What is the symbolism of the cabinet the unnamed narrator describes in relation to her mother in Chapter 1?

The cabinet in the narrator's mother's basement art studio symbolizes secret defiance. The narrator recalls her mother pulling out objects from the tiny drawers and showing them to her when she was a girl. Every object within the cabinet was an object that had already been disappeared from the island. The cabinet also symbolizes mystery within this section of the novel, since she has no idea what ever happened to the objects inside of it. All she knows is that the Memory Police never entered her mother's art studio.