“Or couldn’t. Your mother had many children,” she said wistfully. “But look what you’re doing now. Three children in school. That’s more than any other family in the village.”
“I couldn’t do that without your help.”
She tipped her head in acknowledgment. Then, after a long pause, she said, “So tell me. What’s wrong?”
“I saw Mi-ja and her son today.”
“Don’t think about her—”
“How can I not? She lives a ten-minute walk from here. We do our best to avoid each other, but Hado is small.”
“So? In every village, victims live next door to traitors, police, soldiers, or collaborators. Now killers and the children of killers run the island. Is this so different from when you were a girl?”
“No, but she knows everything about me—”
“Who doesn’t know everything about you? As you said, Hado is small. Tell me your real concern.”
I hesitated, then asked, “What future can I give my children when we have the guilt-by-association system?”
“Those we lost were not guilty of anything.”
“That’s not how the government sees it. Anyone who died is considered guilty.”
“You could do what others have done and claim your husband died before April Three,” Do-saeng suggested.
“But Jun-bu was a teacher! He was known to everyone in Bukchon—”
“He was a teacher, true, but he was not an instigator, rebel, insurgent, or communist.”
“You say that as his mother.” Then I allowed myself to voice my deepest fear. “Could he have had secrets we didn’t know about?”
“No.”
It was a simple answer, but I wasn’t so sure. “He read the posters. He listened to the radio.”
“You told me he read the posters from both sides, so he could tell people what was happening,” Do-saeng said. “He listened to the radio for the same reason. The authorities probably think he was just a typical Jeju husband—”
“Who taught?”
“I was always proud of him for becoming a teacher. I thought you were too.”
“I was. I am.” Tears welled in my eyes. “But I can’t stop being afraid for my children.”
“Whatever my son did or didn’t do, you know that Yu-ri and Sung-soo did nothing wrong. They were victims. Those of us who are left are victims. But unlike many others, I don’t feel like we’ve been targeted.” She held my gaze. “We haven’t been forced to report to the police every month as some families have.”
“That’s true.”
“And have you ever had the sense we’re being watched?”
I shook my head.
“All right then,” she said decisively. “Just keep your focus on the good in our lives. Your son performs the rites for the ancestors, and he’s learning family duties like cooking. Min-lee is turning out to be a good diver, while Joon-lee . . .”
As she went on talking about the virtues of each of my children, I felt myself becoming calmer. My mother-in-law could be right. That we hadn’t been called to the police station or followed had to mean something. That didn’t mean we weren’t on a list somewhere, though.
* * *
By day six, the nondiving women had become more accustomed to being in their water clothes in front of the men. The scientists had gotten bolder too. At first, they’d taken care not to stare at us as we filed down to the shore, but now they gazed at us in the manner men do. I was particularly concerned about the way they gaped at Min-lee and Wan-soon. They were beautiful girls, slim, with happy faces and pretty skin. Looking at them together, I couldn’t help but think of Mi-ja and myself when we were that age. Or when we were older in Vladivostok. We hadn’t always realized the impression we were making, although we tried to be careful when we were on the docks. Our fears were concentrated more on what Japanese soldiers might do to us than on the looks we received from the men of Jeju or elsewhere. But Min-lee and Wan-soon weren’t old enough to remember the Japanese, and Wan-soon had seen nothing like what happened in Bukchon here in Hado. A saying my mother and father often recited came to my mind: For a tree that has many branches, even a small breeze will shake some loose. The meaning had always been clear to me. With children, there will be many conflicts, griefs, and problems. It was my job as Min-lee’s mother to prevent any of those things from happening.
Two days later, Dr. Park and his team left Hado. They promised to return in three months. Two days after that, on the fourteenth day of the second lunar month, exactly two weeks after we’d welcomed the goddess of the wind to Jeju, it was time to send her away. Once again, haenyeo and fishermen cautiously gathered at the shore. Kang Gu-ja took a prominent seat as chief of our collective. On this occasion, however, her sister and niece did not sit with her. Although the Kang sisters had bickered since childhood, the fact that Gu-sun and Wan-soon had gotten to participate in the study irritated Gu-ja in a way that none of us could have predicted, as if our swimming in frigid water for no money had somehow threatened her position and power. It could be an hour, a day, or a week before Gu-sun and Gu-ja warmed again to each other.
We made offerings of rice cakes and rice wine to the goddesses and gods. Then it was time for fortune-telling. The old women who traveled from village to village to fulfill this purpose sat on mats. Min-lee and Wan-soon sought out the youngest fortune-teller. I approached a woman whose face was dark and wrinkled from the sun. She didn’t remember me, but I remembered her because my mother had always trusted the futures she foretold. I got on my knees, bowed, and then sat back on my heels. The old woman filled her palm with uncooked rice kernels and tossed them in the air. I watched as my destiny rained down. Some kernels fell back onto the old woman’s hand; others fell to the mat.
“Six grains will mean you’ll have good luck,” she said, quickly covering the back of her hand. “Eight, ten, and twelve are not as good but good enough. Four would be the worst number I could tell you. Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.”
She removed the hand covering the kernels and counted. “Ten,” she said. “Not too bad, not too good.” With that, she flicked away the kernels, and they dropped through the spaces between the rocks around us.
I sighed. I would now make extra offerings and pray more. Others got bad readings. Some women cried at their prophecies; others laughed them off. Min-lee and Wan-soon both received sixes. Their fortune-teller asked them to swallow the kernels so they might carry their good luck.
Finally, under Shaman Kim’s watchful eyes, we wove miniature straw boats, each about a meter in length. We filled them with tributes and offerings, attached small sails, invited the goddesses and gods to board, and then sent the vessels out to sea. We tossed more rice wine and handfuls of millet and rice into the water. With that, spring officially arrived.
The day after the farewell rite, I started to cut sweet potatoes to mix with barley to make my children’s lunches appear more substantial when I remembered what Joon-lee had said about us looking poor. I opened an earthenware jar and dipped into my supply of salted anchovies to put on her barley. I expected her to thank me when she got home from school, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She ran in, opened her satchel, and pulled out a new book. The jacket showed a little girl wearing a ruffled skirt, apron, and ankle boots. Blond curls framed her face. She held an old man’s hand. Goats nibbled on grass. Behind them rose snowcapped mountains that seemed plentiful in number and awesome in height.