Chapter 40: A
Face That Was Not His Own
One day, the organization’s
head of security laid two photographs on the table in Khai Minh’s room.
One had been taken before he
went into the river. The other, on the day he arrived at the research facility.
“Can you tell the difference?”
Khai Minh narrowed his eyes.
All he could make out were two
blurred frames. He could read posture, the color of clothing, the broad lines
of a figure, but faces were still beyond him.
“No.”
“Other people can.”
The man slid the older
photograph toward him.
“Lam Khai Minh’s image is still
sitting in the wanted files and in every identification system tied to the
case. On paper, you’re a missing psychiatric patient and a former murder
suspect. If you intend to live under another identity, new documents alone
won’t be enough.”
“What are you proposing?”
“Changing your face.”
Khai Minh turned toward Hoa.
She stood by the door, arms
crossed over her chest.
“You knew about this, didn’t
you.”
“I knew.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“The doctors only proposed it
after they’d assessed the old injuries on your face.”
Khai Minh’s hand rose to his
cheekbone.
The accident when he was
thirteen had left a scar near his temple. The years since, and the time spent
living on the street, had already changed his face in a dozen small ways.
But it was still the face
people had known.
“No.”
He said.
The security officer’s voice
stayed level.
“You plan to walk back into
Dong Cang wearing that face?”
“I don’t know when I’m going
back.”
“But you are going back.”
Khai Minh didn’t deny it.
“Minh Quan needs to see one
photograph. Truong Sinh needs to run one identity match. The moment that
happens, your new name is worth nothing.”
“I can stay off the cameras.”
“For the rest of your life?”
The room went quiet.
The officer set a surgical file
down on the table.
“This isn’t only about changing
how you look. The doctors will treat the scar tissue, repair the old damage to
the bone, and rebuild what was deformed. Some of your old features will remain,
but not enough for any recognition system to conclude you’re the same man.”
“And if I refuse?”
“No one will force you. But the
organization won’t be responsible when your identity is exposed.”
Khai Minh pushed the file away.
“I need time.”
The man left. Only he and Hoa
remained.
“Do you think I should do it?”
“Yes.”
“It’s the face my mother
remembered.”
Hoa said nothing. Khai Minh
turned toward the window. All he could see was one great slab of brightness
against the dark of the wall.
“My parents are dead. My home
was stolen. My name was turned into a murderer’s. And now even my face won’t be
mine anymore.”
She came to stand in front of
him.
“You change it so that one day
you can go back and make them return every last thing they took.”
Khai Minh lifted his head.
Her face was still only a blur
to him, but he could find where her eyes were.
“You believe I can do it?”
“I’ve watched you survive too
many things that should have killed you.”
Khai Minh closed his eyes.
That night, he signed the
consent form.
The operations that followed
stretched on and on. The doctors worked on the bone that had been damaged years
ago, altered the line of his jaw, reshaped the bridge of his nose, rebuilt the
scarred skin. Every time he surfaced from anesthesia, his face felt stretched
on a rack, so swollen and raw he couldn’t speak.
The old injury to his lungs,
compounded by the long months of treatment, dragged his voice lower and
rougher, stripping away the cold, cut-glass tone that had once belonged to Lam
Khai Minh. Every sentence he spoke now seemed coated in the dust of his years
on the street.
On the day the last bandages
came off, the doctor led him to a mirror.
By then, his vision was good
enough to catch the broad lines of things. He saw a man standing in the glass.
Hair cropped neat.
The face longer than before.
The jaw sharply drawn, the nose different, the scar at his temple all but gone.
Only the eyes kept something familiar, though their gaze had not yet fully
learned to focus.
Khai Minh raised a hand to his
face.
The man in the mirror did the
same.
“That’s me?”
“Yes.”
The doctor answered.
He looked for a long time.
There was no feeling of being reborn.
Only a cold hollowness.
The man in the mirror looked
nothing like the boy standing beside his thirteenth birthday cake. Nothing like
the young man who had once sat in the Lam family villa. Nothing, even, like the
ragged blind man from under the bridge.
Lam Khai Minh, it seemed,
really had died in that river. The man standing here merely carried his
memories.
That afternoon, Hoa brought him
a brown envelope.
Inside were identity papers,
residency documents, and the paperwork for his education program. Every line of
data belonged to a person who had never existed anywhere in Dong Cang’s past.
Khai Minh lifted the ID card
and held it close to his eyes.
It took him several seconds to
make out the printed name.
“Dinh Bac.”
Hoa spoke from beside him.
“That’s your new name.”
“Who chose it?”
“The organization prepared it
as part of the new identity.”
Khai Minh looked at the card
again.
“So from today, this is the
name I use?”
“Yes. The name Lam Khai Minh
can never appear on an official document again.”
He was silent for a long time
before sliding the card back into the envelope.
“Then from today, I’m Dinh
Bac.”
“And when it’s just the two of
us?”
Hoa hesitated.
“What do you want me to call
you?”
Khai Minh turned back to the
man in the mirror.
The answer was slow in coming.
“Dinh Bac.”
It was the first time the name
had ever been spoken in his own voice.
“Lam Khai Minh is dead.”
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