Min Lee - Pachinko

It was the twelfth month of the year — a mild, wintry morning. When Sunja and Kyunghee arrived for work, Kim asked the women to have a seat at the square table pushed up against the wall outside the kitchen. This was where they usually took their meals and breaks. He’d already placed a pot of tea on the table. Once seated, Kyunghee poured each of them a cup.

“The restaurant will be closed tomorrow,” Kim said.

“For how long?” Sunja asked.

“Till the war is over. This morning, I gave up the last of the metal things. The kitchen’s almost empty now. All the steel rice bowls, basins, cooking pots, utensils, steel chopsticks were requisitioned. Even if I could find new ones and remain open, the police will know that we’ve kept things back and confiscate them. The government doesn’t pay us for what they take. We can’t keep replacing—” Kim took a sip of his tea. “Well, so it has to be.”

Sunja nodded, feeling bad for Kim, who looked upset. He glanced briefly at Kyunghee.

“And what will you do?” Kyunghee asked him.

Kim, younger than Isak, addressed her as Sister. Lately, he depended on her to accompany him to the market to support his civilian status when stopped. Suspicious of military service dodgers, the police and neighborhood association leaders routinely questioned any male not in uniform. To put them off, he’d taken to wearing the dark glasses of a blind man on the streets.

“Can you find another job?” Kyunghee asked.

“Don’t worry about me. At least I don’t have to fight”—he laughed, touching his eyeglasses; his poor vision had kept him from fighting and from working in the mines when other Koreans had been conscripted—“which is good, since I’m a coward.”

Kyunghee shook her head.

Kim stood up.

“We have some customers coming this evening from Hokkaido. I kept back two cooking pans and a few bowls for the meal; we can use those. Sister, I wonder if you can come with me to the market,” he said, then he turned to Sunja. “Will you stay here and wait for the liquor man to come? He’s supposed to bring a package by. Oh, the customer has asked for your bellflower muchim for tonight. I left a packet of dried bellflowers in the downstairs cupboard. You’ll find the other ingredients there.”

Sunja nodded, wondering how he’d found dried bellflowers and sesame oil.

Kyunghee got up and put on her old blue coat over her sweater and worker pants. She was still a lovely woman, clear skinned and slender, but now, fine crinkles around her eyes and marionette lines by her mouth appeared when she smiled. Heavy kitchen work had ruined her once-supple white hands, but she did not mind. Yoseb, who held her small right hand when they slept, didn’t seem to notice the red scaly patches on her palms resulting from day after day of pickling. After Isak died, Yoseb had become a different man — sullen, brooding, and uninterested in anything but work. His change had transformed their household and their marriage. Kyunghee tried to cheer up her husband, but she could do little to dispel his gloom and silence. At home, no one seemed to talk except for the boys. Yoseb was almost unrecognizable from the boy she had loved from girlhood. He had become this cynical, broken man — something she could never have predicted. So it was only at the restaurant that Kyunghee behaved like herself. Here, she teased Kim like a younger brother and giggled with Sunja while they cooked. Now, even this place would be gone.

After Kim and her sister-in-law left for the market, Sunja shut the door behind them. As she turned toward the kitchen, she heard the knock.

“Did you forget something?” Sunja asked, opening the door.

Hansu stood before her, wearing a black coat over a gray wool suit. His hair was still dark and his face more or less the same, with a slight thickening along his jawline. Reflexively, Sunja checked to see if he was wearing the white leather shoes he used to wear long ago. He wore black leather lace-up shoes.

“It’s been a long time,” Hansu said calmly, entering the restaurant. Sunja stepped several paces away from him.

“What are you doing here?”

“This is my restaurant. Kim Changho works for me.”

Her head felt foggy, and Sunja slumped down on the nearest seat cushion.

Hansu had located her eleven years ago when she’d pawned the silver pocket watch he’d given her. The pawnbroker had tried to sell him that watch, and the rest had been simple detective work. Since then, Hansu had been tracking her daily. After Isak went to prison, he knew she needed money and created this job for her. Sunja learned that the moneylender who’d loaned Yoseb the money worked for him as well. In fact, Hansu’s wife was the eldest daughter of a powerful Japanese moneylender in Kansai, and Hansu had been legally adopted by his father-in-law, Morimoto, because the man did not have a son. Koh Hansu, whose legal name was Haru Morimoto, lived in an enormous house outside of Osaka with his wife and three daughters.

Hansu led her back to the table where she’d sat only a few moments ago with Kim and Kyunghee.

“Let’s have some tea. You stay here, and I’ll get a cup. You seem troubled by my appearance.”

Familiar with where everything was, Hansu returned from the kitchen right away with a teacup.

Sunja stared at him, still unable to speak.

“Noa is a very smart boy,” he said proudly. “He’s a handsome child and an excellent runner.”

She tried not to look afraid. How did he know these things? She now recalled every conversation she’d ever had with Kim about her sons. There had been numerous occasions when Noa and Mozasu had been with her at the restaurant when there’d been no school for Noa.

“What do you want?” she asked finally, trying to appear calmer than she felt.

“You have to leave Osaka immediately. Convince your sister and your brother-in-law to go. For the safety of the children. However, if they don’t want to go, there’s little you can do. I have a place for you and the boys.”

“Why?”

“Because the real bombing will start soon here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Americans are going to bomb Osaka in a matter of days. The B-29s have been in China. Now they found more bases on the islands. The Japanese are losing the war. The government knows it can never win but won’t admit it. The Americans know that the Japanese military has to be stopped. The Japanese military would kill every Japanese boy rather than admit its error. Fortunately, the war will end before Noa is recruited.”

“But everyone says Japan is doing better.”

“You mustn’t believe what you hear from the neighbors or what the newspapers say. They don’t know.”

“Shhh—” Sunja looked around instinctively at the plate glass window and the front door. If anyone was caught saying such treacherous things, he could be sent to jail. She had repeatedly told her boys to never, ever say anything negative about Japan or the war. “You shouldn’t talk like this. You could get in trouble—”

“No one can hear us.”

She bit her lower lip and stared, still unable to believe the sight of him. It had been twelve years. Yet here was the same face — the one she had loved so much. She had loved his face the way she had loved the brightness of the moon and the cold blue water of the sea. Hansu was sitting across from her, and he returned her gaze, looking kindly at her. However, he remained composed, certain of every measured word he uttered. There had never been any hesitation in him. He was unlike her father, Isak, her brother-in-law, or Kim. He was unlike any other man she had ever known.

“Sunja-ya, you have to leave Osaka. There’s no time to think about it. I came here to tell you this, because the bombs will destroy this city.”