The Island of Sea Women

by Lisa See

  The screeching whine of a bullhorn cut across the school yard, and a man stepped forward. “I am the commander of the Second Regiment of the Third Battalion. If there are among you any family members of the police, the military, or those who work for us, please step forward. You will not be harmed.”

  Mi-ja fell into this category. “Go,” I whispered.

  “I won’t leave you,” she whispered back. “If I stay here, maybe I can help you. When Sang-mun comes, I’ll make him gather all of us. He’ll save us. I know just how to ask him.”

  I bit my lip, torn. I doubted he would put himself forward to help me and my family. More important, I doubted Mi-ja had influence over him. But I tried to believe her.

  The commander repeated his announcement, adding, “I promise you’ll be safely delivered to your families.” At that, a few people stood. Policemen and soldiers gathered their relatives and guided them away from whatever was going to happen to the rest of us. Once they were out of sight, the commander addressed us again. “We’re looking for the insurgents who killed two of my men in the early morning hours of this day.”

  My family was asleep when that happened, as were probably all the other families.

  “We’re also looking for those who’ve aided the enemy, and informants who’ve whispered of our movements.”

  I’d done neither. But . . . More than a year ago, I’d left food in my fields to help that mother and her children who’d been pushed from their mountain home. I’d whispered gossip with members of the collective when we were still allowed to work and with my neighbors in recent months. And I’d heard my husband bitterly condemn what was happening around us.

  “If you step forward now and confess, we will be more forgiving,” the commander shouted. “If you don’t step forward, then your family and friends will suffer.”

  No one accepted the offer.

  “Already we’ve gone to the villages surrounding Bukchon,” he went on. “We have rid Jeju of three hundred people, who claimed to be farmers.”

  Rid had to mean killed. But again, no one volunteered.

  “All right, then.” The commander motioned to the soldiers nearest to him. “Take any ten men you choose.”

  The soldiers waded through the sea of fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons, who sat in the dirt across from us. As the soldiers made their choices, I followed them with my eyes, searching for Jun-bu. The first ten men—mostly in their teens and twenties—were escorted from the playground into the elementary school. On our side of the yard, the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters of those men began to sob. All I could feel was relief that the soldiers hadn’t taken Jun-bu.

  Soon enough, Jeju’s relentless wind carried screams to our ears as the men were tortured. I was frozen with fear. I prayed to Halmang Jacheongbi, the goddess of love, who is independent, determined, and unafraid of death, but the men were not returned to the yard. Another ten men were gathered and taken inside. Again, their womenfolk keened with grief, followed by wails of agony, then eerie silence.

  I met Mi-ja’s eyes. I could not fathom what she was thinking.

  “If I’m going to die here,” I announced, “then it’s going to be with my children.”

  After the next group of men was taken inside, I began to scoot on my bottom through the crowd. Mi-ja came with me.

  “Have you seen my children?” I asked those around me every few meters. “Have you seen Granny Cho?”

  I was not the only one making inquiries.

  During one of our hazardous ventures to the perimeter, we came close—too close—to an ambulance. The back doors were open, and we could hear men inside arguing.

  “I fear we’re going to need to kill everyone here,” rasped a man.

  “That’s impossible.” I recognized the commander’s voice and felt a shard of hope. Then he went on. “But if we let them live, how will we provide their necessities—clothes, food, and housing—after burning everything?”

  “And we can’t have witnesses.”

  “But it’s—what?—a thousand people,” the commander asked.

  “Not that many, sir. Only a few hundred . . .”

  Just then, the ambulance driver opened his door, lurched to the edge of the yard, and vomited. A moment later, the commander and his officers poured out the back of the ambulance. As they strode away in V formation, Mi-ja and I scooted back into the crowd. We didn’t tell people what was coming. Panic wouldn’t help.

  I’d been reduced to an animal wanting to protect its young, acting from instinct as old as the earth. Mi-ja and I approached the front of the gathering, going to the one area we’d most feared. We were getting close to the soldiers with their weapons when Mi-ja choked out in a half whisper, half cry, “Look!”

  A few meters ahead of us, through the heads of about a dozen people, I saw Granny Cho and Yu-ri. My daughter, Min-lee, sat safely tucked between them. Yu-ri held Sung-soo, my eldest son, in her lap, while their little brother, Kyung-soo, was asleep on Granny Cho’s shoulder. Relief swept through me. My three children were safe. Now all I had to do was make my way to them without attracting attention. And then find my husband.

  Mi-ja and I had almost reached them when the commander marched once again to the open space between the two groups.

  “We take your men, but you don’t care. Let us see what happens when we ask questions of one of your daughters.”

  He reached out and grabbed the closest person who met his requirements. It was Yu-ri. Sung-soo fell from her lap, stood, and was about to run when Granny Cho grabbed the tail of his tunic and held him back.

  Someone shouted, “That girl is dumb! She won’t be able to help you!”

  I buried my face in my hands, realizing the voice belonged to my husband. He was alive, and he was here.

  “Who said that?” the commander demanded. “Who knows this girl? Step forward now! Give your life for hers.”

  “No,” I wailed.

  Yu-ri groveled on the ground, terrified. When the commander flicked his wrist and several men strode to her, my husband did the only thing he could. He rose to his feet.

  “That girl is my sister. She does not speak. She will not be able to help you.”

  The commander turned to my husband, his eyes gleaming. “And who are you?”

  “I am Yang Jun-bu. I am a teacher in this school.”

  “Ah! A teacher. The worst of the instigators.”

  “I am not an instigator.”

  “Let’s see what your sister has to say about that.”

  The soldiers moved on Yu-ri and began ripping at her clothes. They did not have torture in mind. My husband tried to run forward, but the strong arms of our neighbors held him back, pulling on his legs from where they sat. He screamed in anger. I used the distraction to rise to a crouch and go the final distance to Granny Cho and my children. I swooped my daughter into my lap. I felt Mi-ja drop down next to me. My eyes shot between Yu-ri, my husband, and the commander.

  Goddess, any goddess, help us. My sister-in-law was in the hands of the soldiers. I couldn’t allow my brain to consider what they might do to my husband, when, seemingly out of nowhere, Mi-ja’s husband came running across the yard.

  “Commander! Commander!”

  Sang-mun carried Yo-chan, dressed to visit his grandparents in a sailor suit.

  Sang-mun frantically gestured to the commander. He knew Jun-bu, but he seemed unaware that my husband was right there.

  “My wife is here. Let me find her!” he implored. “She’s in the protected category!”

  He said not a word about Jun-bu. Inside I was sending a message: Look!

  In my lap, my daughter struggled, wanting to run to Yo-chan.

  “Mi-ja!” Sang-mun shouted. “Come!”

  I grabbed Mi-ja’s arm. “Take my children.”

  “I can’t,” she said without a moment’s hesitation.

  Those two words felt like a knife turning in my belly.

  “You must.”

  “They know I ha
ve only one child. And Yo-chan is already with his father.”

  “These are my babies—”

  “I can’t.”

  “They’re going to kill us. Please,” I begged. “Take them.”

  “Maybe I can take one . . .”

  But what was she thinking? Earlier she’d said she could help us. Taking one child was not helping us!

  “Mi-ja!” Sang-mun yelled again.

  She hunched her shoulders like a beaten dog.

  Before us, Yu-ri had been stripped naked. My sister-in-law, who’d never hurt a soul and didn’t understand what was happening, scrambled to her knees. A soldier kicked her down.

  “One,” Mi-ja repeated. “You will need to choose.”

  My insides were being ripped apart. Rage and disappointment in Mi-ja. Hope that somehow she’d still be able to help us. And desperation, because how could I possibly make the decision she was demanding of me? Save my daughter, who would one day join me in the sea? Save Sung-soo, my oldest son, who would be able to provide for all of us when we reached the Afterworld? Save Kyung-soo, who was his father’s favorite?

  “It has to be Sung-soo,” I said, “for the rest of us will die here today. Take him. Make sure he performs ancestor worship for us in the years to come.”

  Next to me, Min-lee whimpered. She was old enough to understand I hadn’t chosen her. I would need to comfort her during our final moments together, but before I could begin, Mi-ja said something that soured my blood.

  “I’ll need to speak to Sang-mun first and see if he agrees.”

  Speak to him first? See if he agrees?

  “I have to protect my son, too, you know” was the last thing she said to me before rising. Rifles and pistols swung in her direction. The movement caught Sang-mun’s attention, and he pointed Mi-ja out to the commander, who again flicked his wrist, this time allowing her to pass. Everyone watched as she walked, her beautiful gait slowed even more by terror. With attention momentarily focused on Mi-ja, my husband broke away from the arms that held him and rushed toward his sister. The soldiers seized him, using their strength to subdue his struggles. Behind them by just two meters, Mi-ja whispered into her husband’s ear. I watched and waited.

  “You want to mount her instead?” the commander asked Jun-bu.

  The soldiers now shoved Jun-bu forward. I wanted to cry out, but I had to protect my children too. I looked toward Mi-ja. Sang-mun seemed puzzled, just now taking in what was happening. And what was Mi-ja doing, taking her son into her arms when she should have been pleading mercy for my family?

  “People can be made to do all sorts of things,” the commander said.

  “Perhaps,” my husband said, his voice as thin as thread. “But I will not.”

  I tried to cover my daughter’s eyes, but I wasn’t fast enough. Another flick of the wrist from the commander, and a soldier lifted and shot his pistol. My husband’s head split apart like a melon being broken open with a rock.

  And then everything, again, seemed to happen at once. My husband toppled. Sang-mun put his palm to his forehead as he realized what had happened. Granny Cho must have loosened her grip, because Sung-soo suddenly broke loose and ran toward his father. Another shot rang out. Dust skipped up at my son’s heels.

  “Don’t waste the bullets,” the commander shouted. “You’ll need them later.”

  So that soldier picked up my boy by an ankle. Sung-soo fought and kicked, until the soldier grabbed hold of his other ankle. Then that man swung my son back like he was going to throw a net into the sea, only it was my son who sailed through the air until his little body came up against the wall of the school. He went completely limp. The soldier lifted what I already knew was deadweight and repeated the action three more times.

  Sang-mun grabbed Mi-ja’s arm and began to walk away.

  “Mi-ja!” I screamed. “Help us!”

  She kept her face turned, so she didn’t see what happened when the soldiers decided to stop wasting their time with Yu-ri. She had not been able to speak for all these years, but she screamed when they cut off her breasts. Her agony was my agony. Then she stopped screaming.

  Within a matter of seconds, I lost my husband, my son, and my sister-in-law, for whom I’d felt responsibility since my first dive as a haenyeo. And Mi-ja, my closest and oldest friend, had done nothing to help.

  I stopped breathing, holding in air longer than could be possible, as if I were in the deepest part of the sea. When I couldn’t hold it any longer, I sucked in not the quick death of seawater but instead unforgiving, unrelenting, life-giving air.

  And then the shooting began.

  The Village of Widows

  1949

  There are those who say no one survived the Bukchon massacre. Others say that only one person lived. Still others will tell you that four survived. Or you’ll see accounts that say 300 people died. Or maybe it was 350, or 480, or 1,000 people . . . Some will tell you about the group of one hundred or so survivors, who were herded to Hamdeok, where they ended up being “sacrificed.” So, yes, there were those who lived. One grandmother wrapped her grandson in a blanket and tossed him in a ditch. He crawled out under cover of darkness. Some families managed to live through the first night and escape past the wall that marked the ring of fire. And then there were the wives, parents, and children of police officers and soldiers, who were protected in the rice-hulling room until the massacre ended.

  I will tell you this. More people died in Bukchon than in any other village during all the years of the 4.3 Incident. Those who survived the three days of torture and killing—whether in the school or in one of the small villages nearby—were forced to help deal with hundreds of bodies. Disposal—some might call it covering up the evidence—turned out to be a logistical problem. We dug a huge pit. Then we dragged the bodies of our neighbors and loved ones to the edge and dumped them in. Only after the soil was replaced were we released. We were told we were the lucky ones.

  When I left the school yard with Min-lee and Kyung-soo, we joined a trail of people paralyzed by what we’d witnessed. We had nothing to return to, since every house in Bukchon had been burned, but the need for survival brought us together. We repaired tumbled stone walls. We gathered thatch to put roofs over our heads. In the meantime, we slept in tents provided by the American military. We scavenged through every burned-out house for any foodstuffs that might have survived the flames. We ate what we could of the pigs that had been roasted alive in their sties. I found a cabbage that hadn’t already been stolen. Since I didn’t have salt, I used ocean water and a few red chili flakes to make kimchee, soaking the mixture in a stone bowl for two nights and then putting it in earthenware jars. I did whatever I could to feed my children, even if that meant sneaking out at night to dive. And that was the only time I could be by myself, for Min-lee—knowing I was willing to give her up in favor of a brother—now stuck to me like an octopus on a rock.

  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 th
e 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.