A Piece a Day
Seoul, in the 1980s. The residence of Park Yonghak, chairman of the Hyeon-gang Group.
At the head of the long table he sat as a matter of course, and at his right hand was the third son already named heir, Park Jongin. It was only a meal. Even so, a peculiar weight lay in Park Jongin's eyes.
He had shouldered his elder brothers aside and taken the vice chairmanship for himself. Formidable as he was, Park Yonghak—the giant who had dominated an age—never grew any easier to face. This was a father who insisted on being chairman before he would consent to be a parent. Born into a house like this, a man simply swallowed that much misery.
"Eat."
Only after his father gave leave did anyone move.
"Please enjoy your meal."
Park Jongin lifted his spoon as if it weighed more than it ought.
At a Hyeon-gang supper, no one spoke until Chairman Park Yonghak opened his mouth—not Park Jongin, not his wife Song Suhee, and not their two small children. It was a cold table, bare of a single ordinary thing to say, and the one who broke that heavy silence was, of course, Park Yonghak.
"Third's wife. How old are you this year?"
At the sudden question Song Suhee set her spoon down at once.
"Thirty-eight, Father."
"Seoul National, and all you do is sit at home. Doesn't it chafe?"
"I'm all right, Father."
"Thirteen years you've spent looking after your husband. About time you lived a life of your own."
He was not wrong. Song Suhee had been a remarkable talent, first in her class at Seoul National University's college of fine arts and already preparing to study in Paris. That very brilliance had wrenched the course of her life clean off its line. Park Yonghak had taken one look at her, named her his daughter-in-law on the spot, settled the matter between the two families, and married her off overnight, the veil over her head before she could catch her breath.
Perhaps some guilt from that day still clung to him. He went on, unhurried.
"Give it ten years and women will start sitting in the executive chairs. The day is coming when women step to the front of society, proud, as members of it in their own right. That's what I'm telling you."
Song Suhee said nothing.
"Thirty-eight is still young. Start preparing now and you'll have time enough. What do you think?"
She could not easily open her mouth. The offer was welcome, but fear ran ahead of gratitude. What if this meant taking lessons from Park Yonghak himself?
"What? You don't want to?"
"It isn't that I don't... I'm only wondering whether I can do it well. What if I become a burden on Hyeon-gang..."
"Who told you to run the company?"
"...Pardon?"
"I'm telling you to do the art you like."
"Art?"
"We're founding a cultural foundation. How about you try running the museum?"
Perhaps it was a question that needed no answer. The corner of his mouth lifted as he continued.
"You know the alley in Insadong that handles the old art?"
"Yes, Father."
"Go in to work there every day. Buy one piece you like and bring it back. Just the one."
"One piece... every day?"
"What? Too hard?"
"No, Father. I'll do it."
Had the talk satisfied him? He was just reaching for his spoon again when a voice rose from one side of the table, entirely unexpected.
"Grandfather."
The second grandson. At that table, no one spoke before Park Yonghak did, and Park Jongin and Song Suhee turned in the same instant, too startled to care which of them moved first. Park Yonghak lifted his left hand, a small motion that held them both where they were.
Taking it for permission, the boy straightened in his seat.
"Grandfather, may I go too?"
"Go where?"
"Insadong. If I went with Mother... would that be all right?"
Instead of an answer, Park Yonghak produced a new question.
"Jihoon. What grade are you in?"
"Fourth. Fourth grade of elementary school."
"Let's see. Fourth grade... you'd be eleven this year. Why Insadong? Hungry for something from outside?"
Every eye settled on the boy. Jihoon grinned and answered with the clear, unclouded look that belonged only to a child.
"You said there was art."
The old man's brow tightened.
"Old art. I'd like to see some, too."
"And what do you mean to do with looking?"
"It says so in books. Sometimes a really precious treasure is sleeping deep inside an antique shop."
"What? You planning to buy it and make some money?"
"That would be nice."
The answer was so perfectly a child's that a small smile rose on Park Yonghak's face.
"Did the books teach you how to pick out the treasure, too?"
"No. Just in case, I read every single book on the shelves, not one left out. It didn't say anything like that anywhere."
"You said what?"
"There's no way to find a treasure—"
"Before that."
The boy blinked.
"You read every book on the shelves?"
"Oh. The books?"
Jihoon nodded, quiet.
"Every one. I didn't skip a page."
"You mean the books in your room?"
"I finished my room a long time ago. I even read everything in the living-room cupboard."
For a moment Park Yonghak's eyes narrowed. Was the boy puffing himself up to be noticed? Common enough, in a boy of ten. But the second grandson had always been the passive, quiet one. Why now? Those thoughts were still drifting when his son cut in.
"You little brat. Lying to your grandfather? Say you're sorry. Now."
"It isn't a lie."
"This boy, even so—"
Park Jongin glared, and Jihoon's older brother, Park Yugeon, stepped in.
"Jihoon only reads these days. Victor Hugo, Dostoevsky, Hemingway, all the way to Natsume Soseki. There isn't an author he doesn't know."
"Yugeon, not you too—"
Further argument must have struck the old man as a waste. He turned to his son.
"Kids talk. All of them do. What are you hounding the boy for?"
"I'm sorry."
His gaze moved on to his daughter-in-law.
"From tomorrow, one piece a day. You hear me?"
"Yes, Father."
Last of all he looked at his second grandson, Park Jihoon.
"Finished the living room, have you? Then go pull books out of my study. You won't put a dent in them for a year."
"Thank you, Grandfather."
And so the unusually long meal drew, slowly, toward its end.
Thirty minutes later, I was lying on the bed in my room.
Did I say too much? Then again, a fourth grader had just claimed to have read hundreds of books. I'd be suspicious myself.
That's what you get when a thirty-five-year-old man is living inside eleven-year-old Park Jihoon's body.
Better than telling the truth as it stood, wasn't it? I clicked my tongue. Nearly a month had passed since I dropped into this place. If accepting death in the life before had taken a full ten days, adapting to the new one had taken only three.
Reincarnation? Possession? I didn't know what to call it. What seemed certain was that I had been born into Hyeon-gang, the house that would one day stand toe to toe with Apple in America.
An orphan thrown out on the world, a life of nothing but grinding hardship. I had grown tired even of calling it unfair, and simply resigned myself to getting through the days—and then, of all things, to wake up in a chaebol family. The second son, no less. Unlike the eldest, who would have to inherit the company, I sat in a comparatively easy place, and the little show I had put on at dinner had been meant to nail that place down.
I am a hopeless case who likes nothing but books and hasn't the slightest interest in management. So please, don't even dream of lessons in how to run a company. Fall too far out of favor, though, and that's its own trouble—so now and then I'll show off a little artistic talent. Just enough to keep a minimum of support coming.
Fortunately I had not crossed the line, and the evening had ended well enough.
"Mm."
I lay in perfect comfort and stared up at the ceiling. I wanted to stack every book I loved and read until I had had my fill. A dream that had once looked impossibly far off, and now it was simply the way things were. Books that had never been translated in Korea? I could bring them in with my own money. Ha. A thoroughly satisfying life. There was, of course, exactly one regret.
Eleven is far too young. High school alone would have made everything easier.
The thoughts were still chaining, one into the next, when a knock came out of nowhere.
"Jihoon."
Song Suhee. The name still came to me more naturally than the word Mom. But for the time being I was an eleven-year-old child, so instead of answering I opened the door myself.
There she stood in the hall, in a gray dress, a plate of cake in her hands.
"Are you hungry?"
For a second I had no answer.
"You left your dinner after your father scolded you."
I'd only left it because I was full.
"May Mom come in?"
"Of course."
She looked for somewhere to set the cake. Ordinarily the desk would have done.
"What is all this?"
My room was nothing but books. The desk went without saying. The chair, even the floor, was buried under them.
"How did it get to be so many?"
"I was reading a bit of everything, and they piled up."
She was still looking around, startled. I am hard on books. I underline wherever I please and scribble notes as the mood takes me, so anything that passes through my hands shows it plainly. Perhaps that was why her eyes had fixed on the lines in my own hand.
"Jihoon... you know existentialism?"
"What?"
"It's only—there are notes here about Camus and Sartre."
"Oh. Those."
Camus. Sartre. Titans of French literature, and too much book for an eleven-year-old, however bright. I scratched my head. What was a person supposed to say at a moment like this? Lucky, if that was the word: it didn't seem to be a question that required an explanation. Before I could offer one, her gaze had already moved on around the room.
"You really read all of these?"
Strange enough that books lay open in every direction. Stranger still, every one of them was underlined, and only ever on the sentences that mattered.
"How did you manage books this difficult..."
"I'm your son, aren't I, Mom?"
"...What?"
"You graduated first from Seoul National's college of fine arts. Isn't it only natural your son would inherit a gift for art?"
"Even so..."
As expected, it didn't take. Well, what could I do? Reading a great many books is hardly a crime. I sat on the edge of the bed with a perfectly shameless face, and how long we stayed like that I couldn't have said.
"You really must have taken after your mother."
The words caught me off guard.
"The books on literature and art are dense with notes, but the economics your grandfather reads... you barely glanced at those."
In truth I had only kept the economics clean because they were obviously Chairman Park Yonghak's. A misunderstanding like this, though—nothing wrong with it. I gave no particular answer. I only smiled, bright as any child.