Chapter 2 — Vegetarian Restaurant Behind the Temple Gate

At noon, Yen Nhi sat with her back against the porch pillar, holding a cup of artichoke tea that was still steaming slightly, looking out at the brick-paved yard that had faded over the years. Mrs. Nu sat next to her, her wrinkled hands still restless, wrapping tiny little gai leaf cakes to bring to the pagoda in the afternoon. The smell of banana leaves being heated through the fire mixed with the scent of fragrant glutinous rice flour spread throughout the porch, evoking a familiar feeling in Yen Nhi - the feeling of childhood afternoons, when she was sitting next to her mother, clumsily learning to wrap each cake, but every time tearing the leaves.

"Twenty-five years," Mrs. Nu suddenly spoke up, not looking at her granddaughter, her eyes still glued to her hands that were quickly folding the edges of the leaves. "This shop, twenty-five years."

Yen Nhi nodded slightly. She knew that number, had heard it repeated countless times since she was a child, but every time her grandmother said it, it still carried a different weight, like a pebble polished over time, getting a little smoother with each touch, but never losing its weight.

"Do you remember the day mom opened the shop?" she asked.

"I wasn't born yet, grandma," Yen Nhi laughed softly.

"Yeah." Mrs. Nu also smiled, but that smile quickly subsided into a familiar contemplation. "Then let me tell you the story, lest you forget the origins of this shop."

She put down the cake she had just wrapped and spoke slowly, her voice lowered as if she were turning over pages of old memories. Twenty-seven years ago, an unprecedented flood swept through Ben Truc town, water rising to cover more than half of the roofs in the working-class village along the river. That night, Giap Van Khiem — Yen Nhi's father — heard the cries for help from a neighboring family trapped in a house that was about to collapse, and rushed into the rushing water to save people. He saved three lives, but he himself never returned. His body was found two days later, stuck in a bamboo grove nearly two kilometers from his home.

"Your mother was only twenty-eight years old at that time. She was six months pregnant with you," Mrs. Nu continued, her voice choked up even though she had told this story countless times. "Everyone in the neighborhood thought he was going to collapse. She was also scared. But do you know what your mother did? She didn't cry and struggle like people thought. She quietly cleaned up this old house - the house I'm sitting here in - and then started cooking. At first, she only cooked for a few neighbors who lost their homes in the flood, without taking any money. Then someone advised her to open a restaurant, earn money from the fields to raise her children. She listened, opened this An Tam Vegetarian Restaurant, named that because she told her to. — cooking was the only way she found peace of mind after losing her husband."

Yen Nhi lowered her head to look down at the cup of tea that had cooled down, the smoke no longer rising. She had heard this story many times, but every time, a feeling of lump in her throat rose up when she imagined the young mother, pregnant, standing alone in this empty kitchen, without her husband, with no one but her own hands to hold on to.

"You know," Yen Nhi said softly, "there are times when I'm standing in the kitchen, I wonder how you do it. I'm just exhausted, but I still find it difficult, and mom..."

"Your mother is exhausted too," Mrs. Nu interrupted, her voice softening. "Don't think that when people are strong, they are not exhausted, my child. It's just that your mother found a place to put that exhaustion down. She put it in the pot of soup, in the sticky rice bowl, in each guest she served every day. And you..." She stopped, looking at her granddaughter for a long time. "I'm still carrying that exhaustion on my shoulders, I haven't found a place to put it down yet."

Yen Nhi did not respond. She looked out into the yard, where the noon sun was spreading a golden layer on the old bricks, where the shop's tabby cat was curled up sleeping in the shade of the thien ly trellis. Her grandmother's words were like a small needle, not painful but gently pricking somewhere deep in her heart, a place she was still deliberately avoiding and not looking directly at.

Ms. Nu, eighty-one years old, has lived with Yen Nhi since her mother died of heart disease two years ago. At this age, her memory was sometimes confused - one day she mistakenly called Yen Nhi "Xuan", her mother's name, another day she told an old story three times in one afternoon without realizing she had told it - but when she was awake, she was strangely lucid, as if all the wisdom of a lifetime had been distilled into short, simple but profound sentences. She often joked that she was "old, but her head is still usable, only her legs are broken", then she laughed, her eyes narrowed into two lines.

"Okay, don't sit and ponder anymore," Ms. Nu patted her knee, stood up slowly, using her cane to explore each step. "Go, take this cake to the temple for grandma. It's been a while since I've been over there to light incense for the monk. Besides, I'm going to stretch my tendons and bones. I've been sitting in the kitchen all morning."

Yen Nhi stood up, took the hemp leaf cake from her hand, carefully carried it out of the porch, and walked along Bo De Alley towards the side gate of the pagoda. The alley was deserted at noon, with only the sound of cicadas chirping in the trees and the rustling of leaves every time a gentle breeze blew by. On both sides of the alley, the mossy walls are mottled with time marks, occasionally dotted with a few bright red hibiscus flowers growing in the brick crevices.

Approaching the side gate, Yen Nhi saw a familiar blue-shirted figure holding a bamboo broom to sweep the yellow Bodhi leaves that had fallen all over the brick yard. That is Master Thien Tam - the youngest monk among the monks at Tinh Lien Pagoda, who is in charge of taking care of the temple grounds. She had met him countless times since her return, brief nods and greetings as she passed the gate, a few words exchanged when he stopped by the shop to buy a few servings of vegetarian rice for the monks in the temple. Master Thien Tam is two years older than her, tall and thin, his skin is tanned from outdoor work, his hands are calloused from constantly doing carpentry - repairing rotten wooden steps, resetting old window frames, odd jobs that an ancient temple always needs.

"Amitabha Buddha," the teacher clasped his hands in greeting when he saw Yen Nhi coming, his voice low and calm. "Miss Yen Nhi brought cakes to offer?"

"Yes, my relatives wrapped banh it with gai leaves and told me to bring it to the monk and the monks," Yen Nhi replied, also clasping her hands in return according to a habit she had formed since childhood.

Teacher Thien Tam nodded, looked at the hot cake, and smiled slightly. "The monk likes this very much. Just let me bring it inside." The teacher placed the bamboo broom against the root of the Bodhi tree, raised both hands to take the cake from Yen Nhi, carefully as if he were lifting something precious.

They stood there for a while, under the shade of the ancient Bodhi tree that covered a corner of the yard, not saying much - just a few polite questions about Mrs. Nu's health, about how the shop was doing recently, and about the fact that the pagoda had just repaired the stone steps behind the main hall. The conversation was short, light, nothing special — like any other time between them. Yen Nhi realized that she was used to the teacher's calm presence, used to the way he always kept a moderate distance, polite but warm, just like the way the pagoda and the shop have existed side by side for many years - close but not intrusive, familiar but never truly close.

"Okay, I'm going home, teacher," Yen Nhi said, bowing slightly.

"Be careful when you go home," Mr. Thien Tam replied, then turned back to pick up the broom and continue the unfinished job of sweeping the yard.

Yen Nhi walked back to the alley, the noon sun was high, shining through the leaves, creating shimmering spots of light dancing on the brick road. She looked back once, seeing the figure of Master Thien Tam diligently sweeping up each fallen yellow leaf, the shadow of his blue shirt blending into the shadow of an ancient tree, an image so familiar that it had almost become a permanent part of the scene here - like the sound of a temple bell, like the scent of incense, like this small alley itself.

Returning to the shop, she saw Mrs. Nu sitting on a rattan chair on the porch, taking a nap, still holding the areca fan in her hand. Yen Nhi gently took a thin towel and placed it on her shoulder, then returned to the kitchen to start preparing for the afternoon. While washing vegetables, her mind drifted back to the story she had just told - about a pregnant young mother standing in the middle of a ruined kitchen after a flood, deciding to rebuild from scratch. She wondered if her mother could find peace in the midst of such great loss, then why did she, with only one exhaustion of her own, find it so difficult to find the same.

That question did not have an answer at that time. It just stayed quietly in her heart, like a seed that had just been sown, not knowing when it would germinate.