Chapter 5 — Unnamed Perfume Shop

The strange man first appeared on a Saturday afternoon, when the sunlight had turned pale orange and Hang Diep Street began to have few passersby. Bao Nghi was rearranging the rows of jars on the display shelf when she heard the shell bell ringing. She looked up and saw a man in his late thirties standing in the doorway. He didn't really go inside, but just stood there looking around the store with unusually attentive eyes - not like the eyes of a customer looking to buy something, but more like the eyes of a person trying to remember something.

He wore a simple white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, tall, broad shoulders, carrying a leather briefcase containing documents and a rolled-up roll of technical drawing paper tucked under his arm - he didn't look like a regular on this street at all. "Excuse me," he said, his voice low, polite but somewhat reserved, "can I come in and take a look?"

"Yes, please," Bao Nghi replied, although a vague sense of vigilance arose in her heart. Since Mr. Duong Vinh Khang's phone call a few days ago, she has become more sensitive to anyone entering the store who doesn't look like a regular customer - afraid that it might be someone from some real estate company coming to investigate before making an unpleasant offer.

The man walked in, slowly, his eyes scanned every shelf, every wall, stopping for a long time at the old wooden window frame, where there were tiny engravings on the sill - traces of decades of children in the street waiting for their mothers to buy things, using their fingernails to carve scribbled shapes into the wood. He gently touched one of the engravings, as if searching for a specific memory, then quickly withdrew his hand, somewhat confused by his own unconscious action.

"What are you looking to buy?" Bao Nghi asked, walking closer to the counter, observing him more closely. In her mind, unable to stop it, her sense of smell still automatically analyzed: the smell of technical printer paper, the smell of pencil ink, a bit of a neutral, non-specific soap smell, and somewhere very faint, almost impossible to detect if not concentrating, a trace of old sandalwood - the typical sandalwood found only in the base essential oil bottles she used, a smell that should not be present on a stranger who has never entered here.

"No, I..." he hesitated, then shook his head slightly, as if to correct himself. "Sorry, I'm not a buyer. I'm surveying the condition of a few houses in this area for a project. I'll stop by and take a look." He pulled out a small business card from his leather briefcase and placed it on the counter but did not push it completely towards Bao Nghi, as if he was still hesitant. "This house is quite special, the wooden structure is still largely intact even after many decades, rare in this neighborhood."

Bao Nghi glanced at the business card but did not pick it up, just enough to read the small print: a name, a title related to architectural consulting and project renovation, the name of a company she had never heard of. "What project are you surveying for?" she asked bluntly, her voice unable to hide the tension.

The man seemed to realize that her question carried a weight other than simple curiosity. He paused for a moment, his eyes slightly apologetic. "To be honest, I don't know all the details yet," he said, his voice slower, more careful. "I just took on the task of surveying the current status of a few houses on this street at the request of a family member. If you need more specific information about the future use of the land, perhaps it would be more accurate to ask the house owner directly."

That answer, no matter how complicated it was, was enough to confirm Bao Nghi's worries. She felt a cold run down her spine, not because of anger, but because of the feeling that something big, beyond her control, was silently operating behind her for many days, and the man standing in front of her was just a small cog in that machine - maybe unintentionally, maybe not, but nonetheless on the side that could take away her roof.

"Then just finish your survey," she said, her voice colder than she intended, turning her back to continue arranging the shelves as a way to end the conversation.

There was a short silence behind her, then his footsteps moved closer to the door, but did not leave immediately. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," he said, sounding more sincere than before. "I didn't intend to... Actually, this house feels strangely familiar to me, even though I'm sure I haven't been to this neighborhood in many years. Maybe it's just a feeling."

Bao Nghi turned to look at him, and in that moment, her sense of smell once again caught something - not a specific scent, but a feeling, a vague insecurity and nostalgia radiating from his very being, the same feeling she often encountered in guests who came to her to mix a scent of memories, those who carried in their hearts an unnamed loss. She didn't understand why, but her professional intuition told her that this man, even though he was standing on the side that could be her enemy, was also carrying a personal story, something unfinished and unresolved.

"If you feel familiar, it's probably because of the sandalwood in this shop," she said, her voice softening a bit, not necessarily out of forgiveness, but because professional curiosity overcame her anger. "Many old houses in the Old Quarter use the same type of wood to make doors and shelves. The smell has not changed over decades."

The man nodded slightly, it seemed like that explanation touched something in him, although he didn't say what. "Thank you," he said, then bowed slightly, turned and walked out of the store, leaving the business card still on the counter, untouched. Bao Nghi stood and watched his shadow disappear behind the corner of the street, then picked up the business card and carefully read the name printed on it: Bach Nguyen Street - Architect, Construction renovation consultant.

Tang family. She was stunned for a second when she realized the coincidence, then reassured herself that the Duong family name was not a rare one, it could just be a coincidence. But a vague premonition lingered in her mind for the rest of the afternoon, and she put the business card in the cashier drawer, next to her grandmother's unfinished recipe note, as if both were pieces of the same puzzle that she didn't have enough information to solve.

That evening, when Bao Nghi had just finished cleaning up and was about to close the shop, an envelope was stuffed through the door crack and fell onto the tiled floor with a soft rustle. She bent down to pick it up and saw that it was a thick paper envelope, printed with the formal logo of a notary office, and the recipient's name was "Ms. Ton Nu Bich Van, owner of apartment No. 14 Hang Diep Street". Her hands shook slightly as she tore open the envelope and pulled out a formal piece of computerized paper. The legal language was dry but the meaning was painfully clear: Mr. Duong Vinh Khang, as the legal owner of the house at 14 Hang Diep Street, announced that he was considering transferring land use rights to an investment unit, requesting to meet in person to discuss the relocation plan as soon as possible, along with a specific appointment next week at the store itself.

Bao Nghi stood silently in the middle of the dark shop, the paper in her hand trembling slightly with her rapid breathing. Outside, Hang Diep Street was lit up, the yellow light from the old lampposts shining through the window, illuminating a row of wooden shelves with unlabeled glass bottles lined up silently, each bottle carrying within it a piece of someone's memory - the smell of Uncle Bat's milk flowers, the smell of children's sweaters of the old couple down the street, and somewhere, hidden deep in the drawer, the burned words of a never-finished scent called Hoai Huong.

She looked up at the empty wooden sign above the door, where for more than fifty years no name had been written, and for the first time in her life, she felt that emptiness was no longer a cute feature of the shop, but like a silent prophecy: a nameless place, perhaps, easier to erase from the map than any other place. She folded up the notice, placed it next to the business card of the man named Duong Bach Nguyen, turned off the lights, locked the door, and stood a while longer on the porch in the twilight, wondering how much time she had left before both races—to retain her mother's memory, to retain the family's roof—had to be won or lost.