by Min Jin Lee
“Tamaguchi-san.” Hansu bowed. The old woman bowed to Tamaguchi from the waist. She wore a traditional dress and in each hand she clutched fabric parcels.
“Koh-san.” Tamaguchi bowed, smiling at the older woman. As he drew closer, Tamaguchi could see that the woman was not very old; in fact, she might have been younger than he was. Her brown face was drawn and malnourished.
“This is Sunja’s mother. Kim Yangjin desu,” Hansu said. “She arrived from Busan earlier today.”
“Kim-u Yangjin-san.” The farmer said each syllable slowly, realizing that he had a new guest. He scanned her face, searching for any resemblance to the young widow, mother to the two boys. There was some similarity around the mouth and jaw. The woman’s brown hands were strong like a man’s, with large knobbed fingers. She would make a good worker, he thought. “Sunja’s mother? Is that so? Welcome, welcome,” he said, smiling.
Yangjin, her eyes downcast, appeared afraid. She was also exhausted.
Hansu cleared his throat.
“And how are the boys? I hope they’re not giving you any trouble.”
“No, no. Not at all. They’re excellent workers! Wonderful boys.” Tamaguchi meant this. He had not expected the boys to be so capable. With no children of his own, he had expected city children to be spoiled and lazy like his sisters-in-law. In his village, prosperous farmers complained about their foolish sons, so the childless Tamaguchi and his wife had not envied parents very much. Also, Tamaguchi hadn’t had any idea of what Koreans would be like. He was not a bigoted man, but the only Korean he knew personally was Koh Hansu, and their relationship had begun with the war and was not an ordinary one. An open secret, several of the larger farms sold their produce on the city’s black markets through Koh Hansu and his distribution network, but no one discussed this. Foreigners and yakuza controlled the black market, and there were serious repercussions for selling produce to them. It was an honor to help Koh Hansu; favors created obligations, and the farmer was determined to do anything he could for him.
“Koh-san, please come inside the house for tea. You must be thirsty. It is very hot today.” Tamaguchi walked into the house, and even before taking off his own shoes, the farmer offered house slippers to his guests.
Shaded by ancient, sturdy poplars, the interior of the large farmhouse was pleasantly cool. The fresh grass smell of new tatami mats greeted the guests. In the main room, paneled in cedar, Tamaguchi’s wife, Kyoko, sat on a blue silk floor cushion, sewing her husband’s shirt; her two sisters, lying on their stomachs with their ankles crossed, flipped through an old movie magazine they’d read so many times before that they’d memorized its text. The three women, exceptionally well dressed for no one in particular, looked out of place in the farmhouse. Despite the rationing of cloth, the farmer’s wife and her sisters had not suffered any privation. Kyoko wore an elegant cotton kimono, more suited for a Tokyo merchant’s wife, and the sisters wore smart navy skirts and cotton blouses, looking like college co-eds from American films.
When the sisters lifted their chins to see who’d walked into the house, their pale, pretty faces emerged from the long bangs of their stylishly bobbed haircuts. The war had brought priceless treasures to the Tamaguchi home—valuable calligraphy scrolls, bolts of fabric, more kimonos than the women could ever wear, lacquered cupboards, jewels, and dishes—possessions of city dwellers who’d been willing to trade heirlooms for a sack of potatoes and a chicken. However, the sisters yearned for the city itself—new films, Kansai shops, the unblinking electric lights. They were sick of the war, the endless green fields, and farm life in general. Bellies full and well housed, they had only contempt for the smell of lamp oil, loud animals, and their hick brother-in-law, who was always talking about the prices of things. The American bombs had burned down the cinemas, department stores, and their beloved confectioneries, but glittering images of such urban pleasures called to them still, feeding their growing discontent. They complained daily to their elder sister—the plain and sacrificial one—whom they had once mocked for marrying their distant country cousin, who now prepared gold and kimonos for their dowries.
When Tamaguchi cleared his throat, the girls sat up and tried to look busy. They nodded at Hansu and stared at the filthy hem of the Korean woman’s long skirt, unable to keep from making a face.
Yangjin bowed deeply to the three women and remained by the door, not expecting to be invited in, and she was not. From where she stood, Yangjin could see a portion of the bent back of a woman working in the kitchen, but it didn’t look like Sunja.
Hansu spotted the woman in the kitchen as well and asked Tamaguchi’s wife, “Is that Sunja-san in the kitchen?”
Kyoko bowed to him again. The Korean seemed too confident for her taste, but she recognized that her husband needed the fellow more than ever.
“Koh-san, welcome. It’s so nice to see you,” Kyoko said, rising from her seat; she gave her sisters a reproving look, which stirred them sufficiently to stand up and bow to the guest. “The woman in the kitchen is Kyunghee-san. Sunja-san is planting in the fields. Please, sit down. We shall get you something cool to drink.” She turned to Ume-chan, the younger of the two sisters, and Ume trudged to the kitchen to fetch cold oolong-cha.
Hansu nodded, trying not to show his irritation. He’d expected Sunja to work, but it hadn’t occurred to him that she’d be doing outdoor labor.
Kyoko sensed the man’s displeasure. “Surely, you must want to see your daughter, ma’am. Tako-chan, please accompany our guest to her daughter.”
Tako, the middle of the three sisters, complied because she had no choice; it was pointless to defy Kyoko, who could hold a grudge for days in punitive silence. Hansu told Yangjin in Korean to follow the girl who’d take her to Sunja. As Tako put on her shoes in the stone-paved foyer, she caught a whiff of the old woman’s sour, peculiar odor, only aggravated by two days of travel. Filthy, she thought. Tako walked briskly ahead of her, keeping as many paces between them as she could.
After Kyoko poured the tea that Ume had brought from the kitchen, the women disappeared, leaving the men to speak alone in the living room.
The farmer asked Hansu for news of the war.
“It can’t last much longer. The Germans are being crushed, and the Americans are just getting started. Japan will lose this war. It’s a matter of when.” Hansu said this without a trace of regret or joy. “It’s better to stop this madness sooner than later than to have more nice boys get killed, is it not?”
“Yes, yes. That is so, isn’t it?” Tamaguchi replied in a whisper, dispirited. Of course, he wanted Japan to win, and no doubt Hansu knew the realities, but even if Japan would not win, the farmer had no wish for the war to end just yet. There had been talk of fermenting sweet potatoes into airplane fuel; if that happened, and even if the government paid only a little—if anything at all—the farmer expected prices to rise even higher on the black market, because the cities were desperate for food and alcohol. With just one or two more harvests, Tamaguchi would have enough gold to buy the two vast tracts of land beside his. The owner of the plots was only getting older and less interested in working. To own the entire south side of the region in one unbroken lot had been his grandfather’s dearest wish.
Hansu interrupted the farmer’s reverie.
“So, how is it? Having them here?”
Tamaguchi nodded favorably. “They help a great deal. I wish they didn’t have to work so much, but, as you know, I’m short on men—”
“They’d expected to work.” Hansu nodded reassuringly, fully cognizant that the farmer was getting back his room and board and making a large profit, but this was okay with him as long as Sunja and her family weren’t being mistreated.
“Will you stay with us tonight?” Tamaguchi asked. “It’s too late to travel, and you must have dinner with us. Kyunghee-san is an exceptional cook.”
Tako didn’t have to walk the old woman far. When Yangjin spotted her daughter bent over in the vast, dark field, she
grabbed the tail end of her long skirt and wound it around her body to free her legs. She ran as fast as she could in the direction of her daughter.
Sunja, who heard the rushed footfalls, looked up from her planting. A tiny woman in an off-white-colored hanbok was running toward her, and Sunja dropped her hoe. The small shoulders, the gray bun gathered at the base of the neck, the bow of the short blouse knotted neatly in a soft rectangle: Umma. How was that possible? Sunja trampled the potato slips in her path to get to her.
“Oh, my child. My child. Oh, my child.”
Sunja held her mother close, able to feel the sharpness of Yangjin’s collarbone beneath the blouse fabric. Her mother had shrunk.
Hansu ate his dinner quickly, then went to the barn to speak with the others. He wanted merely to sit with them, not to have them fuss over him. He would have preferred to eat with Sunja and her family, but he didn’t want to offend Tamaguchi. During the meal, he had thought only of her and the boy. They had never shared a meal. It was hard to explain, even to himself, his yearning to be with them. In the barn, he realized that Kyunghee had made two dinners in the Tamaguchi kitchen—a Japanese one for the Tamaguchi family and a Korean for the others. In the barn, the Koreans ate their meals on a low, oilcloth-covered table that Kim had built for them with leftover beams. Sunja had just cleared the dinner dishes. Everyone looked up when he walked in.
The animals were quieter in the evening, but they were not silent. The smells were stronger than Hansu remembered, but he knew the odor would be less noticeable soon enough. The Koreans were housed in the back part of the barn, and the animals were nearer the front, with haystacks between them. Kim had built a wooden partition, and he and the boys slept on one side with the women on the other.
Yangjin, who’d been sitting on the ground between her grandsons, got up and bowed to him. On the way to the farm, she’d thanked him numerous times, and now, reunited with her family, she kept repeating thank you, thank you, clutching on to her grandsons, who looked embarrassed. She bawled like an old Korean woman.
Kyunghee was still in the farmhouse kitchen, washing the dinner dishes. When she finished with that, she would prepare the guest room for Hansu. Kim was in the shed behind the barn that was used for bathing, busy heating water for everyone’s bath. Kyunghee and Kim had taken over Sunja’s evening chores to allow her to remain with her mother. None of them suspected the reasons why Hansu had gone through the trouble of getting Yangjin from Korea. As Yangjin sobbed, Sunja observed Hansu, unable to make sense of this man who had never left her life.
Hansu sat down on the thick pile of hay, opposite the boys.
“Did you eat enough dinner?” Hansu asked them in plain Korean.
The boys looked up, surprised that Hansu spoke Korean so well. They’d thought that the man who’d brought their grandmother might be Japanese, because he was so well dressed and since Tamaguchi-san had treated him with such deference.
“You are Noa,” Hansu said, considering the boy’s face carefully. “You are twelve years old.”
“Yes, sir,” Noa replied. The man wore very fine clothes and beautiful leather shoes. He looked like a judge or an important person in a movie poster.
“How do you like being on the farm?”
“It is good, sir.”
“I’m almost six years old,” Mozasu interrupted, something he did out of habit whenever his older brother spoke. “We eat a lot of rice here. I can eat bowls and bowls of rice. Tamaguchi-san said that I need to eat well to grow. He told me not to eat potatoes but to eat rice! Do you like rice, sir?” the boy asked Hansu. “Noa and I will have baths tonight. In Osaka, we couldn’t take baths often because there was no fuel for hot water. I like the baths on the farm better because the tub is smaller than the one at the sento. Do you like baths? The water is so hot, but you get used it, nee, and the tips of my fingers get wrinkled like an old man when I don’t come out of the water.” Mozasu opened his eyes wide. “My face doesn’t wrinkle, though, because I am young.”
Hansu laughed. The younger child had none of Noa’s formality. He seemed so free.
“I’m glad you’re eating well here. That’s good to know. Tamaguchi-san said that you boys are excellent workers.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mozasu said, wanting to ask the man more questions but stopping himself when the man addressed his brother.
“What are your chores, Noa?”
“We clean the stalls here, feed the animals, and take care of the chickens. I also keep records for Tamaguchi-san when we go to the market.”
“Do you miss school?”
Noa did not reply. He missed doing math problems and writing Japanese. He missed the quiet of doing his work—how no one bothered him when he was doing his homework. There was never any time to read at the farm, and he had no books of his own.
“I was told that you’re a very good student.”
“Last year, there wasn’t much school.”
Back home, school had been canceled often. Unlike the other boys, Noa had disliked the bayonet practices and pointless air raid drills. Although he had not wanted to be separated from Uncle Yoseb, the farm was better than being in the city, because he felt safe here. At the farm, he never heard any planes, and there were far fewer bomb shelter drills. Meals were abundant and delicious. They ate eggs every day and drank fresh milk. He slept deeply and woke up feeling well.
“When the war ends, you will return to school, I suppose. Would you like that?” Hansu asked.
Noa nodded.
Sunja wondered how they would manage then. After the war, she had planned on going back to Yeongdo, but her mother said there was nothing left. The government had assessed taxes on the boardinghouse owner, and the owner had sold the building to a Japanese family. The servant girls had taken factory jobs in Manchuria, and there had been no news of them. When Hansu had located Yangjin, she had been working as a housekeeper for a Japanese merchant in Busan, sleeping in the storeroom.
Hansu pulled out two comic books from his jacket pocket.
“Here.”
Noa accepted them with both hands, the way his mother had taught him. The writing was in Korean.
“Thank you, sir.”
“Do you read Korean?”
“No, sir.”
“You can learn,” Hansu said.
“Aunt Kyunghee can help us read this,” Mozasu said. “Uncle Yoseb isn’t here, but when we see him next time, we can surprise him.”
“You boys should know how to read Korean. One day, you may return,” Hansu said.
“Yes, sir,” Noa said. He imagined that Korea would be a peaceful place where he would be normal. His father had told him that Pyongyang, where he’d grown up, was a beautiful city, and Yeongdo, his mother’s hometown, was a serene island with abundant fish in blue-green waters.
“Where are you from, sir?” Noa asked.
“Jeju. It isn’t far from Busan, where your mother is from. It’s a volcanic island. They have oranges there. The people from Jeju are descendants of gods.” He winked. “I will take you there one day.”
“I don’t want to live in Korea,” Mozasu cried. “I want to stay here at the farm.”
Sunja patted Mozasu’s back.
“Umma, we should live on the farm forever. Uncle Yoseb will come here soon, right?” Mozasu asked.
Kyunghee walked in then, having finished her work. Mozasu ran to her with the comic books.
“Can you read this for me?”
Mozasu led her to the pile of folded futons, which they used as chairs.
Kyunghee nodded.
“Noa, come. I’ll read these to you boys.”
Noa bowed quickly to Hansu and joined Kyunghee and Mozasu. Yangjin followed Noa, leaving Sunja at the table. When Sunja started to get up, Hansu gestured for her to sit down.
“Stay.” Hansu looked serious. “Stay for a little while. I want to know how you are.”
“I’m well. Thank you.” Her voice was shaky. “Thank you for bringing my m
other here,” Sunja said. There was more she needed to say, but it was hard.
“You asked for news of her, and I thought it would be better for her to come here. It’s very bad in Japan, but it’s worse in Korea right now. When the war ends, it may get better, but it’ll be worse before it stabilizes.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the Americans win, we don’t know what the Japanese will do. They’ll pull out of Korea, but who’ll be in charge of Korea? What will happen to all those Koreans who supported the Japanese? There will be confusion. There will be more bloodshed. You don’t want to be around it. You don’t want your sons around it.”
“What will you do?” she asked.
He looked directly at her.
“I’ll take care of myself and my people. You think I’d trust my life to a bunch of politicians? The people in charge don’t know anything. And the ones who do don’t care.”
Sunja thought about this. Perhaps that was right, but why should she trust him? She pushed herself off the ground with her hands, but Hansu shook his head.
“Is it so difficult to talk with me? Please sit.”
Sunja sat down.
“I have to take care of my sons. You should understand that.”
The boys were staring intently at the comic book pages. Kyunghee was reading the lines with feeling, and even Yangjin, who was unable to read, found herself laughing with the children at the silly things the characters were saying. They were absorbed in the comic book, and their faces seemed softer somehow, like they were calm.
“I’ll help you,” Hansu said. “You don’t have to worry about money or—”
“You’re helping us now because I have no choice. When the war ends, I’ll work to take care of them. I’m working now to earn our keep—”
“When the war ends, I can find you a home and give you money to take care of the boys. The boys should be going to school, not pushing cow dung around. Your mother and sister-in-law can stay, too. I can get your brother-in-law a good job.”
