A Week on My Sister's Old Keypad Phone While Mine Was in the Repair Shop

On Monday morning I bent over the big water jar out back to scoop some water for my chili plants, and the phone slid out of my shirt pocket and dropped in with a plop.

I plunged my hand in after it, but it had already sunk to the bottom, under the layer of alum sediment. When I fished it out the screen was still lit, showing some green shape, and then it went dark. I wiped it on my shirt tail, pressed the button, shook it, blew on it. My wife called out from the kitchen to put it in the rice jar, that's what people say. I left it in the rice for a day and a night. On Tuesday morning I took it out. Still dead.

Phong at the phone repair shop near the market picked it up, opened the back, and shook his head.

"Water got in, chú. Needs a new screen and a new board. I have to order the parts, about a week."

"A whole week?"

"Yes. Do you have a spare phone? If not, I can lend you an old one."

"No, I'll ask my sister."

I've looked after the motorbike parking lot at the market gate for more than ten years. Not having a phone didn't matter for that; nobody parking a bike needs to call me. Still, my shirt pocket felt weightless, like I'd forgotten my wallet. At noon I rode over to Út's.

Út dug the old brick of a phone out of a drawer

Út is my youngest sister, fifty-two this year, and she sells crab noodle soup at the top of our lane. She heard me out without a word, went into the back room, opened the drawer under the family altar, rummaged for a while, and pulled out a black keypad phone with a rubber band wrapped twice around it.

"This was Tèo's when he was at school. I keep it in case the power goes out. One charge lasts all week."

She took off the rubber band. The back cover was loose; without the band, the battery fell out. She took a sewing needle, poked the little hole in the side of my dead phone to get the SIM card out, and slotted it into the brick. She pressed the button, and a screen the size of two finger joints lit up orange, showed a greeting, then the time, then a few bars of signal.

"There. It works, anh Hai."

"How do I text?"

"Press the numbers. Press two three times and you get C. For accents you press the star."

"What do you press star for?"

"Forget the accents, anh. Everyone'll understand."

She wound the rubber band back around twice and handed it to me. It was heavier than I expected, heavy like a bar of laundry soap, its corners worn round. I put it in my shirt pocket, and the pocket had something weighing it down again.

That afternoon I rang my wife to test it. When she called back, the thing played a very loud, very cheerful ringtone, the kind of tune phones played twenty years ago. The woman at the fruit stall by the entrance turned to look. The boy who delivers ice snorted. I meant to press answer and pressed hang up, so she had to call again, and the tune went off again.

"Change the ringtone, it sounds like a wedding band."

"How do I change it?"

"How would I know. Ask Út."

I didn't ask. By the end of the week it was still playing like a wedding band.

The first day, I checked the time more times than I could count

The parking lot at the market gate has two rush periods. Early morning, when shoppers pour in to leave their bikes and I can't tear tickets fast enough and my fingers end up stained with ink. And late afternoon, for the evening market. Between those two rushes there's a lull, from about nine until past noon, when the bikes just sit there and nobody comes or goes. For years now I've spent that stretch in my canvas folding chair holding my phone. Watching the news, watching people fish, watching clips of people arguing in the street. Watching until my eyes blurred, then dozing a little.

On Wednesday, my first day at the lot with the brick, that lull stretched out like a pulled rubber band.

I sat down in the folding chair and my hand went into my shirt pocket for the phone. I took it out, and the orange screen showed the time: 9:12. I pressed a few buttons. There was a contacts list, messages, a calendar, a calculator, and that was it. I put it back. A while later my hand went in again, took it out, checked the time: 9:15, then back in the pocket.

By ten I knew my hand wasn't fetching the phone to look at anything. It fetched it because it was used to fetching it. The brick had nothing to look at, so every time I took it out I saw only the time, and the time crept along so slowly it annoyed me.

Toward noon I found the snake game. A snake made of little black squares that eats dots and gets longer, and dies if it hits the wall. I played until the snake stretched across nearly the whole screen, ran into its own tail and died, and started again. The man who sells lottery tickets came past, stopped, and watched over my shoulder.

"Heavens, you've still got one of these?"

"Borrowed it from my sister."

"My boy used to play this all day, I yelled at him no end." He watched a bit longer. "Turn, turn! Oh, dead."

He laughed and moved on. I put the phone back in my pocket. I felt a little silly, an old man of sixty playing snake in a parking lot, but I felt silly about something else too: whatever phone I have, my hand will find something to fill that lull with. If not the news, then the snake.

That afternoon, once I'd had enough of the snake, I just sat.

When you just sit, you see things. I saw a flock of sparrows on the market roof, a dozen or so, that come down at about eleven every day to the spot where the rice seller tips out her broken grains, peck it all clean, and fly back up to the roof. I saw the woman who sells lottery tickets asleep under the tropical almond tree, a cloth hat over her face, her stack of tickets on her lap, the wind riffling them without blowing them away. I saw the fruit seller's little boy squatting under her stall, chalking a board for ô ăn quan, the old counting game, on the concrete and playing both sides himself, running round to the other side after each turn. More than ten years I've sat in that spot, and I never knew the sparrows came at the same time every day.

But I couldn't just sit for long either. After a while I'd start remembering things I didn't want to remember: the leak in the roof I still haven't fixed, a back tooth that aches, my eldest son not having called home in months. With a phone, those things hid behind the videos. Now there was nothing in front of them, and they came out and sat down beside me on the folding chair. I took the brick out again and checked the time. Checking the time is a way of covering things up too.

That night at bedtime I noticed something else. For years I've fallen asleep with my phone, watching videos until it dropped on my face and told me I was sleepy. On Wednesday night I lay there with the brick on the shelf above the bed, lighting up orange only when I pressed it to check the time. I could hear the wall clock ticking, the one I thought had stopped long ago. I could hear the neighbors' TV showing a martial arts film, people shouting. I could hear my wife breathing evenly. It took me a long time to fall asleep, longer than usual, but in the morning I couldn't remember whether it had bothered me. I only remembered that the wall clock was still going.

At noon on Thursday, the lottery woman under the almond tree woke up, came past, and left her stack of tickets with me so she could go to the market toilet. While I was holding them, a woman out shopping stopped to buy two, so I sold them for her and put the money in the plastic bag she'd given me. When she came back I handed it over and she counted it and nodded. Then she noticed the brick in my shirt pocket.

"Oh, you use one of these too? So do I."

She pulled a silver keypad phone out of her trouser pocket, the paint almost all worn off.

"My son bought me a fancy one, I leave it at home. My eyes can't see the letters."

"Then how do you look at your grandchildren's pictures?"

"Lots of sevens coming up today, you know. Want a ticket?"

I bought one. She tore it off for me, went back to the almond tree, sat down, and pulled the cloth hat over her face. I don't know whether she can see her grandchildren's pictures. I think not, but she has no need to tell that to the man who minds the bikes.

Hiền sent pictures of little Na, I couldn't see them, so she called

Hiền, my daughter, works in a factory up in Bình Dương and has a little girl just over a year old. For months now she's posted pictures of Na in the family group every night: Na eating porridge, Na sitting in a bath basin, Na wearing her father's hat. I'd look at the pictures, tap a smiley face, and that was it.

On Wednesday night the brick got a text from Hiền. A few words without accents, with odd symbols mixed in: "Ba why didnt u look at Na pics? r u ok". I pressed reply. P is the seven key once, fine. H is the four key twice, but my hand shook and I pressed it three times and got I. I deleted it, deleted the P as well, and started again from scratch. It took me nearly ten minutes to send: "Phone broke. Being fixed".

Five minutes later Hiền called. The wedding-band ringtone filled the house.

"Ba, your phone broke? How?"

"Fell in the water jar."

"Oh no. Are you all right?"

"I didn't fall in the jar."

"I mean... never mind. So you can't see Na's pictures?"

"Can't see them. This is Út's phone, it's tiny."

"Then let me get her to talk to Grandpa."

Then there was rustling on the line, Hiền coaxing, "Na, it's Grandpa, say something to Grandpa," then a tiny, wet voice, ah ah ah, then a sound that might have been "ông," grandpa, or might have been "không," no. Hiền laughed down the phone. I laughed along without knowing what I was laughing at, standing in the middle of the house with the brick pressed to my ear.

That night I talked with Hiền a long time. Longer than the past few months put together. Because I couldn't see pictures, I had to ask. What porridge does she eat. Does she still cry at night. Is she walking yet. Hiền told me Na could hold on to a plastic chair and take three steps before plopping down, that she loved banging a spoon on a pot lid, that the baby's father works nights so Hiền is alone with her in the evenings, and some nights she's so tired she could cry. That last part she said quietly, then changed the subject right away.

"You're that tired?"

"A bit tired. Did you fix the roof yet, Ba?"

"No. You said you were tired."

"It's nothing, Ba. She's asleep now, listen, can you hear? She's snoring."

I pressed the brick tight to my ear and heard a tiny wheezy breath, slow and even. The two of us went quiet for a while, listening to the little one sleep.

Months of looking at pictures, and I knew what color hat Na wore. I didn't know my daughter spent her evenings alone. Every picture she sent was one where the baby was smiling. Nobody in a picture is tired.

On Thursday and Friday, Hiền called again. Nobody said they would; around eight in the evening the wedding-band ringtone just went off. Hearing it, my wife would call out, "That's Hiền." She came and sat beside me too, leaning her ear in to the brick, two grey heads together listening to the little one babble.

The death anniversary I got to late, because I couldn't see the group messages

Not everything that week was good. One thing went badly.

This year was the anniversary of my Uncle Ba's death. His family lives down in Cần Giuộc and always holds it at Sunday lunch. I'd planned to ride down Sunday morning. On Thursday, Aunt Ba posted in the family group that this year it was moved to Saturday lunch, because her son working in Taiwan could only come home for two days. The whole family saw it and tapped a thumbs-up. I didn't see it. The brick couldn't get into the group.

At noon on Saturday I was sitting at the lot when the wedding-band ringtone went off. It was Út.

"Anh Hai, where are you? They've finished the offerings already."

"What offerings?"

"Uncle Ba's anniversary! Aunt posted it in the group on Thursday."

"I can't see the group."

"Oh no, and I forgot too. I thought someone had told you."

I left the lot with my nephew and rode down to Cần Giuộc, and by the time I got there they were clearing the second tray of food. Aunt Ba wasn't angry, just asked why I was so late. My cousin home from Taiwan, I got to see for about half an hour before he went off to visit his mother's side. The last time I'd seen him was six years ago.

The whole way home I was annoyed. Annoyed with the brick, with Út, with myself. By the time I reached the bridge I'd stopped being annoyed with the brick; what had it done wrong? The whole family passes news through the group now. Nobody phones round about anniversaries the way they used to. My smartphone isn't only videos and the snake. My uncle's anniversary is in there, and news of my cousin coming home. I can sit idle at the lot without it, but if I can't see the group, I miss things in my own family.

That night I told my wife. She said, "That's because you didn't ask. No phone tells you everything." I thought she was right. Keeping up with the family group is something you have to do, not something to give up.

On the seventh day I got my phone back, and the brick got its rubber band again

The next Monday Phong called to say the phone was ready. I rushed straight to the shop. The phone was spotless, new screen, very bright. Phong put the SIM back in and switched it on. The moment it came up it started buzzing nonstop in my hand, notifications arriving in bunches, family group, old friends' group, ads, reminders of some kind, buzzing so much I had to set it down on the glass counter and let it buzz on its own.

I stood in the shop and scrolled through all of it. Aunt Ba's message about moving the anniversary was in there, with a dozen thumbs-up under it. Pictures of Na eating porridge, Na in the bath basin. I scrolled from the bottom up and looked at every one.

That afternoon I sat at the lot with my repaired phone. When the lull came, my hand took it out the way it always had. I watched the news, watched a bit of someone fishing. I didn't see when the sparrows came down to the broken rice, only when they rose again, the whole flock flashing over my head. I put the phone down on the folding chair and watched them settle on the market roof.

I can't give up the phone, and I'm not planning to. A few things I've kept from that week, small ones. Around eight at night, if Hiền hasn't called, I call her, a call, not pictures, and I ask whether she's tired before I ask about Na. Some nights she says yes, some nights no, but I can hear it in her voice. In the lull at the lot, some days I leave the phone in the drawer of my little table and sit watching the sparrows and the boy with his chalk board. Some days I can't, and I watch videos till noon. The family group I open once every night before bed and read to the end, tapping a thumbs-up on every message. I don't want to miss any more anniversaries.

That Monday afternoon I rode to Út's to return the phone. She was out in the yard scrubbing the crab soup pot, hands covered in suds.

"All done, anh Hai?"

"Yes. Thanks. The battery on this is still great, a whole week and I never charged it."

"Told you. In case the power goes." She wiped her hands on her apron. "Did you ever change the ringtone?"

"No. Played like a wedding band all week."

Út laughed. She took the phone into the back room and opened the drawer under the altar. I stood at the doorway and watched. She wrapped the rubber band twice around it, snug over the back cover, and set it in the corner of the drawer next to a few candles and a box of matches.