Min Lee - Pachinko

Your son,

Noa

Noa had written his brief message in simple Japanese rather than Korean, a language he had never written well. When Kyunghee finished reading, no one said anything. Yangjin patted her daughter’s knee, then got up to go to the kitchen to fix dinner, leaving Kyunghee to put her arm around her sister-in-law, who now sat wordless and pale.

Yoseb exhaled. Would anything bring the boy back? he wondered. He did not think so. This life had too much loss. When Isak died, Yoseb had thought of his brother’s little boys and vowed to watch over them. Noa and Mozasu were not his own, but what did that matter? He had wanted to be a good man for them. Then after the war, after his accident, he had resigned himself to death and looked forward only to the boys’ future. The stupid heart could not help but hope. Life had seemed almost bearable; though Yoseb was nearly cut off from the living, confined to his pallet, his family had persisted. Life continued. To Yoseb, Noa had seemed so much like Isak that it had been possible to forget that the boy’s blood father was someone else — someone wholly different from his gentle Isak. But now, the poor boy had learned somehow that he had descended from another line. The boy had decided to leave them, and his departure was punishment. Yoseb could understand the boy’s anger, but he wanted another chance to talk to him, to tell Noa that a man must learn to forgive — to know what is important, that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement. However, Yoseb did not have enough energy to rise from his pallet, let alone search for his dear nephew, a boy who was like his own flesh.

“Could he have gone to the North?” Kyunghee asked her husband. “He wouldn’t do something like that, isn’t that so?”

Sunja glanced at her brother-in-law.

“No, no.” Yoseb’s pillow made a gravelly noise as he moved his head from side to side.

Sunja covered her eyes with her hands. No one who went to the North came back. There was still hope as long as he had not gone there. Kim Changho had left in the last month of 1959, and in more than two years, they’d heard from him only twice. Kyunghee rarely spoke of him, but it made sense that her first thought was Pyongyang.

“And Mozasu? What do we tell him?” Kyunghee asked. Still holding Noa’s letter, she patted Sunja’s back with her free hand.

“Wait until he asks about him. The boy is so busy as it is. If he asks, just say you don’t know. Then later, if you have to, tell him that his brother ran away,” Yoseb said, his eyes still shut. “Tell him that school was too hard for Noa, so he left Tokyo and he was too ashamed to return home after all those attempts to get into school. For all we know, that could be the reason.” It sickened Yoseb to say these words, so he said nothing else.

Sunja couldn’t speak. Mozasu would never believe that, yet she couldn’t tell him the truth, either, because he would go look for his brother. And she could not tell Mozasu about Hansu. Mozasu was hardly sleeping lately, because he had so many responsibilities at work, and Yumi had miscarried only a few weeks before. The boy did not need any more worries.

Since that evening when Noa had come home from school to speak to her, Sunja had thought daily of going to Tokyo to talk to him, but she could not do so. A month had passed and now this. What did he say to her? You took my life away. He had withdrawn from Waseda. Sunja felt unable to think, to breathe even. All she wanted was to see her son again. If that wasn’t possible, it would be better to die.

Wiping her wet hands on her apron, Yangjin came out of the kitchen and told them that dinner was ready. Yangjin and Kyunghee stared at Sunja.

“You should eat something,” Kyunghee said.

Sunja shook her head. “I have to go. I have to find him.”

Kyunghee clutched her arm, but Sunja broke free and got up.

“Let her go to him,” Yangjin said.

It turned out that Hansu lived only thirty minutes away by train. His preposterously immense house stood out prominently on the quiet street. A pair of tall, carved mahogany doors, flanked by grand picture windows, centered the two-story limestone structure like a giant maw. The house had been the residence of an American diplomat after the war. Heavy drapery shaded the interiors, making it impossible to look inside. As a young girl, Sunja had imagined where he might live, but she could never have conceived of anything like this. He lived in a castle, it seemed to her. The taxi driver assured her that this was the address.

A young, short-haired servant girl wearing a shimmering white apron answered the door, opening it only halfway. The master of the house was not in, she said in Japanese.

“Who’s that?” an older woman asked, emerging from the front parlor. She tapped the servant girl lightly, and she moved aside. The door opened fully to expose the grand entryway.

Sunja realized who this must be.

“Koh Hansu, please,” she said in her best Japanese. “Please.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Boku Sunja.”

Hansu’s wife, Mieko, nodded. The beggar was no doubt a Korean who wanted money. The postwar Koreans were numerous and shameless, and they took advantage of her husband’s soft nature toward his countrymen. She did not begrudge his generosity, but she disapproved of the beggars’ boldness. It was evening, and this was no time for a woman of any age to beg.

Mieko turned to the servant girl, “Give her what she wants and send her away. There’s food in the kitchen if she is hungry.” This was what her husband would do. Her father had also believed in hospitality toward the poor.

The servant bowed as the mistress walked away.

“No, no,” Sunja said in Japanese. “No money, no food. Speak Koh Hansu, please. Please.” She clasped her hands together as if in prayer.

Mieko returned, taking deliberate steps. Koreans could be insistent like unruly children. They could be loud and desperate, with none of the coolness and placidity of the Japanese. Her children were half of this blood, but fortunately, they did not raise their voices or have slovenly habits. Her father had loved Hansu, claiming that he was not like the others and that it would be good for her to marry him, because he was a real man and he would take care of her. Her father was not wrong; under her husband’s direction, the organization had only grown stronger and wealthier. She and her daughters had enormous wealth in Switzerland as well as innumerable fat packets of yen hidden in the stone walls of this house. She lacked for nothing.

“How did you learn that he lives here? How do you know my husband?” Mieko asked Sunja.

Sunja shook her head, because she didn’t understand exactly what the woman was asking. She understood the word “husband.” His wife was clearly Japanese — early sixties with gray hair, cut short. She was very beautiful, with large dark eyes fringed with unusually long lashes. She wore a light green kimono over her elegant frame. The rouge on her lips was the color of umeboshi . She looked like a kimono model.

“Fetch the garden boy. He speaks Korean.” Hansu’s wife extended her left hand and gestured to Sunja to remain by the door. She noted the rough and worn cotton clothing and the tired hands, spotted from outdoor work. The Korean could not be very old; there was some prettiness in her eyes, but her youth was spent. Her waist was thick from childbearing. She was not attractive enough to be one of Hansu’s whores. To her knowledge, all of Hansu’s whores were Japanese hostesses, some younger than their daughters. They knew better than to grace her doorstep.

The garden boy came running to the front of the house from the backyard, where he’d been weeding.