“They’ve come to see us about a family matter,” Yoo said to Isak, then turned to the siblings.
The sister did little to hide her irritation. The brother and sister were from a rural village in Jeju, and they were far less formal than young people from cities. The dark-skinned girl with the thick black hair was wholesome looking; she was remarkably pretty while appearing very innocent. She wore a long-sleeved white shirt buttoned to the collar and a pair of indigo-colored mompei.
“This is the new associate pastor, Baek Isak. Should we ask for his counsel, too?” From the tone of Yoo’s voice, there was no possibility of the siblings’ dissent.
Isak smiled at them. The sister was twenty or so; the brother was younger.
The matter was complicated but not out of the ordinary. The brother and sister had been arguing about money. The sister had been accepting gifts of money from a Japanese manager at the textile factory where she worked. Older than their father, the manager was married with five children. He took the sister to restaurants and gave her trinkets and cash. The girl sent the entire sum to their parents living with an indigent uncle back home. The brother felt it was wrong to take anything beyond her salary; the sister disagreed.
“What does he want from her?” the brother asked Isak bluntly. “She should be made to stop. This is a sin.”
Yoo craned his head lower, feeling exhausted by their intransigence.
The sister was furious that she had to be here at all, having to listen to her younger brother’s accusations. “The Japanese took our uncle’s farm. We can’t work at home because there are no jobs; if a Japanese man wants to give me some pocket money to have dinner with him, I don’t see the harm,” the sister said. “I’d take double what he gives me if I could. He doesn’t give that much.”
“He expects something, and he’s cheap,” said the brother, looking disgusted.
“I’d never let Yoshikawa-san touch me. I sit, smile, and listen to him talk about his family and his work.” She didn’t mention that she poured his drinks and wore the rouge that he bought for her, which she scrubbed off before coming home.
“He pays you to flirt with him. This is how a whore behaves.” The brother was shouting now. “Good women don’t go to restaurants with married men! While we work in Japan, Father said I’m in charge and must watch out for my sister. What does it matter that she’s older? She’s a girl and I’m a man; I can’t let this continue. I won’t allow it!”
The brother was four years younger than his nineteen-year-old sister. They were living with a distant cousin in an overcrowded house in Ikaino. The cousin, an elderly woman, never bothered them as long as they paid their share of the rent; she didn’t come to church, so Pastor Yoo didn’t know her.
“Father and Mother are starving back home. Uncle can’t feed his own wife and children. At this point, I’d sell my hands if I could. God wants me to honor my parents. It’s a sin not to care for them. If I have to be disgraced—” The girl started to cry. “Isn’t it possible that the Lord is providing Yoshikawa-san as our answer?” She looked at Pastor Yoo, who took the girl’s hands into his and bent his head as if in prayer.
It wasn’t uncommon to hear rationalizations of this sort—the longing to transform bad deeds into good ones. No one ever wanted to hear that God didn’t work that way; the Lord would never want a young woman to trade her body to follow a commandment. Sins couldn’t be laundered by good results.
“Aigoo,” Yoo sighed. “How difficult it must be to bear the weight of this world on your small shoulders. Do your parents know where you’re getting this money?”
“They think it’s from my wages, but that barely covers our rent and expenses. My brother has to go to school; Mother told me that it’s my responsibility for him to finish. He’s threatening to quit his studies so he can work, but that’s a foolish decision in the long run. Then we’ll always be working these terrible jobs. Without knowing how to read and write Japanese.”