The Portrait Painter
The four men, finished with their meal, sat in a row along the riverbank, smoking cigarettes and letting the sun soak into them.
"I didn't realize you were making the rounds of the camp girls' houses to get in with the Americans, Chief."
Kim Seogwang was apologizing for having misunderstood.
"Not that it's come to much. If anything, it's our Hansu who's been meeting American officers."
Ma-ryang and Seogwang both looked over at Hansu.
"And here I thought you were out hunting every day. Never figured you were in Dongducheon teaching archery to GIs. Ha!"
Even Kim Seogwang, close as he was to Shim Hansu, hadn't known.
"The Chief told me to try it, so I did. I gave one demonstration in front of the base, and the Americans went wild. I split an American coin dead center from a hundred paces off. Hahaha."
"So how many are you teaching now?"
"Five or six. I sell bows and arrows, too. Some of them even buy the Korean bows I make and take them home as souvenirs."
"Well, well. So he isn't hunting game at all. He's been up in Dongducheon hunting dollars."
The four of them laughed together.
Ki-jo could not laugh so easily. He still had not laid hold of a connection that amounted to anything.
Senior officers who might actually be of use to Eundae-ri seldom showed their faces around the camp town. The notion of a franchise built on army-base stew was still a long way from anything he could act on. In the 1950s few people ate out, and he had no supplier who would let him buy the ingredients cheap—Spam, sausage, cheese, ground meat.
He ground out his cigarette and stood.
"We're out drinking, just us men, for once. Let's take another turn through the camp town."
"Yes, Chief."
The three of them rose, brushed themselves off, and made a circuit of the camp town at his side.
Before the main gate of the American base, Ki-jo stopped short.
His gaze locked on a single point. His lips parted, and he went still as ice.
"Brother. Something the matter?"
"N-no. Nothing. All of you, come with me."
Ma-ryang, Seogwang, and Hansu followed him. He halted in front of a shop that painted portraits.
Why am I only seeing this now...
Reproaching himself, he studied the American portraits hung out for display.
Seogwang looked the place over as well. "The GIs must like having their pictures done."
"Seems so, brother."
Hansu examined the American faces with open curiosity.
"Let's have one painted ourselves."
"What?"
The suggestion startled all of them. They barely had money to eat, and he wanted to spend it on a portrait? That was a luxury for Americans and rich men.
Ki-jo stepped inside and looked for the proprietor.
"What can I do for you?"
The owner came in through the back, taking the pipe from his mouth as he spoke. Suspenders held up his trousers, and a round cloth cap sat on his head.
"We've come to have our portraits painted."
"All four together comes a bit cheaper. Separate, it costs more. Shall I do you in one?"
"Separately, please."
"Have it your way. Who's first?"
Ki-jo started him with Shim Hansu, the youngest.
Hansu drew his bow and took the stance of a hunter sighting game.
The owner dashed off a sketch, then sat him in a chair.
"Does he have to hold the pose the whole time?"
"No need."
Bent over the work, the painter answered as if the question were a bother.
In no time at all an oil portrait of Shim Hansu drawing his bow was finished. The man had a gift for painting fast.
"Next."
This time it was Kim Seogwang.
Seogwang asked to have his crippled leg painted sound, and the painter put him on the canvas throwing a handsome side kick. When the picture was done and he saw that bent leg drawn out straight, driving splendidly up through the air, he clapped and roared.
"Well, now. This painter of ours can really paint. Thank you. Much obliged."
"Next."
Third was Jang Ma-ryang. He set his fierce, glaring eyes straight ahead and held the look.
Perhaps because there was nothing else distinctive about the pose, the picture was finished in a flash.
"And how shall I do you?"
The painter turned to Ki-jo.
"How large is the biggest canvas you have?"
"If you want a face the size of a palace, I can paint one. But the largest canvas in the shop is only as big as that general's portrait out front."
"You mean the portrait of Major General Will Martin?"
"You know the division commander's name? That's the one. That size."
"Did he come here and sit for it himself?"
"No. He was passing by, saw my work, and had me called inside the base. The one hanging out front I painted from memory, the same as the original. Once I put the general's picture up, officers started coming in droves. Guess they wanted a portrait of their own, same as their commander."
Proud of having painted the commander of the 7th Division, the shopkeeper talked on at some length. Ki-jo listened closely, then said, "Paint me on the same size canvas as the division commander."
"Sit down in front."
The brush flew, and in a moment Ki-jo's face filled the large canvas.
He looked at the finished portrait and broke into a wide smile.
"How much for all of them?"
On top of the price the painter named, he laid down an extra thousand hwan.
"Ah, now, there's no need to add money on top like that..."
Grateful for such an open hand, the painter scratched the back of his head.
"In return, hang my portrait out front as well."
"You're not taking the picture with you?"
"Put it up right beside Major General Will Martin. Big as life."
"Heh. All right. Strange sort of gentleman..."
He grumbled, but he agreed readily enough.
While the paint dried, Ki-jo talked with him.
"I'm Lee Ki-jo, from Yeoncheon. I have a business, and I'd like to make some connections with the Americans."
"That's a bit far from my line... I'm an artist, not a businessman."
The owner said it between puffs on his pipe.
"Even art succeeds when you run it with a business mind. Didn't your trade pick up once you hung Major General Martin's picture? A man named Picasso ran his painting like a business."
"Well, well. You know Picasso?"
"Of course. Didn't he paint Massacre in Korea?"
At that the painter stopped puffing and looked him over with new care.
Ordinary enough at a glance, but there was a sharpness in the eyes, and knowing Picasso made him seem a man of learning.
In 1950 Pablo Picasso had put on canvas the massacre of civilians in Sinchon County, Hwanghae Province. Thirty-five thousand people had died, and the painting set off a bitter argument over whether the killers had been American troops or the communist army.
"Knowing that picture—you've got something of an eye."
"I've spent some time in museums."
Before his return, when he was bored, Ki-jo had looked at famous paintings on the internet. It had been a pleasure, seeing the great museums of the world without ever leaving home.
"Do me a favor, proprietor. You've written down the names and ranks of the men in those portraits out front, haven't you?"
"That? I penciled them on the backs of the canvases."
The owner showed him the sitters' particulars on the reverse of each portrait. Ki-jo copied every line carefully into his notebook and worked to fix the faces in his memory.
Watching him write, the painter admired the pen.
"Fine pen, that. A Parker, isn't it?"
"I have another at home. Take this one."
Ki-jo held it out at once.
"Ah—no... I only said it was a good pen. When did I ask you for it?"
"Take it. Thanks to you, my business is going to prosper. One fountain pen is nothing to me."
He hooked it onto the painter's suspenders, and the clip bit down hard.
"Thank you. You bought so many pictures today, and now a precious American pen on top of it..."
The painter bowed low.
"If the men in those portraits ever grow curious about me, put us in touch."
"That won't be any trouble. How should I introduce you?"
"Tell them I run a brick factory in Yeoncheon. And that I'm in construction as well."
"A builder, then. Understood. I'll pass it along. Hahaha."
Having sold a stack of pictures and come away with a fountain pen besides his fee, the painter beamed.
Ki-jo and the men of Eundae-ri left the shop, each carrying his own portrait, and went home. There they showed the pictures off to their families.
Happiest of all was Kim Seogwang, whose disability had vanished inside the frame. He hung the picture on the wall and said to his son, "Yeong-bae, when your father was young, he could kick just like that."
"You look wonderful, Father."
Yeong-bae said it, wiping his runny nose.
Shim Hansu, still unmarried, pinned the portrait of himself at full draw to the wall and let his fancy take wing.
If I'd been born a little earlier, I might have passed the military examination and become a general...
In the painting the bowstring was drawn so tight an arrow seemed ready to leap from it at any moment. He imagined himself a commander of the Joseon era, sweeping away Japanese raiders and driving off the Chinese.
Jang Ma-ryang, for his part, carried his portrait home and simply tossed it into a corner of the room. Later his wife, Yang Soon-young, set the facedown picture upright, started, and stared.
"Oh my, what picture is this? That's your face. You're so handsome... you."
"What's handsome about it? That thing..."
"How manly you are. Is there another man alive as good-looking as you, with that much force in him?"
"Don't butter me up."
"Oh my. Has my husband been living all this time without knowing how handsome he is? Didn't your first wife ever tell you?"
"What...?"
Now and then, faced with the unguarded talk of a wife young enough to be his daughter, Ma-ryang found himself at a loss for words. He did not dislike her for it.
"My father was a far finer-looking man than I am... Set beside him, I've got nothing. No strength, and no face either."
"Oh? My father-in-law was that splendid a man? I wish unification would come soon, so I could meet him."
"If the country were one again..."
"You can go see your first wife and your son. I'll go look after my handsome father-in-law. Don't mind me."
"Heh. This girl, I swear..."
Ma-ryang let out a hollow laugh and shot a sidelong glance at nineteen-year-old Soon-young, who had just hoisted him up and set him down again.
"Let's sleep. I'm tired."
He blew out the oil lamp and went to her.