Before us, Yu-ri had been stripped naked. My sister-in-law, who’d never hurt a soul and didn’t understand what was happening, scrambled to her knees. A soldier kicked her down.
“One,” Mi-ja repeated. “You will need to choose.”
My insides were being ripped apart. Rage and disappointment in Mi-ja. Hope that somehow she’d still be able to help us. And desperation, because how could I possibly make the decision she was demanding of me? Save my daughter, who would one day join me in the sea? Save Sung-soo, my oldest son, who would be able to provide for all of us when we reached the Afterworld? Save Kyung-soo, who was his father’s favorite?
“It has to be Sung-soo,” I said, “for the rest of us will die here today. Take him. Make sure he performs ancestor worship for us in the years to come.”
Next to me, Min-lee whimpered. She was old enough to understand I hadn’t chosen her. I would need to comfort her during our final moments together, but before I could begin, Mi-ja said something that soured my blood.
“I’ll need to speak to Sang-mun first and see if he agrees.”
Speak to him first? See if he agrees?
“I have to protect my son, too, you know” was the last thing she said to me before rising. Rifles and pistols swung in her direction. The movement caught Sang-mun’s attention, and he pointed Mi-ja out to the commander, who again flicked his wrist, this time allowing her to pass. Everyone watched as she walked, her beautiful gait slowed even more by terror. With attention momentarily focused on Mi-ja, my husband broke away from the arms that held him and rushed toward his sister. The soldiers seized him, using their strength to subdue his struggles. Behind them by just two meters, Mi-ja whispered into her husband’s ear. I watched and waited.
“You want to mount her instead?” the commander asked Jun-bu.
The soldiers now shoved Jun-bu forward. I wanted to cry out, but I had to protect my children too. I looked toward Mi-ja. Sang-mun seemed puzzled, just now taking in what was happening. And what was Mi-ja doing, taking her son into her arms when she should have been pleading mercy for my family?
“People can be made to do all sorts of things,” the commander said.
“Perhaps,” my husband said, his voice as thin as thread. “But I will not.”
I tried to cover my daughter’s eyes, but I wasn’t fast enough. Another flick of the wrist from the commander, and a soldier lifted and shot his pistol. My husband’s head split apart like a melon being broken open with a rock.
And then everything, again, seemed to happen at once. My husband toppled. Sang-mun put his palm to his forehead as he realized what had happened. Granny Cho must have loosened her grip, because Sung-soo suddenly broke loose and ran toward his father. Another shot rang out. Dust skipped up at my son’s heels.
“Don’t waste the bullets,” the commander shouted. “You’ll need them later.”
So that soldier picked up my boy by an ankle. Sung-soo fought and kicked, until the soldier grabbed hold of his other ankle. Then that man swung my son back like he was going to throw a net into the sea, only it was my son who sailed through the air until his little body came up against the wall of the school. He went completely limp. The soldier lifted what I already knew was deadweight and repeated the action three more times.
Sang-mun grabbed Mi-ja’s arm and began to walk away.
“Mi-ja!” I screamed. “Help us!”
She kept her face turned, so she didn’t see what happened when the soldiers decided to stop wasting their time with Yu-ri. She had not been able to speak for all these years, but she screamed when they cut off her breasts. Her agony was my agony. Then she stopped screaming.
Within a matter of seconds, I lost my husband, my son, and my sister-in-law, for whom I’d felt responsibility since my first dive as a haenyeo. And Mi-ja, my closest and oldest friend, had done nothing to help.
I stopped breathing, holding in air longer than could be possible, as if I were in the deepest part of the sea. When I couldn’t hold it any longer, I sucked in not the quick death of seawater but instead unforgiving, unrelenting, life-giving air.
And then the shooting began.
The Village of Widows
1949
There are those who say no one survived the Bukchon massacre. Others say that only one person lived. Still others will tell you that four survived. Or you’ll see accounts that say 300 people died. Or maybe it was 350, or 480, or 1,000 people . . . Some will tell you about the group of one hundred or so survivors, who were herded to Hamdeok, where they ended up being “sacrificed.” So, yes, there were those who lived. One grandmother wrapped her grandson in a blanket and tossed him in a ditch. He crawled out under cover of darkness. Some families managed to live through the first night and escape past the wall that marked the ring of fire. And then there were the wives, parents, and children of police officers and soldiers, who were protected in the rice-hulling room until the massacre ended.
I will tell you this. More people died in Bukchon than in any other village during all the years of the 4.3 Incident. Those who survived the three days of torture and killing—whether in the school or in one of the small villages nearby—were forced to help deal with hundreds of bodies. Disposal—some might call it covering up the evidence—turned out to be a logistical problem. We dug a huge pit. Then we dragged the bodies of our neighbors and loved ones to the edge and dumped them in. Only after the soil was replaced were we released. We were told we were the lucky ones.
When I left the school yard with Min-lee and Kyung-soo, we joined a trail of people paralyzed by what we’d witnessed. We had nothing to return to, since every house in Bukchon had been burned, but the need for survival brought us together. We repaired tumbled stone walls. We gathered thatch to put roofs over our heads. In the meantime, we slept in tents provided by the American military. We scavenged through every burned-out house for any foodstuffs that might have survived the flames. We ate what we could of the pigs that had been roasted alive in their sties. I found a cabbage that hadn’t already been stolen. Since I didn’t have salt, I used ocean water and a few red chili flakes to make kimchee, soaking the mixture in a stone bowl for two nights and then putting it in earthenware jars. I did whatever I could to feed my children, even if that meant sneaking out at night to dive. And that was the only time I could be by myself, for Min-lee—knowing I was willing to give her up in favor of a brother—now stuck to me like an octopus on a rock.