Min Lee - Pachinko

“Were you trying to get me to marry you? Because you couldn’t marry a normal fellow?”

Even Hansu realized the cruelty of his own words.

Sunja grabbed her bundle and ran home.

Pharmacist Chu had grown fond of the pastor from Pyongyang and was pleased to see his recovery. He visited Isak only once a week now, and the young man seemed completely well.

“You’re too healthy to be in bed,” the pharmacist said. “But don’t get up just yet.” Chu was seated beside Isak, who was lying flat on a bedroll in the storage closet. The draft from the gaps around the windowsill lifted Chu’s white forelocks slightly. He placed the thick quilt over Isak’s shoulders. “You’re warm enough?”

“Yes. I’m indebted to you and ajumoni .”

“You still look too thin.” Chu frowned. “I want to see you stout. There’s no curve to your face. Don’t you like the food here?”

The boardinghouse keeper looked as if she’d been scolded.

“The meals have been wonderful,” Isak protested. “I’m eating far more than what I pay in board. The food here is better than at home.” Isak smiled at Yangjin and Sunja, who were standing in the hallway.

Chu leaned in to Isak’s chest, where he had placed the bell of his stethoscope. The breathing sounded strong and even, similar to the week before. The pastor seemed very fit.

“Make a coughing sound.”

Chu listened thoughtfully to the timbre of the pastor’s chest. “You’ve improved for certain, but you’ve been ill most of your life. And you had tuberculosis before. We need to be vigilant.”

“Yes, but I feel strong now. Sir, I’d like to write to my church in Osaka to let them know my travel dates. That is, if you think I can travel. My brother made me promise that I’d get your permission first.” Isak closed his eyes as if in prayer.

“Before you left Pyongyang, did your doctor think you could travel all the way to Osaka by yourself?”

“I was told that I could travel, but the doctor and my mother didn’t encourage my leaving home. But I was the strongest I’d ever been when I left. But of course, since being here like this — no doubt, I should’ve listened to them. It’s just that the church in Osaka wanted me to come.”

“Your doctor told you not to go, but you went anyway.” Chu laughed. “Young men can’t be locked up, I suppose. So now you want to head out again, and this time you want my permission. How would it look if something happened to you on the way, or if you got sick when you got there?” Chu shook his head and sighed. “What can I say? I cannot stop you, but I think you should wait.”

“How long?”

“At least two more weeks. Maybe three.”

Isak glanced up at Yangjin and Sunja. He was embarrassed.

“I feel terrible that I’ve burdened you and put you at risk. Thank God no one has gotten sick. I’m so sorry. For everything.”

Yangjin shook her head. The pastor had been a model guest; if anything, the other lodgers had improved their behavior in the proximity of such a well-mannered person. He had paid his bills on time. She was relieved that his health had improved so dramatically.

Chu put away his stethoscope.

“I’m in no rush for you to return home, however. The weather here is better for your lungs compared to the North, and the weather in Osaka will be similar to the weather here. The winters are not as severe in Japan,” Chu said.

Isak nodded. The climate had been a major consideration for his parents’ consent for Isak to go to Osaka.

“Then, may I write the church in Osaka? And my brother?”

“You’ll take the boat to Shimonoseki and then the train?” Chu asked, making a face. The journey would take a day, two at the most with delays.

Isak nodded, relieved that the pharmacist was signaling that he could leave.

“Have you been going out?”

“Not beyond the yard. You’d said that it wasn’t a good idea.”

“Well, you can now. You should take a good walk or two every day — each one longer than the one before it. You need to strengthen your legs. You’re young, but you’ve been in bed and in the house for almost three months.” The pharmacist turned to Yangjin. “See if he can make it as far as the market. He shouldn’t go alone obviously. He could fall.” Chu patted Isak on the shoulder before going and promised to return the following week.

The next morning, Isak finished his Bible study and prayers, then ate his breakfast in the front room by himself. The lodgers had already gone out for the day. He felt strong enough to go to Osaka, and he wanted to make preparations to leave. Before heading out to Japan, he had wanted to visit the pastor of a church in Busan, but there had been no chance for that. He hadn’t contacted him for fear that he’d stop by and get sick. Isak’s legs felt okay, not wobbly as before. In his room, he had been doing light calisthenics that his eldest brother, Samoel, had taught him when he was a boy. Having spent most of his life indoors, he’d had to learn how to keep fit in less obvious ways.

Yangjin came to clear his breakfast tray. She brought him barley tea, and he thanked her.

“I think I’d like to take a walk. I can go by myself,” he said, smiling. “It wouldn’t be for long. I feel very well this morning. I won’t go far.”

Yangjin couldn’t keep her face blank. She couldn’t keep him cooped up like a prized rooster in her henhouse, but what would happen if he fell? The area near her house was desolate. If he walked by the beach and had an accident, no one would see him.

“I don’t think you should go by yourself, sir.” The lodgers were at work or in town doing things she didn’t want to know about. There was no one to ask to accompany him at the moment.

Isak bit his lip. If he didn’t strengthen his legs, the journey would be delayed.

“It would be a big imposition.” He paused. “You have a great deal of work, but perhaps you can take me for just a short while.” It was outrageous to ask a woman to walk with him on the beach, but Isak felt he’d go insane if he didn’t walk outside today. “If you cannot go, I understand. I will take a very short walk near the water. For a few minutes.”

As a boy, he had lived the life of a privileged invalid. Tutors and servants had been his primary companions. When it was good weather and he wasn’t well enough to walk, the servants or his elder brothers used to carry him on their backs. If the doctor wanted him to get air, the blade-thin gardener would put Isak in an A-frame and stroll through the orchard, letting the child pull off the apples from the lower branches. Isak could almost smell the heady perfume of the apples, feel the weight of the red fruit in his hands and taste the sweet crunch of the first bite, its pale juice running down his wrist. He missed home, and he felt like a sick child again, stuck in his room, begging for permission to see the sunlight.

Yangjin was seated on her knees with her small, coarse hands folded in her lap, not knowing what to say. It was not appropriate for a woman to walk with a man who wasn’t a member of her family. She was older than he was, so she didn’t fear any gossip, but Yangjin had never walked alongside a man who wasn’t her father or husband.

He peered into her troubled face. He felt awful for making another imposition.

“You’ve already done so much, and I’m asking for more.”

Yangjin straightened her back. She’d never gone on a leisurely walk on the beach with her husband. Hoonie’s legs and back had given him profound pain throughout his brief life — he had not complained of it, but he would conserve his energies for the work he had to get done. How much he must have wanted to run as a normal boy, swallow lungfuls of salty air and chase the seagulls — things nearly every child in Yeongdo had done growing up.