The Beauty of Humanity Movement (6 page)

The comforting clatter of metal spoons against ceramic is suddenly interrupted by a booming voice that floods the bloodless kidney, bouncing from side to side. Noodles slap against chins and silence falls. “What the hell are you all doing here?” a man yells, stepping down in heavy workboots. “I’ve got a project to supervise. I’ll have you all arrested if you don’t pack up and leave immediately!” He smacks a crowbar repeatedly against his thick-skinned palm.

Bình rises to his feet and all eyes turn toward him. “Sir, you have to smell this,” he says, nodding at the bowl in his hands.

H
ng feels a hot rush of pride fill his cheeks. Bình really is a son to him, if not by blood, then certainly through his devotion. What is blood without relationship, without life shared, in any case? H
ng has come to believe it is little more than something red.

A hush vibrates around the pool as the foreman steps toward Bình and demands to know their business. This is private property; what are they all doing squatting here like it’s mealtime on some communal farm?

“This is Hanoi’s greatest secret,” Bình says, his eyes lowered in deference. “Seriously. You have to know. It will change you.”

Despite the threat of the rusty crowbar, despite his familiarity with the pain such an instrument can cause, H
ng knows this is his moment. He shuffles forth across the concrete in his slippers. He holds his own
bowl under the foreman’s nose, steam rising to envelop them both. His customers inhale as if sharing one set of lungs. No one makes a sound as the foreman licks his lips and takes the chopsticks H
ng offers. The foreman thrusts those chopsticks to the bottom of the bowl and lifts the noodles into the air, creating a wave that plunges the herbs to the bottom before they float back to the surface, infusing the noodles in the broth, just as every mother teaches her child.

The foreman proves he is just like every mother’s son. He leans over the bowl and inhales as he lays the noodles back down to rest in the broth, then clutches a few strands between his chopsticks and raises them to his mouth. The construction workers stand around the rim of the pool, watching their boss in silence. The foreman slurps broth from the spoon, lifts up a few more noodles with his chopsticks, curls them into his spoon, picks up a thin slice of beef, lays it on the bed of noodles, tweezes a piece of basil from the broth and places it on top of the beef, then puts this perfectly balanced combination, this yin and yang, into his mouth.

And then he grunts.

“I see what you mean,” he finally says to Bình, handing the bowl back to H
ng.

“Bring your bowl tomorrow. Tell your men, too,” H
ng says quietly, squinting at the workers on the rim. His left eye is clouded over; his right discerns the outline of a row of men. “Half price for them,” he says, “free, of course, for you.”

“I’ll pay you full price,” says the foreman. “Just as long as you and your customers are out by seven.”

“Yes, sir,” says H
ng, shuffling back to the fatter end of the kidney to extinguish his fire. He feels a tremor of nervous laughter rattle beneath his ribs. He dares not look over at Bình. He smiles into the fire, sharing the victory with its embers instead.

It is not yet half past six—still plenty of time left to serve the latecomers who have just arrived, which H
ng does now with good humour and renewed concentration, laying noodles and beef into each bowl with his right hand, pouring ladlefuls of broth over top with his left, his rhythm as even and essential as a beating heart.

H
ng recognizes each man by the state of his hands: the grease moons under the nails that mark a mechanic, the calluses of one who works a lathe, the chewed nails of a student writing exams.

But then whose lovely hands are these amidst this parade of manly paws? The delicate hands of a woman who has, improbably, never engaged in manual labour. And the bowl. Shining. Translucent. Porcelain.

He looks up. The young woman before him is a classic beauty with delicate, balanced features, and although she is not one of his regular customers there is something familiar about her face.

Perhaps Bình sees it too, for he coughs in that moment and pulls his son away by the shirtsleeve—no time for gawking, time to get to work.

“You’ve come to me for breakfast before?” H
ng asks, turning his attention back to the young woman before him.