Min Lee - Pachinko

He had never taken her there. They’d meant to go. With some difficulty, it was possible now for them to get the passports, but he hadn’t bothered. Most Koreans in Japan couldn’t travel. If you wanted a Japanese passport, which would allow you to reenter without hassles, you had to become a Japanese citizen — which was almost impossible, and no one he knew would do that anyway. Otherwise, if you wanted to travel, you could get a South Korean passport through Mindan , but few wanted to be affiliated with the Republic of Korea, either, since the impoverished country was run by a dictator. The Koreans who were affiliated with North Korea couldn’t go anywhere, though some were allowed to travel to North Korea. Although nearly everyone who had returned to the North was suffering, there were still far more Koreans in Japan whose citizenship was affiliated with the North than the South. At least the North Korean government still sent money for schools for them, everyone said. Nevertheless, Mozasu wouldn’t leave the country where he was born. Where would he go, anyway? So Japan didn’t want them, so fucking what?

Images of her filled his mind, and even as the mourners spoke to him, all he could hear was her practicing English phrases from her language books. No matter how many times Mozasu had said he would not emigrate to the United States, Yumi had not given up hope that one day they would live in California. Lately, she had been suggesting New York.

“Mozasu, don’t you think it would be wonderful to live in New York City or San Francisco?” she’d ask him occasionally, and it was his job to say that he couldn’t decide between the two coasts.

“There, no one would care that we are not Japanese,” she’d say. Hello, my name is Yumi Baek. This is my son, Solomon. He is three years old. How are you? Once, when Solomon asked her what California was, she had replied, “Heaven.”

After most of the funeral guests left, Mozasu and Solomon sat down at the back of the funeral hall. Mozasu patted the boy’s back, and his son leaned into him, fitting into the crook of his father’s right arm.

“You’re a good son,” Mozasu said to him in Japanese.

“You are a good papa.”

“Do you want to get something to eat?”

Solomon shook his head and looked up when an older man approached them.

“Mozasu, are you okay?” the man asked him in Korean. He was a virile-looking gentleman in his late sixties or early seventies, wearing an expensive black suit with narrow lapels and a dark necktie.

The face was familiar, but Mozasu couldn’t place it. He felt unable to answer him. Not wanting to be rude, Mozasu smiled, but he wanted to be left alone. Perhaps it was a customer or a bank officer; Mozasu couldn’t think right now.

“It’s me. Koh Hansu. Have I aged that much?” Hansu smiled. “Your face is the same, of course, but you’ve become a man. And this is your boy?” Hansu touched Solomon’s head. Throughout the day, nearly everyone had patted the boy’s glossy chestnut-colored hair.

Mozasu shot up from his seat.

“ Uh-muh . Of course, I know who you are. It’s been so long. Mother had been looking for you for a while but couldn’t get ahold of you. To see if you might know where Noa is. He’s disappeared.”

“It’s been too long.” Hansu shook his hand. “Have you heard from Noa?”

“Well, yes and no. He sends Mother money each month, but he won’t give his whereabouts. He sends a lot of money actually, so he can’t be too badly off. I just wish we knew where he—”

Hansu nodded. “He sent me money, too. To pay me back, he said. I wanted to return it, but there’s no way. I thought I’d give it to your mother for her to keep for him.”

“Are you still in Osaka?” Mozasu asked.

“No, no. I live in Tokyo now. I live near my daughters.”

Mozasu nodded. He felt weak suddenly and wanted to sit again. When Hansu’s driver appeared, Hansu promised to call on Mozasu another day.

“Sir, I am very sorry to bother you, but there is a small matter outside. The young woman said it was an emergency.”

Hansu nodded and walked out of the building with his driver.

As he approached the car, Hansu’s new girl, Noriko, beckoned him from within.

The long-haired beauty clapped when she saw him open the door. Her pink pearl nail polish glinted from her fingertips.

“Uncle is here!” she cried happily.

“What’s the matter?” Hansu asked. “I was busy.”

“Nothing. I was bored, and I missed my uncle,” she replied. “Take me shopping, please. I have waited for so long and so patiently for you to come back in this car. And the driver is no fun! My friends in Ginza told me cute bags from France came in this week!”

Hansu closed the car door. The bulletproof windows shut out all daylight. The interior lamps of the Mercedes sedan lit up Noriko’s oval-shaped face.

“You called me in here because you wanted to go shopping, nee ?”

“Yes, Uncle,” she said sweetly, and extended her pretty small hand on his lap like a kitten’s paw. Her rich clients loved her petulant-niece routine. Men wanted to buy girls nice things. If Uncle wanted to remove her white cotton panties, he’d have to buy her as many luxury items from France as she wanted for months and months. Koh Hansu was the most important patron of the hostess bar where Noriko worked; Noriko’s mama-san had promised her that Koh Hansu liked spoiling his new girls. This was their second lunch date, and on their first, he had bought her a Christian Dior purse before lunch. Noriko, an eighteen-year-old former beauty contestant, was not used to being kept waiting in a car. She had worn her most expensive peach-colored georgette silk dress with matching heels and a real pearl necklace, borrowed from mama-san.

“Did you ever go to high school?” he asked.

“No, Uncle. I’m not a good schoolgirl,” she said, smiling.

“No, of course not. You are stupid. I can’t stand stupid.”

Hansu hit the girl’s face so hard that blood gushed from her pink mouth.

“Uncle, Uncle!” she cried. She swatted at his thick, clenched fist.

He hit her again and again, banging her head against the side lamp of the car until she stopped making any noise. Blood covered her face and the front of her peach-colored dress. The necklace was splattered with red spots. The driver sat motionless in the front until Hansu was finished.

“Take me to the office, then take her back to her mama-san. Tell the mama-san that I don’t care how pretty a girl is, I cannot bear a girl who does not have any sense. I was at a funeral. I will not return to the bar until this ignorant thing is removed from my sight.”

“I’m sorry, sir. She said it was an emergency. That she had to speak to you or else she would start to scream. I didn’t know what to do.”

“No hooker is ever to be given precedence over a funeral. If she was sick, then you should have taken her to hospital. Otherwise, she could have screamed her head off. What does it matter, you oaf?”

The girl was still alive. She sat crumpled and half-awake in the corner of the expansive backseat like a crushed butterfly.

The driver was terrified, because he could still be punished. He should never have listened to some bar girl and her stories. A lieutenant he knew in the organization had lost part of his ring finger for failing to line up the guests’ shoes properly outside Koh Hansu’s apartment when he was much younger and training through the ranks.

“I am sorry, sir. I am very sorry. Please forgive me, sir.”

“Shut up. Go to the office.” Hansu closed his eyes and leaned his head against the leather-covered rest.

After the driver dropped Hansu off, he took Noriko to the bar where she worked. The horrified mama-san took her to the hospital, and even after the surgeons did their work, the girl’s nose would never look the same again. Noriko was ruined. The mama-san couldn’t recover her expenses so she sent Noriko off to a toruko where she would have to bathe and serve men in the nude until she was too old to work that job. Her tits and ass would last half a dozen years at most in the hot water. Then she would have to find something else to do.