Min Lee - Pachinko

“You should leave Noa alone. He has a family. After the war, we’ll do everything possible to repay you.”

Hansu folded his arms close to his chest and smiled before speaking.

“You son of a bitch, I paid. I paid for your life. I paid for everyone’s life. Everyone would be dead without me.”

Yoseb shifted to his side a little and winced from the pain. Sometimes he felt like he was still on fire.

“Did Sunja tell you?” Hansu asked.

“Just look at the child’s face. It doesn’t make sense for anyone to go through all this trouble, and I know you’re not some sort of saint. I know what you are—”

Hansu laughed out loud. It was almost out of respect for Yoseb’s directness.

“We’re going back home,” Yoseb said, and closed his eyes.

“Pyongyang’s controlled by the Russians, and the Americans are in charge of Busan. You want to go back to that?”

“It’s not going to be like that forever,” Yoseb said.

“You’ll starve there.”

“I’m done with Japan.”

“And how will you go back to Pyongyang or Busan? You can’t even walk down the length of this farm.”

“The company owes me my wages. When I’m well enough, I’ll go back to Nagasaki to collect my pay.”

“When’s the last time you read a newspaper?” Hansu pulled out a sheaf of Korean and Japanese newspapers he’d brought for Kim from the crates. He put the stack beside Yoseb’s pallet.

Yoseb glanced at the papers but refused to pick them up.

“There’s no money for you.” Hansu spoke to him slowly as if Yoseb were a child. “The company will never pay you. Never. There are no records for your work, and you can’t prove it. The government wants nothing more than for every poor Korean to go back, but it won’t give you the fare or a sen for your troubles. Ha.”

“What do you mean? How do you know?” Yoseb asked.

“I know. I know Japan,” Hansu said, looking privately disappointed. He had lived among the Japanese for all of his adult life. His father-in-law was unquestionably the most powerful Japanese moneylender in Kansai. Hansu could say with confidence that the Japanese were pathologically intractable when they wanted to be. In this, they were exactly like the Koreans except their stubbornness was quieter, harder to detect.

“Do you know how hard it is to get money out of the Japanese? If they don’t want to pay you, they will never ever pay you. You’re wasting your time.”

Yoseb’s body felt itchy and warm.

“Every day, for every one boat that heads out to Korea filled with idiots wanting to go home, two boats filled with refugees come back because there’s nothing to eat there. The guys who come straight from Korea are even more desperate than you. They’ll work for week-old bread. Women will whore after two days of hunger, or one if they have children to feed. You’re living for a dream of a home that no longer exists.”

“My parents are there.”

“No. No, they’re not.”

Yoseb turned to look at Hansu’s eyes.

“Why do you think I brought back only Sunja’s mother. Do you really think I couldn’t find your parents and your in-laws?”

“You don’t know what happened to them,” Yoseb said. Neither he nor Kyunghee had heard from them in over a year.

“They were shot. All landowners who were foolish enough to stick around were shot. Communists see people only in simple categories.”

Yoseb wept and covered his eyes.

The lie had to be told, and Hansu did not mind telling it. If the parents weren’t dead already, Yoseb’s and Kyunghee’s parents would starve to death or die of old age inevitably. They could have very well been shot. The conditions in the communist-occupied North were awful. There were numerous landowners who’d been rounded up, killed, and shoved into mass graves. No, he didn’t know for certain if Yoseb’s parents were alive or not, and yes, he could have learned the truth if he didn’t mind risking some of his men to find them, but he didn’t see the point of it. He didn’t see how their lives could be useful for his purposes. It had been easy to find Sunja’s mother — barely two days of his man’s time. In the scheme of things, it was preferable for Yoseb and Kyunghee to lose their parents, because Sunja would have followed them blindly out of some preposterous sense of duty. Yoseb and Kyunghee would be better off in Japan for now, anyway. Hansu would never allow his son to go to Pyongyang.

Hansu opened one of the parcels and withdrew a large bottle of soju. He opened it and passed it to Yoseb, then left the barn to see Tamaguchi about a payment.

After finishing her work, Sunja finally returned to the barn, and she found Hansu waiting for her. He was sitting by himself by the feed bins at the far end of the barn, a good distance away from the boys, who were reading. Yoseb was sleeping soundly. Kyunghee and Yangjin were in the house cooking dinner while Kim loaded the sacks of potatoes in the cold shed. Hansu said hello to her first and waved her toward him openly, no longer feeling the need to be discreet.

Sunja stood by the bench opposite Hansu.

“Sit, sit,” he insisted, but she refused.

“Tamaguchi tells me that he wants to adopt your sons,” Hansu said quietly, smiling.

“What?”

“I told him you’d never let them go. He offered to take just one of them even. The poor man. Don’t worry. He can’t take them.”

“Soon, we’ll go to Pyongyang,” she said.

“No. That’s not going to happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everyone there is dead. Kyunghee’s parents. Your in-laws. All shot for owning property. These things happen when governments change. You have to get rid of your enemies. Landlords are enemies of the workers,” Hansu said.

“ Uh-muh .” Sunja sat down at last.

“Yes, it’s sad, but nothing can be done.”

Sunja was a pragmatic woman, but even she thought Hansu was unusually cruel. The more she got to know this man, the more she realized that the man she’d loved as a girl was an idea she’d had of him — feelings without any verification.

“You should be thinking about Noa’s education. I brought him some books to study for his college entrance examinations.”

“But—”

“You cannot return home. You’re going to have to wait until things are more stable.”

“It’s not your decision to make. My boys have no future here. If we can’t go back home now, we’ll go back when it’s safer.”

Her voice had trembled, but she’d said what she’d needed to say.

Hansu remained silent for a moment.

“Whatever you decide to do later is one thing, but in the meantime, Noa should be studying for university. He’s twelve.”

Sunja had been thinking of Noa’s schooling but hadn’t known how to help him. Also, how would she pay for school? They didn’t even have enough money for the passage home. Out of Yoseb’s hearing, the three women talked about this all the time. They had to get back to Osaka to figure out a way to make money again.

“Noa should study while he’s in this country. Korea will be in chaos for a long time. Besides, he’s already a good Japanese student. When he goes back, he’ll have a degree from a good Japanese university. That’s what all the rich Koreans are doing, anyway — sending their kids abroad. If Noa gets into a university, I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay for Mozasu as well. I could get them some tutors when they return—”

“No,” she said loudly. “No.”

He decided not to fight her, because she was stubborn. He had learned this. Hansu pointed to the crates by Yoseb’s pallet.

“I brought meat and dried fish. There’s also canned fruit and chocolate bars from America. I brought the same things for Tamaguchi’s family, too, so you don’t have to give them any of yours. There’s fabric in the bottom crate; all of you need clothing, I think. There’s scissors, thread, and needles,” he added, proud of himself for having brought these things. “I’ll bring wool next time.”