That evening, after the restaurant had closed and the last customers had left, Mr Hoàng approached Liên.
“You need somewhere to sleep.”
Liên nodded. “I’ll find a guesthouse.”
“There is no need.”
She looked at him.
“I still have Phong’s room.”
Her expression changed. “I thought it was gone.”
“No.”
“You kept it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Mr Hoàng looked towards the empty restaurant. The tables had been cleared, the chairs were in their usual places, and the familiar sounds of the evening had disappeared. The only noise came from the kitchen, where Lý was finishing the last of the cleaning, and the distant hum of traffic along Đường Hai Bà Trưng.
“Because nobody asked me to give it away.”
She lowered her eyes. “You shouldn’t have.”
“Perhaps.” He paused. “But I did.”
He reached into his pocket. A small key lay in the palm of his hand.
“If you want it…”
Liên hesitated. “I’m not sure.”
“Then don’t decide now.” He placed the key on the counter. “Come and see it.”
A few minutes later, they left the restaurant. Mr Hoàng wheeled his old Honda towards the street. Liên climbed onto the back, and a moment later they set off.
The journey towards Bình Thủy was quiet. The city had begun to cool as the evening settled properly. Motorbikes flowed around them, weaving through the traffic with the ease of people accustomed to moving through the city. Street vendors were packing away their goods, folding their plastic stools and stacking their baskets for the night. Families sat outside small houses, eating dinner and talking together, their voices rising and falling in the warm evening air. Lights were coming on one by one as the daylight faded, casting soft yellow glows through open windows and doorways.
It was an ordinary Cần Thơ evening. Exactly the sort of evening Phong had once lived through without thinking about it. The sort of evening he had probably taken for granted, never imagining that he would one day be unable to return to it.
They reached the narrow residential street about twenty minutes later. Mr Hoàng stopped outside a modest nhà trọ. The paint was faded. The iron gate was beginning to rust slightly. Nothing about the building suggested that there was anything remarkable inside it. It was the kind of place that hundreds of people passed every day without noticing.
Liên looked at it for a moment. The staircase was exactly as she remembered from Phong’s descriptions—narrow, with worn steps and a handrail that had been painted many times over the years.
Mr Hoàng unlocked the gate. They went inside and climbed the stairs. At the end of the corridor, he stopped.
“This one.”
He unlocked the door.
The room was small. Clean. There was a bed, a table, a chair and a wardrobe. A single window looked out over the street below. Nothing remarkable. Nothing that would have attracted attention.
Yet, as Liên stepped inside, she immediately felt something she could not explain. She stopped for a moment, looking around, as though she might find some trace of him still present in the room. The walls were bare. The furniture was simple. There was nothing personal, nothing that spoke of the man who had once lived there.
Mr Hoàng remained at the door.
“Every few weeks, my wife comes.”
“To clean?”
“To change the sheets.”
Liên looked at the freshly made bed. “Why?”
Mr Hoàng hesitated. For a moment, he seemed to be searching for the simplest way to explain something that did not really need explaining. Then he said quietly: “She says that if Phong comes home…” He stopped. Liên understood the rest. “He shouldn’t find dust.”
He placed the key on the table. “Stay tonight.” He paused. “Tomorrow you can decide.”
Liên turned towards him. “Thank you.”
He inclined his head. Then he left. The door closed quietly behind him.
Liên remained alone. For several moments she simply stood where she was, letting the silence of the room settle around her. Then she began to walk slowly around the space. There were no photographs. No clothes. No personal belongings. Nothing that could tell her who Phong had been when he was alone, or what his life had looked like when nobody else was watching. The room had been stripped of everything except the essentials.
And yet she felt strangely close to him.
She moved towards the window and stood beside it. Outside, someone was watching television—the faint murmur of a drama, punctuated by occasional laughter. A motorbike passed along the street. A child laughed somewhere nearby. A dog barked. Ordinary sounds. Nothing unusual. Perhaps Phong had heard the same sounds. Perhaps he had stood beside this same window, looking down at the same street, thinking about the same ordinary things. Perhaps he had once looked at this view and imagined his life continuing exactly as it was.
Liên sat down on the bed. She allowed herself to think about what had happened. Not the journey. Not the men. Not the van. Phong. The way he had spoken to her. The questions he had asked. The calmness with which he had behaved. The strange confidence that someone would get home.
She still didn’t know why he had trusted her. But perhaps she was beginning to understand. He had not trusted her because he knew her. He had trusted her because he believed that someone had to carry the story forward.
She lay back on the bed. The ordinary sounds of the evening went on around her, just as they must have done on so many other nights. And somewhere beyond the river, people who had known Phong for years were still waiting for him.
The following morning, Mr Hoàng returned. Liên was sitting at the small table, drinking tea.
“Did you sleep?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
She looked around the room once more. “I’d like to stay.”
Mr Hoàng nodded. “I thought you might.”
She smiled. “Your wife really does change the sheets every few weeks?”
“Yes.”
“Even after a year?”
“Yes.”
Liên laughed softly. “She must have liked him.”
Mr Hoàng smiled. “She did. Everyone did.” He looked at her. “Not everyone.”
Liên frowned. “Who didn’t?”
Mr Hoàng turned towards the window. “People who didn’t know him.”
She thought about that. Perhaps that was the difference. The people at the Mekong Restaurant remembered Phong as a collection of small things—his laugh, his questions, his beer, his stories, his habit of buying lottery tickets, the way he never seemed in a hurry, the way he remembered details other people forgot. But those things were not evidence. They were simply pieces of a life. And sometimes, Liên thought, the hardest thing about losing someone was discovering how much of their life you had never known.
Mr Hoàng picked up the key. “Come.”
“Where?”
“To the restaurant.”
“Why?”
“Because people are waiting.”
She smiled. “Who?”
“Everyone.”