When Deok-gi’s wife arrived at the hospital, she felt overwhelmed by all the visitors flocking in to pay their respects to the old man. They had been arriving since early morning. Although there wasn’t much to do, she couldn’t just leave while the elders were still around, so she sat with the guests until her husband arrived.
“Grandfather says we should go ahead with the New Year’s ancestral ceremony. We’d better go home right away and prepare a simple offering,” said Deok-gi. They decided to go home with Deok-gi’s mother and gave some money to Secretary Ji to go shopping at the Baeugae Market for some bargains. Deok-gi looked for Uncle Chang-hun, hoping he could send him along with Secretary Ji, but he was nowhere to be found.
The sudden decision to hold the New Year’s ancestral ceremony had been made on the arrival that morning of an uncle who had come to Seoul from the countryside. He thought it was not a good idea to have an operation on the last day of the year and advised that it be put off until two days after New Year’s. When the patient heard that it was actually the last day of the year, he turned to his grandson and asked, “Is today already the last day of the year? Have you prepared for the ancestral ceremony tomorrow?”
“Would it matter if our ancestors didn’t receive any offerings this year, in light of your illness?” asked Deok-gi.
The old man lost his temper. If they acted this way while he was still alive, what did they intend to do after his death? Deok-gi agreed to do as his grandfather wished and left.
When the three family members pushed open the gate of the house and entered behind the maid carrying Deok-gi’s baby on her back, the maidservant rushed out from the servants’ quarters and shouted, “Who’s here? Egu, what brought you back so early? The mistress is getting ready to go out.” Making this announcement as if she were obeying her mistress’ order and anxious to prevent unwelcome guests from entering, the maidservant darted into the house ahead of them.
How dare she enter before us? they all thought, following her in. There was no movement inside, and no one seemed to be on the big veranda. The maidservant was nowhere in sight.
Nervously, like people who are aware that a burglar is sneaking around the house, they exchanged glances.
“Has everyone gone out?” Deok-gi spoke in a full voice, as if he had noticed nothing out of the ordinary, and climbed onto the veranda, worried that his mother and wife would sense his uneasiness.
As the women followed him, the Suwon woman entered from the outer quarters nonchalantly, softly scuffing her shoes. She addressed them in a composed tone. “Why have you all returned together?” Stepping onto the veranda, she stared at Deok-gi’s wife, who had stiffened in her tracks. “Weren’t you going to your parents’?”
What’s going on?
Overcome with suspicion, everyone was rendered speechless.
“Is no one in the outer quarters?” asked Deok-gi, coming out of his room.
“No. I went out there to get something, but I couldn’t find it. I wonder where your grandfather left it,” the Suwon woman said calmly.
“What are you looking for?”
“Your grandfather’s fur-lined Korean outer coat. I thought it might be hanging somewhere in the outer quarters, out of sight.”
“Didn’t he wear it to the hospital?” asked Deok-gi’s wife.
“Ah, you’re right! What was I thinking?” The Suwon woman laughed dejectedly.
When the old man was moved to the hospital in an ambulance, she was about to cover him with a blanket but then asked Deok-gi’s wife to fetch the fur-lined coat. She placed it over her husband and spread the blanket on top of it. Had she completely forgotten? Even if they believed the Suwon woman, why had the maidservant rushed in so quickly? And where was she now?
Deok-gi went out to the outer quarters, where the safe was kept, but found no one there. But why was the outer gate pushed shut instead of locked?
When Deok-gi opened the front gate of the outer quarters and called out, the maidservant came through the gate from the inner quarters, answering in a long drawl, as if she were playing hide-and-seek.
“Why didn’t you lock the gate? No one’s around.”
“I opened it just a moment ago to go to my room.”
Deok-gi told her to lock it and went into the larger room of the outer quarters.
He unlocked the door to the loft; the safe came into view. More than a decade ago, when they had moved into this house, the original loft had been torn down and steel bars had been installed underneath the safe. Now, the keeper of the safe was about to take leave of this world. His grandfather had devoted his life to guarding it. Deok-gi remembered how, when he was seven or eight, his grandfather had joked as he jiggled open the safe: “Deok-gi, if you misbehave, I’ll put you in the safe and lock the door.”
Deok-gi’s height had almost doubled since then, so he could never fit in it now, but soon his life as the safe’s new keeper would begin. Why had he grown suspicious of the Suwon woman and the maidservant? Why had he been compelled to take a look at the safe?
The opening and shutting of this safe and the ancestral shrine door are now the two most crucial obligations in my life; I am like a prison guard manning the door to a cell.
Deok-gi didn’t know what sort of shape the safe was in now, but even if someone had disturbed it, it would be in the same place. As long as he had the keys, no one could do much harm. He grew more curious about what was inside, and as it was not a Pandora’s box, he wanted to take a quick peek, even though it meant disobeying his grandfather. In all the family, Deok-gi was the only one to whom his grandfather had entrusted the combination.
As Deok-gi turned the dial on the safe this way and that, shifting through his memory for the numbers, his eyes fell on some ash scattered on the loft’s floor. He took a closer look. Though crushed when the door had been shut, it was clearly cigarette ash. His grandfather had been confined to bed for more than a month. Was the ash a month old? But his grandfather didn’t smoke cigarettes; he preferred a long pipe. Did he open the door with his long pipe between his lips? Was this ash from a pipe?
He didn’t think so. For one thing, the maidservant had behaved oddly. They must have been sneaking people out of the house, for it was strange that the nanny was nowhere in sight and that the gate of the outer quarters had been unlocked. Even if the maidservant’s room were on fire, there was no need to unlock the outer quarters’ gate. The Suwon woman’s excuse was specious, but more than that, why had she, in a surprising show of generosity, encouraged Deok-gi’s wife to visit her parents? Normally, she would have snubbed Deok-gi’s wife if she had even intimated such a wish. The Suwon woman would have said that the young woman’s hands were too full for her to leave the house. Obviously, the Suwon woman was planning something, pretending to keep an eye on the house, after driving everyone away. Deok-gi recalled Uncle Chang-hun’s absence at the hospital a while back. Clerk Choe, who had appeared briefly in the morning, had vanished as well.
Do they think they can get away with something behind my back? They might be able to open the loft door by picking at the keyhole, but how can they open the safe? And even if they had opened it, what could they have done? They could have stolen whatever was inside, but they wouldn’t dare do anything so obvious. If they took the bankbooks, they’d be caught immediately. Did they want to swap the land deeds with falsified ones? Perhaps they wanted to tamper with the will. If so, what would they do if his grandfather recovered his health?
Deok-gi studied the safe’s door, shiny enough to reflect his face; there were fingerprint smudges on it.