The Last Gift of a Father
London’s afternoon sunlight stretched long between the rose vines in the garden.
The clear note that had been ringing inside the bird box only moments ago had fallen silent, but its echo remained, suspended in the garden’s stillness.
Anna, holding the bird box close to her chest as though it were something precious, had lowered her head and drifted into a deep sleep.
As if the trauma that had tormented her for so many years had been washed away together with the bird’s song.
Her face wore a peaceful smile neither of them had ever seen in her lifetime.
"Grandmother...?"
Sophia gently touched her grandmother’s shoulder.
But Anna didn’t stir.
Her wrinkled fingers were still clamped around the bird box’s golden surface, and only her shallow breathing told them that she was sleeping soundly.
"It’s best not to wake her right now," Si-woo said softly. "She may be seeing the father she missed for so long in her dreams."
Sophia wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and nodded.
The scent of roses drifted on the breeze through the garden.
Carefully, Si-woo took an envelope from inside his coat.
He had treasured it all the way from Hong Kong.
"What is this?"
Sophia accepted the envelope and took out what was inside.
There was a photograph and a bundle of letters.
At the center of the photograph, a freckle-faced little girl was smiling brightly, while on one side a kind-eyed man had his arm around her shoulder, and on the other a woman with a warm smile looked at the two of them with unmistakable affection.
A family photograph.
It had been taken on some peaceful day in Austria, before the war took everything away.
"This is... Grandmother when she was young, right?" Sophia’s voice caught in her throat.
"Yes. The girl in the middle is Anna. On the right is her father, Mr. Josef Weiss, and beside him is his wife, Mrs. Maria. And this is..."
He handed over a copy of the letter.
"A letter from Mr. Josef, written in New York while he spent his whole life waiting for his daughter. He never managed to send these letters. They’re filled with everything he felt while longing for her."
Sophia picked up the letter, then set it back down without the courage to open it.
"It would be nice to read it to her when Grandmother wakes up."
At last, tears spilled down Sophia’s cheeks.
"Grandmother carried the guilt all her life. After the shock, she lost her memories... She said she couldn’t even remember her father’s face."
Her gaze settled on Anna, still asleep.
"Mr. Josef waited at the meeting place every single day for twelve years. Rain or snow. Even after the war ended, believing that one day his daughter would come."
Sophia’s shoulders began to shake.
The sobs she’d been holding back broke free.
"So that was it... He was waiting."
Anna’s expression still looked serene.
It was the expression of someone who had finally regained what they had spent a lifetime searching for.
"We’ll give the bird box to your grandmother."
At that, Sophia startled.
"What? No, that can’t be. I’ve heard how precious it is."
She waved her hands in protest, flustered.
"It’s something that was missing for so many years. What right would we have to claim ownership?"
"No. Your grandmother should keep it. It isn’t something I can own."
Si-woo’s voice was calm.
On this entire journey, he had glimpsed Anna’s memories through that object.
How could he possibly keep it?
"This is her only memory of her father. It should go back where it belongs."
Sophia stared silently at her grandmother for a long moment.
Watching Anna sleep with the bird box held to her chest, the tears on her face gave way to a faint smile.
"Then how about this?" Sophia offered.
After wiping her tears with a handkerchief, her voice was steady.
"As long as Grandmother is alive, we’ll keep it in our care. We’ll keep it by her side. And when Grandmother... passes away, we’ll return it then. It was Father’s last gift, and I want her to have it beside her until the very end. That’s all we can do for her."
Si-woo nodded heavily.
"...All right."
Sophia suddenly grabbed his hand.
"Thank you. Truly... thank you so much."
The Nutflix staff filming behind them were, one by one, reddening around the eyes as well.
Yang Dong-seok lifted his gaze to the sky, while Director Choi Min-ho quietly wiped his lens.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
It was early morning when they arrived at Incheon Airport.
The fatigue of the long flight pressed down on his shoulders, yet his steps felt lighter than they had in a long time.
What had happened in London was still vivid in his mind.
Anna sleeping peacefully with the bird box in her arms.
The bond between father and daughter, restored after eighty years.
I learned something more important than the value of a relic.
As he walked out of arrivals, his phone rang. The name on the screen was Shin A-young.
"Yes, Representative."
- I heard you’ve arrived. I’m glad the London schedule wrapped up safely.
"Yes. It certainly is. I ended up being overseas for quite a long time."
Dragging his luggage behind him, he headed toward the exit.
"Was there something wrong?"
He and Shin A-young had exchanged work calls from time to time in the meantime.
She had been very curious about Anna’s story, so he had kept her updated whenever he could.
- There will be an article today about the Daegwangmyeong Hall plaque at Wongaksa Temple.
His steps stopped.
- We’d been holding it back for a while, but now that you’ve arrived, the news has started spreading. I wanted to let you know.
"Ah, so that’s why you called. Thank you for telling me in advance."
- Not at all. You must be busy, so I’ll contact you again later.
The call ended.
The moment he typed “Daegwangmyeong Hall” into the search bar, articles exploded across the screen.
At the top of the real-time search rankings sat “Daegwangmyeong Hall plaque,” with “Kim Si-woo” in second place.
He scratched his head while scrolling.
He had expected this much, but he hadn’t expected so many articles to appear this quickly.
Then a breaking-news clip spilled across the giant screen in the airport lobby.
"The brutal blood lord, Sejo, and the Daegwangmyeong Hall plaque. What, exactly, was hidden on the back?"
A high-resolution image of the plaque filled the screen, and beside it was a side-by-side shot of Si-woo’s face.
People passing by glanced at the screen, then at him.
It wasn’t just a misunderstanding.
Some even took out their phones.
Since he was moving around with the Nutflix filming crew nearby, he was bound to draw even more attention.
He pulled his hood lower and quickened his pace out of the airport.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The Munch Museum lay wrapped in silence.
Once the analysis reports sent from the research institutes in Nuremberg and Norway arrived, the museum’s key staff gathered in one place.
Helena Vik stood before them and began her presentation.
The lights in the conference room dimmed.
Non-Destructive X-ray Fluorescence Analysis (XRF) and Fiber Comparison
Helena pressed the projector remote.
Microscope images and graphs spread across the wall.
"First, let’s look at the paper composition analysis results."
The graphs rose in sharp peaks.
Helena pointed to one area.
"The minerals in paper vary depending on what water was used to make it."
"That’s right," the director said, nodding.
"When the Nuremberg Institute measured the ratio of calcium and magnesium in the paper used for this sketch, it matched exactly the composition of groundwater used at a paper mill in the village of Bennesla near Oslo in the 1890s. The special limestone trace found only in that water remained embedded in the paper."
At the mention of Oslo, everyone let out a murmur.
That increased the likelihood that it was authentic.
All eyes fixed on the screen.
Helena changed the slide.
Two graphs appeared side by side.
"The one on the left is this sketch; the one on the right is the paper from Munch’s journal preserved in our museum. As you can see, the graphs are almost identical. It means the paper came from the same mill."
"Amazing."
"Unbelievable."
Ignoring the reactions around her, Helena continued.
"At the time, Munch was extremely poor. He couldn’t afford expensive art supplies, so he used cheap notebooks sold in the neighborhood. Ironically, the impurities mixed into that cheap paper have now become the strongest proof we have."
Helena showed a magnified photograph taken through the microscope.
Tiny grains embedded among the paper fibers shimmered faintly.
"Even the distribution pattern of these little particles trapped in the paper matches Munch’s journal exactly. The odds of that level of correspondence are less than one in a hundred thousand. It’s impossible to call that coincidence."
Though the torn-away traces had already made everyone quietly certain it was authentic, none of them had expected such perfect evidence.
"Next."
Raman Spectroscopy Analysis and Graphite Comparison
Helena picked up the second report and switched slides.
A new graph rose on the screen.
"Pencil leads are made differently by each manufacturer. Depending on how much clay is mixed into the graphite, each one leaves behind a distinct pattern of composition."
Taking a sip of water, Helena went on.
"The pencil used for this sketch was made by Faber-Castell in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century. That company’s unique clay blend remained in the lead."
Another comparison graph appeared.
"The one on the left is this sketch, and the one on the right is the pencil used for the underdrawing of another work in our museum, The Sick Child. See how the graphs nearly overlap perfectly? That proves they were made by the same company at the same time."
Everyone nodded.
"According to Munch’s letters, he was so frugal that he used the same pencil for years, trying to make every last bit of it last. For a poor painter, even a pencil was precious. These two works were both drawn by Munch himself with the same pencil, and that is evidence no one can dispute."
The next report came from the Norwegian National Institute.
Pressure and Handwriting Analysis
When the third report appeared on the screen, Helena’s voice grew even more serious.
"Finally, handwriting analysis. I think this is the most decisive evidence of all."
A heavily magnified image of pencil strokes appeared on the screen.
The cross-section of each line was exposed in minute detail.
"Everyone has their own habits when writing. How hard they press the pen, where they ease off the pressure, all of that differs in subtle ways. Even if someone tries to imitate another person’s handwriting, it’s not easy to deceive a thorough analysis like this."
Helena brought up another image.
"Munch suffered from alcoholism and anxiety disorder. That’s why there’s a distinctive tremor in his lines. He would press hard at the start and then jerk the pen away sharply at the end. Scholars call it the Munch tremor."
She displayed the handwriting analysis results.
An image appeared with dozens of overlapping letters.
"We compared the note in this sketch with forty-seven other handwritten works by Munch. After analyzing the slant of the letters, the shape of the loops, even the angle at which the pen lifted from the page, the match rate came to 98.4 percent."
Helena looked around the conference room.
"Taking all of this into account, there is no doubt that this sketch was left behind by Edvard Munch himself."
A long, heavy silence settled over the room.
The presentation itself had been brief, but hundreds of pages of reports lay on the table.
Everyone read through them again.
The composition of the paper, the composition of the pencil, the habits of the artist’s hand.
The crucial torn edge that proved the removal.
After all this time, it felt as though Edvard Munch himself were standing on the witness stand, testifying.
That this was a sketch he had drawn with his own hand.
The director slowly closed the report and leaned his head back against the chair.
A moment later, he spoke.
"This isn’t just a sketch."
The director’s gaze sharpened.
"This is Munch’s heart. This is the point where the great typhoon called The Scream began. The fear he felt for the first time beneath that blood-red sky over the fjord. It contains the situation of that era, vivid and alive. We have to bring it here."