Min Lee - Pachinko

He could see that they were still uncomfortable with the idea of working in a restaurant kitchen.

“Besides, you wouldn’t want me to deliver boxes and boxes of cabbages and vegetables to your house, would you? That can’t be very comfortable.”

Kyunghee whispered to Sunja, “We can’t work in a restaurant. We should make the kimchi at home, and we can bring it here. Or maybe they can send the boy to pick it up if we can’t carry it all.”

“You don’t understand. I need you to make much, much more than whatever you were making before. I manage two more restaurants that require kimchi and banchan —this one is the central location and has the largest kitchen, though. I’d provide all your ingredients; you just tell me what you want. You’d be paid a good salary.”

Kyunghee and Sunja looked at him, not understanding his meaning.

“Thirty-five yen a week. Each of you would get the same amount, so it’s seventy yen in total.”

Sunja opened her mouth in surprise. Yoseb earned forty yen per week.

“And every now and then, you could take some meat home,” Kim said, smiling. “We’d have to see what we can do to make you enjoy working here. Maybe even some grains. If you need a lot of things for your personal use, I’d charge you what we pay for them. We can figure that out later.”

After paying for the ingredients, Sunja and Kyunghee netted approximately ten to twelve yen a week from peddling. If they could earn seventy yen a week, they wouldn’t worry about money. No one at home had eaten any chicken or fish in the past six months because of the cost; buying beef or pork had been impossible. Each week, they still bought soup bones and splurged on the occasional egg for the men, but Sunja wanted the boys, Isak, and Yoseb to eat other things besides potatoes and millet. With so much money, it would be possible to send more money to their parents, who were suffering far more than they let on.

“And I could be home when my older son, Noa, gets home?” Sunja blurted out without meaning to.

“Yes, of course,” Kim said, as if he’d thought this through. “You could leave when you’re done with your work. You could be finished before lunchtime even, I suppose.”

“And my baby?” Sunja pointed to Mozasu, who slept on Kyunghee’s back. “Can I bring him? He could stay in the kitchen with us,” Sunja said, unable to imagine leaving him with one of the overwhelmed grannies in the neighborhood who watched the workingwomen’s children. When there was no one to watch them at home, or if they couldn’t afford to pay the grannies, a few women at the market tethered their very small children to their carts with ropes; the children with ropes crisscrossed around their torsos seemed happy to wander about or to sit by their mothers playing with cheap toys.

“The baby’s not much trouble at all,” Sunja said.

“Why not? As long as the work gets done, I don’t care. There are no customers here at the time you’re working, so they won’t be in the way,” he said. “If you need to stay late and your older son wants to come here from school, that’s fine, too. There are no customers here until dinnertime.”

Sunja nodded. She wouldn’t have to spend another cold winter standing outside, waiting for customers, all the while worrying about Noa and Mozasu.

Seeing that Kyunghee looked more agitated than pleased at this job offer, which would change everything, Sunja said, “We have to ask. For permission—”

After the dinner table was cleared, Kyunghee brought her husband a cup of barley tea and his ashtray so he could have a smoke. Seated cross-legged near his uncle, Noa played with the brightly painted top that Yoseb had bought for him, and the child was mesmerized by how fast it could go. The wooden toy made a pleasant whirring sound against the floor. Sunja, who held Mozasu in her arms, watched Noa playing, wondering how Isak was. Ever since Isak’s arrest, Sunja barely spoke at home for fear of upsetting her brother-in-law, whose temperament had altered greatly. When he got angry, he’d walk out of the house; sometimes, he wouldn’t even bother coming home until very late. The women knew that Yoseb would be against their working at the restaurant.

After Yoseb lit his cigarette, Kyunghee told him about the jobs. They needed the work, she said, using the word “work” rather than “money.”

“Have you lost your mind? First, you make food to sell under a bridge by a train station, and now both of you want to work in a restaurant where men drink and gamble? Do you know what kind of women go into such places? What, next you’ll be pouring drinks for—?” Yoseb’s unsmoked cigarette shook between his trembling fingers. He was not a violent man, but he’d had enough.

“Did you actually go into the restaurant?” he asked, not quite believing this conversation.

“No,” Kyunghee replied. “I stayed outside with the baby, but it was a big, clean place. I saw it through the window. I went to the meeting with Sunja in case the place wasn’t nice, because Sunja shouldn’t go there by herself. The manager, Kim Changho, was a well-spoken young man, and you should meet him. We wouldn’t go there if you didn’t give us permission. Yobo —” Kyunghee could see how upset he was, and she felt terrible about it. She respected no one more than Yoseb. Women complained about their men, but there were no bad words to say about her husband; Yoseb was a truthful person who kept his word. He tried all he could; he was honorable. He did his best to care for them.

Yoseb put out his cigarette. Noa stopped spinning his top, and the boy looked frightened.

“Maybe if you met him…” Kyunghee knew they had to take this job, but she knew her husband would be humiliated by it. In their marriage, he had denied her nothing except for her ability to earn money. He believed that a hardworking man should be able to take care of his family by himself, and that a woman should remain at home.

“He could pay you instead of us; we’d just save the money for Isak’s boys and send more to your parents. We could buy Isak better food and send him clothes. We don’t know when he’s—” Kyunghee stopped herself. Noa had sidled up closer to his uncle as if to protect him. He patted his uncle’s leg the same way his uncle would pat his back when Noa fell down or got discouraged by something at school.

Although his head was full of arguments, Yoseb couldn’t speak. He was working two full-time jobs — managing two factories for Shimamura-san, who paid him half the salary of one Japanese foreman. Lately, he repaired broken metal presses for a Korean factory owner after hours, but he couldn’t count on that for a steady income. He hadn’t mentioned this recent job to his wife, because he preferred for her to think of him working as a manager rather than as a mechanic. Before he got home, he’d scrub his hands ruthlessly with a bristle brush, using diluted lye to get out the machine oil stains from beneath his fingernails. No matter how hard he worked, there was never enough money — the yen notes and coins dropped out of his pockets as if they had gaping holes.

Japan was in trouble; the government knew it but would never admit defeat. The war in China pressed on without letting up. His boss’s sons fought for Japan. The older one, who’d been sent to Manchuria, had lost a leg last year, then died of gangrene, and the younger one had been sent to Nanjing to take his place. In passing, Shimamura-san had mentioned that Japan was in China in order to stabilize the region and to spread peace, but the way he’d said all this hadn’t given Yoseb the impression that Shimamura-san believed any of it. The Japanese were going deeper into the war in Asia, and there were rumors that Japan would soon be allied with Germany in the war in Europe.