Yom Sang-seop - Three Generations

The grandfather had banished even the Suwon woman from the room for this visit with Deok-gi. While they were alone, he asked his grandson to open a small safe behind his bedding and handed him a ring of keys. “If only you are right! But even if I get better, I’ll be no better than a living corpse. Take these keys to the safe. I’m not going to listen to anyone. I called you home so urgently so that I could entrust these keys to you. Now that I’ve handed them over, I can close my eyes in peace. But don’t open the safe as long as I’m alive. In the safe is your seal, but you mustn’t use it until I’m gone. Take these keys, and if, by Heaven’s will, I get better, return them to me.”

“Why should I take them now? I should go back to school as soon as you get better, Grandfather. And how can I take these keys when my father is alive and well?” The propriety of according due respect to one’s father notwithstanding, Deok-gi was in no position to give up his studies and install himself as the household’s manager.

“Leaving again? No. You can’t go even if I get better. Don’t be silly and do as I tell you.” The grandfather was adamant.

“How can I cut my studies short? I graduate in less than a month.”

“What is more important, your studies or your family? It might be different if you weren’t needed here, but though you’re young, bear in mind what’ll happen to this household as soon as I’m dead. Give up everything — graduation and whatever — and take the keys. I’m entrusting them and the ancestral shrine to you. The destiny of your life and the fortune of this family depend on those keys. You must hold onto them and safeguard the ancestral shrine. Apart from these two things, nothing is important, not my dying words, nothing else. I’ve educated you until now so that you can respect and carry on these two vital things. If you continue studying and refuse them, it’s like having a funeral without a corpse. You’ve studied enough; you can function without shame, even in today’s society, can’t you?” This long speech exhausted him. His forehead broke out in a cold sweat, and he was short of breath, his chest heaving as he gasped for air.

“Why don’t you entrust the household affairs to my father for now?” Deok-gi suggested once again.

“Stop that nonsense! If you don’t like it, give me the keys. Do you think I can entrust them to no one else? I don’t care if you choose to go from door to door begging for food.” Despite his rage, the grandfather did not show any sign of reclaiming the keys.

Deok-gi didn’t want to go against the wishes of his sick grandfather. He sat with his head bowed, determined to follow his grandfather’s instructions for the moment, for he could do otherwise later. With her skirts rustling, the Suwon woman entered, her face red. She had been squatting below the window, straining to hear every word that escaped from the room.

When Deok-gi saw her, he quickly gathered up the keys lying in front of him and stood up.

With a murderous look on her face, the Suwon woman deterred Deok-gi from leaving. “Please stay for a minute.”

She had intended to take the keys before she made her case but now that was impossible. If the old man had been much sicker and less conscious, or if Deok-gi had returned home after his grandfather had died and the household was in mourning, she could have gotten her hands on the keys. But Deok-gi had come. Did he come home too soon or had they acted too slowly? In any event, their scheme had failed.

As she suppressed her fury, her face turned pale, almost taking on a blue hue. “I don’t care who takes charge of this household. But from what you said right now, you seem to have handed over management of the household to him. Given the way things are now, tell me what I should do.”

Lying with his mouth agape and his chest in spasms, the old man managed to ask, “What do you want me to do for you?”

“If you told me to leave this house, I’d go without a murmur. I’m reluctant to say this, but no one knows what’ll happen to you tomorrow. If you die before me, the family wouldn’t let me stay a minute longer in this house. If I didn’t have a child, I wouldn’t mind dying with you. But who can I trust and what can I expect in this wretched world? Shouldn’t you give consideration to my situation? What am I supposed to do?” She pleaded tearfully.

“Aren’t you going too far?” Deok-gi rebuked her.

“Am I wrong? Think! Once your grandfather dies, who in this house will pay attention to me?” Wiping her tears, the Suwon woman spoke in a nasal voice, sniffling.

Deok-gi understood how she felt but wondered how she could shed tears on cue. She was not pretending to cry, however — she was shedding real tears, infuriated that the scheme had gone awry.

“Is my grandfather dying now? Am I taking over this household? You shouldn’t say such things,” Deok-gi said in a soothing tone.

“Stop talking nonsense,” Deok-gi’s grandfather scolded them gently. “Go away. What right do you have to prattle on so?” He was exhausted and felt bad for her.

“I know you think I was eavesdropping, but haven’t you just entrusted household affairs to this young man? Shouldn’t you tell me what’s going to happen to me in his presence? In fact, shouldn’t you summon everyone in the house and tell them?”

Deok-gi said, “Please calm down. Why are you worrying? Is my grandfather dying now? Even if he — ” He couldn’t bring himself to talk about death within earshot of his grandfather. Deok-gi said quietly, “My grandfather will make sure that you’re taken care of. As for my father and myself, what reason would we have to shortchange you? Isn’t it obvious whichever way you look at it? You should be able to understand that much — you’ve known us long enough.”

“If I speak because I’m greedy, let me be struck by lightning right here; if I speak out of avarice, I am not my mother’s daughter.” She gestured to her sleeping daughter near the foot of the grandfather’s bedding and said, “With her, I see only darkness in the future. That’s why I’m acting this way.”

The old man squirmed and opened his eyes, as if he had just managed to raise himself from a deep sleep into which he was slipping. Shifting his hollow eyes between Deok-gi and the Suwon woman, he said, “Are you still talking nonsense? Stop and go to bed now,” he muttered weakly as if talking in his sleep. Then he opened his eyes again and continued speaking with all the strength he had. “Don’t worry. I’ve already made preparations. I was concerned that I’d have to witness this scene while I was alive. I’ve divided my property fairly, like cutting cloth according to chalked lines. It’s too late to argue about it now. Nothing can be done, even if my own father came back from the grave. You can’t make a piece of cloth bigger or smaller when it’s already cut to size. If any of you try to persuade me otherwise, I’m going to burn all the deeds before I die.”

The old man heaved a long sigh. After Deok-gi left the room, the Suwon woman’s shrill, endless whining filtered out of the room. She continued to plead with her husband, who was only the shell of a man; no one, as she herself put it, knew what would become of him the next day. She was tormenting a man on the threshold of death.

The Suwon woman would have liked it if she got half his estate. Deok-gi couldn’t fathom how she could plead with her husband — regardless of whether she had any genuine affection for him — when he was struggling to breathe. She pleaded more fiercely than a debt collector or a bargain hunter. It had been said that good-for-nothing sons would frequently quarrel greedily among themselves, ignoring their dying father in his last days. Deok-gi wanted to run over to the main room and drag the Suwon woman out, but he suppressed the urge and left the house, asking his wife to keep an eye on the situation. It was his first venture outside since his arrival two days earlier.