by Min Jin Lee
At home, Noa asked his aunt for snacks and meals that didn’t contain garlic, hoping this would keep the children from saying bad things to him. When she asked him why, Noa told his aunt the truth. Even though it cost more, Kyunghee bought Noa large milk rolls from the bakery for his breakfast and made him potato korokke or yakisoba for his school bento.
The children were merciless, but Noa didn’t fight them; rather, he worked harder on his studies, and to the surprise of his teachers, he was the first or second in academic rank in his second grade class. At school, Noa didn’t have any friends, and when the Korean children played in the streets, he didn’t join them. The only person he looked forward to seeing was his uncle, but these days, when Yoseb was home, he was not himself.
In the street, Kyunghee and Sunja stood quietly in front of the restaurant, unable to enter. The door was ajar, but it was not open for business. Despite Kyunghee’s initial excitement at the prospect of selling more kimchi, she’d been reasonably skeptical of the offer and had refused to let Sunja go to an unknown place by herself. She’d insisted on coming along, toting Mozasu on her back. They didn’t tell Yoseb about coming here, but they planned on telling him everything after the first meeting.
“I’ll stay out here with the cart and wait,” Kyunghee said, patting Mozasu rhythmically with her right hand. The baby was resting calmly in the sling on Kyunghee’s back.
“Shouldn’t I bring the kimchi in?” Sunja said.
“Why don’t you ask him to come outside?”
“We can both go in.”
“I’ll wait outside. But if you don’t come outside soon, then I’ll come in, all right?”
“But how will you push the cart and—”
“I can push the cart. Mozasu is fine.” The baby was now laying his head drowsily on her back, and she kept up a reliable rocking motion.
“Go on inside, and I’ll wait. Just ask Kim Changho to come out here. Don’t keep talking to him inside, all right?”
“But I thought we’d talk to him together.”
Sunja stared at her sister-in-law, not knowing what she should do, and then it occurred to her that her sister-in-law was afraid of going into the restaurant. If her husband asked her what had happened, she could say honestly that she was outside the whole time.
3
April 1940
It was the second restaurant she’d ever entered in her life. The main dining room was nearly five times the size of the udon shop in Busan that she’d gone to with Isak. The lingering smells of burnt meat and stale cigarettes from the previous night scraped against her throat. There were two rows of dining tables on a raised tatami-covered platform. Below the platform was a space for the guests’ shoes. In the open kitchen, a teenage boy wearing a white undershirt washed beer glasses two at a time. With the water running and the clinking of the glasses, he didn’t hear Sunja coming into the restaurant; she stared at his sharp profile as he concentrated on his work, hoping he’d notice her.
The man from the market had never specified the time of day for her to show up with the kimchi, and it had never occurred to her to ask whether to come by in the morning or afternoon. Kim Changho was nowhere to be seen. What if he was out today, or only came to work in the afternoons or evenings? If she went outside without speaking to anyone, Kyunghee wouldn’t know what to do, either. Her sister-in-law was susceptible to endless worrying, and Sunja didn’t want to trouble her.
The water in the sink stopped running, and the boy, exhausted from the night-to-morning shift, stretched his neck from side to side. The sight of the young woman surprised him. She wore Japanese trousers and a blue padded jacket that had faded from wear.
“Agasshi, we’re not open right now,” he said in Korean. She wasn’t a customer, but she wasn’t a beggar, either.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry to bother you, but do you know where Kim Changho is? He asked me to come by with the kimchi. I wasn’t sure when I—”
“Oh! Is that you?” The boy grinned in relief. “He’s just down the street. Boss told me to get him if you came by today. Why don’t you sit down and wait. Did you bring the kimchi? The customers have been complaining about the side dishes for weeks. Are you going to work here, too? Hey, how old are you anyway?” The boy wiped his hands and opened the kitchen door in the back. The new girl was sweet looking, he thought. The last kimchi ajumma had been a toothless granny who’d yell at him for nothing. She’d been fired for drinking too much, but this one looked younger than he was.
Sunja was confused. “Wait, Kim Changho isn’t here?”
“Have a seat. I’ll be right back!”
The boy dashed out the door.
Sunja looked around, and, realizing that she was alone, she went outside.
Kyunghee whispered, “The baby’s sleeping now.”
She was sitting on the stubby market stool that normally hung on the side of the cart. In the bright sun, a slight breeze blew against the puffy tufts of Mozasu’s hair and his smooth brow. It was early in the morning, and there were hardly any passersby on the street. The pharmacy hadn’t even opened yet.
“Sister, the manager’s on his way. Do you still want to wait outside?” Sunja asked.
“I’ll be fine here. You go in and wait by the window so I can see you. But come out when he gets here, okay?”
Back inside the restaurant, Sunja was afraid to sit down, so she stood a foot away from the door. She knew they could have sold this kimchi today at the market. She was here because the man said he could get her cabbage—that alone was enough to make her stay and wait for him. Without the cabbage, they didn’t have a business.
“How nice to see you!” Changho shouted, entering from the kitchen door. “Did you bring the kimchi?”
“My sister-in-law is watching the cart outside. We brought a lot.”
“I hope you can make more.”
“You haven’t even tried it,” she said quietly, confused by his enthusiasm.
“I’m not worried. I did my homework. I heard it’s the most delicious kimchi in Osaka,” he said, walking briskly toward her. “Let’s go outside then.”
Kyunghee bowed as soon as she saw him, but she didn’t speak.
“Hello, my name is Kim Changho,” he said to Kyunghee, a little startled by the woman’s beauty. He couldn’t tell how old she was, but the baby strapped to her back was not more than six months.
Kyunghee said nothing. She looked like a lovely, nervous mute.
“Is this your baby?” he asked.
Kyunghee shook her head, glancing at Sunja. This wasn’t like talking to Japanese merchants—something she had to do to buy groceries or things needed for the house. Yoseb had told her on numerous occasions that money and business were men’s issues, and suddenly she felt incapable of saying anything. Before getting here, it had been her plan to help Sunja with the negotiations, but now she felt like if she said anything at all, it would be unhelpful or wrong.
Sunja asked, “Do you know how much kimchi you’d like? On a regular basis, I mean. Do you want to wait to make an order after you try this batch?”
“I’ll take all that you can make. I’d prefer it if you could make the kimchi here. We have refrigerators and a very cold basement that might be good for your purposes.”
“In the kitchen? You want me to pickle the cabbages in there?” Sunja pointed to the restaurant door.
“Yes.” He smiled. “In the mornings, you two can come here and make the kimchi and the side dishes. I have cooks who come in the afternoon to cut up the meat and fix the marinades, but they can’t handle the kimchi and banchan. That sort of thing requires more skills. The customers want more home-style dishes for the pickles. Any fool can make a marinade and grill meat, but the customer needs a fine array of banchan to make him feel like he’s dining like a king, wouldn’t you say?”
He could see that they were still uncomfortable with the idea of working in a restaurant kitchen.
“Besides, you wouldn’t want me to deliver boxes
and boxes of cabbages and vegetables to your house, would you? That can’t be very comfortable.”
Kyunghee whispered to Sunja, “We can’t work in a restaurant. We should make the kimchi at home, and we can bring it here. Or maybe they can send the boy to pick it up if we can’t carry it all.”
“You don’t understand. I need you to make much, much more than whatever you were making before. I manage two more restaurants that require kimchi and banchan—this one is the central location and has the largest kitchen, though. I’d provide all your ingredients; you just tell me what you want. You’d be paid a good salary.”
Kyunghee and Sunja looked at him, not understanding his meaning.
“Thirty-five yen a week. Each of you would get the same amount, so it’s seventy yen in total.”
Sunja opened her mouth in surprise. Yoseb earned forty yen per week.
“And every now and then, you could take some meat home,” Kim said, smiling. “We’d have to see what we can do to make you enjoy working here. Maybe even some grains. If you need a lot of things for your personal use, I’d charge you what we pay for them. We can figure that out later.”
After paying for the ingredients, Sunja and Kyunghee netted approximately ten to twelve yen a week from peddling. If they could earn seventy yen a week, they wouldn’t worry about money. No one at home had eaten any chicken or fish in the past six months because of the cost; buying beef or pork had been impossible. Each week, they still bought soup bones and splurged on the occasional egg for the men, but Sunja wanted the boys, Isak, and Yoseb to eat other things besides potatoes and millet. With so much money, it would be possible to send more money to their parents, who were suffering far more than they let on.
“And I could be home when my older son, Noa, gets home?” Sunja blurted out without meaning to.
“Yes, of course,” Kim said, as if he’d thought this through. “You could leave when you’re done with your work. You could be finished before lunchtime even, I suppose.”
“And my baby?” Sunja pointed to Mozasu, who slept on Kyunghee’s back. “Can I bring him? He could stay in the kitchen with us,” Sunja said, unable to imagine leaving him with one of the overwhelmed grannies in the neighborhood who watched the workingwomen’s children. When there was no one to watch them at home, or if they couldn’t afford to pay the grannies, a few women at the market tethered their very small children to their carts with ropes; the children with ropes crisscrossed around their torsos seemed happy to wander about or to sit by their mothers playing with cheap toys.
“The baby’s not much trouble at all,” Sunja said.
“Why not? As long as the work gets done, I don’t care. There are no customers here at the time you’re working, so they won’t be in the way,” he said. “If you need to stay late and your older son wants to come here from school, that’s fine, too. There are no customers here until dinnertime.”
Sunja nodded. She wouldn’t have to spend another cold winter standing outside, waiting for customers, all the while worrying about Noa and Mozasu.
Seeing that Kyunghee looked more agitated than pleased at this job offer, which would change everything, Sunja said, “We have to ask. For permission—”
After the dinner table was cleared, Kyunghee brought her husband a cup of barley tea and his ashtray so he could have a smoke. Seated cross-legged near his uncle, Noa played with the brightly painted top that Yoseb had bought for him, and the child was mesmerized by how fast it could go. The wooden toy made a pleasant whirring sound against the floor. Sunja, who held Mozasu in her arms, watched Noa playing, wondering how Isak was. Ever since Isak’s arrest, Sunja barely spoke at home for fear of upsetting her brother-in-law, whose temperament had altered greatly. When he got angry, he’d walk out of the house; sometimes, he wouldn’t even bother coming home until very late. The women knew that Yoseb would be against their working at the restaurant.
After Yoseb lit his cigarette, Kyunghee told him about the jobs. They needed the work, she said, using the word “work” rather than “money.”
“Have you lost your mind? First, you make food to sell under a bridge by a train station, and now both of you want to work in a restaurant where men drink and gamble? Do you know what kind of women go into such places? What, next you’ll be pouring drinks for—?” Yoseb’s unsmoked cigarette shook between his trembling fingers. He was not a violent man, but he’d had enough.
“Did you actually go into the restaurant?” he asked, not quite believing this conversation.
“No,” Kyunghee replied. “I stayed outside with the baby, but it was a big, clean place. I saw it through the window. I went to the meeting with Sunja in case the place wasn’t nice, because Sunja shouldn’t go there by herself. The manager, Kim Changho, was a well-spoken young man, and you should meet him. We wouldn’t go there if you didn’t give us permission. Yobo—” Kyunghee could see how upset he was, and she felt terrible about it. She respected no one more than Yoseb. Women complained about their men, but there were no bad words to say about her husband; Yoseb was a truthful person who kept his word. He tried all he could; he was honorable. He did his best to care for them.
Yoseb put out his cigarette. Noa stopped spinning his top, and the boy looked frightened.
“Maybe if you met him…” Kyunghee knew they had to take this job, but she knew her husband would be humiliated by it. In their marriage, he had denied her nothing except for her ability to earn money. He believed that a hardworking man should be able to take care of his family by himself, and that a woman should remain at home.
“He could pay you instead of us; we’d just save the money for Isak’s boys and send more to your parents. We could buy Isak better food and send him clothes. We don’t know when he’s—” Kyunghee stopped herself. Noa had sidled up closer to his uncle as if to protect him. He patted his uncle’s leg the same way his uncle would pat his back when Noa fell down or got discouraged by something at school.
Although his head was full of arguments, Yoseb couldn’t speak. He was working two full-time jobs—managing two factories for Shimamura-san, who paid him half the salary of one Japanese foreman. Lately, he repaired broken metal presses for a Korean factory owner after hours, but he couldn’t count on that for a steady income. He hadn’t mentioned this recent job to his wife, because he preferred for her to think of him working as a manager rather than as a mechanic. Before he got home, he’d scrub his hands ruthlessly with a bristle brush, using diluted lye to get out the machine oil stains from beneath his fingernails. No matter how hard he worked, there was never enough money—the yen notes and coins dropped out of his pockets as if they had gaping holes.
Japan was in trouble; the government knew it but would never admit defeat. The war in China pressed on without letting up. His boss’s sons fought for Japan. The older one, who’d been sent to Manchuria, had lost a leg last year, then died of gangrene, and the younger one had been sent to Nanjing to take his place. In passing, Shimamura-san had mentioned that Japan was in China in order to stabilize the region and to spread peace, but the way he’d said all this hadn’t given Yoseb the impression that Shimamura-san believed any of it. The Japanese were going deeper into the war in Asia, and there were rumors that Japan would soon be allied with Germany in the war in Europe.
Did any of this matter to Yoseb? He’d nodded at the right times and grunted affirmatively when his Japanese boss was talking about the war, because you were supposed to nod when the boss told you his stories. Nevertheless, to every Korean he knew, Japan’s expanding war in Asia seemed senseless. China was not Korea; China was not Taiwan; China could lose a million people and still keep on. Pockets of it may fall, but it was an unfathomably vast nation; it would endure by sheer number and resolve. Did Koreans want Japan to win? Hell no, but what would happen to them if Japan’s enemies won? Could the Koreans save themselves? Apparently not. So save your own ass—this was what Koreans believed privately. Save your family. Feed your belly. Pay attention, and be skeptical of the
people in charge. If the Korean nationalists couldn’t get their country back, then let your kids learn Japanese and try to get ahead. Adapt. Wasn’t it as simple as that? For every patriot fighting for a free Korea, or for any unlucky Korean bastard fighting on behalf of Japan, there were ten thousand compatriots on the ground and elsewhere who were just trying to eat. In the end, your belly was your emperor.
Every minute of every day, Yoseb was worried about money. If he dropped dead, what would happen? What kind of man let his wife work in a restaurant? He knew this galbi place—who didn’t? There were three of them, and the main one was by the train station. The gangsters ate there late at night. The owners set the prices high to keep out the regular people and the Japanese. When Yoseb had needed to borrow money for Isak and Sunja’s passage to Japan, he’d gone there. Which was worse—his wife working for moneylenders or him owing money to them? For a Korean man, the choices were always shit.
4
May 1942
Noa Baek was not like the other eight-year-olds in the neighborhood. Each morning before he went to school, he’d scrub his face until his cheeks were pink, smooth three drops of oil on his black hair, then comb it away from his forehead as his mother had taught him to do. After a breakfast of barley porridge and miso soup, he’d rinse his mouth and check his white teeth in the small round hand mirror by the sink. No matter how tired his mother was, she made certain that Noa’s shirts were ironed the night before. In his clean, pressed clothes, Noa looked like a middle-class Japanese child from a wealthier part of town, bearing no resemblance to the unwashed ghetto children outside his door.
At school, Noa was strong in both arithmetic and writing, and he surprised the gym teacher with his adept hand-eye coordination and running speed. After classes ended, he tidied the shelves and swept the classroom floors without being asked and walked home alone, trying not to draw any undue attention to himself. The boy managed to look unafraid of the tougher children while setting himself apart with a perimeter of quiet privacy that could not be disturbed. When he got home, Noa went directly into the house to do his schoolwork without lingering on the street with the neighborhood children who played until dinnertime.
