The Beauty of Humanity Movement (131 page)

When H
ng was T
’s age, he ran a restaurant, lived alone, had not the time nor the opportunity for leisure or friendship or girlfriends. Occasionally, he might have caught sight of a girl through the window of his shop, one who moved in such a way that the fabric
of her
áo dài
snaked about her hips as she turned to speak to a companion, or one with a button undone at the neck revealing a tantalizing glimpse of collarbone, but these were more like mystical visions than anything real.

H
ng put his senses to use making soup instead, as his Uncle Chi
n had taught him, poking the beef rump to ascertain its freshness, inhaling the scent of star anise to ensure it was fragrant, tasting the broth each morning before anyone else.

H
ng was a man of soup; he still is. These have not been the most lucid or comfortable days, but a broken leg won’t stop him. Why would it? Nothing ever has.

“Hang in there, baby,” he says, saluting the mewling kitten on the wall just as T
enters the room. He sits down on the edge of the mattress and pulls a notebook from his knapsack. “There is something I want to show you,” he says, flipping to a page.

H
ng squints and peers at the page with his right eye. It’s a list of names, a good number of them familiar—artists he knew either in person or by reputation in the days when he still had his shop.

“You wrote this?”

“They were customers of Mr. Võ’s,” says T
. “I want to add the names of the artists you remember.”

But H
ng does not want to be associated in any way with that traitor Võ. Years ago, shortly after beginning his new life as an itinerant ph
seller, H
ng had been making his way down Nguy
n Huâu Huân Street when he smelled the weak but distinctive aroma of coffee. His reaction was primal, as if recognizing one’s illegitimate offspring in the street. He rushed forth in recognition, abandoning his cart, pushing his way past a man idling in the doorway of Café Võ.

He hadn’t been in there in years, and it was barely recognizable as the same place with its bare and cracked plaster walls largely stripped of art, most of it by then hidden away.

“Võ,” H
ng said, waving to the owner standing at the back of the deserted room.