“He’s your father, isn’t he?” Akiko said. “He looks exactly like you. You told me your father died, but he’s not dead. You just didn’t want him to meet me, because you didn’t want me to meet your yakuza papa. And you didn’t want me to know that he’s a gangster. How else do you explain that ridiculous car and uniformed chauffeur? How else can he put you up in that enormous apartment? Even my father can’t afford that apartment, and he owns a trading company! Come on, Noa, how can you get mad at me when all I wanted was to learn more about you? I don’t care about what he does. It doesn’t matter—I don’t mind that you’re Korean. Don’t you see?”
Noa turned around and walked away. He walked until he couldn’t hear her scream his name anymore. He walked rigidly and calmly, not believing that a person you loved—yes, he had loved her—could end up being someone you never knew. Perhaps he had known all along about her, but he couldn’t see it. He just couldn’t. When Noa reached the train station, he went down the stairs to the platform slowly. He felt like he might fall down. He would take the first train to Osaka.
It was early evening when he reached the house. His Aunt Kyunghee started when she answered the door. He was distraught and wanted to speak to his mother. Uncle Yoseb was sleeping in the back room, and his mother was in the front room sewing. He wouldn’t take off his coat. When Sunja came to the door, Noa asked if they could go outside to talk.
“What? What’s the matter?” Sunja asked, putting on her shoes.
Noa wouldn’t answer. He went outside to wait for her.
Noa led her away from the shopping street to a spot where there were very few people.
“Is it true?” Noa asked his mother. “About Koh Hansu.”
He couldn’t say the words out loud exactly, but he had to know.
“Why he pays for my school, and why he’s always been around. You were together—” he said. It was easier to say this than the other thing.
Sunja had been buttoning her faded woolen coat, and she stopped walking and stared at her son’s face. She understood. Yoseb had been right all along. She shouldn’t have allowed Hansu to pay for his education. But she hadn’t been able to find another way. Noa had gone to work each day and saved every bit of his earnings and studied every night until his eyes were red-rimmed in the morning, and he had finally passed the entrance examination for Waseda.
How could she have said no? There were no loans for this. There was no one else who could help. She had always been afraid of Hansu’s presence in Noa’s life. Would that money keep Noa tied to Hansu? she had wondered. But not to take the money. Was that possible?
A child like Noa, a child who worked so hard, deserved to fulfill his wish to study and to become someone. Throughout his life, Noa’s teachers had said that he was an ideal student, far smarter than anyone else; “A credit to your country,” they’d said, and this had pleased her husband, Isak, so much, because he knew the Japanese thought Koreans were worth so little, fit only for the dirty, dangerous, and demeaning tasks. Isak had said that Noa would help the Korean people by his excellence of character and workmanship, and that no one would be able to look down on him. Isak had encouraged the boy to know everything as well as he could, and Noa, a good son, had tried his best to be the very best. Isak had loved the boy so much. Sunja could not say anything, and her mouth was dry. All she could think of was how good Isak had been to give Noa a name and to give them his protection.
“How could this be?” Noa shook his head. “How could you betray him?”
Sunja knew he meant Isak, and she tried to explain.
“I met him before I met your father. I didn’t know Koh Hansu was married. I was a girl, and I believed that he would marry me. But he couldn’t, because he was already married. When I was pregnant with you, your father, Isak, stayed at our inn; he married me even when he knew. Baek Isak wanted you as his son. Blood doesn’t matter. Can you understand that? When you are young, you can make serious mistakes. You can trust the wrong people, but I am so grateful to have you as my son and so grateful to your father for marrying me—”
“No.” He looked at her with disdain. “This kind of mistake I cannot understand. Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Who else knows?” His voice grew colder.
“I didn’t think it was necessary to tell anyone. Listen to me, Noa, the man who chose to be your father is Baek—”
Noa acted like he didn’t even hear her.
“Then Uncle Yoseb and Aunt Kyunghee—do they know?” His mind couldn’t accept that no one had told him this.
“We’ve never discussed it.”
“And Mozasu? He is Baek Isak’s son? He doesn’t look like me.”
Sunja nodded. Noa called his father Baek Isak; he’d never done that before.
“My half brother then—”
“I met Koh Hansu before your father. I’ve always been faithful to Baek Isak—my only husband. Koh Hansu found us when your father was in prison. He was worried that we didn’t have money.”
A part of her had always feared Noa finding out, but even against such a possibility, she had trusted that Noa would understand, because he was so smart and had always been such an easy child—the one who never made her worry. But the young man who stood in front of her was like cold metal, and he looked at her as if he could not remember who she was to him.
Noa stopped moving and took a deep breath, then exhaled, because he felt so dizzy.