The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness (17 page)

In the country nature could wound, but in the city, people are wounding. It is my first impression of the city. Just as there were many prohibited areas in nature, in the city there were many prohibited areas between people. People who look down on us, people who are too frightening to go near, people who turn venomous when you meet . . . but those who are missed nevertheless.

I returned home from the island.
Twenty days have passed since arriving home. After making my flight reservations for the following morning, as I headed out for my last lunch on the island, I stopped by the bookstore that had made me smile when I discovered it upon my arrival. If my book was still on the bookstore shelf, I wanted to give it as a present to the restaurant owner who, for twenty-five days, provided me lunch and I never got sick. The book was still in the same spot. It felt odd, paying for a book that I’d written.

After finishing the kimchi stew that the restaurant owner had cooked, she brought out some coffee and I handed her the book, which made her face light up.

“Goodness . . .” The owner uttered only this exclamation, “Goodness,” three times.

“I don’t know if I can accept—a book is quite expensive.”

I was worried that she might leave it sitting on her shelf for four years, unable to read it. When I said I was leaving now, the owner asked if I had finished what I was writing. I answered that I hadn’t. That I was leaving because I couldn’t rein in my mind. The owner seemed genuinely sorry about my departure and invited me to come back for dinner. Saying she was going to prepare a very nice meal, she urged me to please come once more. Since arriving on the island, I had been substituting my meals, with the exception of lunch, with simple snacks like fruit, bread, instant
ramyeon
or soup, and had no plans to come out for dinner but nevertheless I said, “Yes, I will.”

When evening came, I remembered the owner’s heartfelt invitation and thought for a minute that maybe I should go, but didn’t. Instead, I pulled out the book of hymns that I’d bought but hadn’t even flipped through yet, and opened it. Printed on the inner flap of the black cover was the Lord’s Prayer. I gazed long at a line from the printed text. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

My young mom, who escorted sixteen-year-old me to Seoul, had no interest in learning a prayer or anything like it. Mom always had a mountain of work
waiting for her. She had perilla seedlings to bed out; memorial rites to prepare; rice fields to weed; soup to cook for my older brothers’ meals; younger children to raise; food to take to the workers in the field; floors that needed mopping. Now my old mom can memorize everything from the Lord’s Prayer to the Apostles’ Creed. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

I turned to the next page and saw that the book was probably intended as a gift edition, with a line marked To______ and another for the date. Without thinking, I took a pen and filled in the space to read, “To Hui-jae
eonni
,” then change it to “To Mom.” Then I added, “October 3, 1994.”

From the plane carrying me back, I gazed out at the world and saw a water route. The stream was flowing into the river, and the river was flowing into the sea. This was actually taking place. I thought, if only today’s hours could flow into yesterday, and yesterday into the day before yesterday, if time could keep flowing back like that, back, back to that room of 1979 and place this book of hymns on Hui-jae’s lap. If only that could be, then I would feel less lonely about living on.

TWO

My soul preached to me and showed me that I am neither more than the pygmy, nor less than the giant. But now I have learned that I was as both are and made from the same elements.

—Kahlil Gibran

I
t’s been a month since I returned from the island. When I opened the window upon my return to this empty home, foliage was descending the mountain ridge in the distance. I turned on the radio out of habit. Navigating through zapping static, I adjusted the channel to an FM station that was playing, in the middle of autumn,
Schubert’s song cycle
Winterreisse
. At wellside, past the ramparts, there stands a linden tree. While sleeping in its shadow, sweet dreams it sent to me. I listened to the song as I wiped the dusty window frame and replaced the lightbulb in the refrigerator, its filament disconnected. And in its bark I chiseled my messages of love: My pleasures and my sorrows were welcomed from above. Today I had to pass it, well in the depth of night. Its branches bent and rustled, as if they were calling to me: Come here, come here, companion, your haven I shall be. I plugged in the phone, washed my hair, and dabbed lotion on my face.

I took the box from outside my door, containing a pile of mail that my next-door neighbor had collected for me, to the small table out on the balcony and sorted outdated correspondence. Letters, postcards, and bills fell from the pile. Amidst them, a familiar script. It was the handwriting of a woman named Kim Mi-jin, who had been writing to me from time to time since last spring. The reason I recognized her handwriting was because her letters were written with a nib pen dipped in ink, which is quite rare these days.

Opening the envelope with a pair of scissors, I pulled out the letter and as I read on, my heart stopped. She had written that she was going to kill herself. That she was writing the letter at work; that the time was nine o’clock at night; that she was going to take the finished letter to the mailbox, return to the office, and kill herself. This letter she sent me was her final note in this world.

I checked the date on the postmark. September 19. The letter had been mailed a month ago. The letters that I had received from her up to that point were all dark and full of despair. But because she had written nothing about why she was in despair, there hadn’t been anything I could do. It was the same again this time. She said she was going to kill herself, but there was nothing about why she was going to kill herself. Nor was there anything about why she was sending her suicide note to me, of all people.

When I woke in the morning
, the foliage had descended slightly further overnight; then when I woke again the next morning, the foliage had descended still further. A month went by like this. When the foliage had reached the foot of the mountain, up on the mountaintop the leaves began to fall. The leaves that had changed color fell and scattered at the slightest wind. I changed the lace tablecloth on my balcony table to a green hemp cloth for the winter.

As I headed home late at night, on the bus or walking down an alleyway, I thought about Kim Mi-jin. Did she really die?

1979. My body remembers that year through the memory of the taste of
soju
. The stinging smell of the distilled liquor going down my throat.

Miss Lee is talking to Cousin. “You should watch out.”

Cousin is silent.

“Foreman has his eyes on you.”

Cousin looks at her with confusion.

“Once he gets his eyes on someone, you know how tenacious his pursuit is? And when he doesn’t get his way, he starts getting all abusive. That’s the kind of guy he is.”

Cousin still looks at Miss Lee blankly.

“Crazy jerk, at least he’s got eyes that see properly.”

Cousin still says nothing.

On that one day, it is Cousin that Foreman has his eyes on, according to Miss Lee, but for some incomprehensible reason he hands me a present. I unwrap it to find a box. When I open the lid, there is a fountain pen inside, along with a note. It says no overtime is scheduled that day and asks me to meet him at the Eunha Tearoom at the entrance of the industrial complex. It also says that I should keep this a secret from Cousin. I am flustered all afternoon. When Cousin asks me what is wrong, I stare at her face or look away. On our way home
from work, I walk close behind Cousin. I get so close that our feet bump into each other. We arrive at the market like this. Cousin stops and turns me around.

“What is going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Hey, come on—!”

Frustrated, Cousin lets out a holler.

“What is it, I asked!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You mean to tell me you’re acting normal? Why are you getting so close behind me that I can’t even walk? Is anyone coming after you? Look at you, you’re trembling. You’ve been like this all afternoon!”

I am silent.

“What is it?”

Only then do I take out Foreman’s present for Cousin to see.

“What’s this?”

“A fountain pen!”

“Fountain pen?”

“Why would Foreman Lee give you a fountain pen?”

I have no answer.

After reading the note from Foreman Lee asking to meet him at Eunha Tearoom, Cousin throws the note and the pen into a trash can outside the marketplace.

“What a crazy jerk. Let him wait all he wants.”

Cousin takes a few steps, then, as if she’s thought of something, Cousin turns back to the trash can and picks up what she threw in there.

“I have an idea.”

I look at her with confusion.

“Let’s go meet him together.”

“I don’t want to.”

“We’ll show up together and rip him off.”

“Off what?”

“Ask him to buy us tea and take us to dinner
and beer.”

“Then what do we do?”

“What do you mean what do we do? That’s how we’re going to make him pay, that’s what.”

Cousin drags me back the way we came. It is already thirty minutes past the time that he asked to meet. Foreman Lee is sitting behind a haze of cigarette smoke. Cousin said the plan was to rip him off, but as soon as she sits down in front of Foreman Lee, she pulls out from her pocket the fountain pen and note that she had retrieved from the trash can. My heart sinks as I watch her.

“Do you even know how old she is?”

Silence.

“She’s only seventeen.”

More silence.

“She didn’t even get her period yet.”

I do a double take.

“Don’t you have a little sister of your own? You have some nerve meddling with her.”

“She’s like a little sister so I wanted to treat her to dinner, since she’s starting school and all. Why are
you
making a fuss over it?”

“We have our own brother to treat us to dinner.” Cousin takes my hand and leads us out of Eunha Tearoom.

“Maybe he just wanted to treat me to dinner like he said.”

“You are so clueless. He’s now making a move on you because he couldn’t get his way with me.”

“He did the same to you?”

“Well, he didn’t give me any fountain pen, that’s for sure. Instead, he tried to kiss me!”

“When?”

“The other day while we were working overtime, remember the girl from Administration came saying Foreman is calling for me?” I stare at Cousin in shock.

“Jerk.”

“So why didn’t you tell me?”

“If I did, then what would you
have done?”

I could not answer.

“Don’t even acknowledge him. You know Miss Choe who used to work on the C line? He even got her pregnant and she got into a whole mess, with his wife coming after her and grabbing at her hair.”

“So what happened to Miss Choe?”

“How would I know? She handed in her resignation and left.”

On our way back, we hear a song playing from a marketplace cart peddling music tapes. My dear beloved, are you really leaving me.

“The shameless bastard could have kept things quiet, sending her away, but no, he even accused her of stealing needles.”

“Stealing needles?”

“Remember Miss Choe was stationed next to the quality control staff from the inspection division, in charge of inserting the turntable needle and waxing the stereo systems after they passed inspection?”

I recall Miss Choe’s movements, working hard as she polished the assembled stereo with flannel cloth applied with white wax. Miss Choe, with her hair parted neatly and braided in two plaits.

“Where did you hear all this?”

“You’re the only one who hasn’t heard. We all know.”

I’m the only one who hasn’t heard? From the marketplace, wrapped in a swirl of smells, of fish cake soup, sticky pancakes, and rice puffs, Lee Myeong-hun’s song keeps playing. My darling, please tell me one thing before you leave. That you loved me, no one but me.