The Faceless Painter
The faceless painter. He made his name attacking the art establishment, and he did it while hiding who he was down to the last detail, working in graffiti and whatever else he pleased.
The veil did nothing to shrink his reach. Banksy's influence was enormous. One scribble on an ordinary wall, and the house behind it could jump ten times in price, twenty. By that point the world badly wanted to know who he was.
What had actually been established came to roughly this: British, born in the 1970s, a white man. Put another way—
If that information is right, the chance that Yoo Seonho is Banksy is basically zero.
I looked at the drawing in silence. A bouquet where a Molotov ought to be. Striking, yes, but not an idea only Banksy could have had.
Was I imagining things?
If it had been only the idea, I could have written the whole business off as a simple mistake. But what was I supposed to do with the style itself? This way of painting looked viciously like Banksy's walls.
My head was still a knot of questions that would not come loose.
"Kid, what are you thinking so hard about all by yourself?"
The teaching assistant.
"You like it that much?"
"Sorry? Oh—yes."
"But what am I supposed to do? However good the terms are, I can't hand the piece over without the student's consent."
"Um, miss?"
"Yeah?"
"The guy who painted this. Do you know where he's going to study abroad?"
"Couldn't say. I haven't heard a thing."
"…"
"America, probably? New York's where everybody wants to be these days."
Hmm.
If he were headed for Britain, I might have had something to chew on about Yoo Seonho and Banksy. Even then I'd just be forcing him into that 'British national' box. That's all it would be.
I stared down at the drawing a while longer.
"If you do get in touch with him later…"
"Mm."
"Could you call my house?"
"Your… house?"
"Yes."
"If I call, are you—are you the one who picks up?"
"No. One of the staff will probably answer."
"Oh. There's someone at your house whose only job is the phone?"
I could feel some grand misunderstanding about chaebol households taking root, but fine.
"Anyway, thank you for all your help today."
I bowed, and she asked again.
"And the chauffeur drives you all the way home?"
"Yes."
"Wow."
I left the art-school studio with that baffling little gasp of awe behind me.
In the moving car I kept my eyes on the window and quietly put my thoughts in order.
What if Yoo Seonho really is Banksy? Buying his early work would be an outrageous investment. And even if he isn't, I still don't lose. At the most generous estimate, his pieces sat around a million won. Next to the quality, that's a giveaway. A straight giveaway.
Whatever he turned out to be, I meant to buy. All that remained was to wait calmly for the assistant's call.
Except my heart would not cooperate. It thudded and slammed until calmly was out of the question.
Banksy. Nothing had been proved. Nothing at all. And still a shiver I couldn't name took hold of my whole body—the private privilege, maybe, of someone who already knew the future.
The thought went that far, and greed stirred with it. If I'm investing anyway, wouldn't it be better to buy every one of Yoo Seonho's drawings? If the oil was a million won, the drawings together shouldn't clear two. And if, by some wild chance, there really was a thread between Yoo Seonho and Banksy? Those three million won might someday turn into ten billion.
Feels a little strange, doing business in pictures. Still. The return is past imagining.
I'd been so poor in my last life that I thought I had no interest in money. Maybe I was a greedier creature than I'd believed.
"Ahem."
The embarrassed cough brought an instant answer from the chauffeur up front.
"Shall I get you some water?"
"No. I'm all right."
"If the air's dry, I'll turn the heater off."
"It's fine, really."
I dipped my head, and he returned a small bow of his own.
Hoo. Knowing the future was certainly something. Buy only the stocks and property already destined to explode, and you could become absurdly rich. But picking a fight for no reason is forbidden. Strut around trying to make a little money, and—
Didn't know the boy's eye was this sharp. All right. Forget Yugeon. You want to take a crack at electronics?
The day they dumped semiconductors and mobile phones on me, this second life I'd barely managed to get would turn into nothing but misery. The picture alone was awful. If I absolutely had to run part of the company, it had to be art and nothing else. The field where I can actually be happy. Art! Which meant, said the other way around, using what I know of the future has to stay inside art, too.
Maybe that was why my head finally felt sorted. Things I'd forgotten started coming back, one and then another. I'm already out. Might as well buy what I need before I go home.
I leaned toward the driver's seat.
"Could we stop by a department store for a minute?"
"Of course. Shall I take you to the nearest Hyeon-gang Department Store?"
"Yes, please."
The words were hardly out before the car took the light and turned. Toward Myeongdong.
At that same hour a stack of paper sat on Park Yonghak's desk: the original of the manuscript Jihun had sent.
"Wrote a heap, he did."
At that the chief secretary gave a dry little laugh.
"Well? They give you any lip?"
"There was some resistance. But if Jihun takes all four prizes, none of the papers will be able to produce a winner of their own."
"So they lost, and they're pretending it was a favor."
"Yes. I also suspect they think that if they grant Hyeon-gang's request, they can look forward to advertising money later."
"Live with chaebol stuck in their throats, and the second there's an opening it's ads, ads."
"I'll see the spending is spread around properly."
Park Yonghak waved him off as if he couldn't care less.
"And that thing I told you to look into?"
"Yes. We asked around among the ghostwriters, but nothing came of it. Working authors were much the same."
"So the little brat wrote this himself?"
"We found nothing to suggest otherwise. Only…"
"…?"
"The final-round judges who read the young master's work all said the same thing. It still felt young, but the sentences were solid—not a debut so much as a writer who's been at it for years. And the way he writes is new enough that it stood out."
Artists are an arrogant breed. People who can barely pause in the rush to insist they themselves are the best—if that lot poured out praise as if they'd rehearsed it, then the work had cleared ordinary by a long way.
"Hmph."
"You seem to be thinking hard."
"Thinking about what."
"…"
"The money get sent?"
"Yes. It's gone into the account in the young master's name, as you instructed."
"You did fine. Get out."
A bow. Park Yonghak watched the chief secretary's back recede.
"Level of a working writer…"
The chairman murmured it to himself, quietly.
Outside Hyeon-gang Department Store. In my last life I'd had no reason to set foot in a place like this. It always felt like paying extra for the exact same thing, so I checked the lowest price online, confirmed the free-shipping badge, and only then, reluctantly, hit buy.
And now the department store I'd thought I'd never have any business with turned out to belong to my own family. Still doesn't feel real, you say? Once I saw the staff come pouring out to receive a member of the owner family, I had no choice but to feel, in my whole body, that I was part of Hyeon-gang.
"If we'd known the young master was coming, we would have prepared in advance."
"…"
"Where shall I take you?"
"…Hm."
"For reference, the luxury hall is this way."
"Ah. I came to buy a typewriter."
"Pardon?"
A typewriter, from the mouth of the owner family—he clearly hadn't imagined it. The blank look lasted only a moment before he tucked it away.
"A typewriter, of all things…"
"Writing with a pencil hurts too much."
"So it only needs to let you write?"
"Yes. That's all."
"Then might I suggest a word processor?"
"A word what?"
"It's similar to a typewriter, only a step up. There's a small screen, so simple documents won't be any trouble."
Oh!
I'd read something like that in essays by foreign writers. Late seventies, early eighties—they used word processors with black-and-white screens, or so they said.
"This one's from Brother Industries in Japan. It hardly ever breaks, and it's quite good."
"Can I see it?"
The curiosity was enough. He led the way looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
"Young master, the staff of our store labor day and night for the advancement of Hyeon-gang…"
Not a speech you make to an eleven-year-old. He wanted it carried home to my parents. By the time we reached the appliance corner, he had already changed the subject.
"Here. This one."
"Ah."
A sort of laptop, then. Clunky-looking, but the keys had a decent feel under my fingers. Letters came up on the screen a little slow. Easy correction with the backspace, though—that was a real advantage.
"Does it please you?"
"It's excellent."
"I'm glad it was of use. Shall I have it loaded in the trunk?"
"Yes, please."
"Leave it to me. And where shall I take you now? The way down to the luxury hall is over—"
"No. I'll go by myself."
"Pardon?"
You would have thought lightning had struck him. His eyes went round.
"If I've fallen short somewhere, or if the attention was a burden…"
"It's not that. I'm stopping at the bookstore."
"The… bookstore?"
"I can find the books I want on my own. If I need help, I can ask the chauffeur."
"Ah. If only I could attend the young master all the way…"
That line only made it worse. Alone it would have to be. I was heading upstairs when the radio crackled.
"Young master is moving to the bookstore. Prepare so he can choose his books in comfort."
"(We'll see to it at once.)"
I heard every word between them, clear as anything. Ugh. I should stay out of department stores for a while. Regret arrived late. I hurried on.
Maybe it was Banksy still sitting in my head. The first place I went was the art-book corner. I wanted to look at pictures, and there are hardly any catalogues. Well. Even then, the public's attention was glued to prices shooting through the ceiling. This was the stretch after Picasso's death, when inflation swept the whole art market—paintings well past a hundred billion won appearing one after another, and the world gaping. No wonder most of the new books were stories about works and money.
A few of them were tempting enough. A picture bought in an antique shop that turned out to be genuine. A hundred thousand won on the counter, and the thing was actually worth billions. Tales of that sort. Well, well. They've even written up their own little methods for spotting the real thing. Pure fantasy. Hard to imagine anyone falling for a sales pitch like that—and yet, for all that, the display was piled high. Once in a blue moon the story was true, so people bought one on the chance of being fooled. Maybe that was it.
I was about to move on to the next section.
Wait.
I stopped where I stood. Antique shops. Masterpieces nobody had found yet. Now that I thought of it, my last life had had plenty of stories in the same vein. And this is the 1980s. Which meant a few of those cases might still be ahead of me, if I handled them right. Yes. That's it, isn't it?
I stayed there with my feet planted and, for a long while, started digging through my memory.