Gold in the Attic

My grandma told me about the gold in the attic when I was twelve years old.

I had known, since I was little, that all sorts of strange things are hidden in the curious cabinets around her house. The spices and crackers and pumpkin seeds that would tumble over my head as soon as I’d reach for the shelves. The nearly folded and categorised linens and blankets and fabric scraps; tucked away with grandpa’s impressive stamps collection; the dusty glass display stands of shells and fans and Buddha heads—magazines, fictions, a magnificent bird embroidering on a miniature screen…a tuneless guitar I grew up thinking to be a cello.

That day however, she told me about the attic. A discrete space above the main stairways, on the third level, with a door that most would take to be the ceiling.

She handed me the key and motioned me to lead the way. A musky scent of water lilies drifted from the nearest room, like the last trace of sunlight receding. I unlocked the wooden panel—well-oiled joints of midnight brass soundlessly gave way to more darkness: a heavy curtain of indeterminable green. I swept it aside and crawled through…rolling into bright light.

There’s a metal slide to the height of chair that leads down to the floor of the attic, and my grandma appeared to be younger than my own age as she glided down beside me.

I realised that I could stand. It’s a triangular room of glass and aluminium, with an open window of the sky above the luminous pink and orange swirl from the setting sun. I saw mirrors and sculptures and origamis and kites and cushions of roses. A fresh scent of evening lily danced in harmony with the sweetness of gingerbread cookies, laid out on a platter—curled up in blue glass like crystallised ocean waves.

Besides it, on two similar platters, laid first a chunk of solid gold, and on the other—a little black book.

My grandma took my right hand and rested it on the gold.

‘It’s yours.’ She said gently, ‘I have no use for it.’

My other hand had already reached for the cookies.

‘$20,000.’ She continued, ‘$20,000 to do whatever you’d like.’

It’s the best gingerbread cookies I had ever had. Still warm from the oven. I took another and mumbled: ‘Did you make it?’

‘The gold?’ she replied, not knowing I meant the cookies. ‘A girl gave it to me,’ she said, ‘A girl from the forest.’

I asked her why.

‘I wonder.’ And with a sign, she sat herself down among the soft carpets and cushions, like melting into the scene of an oil painting, missing its goblets and grapes.

‘There’s a forest near the ocean. I stayed there for vacation years ago. While I was there, I met her.’

I listened more closely, untangling the birdsong of early nightfall that ornamented grandma’s voice. I held the cookie tray on my knees and sat down beside her.

‘She came to me while I was writing, laying down on the sand. She asked if I knew any stories. I was surprised but I told her…my own stories, that of the music I hear, that of the novels I read, that of history, that of the future. She sat and listened and listened until the sun set over the horizons.’

‘Night came and my picnic basket is almost empty. It was colder. The she started telling me a story. Full of wisdom and love, full of self-discovery and beauty, of depth and dimensions, of glimmers and comforts. I told her to write the story down, that her story could inspire hope and cure fear, that her story could change the world. She laughed, I laughed, and it was wonderful.’

‘“I will trade your little black book with a pretty stone.” She told me when day was breaking, “I will trade you for the little black book you carry. I will write my story down.” I had smiled. “Sure, a stone for a book.” And I gave her the book without a second thought. We were so very happy.’

‘Then when I woke up the next morning, there’s a leaf wrapped parcel at my cabin door. I laughed again. She didn’t need to give me a big stone, I thought, a pebble is nice enough. Little did I expect to find gold.’

‘All these years, I tried to find her. All these years, I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do with the gold. I thought and thought and always decided to find her first. Then yesterday, I came across the little black book again.’

Stopping, I waited for her to continue. Her eyes closing but she stood up to reach for the book on the tray.

‘I found it at an antiques shop. Pure accident. In excitement I asked the owner where he had gotten it. Please please lead me to her…but he didn’t know. He had picked the book up on a train carriage seat of a faraway town many years ago. Exactly which town he had forgotten. He had liked the cover and kept it.’

‘There’s nothing inside.’ I remarked, as she flipped through the pages.

‘There’s nothing inside but there could have been! She could have written in pencil and it might have worn away, smudged and scattered into the wind. It’s blank! But she said she will write the story down. It still has my name on the inside cover. Why won’t she come find me?’

I was silent. The air felt denser, the consistency of water, and grandma's questions drifted above us. Sound echoed slower and seemed to reach us from afar.

‘Where did the story go?’ Grandma exclaimed, her tone crisp and sharp and returned us back to the emptiness of normal air. She hid her face behind a hand.

‘Grandma.’ I called out, ‘Grandma.’

She looked up as I passed the gold to her once more.

‘I want the notebook.’ I said, ‘And more gingerbread cookies. Can I trade it?’

‘You don’t want the gold? The $20,000.’ she glanced up, muttering more to herself than to me. But it wasn’t confusion in her voice when she asked: ‘Why?’

I looked at the gold. Then I picked up the book from her hands. The black cover is warm and strangely familiar, the cover smooth and the pages inviting. When I look into its emptiness, I could see endlessness. Endless possibilities.

‘I don’t know. I like it? Well…’ she looked at me expectantly, and I felt the need to better explain myself. ‘I like stories and I like cookies. I don’t really like that rock.’

After a pause, I pressed on: ‘What’s so different about this rock than any other rocks on the beach? Under our feet? I would trade you for the story if I can. I want to know the story she didn’t write. Perhaps only the notebook knows. Can’t you remember her story?’

‘Sorry?’ Grandma blinked, ‘Her story? I…had forgotten it as soon as I saw the gold. I have…I have never thought about the story since. So preoccupied was I with the gold…'

'Try as I may,' she added, 'I still couldn't forget how her story made me feel.’

‘I like how the book makes me feel.’ I had replied, rising to my feet, ‘It makes me feel empowered. Inspired. Excited.’

Grandma laughed, letting the rock fall back into the sea of cushions. If the universe could be found in a grain of sand, what more could be found in a book?

We descended from the attic. She patted my hand. My hand that held the stories, the infinite, the little black book.

We smiled.