Chapter 3 — Theater at the End of the Hallway

Hoai An was chopping tomatoes when Lam asked about the theater.

The knife in my mother's hand stopped in the middle of the cutting board. A slice of tomato fell, slid to the edge of the table and stopped on the towel.

“Who told you?”

“I found your name in the old news.”

"Where?"

“School theater.”

Mom put down the knife and wiped her hands. Lam has seen her mother stay silent in front of bills, in front of messages from relatives and in front of calls that she did not want to hear. But this time is different. Mom looked into the kitchen as if there was a door leading back to when she was seventeen years old.

“Mom just joined a small club.”

“Mom filming *Rainy Season in the Backyard*?”

"YES."

“Why isn't the movie showing?”

Mom turned on the stove. Blue flames rose up, covering his eyes. “Because people quarreled.”

“What are you arguing about?”

“It's about who has the right to tell someone else's story.”

Lam stood next to the kitchen table. The answer sounded like an explanation that had been folded too carefully to be opened all at once.

“Where is the last scene?”

Mom came back. “Lam, don't look.”

“But if it's in school—”

“Mom said not to look.”

Her mother's voice was not loud, but it made Lam quiet. She brought the bowl of rice to the table without asking further questions. On the refrigerator is a photo of mother and child in front of a modern movie theater, unrelated to the old school. Lam looked at the photo and suddenly understood that her mother always chose theaters without long hallways.

The next day, the meeting was held in the cafeteria. Quan laid out five dumplings in a pentagon shape, saying it was an investigation diagram. Tran took her chopsticks and pushed one aside.

“This is your meal, not a plan.”

“All secrets start with food.”

Huy placed the cassette player on the table. He cleaned the reader and connected the small speaker. The tape is played back. After the sentence "who came back", there is a layer of noise, like the sound of tape being pulled hard. Nhat Vy sat down, opened the recording application and put on headphones.

“There was a metallic sound,” Vy said. “And a train whistle.”

“Our school is not near the station,” Tran said.

Vy magnifies the sound waves. "It's not the train horn. It's the ice cream truck's horn."

Quan immediately stood up. "I know where the ice cream truck is. Behind the gym there has been an ice cream seller since 2004."

Huy pulled his shirt and sat down. “You don't have to run to ask every time you hear the sound of ice cream.”

“So what do you want to do?” Lam asked.

Huy opened the cassette player's lid and pointed to the tape. "Look for cut marks. The person who deleted the last scene didn't delete the entire scene. They cut the exact part with the third person's voice."

Vy offered to make a digital copy. Tran asked Mr. Quang for permission, and Lam wrote a list of questions for her mother. She crossed out three sentences with a questioning tone, keeping only one sentence: **What do you want me to understand about that scene?**

In the afternoon, Mr. Quang led them to the archive. The warehouse is located behind the medical room, with only two shelves and an old computer. The teacher opened the video tape catalog. Mostly the opening ceremony, performances and football matches. The 2004 item is missing one box.

“Where is this box?” Lam asked.

“Not in the warehouse transfer record.”

There was a rectangular dust spot on the shelf, similar to one on a projector. Huy bent down and looked behind. A green string was stuck to the nail, the end of the string had a knot similar to the knot on a film barrel.

“Someone moved this box recently,” he said.

Teacher Quang did not deny it. “I know some old students still come here from time to time.”

"Who?" Tran asked.

“You don't need to know yet.”

“But what if the school is going to destroy the theater?” Lam popped out.

Teacher Quang looked at her. “Who told you it would break?”

No one answered. The rumor came from a drawing Quan saw on a bulletin board administrative room. Block B will be replaced by an alumni commercial area. The words "film screening space" are underlined in red.

Teacher Quang closed the warehouse door. "You guys leave early tonight. Don't go into the theater without permission."

But when Lam passed the end of the hallway, the red light turned on again. This time the fabric screen did not display the words. It showed a blurred image: a long-haired girl standing in the rain, holding a camera. The face is unknown, but the star-shaped hairpin is identical to the one Lam's mother still keeps in her jewelry box.

Huy stood behind her and said: "The first scene of the movie is looking for the last scene."

Lam did not raise the phone. She just watched until the screen went dark, then decided to ask her mother about the clip tomorrow.

The next morning, Lam placed the star clip next to her mother's milk cup. She didn't ask directly. Mom saw it, took a kitchen towel and sat down.

“The tongs appeared in the scene where Nhi opened the door,” the mother said. "Nhi borrowed it from her mother because her hair was wet. She asked the star to help her find direction."

“Do you keep that frame?”

"Mom kept a still photo. But the photo belongs to Nhi."

“Mom, can you show me?”

Mom opened the phone and looked in the old folder. The image appeared blurry but enough to see a hand pulling the door. Clip the star in the corner of the hair, without the face. Lam did not ask to send photos; She only wrote down the date the photo was taken.

At school, the group discussed how to make movies without using faces. Duy suggested filming the narrator's belongings. Uncle Sau has a set of keys, Ms. My has a broom, Huy has a screwdriver, Tran has a notebook, Quan has a chair. Lam has a phone but doesn't know what it says about her.

“The phone said you always wanted people to see,” Quan said.

“And there are times when you should put it down,” Huy added.

Lam is not angry. She chose to turn her hands around to write the permission application, delete the shocking title, and then save the original. Objects do not tell stories; How people use it tells.

Mr. Quang allowed them to interview a former school employee named Ms. Hanh. Ms. Hanh used to run the screening room in 2004. She said Nhi did not like standing in the middle of a crowd, but always sat in the last seat because from there she could see the whole screen.

“Does she have a close friend?” Lam asked.

"There is a friend named An. The two of us often go home together via route A."

The letter A appears again. Ms. Hanh doesn't know whether An is her real name or a nickname. She remembered the girl kept a ticket in a chalk box, then gave it to Hoai An to keep.

Lam asked her mother about her friend An. Mom said Nhi used to have a classmate, but she's not sure where she is now. Maybe the letter A is just a path.

Vy used sound to find the ice cream truck's horn in the tape. She discovered the sound of "popsicles" and the sound of a three-beat bell. The ice cream seller behind the gym listened and recognized his voice from when he was young. Uncle laughed and said that at that time he often stood next to the back door of the theater.

“I remember a little girl went out to buy ice cream before it rained,” he said. "She asked for directions to the station, but didn't go. She came back holding an umbrella."

Lam asked if he saw the person accompanying him. I only remember a sparkling star clip. The girl stayed until the movie finished, then ran through exit A.

Quan wanted to recreate the scene with the umbrella, but Tran reminded her not to turn the narration into a play if she didn't know what the narrator wanted. They used my uncle's old umbrella and filmed water balloons on the background.

An email from Ha arrived. She sent a scanned copy of a page in the prop book, which read "green box - scene 27". Hoai An never mentioned the umbrella. Lam asked his mother. Mom remembers Nhi used the umbrella to cover the camera from the rain, not to leave.

“We are looking a scene that everyone remembers in part,” Vy said.

“So the new film should have each part stand next to each other,” Lam replied.

In the afternoon, the projector turned on automatically. The screen showed the sound of an ice cream truck's horn in a wave pattern, then a figure holding an umbrella walked through the door. No face. Tran turned off the transmitter, but Huy checked and found no source.

On the theater floor, a golden ticket slid out from under the green chair. The back reads: **Don't use the clip to find me. Use your own questions.**

Lam understands that the message may have been sent by Nhi, or the person who kept her memories. She did not answer. She just wrote a new question in her notebook: **What do you want others to remember, and what should be forgotten?**

Lam sent the question to her mother, not asking for an immediate answer. Mom wrote back a line: "Remember that Nhi wanted to step out, forget that she needed to be kept in a story." After Lam finished reading it, it was not included in the script. She left it in the mother and daughter's separate book.

Tran saw that Lam was silent and gave her a piece of candy. Quan said candy can't solve the mystery. Huy said, but it can help people calm down enough to not make more mistakes. The group divided the candy into four parts, then returned to their desks.

Huy gave Lam the repaired headset. He said the sound of rain in the tape may be noisy, but if you listen at a moderate volume you will recognize the sound of the door at the end of the scene. Lam listened, didn't take notes, just nodded. She began to understand that the best clues didn't necessarily need to be posted online.

Huy opened the projector's lid and showed Lam a red wire wrapped under the gear. He didn't say when he found it. Lam asked if it was dangerous, Huy replied: "It's not dangerous if you don't turn on the device before checking." The short answer reminded her of her habit of always pressing the post button before looking back once. She used a towel to wipe the dust and placed the flashlight at the right angle Huy directed. Two people work close together but do not need to talk constantly. Every time Lam wanted to take a photo, she asked. Every time Huy shook his head, she put the phone away.

At the end of the session, they tried showing a blank film with only noise. Quan sat in the back, impersonating the host's voice: "Here is a movie where nothing happens for three minutes." Tran threw an eraser at him. The group laughed, then fell silent when the noise suddenly stopped. A thin streak of light appeared on the screen, like a horizon line. Lam recorded the time without recording anyone's face. Huy said the machine was not completely broken, just waiting to be treated properly. That sentence stayed in Lam's mind longer than the movie.