Chapter 6 — The Watch Repair Shop That Doesn't Sell Time

The station's duty book was borrowed by Tùng from the district archives. The paper was so brittle that turning it the wrong way would leave a tear. He placed it on the shop table, using clamps to hold the four corners, carefully as if he were handling an archaeological relic rather than an administrative book. The archive manager repeatedly told me to wear gloves and not to photocopy directly because the machine could crack the spine of the notebook. The lines of names and train times lie under the layer of blue ink, neat but full of empty space. The page recording the date of Hòa's disappearance was torn off the right half.

Lan wears gloves and reads each item. Number 3 is the gatekeeper, number 12 is the ticket seller, number 17 is the mechanic, number 4 is a passenger changing trains, number 9 is Mai. The order in Mr. Sáu's piece of paper is not according to chair position, but according to the time they met Hòa. The first person to see him was the gatekeeper, the last person was Mai.

“Someone took this page,” Tùng said.

Minh looked at the edge of the paper. "It wasn't taken. They tore it up before closing the book, then replaced it with a new page."

The replacement page has a short sentence: "Employee Hòa voluntarily left his position at 4:50 p.m. without handing over." There is no station master's signature. The ink on that sentence is darker than the rest, like it was written after the incident had become a rumor.

Lan placed the photo of the film roll next to the notebook page. The man in the black coat stood near the stairs leading down to the warehouse. Tùng enlarged the photo on the computer and saw a leaf-shaped logo embroidered on the sleeve.

“Vạn Thành Company,” he said. “They transported refrigerated goods through the station at that time.”

Minh said the station was once subject to a land dispute. Vạn Thành wanted to open a new warehouse, but the old warehouse area had a tunnel connecting to the side tracks. Hòa objected because the tunnel was not safe enough. After his disappearance, the project was approved in just three months.

Lan feels the story has left the scope of a family. “What did my father discover at the warehouse?”

“It could be someone who is locked up,” Minh said. "It could also be contraband. Look for person number 17."

Person number 17, Mr. Loc, lives in a small room behind the mechanical workshop. He used to be a ship mechanic, now makes wood furniture. When Lan mentioned Hòa's name, he was silent for a long time, then took them into the house. On the wall is a clock hanging upside down, the hands turning in the opposite direction.

“Hòa doesn't want anyone to save him,” Loc said. “He wanted to save the girl in the warehouse.”

“Hà Ly?”

"Her name is Hạ. Hạ is the one who records goods for Vạn Thành. She discovered that there were freight cars that were empty on paper but full of people when passing through the station."

Lan clutched the edge of the table. Vạn Thành used refrigerated cars to transport undocumented workers between provinces. Hạ wanted to report it, but she was discovered. Hòa hid her in the repair warehouse, intending to take her out by the 4:50 p.m. train.

“So why did my father disappear?”

Loc looked at Minh. "Because Hòa went back to the warehouse to get the notebook, and Hạ had already boarded the train. When he returned, the warehouse door was locked from the outside."

“Who locked it?”

"I do not know." Minh tapped lightly on the table. Loc looked down, looking avoidant. He admitted that he heard Hòa banging on the door, but was afraid of losing his job so he did not open it. By the time I got the courage to turn back, the door had opened and Hòa was no longer there. Only the silver watch fell under the side tracks.

Lan asked why he didn't tell his family. Loc replied that Vạn Thành's people came to his house, gave him money and a commitment to silence. "I used that money to treat my child's illness. For the past fifteen years, every time I saw the clock, I heard a knock on the door," Tùng doesn't blame him. He just asked: "Did Hòa say anything before leaving?"

"He said one sentence: 'If I don't come back, don't keep Lan waiting.' I thought he was talking about her. Later I realized he was talking to Hạ."

Lan sat down. One sentence can have two different listeners and two different understandings. She remembers that her mother used to stand by the door, and her father stood at the station. Perhaps "don't wait" is not a word of abandonment, but a request for others to continue living.

Loc gave her a small iron nail engraved with the shape of a leaf. "Look for the old engine room. In the back wall there is an alcove. I don't have the courage to open it." The computer room was fenced, but Tùng asked for permission to enter from the district. They found a niche behind the bricks, inside was a notebook wrapped in blue cloth. The first page had a list of workers sent to Vạn Thành warehouse, the last page had Hà Ly's name and an address in the city.

Minh did not touch the notebook. "This is proof. Don't let it turn into word of mouth." Lan took a photo of each page and saved it in three places. Tùng called a lawyer he knew to ask how to preserve the documents. When they left the engine room, the silver watch in Lan's pocket read 4:47 p.m. The closer it gets to 4:50 p.m., the clearer the ticking sound becomes.

On the way home, Tùng asked Lan if she wanted to report to the police immediately. She looked at the notebook. "Yes, but not just to find father. There are also people on the list."

Minh heard that sentence and quietly smiled. She stopped looking for someone to answer everything. She began to look at the other people in the story.

That night, Lan called Hạ at the address in the book, her hand shaking slightly as she dialed each number, afraid that if she pressed the wrong number, she would lose her only chance. A woman answered the phone without saying her name. When Lan mentioned Hòa, the sound of a mechanical clock sounded on the other end of the line. Hạ just said: "I returned the watch, but I cannot return the time to his family."

“Where are you?”

“Where there is a bridge no ships can cross.”

Call off. Checking the map, found only one old railway bridge south of the city. Lan understands that the story is not in the clock anymore. It was leading them to the place Hạ had chosen to wait, or to say the last word. She put the phone in her pocket, her hand still feeling cold from the unfamiliar voice she had just heard, and wondered if she was repeating her father's mistake — looking for someone who wasn't sure she wanted to be found.

Loc looked at the watch in Lan's hand. "If you continue, you must know that the remaining people do not want to be called names. They have paid the price once for trusting others." Lan wrote the warning in the notebook and marked it with red ink. She asked if he could introduce someone who had escaped from a freight car. Loc said he would ask, but didn't promise. Minh thanked him on Lan's behalf, because sometimes a thank you holds the boundary that a question breaks.

Returning to the shop, Tùng found a erased line on the map. When tracing paper is placed, the line connects the warehouse with the old machine room. A side door leads directly to the water canal, where trucks can stop without being seen by station cameras.

“Dad planned to take Hạ out this way,” Lan said.

“Or someone else takes him away,” Minh replied.

The two possibilities are the same at the end: someone knows the way, someone tries to erase it. Tùng made a copy of the map, sent one copy to the lawyer and put the original in the safe. They don't bring evidence out if it's not necessary.

That night, Lan sat on the steps of the shop, listening to the sound of a car going down the slope. Minh fixed a customer's alarm clock, but looked at the door several times. Lan asked him if he ever wanted to quit his job. He speaks every day.

“Why do you still do it?”

"Because someone brought something and no one else listened. I don't want to make their silence their fault."

Lan realized that statement also described Hòa. Her father tried to listen to someone, but forgot that his family also needed to be heard. Good intentions do not make them right.

Tùng called to report finding person number 4 in the book, a passenger named Hung living in Da Nang. Hung remembers that Hòa put a ticket in his pocket, telling him that if anything happened, he should give it to the person with the initials H.L. He kept the ticket for many years but did not know the recipient.

Lan asked Hung if he could send a photo. Hung agreed, but did not want to meet directly. The ticket in the photo has oil stains and a 16:42 stamp. It confirmed the watch had been passed around to many people to avoid detection.

Minh opened Mr. Sáu's repair book and compared the oil stains. The gas oil formula is only available in his factory. “Hòa asked Mr. Sáu to disguise the route,” he said.

Lan asked why Mr. Sáu didn't say anything. Minh replied: "Maybe he thought staying silent at that time would save more people. Later, he wasn't sure anymore, so he left a mark for later people."

The next morning, the labor organization arranged a private meeting with Hạ. Lan prepared the question, then erased half of it. She only kept the sentences about what Hạ wanted to tell, who Hạ wanted to protect, and what Hạ didn't want to mention. For the first time, Lan built her investigation around the rights of others, not around her thirst for answers.

The silver clock runs until 16:50. The second hand does not stop, but the ticking changes rhythm like a person has just walked out of a closed room. Lan picked it up and heard a very light sentence: "Slow down."

She didn't know if it was the machine's sound, her memory's, or her own. She still followed suit, slowing down a step on the way home, as if her whole body was relearning how to walk without rushing to get to her destination.