The Strongest Person in the World
Song Suhee set her questions aside and began by putting the room in order.
"If you're finished with them, they belong back on the shelf. You can't leave them strewn about like this."
"Sorry."
I threw the window wide and let the air through. I hadn't noticed when I was hauling them in a volume or two at a time, but piled together they were something else.
When the tidying was nearly done, Song Suhee wiped the sweat from her chin and spoke.
"What am I supposed to do? I feel so sorry toward my boy."
"About what?"
"Mom didn't even know what Jihun likes."
"What?"
"If I'd known you loved books this much... I should have taken you to the bookstore with me ages ago."
Ah.
"I've got more books than I know what to do with."
"Even so. Does it make any sense that Mom never knew, all that time you were reading?"
"......"
She bent until her eyes were level with mine.
"Mom's sorry. From now on I'll pay more attention to what Jihun likes, and to what you want to do. I promise."
I looked at Song Suhee and said nothing. This was the woman who had brought cake because I left food on my plate, and still she was apologizing, still promising to do better. Was this what a mother was? The consideration, the attention I hadn't asked for, and above all an affection so extravagant it felt absurd—every bit of it was utterly strange to me.
Maybe that was why.
"......"
I couldn't find a single word. I only stared at her, blank.
"Jihun."
"...Yes?"
"What are you thinking so hard about?"
"Huh? Oh... nothing."
"You must be hungry. Shall we start with the cake?"
A fresh-cream cake. In my previous life it had been the most ordinary dessert in the world, but even in the eighties a cake of snow-white cream was still something of a luxury.
"How is it?"
"Sweet and soft. It's really good."
"Have some fruit with it."
"Okay."
Song Suhee watched me the whole time, pleasure written all over her face. I still couldn't get used to it.
Being loved like this... isn't so bad.
That thought came just after I had cleared the plate in a flash.
"Jihun, there's something Mom's curious about."
"......?"
"Dinner last night. I always thought our Jihun was the quiet one, but today you spoke up to Grandpa first. I just thought it was a little surprising."
Less surprise than worry, if I was reading her right. Reading books, of all things, and putting questions to the chairman. She was probably afraid some change had come over her young son.
"I was just worried about you, Mom."
"Worried? About me?"
"Grandpa gave you an errand. Every single day."
"You were going to come with me... because you thought it might be too much for Mom?"
"Yes."
The instant the answer left me, she pulled me in tight. Song Suhee wrapped me in her arms and, for a long while, stroked my back. In that moment I understood, dimly, that I would remember her warm hands and the faint scent of her shampoo for a very long time. If I were ever granted something called a mother, this was the scene I would come back to.
"Does Grandpa scare you, Jihun?"
"A little, yes."
"So you stepped in yourself, because you thought Mom might have a hard time on account of Grandpa?"
When I nodded, Song Suhee laughed softly.
"It's all right. Mom is a strong person."
"......?"
"Much stronger than Jihun thinks. Mom is."
"Really?"
"Of course. If I hadn't wanted it, I would have told Grandpa plainly. I'm grateful for the chance, but my heart is a little different."
"You can say that?"
"Of course I can."
"Grandpa would get angry."
"If he gets angry, there's nothing to be done about it. I'd tell him our Yugeon and our Jihun matter more to me."
"Ah."
"So there's only one thing Jihun needs to remember."
"That Mom is strong?"
Had she come looking for me just to say that? She smiled wide, like a flower in full bloom.
The next day, Gyeonggi Elementary School. A man who had been in his mid-thirties, sitting in an elementary classroom.
As if this could possibly be fun.
Even so, the third generation of Hyeon-gang could hardly sit through class with some other book open on the desk. So I wrote.
Scritch, scratch. In my previous life I had lived on a keyboard. Scritch, scratch. Setting down sentences with a hand no bigger than a bracken shoot—
"......"
My fingers went numb in no time. Ugh. What choice did I have? Grit my teeth and bear it. A month of that had produced real results.
I'm getting pretty fast.
Then again, I was planted at a desk for hours every single day.
It is the life I wanted so badly, I suppose.
I almost snorted. Of course I wasn't spending the entire class on my so-called writing. Up at the lectern, watching the teacher face that enormous blackboard, all sorts of thoughts came over me. At thirty-five I had been working part-time in a school cafeteria, standing in a cold corridor like a scarecrow and guarding the lunch line. Without quite knowing it, I may have felt inferior to that Korean teacher in her twenties.
Where had my life gone so badly wrong? A hollow ha! slipped out of me before I could stop it.
Of course it would be different.
This second life will be different. It has to be.
No—it ought to be. Even if the crime of being born into a chaebol family meant I couldn't escape management, fine. Then I would simply build something enormous in the arts. What was wrong with that?
Nothing wrong with it at all.
Chairman Park Yonghak was a man practically addicted to art, and they said Vice Chairman Park Jongin was steeped in it too, under his father's influence.
Even if I drift off toward the arts, there shouldn't be much of a fight.
Besides, I wasn't the eldest. Only the second son. Heh heh heh. Those pleasant fancies were still chasing one another's tails when the tune came in.
Ta-ra-ra-ra, la-la-la-la. Für Elise. The bell announcing lunch rang through the room.
I took down the lunchbox hanging beside my indoor-shoe pouch. It startled me every time I looked at it.
Why is an elementary-school lunch this big?
Three whole tiers. A lunch Song Suhee had risen at dawn to pack with her own hands, determined to feed her children. She could perfectly well have left it to the housekeepers, but she insisted on making it herself. I knew the care that had gone into it all too well, and so I couldn't leave a bite. I had to work my way through it in earnest.
Come to think of it, Mom would be in Insadong about now, wouldn't she? Because of Chairman Park's orders...
...Wait.
What? Mom?
Startled, I set my spoon down at once.
From morning on, Song Suhee had been combing through Insadong. Perhaps it was because her face was already known as Hyeon-gang's daughter-in-law. The merchants recognized her at a glance and rushed to show her favor. They knew Chairman Park's love of art well enough, and hoping a deal with the daughter-in-law might put a line into Hyeon-gang, they brought out precious works at bargain prices.
The budget Chairman Park had allowed was roughly a hundred thousand won. Reading the room, the merchants quoted less than that. At this rate she could carry home a piece that would satisfy him nearly every day.
"Will this one do?"
At the secretary's question, Song Suhee shook her head.
"Is the work not to your liking?"
She shook her head again.
"If it's the price..."
The response was the same. At that point there was nothing for it but to wait for Song Suhee to speak.
A moment later she looked straight at the shopkeeper.
"I'm sorry I can't decide, after you've gone to so much trouble. I'll think a little more and come back."
"Ah, yes, of course! Please, at your leisure! Stop by anytime. We'll always do our very best, heart and soul!"
Song Suhee offered a small bow and quietly left the gallery. Then she turned to the secretary following her out.
"How many places are left?"
"We've already been through every place with a name, but..."
"Hm."
She let out a small sigh, plainly at a loss.
"Ma'am, if I may ask what's troubling you? Say the word and I'll help at once..."
"The pieces are all good."
Of course they were. People who knew their business had shown her only the best.
"The prices are excellent too. But."
When Song Suhee trailed off, the secretary's ears pricked up.
"Father-in-law must have had a reason for sending me all the way out here."
"......"
"He must have wanted me to stand in front of the works myself, out in the field, and grow an eye worthy of them."
In other words, bring back the pearl hidden in the mud. And what was happening instead? Everyone was thrusting pieces at her as if they meant to get a line to Chairman Park Yonghak. At this rate, never mind an eye for art—she was on her way to becoming a broker. A lobbyist.
"I have to come here as the artist Song Suhee, not as Hyeon-gang's daughter-in-law. Otherwise none of it means anything."
But how? Was she supposed to disguise herself, just to fool the merchants' eyes? Her worry was deepening when a familiar voice came from behind her.
"Mom."
Song Suhee turned in surprise.
"......!"
What opened before her was unexpected, and yet utterly welcome.
"Jihun!"
Song Suhee ran toward me as if she couldn't quite believe it.
"You came to see Mom?"
"Yes."
"How did you get all the way here?"
The middle of Seoul. Was the man I'd been in my thirties really incapable of managing even this much? Well. Today I'd asked the chauffeur who took me to school... ahem.
"I said I missed you."
Song Suhee didn't ask anything more. She hugged me tight.
"It's cold. Shall we go inside and have something warm to drink?"
"Mm."
I stole a glance at her secretary.
Empty-handed.
She still hadn't found anything that would do. Which meant this was no time for a leisurely reunion with her son. So—
"Mom, I want to look at paintings."
"Paintings?"
"The artwork you're taking to Grandpa. Can't I look too?"
She couldn't answer right away. She met my eyes and chose her words slowly.
"Jihun, Mom's in the middle of a little worry."
"What kind of worry?"
"It's the first piece we're going to show Grandpa. That's why I've been thinking so hard."
Fair enough. I would have done the same. But there was something else—a worry she hadn't quite been able to tell her son, caught at the corner of her mouth. I took her hand.
"Mom, there isn't some problem, is there?"
"Hm?"
"The galleries are packed in side by side. If you came early this morning, something should have turned up by now, but you're still worrying... so I wondered if something was wrong."
Maybe she thought an eleven-year-old had seen straight through her. Song Suhee fought to keep her face composed. The secretary was another matter.
"......!"
The shock showed plainly, impossible to hide.