The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness by Kyung-Sook Shin

union office to receive our admission notice, we thank the chief, to which he replies, “You don’t have to thank me, you two had the highest scores,” and adds, “I appreciated the letter.”

    One day, I am called into the office by Union Chief. He sits at his desk wearing a gray uniform and when I step inside, he tells me to approach the desk. “How come your company documents and the school admission papers do not match?”
    I, still sixteen years old, hesitate, unable to answer.
    “Tell me, why is that?”
    “Well, actually . . .”
    I stammer as I tell him that actually I am sixteen and not eighteen, and that my name is not Lee Yeon-mi.
    “Sixteen?”
    Union Chief looks unconvinced as he stares at my height. I had grown to my adult height at fourteen. I am the same height now as I was then.
    “Then who is Lee Yeon-mi?”
    I didn’t know anything about that. All I knewwas that because Dongnam Electronics employees had to be at least eighteen, which disqualified me as a worker, I had submitted the paperwork that Oldest Brother prepared for me. Oldest Brother would know who Lee Yeon-mi is. I had simply received the paperwork from Oldest Brother and had not asked who Lee Yeon-mi was. Union Chief speaks again after a long silence.
    “We’re short on staff at right now, so there shouldn’t be a problem for the time being. Besides, you’ve already been working here for several months. But you can’t attend school under Lee Yeon-mi’s name, so bring in your real paperwork.”
    He speaks kindly, but I feel as if I am being questioned. Perhaps he’s noticed how I feel, because he adds, “You make sure to work hard in school,” and continues to say that there are only so many chances to study in one’s life.
    Thanks to Union Chief, I get my own name back on the company records. Thanks to him, my payment envelopes carry my own name instead of Lee Yeon-mi’s, a name I know nothing about. Thanks to him, I no longer have to get lost when someone calls me “Miss Lee Yeon-mi?” and I answer a beat later, “Yes, yes!” People now call me by my own name. The name that belongs to me.

    Union Chief. If I had not forgotten his name, I would like, just once, to write his name with my own hands. His name may have been forgotten but his appearance hasn’t. Short height, gentle voice, rough skin on his hands.
    He commuted on his bike. On his bike, he took the same route that Cousin and I took to walk back to our lone room, and when we met on that route, he would get off and walk his bike next to us. Sometimes he invited Cousin and me up to his rented room on the second floor of a house near the market, where he lived with his wife and their three-year-old son, for some fruit or hot citron tea. Sometimes, though rarely, he gave us a ride on his bike to help shorten the distance to our single room. Cousin would ride in front of him and I in the back. At work, when I felt someone tapping on my shoulder, I would look back to find him standing behind me and, seeing my tired eyes, he would unconsciously reach out his hand as if to rub them for me then pull his hand back.
    A warm soul, but one that I betrayed.

    It is winter and Third Brother, who did not get accepted to one of the first-tier universities, visits Seoul to take tests for second-tier schools. In the crammed room where the three of us live, Third Brother sits with his back against the wall and glances at me, turning glum. Oldest Brother pleads to Third Brother to apply to a night program at a second-tier university and take the civil service exam, like he did. Third Brother, his hair still in his high school crew cut, does not answer. He takes only the university test and goes back home without saying good-bye. He never answered if he would do as Oldest Brother said, but Third Brother’s name makes the list of students admitted to the night program majoring in law. When he comes again for the physical exam at the university, Third Brother still does not smile. At