A face inside a face

That time, Green Tea decided that she had to do something different from her usual routine. That year's Tet holiday is quite long, and instead of booking a plane ticket, setting a route to go abroad to discover new sites, or find relaxation in a warm sea, Green Tea quietly folded her clothes and put in her backpack a few thick sweaters. She heard that Sapa is snowy, and the cold weather forecast on television hits Green Tea like a thunderbolt. She was staggered, dizzy, persistently and constantly, like when the plane crashed into bad weather, the feeling of disappointment tormented her miserably.

The last working afternoon, Green Tea sat back in the office very late, when all had gone and the surrounding departments had turned off the lights. Her room stood out, shining like a lonely oasis floating in the middle of a smoldering night. Making herself a cup of coffee, without adding sugar, she sat sipping the sweet-bitter taste down her throat, looking through the glass window of the 20th floor to see the splendid city lights. Crossing the middle of the city is a long winding river, bright street lights and car lights drift like rivers, she tries to capture the beauty that Green remembers she once felt and enjoyed. How long has she been at this company, this office? Can't recall.

Finally, Green Tea overcame two hours of delay, passed the tiring flight to Hanoi, without stopping, Green leisurely took a taxi to Hang Co station, bought a ticket for the earliest trip to the mountains, she couldn't care less if there is still snow or not. The night train rumbled, tirelessly as if it never ended, the devious sound of gears grinding against the rails creaking steadily, sometimes with the occasional whistling of the wind against the windows. On the winding ship in the middle of the night, all the long rooms are dark, people are curled up in thin blankets on the cold beds, yet Green Tea could not sleep. Lying curled up and then stretched out in the dark, her eyelids were heavy but still tense, wide open, receptive, and waiting.

Ignoring all the most basic impressions of things, like time or the rules of the hotel, Green Tea stuffed the hotel's name card into the pocket of her coat, walked out into the street, could not remember the name of the hotel, the color of its wall, or the facial expression of the waiter at the front desk. But after only a few minutes of walking, suddenly, she turned around in surprise, pulled out the name card, read the name and hotline of the hotel, turned on her heel, and returned. Locking the door of the room, she lay limply on the pillow and blanket, closed and opened her eyes again, lying on her stomach and lying on her back. Nothing helped. There is no way out of loneliness.

In fact, in this world, who is not lonely, why run away. He once told Green so, when Green Tea was twenty-two years old, barely understood what he was saying. Forty years old, handsome enough, elegant enough, also brash enough, everyone knew he slept with a dozen girls in the company. It seemed that every time a new employee came in, he had to wiggle his way through, even if it was just once. The girls denounced him, but could not ostracize him. Because he is frank, cold, and clear. He always asks first, and always asks bluntly if they want to sleep with him. Regardless of whether the subject is old or young, new or old, positive or negative, he will still sleep well with each person, depending on the occasion, weekday or weekend, holiday or company picnic, team building... Sex is sex, work is work. The night before, they slept together on a romantic picnic, but the next day being scolded at work is normal. Many girls had to cry out tears.

Green Tea could not refuse the evenings sitting next to him in silence, she could not turn off the computer to leave when the whole office had gone. The surrounding rooms were dark, she lit a pot of black coffee without sugar, salt, and drank the pure bitter taste of real coffee while listening to stories of the ups and downs in his life. 

He likes to talk, but he doesn't care whether Green listens or watches the city. He said, you only have little pressure at work, why do you cry all the time, life is not just crying, and crying won't solve anything. When he was smuggling across borders in Europe, his friends shot and killed each other like bullfrogs, robbed goods, fought for matches, shed a lot of blood, betrayed a lot, and fell in love with each other, no one shed a single tear. There is a friend of his, who knows that his wife sleeps with dozens of strange men every time her husband goes to trade far away, but still loves and says women are weak, which is normal. 

As for him, once coming home in the middle of the night, seeing his wife in bed with another person, who is also a friend, a younger brother, about ten years younger than him, he coldly pulled out a gun and asked them to marry exactly a week later. Or else he will shoot to death. After that, the couple was still living together. He never married again. The two solitudes combined, he said, would be four times as lonely. 

In his lonely apartment, once the key was sent to Green Tea, she helped him to take care of it for a month when he went on a business trip abroad. He raised a Japanese dog and couldn't let it starve, so Green Tea's duty was to feed and bathe it. Buying dog food is not difficult because she has seen him buy similar items many times, but she is very afraid of bathing the animal, it seems that it does not like water, she does not know if it is true, but it was shivering constantly, hiding at Green's feet, rubbing all its thick fur and splashing soap bubbles all over her. And especially when it finished bathing, it would shake its hair vigorously, splashing the water, making Green shiver.

Green Tea did not know the name of the dog, nor did she love it, even though he often talked about the animal. He said the dog was very intelligent, sharing his interests in both food and entertainment. Wherever he went to eat, he also remembered to buy a portion for the dog. In the evening, he lay on the sofa watching movies or listening to music, the dog also waited beside him, sometimes lovingly licking his heels. Many days he slept on the sofa, sometimes he did not go to the bedroom for a week. Therefore, his bedroom is still full of smooth blankets, every week the maid comes to clean, wash and change the sheets once, stunned because the pillow she put on the bed last week to the next week is still in the same place, did not move an inch, only with a little dust around the pillow fabric still smelled of laundry detergent. 

Green Tea loved to explore the bookshelves that took up a large chunk of his wall, she found there almost every book he had ever mentioned, in one corner were old, yellowed books bought and kept hidden from twenty years ago, could not be found again outside the bookstore. She couldn't understand why his generation could read and preserve books like Quo Vadi, Sacred Night, Ly Bach's poetry, Du Fu, study the whole Nham Dan Dai Toan, and at the same time worship From Good to Great, new books, economic books, philosophical books, all kinds of schools. Green Tea learned from him how to read quickly, she sat down next to the bookshelf, chose a music record, finished reading a book every evening, did not dare to borrow it because he often said that books are his property. And in those evenings, she was shocked to discover Lolita, the Museum of Innocence, was startled by the novels of Haruki Murakami, and calmed down as she focused on consciously reading Journey to the East. 

His cabinet of movies and music discs was also piled up with genres, but Green Tea didn't quite understand, she could only hear soft things. The last evening before he returned to Vietnam and took back the house, Green chose Rachmaninov Piano concerto No 2 in C minor, op.18. Even without fully understanding what the musician wrote, it's hard to deny individuality, originality, lyricism, romance, and powerful expressions without boundaries. And that day she chose for herself two special books, which she had seen since the first time she set foot in his house, solemnly placed at the top of the bookshelf – Every Day Enlightenment was written from the spirit of the Dharma King Gyalwang Drukpa, and The Art of Life and Death, written by His Holiness himself, was given to him by the king regent Gyalwa Dokhampa with the title "With my prayer".

The miraculous life of these two incarnations, Green had heard him mention it once. It was one of his most special memories of being with them. The twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa Jigme Pema Wangchen is revered and said to be the embodiment of Guanyin Buddha, whose transcendental spiritual powers manifest brilliantly from a very young age. He was born into a family of Vajrayana practitioners with a noble lineage, doing good all over the world. And the regent Gyalwa Dokhampa is also the ninth living incarnation of the enlightened Khamtrul Rinpoche.

He once told Green, peace or not, is in the heart of each person. Green startled like receiving an electric shock, right from the title of the book "I think that by fate, we "reunite" through these pages..." Suddenly, amidst the swirling, whirling, powerful piano pieces, rich sound, and color, typical of Rachmaninov's very own expressive style, the rivers of words do not wave, do not flood, but Green is still dimly aware of the karmic forces that have caused sentient beings to spin around, drifting endlessly in the bardos from beginningless eons with no exit that His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa pointed out.

She almost burst into tears when at the end of op.18, from the 7th to the 10th minute, the piano fingers returned to gentle and delicate like a sharp knife quietly cut into the bloody finger but you only can feel the pain after it's gone. By chance, she knew that the brilliant pianist, composer, and conductor genius Rachmaninov was born on the same day, in the same month, in the same year as Him, even a century apart. And she also knew, Rachmaninov was very lonely in his mysterious love affair with the beautiful female writer Marietta Shaginyan. She then selects Piano Concerto No 3 Op. 30 in D Minor, then Piano Concerto No 4 Op. 40 in G Minor… Green spent the whole evening with Rachmaninov.

Suddenly, she felt a warmth spread to every fiber of her body, felt a hug so strong, and so familiar. She gently rested her head on his shoulder, receiving the warmth from the solid man's chest. The tips of Green's hair brushed his cheeks, brushed against his stubble, and when it fell back, it took on a seductive, masculine scent, pungent with road dust.

- Today won't be suitable for coffee - He said

- Way to break the habit? – Green asked

Just what's right will last, I just need a few glasses of vodka, can go with your Rachmaninov - He laughs - Another interesting thing in common is that I can serve you a tropical cocktail with vodka. 

He opened the refrigerator, cut a pineapple, half an orange, carefully measured out the vodka in a small glass, and, holding the shaker, turned it skillfully. The cocktail is not bad, although Green can only feel its tropical flavor amateurishly, she is not a frequent barista, not a connoisseur of alcohol. But with Rachmaninov's music, there is probably nothing more wonderful than the taste of Russian liquor participating in enticing tropical colors that could make a tropical girl sob.

At exactly twenty-four o'clock, Green got up to turn off Rachmaninov, put the books back neatly on the shelf, said goodbye to the Japanese dog, turned off the light, locked the door, stood for another 5 minutes listening to the lonely scratching sound of the dog, then pressed the elevator down to the basement to get home on her motorbike. On a wide, empty street in the middle of the night, she plugged in her headphones and played Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 that she downloaded to her phone. Hearing the pain echo from the depths, loneliness speaks with different personalities. 

"All ignorance and enlightenment originate in the mind" - Green has never forgotten the words of His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa – "Integrating compassion and wisdom into everyday life is to bring benefits to the immeasurable sufferings of sentient beings."

Green Tea suddenly realized she was sitting on the bank of a stream flooded with green leaves. Sapa is too cold this season, there are no canola flowers. Fortunately, cabbage is a cold plant, so its shivering and growing new sprouts have survived the snowfall. The color of leaves flutters like a rolling wave. But in her eyes, everything was bright with the color of the canola flower season that year, around her still bustling with voices, jostling stories of hundreds of colleagues burning campfires during the team-building trip filled with laughter. 

That year, hiding from young men chasing after her, Green crept through the small road, followed the yellow canola flower, went out to sit on the bank of a deserted stream, and soaked in the splendid night of the full moon's light, thick and white like a girl's skin. Suddenly, she felt an embrace from a strong man's arms, felt his firm chest. She sat silently under the moon, letting her soft hair blow in the wind and brush against his stubbled beard then fall back, carrying the seductive, masculine scent of road dust. 

Suddenly, Green Tea realized that the current moonlight was extremely cold. "Walking the path to happiness in the modern world", her heart suddenly softened with each line of His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa. In her hand, there was still a little warmth emanating from the Russian matryoshka doll, a gift he had placed on her table the morning he returned from a business trip abroad, with thanks, and received the house key in return. It was cold, but Green Tea felt it necessary to try to turn the wooden rings, the exertion in the cold weather hurt her and she hurt it too, but the matryoshka's soul needed the pain to open the door from her hand, and she needs to unlock for other pain. Every time she opened the matryoshka, Green Tea remembered what he had said.

How many matryoshkas are there in a standard doll set?

There is no such thing as the best rule. Discover for yourself, inside one face there is another face, under one truth there is another truth. Life is infinite.

Now, where is he wandering?

Saigon 2016

("A date at Heaven's gate" - Short stories collection, Phương Nam Books and Women's Vietnam Publishing House, 2017)