The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness (22 page)

After protests on several occasions, refusing to work overtime, the amount we are paid at the end of the month is paltry. To make matters worse, only non-union workers get paid.

The union members, with no money in their pockets, flock to the office on the factory grounds. The office is empty, except for Chae Eun-hui, who sits with her head hanging low. She used to work on the C line, but was promoted to a desk job in the production department. When Miss Lee asks Chae Eun-hui what is going on, she says she has no idea.

“I went to pick up this month’s payment envelopes at accounting and it turns out that more than half the people are not getting paid at all. So I asked what’s going on and they said everyone who didn’t get paid should go see Miss Myeong at administration.”

“Who told you that?”

“Head of Accounting.”

Miss Myeong at administration, whose skin is light and fair, hands a sheet of paper to each person who rushes to her office.

“The company president has sent orders that only those who have signed this form will get paid.”

At the top of the paper that Miss Myeong hands out, the heading reads “Statement of Withdrawal.”

May 10, 1979

On (date), I stamped my seal on a document at the urging of a friend, with no knowledge I was joining the labor union. When I stamped my seal, I had no idea what was going on. Since I had no intention of joining the union and think that being a union member will not do me any good, I wish to formally withdraw from membership.

The workers fix their gaze on the union leaders.

“How could you do this?” Miss Lee turns her anger on Miss Myeong, who in turn sinks down at her desk.

“How could you?”

“What do I know? I was told to pay only those who have put their name and signature at the bottom of the page. I’m just doing as I’ve been told.”

“Where are the envelopes with our money?”

Frightened by Miss Lee’s shrill voice, Miss Myeong shrinks in defense, reflexively extending one hand toward a file cabinet against the wall then just as quickly pulling her hand close to her chest.

“So it’s in here, huh?”

Miss Lee pushes Miss Myeong out of her way and opens a file drawer. Regular pay. Overtime. Special shift. Compensation allowance for menstruation leave. A stack of envelopes fill the drawer, lettered in fine print, tiny like sesame seeds.

“You can’t do this!” Miss Myeong yells, trying to block the file cabinet with her body.

“No,
you
can’t do this. Get out of the way.”

“If you want to get paid, all you have to do is write down your name and sign, right here.”

Someone shoves Miss Lee and pounces upon Miss Myeong.

“Get out of the way, you.”

Miss Myeong falls to the floor and a flock of hands grab the envelopes out of the drawer. Lifting herself to her feet, Miss Myeong shouts.

“What do you think you’re doing? This is outrageous!”

Someone yanks on a handful of Miss Myeong’s hair.

“Outrageous? We aren’t stealing. We’re getting paid for the work we did. What you’re doing is outrageous!”

Miss Myeong’s sleek, wavy hair, which Cousin has always admired, is getting even more disheveled as more hands join the assault, clutching her hair, clawing her face. Miss Lee tries to pull all those hands off Miss Myeong.

“It’s not her fault. Stop it, stop this right now.”

A list of names is posted on the factory bulletin board, a notice of dismissal. The names belong to those who stormed Administration that day. Miss Lee’s name is on the list. At the bottom, big block letters in aggressive red say:

THOSE NAMED THREATEN THE LIVELIHOOD OF OVER 600 PEOPLE. WE WILL NEVER ACCEPT THE UNION, EVEN IF WE HAVE TO RISK CLOSING DOWN THE FACTORY.

Ever since the dismissal notice was posted on the factory bulletin, there hasn’t been a single day of quiet at the factory. The union confronts the dismissal with a strike and a list of demands:

1.
Immediately withdraw the dismissal.

2.
Accept our legitimate and democratic union.

3.
Immediately halt all attempts to destroy the union.

4.
Deliver payments on time.

5.
If the management refuses to sign an agreement to the above conditions, we will enter a strike.

In deciding on the strike, opinions are torn between the TV division and the stereo division. The TV division, with its large number of male workers, is adamant in its support of the strike. When production does not meet even half the usual amount because the union members have already taken their hands off work, the management overcomes the strike crisis by ignoring the dismissed workers continuing to come in to work.

I am writing. It was spring of that year that I first saw Hui-jae. I remember the blouse she was wearing as she washed her school uniform at the tap in the center of the cemented yard of that house. I don’t know whether fall and winter had gone by without our
ever running into each other while living in the same house, or whether Hui-jae had moved in that winter, or early that spring. Even if there had been only one person living in each of the thirty-seven rooms, for a total of thirty-seven people, I had only run into three or four of them when spring arrived. That there was no way of knowing who lived in which room. The front gate was always open, and when I stepped inside the gate, the first thing I saw were the locks on the doors that faced the yard. Sometimes, I would gaze at the back of the person opening one of the locks as I walked up to the third floor.

It is Sunday. After Cousin leaves for the bathhouse on the other side of the overpass, carrying her basket of toiletries, I, seventeen years old and finding it awkward to sit around the room with two older brothers, take off the covers sewn onto our comforters and walk downstairs, carrying the covers inside a large washbowl. At the tap at the center of the yard sits a woman doing her laundry. I, deciding to wait for her to finish, put down the washbowl by the tap when I notice that the clothes she is washing are the same uniform as mine, and I look up at her face.

A small, expressionless face. A small, nonchalant face. A small, quiet face.

This is all I have written about the day I first met Hui-jae
eonni
. That it was a day of pleasant sunlight. That although the two- and three-story buildings were shading the yard, the sun shone down on the center, where the tap stood. That I would have been delighted that Hui-jae’s laundry happened to be the same school uniform as mine. That I waited with my washbowl by the tap for her to finish. That I had never run into her before, not at school nor in the street. That it occurred to me that perhaps the uniform that was being washed belonged to her sister. That without regard to what I was thinking, as Hui-jae was busy rinsing her laundry, the tiny flower patterns on her blouse, tucked into a wide skirt, were pulled and distorted by her movements. That after watching, rather precariously, her
thin waist, not much bigger than a fist, and the flower patterns that kept getting messed up, my eyes directly met hers, as she lifted her head with a gourd dipper in hand. A nonchalant face, devoid of expression, like sunshine.

Yes, that’s what I have written. That it was “a nonchalant face, devoid of expression, like sunshine.”

If she had not put on a faint smile right then, I, embarrassed, would have either clasped my hands, run up to third floor, or stepped outside the open gate for a walk to the end of the street and back. Wearing a faint smile, Hui-jae’s face had a smudge of laundry detergent, like a scab. She pulled my washbowl under the running tap and headed to the roof. When I went up to the roof as well, still wearing my rubber gloves after washing the covers, she was sitting by the railing, enjoying the sun after hanging her uniform and socks and handkerchiefs and underwear on one side of the laundry line. Hui-jae did not take her eyes off the subway station until I was done hanging all the covers, turning this way and that, with a bustle.

“Your towel’s on the ground.”

When I was done hanging up my laundry, the sight of her was blocked by one of the covers. Only her voice reached me from the other side. On the ground, a towel that I had washed with the covers had fallen, and while I picked it up, went back down to rinse it, and returned to hang it again, she remained seated in the same spot. I was standing there fidgeting, unable to simply turn back downstairs, when she stretched out her arm and pointed somewhere, saying, “Look at that.”

I approached closer and looked at where she was pointing, to see black smoke soaring, surging like clouds from one of the factory chimneys across the street from the subway station.

“Isn’t that something.”

She pulled back her hand and laughed meekly. I noticed for the first time as she rubbed her palm on her skirt, wrinkled from sitting crouched to do the wash, that the back of her hand was unnaturally swollen, as if from soaking in the water too long. She
must have felt me gazing at her hand because she laughed faintly again.

“I got my hand pierced by the sewing machine needle, and it’s now swollen because I got it wet. Which room do you live in?”

“On the third floor.”

“You’re in Class Four, right? I saw you on the bus the other day. And once at school as well . . . I didn’t know you lived here.”

“I haven’t seen you before.”

Hui-jae laughed yet again, faintly, at my words. Perhaps she thought I looked young, addressing me as she would a younger sister, and I responded using polite honorifics.

“One thing good about this house . . . No one would know even if someone died.”

Don’t you think? she then seemed to ask, looking at me with rounded eyes. The smudge of detergent was still on her cheek and a wart, unusually flat, sat next to her nose.

That day she and I carried a pot of scallion flowers, which had been sitting abandoned by the sauce jar terrace, and placed it under one of the drying covers so we could squeeze water on the plant.

Was it because of the sun? I made an effort to find some reason to linger on the roof a while longer without letting her see how I felt. I liked her. Even now, when I think that she would have felt the same, I still well up with tears. That day we were happy for a short while because we liked each other. That moment when my heart felt peaceful, with a touch of melancholy, though I don’t know about hers, I felt that my heart had turned infinitely benign.

This was especially true when we played the “sure game.” “Sure game” is a name that I made up. She was the one who proposed it, although it’s not much of a game. When Hui-jae
eonni
said something, all I had to do was say “Sure” without any objection. To shift turns, when I said something, all she had to do was say “Sure, sure.” I don’t remember what I said back after that. But what remains vivid is her voice, like water . . . to me, her voice
felt like five o’clock in the afternoon when she said “Sure, sure,” giggling intermittently, sometimes clapping her hands.

“I am going to sleep. I will sleep soundly without waking for three, four days.”

“Sure.”

“My brother wouldn’t say he wants to go to college after he graduates, would he?”

“Surely not.”

“But if he says he wants to, I guess I will have to send him.”

“Sure.”

“Nonsense. I can’t work any longer than I do now. A day is only twenty-four hours long.”

“Surely not.”

“This is all I can do.”

“Sure.”

“Foreman is going to install a fan in the work room tomorrow, won’t he?”

“Sure.”

“He saw all that dust rising from the fabric with his own eyes, so how could he not.”

“Surely not.”

“Will I someday be able to live in a two-story house with a garden?”

“Sure.”

Her lips, fleshy and with barely any color except for a faint touch of her skin tone, happily opened and closed. Sure, Sure, Sure. During this short time, when nothing was impossible for us, Hui-jae
eonni
asked, vaguely, “Could I give birth to a pretty baby?” and I answered, “Sure.” During this dreamlike time, she had overturned all of reality.

In our “sure game,” she was not a seamstress; she did not live in one of the thirty-seven rooms; and her brother was already a college student. At first I was pressing the soil inside the scallion pot with my finger as I answered, “Sure, sure,” then later found myself scooping out the soil, a fistful at a time, as I answered,
“Sure, sure.” The dim, wary feeling that gathered in thick clouds as all that had loosened packed in taut again each time I walked into that house completely disappeared while we played the sure game. Like two little girls walking far into the distance, we continued to play this game, devoid of ups and downs, until the comforter covers were dry. Minute by minute she turned clearer and brighter; from time to time I felt a choking in my chest.