Min Lee - Pachinko

As soon as the taffy cooled on the metal pan, the women worked quickly to cut the candy into neat squares.

“Dokhee used to tease me about the sloppy way I cut onions,” Sunja said, smiling. “And she couldn’t bear how slowly I washed the rice pots. And every morning when I would clean the floors, she would say without fail, ‘Always use two rags to clean the floors. First, sweep, then wipe with a clean rag, and then wipe it again with a fresh one!’ Dokhee was the cleanest person I have ever met.” As she spoke the words, Sunja could recall Dokhee’s round and simple face growing somber while giving instructions. Her expressions, mannerisms, and voice were equally vivid, and Sunja, who did not pray often, prayed to God in her heart for the girls. She prayed that they were not taken for the soldiers. Isak used to say that we could not know why some suffered more than others; he said we should never hasten to judgment when others endured agony. Why was she spared and not them? she wondered. Why was she in this kitchen with her mother when so many were starving back home? Isak used to say that God had a plan, and Sunja believed this could be so, but it gave her little consolation now, thinking of the girls. Those girls had been more innocent than her sons when they were very little.

When Sunja looked up from her task, her mother was weeping.

“Those girls lost their mother, then their father. I should’ve done more for them. Tried to help them get married, but we had no money. A woman’s lot is to suffer. We must suffer.”

Sunja sensed that her mother was right that the girls had been tricked. They were likely dead now. She put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. Her mother’s hair was nearly all gray, and during the day, she wore the old-fashioned bun at the base of her neck. It was night, and her mother’s gray, scant braid hung down her back. The years of outdoor work had creased her brown oval face with deep grooves on her forehead and around her mouth. For as long as she could remember, her mother had been the first to rise and the last to go to bed; even when the girls had worked with them, her mother had worked as hard as the younger one. Never one to talk much, as she’d gotten older her mother had a lot more to say, but Sunja never seemed to know what to say to her.

“ Umma , remember digging up the potatoes with appa? Appa ’s beautiful potatoes. They were fat and white and so good when you baked them in the ashes. I haven’t had a good potato like that since—”

Yangjin smiled. There had been happier times. Her daughter had not forgotten Hoonie, who had been a wonderful father to her. So many of their babies had died, but they’d had Sunja. She had her still.

“At least the boys are safe. Maybe that’s why we’re here. Yes.” Yangjin paused. “Maybe that’s why we’re here.” Her face brightened. “You know, your Mozasu is such a funny one. Yesterday, he said he wants to live in America and wear a suit and hat like in the movies. He said he wants to have five sons!”

Sunja laughed, because that sounded like Mozasu.

“America? What did you say?”

“I told him it’s okay as long as he visited me with his five sons!”

The kitchen smelled of caramel, and the women worked nimbly until sunlight filled the house.

School was a misery. Mozasu was thirteen and tall for his age. With broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, he appeared more manly than some of his teachers. Because he could not read or write at grade level — despite Noa’s prodigious efforts to teach him kanji — Mozasu had been placed in a class full of ten-year-olds. Mozasu spoke Japanese just as well as his peers; if anything, he had tremendous verbal facility, which served him well in his regular battles with the older children. In arithmetic, he could keep up with the class, but writing and reading Japanese lamed him brutally. His teachers called him a Korean fool, and Mozasu was biding his time so he could be done with this hell. In spite of the war and all their academic privations, Noa had finished high school, and whenever he wasn’t working, he was studying for his college entrance examinations. He never left the house without an exam study book and one of his old English-language novels, which he bought from the bookseller.

Six days a week, Noa worked for Hoji-san, the cheerful Japanese who owned most of the houses in their neighborhood. It was rumored that Hoji-san was in fact part burakumin or Korean, but no one said too much about his shameful blood, since he was everyone’s landlord. It was possible that the vicious rumor that he was not pure Japanese could have been started by an unhappy tenant, but Hoji-san did not seem to care. As his bookkeeper and secretary, Noa kept Hoji-san’s ledgers in excellent order and wrote letters to the municipal offices in beautiful Japanese on his behalf. Despite his smiles and jokes, Hoji-san was ruthless when it came to getting his rent money. He paid Noa very little, but Noa did not complain. He could’ve made more money working for Koreans in the pachinko business or in yakiniku restaurants, but Noa didn’t want that. He wanted to work in a Japanese office and have a desk job. Like nearly all Japanese business owners, Hoji-san would not normally hire Koreans, but Hoji-san’s nephew was Noa’s high school teacher, and Hoji-san, a man who knew how to find bargains, hired his nephew’s most brilliant pupil.

In the evening, Noa helped Mozasu with his schoolwork, but they both knew it was pointless, since Mozasu had no interest in memorizing kanji. As his long-suffering tutor, Noa focused on teaching his brother sums and basic writing. With remarkable patience, Noa never got upset when Mozasu did poorly on his examinations. He knew how it was for most Koreans at school; most of them dropped out, and he didn’t want this to happen to Mozasu, so he did not focus on exam grades. He even asked Uncle Yoseb and his mother to refrain from getting upset with Mozasu’s report cards. He told them that the goal was to make sure that Mozasu had better-than-average skills as a worker. If Noa hadn’t tried so hard and taught him with such care, Mozasu would’ve done what nearly all the other Korean boys in the neighborhood did rather than go to school — collect scrap metal for money, search for rotting food for the pigs their mothers bred and raised in their homes, or worse, get in trouble with the police for petty crimes.

Ever the student, after Noa helped Mozasu, he studied English with a dictionary and a grammar book. In the only academic reversal, Mozasu, who was more interested in English than Japanese or Korean, would help his older brother learn new vocabulary words by drilling Noa on English words and phrases.

At the dreadful local school, Mozasu hung back and kept to himself during lunch and recess. There were four other Koreans in the class, but they all went by their Japanese pass names and refused to discuss their background, especially in the presence of other Koreans. Mozasu knew with certainty who they were, because they lived on his street and he knew their families. All of them were only ten years old, so the Koreans in his grade were smaller than he was, and Mozasu stayed away from them, feeling both contempt and pity.

Most Koreans in Japan had at least three names. Mozasu went by Mozasu Boku, the Japanization of Moses Baek, and rarely used his Japanese surname, Bando, the tsumei listed on his school documents and residency papers. With a first name from a Western religion, an obvious Korean surname, and his ghetto address, everyone knew what he was — there was no point in denying it. The Japanese kids would have nothing to do with him, but Mozasu no longer gave a shit. When he was younger, getting picked on used to bother him, though far less than it had bothered Noa, who had compensated by outperforming his classmates academically and athletically. Every day, before school began and after school ended, the bigger boys told Mozasu, “Go back to Korea, you smelly bastard.” If there was a crowd of them, Mozasu would keep walking; however, if there were only one or two assholes, he would hit them as hard as he could until he saw blood.