Chapter 14

by duhless_90

After that day, Mai did not go exercise anymore.

The workout schedule Hoang had arranged so neatly suddenly snapped in half like a rotten bamboo stick. Tieu My texted to ask. Nhung hinted gently. But Mai dodged all of it. She still lived in the rental block like before, still went to the market, cooked rice, hung clothes, still went up and down the old creaking stairs, but her path naturally became narrower. She avoided Old Tu’s hammock spot. Avoided the tea table where he often sat. Avoided even his dry cough and the dragging of his slippers whenever he crossed the yard.

She did not know how to face Old Tu.

Old Tu was no better. He still lay in the hammock, still waved the woven fan, still acted normal with the tenants, but each time Mai passed, his eyes drifted somewhere else. One time the two of them met right at the foot of the stairs and could not dodge in time. Mai stood on the step. Old Tu stood below in the yard. Both of them froze as if someone had grabbed them by the neck.

“Going to the market?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

Mai nodded.

“Yes.”

Then that was all.

Only that. One unnecessary question, one blunt answer, but underneath was a whole night no one dared name. They brushed past each other, shoulders almost touching, both bodies stiff. That distance looked from outside like only a few inches, but inside it had become an abyss.

Hung was different.

Hung was like someone had pumped more air into his body. In the daytime at the sewing factory, he walked around more arrogantly than before. Old Quy had been removed, the old director had disappeared, the new director had just arrived and still had not learned the workers’ faces, did not know which line often made mistakes, which team often stole work hours, who had been Old Quy’s people, who only knew how to lower their heads. In that empty space, Hung swelled up very fast.

He was line leader.

Before, those two words had only been enough for him to show off in one corner of the factory. Now, with no one pressing down on his head, Hung saw himself as a little king. He stepped through the rows of machines, hands clasped behind his back, face tilted up. Any worker talking privately got yelled at. Any team slow on goods got cursed. Someone asked to take half a day off because their child was sick, and he slammed the table, saying the factory was not a charity house. He began to like the feeling of other people going silent when he walked over.

The new director also often called Hung up to ask about things.

“What’s the situation below?”

“Who used to control this line?”

“Who did Old Quy leave behind?”

Only a few questions like that were enough to make Hung think he was indispensable. He sat in the sewing factory office, talking to the new director in a voice half respectful, half pretending to understand life. Coming out the door, he tugged his collar and looked at the workers with completely different eyes. As if he had just been given an invisible stamp to press onto other people’s heads.

But Hung’s arrogance did not stop at the sewing factory.

In the afternoon when he came back to the rental block, he mixed that line leader role with his newly received identity: Old Tu’s son. Old Tu was the owner of the rental block, the nominal owner of the fruit juice company. So in Hung’s head, everything naturally connected into one very convenient line: what belonged to his father also belonged to him. This rental block, this yard, that warehouse, that office, those tattooed bastards watching the goods, even Nhung the accountant sitting in that room, all of them should know how to behave with him.

Before, when Old Tu dropped by the fruit juice company, he only glanced around carelessly. He asked a few harmless questions, drank a cup of tea, listened to Hoang report a few numbers, nodded as if he understood, then went back out to lie in the hammock or went to the gym with Mai. He was simple, or lazy to think, or already used to letting Hoang handle things. The company ran, the money came in, people respected him. That was enough.

But Hung was not like Old Tu.

Hung did not only want respect.

He wanted to stick his hand into the guts of the machine.

One afternoon, he walked straight into the fruit juice warehouse. The warehouse sat behind the rental block, its iron door pulled up halfway. Inside, boxes were stacked high, the smell of new cardboard, plastic, and sweet bottled juice hanging in the air. A few tattooed warehouse guys were checking orders. Seeing Hung come in, they lifted their heads.

“Who are you looking for?”

Hung frowned.

“What do you mean, who? I’m coming in to look at the goods.”

One guy stepped out, his voice still polite:

“Yes, the goods are being prepared for delivery. If you need anything, let me call Brother Hoang.”

Hearing Hoang’s name, Hung gave a scornful laugh.

“Call him for what?”

“Yes, Brother Hoang manages the warehouse and the orders.”

Hung bent down, picked up a knife, and slit open a carton near the door.

The tattooed guy hurried over.

“Brother Hung, don’t open that one. The goods are sealed, ready to ship. If it’s opened, we have to make a report.”

Hung looked up, eyes narrowing.

“You teaching me?”

“I don’t dare. But that’s the process.”

“Process?” Hung kicked lightly at the box. “My father’s company, and I have to ask some bastard for permission to look at one box?”

The people in the warehouse looked at one another.

The air froze.

Another guy said quietly:

“Please understand, Brother Hoang told us no one opens goods on their own.”

Hung laughed out loud.

“Hoang? That intern college kid?”

No one answered.

Hung got even more confident.

“What is he that he gets to tell people things? He eats my family’s salary, stays on my family’s land, works for my father. You believe I can say one sentence and have him kicked out?”

That sentence made the warehouse guys go completely silent.

They were not really afraid of Hung, but they were afraid of trouble. Afraid that some guy who had just found his father again, who was being loved by Old Tu, would go back and blow a few words into the old man’s ear and make everything messy. Hoang was the one they listened to, but on paper, Old Tu was still the owner. And blood was a thing very hard to argue against with process.

Hung saw them silent and thought he had won.

He went deeper into the warehouse, touching this box, kicking that box, asking product codes, asking delivery orders, asking selling prices. Some things he did not understand at all, but he still nodded as if he knew. If someone explained a little slowly, he cursed them as stupid. If someone said they had to ask Hoang, he glared.

“Everything is Hoang, Hoang. Are you people working for him or for this family?”

From the warehouse, Hung wandered over to the small office of the fruit juice company.

Nhung was sitting in front of the computer, beside her several stacks of invoices, delivery slips, and debt ledgers. She looked up when Hung pushed the door open without knocking.

“Brother Hung, do you need something?”

Hung pulled out a chair and sat down across from her, sitting without being invited. He looked around the room like a house owner inspecting a servant.

“Let me see the books a little.”

Nhung paused slightly.

“What books, brother?”

“Revenue. Debts. Goods money. How much the company profited this month, how much it spent.”

Nhung looked at him for another beat.

“Brother Hoang has approval rights over those. If Uncle Tu needs to see them, I can print a report for him.”

Hung leaned forward.

“I’m asking, not my father.”

“Then I can’t give them to you.”

Hung’s face darkened.

“Do you know who I am?”

Nhung still kept her voice soft, but her eyes were cold.

“I know. You’re Uncle Tu’s son.”

“Knowing that, you still talk like that?”

“Because company documents can’t be handed out casually.”

Hung looked Nhung up and down, then smiled thinly.

“You’ve gotten pretty stiff lately, huh. Got Hoang backing you up so you don’t look at anyone anymore?”

Nhung did not answer.

Hung propped his elbow on the table, lowering his voice half joking, half dirty:

“Or is Hoang tutoring you privately every night, so you listen to him that much?”

Nhung’s hand on the computer mouse tightened.

“Brother Hung, please talk properly.”

“Properly what? I’m only joking and you’re tense.”

He laughed. A very unpleasant laugh, the kind of laugh from a man who has just gotten a little power and wants to test how far he can make other people endure.

Nhung stood up.

“If you don’t have anything else, I still have reports to do.”

Hung also stood, dragging the chair with a screech across the tile floor.

“Then do your reports. But remember to tell that Hoang, from now on this company isn’t his alone to do whatever he wants with. My father is old, he just doesn’t pay attention. I’m different.”

Nhung looked straight at him.

“I’ll report it back.”

“Report it.” Hung laughed scornfully. “Report that I said it too. Tell him to watch his soul. Don’t think a few numbers mean he can sit on this family’s head.”

After saying that, he left.

That news reached Hoang very quickly.

No one needed to add fish sauce and salt. Nhung only repeated each sentence exactly, each place where Hung demanded to see the books, opened goods, cursed the warehouse staff, called Hoang an intern college kid. The tattooed guys at the warehouse also sent word. The cameras recorded fully the scene of Hung casually cutting boxes, kicking goods, pointing into employees’ faces.

Hoang sat in the office, listened to all of it, and did not speak right away.

He took off his glasses and wiped them slowly with a white cloth. Outside the glass door, the rental yard was still noisy like every day. Old Tu lay in the hammock under the awning, fan waving, his face holding the dazed look of an old man who had just found his son again and whose heart had softened a lot. Farther away, Hung was standing and smoking, saying something to a few people from the sewing factory passing by, his posture arrogant, his mouth laughing wide.

Hoang looked at Hung for a long time.

One gear had been miscalculated.

At first, in Hoang’s eyes, Hung was only a greedy and weak bastard. A sewing factory line leader, a little dirty, a little cowardly, but still inside a range one could predict. He could use Hung’s greed, use Hung’s fear of losing his position, use the rot in Hung’s marriage to push everything in the direction he wanted.

But Hoang had not calculated that Hung would turn out to be Old Tu’s blood son.

Hoang frowned.

His frown was not big, not displayed as anger, but Nhung had stood near him long enough to know it was a bad sign. He looked down at the yard, looked at Hung walking past like a guy who had just picked up someone else’s house key and thought the whole house belonged to him. That posture was not only insolent. It was stupid. And stupidity backed by blood was always more dangerous than ordinary stupidity.

Hoang set the papers down on the table.

“Nhung.”

“Yes?”

“Find a few tight-mouthed people. Go check again whether Mr. Tu has any other children. Illegitimate children, lost children, near and far relatives, anything. Bring all the information back here.”

Nhung paused a little.

“You suspect there are others?”

“I don’t suspect.” Hoang put his glasses back on, voice even. “I just don’t want another surprise.”

Nhung nodded.

“Yes, I’ll do it right away.”

She turned and quickly went down the stairs. Hoang stayed in the room alone for a few more seconds, his eyes still set on the yard below. Old Tu lay in the hammock, fan waving, his face carrying the pitiful satisfaction of an old man who had just found his son again. Hung sat beside him, saying something, sometimes laughing loudly, one hand resting naturally on the old man’s shoulder. A reunion scene, if seen from far away, looked warm. But Hoang saw a crack inside it.

He took out his phone and dialed a number.

The other end picked up after a few rings.

Hoang lowered his voice:

“Boss, I have something I need to discuss.”

A few days later, Hung decided on his own that he and Mai would move down to the ground floor, near Old Tu’s place.

No one really asked Mai’s opinion. Hung spoke like an order wrapped in the word family. Father was old, living nearby would make it easier to care for him. Down here was wider. Going up and down was tiring. It was proper for husband and wife to come down and live there too. The sentences sounded reasonable enough, but in Hung’s mouth they had the smell of calculation. He did not only want to be near his father. He wanted to be near the property, near the yard, near the office, near the title of owner that he thought would sooner or later fall into his hands.

Old Tu heard the news and sat silent in the hammock.

“Moving down here?”

“Yes,” Hung said, face lighting up. “Mai and I will come down to live near you. If anything happens, we can take care of you.”

Hearing Mai’s name, Old Tu’s heart gave one hard beat. He lowered his head, taking the fan and waving it a few times though the weather was not hot. That name now was like a rope tied around his neck. Mention it and he choked. Wanted to avoid it but could not avoid.

“Up to you,” he finally said.

Only two words. Like agreement, and like surrender.

Mai heard the matter and stayed silent for a very long time.

She half wanted it, half did not. Upstairs, she still had a door to close, still had distance to pretend nothing had ever happened. Moving to the ground floor meant walking past Old Tu every day, hearing the hammock creak, hearing him cough, hearing him call the workers, hearing even that uncomfortable silence whenever the two of them accidentally faced each other. But Hung had decided. And Mai at this point did not have much strength left to argue. Some people, after falling too deep, do not stand up right away to resist. They only go quiet, letting others drag them somewhere else.

So the ground floor gained another family.

Things were moved down in one afternoon. A few old cardboard boxes, blankets and pillows, clothes, pots and pans, a few odds and ends of a poor married life. Hung pointed and ordered this person to carry the table, that person to carry the cabinet, his mouth speaking like a true house owner. Old Tu sat beside the hammock, sometimes lifting his head to look, then lowering it again. Mai came last, holding a bag of clothes, eyes not looking at anyone.