“Then—”
“We should not speak to him today, but I thought if you wanted to see him with your own eyes, you could. He is going to be at his main office.”
“How do you know this?”
“I just do,” Hansu said, closing his eyes and leaning against the white lace-covered headrest. He was taking several medications, and they made him feel foggy.
It was his plan to wait until Noa came out of his office as he usually did to have lunch at the soba-ya across the street. Each weekday, he ate a simple lunch at a different restaurant, and on Wednesdays he ate soba. Hansu’s private investigators had detailed Noa’s life in Nagano in a twenty-six-page report, and what was most notable was his unwavering need for routine. Noa did not drink alcohol, gamble, or fool around with women. He had no apparent religion, and his wife and four children lived like a middle-class Japanese family in a modest house.
“Will he eat lunch by himself, do you think?”
“He always eats lunch by himself. Today is Wednesday so he will eat zaru soba, taking less than fifteen minutes. He will read a little of his English novel, then return to his office. This is why he is so successful, I think. He does not make mistakes. Noa has a plan.” There was a kind of territorial pride in Hansu’s voice.
“Do you think he’ll see me?”
“It’s hard to tell,” he said. “You should wait in the car and get a glimpse of him, then the driver will take us back to Yokohama. We can return next week if you like. Maybe you can write to him first.”
“What’s the difference between today and next week?”
“Maybe if you see him and know that he is well, then you will not need to see him so much. He has chosen this life, Sunja, and maybe he wants us to respect that.”
“He’s my son.”
“And mine.”
“Noa and Mozasu. They’re my life.”
Hansu nodded. He had never felt this way about his children. Not really.
“I’ve lived only for them.”
This was wrong to say. At church, the minister preached about how mothers cared too much about their children and that worshipping the family was a kind of idolatry. One must not love one’s family over God, he’d said. The minister said that families could never give you what only God could give. But being a mother who loved her children too much had helped her to understand a little of what God went through. Noa had children of his own now; perhaps he could understand how much she’d lived for him.
“Look. He’s coming out,” Hansu said.
Her son’s face had changed only a little. The graying hair along the temples surprised her, but Noa was forty-five years old and no longer the university student. He wore round, golden spectacles much like those Isak used to wear, and his black suit hung simply on his lean frame. His face was a copy of Hansu’s.
Sunja opened the car door and stepped out.
“Noa!” she cried, and rushed toward him.
He turned around and stared at his mother, who stood not ten paces from him.
“Umma,” he murmured. Noa moved close to her and touched her arm. He had not seen his mother cry since Isak’s funeral. She was not the sort to cry easily, and he felt bad for her. He had imagined that this day would come and had prepared for it, but now that she was here, he was surprised by his own sense of relief.
“There’s no need to be upset. We should go inside my office,” he said. “How did you get here?”
Sunja couldn’t speak because she was heaving. She took a deep breath. “Koh Hansu brought me here. He found you, and he brought me here because I wanted to see you. He’s in the car.”
“I see,” he said. “Well, he can stay there.”
Upon his return to the office, his employees bowed, and Sunja followed behind. He offered her a seat in his office and closed the door.
“You look well, umma,” Noa said.
“It has been such a long time, Noa. I’ve worried so much about you.”
Seeing his hurt expression, she stopped herself. “But I’m glad you wrote to me. I have saved all the money you sent. It was very thoughtful of you to do that.”
Noa nodded.
“Hansu told me that you’re married and you have children.”
Noa smiled. “I have one boy and three girls. They are very good kids. All of them study except for my son, who is a good baseball player. He is my wife’s favorite. He looks like Mozasu and acts like him, too.”
“I know Mozasu would like to see you. When can you come to see us?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if I can.”
“Haven’t we wasted enough time? All these years. Noa, have mercy. Have mercy, please. Umma was a girl when I met Hansu. I didn’t know he was married, and when I found out, I refused to be his mistress. Then your father married me so you could have a proper name. All my life, I was faithful to your father, Baek Isak, who was a great man. Even after he died, I have been true to his—”
“I understand what you did. However, my blood father is Koh Hansu. That cannot change,” Noa said flatly.