Chapter 19 — Vegetarian Restaurant Behind the Temple Gate

Two weeks after the graduation ceremony, Lang Thien Tam has gradually gotten used to his new rhythm of life - a rhythm of life that is both strange and familiar, like a person who once knew the old path by heart and now has to relearn how to set each step on that same path, the only difference is that he no longer wears the brown robe on his shoulders. Venerable Thich Tue Thong arranged for him a small room behind the pagoda's guest house, enough to accommodate a bamboo bed, a carpenter's table, and a shelf for the tools he had collected during eight years of doing odd repairs on the premises. His official title is now the manager of the temple grounds and maintenance of the temple's facilities — a simple lay job but just as busy as when he was a monk, maybe even busier, because now he not only sweeps the yard and waters the plants, but also has to fix the roof, build tables and chairs, rebuild the wooden fence around the vegetable garden, and anything else that requires the skillful hands of a craftsman.

The most obvious change, even though no one said it out loud, was the way he and Yen Nhi were together. In the past, every time we talked, there was always an invisible but certain distance between the two - the distance of the robe, of the precepts, of a boundary that both were very aware of and voluntarily kept. Now, that distance no longer had a reason to exist, but instead of becoming closer immediately, the two became more reserved, like two people who had just stepped out of a familiar room, standing in front of a newly opened door, still hesitant and not knowing how to pass through.

Thien Tam began to visit the shop more often, no longer as a monk helping to fix a leaky roof or drinking a cup of tea to chat, but simply as a neighbor, an old friend. There were times when he brought to Yen Nhi a few boards he was planning to rebuild the kitchen shelf that had been rickety for a long time. There were times when he sat quietly in the corner of the shop, ordered a cup of sweet soup, and while eating, watched Yen Nhi bustle between the pots and pans. His eyes, if anyone paid close attention, would notice a gentleness that was different from the inherent calmness of a monk. Yen Nhi also noticed a change in herself - she started to pay attention to see if he stopped by the shop today, started to keep the best sweet soup for him without him telling her to, started to feel her heart sink a little every time she heard familiar footsteps stopping in front of the gate. But neither of them said it. Not out of fear, but out of a quiet respect for this time - the time when a feeling is allowed to grow slowly, without being forced, without being hastily called out.

One afternoon, when Thien Tam was busy shaving the wooden table outside the shop's yard, Yen Nhi brought him a glass of cool water, sat down on a nearby step, and watched the flow of curved shavings fall to the ground. "Do you remember when you were a teacher?" she asked, her voice gentle, not inquisitive.

Thien Tam stopped, thought for a moment, then answered honestly: "I remember. I remember the sound of the bell every morning, I remember the time of meditation, I remember the feeling of peace when I put on the robe. But I don't regret it. There are things I can take with me, even if my appearance changes - like the mindfulness I learned in those eight years, which is still intact when I hold this robe." He looked at her, flashing a smile. "What about Yen Nhi, do you miss Saigon?"

"There are nights when I miss her," she admitted, "but I don't miss my job, I miss the feeling that I used to think I was good and important. Now here, I'm just a person cooking vegetarian rice and selling it at a tiny restaurant behind the temple gate, but I feel like I'm living a much more real life than I did back then." She was silent for a moment, then added, her voice soft: "Next week is my mother's death anniversary."

Thien Tam looked at her, his eyes softened. "What are you going to cook?"

"Sour flower soup with chopsticks," Yen Nhi replied, looking far away at the Thien Ly flower trellis. "Mom's signature dish. There's a recipe written in her notebook, but I've tried cooking it several times but it never comes out exactly like the taste I remember from when I was little. There's something I'm always missing, but I don't know what it's missing."

Cam Thi Xuan's death anniversary fell on a gloomy morning, with light rain early in the morning, the light rain typical of the flood season in the West, causing the entire Bo De Alley to be submerged in a dim mist. Yen Nhi closed the shop early, just left the small sign "The shop is closed today, the owner's mother's death anniversary" hanging in front of the gate, then together with her grandmother prepared a tray of offerings. Mrs. Cam Thi Nu sat picking vegetables in the corner of the yard, occasionally wiping her tears with her hand, muttering old stories about her daughter that only she could remember clearly.

Yen Nhi opened her mother's notebook and turned to the page containing the recipe for sour cotton so chopsticks soup, the familiar slanted handwriting was slightly blurred over the years. She read each line carefully - the tamarind must be picked early in the morning while it's still wet with dew, the tamarind must be pickled and sour, not harsh; okra sliced diagonally to retain crunchiness; and a small note in the margin, in shaky handwriting, probably written in the last years of his life: "When cooking this dish, you must cook with all your heart, remembering your father and the people you love. Without that, the soup with the correct recipe is just sour water." When Yen Nhi read that sentence, her heart sank, but she still started cooking, believing that this time, with all her concentration and love, she would be able to do it.

But things were not as she expected. Her hands shook as she seasoned, her mind drifted back to fragmented memories from time to time - the image of her mother standing next to the pot of soup, her back hunched over the years, the sound of her mother coughing in the last nights before her heart stopped beating. The soup, when tasted, had a harsher, more sour taste than the gentle, warm taste she remembered from her childhood. She added sugar and seasoned it, but the more she tweaked it, the more it felt wrong, as if her own taste buds were betraying her right when she needed it the most. Boiled chopsticks are a bit too hot, losing their characteristic fresh crispness. The okra was mushy. Every little detail, the details that her mother used to do almost without thinking, now became obstacles she couldn't overcome.

When she took the pot of soup out of the kitchen to prepare for offering, Yen Nhi tasted the last spoonful, and she knew, immediately, that this was not her mother's pot of soup. It was an ordinary pot of sour soup with chopsticks, which might still be delicious to strange diners, but it was not the flavor that was deeply imprinted in her childhood memories, the flavor associated with the image of her mother standing next to the fire, her hands nimble, her mouth softly singing a Vong Co verse with no beginning or end. She put down the spoon, her shoulders trembled, then tears flowed out, uncontrollably, the tears that had been pent up for two years since her mother passed away, now bursting out right in the middle of the small kitchen, amidst the smell of smoke, sour tamarind, and the smell of cotton and chopsticks.

"I'm sorry, Mom," she said, her voice choked up, not knowing who she was talking to, the pot of soup, the photo on the altar, or herself. "I'm sorry, I can't keep your taste. No matter what I do, I can't keep it all. I'm not sure I can keep the restaurant. I can't cook your food properly."

Grandma heard the crying, walked in with her cane, intending to comfort her as usual, but as soon as she reached the kitchen door, she stopped, because at that moment another person had walked in first - Thien Tam, who had stopped by early to help clean the altar in the yard as promised, heard the crying and quickly ran in. He stood still for a second at the sight of Yen Nhi hugging her face next to the pot of soup, then without saying a word, he walked over, placed his hand on her shoulder, a gentle, firm touch, not hastily withdrawing.

"It's okay," he said, his voice low and warm. "There are some flavors that I can't recreate using the recipe, because it's not in the recipe. It's in a moment, a person, a time that has passed. You don't need to cook it exactly like your mother. You just need to cook it with everything you have in your heart right now — including this sadness, even this helplessness. Who knows, one day, when you no longer try to be like your mother, that taste will come back on its own."

Yen Nhi looked up at him, her eyes still red, she didn't say anything, just nodded slightly. His hand remained on her shoulder for another moment, warm and steady, before he gently withdrew it, taking a step back, as if he himself was careful to keep the moment from going too far beyond what was necessary. Grandma stood at the door, silently looking at them both, not saying a word, but in her eyes, there was the gentle understanding of someone who has lived long enough to recognize when something, without needing to be named, has begun to sprout.

That afternoon, the rice offering tray to Cam Thi Xuan was still fully served, there was a pot of sour soup with cotton and chopsticks that didn't taste right but was cooked with all the remaining heart, there was a plate of braised scorched rice, and a bowl of lotus seed and longan sweet soup that my grandmother helped cook. Yen Nhi lit three sticks of incense, stood in front of her mother's altar for a long time, not praying for anything, just silently telling her mother that she was trying her best, even though she was not perfect, even though she still stumbled, she would not give up - not the shop, not her mother's recipe, and perhaps, even though she did not dare to think further, something new had just quietly begun to spark in her heart, in the midst of the most difficult days.