by Min Jin Lee
The boy shrugged, because he didn’t know where Hansu was. The servant, her white apron glinting in the brilliant electric lights of the foyer, stood by the door like a maiden sentry and looked off into the distance as if to give these poor, messy people some privacy.
“Ajumoni, I’m sorry, but my mistress wants you to leave. Would you like to go to the kitchen? In the back of the house? I can get you something to eat. The mistress said—”
“No. No.”
The maid closed the front door quietly, while the boy remained outside. He had never walked through the front door and never expected to do so.
Sunja turned to the darkened street. A half-moon was visible in the navy-colored sky. The mistress had returned to the parlor to study her flower magazines, and the servant resumed her work in the pantry. From the house, the boy watched Sunja walking toward the main road. He wanted to tell her that the master came home every now and then, but rarely slept at home when he returned. He traveled all over the country for his work. The master and the mistress were very polite to one another, but they did not seem like an ordinary husband and wife. Perhaps this was the way of rich people, the boy thought. They were nothing like his own parents. His father had been a carpenter before he died from a bad liver. His mother, who never stopped working, had doted on him, though he’d never made any money. The gardener boy knew that the master stayed in a hotel in Osaka sometimes; the head servants and the cook talked about his mansion apartment in Tokyo, but none of them had been there except for the driver, Yasuda. The boy had never given it much thought. He had never been to Tokyo or anywhere else besides Osaka, where he was born, and Nagoya, where his family now lived. The only people who would ever know for certain where the master would be were Yasuda and his brawny guard Chiko, but it had never occurred to the boy to ask them the master’s whereabouts. Sometimes, the master went to Korea or Hong Kong, they said.
The streets were empty except for the Korean woman’s small figure walking slowly toward the train station, and the gardener boy ran quickly to catch up with her.
“Ajumoni, ajumoni, where, where do you live?”
Sunja stopped and turned to the boy, wondering if he might know something.
“In Ikaino. Do you know the shopping street?”
The boy nodded, hunched over and holding his knees to catch his breath. He stared at her round face.
“I live three blocks from the shopping street by the large bathhouse. My name is Baek Sunja or Sunja Boku. I live in the house with my mother, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law, Baek Yoseb and Choi Kyunghee. Just ask anyone where the lady who sells sweets lives. I also sell confections in the train station market with my mother. I’m always at the market. Will you come find me if you know where Koh Hansu is? And when you see him, will you tell him that I need to see him?” Sunja asked.
“Yes, I will try. We don’t see him often.” The boy stopped there, because it didn’t seem right to tell her that Hansu was never home. He had not seen him in many months, maybe even a year. “But if I see my master, I’ll tell him that you came by. I’m sure the mistress will tell him, too.”
“Here.” Sunja fished in her purse to find some money for the boy.
“No, no, thank you. I have everything I need. I’m all right.” The boy looked at the worn rubber soles of her shoes; they looked identical to the ones his mother wore to the market.
“You’re a good boy,” she said, and Sunja started to cry again, because all her life, Noa had been her joy. He had been a steady source of strength for her when she had expected so little from this life.
“My umma works in a market in Nagoya; she helps another lady who sells vegetables,” he found himself telling her. He had not seen his mother and sisters since New Year’s. The only person he spoke to in Korean here was with the master himself.
“She must wish to see you, too.”
Sunja smiled weakly at the boy, feeling sorry for him. She touched his shoulder, then walked to the train station.
Book III
Pachinko
1962–1989
I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.
It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion…
The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations…
It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm…
Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly die for such limited imaginings.
—Benedict Anderson
1
Nagano, April 1962
Noa hadn’t meant to linger at the café by the Nagano train station, but it wasn’t as if he knew where to go exactly. He hadn’t made a plan, which was unlike him, but after he’d left Waseda, his days had made little sense to him. Reiko Tamura, a cheerful middle school teacher who had been kind to him, was from Nagano, and for some reason, he’d always considered her hometown as a place populated with gentle, benevolent Japanese. He recalled his teacher’s childhood stories of the snowstorms that were so severe that when she walked outside her little house to go to school, she could hardly see the streetlights. Osaka had snow occasionally, but nothing resembling Tamura-san’s storms. He had always wanted to visit his teacher’s hometown—in his mind, it was always blanketed with fresh snow. This morning, when the man at the ticket counter had asked him where to, he’d replied, “Nagano, please.” Finally, he was here. He felt safe. Tamura-san had also spoken of school trips to the famed Zenkoji temple, where she’d eat her modest bento outdoors with her classmates.
Seated alone at a small table not far from the counter, Noa drank his brown tea and took only a few bites of his omelet rice while considering a visit to the temple. He was raised as a Christian, but he felt respectful of Buddhists, especially those who had renounced the spoils of the world. The Lord was supposed to be everywhere, which was what Noa had learned at church, but would God keep away from temples or shrines? Did such places offend God, or did He understand those who may wish to worship something, anything? As always, Noa wished he’d had more time with Isak. The thought of him saddened Noa, and the thought of Hansu, his biological father, shamed him. Koh Hansu didn’t believe in anything but his own efforts—not God, not Jesus, not Buddha, and not the Emperor.
The heavyset waiter came by with a teapot.
“Is everything to your satisfaction, sir?” the waiter asked him while refilling Noa’s cup. “Is the meal not to your liking? Too much scallion? I always tell the cook that he is too heavy with the—”
“The rice is very good, thank you,” Noa replied, realizing that it had been some time since he had spoken to anyone at all. The waiter had a broad smile, thin, tadpole eyes, and uneven teeth. His ears were large and his lobes thick—physical features Buddhists admired. The waiter stared at Noa, though most Japanese would have looked away out of politeness.
“Are you visiting for a while?” The waiter glanced at Noa’s suitcase, which was set by the empty chair.
“Hmm?” Noa was surprised by the waiter’s personal question.
“I apologize for being so nosy. My mother always said I would get in trouble because I am far too curious. Forgive me, sir, I am just a chatty country boy,” the waiter said, laughing. “I haven’t seen you here before. Please forgive the café for being so quiet. Normally we have ma
ny more customers. Very interesting and respectable ones. I cannot help but have questions when I meet someone new, but I know I should not ask them.”
“No, no. It’s natural to want to know things. I understand. I am here to visit, and I heard such nice things about Nagano that I thought I would like to live here.” Noa was surprised to hear himself say this. It felt easy to talk to this stranger. It had not occurred to him before to live in Nagano, but why not? Why not for a year at least? He would not return to Tokyo or Osaka—this much he had resolved.
“Move here? To live? Honto? How wonderful. Nagano is a very special place,” the waiter said with pride. “My entire family is from here. We have always been from here. Eighteen generations, and I am the dumbest one in my family. This is my little café, which my mother bought for me to keep me out of trouble!” The waiter laughed. “Everyone calls me Bingo. It is a game from America. I have played it once.”
“Nobuo desu,” Noa said, smiling. “Nobuo Ban desu.”
“Ban-san, Ban-san,” Bingo chirped happily. “I once loved a short girl from Tokyo named Chie Ban, but she did not love me. Of course! Lovely girls do not love me. My tall wife is not lovely, but she loves me nonetheless!” Again, he laughed. “You know, you are smart to wish to settle in Nagano. I have been to Tokyo only once, and that was enough for me. It’s dirty, expensive, and full of fast—” The waiter stopped himself. “Wait, you’re not from Tokyo, are you?”
“No. I’m from Kansai.”
“Ah, I love Kansai. I have been to Kyoto twice, and though it is too expensive for a simple man like myself, I am fond of truly delicious udon, and I believe one can eat delicious udon there for a reasonable sum. I prefer the chewy kind of udon.”
Noa smiled. It was pleasant to listen to him talk.
“So what will you do for work?” the waiter asked. “A man must have work. My mother always says this, too.” Bingo clasped his right hand over his mouth, embarrassed at being so forward, but he was unable to keep from talking so much. The stranger seemed so attractive and humble, and Bingo admired quiet people. “Did you have a job you liked in Kansai?” he asked, his sparse eyebrows raised.
Noa looked down at his barely eaten meal.
“Well, I have worked as a bookkeeper. I can also read and write in English. Perhaps a small business may need a bookkeeper. Or maybe a trading company may wish to have documents translated—”
“A young man like you could work in lots of places. Let me think.” Bingo’s round face grew serious. He tapped his small chin with his index finger. “You seem very smart.”
“I don’t know about that, but that’s kind of you to say.” Noa smiled.
“Hmm.” The waiter made a face. “Sir, I don’t know if you’re picky, but if you need work right away, the pachinko parlor hires people from out of town. Office jobs are not so common lately.”
“Pachinko?” Noa tried not to look offended. Did the waiter think he was Korean? Most Japanese never assumed he was Korean until he told them his Korean surname, Boku. His identification card from Waseda stated his tsumei name, Nobuo Bando. Noa wasn’t sure why he had dropped the “-do” from his surname when he’d introduced himself to Bingo, but now it was too late to change it back. “I don’t know much about pachinko. I have never—”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you. They pay very well, I hear. Takano-san, the manager of the best parlor in Nagano, is a great gentleman. Maybe you wouldn’t work in any ordinary pachinko parlor, but Cosmos Pachinko is a grand establishment run by an old family from the area. They change their machines very often! However, they do not hire foreigners.”
“Eh?”
“They do not hire Koreans or Chinese, but that will not matter to you since you are Japanese.” Bingo nodded several times.
“Soo desu,” Noa agreed.
“Takano-san is always looking for office workers who are smart. He pays handsomely. But he cannot hire foreigners.” Bingo nodded again.
“Yes, yes,” Noa said sympathetically, sounding as if he understood. Long ago, he had learned how to keep nodding even when he didn’t agree, because he noticed that the motion alone kept people talking.
“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.”