Who Will Guarantee Your Way?
That night, Chairman Park Yonghak sought out Seoul National University. Word had come that the gift(?) sent from Poland had arrived.
It was not only the crack sample from the da Vinci the chairman had demanded. The Czartoryski Museum had been in touch to say that, in honor of the opening of the Hyeon-gang Art Museum, it would lend some ninety works from its collection. If a relationship was to be opened at all, they clearly meant to arrive as a reliable ally.
So Poland's got someone with a working head on his shoulders.
When Chairman Park stepped into the authentication team's workroom, a familiar face bowed toward him.
"Chairman. It's been a while."
Lee Woongho, president of Seoul National University—a doctor of economics out of the University of Munich, and a man already rumored as the next prime minister.
The chairman laid a light hand on his shoulder.
"Busy these days, aren't you. What are you doing, coming all the way here to wait on me?"
"However busy I am, I could hardly skip greeting the Chairman."
"Good. Come by soon. I'll feed you."
No sooner had the words left him than the chief secretary was riffling through his notebook. A suitable date was picked out and offered, and President Lee Woongho's face broke into a bright smile.
Quite a few professors were waiting to pay their respects besides the president. Drawn up in ranks were the dean of the College of Humanities and the professors of Western history, art history, and aesthetics, and with them the dean of the College of Fine Arts and the rest of the art-school faculty.
The chairman spoke to the president as if the whole business bored him.
"When you go, take these gentlemen with you."
"Sir?"
"What? You draw a salary off the taxpayers and mean to just keep standing here?"
"Not at all, Chairman. I—I'd better be going."
Disappointment flooded the faces of the professors who had hoped, while they had the chance, to stamp their presence on him.
"Oh—and Jo Sudeok's here too?"
At the chairman's question, Jo Sudeok, stuck at the far end of the line, shot his hand into the air. Every eye turned on him at once. The look said it plainly enough: who are you, that Chairman Park remembers your name?
Jo Sudeok paid them no mind. He folded at the waist with the happiest smile in the world.
"You were looking for me, Chairman?"
"Heard you're killing yourself getting a solo show ready. You got time?"
"If the Chairman calls, I'd get up with the coffin lid half-shut."
Instead of answering, the chairman turned back to the president.
"What are you doing? Still not gone?"
"Yes... yes, Chairman."
The professors filed out in a line, every one of them busy stealing glances at Jo Sudeok. Once they had all gone, the workroom held only Chairman Park, Jo Sudeok, and the authentication team.
"Bet you couldn't get a lick of work done, with me coming."
At that, Jo waved his hands at once.
"The crack sample only just arrived. They say preparing the authentication will take quite some time."
They were acquainted now, and he seemed to have a little more ease than before. Even so, in the brief instant their eyes so much as met—
"......"
Jo Sudeok dropped his gaze to the floor.
The chairman walked past him, steady and unhurried, toward Martin.
"This the fellow you said was the leader?"
"Yes. He graduated first in his class from the physics department at MIT. A genuine prodigy."
The conversation had been in Korean, but Martin had the sense to bow.
"It's an honor to meet you. My name is Martin."
"Park Yonghak."
"I am deeply grateful for support far beyond anything we could have asked."
When Martin finished, the chairman turned to Jo Sudeok.
"And why's this one talking while he looks somewhere else? You have a conversation, you look each other in the eye."
"Ah, yes. The thing is... for an ordinary person, meeting the Chairman's eyes is... it isn't easy."
"Didn't you say he came from America?"
"The American ones scare even easier. That's been my experience, anyway."
At that point Martin offered Jo something almost under his breath.
"What's he saying?"
"Ah, well."
"Out with it."
"He says he feels as if he's... facing Darth Vader."
Perhaps because it was an expression he had never heard in his life, the corner of the chairman's mouth curled, just a little.
"Tell him we're talking business now."
"Yes, Chairman."
Chairman Park spoke English well enough, but specialist terms of authentication might come up, so Jo Sudeok took the interpreting.
"How long till there's a result?"
"He says a week is enough to examine the composition of both works in detail. If they confirm that the same period and the same paint were used, they'll send the test records to leading universities around the world."
"To other universities, you say?"
"Yes. He means to send the results to Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, and Princeton, and have them certify that the two compositions are identical."
Those universities could not authenticate a painting as art. They could, however, judge clearly enough whether the paint used in the two works was the same. In plain terms, the evaluation would be carried out in the strict domain of science.
"If the great universities gather behind a single opinion, he says the Oxford authentication team will have no choice but to withdraw its present position."
"And how long does our American boy say it'll take them to produce an answer?"
"Martin seems to be looking at two weeks at the minimum, but..."
"But?"
"I happen to know a few people on the American university side—the quiet sort of acquaintance. A few phone calls, and I suspect we could cut that time in half."
The answer must have pleased him. The chairman's gaze rested on Jo for a long moment.
"So from the authentication here at home all the way through the verification overseas, the thing gets settled inside two weeks. That what you're saying?"
"Yes. I'll see that it's handled cleanly."
He had been about to turn and go, but the chairman changed his mind and slowly looked around the workshop. Machines stood in rows. Works waited to be examined. There was even the crack sample come from Poland. For the first time, it felt as if the real work had begun to turn.
Hm.
Chairman Park was sincere about art, and yet he had never once dared to covet a work by da Vinci himself.
Living high, thanks to my grandson.
Come to think of it, everything in this room had been assembled inside that grandson's design. And even this was not enough to satisfy the boy? These days the kid was in and out of Yonsei without a pause, hatching yet another scheme.
All right. Go on—play as hard as you like.
As if he were looking forward to it, a broad smile spread across Chairman Park's mouth.
The next day, I took a call from Jeong Jinwook.
"President, I made inquiries. They say Yonsei has no official film club."
I was just about to swallow my disappointment when Jeong went on.
"Just in case, I went ahead and contacted the student club association."
I could tell from his voice alone.
He caught something!
Sure enough, Jeong put his weight behind the words.
"They say the student you mentioned, Bong Junoh, has already filed an application. He wants to start a film club."
"Really?"
"Yes. Apparently he asked whether the school could support him with filming equipment. The answer that came back was that even if the club is approved, that part would be difficult."
So that was why the prize money had been so desperate.
"I asked around. Right now he's shooting a short film with students from Hanyang University's Department of Theater and Film, so he can borrow their equipment."
"Is he filming even now?"
"Yes. The piece is set in Daehangno, so I hear he all but commutes to Hyehwa-dong every day."
"Then if we went right now, we could see him?"
"Yes?"
At my question, Jeong Jinwook's voice wavered, gone thin.
Daehangno. Finding the young Bong Junoh was not particularly hard.
An amateur crew stood in the middle of Marronnier Park, and among them was a face I knew all too well. An unkempt head of unusually thick hair. A male student in shabby clothes, a crude camera in his hands. His face had gone hollow, but the look that belonged to Bong Junoh alone remained, untouched.
I'm looking at Director Bong's college years?
A strange feeling. Like stealing a look through someone else's diary.
I watched the shoot from well off. There were three of them: two actors and one cameraman. Which was to say that Director Bong was taking on camera, audio, and direction all by himself.
"Again!"
The work was not going well. It was a film being shot alone; if it had gone smoothly, that would have been the stranger thing. Director Bong set the camera down and, face grave, began to coach the acting.
Had he memorized the dialogue whole? While the actors consulted the script, Director Bong launched into both parts by himself—the soldier in a voice pressed low, the schoolgirl carried all the way into a woman's voice, performed with everything he had. I'd heard both students aspired to be actors. Somehow the acting felt far better when Director Bong did it. He kept up his detailed demands: not only the tone of the lines, but the movement of the hands, even the pose in which they stood.
At last—
"Let's just run it."
Director Bong took up the camera again.
"Don't think about the camera. You don't have to concentrate on the lines. What matters is understanding the situation. Ready?"
Ready. Action.
But before even thirty seconds had passed, Director Bong called NG once more. More acting instruction followed.
Hm.
At this rate they were going to wear out. And sure enough, after the cycle had repeated a few times, the two actors poured out their discontent, neither waiting on the other.
I knew Director Bong's future, so it was different for me. Their position was certainly not the same. He wasn't even a film major, and he kept directing their acting. The camera wasn't even capturing them well, and still he fretted over every detail. To them it must have looked like fussing.
"We get that you're passionate. Even so, come on—how many times is this?"
"I'll just say it. Are you a director who's actually debuted? Have you even won a prize at a short-film festival? Who, exactly, is supposed to guarantee that your way is the right one?"
Aigoo.
Just as I'd thought, his leadership had been put to the test.
Words that could persuade them?
As if!
He had no prizes yet... With what he was shooting now... he was going to sweep the short-film festivals... Toss out an empty promise like that, and would they meekly believe it? That was the trouble.
And more than that, a Hanyang University sticker was plastered plain across the camera in Director Bong's hands. If the students declared a strike(?), the borrowed equipment would have to be returned on the spot.
In a situation like this—
The actors hold the upper hand, and Director Bong's the one who has to bow. What else.
What could you do. When no way through showed itself, there was nothing for it but to step in myself—and pick up a few points in the bargain.
"Team Leader, go on over. Quickly."
Jeong Jinwook strode toward Director Bong. And even while he did—
"Even the fourth-year seniors don't go this far."
"Anyone watching would think you'd spent years directing down in Chungmuro."
Director Bong was backed into a corner, taking a beating made of words.
Right then, Jeong Jinwook, turned out in an Armani suit, came up and spoke.
"Would you be Mr. Bong Junoh?"
In the instant all three gazes snapped to him, Jeong continued, unruffled.
"I've come from the Hyeon-gang Cultural Foundation. Forgive the intrusion, but might you spare a moment?"
"You came to see me?"
"Yes. You submitted a work to this contest, didn't you?"
"I... I did, but."
While the man himself wore a dazed look—
"The Hyeon-gang Cultural Foundation?"
"What contest?"
The students fired back sharply, as if they were spokesmen for Director Bong. Jeong opened his mouth without granting the two of them so much as a glance.
"Come with me. The president is waiting."