Min Lee - Pachinko

“Hana, you have to be careful with the drinking, nee ?” He tried to sound calm. She would disappear if he sounded cross.

The door opened, and it was Phoebe, looking happy at first, then puzzled because he was on the phone. Solomon smiled and gestured for her to sit down beside him. The dorm room had only a narrow bed and a serviceable desk, but he was lucky to have a single. He put his finger to his lips, and Phoebe mouthed to ask if she should go. He paused, then shook his head no.

“Will you cancel with your girlfriend-o and help me sleep?” Hana asked. “If you were here, you’d fuck me, and I would sleep in your arms. We never got a chance to sleep in the same bed, because you were still a boy. Now you are twenty. I want to suck on your man cock.”

“What do you want me to do, Hana? How can I help you?”

“So-lo-mon-Ul-tra-man. You should sing. You should sing to me. You know, the song about sunshine. I like that baby song about sunshine.”

“I will sing if you will give me your phone number.”

“You have to promise me that you will not give it to my mother.”

“Okay. What is it?” Solomon wrote down the numbers on the backflap of his macroeconomics textbook. “I’m going to hang up, and then I will call you in a few seconds, okay?”

“Okay,” she said weakly. She had finished the second bottle already. She felt awake but heavy, like her limbs were soaked through. “I’ll hang up now. Call me. I want to hear you sing.”

When he hung up, Phoebe asked, “Hey, what’s going on?”

“One minute. Just one minute. I’ll explain.”

He dialed his father, and Mozasu picked up.

“Papa, this is Hana’s number. I think she’s really sick. Can you find out where she is just from this number? Can you ask Haruki or Etsuko’s investigator? I better go. I have to call her back now. She sounds like she’s drunk or drugged out.”

Solomon dialed the number. It was for a Chinese restaurant in Roppongi.

Phoebe took off her overcoat and stripped down and got into bed. Her dark hair hung loosely around her pale collarbone.

“Who was that?”

“Hana. My stepmother’s daughter.”

“Which makes her your stepsister? The one who’s working as a hooker.”

“She’s not a hooker. She’s a hostess.”

“They have sex for money, right?”

“No. Not always. Sometimes. Depends.”

“Well, gosh, that’s a major distinction. Once again, you’ve enlightened me on the finer points of Japanese culture. Thank you.”

The phone rang, and Solomon rushed to pick up. It was Etsuko this time.

“Solomon. The number. It was for a Chinese restaurant.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. But I did speak to her, Etsuko. She was very drunk. She said she’s working at a different club now. Didn’t her former mama-san say anything about where she is now?”

“We couldn’t find anything. She’d been fired from two other places. Every time we get closer, she gets fired for drinking too much.”

“If I hear anything, I’ll let you know right away, okay?”

“It is night there, nee ?”

“ Hai . Hana said she couldn’t sleep. I was worried she was taking speed while drinking. I heard girls do that at clubs.”

“You should go to sleep, Solomon. Mozasu said you’re doing well in school. We’re proud of you,” she said. “Night-night, Solomon-chan.”

Phoebe smiled.

“So you lost your cherry to your hooker half sister, and now she’s in trouble.”

“Compassionate of you.”

“Quite liberal and tolerant of me not to be upset that your ex is calling you drunk when she’s a professional sex worker. Either I’m confident in my value, or I’m confident in our relationship, or I’m just ignorant of the fact that you’re going to hurt my feelings when you return to a troubled young damsel whom I know you’re interested in rescuing.”

“I can’t rescue her.”

“You just tried and failed, because she does not want your help. She wants to die.”

“What?”

“Yes, Solomon. This young woman wants to die.” She pushed back his forelocks and looked at him kindly. She kissed him on the mouth. “There are a lot of troubled young women in this world. We can’t save them all.”

Hana didn’t phone him again. Months later, Etsuko learned that she was working in a Kabukicho toruko-buro where she bathed men for money. The investigator told her what time Hana would finish her shift, and Etsuko waited outside the building. Several girls came out, and Hana was the last to leave. Etsuko couldn’t believe how much she’d aged. The investigator had explained that Etsuko might not recognize her because she would look much older. Hana’s face was withered and dry. She wore no makeup, and her clothes didn’t look clean.

“Hana,” Etsuko said.

Hana saw her, then walked in the other direction.

“Leave me alone.”

“Hana, oh, please, Hana.”

“Go away.”

“Hana, we can forget all this. Start again. I shouldn’t have tried to make you go to school. I’m sorry.”

“No.”

“You don’t have to work here. I have money.”

“I don’t want your money. I don’t want the pachinko man’s money. I can earn my own.”

“Where do you live? Can we go to your place to talk?”

“No.”

“I’m not going to go away.”

“Yes, yes, you will. You’re selfish.”

Etsuko stood there, believing that if she could just listen and suffer, then maybe her daughter could be saved.

“I am terrible. Soo desu . Forgive me, Hana. Anything but this.”

Hana dropped her large tote bag from her shoulder, and the two wine bottles wrapped in a towel made a muffled clinking sound on the pavement. She wept openly, her arms hanging by her side, and Etsuko knelt on the ground and held her daughter’s knees, refusing to let her go.

Tokyo, 1989

Solomon was glad to be back home. The job at Travis Brothers was turning out better than expected. The pay was more than he deserved for a job a year out of college, and he enjoyed the numerous benefits of being hired as an expat rather than as a local. The HR people at Travis got him a fancy rental broker who found him a decent one-bedroom in Minami-Azabu, which Phoebe didn’t think was too awful. As his corporate employer, Travis was named guarantor on the lease, since Solomon was legally a foreigner in Japan. Solomon, who had grown up in Yokohama in his father’s house, had never rented an apartment before. For non-Japanese renters, requiring a guarantor was common practice, which, of course, incensed Phoebe.

After some cajoling, Phoebe had decided to follow him to Tokyo. They were thinking of getting married, and moving together to Japan was the first step. Now that she was here, he felt bad for her. Solomon was employed at the Japanese subsidiary of a British investment bank, so he worked alongside Brits, Americans, Aussies, Kiwis, and the occasional South African among the Western-educated locals, who were less parochial than the natives. As a Korean Japanese educated in the States, Solomon was both a local and a foreigner, with the useful knowledge of the native and the financial privileges of an expatriate. Phoebe, however, did not enjoy his status and privileges. Rather, she spent her days at home reading or wandering around Tokyo, not sure why she was here at all since Solomon was rarely home. It was impossible for her to get a work visa, as they weren’t married; she was thinking of teaching English, but she didn’t know how to get a tutoring job. Now and then, when a Japanese person asked her an innocent question like if she was South Korean, Phoebe tended to overreact.

“In America, there is no such thing as a Kankokujin or Chosenjin . Why the hell would I be a South Korean or a North Korean? That makes no sense! I was born in Seattle, and my parents came to the States when there was only one Korea,” she’d shout, relating one of the bigotry anecdotes of her day. “Why does Japan still distinguish the two countries for its Korean residents who’ve been here for four fucking generations? You were born here. You’re not a foreigner! That’s insane. Your father was born here. Why are you two carrying South Korean passports? It’s bizarre.”