Since the door to the outer quarters had remained open, someone might have snuck out, but on the other hand, someone could be watching him at this very moment from the corners of this vast space. If he charged toward Deok-gi from behind and gagged him, only the safe, standing immobile, would witness the attack. Deok-gi realized for the first time that money was frightening and sordid. When the safe door creaked open, Deok-gi began to examine its contents carefully.
The first thing he examined was a will or, rather, a list of names. Almost every family member’s name was on the list. Each name was also written on more than ten well-sealed envelopes. Deok-gi scanned the list and found no one was missing. The Suwon woman’s name was there, as was his own, and there was no indication that the envelopes had been opened. The envelope bearing the word bankbooks was there as well. The big seals belonging to Deok-gi and his grandfather were intact. They hadn’t been able to open the safe.
Deok-gi was a little relieved, though still worried. He carefully went over the list.
Gwi-sun (the Suwon woman’s daughter): fifty bags of rice per year
The Suwon woman: two hundred bags
Deok-hui: fifty bags
Deok-hui’s mother: one hundred bags
Deok-gi’s wife: fifty bags
Sang-hun: three hundred bags
Deok-gi: fifteen hundred bags
Chang-hun: five hundred won in cash
Secretary Ji: five hundred won in cash
Clerk Choe: three hundred won in cash
These are rough figures. The Suwon woman’s two hundred bags were actually three times larger than Sang-hun’s three hundred bags. And Deok-gi’s fifteen hundred bags would reach seventeen or eighteen hundred, if not two thousand, because he was entitled to remainders as well.
Ten thousand won in bank deposits and the house were left to Deok-gi, the Suwon woman would receive a fifteen-gan house in Taepyeong-dong, and the Bungmi Changjeong house would go to Sang-hun in view of his illegitimate child. The old man specified that the money in the bankbook from which he withdrew living expenses was for the maintenance of the two Jo households, after paying for funeral expenses and granting bonuses to Chang-hun and Secretary Ji. Currently, it held almost ten thousand won. Oddly, there was no mention of the rice mill inside Namdaemun. Had the old man completely forgotten about it or did he simply have no intention of handing it down to any one individual? Perhaps he counted on its covering living expenses for the households dependent on him
The old man had written other instructions. Deok-gi was to supervise and safeguard the provisions for the underaged and the shares for his mother and his wife. For Gwi-sun and Deok-hui, he was to handle their shares until marriage, and for his mother and his wife, he would oversee their portions until his death. Evidently, the old man had entrusted Gwi-sun’s future to Deok-gi, probably in the belief that the Suwon woman wouldn’t remain with the family forever. He also made provisions for his daughter-in-law and granddaughter-in-law in case some future adversity, such as divorce, befell them. The will read:
Since the possession of assets may, in some cases, bring harm to the descendants that inherit them, I am dividing them as specified while I am alive. This is my absolute intention, and it shall not be changed. As the head of the Jo family household, I entrust to Deok-gi the means of life from one generation of the Jo family to the next. Deok-gi’s portion is not for him alone, and he must ensure that he will never take even a penny of it without consideration.
The grandfather then went into details. The distribution of the assets was to be done openly after his burial. Specifically, the women would receive their shares after the three-year period of mourning, a stipulation seemingly made to bind the Suwon woman in particular. Even if she were to marry again, he wanted her to do so only after the grieving period for her husband was over, at which time the four-year-old Gwi-sun would be of school age — old enough to be raised by anyone.
The date on the will was only some ten days earlier, right before he had been moved to the main room. Imagining that his grandfather had woken up in the middle of the night and, though gravely ill, crawled to the safe and steadied himself by leaning against it as he took out the contents and then returned them, Deok-gi’s heart went out to him, tears welling up in his eyes. Deok-gi disliked his grandfather’s temper, his outdated ideas, and the hostility he bore toward his own son, but seeing the extent to which the old man was concerned about his descendants, Deok-gi was boundlessly grateful. His grandfather couldn’t have arranged such a distribution overnight; he must have gone about it slowly from the time he was healthy. Deok-gi’s eyes brimmed over with tears as he pictured how sad and lonely the old man must have felt as he made these preparations, without telling anyone. People had commented — even within earshot of Deok-gi’s — that the old man’s assets couldn’t be safe, for in his old age he had become completely enraptured by the Suwon woman. Nevertheless, only two hundred fifty bags of rice were set aside for her and their daughter. Considering that Sang-hun was allotted three hundred bags, their share was quite big, but it was rather on the small side in the scheme of things. Sang-hun’s paltry share was the result of the old man’s obstinacy, a response to his son’s Christianity, which prohibited its believers from performing ancestral ceremonies. In the end, the old man’s feudal ideas prevailed. But would Deok-gi carry on his grandfather’s dying wishes after he inherited his wealth? Would he maintain the ancestral shrine, as befitting his grandfather’s trust, as faithfully as he would keep his grandfather’s safe?
Clue
After putting the documents back in the safe, Deok-gi noticed that the Suwon woman, standing on the stone step, was peeking in through the tiny windowpane. How long had she been standing there?
She dashed up to the veranda, without properly taking off her curved-tip rubber shoes, and threw open the sliding door. Ill at ease and unable to get the thought of the safe out of her head, she had hurried into the outer quarters to see what was going on. When she noticed that the safe door was open, she jumped in, fury dancing in her eyes.
“I’m on my way to the hospital. Is there anything your grandfather wanted from home?”
Slamming the safe door shut, Deok-gi looked behind him. The Suwon woman appeared ready for a showdown, her hands buried deep in her gray coat pockets, her eyes blazing.
“You’re having a grand time! Opening the safe whenever you please. ” The Suwon woman stared at the bunch of keys as Deok-gi removed them from the keyhole.
Meeting her eyes, Deok-gi once again thought, thanks to these keys, my own life might be cut short. He dropped them into his pocket with a jangle and answered sardonically, “Is there something else to take to the hospital other than the fur-lined coat?”
The Suwon woman’s expression changed, and a sly, ingratiating smile spread across her lips. “So what’s inside?”
“What do you mean by that?” Deok-gi spat out disagreeably.
The Suwon woman regretted her awkward phrasing and began to pout. “How much has he set aside for me? That’s what I want to know,” she challenged.
“Do you really think now is the time to talk about that?”