The Sindaebang House Part Three: The Knife

It was a hot summer that year.

The air was humid and my clothes clung to me as I dragged my tired body home from the office. It must have been around eight or nine at night when I wearily said, ‘내일 뵙겠습니다’ to my office mates, their eyes encircled by dark exhaustion. No doubt my face mirrored theirs.

Each commute the same as the one before. I swayed to the metro car’s rocking, gently pushed back and forth against the bodies of fellow commuters, all standing in wordless fatigue as we silently wished the train to go faster. Home meant rest, even if only for a short night.

One of the countless late nights coming home -
it’s 신대방 station behind me.

I made my way out of the station, passing flashing neon restaurant signs, slipping by the 닭강정 가게 with the young owner who asked me out on dates any chance he had, turning the corner where the live octopus waved languidly from within a tiny tank overflowing with water.

The Sindaebang House is here, down this dark road, standing in shadow untouched by the dim street lamps, away from the noisy metro station and food sellers.

Only a few months ago, I welcomed this quiet, shaded entrance to the Sindaebang House. It signaled the end of a chaotic day under the Korean summer sun. I would slip through the front gate, ducking my head automatically to avoid brushing the inevitable spider webs, slowly unlocking the front door to soften the loud ‘thunk’ as the heavy lock fell into place, remove my shoes and carry them as I glided on socked feet up the stairs to the second floor, where, mercifully, my empty room waited for me.

My previously content moments at the Sindaebang House when I lived alone in the room

But now when I turned the corner, the once embracing darkness of the side street only emphasized a sight I had grown to dread - a window alit on the second floor. This meant Roommate Unnie was already there.

Not that Roommate Unnie had done anything besides act strange. I was at times unnerved by her antics and more than a little annoyed, but she had never bothered me or ever shown any sign of dislike. So when I made my familiar way up the stairs and found an enormous butcher knife on the top step, standing straight up, tip jammed into the floor, I was confused instead of frightened.

I stared at the mysterious knife. Its length was about my forearm, a wide, square-shaped knife, exactly like the ones used by chefs who chopped bones away from meat. Roommate Unnie sat in the living room in her pajamas, laughing loudly to a variety show that she played at an obnoxiously high volume. The Indonesian Roommate was already in her room, the door closed.

I had never seen this knife before. It wasn’t an ordinary chef’s knife. So abruptly out of place, it was menacing.

Laughter exploded from the T.V. screen as I took a moment to look around the living room, Roommate Unnie rapturously watching her show.

My heart beat a little quicker as I said, “Unnie… have you seen this knife?”

She turned to me, her eyes blank but her mouth smiling.

“Seen what?” she said then promptly returned her gaze back to the screen.

I felt unexplainable chills. I’m sure it was a sixth sense moment - when you feel a prickling down your back and the hairs on your arm stand up. Everything is normal and abruptly wrong at once. The brightly lit living room, the mindless laughter from the television, the sweat still on my forehead from my walk home - so ordinary, so much like every other day. Yet the knife.

I hesitated then decided to leave the knife in its place. Let it be evidence, something whispered in the back of my mind, in case things go wrong. Feigning indifference while my mind raced, trying to decide what to do, I walked towards our room when I caught sight of something on the kitchen floor. Careful not to catch Roommate Unnie’s attention, I leaned down and picked up what looked like the broken pieces of a dish. The floor was littered with the cracked remains of plates, my old cockroach traps surrounded by glittering glass splinters.

My heart now beat a violent tattoo against the back of my throat.

“Unnie,” I said, firmly and directly, hoping my voice didn’t shake, “has there been an accident?”

Roommate Unnie turned her head, looking over shoulder and glancing at the broken plate I held in my hand, “Hm?” She said, blithely, her eyes never focusing on me like always, “no, I don’t think so.” She turned away.

I remember a rush of intense dislike and alarm flooded me at that moment. She was lying to me. Against a backdrop of shattered dishes and a threatening knife stabbed into the floor, her friendly innocence felt poisonous. I walked deliberately to the Indonesian Roommate’s door and knocked gently on it.

“누구세요?” Her heavily accented Korean came through the door, muted and shaky.

“It’s me,” I whispered, leaning close, “may I come in?”

The Indonesian Roommate quickly opened the door and I slipped inside. She closed it behind me and locked it. She looked nervous. Her hair was wet and she still wore a towel, as if she had just showered.

“What happened?” I said.

"I don’t know,” she said, her eyes darting back towards the door. “I came home and while I was in the shower, I heard screaming and the sound of things breaking. I was scared so I ran into my room and locked the door.” She showed me her phone. “I’m talking to my brother now.”

“Does he live in Korea?” I asked quickly, thinking he could come and help us.

“No,” she said.

I wasn’t much older than the Indonesian Roommate but in that moment she looked extremely young. She also didn’t speak Korean well. She looked at me with wide eyes, clutching her phone.

“What do we do?” she asked, anxiously.

“Wait here,” I said, making a quick decision. “Lock your door and do not open it unless you hear me speaking in English to you.” She nodded and I let myself out of the room. I heard it lock behind me.

Roommate Unnie remained seated on the sofa. The knife remained standing upright at the top of the stairs. In that moment, I felt things had changed and were never going back. I went downstairs - something that never happened unless we were leaving for or returning from work - and steeling myself, I knocked on Halmoni’s door. She didn’t answer it and my heart sank when I realized that she must be out.

It was about ten pm at night. I had Halmoni’s daughter’s phone number in case of emergencies since she handled her mother’s finances, including managing our rent. We had met a few times. We’d gone out for dinner together with her mother and she sometimes came to inspect the second floor once in a while to make sure everything was fine. She once caught me doing a weekend deep cleaning of the bathroom and we had chatted for a short while.

“Do you clean the bathroom every weekend?” she had asked me, surprised.

“Yes,” I said,

“Do the other girls clean?” She inquired, looking curious.

“No,” I said, honestly, “but it’s alright. I like to keep things clean so I would do this anyway.”

She nodded, looking at me thoughtfully. We had smiled at each other and she said goodbye, leaving me to finish cleaning.

I think this small moment might have secured my safety later in the story.

One Saturday after I had finished cleaning the bathroom, I washed up and went directly to bed. I distinctly remember taking this photo because I was so tired.

My fingers crossed, I called her number. I stood at the bottom of the stairs, glancing up every once in a while. The T.V. blared, Roommate Unnie laughed, the Indonesian Roommate’s door remained firmly closed. The knife stood upright, a silent threat.

The click on the other line told me someone had answered it.
“네, 베키씨!” My heart leapt as I heard Halmoni’s daughter’s voice.

“I’m so sorry to call at this late hour,” I said, dropping my voice and stepping farther from the second floor stairwell, “but there has been an incident at the house. Are you able to come?”

“An incident?” her voice came back, sounding concerned, “is everyone alright?”

”Yes….” I said cautiously, “but I think it would be better if you came to see.”

“ I’m just next door,” she said immediately, “I’m coming over now.”

I decided to play unconcerned to keep Roommate Unnie from growing suspicious. All of her uncanny behaviors before no longer seemed like the quirks of a strange and harmless woman. They now were unveiled as warnings of something more frightening within her, something unreadable and irrational. Something I had not expected that would smash dishes and wield a heavy knife, a knife meant for cutting flesh and bone.

While waiting for Halmoni’s daughter to come, I crept back upstairs. Hunched on the second-to-top step of the stairs, I grasped the knife handle and pulled it out of the wooden floor with some difficulty; it was wedged forcefully into the floor. A deep notch remained behind, an ugly memento of a symbolic act of violence. Holding it against my leg to hide it from Roommate Unnie who was ever glued to the television, I went to my room and hid the knife under my mattress. Looking back, it was an amateur mistake made by a person in fear.

I think growing up in an atmosphere of frequent tension helped me suppress my initial fear of the situation. The disquietude pushed aside with practiced determination, it’s how I was able to calmly assess the room and console the Indonesian Roommate, so like a little sister. It’s so easy to bemoan the obvious errors a character makes on crime shows but when it really happens to you, you’re not so prepared to handle it. The mistakes I had made would come back to ruin my little life at the Sindaebang House.

The story will conclude in the next post, “The Sindaebang House: The End”