She was exceedingly diligent about work. I did my part, working as hard as I could, I suppose, but whenever I peeked over at her plugging away it was pretty obvious that her idea and my idea of applying oneself weren’t the same animal. I mean, compared to my “If you’re going to do something, it’s worth doing it well,” her inner drive cut closer to the root of humanity. Not that it’s much of an explanation, but this drive of hers had the disturbing urgency of someone whose whole worldly existence was barely held together by that one thread. Most people couldn’t possibly keep up with the pace she maintained; sooner or later they would throw up their hands in frustration. The only one who managed to stick it out to the very end working with her was me.

Even so, we hardly spoke a word at first. I tried a couple of times to strike up a conversation, but she didn’t seem particularly interested in speaking, so I backed off. The first time we actually sat down and talked was two weeks after we started working together. That morning, for half an hour, she’d been thrown into something of a panic. It was unprecedented for her. The cause of it all was a slight oversight, one small operation out of order. Sure, it was her fault, her responsibility, if it came to that, but from where I stood it seemed like a common enough mishap. A momentary lapse and—glitch! Could have happened to anyone. But not to her. A tiny crack in her head widened into a fissure, eventually becoming a gaping chasm. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t, take another step. At a total loss for words, she froze in place. She was a sorry sight, a ship sinking slowly in the night sea.

I cut short what I was doing, sat her down in a chair, pried loose her clenched fingers one by one, made her drink some hot coffee. Then I told her, It’s all right, there’s nothing to worry about, nothing’s too late to remedy, you just redo that part again from the beginning and you won’t be so far behind in your work. And even if you are a little behind, it won’t kill you. Her eyes were glazed, but she nodded silently. With some coffee in her, she began to calm down.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

That lunch break, we talked about this and that. And that was when she told me she was Chinese.