The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness by Kyung-Sook Shin Read Free Book Online Page B

heard he was in the kitchen cooking?” she would say.

    I head down the very narrow trail of our family life in the village, a life typical to rural villages anywhere around the country. On this trail, I encounter an odd sense of calm. At no time do I think that my family is poor. I have never felt we were affluent, but we are not poor, either. The farther down this narrow trail I go, the less poor I am. On holidays, Mom always took out new clothes that she had prepared for us(there were many children who did not get new clothes for the holidays); always bought us new sneakers to wear (many children went around in rubber flats); kept me out of the fields (many children worked in the fields, their faces tanned dark); did whatever she could to let us continue with school (many children attended only elementary school). Because of this, other mothers in the village sometimes called Mom absurdly lavish in her ways, saying she had no grasp of her lot in this world. Nevertheless, making an effort to provide these things to us was Mom’s own terms of happiness and it took a lot for her to give up trying.
    It was always me who brought her despair. But this was neither Mom’s fault nor mine. It was just that when I graduated from elementary school and wanted to go on to middle school, Second Brother happened to be entering high school, which placed me in a situation where we had only enough money to cover tuition for one child. Even then, Mom put me through school. By selling the only ring she had on her fingers. When it was time for me to enter high school, this time Third Brother was preparing for his college entrance exam and Younger Sister was about to start middle school.
    Oldest Brother, after much deliberation, announces that he will take me to Seoul. That since other younger siblings will soon be coming to Seoul for college, it will be good to get settled early, so he shall start out by living with me . . . At the mere age of twenty-three, Oldest Brother has discovered how to prevent Mom from giving up her happiness too soon.

    All through my vacation, whenever I get the chance, I linger around the well. Resting my arms on the edge of the well, I gaze inside. The well is deep, so deep, I cannot see the pitchfork that has sunk under the water. I cannot shake off what Cousin said, about the water becoming tainted, but I cannot bring myself to tell Father that I threw the rake in the well, that the water needs to be pumped out.
    Little Brother instinctively notices signs of my imminent return to the city. He trails behind each step that his sixteen-year-old sister takes. Looking for Mom, who is out in the vegetable fields, I take Little Brother and head out to the mountain. Fresh from a rain, the mountain is overflowing with the smell of trees. Hazel trees, pine trees, oak trees, chestnut trees. Yellow soil sticks to the soles of my shoes.
    I grew up at the foot of this mountain. Facing those plains. I grew tall amidst the torrential rains of summer and the heavy snows of winter. Even now, I cannot fully comprehend it when someone speaks about how facing nature makes one’s heart free and peaceful. To me, nature is, to an extent, exhausting, and, to another extent, frightening. Nature was right under my skin. When I dug for potatoes, worms crawled out and when I climbed a chestnut tree, caterpillars stung. Scrub trees poked my arm and the stream in the valley made my feet slip. I liked caves or tomb mounds but when I entered the caves bats opened their wings with a sinister look and if I lay on a tomb mound for too long, the sun scorched my face, making it sore.
    Nevertheless, I preferred to be amidst nature rather than out on the streets or at home. This was because there was more that made my heart pound in nature than at home. There was more that was forbidden in nature than at home. In a forbidden place, wounds, along with a sense of allure, always lurked. An elbow or a knee might grow accustomed to wounds but never to