Chapter 7 — Unnamed Perfume Shop

Three days after the meeting with Mr. Vinh Khang, Bach Nguyen returned to the shop, this time for a much more legitimate reason: to re-measure some structural details that he said were "missing in the survey documents". Bao Nghi didn't completely believe that reason - she realized that he spent more time standing silently looking around the shop than actually holding a measuring tape - but she also didn't object, partly because she understood his job, partly because, even if she didn't want to admit it, she felt comfortable when he was there.

He was kneeling next to the wooden window frame, writing something down in his notebook, when the conch bell rang again, and an older man walked in, walking with a slight limp, leaning on a wooden stick that had worn water over time. He wore a worn brown three-piece suit, an old fedora on his head, his face was full of wrinkles but his eyes were still unusually sharp. "Let me ask, is this Ms. Bich Van's shop?" he asked, his voice shaking with age.

"Yes, that's right. I'm Ms. Bich Van's daughter. My mother isn't able to receive guests today. Can I help you with anything?" Bao Nghi came out to greet him and invited him to sit on a rattan chair near the counter.

The man, who introduced himself as Mr. Chung Vinh Vuong, sat down slowly, his hands resting on the top of his cane, his eyes looking around the shop with clear nostalgia. "I heard an acquaintance recommend that this shop can create a scent that retains the memory of the deceased," he said, his voice slow but steady, like someone who thought carefully before deciding to step in here. "My wife passed away three months ago. Forty-two years of marriage, now there are only a few sets of clothes left in the closet that I don't dare move out."

Bao Nghi nodded slightly, poured a cup of hot tea and placed it in front of him, then sat down opposite him, keeping enough silence for him to have time to sort out his emotions. This is the part of her job that she always treasures the most — not the brewing, but the moments of listening before starting to brew, when a stranger opens up to tell her about a loss they may have never fully told anyone else. "Did you bring any of my things? A scarf, a shirt, anything you use every day will make it easier for me to feel."

Mr. Vinh Vuong trembled as he opened the small cloth bag he brought with him, took out a handkerchief embroidered with small flowers in the corner, faded from being washed many times, and placed it on the table with care as if he were placing a treasure. "Here, the towel she uses to dry her hands every time she cooks. She cooks very well, you know, everyone in the neighborhood praises her braised fish dish."

Bao Nghi picked up the towel, closed her eyes, brought it close to her nose, and took a slow breath. Immediately, the world in her head lit up with a series of overlapping images: the smell of old cooking oil, the smell of ginger and turmeric, the smell of honeycomb charcoal stove smoke, and among it all, a very light, very unique scent — perhaps the coconut oil the old lady used to smooth her hair every night, mixed with the smell of cheap bar soap. In her mind, those smells created a small, smoky kitchen, a hunched woman standing next to the fire, and a lasting feeling of safety and warmth that seemed to have existed for decades unchanged.

"She's a very meticulous person, isn't she," Bao Nghi said softly, her eyes still closed, "and she likes to sit alone by the fire at night after the whole family has finished eating, right?"

Mr. Vinh Vuong was stunned, his eyes suddenly turned red. "That's right, that's right, ma'am," he said, his voice choked up. "Every night she sits there, saying she lets the fire die out slowly to avoid wasting coal, but actually I know, she likes to watch the fire, alone, for decades now."

Bao Nghi opened her eyes, looked at him with gentle eyes, clearly feeling the pain coiling in the chest of the old man in front of her. "I'll make you a scent that smells like light coal smoke, coconut oil, and a little ginger and turmeric — not too strong, just enough so that every time you smell it, you'll remember exactly what it was like sitting next to you those evenings. Do you want to add anything special, like a flower you like, or a scent associated with a specific memory?"

Mr. Vinh Vuong thought for a moment, then nodded slightly. "Yes, jade orchids. On the wedding day, I picked a jade orchid branch and put it in her hair, because at that time my family was poor and couldn't afford to buy proper wedding flowers. She kept that dried flower branch in a notebook for decades, and still has it to this day."

His voice trembled in the last sentence, and Bao Nghi felt tears stinging the corners of his eyes. She took note of everything, promised him to come back after three days to receive the finished perfume bottle, and sent him out the door with a tight grip, a small gesture but seemingly enough to make him feel a little less lonely on the way home.

When the door closed behind Mr. Vinh Vuong, Bao Nghi turned around and realized that Bach Nguyen had stood up, no longer holding a tape measure or notebook, just standing silently looking at her, his eyes had something different from the usual reserved look. "I've never seen anyone work like you," he said, his voice low, full of sincerity. "I mean, I used to think scent was just a commercial product, people bought it because they liked a certain scent. But what you just did... I don't know how to describe it, it was like a psychotherapy session."

Bao Nghi smiled slightly, put Mr. Vinh Vuong's handkerchief back into a small cloth bag, and carefully put it in a separate drawer for ongoing orders. "My mother often says that this job is not about selling fragrance, but about selling people a part of themselves that they are afraid of forgetting. Perfume usually only lasts a few hours on the skin, but the memories it evokes can stay for a lifetime."

"So what about you?" Bach Nguyen asked, surprised, making Bao Nghi pause slightly. "Have you ever mixed a scent for yourself? To keep something of yourself?"

That question touches a place Bao Nghi rarely lets anyone touch. She was silent for a moment, her hand unconsciously caressing the edge of the burlap towel covering the mixing table. "I'm trying," she finally replied, her voice quiet. "But what I'm trying to keep is something I myself have never had in my memories, but the memories of my grandmother, whom I never met when I was still awake enough to remember."

Bach Nguyen looked at her, did not immediately ask further, just waited, as if giving her the necessary silence to decide whether she wanted to continue speaking or not - a sensitivity that Bao Nghi did not expect from someone who had only known her for only a few days. And perhaps because of that patience, she found herself suddenly telling him, for the first time to someone outside the family, about the two words "Hoai Huong" written in large letters underlined twice on the half-burnt page, about the flood that swept away her grandmother's mother, about the unfinished sentence "Please remember me" that her grandmother had not yet finished writing.

Bach Nguyen listened without interrupting, his face gradually became serious and somewhat emotional. When she finished, he was silent for a long time, then said, his voice surprisingly firm: "Can I help? I don't know much about perfume making, but I have experience reading and restoring old documents. Ancient architectural papers are sometimes burned or termite-ridden like that. I know a few ways to read parts of text that were thought to be lost."

Bao Nghi looked at him, surprised by that unexpected proposal, and a strange feeling arose in her heart - not necessarily hope, because she still had too many doubts about his true role in the house's story, but also no longer completely wary like the first days. "Thank you," she said, her voice sincere. "I... I'll think about it."

Bach Nguyen nodded, not forcing her to make a decision right away, just quietly packing up her tools and preparing to leave. Before walking out the door, he stopped, looked at the shelf with unlabeled glass jars, his eyes had a ray of something both sad and warm. "I hope," he said quietly, almost to himself, "that one day, this place will still be standing, no matter what happens to my work."

The door closed behind him, leaving Bao Nghi standing alone in the middle of the sunset shop, her heart filled with emotions that were difficult to name - part fear, part hope, and part, although she did not dare to admit it clearly, was starting to wait for the next visit of that architect named Duong.

She returned to the mixing table and immediately started testing the scent for Mr. Vinh Vuong while the memory of the meeting was still fresh in her mind. She took out three bottles of base essential oils - a bit of smoky vetiver to evoke a honeycomb charcoal stove, a drop of pure coconut oil, and a ylang ylang essence distilled from the backyard of an acquaintance's house on the outskirts of town - dripped each drop carefully onto a small ceramic spoon, stirred well, then brought it up to her nose to smell. Not correct. The smell of smoke is a bit too strong, overwhelming the gentle scent of orchid that should be the main highlight. She added a drop of white musk to soften the whole thing, tried again, and this time, when she closed her eyes and inhaled, she felt exactly the feeling Mr. Vinh Vuong had described—a quiet evening beside a dying fire, a woman sitting quietly looking at the embers, and somewhere, the scent of wedding flowers from forty-two years ago still lingered in her hair. She wrote down the proportions in her own recipe book, carefully as if copying a poem, then allowed herself to sit down to rest, the warm yellow light of the table lamp covering her hands that still had the scent of a perfect marriage that she had never witnessed but was able to understand.