“Have I ever missed marking this day with you?” my friend asked. “Sun-sil was like a mother to me.”
Just then, the sedan’s other door slowly swung open, and Sang-mun emerged. I hadn’t seen him in two years, and I might not have recognized him if he had not been with Mi-ja and her son. He’d turned to skin and bones. His eyes and cheeks were sunken. He also wore Western-style clothes, but on his feet were the straw sandals Mi-ja had made as a traditional wedding gift. His feet were covered with open sores.
“My husband escaped from the north,” Mi-ja explained, speaking for the broken man beside her. “When he first came home, we thought he might not live. Now we are here to ask Shaman Kim to thank the gods and spirits who worked on his behalf. I think he can heal here.”
We ended up staying together in Hado for a week. Jun-bu made bowls of sea urchin porridge—known to help the elderly and ailing babies—which Sang-mun slurped down. Each morning, my husband helped Sang-mun to the shore, so he could soak his feet in salt water. The two men watched our children, while Mi-ja and I went diving with Do-saeng’s collective. In the early evenings, the four of us sat on the rocks, watching the sun set, drinking rice wine, and doting over our children, who’d stand, fall, grab on to a rock, pull themselves up again, totter over the uneven surface, and fall again.
One day Sang-mun took photos of Mi-ja and me with his wedding camera as we stepped out of the sea in our diving clothes. I took that as a sign he was feeling better, except that his mind remained both bitter and terrified. Like many of those who’d escaped from the north, he hated communism and was distrustful of the direction Jeju and the rest of the country might take, while my husband was idealistic about our new nation and what it could become. By the time we all needed to return to our own homes, the two husbands were barely speaking.
Day 3: 2008
Young-sook has another fitful night. She lies on her sleeping mat, staring at the ceiling, and listening to the sound of waves hitting the rocks. She punishes herself for the bad judgment she showed during her dive yesterday and if it’s a hint that worse might be coming. She frets about her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She agonizes over what will happen if Kim Il-sung decides to invade South Korea again. She worries about Roh Tae-woo, a former general and now the first president to be elected by the South Korean people, even if he was handpicked by his predecessor. She wonders if maybe it’s better to have the corrupt leader you know . . . But Roh is going to host the Olympics in Seoul . . . She keeps hearing about “the world stage,” but what if . . . If eighty-five years have taught her anything, it’s that governments come and go and that whoever and whatever comes next will eventually become rotten.
These things clutter the front of her mind, and she’s grateful in some way, because deeper, more persistent memories of screaming and begging keep floating into view. She counts forward and backward. She scrubs an imaginary eraser against the inside of her skull. She relaxes each toe, then her arches, then her ankles, then her calves, slowly working her way up to her forehead, and back down again. She does everything she can to push the bad pictures out of her head. None of it works. It never does.
When dawn finally comes, Young-sook gets dressed, eats breakfast, and considers what will come next. Some of her friends find company in television soap operas, but the troubles of the characters are of no interest to her. No, she is not the kind of old woman to sit inside and watch television. However, today—and she hates to admit it—she feels worn out. How pleasant it would be to go down to the shore and rest in the pavilion. There, she could look out to the sea, watch the haenyeo bobbing up and down not far offshore, and listen to the lilting, haunting cries of their sumbisori. Or she could doze. No one would bother her, because she’s an ancient who’s earned the respect of everyone in Hado.
Instead, habit takes her to the cement building with the tin roof that is now Hado’s bulteok. Women sit outside on their haunches. They wear long-sleeved shirts with floral or checkerboard prints. Their faces are protected from the sun by big straw hats or broad-brimmed bonnets. Their feet, covered in droopy white socks, are tucked into plastic slippers or clogs. The man in charge of the cooperative talks to them through a bullhorn. She can’t decide what she dislikes more—that they’re being ordered around by a man or the whining sounds of his bullhorn. “Today you will do a job as old as haenyeo tradition—but with a new title—working as guardians of the sea.” It used to be said that the sea’s gifts were like a mother’s love, unending, but parts of the sea are turning white, where coral, algae, seaweed, and sea creatures have perished. Some of this has been caused by the change in climate, some by overfishing, and some by human disregard. Therefore, the haenyeo will dive for a harvest of Styrofoam, cigarette filters, candy wrappers, and bits of plastic. The man from the cooperative ends his orders with “Young-sook and the Kang sisters will gather litter on the shore today.” He’s trying to let her save face for the mistake that almost led to her death yesterday, but she wonders how long it will be before she’s allowed to dive again, even in the shallows.
The younger women—noticeably fewer than even ten years ago—grab their gear and climb on the back of the truck to be taken to the boat. The Kangs and Young-sook gather their nets and cushions, then begin hobbling down to the beach. The sisters start in right away.
“Hey, old woman, thank you for this special treat!” Kang Gu-ja gripes.
“We love sitting in the hot sun!” Kang Gu-sun chimes in.
Young-sook should bite back at their teasing, but she’s noticed that half-and-half girl, Clara, perched on a rock. She wears a tank top and shorts that barely cover her crotch. Her bra straps show. Once again, she’s wearing earbuds. Young-sook’s great-grandchildren bob their heads when they listen to their music. Not this girl. She has a somber look on her face.
Young-sook changes course and walks straight to the girl. She keeps her Jeju words simple. “You here again?”
“I could say the same to you,” Clara says with a smile as she pulls out an earbud and lets the wire drip down her chest.
“I live here!”
“I’m visiting. I couldn’t take another day of sightseeing. I just couldn’t. Mom and Dad let me take the bus out here.”
“By yourself?” Young-sook asks, but inside she’s relieved the whole family didn’t come.
“I’m fifteen. What were you doing when you were fifteen?”
The old woman juts her chin. She’s not going to answer that.
Except for the clothes, Clara has Mi-ja’s eyes, legs, and manner. Young-sook should look away or leave or something. Instead, she says what she thought the first time she saw the girl. “So you’re Mi-ja’s great-granddaughter.”
“Great-granddaughter, yes,” Clara answers. “We shared a room, and she only spoke the Jeju dialect to me. She could speak English. I mean, she had to, right, having the shop and all? But her English was superbad. And you know how old ladies are. Talk, talk, talk. I had to learn it if I was going to understand her.”
The girl’s been speaking in the past tense. That must mean Mi-ja is gone. Young-sook focuses her eyes on the shell of a dead sand crab, which helps her control her emotions. Clara stares at her, though, waiting for her to say something. Young-sook settles on “Where have you gone? These sights—”