Min Lee - Pachinko

“Takano-san is a regular customer. He was here just this morning. Every day, he takes his coffee at the window table.” Bingo pointed. “Black coffee and two sugar cubes. Never any milk. This morning, he tells me, ‘Bingo-san, I have a headache that will not go away, because it is so hard to find good workers. The fools here have pumpkins for heads, and seeds are not brains.’” The waiter clasped his thick meaty fingers over his head in a comic imitation of the anguished Takano-san.

“Hey, why don’t you go over there and tell Takano-san that I sent you,” Bingo said, smiling. This was the sort of thing he loved to do best — help people and make introductions. He had already arranged three marriages for his high school friends.

Noa nodded and thanked him. Years later, Bingo would tell anyone that he was Ban-san’s first friend in Nagano.

Takano-san’s business office was located in another building, separate from the immense pachinko parlor, almost two city blocks away. From the conservative appearance of the brick building, it would have been impossible to know the purpose of this office. Noa might have missed it altogether if Bingo hadn’t drawn a map for him on a sheet of notepaper. Except for its number, the building had no sign.

Hideo Takano, the parlor manager, was a sharp-looking Japanese in his late thirties. He wore a beautiful dark woolen suit with a striped purple necktie and a matching pocket handkerchief; each week, he paid a neighborhood boy to shine all his leather shoes to a mirror sheen. He dressed so well that he looked more like a clothing salesman than a man who worked in an office. Behind his desk were two black safes, the size of doors. His large office was adjacent to half a dozen modest-sized rooms, each filled with office workers wearing white shirts — mostly young men and plain-faced office ladies. Takano had a small bump on the bridge of his handsome nose and round black eyes that sloped downward, and when he spoke, his velvety eyes were expressive and direct.

“Sit down,” Takano said. “My secretary said you are looking for a clerk position.”

“My name is Nobuo Ban desu . Bingo-san from the café said that you were looking for workers. I recently arrived from Tokyo, sir.”

“Ha! Bingo sent you? But I don’t need anyone to pour my coffee here.” From behind his large metal desk, Takano leaned forward in his chair. “So, Bingo is listening to my sad troubles after all. I thought I was mostly listening to his.”

Noa smiled. The man seemed genial enough; he didn’t seem like someone who hated Koreans. He was glad to have worn a clean shirt and a tie today; Koh Hansu had mentioned often that a man should look his best each day. For Koreans, this was especially important: Look clean and be well groomed. In every situation, even in ones when you have a right to be angry, a Korean must speak soberly and calmly, he’d said.

“So, friend of Bingo-san, what can you do?” Takano asked.

Noa sat up straighter. “I’m trained as a bookkeeper and have worked for a landlord in Kansai. I’ve collected rents and kept books for several years before I went to university—”

“Yeah? University? Really? Which one?”

“Waseda,” Noa answered, “but I haven’t finished my degree in literature. I was there for three years.”

“Literature?” Takano shook his head. “I don’t need an employee who will be reading books when he should be working. I need a bookkeeper who’s smart, neat, and honest. He needs to show up to work each morning when he’s supposed to, not hungover and not dealing with girl problems. I don’t want any losers. I fire losers.” Takano tilted his head after saying all this. Noa looked very respectable; he could see why Bingo would send him over.

“Yes, sir. Of course. I am a very precise bookkeeper, and I am very good at writing letters, sir.”

“Modest.”

Noa did not apologize. “I will do my best if you hire me, sir.”

“What’s your name again?”

“Nobuo Ban desu .”

“You’re not from here.”

“No, sir. I’m from Kansai.”

“Why did you leave school?”

“My mother died, and I didn’t have enough money to finish my degree. I was hoping to earn money to return to school one day.”

“And your father?”

“He is dead.”

Takano never believed it when out-of-towners said their parents were dead, but he didn’t care either way.

“So why should I train you so you can leave to continue your study of literature? I’m not interested in helping you finish your university education. I need a bookkeeper who will stick around. Can you do that? I won’t pay you very well when you start, but you’ll be able to get by. What the hell are you going to do with literature, anyway? There’s no money in that. I never finished high school, and I can hire you or fire you a hundred times. Your generation is foolish.”

Noa didn’t reply. His family thought he wanted to work in a company, but that wasn’t entirely true. It had been a private dream of his to be a high school English teacher. He’d thought that if he graduated from Waseda then it might be possible to get a good job at a private school. Public schools didn’t hire Koreans, but he thought the law may be changed one day. He had even considered becoming a Japanese citizen. He knew he could at least work as some sort of private tutor.

“Well, you don’t have the money for university now, and you need a job, or else you wouldn’t be here. So where are you living?”

“I arrived in Nagano today. I was going to find a boardinghouse.”

“You can sleep in the dormitory behind the shop. You’ll have to share a room at first. No smoking in the rooms, and you cannot bring girls. You are allowed three meals in the cafeteria. As much rice as you want. There’s meat twice a week. As for girls, there are hotels for that sort of thing. I don’t care what you do on your time off, but your first duty is to the company. I am a very generous manager, but if you mess up, you will be terminated instantly without any back pay.”

Noa wondered if his younger brother spoke this way to employees. The fact that he was going to work for a pachinko business, no different than Mozasu, a kid who had flunked out of school essentially, was stunning to Noa.

“You can start today. Find Ikeda-san in the office next to mine. He has gray hair. Do whatever he tells you. He’s my head accountant. I’ll try you out for a month. If you do okay, I’ll pay you a good enough salary. You have no overhead. You can save quite a bit.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Where are your people from?”

“Kansai,” Noa replied.

“Yeah, you said. Where in Kansai?”

“Kyoto,” Noa replied.

“What do your parents do?”

“They’re dead,” Noa replied, hoping to end the questions.

“Yeah, you said. So what did they do?”

“My father worked in a udon shop.”

“Yeah?” Takano looked puzzled. “So a noodle man sends his son to Waseda? Really?”

Noa said nothing, wishing he was a better liar.

“You’re not a foreigner, right? You swear.”

Noa tried to look surprised by such a question. “No, sir. I am Japanese.”

“Good, good,” Takano replied. “Get out of my office and see Ikeda-san.”

The dormitory of the pachinko parlor slept sixty employees. On his first night, Noa slept in one of the smallest rooms, sharing it with an older worker who snored like a broken motor. Within a week, he established a routine. When he woke up, Noa washed his face quickly, having bathed the night before in the public bath, and he went down to the cafeteria where the cook served rice, mackerel, and tea. He worked methodically and won over Ikeda-san, who had never met such a smart bookkeeper. When the trial month passed, Noa was kept on. Years later, Noa learned that the Japanese owner had liked Noa from the start. After the first month, the owner told Takano to give Noa a raise and a better room at the year’s end, but not before, because the others might fuss over any favoritism. The owner suspected that Nobuo Ban was a Korean, but he said nothing, because as long as no one else knew, it didn’t matter.