The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness (46 page)

The man who shed blood in Gwangju and pushed the entire country into a state of fear in the name of social purification enjoys going on night inspections. He doesn’t like to give advance warning. He will suddenly walk into a police station in Incheon, or appears out of the blue at Seoul City Hall in casual attire. When he shows up, those on duty are shocked out of their wits.

It is time for bookkeeping class in school. Dark faces slip into the hallway. The back door of our classroom slides open. The president is here. He is no Ha Gye-suk but he steps inside, in the middle of class. Unlike Ha Gye-suk, he is not cautious, nor apologetic. The teacher’s face turns pale as he stands in front of the blackboard, writing out his lesson on the double entry system.

The president’s broad forehead flashes under the fluorescent lights. His wife stands next to him. Is that man over there an aide? A skinny man in a black suit stands right behind the couple, his eyes flashing. When the president strokes my left-handed desk partner An Hyang-suk’s hair, light flashes. A camera. I dunk my head. The camera clicks as his wife picks up my notebook and opens it. My heart sinks with a thump. The cover says “Bookkeeping,” but there are no notes on bookkeeping, it is filled only with my letters to Chang, and poems and passages copied from
magazines like
Samtoh
. Fortunately, his wife puts the notebook back on my desk and follows after the president, walking down the desk aisle. A black-suited man trailing them farthest behind carries a pair of shoes in his hands. After they leave through the door in the front of the classroom, the bookkeeping teacher walks toward me. He opens my notebook. My heart sinks more heavily than when the First Lady opened it. Since there’s nothing in there about bookkeeping, whether it’s by single or double entry; the teacher looks dumbfounded as he flips through this and that page, and asks me if this is the notebook that the First Lady looked at. I, eighteen years old, am unable to answer.

“Is this the notebook, I asked.”

“Yes.”

The teacher tilts his head.

“I wonder why she didn’t say anything then. Did she pick it up just for the photo?”

He stands there flipping through the pages for a long time, then puts down the notebook as she had done. A sigh of relief rushes out from me. Following the First Lady and the bookkeeping teacher, this time left-handed An Hyang-suk opens the notebook.

FLOWER SNAKE
The backwaters of
Beautiful snake . . .
What immense sadness was it born with, to possess such a vile body.

Just like a flower ribbon.
The . . . tongue that your grandfather used to allure Eve darting in and out of red jaws, deprived of sound
The blue sky . . . Bite, rip, in bitter fury,

Run away. That wretched skull!

An Hyang-suk stares at the notebook, at me.

“You wrote this?”

“No.”

“Who then?”

“Seo Jeong-ju.”

“Who wrote ‘By the Chrysanthemum’?”

“Yes.”

An Hyang-suk looks at the notebook again. She asks me what are the four blank squares after “The backwaters of.”

“They were in Chinese characters, too difficult to write, so I just left them as blanks.”

An Hyang-suk says, “Oh,” as if it were nothing important.

“What’s ‘flower snake’?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did you copy it down if you don’t know?”

“Because I like it.”

“Do you know what the poem is about?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know but you like it?” Left-handed An Hyang-suk stares at me again, as if she’s flabbergasted.

Had that been the true for me as well? Just like Mi-seo, who read Hegel, could it have been that, only when I was reading people like Proust or Suh Jung-joo, Kim Yu-jong or Na Do-hyang, Jang Yong-hak or Son Chang-seop or Francis Jammes, only when I was copying their splendid sentences in the corner of my bookkeeping notebook, without even understanding what they meant, I believed that I was different from the faces in that classroom? Could it be that I believed that these books, novels, or poetry would take me out of the alley?

I fell off my bed in the middle of a long nap. As I climbed back on the bed, the spring sunlight from the window hurt my eyes.
On the hills, the parts where the azaleas had withered were now bright green. In the distance, cherry blossoms gleamed white. It was now green where the flowers died, but a black gloom brushed against my feet. How poor we were then. What little money we had. How so very little, and how come? It felt as if a scream were pouring out of the mirror next to my bed. Are you sure you remembered correctly? How could that be? I can’t believe it. Don’t take it out on me. I can’t believe it, either. I called up J for no good reason.

“Finished writing?”

“. . . Yeah.”

“Wanna make me garlic chive pancakes?”

“No.”

“Wanna steam me some blue crabs?”

“No.”

“Then let’s go out to eat.”

“No.”

Silence. Embarrassed, J shifts to a bubbly tone.

“Well, let’s meet somewhere anyway!”

“No!”

“Then why did you call?”

“To tell you this.”

“Tell me what?”

“To tell you no!”

I could hear J turning sullen on the other end of the line.

I turned on the television. Ah—uh—uh—A sound that seems as if it’s been around and inside all the rooms of this world. Hair held up in a bun, jade ring, knotted ribbon on her traditional blouse. Kim So-hee, from ten or so years ago, stands in the center, singing “Bonghwa Arirang” with her students. Arirang, arirang, arariyo, I’m headed beyond Arirang Pass, carrying my bundle on my back.

Two days before, a state funeral had been held in her honor at Maronnier Park in Dongsung-dong. Beyond the pass. She would now be walking somewhere down the road to the other world. But at this moment, in this world, she was on television, caught in stop motion, her grief-stricken eyes slightly raised. I’m headed beyond Gaepung Pass, clutching my bitter, sore heart. Arirang, arirang, arariyo, I’m headed beyond Arirang Pass. I had only happened to turn on the TV, but pulled in by the singing, sat down in front of the screen. Ahn Sook Sun, Shin Young-hee, and other students of Kim’s were sharing their memories with the host.

Ah, so that’s Ahn Sook Sun. Her eyes were teary. The living, I suppose, feed on death. It would be the same for Ahn. She would feed off Kim So-hee’s death, thus completing the dead one’s life.

The screen cut back to Kim So-hee in her lifetime. She was sitting in a studio. Thin, pale, but elegant. I’m recording, but I’m not happy with my work. If my health improves, I would do it over, but I’m terribly old . . . I feel I should work on it some more but things don’t go as I’d like. She is wearing a ramie blouse and has camellia oil on her hair. A singer should have style. Everything should reflect style, even the way your feet move when you step onto a stage. Only then the sound will follow. Singers these days, when they step on the stage, look around to see how many people are in the audience, but one must always think, Just the drummer and myself here, just the two of us.

On this still spring night, I reached out and turned up the TV volume.

B
irds, birds, birds flying in. All the birds in this world. The phoenix, bird of birds, the good harvest bird at the Gate of Longevity. Myriad birds flying in two by two, responding in song, drunk with spring. The chatty parrot, red-crowned crane the graceful dancer, sing-songy turtledoves . . . Singing’s got to come out of your body and your soul, it’s not singing if you’re just babbling at the tips of your lips, that’s not singing. It’s got to come
from your heart, then echo through your guts and swirl inside your belly, one’s got to endure and overcome this to really sing.

That old wagtail looking so frail, it would starve to death even with a dozen scoops of rice in front of her, tottering this-a-way, tail shaking that-a-way, falling rolling shot down, old wagtail crying flying left to right, pigeon flying into the garden, boy, come and throw some beans. Singing’s got to come out of your body and your soul, it’s not singing if you’re just babbling at the tips of your lips, that’s no singing . . . Her words seemed to grow distant, then came closer, grew distant, then close again. As she walked out of the screen and slipped quietly into my heart, her hair shiny with camellia oil and carrying an earthenware jar on her head, an ibis lets out a cry . . . Startling one’s soul, startling one’s spirit.

*
Ra Hee-duk, “Little One”

†
Yi Sang-hee, “Dickinson’s Green Sleeves”

‡
Yi Si-yong, “Pattern”

§
Chun Yang-hee, “Stepping Into Jikso Falls”

FOUR

I have spoken with the voice you gave me and written with the words You taught my parents, who taught me. I pass down the road like a donkey, head lowered, loaded with bundles, who makes the children laugh.

—Francis Jammes

O
ver the weekend, the school takes just the seniors on a field trip. It’s an overnight trip, so a good many students working extra shifts on Sunday cannot join. My first and last trip with them. I remember, from our trip to Gyeongju, the color of Ha Gye-suk’s face, the same Ha Gye-suk,
who called me up asking, “How come you don’t write about us?” I remember the color on the faces of left-handed An Hyang-suk and the Hegel-reader Mi-seo and Min-suk from the fur company. Their faces yellow against the green mounds of ancient tombs. I remember Hyang-gyu and Myeong-hae and Min-sun and Hyeok-gyu. As our train passes through a tunnel, we scream along. Woo! . . . We hide our teacher’s shoes and jacket while he sleeps, then act innocent. We strut down the night streets of Gyeongju, clad in jeans and plaid shirts, tight and scampish. Wearing red hats, we swagger and sway.