No solace came from knowing I was not alone in my misery. So many men had been killed in Bukchon that it was now called the Village of Widows. I was filled with grief, but my mind raced like a rat trapped in a cage. That rat for me was Mi-ja, and she skittered and scratched back and forth inside my skull. Rightly or wrongly, I held her responsible for what had happened to my family. If she’d stepped forward when we were first herded into the yard, then she could have spoken directly to the people in charge, as the wife of someone who worked with them. Or she could have waited until her husband came and approached him thoughtfully and with purpose. Instead, everything she’d done was to protect herself. And maybe her son and husband, although I could not bring myself to believe they had at any point needed help. What I’d witnessed was the daughter of a Japanese collaborator safeguarding herself first and foremost.
I burned with the knowledge that I’d always known this fact about her but had not given it enough weight. You aren’t aware your clothes are getting wet in the rain. Day by day, year by year, I’d been deceived by Mi-ja. Now I could see as clearly as the fires that incinerated more villages on the slopes of Mount Halla that Mi-ja’s sacrificial act all those years ago to save my mother when the Japanese soldiers came to our dry field was motivated solely by self-preservation. After that, Mother had made sure Mi-ja was fed. She’d given Mi-ja a job. She’d allowed Mi-ja to become a haenyeo in her collective. Most important, Mi-ja’s behavior that day in the fields blinded me to the truth about her. I’d seen only what I wanted to see, when what she’d done was designed to benefit her alone.
If there were moments that my mind fought with itself—telling me I must have read her actions and heard her words incorrectly—her absence from my life reminded me every day that I had to be right. If she were innocent, she would have come to see how I was, brought food for the children, or held me in her arms as I cried. She did none of those things. I considered that Sang-mun had been at fault, having more power over her than I imagined. Maybe he’d seen Jun-bu and had chosen to do nothing. Maybe he’d whispered to the commander to murder Jun-bu. Maybe he’d nudged the soldier to kill my little boy. But none of that had happened, which left my soul feeling as though it were drowning in a vat of vinegar.
My grief over the loss of my husband, son, sister-in-law, Granny Cho, and many neighbors and friends was so deep and so terrible that when the black water clothes time of month didn’t arrive, I paid no heed. The next month, when it didn’t come again, I blamed it on the tragedy and not enough food. When I missed my third month, my dark pit of mourning wouldn’t allow me to acknowledge my aching breasts, my deep fatigue, and the terrible nausea that came every time I thought of my husband’s head exploding, my son being bashed against the wall, or Yu-ri’s howls of terror and pain. The following month—and we were still living like animals—I understood at last that my husband had planted a baby inside me before he died.
At night, when I couldn’t shut my eyes for fear of what I’d see on the backs of my lids, I thought of my husband in the Afterworld. Did he know that he’d given me another baby? Was there a way he could protect us? Or would it be better if the thing growing inside me—traumatized by the anguish I’d experienced—was squeezed out of me before it could breathe the bitter and dangerous air of the pitiless world? I was exhausted—from the growing baby, from not sleeping, from living in dread that teams from the military, police, Northwest Young Men’s Association, or rebels would come again. I couldn’t let my baby be born in the Village of Widows. For days I mulled over what to do. Grandmother Seolmundae offered many places to hide—caves, lava tubes, the cones of the oreum—but all of them were inside the ring of fire. If we were seen, we would be shot—or worse, I now knew—on the spot. My only hope—and it was a huge risk—was to try to make it back to Hado.
I gathered what food and water I could carry. Beyond that and my two children, I didn’t have anything to pack. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. I slipped out in the darkest part of night and creeped barefoot through the village, with food and water strapped to my back, Kyung-soo tied to my breast, and holding Min-lee’s hand. I’d stuffed her mouth with straw and tied it shut with a rag so she couldn’t make a sound until we were safely out of the village. We walked all night, skirting refugee encampments with their foul odors and pathetic cries. We slept during the day, curled together in the shadow of a rock wall surrounding an abandoned field. As soon as darkness fell, we started again, staying far off the dirt road that circumnavigated the island, hugging the shore, and avoiding anything that warned of human habitation—houses, oil lamps, or open fires. My entire body ached. Kyung-soo slept on my chest, but I now carried Min-lee on my hip in addition to the strain of the pack on my back.
Just when I felt I couldn’t go another step, the outline of Hado came into view. Suddenly, my feet flew across stones. I longed to find my father and brother, but my duty was to go straight to my mother-in-law’s home. I ducked into the courtyard between the little and big houses.
“Who’s there?” came a quavering voice.
I’d lived through so much, yet it hadn’t occurred to me that Do-saeng, one of the strongest women I would ever know, could be so cowed by fear.
“It’s Young-sook,” I whispered.
The front door slowly opened. A hand reached out and pulled me inside. Without the aid of glittering light from the stars, I was unbalanced, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Do-saeng’s rough palm stayed closed over my wrist. “Jun-bu? Yu-ri?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say the words, but my silence told my mother-in-law the answers. She choked back a sob, and in the darkness I felt her fight her body’s impulse to collapse in anguish. She reached up, touched my face, and ran her hands down my body, before caressing Min-lee—her hair, her sturdy little legs, and her size. Then she felt the baby on my chest. When her hands didn’t find a little boy, she learned that I’d lost a son too. We stood together like that, two women bound by the deepest sorrow, tears running down our faces, afraid to make a sound in case someone might hear us.
Even with the door and side wall used for ventilation pulled shut, we moved like a pair of ghosts. Do-saeng unfolded a sleeping mat. I lay Min-lee down first, then unwrapped Kyung-soo. With that, the cold air bit through the front of my tunic and pants, which had been soaked through with his urine. Do-saeng undressed me like I was a small child and wiped down my breasts and stomach with a wet cloth. Her hand paused for a moment on my lower belly, where Jun-bu’s child was just beginning to make his or her presence known. No words could express the grief and hopefulness that passed between my mother-in-law and me in that moment. Still feeling her way, she drew a shirt over my head and then whispered, “We’ll have time for talking later.”
I slept for hours. I was aware of things happening around me as dawn broke. Padding feet going in and out of the house. My mother-in-law prying Min-lee away from my side to take her to the latrine or perhaps to fetch water and firewood. Kyung-soo making a couple of squawks, and my being conscious enough to feel hands lift him from the sleeping mat and carry him to a distance far enough away that I would be neither terrified nor wakened. I heard men’s voices—low and worried—and knew they belonged to my father and brother.
When my eyes finally blinked open hours upon hours later, I saw Do-saeng sitting cross-legged about a meter away from me. Kyung-soo was crawling nearby, exploring. Min-lee was setting pairs of chopsticks on the rims of bowls that had been put on the floor. The room smelled of steaming millet and the tanginess of well-fermented kimchee.
“You woke up!” I heard in my daughter’s voice the fear that I might leave her or give her up. The poor child helped me to a sitting position and handed me one of the bowls. The food smelled delicious—giving off the fragrance of home and safety—but my stomach lurched and twisted.
“After the bombing of Hiroshima,” my mother-in-law said, unprompted, “I couldn’t accept what had happened. I didn’t have my monthly bleeding for six months, but my husband hadn’t blessed me with another life to bring into the world. I finally had to acknowledge that he’d died alone, without me or any family to care for him. The worst part was wondering if he died immediately or if he suffered. Like you, I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep—”