Chapter 14 — The One Who Counts Bridges

Mrs. Van put her old clothes in a plastic bin, but didn't know whether to leave them behind or take them with her. The restaurant under the Old Wharf has received clearance papers for the third time, each time the area on the diagram gets a little smaller. This time, the measurer recorded the kitchen part as a temporary warehouse, while the dining table part was located on the "construction service corridor".

Linh An stood at the door, watching her mother use a tape measure to measure the distance between the kitchen and the foot of the bridge. Van doesn't want to argue. She measured to know if she had to clean and which cart the rice cooker could fit.

“Where are you going, Mom?” Linh An asked.

“Aunt Thoa told me to come stay with her.”

“Mom, do you want to go?”

“Whether you like it or not doesn't change the paper.”

“You can complain.”

“I'm suspended.”

“I can still do it.”

“Just because you can do it doesn't mean you can win.”

Van removed a hook from the wall. Behind the hook is a rectangular mark of paint, where the tide calendar used to hang. She placed the hook on the table, took a thin notebook from the drawer.

“I haven't finished that night yet,” she said.

“I know.”

"It's not because I want to hide it. Because every time I tell it, I only hear the part where my father was wronged."

“Which part do you want me to hear?”

Van opened the book. The first pages are a list of ingredients, rice money, and oil money. In the middle of the book is a page recording the time and the person's name.

21:05 — Hoa called and told him to close the kitchen door.

21:17 — flood siren.

21:22 — Tie at the junction.

9:25 p.m. — the warehouse lights go out.

21:31 — hear the sound of iron.

21:36 — Hoa brings people over.

“Mom wrote that time?”

"I'll write it down later. If I don't write it down, I'll mix it up."

“Who did you bring over?”

"A boy named Tam, Mrs. Hao's son. A man trapped in the warehouse. A woman holding a child."

“Four people.”

"No. The boy went with Mrs. Hao first. My father only guided them through the stone steps."

“So you saved two people?”

"He saved the way. Others saved each other."

Linh An looked at the words and saw that her mother counted differently from Mr. Bay. I don't count bridges, but count who still remembers a moment.

“Then dad came back?”

“Your father went back to get the measurements.”

“Are measurements more important than people?”

“He thought if he let the map drift, tomorrow they would say the passage never existed.”

“Did he tell mom?”

"He asked my mother to give me the file bag. She threw the bag up the steps. Part of it fell into the water."

“What's in there?”

“Original copy, worker's report and lamp list.”

“What's left?”

“The map your father hid in his shirt.”

Linh An remembers the brown jacket on the suitcase, the gray paint streaks on the sleeves. Mom saw her thinking about that and continued:

"After the collapse, he was called up. He brought the map, but they said it was just a hand-drawn drawing. They kept it."

“So my mother kept the copy in the rice box?”

“Your father painted again.”

"When?"

“Three days before he died.”

Linh An looked up. “How long after did Dad die?”

“Eleven days.”

“He knew I was sick?”

"Are not."

Van went to the corner of the kitchen and opened a spice box. Inside is an expired pill and key number 17.

“He passed out in front of the house,” she said. "The doctor said Tim. But before he left, he gave me the key and said don't open the closet unless you ask about the way."

“When did Mom open it?”

"Last night."

"Alone?"

"I didn't open the closet. I just took the statement."

Van pulled out a piece of paper from the spice box and gave it to her child. That is the document handover receipt, signed by Nguyen Van Hoa, but the recipient is not the Infrastructure Department. The recipient's name was "Nguyen Van", and the time was 10:10 p.m., the day after the collapse.

“Mom received the map from dad?”

"He gave it to my mother before getting in the ambulance. He said if People asked and said she didn't have it."

“Did Mom say it?”

“Mom said.”

“Who did Mom tell?”

“With someone coming to search the house.”

“Did anyone find it?”

"Are not. Because mom hid it under the rice box.”

Linh An held the receipt and looked at her mother's signature. It resembles the signature in the testimony, but is more slanted, as if written with shaking hands.

“Mom once said there were no originals.”

“Mom didn't lie completely. Part of the original has been lost.”

“Then I'll count it my way, too.”

Van sat down. “Mom just knows how to hide the rest.”

Linh An's phone vibrates. Khai reported that the discharge gate at the construction site was locked, the water level was rising rapidly, and the new crew did not know the house on duty. They need a map of the eastern route before dark.

“I have to go,” Linh An said.

“Who are you going to save?”

“The people under the bridge.”

“Mom is also under the bridge.”

“Mom comes with me.”

Van looked at the shop, at the rice cooker and the boxes. “Mom doesn't leave the shop.”

“If the water rises, the shop cannot be maintained.”

“The shop is more than just a corrugated iron roof.”

“I know.”

“No, I don't know. I just see a point on the map.”

Linh An stood still. Mom is right. She learned to see a house as a coordinate, a kitchen as an obstacle, a passageway as a rescue route. That's the way her career helps her not to be afraid, but it's also the way that makes her unable to see her mother's life.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

Van shook his head. “Don't apologize for the map. Please fix it.”

They closed the shop early. Van gave Linh An a tape measure and a time book. Khai arrived in a small truck belonging to the old crew. Yen went along, bringing a raincoat and printed newsletter.

On the way to the duty house, Van sat next to the window. She pointed out places where there used to be shortcuts: through the school yard, around the back of the temple, and the stone steps next to the fig tree. Some paths have been walled off. Some are only in memory.

“The city map doesn't have the names of these people,” Yen said.

“The name does not make the road wider,” Van replied. “But if you don't have a name, who will you call when you need to?”

The duty house is located behind an abandoned power station. The door is locked with a new lock. Khai used the old maintenance team's key and tried three keys. The third one opened.

Inside there are electrical cabinets, old sirens and a list of phone numbers written in chalk. Many numbers have faded, but the names of Ms. Sau, Mr. Tho and Ms. Van are still there.

“Mom is on the list?” Linh An asked.

“Mom is the one who listens to the siren and reports it to the market.”

“Why not use it later?”

Van looked at the whistle. “After the crash, they said the system was unreliable.”

“Because it warns before the bridge collapses?”

“Because it makes people run before orders are given.”

Khai opened the electrical cabinet and discovered that the wire connecting to the Moc-07 sensor had been removed from the main source but the backup wire was still intact. You can start the horn manually, but you don't know the current water level.

Linh An took a paper map and connected the location of the duty house with the old warehouse. “If the sensor is running, data goes through this cable to New Bridge. If the spare wire is still available, the signal can be received here.”

Khai looked at her. “There is no reader.”

Tung took a homemade radio from his backpack. “You can use the old receiver.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From dad's car.”

“Your father is the one who looks after the bridge?”

"Yes."

Tung connected the wires and turned on the radio. The noise increases, then a series of short sounds appear in rhythm: three sounds, rest, two sounds. He wrote it on paper.

“Old station code,” Van said. “Three is the rise, two is the direction of the water.”

Linh An looked at her mother. “Do you remember?”

“Mom has never forgotten.”

Data shows rising water in the east, it's not west as predicted by the project map. The new bridge hasn't opened yet, and the construction site door is blocking the escape route.

Yen wants to issue a warning immediately. Linh An said she needed confirmation from Inspector Thuan. Thuan listened on the phone and said the signal chain could be noise, but the operator was the official reception point. He will send an urgent notice to the Infrastructure Department and rescue forces.

“What if they don't open?” Khai asked.

“We don't destroy ourselves,” Linh An said.

Van looked at the iron door. “When the water rises, the door doesn't ask for paper.”

She took the hammer from the tool cabinet and placed it on the table. No one said what she did with it.

The Infrastructure Department responded after twenty minutes: Moc-07 data has not been verified, please do not issue a public warning. Minh called Linh An privately, saying he was trying to get an order to open the area.

“Do you trust the signal?” she asked.

“I trust water.”

“Then open the door.”

“The construction site is managed by a joint venture.”

“You are the infrastructure agency.”

"I know."

“Will you sign?”

Minh was silent for a long time. “I'm signing.”

The call ended. Van looked at her daughter. “How is he different from your father?”

“Don't know yet.”

“So don't jump to conclusions too early.”

It gets dark quickly. Rain poured into the window of the house on duty. Tung received another signal sequence: three hours, rest, four hours. Water rises faster.

Linh An broadcast the news via radio with the consent of Yen and Inspector Thuan: without stating the water level as a conclusion, only announcing that an old measuring point was sending unusual signals, advising people not to enter the fenced area and to keep in touch with the residential group. She read the phone number of the house on duty and the list of meeting places pointed out by Van.

After the news, dozens of people called. One person asked if there was a way under the bridge. One person said the construction site door was still locked. Yen wrote down the name, address, call time, and passed it on to the rescue team.

Outside, the sound of truck horns mixed with the sound of rain. Khai looked through the door. The construction site lights are turning off in rows, from the south bank to the north bank.

“They lost power,” he said.

Linh An listens to the radio. The signal sequence stops at three hours, breaks, five hours.

Mr. Bay called and said only one sentence: "Count the doors before counting the people."

Van held the hammer and looked at the door of the house on duty. “What do you think he means?”

“How many doors are there?” Linh An asked.

Khai checked the diagram. One main door, one side door to the shore, one cable door under the floor. The main door is open, the side door is stuck, the cable door is covered with concrete.

“Dad,” Linh An said.

Tung looked at the radio. “How did Uncle Bay know?”

No one answered.

Rain pounded on the roof. The Moc River below the bridge began to rise close to the stone steps. In the darkness, the black lines painted on the bridge piers disappeared one by one.

Linh An opened the map, marked the main door with a circle, the side door with a triangle, and the cable door with a dash. She didn't know who placed those symbols first.

But she knew tonight, the city would have to go through them.