At noon, Mozasu came to get her. They were going to pick up Solomon at his school to take him to get his alien registration card. Koreans born in Japan after 1952 had to report to their local ward office on their fourteenth birthday to request permission to stay in Japan. Every three years, Solomon would have to do this again unless he left Japan for good.
As soon as she got in the car, Mozasu reminded her to put on her seat belt. Etsuko was still thinking about Hana. Before she’d left, she had phoned the doctor, and the procedure was scheduled for the end of the week.
Mozasu took her hand. Etsuko thought his face had strength to it; there was power in his straight neck. She hadn’t known many Koreans before him, but she imagined that his squared-off facial features were traditionally Korean—his wide jawbone, straight white teeth, thick black hair, and the shallow-set, narrow, smiling eyes. He had a lean, slack body that reminded her of metal. When he made love to her, he was serious, almost as if he was angry, and she found that this gave her intense pleasure. His physical movements were deliberate and forceful, and she wanted to surrender to them. Whenever she read about something or someone Korean, she wondered what Korea was like. Mozasu’s deceased father, a Christian minister, was from the North, and his mother, who’d had a confection business, had come from the South. His plainspoken mother was so humble in her manner and dress that she could be mistaken for a modest housekeeper rather than the mother of a millionaire pachinko parlor owner.
Mozasu was holding a wrapped present, the size of a block of tofu. She recognized the silver foil paper from his favorite jewelry store.
“Is that for Solomon?”
“No. It’s for you.”
“Ehh? Why?”
It was a gold-and-diamond watch nestled in a dark red velvet box.
“It’s a mistress watch. I bought it last week, and I showed it to Kuboda-san, the new night floor manager, and he said that these fancy watches are what you give to your mistress because they cost the same as a diamond ring but you can’t give a ring to your mistress since you’re already married.”
He raised his eyebrows with amusement.
Etsuko checked to see if the glass partition separating them from the driver was closed all the way; it was. Her skin flushed with heat.
“Make him stop the car.”
“What’s the matter?”
Etsuko pulled her hand away. She wanted to say that she wasn’t his mistress, but instead, she burst into tears.
“Why? Why are you crying? Every year for the past three years, I bring you a diamond ring—each one bigger than the one before it—and you say no to me. I go back to the jeweler, and he and I have to get drunk. Nothing has changed for me.” He sighed. “You are the one who says no. Refuses the pachinko yakuza.”
“You’re not yakuza.”
“I am not yakuza. But everyone thinks Koreans are gangsters.”
“None of that matters to me. It’s my family.”
Mozasu looked out the window, and when he spotted his son, Mozasu waved at him.
The car stopped, and Solomon got in the front passenger seat. The glass partition opened, and he stuck his head through to say hi. Etsuko reached over to straighten the rumpled collar of his white dress shirt.
“Arigato very much,” he said. They often mixed up words in different languages as a joke. He dropped back into his seat and closed the glass partition so he could talk with the driver, Yamamoto-san, about the previous night’s Tigers game. The Tigers had an American manager this year, and Solomon was hopeful for the season. Yamamoto was not so optimistic.
Mozasu picked up her left wrist gently and clasped the watch on it.
“You’re a funny woman. I bought you a gift. Just say thanks. I never meant that you were a—”
The bridge of her nose hurt, and she thought she would start crying again.
“Hana called. She’s coming to Yokohama. Today.”
“Is she okay?” He looked surprised.
Etsuko went to Hokkaido twice yearly to see her children. Mozasu had never met them.
“Maybe she can go to Solomon’s party. See the famous singer,” Mozasu said.
“I don’t know if she likes Hiromi-san,” she replied. Etsuko had no idea if Hana liked pop music. As a child, she hadn’t been the kind who sang or danced. Etsuko stared at the back of the driver’s gray-streaked head. The driver nodded thoughtfully while Solomon talked to him, and their quiet gestures appeared intimate. She wished she had something like baseball that she could talk about with her daughter—a safe subject they could visit without subtext or aggression.
Etsuko told Mozasu that Hana had an appointment with a doctor in Yokohama. When he asked if she was sick, she shook her head no.