Min Lee - Pachinko

“You can’t talk that way,” she said softly. She didn’t want to hurt him. All these years, his adoration and kindness had nourished her but had also caused her anguish, because she could not care for him in that way. It was wrong to do so. “Changho, you have a future. You must find a young woman and have children. There isn’t a day when I don’t feel heartbroken that my husband and I couldn’t have them. I know it was the Lord’s plan for me, but I think you might have some. You’d make a wonderful husband and father. I couldn’t ask you to wait. It would be sinful.”

“It’s because you don’t want me to wait. Because I would if you told me to.”

Kyunghee bit her lip. She felt cold suddenly and put on her blue wool mittens.

“I have to make dinner.”

“I leave tomorrow. Your husband said I should wait. Isn’t that what you wanted? For him to give you permission? Wouldn’t that make it okay in the eyes of your god?”

“It isn’t up to Yoseb to change God’s laws. My husband is alive, and I wouldn’t want to hasten his death. I care for you very much, Changho. You have been the dearest friend to me. I’m not sure if I can bear it when you go, but I know we’re not supposed to be man and wife. To even talk about it while he is alive cannot be right. I pray that you’ll understand.”

“No. I don’t understand. I will never understand. How could your faith allow such suffering?”

“It isn’t just suffering. It isn’t. I pray that you will forgive me. That you will—”

Changho laid down the juice bottle carefully on the bench and got up.

“I’m not like you,” he said. “I’m just a man. I don’t want to be holy. I’m a minor patriot.” He left, walking away from the direction of the house and didn’t return until late in the evening when everyone was asleep.

Early in the morning, when Kyunghee went to the kitchen to get water for Yoseb, she saw that Changho’s room door was open. She looked in, and he was gone. The bedding had been folded neatly. Changho had never had many possessions, but the room looked even more empty without his pile of books, his extra pair of glasses resting on top of them. The family was supposed to have accompanied him to Osaka Station to see him off, but he had taken an earlier train.

Kyunghee stood by his door crying, when Sunja touched her arm. She was wearing her work apron over her nightclothes.

“He left in the middle of the night. He told me to tell everyone good-bye. I only saw him because I got up to make candy.”

“Why didn’t he wait? Until we could go with him to the train station?”

“He said he didn’t want to make a fuss. He said he had to go. I tried to make him breakfast, but he said he’d buy something later. That he couldn’t eat.”

“He wanted to marry me. After Yoseb died. Yoseb had told him that it was okay.”

“ Uh-muh ,” Sunja gasped.

“But that’s not right, is it? He should be with someone young. He has a right to have children. I couldn’t give him any. I don’t even have blood anymore.”

“Maybe you’re more important than children.”

“No. I could not disappoint two men,” she said. “He is a good man.”

Sunja held her sister-in-law’s hand.

“You told him no?” Her sister-in-law’s face was wet with tears, and Sunja wiped it with a corner of her apron.

“I have to get water for Yoseb,” Kyunghee said, remembering suddenly why she’d gotten out of bed.

“Sister, he would not have cared about children. He would have been happy to have just been with you. You are like an angel in this world.”

“No. I’m selfish. Yoseb isn’t.”

Sunja didn’t understand.

“It was selfish to keep him here, but I did because he meant so much to me. I prayed every day for the courage to let him go, and I know the Lord wanted me to let him go. It cannot be right to have two men care for you that way and to allow it.”

Sunja nodded, but it didn’t make sense. Were you supposed to have only one person in your life? Her mother had her father and no one else. Was her person Hansu or Isak? Did Hansu love her or had he just wanted to use her? If love required sacrifice, then Isak had really loved her. Kyunghee had served her husband faithfully without complaint. There was no one as kindhearted and lovely as her sister-in-law — why couldn’t she have more than one man love her? Why did men get to leave when they didn’t get what they wanted? Or had Changho suffered enough waiting? Sunja wanted her sister-in-law to make Changho wait, but it wouldn’t have been Kyunghee if she had made him do so. Changho had loved someone who would not betray her husband, and perhaps that was why he had loved her. She could not violate who she was.

Kyunghee moved toward the kitchen, and Sunja followed, a few steps behind. Morning sunlight broke through the kitchen window, and it was hard to see straight ahead, but the light cast a glowing outline around her sister-in-law’s slight frame.

Tokyo, 1960

It took some time, but after two years at Waseda, Noa finally felt comfortable about his place there. Always an excellent student with good habits, after a few hiccups and several thoughtful attempts, Noa learned how to write English literature papers and take university-level exams. University life was glorious in contrast to secondary school, where he had learned and memorized many things he no longer valued. None of his requirements even seemed like work; Waseda was pure joy to him. He read as much as he could without straining his eyes, and there was time to read and write and think. His professors at Waseda cared deeply about the subjects they taught, and Noa could not understand how anyone could ever complain.

Hansu had procured for him a well-appointed apartment and gave him a generous allowance, so Noa did not have to worry about housing, money, or food. He lived simply and managed to send some money home each month. “Just study,” Hansu had said. “Learn everything. Fill your mind with knowledge — it’s the only kind of power no one can take away from you.” Hansu never told him to study, but rather to learn, and it occurred to Noa that there was a marked difference. Learning was like playing, not labor.

Noa was able to buy every book he needed for his classes, and when he couldn’t find one at the bookstore, all he had to do was go to the immense university library, which was deeply underutilized by his peers. He didn’t understand the Japanese students around him, because they seemed so much more interested in things outside of school rather than learning. He knew well enough from schools past that the Japanese didn’t want much to do with Koreans, so Noa kept to himself, no different than when he was a boy. There were some Koreans at Waseda, but he avoided them, too, because they seemed too political. During one of their monthly lunches, Hansu had said that the leftists were “a bunch of whiners” and the rightists were “plain stupid.” Noa was alone mostly, but he didn’t feel lonely. Even after two years, he was still in thrall with just being at Waseda, with just having a quiet room to read in. Like a man starved, Noa filled his mind, ravenous for good books. He read through Dickens, Thackeray, Hardy, Austen, and Trollope, then moved on to the Continent to read through much of Balzac, Zola, and Flaubert, then fell in love with Tolstoy. His favorite was Goethe; he must have read The Sorrows of Young Werther at least half a dozen times.

If he had an embarrassing wish, it was this: He would be a European from a long time ago. He didn’t want to be a king or a general — he was too old for such simple wishes. If anything, he wanted a very simple life filled with nature, books, and perhaps a few children. He knew that later in life, he also wanted to be let alone to read and to be quiet. In his new life in Tokyo, he had discovered jazz music, and he liked going to bars by himself and listening to records that the owners would select from bins. Listening to live music was too expensive, but he hoped that one day, when he had a job again, he would be able to go to a jazz club. At the bar, he would have one drink that he’d barely touch to pay for his seat, then he’d go back to his room, read some more, write letters to his family, then go to sleep.