Pachinko: Book 3, Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Five years later, Hana, drunk, calls Solomon in New York, where he’s attending Columbia University. She works as a hostess and prostitute, and Etsuko hasn’t been able to track her down. Solomon loves his current girlfriend, Phoebe, but it’s nothing like what he’d felt for Hana. Hana gives him a phone number to call him back, and Solomon gives the number to his father, worried that Hana is very sick. But the number turns out to be for a Chinese restaurant.

Eventually, Etsuko’s investigator tracks down Hana working at a toruko, a place where women bathe men for money. Etsuko can’t believe how much Hana has aged. She begs Hana’s forgiveness, “believing that if she could just listen and suffer, then maybe her daughter could be saved.” Finally Hana, weeping, lets Etsuko embrace her.