“Ajumoni, if all my customers were like you, I’d never go hungry. You always pay when the bill is due!” He chuckled with pleasure.
Yangjin smiled at him. Every week, he complained that no one paid on time, but most people went with less food to pay him, since it was too cold this winter not to have coal. The coal man was also a portly gentleman who took a cup of tea and accepted a snack at every house on his route; he would never starve even in such lean years. His wife was the best seaweed hawker in the market and made a tidy sum of her own.
“Down the street, that dirty dog Lee-seki won’t cough up what he owes—”
“Things are not easy. Everyone’s having troubles.”
“No, things are not easy at all, but your house is full of paying guests because you are the best cook in Kyungsangdo. The minister is staying with you now? Did you find him a bed? I told him your sea bream is the finest in Busan.” Jun sniffed the air, wondering if he could grab a bite of something before his next house, but he didn’t smell anything savory.
Yangjin glanced at her daughter, and Sunja stopped cleaning the floor to go to the kitchen to fix the coal man something to eat.
“But did you know, the young man had already heard of your cooking from his brother who stayed ten years ago? Ah, the belly has a better memory than the heart!”
“The minister?” Yangjin looked puzzled.
“The young fellow from the North. I met him last night, wandering around the streets looking for your house. Baek Isak. Sort of a fancy-looking fellow. I showed him your place and would have stopped in, but I had a late delivery for Cho-seki, who finally found the money to pay me after a month of dodging—”
“Oh—”
“Anyway, I told the minister about my wife’s stomach troubles and how hard she works at the stall, and you know, he said he would pray for her right then and there. He just dropped his head and closed his eyes! I don’t know if I believe in that mumbling that people do, but I can’t see how it can hurt anyone. Very nice-looking young man, don’t you think? Has he left for the day? I should say hello.”
Sunja brought him a wooden tray holding a cup of hot barley tea, a teapot, and a bowl of steamed sweet potatoes and set it before him. The coal man plopped down on the floor cushion and devoured the hot potatoes. He chewed carefully, then started to speak again.
“So this morning, I asked the wife how she felt, and she said things were not so bad and went to work! Maybe there’s something to that praying after all. Ha!—”
“Is he a Cath-o-lic?” Yangjin didn’t mean to interrupt him so frequently, but there was no other way to speak with Jun, who could have talked for hours. For a man, her husband used to say, Jun had too many words. “A priest?”
“No, no. He’s not a priest. Those fellows are different. Baek is a Pro-tes-tant. The kind that marries. He’s going to Osaka, where his brother lives. I don’t remember meeting him.” He continued to chew quietly and took small sips from his teacup.
Before Yangjin had a chance to say anything, Jun said, “That Hirohito-seki took over our country, stole the best land, rice, fish, and now our young people.” He sighed and ate another bite of potato. “Well, I don’t blame the young people for going to Japan. There’s no money to be made here. It’s too late for me, but if I had a son”—Jun paused, for he had no children, and it made him sad to think of it—“I’d send him to Hawaii. My wife has a smart nephew who works on a sugar plantation there. The work is hard, but so what? He doesn’t work for these bastards. The other day when I went to the docks, the sons of bitches tried to tell me that I couldn’t—”
Yangjin frowned at him for cursing. The house being so small, the girls in the kitchen and Sunja, who was now mopping the alcove room, could hear everything, and they were no doubt paying attention.
“May I get you more tea?”
Jun smiled and pushed his empty cup toward her with both hands.
“It’s our own damn fault for losing the country. I know that,” he continued. “Those goddamn aristocrat sons of bitches sold us out. Not a single yangban bastard has a full set of balls.”
Both Yangjin and Sunja knew the girls in the kitchen were giggling at the coal man’s tirade, which didn’t vary from week to week.
“I may be a peasant, but I’m an honest workingman, and I wouldn’t have let some Japanese take over.” He pulled out a clean, white handkerchief from his coal dust–covered coat and wiped his runny nose. “Bastards. I better get on with my next delivery.”
The widow asked him to wait while she went to the kitchen. At the front door, Yangjin handed Jun a fabric-tied bundle of freshly dug potatoes. One slipped out of the bundle and rolled onto the floor. He pounced on it and dropped it into his deep coat pockets. “Never lose what’s valuable.”
“For your wife,” Yangjin said. “Please say hello.”
“Thank you.” Jun slipped on his shoes in haste and left the house.