Design's Hyeongang
An hour later, in Chairman Park's study at the Hannam-dong house.
Under the orange light, Park Yonghak set his magnifying glass down and asked,
"Those gallery punks all lining up to get in good with me, and what? You went and picked Western paintings to suit yourself?"
Song Suhee had no answer.
"So you thought the Insadong sharks would roll out a carpet so you could shop in comfort?"
"I'm sorry."
"Thieves swarm where the money goes. Did you think dodging them would make it go away?"
Again she was silent.
"Turn the world inside out and look. Nothing but people hungry for your money. You set a son like that aside and keep company only with the easy ones—what kind of business do you think you're going to run?"
"I have no excuse, Father."
Park Yonghak did not so much as glance at the paintings his daughter-in-law had brought.
"Have you ever thought about why I'm building an art museum?"
"As the company has grown... as a form of social contribution."
"Why? Do I look to you like a man who'd think of giving money away before he's finished making it?"
Not a chance.
"If it doesn't help Hyeon-gang, I'm the sort who begrudges even a pack of gum."
She said nothing.
"And that man is going to build a museum and call it a contribution to society?"
His eyes went sharp, as if to say she had misunderstood him down to the bone.
"A merchant's greatest contribution is making a pile of money, isn't it? Create jobs, pay a heap of taxes, and that's enough. Why should I have to build a museum with my own money on top of it!"
At that point he might well have told her to get out. Instead Park Yonghak reached for his teacup, as if he still had more to say. While the tea lost its warmth, the chairman found his composure again.
"You want to know why I build the museum."
"Yes, Father."
"Technological progress is bound to hit a stall someday. Hyeon-gang will catch Japan, and the day will come when China looks to pass us. That's what I mean."
She drew a sharp breath.
"Once the stall comes and everybody's performance is much of a muchness, where's the difference going to be? Design, obviously."
That was the twenty-first century as Park Yonghak saw it.
"I lay the foundation, and my boy innovates and brings first-rate technology into bloom. And in the grandsons' generation..."
She waited.
"We'll have to establish the company's identity, won't we."
"D- Design's Hyeongang."
Song Suhee swallowed, and a smile settled at the corner of Park Yonghak's mouth—the look of a man who had not taken in an art-school daughter-in-law for nothing. Learn a great deal while she planned the museum, then pass the eye she cultivated straight on to the grandsons. That, in the end, was what he meant.
"Even so, a child's education is better left to his mother, wouldn't you say?"
"I understand exactly what you mean."
"Good. Off you go."
At his word, Song Suhee bowed her head.
Left alone in the study, Park Yonghak stared a hole through the paintings his daughter-in-law had brought. A work by a student still in university, she'd said. Better than he'd expected.
Busy scolding her, and I forgot to ask what she paid.
He clicked his tongue at the missed chance, then slowly looked over the place where Song Suhee had been sitting.
The night before, he had quietly let a rumor slip toward Insadong: Hyeon-gang's daughter-in-law was coming to look at goods. They would line up to curry favor on their own. If she came back pleased with works obtained that way, he had meant to give her a piece of his mind.
I sent you to train your eye, and you lean on my name and take a shortcut?
He would have gone about that far. It was a test, if you could call it a test.
But Song Suhee had produced a choice he had never expected.
Western painting...
First, the honesty of not hoping for an easy windfall had pleased him. The wit of turning to her own field and seeking another way had stood out as well. And for the result of pure improvisation—
"Hm."
The work in front of him was not half bad. He would still have to confirm what she had paid, of course.
He was just about to rise when something unexpected caught his feet.
"...?"
To the left of the desk, one entire bookshelf stood empty. A whole stretch of wall had been stripped bare, as if a thief had been through. What kind of mess was this? There was no chance a real thief had broken into Park Yonghak's house, and even if one had, he would hardly have made off with nothing but books.
The puzzlement lasted only a moment.
"...!"
He remembered what he had told his grandson at dinner the night before. If you've been through the shelves in the living room, go on and take the books in my study too. They won't so much as twitch for a good year.
Then that little rascal...
Had he really carried off all those books? Dumbfounded, Park Yonghak let out a dry laugh.
"Ha!"
At that same hour, a pencil went scratch, scratch across paper.
If only I had a typewriter. Even so, there was no other word for the room. This is paradise, and no mistake!
Anyway, what had become of Song Suhee? She hadn't been chewed to pieces by Chairman Park, had she?
Hm.
Park Yonghak's love of art was famous. More than once he had discovered a promising painter and bought up every early work. He would have taken a fair interest in Lee Yoonki's painting too.
Right. At least she avoided the worst.
I tried to turn my attention back to the books. Not a chance. The painting I had seen earlier still wavered in front of my eyes.
All I could do was click my tongue. It really was a wonderful piece. When I grew up and earned my own money, that painting would be the first thing—
No. There was no way it would still be there by then. People had eyes. Of course they would recognize it and snap it up in no time.
The thought went that far, and a groan slipped out of me before I knew it.
"Nngh."
Even a third-generation heir of Hyeon-gang couldn't polish a few pairs of his parents' shoes and then wheedle, Please buy me just one painting. Saving my allowance would take an age of its own.
Is there anywhere money might come from?
Not a question for an eleven-year-old (?). By rights no decent answer should have come to me, and yet the self who had lived to thirty-five (?) thought of a fairly convincing method.
The New Spring Literary Contest.
Yes. In my previous life I had taken in quite a lot of prize money and lived off it comfortably for months. Let's see. It's the middle of November... there's still time, isn't there? As a rule, manuscripts for the New Spring Literary Contest were due in early December. The eighties were a renaissance of Korean literature, so the prizes would hardly be stingy.
This is better than I thought.
Writing something was no guarantee of winning. Even so! I had been a writer people watched, winner in turn of the Young Writers' Award, the Dong-in Literary Award, and the Yi Hyoseok Literary Award. A New Spring Literary Contest, at least, I could manage somehow.
Mm. If I was truly uneasy, I could write several pieces and scatter them across different papers. Yes. Once the money came in, a typewriter first. And Yoo Seonho's Spiral, hung without fail on my wall.
Maybe it was because I finally had a goal.
Write, first.
I closed my small hand around the long pencil.
Time flew. Through all of it I threw myself into writing like a madman.
I will take that prize money, no matter what!
I burned through night after white night on that single resolve, and in the end I finished submissions to no fewer than four dailies—conservative, progressive, and centrist alike. I hadn't known it of myself, but I was a greedy creature.
So what! A life of nothing but grinding, and then I died. If I wanted a little recompense in this life, what was wrong with that? Even if it is wrong, there's nothing for it. I'm going to live however I please.
Even while I devoted myself to economic activity (?), I kept an ear open to Song Suhee's affairs, and thanks to that I heard quite a few interesting things. Just as Chairman Park had ordered, she reported to Insadong every day, and she never forgot to bring home fine antique works when she returned.
Here was the astonishing part. Though no one had asked her to, she also came back each time with exactly one Western painting. It wasn't even a two-for-one, and it meant twice the labor: mornings in Insadong, afternoons ranging across the art colleges of Seoul, or so I heard. Grit, or stubbornness? She's something else, I'll give her that.
As the works she brought home piled up one by one, the day of the New Spring Literary Contest announcement drew near as well.
The winners are announced on the first day of the new year, but that is only on the page. There are interviews to conduct and an awards ceremony to attend, so they always make individual contact at least before Christmas.
By now the call ought to have come.
If I'd had a mobile phone I would have given my own number, but this was an age without even a pager, so I'd had no choice but to list the house line. Because of that I hovered anxiously near the telephone every day. Not that I could answer it as I pleased. When a call came, a member of the staff first confirmed the business, and only then was it put through to the family.
Can't even take a single call on my own... So chaebol life had its inconveniences too.
Several days passed that way. I had even dragged a sofa up beside the phone and was reading there when I last looked at the clock, sometime around two in the afternoon.
Rrrring.
The bell tore through the room. While a staff member hurried over to answer, I set my book down and stared at the receiver.
"......"
Not this time either. Watching his face go stiff, I pouted.
The 1980s—the golden age of Korean literature, when talented writers poured forth. Even so, is it this hard just to debut? Popular appeal might have been a little thin, but I had been sure the artistry and the aesthetic value were more than enough.
Could it be... Had they taken against the crooked child's handwriting? Otherwise it made no sense. I lived as a writer for years. A total wipeout at the New Spring Literary Contest—how does that even make sense!
Haa. All sorts of thoughts were swirling through my head when the staff member's voice sharpened.
"If you have something to confirm, you'll need to call headquarters. Even a businessman has a private life. Phoning the residence out of nowhere like this..."
Perhaps because the air had turned ugly, he glanced at me. He could hardly use harsh words in front of the young master of a chaebol house.
"You're saying it isn't for a story? And I'm supposed to take that at face value?"
Wait. This call was a little off.
"Mister."
Afraid the conversation might carry, he covered the mouthpiece with his palm and turned toward me.
"Yes, young master."
"This call..."
"...?"
"Is it a newspaper, by any chance?"
"It—it is, but."
"That... it isn't a call for me, is it?"
"For you, young master?"
"Please just check. Quickly."
He tilted his head, then relayed what I had said. A moment later he turned back with a thoroughly startled face.
"Young master, did you... by any chance enter the New Spring Literary Contest?"
The instant the words left his mouth, I let out a great shout.
"Waaah!"