Old Wan's Locks

Old Wan lived in the half-ruined side room at the very end of Locust Lane. From his door hung a painted wooden board, its lacquer long flaked away, carved with four characters that read Open Locks, Cut Keys, and beneath them a smaller line: Wan's Mark. He kept no shop of his own. Beneath the eaves he set a low table, and on it a battered tin box stuffed with dozens of picks and thin steel slivers of every width, which from a distance looked like a nest of iron hedgehogs.

The lane called him Master Wan, though behind his back they named him Lock-Head Wan. He never listened for the jingle of a key; he listened for the soft click of the tumblers dropping into place. A lock in his hand was first shaken twice against his ear, his eyes narrowed to catch the song of the brass springs within, then a pick was slipped inside and his wrist gave the lightest flick - click, and the lock opened. To those who watched it looked like sleight of hand. He only said: "A lock has no temper; a man does. Every trick inside a lock was thought up by a man. Know the man and you know the lock."

He kept three iron rules. Whoever came begging him to open a lock, he first put three questions. One: is what lies inside this lock truly your own? Two: does the master of that house know you mean to enter? Three: when you step through that door, will you leave folk sleeping easy, or sleeping ill? If even one answer rang false, he never lifted his eyes; he pushed the lock back into your arms and said: "Go home."

In the plum-rain season that year the sky wept for half a month. The apprentice at the lane's tofu shop stepped out with his lunch pail; the wind took the door, the key stayed within, and he locked himself out. He stood in the rain until his lips turned blue, then ran to rap on Old Wan's table. Old Wan said nothing, followed him over, crouched by the door, slipped his pick into the rusted padlock, listened for two breaths, flicked his wrist - click, open. The boy fumbled for coins; Old Wan waved him off. "A small thing, done in passing. Speak no money. Next time, feel your pocket first."

Some, though, met the wall. One day a young man in a wool coat came clutching a brand-new padlock, claiming the lock on his rented room had failed and the gas had been left burning within, that he must get in at once. Old Wan asked the landlord's name, the floor, who lived across the hall; the young man stammered, unable even to name his landlord. Old Wan dropped the lock on the table. "This lock is new; its spring has not even worn in. Where is the failure? Go home." The young man's face went red and he slunk away. Word later ran through the lane that two houses at the east end had been robbed that very week - Old Wan only pretended not to hear.

On the day before the New Year the snow began to fall. Granny Zhou from the lane's end was led to him, her eyes swollen, saying her daughter-in-law lay paralyzed abed and the medicine money could not be scraped together; yet the brass lock-box her late husband left behind would not open, though he had told her on his deathbed it held something kept for an emergency. She had tried the key; rust had seized it. She begged Old Wan. "Granny, do not fret," he said, and followed her home. The box wore an old-fashioned broad lock, heavy with verdigris, its core grown sluggish. He wet it with lamp oil, slipped the pick in, listened long, flicked his wrist - click, open. Inside was no fortune, only a few silver dollars wrapped in blue cloth, and beneath them a creased scrap in Old Zhou's hand: Kept for the little one's sickness. Do not rage. Do not speak of it. Granny Zhou wiped her eyes and for a long while could not speak. Old Wan wrapped the silver as it was, returned it to her, hung the lock back where it belonged, and took not a single coin. "Your old man's rule - I will keep it for him."

Back beneath the eaves, snow had settled on his shoulder. From his own tin box Old Wan drew a small brass lock no bigger than his palm, its body worn bright, hanging from a faded red cord. It was the one lock he never opened - the one his master had pressed into his hand upon his deathbed, saying: "This lock, never open it, not in all your life." Old Wan turned it in his palm, heard that familiar, hollow little rattle inside, and gently laid it back in the box.

He could open a thousand locks in this lane. This one, and this one alone, he chose never to open.