The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness (43 page)

“Traditional ink paintings.”

Ink paintings? He says he takes lessons at a studio after school to prepare for college entrance. Says that he will go to college and become a painter. He tells me to go to college, no matter what, and become a writer. “Let’s try hard to get into college, we must!” Chang sounds like he’s making a pledge.

College? The moment I hear this word, I can no longer smell Chang’s soap scent. I head back in the end, without handing him my letters.

I remember that rainy day in the fall. That fall when two months had gone by without receiving our wages. At the factory, where I
no longer had Cousin with me, the locker room is the only place I can find some comfort. I shake in the chill of the autumn rain. This locker room, which I would slip into when I had to stand around all day after failing to get a position assigned in the morning. Those who quit their job leave their uniforms on plastic hangers in the locker. They are required to hand in their uniforms along with their resignation letter, but what with the overdue wages, the severance pay that has yet to be processed, the company is in no position to demand that they follow regulations, nor do the workers care to. There are many faces that never return after getting off work one day, and these are the blue uniforms that they have left behind. On this rainy day, I had been assigned to the engine room but the only thing I could do there was to stare at the machines sawing wood or at the masks on the engine room staff’s faces for keeping away the sawdust, which is rising like clouds. The reason I had walked up to the dark locker room and pulled one of the uniforms from its plastic hanger, its shoulders drooping low, and put it on over my own uniform, was because I was feeling cold.

It was for that same reason that I put my hands in the pockets. My hands touch something. I pull it out and it is a white envelope. Only then I check the nametag on the uniform shirt. Yun Sun-im. The shirt belonged not to one of the workers who had quit but to Yun Sun-im, a colleague. Had she gone home early, or was she gone for a short errand? I look into the envelope in the dark. Inside is a crisp new 10,000-won bill. My heart starts beating fast. The quiet, deserted locker room. Yun Sun-im, who had been the object of admiration of the engineering student intern, the one whom Cousin was in love with.

I take off the shirt, hang it in the locker and slip out of the room. I return to the engine room and sit amidst the noise of machines sawing wood. I head to the production department office and submit a request to leave work early. I return to the locker room and undress in a hurry.

I fetch my schoolbag from the top of the locker. I then push my hand into Yun Sun-im’s uniform shirt, grab the envelope, and rush out. I walk and walk in the autumn rain, across the industrial complex in broad daylight, and arriving at our lone, remote room in the middle of the day, shut the door behind me, my heart pounding.

Had I fallen asleep? I wake at someone’s shaking to find Oldest Brother, who no longer has a job.

“You didn’t go to school? . . . Are you feeling okay?”

I keep lying there, unable to sit up, and Oldest Brother puts his hand on my forehead, asking again if I’m feeling okay. He gazes down at me for a moment, then heads out, returning with medicine from the pharmacy.

“You’re burning up with fever. You should have gotten out your bedding.”

I just lie there. “Probably just a cold. Get some sleep and you should feel better.”

When I try to get up, he tells me to stay as I am. He pulls out the mattress from our vinyl wardrobe and slips a pillow under my head.

Bean sprout soup, that’s what Oldest Brother cooks for me. He never eats bean sprout soup, so he’s put in too much chili powder, turning the soup all red.

Later at night, Cousin comes home from school and, seeing me lying on the floor, asks if I’m okay. As she tells me that she was worried I wasn’t at school, she holds a white envelope in her hand.

“I found this letter under our door. Just your name written on it in large print.”

“Letter . . . ?”

Oldest Brother, from where he is sitting at the desk, looks down at me, lying on the floor, as if to ask what it’s about. When
I just lie there after taking the letter from Cousin, he comes down to the floor and turns on the TV. Cousin goes up to the attic to change, then heads to the kitchen.

“Who’s it from?” Cousin asks, craning her neck into the room in the middle of washing her feet on the kitchen floor. She must think it odd that I still haven’t opened the letter, asking me “What’s wrong?” Oldest Brother also turns his eyes from the TV and looks at me. He presses his palm against the back of his neck, as if he’s feeling stiff. The sound of Cousin splashing water over her feet in the kitchen. Oldest Brother sitting back in a languorous pose as he watches TV. I sense fear that the moment I open the letter, the peace in this room will shatter. My eighteen-year-old hand trembles as it pulls out the letter from the envelope.

I ask you to return the envelope you took from my shirt. I desperately need the money . . .

Yun Sun-im

I pull up the blanket and cover my face. Under the blanket, the letter crumbles inside my hand.

In the morning, I set out with Cousin, but after she heads for the subway, I return to our lone room. I lock the door from the inside, as if someone is chasing me. All day long, I sit frozen in the room. I feel as if someone will snatch me by the neck if I set foot in the world outside the door. I feel like I’ll be dragged away and never be able to return. Around lunchtime, someone knocks on the door. “Are you in there?” I recognize that it’s Yun Sun-im’s voice. My school shoes left outside the door would have told her that I was in the room. I open the door and find Yun Sun-im standing outside. I hurry and pull out the white envelope from my schoolbag.

“Thanks.” She smiles as she takes the envelope.

The sound of hammering, drilling . . . There was construction going on since early morning, in the apartment either next to or below mine. Crack and crumble, it sounded like they were drilling through a wall.
Bang, bang,
it sounded like they were knocking the wall down. I had already missed my deadline and could not afford to lose a single morning. I lifted my head and gazed out toward the hills. Red azaleas had blanketed the hills but now half of them were dead. I felt I was lost inside a fog. My eyes were sore. The drilling quieted down. Intense noise followed by intense silence. Was it over now?

As I blinked my sore eyes, the drilling began again, loud enough to knock down not only walls but mountains. They must have been trying to tear down the entire apartment. I went into the room on the other side of the hallway. Was the noise coming from downstairs, not next door? Even when I got out of the room that shared a wall with the apartment next door, the drilling sound followed me persistently, as if my eardrum were being punctured. Just what kind of construction work was this?

I was not very sensitive to noise. I could usually block it out if I tried to. Wherever I was, I was able to maintain my concentration. Even when I was amidst a large group of people, I could focus on my thoughts. I had the number one position on the line, and although we stood with the conveyor between us, the person across from me was in charge of testing the finished product. The quality control staff from the testing department raised and lowered the stereo volume all day to check each product. My ears were exposed all day long to piercing sounds, high notes and low notes, the sound of the air driver fizzing, the rumble of the conveyor belt, the zapping of the soldering iron.

After I left, I had been indifferent to most noise.

. . . Life was always fair. It never gives all or takes away all. It made me open my notebook amidst all that noise and write to Chang, allowing me to feel a tender, warm presence.

. . . But the drilling, and now the hammering. It was as if they were about to drill holes into everything in this world. I stepped inside the bathroom and squeezed out a large amount of toothpaste to brush my teeth, then washed my hands and rubbed my face with soap.
Rumble, crash, bang!
The noises from the past were like a lullaby compared to this.

Shouldn’t they have sought consent from the neighbors if things were going to be this bad?

I felt annoyed at the face I could not even see. It was as if my face were being chipped, my calves twisting into a whirl. I should at least find out when it would be done. I slipped on my shoes and rang the bell next door. The woman next door stuck out her head.

“Not us. It’s downstairs.” It seemed like she was just as irritated, the way she answered even before I could ask. I walked downstairs to find the door open. Peering inside, I could see that the threshold to the balcony was smashed to pieces.

“Excuse me.” Unable to hear me, the worker did not even look back. “Excuse me!”

No owner, just the contractors. One of the workers finally looked up, his hands on the drill and his face covered with brick dust.

“Can I speak to the owner?”

“Not here right now!”

“I live upstairs.”

I pointed with my finger.

“When will the work be done?”

“It’ll take about three days.”

Three days? Unbelievable. I returned and washed my hands at the bathroom sink, rubbing hard.

On Saturday, Oldest Brother finally brings it up. “Why aren’t you going to work? Have you quit? . . . You don’t like working at the factory, either, is that it?”

“. . .”

“You just need to hold on a little longer, just until I finish military service.”

“. . .”

“Say something!” The more he pushes, the more I clam up. “You got scoops of honey in your mouth or something? Say something!”

But how could I tell him that I did not have the heart to look at Yun Sun-im.

“If you’re going to be nothing but trouble, pack up your things and go back to the country.” Oldest Brother leaves the room, slamming the door behind him. I put on my uniform and walk out to the alley, carrying not my things but my schoolbag. I don’t even have any money for fare. I trudge along, to Jinhui Tailor Shop, by the entrance of Industrial Complex No. 2. I see a man next to Hui-jae
eonni
, cutting a piece of blue fabric, his face marked with a blue spot the size of a palm. To my eighteen-year-old eyes, it all feels sore, the blue spot, the blue fabric.