Min Lee: Pachinko

That said, the boarders expected their meals regularly, and an old house needed repairs. The rent had to be paid each month to the landlord’s agent, who was persistent. In time, Yangjin had learned how to handle money, deal with her suppliers, and say no to terms she did not want. She hired two orphaned sisters and became an employer. She was a thirty-seven-year-old widow who ran a boardinghouse and no longer the shoeless teenager who’d arrived on its doorstep clutching a set of clean undergarments wrapped in a square bit of fabric.

Yangjin had to take care of Sunja and earn money; they were fortunate to have this business even though they didn’t own the house. On the first of every month, each lodger paid twenty-three yen for room and board, and increasingly, this was not enough to buy grain at the market or coal for heat. The lodging fees couldn’t go up, because the men were not making any more money, but she still had to feed them the same amount. So from shinbones, she made thick, milky broths and seasoned the garden vegetables for tasty side dishes; she stretched meals from millet and barley and the meager things they had in the larder when there was little money left at the end of the month. When there wasn’t much in the grain sack, she made savory pancakes from bean flour and water. The lodgers brought her fish they couldn’t sell in the market, so when there was an extra pail of crabs or mackerel, she preserved them with spices to supplement the scantier meals that were sure to come.

For the previous two seasons, six guests took turns sleeping in the one guest room: The three Chung brothers from Jeollado fished at night and slept during the day shift, and two young fellows from Daegu and a widower from Busan worked at the seaside fish market and went to sleep in the early evening. In the small room, the men slept beside each other, but none complained, because this boardinghouse was better than what they were used to back at their respective homes. The bedding was clean, and the food was filling. The girls laundered their clothing well, and the boardinghouse keeper patched up the lodgers’ worn work clothes with scraps to make them last another season. None of these men could afford a wife, so for them, this setup was not half bad. A wife could have given some physical comfort to a workingman, but a marriage could beget children who would need food, clothing, and a home; a poor man’s wife was prone to nagging and crying, and these men understood their limits.

The rise in prices accompanied by the shortage of money was distressing, but the lodgers were almost never late with the rent. The men who worked at the market were occasionally paid in unsold goods, and Yangjin would take a jar of cooking oil in place of a few yen on rent day. Her mother-in-law had explained that you had to be very good to the lodgers: There were always other places for workingmen to stay. She explained, “Men have choices that women don’t.” At the end of each season, if there were any coins left over, Yangjin dropped them into a dark earthenware crock and stowed it behind a panel in the closet where her husband had put away the two gold rings that had belonged to his mother.

At meals, Yangjin and her daughter served the food noiselessly while the lodgers talked brashly about politics. The Chung brothers were illiterate, but they followed the news carefully at the docks and liked to analyze the fate of the country at the boardinghouse dining table.

It was the middle of November, and the fishing had been better than expected for the month. The Chung brothers had just woken up. The evening-shift lodgers would soon be heading home to sleep. The fishermen brothers would eat their main meal before going out to sea. Well rested and feisty, the brothers were convinced that Japan couldn’t conquer China.

“Yes, the bastards can take a nibble, but China will not be eaten whole. Impossible!” exclaimed the middle Chung brother.

“Those dwarves can’t take over such a great kingdom. China is our elder brother! Japan is just a bad seed,” Fatso, the youngest brother, cried, slapping down his cup of warm tea. “China will get those sons of bitches! You watch!”

The poor men mocked their powerful colonizer within the shabby walls of the boardinghouse, feeling secure from the colonial police, who wouldn’t bother with fishermen with grandiose ideas. The brothers boasted of China’s strengths — their hearts yearning for another nation to be strong since their own rulers had failed them. Korea had been colonized for twenty-two years already. The younger two had never lived in a Korea that wasn’t ruled by Japan.

“ Ajumoni ,” Fatso shouted genially. “ Ajumoni .”

“Yes?” Yangjin knew he wanted more to eat. He was a puny young man who ate more than both his brothers combined.

“Another bowl of your delicious soup?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

Yangjin retrieved it from the kitchen. Fatso slurped it down, and the men left the house for work.

The evening-shift lodgers came home soon after, washed up, and ate their suppers quickly. They smoked their pipes, then went to sleep. The women cleared the tables and ate their simple dinner quietly because the men were sleeping. The servant girls and Sunja tidied the kitchen and cleaned the dirty washbasins. Yangjin checked the coal before she prepared for bed. The brothers’ talk of China lingered in her mind. Hoonie used to listen carefully to all the men who brought him news, and he would nod, exhale resolutely, and then get up to take care of the chores. “No matter,” he would say, “no matter.” Whether China capitulated or avenged itself, the weeds would have to be pulled from the vegetable garden, rope sandals would need to be woven if they were to have shoes, and the thieves who tried often to steal their few chickens had to be kept away.

The dampened hem of Baek Isak’s woolen coat had frozen stiff, but at last Isak found the boardinghouse. The long trip from Pyongyang had exhausted him. In contrast to the snowy North, the cold in Busan was deceptive. Winter in the South appeared milder, but the frosty wind from the sea seeped into his weakened lungs and chilled him to the marrow. When he’d left home, Isak had been feeling strong enough to make the train journey, but now he felt depleted again, and he knew he had to rest. From the train station in Busan, he had found his way to the small boat that ferried him across to Yeongdo, and once off the boat, the coal man from the area had brought him to the door of the boardinghouse. Isak exhaled and knocked, ready to collapse, believing that if he could sleep well for the night, he would be better in the morning.

Yangjin had just settled onto her cotton-covered pallet when the younger servant girl tapped on the doorframe of the alcove room where all the women slept together.

“ Ajumoni , there’s a gentleman here. He wants to speak to the master of the house. Something about his brother who was here years ago. The gentleman wants to stay. Tonight,” the servant girl said, breathless.

Yangjin frowned. Who would ask for Hoonie? she wondered. Next month would mark three years since his death.

On the heated floor, her daughter, Sunja, was asleep already, snoring lightly, her loose hair crimped by the braids she’d worn during the day and spread across her pillow like a shimmering rectangle of black silk. Beside her remained just enough space for the maids to turn in when they finished their work for the evening.

“Didn’t you tell him that the master passed away?”

“Yes. He seemed surprised. The gentleman said his brother had written to the master but hadn’t heard back.”

Yangjin sat up and reached for the muslin hanbok that she’d just removed, which was folded in a neat pile by her pillow. She put on the quilted vest over her skirt and jacket. With a few deft movements, Yangjin put her hair into a bun.