Chapter 2 — Summer After the Rain

The next morning, Linh found herself standing in the middle of the ticket office with a broom in her hand, the morning sunlight piercing through the suspended dust into diagonal streaks of light like a cutting knife. Before she could take her first sip of water, Minh was already waiting outside the door, his hair wet as if he had just taken a quick shower, his hands holding two brooms and a bunch of wrinkled papers. He said this was a "welcoming ceremony for the new owner", even though she hadn't bought anything yet. He divided the work with that piece of paper: cleaning the seats, checking the roof, counting the posters, finding the reason why the toilet had a whistling sound. The last section made Linh re-read it twice, thinking she had read it wrong.

“I hired a cleaner,” Linh said, trying to keep her voice like a person who still had the right to make decisions in her father's house.

“The theater has no money to hire people.”

“I have money.”

“Then you hire me.”

“Are you working for free?”

“I'm doing it because of the debt.”

Minh did not explain. He held the mop and walked past her as if the story had ended, leaving a trail of water on the tile floor that he almost slipped through. Linh hated people who answered in half sentences, but she also hated that she was so curious that she stood still and watched him bend down to wipe every corner of the wall.

Ha Vang Theater was bought by her father from a family of movie projectionists, before Linh was born. The ground floor has an audience room with two hundred seats, the upper floor is the projection room and the small apartment where her family lived in the early years. The walls were hung with old movie posters: love, war, comedy, a movie that Linh couldn't remember the name of but remembered her mother singing the song in it, the melody floating somewhere in her head like a word that had forgotten its meaning. The smell of stained paper and old glue rose every time anyone touched the posters, making the entire box office like a memory album that no one had bothered to turn over for many years.

When they removed the chair covers, four neighbors suddenly came over, as if there was an invisible notification system running throughout town every time the Ha Vang theater opened. Mrs. Nam brought rice balls wrapped in a warm banana leaf, Aunt Tam brought a bucket of cold ice water, Hau - Linh's cousin - brought a loudspeaker and announced that she would be "media". Hau said that every time he recorded a video, he looked at the camera with a serious look, but right in the first sentence, he tripped over the chair leg and fell face down on the dusty canvas, making the whole group laugh before asking if he was okay.

“If this theater reopens, who will see it?” Linh asked, her voice filled with genuine skepticism and not just to be polite.

Mrs. Nam replied, still quickly folding the tarp with her hands: "Some people have seen it. Some people have never seen it. They just need a place to avoid the rain."

The answer was so simple that Linh didn't know how to respond. She looked around the auditorium, imagining the two hundred empty seats one day filled with people, the blue light of the projector sweeping over faces she had never seen, and part of her—the part she didn't want to admit—felt that the image wasn't so bad.

Minh checked the roof and discovered a leak right above the middle row of seats. The water had eroded the wood underneath into a dark circle like an old bruise. He climbed the ladder, each step creaking under his weight. Linh held the base of the ladder with both hands even though she wasn't sure what she could do to stop it if the ladder really fell. The wind made the corrugated iron roof vibrate intermittently like the sound of a drum. Minh looked down and told her not to let go.

“I won't let you go.”

“I said ladder.”

“You keep making me think I'm important.”

"You are important to the ladder. Without you, it will fall."

Linh wanted to laugh but held back, biting her lower lip to keep her unnecessary seriousness. Above, Minh used a rubber patch to patch the roof, moving so quickly and skillfully that Linh had to admit he wasn't joking when he said he knew how to fix everything. But when he got down, a drop of water fell into his mouth, his face contorted as if he had just drunk bitter medicine. Aunt Tam gave him the towel, and Hau recorded the moment with the excitement of a war reporter, then was chased by Minh around the hall, their laughter resounding between the dusty rows of seats.

At noon, Linh found in the ticket counter a book with audience names, the leather cover was warped because of moisture. The last page stops at the day before the flood, the neat lines of a careful ticket seller suddenly stop mid-sentence as if someone interrupted. Below the list were her father's words, hastily written unlike the rest: “Reserve thirteen tickets for the rescue team.” There is no note whether they arrived or not.

Minh read the notebook page and smiled less. He said Linh's father often let the rescue team into the tent to sleep when the water rose. His voice dropped a bit as if he was telling something he had never said out loud before. Linh had never heard anyone tell that story. She asked why he knew.

“Because my mother was one of those people who slept over.”

He closed the book, turned away, his shoulders paused slightly before moving on. Linh looked at his back, seeing for the first time that the yellow raincoat didn't just make him look funny. It looked like something he wore so no one would see he was wet, and maybe, she thought, it wasn't just wet from the rain.

In the afternoon, the lawyer called to ask about the decision. Linh looked at the audience room, looked at the people cleaning the chairs and Minh was arguing with Hau about the camera angle so as not to reveal the spider webs on the ceiling. She said she needed six more days.

“You only have seven days,” the lawyer reminded, his voice monotone over the phone as if reading a contract clause.

"I know. It's been a day."

After cleaning the lobby, Linh went to check the apartment above. Dust covered every surface, familiar items now looked strange under that gray coat. Her father got rid of many things, but there was still an old radio next to the window, the glass cracked diagonally. The radio couldn't pick up the channel, it just played a continuous hum like the wheezing of an old person. Minh picked it up and shook it gently. A small key fell out of the battery compartment and hit his palm, making a soft clicking sound.

“Another key?” Linh asked, unable to hide her tiredness and curiosity.

“Your father has strange hobbies.”

"He's not strange. He hides things because he doesn't trust anyone."

Minh looked at her. “Maybe he hid it because he was afraid that trustworthy people would also be dragged in.”

That sentence made Linh silent for a moment. She had never thought of it that way, that her father's silence could be a form of protection and not just cowardice.

The key opened the filing cabinet under the stairs, the rusty lock squeaked when turned. Inside were theater rental contracts, employee lists and a notebook with a plastic cover, the pages stuck together because of moisture. Many pages were torn, but the remaining pages recorded every expense after the flood: money for medicine, rice, gasoline and roof repair materials. Her father's handwriting was more shaky than usual, as if written in a hurry or from exhaustion.

Linh realized that her father used the theater's money to save people. He didn't take money, but he also didn't write it down in full. Some of the accounts had no receipts, just names and amounts, as if he had prioritized handing out money over proving his innocence. Minh said that in an emergency situation, people often save first and then think about documents.

“But without papers, others could say he stole.”

"Correct."

“You're right as if it didn't hurt.”

“I'm in pain, but pain doesn't change the number.”

They took pictures of each page with their phones, numbered them and put them back in the correct position, as carefully as if they were handling a fragile archaeological artifact. Linh discovered a line that read "13 tickets — no collection". The date coincided with the flood. Next to it is the word Xuan, circled with a blue pen, the circle is slightly askew as if it was hastily drawn in the dark.

Minh went down to the lobby to get the lunch box. Linh stayed and continued reading, the afternoon light slanting through the dusty window dyed the whole room pale orange. The last page of the notebook has a sentence: "If Linh asks, take her to a place where the sound of water cannot drown out human voices." She didn't know if it was a riddle or just the way her father wrote, but those words stuck in her head like a hook, refusing to let go.

When Linh got down, Minh had already placed the rice on the ticket counter, hot steam rising from the paper box still wet with dew. He bought a portion of rice, but her box didn't have onions, just like she said during dinner. She didn't remember when she told him, and it made her both touched and a little uneasy.

“You pay too much attention.”

"I fix machines. To fix anything, you have to remember how it works."

Linh sat down to eat, the hot grains of rice soothed her fatigue somewhat. A group of children walked by, looked through the window and asked when the theater would open. She said she didn't know. A little boy said that if he opened it, he wanted to sit in seat number 13 because that number seemed important. His eyes lit up as if he had just discovered a big secret.

Minh said seat number 13 is for ticket buyers. The child asked what if he didn't have money yet. Linh replied that she could help sweep the yard. The baby nodded immediately, ran to tell his friends the news, making her realize that the theater didn't need to advertise yet; The first people came on their own, bringing with them a whole new generation that had never known anything about the flood or her father's unjust reputation.

Late in the afternoon, Linh called her lawyer and asked to postpone the decision for another week. The lawyer asked her what she had found. She said she was checking old documents, but there weren't enough to make a conclusion. He reminded her not to let her emotions ruin her financial opportunities, sounding somewhat impatient like someone who is used to solving everything with numbers.

Linh looked at the notebook, the key and Minh was removing a chair with a broken leg, muttering something about the type of screw that needed to be replaced. She said emotions weren't the only reason she stayed. He asked for the remaining reason. She replied: "I don't know yet. So I need more time."

At night, Mrs. Nam locked the gate, the sound of iron chains hitting each other echoed for a while before falling silent. Linh sat in the ticket office, the single table lamp shining a pale yellow circle around her, stamping a white ticket for the first time. She wrote the number 13, put it in the box and didn't know who to give it to. Outside, the river still flowed like every night, bringing with it a steady gurgling sound that made Linh suddenly realize that she missed it more than she thought.