The summer had come fast. The Osaka sun felt hotter than the sun back home, and the brutal humidity slowed down Sunja’s heavy movements. However, her workdays were easy, and until the baby came, she and Kyunghee had to care only for themselves and their husbands, who didn’t come home until late in the evening. Isak spent long days and nights at the church serving the needs of a growing congregation, and Yoseb managed the biscuit factory during the day and repaired machines in factories in Ikaino in the evenings for extra money. The daily tasks of cooking, laundry, and cleaning for four were considerably less onerous than caring for a boardinghouse. Sunja’s life felt luxurious in contrast to her old life in Busan.
She loved spending the day with Kyunghee, whom she called Sister. After two brief months, they found themselves enjoying a close friendship—an unexpected gift for two women who’d neither expected nor asked for much happiness. Kyunghee was no longer alone in the house all day, and Yoseb was grateful that Isak had brought the boardinghouse daughter as his wife.
In the minds of Yoseb and Kyunghee, the cause of Sunja’s pregnancy had long been settled with a rationalization of their making: The girl had been harmed through no fault of her own, and Isak had rescued her because it was his nature to make sacrifices. No one asked her the particulars, and Sunja did not speak of the matter.
Kyunghee and Yoseb hadn’t been able to have children, but Kyunghee was undeterred. Sarah in the Bible had a child in old age, and Kyunghee didn’t believe that God had forgotten her. A devout woman, she spent her time helping the poor mothers at the church. She was also a thrifty housewife, able to save every extra sen that her husband entrusted to her. It had been Kyunghee’s idea to buy the Ikaino house with the money Yoseb’s father had given him combined with her dowry, even when Yoseb had had his doubts. “Why would we pay rent to the landlord and have nothing left when the month is over?” she’d said. Because Kyunghee stuck to a careful budget, they’d been able to send money to Yoseb’s parents and her own—both families having lost all of their arable land.
Kyunghee’s dream was to own her own business selling kimchi and pickles at the covered market near Tsuruhashi Station, and when Sunja moved in, she finally had a person who’d listen to her plans. Yoseb disapproved of her working for money. He liked coming home to a rested and pretty housewife who had his supper ready—an ideal reason for a man to work hard, he believed. Each day, Kyunghee and Sunja made three meals: a hot, traditional breakfast with soup; a packed lunch for the men to take to work; and a hot dinner. Without refrigeration or the cold Pyongyang climate, Kyunghee had to cook often to avoid waste.
It was unusually warm for the beginning of summer, and the thought of making soup on the stone stove at the back of the house would have been unappealing to any normal housewife, but Kyunghee didn’t mind. She enjoyed going to the market and thinking about what to fix for their meals. Unlike most of the Korean women in Ikaino, she spoke decent Japanese and was able to negotiate with the merchants for what she wanted.
When Kyunghee and Sunja entered the butcher shop, Tanaka-san, the tall young proprietor, snapped to attention and shouted “Irasshai!” to welcome them.
The butcher and his helper, Koji, were delighted to see the pretty Korean and her pregnant sister-in-law. They weren’t big customers; in fact, they spent very little money, but they were steady, and as Tanaka’s father and grandfather had taught him—the eighth generation of sons to run the shop—the daily, cumulative payments were more valuable than the infrequent, outsize purchases. Housewives were the backbone of the business, and the Korean women couldn’t fuss like the local women, which made them preferable customers. It was also rumored that one of his great-grandfathers may have been Korean or burakumin, so the young butcher had been raised by his father and mother to be fair to all the customers. Times might have changed, to be sure, but butchery, which required touching dead animals, was still a shameful occupation—the chief reason given as to why the matchmaker had such difficulty arranging an omiai for him—and Tanaka couldn’t help but feel a kind of kinship with foreigners.
The men ogled Kyunghee, altogether ignoring Sunja, who had by now grown used to this invisibility whenever the two went anywhere. Kyunghee, who looked smart in her midi skirts and crisp white blouses, easily passing for a schoolteacher or a merchant’s modest wife with her fine features, was welcomed in most places. Everyone thought she was Japanese until she spoke; even then, the local men were pleasant to her. For the first time in her life, Sunja felt aware of her unacceptable plainness and inappropriate attire. She felt homely in Osaka. Her well-worn, traditional clothes were an inevitable badge of difference, and though there were enough older and poorer Koreans in the neighborhood who wore them still, she had never been looked upon with scorn with such regularity, when she had never meant to call attention to herself. Within the settled boundaries of Ikaino, one would not be stared at for wearing a white hanbok, but outside the neighborhood and farther out from the train station, the chill against identifiable Koreans was obvious. Sunja would have preferred to wear Western clothes or mompei, but it would make no sense to spend money on fabric to sew new things now. Kyunghee promised to make her new clothes after the baby was delivered.
Kyunghee bowed politely to the men, and Sunja retreated into the corner of the shop.
“How can we help you today, Boku-san?” Tanaka-san asked.
Even after two months, it still surprised Sunja to hear her husband’s family name pronounced in its Japanese form. Due to the colonial government’s requirements, it was normal for Koreans to have at least two or three names, but back home she’d had little use for the Japanese tsumei—Junko Kaneda—written on her identity papers, because Sunja didn’t go to school and had nothing to do with official business. Sunja was born a Kim, yet in Japan, where women went by their husband’s family name, she was Sunja Baek, which was translated into Sunja Boku, and on her identity papers, her tsumei was now Junko Bando. When the Koreans had to choose a Japanese surname, Isak’s father had chosen Bando because it had sounded like the Korean word ban-deh, meaning objection, making their compulsory Japanese name a kind of joke. Kyunghee had assured her that all these names would become normal soon enough.
“What will you be cooking today, Boku-san?” the young owner asked.
“May I please have shinbones and a bit of meat? I’m making soup,” Kyunghee said in her radio announcer–style Japanese; she regularly listened to Japanese programs to improve her accent.
“Right away.” Tanaka grabbed three large hunks of shinbone from the stock of beef bones and oxtails he kept in the ice chest for Korean customers; Japanese did not have any use for bones. He wrapped up a handful of stew meat. “Will that be all?”
She nodded.
“Thirty-six sen, please.”
Kyunghee opened her coin purse. Two yen and sixty sen had to last her for eight more days until Yoseb gave her his pay envelope.
“Sumimasen desu, how much would it be for just the bones?”
“Ten sen.”
“Please pardon my error. Today, I’ll take only the bones. Meat another time, I promise.”
“Of course.” Tanaka returned the meat to the case. It wasn’t the first time a customer didn’t have enough money to pay for food, but unlike his other customers, the Koreans didn’t ask him for credit, not that he would have agreed to it.
“You’re making a broth?” Tanaka wondered what it might be like to have such an elegant wife worrying about his meals and being thrifty with her pin money. He was the first son, and although he was eager to be married, he lived with his mother as a bachelor. “What kind?”
“Seolleongtang.” She looked at him quizzically, wondering if he knew what that was.
“And how do you make this soup?” Tanaka folded his arms leisurely and leaned into the counter, looking carefully into Kyunghee’s lovely face. She had beautiful, even teeth, he thought.
“First, you wash the bones very carefully in cold water. Then you boil the bones and throw that first batch of water out because it will have all the blood and dirt that you don’t want in your broth. Then you boil it again with clean, cold water, then simmer it for a long, long time until the broth is white like tofu, then you add daikon, chopped scallions, and salt. It’s delicious and very good for your health.”
“It would be better to have some meat with it, I would imagine.”
“And white rice and noodles! Why not?” Kyunghee laughed, her hand raised reflexively to cover her teeth.
Both men laughed with pleasure, understanding her joke, since rice was costly even for them.
“And do you eat kimchi with that?” Tanaka asked, never having had such a long conversation with Kyunghee. It felt safe for him to talk with her with his assistant and her sister-in-law present. “Kimchi is a bit spicy for me, yet I think it’s nice with grilled chicken or grilled pork.”
“Kimchi is delicious with every meal. I will bring you some from our house next time.”
Tanaka reopened the paper packet of bones and put back half of the meat he’d just returned to the case.
“It’s not much. Just enough for the baby.” Tanaka smiled at Sunja, who was surprised that the butcher had noticed her. “A mother must eat well if she’s to raise a strong worker for the Emperor.”
“I couldn’t take anything for free,” Kyunghee said, perplexed. She didn’t know what he was doing exactly, but she really couldn’t afford the meat today.
Sunja was confused by their conversation. They were saying something about kimchi.
“This is the first sale of the day. Sharing will bring me luck,” Tanaka said, feeling puffed up like any man who could give something worthwhile to an attractive woman whenever he pleased.
Kyunghee placed the ten sen on the spotless money dish resting on the counter, smiled, and bowed to both men before she left.
Outside the shop, Sunja asked what happened.
“He didn’t charge us for the meat. I didn’t know how to make him take it back.”
“He likes you. It was a present.” Sunja giggled, feeling like Dokhee, the younger servant girl back home, who’d joke about men whenever she had the chance. Though she thought of her mother often, it had been a while since she’d thought about the sisters back home. “I’ll call Tanaka-san your boyfriend from now on.”
Kyunghee swatted playfully at Sunja, shaking her head.
“He said it’s for your baby, so he can grow up to be a good worker for the country.” Kyunghee made a face. “And Tanaka-san knows I’m Korean.”
“Since when do men care about such things? Mrs. Kim next door told me about the quiet lady who lives at the end of the road who’s Japanese and married to the Korean who brews alcohol in his house. Their kids are half Japanese!” This had shocked Sunja when she’d first heard of it, though everything Mrs. Kim, the lady who raised pigs, told her was shocking. Yoseb didn’t want Kyunghee and Sunja to speak with Mrs. Kim, who also didn’t go to church on Sundays. They weren’t allowed to speak to the Japanese wife, either, because her husband was routinely sent to jail for his bootlegging.
“If you run away with the nice butcher, I’ll miss you,” Sunja said.
“Even if I weren’t married, I would not choose that man. He smiles too much.” Kyunghee winked at her. “I like my cranky husband who’s always telling me what to do and worries about everything.
“Come on, we have to buy vegetables now. That’s why I didn’t buy the meat. We should try to find some potatoes to roast. Wouldn’t that be good for our lunch?”
“Sister—”
“Yes?” Kyunghee said.
“We’re not contributing to the house. The groceries, fuel, sento fees—I’ve never seen such prices in my life. Back home, we had a garden, and we never paid for vegetables. And the price of fish! My mother would never eat it again if she knew the cost. Back home, we scrimped, but I didn’t realize how easy we had it—we got free fish from the guests, and here, an apple costs more than beef ribs in Busan. Mother was careful with money, the way you are, but even she couldn’t have made the kinds of delicious things you make on a budget. Isak and I think you should take the money he makes to help with the food budget at least.”
The fact that Sister and Brother wouldn’t allow Isak and her to pay for a single thing was difficult to accept, and it wasn’t as if they could afford to rent a place separately. Besides, even if they could have afforded to do so, it would have hurt Sister’s feelings deeply for Isak and Sunja to move out.
“I’m sure you ate much better and more filling things back home,” Kyunghee said, appearing sad.
“No, no. That’s not what I meant. We just feel terrible that you won’t let us contribute to the enormous expenses.”
“Yoseb and I won’t allow it. You should be saving money for the baby. We’ll have to get clothes for him and diapers, and one day he’ll go to school and become a gentleman. Won’t that be something? I hope he’ll like school like his father and not dodge books like his uncle!” The thought of a baby living with them made Kyunghee smile. This child felt like an answer to her prayers.
“Mother sent me three yen in her last letter. And we have money we brought and Isak’s recent earnings to help. You shouldn’t have to worry about expenses so much or selling kimchi to support two extra mouths—and soon, three,” Sunja said.
“Sunja-ya, you’re being disrespectful. I’m your elder. We can manage just fine. Also, if I can’t talk about my wish to earn money without you jumping in about wanting to contribute, then I can’t talk about my pipe dreams of becoming the kimchi ajumma of Tsuruhashi Station.” Kyunghee laughed. “Be a good little sister and let me dream out loud about my business where I’ll make so much money that I can buy us a castle and send your son to medical school in Tokyo.”
“Do you think housewives would buy another woman’s kimchi?”
“Why not! Don’t you think I make good kimchi? My family cook made the finest pickles in Pyongyang.” Kyunghee lifted her chin, then broke down laughing. She had a joyous laugh. “I’d make a great kimchi ajumma. My pickled cabbage would be clean and delicious.”
“Why can’t you start now? I have enough money to buy cabbage and radish. I can help you make it. If we sell a lot, it would be better for me than working in a factory, because I can watch the baby at home when he’s born.”
“Yes, we would be really good at it, but Yoseb would kill me. He said he’d never have his wife work. Never. And he wouldn’t want you to work, either.”
“But I grew up working with my mother and father. He knows that. My mother served the guests and did all the cooking, and I cleaned and washed—”
“Yoseb is old-fashioned.” Kyunghee sighed. “I married a very good man. It’s my fault. If I had children, I wouldn’t feel so restless. I just don’t want to be so idle. This isn’t Yoseb’s fault. No one works harder than he does. Back in the olden days, a man in his situation could’ve thrown me out for not having a son.” Kyunghee nodded to herself, recalling the numerous stories of barren women that she’d heard as a child, never having considered that such a thing could happen to her. “I’ll listen to my husband. He has always taken such good care of me.”
Sunja could neither agree nor disagree, so she let the statement hang in the air. Her brother-in-law, Yoseb, was in actuality saying that a yangban woman like Kyunghee couldn’t work outside the house; Sunja was an ordinary peasant’s daughter, so working in a market was fine for her. The distinction didn’t trouble Sunja, since she agreed that Kyunghee was a superior person in so many ways. Nevertheless, living with Kyunghee and speaking so truthfully with her about everything, Sunja also knew that her sister-in-law was heartbroken about what she could not have and might have been far happier trying her luck as a kimchi ajumma.
Regardless, it wasn’t her place to say. All this was what her brother-in-law would call “foolish women’s talk.” For Kyunghee’s sake, Sunja brightened up and linked arms with her sister-in-law, who seemed to drag a little. Arm in arm, they went to buy cabbage and daikon.