Chapter 24

That morning Tung woke very early.

The sky was not fully light yet. The apartment sank in a pale blue light, cold and thin, like the inside of an old glass cup. The air conditioner was still running evenly. In the living room, the sofa still held Mr. Quan’s dent. In the bedroom, Van was still asleep. She was sleeping deeply, or pretending to sleep deeply, Tung did not know. Like a lot of other things in this house, he was no longer sure.

He stood for a while in front of his son’s bedroom door.

Then opened it.

The boy lay curled under the blanket, one leg sticking out, mouth slightly open. Children asleep often look as if they do not fully belong to this world yet. For a while they are returned to a cleaner place, a place with no tuition, no debt, no messages adults hide from each other, no fathers standing in the kitchen wondering how much longer they can stay alive.

Tung called softly:

“Wake up, son. School.”

The boy groaned once and rolled the other way.

Tung pulled the curtain.

Morning light poured into the room, dull and pale. The boy frowned, then sat up, hair messy as a bird’s nest.

“Dad, can I stay home today?”

“No.”

“I’m tired.”

“You’re tired every day.”

The boy pouted, but still got out of bed.

Tung took him into the bathroom, squeezed toothpaste onto the brush, got the face towel, prepared the uniform. He did those things very smoothly. There are fathers who do not know how to say loving words, but know what water temperature will not make their child cold, which socks slip down the least, which breakfast the boy will eat fastest.

He did all of it in silence.

Everyone else was still asleep.

The apartment was so quiet that the water running in the sink sounded as if it came from somewhere far away. Tung looked at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror. A man past forty, wearing glasses, beard not shaved clean, sunken eyes, shirt slightly wrinkled at the shoulders.

If I die, what will happen to my child?

The thought came very normally.

Not violent.

Not tragic.

It came like an advertising text in the morning. Cold, brief, needing no answer from anyone.

If I die, what will happen to my child?

That was the only thing Tung truly worried about.

Would Van manage? Did she know how to take their son to school on time? Know how to pay school fees, meal fees, transport fees, extracurricular fees, all the little things people only notice when no one is there to do them anymore? Or would she cry for a few days, then start learning how to live with another man, another source of money, another promise?

And the boy?

He would probably be sad. Children are sad in a strange way. They can cry because they lost their father, then ten minutes later ask if they can play a game. Not because they are heartless. Only because a child’s sadness does not yet know how to stay long in one room. It runs in and out, like a little untrained dog.

Would he stand up by himself?

Or one day, when he was older, would he remember his father as a man with glasses, quiet, who used to take him to school in the mornings, then vanished from his life in a way adults never explained clearly?

And what about Mr. Quan?

What would happen to his father?

Tung thought of Mr. Quan, then felt empty inside. A father almost sixty years old, still stylish, still knew how to talk to women, still lost bets, still held out his hand. If Tung died, would Mr. Quan be sad? Or would he sigh, say his son’s fate was unlucky, then after a few days find a way to live on as he had always lived on?

Maybe everyone would keep living.

That was what hurt most.

People think their death will make the world stop for a little while. But no. The bus still comes to the stop. The red light still turns green. The convenience store still opens twenty-four hours. People still buy coffee, argue, pay the electric bill, take children to school, cheat, lie, and sleep.

The world does not have the habit of stopping for a man who has run out of money.

Tung took his son to school.

The boy sat behind him, talking about a game he had played last night. He talked fast, full of excitement. Character names, skills, items, levels, team formations flew past Tung’s ears like a language from another planet. He only said uh-huh, then nodded where he needed to nod.

“Dad, are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Then what hero did I just say?”

Tung went quiet.

The boy sighed like an old man.

“You’re so boring, Dad.”

Tung laughed very softly.

“Yeah. I really am boring.”

At the school gate, the boy jumped off the bike. He put his backpack on his shoulders, ran a few steps, then turned back.

“Are you picking me up this afternoon?”

Tung looked at him.

A very simple question.

Are you picking me up this afternoon?

There are questions only children can ask without knowing they have just put a knife against someone else’s neck.

Tung answered:

“Yes.”

The boy smiled, waved, then ran into school.

Tung stood there watching until his son’s figure disappeared behind the gate. A little later, the school gate closed. The guard pulled the barrier across. The other parents left one after another. Everyone had somewhere to go.

Only Tung did not.

He rode for a while, then stopped at a bus stop on Ham Nghi. He sat down on a bench beside the bus lane. Then for more than an hour, he sat there watching those pale green buses arrive almost every minute, rushing in, disgorging countless people, then frantically swallowing countless others and rushing off again. All that time, he thought of nothing. He only looked after that scene without knowing it. The scene did not ease the pain in his heart. But its repetition still drew him in as usual, at least numbing his sense of time.

People from nowhere kept pouring in, lining up by themselves, stepping onto buses to be carried somewhere. He always felt moved when he thought that so many people were truly existing in this world. And he was moved the same way thinking that so many pale green buses existed in this world. So many people, transported by so many buses in a system, as if it were nothing. So many people, all of them with places to go and places to return to. That was nothing less than a miracle.

And he felt very jealous of them. At least they had somewhere to head toward.

Tung had nowhere to head toward. It was like a proposition for his life. “I have nowhere to go, and nowhere to return to. I never had it before, and I do not have it now. The only place for me is ‘the place where I am existing.’”

He looked up at the sky. Far away were the large buildings.

Glass shone under the sun. Each window looked like a small box where people shut themselves in every day. Working. Sending email. Meeting. Laughing. Cursing under their breath. Eating lunch. Going to the toilet. Looking at the clock. Waiting for salary. Waiting for bonuses. Waiting for the day to end. Waiting to go home. Then tomorrow morning coming back again.

A drifting life, but with a schedule.

Tung once belonged to that world.

Or thought he did.

Money?

He had once had it.

Not enough to buy the whole city, but enough to think he had won. Enough to buy an apartment, a car, international school for his child, cosmetics for Van, dinners in expensive restaurants, trips with rooms looking out at the sea.

Good food?

He had eaten very expensive things. Dishes his mother, the woman who sold pork at the market, probably would not have known how to name. There were meals that cost a whole month’s wages for someone else. Wine, beef, seafood, desserts decorated like toys.

Love?

He had once had that too.

At least he believed he had.

He remembered the early years with Van. She was not as beautiful as now. Not as fair. Not as sharp. Not with that air of a woman men had looked at so much she had grown used to it. Her smile was clumsier, her cooking clumsier, even her anger more real. Once it rained, and the two of them ate instant noodles on the floor of their rented room. Van cried while eating because she missed home. Tung sat beside her, not knowing how to comfort her, only cracking one more egg into the pot.

Back then, he felt happy.

A poor kind of happiness, but real.

Now everything was prettier.

And more hollow.

On Tung, there was exactly five hundred thousand dong left.

The bill lay in his wallet, flat, lonely. He did not want to spend it. Not because he was stingy. Because he did not know what to spend it on. A meal? A coffee? Gas? A cheap gift for his child? Or keep it as the last proof that he still had a little ability to choose?

Yesterday, he had transferred the last of the money to Van and Mr. Quan.

Van needed it.

Mr. Quan needed it too.

Everyone needed it.

As for Tung, he no longer knew what he needed.

One month or two months was really the same. The number was only different on the banking screen. For someone who had reached the end of the hallway, a few more steps did not make the hallway any longer.

He had written his will.

Prepared everything.

Just last night.

In that apartment, on the same night, one person sank into pleasure, one person sat before a computer screen writing the last lines for his life. Same roof. Same recessed lights. Same steady sound of the air conditioner. But each person was in a different world, and no one heard anyone else’s breathing.

Tung left the bus stop.

He rode to the bridge.

The wind on the bridge was stronger than down on the street. The river below flowed slowly, carrying the dull gray color of a day that was neither truly sunny nor truly rainy. The city stood on both banks, tall, bright, beautiful, cold. The buildings looked as if they were growing out of the water, as if just turning away for a while would let them rise a few more floors.

Tung stood there, watching the world flow.

He did not think anything clearly.

Maybe when people come too close to a final decision, their minds are not as noisy as outsiders imagine. No sad music. No film of a whole life running past. No grand monologue. Only wind. Traffic. A few small broken thoughts.

Did I lock the door?

Who picks up my son this afternoon?

What if my phone runs out of battery?

He took out his phone.

Right then, it vibrated.

An unknown number.

Tung looked at the screen.

Who could it be?

I do not have friends anymore.

The money had been sent to Van.

The money had been sent to Dad too.

They had no reason to call me anymore.

The phone kept vibrating.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Tung answered.

“Hello.”

There was a very brief silence on the other end, then a woman’s voice sounded. Familiar. A little hoarse. Like someone who stayed up late too much, who smoked more of life than cigarettes.

“Are you free? It’s me, from Tam Tang Street.”

Tung stood on the bridge, heard that sentence, then suddenly laughed.

He did not know why he laughed.

Why would a girl call an impotent man?

In his life, so many things had lost function. Money. Marriage. His standing as a husband. Self-respect. Even desire sometimes was only a shadow lying still at the bottom of the body. Yet somewhere, a girl still called.

He said:

“I’m free. But today I...”

Before he finished, Thao said:

“You’re out of money, right?”

Tung was silent.

The wind blew through the phone, making his breathing sound farther away.

Thao continued:

“I’m still on my period today, so I’m off. Do you want to see me?”

Tung looked at the bridge.

Looked at the flow of traffic.

Looked at the river surface.

Looked at the city.

Then thought, very slowly:

Then delay it one hour.

Probably still not dead yet.

He looked down at the wallet in his pocket.

Five hundred thousand.

A small amount of money. Not enough to save a family. Not enough to buy more time. Not enough to plug a hole. Not enough to make anyone happy. But perhaps enough for a man who was not dead right away to go meet a woman who also did not know how much of herself was still alive.

“Yeah,” Tung said. “I’ll come.”

He waited for Thao to send a hotel address.

But this time it was not a hotel.

A little later, his phone vibrated.

Thao sent him an address in a rental block.

Tung was still not a completely dead man.

At least not yet.

He was smart by nature. Capable. Able to see the rules inside things other people saw only as chaos. He used to know how to read the market, read cash flow, read the greed of a crowd. He used to know how to wait. How to stay silent. How to put money in one place and patiently watch it grow like planting a tree.

A man like that should not have ended up here.

But people do not fail for lack of knowledge as much as they think.

Sometimes they fail because they cannot bear to let go.

Do not dare let go.

Or do not have enough courage to let go at the right time.

Tung could not let go of Van.

Could not let go of the apartment.

Could not let go of his child’s school.

Could not let go of the image of a successful man that other people once saw in him.

Could not let go of a romantic, useless father who kept holding out his hand as if his son were a bottomless well.

Whatever the reason, the result was still the same.

He had failed.

Tung rode to the rental block at the address Thao sent.

It was not a place he usually went. A small road, the pavement uneven, houses packed together under tangled electric wires. Far away was a beverage company, its sign still new, its colors oddly bright against the dusty background around it. A few trucks were parked outside. A few workers passed by, lunch boxes in their hands, faces tired.

Tung stopped the bike and glanced around.

A rental block.

A company.

A yard.

People living lives very different from his, but perhaps not that different.

Everyone was trying to stretch out one more day.

He pushed the bike inside.

Thao stood in the yard waiting for him.

This time she was not heavily made up. Not wearing clothes meant to make men look. No glitter, no red lipstick, none of the cheap fragrance that usually covered her body in hotels.