A Brush with a Soul
"Hello. You must be Kang Cheolwoo?"
"Yes... that's me. And you are...?"
Two hours later, Yanagi and Master Matsuoka arrived at the workshop. The difference from their last visit was the elderly woman who had come with them — a lady who looked to be about the same age as Master Matsuoka, though age had nothing to do with the remarkable grace she carried.
"I am Seiko, Genjiro's wife."
"Ah, yes... Ms. Seiko... wait, how is your Korean so fluent?"
What had caught me off guard wasn't her presence. It was the fact that she spoke Korean with complete, effortless command.
"My father is Korean. Last time I couldn't accompany them — I suffer terribly from airsickness. I do apologize."
"Please, there's nothing to apologize for. Last time we had to pass everything through a translation app, and it was no small ordeal. Thanks to you, ma'am, today should be much easier."
"I am hardly adequate to the task, but I shall do my best to help."
I'd been bracing myself to go through the translation app all over again. With her here, though, it looked as if we'd be able to talk properly.
Seiko exchanged a few words with Master Matsuoka, then turned to me.
"Cheolwoo. Then — where is the finished brush?"
I carefully lifted the brush case from the shelf and held it out to Master Matsuoka.
"Here it is. I don't often say this, but this time I can tell you with complete confidence. You're going to be truly satisfied."
Seiko rendered my words for Master Matsuoka exactly as I'd spoken them. Hearing that, he allowed himself a faint smile.
Matsuoka regarded the young man standing before him, so full of confidence, and thought, It's been a long time since I've seen a man this sure of himself. Men like this usually fall into one of two categories. Either they're all talk — or they're the real thing.
A moment later, he opened the brush case with care.
Oh-ho...
The materials alone were no ordinary fare.
"Ebony... and this is sable hair."
Seiko interpreted his words as they were. Cheolwoo nodded.
"That's right. At first I considered using an alloy for the handle, but I judged that wood would suit your temperament best, so I went with ebony. As for the sable hair, I don't think I need to say more."
Seiko carried Cheolwoo's words back to Matsuoka.
His understanding of brushes runs deep...
Matsuoka turned the brush this way and that, examining every inch of it. But how on earth did he get his hands on this?
Sable hunting had been banned in both Korea and Japan in recent years. It wasn't something you could simply go out and buy. Materials did come in through China and Russia, but this was nothing like those cheap imports.
"How did you even obtain this? Hair of this quality should be impossible to find."
Cheolwoo answered before Seiko could even interpret. He's been staring at the sable hair this whole time. That has to be the question.
"I got it from a calligraphy shop in Insadong. The owner had taken the sable back when hunting was still legal and had been keeping the pelt all this time. He said he'd been holding onto it for a great calligrapher, so I accepted it."
Seiko was a little surprised, but she relayed the words to Matsuoka with her usual composure.
"......"
A great calligrapher...
The phrase sent a flicker of shame through him. He hadn't been able to write a single character in years. Whether he still deserved to be called a great calligrapher was a question he asked himself more often than he cared to admit.
Well then. Let's give it a try.
"If I may borrow a space for a moment."
Matsuoka took paper and ink from his bag and set them on a desk in the corner of the workshop. He settled into his stance with care, dipped the brush, and began to write.
The very air around them seemed to freeze. This was, without a doubt, the presence of a man who had been called Japan's greatest calligrapher for decades.
"Darling..."
"Sensei..."
Seiko and Yanagi watched, barely daring to breathe.
A soft whisper of bristles on paper. Characters filled the sheet in silence.
This...
When he had finished, Matsuoka spoke to Yanagi without looking up.
"Another sheet."
"Pardon...?"
"Give me another sheet of paper."
"Ah — yes...! Yes, Sensei!"
Yanagi pulled another sheet from his bag at once and handed it over. Sensei asking for another sheet of his own accord...
Matsuoka wrote across the new paper without the slightest hesitation. Perhaps two minutes passed.
"Another."
This time Yanagi didn't fumble. He held out a fresh sheet immediately, and Matsuoka took it and wrote just as freely as before.
How long has it been...
It felt as though his body were growing young again. With this brush in his hand, he could have sworn he was back in those days when he would fill dozens of sheets in a single afternoon.
This was not a brush you could dismiss with words like remarkable or extraordinary. It felt as though the brush itself possessed a will of its own. As he wrote, he even felt as if he and the instrument had become one.
Was it even possible to make a brush like this?
This was the kind of brush he had only ever imagined. Kaishin's brush? Kaishin's brush had certainly been a fine one. But it was nothing compared to this. If Kaishin's brush was a bicycle, this one was a sports car. They weren't even in the same category.
A masterpiece? Even that word falls short. What do you even call something like this...
The greatness of this brush truly seemed beyond anything language could hold.
So I wasn't the only craftsman after all...
He wrote several more sheets, and at last Master Matsuoka set the brush down. The first thing he did was turn to Yanagi.
"Thank you, Yanagi. Thanks to you, I believe I shall be able to write again. As promised, I will compose new works once we return to Japan. The exhibition may be delayed a little, but I promise you the finest calligraphy of my life."
Yanagi looked as if he might burst into tears on the spot. Even if the exhibition ran a little late, if Master Matsuoka was speaking like that, his business was as good as set for life.
"I-is that true?! Thank you! Thank you, Sensei!"
Then Matsuoka rose from his seat and came toward me.
"Truly remarkable. I had seen a brush of yours once before, so I came with a certain expectation — but I never imagined you would produce something of this caliber. I have not written with this kind of absorption in decades. Thank you. Truly."
Seiko started to interpret, then looked at my face and stopped. I might not have caught every word, but from Master Matsuoka's expression, the meaning came through well enough.
A moment later he drew an envelope from his bag and held it out to me. The payment for the brush. Then he spoke to Seiko, asking her to relay his words.
"If that brush should ever break, may I ask you to make another?"
I smiled.
"Of course. But you won't need to. Unless you take a pair of scissors to it, it won't break for twenty years."
Seiko carried that back to him as it was. The moment Matsuoka heard it, he burst into a great laugh.
"Hahaha. What confidence. Then again, after seeing your skill, it would be stranger if you didn't have that kind of confidence."
Seiko and Yanagi both started. It was vanishingly rare for Matsuoka to acknowledge anyone so openly, which made the praise land all the harder.
After he had laughed his fill, he stood and said something to Seiko. She turned to me.
"Cheolwoo. He asks if you would take those practice pieces to the calligraphy shop where you obtained the sable hair — if that's all right with you?"
"Of course. The shop owner is going to be over the moon. I felt uneasy myself, not having paid him a proper price. This will probably be the finest gift he could receive."
"And he says that once he returns to Japan, he will send a gift here in a few days."
"A gift...?"
I already received full payment. What kind of gift is he talking about?
The sum I'd already been paid for a single brush was almost unimaginable. Being given something more on top of that felt a little burdensome — but it wasn't the kind of moment where you refused. I nodded and said I understood.
The Japanese guests offered their farewells and left, and the workshop fell quiet once more.
It's been a long time since I made something this extraordinary.
I locked the door and was about to head home when Seiko's words from a moment ago came back to me.
A gift? What on earth could it be?
A few days after Master Matsuoka had gone home, I stopped by the calligraphy shop in Insadong again.
"Hello, sir."
The owner recognized me at once and lit up.
"Oh, if it isn't the young man from the sable hair! What brings you by today? Here for more materials?"
"Not this time. I came to give you a gift."
"A gift?"
I set the envelope I'd brought on the counter.
"Go ahead and open it."
"Now, what kind of gift... If this is about the sable hair, you really don't need to worry about that..."
Even as he said it, he opened the envelope with an expectant look on his face. The moment he drew the papers out, his mouth fell open. He seemed to know what they were at a glance.
"C-could this be... th-this is Master Matsuoka Genjiro's calligraphy?!"
"Yes, that's right. It's Master Matsuoka's writing."
He waved his hands vigorously, refusing.
"N-no! Absolutely not! Do you have any idea how expensive Master Matsuoka's calligraphy is?!"
Even as he said no, his eyes never left the writing on those sheets. I smiled and held them out to him again.
"Please take them. Master Matsuoka said to give these to you as payment for the sable hair."
"I-is that true?!"
"Yes. They're practice pieces, so you don't need to feel burdened."
His trembling hands closed around the papers.
"Ah, even if they're practice pieces, this is still Master Matsuoka's calligraphy...! Really — really, is it all right for me to have these?"
"Yes. I'm telling you it is."
The shop owner's face crumpled as if he might cry.
"Thank you... thank you...! To think the day would come in my lifetime when I'd own Master Matsuoka's writing...! W-wait. This is no time to stand around!"
He hurriedly pulled on his coat, getting ready to go out, then looked at me.
"Is there anything you need to buy?"
"No... nothing to buy. But where are you heading?"
"I can't just leave Master Matsuoka's calligraphy sitting around like this. I need to go buy a frame!"
He hid the sheets as deep in the shop as he could, in case of thieves, then closed up. He gave me a quick bow and dashed off toward a framing shop.
"I'll be quite busy today — I'll see you next time!"
Watching his retreating back, I couldn't help a small laugh.
"That happy, huh."
He looked exactly like a child who'd just received the Christmas present he'd been wishing for all year.
Having finished delivering the calligraphy, I headed back to the workshop. But when I arrived, a large box was sitting in front of the door.
What's this? I didn't order anything.
Wondering if it had been delivered to the wrong address, I checked the recipient's name. It was definitely mine. The odd thing was that the name was written in English, not Korean. A moment later I found the sender, and I knew at once where the package had come from.
A package from Japan. Seeing Yanagi's name, this had to be the gift Master Matsuoka had promised as he left the workshop.
What is it? Did they send manju or something?
I didn't have high expectations. At best, I figured they'd packed up some kind of local specialty. But the moment I opened the box, what was inside was far more extraordinary than anything I'd imagined.
"Wait... am I even allowed to accept this...?"