I didn’t know what was happening elsewhere in the country, but here on Jeju, in addition to the tens of thousands of refugees we had from the mountains still living in camps outside villages, we received more than a hundred thousand refugees from the mainland. Food became even scarcer. Human filth lay everywhere. Diseases spread. And more people were rounded up. Anyone suspected of being a communist—or having ever attended a meeting that might be considered leftist—plus their wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, parents, and grandparents—was detained. It was said over one thousand were now in custody on Jeju, including some from Hado. We never saw them again either.
Those who’d been held in custody since the beginning of the 4.3 Incident were sorted into groups and labeled A, B, C, or D, depending on how dangerous they were perceived to be. On August 30, Jeju’s police were instructed to execute by firing squad the people in the C and D categories. The only good news in all this was that most members of the Northwest Young Men’s Association joined the army to fight against the northern regime.
And still we haenyeo rowed, sang, and dove. When we’d first been allowed back into the sea, Do-saeng had paired me with a woman named Kim Yang-jin, who had married, as a widow, into our part of Hado. She was my age. She kept her hair cropped short. She had bowlegs, which gave her an amusing style of walking, but they didn’t seem to hinder her underwater.
“As I enter the sea, the Afterlife comes and goes,” Do-saeng trilled as we headed to the open waters. “I eat wind instead of rice. I accept the waves as my home.”
And we sang back to her. “Ill fate, I do have. Like a ghost underwater, diving in and diving out.”
“Here comes a strong surge,” Do-saeng called. “Let us ignore it and keep diving.”
“Our husbands at home, smoking and drinking, do not know our suffering. Our babies at home, crying for us, do not see our tears.”
Far to our right, we spotted a boat filled with haenyeo. First, we had to make sure they weren’t from Sut-dong and that Mi-ja wasn’t among them. Several women grabbed their spears, knives, or prying tools, holding them low and out of sight in case we had to fight for our territory. Once we saw they weren’t our rivals, we rowed closer. I didn’t recognize any of the women on the boat. I glanced at my mother-in-law. She was ready for a confrontation, if these were poachers, but also ready to exchange information, if they were friendly.
We pulled up our oars as we neared. The two vessels glided toward each other, rising and falling over the swells, until we were close enough that we had to use our oars as prods to keep the boats from crashing into each other. The chief of the other collective spoke first.
“We’re sorry if we’re trespassing into your wet fields,” she said. “We decided to row away from home for a few days. We didn’t want to be followed back to our families.”
“Where are you from?” Do-saeng asked.
“We live to the east of Jeju City, near the airport.”
They’d rowed more than thirty kilometers to get here. Something or someone had frightened them not just out of their territory but very far from home. The women on the boat, all physically strong, were clearly shaken. None would meet our eyes.
“What happened?” Do-saeng asked.
The other chief didn’t respond. Sound travels far across the water, and wind can carry voices even farther. I reached out and grabbed the tip of an oar from the other boat. The women holding that oar grabbed mine. A couple of other paired women did the same until we were close enough to hear low voices but not so close that we’d damage our boats. Now we could share information without fear that it would be heard by the wrong ears onshore.
“We saw them dumping bodies in the sea,” the chief’s gravelly voice rasped.
“In the sea?” Gu-ja, who was sitting at the back of the boat with her sister, blurted, too loud.
“So many men . . .” The chief shook her head.
Do-saeng asked a practical question. “Will they wash ashore?”
“I don’t think so. The tide was going out.”
Yet again, there’d be no proof of what had happened. But it also meant—and this was so disconcerting that my stomach flipped—the sea had become like our home latrines. Only instead of the cycle starting from our bottoms, going into pigs’ mouths, and then later our eating the meat from their bodies, which would later fall out of our bottoms, it was starting with our own people, who were even now being consumed by fish and other sea creatures, which we would harvest and eat.
“What have you heard?” the chief on the other boat asked.
My mother-in-law then revealed something that she hadn’t told me or the collective in the bulteok. “The haenyeo chief in Sehwa says that her cousin saw several hundred people shot near the airport. They’ve all been buried there.”
I began to shake. Why, why, why did my countrymen have to turn on each other? Wasn’t the ongoing 4.3 Incident enough? Now we had an invasion and bloody war. To me, it was multiples upon multiples of sorrows and tragedy for families on both sides. We, the survivors, were linked together in an intricate web of grief, pain, and guilt.
Do-saeng offered to let the women spend the night in our bulteok. “But in the morning, you’ll need to leave.”
Over the following months, I found myself making offerings to different goddesses every day. I counted the ways I was lucky. One, my son was too young to fight. Two, the war never came directly to Jeju. That was it—One and Two—because in every other way these continued to be sad times. Those who’d participated in the uprising on Jeju and had been moved to mainland prisons were executed in case North Korean troops pushed far enough south to free those prisoners to fight by their sides. And right here on Jeju, high on Grandmother Seolmundae, rebels were still holed up, making weaker and weaker raids, unable to recruit new followers or resupply. The police continued to search and destroy camps and kill whomever they suspected of being rebels, even if that included a farmer, his wife, and his children. What I’m saying is that killing happened on both sides here on Jeju and on the Korean mainland. Guilty and innocent died every day across our country. This had been happening for years now. Imagine that for a moment. Day after day. Month after month. Seeing and smelling death, while mothers still tried to feed, clothe, and comfort their children.
* * *
Six months into the war, Do-saeng turned fifty-five. Everyone in the bulteok knew what that meant, but I took on the responsibility of saying the words.
“My mother-in-law has led us for twelve years,” I said. “We have not had a single death or injury under the sea during her leadership. Now it is time for her to gather algae and seaweed and spend time with her grandchildren.”
“Let us have a vote to elect our new chief,” Kang Gu-sun proposed. “I nominate my older sister, Gu-ja.”
I did my best not to glance in Do-saeng’s direction. We’d earlier agreed that someone other than she should nominate me, and she’d been quietly working on my behalf, so this came as a surprise. A betrayal, even.
“Gu-ja has always lived in Hado,” Gu-sun went on. “My sister did not marry out or move away. Most important, she has not been touched by grief.”
Do-saeng asked for other nominations. None came. She called for a vote, and Gu-ja won unanimously. Every moment was colored by sadness for me in those days, but I think the other haenyeo took my subdued reaction for humility.
“I will always be here to help Gu-ja,” Do-saeng said. “The deep-sea fields are gone from me, and I’ll miss them.”
Later, when we returned home, Do-saeng handed me something wrapped in a piece of faded persimmon cloth. “I had hoped things would go differently today,” she confessed. “While it’s not the custom, I even bought you a present.”
I peeled back the folds of the cloth and found a piece of glass surrounded by black rubber with a strap hanging from the back.
“We’ve all suffered with our small-eyed goggles,” Do-saeng explained. “The metal rims press against our faces, and the sides limit our vision. This is something new. The Japanese call them big eyes. You’ll see better, and they’ll cause no pain. You may not be the chief, but you’re the first haenyeo on Jeju to have big eyes.”