The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness (21 page)

“What’s wrong with your hand?”

One day I reach for her other hand, but immediately release it. Her right hand feels solid, nearly rigid. The awkward abruptness of it all makes me take her hand once again, then let go, again. Left-handed An Hyang-suk smiles, as if she knows exactly what’s going through my head.

“I wrap candies at the factory. The work hardened my skin.”

“How many candies do you wrap?”

“About twenty thousand a day.”

Twenty thousand candies is more than I can imagine.

An Hyang-suk touches my hand. “Such soft skin. Must be they’re paying you for no hard work at all.”

Her palm feels like the sole of a foot against the back of my hand.

“At first, the job was fun, you know, it didn’t even feel like work. After a few days, though, I began to bleed, right here where you squeeze the plastic wrapper
then twist.” She shows me both of her thumbs and index fingers. I didn’t notice it before, because she mostly keeps her hands out of sight, but now I see that one of her fingers is crooked.

“The skin’s callused now, so there’s no more bleeding, but a couple of years ago, this finger stopped working. That’s why I write with my left hand.”

She quickly hides her right hand under the desk again, and looks me in the eye.

“You can’t tell anyone about my finger . . . Promise?”

I nod.

One Friday in April, Cousin and I head back to our lone room with the groceries for breakfast the following morning. When we reach the edge of the marketplace, Cousin stops under the overpass to the No. 3 Industrial Complex and gazes through the window of a hat shop, still open at this hour. As if she has just remembered something, Cousin grabs my hand and pulls me into the store. She tries on several different berets, the kind with a tiny felt stem in the center, before settling on a white one. She stands before her image in the mirror.

“How do I look?”

The white beret goes nicely with the round collar of our spring/fall uniform. When I tell her it looks pretty on her, Cousin puts the hat on my head. She grins.

“Let’s both get one.”

“What for?”

“We’ll each get one, come on.”

“But where will we wear them? It’s a waste.”

But Cousin’s mind seems to be made up already. No matter what else I have to say, she’s at the counter, paying for two berets. As we follow the alley that leads back to our room, Cousin is all smiles.

“We’re going home tomorrow, remember? Now that we’ve started school, we have to show everyone there’s something special about being a student in Seoul.”

I look at her quizzically.

“Look at our uniform. Too ordinary. No different from the uniforms the girls wear back home. It doesn’t stand out. That’s why we need berets!”

“. . . What?”

“Of course hats are part of the uniform at lots of schools, but not in our town, lucky for us. So if we show up at home wearing these berets, we’ll definitely be noticed!”

Out of the blue, I think of Chang. Of the look on his face when he sees me in my uniform and new beret.

The next afternoon, Cousin and I board the train. We skip school for our visit home. Oldest Brother is in military training now and Third Brother is on a school field trip. The two of us wear the white berets Cousin bought the day before. Mine keeps slipping off so Cousin uses a hairpin to make it stay in place.

We get off the train back home and split up. Cousin lives in town but I have to take the bus a little farther to the village. As luck would have it, Chang is on that day’s last bus to our village. When I board the bus, his eyes grow wide. The moment I see him, my hand instantly reaches for the beret on my head. I try to take it off, but the hairpin keeps it in place. Chang smiles awkwardly, or so I think. We both stand silently, holding the passenger handles, swaying this way and that, and then get off at our village’s stop. Chang speaks as we walk in the darkness along the paved road.

“Want to go for a hike tomorrow, to the mountain spring?”

“Where is that?”

“On the trail that leads to Gyoam.”

When I don’t answer, Chang speaks again. “I’ll see you tomorrow around two, at the Gyoam trail entrance.”

Chang runs toward his house, leaving me in the dark of the paved road.

The braided-twig gate to the side of our house is open. When I step through the gate, the animals in the yard all stir. The dog crawls out from under the house, where she had settled for the night; the flock of ducks flaps their wings by the flowerbed; the pigs in the sty oink and heave, trying to get on their feet; the baby chicks of spring go cheep-cheep in the coop; even the nest of swallows beneath the eaves rustles with activity. I drop my schoolbag in the yard, gather the laundry from the clothesline and call out to Mom. “It’s Sister—”

Little Brother hears me first and bolts out the door. Only then does the dog wag her tail and let out a bark.

“You didn’t tell us you were coming.”

Mom, wakening from a deep sleep, fetches the schoolbag that I left in the yard to take in the laundry.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“Sister, you’re a student again!” Younger Sister finally opens her eyes and grabs the beret off my head, yanking out the hairpin, trying it on herself.

“Students in Seoul wear this kind of hat to school?”

I snatch the beret off her head and hang it on a hook on the wall.

“It’s so pretty, let me try it on one more time, ple-ease.”

Mom silences Younger Sister, saying the hat is not a toy. Then she looks at me in my uniform, and her eyes well with tears. In the middle of the night, Mom grills fish fillets that she kept pickled in a salt crock out on the terrace, and serves me dinner.

“If you’d told me you were coming, I would’ve made something nice.”

Little Brother rests his head against my right arm as I lie down for the night in Mom’s bloomers. He calls out to his other older
sister, the one who is younger than me, “Second Sister, come over here.” When she gets closer, Little Brother makes each of us extend an arm. We hold our arms side by side while he examines them. “Oldest Sister’s arm is whiter! Second Sister is so dark!”

“That’s because she drinks tap water!”

Younger Sister hides her arm behind her back and pouts.

“Whatever, Oldest Sister’s arm is prettier!”

My little brother and sister tug the blankets, slapping each other on the back, kicking, making a ruckus. Then, one after the other, they crawl into my arms, each settling around me, and fall asleep.

What about the pitchfork in the well, the one that I threw in there, so many months ago, before I left home? For a while I lie awake thinking about the well outside, on the other side of the door, across the hall, across the yard, until I, too, fall into a deep sleep.

When I head for the trail to the mountain spring, Little Brother tags along. I tell him he can’t come, but he won’t quit nagging and whining. I have no choice but to give in. I hold his hand and whisper secretly.

“You can’t tell Mom that we’re going with Chang! Understand?”

Little Brother has no idea why he shouldn’t tell, still he swears that he won’t.

“Really, you must never tell. Promise me.”

Again, Little Brother gives me a pinky swear, without knowing why.

Chang stands awkwardly waiting at the Gyoam trail. The three of us head for the mountain spring, taking turns in the lead. As we go deeper into the mountains, Little Brother’s excitement grows and he runs far ahead of Chang and me, shouting, “Squirrel!” He chases the squirrels, then loses interest after a while and returns, saying, “They’re so fast, Big Sis.” As we pass a cairn built up over
the years by well-wishing hikers, Chang hands me a stone that he has found along the trail. I place the stone on the top of the cairn. On the way back, when we return to this spot, Chang finds another stone for me to add. Little Brother watches us, then finds a stone to give me. I place his stone on the cairn, too.

While Little Brother runs ahead to chase more squirrels, Chang pulls a book the size of his palm out of his pocket and hands it to me. Dongseo Pocket Books.
Saban’s Cross
. A novel by Kim Dong-ni.

“I wanted to give you something but couldn’t make up my mind. I found this book in the pile on my desk. I remember you always liked reading books.”

Do they still run the midnight train to Seoul? That last train leaving for the city at 11:57
P.M.
? Whenever I went home for a visit, I always returned on the 11:57. Each time Mom came along to see me off at the station, carrying the heavy care package she had prepared for me.

How did Mom make it back to the village all those times, walking the mountain roads well past midnight?

On my way down the train platform, I turn and see Mom standing near the gate. She gestures for me to go on, to keep walking. I walk on, turn around again and she waves again. I look again and again. She gestures for me to go, again and again. As I walk along the platform, I see Chang standing on the other side of the fence, his face against the fence of the train station.

Chang just stands there. He does not wave.