Seollal Morning, 1955
From the morning of January 24, 1955—the first day of the lunar year—brickmakers came calling at Kijo's house in Hannam-dong. Fifty company presidents filled his wide living room, and he exchanged deep New Year's bows with every one of them.
Chief of the Cheongsan Brick Federation or not, Kijo looked all of twenty-six. He and Sunrye watched their bearing and their faces, careful not to seem arrogant as they returned the greetings. To each man who had come to the house, he handed a booklet.
"What is this, Representative?"
The question came from Jo Sang-hun of Yangju Ceramics, who had come to pay his respects.
"A technical guide. Consult it whenever you want to raise the quality of your brick."
"A technical guide?"
What Kijo had given them was a copy of the notes Professor Kim Moon-hwan had set in order while optimizing the Cheongsan Brick Factory.
"It covers the composition of brick, and the management of heat."
"Ah..."
The presidents turned the pages and murmured in wonder. What astonished them was that the firm with the finest brick in all the Seoul-Incheon region had laid every secret of its manufacture open.
"If you ever want to see how things are done at Cheongsan, come to the factory whenever you like. The staff will be glad to show you around."
"Thank you, Representative."
It was the very opposite of the treatment they had known in the Gyeongin Brick and Construction Association, and the pleasure of it sat warm on every face.
"And starting this year, I'll be raising the prices we pay our partner firms."
At that, the presidents broke into grins.
"There is a condition. We'll grade the brick you deliver—A, B, and C—and set a different price for each. The higher the grade, the more sharply I'll widen your margin."
He had set the margin on Grade A at twice that of Grade C. The aim was that no man should be able to get by without raising the quality of his brick.
At the announcement, Seo Seo-gyeong of Yeongdeungpo Yeonwa—whose brick ranked second only to Cheongsan's—carefully composed his face. Since joining hands with Cheongsan, the Yeongdeungpo Brickworks had swung back into the black, and the spirits of its workers had risen with the books.
Then Kijo offered the news they would all like best.
"We plan to close Yongsan Yeonwa this year. Your share of the market will grow by that much, so I ask you to rise to it."
The presidents drew a sharp breath, and then applause broke over the room. Han Man-yong of Yongsan Yeonwa had hounded them for years and then gone utterly bankrupt; hearing that the factory itself would now vanish, they beamed, unable to hide their delight.
"I look forward to your kindness in the year ahead."
While the pleasure was still on them, Kijo bowed his head low from where he sat. The presidents straightened as one and returned the bow together.
When the New Year's courtesies were done, Kijo and Sunrye saw them out to the door. He closed it, lit a cigarette, and from beyond the wall their murmuring drifted back.
"I'm going to pay my respects to Director Jang. President Kim, you're not coming?"
"Director Jang? Why? We've already greeted Representative Lee. Isn't that enough?"
"Oh, come now. You didn't know Director Jang is the representative's brother-in-law?"
"His brother-in-law?"
"Director Jang is Cheongsan's number two in all but name. To be this blind to how things work..."
"Then let's go together. We ought to pay our respects."
In a rush, the brick-company presidents swept next door, to the house of Director Jang—Ma-ryang.
Kijo stubbed out his cigarette, went back inside, and gathered the papers from his study.
"Are you leaving right away?"
"I have to. Are you ready?"
"Yes. I just need to get Yeongsu bundled up."
Sunrye drew a thick coat over the boy, already dressed in his Seollal clothes. While they finished getting ready, Kijo started the jeep and waited for his wife and son. It grieved him to have to call on Kansong on New Year's morning with such bleak news, but if Kansong was to be saved, there was no other way.
The moment Sunrye and Yeongsu climbed in, though, he hid the gloom and smiled broadly.
"Yeongsu. The man you're meeting today is Teacher Kansong. A man like him comes along once in a hundred years, if that. Mind your manners."
"Yes, Father."
Kijo glanced at the two of them in the rearview mirror and smiled. The smile belonged to another life—the time he had steeled himself, taken Sunrye and Yeongsu to Onyang Hot Springs, and all three of them had suffered the whole way, sick in the back of a bus.
"All right. We're off."
He eased the jeep forward at a gentle pace. A jeep of the fifties had no seat belts. They would not begin to catch on until 1956, when Ford started pushing them hard as an optional extra. Whenever his family was in the car, Kijo drove with particular care.
At Jeon Hyeong-pil's residence in Jongno 4-ga, Kijo offered his New Year's bows together with Sunrye and Yeongsu. At forty-nine, Jeon took an open and thorough delight in the boy.
"Yeongsu, come here. This grandfather has something for you."
In the nineteen-fifties, forty-nine was already an age at which a man was treated as a grandfather. Kansong settled the boy on his knee, smiled a smile sweet as dripping honey, and drew out the New Year's gift money he had hidden behind the floor cushion.
At the sum, Sunrye sucked in a sharp, involuntary breath, and Kijo hurried to wave him off. Yeongsu, who did not yet understand money, took the bills and bobbed a bow.
"Thank you, Grandfather."
"Thank me? Yeongsu, set beside what your father has done for this old man, this is nothing at all."
Sunrye and Kijo watched their son clutch the fortune and wore matching looks of pain. What Kansong had pressed into the boy's hand was plainly enough to buy a house in Seoul. Kijo knew the money was payment for having made possible the excavation of King Muryeong's Tomb and Cheonmachong, and he let out a thin sigh. It was simply Kansong's way.
It had been the same when he acquired the Hunminjeongeum Haerye, the annotated text of the Korean alphabet. In those days, when brokers bought precious old books from provincial aristocrats, even a treasured volume, a rare edition, or a particularly fine copy seldom cleared a hundred won. To the man who brokered the Haerye, Kansong paid a thousand. To the man who sold it, he paid ten thousand. The seller had asked for a thousand; Kansong had told him the book was far too valuable to be let go at such a price, and paid him what he believed it was worth.
Even so, the sum that reached Kijo through Yeongsu was a much smaller thing than Kansong in his prime. At 1940 prices, when the Hunminjeongeum Haerye was obtained, ten thousand won would have bought a hundred tile-roofed houses. It hurt Kijo to see how far Kansong's means had thinned.
Under Japanese rule he had spent enormous sums buying cultural treasures. He had poured a vast fortune into taking over Dongseong Academy after the Cheondogyo foundation and the general affairs office of Korean Buddhism abandoned it as too costly. And last of all, the war had struck him head-on.
It felt like looking at a father grown frail. Kijo set his teeth, then spoke to his son.
"Yeongsu. Tell Teacher Kansong what you'd like to do with that money."
"Yes, Father."
The boy repeated the ambition he had confided to Kijo the day before.
"When I get New Year's money, I want to save it up and give it to an orphanage. I read in the newspaper that so many children lost their parents because of the war."
At a six-year-old's vow to give away a fortune, Kansong laughed the deep laugh of a true grandfather and hugged the boy tight.
"Indeed—like father, like son! Ha ha ha. Yeongsu's words put me in mind of something. Wait just a moment."
He set the boy down and went off somewhere, and Sunrye let out a sigh. She turned a briefly resentful look on the son and the husband who had brought things to this pass, and whispered.
"Are we really going to accept that money? It's far too much..."
"Let's take it for now."
At that, her eyes brimmed with hurt.
A short while later Kansong returned with something gold in his hand. He sat on the cushion, lifted Yeongsu back onto his knee, and closed the boy's small fingers around the relic he had brought.
"This, Yeongsu, is called a bulgam. A little shrine that houses the Buddha."
Kansong raised the tiny shrine in that small hand, and a miniature triad of golden Buddhas appeared within.
"Wow..."
Yeongsu gasped for all three of them. Kijo knew what it was: a gilt-bronze Buddha triad that would one day be named a National Treasure, made in the late Silla period.
Some instinct seemed to tell the boy the shrine was too much to keep. He offered it back with care. Kansong set the bulgam gently aside and spoke to Kijo and Sunrye.
"When I brought this bulgam home, my mother asked me about it."
Remembering her, the corners of his eyes grew damp.
"She said, 'Whoever made this put such devotion into it. Is this Buddha a precious one too?' What she meant was, how much have you spent this time? Ha ha."
Kansong swept a hand back over his hair and went on.
"I said, 'Yes, Mother.' And this is what she told me. 'To have enshrined a precious Buddha is a blessing. A blessing. But, my boy—you've enshrined a Buddha this precious, so you mustn't only hope to receive the blessing. Oughtn't you to give to others? Only then does a true blessing run long...'"
He laughed softly, turning the old day over, and continued.
"So that very day I went to the Inbo Hall, which kept an orphanage and a home for the elderly, and gave them the price of a tile-roofed house... Today Yeongsu has brought that day back to me."
He stroked Yeongsu's hair and looked at the boy with pride. Watching him, Sunrye felt an ache she could not quite name.
After the exchange of New Year's good wishes, Kijo left Sunrye and Yeongsu with Kansong's family and remained alone with him in the living room. From his bag he drew the envelope of papers he had brought from home and held it out.
"What have you brought me?"
"Open it, please."
Kansong opened the envelope and studied the photographs inside.
"This man is the chief of general affairs at Boseong Middle and High School, and this one is a director of Dongseong Academy..."
"That's right."
"And whose house is this?"
"A house the general-affairs chief bought for his mistress."
"A mistress? The general-affairs chief?"
Kansong was silent a moment, then asked again.
"Who took these photographs?"
"An employee of my company."
"I see..."
Even he tilted his head at the thought of a general-affairs chief's salary buying his mistress a house no such salary could afford.
"Read this as well. It's a record of what the general-affairs chief and a director of Dongseong Academy said to each other in a teahouse."
"Overheard by someone from your company?"
"Yes."
As he read the transcript, Kansong's face twisted hard. His eyes, racing frantically along the lines, came to a stop. He closed them, let out a single breath, and asked.
"Is this true...?"
Kijo nodded.
"Ha..."
At the depth of that sigh, Kijo's own heart sank. Here was a man who protected the cultural heritage of the Republic, gave his fortune to education, and even paid the taxes of Jongno's merchants out of his own pocket—and at his side there had been a parasite drinking his lifeblood.
"Elder brother... you have to cut them out."
"I understand... I'll call in someone I trust and have the academy's accounts examined."
Kijo said no more. Kansong was in shock, and he trusted the man to see the rest through.
"I'm sorry to bring you news like this on the morning of Seollal..."
"No, no. What are you saying? All my life I've only known how to spend. The managing of it I always left to others."
Betrayal seemed to have drained him of every ambition.
"Elder brother, for now, set the educational work aside. Look after the relics you've gathered, and put your strength into excavation. It costs less."
"Heh... So you're worried too, that my house is in decline?"
"I am. Whenever I think of you, my chest goes tight."
"You sound just like my mother, fretting that I sold the fields our ancestors left us and spent it all on broken potsherds. Heh..."
"Then listen to your mother now. This year you turn fifty—the age of knowing Heaven's mandate. Isn't that so?"
Kijo was being rather hard on him. He had no choice. He believed it was the only road by which Jeon Hyeong-pil might be saved. Kansong had already done all that could be asked of him for the nation and its people. The time had come for a life that was his own.
"Serving the country through education was my father's last charge..."
"Public schools are going to multiply. A day is coming when the state will answer for education, so please don't worry so much."
"Is that so..."
Kansong set a cigarette between his lips and let the smoke out long and slow, in place of a sigh.
"Will you go where I tell you and excavate the relics yourself? Or will you leave them to be looted by someone else's hands?"
Pressed like that, Kansong felt a prick of hurt. But the thrill of unearthing King Muryeong's Tomb and Cheonmachong rose in him, and the hurt was soon forgotten.
"Promise me you'll come with me to Eighth Army headquarters and let a military doctor examine you, and I'll tell you where the relics are buried. Free of charge."
"An American army hospital? Why..."
"Just see a doctor once."
What Kijo feared was acute pyelitis—the illness that would be the death of Jeon Hyeong-pil.
"Will you, or won't you?"
"Heh... Very well. I'll go to the American hospital. Don't raise your voice at me, not on the first morning of the year."
The yielding undid him, and Kijo apologized at once.
"I'm sorry, elder brother."
"It's nothing. I know myself that things have been worsening, little by little. But I would have to be able to cut this obsession with cultural treasures. The moment you offer me a place to dig, I can feel my heart begin to sway."
"Elder brother, forget your father's charge now. Think only of your own life."
Kijo was like a small sailboat laboring to turn the great ship that was Kansong. And yet, when a little boat throws itself desperately across the course, even a captain set on sailing straight feels his resolve begin to waver. Little by little, Kansong's heart was leaning toward Kijo's counsel.
"For now, I'll dismiss the academy director and the general-affairs chief, and look for someone to take Dongseong Academy off my hands."
Kijo could feel that he was trying.
"Thank you, elder brother."
"Don't thank me. I suppose I really have grown old. With your boy on my knee, I couldn't believe how lovely a child could look. Ha ha."
Every man gets that way, once he's old enough, Kijo said to himself.
"I won't keep you with a longer speech. Once you've done what you've promised, I'll come and tell you where the relics lie."
"Leaving already?"
"Yes. I'm ashamed to have come at the New Year and raised my voice at you."
"Ha ha, I told you it's fine. Have a drink with me before you go."
"Elder brother, you have to cut back on the drinking, too!"
"All right, all right. Today of all days you're nagging worse than a man tied to his wife's apron strings... Go carefully, little brother."
Kijo and Jeon Hyeong-pil rose.
On the way home from the Kansong house, Kijo's mind would not settle. He drove in silence, eyes on the road, until Sunrye called to him from the back.
"Dear."
"What is it?"
"His wife says we should come often."
"Me?"
"Yes. A little while ago, in the living room, you went at Teacher Kansong as if you were picking a fight."
"Ah... that was..."
"She was talking with me, and when she heard you she was so pleased she nearly started clapping on the spot."
"Clapping?"
"She said she couldn't tell me how much lighter she felt. She thanked me—said she was so grateful someone had given her childish husband a proper scolding."
In the rearview mirror, Sunrye's face was wonderfully bright.
"And I gave the money Yeongsu received back to her."
"You did well."
Only then did a smile find Kijo's face as well.
"Yeongsu. It's all right that we didn't keep the New Year's money Grandfather Kansong gave you?"
Sunrye asked, and the boy answered brightly.
"Yes!"
Driving the nearly empty streets of Seoul on Seollal morning, Kijo felt a cleanness come over him. It was hope—the hope that he might yet change the life of Kansong, who in 1959 would be ruined by an astronomical financial disaster at Dongseong Academy, his whole family turned out into the street, and who would himself fall ill and die in pain.
Had he sold only a few cultural treasures to pay the private academy's debts, it would never have come to that. But Kansong had clung to his stubbornness to the end, and pushed his own life, and his family's, down into the pit. A great man's life, and a heartbreaking one.
"Father!"
Yeongsu called from the back seat.
"This morning a magpie was crying so loudly on our roof. That means a precious guest is coming, doesn't it?"
"Yes. One is coming, Yeongsu."
Kijo smiled, thinking of Park Hee-jun, on his way home to sign a formal contract with the government for the tungsten business.