Chapter 9 — Summer After the Rain

The lawyer sent a copy of the ownership records via email, along with a short call reminding Linh to read carefully before responding. Linh's father left the theater to her, but there was an outstanding bank debt, a number that appeared on the screen made her have to read it three times. Bo Nam Company offered to pay the debt on her behalf if she signed within seven days. Linh read each line under the desk lamp, seeing her name misspelled in two places, as if she were just a number in a long list of people who had been pressured. She told Minh, he said at least they spelled the name of the theater correctly, a joke so light that Linh had to laugh even though she was upset.

Hau received the task of finding the old operating license. He went to the town archive room early in the morning, returning at noon with three dusty cardboard boxes and a cold dumpling in his hand. In the box were yellowed ticket receipts, land lease contracts and drainage drawings rolled up and tied with brittle rubber bands. A 2005 record shows that the theater is listed as a community project with cultural value, and the red seal is still quite clear even though the paper has discolored.

“If it has cultural value, can it be sold?” Linh asked, turning each page carefully.

“Sold,” Hau said, still holding a piece of dumpling in his mouth. “But we must consult the community.”

Minh held the piece of paper, his eyes suddenly stopped, discovering that Linh's father's signature was overlaid on another person's signature, faint but still able to distinguish the difference in ink. The other person was Phuc, then on the dyke project committee. Linh realized that Mr. Phuc was not just the current buyer; He was present in old records, like a silent ghost following the theater's twenty years of history.

She called a lawyer to ask about the archived documents. The lawyer said that if there was a dispute over origin or planning, the sale would be prolonged, his voice was monotone over the phone like an interest rate calculator. Linh asked if he could pause. He said the decision was hers, but the debt still charged interest every day, a cold reminder.

Minh proposed opening ticket sales for a test screening to earn money to repair the theater. Linh said the projector is not running stably. Minh said that's why it's even more important to sell tickets, people pay for hope, not for perfection.

The group chose an old comedy film, the best reel in the archives. Hau printed tickets using an old office printer that often had paper jams. Each ticket had a different number but the same buyer's name because he copied the wrong data line. Mrs. Nam said that everyone was the main character, then laughed when she saw her name appear on thirty tickets.

News about the screening spread around the street as quickly as the wind, each person telling the other on the fence, in the market, in front of the school gate. Phuc called and asked Linh if she had a license. She said she would ask. He reminded her that if the theater caused danger, he would hold her responsible, his voice cold and calculating. Linh replied that if you worry about safety, please contribute money to repair the roof. He hung up the phone without a response.

Minh looked at her and let out a short whistle. “You're starting to look like your father.”

“Is that a compliment?”

"Depends on time. Her father once threw a slipper at a planning meeting."

Linh couldn't help but laugh, imagining how her father - the stern man in her memories - could do something so impulsive.

That night, Linh found an unstamped envelope in a metal box, the paper had become discolored with time. On the outside is written "Huong, if I don't have time to say it". She didn't open it right away, her hand kept twirling the envelope in the light of the table lamp. Minh told her she had the right not to read, but she also had the right to know.

In the letter, her father wrote: "I did not lose any money. I admit my fault because if they investigate, the first person to be taken away will be Linh." The last line was torn off, leaving a rough, torn edge. Linh squeezed the letter, tears falling onto the paper, blurring some of the already blurred words.

Minh did not hug her. He just sat next to her, placing the box of towels on the table, just enough distance for her to know she wasn't alone without feeling violated. Linh asked him if he thought her father did the right thing. Minh said protecting a child by letting him grow up in a lie is a very painful way of protecting, painful for both the liar and the lied to.

Day five is almost over. The preview screening is only two days away. Linh signed the permission form, her hand shaking slightly as she put the pen down to the last line. She hasn't signed the theater sales contract yet, that piece of paper still lies in the drawer like an unanswered challenge.

The next morning, she and Minh went to the committee's archives on an old motorbike, the morning wind was still chilly. The room smelled of damp paper, and a dehumidifier sounded like an old dog panting in the corner. The clerical officer initially said that the flood records had been transferred to the district. His tone seemed to want to end the conversation as quickly as possible. Linh gave her a copy of the document signed by her father, telling her that she only needed to see public documents. Minh stood next to him, didn't say anything, but put on the table a box of cakes that Aunt Tam sent, the paper wrapping still smelled of butter. The officer looked at the cake box, looked at Linh's serious expression, then sighed and led them inside.

They found three sets of documents in three different cabinets, covered in dust as if no one had ever opened them. The first set records the dike gate opening at 2:10 a.m. The second set records 2:40 a.m. The third set has no time, only a line "due to an objective incident", hastily written in faded pencil. Linh compared the photo of the clock in the film: the minute hand was near 25. She realized that her father had filmed right before the water flooded the main road, and those three different numbers could not all be correct.

A receipt sandwiched between two pages records the name of the recipient of the backup valve lock: Phuc. There was no middle name, but the signature was identical to the signature on the theater purchase contract, with the same familiar pen strokes that Minh had memorized from other documents.

“If this is evidence, we can't keep the original,” Minh said, his voice unusually serious.

Linh took a photo of each page with her phone, wrote down the file number in her notebook and asked the officer to stamp the copy to confirm. When they came out, the sunlight in the hallway was bright after the darkness of the archive, Mr. Phuc was standing there, as if he had been waiting. He didn't get angry, just looked at the phone in Linh's hand with a questioning look.

“Are you planning to use old stories to push up theater prices?”

“I intend to know what my father did.”

"What if you know? Dead people don't come back, and the town needs jobs."

“Deeds do not need to begin with a lie.”

Phuc smiled faintly, a smile that did not reach his eyes. He said Linh's mother had signed a non-disclosure agreement, then turned away before Linh could ask more questions, his footsteps echoing on the hallway tile floor. That sentence stabbed her deeper than any threat, causing her to stand still for a long moment before Minh gently touched her shoulder.

In the afternoon, the group set up a projection screen in the lobby, and the sound of hammers hammering nails rang out regularly. Hau wrote the sign "Test screening tonight - anyone who comes late will find their own seat", then Mrs. Nam forced her to change it for fear of making customers angry, finally it changed to "Test screening tonight - please come early". Minh connected the projector and tested each bulb meticulously. When the first image appeared, it was distorted but bright enough, white light spilling over the old curtain. Everyone clapped as if they had just witnessed a miracle, the sound of applause echoed throughout the empty room.

Linh looked at the empty seats, imagining her mother sitting in seat 13, her father running through the hallway in the sound of rain eighteen years ago. She didn't know if the screening would save the theater or just make things more complicated. But for the first time, she felt like she was choosing to stay, rather than being held back by her past — a small but important difference she had just realized.

Before leaving, Linh asked the clerk to confirm the list of documents she had seen. He agreed, then asked if she was Mr. Khai's daughter. She nodded, a bit surprised. He said her father used to bring tea into the warehouse for everyone when it was flooded, his hands trembled as he recounted that detail. That small detail has no record value, but Linh wrote it down in the book, because a person's life cannot only be measured by the remaining papers, but also by cups of warm tea that no one remembers the name of the person who poured it.

On the way home, Minh asked her if she was tired. Linh didn't answer right away, just looked out the car window, the rooftops passing by in the pale afternoon light. She said she was tired, but not from traveling all day. She was tired because each document she found led to another document, each answer gave birth to three new questions, as if the truth about her father did not lie at a fixed point but kept receding every time she thought she had reached it. Minh did not console me with beautiful words. He just said that at least now they had a map, even if it was confusing, rather than walking in the dark not knowing what they were looking for.

Returning to the theater, Hau had finished clearing the front row of seats and was trying to sit in each seat to see if the screen view was blocked or not. He declared that seat 5 was the worst seat because there was a pillar blocking the view, and seat 13 was the best seat even though no one understood why he concluded that. Linh sat down next to him for a moment, looking at the empty white curtain in front of her, trying to imagine her mother once handing out tickets in this exact position, her hands shaking from the increasingly loud sound of the rain outside.