Not many hours later, we were awakened by what we’d come to recognize as gunfire. This was not uncommon in those days. The jolting to consciousness. The moment of terror. The instinctual gathering of my children. Jun-bu wrapping his arms around us all. Footsteps echoing through the olles. Shouts and gruff whispers insinuating their way into our room. Followed by silence. Soon, the baby dozed off, and the tension in my other children’s bodies melted as they returned to the limpness of slumber. Jun-bu and I lay awake together, listening, until we too fell back asleep.
When dawn broke and Min-lee and I went outside to gather dried dung and haul water, we found Mi-ja standing in the small courtyard in front of my house. She looked better than when I’d seen her eight months earlier. The sheen of her hair caught the morning sun’s rays. Her eyes were bright. She’d gained a little weight. Air puffed in clouds from her mouth. She was alone.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, thoroughly surprised but also a little wary. I was relieved to see she was all right, but a part of me felt I had to be careful, knowing the side her husband had taken.
Before she could answer, Min-lee squealed, “Where’s Yo-chan?” The two children would turn four in June. They were old enough to remember each other despite our infrequent visits.
Mi-ja smiled at her. “He went with his father to see his grandparents in Jeju City. It wasn’t far out of their way to drop me off. For now”—she turned her gaze to me—“I’m visiting my oldest friend.”
I had many questions, but first the required pleasantries. “Have you eaten? Will you spend the night?” Inside, I was wondering what I could feed her, where she would sleep in our small teacher’s house, and how her husband would respond.
“No need. They’ll be back for me this afternoon.” She tilted her head. “Give me a jar. Take me to the village well. Let me help.”
Min-lee skipped away to find another jar. Mi-ja put her hands on my cheeks. I couldn’t tell if she was taking in all the changes that hardship had brought to my face or was memorizing it to sustain her until the next time we saw each other. Either way, I felt love passing through her fingers and into my flesh. How could I ever have doubted her?
Min-lee returned with a water jar nestled in a basket. Mi-ja put this on her back, then looped an arm through mine. To Min-lee, she said, “Lead the way.”
Mi-ja moved with such ease. She had a frail quality to her steps that served as a camouflage for the strength of her body and mind.
I heard a commotion up ahead. I wanted to go back home, but it’s the duty of women and girls to fetch water for their families. Bukchon’s well was in the square, so that’s where we had to go. If my daughter and I were no longer terrified by the sound of gunshots in the night, I can also say—with sadness—that we were no longer horror-struck by the sight of a dead body, but when we reached the square and found two soldiers, identifiable by their uniforms, lying on stretchers, Mi-ja gasped loudly. Both men had been shot in the chest. Their blood had seeped through their shirts in the shapes of grotesque flowers. About a dozen elders stood over the lifeless forms, arguing.
“We need to take them to the military headquarters in Hamdeok,” one of the old men said. “That way we can prove we had nothing to do with this.”
“No,” another responded indignantly. “All that will show is that we let them die here.”
“How did we let them die? They were here to protect us from the insurgents—”
Mi-ja had gone as white as seafoam. I took her elbow, and the three of us pushed through the men to the well. We filled our jars and then retreated, hoping to return home quickly.
“If we take them to Hamdeok, the military will retaliate.”
“If we don’t take them, the military will retaliate.”
“But we didn’t do anything!” another elder shouted, as though his raised voice would bring back the two lives.
Once in the olle, Min-lee babbled happily, as if nothing had happened. “Is Yo-chan good at counting? Has he learned any characters yet? Look how I can count! One, two, three . . .”
But what had become normal to us was horrifying to my old friend, who still looked shaken and hadn’t spoken since we’d first reached the square.
“Maybe you should go home,” I said. “Trouble could be coming. Jun-bu can walk you.”
“No, I’m fine,” she mumbled. Then, a little louder, “I agree with the elder who said they should take the bodies to Hamdeok. The military will recognize innocence when they see it.”
On the surface, this was how it had been our entire lives. Her lightness; my earthiness. Her cleverness; my simplicity. But things had changed. Now I thought she was acting willfully ignorant. The military was stationed in Hamdeok. Refugees lived in the school yard. People had been killed there. Her husband’s position probably protected her, but that shouldn’t have made her blind to the realities. Still, I didn’t argue with her. I wanted to see her as my friend and not as her husband’s wife.
We entered the courtyard before my home. She set down her water jar and basket, slipped off her shoes, and entered the house. Min-lee and I followed wordlessly behind her. Jun-bu held Kyung-soo. Mi-ja rushed forward, her arms outstretched. “Let me see him.” I sensed my husband’s hesitancy. The last time we’d all been together hadn’t ended well between him and Sang-mun, but then the moment passed and Jun-bu allowed Mi-ja to take the baby. I suggested again that Jun-bu walk her home, but she waved off the idea. All this took only seconds.
“Then I’ll go to the school,” my husband said. To me, he added, “Our sons are dressed and fed. Granny Cho will be here shortly. I’ll come back at lunch.” With that, he ducked out the door.
Mi-ja, still holding Kyung-soo, glided across the floor to where Yu-ri was playing with a pile of shells and kissed her on the top of her head. My sister-in-law didn’t react, but that was expected. Mi-ja set Kyung-soo on the floor, and in a series of swift movements, she pulled a scarf from her pocket, untied the one that covered Yu-ri’s hair, and replaced it with the new one.
“My husband bought this for me,” she said. “But from the moment I saw it, I knew it could only be for you. And see? The green and purple pattern looks pretty next to your face.”
Yu-ri drew her hand up under her chin to show her pleasure. Next, Mi-ja peered around the room. I couldn’t tell if she liked it or not, and she didn’t give me a chance to ask, because her eyes came to rest on me. “You look thin,” she said, “and I’ve never seen you so pale.”
I was not the kind of woman who sought the reassurances of a mirror, but my fingers went reflexively to my face. Now that I thought about it, I was paler than Mi-ja.
“You’re the mother of three children,” she chastised me. “You need to be strong for them. Every mother gives the best morsels to her young, but you need to eat too.”
I honestly couldn’t say if I was hurt because she didn’t have sympathy for me or stunned because her life had so changed that she didn’t recall the desperation of an empty stomach. “On the day we met—”
Ignoring me, she pointed in the direction of the sea. “Your wet fields are right there. Let’s dive.”
“Maybe you don’t know that the haenyeo have been forbidden—”
She held up her hands in the same innocent gesture she’d used in Vladivostok when we got in trouble. “We aren’t diving as haenyeo,” she explained to the invisible person who might catch us. “We’re just two friends swimming together.”
“In January?” I asked, dubious.