The Island of Sea Women Read online

  “It is good for a city boy to be matched with a city girl,” Grandmother remarked, when what she could have said was that the sons and daughters of collaborators deserved each other.

  “Exactly,” Sang-mun’s father agreed. “We don’t need to have families traveling back and forth between Jeju City and here.”

  At last, I understood. Lee Han-bong didn’t want to have anything to do with Mi-ja’s family or the village she’d called home for the last fourteen years. What a disgusting man. And what a terrible loss of face for Mi-ja’s aunt and uncle. But they didn’t say anything. They may have spent years being cruel to Mi-ja, but now they could benefit from the Lee family’s influence. They were showing their usual hypocrisy.

  “You will find that Mi-ja has not lost her city ways,” Grandmother went on smoothly. “In fact, she has lived and worked abroad. She has much experience—”

  “I knew the girl’s father and even her mother,” Lee Han-bong interrupted. “I’m guessing the girl doesn’t remember me, but I remember her very well.” Even at these words, Mi-ja didn’t glance in his direction. “She always wore a big white bow in her hair.” He smiled. “She looked pretty in her little boots and petticoats. Most people prefer to bring in a daughter-in-law who has grown up in a large family, because it shows that she has the skills to get along with everyone.”

  “And work hard—”

  “But my son is an only child as well. Sang-mun and Mi-ja have this in common.” He went on to discuss other benefits of the match, which had less to do with the idea of sharing provisions than it did with Mi-ja’s and Sang-mun’s physical characteristics. “Neither of these children has skin too dark,” he commented. “I’m sure you’re aware how surprising this is for a sea woman. But once Mi-ja is married to my son, her days of working in the sun will be over. Her face will return to that of the girl I once knew.”

  I listened to all this with a breaking heart. I watched the formal exchange of gifts. I knew Mi-ja had bought her future husband a camera, but I couldn’t tell from the shape of Sang-mun’s family’s gift what it might be, except that it wasn’t a traditional roll of cloth for her to make wedding clothes. (But why would Japanese collaborators give her such a Korean gift?) As soon as the negotiation ended and small glasses of rice wine had been poured for the men to cement the deal, I slowly rose, backed out of the yard, and ran through the olle toward home. Tears poured down my cheeks until I couldn’t see. I stopped, covered my face, and wept into the rock wall. How could I have had such ridiculous dreams? Sang-mun never could have been interested in me, and I shouldn’t for one instant have wanted to marry the son of a collaborator.

  “Young-sook.”

  I cringed at the sound of Mi-ja’s voice.

  “I understand why you’re sad,” she said. “I couldn’t even look at you back there for fear I would begin to weep. We wanted to marry boys in Hado, so we would always be together. And now this . . .”

  In my jealousy and hurt, I hadn’t absorbed that Mi-ja would be leaving Hado for good. How could I have let one short encounter with a man with a handsome face and an enchanting laugh so sway me away from my friend that I hadn’t thought about what the consequences of a marriage to him—whether hers or mine—would mean to our friendship? Mi-ja and I would be separated. I might see her if I was going through the port for leaving-home water-work, but otherwise no responsible wife would spend money frivolously on a boat ride around the island or a truck carrying produce to a five-day market just to see a friend. I had been disconsolate before, but now I was devastated.

  “I don’t want this marriage,” she confessed. “Auntie and Uncle would sell the hairs off my head to profit from me, but what about your grandmother? I begged her not to do this.”

  I found my emotions shifting yet again. “You had to know how I felt about him,” I said reproachfully.

  “I’d guessed,” she conceded. “But even though I knew your feelings doesn’t mean I had a say in what happened. I told your grandmother everything. I begged her . . .” She faltered. Finally, she resumed. “You’re lucky you don’t have to marry him. Anyone can see he is not a good man. You can tell by the strength of his arms and the curve of his jaw.”

  Her observations shocked me. Just as I felt heat creeping up my spine, Mi-ja burst into tears.

  “What am I going to do? I don’t want to marry him, and I don’t want to be away from you.”

  And then we were both crying and making promises neither of us could possibly keep.

  Later, back home, I sobbed into Grandmother’s lap. With her, I could speak more freely about my confused emotions. I’d hoped to marry Sang-mun, I told her. I was disappointed, but I was also angry at Mi-ja. Maybe she hadn’t stolen him, but she’d won him nevertheless, and it stung. She would be a city wife—enjoying paved roads, electricity, and indoor plumbing. “Sang-mun might even hire a tutor for her!” I wept, outraged, jealous, and still so very hurt.

  But Grandmother wasn’t interested in comforting me. Instead, she poured out her disgust with Lee Han-bong, Sang-mun’s father. “That man! He comes here with his oily words, talking about a one-day marriage, and acting like he’s trying to save Mi-ja’s aunt and uncle from having to travel. He was saying they’re too poor to hold a proper wedding, and he didn’t want his friends to see it. He pretended he wants a pretty wife for his son—a girl that he and his friends remember from better circumstances—but he was trying to save face among his friends. He didn’t care at all for what this might do to Mi-ja’s aunt and uncle.”

  “But you’ve never liked them—”

  “Liked them? What does that have to do with anything? When he insults them, he insults everyone in Hado! He’s a collaborator, and he has too much Japanese thinking in him.”

  This was about the worst thing she could say about anyone, since she so hated the Japanese and those who helped them. I rubbed my eyes with my palms. I was thinking too much about myself.

  Next to me, Grandmother still stewed. “Mi-ja said his hands are smooth.”

  “Lee Han-bong’s?”

  “Of course not.” She snorted. “The son’s hands.”

  I asked the obvious questions. “How do you know? Who told you?”

  “Mi-ja said he grabbed her when they were walking from the port.”

  “He grabbed her? She would have told me—”

  “That poor girl was doomed to tragedy from the moment she sucked in her first breath,” Grandmother went on. “You must pity her when you have such good fortune. Don’t forget I’ve been working on an arrangement for you too.”

  I was such a girl—swept up in a swirl of feelings I was too young to understand—and I struggled to make my heart and mind change course. I had wanted Sang-mun. Mi-ja had told me she didn’t want to marry him, and maybe the reason Grandmother gave was true. But if it were true, Mi-ja would have told me. I was sure of it. Maybe everything Grandmother said was to make me feel better that I wasn’t as pretty, as pale, or as precious—with white bows in my hair—as Mi-ja. Every twist made me doubt my friend when we’d always been so close.

  “I can’t tell you who he is, but I know you’ll be happy,” Grandmother declared. “I would never arrange a marriage for you with someone you wouldn’t like. Mi-ja is a different story. Her choices were always limited, and she deserves what she gets.” Then a mischievous look passed over her face. “Your husband is arriving by ferry tomorrow.”

  “Is he a mainland man?” I asked, knowing that this was what Mi-ja had wanted for herself.

  Grandmother smoothed the hair from my face. She stared into my eyes. Could she see the pettiness in them? Or maybe she saw deeper, to my feelings of sorrow and betrayal. I blinked and shifted my gaze. Grandmother sighed. “If you are on the dock tomorrow . . .” She slipped a few coins in my hand. “Here’s enough to pay a fisherman to take you by boat to the city. I’m giving you this gift—a modern gift of a glimpse of the man you will marry before the engagement meeting. I caution you, though, to stay out of sight.
You don’t want him to see you! There’s modern, and then there’s tradition.”

  My insides swirled with emotions. Again, I sensed Grandmother assessing me.

  “When you’re a wife,” she went on, “you’ll learn how to deprive your husband of a little of his allowance—‘My harvest wasn’t plentiful this week,’ or ‘I had to pay extra dues to the collective for more firewood’—so that you’ll have money to spend on yourself. You and Mi-ja will be separated, but a free day and a little cash will always bring the two of you together.”

  On the Sleeping Mat

  August–September 1944

  The next morning, Mi-ja and I rode on a wind-driven raft to the harbor. We sat on the seawall and waited. We’d always been so close, but there was tension between us now. I didn’t ask what Sang-mun did or didn’t do to her, and she didn’t volunteer the story. We were looking for my husband now. Grandmother hadn’t told me which ferry he’d be coming in on or given any clues about what he looked like. He could be tall or short, with thick or thinning hair, with a prominent nose or one that was wide and flat. If he were from the mainland, he might be a farmer, fisherman, or businessman. But really, how did Grandmother expect me to pick him out of a crowd?

  Mi-ja peered through the eddies of Japanese soldiers looking for her husband-to-be. I tried to reconcile this in my mind. Did she want to see him or was she afraid to see him? If she saw him, would she speak to him? Would she let him hold her hand? Or would he grab her, as Grandmother said had happened? If Sang-mun and Mi-ja were found talking now that their wedding had been settled, it would soil her reputation, not his.

  The ferry from Busan arrived. As crewmen secured the vessel, Mi-ja and I scanned the deck. Was my future husband the one with the bushy eyebrows? He was handsome! We watched another young man come down the gangplank. He was so bowlegged, I looked away for fear of laughing. I had to hope Grandmother wouldn’t match me with a man who would stir even more mockery than the typical lazy husband. (Besides, she’d told me I’d be happy.) In the end, there were few passengers, and none of them looked like a potential husband. Maybe he wasn’t a mainland man, after all. A disappointment. But Grandmother had also told me my match was better than the one she’d made for Mi-ja. I vowed to stay optimistic.

  Mi-ja and I ate a simple lunch of cooked sweet potatoes that I’d brought from home. We ignored the looks and comments from the soldiers and dockworkers. After a couple of hours, the ferry from Osaka arrived. Important male passengers disembarked first. We saw Japanese soldiers, of course, and a few Japanese businessmen in fine suits, with bowler hats and walking sticks. These men were followed by women wearing kimonos, taking tiny steps as they balanced on their wooden platform sandals. Those women could never trot over prickly rocks to the sea or haul in a catch. They were put on earth, it seemed, to look beautiful, as were the other Japanese women, who were dressed in the Western style, their hems brushing their calves, and small hats pinned to their heads. Then the men from Jeju, who’d been working in Osaka, began to trail down the gangplank, carrying bags and boxes of things they’d purchased for their families—or maybe their brides—in the same way Mi-ja and I had done when we returned from Vladivostok. Most of them looked thin and dirty.

  I spotted a familiar face. It was Jun-bu, Yu-ri’s brother. He hesitated at the top of the gangplank. His gaze arced across the wharf. He wore a Western-style suit. His eyes were as dark as charcoal. His hair, cropped short, was the color of chestnut bark. Wire-rimmed glasses rested on his nose, a reflection of all the reading and studying he’d been doing since we were kids. I lifted my arm to wave, but Mi-ja grabbed it and pulled it down by her side.

  “You can’t meet your future husband like this!”

  I laughed. “He’s not my future husband! His mother would never allow it!”

  She dragged me into the shadows anyway. “You know what your grandmother said. Under no circumstances should the two of you see each other before the engagement meeting.”

  We watched until every person had disembarked. I saw no one else who might be a potential husband.

  “How lucky you are to marry someone you’ve known your entire life.” On the surface Mi-ja sounded happy for me, but underneath I heard the black dread of her coming circumstances, which I still didn’t understand.

  “But we already know each other,” I said. “What difference will it make if he sees me?”

  Nevertheless, Mi-ja kept me out of sight as Jun-bu threaded his way to the fishing boats to catch a ride home. “He’s a scholar and so smart. Lucky, lucky, lucky!”

  I was thinking that he still had one more year of college, which meant that at least I wouldn’t have to live with him for very long before he went back to Japan, but I had other concerns too.

  Hours later, after we returned to Hado, Mi-ja and I walked together to our customary spot in the olle and said our goodbyes. I watched her disappear around the corner, and then I ran home. The lantern light burning in the little house told me Grandmother was still awake. When I peeked in the door, she motioned me inside. I asked if she’d matched me to Jun-bu; she answered yes.

  “But how could his mother ever want me?” I asked. “I’m a reminder of what Do-saeng lost. Yu-ri—”

  “It’s true. Your mother-in-law will look at you and see tragedy, but now you can help care for Yu-ri.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” This wasn’t what I was hoping for.

  Grandmother ignored my despair. “On the good side, your mother was Do-saeng’s closest friend. Your presence will bring your mother closer to Do-saeng.”

  “But doesn’t she blame me for—”

  Again, Grandmother didn’t let me finish. “What other complaints do you have?”

  “Jun-bu’s educated.”

  Grandmother nodded somberly. “I discussed this with Do-saeng. You can now help pay for his schooling.”

  “When I haven’t been able to help my own brothers?”

  “Jun-bu is going to be a teacher—”

  “Aigo!” I moaned. “I’ll always seem a fool to him.”

  Grandmother slapped me. “You are a haenyeo! Never for one moment believe you are unworthy.”

  I gave up trying to persuade her, and I hadn’t even mentioned that marrying someone I’d known my entire life felt more like marrying a brother than like gaining a husband to lie with and share love.

  * * *

  Do-saeng and her son came to the house the next day for the engagement meeting. I wore clean clothes and sat on the floor, staring straight ahead much as Mi-ja had done. Curiosity snuck up on me, though, and I peered over at Jun-bu a couple of times. He’d changed from his Western-style suit into homemade trousers and tunic. His glasses caught the light from where the side slats of the house were propped open, so I couldn’t see his eyes. Nevertheless, I could tell from his stillness that he was doing as good a job as I was at keeping his emotions hidden.

  “Young-sook is a hard worker,” Grandmother began. “And she has bought or made the items needed to establish a home.”

  “Her hips are like those of Sun-sil,” Do-saeng observed. The meaning was clear. She had only been able to bring two living babies into the world, while I might birth as many children as my mother had. “The little house in which the husband and wife will reside will give them the privacy needed to make their own meals and get to know each other.”

  “Then let us proceed quickly to have the geomancer select a propitious date.”

  Gifts were exchanged. I gave Jun-bu the radio I’d bought and the pair of straw sandals I’d made. He placed several lengths of cloth on the floor. They were not colorful. I’d be dressed in traditional persimmon-dyed clothing for my wedding ceremony. I’ll admit this was another disappointment.

  With that, we were formally engaged. Mi-ja’s new family wanted her to move quickly into her new life; Do-saeng wanted things to happen rapidly too, because Jun-bu would return to college in Osaka in mid-September. As a result, Mi-ja and I traveled on swiftly moving, but distin
ctly different, currents.

  To begin, two days after my engagement meeting, Mi-ja and Little Sister helped me carry the sleeping mats, blankets, bowls, chopsticks, and cooking utensils I’d acquired through my hard work to Do-saeng’s compound by the shore. The courtyard between the big and little houses was neat. Do-saeng’s diving gear was piled in a corner, and several overhead lines were hung with squid to dry in the sun. Yu-ri stood in the shade, a rope wrapped around her ankle to keep her from wandering away from home. This was the first I’d seen her since returning from Vladivostok. She smiled, possibly recognizing me, possibly not. Jun-bu was not there. The little house had one room and a small kitchen area. By the time we finished putting my things away, women and girls from the village began to arrive to see for themselves what I’d bought in my travels. That night, I stayed alone in my new house. The next morning, I went back to my father and siblings.

  The following morning, just ten days after arriving back on Jeju, I helped Mi-ja pack her things. She made no attempt to be happy. I felt equally miserable. Whatever jealousy I’d once carried had been washed back to sea. Now all I could think about was that I would no longer see Mi-ja every day.

  “I wish there was a way I could still share my heart with you,” I confessed.

  “That we will be apart is too much to abide,” she agreed, her throat hitching.

  I struggled to help her see the happiness of her situation. “You’ll go back to living as you did when you were a child. You’ll have electricity. Sang-mun’s family might even own a telephone.”

  But even as I said these things, I thought how hard all that change would be for her. On one side, she’d lived in Hado for too long. On the other side, Jeju City was nothing compared to Vladivostok or the other big cities we’d gone to for leaving-home water-work.

  “How will I know what you’re doing?” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes glistened with tears. “We can’t exchange letters. I don’t remember how to write apart from my name, and neither of us knows how to read—”