The Kingdom's Pillar
It was just after the words breaking news flashed along the bottom of the television.
Jo Sudeok set the receiver down in shock. Vice Chairman Park Jongin, holding an official press conference? On a day like this, he might well be unreachable until nightfall.
Jo turned the volume up at once, then stared at the screen with grave concentration, as if he himself were an executive of Hyeon-gang.
For some twenty minutes Vice Chairman Park Jongin laid out his vision for the semiconductor business and the scale of the investment. Then he took questions. He was the sort of man who normally shrank from the press, yet today he went on answering in detail for more than an hour. A few of the questions were fiercely technical. He met them without a stumble, no script in front of him, no engineer at his elbow. What he worked at was unfolding his own knowledge until an ordinary listener could follow it.
Well, then.
No wonder the questions tasted so good.
The reporters' hands kept rising, without end. How much longer slipped past after that? At last the final question came.
"Could we hear one word about your resolve, going forward?"
Vice Chairman Park Jongin steadied his breath, then spoke.
"I have two sons. My dream is to build a company I will not be ashamed to give them. And, beyond that—"
The hall seemed to hesitate.
"My ultimate goal is to create a healthy industry in which my sons' generation can work. I will keep seeking ways to contribute to society. Thank you."
He was just rising from his seat to bow from the waist.
"Bravo!"
The cheer tore out of Jo Sudeok before he knew he meant to give it. Yes. That was how you did it. A press conference was supposed to go exactly like that.
"Heh heh heh."
A moment later the phone rang, bright as if it were cheering too.
He lifted the receiver, and a familiar voice came across.
"Sir! You called the instant the press conference ended."
"You saw it?"
"Of course. I'm half a Hyeon-gang man myself. Obviously I watched."
Perhaps embarrassed by his own line, Jo hurried on.
"I'd actually tried to call you, but I couldn't get through, so I never managed to make my report."
"A report?"
"I found a decent listing for the building you mentioned. The price is 7.5 billion won. Steep, I'll grant you, but the lot is large. There are good companies all around it..."
"What kind of companies?"
"Intel. An integrated semiconductor—"
"Sign the contract."
"Sorry?"
He still had plenty left to explain.
"You mean it's next to Intel?"
"Yes. Right on their doorstep."
"Go ahead."
"As expected... your decisions run half a beat early, sir."
Jo was just smiling with pleasure when the voice came again.
"Professor, see that one matter through for me, and no more."
"Only that one?"
"You need to be doing your own work now. That's why I called."
"...?"
"I called because I was afraid you'd take on this and that out of some needless sense of duty."
"This is Jo Sudeok. This much is nothing—"
"And your solo exhibition?"
At the sudden turn toward a solo show, Jo's shoulders flinched inward.
"Are you working on new pieces?"
"Ah, I have been trying..."
"My affairs can be handed to someone else. We can hardly ask another person to make your work, Professor."
"So I've been trying to paint in the gaps..."
"Not in the gaps. You have to give it everything you have. This is the best moment for you to leap as an artist."
"You aren't... talking around a resignation, are you?"
"Who tries to raise a building by shaking loose its own pillar?"
That word. Surely he didn't mean that Jo Sudeok himself was the pillar?
Ha!
The fatigue of the night before seemed to blow away in a single breath, and on the strength of that feeling Jo prattled on and on: the private audience with Chairman Park the day before, his attempt to carry that emotion onto canvas, and the rest of it.
"I failed, of course."
"Still, I'm glad you've started."
"It's barely the first shovelful."
"In any case, Professor, for the time being please concentrate only on the paintings. You'll have to be what lights the museum opening."
Sweet, just to hear it.
"I'll call again."
And so the call ended.
A president who telephoned in person to tell him to quit working and focus on painting. And more than that—the pillar of the kingdom this president was raising—
That was him?
The mere thought warmed the left side of his chest. Where was the time for sitting around with it?
Work.
Sleep was for the dead. From here, he would simply keep running. Wait—before that.
One call to America, first.
Spirit blazing, Jo snatched up the receiver.
"The president's approval is in, so sign the contract. Right now!"
Then Jo Sudeok, vitamins in hand, headed for the studio. His eyes were blazing, hotter with zeal than those of the students in their twenties.
Time passed quickly, and through it I kept rather busy. I closed the contract for Sun Dongyeol and found a detached house where the authentication team could live. That much was nothing. With help from the people at Hyeon-gang, it was easily done.
The trouble was choosing a North American distributor for Daisho. I could hardly ask Hyeon-gang to handle American business, which meant I had to look into the distributors myself. Fortunately it wasn't as fussy as I'd feared.
This is the one.
I called Mr. Hideo at once.
"All of them... in America?"
"Yes."
"W-we'd have to sell more than ten thousand units. I appreciate you saying so, but it sounds too much like a dream."
A dream? Hardly.
Gorillong was going to be an enormous hit in North America.
"I'll take the responsibility. Trust me, and go ahead."
The busy work didn't stop there. The authentication team entered the country, and a few days later the work began at Seoul National University. It went smoothly. The team settled into Korea quickly, and every day they threw themselves into the job. Perhaps because Hyeon-gang was involved, the university was friendly as well. Not that it mattered. I hadn't even set a deadline. All they had to do was show me the result in their own time.
Then, one day, Martin called me himself. Fortunately Seoul National seemed to be overflowing with interpreters.
"Sir, do you remember what I told you?"
"Which part?"
"My hypothesis that this painting forms a pair with Lady with an Ermine."
"Yes. I remember."
Around the time da Vinci sought the patronage of the Duchy of Milan, this portrait was the one of Duke Ludovico, and Lady with an Ermine was the one of the duke's mistress. That was what he had said.
"To prove my hypothesis, I need a crack sample from the Lady painting."
From what I'd read, that Lady was held by the Czartoryski Museum in Poland.
A crack... something like a scab over a wound, maybe.
Even so, they would not lightly let a sample of a national-treasure-class work leave the country.
"That'll be difficult, won't it?"
"Which is why I'm asking you."
"If I bring back just that, are we over the last ridge?"
"I can identify it with 99.9 percent certainty."
What else could I do? If it succeeded, another 150 billion won would come falling in. When they asked, I had no choice but to get it done.
It isn't even something I have to do myself.
I went straight to Chairman Park and explained. His answer was this.
"Why don't you go yourself?"
"Pardon?"
"Well? Long as you're in Poland, you might as well dig up a little hidden treasure, eh?"
"Grandfather, really. Is it as easy as you make it sound?"
America, I had flown to because I had information. About Poland, I didn't particularly know a thing. Anyway. Perhaps because a da Vinci he had only dreamed of hung in the balance, Chairman Park moved in earnest. No conclusion had come yet, but if the chairman himself was stepping forward—
There shouldn't be any real trouble.
With the large matters cleared away, I was able to live an ordinary life after that: reading the books I'd fallen behind on, and throwing my spare hours into English conversation. Days positively paved with peace.
And then, of all things, once those quiet days began to repeat, a faint itch started up.
Well. Things had been a little too dynamic.
Judging by how I couldn't concentrate at all...
Maybe I've gotten addicted to business.
Even so, I gritted through a few days. There was also what Professor Jo Sudeok had told me—not that he had said anything so remarkable. A first private meeting with Chairman Park is the sort of thing that knocks the sense clean out of a man, and Jo had been no exception; he couldn't remember the conversation whole. I didn't want to fool around and set off alarms, so I held out, and held out again.
A few days later, I remembered a dream I had completely forgotten.
What if I started a publishing house?
A press filled with nothing but the books I wanted. And a hopelessly book-mad president to run it: the critic Yoo Dongjin.
Not bad.
It was a business, granted, but a house that published books for my own pleasure—how much profit could a thing like that really turn?
Right. At that size, it won't even set off an alarm.
Let's speak plainly. My appetite for money was already on display before the whole world. Just try leaving the cash tied up in an account and staring into space.
That would look even stranger.
If I was going to look suspicious anyway... better to run even a small business... ahem!
Rationalization(?) thus complete, I left the house at once and asked the chauffeur to drive. If only I would hurry and grow up, so I could take the wheel myself.
The lock clicked. The engine rumbled. While the S-Class pulled out of the garage, I quietly put my thoughts in order.
Founding a press is something I could do today.
I even had a president already picked out. What was there to worry about? The important part was finding writers.
The first author...
The deliberation didn't last long. Right. I only had to bring in the writer I loved most. I sat down in the passenger seat and spoke to the chauffeur.
"Sinchon. Yonsei University, please."