The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, according to the blurb (found behind the Anvil-published copy) by Eric

Gamalinda, “creates a new, atonal anthem that defies single ownership and, in fact, can only be performed by the many
—by multiple voices in multiple readings.” For him, Apostol is able to present an “alternative [narrative] on history other
than those… who claim entitlement to official memory and national identity.” But what is this “new, atonal anthem”?
Why must the rambling of Raymundo Mata, a night-blind man creep like a vine around the story of the Philippine
national hero, Jose Rizal? Why is there a need for multiple voices: for the rabid nationalist, the overly academic
psychoanalyst, and the unreliable translator to compete within the hundreds of footnotes? In the end, is this alternative
history true—or, perhaps, we may better yet ask: is it, at least, of consequence? Or, perhaps, does the author’s style,
instead of delivering the alternative history, mystifies it, lending it a confused miasma that obscures rather than sheds a
clear, penetrating light on our Filipino identity? This paper, then, seeks to explore what kind of alternative history the
novel introduces, and whether this presentation is successful. To achieve this, we shall begin with a summary of the
novel and then proceed to an analysis of its characters and then with remarks to its themes and structures. From there
we shall attempt to see the novel within the context of contemporary Philippine society as well as the tradition of
Filipiniana and in the end determine what Gina Apostol’s opus has to say regarding the Filipino identity, especially within
the historical (and, to be more specific, revolutionary) lens.

The novel supposedly centers on Raymundo Mata, an uncouth night-blind member of the Katipunan and participant of
the Philippine Revolution. In the form of a memoir, the story traces Mata’s childhood, his education in Manila, his love
affairs, and his discovery of Dr. Jose Rizal and his books, which in turn involves him with the Philippine Revolution and,
ultimately, Makamisa, Rizal’s third and unfinished novel.

Raymundo Mata’s autobiography, however, is de-centered by another story: that of the development of the book. In the
foreword(s), afterword(s), and footnotes, we see the translator Mimi C. Magsalin (a pseudonym), the rabid nationalist
editor Estrella Espejo, and the neo-Freudian psychoanalyst critic Dr. Diwata Drake make multiple readings of the Mata
manuscript. Inevitably, clashes between these readings occur throughout the novel, and in the end no singular and
comprehensive interpretation arises: depending on which interpretation the reader follows, one may either conclude
that the manuscript contains and/or is Makamisa, or that it is an elaborate hoax perpetuated by the translator.

Perhaps the cause of the different readings is the fact that, in the first place, the novel has multiple protagonists—and
this does not merely mean Mata plus translator plus editor plus psychoanalyst. In a quixotic fashion (that is, literally,
stemming from Cervantes’ Don Quixote), the interlacing of the story (Mata’s memoirs) and the story of the story (the
way it was re-written and re-presented as a book) invites the readers to participate in the creation of the story: we are
asked throughout the novel to scrutinize the anglicized text and contrast it with the original Tagalog, Spanish, Chabacano,
and (occasionally) Visayan phrases. We are asked either to agree or disagree with an overtly nationalistic reading (where
everything, even a plagiarized form of Candide, is a Katipunan code) and/or an extremely academic psychoanalysis
(where everything, even young Raymundo Mata’s encounter with his father, is a symptom of the Filipino Psychosis). As
the reader progresses in the novel, he finds himself not only a witness, but also a co-creator, an inspired party in the
interpretation of Raymundo Mata’s word.

And then there is Raymundo Mata himself, which, one might suspect, is also a multiple character. In the novel we find
that this lewd, pun-loving, Rizal-worshipping bibliokleptomaniac is intertwined with none other than Dr. Jose Rizal: both
read the same French authors (Voltaire and Eugene Sue), love the same women (Mata’s K., Orang, and Leonor find their
parallels in Rizal’s real-life romantic interests), and even write similar diary entries (Entry # 22 is a case in point, as Dr.
Diwata Drake points out). And so, we find that throughout the novel Raymundo Mata fulfills at least two roles. On one
hand he is the provincial, the base Caviteño providing a lopsided (and one might say irreverent) view of Aguinaldo,
Paterno, Mabini, and Bonifacio—in this role he shares in the word of the Philippine Revolution by putting in his two
cents, that is, by bumbling through his initiation, the discovery at the Diario de Manila printing house, and the Battle of
Balara. And yet, as the bibliophile obsessed with words, Raymundo Mata also shares in the word of Rizal, “the world of
words that creates the world of things” (Apostol 123).
Two themes, then, emerge: the Philippine Revolution as text, as a “world of things” born out of the “world of words” of
Rizal’s novels, and the multiple readings that generate multiple meanings, multiple interpretations, of the “world of
words”. The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata (the title itself may be seen a Biblical reference to the Gospels), the
product of the many voices of Mata, Rizal, Magsalin, Espejo, and Drake, then becomes a word (I do not say the Word) of
the Revolution—and the novel’s structure emphasizes its word-iness through the length of the footnotes, Raymundo
Mata’s fondness of puns and witticisms, the ciphers, and the onomatopoeias (as employed by Mata just as used by Gina
Apostol on naming Mimi Magsalin, Estrella Espejo, and Diwata Drake). The novel, as Mimi Magsalin might put it, is
“raped” by words. And the words, as Estrella Espejo implies in the end, pose themselves as Makamisa, Rizal’s unfinished
third novel—a final word in the Bible of Philippine salvation, a word that is perhaps, as Dr. Diwata suspects, is ingrained
in the Filipino psyche: “That a nation so conceived, from the existential exigencies of a young man’s first novel, will find
redemption in the phoenix of his lost words” (Apostol 277).

The line may have, perhaps, more significance than we, the readers, first perceive. Setting aside, for now, whether such a
belief shall or shall not actually prove the salvation of the Philippines, the Filipiniana has a tradition of authors striving to
write the “Great Filipino Novel” that shall expose the Filipino’s identity. This quest for identity has taken a historical vein,
as we can see from the writings of Kalaw, Joaquin, Gonzalez, Rosca, and even up to Gamalinda and Syjuco. Even in spite
of the lack of readership (or, at least, when it comes to so-called “high literature”), the Philippine literati have continued
to plumb the neglected, forgotten past (whether American, Spanish, or pre-colonial) in search of the Filipino identity. Of
course, this is a worthy and crucial task, and the attempt to write the Third Novel to Save Us All should continue. The
problem, however, is when people neglect the quest for the right words in order to come up with the Word—erect a
singular, “national,” totalizing Tower of the Filipino Narrative.

This is where the theme of multiple readings, multiple meanings, and multiple interpretations come in. It is important to
note that in The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, no final, definitive Word appears. Espejo’s interpretation is as
valid and yet as flawed as Dr. Drake’s, just as Mimi C.’s final statement is not authoritative: she assures the readers that
the Mata manuscript is not a lie and is trustworthy, but she does so in cipher. The text, then, is liberated from a
constrictive, imperious, violent summa, a One Message that excludes other readings, puts other perspectives into the
background, and eliminates all criticism. The words in the novel, then, by being multiple and open to diverse
interpretations, becomes a truly revolutionary one: The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata liberates the reader
from one view of history, and hence a singular Filipino identity that may violently exclude the others. As in Entry # 36, we
find that “like a novel revolution is never finished” (Apostol 220). The act of reading is both a novelty and a revolution:
the Word is de-centered, indeed de-capitalized, and is made new and fresh and accessible to all readings.

So far, this paper has pursued a Biblical metaphor. And perhaps this is just as well. The Bible, after all, is first and
foremost a text that has, throughout the ages, been reread and re-interpreted according to the needs of the Church (that
is, the community). Just as any one totalizing reading limits the power of the Word of God, indeed making it stale and
dead, unresponsive to a different time and a different audience, so must the quest for Filipino identity remain flexible
and open to many reinterpretations. The text must be dynamic just as the people who read it are dynamic. For if the
world of words is to remain static, then the world of things that it creates cannot be anything but false; being false, such
a world cannot but fail and fade.

In the end, then, we, the readers, must ask ourselves the question: is The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, at
last, the long-awaited Makamisa, the novel that shall save the country, the country that which the same hand, Rizal’s,
created? But as we read and get lost in the maze of the miniscule footnotes, as we get lost in the highly postmodern
“mystification” of the novel (for we cannot deny that the novel is, in a sense, mystified, given the highly literary
mirroring, footnoting, and other such illusory styles; yet we must bear in mind that the word “mystery” is not merely
something that is not understandable, but something more), we must accept that we cannot, and should not, discern the
Word. Gina Apostol has—by revolutionizing the Word into an alternate history, a multiple “world of words”—already
shown that we must go beyond looking for the Answer. Perhaps, like the realization found within the loop in Entry # 46,
the finding of the Filipino identity already lies in the searching.
1. Why did Noli Me Tangere have such a big impression on the Narrator? Could you relate to the feelings of the
Narrator’s experience of reading? Why or why not?

Noli Me Tangere has a big contribution to the Philippines' acquisition of freedom. Just imagine a book -- A SINGLE
BOOK! made such big turmoil in the society, leading for the Filipinos to be what they are today. The feeling is like as if
having the exact cross where Jesus Christ was crucified. Just imagine how intensifying that can be.

2. What does the line, “Art is reproach to those who receive it” mean?

Art is composed of different kinds of genre. It includes music, visual arts, literature, and so on. We can say that the
"Art" that is being pointed out in this excerpt is the Noli Me Tangere. Art can become a reproach to those who receive it
when its content becomes contradictory to what the people do and makes them reflect on what they failed to do. With
the Spaniards, upon reading Noli Me Tangere felt the books attempt to contradict the government that they have
established in the country. With the Filipinos it became a reproach to them realizing what they failed to do to free their
country, thus it leads to revolution.

3. When the narrator says the act of reading is a historic act, what did he mean?

Specifically in the Philippines, reading became a historic act. with the act of reading Noli Me Tangere, it inspired
them to fight and free the country.

Even with hundreds of copies of Noli Me Tangere were produced and if it was just left sitting around the corner,
nothing will happen. By reading, people created history.

4. Why is the Noli Me Tangere, a book that was banned in the past, now a required reading in Philippine schools? Why
did the Catholic Church go against making Noli a requirement.

Noli Me Tangere was banned because of its portrayal of corruption and abuses by the Spanish government and the
Catholic Church in the Philippines before.

when Noli became a requirement in the Philippines' educational system, the Catholic feared that students may have the
wrong impression of the church, but this taboo has been overthrown because of the Rizal Law.

2. 5. Do you think there should ever be a time when certain books should be banned? Why or why not?

With bans there is always a way out. Even with many restrictions if an individual seeks to get something, they
will come and get it. A lot of books has been banned but people still have their hands acquired it. If people wants to
read, let them. If you're afraid that it may overthrow beliefs, ask about their opinions. If you feel like you have to speak,
then speak. Now it will all just fall on guided interpretations.

The Safe House by Sandra Nicole Roldan

From the street, it is one box among many. Beneath terracotta roof tiles baking uniformly in the sweltering noon
the building/s grey concrete face stares out impassively in straight lines and angles. Its walls are high and wide, as good
walls should be. A four-storey building with four units to a floor. At dusk, the square glass windows glitter like the
compound eyes of insects, revealing little of what happens inside. There is not much else to see.

And so this house seems in every way identical to all the other houses in all the thirty-odd other buildings
nestled within the gates of this complex. It is the First Lady's pride and joy, a housing project designed for genteel middle
class living. There is a clubhouse, a swimming pool, a tennis court. A few residents drive luxury cars. People walk
purebred dogs in the morning. Trees shade the narrow paths and the flowering hedges that border each building give the
neighborhood a hushed, cozy feel. It is easy to get lost here.

But those who need to come here know what to look for-the swinging gate, the twisting butterfly tree, the
cyclone-wire fence. A curtained window glows with the yellow light of a lamp perpetually left on. Visitors count the steps
up each flight of stairs. They do not stumble in the dark. They know which door will be opened to them, day or night.
They will be fed, sometimes given money. Wounds will be treated, bandages changed. They carry nothing-no books, no
bags, or papers. What they do bring is locked inside their heads, the safest of places. They arrive one at a time, or in
couples, over a span of several hours. They are careful not to attract attention. They listen for the reassuring yelps of
squabbling children before they raise their hands to knock.

It is 1982. The girl who lives here does not care too much for the people who visit. She is five. Two uncles and an
aunt dropped by the other day. Three aunts and two uncles slept over the night before. It is impossible to remember all
of them. There are too many names, too many faces. And they all look the same-too tall, too old, too serious, too many.
They surround the small dining table, the yellow lamp above throwing and tilting shadows against freshly-painted cream
walls.

They crowd the already cramped living room with their books and papers, hissing at her to keep quiet, they are
talking about important things. So she keeps quiet. The flock of new relatives recedes into the background as she fights
with her brother over who gets to sit closer to the television. It is tuned in to Sesame Street on Channel 9. The small
black and white screen makes Ernie and Bert shiver and glow like ghosts. Many of these visitors she will never see again.
If she does, she will probably not remember them.

She wakes up one night. Through the thin walls, she hears the visitors arguing. She can easily pick out one
particular uncle's voice, rumbling through the dark like thunder. He is one of her newer relatives, having arrived only that
morning. All grown-ups are tall but this new uncle is a giant who towers over everyone else. His big feet look pale in their
rubber slippers, a band-aid where each toenail should have been. He never takes off his dark glasses, not even at night.
She wonders if he can see in the dark. Maybe he has laser vision like Superman. Or, maybe-like a pirate, he has only one
eye. She presses her ear against the wall. If she closes her eyes and listens carefully, she can make out the words:
sundalo, kasama, talahib. The last word she hears clearly is katawan. The visitors are now quiet but still she cannot sleep.
From the living room, there are sounds like small animals crying.

She comes home from school the next day to see the visitors crowded around the television. She wants to
change the channel, watch the late afternoon cartoons but they wave her away. The grown-up’s are all quiet. Something
is different. Something is about to explode. So she stays away, peering up at them from under the dining table. On the TV
screen is the President, his face glowing blue and wrinkly like an-old monkey's. His voice wavers in the afternoon air,
sharp and high like the sound of something breaking. The room erupts in a volley of curses: Humanda ka na, Makoy!
Mamatay ka! Pinapatay mo asawa ko! Mamamatay ka rin P%t@ng*n@ ka! Humanda ka, papatayin din kita! The girl
watches quietly from under the table. She is trying very hard not to blink.

It is 1983. They come more often now. They begin to treat the apartment like their own house. They hold
meetings under the guise of children's parties. Every week, someone's son or daughter has a birthday. The girl and her
brother often make a game of sitting on the limp balloons always floating in inch from the floor. The small explosions like-
guns going off. She wonders why her mother serves the visitors dusty beer bottles that are never opened. She is
surprised to see the grownups playing make-believe out on the balcony. Her new uncles pretend to drink from the
unopened bottles and begin a Laughing Game. Whoever laughs loudest wins. She thinks her mother plays the game
badly because instead of joining in. Her mother is always crying quietly in the kitchen. Sometimes the girl sits beside her
mother on the floor, listening to words she doesn't really understand: Underground, resolution, taxes, bills. She plays
with her mother's hair while the men on the balcony continue their game. When she falls asleep, they are still laughing.

The mother leaves the house soon after. She will never return. The two children now spend most afternoons
playing with their neighbors. After an hour of hide-and-seek, the girl comes home one day to find the small apartment
even smaller. Something heavy hangs in the air like smoke. Dolls and crayons and storybooks fight for space with plans
and papers piled on the tables. Once, she finds a drawing of a triangle and recognizes a word: class. She thinks of
typhoons and floods and no classes.

The visitors keep reading from a small red book, which they hide under their clothes when she approached. She
tries to see why they like it so much. Maybe it also has good pictures like the books her father brought home from,
China. Her favorite has zoo animals working together to build a new bridge after the river had swallowed the old one.
She sneaks a look over their shoulders and sees a picture of a fat Chinese man wearing a cap. Spiky shapes run up and
down the page. She walks away disappointed. She sits in the balcony and reads another picture book from China. It is
about a girl who cuts her hair to help save her village from Japanese soldiers. The title is Mine Warfare.

It is 1984. The father is arrested right outside their house. It happens one August afternoon, with all the
neighbors watching. They look at the uniformed men with cropped hair and shiny boots. Guns bulging under their
clothes. Everyone is quiet afraid to make a sound. The handcuffs shine like silver in the sun. When the soldiers drive
away, the murmuring begins. Words like insects escaping from cupped hands. It grows louder and fills the sky. It is like
this whenever disaster happens. When fire devours a house two streets away, people in the compound come out to
stand on their balconies. Everyone points at the pillar of smoke rising from the horizon. This is the year she and her
brother come to live with their grandparents, having no parents to care for them at home. The grandparents tell them a
story of lovebirds: Soldiers troop into their house one summer day in 1974. Yes, balasang k4 this very same house.
Muddy boots on the bridge over the koi pond, strangers poking guns through the water lilies. They are looking for guns
and papers, they are ready to destroy the house. Before the colonel can give his order, they see The Aviary. A small sunlit
room with a hundred lovebirds twittering inside. A rainbow of colors. Eyes like tiny glass beads. One soldier opens the
aviary door, releases a flurry of wings and feathers. Where are they now? the girl asks. The birds are long gone, the
grandparents say, eaten by a wayward cat. But as you can see, the soldiers are still here. The two children watch them at
their father's court trials. A soldier waves a guru says it is their father's. He stutters while explaining why the gun has his
own name on it.

They visit her father at his new house in Camp Crame. It is a long walk from the gate, past wide green lawns. In
the hot surrey everything looks green. There are soldiers everywhere. Papa lives in that long low building under the
armpit of the big gymnasium. Because the girl can write her name, the guards make her sign the big notebooks. She
writes her name so many times, the S gets tired and curls on its side to sleep. She enters amaze the size of the
playground at school, but with tall barriers making her turn left, right, left, right. Barbed wire forms a dense jungle
around the detention center. She meets other children there: some just visiting, others lucky enough to stay with their
parents all the time.

On weekends, the girl sleeps in her father's cell. There is a double-deck bed and a chair. A noisy electric fan stirs
the muggy air. There, she often gets nightmares about losing her home: She would be walking down the paths, under the
trees of their compound, past the row of stores, the same grey buildings. She turns a corner and finds a swamp or a rice
paddy where her real house should be. One night, she dreams of war. She comes home from school to find a blood
orange sky where bedroom and living room should be. The creamy walls are gone. Broken plywood and planks swing
crazily in what used to be the dining room. Nothing in the kitchen but a sea green refrigerator; paint and rust flaking off
in patches as large as thumbnails. To make her home livable again, she paints it blue and pink and yellow. She knows she
has to work fast. Before night falls, she has painted a sun, a moon and a star on the red floor. So she would have light.
Each painted shape is as big as a bed. In the dark, she curls herself over the crescent moon on the floor and waits for
morning. There is no one else in the dream.

Years later, when times are different, she will think of those visitors and wonder about them. By then, she will
know they aren't really relatives, and had told her names not really their own. To a grownup, an old friend's face can
never really change; in a child’s fluid memory, it can take any shape. She believes that-people stay alive so long as
another chooses to remember them. But she cannot help those visitors even in that small way. She grows accustomed to
the smiles of middle aged strangers on the street, who talk about how it was when she was this high. She learns not to
mind the enforced closeness, sometimes even smiles back. But she does not really know them. Though she understands
the fire behind their words, she remains a stranger to their world' she has never read the little red book.

Late one night, she will hear someone knocking on the door. It is a different door now, made from solid varnished
mahogany blocks. The old chocolate brown ply board that kept them safe all those years ago has long since yielded to
warp and weather. She will look through the peephole and see a face last seen fifteen years before. It is older, ravaged
but somehow same. She will be surprised to even remember the name that goes with it. By then, the girl would know
about danger, and will not know whom to trust. No house, not even this one, is safe enough.

The door will be opened a crack. He will ask about her father, she will say he no longer lives there. As expected,
he will look surprised and disappointed. She may even read a flash of fear before his face wrinkles into a smile. He will
apologize, step back. Before he disappears into the shadowy corridor, she will notice his worn rubber slippers, the mud
caked between his toes. His heavy bag. She knows he has nowhere else to go. Still, she will shut the door and push the
bolt firmly into place.

GUIDE QUESTIONS: 1. What is the dictionary meaning of "safe house"?

2. What is the double meaning of the title The Safe House? Why do you think this was used for the title?

3. Why did the narrator feel unsafe? What makes you feel safe? Can you relate to the narrator? Why or why not?

4. Why did the man in the story have band aids instead of nails? What does this imply about the visitors in the house?

5. Do you sympathize more with the visitors or the narrator? Why do you feel this way?

6. Why did the mother leave? Do you understand this decision? Would you have left as well? Why or why not? 7. How
does the narrator's view of martial law differ from her father's view?

8. Why does she have a different point of view?

9. What effect does reading this story have on you? How does it affect the way you look at martial law? What did you
feel about it before you read the story, and after you read the story?

10.Why was it necessary for the narrator-to tell us that she locks the door against the visitors nowadays? What does this
symbolize? Do you agree with the narrator? Why or why not?

1. A place where a person hides from the Police, stays to be protected by the police, or is involved in secret
activities- Merriam Webster Dictionary 2017

2. Safe House is not literally a safe house because the meaning of the Safe House is a place where a person
hides from the police, stays to be protected by the police in short it is a hideout of rebellion who against the
reigning of former President of the Philippine, Ferdinand Marcos.

3. Because the grown up looks like there planning on something bad. I only feel safe when everyone around
me is peace and quiet especially with my family. I can’t relate it to the narrator. Because the narrator is
surrounded with trouble makers.

7. The little girls view is from a perspective of a child of course that would be different from her father who
experiences the cruelty of marcos' regime. Just to add, the little girl view martial law as something that causes
her so called relatives to go outrage, for her mother to cry, meaning it is somethjng that causes other people
sadness, a very innocent interpretation of something, while for her father, that would be his personal
experiences which you could imagine as to how adults comprehend those kind of situations.

Many people had expressed their experiences or opinions about Martial Law during Ferdinand Marcos’
time. It was said that those who were actually alive during that time said that Ferdinand Marcos was
a great president, while those who weren’t said that he wasn’t—probably based on what they learned in our
Philippine written history.

But the story of Roldan brought me to a new perspective. A story that happened at the time of Ferdinand
Marcos, of Martial Law, in the perspective of a little child.
The little girl lived in a four-storey building, with four units to a floor and walls high and wide. Their house
was identical to any other houses in that area—within the gates of the complex. I assume that place was a
subdivision or some kind, made from a housing project designed for genteel middle class living by the First
Lady, as her pride and joy.
There were people going in and out from their house, which she considered as her “relatives”. Very many
relatives. Some would stay in for the night, some would be there to be fed, sometimes to get money, to treat
the wounds or change their bandages. They always TALK ABOUT IMPORTANT THINGS, with capital letters. The
little girl did not probably have the right or the mind to know or understand, but these important
things seemed to be confidential. Classified. Top secret. You name it.
 A time during the martial law. The feeling in my gut told me that these guys must be revolutionaries,
going against the government. Against President Ferdinand Marcos. Why did they need to be in that house to
be treated when they can go to the hospital? Where did they get those wounds in the first place? It was no
doubt. One time when the little girl wanted to watch the late afternoon cartoons, there were a lot of
her relatives in front of the TV. On the screen was the president and they all suddenly “erupt in a volley of
curses”. They hated Ferdinand Marcos, and they’re gathered in that house to revolt against him. The little girl
was only five that time—it was 1982—still too young to witness something like that.
These relatives came more often on those times, treating the apartment like their own house. And that
was also the time she lost her mother.
When the house was crowded, the little girl’s mother was quietly crying in the kitchen, murmuring
about underground, revolution, taxes, and bills. Soon, maybe about a few days or months, the mother left,
emphasizing that she will never return. A year after, her father was arrested right outside their house one
August afternoon. With all the neighbors watching. Even though her mother was never mentioned right after
she disappeared, I have a feeling she has something to do with the little girl’s father’s arrest. Although he
wasn’t really arrested because of being part—or being the leader, in my assumption—of the revolution, but
because of illegally owning firearms. It was 1984. Her mother left on 1983. I couldn’t imagine what this girl had
been through.
The little girl would sleep with her father in the cell during weekends. One time she had a dream about
war: she saw a blood orange sky of where the bedroom and the living room should’ve been, which I assumed
that her house was destroyed. To make her house look livable again, she painted it with different colors. She
also painted a sun, a moon, and a star on their red floor so she would have light. There was no one else in the
dream.
I don’t know why it was a dream of war, but maybe because of the broken-down house.
It was years later when she realized that those relatives weren’t actually her relatives. I’ve calculated she
was already 20 years old when she did, when she saw a familiar face from fifteen years ago. Fifteen years ago
was 1982. Fifteen years after is 1997. By then she realized that not even her house was safe enough, that
anyone cannot be trusted. That must be the meaning of her dreams.
The Safe House. Ironic. Though it was clever put. It gave the story a mysterious aura.