We spent the rest of the day wandering. We didn’t enter any of the cafés that lined the central square. Instead, we sat on a low wall and watched people coming and going. A little boy with a blue balloon in his mittened hand. A woman in high heels clickity-clacking down the street, a fox fur stole draped carelessly over the shoulders of her wool coat. Rich and poor, young and old. Sailors were everywhere too, and they tried to talk to us. They smiled, they cajoled, but we didn’t go with any of them. Some of those boys were awfully handsome, though, and they made us giggle and blush. We may have been stupid Korean country bumpkins in our homemade clothes dyed with persimmon juice, but we were young, and Mi-ja was extremely beautiful.
Another two sailors approached. They wore heavy wool trousers, thick sweaters, and identical caps. One had a grin that twisted up on the left side of his mouth; the other had a thick and unruly mop of hair that sprouted from under his cap. Of course, we couldn’t understand a word they said, so they gestured, grinned, and bobbed their heads at us. They looked nice enough, but Mi-ja and I were steadfast in our rules about Soviet boys. We knew too many haenyeo who’d gotten pregnant away from home. Those girls were ruined forever. We’d never let that happen to us. That said, we were haenyeo—strong in our own ways—but we were still girls, and a little flirting wouldn’t hurt us. Through much finger pointing and laughter, we determined that one was Vlad and the other was Alexi.
Alexi, the boy with the messy hair, trotted into one of the cafés, leaving Vlad to stand guard over us. A few minutes later, Alexi returned, carefully balancing four ice cream cones interlaced between his fingers. Mi-ja and I had seen people eat them, but we never would have treated ourselves to such an extravagance. Alexi handed out the cones, then he and his friend sat on the wall on either side of us.
Mi-ja’s tongue tentatively darted out, touched the creamy ball, then just as quickly withdrew. Her face was very still, perhaps remembering the desserts of her childhood. I didn’t wait for her commentary. I stuck my tongue out all the way—like I’d seen other people do—and took a big lick. The air was already cold, but this was so cold! It froze the top of my head just as intensely as diving off the boat into icy waters, but while the ocean was salty, this was sweeter than anything I’d ever tasted. And the texture! I ate my ice cream too fast and had the pain of watching the three of them finish theirs. As soon as Mi-ja was done, she jumped off the wall, waved, and set out in the direction of the docks. I would have liked to stay with Alexi longer—maybe he’d buy me another cone or some other treat—but I didn’t want to be separated from my friend. When I slid off the wall, both boys groaned theatrically.
Vlad and Alexi followed us, perhaps thinking they might have a chance, perhaps even thinking we might not be as innocent as we looked. But just as we were about to enter the red-light area, we turned and entered the Korean district. The boys stopped, unwilling to go farther. Soviets were known to be tough, but our men were far better fighters, and they would protect us now that we were in the Korean quarter. When we looked back at Vlad and Alexi—was Mi-ja tempting them to follow us?—they shrugged, clapped each other on the back—we gave it a try—and set off. My feelings were mixed. I wanted to get married, which meant I couldn’t be a girl who got in trouble. At the same time, I was intrigued by boys—even foreign boys. Yes, we should have been more like the Kang sisters—staying inside, not taking risks, and guaranteeing that our reputations remained intact—but where was the adventure in that? Either Mi-ja and I were walking a fine line or we were tempting fate.
“I thought you’d like the one with all that hair,” Mi-ja commented.
I giggled. “You’re right. I don’t like it when a man’s head is too close shaven—”
“Because you think it makes him look like a melon.”
“What about you and the way you ate your ice cream? Those poor boys!”
This is how we were: we affectionately teased each other. We knew these foreign men meant nothing to us. We wanted to marry Koreans. We wanted perfect matches. Last year when we went home for the harvest, Mi-ja and I visited the shrine of Halmang Jacheongbi, the goddess of love. Her name means “wants for oneself,” and we were clear about what we wanted. We made sandals from straw to give to our future husbands as engagement gifts. We also began buying things to take into our new homes: sleeping mats, chopsticks, pots, and bowls. My marriage would be arranged. The wedding itself would take place in the spring, when cherry blossoms swirled through the air, fragrant, pink, and delicate. Some girls knew their future husbands for a long time, having grown up in the same village. If I were lucky, I would get to exchange a few words with my future husband at the engagement meeting. If I were less fortunate, then I wouldn’t see him until the day of our ceremony. Either way, I dreamed of loving my husband at first sight and of a union between two people fated to be together.
When we entered the boardinghouse, Gu-ja and Gu-sun were sitting on the floor, bowls in hand, their stockinged feet tucked to their sides. We took off our coats, mufflers, and boots. The landlady handed us bowls of millet porridge flavored with dried fish. It was the same meal that we’d had the night before and the night before that and almost every night before that.
“Will you show us your rubbing from today?” Gu-sun asked.
“Please tell us what you saw,” Gu-ja added.
“Why don’t you come with us one of these days?” Mi-ja suggested. “Find out for yourselves—”
“It’s dangerous, and you know it,” Gu-ja replied tartly.
“You’re just saying that because you are now an obedient wife,” Mi-ja remarked.
I knew Mi-ja meant it as a joke—in what circumstance could a haenyeo be called obedient, after all?—but Gu-ja must have heard it as an insult because she shot back, “You only say that because no one will ever marry you—”
In just a few sentences, a mild inquiry had turned hostile. We all knew that Mi-ja’s prospects for an arranged marriage were challenging, but why deliberately hurt her when we had to dive tomorrow? The simple explanation was that we spent too much time together, our lives were in each other’s hands six days a week, and we were all homesick. The damage was done, however, and Gu-ja’s comment—so thoughtless—brought added darkness to the already dim room. Trying to shift the mood, Gu-sun repeated her initial question. “Will you show us what you made today?”
Mi-ja silently pulled out her father’s book. “You show them,” she said.
I took the volume from her and stared from it to her questioningly. We both knew the rubbing we’d made today was still in her pocket and not yet tucked into the book for safekeeping. Mi-ja was silently letting me know she didn’t want to show Gu-ja and Gu-sun our new image. Now she shifted her body so that her right shoulder blocked the view of her face from the rest of us. In the crowded room, this was her way of finding a little privacy so she could nurse her hurt feelings.
“Here,” I said, opening the book and leafing through the pages to show the sisters different rubbings from the world just outside this dreary enclave. “This is from the foot of a statue outside a government building. This is from the side of a toy truck we found left in a square. I like this one a lot. It’s the bumpy metal siding of a bus that we rode one day to a mountain park. Oh, and here’s one of some bark. Do you remember that day, Mi-ja?”
She didn’t respond. The two sisters weren’t interested either.
“Do you know the fortress we can see up on the hill when we sail out of the harbor?” I asked. “This shows how coarse the walls are—”
“You’ve shown these to us before,” Gu-ja complained. “Are you going to show us what you saw today or not?”
“Maybe if you were a little nicer,” Mi-ja said, her back still to us. “Maybe if you could be a single drop nicer.”