“She helped bring you here,” he said. “Let’s see how else she can help.”
With that, the men went back to conducting their tests. They didn’t let Joon-lee handle a single instrument, but they used her to explain to us—in words we could understand—what they were doing. It turned out our average age was thirty-nine years. We averaged 131 centimeters in height and fifty-one kilos in weight. (Or, as one of the American scientists put it, “A little over fifty-one inches tall and one hundred and twelve pounds.”) About fifteen minutes later, the doctors asked us to remove our land clothes. The haenyeo among us had never been shy about showing our bodies. We’d all seen each other naked, and we’d lived for generations with the stigma of nakedness. Still, despite Dr. Park’s sentiments about the team being doctors and scientists, it was embarrassing to step out of our trousers and jackets in front of them. The women who weren’t divers were the most uncomfortable. They’d probably never worn so few clothes in front of a man apart from their own husbands, and it proved too much for one woman, who decided to drop out of the study. Now the haenyeo and non-haenyeo were equal again, with nine women on each team.
This was the coldest time of year, which was why we chose this period to Welcome the Goddess. Even so, a haenyeo is accustomed to freezing temperatures, while the nondiving women squealed and yipped as they tiptoed across the rocks, the bitter wind raising goosebumps and turning their skin blue. Joon-lee sat on the sand and hugged her knees to her chest to keep warm. The rest of us entered the water and paddled about ten meters offshore. Do-saeng and I dove down together. We knew this area well. The water wasn’t too deep, and light filtered to the ocean floor. Spring was coming, and what happens on land—leaves sprouting and flowers budding—also happens in the sea. Seaweed grows with the warmth of the sun. Sea creatures mate and have babies. When I came up for breath, I swam to Gu-sun to ask her to tell Gu-ja, her sister and our chief, about an area I’d spotted with many sea urchins we’d be able to harvest in the coming weeks.
Within five minutes, the nondiving women went to shore. As they disappeared into the tent, I headed back down. I managed to stay in the water for a half hour—the same amount of time as when Mi-ja and I used to dive in Vladivostok. The scientists wanted to see shivering. This I could give them.
When I returned to the tent, the nondiving women were on their cots, having a repeat of the earlier tests. Joon-lee went from cot to cot, talking to each woman, trying through small talk to distract her from her various levels of discomfort—the cold, the men, the way they spoke, the instruments, the foreignness of it all.
Dr. Park approached me. “I hope you’ll permit me to do your tests.”
I nodded, and he slipped the glass tube into my mouth. I tried to assess him without being too obvious about it. He seemed young, but maybe that was because he hadn’t spent a life outdoors. His hands were soft and surprisingly white. As had happened earlier, he spoke into a recording device. Again, I understood very little of what he said.
“Today the water was ten degrees Centigrade, fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Subject Six remained submerged for thirty-three minutes. Her postdive skin temperature, five minutes from exiting the water, has dropped to twenty-seven degrees Centigrade, eighty point six degrees Fahrenheit, while her oral temperature is thirty-two point five Centigrade, ninety point five Fahrenheit.” He met my eyes. “That is a remarkable level of hypothermia. Now let’s see how long it takes you to return to normal.”
He then moved on to Do-saeng. A different doctor took my temperature every five minutes. I returned to “normal” after a half hour. “Would you go into the sea again at this point?” he asked.
“Of course,” I answered, surprised he would ask such a stupid question.
“Remarkable.”
Do-saeng met my eyes. Remarkable. This was beyond our comprehension.
* * *
The next day, the doctors performed the same tests. On the third day, they asked Joon-lee to bring towels and blankets to us when we came out of the ocean. By the fourth day, we’d grown more accepting of their peculiar ways. And they were so easy to tease. We repeated the words they used in singsong voices, making them laugh. Min-lee and Wan-soon were the biggest instigators, and the doctors loved them. On the morning of the fifth day, our little group was just about to enter the tent when I spotted Mi-ja standing on the seawall. Her son straddled a bicycle next to her. By now everyone in the village knew about the science experiment, and many people had come to the wall to gawk and point. I could imagine Mi-ja wanting to be a part of the study. Maybe she even felt jealous that I had this opportunity. Surely this was Mi-ja’s reason, because by bringing Yo-chan and his bicycle she was showing off what she could give her son.
Joon-lee interrupted my thoughts by pulling on my sleeve and exclaiming, “Look, Mother! Yo-chan has a bicycle! Can I get one too?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But I want to learn how to ride—”
“That’s not something girls do.”
“Please, Mother, please. Yo-chan has one. Shouldn’t we have at least one for our family?”
Her excitement disturbed me. First, of course my daughter would know Yo-chan and his mother, but that didn’t mean I liked it. Second, we were only here because I’d wanted to give Joon-lee an opportunity, but now it seemed she’d completely forgotten about the study in favor of the bike’s shiny metal.
Up on the seawall, Mi-ja abruptly turned and limped away, but the boy remained where he was, staring in our direction. I realized he wasn’t looking at me but at Min-lee and Wan-soon. The three of them attended the same school and had many of the same classes together. All three were sixteen, old enough to get married, old enough to get in trouble. I nudged the girls’ shoulders to make them move along.
Yo-chan was gone by the time we exited the tent in our diving costumes. The water was just as freezing as it had been all week. Once again, the dry-land women lasted only a few minutes, while the rest of us stayed in the water until we were shivering badly. When I came out, Joon-lee was there with my towel.
“Mother,” she said, “can I have a bicycle? Please?”
My youngest daughter could be fickle, but she could also be determined.
“Do you want to be a scientist or a bicycle rider?” I asked.
“I want to do both. I want—”
I cut her off. “You want? We all want. You complain when I put a sweet potato in your lunch for school, but I had years when my only meal of the day was a single sweet potato.”
Unfortunately, this pointed Joon-lee in another—but sadly familiar—direction. “Other kids get white rice, but the food you give us makes it look like we’re living a subsistence life.”
“I buy white rice for the New Year’s Festival,” I said, stung. Then, defensively, “I often put barley in your lunch—”
“Which is even more embarrassing, because that means we’re really poor.”
“What a lucky child you are to say that. You don’t know what poor means—”
“If we aren’t poor, then why can’t I have a bicycle?”
I wanted to tug her hair and remind her that the money I saved was for her and her siblings’ educations.
That night, after dinner, Wan-soon came over, as she usually did, and the three girls went out for a walk. I made citrus tea and took two cups across the courtyard to Do-saeng’s house. She was already on her sleeping mat, but the oil lamp still burned.
“I was waiting for you,” she said. “You seemed upset all day. Did one of those men do something to you?”
I shook my head, sat on the floor next to her, and handed her the cup of tea.
“You were a good mother to Jun-bu,” I said. “You sent him to school when many haenyeo didn’t.”