The Hidden Photograph from Vienna
Thirty seconds of beautiful music came to an end.
The little bird gave a motion as though it were preening its feathers with its beak, then slipped neatly back into the box.
Even after the bird box fell silent, the lingering echo of that clear song seemed to hover by the ears.
Wang Wei drew in a deep breath.
"I've handled all kinds of relics, but this is the first one with a story this dramatic behind it. And on top of that, it's one of the pieces made by the Freres Rocha brothers, lavishly decorated with expensive jewels. The gems alone must be worth a fortune. To think it's been preserved in perfect condition as well. Astonishing."
He went on to add another explanation.
"Not a single spring is damaged. Not a single gear, either. You can tell just how painstakingly the people who owned this protected it."
Then Si-woo noticed faint lettering in one corner of the photograph.
He pointed at it.
"Could you enlarge that writing for me?"
"Hmm? The writing? Just a moment."
In an instant, the tiny text came into view through the magnifier.
[Anna & Josef & Maria, 1939 Wien]
Anna, Josef, and Maria. Vienna, 1939.
The ink had faded over the years and grown blurry, but it was still easy enough to make out.
"Looks like these are the names of the people in the photo. If we have information like this, we might be able to learn more about them."
Shin A-young said brightly.
The more a relic carried a story, the higher its value tended to climb.
"What are you planning to do with this piece?"
At Wang Wei's question, everyone's eyes in the room turned to Si-woo.
"I..."
Incheon International Airport, Terminal 2 departure hall.
Yang Dong-seok, the general director, was pacing in front of the boarding gate.
Normally he would have been sitting back in the business lounge, enjoying coffee with his laptop open.
But today he had no mind for that.
On the smartphone in his hand was a message from Director Choi Min-ho.
Choi Min-ho, the renowned documentary director who had even won a prize at the Asia Awards.
A man who didn't so much as blink at ordinary affairs had used the word "fantastic."
And he had even added an exclamation point.
That wasn't like him.
Even from the text alone, it was obvious he was in an exceptionally heightened state.
What on earth happened to make him this worked up? He could at least send me a text that gives me some idea.
Yang Dong-seok kept pacing and waiting for Si-woo's call.
But he couldn't hold out any longer and made the call himself.
The flight time was drawing closer and closer.
If he boarded without hearing what this was about, he might spend the next four hours going out of his mind with curiosity.
In that case, it's better to call first.
The line rang twice.
Then a calm voice came through the receiver.
"Yes, General Director Yang Dong-seok."
"Haha. Appraiser Kim Si-woo. Are you free to talk right now?"
"Yes, please go ahead."
"I just got an urgent message from Director Choi. Something happened in Hong Kong, I hear?"
Yang Dong-seok asked in a voice thick with anticipation.
He couldn't begin to guess what story would come out of this.
Unlike Yang Dong-seok, Si-woo's voice was more subdued than usual.
He had seen Josef and his family part with his own eyes.
From that perspective, he couldn't simply rejoice at having found the relic.
"Well..."
He briefly explained everything that had happened so far.
How he had caught the thief on Cat Street.
How, when the stall toppled, he discovered a box beneath it, stained black with some unknown substance.
How, after buying it from a secondhand shop, he had gone to a famous restorer at Sotheby's, dismantled the outer box, and discovered the Singing Bird box hidden inside.
After hearing the story, Yang Dong-seok burst into a hearty laugh.
"Hahaha! That's truly incredible!"
This was a huge find.
He could not hide how excited he was.
His cheeks lifted high as he smiled.
"But is the bird box genuine?"
"Yes. It's very likely Freres Rocha's Singing Bird box."
"Freres Rocha?"
"Yes. It's an automaton made by a craftsman in Geneva, Switzerland, 200 years ago. The outside was disguised with tar and resin, but the inside has been perfectly preserved in wax, so it still works."
Yang Dong-seok swallowed hard.
Perfectly preserved, he thought.
At the very least, if this aired, people would be unable to look away.
His mind raced with calculations.
But the next words that came through the receiver left him dazed.
"But, General Director Yang Dong-seok. That's not the important part."
"What do you mean?"
"There was a hidden compartment in the bottom of the box. Inside it were a photograph and a letter written behind it."
A little girl named Anna.
A fate that had forced her to leave for Shanghai when her U.S. visa wasn't issued.
"The photo taken in Vienna in 1939 contains the story of how they had to flee to escape Nazi persecution."
Yang Dong-seok listened quietly to Si-woo's account.
"What I want to know is why the Singing Bird box Anna took with her ended up disguised so secretly in a Hong Kong secondhand shop, and what happened to her family."
When he heard the whole story, a shiver ran through Yang Dong-seok.
Still holding the phone, he opened a search window on his laptop.
'1939 Vienna Jews'
The results poured in.
His eyes fell on one article among many.
[In August 1938, the notorious Adolf Eichmann established the "Central Office for Jewish Emigration" in Vienna, seizing Jewish property and forcibly expelling them.]
This is it.
Yang Dong-seok's heart began to pound faster.
The workshop had been created in August '38.
The date written on the photograph was '39.
It was plausible enough.
The Nazis had systematically expelled Vienna's Jews.
Josef and Anna had been among them.
More than half of Vienna's 200,000 Jews were forcibly expelled in that period.
Yang Dong-seok clenched his fist.
This was war and separation.
A promise that had crossed eighty years.
Forgotten history.
A vast human drama that struck at the universal tear ducts of humanity.
This... works.
A massive vision exploded outward in Yang Dong-seok's mind.
This wasn't content aimed simply at the Asian market.
The Holocaust and family love.
It was global content that America, Europe, and indeed the whole world could feel.
"Appraiser Kim Si-woo."
Yang Dong-seok said in a grave voice.
"I'll persuade them however I can and make Nutflix throw the full weight of the company behind this."
His eyes flashed sharply.
"I'll make sure we find the story behind Anna's family. Whether Josef ever reached America, and what became of him. What Anna and Maria went through in Shanghai. I'll use Nutflix's information network to trace the traces left behind by the past. And we'll put that whole process into the documentary."
"I was actually going to ask you for that anyway, so thank you. I want to know how they lived after that. If we can't find them, I think it'll stay stuck in my heart forever."
Their figures, preserved in the relic's memory, still refused to leave his mind.
"Appraiser Kim Si-woo. This is really a favor we'd like to ask of you instead. Good. Please wait a moment. I'll head to Hong Kong right away."
"Yes, I'll wait."
After hanging up, Yang Dong-seok found his palm soaked with sweat.
Ding-dong.
An announcement rang through the airport speakers.
"Attention. Boarding for OZ745 to Hong Kong will shortly close. Passengers who have not yet boarded are requested to proceed promptly to Gate 253. We repeat..."
Yang Dong-seok came to his senses with a start.
"Ah, I'm sorry! I'm coming! I'm on my way now!"
He adjusted his briefcase and ran toward the boarding bridge.
His breath was coming in ragged gasps, but his steps felt lighter than ever.
Settled into his business-class seat, Yang Dong-seok sank into thought.
The young appraiser Kim Si-woo was extraordinary.
Every relic he had uncovered so far had been anything but ordinary.
He was someone whose future looked brighter with every passing day.
But this incident made one thing clear.
He wasn't merely a man who found antiques, appraised them, and raised their value.
He was someone who could bring forgotten history back into the present.
If we invest capital and trace the remnants of Anna's family...
An epic about finding a lost family and a lost history.
From Vienna to Shanghai. From Shanghai to Hong Kong. And then to New York.
He wanted to capture their difficult journey in a documentary.
It would be a voyage to uncover the answers to countless questions.
Outside the window, the night view of Incheon Airport spread out below him.
The runway lights stretched out in long lines.
Taking on Kim Si-woo was truly a stroke of genius.
Thunk.
With the vibration of the plane, it broke free of the runway and surged into the sky.
He watched Incheon Airport's lights grow smaller and smaller beyond the window.
Hong Kong was about four hours away.
For that entire stretch of time, his mind never stopped working.
How should he tell this story to the world?
How could he make it reach even more people's hearts?
Already, he could see it vividly: the documentary thumbnail gracing Nutflix's front page and the tears shed by viewers around the world.
He had no doubt that the IP belonging to the appraiser Kim Si-woo would spread beyond Korea and out across the globe.
After finishing the preview event tour through China's major cities, the Qianlong's Dragon Gate Great Vase finally returned to Hong Kong.
Sotheby's Maison, Concentric Hall.
Even in the darkness of night, the area around it blazed more brilliantly than ever.
Valet attendants moved busily back and forth.
Vrooom, vrrrooom.
With low, dignified engine notes, luxury cars worth hundreds of millions of won entered one after another.
Then, from a sleek sports car, a young businessman stepped out with an elegant woman at his side.
The security staff at the entrance bowed politely.
The process of checking invitations and identification was stricter than airport immigration.
Only after passing through a metal detector and a separate security screening could one reach the auction hall entrance.
"Why is it so tight?"
One attendee complained, but the person beside him rebuked him.
"It's not your first time here, so why do you complain every time?"
One expensive car after another arrived.
Everyone who stepped out of them was draped head to toe in costly luxury.
The men wore the finest bespoke tuxedos.
The women wore evening gowns from famous designers.
The jewelry hanging from their necks and the rings on their fingers easily ran into the hundreds of millions of won.
Hong Kong tycoons, Singaporean entrepreneurs, mainland Chinese tech nouveaux riches.
Countless agents came in their place for the wealthy who preferred not to be known.
A massive LED banner lit up the night sky.
[Showtheby's Presents: The Legacy of Emperor Qianlong]
Beneath it, the image of the Qianlong's Dragon Gate Great Vase floated like a hologram.
Nine dragons intertwined with one another as they soared upward.
Everyone passing by stopped in their tracks to look up.
"Oh, that's tonight's main event."
"I heard it'll easily go past three hundred million dollars."
"Who on earth is going to take it home?"
On both sides, Sotheby's staff stood in rows.
At the far end of the corridor, before the auction hall's massive doors, the grand notes of a string quartet drifted out.
At the center of the hall, 300 seats were arranged like an amphitheater.
Each seat had a tablet installed.
And an interface ready for real-time bidding.
On one side of the hall, Chairman Wang entered slowly, leaning on his cane.
The chief of staff and his attendants followed behind him.
"Chairman, those are the VIP seats assigned over there."
Then, from the entrance, a murmur rose.
Representative Liu came in accompanied by a young woman.
He was dressed in a refined tuxedo and wore a confident smile.
After looking around the hall, Liu met the chairman's eyes.
Without hesitation, he walked straight over to Wang.
"Sir, we meet again here."
"..."
The chairman's voice was cold.
"Haha. You could have sent a proxy. Was there really any need for you to come in person at your age? I'm just here because I happened to be in Hong Kong for business."
A spark seemed to jump in the chairman's eyes.
"Don't worry. I'm not old enough to die just yet. I'm going to win the auction today, take the Qianlong's Dragon Gate Great Vase back to my museum, and look at it for at least another ten years before I die."
It was a declaration of his determination to take it no matter what.
The atmosphere in the auction hall was already heating up.