Min Lee - Pachinko

The pig butcher looked up from his counter and smiled at her proudly.

That evening, Sunja did not go home until she could see the bottom of the kimchi jar.

Sunja could sell whatever kimchi she and Kyunghee were able to make now, and this ability to sell had given her a kind of strength. If they could’ve made more kimchi, she felt sure that she could’ve sold that, too, but fermenting took time, and it wasn’t always possible to find the right ingredients. Even when they made a decent profit, the price of cabbages could spike the following week, or worse, they might not be available at all. When there were no cabbages at the market, the women pickled radishes, cucumbers, garlic, or chives, and sometimes Kyunghee pickled carrots or eggplant without garlic or chili paste, because the Japanese preferred those kinds of pickles. Sunja thought about land all the time. The little kitchen garden her mother had kept behind the house had nourished them even when the boardinghouse guests ate double what they paid. The price of fresh food kept rising, and working people couldn’t afford the most basic things. Recently, some customers would ask to buy a cup of kimchi because they couldn’t afford a jar of it.

If Sunja had no kimchi or pickles to sell, she sold other things. Sunja roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts; she boiled ears of corn. She had two carts now, and she hooked them together like the cars of a train — one cart with a makeshift coal stove and another just for pickles. The carts took up the better part of the kitchen because they had to keep them inside the house for fear of them getting stolen. She split the profits equally with Kyunghee, and Sunja put aside every sen she could for the boys’ schooling and for their passage back home in case they had to leave.

When Mozasu turned five months old, Sunja also started selling candy at the market. Produce had been getting increasingly scarce, and by chance, Kyunghee had obtained two wholesale bags of black sugar from a Korean grocer whose Japanese brother-in-law worked in the military.

At her usual spot by the pork butcher’s stall, Sunja stoked the fire beneath the metal bowl used to melt sugar. The steel box that functioned as a stove had been giving her trouble; as soon as she could afford it, Sunja planned on having a proper stove made up for her cart. She rolled up her sleeves and moved the live coals around to circulate the air and raise the heat.

“ Agasshi , do you have kimchi today?”

It was a man’s voice, and Sunja looked up. About Isak’s age, he dressed like her brother-in-law — tidy without drawing much attention to himself. His face was cleanly shaven, and his fingernails were neat. The lenses of his eyeglasses were very thick and the heavy frames detracted from his good features.

“No, sir. No kimchi today. Just candy. It’s not ready, though.”

“Oh. When will you have kimchi again?”

“Hard to say. There isn’t much cabbage to buy, and the last batch of kimchi we put up isn’t ready yet,” Sunja said, and returned to the coals.

“A day or two? A week?”

Sunja looked up again, surprised by his insistence.

“The kimchi might be ready in three days or so. If the weather continues to get warmer, then it might be two, sir. But I don’t think that soon,” Sunja said flatly, hoping he would let her start with the candy making. Sometimes, she sold a few bags to the young women getting off the train at about this time.

“How much kimchi will you have when it’s ready?”

“I’ll have plenty to sell you. Do you know how much you want? Most of my customers like to bring their own containers. How much do you think you need?” Her customers were Korean women who worked in factories and didn’t have time to make their own banchan . When she sold sweets, her customers were children and young women. “Just stop by in three days, and if you bring your own container—”

The young man laughed.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe you can sell me everything you make.”

He adjusted his eyeglasses.

“You can’t eat that much kimchi! And how would you keep the rest of it fresh?” Sunja replied, shaking her head at his foolishness. “It’s going to be summer in a couple of months, and it’s hot here already.”

“I’m sorry. I should have explained. My name is Kim Changho, and I manage the yakiniku restaurant right by Tsuruhashi Station. News of your excellent kimchi has spread far.”

Sunja wiped her hands on the apron that she wore over her padded cotton vest, keeping a close eye on the hot coals.

“It’s my sister-in-law who knows what she’s doing in the kitchen. I just sell it and help her make it.”

“Yes, yes, I’d heard that, too. Well, I’m looking for some women to make all the kimchi and banchan for the restaurant. I can get you cabbage and—”

“Where, sir? Where do you get cabbage? We looked everywhere. My sister-in-law goes to the market early in the morning and still—”

“I can get it,” he said, smiling.

Sunja didn’t know what to say. The candy-making metal bowl was hot already, and it was time to put in the sugar and water, but she didn’t want to start now. If this person was serious, then it was important to hear him out. She heard the train arrive. She had missed her first batch of customers already.

“Where’s your restaurant again?”

“It’s the big restaurant on the side street behind the train station. On the same street as the pharmacy — you know, the one owned by the skinny Japanese pharmacist, Okada-san? He wears black glasses like mine?” He pushed his glasses up on his nose again and smiled like a boy.

“Oh, I know where the pharmacy is.”

This was the shop where all the Koreans went when they were really sick and were willing to pay for good medicine. Okada was not a friendly man, but he was honest; he was reputed to be able to cure many ailments.

The young man didn’t seem like anyone who was trying to take advantage of her, but she couldn’t be sure. In the few short months working as a vendor, she’d given credit to a few customers and had not been repaid. People were willing to lie about small things and to disregard your interests.

Kim Changho gave her a business card. “Here’s the address. Can you bring your kimchi when it’s done? Bring all of it. I’ll pay you in cash, and I’ll get you more cabbage.”

Sunja nodded, not saying anything. If she had only one customer for the kimchi, then she’d have more time to make other things to sell. The hardest part had been procuring the cabbage, so if this man could do that, then the work would be much easier. Kyunghee had been scouring the market with Mozasu on her back to track down these scarce ingredients and often returned home with a light market basket. Sunja promised to bring him what she had.

The restaurant was the largest storefront on the short side street parallel to the train station. Unlike the other businesses nearby, its sign was lettered handsomely by a professional sign maker. The two women admired the large black letters carved and painted into a vast wooden plaque. They wondered what the words meant. It was obviously a Korean galbi house — the scent of grilled meat could be detected from two blocks away — but the sign had difficult Japanese lettering that neither of them could read. Sunja grasped the handlebar of the carts loaded with all the kimchi they’d put up in the past few weeks and took a deep breath. If the kimchi sales to the restaurant were steady, they’d have a regular income. She could buy eggs more often for Isak’s and Noa’s meals and get heavy wool cloth for Kyunghee, who wanted to sew new coats for Yoseb and Noa.

Yoseb had been staying away from home, complaining of the sight and smell of all the kimchi ingredients spilling out from the kitchen. He didn’t want to live in a kimchi factory. His dissatisfaction was the primary reason why the women preferred to sell candy, but sugar was far more difficult to find than cabbage or sweet potatoes. Although Noa didn’t complain of it, the kimchi odor affected him the most. Like all the other Korean children at the local school, Noa was taunted and pushed around, but now that his clean-looking clothes smelled immutably of onions, chili, garlic, and shrimp paste, the teacher himself made Noa sit in the back of the classroom next to the group of Korean children whose mothers raised pigs in their homes. Everyone at school called the children who lived with pigs buta . Noa, whose tsumei was Nobuo, sat with the buta children and was called garlic turd.