Min Lee - Pachinko

Hana tilted her head back and laughed.

“Am I supposed to thank you for this great sacrifice? So you didn’t marry a Korean gangster, and you want me to congratulate you for this? You didn’t marry him because you didn’t want to suffer. You’re the most selfish person I know. If you want to sleep with him and take his money to set up a fancy place and not marry him, that’s your self-serving choice. You didn’t do it for me or my brothers.” Hana dried her face with her shirt sleeve. “You don’t want to be judged. That’s why you haven’t married him. That’s why you left Hokkaido to hide out in the big city. You think you’re such a victim, but you’re not. You left because you’re afraid, and you slept with all those men because you were afraid of getting old. You’re weak and pathetic. Don’t tell me about sacrifices, because I don’t believe in such crap.”

Hana started to cry again.

Etsuko slumped in her chair. If she married Mozasu, it would prove to everyone in Hokkaido that no decent Japanese man would touch a woman like her. She would be called a yakuza wife. If she married him, she’d no longer be considered the tasteful owner of a successful restaurant in the best part of Yokohama — an image she only half believed herself. Mozasu must have thought that she was a better person than she actually was, but Hana wasn’t fooled. Etsuko picked up Hana’s travel bag next to her chair and nudged her daughter to stand up to go.

Etsuko’s apartment was in a luxury building four blocks from the restaurant. On the way there, Hana said she didn’t want to go to the party anymore. She wanted to be left alone so she could sleep until morning. Etsuko unlocked the front door to her apartment and led Hana to her bedroom. She would sleep on the sofa tonight.

Hana lay across the futon, and Etsuko pulled a light comforter over her thin young body and turned out the light. Hana curled into herself; her eyes were still open, and she said nothing. Etsuko didn’t want to leave her. Despite everything, it struck her that what she was feeling was a kind of contentedness. They were together again. Hana had come to her for care. Etsuko sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked her daughter’s hair.

“You have this scent,” Hana said quietly, “I used to think it was your perfume. Joy, nee ?”

“I still wear that.”

“I know,” Hana said, and Etsuko resisted the urge to sniff her own wrists.

“It’s not just the perfume, though, it’s all the other creams and things that you wear, and it makes up this smell. I used to walk around department stores wondering what it was. The smell of mama .”

Etsuko wanted to say many things, but above all that she would try not to make any more mistakes. “Hanako—”

“I want to go to sleep now. Go to that boy’s party. Leave me alone.” Hana’s voice was flat but more tender this time.

Etsuko offered to stay, but Hana waved her away. Etsuko mentioned then that her schedule was open the next day. Maybe they could go and buy a bed and a dresser. “Then you can always come back and visit me. I can make up a room for you,” Etsuko said.

Hana sighed, but her expression was blank.

Etsuko couldn’t tell what her daughter wanted. “I’m not saying you have to go. Especially after—” Etsuko put her fingertips across her lips, then quickly removed them. “You can stay. Start school here even.”

Hana shifted her head on her pillow and inhaled, still saying nothing.

“I can call your father. To ask.”

Hana pulled the blanket up to her chin. “If you want.”

Etsuko had to go back to the restaurant, but she settled on the sofa for a few minutes. When she had been a young mother there used to be only one time in her waking hours when she’d felt a kind of peace, and that was always after her children went to bed for the night. She longed to see her sons as they were back then: their legs chubby and white, their mushroom haircuts misshapen because they could never sit still at the barber. She wished she could take back the times she had scolded her children just because she was tired. There were so many errors. If life allowed revisions, she would let them stay in their bath a little longer, read them one more story before bed, and fix them another plate of shrimp.

The children invited to Solomon’s party were the sons and daughters of diplomats, bankers, and wealthy expatriates from America and Europe. Everyone spoke English rather than Japanese. Mozasu had chosen the international school in Yokohama because he liked the idea of Westerners. He had specific ambitions for his son: Solomon should speak perfect English as well as perfect Japanese; he should grow up among worldly, upper-class people; and ultimately, he should work for an American company in Tokyo or New York — a city Mozasu had never been to but imagined as a place where everyone was given a fair shot. He wanted his son to be an international man of the world.

A line of black limousines snaked along the street. As the children left the restaurant, they thanked Mozasu and Etsuko for the fine dinner they’d eaten. Mozasu lined up the children in front of the restaurant and instructed, “Ladies first,” a saying he had picked up from watching American movies. The girls trooped into the gleaming cars in sixes and drove away. Then the boys followed. Solomon rode in the last car with his best friends, Nigel, the son of an English banker, and Ajay, the son of an Indian shipping company executive.

The disco was dimly lit and glamorous. From the high ceiling, twenty or so mirrored balls hung at different heights, flooding the large room with tiny panes of light that flashed and swayed with the movements of the balls. They had the effect of making anyone who walked across the floor shimmer like a fish underwater. After everyone arrived and sat down at the lounge tables, the manager, a handsome Filipino, got up on the elevated stage. He had a beautiful, round voice.

“Dear friends of Solomon Baek! Welcome to Ringo’s!” He paused for the children’s cheers. “For Solomon’s birthday fiesta, Ringo’s presents the hottest star in Japan — one day the world: Ken Hiromi and the Seven Gentlemen!”

The children didn’t seem to believe him. The curtain rose to reveal the seven-piece rock band, and the singer emerged from the back. Hiromi looked utterly normal, almost disappointingly so. He dressed like a businessman who’d forgotten his necktie and wore thick-framed eyeglasses just like the ones on his album covers. His hair was impeccably combed. He couldn’t have been more than thirty.

Solomon kept shaking his head, bewildered and delighted. The band was loud, and the kids rushed to the stage to dance wildly. When the long set ended, the emcee asked everyone to gather around the stage, and Ichiro, the cook, wheeled a spectacular ice cream cake shaped like a baseball diamond toward Solomon. Tall thin candles lit the large surface of the cake. A girl shouted, “Don’t forget to make a wish, baby!”

In one huff, Solomon blew out the candles, and everyone clapped and hollered.

Etsuko handed him the beribboned knife so he could cut the first slice. A spotlight shone on him as he poised the long, serrated blade over the cake.

“Do you need help?” she asked.

“I think I got it,” he said, using both hands to make a straight cut.

“Oh,” she uttered, seeing the ink under his nails. He’d washed off most of it, but a shadow of the stain remained on his fingertips.

Solomon looked up from what he was doing and smiled.

Etsuko guided his arm lightly to return him to his task. After the first slice, Solomon gave the knife back to her, and she cut the remaining pieces. Waiters passed out the cake, and Hiromi, who was sitting by himself, accepted a piece. Mozasu gave Solomon a fat blue envelope filled with yen notes and told him to give it to the singer. Ken Hiromi motioned to Solomon to sit down. In this light, Etsuko thought, no one else would notice the ink.