“She must wish to see you, too.”
Sunja smiled weakly at the boy, feeling sorry for him. She touched his shoulder, then walked to the train station.
Book III
Pachinko
1962–1989
I propose the following definition of the nation: it is an imagined political community—and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.
It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion…
The nation is imagined as limited because even the largest of them, encompassing perhaps a billion living human beings, has finite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other nations…
It is imagined as sovereign because the concept was born in an age in which Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of the divinely-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm…
Finally, it is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship. Ultimately it is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly die for such limited imaginings.
—Benedict Anderson
1
Nagano, April 1962
Noa hadn’t meant to linger at the café by the Nagano train station, but it wasn’t as if he knew where to go exactly. He hadn’t made a plan, which was unlike him, but after he’d left Waseda, his days had made little sense to him. Reiko Tamura, a cheerful middle school teacher who had been kind to him, was from Nagano, and for some reason, he’d always considered her hometown as a place populated with gentle, benevolent Japanese. He recalled his teacher’s childhood stories of the snowstorms that were so severe that when she walked outside her little house to go to school, she could hardly see the streetlights. Osaka had snow occasionally, but nothing resembling Tamura-san’s storms. He had always wanted to visit his teacher’s hometown—in his mind, it was always blanketed with fresh snow. This morning, when the man at the ticket counter had asked him where to, he’d replied, “Nagano, please.” Finally, he was here. He felt safe. Tamura-san had also spoken of school trips to the famed Zenkoji temple, where she’d eat her modest bento outdoors with her classmates.
Seated alone at a small table not far from the counter, Noa drank his brown tea and took only a few bites of his omelet rice while considering a visit to the temple. He was raised as a Christian, but he felt respectful of Buddhists, especially those who had renounced the spoils of the world. The Lord was supposed to be everywhere, which was what Noa had learned at church, but would God keep away from temples or shrines? Did such places offend God, or did He understand those who may wish to worship something, anything? As always, Noa wished he’d had more time with Isak. The thought of him saddened Noa, and the thought of Hansu, his biological father, shamed him. Koh Hansu didn’t believe in anything but his own efforts—not God, not Jesus, not Buddha, and not the Emperor.
The heavyset waiter came by with a teapot.
“Is everything to your satisfaction, sir?” the waiter asked him while refilling Noa’s cup. “Is the meal not to your liking? Too much scallion? I always tell the cook that he is too heavy with the—”
“The rice is very good, thank you,” Noa replied, realizing that it had been some time since he had spoken to anyone at all. The waiter had a broad smile, thin, tadpole eyes, and uneven teeth. His ears were large and his lobes thick—physical features Buddhists admired. The waiter stared at Noa, though most Japanese would have looked away out of politeness.
“Are you visiting for a while?” The waiter glanced at Noa’s suitcase, which was set by the empty chair.
“Hmm?” Noa was surprised by the waiter’s personal question.
“I apologize for being so nosy. My mother always said I would get in trouble because I am far too curious. Forgive me, sir, I am just a chatty country boy,” the waiter said, laughing. “I haven’t seen you here before. Please forgive the café for being so quiet. Normally we have many more customers. Very interesting and respectable ones. I cannot help but have questions when I meet someone new, but I know I should not ask them.”