The Finest Brush
"I've got the brush tip. Now I just need something for the handle…"
I sat in a café for a while, turning a cup of coffee in my hands, and gave the problem some serious thought. But no matter how long I turned it over, I kept arriving at the same answer.
"Wood. It has to be wood."
Of course, brush handles were made from plenty of fine materials besides wood. Water buffalo horn, ivory, jade—even alloys, in recent years. The options were many. If I'd been making it for myself, or if Master Matsuoka had been a younger man, I might have gone with an alloy.
But my client, Matsuoka Genjiro, had been working with brushes for decades. Judging by the calluses on his hands, the handles he'd used all his life had been wood.
Hand a man like that anything but wood? Unthinkable.
Once I'd settled on wood, the choice of timber was obvious. Ebony, or rosewood. Both had once been reserved for the finest furniture in imperial palaces.
Not that they're particularly hard to come by these days.
Easy to find, though, only if you meant the low-grade stuff. To make the finest brush, I needed the finest ebony or rosewood—not the ordinary kind.
Top-grade ebony and rosewood are scarce in the modern market, but…
I happened to be sitting in Insadong. There was no better place in the city to hunt down wood like that.
I left the café and started working my way through the district at an easy pace.
It's here. It has to be.
I combed through antique shops and old-furniture dealers, hunting for ebony and rosewood of real quality. I was still searching when someone tapped me on the back. I turned, and found a cluster of elderly men standing there.
"It is you! You're that genius craftsman from Authentic & Masterpiece, aren't you? I'm a huge fan of that show. You were incredible! Never mind all that—give me an autograph!"
"Me too, me too! No, wait—take a picture with me!"
"Hey now, Mr. Kim, I was first!"
…It's not like I'm some celebrity.
I went red with embarrassment and signed autographs and posed for photos until they were satisfied. This being Insadong, the neighborhood was apparently thick with devoted viewers of Authentic & Masterpiece.
I was just about to make my awkward escape when one of the old men stopped me with a question.
"So what brings you all the way out here?"
"Ah… well…"
They might actually know. These gentlemen come through here all the time—they'd know better than I would.
"I'm looking to buy some old furniture made of ebony or rosewood. Would you happen to know a place that sells it?"
"Ebony or rosewood? Hmm…"
Something seemed to occur to him. He clapped his hands.
"Ah, come to think of it—if you take that alley and follow it all the way to the end, there's a shop with no sign. They sell old furniture, antiques, a bit of everything. I think I've seen a few ebony and rosewood pieces in there."
"Really? Thank you so much!"
"Sure. Let's see you on TV more often, eh?"
I bowed my thanks once more and hurried off toward the shop he'd described.
Oh… it's bigger than I expected.
No signboard, but the shop itself was a fair size. It didn't look like the kind of place that dealt in expensive pieces, though. Somewhere between an antique dealer and a junk shop, if I had to put a name to it.
Huh…? What's that?
What caught my eye as I approached the entrance wasn't the shop itself, but a bargain bin sitting out front—everything thirty thousand won. And inside that bin, my gaze locked onto a single piece of old white porcelain.
That's not a thirty-thousand-won piece…
It wasn't enormously valuable, no. But it wasn't something that belonged in a bin at that price, either. The age and the grime had probably thrown off whoever priced it. Looking at the form, the glaze, the color of the clay—it could easily fetch two million won.
Maybe I'll grab it on the way out.
I was just thinking I'd found myself a tidy little side profit when a woman who looked to be in her sixties came out of the shop.
"Here to buy something?"
I glanced around the interior.
"I came looking for old furniture made of ebony or rosewood."
"Ebony or rosewood? Come on in. I've got a few pieces inside."
The inside was a mess—nothing in its place. But a lack of order meant a wealth of stock. After rummaging around for a moment, the old woman came back carrying two small mother-of-pearl cabinets.
"Nngh… how about these? Both rosewood. I'll do you both for five hundred thousand."
Hmm…
Rosewood, yes. Old, yes. But the rosewood itself was poor quality, and more to the point, the pieces still had life in them.
Smashing up something that's still perfectly usable isn't really my style…
What I needed this time was salvage. I wanted something whose life as furniture was already over.
I was looking around when my eye caught on a mother-of-pearl cabinet of ebony, sitting off by the warehouse in the back.
That one…
I went straight to it, pointed, and asked her the price.
"Ma'am, how much for this?"
"Huh? That thing… I haven't thrown that out yet? Sorry, that one's not for sale."
"Not for sale?"
She nodded.
"I set it aside to toss and forgot about it. I sell old furniture, sure, but I can't sell something that's falling apart like that."
She wasn't wrong. The ebony cabinet was a wreck from the joints out—one good nudge and the whole thing looked ready to collapse. And that was exactly what made it so appealing.
It's long since finished its life as a cabinet, but…
There was one reason this spent piece of furniture had me interested. The workmanship was dreadful, but the ebony itself was of the very highest grade. In other words: magnificent material, ruined by a craftsman who had no idea what he was doing.
You couldn't ask for a better candidate for salvage.
"Ma'am, if you were going to throw it out anyway, would you consider selling it to me?"
"This…? Good grief. You take this home and you won't even be able to use it. You'll just be out the disposal fee…"
"That's all right. Please, sell it to me."
She hesitated a moment, then nodded.
"Alright, take it. I don't need money. I was going to throw it out anyway. Saves me the disposal sticker, so I'm the one coming out ahead."
"What? No, you should at least take something for it…"
"Good grief. If I took money for that junk I'd have nightmares. Forget it. Next time you come by, just buy me a cup of coffee."
…
Walking away with material and paying nothing for it sat badly with me.
And I don't get the feeling she'd take the money even if I pressed it on her…
She didn't seem as stubborn as the old man at the brush shop, but she didn't seem like the type to pocket cash for this, either.
In that case…
It stung a little, but I'd have to settle the account another way.
"All right. Then I'll gratefully accept it."
"Sure. I'm grateful too, believe it or not. Go on, then."
I caught her as she turned to head back inside.
"Ma'am."
"Hm? Something else? I've got a Youngwoong concert to watch."
I pointed at the thirty-thousand-won bargain bin out front.
"There's a small piece of white porcelain in that bin out there, isn't there?"
"White porcelain…? Ah, that. Dug it out of the warehouse a little while back. You interested? I'll let you have it for twenty thousand."
"That's not what I mean. You should have that porcelain appraised."
The word appraised made her blink.
"Appraised? What are you talking about? That's cheap porcelain, isn't it? Hey, young man! What do you mean by that?"
I didn't answer. I left the shop.
I'd already paid in full. Whether she collected on it was up to her.
Getting something appraised in Insadong isn't exactly difficult. She'll figure it out.
This is… actually incredible.
The sable hair had been a superb find in its own right, but once I got the cabinet back to the workshop and had a proper look, the ebony in it was far finer than I'd even hoped.
How did wood this good end up…
If ever the old saying about a pearl necklace on a pig had applied to anything, it was this cabinet. It had been a long time since I'd seen a material this mistreated.
The way the wood was worked, the joints… honestly…
If the craftsman who'd made this had been standing in front of me, I would have smacked him upside the head.
I picked up my hammer and stood before the cabinet.
"You've suffered long enough. I'll bring you back as the finest brush there is."
One swing—crash—and the cabinet shattered.
That was how I made a brush handle: by salvaging this piece of garbage. With ebony and rosewood, the older pieces were often of far higher quality than anything newly cut, which made a wreck like this the perfect raw material.
"Now then…"
I took the cabinet apart completely and gathered every scrap worth keeping. Then I set to work on the ebony I'd recovered—shaping it, cutting it. The cabinet had been trash, but the wood, true to its grade, worked as smooth as anything I'd ever handled. I began the delicate business of fitting the handle precisely to Master Matsuoka's hand.
This takes me back.
I'd made more brushes on Mount Olympus than one might expect, so I was more confident with these than with most other pieces.
Those folks up there used a lot of brushes, after all.
The old memories put extra strength into my hands. It was already past two in the morning, and I still couldn't stop. Unlike my usual commissions, the purpose this time was beautifully simple—the finest brush for writing beautiful characters—and that simplicity had lit a competitive fire in me. Looking at myself like this, I had to admit it wasn't only about the money.
A calling is a calling.
When the handle was done, I started on the tip. One by one, I set the sable hairs into place and trimmed them, working with painstaking care. This was the work that decided a brush's quality. Put it in unskilled hands, and you'd end up with exactly what that cabinet had been: magnificent material, wasted.
That's no way to treat fine material.
I lost track of how much time passed. At last, even the brush case was finished.
"Done."
I set the completed piece on the shelf, stretched, and looked around.
"Huh…?"
It was bright outside. I'd started in the middle of the night, and somehow it was the middle of the day.
Just how long was I at this…?
Strange thing, though: my body was exhausted, but my spirits were soaring. And the reason was sitting right there on that shelf.
How long has it been… since I put this much into something?
A powerful Soul radiated from the brush, so distinct from my usual work that there was no comparing them. I hadn't imbued anything this deeply since the kitchen knife I'd made for my mother.
"I should've quoted a higher price…"
Turning out something this absurdly good wasn't easy even for me, and the figure I'd named last time was starting to sting. I was sure of this one. If Matsuoka didn't like this brush, then that was simply as far as Matsuoka's skill went. Call it arrogance if you want. It was the truth. I had never been more confident in a piece.
I dialed the number Yanagi had given me, and spoke with my voice full of that confidence.
"Mr. Yanagi. The piece you commissioned is finished! Can you come by right away?"
And from the other end of the line:
"Sorry. I don't speak Korean…."
"Ah…"
All that confidence curdled, rather suddenly, into embarrassment. I hung up and sent a message to his phone instead.