Chapter 6 — Summer After the Rain

Mr. Phuc brought along a contract, a pen, and a smile that seemed to have been used so many times that both sides of his mouth were worn out. He said the South Bank Company wants to build a riverside resort, and the Ha Vang theater will be replaced by a square. Linh will receive the money within the week, he emphasized every word as if advertising a limited promotional item.

“Does the square show movies?” Minh asked, standing with his arms crossed leaning against the pillar.

“There could be outdoor displays.”

“Are there any chairs?”

"Of course."

“Does the chair have a backrest?”

Mr. Phuc looked at him like he was looking at a typo that wasn't worth fixing. Linh told Minh to stop asking, even though in her heart she also wanted to know the answer. He bent down and wrote in his notebook with exaggerated seriousness: "There are no chairs in the square yet."

Linh read the contract, each tiny line of text made her eyes tired. The terms required her to hand over all ownership within seven days, including the inventory of props and old documents. She asked why the whole movie had to be delivered. Mr. Phuc said it was an asset attached to real estate. His voice was calm as if he were talking about an old table.

“I haven't signed yet,” Linh said.

"You have seven days. If it's overdue, the co-heir can ask the court to divide it."

Linh doesn't know who else is. Her father did not mention it in the will, only stating that the property was left to "daughter", two words so brief that they left no room for any other disputes. Mr. Phuc smiled and told her to think realistically. Minh interjected that the theater is a building, but memories are not brick walls. Mr. Phuc said memories had no legal value, then closed the briefcase as if the conversation was over.

After he left, the smell of his expensive perfume still lingered in the box office air for a long time, overwhelming the familiar smell of dust. Minh convened a "management board" consisting of Linh, Mrs. Nam, Aunt Tam, Hau and the cat at the box office. Cat was appointed head of the department because he always appeared on time, lying on the counter like a lazy judge. They met around the dining table, the task paper spread out between cups of cold tea, making a to-do list: find Ms. Xuan, fix the machine, hold a test screening, ask the residents and check the dike records.

“Who pays?” Linh asked.

Everyone looked at her, so silent that the sound of the ceiling fan became clearer. She realized she had just been pushed into the role of theater owner without ever officially agreeing. Ms. Nam said that people with money usually pay first, people with ideas pay with work, and people with cats pay by cleaning up poop. The cat, as if understanding what was being said, yawned and closed its eyes to sleep again.

Minh pushed her an old hat labeled "manager", the fabric was faded and had a few stains. Linh tried it on, but the brim of the hat covered her eyes, causing her to have to tilt her head back to see the road. Hau took a photo at that moment and posted it on the street group with the line "the boss is back". Within ten minutes, three people asked about ticket prices and one person asked if they sold popcorn. Linh's phone vibrated so continuously that she had to put it on silent mode.

Linh wanted to get angry, but then opened her notebook, her fingers skimming over each scribbled line of the group. She found the plan funny, but also saw everyone waiting for her to decide, their eyes looking towards her with a trust she didn't yet deserve. She said she would stay another five days to check the records.

Minh fixed the projector, the clicking sound of screwdrivers echoed from the projection room all afternoon. Mrs. Nam called an acquaintance, her voice was so loud through the phone that Hau had to cover her ears. Aunt Tam took care of the food, and the fragrant smell of fried onions spread throughout the hall. Hau received a promotional assignment and was forbidden to use the word "drama", a ban that he violated in the first sentence of the promotional video, causing Mrs. Nam to snatch the camera out of his hand.

The "management board" meeting lasted longer than expected because everyone had their own opinions. Aunt Tam suggested selling more tea to have money to buy new light bulbs, Mrs. Nam wanted to set up a small fund to only use for roof repairs, and Hau persistently defended the idea of creating a separate website for the theater even though he had never made a website in his life. Linh sat in the middle of those arguments, feeling like she was chairing a shareholders' meeting where no one in the room really had a stake, except for the cat licking its paws on the ticket counter with a completely unconcerned expression. She found herself starting to seriously take notes, even though at first she only intended to sit and listen for formality.

While everyone was still arguing about who would keep the spare key, Minh pulled out a small blackboard from under the counter, perhaps once used to write ticket prices, and began drawing a roster chart with white chalk. He drew a circle in the middle with the word "theater" written on it, then from there drew straight lines leading to each person's name, with a small symbol representing the job: a broom for Hau, a patch for Aunt Tam, a phone for Mrs. Nam. When it came to his name, he drew a screwdriver so scrawled it looked like a worm. The group laughed, and Linh felt the initially tense atmosphere gradually ease into something close to joy.

At the end of the afternoon, when the afternoon sunlight turned orange on the tile floor, Linh discovered that her mother's name was embroidered on the back of her hat: "Huong". She looked at Minh, her hands shaking slightly as she touched the frayed seams. He said it might just be the name of the person who made the hat. But in this town, everything seems so coincidental at the right time that Linh begins to doubt whether anything in An Binh is truly coincidental.

Linh took off her hat and placed it next to the expense book on the table. The name embroidered with red thread is worn out, but each stitch is still the same, as if the embroiderer did not want anyone to mistake it for someone else's name. She turned it inside out, her fingers tracing each seam. A small piece of paper stuck in the seam, bearing the date of the last show before the flood, the ink blurred by time. Mrs. Nam saw it, sighed, put the tea cup on the table.

“Your mother sewed that hat for your father,” she said, her voice slow as if she were replaying an old movie in her head. "Back then, he kept forgetting to wear a hat when standing outside. My mother said that as a theater manager, if he got sunburned, the audience would laugh."

“Do you remember the last show?”

"Remember? The movie lost sound in the middle of the movie. My dad ran up to the projection room and my mom came down to give out replacement tickets. It was raining outside, but no one thought the water would rise so quickly."

Linh wrote down each sentence in her notebook, her hand writing slowly so as not to miss any details. She asked who was sitting in seat number 13. Mrs. Nam frowned, tried to remember, and said that it was a row of seats near the emergency exit, usually reserved for people who arrived late because the screen was covered by a pole. Aunt Tam came out of the kitchen, still holding a patch still stained with fish sauce, listening with a curious look on her face.

“There was a girl in seat 13 that day,” she said. "She didn't watch movies. She kept looking at her phone and then at the door. When the power went out, she ran into the projection room to find Mr. Khai."

“Who is she?”

"Lan. She works at the South Bank project office."

Minh immediately looked up, his hand holding the screwdriver stopped halfway. The South Bank project is a new housing area that is forcing the town to sell land. Phuc is the project representative. Linh looked at the planning map hanging on the box office wall, the red lines delineating the land, and suddenly understood that Ha Vang theater was located in the right location they needed to open the way to the embankment. A cold feeling ran down her spine.

Aunt Tam added that after the name Lan, there was another detail she had never told anyone because she was afraid she would remember it wrong. She said the girl, before running into the projection room, stood for a long second at the door, as if considering whether to return or not. Her eyes at that time, according to Aunt Tam, were not like those of someone afraid of rising water, but like someone afraid of being seen in a place they shouldn't be. Linh wrote down every word, careful not to add or subtract, even though in her mind she had begun to form dozens of different theories about the true role of the woman named Lan that night.

That night, she didn't sleep. The table lamp burned late into the night, burning away both her fatigue and her fear. She divided the papers into three piles: family stories, flood stories, and theater sales stories. Minh sat opposite, using a pencil to draw a straight line connecting the three piles, his hand moving slowly as if considering each stroke. Hau looked over and said it was an investigation chart or an ordering menu, causing both of them to laugh amid the tense atmosphere.

“If we find Lan, she can tell me why my mother left,” Linh said.

“Maybe she just wants to forget,” Minh replied. “But people who want to forget often keep something.”

Linh placed ticket number 13 on the table, next to the hat with her mother's name on it. She decided to go to the project's old office tomorrow morning. If no one answered the door, she would ask every single person who worked there. The original five days had passed, but she no longer wanted to leave An Binh as scheduled. She wanted to know why everyone stayed behind when the water rose, and why her mother in particular chose to disappear, leaving a void that even eighteen years could not fill.

Before going to sleep, Linh took a photo of the hat and wrote down the date she found it in a document book. She put it in the box, but left her mother's name visible on the table through the photo, as a reminder that some clues should not be kept too deep, lest she herself forget what she was looking for. Minh said tomorrow morning they would start from the ferry wharf, where Lan used to work temporarily. Linh nodded, seeing for the first time that a new day had a concrete shape, instead of just an empty period of time waiting for her to fill with fear.