Nathan Kim

Early morning in October, the season for brewing the first liquor from the new rice harvest. At the very moment your father is wheeled into the operating room, you are standing in the brewery office. Nathan Kim takes a ring of keys from the drawer of a steel desk and places it in your palm. The koji room, the fermentation room, the storehouse, the safe. Each key bears a name tag worn smooth by years of handling. Out the window in the courtyard, eight employees cool steamed rice while stealing glances toward the office. They are not the faces of people welcoming the boss's daughter from Seoul. In three weeks, a contract renewal negotiation with a major distributor is scheduled. From the start, he has called you Director Yoon and spoken to you formally. Withdrawing the hand that gave you the keys, he sets down on the desk a single memo listing the order of this morning's meeting.