The Worst Strategy
Facing a master of literary theory, I felt a strange tremor run through me.
The pleased thought that I had done well to come to Royal School lasted only a moment. Then Middleton spoke.
"I listened to the debate with great interest. You explained the relationship between a work and its author with remarkable clarity."
"Ah. Yes."
"You seem to care a great deal about art."
I nodded.
"And art, of course, has many fields..."
"Literature is what I love most."
A glint of interest lit his eyes.
"I had thought painting would be your favorite."
Painting? Why painting, all of a sudden?
Was it because I had brought an unpublished da Vinci to light? I had mentioned it in the admissions interview, so it was hardly strange that the story had reached the headmaster.
In any case.
"I do like painting. But what comes most naturally is still literature."
"Literature?"
"Reading and writing, together."
"Well, well."
The word writing seemed to catch Middleton hard.
"What sort of things do you write, chiefly?"
"Short stories? Novels?"
"I don't decide the length beforehand."
"...Then?"
"If I follow the current of the story faithfully, the size of it takes care of itself."
"You give yourself wholly to the act of writing, and to nothing else..."
He gathered up what I had said as if murmuring it to himself.
"Yes. Something like that."
He studied me as though I had become interesting.
It might have been no more than courtesy. Even so.
The finest mind of the age, reading my work?
In my previous life I would never have dared imagine such a chance. I swallowed against a dry throat and said it.
"There is a book of mine in English. You'd have a hard time finding it in a British bookshop, though..."
"Your writing has been published, Jihun?"
"It isn't as grand a thing as you're imagining."
"It's only... the book came out through my own press."
This was Royal School, a place where the rich of the whole world gathered. Perhaps that was why his face was puzzled at first.
"Hm."
A moment later he seemed to accept it, as if it were no great stretch after all.
"A company you founded so that you could publish your own books?"
"No. At first I made it to support artists who had no money."
He only looked at me.
"These days we put our effort into finding foreign writers who aren't known in Korea and introducing them to readers."
"You must need a great many able people for that."
"I wish we did. For now it's hardly different from a hobby."
"You mean it is, in effect, a one-person press?"
"Yes. I handle most of the work myself. Choosing the books, appointing the translators, and the rest."
Then I added one more thing.
"I was also the first to introduce your books to Korea, Professor Middleton."
His eyes flew wide.
"I sought out a scholar who had studied directly under you and asked him to do the translation."
"I shouldn't have a Korean among my students."
"He's British. James. He took his doctorate in literature at Oxford, and now he specializes in the study of East Asian literature..."
"Ah. East Asia—you mean Bernard? Quite tall..."
"Large glasses, perched on his nose as if they might slide off at any moment."
"Yes, yes. That's him."
Middleton brightened as if the pupil himself had walked into the room, nearly bouncing where he sat. Sure enough, he asked after Bernard's recent news with the happiest face in the world.
"He's at Keio University in Japan now. He can translate the literature of Korea, China, and Japan alike, so he carries a very important part of the work being done in East Asia."
"Indeed he does. That young man's gift for language was exceptional. And I don't say it merely because he was my student..."
From there Middleton went on at length, boasting of his pupil, as if a student's success were his own greatest pride.
"Asking Bernard to translate was an excellent choice. Of course it was. Few have followed my work as faithfully as Bernard."
The doting continued for quite some time.
"Dear me. Asking this and that, I seem to have used up your whole break, Jihun. You ought to visit the lavatory as well..."
"It's all right."
He rose from his seat as he spoke.
"Yes. I'll look for it..."
"You said it had been translated and published, didn't you? Then I can find a copy myself."
Middleton smiled and patted my shoulder, and I had to get to my feet and bow.
While Professor Middleton walked up to the lectern, a murmur moved through the room. Every eye turned to me. The alumni were no different, and perhaps that was only natural. I had said what I thought in the debate without once getting stuck, and through the break I had sat alone with the headmaster for a long while. Envy, or irritation—whatever the feeling, it was bound to rise.
That was no reason to swell up as if I were something special. The topic had been art, my own field. More than that, the day had driven home how far my English still had to go.
There's a lot I'll need to prepare.
I was turning that over when the moderator picked up the microphone, as if to announce that the break was over.
"We will now announce the students whose class placements have been confirmed. Those whose names are called may go home after hearing an explanation of the school rules."
A moment later it was announced that I was the only one in the top tier.
"This is unfair!"
Julian shot to his feet with a shout.
The moderator, of course, tried to explain.
"The placements are not finished. Only one student has been confirmed from the first debate. In the second and the third still to come, we will continue..."
The explanation did nothing. Julian's face said he could not accept a word of it.
Whether he did or not, I was already leaving the hall, just as the moderator had said. Step by step. The protests went on behind me all the same.
"I set out my views without a single stumble. I cannot understand why someone like me was not placed in the honors class."
Professor Middleton took the microphone. Instead of scolding Julian, he turned to the students.
"Your classmate is pointing out that the scoring was unfair. This, too, might make an interesting subject for debate. Is there anyone who would care to offer an opinion freely?"
Julian was the sort who clung to school life with a fanatic's obsession. Perhaps that was why his classmates looked as if they wanted nothing to do with him.
All but one. Only Olivia's hand shot up, and the leather jacket creased handsomely as she raised it. She spoke without a microphone.
"All you did was talk. Your strategy in the debate was terrible."
"Strategy?"
"In a debate, the best thing is to lead the argument yourself. The next best is to oppose the person who is leading. If you can do neither, you're better off saying nothing."
"As you did, Miss Olivia?"
She nodded.
"Julian didn't lead, and he didn't really oppose anyone either. He only agreed with the seniors. That's the problem."
"Oh?"
"The worst strategy of all is agreement. He volunteered to be someone who might as well not have been there. As proof—does anyone here remember a single thing Julian said?"
Naturally, not one person opened their mouth.
"The line about whether we'd throw out gravity itself just because Newton's moral failings had come to light, though—that's still vivid, isn't it?"
In other words, I had led, and Julian had only chimed in. She wasn't wrong. Being praised with such a straight face made the back of my neck go hot for no good reason.
I should get out of here.
And so I fled the lecture hall as if something were chasing me.
When the third debate ended, the moderator took the microphone. A run of names that could not have sounded more English was called, and then:
"And last of all, Olivia. That concludes the honors-class placements."
She had gotten in. Somehow.
Olivia let out a breath of relief and stood. In truth she had come without much thought at all. It was only secondary school. What did a class placement matter?
Then, suddenly, her mind had changed. She had put on a late burst of effort, and she had only just managed to join the honors class.
Yes. This is enough.
She was on her way out of the lecture hall when a racket met her in the corridor. A few familiar faces were holding forth as if they wanted the whole school to hear.
"Even so, he wasn't good enough to pass alone in the first round."
"That's what I'm saying."
"It's strange, right? The headmaster just happening to walk in right before that guy's turn..."
"I heard he got in on the Queen's recommendation. Of course the headmaster came to look after him himself. Who knows? Maybe he slipped him the questions ahead of time."
"Honestly, watching the two of them talk out in the open earlier was ridiculous."
Olivia looked from one speaker to the other. The glare was sharp enough that both of them startled and turned.
"Pathetic."
The word was full of contempt. The larger of the two got to his feet.
"You talking to me?"
"What about it?"
"You can't just say that to someone's face..."
"Isn't saying it to your face the more gentlemanly thing?"
He had nothing to say to that.
"I don't do cowardly little backbiting. If I want to insult someone, I say it to their face. Like now."
She wasn't finished.
"What, you think if you sit there in hiding and tear other people down, the chance might actually come around to you?"
She shook her head.
"Wildly optimistic. Your whole life's going to come up rose-colored."
Done with them, Olivia was straightening her leather jacket when the big one decided not to let her walk away. Maybe because she was a girl, and he thought she would be easy to push. Sure enough, he caught her sleeve—and she was just lifting her elbow, as if she had been waiting for it.
"You're making rather a lot of noise."
The voice came from the lecture-hall doorway. Headmaster Middleton.
"The placements aren't finished yet. There are students preparing for the next debate, so would you kindly keep it down?"
At that, the two of them bent at the waist with wildly exaggerated deference. A moment ago they had been happy enough to talk behind someone's back.
Hah.
Live your whole lives looking like that. Those wretches could do as they pleased.
Click. Click.
Olivia only kept walking, for a long time, down the long corridor.