Dreaming of the city at night.

A familiar place we have left behind.

Huong sent me that message while lying within the four lonely walls of her room, the streets of Hanoi still bustling outside at night. I imagined my "special" friend—a young woman both fragile and strong, resilient—most likely hiding her face behind her pillow. Outside, cold winds were blowing along the crowded sidewalks. People were wrapping themselves in warm scarves and buttoning their sweaters, like in one of Duong Thu's songs about Hanoi: "I long for Hanoi, to long for the hastily buttoned sweaters." I knew for sure that Huong would go out onto the balcony after wiping away her tears. She would look at the street, at the rustling banyan trees, at the pale full moon casting its lonely light in the dark sky. That light couldn't reach the city streets filled with electric lights. To remember a familiar place that Huong had recently left.

Huong left because of an unhappy marriage. Huong said that she had to leave this city to forget her misfortunes and suffering. And Huong wanted to start over with her life, which was full of unfinished business…

I couldn't say much to Huong the day you decided to leave, but I know one thing for sure: for someone like you, forgetting is very difficult, even though you appear strong on the outside. Just like this text message tonight…

Isn't it true, Huong, that you're standing on the eighth-floor balcony of your building in the heart of Hanoi, looking down and seeing the sidewalks, the cold moon, the banyan trees... all that hustle and bustle below doesn't belong to you? The place where you belong is our streets. Streets that, even now, lie silently under the dim yellow streetlights and the full moon. Isn't it true, Huong, that you're dreaming of the wide sidewalks, where the footsteps of people wandering in the winter's north wind are warmed late at night. Dreaming of the steam rising from familiar eateries: Le Loi bone porridge, Hong Bang offal porridge, Tran Phu egg stew, Tran Hung Dao rice noodles, eel soup at the city gate... Dreaming of the moon, the same moon, but in Vinh City it seems brighter if you sit eating grilled corn and sweet potatoes under the rows of palm trees at the entrance to Nguyen Tat Thanh Park. Or if you want to admire it in its more magnificent form, run to the embankment of the Lam River. There, right at the edge of the waves, there was a patch of soft green grass where we used to sit around the campfire at night, singing to the strumming of a guitar. Huong once said, "What city is as peaceful as this one, where every morning people greet each other with smiles and laughter, and end the day by singing with the river and dear friends like this?"

Dreaming of the scent of the old neighborhood

Is that right, Huong? She's dreaming about the old apartment complex where she grew up. The knitting and yarn factory complex with over 240 households in a small alley off Phong Dinh Cang Street. The complex that Huong once described as strange and peculiar. It was a stark contrast to the bustling, increasingly modern city streets. The houses, a few dozen square meters, damp and dilapidated, had stood for decades, their moss-covered tiled roofs unchanged. Small gardens with fences made of firewood or rusty wire that people painstakingly gathered from somewhere. The football field was the most lively place in that complex every afternoon. Even now, with the arrival of the 4.0 revolution, the residents still burn wood and charcoal, and raise pigs in the very traditional way. Every afternoon, the stench of wood smoke, charcoal smoke, the smell of livestock pens, the smell of damp walls, the smell of thick layers of leaves on the roofs… all wafted out, creating a sense of unease.

Huong used to take us on many walks around her small neighborhood. Her family moved away quite a while ago, but she still occasionally returns because she "misses the scent of the old neighborhood." She said it jokingly, but it was true. That scent haunted my friend even into her forties. It was in her blood, even though she often wished that old neighborhood would change soon because so many people living there faced hardship and struggle. She knew every alley, every house, every situation… And I saw her, considered a successful person in her career, return to her old haunts with the innocent joys of childhood. She would stop by to chat with the women returning from the market, or wait for cooking time in each small alley, where morning glory vines still clung to the rustic wooden fences. You pointed out the tangled vines of the bitter melon plant, their tendrils hanging down like curtains over the tangled power lines that seemed to sag into the middle of the road. You showed me the house with its vibrant rose bushes against the gray winter afternoon, you bent down and pinched the cheeks of the children being carried around by their grandmothers, and you told me to look behind each rusty door, where countless stories of the lives and destinies of the workers around Ben Thuy were hidden. Huong once said that you had left your beloved neighborhood with so much pride, because your family's dream was to no longer have to endure the flooding and bailing out water every time it rained in the city—a dream shared by many here. But then, your glamorous life, your success, the happiness you thought you had in your hands, all slipped away, leaving behind a pain that is not easily filled. You longed to return to your old damp house, to hear the sound of rice boiling on the wood-burning stove, to smell the smoke, the moss, the aroma of freshly cooked rice bran. I long for those alleyways where simple joys were found in blooming roses and ripe red gac fruit…

Those afternoons when we went to run away together.

Isn't it true, Hương, that right now you're reminiscing about those afternoons when we "escaped together"? Escaped from whom? Escaped from the busyness of a workday, from the hustle and bustle of the city. We'd go to the Hung Loc and Hung Hoa dikes, gaze at the sprawling fields, the cows returning home at leisure, following the overgrown paths down to the shrimp farm watchtowers. There, you'd find not only fields of sedge, but also a field of reeds in full bloom with gray flowers this season. There were small streams and canals, wooden bridges, and even wild bushes where quail scurried away at the slightest disturbance. What a strange city, what a city that held so much countryside within itself. That's how we always talked about Vinh, about those afternoons when we "escaped together" to this place...

Huong left Vinh in a strange winter. A winter you said, where you didn't feel the cold from the vast sky and earth, but only a chill radiating from within. And now, in her eighth-floor apartment in Hanoi, my friend is standing on the balcony, listening to Thuy Chi sing "Dreaming of the City at Night," dreaming of Vinh. The place where she grew up, loved, became familiar with, remembered… and now wants to forget. But I know that her personal pain won't be enough to erase all the blood and flesh she has with Vinh. And I believe, if she could wish, she would dream, in the blink of an eye, of returning to the city. Walking on the sidewalks that were once hers, sitting by the river that was once hers, with all the sadness she grew up in it.

Huong, in our town, the sidewalks, the rows of trees, the Lam River, the rose bushes, the moss-covered tiled roofs, the scent of the old neighborhood…are still waiting for you!