Grandfather the Collector

When I was young, I thought my grandfather was nothing more than a compulsive collector.

The day before South Korea played Poland in the group stage of the 2002 World Cup, I rode in his car to the Nonghyup in town—the agricultural cooperative bank—to have some money changed.

"Change all of this into old bills!"

He bellowed it at the flustered teller.

"Sir, we're actually supposed to be exchanging old notes for new ones."

Even the branch manager came out to reason with him. Grandfather was being impossible, and the bag he had brought in was crammed with far too many ten-thousand-won notes.

"Enough talk. I told you to change them, so change them."

I was a little ashamed of how loudly he was carrying on. The manager called the two of us behind the counter and led us into his office, where he set a coffee in front of Grandfather ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and handed me a yogurt drink with a straw already in it. I was only twelve.

"Sir, our staff will gather every old bill the branch has on hand and exchange as many as we can. Please, compose yourself. Might I ask why you wish to trade new notes for old ones?"

Grandfather was seventy-two then. Hale for his years, though anyone looking at his face would have known he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was a man in his seventies. The manager's courtesy seemed to soften him. He cleared his throat once and spoke more gently.

"It's all for my grandson."

The manager looked at me. I was midway through the yogurt when both of them turned their eyes on me at once, and under that sudden attention I set the bottle quietly down.

"Your grandson is a very handsome boy."

"Spitting image of his father."

"Your son must have been a fine-looking man as well. Like yourself, sir. Three generations this handsome—you've been blessed."

"You seem a decent man yourself, Manager. I raised a bit of a fuss, and still you're all manners."

"You flatter me."

While the two of them talked, a cash counter ran on without pause in one corner of the office. Two Nonghyup clerks were swapping Grandfather's new notes for old ones.

To my eyes, honestly, there was no difference at all. Aside from the new notes being a slightly brighter green, with a vertical line of dots down the center, King Sejong's face looked exactly the same.

Maybe Grandfather just didn't like that dotted line in the middle of the money?

That was as far as a child could think.

"You said you were taking the old notes for your grandson's sake. Might I know the reason in a little more detail?"

The manager asked it as he set down the cup he had raised to his lips.

"Ah. That, I can't tell you, Manager."

"Ha ha ha. Is that so? I did wonder whether you might be collecting the serial numbers on the old notes. Some people collect numbers, you know. I thought you meant to give them to your grandson as a gift."

"That's right. Grandfather keeps all sorts of things in his warehouses."

The words jumped out of me.

"What does he collect?"

The manager turned the question on me. Grandfather's face said I ought not to be running my mouth, but he didn't actually stop me.

"Books, newspapers, videotapes, cassette tapes—heaps of them. There are five whole warehouses at his house just for that."

"Remarkable. So he means to give it all to you one day. Your grandfather must be quite the collector. My compliments, sir."

"Ahem..."

He cleared his throat several times under the praise.

Half an hour or so went by. The clerks bound the stacks of ten-thousand-won notes—old ones now—with paper bands and packed them into the bag, and Grandfather watched the whole of it in silence.

"Fifty-three million, eight hundred twenty thousand won in all. Does that match the amount you brought?"

"It does. Thank you for the trouble."

Perhaps sorry for the work he had put them to, he had spoken gently.

"It's quite all right, sir. It's only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠our job."

Grandfather scratched lightly at the back of his head, then tossed out something that came from nowhere.

"Manager. Korea plays Poland tomorrow, doesn't it?"

"Ah, yes. That's right. If we're going to reach the round of sixteen, we really have to win the first match. Ha ha."

He said it with a broad smile.

"We're going to win that game."

"You think so? Well, that would be wonderful."

"I'm certain of it. Everyone here—take my word for it, and go buy a soccer lottery ticket."

I could see the clerks who had changed the money hiding their laughter behind their hands. It felt as if they were taking Grandfather for a madman, and it soured me.

"Understood, sir. I'll be sure to buy one. You all heard the gentleman, didn't you? See that you pick one up when you leave for the day."

"Yes, Manager."

Grandfather and I came out of the Nonghyup. He set the bag of money on the back seat of the old Kia Pride parked out front.

From the driver's seat he wiped the sweat from his brow and turned to me.

"Think your grandfather's crazy?"

"No!"

I put everything I had behind the word.

"It must seem a little strange, all the same."

He gave a bitter smile.

"Suhyeon."

"Yes, Grandfather."

"Someday you'll understand why I did this."

"When?"

"Who can say... Whenever that day comes, remember what I'm about to tell you."

"I'm listening."

"I will, Grandfather."

"Take it to heart. Twice, and three times."

"I will. Twice and three times, I'll live flexibly."

I couldn't have said, just then, what he meant. But I felt that he said it because he was thinking of me with his whole heart.

A look of pity crossed his face as he stroked my hair. His hand was warm, and dry.

He fitted the key and turned it, and the engine answered with a low rumble. I loved Grandfather's red Pride. It must have shown on my face, because he said:

"When you're grown, you'll drive this car. I'll look after it well and keep it in the warehouse."

He pulled away.

Fifteen minutes out of the town of Seoha, the road opened onto a plain of rice paddies, and his house stood at the foot of the mountain along one edge of that plain. He had built it in the 1980s, I was told, meaning to leave it to my father. But Father had refused the house and lived instead in Gyeonggi Province, near Seoul.

Then, last year, he died together with Mother. An accident no one saw coming. I don't even want to remember that day.

After my parents were gone, I went to Grandfather. He left the house he had been living in standing empty, and the two of us made our life in the one he had meant for Father.

The red Pride rolled slowly up to that house. Grandfather climbed out with the heavy bag of money; I carried the household goods and groceries we had bought at a market along the way, and we went inside.

"We'll eat, and then it's Chinese characters."

"Yes, Grandfather."

He insisted on the characters more than anything—hanja, the Chinese writing still threaded through Korean. English and Japanese he taught me himself. He had always been gifted with languages.

We made the meal together in the kitchen, a stew on the burner and eggs in the pan. I was scrubbing a cucumber hard with salt when I asked:

"What did you do when you were young, Grandfather?"

"Oh, a little of everything."

He answered while he steeped dried anchovies for the broth of a soybean-paste stew.

"But Grandfather... why were you against Mom and Dad getting married?"

The question seemed to leave him nowhere to put his hands. He pretended not to have heard. There was no way he hadn't. I remembered how fond he usually was of my mother.

And yet a conversation the two of them had while they were still alive had lodged deep in me. Mother had said she could never quite forget how fiercely Grandfather had opposed the marriage, before it ever happened.

Grandfather set the soybean-paste stew over the gas flame and stepped outside. He stood smoking, looking a long way off.

I was sorry to have asked him something so hard. I stopped what I was doing, went out onto the veranda, and stood beside him.

"I'm sorry, Grandfather."

"It's all right. I never disliked your mother. Not for a moment. If anything, she was so kind, and bore things so well, that I felt we hardly deserved her."

"Really?"

"Of course... If I'd known the two of them would live so well, and leave this world together, I never would have stood against it..."

He let out a sigh.

"Mom said she forgot all about you being against the wedding. I heard the two of them talking about it once."

"Did she? That's a relief..."

I was lying, to comfort him.

I had no other choice. Grandfather was someone truly special to me.

He put out his cigarette and patted my back. We went inside together and finished what was left of the cooking.

After lunch we studied Chinese characters, English, and Japanese, watched the news at nine, and went to sleep. He never simply let the news pass. He explained it to me, or told me stories of earlier days, and if one of those stories left me curious he would send me to the warehouses to hunt it down in the old newspapers and books.

And so my adolescence passed.

When I entered university, I left him and went to live in a dormitory. As I was setting out, he said:

"Yes."

"And anything in my warehouses, or in the safe—use it whenever you need to. As freely as you like."

The combination to his safe was my father's birthday.

I carried those words onto the bus for Seoul.

Only long afterward did I come to understand what he had meant by a first life. It pained me, then, to realize that I had never even wondered what kind of life my grandfather had lived.

Why didn't I ask him?

I could have asked. Just once...

In the eyes of the child I was, Grandfather was only a grandfather.

Life was unkind.

Only when no one was left who could tell me of the years he had been a young man did I finally grow curious about the life he had lived.