Chapter 4 — Summer After the Rain

Linh decided to cook because everyone had been cleaning the theater all day, and because she didn't want another night of just eating boxed lunches in silence. She opened the kitchen cabinets and found three smoky pots, a bottle of fish sauce that expired three years ago and a note her father wrote in italics: "Don't believe people who say cooking is easy." The ink has faded but is still readable, like a warning her father left specifically for those who dare to enter this kitchen with excess confidence.

Minh read the paper and said Linh's father might be reminding her. Linh told him to remind himself, because Mrs. Nam once told her father made soup so salty that the cat next door stopped eating for three days. The two argued for five minutes about washing rice, in which Minh said that rice must be "persuaded by water", and Linh said that rice has no emotions, it just needs to be in the right proportion. The argument ended with the two pouring the wrong amount of water, causing the pot of rice to boil over and sizzle on the old gas stove.

The meal includes sour soup, fried eggs and boiled vegetables. The sour soup was so salty that Hau had to drink two glasses of water at once. The eggs were burned on one side and raw on the other, and the boiled vegetables were just cooked in the sense that they were still hard as if they hadn't been through boiling water. Hau ate two bowls and declared that this was the taste of memory. Mrs. Nam said his memory must have been starved, then she still scooped up another bowl of soup, grimacing as she ate.

During the meal, Linh asked everyone about her father, her voice trying to keep a natural tone as if she was just asking for fun. The stories were so different that she thought they were talking about multiple people: the man who let children watch movies for free, the man who frowned over electricity bills, the man who quarreled with the town chief, and the man who was rumored to have taken aid money. Each story is a puzzle piece, and Linh feels like she is trying to rebuild a face from fragments of different sizes.

Aunt Tam said Linh's father once sold his truck to buy medicine for people in the neighborhood, but after that he didn't tell anyone and just quietly walked to the market every morning instead of driving like before. Minh said he often lends the projection room to the rescue team to rest between night patrols. Mrs. Nam said he was very afraid of rats, even though he once slept in a warehouse during a flood with rats running on the roof. The sound of claws scratching on the corrugated iron made him not dare close his eyes all night.

“He's afraid of mice but still sleeps there?” Linh asked, resting her chin and looking at Mrs. Nam.

“Because people are afraid of rats, but more afraid of people getting wet.”

That simple answer made Linh silent for a moment, her chopsticks stopped midway on the bowl's rim.

After the meal, Linh washes the dishes, soaking her hands in warm soapy water. Minh stood next to wipe, but after wiping, he put the bowl in the wrong cabinet, mixing the bowl with the small plate into a messy pile. She corrected it three times, each time sighing loudly for him to hear. The fourth time he placed a bowl on top of the cupboard, right in front of her, as a deliberate act of provocation.

“This is installation art.”

“This is why I don't hire you to cook.”

“You never hired me.”

“I'm considering it.”

Everyone's laughter warmed the kitchen, the sound of bowls and chopsticks colliding with the whirring sound of the ceiling fan created a family sound that Linh had forgotten the feeling of. Linh then went to her father's room, looking for papers in the light of the only desk lamp. In the drawer, she saw an old receipt for thirteen tickets for the rescue team, the day before the flood, the paper was yellowed and curled at the edges. There was the signature of a woman named Xuan, written in the neat, rounded hand of a teacher accustomed to writing on a blackboard.

Minh looked over and explained that Xuan had been a literature teacher who handled filming at the theater during special screenings. Linh later learned that Xuan was her full name; people in town had affectionately called her “Teacher Xuan.” She had moved away after the flood. Linh asked where he could find her. Minh said he didn't know, but Mrs. Nam knew almost every address in the world, except her own address.

Mrs. Nam brought out a phone book with a worn leather cover, the pages were filled with phone numbers written in many different inks over the years. Ms. Xuan's number has changed, but her address is in a district across the river. Linh wrote it down in her notebook, her hands shaking slightly because of both excitement and anxiety. She planned to leave the next morning, but the lawyer called to remind her that the second day was over, his voice as steady as a tireless countdown clock.

“I won't sell before I know what the film says,” Linh said, her voice harder than she expected.

After hanging up, she looked through the window. Minh was rebuilding the sign "Ha Vang Cinema" but had hung the word "Vang" upside down, making the whole sign look as if it were tilting its head to greet customers. Linh ran down, ready to scold him, but he said he had hung it that way so guests would have to tilt their heads, creating an artistic experience. She stood and watched him fix it right away, his hands balancing on the tall, limp stool.

That night, she laughed for so long that her stomach hurt a little. Then she opened the drawer and looked at Xuan's signature under the table lamp. A stranger can be a bridge to the truth. Linh told herself to just find her, watch the film and sell it to theaters. She didn't know that every plan in An Binh had a habit of turning into something else, longer and deeper than what she intended.

On the morning of the fourth day, Linh called Ms. Xuan at the number Mrs. Nam found. Her hand clenched the phone so tightly that her knuckles turned white. On the other end of the line, there were children's voices and the sound of a bicycle bell ringing loudly. When the woman heard her say her name, she was silent for a long time, so long that Linh thought the call had been disconnected.

“Are you Khai's daughter?”

Linh was startled. Her father's name was Khai, but for a long time no one had called him by such a close, intimate name in front of her — as if this woman had known him in a completely different way from the way the whole town still spoke of him later.

"Yes. I want to ask about Ha Vang theater."

“I don't want to mention it.”

“I understand. But there is a roll of film and a letter from my father.”

The sigh on the other end of the line was like the sound of rain stuck in a corrugated iron roof, long and heavy. Ms. Xuan agreed to meet at a coffee shop near the bus station, not going to the theater. Linh and Minh went first, carrying copies of documents, not the originals, carefully stored in an old leather bag with a double-layer zipper.

Ms. Xuan arrived with half-white hair, wearing a light blue shirt and holding a faded canvas bag. She looked at Minh first, then at Linh, her eyes lingering for a while on her face as if comparing with an old image in her memory. She said Minh has grown taller but still looks like he dropped his flashlight.

“Do you remember?” Minh asked, his voice softer than usual.

“Remember those who cried before knowing they were saved.”

Linh placed the photo and a copy of the envelope on the table, her hand resting lightly as if afraid of disturbing something fragile. She did not ask "who was right" but asked what Ms. Xuan saw. She answered each part, her voice monotonous as if she was rereading a memorized passage because she had repeated it too many times in her head: Linh's mother filmed, Linh's father coordinated the residents, Phuc came with orders to close the gate but did not do it, Mr. Hai called to ask to open gate number three to protect the factory.

“Did you hear what Mr. Hai himself said?”

"Heard it on Phuc's phone. I was standing in the hallway."

“So why don't you testify?”

Ms. Xuan looked out the door, her eyes distant as if looking at a rainy day eighteen years ago. "Because then I received a letter saying my sister was working at the factory. People threatened to lose her job and her house. I was scared."

Minh asked where the recording was. Ms. Xuan said she had a scroll, but she gave it to Linh's father. The rest is a list of storm shelters and an operating order. It was all taken after Phuc arrived at the theater, leaving no trace other than a blank space on the filing cabinet shelf.

Linh asked her if she had ever apologized to her mother. Ms. Xuan said she wrote a letter, but did not send it. She held out a stack of unstamped letters, each written in a different year, the handwriting changing over time like a hidden diary. Some leaves told about the flood, some just asked Linh if she had finished studying, as if she had been watching from afar for many years without daring to step closer.

“You wrote to me but didn't send it?”

“I'm afraid you'll think I just want to feel relieved.”

Linh understands that feeling. Many people say sorry because they want to be forgiven before the listener has a chance to breathe. She told Ms. Xuan that if you have something to say, say it in the file, without using Linh as a place to store it — Linh doesn't want to become an emotional trash can for those who have been silent.

Ms. Xuan nodded, her eyes were red but she did not cry. She agreed to hand over the recording and be a witness, but requested that her sister's information be kept confidential. Linh's lawyer will prepare a record next week.

In the shop, Minh mistakenly ordered milk coffee as salt coffee. He took a sip and grimaced so much that the whole table had to look. Ms. Xuan laughed, saying at least one person had not changed after eighteen years. Her laughter was much more relieved than at the beginning of the meeting.

On the way back, the wind from the river blew Linh's shirt fluttering. She asked why Minh hadn't told about Ms. Xuan. He said he only knew she had moved away, but didn't know she still kept the letters. Linh said everyone in An Binh seems to keep one piece, then wait for someone else to put it together, like a puzzle where no one has a complete picture.

“Maybe because everyone is afraid of making a mistake.”

Linh looked at the file box in her hand. “So what to do?”

“Put the pieces next to each other, clearly stating which pieces are not solid.”

Arriving at the theater, Linh set up a large timetable on the box office wall, using tape to mark each milestone. She marks facts, accounts, and hypotheses with three different pen colors — black for confirmed fact, blue for unverified account, red for conjecture. Minh hung a handwritten sign: "Do not write conclusions with a red pen without drinking water."

Linh took down the sign, glared at him, but then hung it in the corner of the room, next to the timetable. A little humor doesn't lighten the truth; it only helps the living have the strength to sit next to the truth longer, long enough not to be engulfed by it.