag and opened it to a page already marked with a folded corner. "I've been doing this job for seven years, and I'm used to recording containers with unusual signs, even though they don't always fall under my jurisdiction. When I first started, there was a random inspection of containers by the predecessor company Dai Duong, at that time the company had a different name. I remember in the documents the KB code was mentioned, exactly the same as what you mentioned yesterday."

“Do you remember that exactly?” Hai Yen asked, trying to hide the attention rising in her heart.

“Because something happened that time that I will always remember.” Kien's voice lowered. "My younger brother, Khai, worked as a crew member on a fishing boat belonging to that company's fleet. He died at sea, seven years ago, right around the time I saw several containers with code KB passing through the port continuously for several weeks."

Hai Yen put down her coffee cup and silently waited for him to continue. She immediately realized that this was no longer a story about commodity documents anymore.

"The official record states that he died from an industrial accident, slipping and falling into the engine compartment while hauling nets at night. The record is less than half a page long. No one investigated further, because the ship was far out at sea, there was no camera, only the testimony of the captain and a few other crew members." Kien rotated the coffee cup in his hand, not drinking it. "At that time, I was new to the profession, had no voice, and my family was poor and could not afford to sue for a re-investigation. We only received a small compensation."

“You think your brother's death is related to the KB code?” Hai Yen asked directly.

"I don't dare to confirm. It's just a hunch, and a detail I've always wondered about: a few weeks before Khai died, he called my mother, saying the ship was switching to carry another type of cargo besides shrimp. He didn't specify what, just said the work was heavier, the hours were more irregular, and he wanted to ask for a day off, but the captain wouldn't let him because he was short of people in the middle of the trip." Kien looked straight into Hai Yen's eyes. “After he passed away, I asked a few people who were on the same boat, but everyone avoided it, as if afraid of something.”

Kien took a sip of coffee, looking out at the alley where a few children were playing soccer with a distorted plastic ball. "Later, I met one or two people who were on the same boat with Khai and asked politely about that strange shipment. Some people told me to forget the past and live to take care of my family. Some people changed their numbers. phone, I can't call anymore. I began to suspect that not everyone accidentally forgot, but some people actively wanted to forget, or were reminded by someone to forget.

“Did you report that suspicion to your superiors?” Hai Yen asked.

“Yes, once, just three years ago when I became deputy director of the chemical inspection department. I wrote a proposal to reopen the file, based on a few irregularities I recorded over the years.” Kien smiled faintly, his smile without any joy. “As a result, it was returned with insufficient grounds, advising me to focus on my professional work and not let family matters affect my professional judgment. I understood what they wanted to say, but from then on I kept quiet, just quietly taking notes in private, waiting for the day when there would be enough evidence that no one could dismiss it anymore."

Hai Yen was silent for a moment, rearranging what she had just heard in her mind. Kien's story, although there is no specific evidence, strangely matches the feeling of insecurity she has had since seeing the brown leather-covered notebook on Mr. Bao's desk, since seeing the KB-07 code denied with an inconsistent explanation.

“I have to tell you the truth,” she said, her voice slow, weighing each word. “KB code is not just random old code. It stands for Kenh Ba, a shrimp farming cooperative that once existed in this exact area, which collapsed ten years ago after a case involving a shipment of chemicals contaminated with chemicals.”

“You know that well, it's probably not just because of audit work,” Kien commented, his eyes searching but not offensive.

Hai Yen considered for a few seconds. She kept this secret from everyone in this land, including the organization she worked for. But sitting in front of someone who had just lost a loved one because of something that could be related to the same line, she felt that the silence right now was more like a form of betrayal than caution.

“The head of that cooperative is my father,” she said, her voice quiet but clear. “He was convicted and died in prison three years later because his illness was not treated promptly. I came here, under this name, partly because of work, partly because I want to know what really happened."

Kien looked at her for a long time, didn't say anything, just nodded slowly as if he was putting all the puzzle pieces in his head in a new order. “Then we have the same reason to find the truth, even though our starting points are different,” he said finally. “But I have to say first, I work in customs, everything I do must be within the scope of my authority. I cannot arbitrarily open a file, I cannot arbitrarily investigate without a warrant.”

"I get it. I, too, must maintain the correct audit process and cannot let personal emotions affect professional conclusions." Hai Yen replied. “But we can share information, within limits. He knows the port, knows the ship's log, knows what passes through here. I know how to read certification documents and how to detect data discrepancies.”

Kien nodded, reaching out to shake her hand, a more formal gesture than necessary for a conversation at a coffee shop, but they both understood that it was more than just a social handshake.

“I will try to find the ship log of the ship Khai worked on to see if it is still saved in the system,” he said. “It may take time, because the old records have now been moved to another archive.”

“I will continue to audit as usual, without revealing anything "I'm learning more outside the scope of work," Hai Yen said. "But there's one thing you can help me with right away: today at the open audit meeting, I saw on Mr. Bao's desk a notebook with a brown leather cover, embossed with a small wave image, exactly like the type of notebook that Kenh Ba cooperative once distributed to farming area leaders. Do you know any way I can get closer to that notebook, without making him suspicious?”

Kien thought for a moment, lightly tapping his finger on the plastic table top. "Mr. Bao has a habit of visiting the port area on Tuesday and Friday mornings to check the progress of loading and unloading export goods. He often carries that notebook with him, keeping it in a separate briefcase, not giving it to his assistant. If you want to observe more closely, you can schedule additional samples to be taken at those exact times.”

"Thank you." Hai Yen recorded the information in her notebook. “I will consider it.”

They sat for a while, exchanging a few more details about each other's work processes, trying to find points of intersection that could be exploited without violating both of their professional principles. When Hai Yen stood up to leave, Kien called out a sentence that made her stop in the narrow aisle between two rows of tables.

“Miss Yen. If you plan to bring up the old story, you should be careful not only with that company, but also with your relatives. Here, ten years is not long enough for people to forget everything, but long enough for many people to learn to live with silence. Not everyone wants you to stir it up again.”

Hai Yen nodded, not responding out loud, because she knew exactly who he was talking about. Stepping out of the small alley, the afternoon sunlight was already turning yellow on the old corrugated iron roofs. She pulled out her phone to check the anonymous message from yesterday, the words "Welcome back, Ms. Yen. Long time no see" was still there, there was no response from that number when she tried texting back a simple question: "Who is this?"

Nothing. There was only silence, exactly like the silence that Mrs. Sau had kept all morning at the market, the same silence that perhaps, according to Kien, had covered this entire land for the past ten years.