Min Lee - Pachinko

Yangjin was seated cross-legged nearby one of the hot spots on the heated floor of the alcove room where the women slept. She was mending a pair of trousers, one of the half dozen in the pile of the guests’ well-worn garments. The men’s clothes were not washed often enough, since the men owned so little and didn’t like to bother.

“They’ll only get dirty again,” Fatso would complain, though his older brothers preferred them clean. After laundering, Yangjin patched up whatever she could, and at least once a year, she’d change the collars of shirts and jackets that could no longer be repaired or cleaned. Every time the new lodger coughed, her head bobbed up. She tried to focus on her neat stitches rather than on her daughter, who was cleaning the floors of the house. Twice a day, the yellow wax-papered floors were swept with a short broom, then mopped by hand with a clean rag.

The front door of the house opened slowly, and both mother and daughter looked up from their work. Jun, the coal man, had come for his money.

Yangjin rose from the floor to meet him. Sunja bowed perfunctorily, then returned to her work.

“How is your wife?” Yangjin asked. The coal man’s wife had a nervous stomach and was occasionally bedridden.

“She got up early this morning and went to the market. Can’t stop that woman from making money. You know how she is,” Jun said with pride.

“You’re a fortunate man.” Yangjin pulled out her purse to pay him for the week’s coal.

“ Ajumoni , if all my customers were like you, I’d never go hungry. You always pay when the bill is due!” He chuckled with pleasure.

Yangjin smiled at him. Every week, he complained that no one paid on time, but most people went with less food to pay him, since it was too cold this winter not to have coal. The coal man was also a portly gentleman who took a cup of tea and accepted a snack at every house on his route; he would never starve even in such lean years. His wife was the best seaweed hawker in the market and made a tidy sum of her own.

“Down the street, that dirty dog Lee-seki won’t cough up what he owes—”

“Things are not easy. Everyone’s having troubles.”

“No, things are not easy at all, but your house is full of paying guests because you are the best cook in Kyungsangdo. The minister is staying with you now? Did you find him a bed? I told him your sea bream is the finest in Busan.” Jun sniffed the air, wondering if he could grab a bite of something before his next house, but he didn’t smell anything savory.

Yangjin glanced at her daughter, and Sunja stopped cleaning the floor to go to the kitchen to fix the coal man something to eat.

“But did you know, the young man had already heard of your cooking from his brother who stayed ten years ago? Ah, the belly has a better memory than the heart!”

“The minister?” Yangjin looked puzzled.

“The young fellow from the North. I met him last night, wandering around the streets looking for your house. Baek Isak. Sort of a fancy-looking fellow. I showed him your place and would have stopped in, but I had a late delivery for Cho-seki, who finally found the money to pay me after a month of dodging—”

“Oh—”

“Anyway, I told the minister about my wife’s stomach troubles and how hard she works at the stall, and you know, he said he would pray for her right then and there. He just dropped his head and closed his eyes! I don’t know if I believe in that mumbling that people do, but I can’t see how it can hurt anyone. Very nice-looking young man, don’t you think? Has he left for the day? I should say hello.”

Sunja brought him a wooden tray holding a cup of hot barley tea, a teapot, and a bowl of steamed sweet potatoes and set it before him. The coal man plopped down on the floor cushion and devoured the hot potatoes. He chewed carefully, then started to speak again.

“So this morning, I asked the wife how she felt, and she said things were not so bad and went to work! Maybe there’s something to that praying after all. Ha!—”

“Is he a Cath-o-lic?” Yangjin didn’t mean to interrupt him so frequently, but there was no other way to speak with Jun, who could have talked for hours. For a man, her husband used to say, Jun had too many words. “A priest?”

“No, no. He’s not a priest. Those fellows are different. Baek is a Pro-tes-tant. The kind that marries. He’s going to Osaka, where his brother lives. I don’t remember meeting him.” He continued to chew quietly and took small sips from his teacup.

Before Yangjin had a chance to say anything, Jun said, “That Hirohito-seki took over our country, stole the best land, rice, fish, and now our young people.” He sighed and ate another bite of potato. “Well, I don’t blame the young people for going to Japan. There’s no money to be made here. It’s too late for me, but if I had a son”—Jun paused, for he had no children, and it made him sad to think of it—“I’d send him to Hawaii. My wife has a smart nephew who works on a sugar plantation there. The work is hard, but so what? He doesn’t work for these bastards. The other day when I went to the docks, the sons of bitches tried to tell me that I couldn’t—”

Yangjin frowned at him for cursing. The house being so small, the girls in the kitchen and Sunja, who was now mopping the alcove room, could hear everything, and they were no doubt paying attention.

“May I get you more tea?”

Jun smiled and pushed his empty cup toward her with both hands.

“It’s our own damn fault for losing the country. I know that,” he continued. “Those goddamn aristocrat sons of bitches sold us out. Not a single yangban bastard has a full set of balls.”

Both Yangjin and Sunja knew the girls in the kitchen were giggling at the coal man’s tirade, which didn’t vary from week to week.

“I may be a peasant, but I’m an honest workingman, and I wouldn’t have let some Japanese take over.” He pulled out a clean, white handkerchief from his coal dust — covered coat and wiped his runny nose. “Bastards. I better get on with my next delivery.”

The widow asked him to wait while she went to the kitchen. At the front door, Yangjin handed Jun a fabric-tied bundle of freshly dug potatoes. One slipped out of the bundle and rolled onto the floor. He pounced on it and dropped it into his deep coat pockets. “Never lose what’s valuable.”

“For your wife,” Yangjin said. “Please say hello.”

“Thank you.” Jun slipped on his shoes in haste and left the house.

Yangjin remained by the door watching him walk away, not going back inside until he stepped into the house next door.

The house felt emptier without the blustering man’s lofty speeches. Sunja was crawling on her knees finishing up the hallway connecting the front room with the rest of the house. The girl had a firm body like a pale block of wood — much in the shape of her mother — with great strength in her dexterous hands, well-muscled arms, and powerful legs. Her short, wide frame was thick, built for hard work, with little delicacy in her face or limbs, but she was quite appealing physically — more handsome than pretty. In any setting, Sunja was noticed right away for her quick energy and bright manner. The lodgers never ceased trying to woo Sunja, but none had succeeded. Her dark eyes glittered like shiny river stones set in a polished white surface, and when she laughed, you couldn’t help but join her. Her father, Hoonie, had doted on her from birth, and even as a small child, Sunja had seen it as her first duty to make him happy. As soon as she learned to walk, she’d tagged behind him like a loyal pet, and though she admired her mother, when her father died, Sunja changed from a joyful girl to a thoughtful young woman.