Min Lee - Pachinko

“I didn’t know kids wrote that stuff on your yearbooks. You were always watching out for me. I didn’t know.”

“Forget it. I’m okay. I’m okay now.”

Nagano, August 1978

Hansu’s driver found her waiting at the north gate of Yokohama Station as instructed, and he led Sunja to the black sedan, where Hansu was sitting in the back.

Sunja arranged herself in the plush velvet backseat, pulling down her suit jacket to cover the swell of her ajumma abdomen. She wore an imported French designer dress and Italian leather shoes that Mozasu’s girlfriend, Etsuko, had selected for her. At sixty-two years, Sunja looked like what she was — a mother of two grown men, a grandmother, and a woman who had spent most of her life working outdoors. Despite the clothes of a wealthy Tokyo matron, her wrinkled and spotted skin and short white hair couldn’t help but make her look rumpled and ordinary.

“Where are we going?”

“Nagano,” Hansu replied.

“Is that where he is?”

“Yes. He goes by Nobuo Ban. He’s been there continuously for sixteen years. He’s married to a Japanese woman and has four children.”

“Solomon has four cousins! Why couldn’t he tell us?”

“He is now Japanese. No one in Nagano knows he’s Korean. His wife and children don’t know. Everyone in his world thinks he is pure Japanese.”

“Why?”

“Because he does not want anyone to know about his past.”

“Is it so easy to do this?”

“It’s easy enough, and in his world, no one cares enough to dig around.”

“What do you mean?”

“He runs a pachinko parlor.”

“Like Mozasu?” There were Koreans in every aspect of the pachinko business, from the parlors and the keihin to the machine manufacturers, but she would have never expected Noa to do the same thing as Mozasu.

“ Soo nee . How is Mozasu?” Hansu asked.

“Good.” She nodded, having a hard time concentrating.

“His business okay?”

“He bought another parlor in Yokohama.”

“And Solomon? He must be very big now.”

“He’s doing well at school. Studying hard. I want to know more about Noa.”

“He is well off.” Hansu smiled.

“Does he know we’re coming to see him?”

“No.”

“But—”

“He doesn’t want to see us. Well, he doesn’t want to see me. He may want to see you, but if he had, surely he would’ve let you know sooner.”

“Then—”

“We should not speak to him today, but I thought if you wanted to see him with your own eyes, you could. He is going to be at his main office.”

“How do you know this?”

“I just do,” Hansu said, closing his eyes and leaning against the white lace-covered headrest. He was taking several medications, and they made him feel foggy.

It was his plan to wait until Noa came out of his office as he usually did to have lunch at the soba-ya across the street. Each weekday, he ate a simple lunch at a different restaurant, and on Wednesdays he ate soba. Hansu’s private investigators had detailed Noa’s life in Nagano in a twenty-six-page report, and what was most notable was his unwavering need for routine. Noa did not drink alcohol, gamble, or fool around with women. He had no apparent religion, and his wife and four children lived like a middle-class Japanese family in a modest house.

“Will he eat lunch by himself, do you think?”

“He always eats lunch by himself. Today is Wednesday so he will eat zaru soba , taking less than fifteen minutes. He will read a little of his English novel, then return to his office. This is why he is so successful, I think. He does not make mistakes. Noa has a plan.” There was a kind of territorial pride in Hansu’s voice.

“Do you think he’ll see me?”

“It’s hard to tell,” he said. “You should wait in the car and get a glimpse of him, then the driver will take us back to Yokohama. We can return next week if you like. Maybe you can write to him first.”

“What’s the difference between today and next week?”

“Maybe if you see him and know that he is well, then you will not need to see him so much. He has chosen this life, Sunja, and maybe he wants us to respect that.”

“He’s my son.”

“And mine.”

“Noa and Mozasu. They’re my life.”

Hansu nodded. He had never felt this way about his children. Not really.

“I’ve lived only for them.”

This was wrong to say. At church, the minister preached about how mothers cared too much about their children and that worshipping the family was a kind of idolatry. One must not love one’s family over God, he’d said. The minister said that families could never give you what only God could give. But being a mother who loved her children too much had helped her to understand a little of what God went through. Noa had children of his own now; perhaps he could understand how much she’d lived for him.

“Look. He’s coming out,” Hansu said.

Her son’s face had changed only a little. The graying hair along the temples surprised her, but Noa was forty-five years old and no longer the university student. He wore round, golden spectacles much like those Isak used to wear, and his black suit hung simply on his lean frame. His face was a copy of Hansu’s.

Sunja opened the car door and stepped out.

“Noa!” she cried, and rushed toward him.

He turned around and stared at his mother, who stood not ten paces from him.

“ Umma ,” he murmured. Noa moved close to her and touched her arm. He had not seen his mother cry since Isak’s funeral. She was not the sort to cry easily, and he felt bad for her. He had imagined that this day would come and had prepared for it, but now that she was here, he was surprised by his own sense of relief.

“There’s no need to be upset. We should go inside my office,” he said. “How did you get here?”

Sunja couldn’t speak because she was heaving. She took a deep breath. “Koh Hansu brought me here. He found you, and he brought me here because I wanted to see you. He’s in the car.”

“I see,” he said. “Well, he can stay there.”

Upon his return to the office, his employees bowed, and Sunja followed behind. He offered her a seat in his office and closed the door.

“You look well, umma ,” Noa said.

“It has been such a long time, Noa. I’ve worried so much about you.”

Seeing his hurt expression, she stopped herself. “But I’m glad you wrote to me. I have saved all the money you sent. It was very thoughtful of you to do that.”

Noa nodded.

“Hansu told me that you’re married and you have children.”

Noa smiled. “I have one boy and three girls. They are very good kids. All of them study except for my son, who is a good baseball player. He is my wife’s favorite. He looks like Mozasu and acts like him, too.”

“I know Mozasu would like to see you. When can you come to see us?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can.”

“Haven’t we wasted enough time? All these years. Noa, have mercy. Have mercy, please. Umma was a girl when I met Hansu. I didn’t know he was married, and when I found out, I refused to be his mistress. Then your father married me so you could have a proper name. All my life, I was faithful to your father, Baek Isak, who was a great man. Even after he died, I have been true to his—”

“I understand what you did. However, my blood father is Koh Hansu. That cannot change,” Noa said flatly.

“Yes.”

“I’m a Korean working in this filthy business. I suppose having yakuza in your blood is something that controls you. I can never be clean of him.” He laughed. “This is my curse.”