Chapter 6 — Unnamed Perfume Shop

The appointment took place on a Tuesday morning, when the shop was not yet open to customers. Bao Nghi had woken up at five o'clock, brewed a pot of strong lotus tea, rearranged the tables and chairs in the corner of the shop to receive customers, and tried to calm her mother down first - Mrs. Bich Van that day, fortunately, was in a fairly lucid cycle, although Bao Nghi still decided to let Aunt Xuyen take her mother upstairs to rest early, not wanting her mother to witness the potentially tense conversation to come.

Exactly eight o'clock, the shell bell rang, and Mr. Duong Vinh Khang walked in, a man in his sixties, with a heavy build, wearing a neat striped shirt, carrying an old but carefully kept leather briefcase. Following him was a person that Bao Nghi immediately recognized from his standing position - Duong Bach Nguyen, wearing a light gray suit instead of a simple shirt like last time, still holding a leather briefcase containing documents, his expression somewhat more reserved than the curious attitude of the previous meeting.

"This is my nephew, Bach Nguyen, the architect. I asked him to survey the condition of houses in this area," Mr. Vinh Khang introduced, his voice still remaining polite as in the phone call the day before, sitting down on the chair Bao Nghi had set up without waiting for an invitation. "Is Miss Bich Van inconvenient to meet?"

"Yes, my mother is not feeling well today. Please allow me to talk to you on her behalf," Bao Nghi replied, sitting down opposite, trying to keep her voice calm even though her palms were starting to sweat. Bach Nguyen sat down next to his uncle, his eyes quickly glanced at Bao Nghi and then looked down, as if he was still guilty about the previous unpleasant meeting.

Mr. Vinh Khang opened his briefcase, took out a thick file, and placed it on the table with slow, purposeful movements. "I'll tell you straight so you can mentally prepare," he said, his voice still gentle but the content was not gentle at all. "This house, and the entire block of houses from numbers 10 to 20 on Hang Diep street, are being offered by an investment group to buy at a fairly good price to build a small commercial area with a parking lot. My family owns three of them, including number 14. To be honest, my own business situation in recent years has not been favorable, and this is an opportunity I can hardly miss."

Bao Nghi clasped her hands tightly on her thighs, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Uncle Khang, my family has rented this house since my grandmother's time, more than forty years ago. My grandmother and your grandfather - I heard from my mother - are a very close place, not a simple rental relationship."

"I know," Mr. Vinh Khang nodded, his voice a little slack, as if those words touched something real in him. "My grandfather and Mrs. Anh Nguyet were good friends. Back then, he often said that he rented a cheap house to her as a way to help newcomers establish a business. But Ms. Nghi, feelings are one thing, and reality is another. I am sixty-two years old, not young enough to take on the business forever, all of my children live far away, with no intention of coming back to continue the business. The money from this transfer, for me, is the only old-age pension remaining. again."

There was a sincerity in his voice that made Bao Nghi unable to easily hate him like she thought she would. It was not a greedy person who wanted to chase her out onto the street to get rich, but an old person facing very human fears about age and financial security when there was no one else to rely on. But that understanding did not ease the fear rising in her heart about the fate of the shop.

"So what do you plan to do?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

"I give your family six months to find a new location," Mr. Vinh Khang replied, pulling out another piece of paper from the file and pushing it towards her. "I will also support a reasonable compensation, as if to partially repay the gratitude of Ms. Anh Nguyet and Ms. Bich Van who have been attached to this house for many years. This is not something I want to rush or force. Please look carefully at the documents. If you have any questions, just ask Bach Nguyen, it will explain more clearly about the technical aspects and paperwork."

Bao Nghi picked up the paper, her eyes skimmed over the words that she didn't read in her head at all - the numbers, the terms, all blurred before her eyes like a layer of mist. She looked up and looked straight at Bach Nguyen, who had been sitting silently until now, his hand gently gripping the edge of the table as if he was suppressing something. "What do you think about this?" she asked directly, her voice unable to hide the challenge.

Bach Nguyen looked up, his eyes met hers for a moment longer than usual. "I... my job is just to conduct a technical survey and evaluate the structure of the building to make plans for renovation or new construction. I don't have the right to make decisions about transactions," he replied, his voice careful, as if trying to keep a professional distance. But then, as if he couldn't help himself, he added, his voice slowing down: "But to be honest, after carefully surveying this house, I found that the original wooden structure is still very good. Rarely are any buildings in the old town still kept intact like that. If it were simply demolished to build a new one, I think it would be a waste, both in terms of materials and in terms of... other values."

Mr. Vinh Khang glanced at his nephew, a bit dissatisfied with the answer that was not entirely on his side. "Bach Nguyen, I asked you to conduct a technical survey, not to give an opinion on whether to sell or not," he said, his voice somewhat stern.

"I'm just answering Ms. Nghi's question, uncle," Bach Nguyen replied, his voice still calm but with a certain steadfastness in it, making Bao Nghi slightly surprised. That was not the attitude of someone who was simply working for a salary, but the attitude of someone who was truly pondering something in his heart.

The meeting ended not long after, with Mr. Vinh Khang leaving all documents for Bao Nghi to review, meeting again in two weeks to hear the official response. When he stood up to leave, Bach Nguyen lingered for a moment, pretending to rearrange the papers in his briefcase, waiting for his uncle to walk out the front door before turning to Bao Nghi and lowering his voice. "I'm sorry for not making it clear to you from the beginning last time," he said. "At that time, I didn't know everything. I had just accepted the survey mission a few days ago."

"You don't need to apologize, that's your job," Bao Nghi replied, his voice still cold, although not as harsh as before.

"I know," he nodded, his eyes looking around the shop, stopping for a long time at the row of wooden shelves with unlabeled glass jars. "But I want you to know, I don't look at this house just as a project. There's something about it that makes it... difficult for me to be indifferent." He hesitated for a moment, then continued, his voice slow, as if he was discovering for himself what he was about to say. "My mother passed away when I was fourteen years old. When I was a child, I remember my mother often taking me through a street with a small shop without a sign, buying me something wrapped in brown paper, saying it was a special gift for my grandmother's birthday. I don't remember the details, I just remember the scent in that shop - the smell the first time I came here, I had the feeling I had smelled it somewhere a long time ago."

Bao Nghi stood still, feeling an electric current running down her spine. She remembered Uncle Bat's jar marked "October, old schoolyard", and the dozens of other jars on the shelf, each jar was a memory of a different family that had passed through this door for more than fifty years. Is there any possibility, no matter how slim, that the mother of the man standing in front of her was once one of them, that somewhere in her grandmother's or mother's old notebooks, there is still a formula recorded named after a woman named Chu Diem Hong?

"Do you remember your mother's name? I'll look it up in the old book," she heard herself say, her voice softening, her initial wariness giving way to a curiosity mixed with a sudden feeling of closeness.

Bach Nguyen looked at her, his eyes shone with a fragile ray of hope that she thought he hadn't allowed herself to have for a long time. "Chu Diem Hong," he said, slowly, as if pronouncing something sacred. "If you find something, even if it's just a note, I'd... I'd be very grateful."

Bao Nghi nodded, watching him walk out the door, blending into the sparse crowd on Hang Diep Street in the morning. She stood alone in the middle of the shop, looking at the thick file left on the table - concrete evidence of a threat hanging over her whole family's head - then looked at the row of wooden shelves, wondering if the man who had just brought bad news was, ironically, also the key that led her closer to a part of the story of this perfume shop.