Chapter 21 — Vegetarian Restaurant Behind the Temple Gate

At seven o'clock in the evening, An Tam Vegetarian Restaurant has cleared all the tables and chairs for customers, but the lights in the restaurant are still bright, and the smell of hot ginger tea is wafting from the clay pot placed in the middle of the largest wooden table next to the wall - where for more than a week now, every evening at dusk, the whole group has gathered to sit and discuss keeping the shop and the temple. Seven more days are left for the deadline for the Ho Tu Board to respond to Dai Phu Khang Group. That number hangs over everyone's heads like a gradually tightening string, with each passing day it seems to get a little shorter.

Giap Yen Nhi sat at the head of the table, in front of her was a stack of signature papers brought by Mr. Nhan Duc Phong - more than eight hundred signatures of the people of Ben Truc town, scribbles of old people, neat signatures of students, even fingerprints of a few illiterate people. She turned each page, her heart both warm and heavy. Warm because I saw people standing towards the restaurant and the temple. It was heavy because she knew that just a signature might not be enough.

"Eight hundred and twenty-three signatures," Mr. Phong said, his voice both proud and a little helpless, rubbing his chin. "But I'm afraid that to the people in the province, and to Mr. Sai Trong Phat, this piece of paper is just a piece of paper. People need to see things with their eyes, not read them with words."

On Bich Ha sat next to him, holding a cup of tea with both hands, remaining silent for a long time before speaking. She still has that habit - before saying anything important, she often stays silent as if she's considering each word, a habit that started after Bo passed away, when she learned not to let words out too hastily anymore.

"I remember one time, when Bo was still alive, we passed by a temple in another province, on the occasion that temple organized a free vegetarian meal distribution for all the poor neighborhoods around there." She spoke, her voice slow, her eyes looking down at the table as if she were looking back at an old scene. "Bo was only six years old at that time, and kept asking me to bring him a bowl, sitting and eating in the middle of the temple yard with some strange children, laughing and talking like we knew each other from a previous life. I always remember the feeling of that day - not everyone is poor, not everyone is miserable, but people still sit and eat together, just because a bowl of vegetarian rice can do that. It erases all the distance."

The whole table was silent, only the sound of the teapot boiling on the small charcoal stove that Mrs. Cam Thi Nu kept warm in the corner of the shop. Yen Nhi looked up at On Bich Ha, a vague thought began to form in her mind, like the way a thin layer of smoke gradually gathers into a clear shape.

"Miss Ha," Yen Nhi said slowly, "how about we do such a day? Not to protest anyone, not to raise banners or shout slogans. But to show the whole town, with their own eyes, what pagodas and shops are to people. A day of free vegetarian meals, open to everyone, everyone can sit and eat in the same place."

Lang Thien Tam, sitting at the end of the table, put down the tea cup, his eyes lit up in a rare way. "Not just rice." he said. "If you do it, you should do it completely. In addition to vegetarian meals, open a corner of the temple yard as a space for mindfulness - whoever wants to meditate for fifteen minutes, whoever wants to write a few lines remembering a deceased loved one on a board, whoever wants to just sit quietly and listen to the bell, there is a place for everyone. So that people can not only leave full, but also take something with them in their hearts."

Yen Nhi looked at him and saw in his words what her mother had done for twenty-five years at this restaurant - nourishing people's bodies and minds with a simple meal. She nodded, a slow smile spreading across her lips, the first in days without a burden.

Che Hoai Nam, sitting cross-legged on a stool, still holding a notebook in his hand, suddenly stood up, his eyes shining. "If it's that big, I'll write an article inviting reporters from the provincial station and online newspapers too. Not to make a fuss, but to have someone record it truthfully and objectively. And we should invite the whole town government and representatives of the higher-level Buddhist Church to attend."

"Invite everyone there?" Uncle Phong frowned, his voice cautious. "What if they side with Mr. Sai Trong Phat?"

"It's even more important to invite." Che Hoai Nam replied, his voice firm. "If we only do it within acquaintances, this matter will forever be just Ben Truc's matter. But if we invite competent people to come to the place and see with our own eyes, then they can't just listen to reports on paper anymore. People will have to see, have to hear, right on the spot."

Ms. Cam Thi Nu, who had been sitting quietly at the corner of the table from the beginning, suddenly spoke, her voice was hoarse but clear. "In the past, my mother — " she looked at Yen Nhi, " — every time the temple had a big event, she used to cook a big pot of sticky rice and share it with the whole neighborhood. She said that sticky rice was a dish of cooperation. Everyone contributed a hand to prepare the beans and a hand to mix the sticky rice, so the sticky rice would be delicious and even. On any festival day, remember to cook the sticky rice, it's like inviting the whole village on behalf of your mother."

Yen Nhi felt a sting in her nose when she heard her mention her mother, but this time, that sting did not drag her down like the previous times, but was like a small fire fueled with more wood, burning more steadily. She nodded, scribbled in her notebook the words "sticky rice — grandmother is in charge", then looked up at the whole table.

"So what should I name the festival?" On Bich Ha asked.

The whole table was silent for a moment, each person turning over in their minds what they had just said — about Bo's bowl of rice, about Thien Tam's wooden tenon hands, about Yen Nhi's mother's pot of sticky rice, about the meaning of giving without calculation. It was Thien Tam who broke that silence first.

"Kindness Rice Bowl Festival." he spoke, slowly, as if he were tasting each word before saying it out loud. "Bowl of rice, because it's the simplest thing, everyone needs it. Compassion, because it's the only thing that makes an ordinary bowl of rice become something bigger than itself."

No one objected. That name, simple but touching exactly what they were trying to say, had the whole table nodding in agreement almost immediately. Yen Nhi wrote it on the top of the white page, her handwriting trembling with emotion, then underlined it twice.

The meeting lasted until nearly ten o'clock at night, when the group had finished dividing the tasks: Mr. Phong took care of inviting the town government and applying for a permit to organize; Che Hoai Nam took care of contacting the media and preparing invitation letters to send to the higher Church; On Bich Ha took on the role of cooking sweet soup and mobilized a few more women in the neighborhood to help in the kitchen; Thien Tam took over setting up the theater, setting up tables and chairs, and preparing a mindfulness corner in the temple yard; Mrs. Nu kept her promise with the pot of sticky rice; And Yen Nhi, in addition to coordinating the main kitchen, secretly has another private plan that she has not told anyone - this time, on this occasion, she will be able to cook a pot of sour soup with chopsticks exactly like her mother used to cook, not only with the exact recipe, but also with the soul inside that recipe.

When everyone left, Thien Tam was the last person to stay, helping Yen Nhi move a few stools inside. Outside in the yard, the summer moon hangs over the canopy of ancient Bodhi trees next to the pagoda, thin silver light spreads down to the Thien Ly flower trellis, which is closing its petals waiting for the night dew.

"Seven days," Yen Nhi said softly, as if she was talking more to herself than to him, "will it be enough, teacher — " she paused, correcting her words, " — Mr. Tam."

That was the first time she called him that, no longer "teacher" like her old habit. Thien Tam paused for a second, then smiled. His eyes in that moment had a warmth that Yen Nhi had never seen in him before, even during the days when he was wearing a blue shirt.

"Seven days is enough to set up a tent, cook a pot of rice, and invite a hundred people." he said, his voice soft but firm. "If it's enough for one heart touch another, it doesn't take seven days. Sometimes it only takes a bowl of rice, at the right time, with the right person."

Yen Nhi looked at him, didn't say anything more, but in her heart, a strange feeling of peace was spreading, creeping into every little corner that was still confused for so long. She bent down to finish cleaning up the tea cups, while Thien Tam stood silently looking out at the yard, where the moonlight still sprinkled silver steadily on the old tiled roof of the shop and the temple roof in the distance, as if both roofs, for a long time, had shared the same halo of light.

That night, before going to bed, Yen Nhi took out her mother's recipe notebook and turned to the page that listed the sour soup with cotton and chopsticks. Cam Thi Xuan's familiar italicized words appeared under the table lamp light. She read it again and again, not to memorize the words - she had memorized them a long time ago - but to find, once again, the feeling of sitting next to her mother by the fire, where the recipe is just the frame, and the soul of the dish lies somewhere else, much deeper than the measured numbers. She closed the notebook, hugged it to her chest for a moment, then turned off the light, silently making a promise to herself: in seven days, she would be able to cook that pot of soup, not for the festival, but first of all for her mother.