The Right to Receive Help

“I understand how distressing it must feel, but I can’t recommend helping in that manner.”

Director Park shook his head with a sigh the moment the five million won came up.

“And the reason?”

“Cheap pity… Forgive me. A one-time gesture of goodwill, rather than systematic support toward independence, rarely produces any meaningful change in a person’s life. And though you acted out of pure kindness, Managing Director, it can easily be taken as meddling in another family’s affairs — the kind of thing that earns you nothing but quiet resentment afterward. In cases like that, you’re better off reporting it and walking away.”

Lee-won closed his eyes and sank into thought.

Pure kindness, was it.

Had that truly been the only reason he had acted? Compassion had certainly been there — but whether the impulse behind it had been pure, he could not say with any confidence.

Then what had been the real reason he decided to help that girl?

He recalled the shock of opening her sketchbook for the first time. An emotion so vivid he could not deny it. Yes — what had stirred in him, instantly and irrevocably, the conviction that he must help this child, had been that sketchbook.

He rose, retrieved Woo-yeon’s sketchbook from the corner of his desk, and spread it open before the two of them.

“Good God — this—”

A short gasp escaped both of them. Manager Choi, a former curator, trembled at the eyelids with every page he turned.

“Managing Director… who on earth drew these?”

“The high school student I just mentioned. She’s been accepted to Seolim Arts University near Anseong.”

“A high school student produced descriptions this chilling? Compositions this insane? Even among graduates who majored in drawing, there aren’t many who could work at this level.”

“In exchange for the five million won, she agreed to paint five pieces for me. Size twenty or larger.”

Watching Manager Choi’s mouth fall open, Lee-won felt, absurdly, a swell of pride and relief. Judging by that reaction, even if it had been a one-time favor, he had unmistakably guided a child of extraordinary talent onto the right path — and played a role decisive enough to matter.

He added, in earnest:

“While those five paintings are being delivered, what if we sponsor the student and build a relationship with her from multiple angles? Make the right investment at the moment she needs it most, and the return later could be considerable. If we can eventually sign her as an exclusive artist for the Lee-won Art Museum, that would be ideal.”

Lee-won’s artistic eye was reasonably cultivated, but his own talent was wretchedly insufficient. He had the grit to redraw a single plaster cast dozens of times, yet that flashing instinct that revealed itself in a few spare lines was something he could never possess.

Searching through the early works of so-called genius painters, he had come to understand that God granted creative inspiration and talent to only a vanishing few. It lay beyond the reach of effort — bestowed on human beings solely as a gift from God.

Rather than envy them, Lee-won had chosen to take pleasure in the fact that he could help such gifts come into bloom. If Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, and da Vinci had received dazzling talent from God, then the Medici had been granted money and power so that they might help that talent flower. In their lifetimes Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, and da Vinci had lived in the Medici’s shadow; now the Medici lived in the shadow of their names. That was the nature of art and money. It was also why Lee-won poured himself so completely into the work of the Mecenat Foundation.

Fortunately, the Segyeong Group under his leadership was sailing quietly and steadily, with no shortage of resources to support the Foundation’s activities.

In a calm voice, Lee-won reached his conclusion.

“This student is worth investing in for the long term.”

Yes. On that bridge, the moment he opened the sketchbook, he had been certain. If she caught the right current — if she found a proper patron — this child would vault far beyond the Korean art world and leave her name as a painter who defined an era.

And he would attach himself to that luminous name and become someone who outlasted the millennium. Cosimo de’ Medici. Lorenzo de’ Medici. Theo van Gogh, Vincent’s brother and steadfast supporter. Paul Durand-Ruel, who backed the young painters of a strange new style until Impressionism conquered the nineteenth-century European art world. Sergei Shchukin, the modern-art collector who recognized Monet, Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse early. Like those supremely wise investors who had permanently embalmed their own names in a corner of the names of God-given geniuses.

She would keep her promise, he believed, and her astonishing talent would bear fruit over time and pile up magnificently before him. Someday history books might record the meeting that had just taken place as an amusing anecdote — or as the fateful encounter that had made her shudder so violently.

The brief trill of a phone cut through the room. Manager Choi answered in his place, then pulled the receiver from his ear with a furrowed brow.

“Managing Director — they’re demanding we put the owner of this phone on immediately. It’s an unregistered number. They won’t give a name or a reason… but they don’t even know your name, so it doesn’t seem to be a reporter.”

“What business could strangers possibly have with each other? I’m not taking it.”

In that instant, a man’s curses exploded through the receiver with a force that seemed ready to rupture eardrums. You fucking— what the hell did you just say? Put him on right now before I send you to prison! And then, behind it, someone began to wail.

The line went dead with a sharp click.

Lee-won shot to his feet. His head spun; sleep fled from him in an instant.

Damn it. So that was why my dreams were so foul earlier.

The sharp voice from the dream drove into his chest like an arrow.

Dear God. What have I done to that child?

“What’s wrong, Managing Director? Do you know them?”

The faces of the two people before him had gone white as well. Lee-won pressed a hand to his swimming head and spoke rapidly.

“It’s the student I met earlier. Manager Choi — call that number back at once and confirm that the girl didn’t steal anything, that I gave her the five million won. Then report it to the police. Right now.”

“Yes, Managing Director.”

He tried to stay composed, but his lips trembled so hard the words would barely come. The phone rang and rang — then switched over to a message saying the recipient was unavailable. His mouth had gone bone-dry.

Don’t cut my hand — what in God’s name did that mean?

She herself seemed unaware of it, but that child had unmistakably been born with a gift from God. The talent was so stark it was almost unsettling — and yet everyone around her was blind? She overflowed with ability that would blossom on its own if simply left alone; properly nurtured, she could rise to become a world-class hyperrealist on the order of Chuck Close or Ron Mueck — and someone was talking about cutting that child’s hands?

Murderous rage surged in him toward parents he had never even seen. He bit his lip so hard the taste of iron seeped onto his tongue.

“A youth protection center — damn it — contact the school as well. Third year at Seongwang Girls’ High — no, has she graduated? Still, start with the school — or would it be better to send security from here right away?”

“Managing Director, please calm yourself. Calling the police will be faster than sending security. Manager Choi!”

“I’ll report it immediately, Managing Director. Do you have any personal details for the student?”

Lee-won flipped furiously through the sketchbook until he found the contact information and address Woo-yeon had written. His teeth ground together. Without this phone call, he would have remained for a long time steeped in a complacent sense of superiority, never knowing what his clumsy pity — or his unconscious calculation — had actually wrought.

“Ishu Apartments, Building 101, Deungchon-dong — get the management office number and call them first. Unit 403! Have the building manager go up right now and ring the doorbell. Tell them a neighbor filed a report, and get the child separated from them. Immediately!”

One-time goodwill, cheap pity — the results are never good. That much, at least, had been right.

A single police car stood in front of the main entrance to Building 101. There was no siren, but the light bar spun in a loud, flashing whirl. The cold had kept most people indoors; few had come out to stare. Still, the glances slipping through windows pricked like a cluster of needles.

Hong-yeon watched the scene in silence through the heavily tinted car window. Moments earlier, passing through the apartment complex gate, they had met an ambulance and another police car heading the other way. The situation seemed to have been resolved. Had they arrived too late? Had the girl’s wrists already been cut? Could a father truly sever his own daughter’s hands — or had it only been a threat meant to terrify her?

Well… if the police are here, her safety should be secured by now.

“Manager Choi, wait in the car for a moment.”

Managing Director Han opened the door and walked toward the police car. The entire drive here he had sat quietly with his eyes closed, fingers laced atop his knees — still beyond composure, barely moving at all. Only his lips had kept shifting, faintly, as if he had been reciting desperate prayers.

“You’ve had a hard time of it in this cold. Is the student all right? She wasn’t badly hurt?”

Oh, for heaven’s sake — stirring things up again.

Hong-yeon rested her forehead against the steering wheel and sighed. Having stopped a police car that was just about to pull away, Managing Director Han bent at the waist and spoke with the officer in the driver’s seat. The policeman’s suspicious gaze traveled up and down his figure.