The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness (33 page)

“No thank you.”

“Then what about we meet outside and have lunch?”

Silence.

“I’ll head back, as soon as we finish eating.”

A laugh escaped from J’s mouth at the other end of the line.

“Stop looking for distractions, just stay put and write.”

“I’m going to head back right after lunch.”

“I have a lunch appointment.”

“With whom?”

“No one you know.”

“What time?”

“I have to leave right now.”

I hung up, then tried calling her again thirty minutes later. When I said, “It’s me,” J answered with a scream.

“Stop calling!”

Silence. She quickly softened and began to coax me.

“Call me when you’ve sent in the next batch of your manuscript, okay?”

She hung up. Mighty J.

1980.

We are alive. Even if the life we lived in that alley had resembled a makeshift lodging, what is important is that we are alive. That we keep old numbers in our address books even if we let an entire year go by without a single phone call. That I can reach out and hold the hand of another. Even if I had no memory of your existence in this world, if you were alive, waking each morning, breathing and bickering amidst the air of this world . . . then I would not have kept on avoiding the time and the spaces between my sixteenth and twentieth year. Even if I remembered, even if I remembered them forever . . . even if I did . . . what would be the use? What can memory change?

I did not know what happened afterward; it was still a long way to go until life would be over. I once saw her stagger down a long wall, some man by her side. . . . These expressions could be used only if she were alive.

From the scene where the most powerful man of the Yusin regime was assassinated, an endless series of stories spring up, like conspiracies in ancient royal courts, about women and alcohol, about the debaucheries and secrets feuds of those in power. That year, 1980, the flower trees in Seoul would have been caught by surprise upon blossoming. Slugging from under the frozen earth, out into the world, they would have found that spring had already poured out all over—it was spring in politics, spring in Seoul. A sense of liberation spreading fast to the person next to you, and the next, brought on by the death of an absolute dictator. In spite of the emergency martial law still in effect, spring in Seoul that year, likened to the Prague Spring, spreads hope in the air, together with the fresh, beautiful flowers blossoming around the mountains and rivers. Amidst this wave of democracy, surging high and proud like a river flooding over, Reverend Moon Ik-hwan returned from prison to his home in Suyu-ri. Startling the flowers, the wind, the branches.

Even in the middle of winter, even in the cold and the snow, forsythias are bound to blossom, like mad.

In that alley where the ice would not melt even after spring arrives, the girl stands by the power pole, waiting for Oldest Brother. I, now eighteen years old, am on my way out the gate with a pair of tongs to go buy some hot briquettes when I stop with a flinch. From a distance Oldest Brother is approaching, looking weary in his wig. The footsteps of a weary eldest son. The footsteps of a poor young man, carrying the weight of his entire family on his back at twenty-five. Oldest Brother’s footsteps come to a stop when he sees the girl.

Silence.

Soon the girl takes off her necklace and hands it to Oldest Brother, standing there with his head low.

“I came to give you this.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“But you gave it to me.”

Pushing the necklace into Oldest Brother’s resistant hand, the girl turns around. My eighteen-year-old neck hangs low as I stand behind them with the briquette tongs in my hand. Poor
Oppa
. The girl with the slim waist turns around and walks away, her heels clicking hard the ground, but Oldest Brother, in his wig, runs after her and stops her.

“Do you really have to do this?”

“I’m tired.”

The girl turns back around and walks away. As she disappears into the night wind, Oldest Brother stands there watching, his shoulders sunk low but his face raised upright. After standing like that for a long time, Oldest Brother turns around toward our lone room and I quickly hide behind the gate. For some reason I feel he might get angry if he knew that I had been watching him from behind.

Oldest Brother’s girl left behind clicking footsteps in that alley in order to leave him, but we left our footsteps in that alley, morning and night, in order to live. We all did. Cousin, Hui-jae
eonni
, and me.

Third Brother, who had packed his bags and left our lone room, comes back on the subway. Cousin and I, now in our second year at school, are home from school, making kimchi.

“How you guys been?”

“
Oppa
!”

Cousin is startled but happy to see him as she pulls out her hands, red from mixing the spices and the lettuce, from the kimchi bowl. I am wiping the room with a rag when I hear Cousin’s giddy squeal and stick my head out to the kitchen. Third Brother is standing by the kitchen door and I notice that his hair is cropped very short.

“Where have you been?”

Third Brother does not answer, asking instead, “Where’s Oldest Brother?”

“At the tutoring center!”

“But he teaches in the morning.”

“He has evening classes, too. Doesn’t get home until midnight.”

Cousin pushes the large kimchi bowl to the side to make way for Third Brother. Even after stepping inside the room, Third Brother just stands there. His shaved head shines under the fluorescent light. He remains standing like this, with no intention of sitting, it seems. He puts down his bag only after a long while. He looks like he is about to head out again soon.

“Did you have dinner?”

Third Brother is still standing, as if he’s taking a look around someone else’s room. He stands by the vinyl wardrobe, gazing at the desk.

“Do you want some dinner?”

Third Brother still does not answer as he pushes his feet back into the sneakers that he just took off and heads outside.

“Where are you going?”

There was only the sound of him plodding down the stairs in the dark without giving me an answer. I stand there listening to the sound, then rush out after him. I jump down two, three steps at once.
Oppa
—When I catch up with him in a flurry, Third Brother looks at me quizzically.

“What is it?”

“Where are you going?”

“To greet Oldest Brother when he arrives.”

“For real?”

“Of course, for real . . . What is it? You wanna come along?”

We were in the middle of making kimchi. There are dishes to be washed, the room has to be wiped, and now that Third Brother is home, we have to make him dinner even if it’s late.

“You’re not leaving again, are you? . . . You should know how worried Oldest Brother is . . .”

“I’m not going anywhere. Just on my way to greet Oldest Brother.”

“Promise you’ll come back with Oldest Brother?”

“I will.”

Third Brother pats my eighteen-year-old head. “I’ll be right there, so go on home,” he says. Adding that he has something to talk about with Oldest Brother. Finally convinced, I turn around and head back. A while later Oldest Brother, in his suit and wig, and Third Brother, with his head shaved, walk in together. Oldest Brother looks cheerful. Only now do I feel relieved.

“You made new kimchi?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Smells good.”

Oldest Brother’s compliment puts a smile on Cousin, who made the kimchi. Oldest Brother is always saying Cousin’s kimchi tastes good. That it tastes just like the way Mom makes it, that Cousin will make a good wife.

“Would you make some sauce to grill this?”

Oldest Brother hands over a newspaper-wrapped packet, which holds about a half-
geun
of pork belly. Third Brother pulls out a bottle of
soju
from the yellow bag in his hand and puts it down on the floor. While Cousin makes the sauce, Oldest Brother takes off his wig and hangs it on the inside of the attic door, then washes his feet, washes his socks and hangs them on the line in the kitchen. I head out to the store to buy a piece of hot briquette but Third Brother stops me and offers to go instead.

“Unless Cousin or I go, you have to wait in a long line!”

Still, Third Brother comes along. On the first floor, Hui-jae
eonni
, who has just finished washing her face after returning from her night shift, is about to close her door when she sees Third Brother and me, heading out to buy hot briquette.

“Who’s that?”

“My third older brother.”

Hui-jae whispers in my ear, her eyes on Third Brother as he steps out the gate ahead of me.

“You have many brothers.”

“He’s a university student.”

I am surprised at myself for offering information that was not even asked. “You must be proud.” Hui-jae slaps my shoulder upon my declaration. Only I feel apologetic and let out half a giggle. When the storekeeper sees me, he pulls out a hot briquette that someone else would have already asked for.

“Thank you!” I say. Noticing the unusually energetic tone in my voice, the storekeeper glances at me, saying, “Looks like someone’s in a good mood today.”

As Third Brother lowers his head to get the tongs into the holes of the hot briquette that the storekeeper pulled out, I see that his jaw line has gotten sharper.

“
Oppa
, where have you been?” I ask.

The cold February wind scrapes past my calves, creating a wave of red flames on the briquette.

“Oldest Brother was so worried, wondering where you could have gone since you weren’t in Seoul or back home.”

Third Brother walks ahead without answering, his hands clumsy with the tongs.

“Why didn’t you get the heat going earlier?”

“It’s not as cold these days, so if we put in a new briquette around this time, it lasts until morning . . . So where were you?”

I ask over and over where he has been as we walk down the alley. But Third Brother does not answer.

The four of us sit down together in our lone room in the middle of the night, the first time in a while. The pork, grilled in a chili paste sauce with chopped scallions and minced garlic, is served on a plate with flower patterns. Oldest Brother pours
soju
for Third Brother in a small glass placed in front of him. Third Brother empties the glass in a single shot. Oldest Brother places a slice of the grilled pork in front of Third Brother as he puts down his empty glass and reaches for the kimchi.

“Eat before it gets cold.”

Oldest Brother’s wigless, shaved head and Third Brother’s shaved head, his jaw line sharper than before, appear tinged in blue under the fluorescent light.

“Better times will come. You should focus on your studies now. Don’t forget that you’re a law student.”

As he offers his empty
soju
glass to Third Brother, Oldest Brother seems to be either in a good mood or slightly melancholy.

“Anyway, it’s a relief it’s not any worse than this.”

Cousin looks at me with eyes that seem puzzled what this is all about. I have no idea, either. What it is that he is relieved about for not being any worse