Yokohama, 1989
On Sunday morning, after church services, Solomon and Phoebe took the train to Yokohama for lunch with his family.
As usual, the front door of the house was closed but unlocked, so they let themselves in. A designer friend of Etsuko’s had recently renovated it, and the house was unrecognizable from the one of Solomon’s childhood filled with dark American furniture. The designer had removed most of the original interior walls and knocked out the small back windows, replacing them with thick sheets of glass. Now it was possible to see the rock garden from the front of the house. Pale-colored furniture, white oak floors, and sculptural paper lamps filled the vast quadrant near the woodburning stove, leaving the large, square-shaped living room light and uncluttered. In the opposite corner of the room, tall branches of forsythia bloomed in an enormous celadon-colored ceramic jar on the floor. The house looked like a glamorous Buddhist temple.
Mozasu came out from the den to greet them.
“You’re here!” he said to Phoebe in Korean. When she spent time with Solomon’s family, the group spoke three languages. Phoebe spoke Korean with the elders and English with Solomon, while Solomon spoke mostly in Japanese to the elders and English to Phoebe; with everyone translating in bits, they made it work somehow.
Mozasu opened the shoe closet by the door and offered them house slippers.
“My mother and aunt have been cooking all week. I hope you’re hungry.”
“Something smells wonderful,” she said. “Is everyone in the kitchen?”
Phoebe smoothed her navy pleated skirt.
“Yes. I mean, sorry, no. Etsuko couldn’t be here today. She’s very sad to miss you. She asked me to apologize.”
Phoebe nodded, glancing briefly at Solomon. It seemed impolite for her to ask where Etsuko was, but she couldn’t understand why Solomon didn’t ask his father where she was. Phoebe was curious about Etsuko. She was the only person Phoebe couldn’t speak to directly, because neither woman spoke the other’s language. Also, she wanted to meet Hana, who was never around.
Solomon grabbed Phoebe’s hand and led her to the kitchen. Around his family, he felt younger than usual, almost giddy. The scents of all his favorite dishes filled the wide hallway connecting the front of the house with the kitchen.
“Solomon is here!” he shouted, no different than when he’d come home from school as a boy.
Kyunghee and Sunja stopped their work immediately and looked up, beaming. Mozasu smiled, seeing their happiness.
“Phoebe is here, too, Solomon!” Kyunghee said. She wiped her hands on her apron, then came out from behind the thick marble counter to embrace him.
Sunja followed her and put her arm around Phoebe’s waist. Sunja was a head shorter than Phoebe.
“This is for both of you.” Phoebe gave her a box of candy from the Tokyo branch of an exclusive French chocolate shop.
Sunja smiled. “Thank you.”
Kyunghee untied the ribbon to take a peek. It was a large box of glazed fruits dipped in chocolate. Delighted, she said, “This looks expensive. You kids should be saving money at your age. But the candies look so delicious! Thank you.”
She inhaled the chocolate aroma dramatically.
“It’s so good to have you here,” Sunja said in Korean, folding Phoebe’s slender shoulders into her thick embrace.
Phoebe loved being with Solomon’s family. It was much smaller than her own, but everyone seemed closer, as if each member were organically attached to one seamless body, whereas her enormous extended family felt like cheerfully mismatched Lego bricks in a large bucket. Phoebe’s parents had at least five or six siblings each, and she had grown up with well over a dozen cousins just in California. There were relatives in New York, New Jersey, DC, Washington State, and Toronto. She had dated a couple of Korean American guys and had met their families, but Solomon’s family was different. Solomon’s family was warm but far more muted and intensely watchful. None of them seemed to miss anything.
“Is that for pajeon?” Phoebe asked. The mixing bowl was filled with creamy pancake batter flecked with thin slices of scallion and chunks of scallops.
“You like pajeon? So does Solomon! How does your umma make it?” Kyunghee asked; her tone was casual, though she held strong opinions about the ratio of scallions to shellfish.
“My mother doesn’t cook,” Phoebe said, looking only a little embarrassed.
“What?” Kyunghee gasped in horror and turned to Sunja, who raised her eyebrows, sharing her sister-in-law’s surprise.
Phoebe laughed.
“I grew up eating pizza and hamburgers. And lots of Kentucky Fried Chicken. I love the KFC corn on the cob.” She smiled. “Mom worked in my dad’s medical office as his office manager and was never home before eight o’clock.”
The women nodded, trying to understanding this.
“Mom was always working. She did all the medical paperwork at the dining table next to us kids while we did our homework. I don’t think she ever went to bed until midnight—”
“But you didn’t eat any Korean food?”
Kyunghee couldn’t comprehend this.
“On the weekends we ate it. At a restaurant.”
The women understood that the mother was busy and hardworking, but it seemed inconceivable to them that a Korean mother didn’t cook for her family. What would Solomon eat if he married this girl? What would their children eat?
“She didn’t have time. That makes sense, but does your mother know how to cook?” Kyunghee asked tentatively.
“She never learned. And none of her sisters cook Korean food, either.”
Phoebe laughed, because the fact that none of them cooked Korean food was a point of pride. Her mother and her sisters tended to look down at women who cooked a lot and constantly tried to make you eat. The four of them were very thin. Like Phoebe, they were the kind of women who were constantly moving around and seemed uninterested in eating because they were so absorbed in their work. “My favorite aunt cooks only on the weekends and only for dinner parties. She usually makes Italian food. Our family always meets at restaurants.”
Phoebe found it amusing to see their continuing shock and disbelief at such a mundane detail of her childhood. What was the big deal? Why did women have to cook, anyway? she wondered. Her mother was her favorite person in the world. “My brother and sisters don’t even like kimchi. My mother won’t even keep it in the refrigerator because of the smell.”
“Waaah,” Sunja sighed. “You really are American. Are your aunts married to Americans?”
“My aunts and uncles are married to non-Koreans. My brother and sisters married ethnically Korean people, but they’re Americans like me. My older brother-in-law, the lawyer, speaks fluent Portuguese but no Korean; he grew up in Brazil. America is full of people like that.”
“Really?” Kyunghee exclaimed.
“Who are your aunts married to?”
“I have aunts and uncles by marriage who are white, black, Dutch, Jewish, Filipino, Mexican, Chinese, Puerto Rican, and, let’s see, there’s one Korean American uncle and three Korean American aunts. I have a lot of cousins. Everyone’s mixed,” she added, smiling at the older women wearing spotless white aprons, who were paying such careful attention to what she was saying that it looked as if their minds were taking notes.
“When we get together, like on Thanksgiving and Christmas, it’s really fun.”
“I’ve met several of them,” Solomon said, worried that his grandmother and great-aunt wouldn’t approve of her family, although he could tell they were more curious than reproachful. Neither of them had ever said that he had to marry a Korean person, but he knew his father’s relationship with Etsuko made them uncomfortable.
When the frying pan was hot enough, Sunja poured a scant cup of the scallion pancake batter into it. She checked the edges and lowered the heat. Phoebe was lively and good for the boy, she thought. Her mother used to say a woman’s life was suffering, but that was the last thing she wanted for this sweet girl who had a quick, warm smile for everyone. If she didn’t cook, then so what? If she took good care of Solomon, then nothing else should matter, though she hoped that Phoebe wanted children. Lately, Sunja wanted to hold babies. How wonderful it would be not to have to worry about a war or having enough food to eat, or finding shelter. Solomon and Phoebe wouldn’t have to labor the way she and Kyunghee had, but could just enjoy their children.
“When are you going to marry Solomon?” Sunja asked, without shifting her focus from the frying pan. An older woman had a right to ask this sort of thing, though she was still a little afraid to do it.
“Yes, when are you two getting married? What are you waiting for? My sister and I have nothing to do—we’ll move to Tokyo if you want help with the babies and the cooking!” Kyunghee giggled.
Solomon shook his head and smiled at the three women.
“And this is when I go to the den and talk man stuff with Dad.”
“Thanks a lot, Solomon,” Phoebe said. She didn’t actually mind their questions, since she had been wondering about this, too.
Mozasu smiled, and the men left them in the kitchen.
Father and son sat down in the armchairs in the center of the large room. Baskets of fruits and bowls of nuts topped the glass and stainless-steel coffee table opposite the long low-back sofa. A stack of today’s Korean and Japanese newspapers remained half-read.
Mozasu turned on the television and lowered the volume on the news; he was scanning the ticker running across the screen with stock prices. The two often talked with the television on.
“How’s work?” Mozasu asked.
“Much easier than school. The boss is really great—a Japanese guy, but he went to college and business school in California.”
“California? Your mother would’ve liked that,” Mozasu said quietly. The boy resembled her so much, especially around the brow and nose.
“Where’s Etsuko?” Solomon stared at the blue background of the news screen. The newscasters were talking about a flood in Bangkok. “Is it Hana? She okay?”
Mozasu sighed. “Etsuko will fill you in. Give her a call.”
Solomon wanted to know more, but his father didn’t know about what had happened between the two of them. Mozasu never liked to talk about Hana, because she upset Etsuko so much.
“Your grandmother and great-aunt like Phoebe. They want you to get married.”
“Yes, I heard that. Five minutes ago.”
Mozasu faced his son. “Does Phoebe want to live in Japan?”
“Not sure. She hates that she doesn’t know Japanese.”
“She can learn.”
Solomon looked doubtful. “She wants to work. It’s not easy to get your career going straight out of college in Japan. And she doesn’t have the language skills. Staying home is not good for Phoebe.”
Mozasu nodded. Solomon’s mother had been the same way.
“You okay with money?”
“Yes, Dad,” he replied, almost amused by his father’s concern, “I have a good job now. Hey, Dad, do you know an older lady named Sonoko Matsuda? She owns an old textile factory in Yokohama. Not far from Goro-san’s place.”
“No.” Mozasu shook his head. “Why?”
“Kazu, my boss, is trying to finalize this real estate transaction, and the lady, Matsuda-san, won’t sell her property. It’s holding up the deal. I thought maybe you might know someone. You know a lot of people in Yokohama, I mean.”
“I don’t know her, but sure, I can find out. That’s not hard,” he said. “Your boss wants the lady to sell?”
“Yeah. Her lot is the last important piece for the golf course development.”
“Huh, okay. That sort of thing does happen. I’ll ask Goro-san or Haruki. One of them will know. Goro just sold his last pachinko parlor. Now he’s only doing demolition, construction, and real estate. He wants me to go in with him, but I’m too busy. It’s too late for me to start something new. I don’t understand his business as well as pachinko.”
“Why don’t you sell the shops, too, Dad? Retire maybe. You’re set, right? Pachinko is a lot of work.”
“What? Quit the business? Pachinko put food on the table and sent you to school. I’m too young to retire!”
He shrugged.
“And what would happen if I sell my stores? They might fire my workers. And where would my older workers go? And we give work to the people who make the machines. Pachinko’s a bigger business in Japan than car manufacturing.”
Mozasu stopped talking and raised the volume on the news. The newscasters were now talking about the value of the yen.
Solomon nodded and stared at the screen, trying to pay attention to the currency news. His father didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed by what he did for a living.
Mozasu caught a glimpse of his son’s darkened expression.
“I’ll call Goro tonight and ask about the lady. Your boss wants her to sell, right?”
“That would be great. Thanks, Dad.”
On Monday afternoon, Mozasu called Solomon at the office. He had spoken to Goro-san. The old lady was Korean—an old-school Chongryon type whose children had returned to Pyongyang and died there; Matsuda was her tsumei. She didn’t want to sell the property to the Japanese. Goro-san thought the old lady was being stubborn; he said he could buy the property from the lady, because she said he’d sell it to her. Then he’d sell it to Kazu’s client for the same price.
After Solomon got off the phone, he rushed to Kazu’s office to tell him the good news.
Kazu listened carefully, then folded his hands together and smiled.
“Excellent work, Jedi. I can always spot a winner.”