Let It Rot Like Me
Boston, America.
Jo Sudeok worked like a bulldozer. For one thing, he never rested. For another, he barely stopped to think, so jet lag never had a chance to catch him. The graduate students who had come along were the ones dying on their feet. Not that they had a choice. With their professor glaring over stacks of paper, all they could do was run.
The method was pure Korean hustle.
"You show up with a gift. No exceptions. Then you recite exactly three lines."
I'm a poor graduate student.
I need the painting for my research.
I've come a long way. From Korea.
The moment that last word, Korea, left their mouths, anyone's heart was bound to soften. And the instant the owner cracked the door, a fruit basket went shoving through the gap.
It was remarkably efficient. Each of them could cover four houses a day. So of course, on the third day, good news came in.
Riiing!
"Professor! The painting you mentioned… the mother holding a child."
"You found it?"
"Yes! The paper alone looks centuries old. More than that, the line itself is different. It could pass for something drawn without a thought, but there's a definite power in it."
"You're sure?"
"Yes. I'm certain."
"Where? Do I head toward the university?"
"Well… Professor. There's one problem."
"What, he's asking a fortune? That's fine. The budget's plenty."
"No. It isn't that."
"…?"
"He says he wouldn't sell it for all the money in the world."
Has he realized it's genuine?
"What did you say to him?"
"I didn't say anything. He was the one who wouldn't stop talking."
"What is that supposed to mean? Talk so I can understand you."
"I could hardly make sense of it myself. He just…"
"Just what?"
"He said he hoped the painting would rot in that warehouse forever."
"What? What kind of—"
"He muttered like a madman. Said this painting would be left to rot in a warehouse too… just like him."
And what the hell was that supposed to mean?
"Hang up. I'm calling Korea."
"He wants it to rot in a warehouse…"
I turned the words from the receiver over slowly. Not merely rot. Like me came first. That meant his own life was rotting in a warehouse.
"Is his situation that bad?"
"No. He lives in a wealthy neighborhood near the Charles River. The architecture commissions seem to come in steadily enough…"
"So he's not hard up?"
"At least, it doesn't look that way. I'm sure of it."
Plenty of money didn't rule out discontent. Health, family, the people around you — the world was heaped with troubles. What I wanted to know was why he was taking that discontent out on a painting. And of all paintings, Dürer's last drawing.
"Professor, why don't you go yourself?"
"Yes. I'll head over the moment we hang up."
It was six-thirty in the evening in Boston. If he moved briskly, the hour was still workable.
"No need to rush, Professor. Don't go in thinking about buying the painting. First, read the man."
"Read him?"
"You can get a fair sense of a person from the house. Is the television on, and if it is, what's playing? Is there a newspaper on the sofa — the Wall Street Journal, or the Washington Post? What books are on the desk? What records are stacked beside the stereo?"
"You mean I should check things like how the furniture is arranged. Is that it?"
"Exactly. Are the dishes piled in the sink? Does the trash go out on time? Are the clothes heaped in a pile, or hung carefully on hangers? The smallest things will do. Bring me as much as you can."
"A kind of detective work, then."
Watch a person. Imagine the life. Unfold the story. That was the work I had done all my life.
"You won't remember every detail. Take a notebook and write it down carefully."
"If I have to, I'll sketch."
Even after the line went dead, I sat looking down at the receiver.
"He wants it to rot in a warehouse?"
I held on to words I couldn't yet parse.
"And like himself, no less…"
For a while I went on muttering to myself.
Boston.
In the back of the taxi, Jo Sudeok was quietly tense. If there was a game on, the whole district would seize up, and walking might well be faster. Contrary to that worry, the roads were wide open. The streets were nearly empty of people. He asked the driver why, and the answer came at once.
"Yankees and Red Sox today. Everybody's glued to the TV."
"Ah. So Boston's on the road in New York?"
"That's right. A three-game set starts today. Soon as I drop you, I'm off the clock and straight to the pub."
Fifteen minutes later they reached the address. It was a typical American middle-class neighborhood: a garage that would swallow two cars without effort, and beside it a broad garden. Whoever lived here was plainly not struggling to eat. The graduate assistant who had called was already waiting at the door.
"How did it go?"
"Well… I tried talking to him a few more times. He's still cold."
"Even when you said it was for research?"
"Yes. He just said he wished it would rot away to nothing."
"For heaven's sake."
Jo shook his head as if none of it made sense, and even so he drew a small notebook from his back pocket.
"He's in?"
"Yes. But…"
"But what?"
"He said he has to watch the baseball. Told me to leave."
"Baseball? Ah. That road series in New York?"
"I didn't quite follow it that far…"
Jo pressed the bell as if that settled it.
Then—
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Irritable footsteps crossed the house. The door flew open, and a man the size of a bear stuck his head out.
"I told you to leave."
"Hello. I'm the advisor of the student who came by earlier."
"Professor, advisor, I don't care. I said get out of here today. You deaf?"
"Ah. I'm not here about the painting today."
"What?"
"The baseball… any chance I could watch it with you?"
"…?"
"They say the three-game set against the New York Yankees starts today. And wouldn't you know it, our lodging is a good two hours from here. Even if we hurry back now, we'll miss everything through the fifth."
"So you want to watch the game at my house."
"It's better when Red Sox fans cheer together, isn't it?"
"No. I'm not one of those guys who eats popcorn and watches baseball. I have to concentrate. Every nerve."
"So do I. When I watch baseball I keep my mouth shut. Not one word. Instead, I do this."
Jo held the notebook out for him to see, and went on.
"I write the game down carefully and watch it in earnest. Like a scorekeeper."
The man looked him up and down. Whatever he saw, it seemed to have very little to do with baseball. He still hadn't put the suspicion away when Jo spoke again.
"Teaching is only how I make a living. My dream is to see one of our Korean players in a Boston Red Sox uniform. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm plenty crazy about baseball myself."
Boston Red Sox against the New York Yankees. By the time Jo Sudeok sat down on the sofa, the second inning was already underway.
"Jo Sudeok. I came from Korea."
"James Baker. Born and raised in Boston."
That was the end of the conversation. Baker stayed locked on the game. Then the Red Sox finished their turn at bat, a commercial came on, and—
Tap.
He opened a thick college notebook and made a brief note, wearing the face of a manager. Thanks to that, Jo could fill his own notebook to his heart's content.
The house is reasonably clean.
Almost no books on architecture in the shelves behind the sofa.
Most of it is baseball statistics… and more than twenty well-thumbed college notebooks, jammed in a row.
Beside the TV, a display cabinet that looks expensive at a glance. On the top shelf, a child's baseball glove. Thick. A catcher's mitt, by the look of it.
On the second shelf, four worn baseballs. One of them seems to be signed. Too far away to tell whose.
On the shelf below, a neatly folded gray uniform and an aluminum bat. No question about it. This man is out of his mind for baseball.
It was Korean, after all. No chance the other man could read it. Jo wrote down whatever came.
If there was one regret, it was this.
I still haven't seen the painting.
He had talked his way in to watch baseball. He could hardly start fussing about a picture now. He was stealing glances, waiting, when it happened.
"Yeeeaaah!"
Baker, eyes on the television, threw both arms wide and roared. Jo looked. Nothing to nothing. A game running along two parallel lines.
"Yes! That's the stuff!"
Eighth inning. Three to nothing.
Hold them for two more innings and Boston had it. And then… a homeowner in a good mood might be asked, perhaps, to open a warehouse.
The thought carried him that far.
"Let's go! Reeeed Soooox!"
Jo Sudeok lifted his voice for Boston as if he were a third-generation fan.
The game ended three to two. The Yankees had come charging, but Boston found their focus at the last and closed it out. Only then did Baker let go of the breath he had been holding. Jo's sigh of relief was much the same. They had won the game. Now he only had to catch the right moment to speak.
"You came to see the painting, didn't you."
Of all things. Baker spoke first.
"You kept drifting off right when the game was on the line."
"No… that's—"
"The painting in the warehouse. Will it do if I show you that?"
"I'd be grateful. Truly."
"I already told your student. Looking is fine. Selling is not."
"If there's a reason…"
Ask once more and the scowl would come, and then the order to get out. Nothing for it. If the man was willing to show him the painting, that would have to be enough.
Perhaps it was the win. Baker hummed as he led Jo Sudeok out to the warehouse.
The latch clicked.
"Look all you want."
Baker turned and left, as if none of it concerned him.
The warehouse was enormous. True to its size, it held a great many works of art. Every piece of baseball gear in the living-room cabinet had been carefully kept.
"…"
Here, everything felt slighted. Piled any which way, scattered wherever it had fallen — a warehouse in the plainest sense of the word.
So where is the damn thing?
He could hardly ask the owner, already gone back to the living room. He was peering around the wide space when something caught his eye.
…What?
A painting had seized Jo Sudeok's attention. An oil, enormous. He had come looking for Dürer's last drawing, and instead he was face to face with a work whose aura was simply overwhelming.
This… this was not in the scenario.
Jo Sudeok's eyes had gone wide, and they would not hold still.