Chapter 4 — Vegetarian Restaurant Behind the Temple Gate

The shiny black four-seater car appeared at the beginning of Bo De Alley at eight o'clock in the morning, parked right in front of the temple's side gate, a place that was only used to the sound of bicycles chugging by Buddhists or motorbikes chugging by people in the neighborhood. Yen Nhi was standing on the restaurant's porch wiping tables, holding a damp towel, when she saw three men wearing white shirts and suit pants getting out of the car, one carrying a metal suitcase, another carrying a measuring stick with a flashing red light on his shoulder. They talk to each other in a city accent, with a decisive tone, different from the familiar slow, drawn-out voice of Ben Truc people.

She stopped and stood watching as they walked around the yard in front of the lotus pond, one person planted a small stake with a red ribbon on the grass near the water's edge, another held a scope of some sort towards the three-entrance gate and took notes on a clipboard. There was a person who even approached the land where An Tam restaurant was located, stopped to look at the old tiled roof, looked at the Thien Ly flower trellis, then bent down to write something, with an indifferent expression as if he was evaluating an item, not standing in front of a place where people have been cooking for each other for twenty-five years.

"Uncle, what are you doing?" Yen Nhi walked out, trying to keep her voice calm even though an indescribable restlessness arose in her heart.

The man looked up and gave a brief, social smile. "We did a cadastral survey, ma'am. Re-measured the land boundaries at the request of the investor, in coordination with the Pagoda Protection Committee." He said that sentence as smoothly as if he had repeated it dozens of times in dozens of other places, then turned away and continued working, not bothering to explain further, considering that answer was enough for all questions.

Yen Nhi stood still for a moment, watching the three men moving around the temple grounds with decisive, confident steps as if they had the right to be there before. She remembered a brief conversation with Master Thien Tam a few weeks ago, when he casually mentioned "a few rumors" spreading in the neighborhood, about someone wanting to buy land around the temple for a project. At that time, she only thought it was a distant matter, the matter of the adults in the Household Department, not directly related to her small kitchen. But looking at the scene before her eyes, she suddenly realized that the "rumor" had become something very real, very specific, planting red stakes right in front of her gate.

She returned to the kitchen and told Mrs. Nu. Grandmother was sitting and washing rice. After listening, she stopped, her face changed slightly, but then she just shook her head, her voice lowered. "Let the monks and the Household Committee take care of the land and the sand. I'm just a symbolic tenant. What can I say now?" But her hands, when holding the rice basket, trembled slightly more than usual, a trembling that Yen Nhi noticed but did not dare to ask further, afraid of touching a worry that neither of them was ready to name.

That afternoon, news of the survey team spread quickly throughout Bodhi Tree Alley, from person to person like a wind blowing through dry leaves. A few Buddhist girls stopped by the restaurant for lunch and chatted loudly. Some said they heard that a big company wanted to build a resort, some said it was just taking measurements to prepare documents to restore the temple. No one knew for sure, but everyone had a worried look on their face behind their jokes and tried to keep it normal.

Right at the time when the restaurant was most crowded, around twelve o'clock in the afternoon, the alarm bell rang out from the temple yard, not the familiar bell sound but the sound of people calling each other excitedly, the sound of slippers running loudly on the tiled floor. Yen Nhi was ladling soup for guests when she heard little monk Nho shouting from outside the side gate, her young voice cracking with panic: "Miss Nhi, the monk has fallen, the monk has fallen!"

She immediately dropped the ladle on the table, didn't have time to take off her apron, ran out of the restaurant, crossed the small alley, and rushed into the temple yard. The scene before her eyes made her heart stop for a beat: monk Thich Giac Vien was lying sprawled on the brick floor in front of the main hall, right near where the survey team had just set up measuring poles not far away, his face was pale, his lips were slightly purple, one hand was still clutching the hem of his robe as if he was trying to stand up. A few old Buddhists stood around, some were confused and didn't know what to do, some were hastily taking out wind oil and rubbing it, the sobbing sound of an old lady was mixed with the sound of calling for help.

Thien Tam ran in almost at the same time as Yen Nhi, perhaps from the ancestral house behind, his face was pale, completely different from his usual calm look. He knelt down next to the monk, one hand supporting his head off the hard tile floor, the other hand pressed against his wrist to feel his pulse. His voice trembled but he still tried to keep it clear to reassure everyone around him. "The monk is still breathing, his pulse is still beating, but it is very weak. We must take him to the hospital immediately, without delay."

"My car is outside, let me take it!" One of the three men in the survey team, perhaps because he was startled by the unexpected situation, also quickly spoke up and ran to get the car. Yen Nhi and Thien Tam and two men in the neighborhood gently lifted the monk up and placed him in the back seat of that shiny black car - the same car that once carried people to measure the temple's land, now became the vehicle to transport the abbot to the emergency room, an irony that no one in that moment of panic had enough mind to realize.

Yen Nhi sat behind him, one hand supporting the monk's head, the other hand tightly holding his thin, cold hand, feeling each weak pulse beating under her fingertips. The car sped along the bumpy dirt road leading to the highway, toward the district general hospital nearly twenty kilometers away, each bump making her heart tighten. Thien Tam sat in front, turning his head constantly to check the monk's breathing, muttering something incomprehensible, perhaps a mantra, a prayer, or simply his way of keeping himself from panicking.

"Sir, hurry up, it's almost there." Yen Nhi whispered in his ear, her voice choked. She remembers the afternoons of her childhood, when her mother took her to the temple to worship Buddha, the monk would often pat her head, put a small ginger candy in her hand, telling her to "eat it to warm your stomach". She remembered the years after her mother's death, it was the monk who came to her house, sat all afternoon at the altar, chanted a prayer for the deceased, then held her hand and told her, "Try to keep this shop, it's not just a shop, it's where your mother leaves the most beautiful part of her life". That spiritual teacher, now lying motionless in her arms, is as fragile as a lamp in the wind.

Arriving at the hospital, the doctors on duty in the emergency department hurriedly took the monk into the special observation room, the door closed, leaving Yen Nhi and Thien Tam standing in the white hallway, the strong smell of antiseptic replacing the familiar scent of incense. They stood next to each other, saying nothing for a long time, only listening to the footsteps of people passing by and the loudspeaker calling the patient's name echoing monotonously and emotionlessly.

"It's due to land survey." Thien Tam finally spoke, his voice deep and heavy, his hands clasped tightly together. "The monk has had a weak heart for a long time, the doctor still told him to avoid strong emotions. This morning he saw the survey team setting up stakes right in front of the main hall, no one told him a word in advance, he asked himself, then..." He didn't finish his sentence, just shook his head, looking down at his hands as if blaming himself for not being there sooner.

"It's not the teacher's fault." Yen Nhi spoke softly, even though she herself was feeling a similar vague sense of self-blame, wondering if she had been quicker, if she had spoken out against the survey team from the beginning, would things have been different. But she knew, deep down, that this was not something that could be stopped by a single individual action. It was a machine that had begun to move, silently but surely, exactly like the machine that had swallowed up her youth in Saigon.

Nearly an hour later, a doctor came out, took off his mask, and announced that he was in critical condition. He was diagnosed with acute heart failure due to a sudden increase in blood pressure. He needed to be hospitalized for at least a week and absolutely avoid any stress or strong emotions in the near future. Yen Nhi breathed a sigh of relief, but soon another worry arose: in a week, maybe more, the pagoda would be without a leader, right at the time when a real estate corporation was knocking on the door with measuring poles and flashy perspective drawings.

That afternoon, when Yen Nhi and Thien Tam returned to Ben Truc on a late bus, it was already dark, the sparse streetlights shone through the glass window, dyeing both their tired faces yellow. Yen Nhi leaned her head against the back of the chair, closed her eyes, but couldn't sleep, her ears were still ringing with the sound of the emergency bell, the sound of Little shouting frantically.

"Are you scared?" Thien Tam asked, his voice light, breaking the silence that lasted half the way.

"I'm scared." Yen Nhi answered honestly, not hiding anything. "I'm afraid of those red stakes. I'm afraid of the way people look at my shop, at my temple, like looking at a piece of land on a map, not like looking at a place where people live and love each other there."

Thien Tam was silent for a moment, looking out the car window, where the darkness of the countryside passed by quickly. "I'm scared too." he said, his voice rare with sincerity. "But I think, fear is not a bad thing, as long as you don't let it keep you still. My master once taught me, fear is like the wind - it can blow out a weak lamp, but it can also ignite an already existing fire, if you know how to stand in the right direction of the wind."

Yen Nhi did not answer, just nodded slightly, letting that sentence settle in her heart like a new seed, not knowing when it would germinate amid the piled up worries. The car continued to roll into the night, taking them back to Bo De Alley, where the lights of An Tam restaurant still glimmered like a small promise that no matter what tomorrow brings, tonight there is still a home to return to.