CH 21

The caretaker who was waiting for us in the garden was fortunately ignorant. The gray haired man welcomed us, along with a dog. It was a brown country dog which was quite common in those neighborhoods.

“Oh dear, it has been a while, Sir.”

The man brown-nosed Jang Yoonsung as he approached him. It would be burdensome for an elderly to appear like that but Jang Yoonsung simply shook his head and greeted him. I took a step back from them because the caretaker tried to treat me the same way, referring to me as a “friend.” It was uncomfortable and somehow, I thought the Taewon Group people except Jang Yoonsung would not welcome my visit.

As I maintained my distance from, the dog standing next to the caretaker approached me and sat down. I reached out to pet it and the dog laid down easily showing his stomach.

While I was petting the dog, Jang Yoonsung handed the caretaker the box of strawberries he bought on a whim and chatted about this and that. It was about what he had bought for the kitchen and which bedroom he could use.

“If you need anything, call me anytime.”

The caretaker bowed again as if he had finished talking. Jang Yoonsung bowed his head again.

“Yes, please be safe on your way.”

“Of course, Deokgu, let’s go.”

The dog jumped when the janitor beckoned him. He stood with his legs erect and barked twice, “Woof!Woof!”

“What, you want to play here more?”

The caretaker asked the dog, as if he could communicate with it. That time, the dog barked once, “Woof” and the manager looked at Jang Yoonsung, a bit embarrassed. Jang Yoonsung looked at me and the dog alternatively as if he knew what the caretaker meant.

“It’s alright so you can leave it here. We’ll keep it with us today.”

The caretaker left Deokgu with us to play and then dragged his bicycle down the stony pavement in front of the villa. If he came by bicycle, he must live very close by. As expected, it was inconvenient to live there because there were only a few houses scattered around the lake. Jang Yoonsung asked me while I pet the dog.

“Do you like dogs?”

“Hm, well…what about you?”

“I like it, too.”

I hesitated for a moment thinking about what questions I could ask to learn about Poongjak’s recent whereabouts. Jang Yoonsung continued to talk as if he read my mind.

“There are two retrievers at my parent’s house.”

“Two?”

“Hm. Nori and Poongjak.”

Nori was the mother of Poongjak. With the names of  the two, Jang Yoonsung looked at me searching for a reaction. However, I didn’t know what he was expecting so I just blinked my eyes and Jang Yoonsung opened his mouth again with a slight smile.

“Isn’t the name cute? Poongjak.”

Jang Yoonsung asked with a confident face as if he was the one who named the dog Poongjak. I couldn’t laugh so I avoided looking at him. If he knew how that name came out, would he make that face? Of course, he was the one who asked me to name the dog when he was being teased.

“I don’t remember but they said I was the one who named the dog.”

Jang Yoonsung must have known it that way since he didn’t have any memories of it.

“Right, it’s cute.”

The owner was proud of the name.

I stroked Deokgu and imagined how big Poongjak must have become. Deokgu was not a big dog. I remembered how the retrievers I encountered on the streets were very big. He would have grown up so much from a relief.

But it was a relief. In the midst of such a confusing situation, at least someone took care of  Poongjak. Deokgu, who was lying down, saw that our hands were full and turned his body to stand up. Jang Yoonsung straightened his waist and carried the things he bought.

“We should go inside.”

“What about him?”

“We can have our door open and it can play around there.”

“Is it okay if we don’t leash him?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”

I looked at Deokgu with an uneasy look and moved the small luggage inside, as Jang Yoonsung didn’t pack much. The interior of the villa looked somewhat familiar as most of the furniture remained the same except the piano. It was not just because it had been a long time but because a lot of small things had disappeared and decorations such as curtains and carpets were all changed.

It was definitely different than when there was always a person residing here. The biggest change was that Chairman Jang wasn’t here…

“It’s a bit empty, right?”

Jang Yoonsung came out of the kitchen after organizing what he had bought from the grocery shopping and laughed bitterly. Without affirmation or denial, I pointed to the empty boxes that Jang Yoongun bought, which were on top of his luggage and asked.

“Can I help with anything?”

“Then can you help me put these on top of the desk in my bedroom? I took almost everything out of there so there aren’t too many things so just put everything there without choosing anything.”

Picking up the box, I asked without forgetting.

“Where is your room?”

Jang Yoonsung inclined his head towards his room.

“May I take a look around when I am done with this?”

“Yes. I’ll be in the study room over there.”

“Okay.”

So we headed to our respective places.

I had been inside Jang Yoonsung’s room several times in the past but that was it. I rarely sat on the desk chair or bed. Jang Yoonsung was always there without having me come to look for him.

It felt strange to see someone else’s drawer that I had never opened. I opened the first desk with a throbbing heart even though it wasn’t a treasure hunt.

“Hmm.”

When Jang Yoonsung said that he took everything, it wasn’t just empty words. There were only a few notepads and pens rolling around. There must have been things before but so that I don’t judge, he put them all in a box.

The second drawer was a little complicated. As soon as I opened it, there were things piled up and there was a sound of something falling behind. Inside there was a box that fit the height of the drawer and it seemed to be because of that.

A large classic looking camera and film container rolled around in the box. There was such a thing. It seemed like an old keepsake which didn’t work so I carefully packed the camera inside the box. WIth the rolling trinkets that were with it.

Finally in the last drawer, I heard another tapping sound like the one I heard before when something dropped behind. I pulled out the whole drawer and took out the contents before stretching my arm to find out what had fallen.

It was a thick leather diary that reached my hand. No, I didn’t think it was that thick before. The volume seemed to have increased due to the memos being tightly sandwiched between the pages. I was curious about the content but it seemed like the things inside the pages would slip if I opened the band around the diary so I didn’t dare to pry it open.

When I checked through the gaps of the pages, most of them were meos and some lines in English and numbers were scrawled beyond recognition. Was that diary something he used while he was living in the USA? Anyway, it seemed like a diary which had little relation with his life so I stuffed it inside the box with the other things.

When I came back into the living room, Jang Yoonsung was still in the middle of organizing. I went up to the second floor after informing him that I was done with the chore.

The room I used to stay in was now a junk warehouse. The only thing that remained the same was the window with the panoramic view of the sky, forest and lake. The sky was turning red little by little as the sun began to set. Just as I was the one who remembered Jiyoung’s family, I am still the only one who remembered what happened there.

The memory that I carried by myself felt heavy. I stared at the sky blanlly, and I came to the senses when I heard Deokgu barking. He must have seen me while playing around in the garden alone.

“Will it take long?”

When I came down to the first floor again and asked Jang Yoonsung, he answered it wouldn’t but he still took a while. He couldn’t take as many books and notebooks he wanted so he had to choose but the height of the piled up books already reached Jang Yoonsung’s knees.

“Then shall I prepare dinner for you?”

Neither Jang Yoonsung nor I could cook but I decided to grill meat in the garden that night. I could at least prepare that much.

“Will you? Sorry, let’s buy something really delicious tomorrow.”

I rolled my eyes at him saying, “something delicious”. Was he saying that the 1++ graded Hanwoo beef we bought wasn’t delicious? Well, the food that was delicious was delicious and if there was anything more delicious than that, well that’s great, I nodded and headed towards the kitchen. I washed the vegetables and grilled the meat before carrying out the plate outside. Deokgu was guarding outside and once he found me, he walked around me with a face full of interest.

“Wait, I’ll give you some once I grill the meat.”