Min Lee - Pachinko

Immediately, a place setting and a wine cup appeared before her. The chef himself brought them a dish of fried oysters sprinkled with transparent flakes of English salt. Noa poured Hansu a cup of wine, then Hansu poured a cup for Akiko.

“To new friends,” Hansu said, raising his cup.

The young couple remained standing by the restaurant door as Hansu got into his car. Akiko and Noa bowed deep from the waist in the direction of the rear passenger seat, where Hansu was seated. The chauffeur closed the passenger door, bowed to the couple, then got behind the wheel to take Hansu to his next meeting.

“I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Akiko said, still smiling like a proper Japanese schoolgirl, though Hansu was already gone. “Koh-san is wonderful. I’m glad I met him.”

“You lied,” Noa said, his voice trembling. He didn’t want to speak for fear of saying something awful, but he couldn’t help himself. “I…I didn’t invite you to the lunch. Why did you say that to Koh-san? The lunch could have turned out badly. This man is important to our family. He’s supporting my education. I owe him a great deal.”

“Nothing happened. It was an ordinary lunch with relatives at a fancy sushi-ya . Big deal. I’ve been to dozens of them. I behaved perfectly. He liked me,” Akiko said, puzzled by his irritation. She had always been confident of her ability to win grown-ups over.

“Are you ashamed of me?” Akiko asked, laughing, strangely delighted to be having a fight with Noa, who was normally so calm and silent that she didn’t know what went through his mind. Besides, it was his fault: He was so difficult to understand, she’d felt compelled to go to this lunch without an invitation. She hadn’t done it to upset him. He should have been pleased that she cared enough about him to get to know his friends.

“You would never have let me. I was right to go.” She touched his arm, and he moved away.

“Akiko, why, why do you always have to be right? Why do you always have to have the upper hand? Why can’t I decide when and where you can meet someone personal to me? I would never do this to you. I would respect your privacy,” Noa sputtered, and he put his hand over his mouth.

Akiko stared at him, not understanding. She was not used to a man saying no to her. His cheeks were flushed; he was having trouble getting the words out. This wasn’t the same man who would explain difficult passages of her sociology texts to her or help her with her statistics homework. Her gentle and wise Noa was furious.

“What is it? Is it that you are embarrassed that you are Korean?”

“What?” Noa took a step back. He looked around to see if anyone could hear their argument. “What are you saying?” He looked at her as if she was deranged.

Akiko grew calm and she spoke slowly.

“I’m not embarrassed that you are Korean. I think it’s great that you are Korean. It doesn’t bother me at all. It might bother any ignorant person or even my racist parents, but I love that you are Korean. Koreans are smart and hardworking, and the men are so handsome,” she said, smiling at him like she was flirting. “You are upset. Listen, if you want, I can arrange for you to meet my whole family. They’d be lucky to meet such an excellent Korean. It would change the way they—”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. No more of this.”

Akiko moved closer to him. An older woman passed by and glanced at them, but Akiko didn’t pay her any attention.

“Noa-chan, why are you so angry with me? You know that I think you’re the best. Let’s go home, and you can fuck me.”

Noa stared at her. She would always believe that he was someone else, that he wasn’t himself but some fanciful idea of a foreign person; she would always feel like she was someone special because she had condescended to be with someone everyone else hated. His presence would prove to the world that she was a good person, an educated person, a liberal person. Noa didn’t care about being Korean when he was with her; in fact, he didn’t care about being Korean or Japanese with anyone. He wanted to be, to be just himself, whatever that meant; he wanted to forget himself sometimes. But that wasn’t possible. It would never be possible with her.

“I will pack up your things and have them sent to your house by messenger. I don’t want to see you anymore. Please never come see me again.”

“Noa, what are you saying?” Akiko said, astonished. “Is this the Korean temper that I’ve never seen before?” She laughed.

“You and I. It cannot be.”

“Why?”

“Because it cannot.” There was nothing else he could think of, and he wanted to spare her the cruelty of what he had learned, because she would not believe that she was no different than her parents, that seeing him as only Korean — good or bad — was the same as seeing him only as a bad Korean. She could not see his humanity, and Noa realized that this was what he wanted most of all: to be seen as human.

“He’s your father, isn’t he?” Akiko said. “He looks exactly like you. You told me your father died, but he’s not dead. You just didn’t want him to meet me, because you didn’t want me to meet your yakuza papa. And you didn’t want me to know that he’s a gangster. How else do you explain that ridiculous car and uniformed chauffeur? How else can he put you up in that enormous apartment? Even my father can’t afford that apartment, and he owns a trading company! Come on, Noa, how can you get mad at me when all I wanted was to learn more about you? I don’t care about what he does. It doesn’t matter — I don’t mind that you’re Korean. Don’t you see?”

Noa turned around and walked away. He walked until he couldn’t hear her scream his name anymore. He walked rigidly and calmly, not believing that a person you loved — yes, he had loved her — could end up being someone you never knew. Perhaps he had known all along about her, but he couldn’t see it. He just couldn’t. When Noa reached the train station, he went down the stairs to the platform slowly. He felt like he might fall down. He would take the first train to Osaka.

It was early evening when he reached the house. His Aunt Kyunghee started when she answered the door. He was distraught and wanted to speak to his mother. Uncle Yoseb was sleeping in the back room, and his mother was in the front room sewing. He wouldn’t take off his coat. When Sunja came to the door, Noa asked if they could go outside to talk.

“What? What’s the matter?” Sunja asked, putting on her shoes.

Noa wouldn’t answer. He went outside to wait for her.

Noa led her away from the shopping street to a spot where there were very few people.

“Is it true?” Noa asked his mother. “About Koh Hansu.”

He couldn’t say the words out loud exactly, but he had to know.

“Why he pays for my school, and why he’s always been around. You were together—” he said. It was easier to say this than the other thing.

Sunja had been buttoning her faded woolen coat, and she stopped walking and stared at her son’s face. She understood. Yoseb had been right all along. She shouldn’t have allowed Hansu to pay for his education. But she hadn’t been able to find another way. Noa had gone to work each day and saved every bit of his earnings and studied every night until his eyes were red-rimmed in the morning, and he had finally passed the entrance examination for Waseda.

How could she have said no? There were no loans for this. There was no one else who could help. She had always been afraid of Hansu’s presence in Noa’s life. Would that money keep Noa tied to Hansu? she had wondered. But not to take the money. Was that possible?