“You are home from the academy, Haruki-san?” Yumi kept her posture both formal and demure.
Haruki nodded, then made excuses about Daisuke waiting for him at home. Before leaving them, however, Haruki promised to visit Mozasu at the pachinko parlor the following morning.
Their English class met in the large conference room in the offices of the new Korean church, built recently with large donations from some wealthy yakiniku families. Despite his European name, the teacher, John Maryman, was a Korean who had been adopted as an infant by American missionaries. English was his first language. As a result of his superior diet, rich in both protein and calcium, John was significantly taller than the Koreans and Japanese. At nearly six feet, he caused a commotion wherever he went, as if a giant had descended from heaven. Though he spoke Japanese and Korean proficiently, he spoke both languages with an American accent. In addition to his size, his mannerisms were distinctly foreign. John liked to tease people he didn’t know well, and if something was funny, he laughed louder than most. If it hadn’t been for his patient Korean wife, who possessed masterful noonchi and was able to explain to others tactfully that John just didn’t know any better, he would have gotten into trouble far more often for his many cultural missteps. For a Presbyterian pastor, John seemed far too jovial. He was a good man whose faith and intelligence were irreproachable. His mother, Cynthia Maryman, an automobile tire heiress, had sent him to Princeton and Yale Divinity School, and to his parents’ delight, he had returned to Asia to spread the gospel. His lovely coloring was more olive than golden and his fringed, ink-black eyes, constantly bemused, invited women to linger in his presence.
A girl normally hard to win over, Yumi admired her teacher, whom all the students called Pastor John. To her, John represented a Korean being from a better world where Koreans weren’t whores, drunks, or thieves. Yumi’s mother, a prostitute and alcoholic, had slept with men for money or drinks, and her father, a pimp and a violent drunk, had been imprisoned often for his criminality. Yumi felt that her three elder half sisters were as sexually indiscriminate and common as barn animals. Her younger brother had died as a child, and soon after, at fourteen years old, Yumi ran away from home with her younger sister and somehow supported them with small jobs in textile factories until the younger sister died. Over the years, Yumi had become an excellent seamstress. She refused to acknowledge her family, who lived in the worst sections of Osaka. If she spotted a woman who had even a passing resemblance to her mother on any street, Yumi would cross to the other side or turn around to walk away. From watching American movies, she had decided that one day she would live in California and planned on becoming a seamstress in Hollywood. She knew Koreans who had returned to North Korea and many more who had gone back to the South, yet she could not muster any affection for either nation. To her, being Korean was just another horrible encumbrance, much like being poor or having a shameful family you could not cast off. Why would she ever live there? But she could not imagine clinging to Japan, which was like a beloved stepmother who refused to love you, so Yumi dreamed of Los Angeles. Until Mozasu, with his swagger and enormous dreams, Yumi had never let a man into her bed, and now that she had attached herself to him, she wanted both of them to go to America to make another life where they wouldn’t be despised or ignored. She could not imagine raising a child here.
The English class had fifteen pupils who attended three nights a week. Until Mozasu showed up, Yumi had been Pastor John’s best student. Mozasu had an enormous advantage over her since he had been unintentionally studying with his brother, Noa, for years by being his at-home English quiz partner, but Yumi did not mind. She was relieved that he was better than she was at this, that he made more money than she did, and that he was relentlessly kind to her.
Each class began with Pastor John going around the room asking each person a series of questions.
“Moses,” Pastor John said in his teaching voice, “how is the pachinko parlor? Did you make a lot of money today?”
Mozasu laughed. “Yes, Pastor John. Today, I earned lot money. Tomorrow, I make more! Do you need money?”
“No, thank you, Moses. But please remember to help the poor, Moses. There are many among us.”
“The pachinko money isn’t mine, Pastor John. My boss is rich, but I am not a rich man yet. One day, I will rich.”
“You will be rich.”
“Yes, I will be rich man, Pastor John. A man must have money.”
John smiled at Moses kindly, wanting to disabuse him of such idolatrous notions, but he turned to Yumi.
“Yumi, how many uniforms did you make today?”
Yumi smiled and color rushed to her face.