The Island of Sea Women

by Lisa See

  During our fourth dive, the water began to reverberate with deep pulses. A ship was coming. The sea creatures retreated into caves and crannies. We wouldn’t be able to harvest again until the waters had calmed, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t profit. We’d been told that Japanese soldiers couldn’t get by without a daily ration of sea urchin roe, while the Chinese wanted dried squid, fish, and octopus to carry in their knapsacks. The Soviets were indiscriminate. They’d eat anything.

  The boatman picked us up, and we put on our coats to cover our near nakedness from whoever was coming. The Soviets, who weren’t participating in the Pacific War, were considered relatively harmless. If it had been a Japanese ship, then we would have needed to get back in the water and let the old man handle business, because the cloven-footed ones were known to steal young women and take them to special camps to be used by their soldiers as comfort women. This ship, however, had an American flag.

  Our small boat pitched as the destroyer neared. It was long but not that tall. Dozens of sailors bunched together against the railings, staring down at us and calling out. We didn’t understand the words, but they were young men away from home with no women on board. We could guess at their loneliness and their excitement. One man, wearing a different hat than the other sailors, gestured for us to come closer. A rope ladder was thrown down, and Gu-ja grabbed it. Five men moved like spiders down the webbing until they reached us. As soon as the first one was aboard our vessel, he drew a weapon. This was not uncommon. Four of us raised our hands; Gu-ja still held on to the ladder.

  The man with the special hat barked orders in English to his men and pointed to different spots on our boat that they should search. They found no weapons. Once they understood that we were just an old man and four haenyeo, the man with the special hat shouted up to his ship, and in moments another man came scrambling down the net. He wore a grease-stained apron. The cook yelled at us, as if that would help us comprehend him. When it didn’t work, he bunched his fingers and thumb together and tapped them on his lips. Food. Then he tapped his chest followed by his open palm. I’ll pay.

  Gu-sun, Mi-ja, and I opened our nets. We showed him our sea urchins. He shook his head. Mi-ja held up the octopus she’d caught. The cook drew a hand across his throat. No! I motioned him over to another net that had already been sorted and held sea snails. I took one, brought the opening to my lips, and sucked out the meaty morsel. I grinned at the cook, trying to convey how delicious it was. Then I scooped up two handfuls of the snails and offered them to him. Take, take. “Good price,” I said in my dialect. The cook pointed a finger at the snails, then the men, and finally down his throat as if forcing himself to throw up. He didn’t have to be that insulting.

  The cook put his palms together and wove his hands from side to side. He looked at me questioningly. Do you have fish?

  “I have fish!” the old boatman said, not that the cook could understand the words. “Come. Come.”

  The American cook bought four of the old man’s fish. Great. He’d been sitting on his boat idling away his time, while we were in the water. And now we’d wasted a half hour of diving.

  After the Americans climbed back up their webbed ladder, our two vessels drifted apart, leaving us heaving and yawing in the ship’s wake as it churned away from us.

  It was time for lunch. The boatman gave us kimchee. The hotness from the chilies warmed us from the inside out, but a bit of fermented cabbage was not enough to replace the energy we’d expended or minimize our disappointment.

  “My sister and I are still hungry,” Gu-ja complained loudly.

  “Too bad,” the boatman said.

  “Why not let us cook the fish you didn’t sell?” Gu-ja asked. “My sister and I can make a pot of cutlass fish soup—”

  The old man laughed. “I’m not wasting it on the four of you. I’m taking it home to my wife.”

  Mi-ja and I exchanged glances. We didn’t hate the old man. He was responsible in many ways. He made sure our day did not last longer than eight hours, which included the travel time back and forth from the harbor. He was vigilant about the weather, probably caring more for his vessel than for our safety. But Mi-ja and I had already decided we wouldn’t sign up for another season with him. There were other boats and other boatmen, and we deserved to be fed properly.

  * * *

  We lived in a boardinghouse for Korean haenyeo tucked in an alley down by the docks. On Sunday, our one day off, the landlady made us porridge for breakfast. The servings were small, but once again, we were warmed by the chilies. As soon as our bowls were empty, the Kang sisters disappeared behind the curtain that gave us privacy in our room. They’d sleep away the rest of the day.

  “Can you imagine doing that?” Mi-ja asked. “I’d never waste the hours of light in the darkness of slumber.”

  Plenty of times I would have wanted to stay on my sleeping mat all day, especially when I was bleeding and my stomach and back ached, but Mi-ja wouldn’t allow that, just as she never allowed homesickness to overtake me. She always organized our excursions. After five years of traveling to different countries, electric lights (not that our boardinghouse had them), automobiles (not that I’d been in one yet), or trolleys (too expensive!) didn’t impress me any longer. It’s funny how quickly you can get used to new things, though. Mi-ja remembered “sightseeing” with her father, and now we had our own adventures. We liked to walk along the wide boulevards, lined with multistoried buildings—old, ornate, and unlike any we had on Jeju. We hiked up Vladivostok’s hill to reach the fortress, which had been built decades ago to defend the city from Japanese raids. We commemorated each experience not by writing in diaries or sending letters back home—neither of which we could do—but by making rubbings of the things we saw: the solid base of a filigreed candelabra that stood just inside the entrance of a hotel, the raised brand names of automobiles on fenders or trunks, a decorative iron plaque embedded in a wall.

  On that morning, we weren’t in a hurry. We dressed in the better sets of the two pairs of clothes we’d brought with us, I stuffed my underwear with cotton rags, we put on our mufflers, coats, and boots, and we went out into the streets. The morning was crisp and the sky clear. Steaming air escaped from our mouths with each breath. We saw a few men staggering back to their ships or rented rooms. A couple of them had women with painted faces hanging on their arms. Ours was not a good part of town. It could be rough, and the smell—from men who relieved themselves on walls or vomited their alcohol in the alleys after the wild release of a Saturday night, combined with the pervasive odors of fish, oil, and kimchee—made for a foul stew. The alleys grew into lanes, then into streets, and finally into boulevards. Families walked past us, the fathers pushing babies in strollers, the mothers holding hands with older children, many of whom wore matching coats, hats, and mittens. Of course, many of them stared at us. We were foreign in our skin coloring, eyes, and clothing.

  We didn’t want to waste a page of Mi-ja’s father’s book, so we looked for something unique. We entered a park, strolling the pathways until we came to a statue of a woman who looked like a goddess. Her white marble gown flowed about her, the expression on her face was serene, and she carried a flower in her hand. Her other hand was open, the palm reaching out to us. The lines across her palm were so real that they seemed to match those on my own flesh-and-blood hand.

  “She’s too beautiful to be Halmang Juseung,” I whispered to Mi-ja. This was the goddess who, when she touches the flower of demolition upon the forehead of a baby or child, causes its death.

  “Perhaps she is Halmang Samseung,” Mi-ja said, also keeping her voice low.

  “But if she’s the goddess of fertility, childbirth, and young children, then why is she carrying the flower?” I asked tentatively.

  Mi-ja chewed on her bottom lip as she thought about this. Finally, she said, “Either way, when we come here after we’re married, we’ll bring offerings, just to be safe.”

  With that settled, I spread a
piece of paper over the goddess’s palm, and Mi-ja rubbed coal over the paper. We were both concentrating so hard, watching the lines of the goddess’s palm limn pathways across and over the words, that we didn’t register the sound of footsteps coming near until it was too late.

  “Koreans! You!” When the policeman began to yell other things we couldn’t understand, Mi-ja grabbed my arm and we ran as fast as we could out of the park. We dashed through the families that crowded the sidewalks and down a side street. Our legs and lungs were strong. No one could catch us. After three blocks, we stopped, hands on our knees, panting, laughing.

  We spent the rest of the day wandering. We didn’t enter any of the cafés that lined the central square. Instead, we sat on a low wall and watched people coming and going. A little boy with a blue balloon in his mittened hand. A woman in high heels clickity-clacking down the street, a fox fur stole draped carelessly over the shoulders of her wool coat. Rich and poor, young and old. Sailors were everywhere too, and they tried to talk to us. They smiled, they cajoled, but we didn’t go with any of them. Some of those boys were awfully handsome, though, and they made us giggle and blush. We may have been stupid Korean country bumpkins in our homemade clothes dyed with persimmon juice, but we were young, and Mi-ja was extremely beautiful.

  Another two sailors approached. They wore heavy wool trousers, thick sweaters, and identical caps. One had a grin that twisted up on the left side of his mouth; the other had a thick and unruly mop of hair that sprouted from under his cap. Of course, we couldn’t understand a word they said, so they gestured, grinned, and bobbed their heads at us. They looked nice enough, but Mi-ja and I were steadfast in our rules about Soviet boys. We knew too many haenyeo who’d gotten pregnant away from home. Those girls were ruined forever. We’d never let that happen to us. That said, we were haenyeo—strong in our own ways—but we were still girls, and a little flirting wouldn’t hurt us. Through much finger pointing and laughter, we determined that one was Vlad and the other was Alexi.

  Alexi, the boy with the messy hair, trotted into one of the cafés, leaving Vlad to stand guard over us. A few minutes later, Alexi returned, carefully balancing four ice cream cones interlaced between his fingers. Mi-ja and I had seen people eat them, but we never would have treated ourselves to such an extravagance. Alexi handed out the cones, then he and his friend sat on the wall on either side of us.

  Mi-ja’s tongue tentatively darted out, touched the creamy ball, then just as quickly withdrew. Her face was very still, perhaps remembering the desserts of her childhood. I didn’t wait for her commentary. I stuck my tongue out all the way—like I’d seen other people do—and took a big lick. The air was already cold, but this was so cold! It froze the top of my head just as intensely as diving off the boat into icy waters, but while the ocean was salty, this was sweeter than anything I’d ever tasted. And the texture! I ate my ice cream too fast and had the pain of watching the three of them finish theirs. As soon as Mi-ja was done, she jumped off the wall, waved, and set out in the direction of the docks. I would have liked to stay with Alexi longer—maybe he’d buy me another cone or some other treat—but I didn’t want to be separated from my friend. When I slid off the wall, both boys groaned theatrically.

  Vlad and Alexi followed us, perhaps thinking they might have a chance, perhaps even thinking we might not be as innocent as we looked. But just as we were about to enter the red-light area, we turned and entered the Korean district. The boys stopped, unwilling to go farther. Soviets were known to be tough, but our men were far better fighters, and they would protect us now that we were in the Korean quarter. When we looked back at Vlad and Alexi—was Mi-ja tempting them to follow us?—they shrugged, clapped each other on the back—we gave it a try—and set off. My feelings were mixed. I wanted to get married, which meant I couldn’t be a girl who got in trouble. At the same time, I was intrigued by boys—even foreign boys. Yes, we should have been more like the Kang sisters—staying inside, not taking risks, and guaranteeing that our reputations remained intact—but where was the adventure in that? Either Mi-ja and I were walking a fine line or we were tempting fate.

  “I thought you’d like the one with all that hair,” Mi-ja commented.

  I giggled. “You’re right. I don’t like it when a man’s head is too close shaven—”

  “Because you think it makes him look like a melon.”

  “What about you and the way you ate your ice cream? Those poor boys!”

  This is how we were: we affectionately teased each other. We knew these foreign men meant nothing to us. We wanted to marry Koreans. We wanted perfect matches. Last year when we went home for the harvest, Mi-ja and I visited the shrine of Halmang Jacheongbi, the goddess of love. Her name means “wants for oneself,” and we were clear about what we wanted. We made sandals from straw to give to our future husbands as engagement gifts. We also began buying things to take into our new homes: sleeping mats, chopsticks, pots, and bowls. My marriage would be arranged. The wedding itself would take place in the spring, when cherry blossoms swirled through the air, fragrant, pink, and delicate. Some girls knew their future husbands for a long time, having grown up in the same village. If I were lucky, I would get to exchange a few words with my future husband at the engagement meeting. If I were less fortunate, then I wouldn’t see him until the day of our ceremony. Either way, I dreamed of loving my husband at first sight and of a union between two people fated to be together.

  When we entered the boardinghouse, Gu-ja and Gu-sun were sitting on the floor, bowls in hand, their stockinged feet tucked to their sides. We took off our coats, mufflers, and boots. The landlady handed us bowls of millet porridge flavored with dried fish. It was the same meal that we’d had the night before and the night before that and almost every night before that.

  “Will you show us your rubbing from today?” Gu-sun asked.

  “Please tell us what you saw,” Gu-ja added.

  “Why don’t you come with us one of these days?” Mi-ja suggested. “Find out for yourselves—”

  “It’s dangerous, and you know it,” Gu-ja replied tartly.

  “You’re just saying that because you are now an obedient wife,” Mi-ja remarked.

  I knew Mi-ja meant it as a joke—in what circumstance could a haenyeo be called obedient, after all?—but Gu-ja must have heard it as an insult because she shot back, “You only say that because no one will ever marry you—”

  In just a few sentences, a mild inquiry had turned hostile. We all knew that Mi-ja’s prospects for an arranged marriage were challenging, but why deliberately hurt her when we had to dive tomorrow? The simple explanation was that we spent too much time together, our lives were in each other’s hands six days a week, and we were all homesick. The damage was done, however, and Gu-ja’s comment—so thoughtless—brought added darkness to the already dim room. Trying to shift the mood, Gu-sun repeated her initial question. “Will you show us what you made today?”

  Mi-ja silently pulled out her father’s book. “You show them,” she said.

  I took the volume from her and stared from it to her questioningly. We both knew the rubbing we’d made today was still in her pocket and not yet tucked into the book for safekeeping. Mi-ja was silently letting me know she didn’t want to show Gu-ja and Gu-sun our new image. Now she shifted her body so that her right shoulder blocked the view of her face from the rest of us. In the crowded room, this was her way of finding a little privacy so she could nurse her hurt feelings.

  “Here,” I said, opening the book and leafing through the pages to show the sisters different rubbings from the world just outside this dreary enclave. “This is from the foot of a statue outside a government building. This is from the side of a toy truck we found left in a square. I like this one a lot. It’s the bumpy metal siding of a bus that we rode one day to a mountain park. Oh, and here’s one of some bark. Do you remember that day, Mi-ja?”

  She didn’t respond. The two sisters weren’t interested either.

&n
bsp; “Do you know the fortress we can see up on the hill when we sail out of the harbor?” I asked. “This shows how coarse the walls are—”

  “You’ve shown these to us before,” Gu-ja complained. “Are you going to show us what you saw today or not?”

  “Maybe if you were a little nicer,” Mi-ja said, her back still to us. “Maybe if you could be a single drop nicer.”

  Her words were sharp, and Gu-ja went quiet, realizing perhaps that she’d gone too far. But what this exchange showed me was how much Gu-ja’s comment about my friend’s marriage prospects had stung. I understood with sudden clarity that Mi-ja might long to be married even more than I did. If she were married, she could create her own family with a mother, father, and children.

  Later, we sat together under heavy quilts on our sleeping mats, sharing body warmth and whispering so as not to disturb the Kang sisters, who huddled together on the other side of the curtain on their sleeping mats. Mi-ja and I quietly examined the rubbing we’d made that day, comparing it to our others. We’d been friends since we were seven, and we’d been collecting rubbings for fourteen years. Commemorations. Remembrances. Celebrations. Memorials. We had them all, and they eased our loneliness and homesickness. And our worry too, since we couldn’t know when Jeju might be bombed or invaded.

  As usual, the last rubbing we looked at was the first we’d made: the rough surface of a stone in the wall that surrounded my family’s field. My fingers smoothed the paper, and I whispered to Mi-ja a question I’d asked her many times before. “Why didn’t I make a rubbing on one of the days of my mother’s funeral or memorial rite?”

  “Stop punishing yourself for that,” Mi-ja answered in a low voice. “It only makes you melancholy.”

  “But I miss her.”

  Once my tears started, Mi-ja’s came too.

  “You knew your mother,” she said. “All I can do is miss the idea of a mother.”