The Beauty of Humanity Movement (71 page)

There were details that H
ng used to share with Bình, things that no one else noticed, things H
ng no longer saw in the boy’s absence. H
ng lost track of the translucent trail left by the lizard that made its home on the wall of his backroom.

“Why does he leave a trail?” Bình had once asked. “Do you think he wants us to find him?”

The atmosphere in the shop was so tense that H
ng longed for the relief he used to feel whenever he felt his hope for Vietnam’s future flagging and he looked over at Bình and was relieved of despondency or doubt.

Then suddenly, one morning as he was delivering a stack of bowls to the dishwasher in the alleyway, H
ng caught sight of the boy in an
adjacent doorway. Only his ears and knees seemed to have grown in the months since he last saw him.

“Bình,” H
ng said. “But what are you doing here?”

“Ma only makes rice,” the boy said, shuffling over. “She never makes ph
.”

“Yes, well, I can understand that, Bình. It’s a lot of work and she’s a busy woman. But rice is not so bad, is it?”

He shrugged his small shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said. “Everything’s just quiet.”

“Ah,” said H
ng. “You miss the conversation, is that it? The company?”

Bình blinked. “I miss you.”

For a man who had largely gone unwanted in his life, this was a particularly unsettling thing to hear. And how did one respond to affection, particularly when expressed so nakedly? One cleared one’s throat, shuffled back and forth on slippered feet and slowly recovered one’s composure.

“What about this, Bình,” H
ng proposed. “Ask your mother’s permission to come see me at the end of the week. You wait here for me, just in that doorway where you were waiting this morning, and I will bring you a bowl of ph
.”

Bình did come to the alleyway behind ph
Chi
n & H
ng accompanied by his mother that Friday. “Of course I gave my consent,” Amie said to H
ng. “The boy is terribly fond of you. But please, you mustn’t let Ðạo know, he’d be furious with me. He means well, he’s just trying to keep us safe.”