The windows of memory

She said she was from the poor countryside of Do Luong, married a city man, living in one of the C blocks of the Quang Trung Collective. Her husband was also a laborer, doing whatever he was hired to do, and the most "stable" job was driving a motorbike taxi. Family life, after the first few short peaceful days, also became stormy. Ha showed me the room on the 4th floor where Ha was living with her husband's family. A room of more than 30 square meters, with an additional "tiger cage" of about 3-4 square meters, initially used to dry clothes and store small items. At one time, there was even a small table and a chair for Ha's father-in-law to occasionally come out to smoke tobacco. Then, at some point, that "tiger cage" became a place for Ha to hide her tears. Ha said, quarrels and conflicts were common in any family, but the saddest thing was that Ha and her husband still did not have children. Ha said that she could only avoid the family's suspicious, scrutinizing eyes by sneaking in to hang clothes, or making excuses to pack something in that small iron and steel enclosure. There were times, standing among the steel mesh, that she thought she was besieging her own life. And she decided...

Ha returned to her hometown. Ha and her husband had been separated for a long time. Her clear voice was absent in a corner of the morning market. Then, one day, I met Ha again. Ha said that she still loved her husband, still loved her old and tired parents-in-law. She shyly told me that even though she was far away, she still missed the apartment window, the "tiger cage" where she hid her tears. From that small window, Ha saw many families in the neighborhood around her, small traders, home-based product manufacturers, girls opening hair salons, shampoo shops, nail shops, steaming sticky rice, vermicelli, and cake shops, and the hard-working shoulders of many people. Also from that window, Ha heard the bustling market below, the children calling out about school time, school dismissal time, bathing time, and studying time. Ha thought about her wish to give birth to children for her husband, to raise them up by selling snacks in the market, letting them laugh and scream in her tiredness... When she thought about those things, her heart was filled with love. Ha returned to the house of more than 30 square meters, looked back at the "tiger cage", looked back at the 2 old peeling windowsills with long-lasting water stains. She bought some flower pots to plant in the "tiger cage". She bought some Styrofoam boxes to grow lettuce and Malabar spinach. Ha spent time watering the plants and looking at the flowers every day. In the same square meters, life became lighter when Ha saw the fresh green shoots trembling under her hands. She said she was saving money to go to the doctor, she believed that God would understand her wishes, just like how she believed in the green shoots she planted.

Ha is just a person, a fate among hundreds of people, fates coming and going in the old apartment buildings of Vinh city. The apartment buildings once marked history, rising from the ruins of the war on this land. Ha, like me, is not a native of Vinh city, but has contributed to the city, in one way or another, and then sometimes gets angry at the city, and loves the city, loves the place where she lives, the sound that touches her every morning, loves the window that is peeling but has imprinted sadness and joy, is the place to wait for joy, the place to let go of sadness and the place to flutter and nurture hope.

Unlike Ha and me, Thang has a natural love for these old houses. Thang is from Vinh, born and raised in B2. For the past 40 years, Thang has not left it. Thang said that for himself and the young people who grew up in the apartment building, there is a treasure trove of beautiful memories about it, especially the windows. Thang's house is a "house with rooms" (larger than other "roomless" houses) of about 40 square meters, with 3 windows (houses with "roomless" houses have 2 doors). "In the past, windows were just a place to get light, the iron bars were sparse and gaping, there was no "anti-theft" factor like now. Every time I came home late from school, my parents had not returned from work yet, I would crawl through the iron bars of the window to get into the house" - Thang said. “Back then, my family had a black and white TV. Every time it was turned on, the neighbors upstairs and downstairs would come to watch, filling the house. Many people even clung to the windows to watch. Oh, those hard, poor, yet warm days. In that apartment building, everyone knew each other and knew each other’s “backgrounds.”

Then growing up, going to school, becoming an adult, Thang did business but had a passion for photography. Apartment buildings and small windows were Thang's endless passion. Looking through those windows, Thang seemed to see himself: the naughty boy drawing pictures on his desk, the boy peeking out onto the balcony waiting for his friend to call him, the boy who hugged the iron bars tightly and cried every time he was beaten... Looking through those windows, he saw the faces of old people, pensive and quiet. He saw hands diligently tracing the edges of fabric on an old, rattling sewing machine. Or a cat sitting dozing next to a vase of flowers that had begun to wilt on the table... Thang imagined the stories behind the quiet moments he saw and captured through his lens. "Behind those windows is the life of a family, of human fates".

I also think like Thang, every time I stand and look up at the apartment windows. I seem to see the bustle inside, the old urban lifestyle. Older like the water-stained windowsills, like the pale yellow paint on the dark moss, like the scarred, bare stairs that reveal rusty steel bars… Every time the street lights come on, looking at those windows, I want to call them sad eyes. That’s right, my sad eyes, the sad eyes of the street…

How can I forget those distant days, when Quang Trung Street was not as busy and flashy as it is now. Those eyes welcomed me back to the late nights and misty mornings on the train arriving at Vinh station. The flashing lights let me know that somewhere, there was still someone who had not slept, or someone who woke up early to welcome me – a wanderer returning to the city.

I always imagine the Quang Trung multi-storey house still present on modern Vinh street today is an old person reminiscing about the old years.

That old man, with his face marked by time, with his hair streaked with wind and frost, was calmly and serenely waiting for his own disappearance. As if a dream always had to come to an end, to give way to another dream.

Rows of houses with yellow walls, simple railings, bright red bougainvillea clusters in the gentle April noon, in front of the collective yard, children playing together, clotheslines strung in front of the porch, where colorful fabrics compete with each other... The voices of children calling each other, the sound of footsteps stepping down the old stairs, the sound of wind seeping through the cracks of wooden doors. And the windows, they seem to always be open to look outside. They look out at the bustling Vinh city, hiding inside another world, both simple and mysterious but gradually becoming lost...

There are more and more high-rise buildings, Vinh people are also used to taking the elevator instead of running to the high-rise apartments. The old apartment buildings still stand there silently, like a discordant note in the bustling symphony of modernity. I still know that old and outdated things will disappear as a rule of life, but I also understand that not all things that are lost or replaced are not beautiful, not valuable. They were once brilliant and can still be brilliant in their desolate appearance.

I, as well as many residents of Vinh Street, will love and remember them forever, even if one day they close their sad eyes and disappear...