by Min Jin Lee
“Do you need enough rice for a wedding party?” he asked, unable to fathom how the woman would pay for such a thing.
“No. Just enough for the two of them.”
Cho nodded at the small, tired woman standing in front of him who wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“I don’t have much to sell,” he repeated.
“I want only enough for the bride and groom’s dinner—for them to taste white rice again before they leave home.” Yangjin’s eyes welled up in tears, and the rice seller looked away. Cho hated seeing women cry. His grandmother, mother, wife, and daughters—all of them cried endlessly. Women cried too much, he thought.
His older daughter lived on the other side of town with a man who worked as a printer, and his younger one and her three children lived at home with him and his wife. As much as the rice seller complained about the expense of upkeep of his daughter and grandchildren, he worked hard and did the bidding of any Japanese customer who’d pay the top price because he could not imagine not providing for his family; he could not imagine having his girls live far away—in a nation where Koreans were treated no better than barn animals. He couldn’t imagine losing his flesh and blood to the sons of bitches.
Yangjin counted out the yen notes and placed them on the wooden tray on the counter beside the abacus.
“A small bag if you have it. I want them to eat their fill. Whatever’s left over, I’ll make them some sweet cake.”
Yangjin pushed the tray of money toward him. If he still said no, then she would march into every rice shop in Busan so her daughter could have white rice for her wedding dinner.
“Cakes?” Cho crossed his arms and laughed out loud; how long had it been since he heard women talking of cakes made of white rice? Such days felt so distant. “I suppose you’ll bring me a piece.”
She wiped her eyes as the rice seller went to the storeroom to find the bit he’d squirreled away for occasions such as these.
11
At last, the lodgers had relented and allowed their work clothes to be washed. The smell was no longer bearable even to themselves. Carrying four enormous bundles, Bokhee, Dokhee, and Sunja went to the cove. Their long skirts gathered up and tied, the women crouched by the stream and set up their washboards. The icy water froze their small hands, the skin on them thickened and rough from years of work. With all her might, Bokhee scrubbed the wet shirts on the ridged wooden board while her younger sister, Dokhee, sorted the remainder of the filthy clothing beside her. Sunja was tackling a pair of dark trousers belonging to one of the Chung brothers, stained with fish blood and guts.
“Do you feel different being married?” Dokhee asked. The girls had been the first to be told the news immediately after the marriage was registered. They’d been even more astonished than the lodgers. “Has he called you yobo?”
Bokhee looked up from her work for Sunja’s reaction. She would’ve chided her sister’s impertinence, but she was curious herself.
“Not yet,” Sunja said. The marriage had taken place three days ago, but for lack of space, Sunja still slept in the same room with her mother and the servant girls.
“I’d like to be married,” Dokhee said.
Bokhee laughed. “Who’d marry girls like us?”
“I would like to marry a man like Pastor Isak,” Dokhee said without blinking. “He’s so handsome and nice. He looks at you with such kindness when he talks to you. Even the lodgers respect him, even though he doesn’t know anything about the sea. Have you noticed that?”
This was true. Routinely, the lodgers made fun of upper-class people who went to schools, but they liked Isak. It was still difficult for Sunja to think of him as her husband.
Bokhee slapped her sister’s forearm. “You’re crazy. A man like that would never marry you. Get these stupid ideas out of your head.”
“But he married Sunja—”
“She’s different. You and I are servants,” Bokhee said.
Dokhee rolled her eyes.
“What does he call you, then?”
“He calls me Sunja,” she said, feeling freer to talk. Before Hansu, Sunja had chatted more often with the sisters.
“Are you excited about going to Japan?” Bokhee asked. She was more interested in living in a city than being married, which seemed like a horrible thing. Her grandmother and mother had been more or less worked to death. She had never once heard her mother laugh.
“The men said that Osaka is a busier place than Busan or Seoul. Where will you live?” Bokhee asked.
“I don’t know. At Pastor Isak’s brother’s house, I guess.” Sunja was still thinking about Hansu and how he might be nearby. More than anything, she was afraid of running into him. Yet it would be worse, she thought, never to see him at all.
Bokhee peered into Sunja’s face.
“Are you afraid of going? You mustn’t be. I think you’re going to have a wonderful life there. The men said there are electric lights everywhere—on trains, cars, streets, and in all the houses. They said Osaka has all the things you could possibly want to buy in stores. Maybe you’ll become rich and you can send for us. We can keep a boardinghouse there!” Bokhee was amazed at such a prospect that she had just invented for them. “They must need boardinghouses, too. Your mother can cook, and we can clean and wash—”
“You think I have crazy thoughts in my head?” Dokhee slapped her sister’s shoulder, leaving a wet handprint on her sister’s jacket sleeve.
Sunja had difficulty wringing out the wet trousers because they were so heavy.
“Can a minister’s wife be rich?” Sunja asked.
“Maybe the minister will make lots of money!” Dokhee said. “And his parents are rich, right?”
“How do you know that?” Sunja asked. Her mother had said that Isak’s parents owned some land, but many of the landowners had been selling off their plots to the Japanese to pay the new taxes. “I don’t know if we’ll have much money. It doesn’t matter.”
“His clothes are so nice, and he’s educated,” Dokhee said, not clear as to how people had money.
Sunja started to wash another pair of trousers.
Dokhee glanced at her sister. “Can we give it to her now?”
Bokhee nodded, wanting to take Sunja’s mind off leaving. The girl looked anxious and sad, nothing like a happy bride.
“You’re like a little sister to us, but you’ve always felt older because you’re smart and patient,” Bokhee said, smiling.
“When you’re gone, who’ll defend me when I get a scolding from your mother? You know my sister won’t do anything,” Dokhee added.
Sunja laid aside the pants she was washing by the rocks. The sisters had been with her ever since her father had died; she couldn’t imagine not living with them.
“We wanted to give you something.” Dokhee held out a pair of ducks carved out of acacia wood hanging from a red silk cord. They were the size of a baby’s hand.
“The ajeossi at the market said ducks mate for life,” Bokhee said. “Maybe you can come back home in a few years and bring home your children to show us. I’m good at taking care of babies. I raised Dokhee almost by myself. Although she can be naughty.”
Dokhee pushed up her nostrils with her index finger to make a piggy face.
“Lately, you’ve been looking so unhappy. We know why,” Dokhee said.
Sunja was holding the ducks in her hand, and she looked up.
“You miss your father,” Bokhee said. The sisters had lost their parents as little girls.
Bokhee’s broad face broke into a sad smile. Her tiny, gracious eyes, which resembled tadpoles, pulled downward to meet her knobby cheekbones. The sisters had almost identical faces; the younger one was shorter and slightly plump.
Sunja wept and Dokhee folded her into her strong arms.
“Abuji, my abuji,” Sunja said quietly.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” Bokhee said, patting Sunja on the back. “You have a kind husband now.”
Yangjin pac
ked her daughter’s things herself. Every article of clothing was folded with care, then stacked in a broad square of fabric to form a manageable bundle. The fabric corners were tied neatly into a loop handle. In the days before the couple left, Yangjin kept thinking that she’d forgotten something, forcing her to unpack one of the four bundles and repeat the process. She wanted to send more pantry items like dried jujubes, chili flakes, chili paste, large dried anchovies, and fermented soybean paste to give to Isak’s sister-in-law, but Isak told her that they could not carry too much on the ferry. “We can purchase things there,” he assured her.
Bokhee and Dokhee remained at the house on the morning Yangjin, Sunja, and Isak went to the Busan ferry terminal. The good-byes with the sisters were difficult; Dokhee cried inconsolably, afraid that Yangjin might leave for Osaka and abandon the sisters in Yeongdo.
The Busan ferry terminal was a utilitarian brick and wooden structure that had been built hastily. Passengers, family members who’d come to see them off, and hawkers milled around noisily in the crowded terminal. Immense lines of passengers waited to show their papers to the police and immigration officials before embarking on the Busan ferry to Shimonoseki. While Isak stood in line to speak to the police, the women sat on a bench nearby, ready to spring up in case he needed anything. The large ferry was already docked and waiting for the passengers’ inspections to be completed. The algae scent of the sea mingled with the fuel smells of the ferry; Sunja had been queasy since morning, and she looked sallow and exhausted. She had vomited earlier and had nothing left in her stomach.
Yangjin held the smallest bundle close to her chest. When would she see her daughter again? she wondered. The whole world felt broken. What was better for Sunja and the child no longer seemed to matter. Why did they have to go? Yangjin would not be able to hold her grandchild. Why couldn’t she go with them? There must be work for her in Osaka, she reasoned. But Yangjin knew she had to stay. It was her responsibility to care for her in-laws’ graves and her husband’s. She couldn’t leave Hoonie. Besides, where would she stay in Osaka?
Sunja doubled over slightly, emitting a little cry of pain.
“Are you okay?”
Sunja nodded.
“I saw the gold watch,” Yangjin said.
Sunja folded her arms and hugged herself.
“Was it from that man?”
“Yes,” Sunja said, not looking at her mother.
“What kind of man can afford something like that?”
Sunja didn’t reply. There were only a few men left in front of Isak in the line.
“Where is the man who gave you the watch?”
“He lives in Osaka.”
“What? Is that where he’s from?”
“He’s from Jeju, but he lives in Osaka. I don’t know if that’s where he is now.”
“Are you planning on seeing him?”
“No.”
“You cannot see this man, Sunja. He abandoned you. He’s not good.”
“He’s married.”
Yangjin took a breath.
Sunja could hear herself talking to her mother, yet it felt like she was another person.
“I didn’t know he was married. He didn’t tell me.”
Yangjin sat still with her mouth opened slightly.
“At the market, some Japanese boys were bothering me, and he told them off. Then we became friends.”
It felt natural to speak of him finally; she was always thinking of him but there had been no one to talk about him with.
“He wanted to take care of me and the baby, but he couldn’t marry me. He said he had a wife and three children in Japan.”
Yangjin took her daughter’s hand.
“You cannot see him. That man”—Yangjin pointed at Isak—“that man saved your life. He saved your child. You’re a member of his family. I’ve no right to ever see you again. Do you know what that’s like for a mother? Soon, you’ll be a mother. I hope that you’ll have a son who won’t have to leave you when he marries.”
Sunja nodded.
“The watch. What will you do with it?”
“I’ll sell it when I get to Osaka.”
Yangjin was satisfied with this answer.
“Save it for an emergency. If your husband asks where you got it, tell him that I gave it to you.”
Yangjin fumbled with the purse tucked beneath her blouse.
“This belonged to your father’s mother.” Yangjin gave her the two gold rings her mother-in-law had given her before she died.
“Try not to sell these unless you have to. You should have something in case you need money. You’re a thrifty girl, but raising a child requires money. There will be things you can’t expect, like doctor’s visits. If it’s a boy, you’ll need fees for school. If the pastor doesn’t give you money for the household, earn something and put aside savings for emergencies. Spend what you need but just throw even a few coins into a tin and forget that you have it. A woman should always have something put by. Take good care of your husband. Otherwise, another woman will. Treat your husband’s family with reverence. Obey them. If you make mistakes, they’ll curse our family. Think of your kind father, who always did his best for us.” Yangjin tried to think of anything else she was supposed to tell her. It was hard to focus.
Sunja slipped the rings into the fabric bag beneath her blouse where she kept her watch and money.
“Omoni, I’m sorry.”
“I know, I know.” Yangjin closed her mouth and stroked Sunja’s hair. “You’re all I have. Now, I have nothing.”
“I will ask Pastor Isak to write to you when we arrive.”
“Yes, yes. And if you need anything, ask Isak to write me a letter in plain Korean, and I’ll ask someone in town to read it for me.” Yangjin sighed. “I wish we knew our letters.”
“We know our numbers, and we can do sums. Father taught us.”
Yangjin smiled. “Yes. Your father taught us.
“Your home is with your husband,” Yangjin said. This was what her father had told her when she married Hoonie. “Never come home again,” he’d said to her, but Yangjin couldn’t say this to her own child. “Make a good home for him and your child. That’s your job. They must not suffer.”
Isak returned, looking calm. Dozens of people had been turned away for lack of papers or fees, but Sunja and he were fine. Every item required had been satisfied. The officers could not trouble him. He and his wife could go.
12
Osaka, April 1933
When Yoseb Baek tired of shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he paced about the Osaka train station like a man in a cell. If he’d come with a friend, he would’ve been able to keep still just by shooting the breeze, but he was alone. Yoseb was an easy talker by nature, and though his Japanese was better than proficient, his accent never failed to give him away. From appearances alone, he could approach any Japanese and receive a polite smile, but he’d lose the welcome as soon as he said anything. He was a Korean, after all, and no matter how appealing his personality, unfortunately he belonged to a cunning and wily tribe. There were many Japanese who were fair-minded and principled, but around foreigners they tended to be guarded. The smart ones, especially, you have to watch out for those—Koreans are natural troublemakers. After living in Japan for over a decade, Yoseb had heard it all. He didn’t dwell on these things; that seemed pathetic to him. The sentry patrolling Osaka Station had noticed Yoseb’s restlessness, but waiting anxiously for a train to arrive was not a crime.
The police didn’t know he was a Korean, because Yoseb’s manner and dress wouldn’t have given him away. Most Japanese claimed they could distinguish between a Japanese and a Korean, but every Korean knew that was rubbish. You could ape anyone. Yoseb wore the street clothes of a modest workingman in Osaka—plain trousers, a Western-style dress shirt, and a heavy woolen coat that didn’t show its wear. Long ago, he’d put aside the finery that he’d brought from Pyongyang—expensive suits his parents had ordered from a tailor w
ho made clothes for the Canadian missionaries and their families. For the past six years, Yoseb had been working as the foreman at a biscuit factory, overseeing thirty girls and two men. For his employment, he needed to be neat—that was all. He didn’t need to dress better than his boss, Shimamura-san, who’d made it plain that he could replace Yoseb by morning. Every day, trains from Shimonoseki and boats from Jeju brought more hungry Koreans to Osaka, and Shimamura-san could have the pick of the litter.
Yoseb was grateful that his younger brother was arriving on a Sunday, his only day off. Back home, Kyunghee was preparing a feast. Otherwise, she’d have tagged along. They were both terribly curious about the girl Isak had married. Her circumstances were shocking, but what Isak had decided to do was not at all surprising. No one in the family would have ever been taken aback by Isak’s acts of selflessness. As a child, he’d been the kind who’d have sacrificed all his meals and possessions to the poor if allowed. The boy had spent his childhood in his sickbed reading. His abundant meals were sent to his room on a lacquered jujube tray. Yet he remained as slender as a chopstick, though every grain of rice would have been picked off its metal bowl when his tray was returned to the kitchen. Naturally, the servants had never gone without a sizable portion of his meals, which Isak had given away deliberately. Your rice and fish were one thing, Yoseb thought, but this marriage seemed excessive. To agree to father another man’s child! His wife, Kyunghee, had made him promise to reserve judgment until they had a chance to get to know her. She, much like Isak, was tenderhearted to a fault.
When the Shimonoseki train arrived at the station, the awaiting crowd dispersed with a kind of organized precision. Porters dashed to help first-class passengers; everyone else seemed to know where to go. A head taller than the others, Isak stood out from the mob. A gray trilby was cocked on his beautiful head, and his tortoiseshell glasses were set low on his straight nose. Isak scanned the crowd and, spotting Yoseb, he waved his bony right hand high in the air.
