Old Key, New Life
The dampness of the plum rain season is like an impenetrable net, carrying the scent of moss from the bluestone path and seeping into the window cracks. Ah Yu squats in the corner of the attic, her fingertips tracing the heavy bunch of brass keys in the camphor wood box, leaving a light green mark of rust on her fingertips.
"This is the lock cylinder your grandfather repaired back then, made of brass, it can be passed down for three generations." Her father said this as he held her hand before he died, the phlegm in his throat sounding like cotton wool swollen from being soaked in water. Ah Yu was only staring at the jumping green line on the monitor at that time, and did not notice the particularly heavy key on the key chain, which was shaped like a curled-up shrimp.
The old calendar hanging from the attic beam stopped at last year's Qingming Festival, its pages curled into waves. Ah Yu poured the keys onto the newspaper; the seventeen keys jingled, one of them a shrimp-shaped key with a polished wooden plaque bearing the words "East Wing" in red paint. She suddenly remembered when she was six, sheltering from the rain, her father had used this key to open the carved wooden door in the backyard, the creaking of the hinges mingling with his laughter: "This door is older than your father."
Her phone vibrated in her pocket; it was a message from the real estate agent: "The old city renovation project will be announced next week, and your old house..." Ah Yu turned off the screen, her gaze falling on the demolition assessment forms piled up in the corner. The red stamp, like a congealed bloodstain, was stamped on the words "dangerous building."
As she came downstairs with her keychain, she bumped into Zhong Hua standing in the courtyard, camera in hand. Raindrops slanted across his lens, creating a hazy, diffused light. "Taking pictures of roof tiles?" Ah Yu kicked away the moss at her feet; the stone slab there had been worn down by her father's footsteps for thirty years, leaving a shallow indentation.
Zhong Hua turned around, his windbreaker splattered with mud: "Is this 'Water Beast' set of yours from the Republic of China era? It has small cloud patterns on the corners of its mouth." His camera panned across the eaves, then suddenly stopped at the keychain in Ah Yu's hand. "Can I borrow this key to take a look?"
The brass key twirled in Zhong Hua's palm. His fingertips were calloused from years of sharpening them with a carving knife. "This is a 'shrimp tail lock' key," he said, scraping away rust from the handle with his fingernail. "There are three pins in the lock cylinder; it takes two turns to open." Ah Yu looked at the raindrops on his eyelashes and suddenly remembered her father always telling her how she used to steal this key to pry open the chicken coop lock when she was little, only to lock herself inside the woodshed. That day, when her father found her, the woodshed was piled high with freshly harvested wheat. She was sitting on the pile, eating raw wheat grains. Her father's hand, holding the kerosene lamp, trembled, but he couldn't bring himself to hit her. He simply knelt down and wiped the chaff from her mouth. The key hung from his waist, swaying gently with his movements.
"Planning to take it apart?" Zhong Hua asked, his fingertips brushing against the back of her hand as he handed the keys back to her. Ah Yu looked down and counted the engravings on the keys, each one left by her father when he tested them. "What else? Keep it as a decoration?" She remembered how, after her father's stroke, he couldn't hold chopsticks with his right hand, but on sunny days he would always move a wicker chair to the courtyard and sit there, stroking the keys. The sunlight stretched his shadow long, as if it were melting into the patterns of the bluestone slabs.
Zhong Hua suddenly pointed to the door of the east wing: "How about turning it into a guesthouse? I think your house has a layout, with three courtyards, which is just right for three rooms." He squatted down to draw a sketch, the rain blurring the pencil lines. "This shrimp-shaped key can be turned into a doorplate." As he said this, the rain stopped, and a sliver of light shone through the clouds onto the window frame of the east wing. It was a lotus scroll pattern that his father had carved by hand, which took him half a year to carve as part of her dowry.
Ah Yu didn't answer, turning and going into the kitchen. The iron pot on the stove was still covered in grease, left from the last time her father cooked. That day, she brought her boyfriend home, and her father stewed his signature braised pork. The key hung on a nail beside the stove; the aroma of the stew mixed with the smell of copper rust became her most vivid memory of home. Now, that boyfriend had long since gone his separate ways, leaving only this pot of grease, like an unyielding layer of longing.
Zhong Hua's sketches became increasingly detailed, even marking the swallows' nests under the eaves. "Look," he said, pointing to the drawings, "here's a tea table so guests can drink tea facing the courtyard. The moon door in the west wing will perfectly frame the pomegranate tree in the courtyard; it will be beautiful when it bears fruit in the fall." Ah Yu suddenly remembered that the pomegranate tree was planted on her tenth birthday, and her father said that when she got married, the fruit from that tree would be used as red auspicious fruits in her dowry.
“I don’t know how to do business.” Ah Yu kicked the firewood under the stove, sending up ash from last winter that made her cough. Zhong Hua stuffed his camera into his bag and pulled a wooden box from his toolbox: “I’ll help you.” Inside the box were wooden plaques he had carved, bearing the characters “Quiet,” “Leisure,” and “Residence,” each with a warm, smooth wood grain. “I’ve been learning guesthouse design lately, and your old house is a gem in the rough.”
They spent three days cleaning the east wing. On the dusty desk, her father's inkstone still held half a pool of ink, with a certificate of merit from her junior high school lying beside it. Ah Yu wiped the dust off the frame with a soft cloth and suddenly noticed a line of small characters on the back, in her father's handwriting: "My daughter Yu is exceptionally intelligent." The ink had turned brownish, but it felt like a warm light, making her eyes well up with tears.
While dismantling the old bed, Zhong Hua discovered a metal box hidden under the bed frame. Opening it, he found a photo of his father in his youth, wearing a polyester shirt, holding a bunch of keys, his eyes crinkling with laughter. "Your dad was so dashing when he was young," Zhong Hua said, handing the photo to her. Their fingertips brushed against her hand, and both of them recoiled as if burned. Ah Yu stroked the edge of the photo, remembering how her father always said he was a skilled locksmith in his youth, and that this bunch of keys was his treasure, more precious than anything else.
By the time the third sheet of sandpaper had been used, the copper key was gradually revealing a warm luster. Ah Yu sat on the stone table in the courtyard, watching Zhong Hua measure dimensions with calipers. His toolbox was spread out on the bluestone slab, the various carving knives arranged like a row of silver teeth. "What shape should I carve?" Ah Yu blew away the copper shavings from the key, and sunlight pierced through the clouds, casting dappled patterns of light on it.
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