Economics Minister Erhard

Ki-jo had been awake since early morning. He sat on the edge of the bed with Ambassador Hertz's letter open in his hands.

It was a short personal note, sent on to him through Consul Michael before he left Korea, and he had read it in every spare moment — on the airplane, in the hotel — until he could all but recite it. The passage that stayed with him most was the one about Erhard.

Hertz had called a nation's vice chancellor and minister of economics a stubborn fat man. It was the sort of counsel only a close friend could give.

Ki-jo read the letter through once more and turned over what he himself knew of Erhard. The man was rich in striking stories. Even before the Nazis fell he had been working out an economic policy for the day Germany lost, and he had gone so far as to set it down on paper. Those were times when, if one prepared for defeat at all, it was wiser to write nothing and keep the thought inside one's head. Merely to suggest that the Nazis might lose the war was enough to bring serious trouble — a trip to the Gestapo, and torture. Bold all the same, he passed among his friends the postwar economic plans he had drawn up. Had even one of them carried those papers to the authorities and informed on him, he could have been executed on the spot. Fortunately no such thing happened. He did his work with his life laid down for what he believed was right.

He had left a good many memorable sayings besides.

More remarkable still was that he lived by his own words. It would come to light only decades later, but although Erhard became party leader of the Christian Democratic Union — the CDU — and rose from there all the way to chancellor, he himself had never been a member of the party. When the fact emerged, Germans were astonished.

His predecessor, the all-powerful Chancellor Adenauer, disliked him intensely, yet Erhard never once spoke against him. Adenauer had even blocked his path, declaring that Erhard must never become chancellor; once Erhard held the office, he praised both the former chancellor and his policies all the same. Set beside an animal, he was a loyal, headlong wild boar.

Rainer Barzel, a politician of the same era, had reached a judgment close to Ki-jo's own.

Ki-jo tucked Hertz's letter carefully into the inner pocket of his jacket, then made sure the personal note Hertz had asked him to deliver to Erhard was still there. No sooner had he stowed both letters than Oh Yang-soo came into the room.

Yang-soo had not been there when Ki-jo opened his eyes. He seemed to have risen earlier, gone to see Ambassador Sohn, and come back. Finding Ki-jo already up, he spoke.

"Ambassador says we ought to go by car, all the way to the Economics Ministry."

"The embassy doesn't have a car, does it?"

"Taxi, then, he says. Got dead serious about it — a delegation of a whole country walking up would look shabby. And he'll pay the fare himself."

Ki-jo was about to answer when Yang-soo went on.

"Ah, I already tried to talk him out of it. Won't hear of it. Says he's paying, and that's the end of it."

"All right."

Ki-jo ate breakfast and made ready for the meeting with Economics Minister Erhard.

At the appointed hour, taxis drew up in front of the embassy — two of them. Ki-jo and Baek Young-hoon rode with Ambassador Sohn Won-yil; Hwang Tae-young and Oh Yang-soo took the car behind. The two taxis set off and set the five Koreans down before the ministry building.

They went in and stated their business, and Erhard's secretary came down to receive them and led them to the secretaries' office. The secretary to Erhard, vice chancellor and minister of economics, began by asking their pardon.

"The meeting is set for twenty minutes. The vice chancellor carved the time out of a crowded schedule, so we ask your understanding."

Ki-jo and Sohn Won-yil accepted. They had come on account of the loan, but the visit was, from first to last, unofficial.

They had only a short wait before they were shown in. As they entered the reception room, Economics Minister Erhard welcomed them with a bright smile on his plump, round face. His hair was combed neatly over to one side. Heavyset, he came forward with a slightly uneasy step and offered his hand.

Polio in childhood had left him unable to wear ordinary shoes. He had also gone to the First World War and taken a severe wound in the shoulder, so that one arm was shorter than the other. It was an injury that might have meant cutting the shoulder away; he had refused amputation, and so kept the arm, at the price of a permanent disability. The body was an inconvenience. The temperament was a cheerful one.

He traded a few words about the weather with Ambassador Sohn Won-yil by way of greeting, then shook Ki-jo's hand as well. When the ambassador introduced him as Lee Ki-jo, a businessman come from Korea, Erhard's eyes lit.

"A pleasure, Mr. Lee Ki-jo. I've heard a great deal about you from a friend."

The friend could only be Ambassador Hertz.

"How do you do, Minister Erhard? It is an honor to meet you."

Ki-jo tried the German Baek Young-hoon had taught him. At the halting pronunciation, Erhard laughed with open delight.

"A lot like the Allied prisoners we used to have in Germany. Clear enough to follow."

It was a joke that seemed to tease his clumsy accent, but Ki-jo let it pass. He already knew the man's humor ran peculiar, and this seemed meant only as a show of ease.

Ambassador Sohn introduced Oh Yang-soo, Hwang Tae-young, and Baek Young-hoon in turn. Yang-soo, he said, was Korea's foremost man of shipping. Tae-young was technical president of the country's only broadcasting station. Young-hoon was an economics professor who had come on the Foreign Ministry's recommendation, and served as their interpreter.

Erhard shook hands with each of them and moved to the round table in the reception room. Behind him stood his secretary and his interpreter.

When Ambassador Sohn explained why they had come, Erhard wore a faintly bored look, as though he knew it all already. Even so, the ambassador followed diplomatic form through to the last — the purpose of the visit, and the hope that the two nations might cooperate for the good of both. Erhard seemed to be enduring it purely for the sake of custom.

The moment Sohn finished, he spoke.

"Ambassador. The commercial loan to Korea will be provided, no matter what. I give you my word on my fat belly and my round face."

Erhard scattered his peculiar humor freely. His cheerful manner and his innocent expression took the edge off the oddness of it, and since he had agreed to the loan so readily, none of them could help smiling wide.

Then he turned a serious face to Ambassador Sohn.

"Ambassador Sohn. I know it is a thoroughly rude request, from a diplomatic point of view, but the business that brought you here has been settled. Might I use the time that remains for something of my own?"

Sohn looked startled. For an instant it sounded like nothing so much as, We'll give you the loan you asked for — now kindly clear out. The misunderstanding did not last.

"I would like a private word with Mr. Lee Ki-jo."

When Erhard made it plain he wanted to be alone with Ki-jo, every eye turned toward him.

"Ten minutes left." Erhard glanced at his wristwatch as he said it, and Ambassador Sohn answered in a hurry.

"Of course. We'll wait outside."

He gave Oh Yang-soo, Hwang Tae-young, and Baek Young-hoon a look that meant they should get up.

"Ah — the Korean interpreter will have to stay."

Erhard indicated Baek Young-hoon, then spoke to the secretary and the interpreter standing behind him.

"You two step out as well. I don't need any more Germans in here. This is my private time."

His peculiar humor had gone off again. His staff, long used to it, smiled and went out the door.

Only Erhard, Ki-jo, and Baek Young-hoon were left in the reception room. He asked at once.

"Is Hertz getting on well in Korea?"

Young-hoon turned it into Korean almost before the sentence had ended.

"Yes. The ambassador is well."

At Ki-jo's answer Erhard broke into a bright smile, then put another question.

"How did you manage to win that friend of mine over so completely? He kept the pressure on, handing me papers about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Korea. He threatened me — said that if we didn't give Korea a loan, it would be the end of his dealings with me."

Ki-jo heard him and laughed. Instead of answering, he drew out the personal note Hertz had asked him to give Erhard and passed it across.

"A letter Ambassador Hertz asked me to deliver."

"Is that so? Let's have a look."

Erhard unfolded the letter, and his face turned grave. Ki-jo and Young-hoon tensed. They could not begin to guess what it said.

He turned the note this way and that, scratching his head, then held it out to the two of them.

"How is one supposed to read this?"

The moment Ki-jo saw what Ambassador Hertz had written to Economics Minister Erhard, laughter rose in him. It was a sentence in classical Chinese.

"They are Chinese characters, Mr. Vice Chancellor."

"Are they? Just like Hertz, steeped in the culture of the East. That man is forever trying to make a fool of me. What do these Chinese characters mean?"

The classical Chinese Hertz had set down in the note was a line from the Analects of Confucius.

Ki-jo explained the meaning.

"It means: there is a friend, and he comes to you from far away. Is that not a joy?"

Erhard thought it over, then nodded and laughed.

"It sounds like an answer to the question I just asked. As if he's saying you're a friend he can vouch for, so don't go asking useless things."

He laughed aloud. The reading seemed kinder than the text itself, but Ki-jo liked his interpretation.

"Good. A friend of Hertz is a friend of mine. I won't ask about anything complicated. But I will vouch for this much: Hertz does not take just anyone as a friend."

His expression was, entirely, the expression of a man speaking of his closest friend.

Ki-jo stole a glance at the clock. Not even five minutes remained in which to talk.

"Hertz, you see…"

Erhard still seemed to want to chat.

"Now and then he would come out with a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠forecast that sent a chill through you. When Hitler was gathering power into his hands, he said a great war would soon break over Europe. He told me, too — if I could leave Germany, I ought to leave."

Erhard, who had lived through the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Second World War as an economic official in Berlin, wore a distant, wistful look.

"And then he was the one who ran off to America and never came back. Of course that was the right thing. As you know, Hertz was of Jewish blood."

He took out a thick cigar, set it between his lips, and did not light it. Drawing on the unlit cigar in little puffs, he went on.

"Korea, like West Germany, lives under the constant threat of war, doesn't it? All the more so, since the war hasn't truly ended — only an armistice."

"It is."

"In his last letter, Hertz wrote this. That Koreans are like the Jews who were shut inside the ghetto. That North and South have been made sacrifices to ideology, held as hostages of America and the Soviet Union, and that both sides are starving."

Ki-jo nodded at the words, and so did Baek Young-hoon as he interpreted.

"He wrote that helping the Korean people was the same as helping the Jews who had been locked in the camps, and that we were to send money at once so their hunger could be answered. And he wrote it in the tone of an order."

Laughing, he set the cigar down.

"That friend Hertz knows how to move a German. Stir our sense of original sin toward the Jews, and we have no choice but to throw up our hands. Ha."

He laughed briefly, then asked whether there was anything they wished to ask him.

Ki-jo asked the one thing that mattered most.

"Has Chancellor Adenauer approved the commercial loan as well?"

Erhard nodded.

"He put two questions to me. Now? And why?"

Ki-jo and Young-hoon fixed on his mouth.

"So I explained it this way. Mr. Chancellor — Korea at this moment is in the same position as during the Berlin Blockade. And he asked me back: is the situation in Korea so grave that we must drop food from the air?"

Erhard popped his eyes wide and round, as if copying Chancellor Adenauer's face at that moment, and went on.

"So I answered him. There are too many people for that. Fully thirty million live in the South. We ought to build them a fertilizer plant, let them solve the food problem for themselves, and then have them hold the line against the communists. And this is what he said."

Erhard paused a moment, then spoke.

"Well? Why aren't you sending the aid this very moment!"

He brought it to a close with a great laugh, flicked a glance at his wristwatch, and continued.

"I've already been in touch with Krupp. A fertilizer plant on the scale of 350,000 tons, as you requested, looks difficult. I've told them to talk it over at about half that — 200,000 tons."

"Thank you, Mr. Vice Chancellor."

Ki-jo and Young-hoon offered their thanks in the same breath.

Erhard rose, took his leave of them with a handshake, and was gone in a rush through the door that led to his office. He looked like a genuinely busy man.

Even after he had left, Ki-jo and Young-hoon stood for a moment in the reception room, dazed. It felt as though some great comet had swept past them.

Ki-jo gathered himself and spoke to Young-hoon.

"Let's go to Krupp."

Young-hoon came back to himself as well.

"Yes, Chairman Lee."

The two of them left the reception room, fallen quiet behind them, and told Ambassador Sohn, Hwang Tae-young, and Oh Yang-soo, who had been waiting, the concrete scale of the loan.