On her third dive, her mind begins to relax. She tunes in to the thrum that connects her to the earth, to those she’s lost, to love. The way the blood pounds in her head makes her feel alive. When she’s in the sea, she’s in the womb of the world.
And she forgets to be cautious.
Young-sook dives deeper than she’s gone in years. The water pressure is harder on her now. She remembers when she could go down twenty meters… Deep enough to crush a plastic bottle. But that was before plastic bottles…
Returning to the surface… Aaah. Her sumbisori sighs out across the swells. She takes in several panted breaths. She’s making many short dives in a narrow time span, releasing her sumbisori, then gulping in air for her next dive. She knows better, but the water feels so good. On her next dive, she’ll try for her old twenty meters, just to see if she can. One last intake of breath, then head straight down, kicking hard. Down, down, down she goes. She’s aware of other haenyeo watching her, which makes her bolder. Finally, for a few precious seconds, she’s able to forget the family she met on the beach, their photos, and their daughter, who looked so much like Mi-ja. But in those moments of forgetting, she loses track of the most important thing—air. Now she must return swiftly to the surface. She can see it… Then things start to go black…
Her friends are waiting for Young-sook by her tewak when, unconscious, she breaks the surface. Together, they pull her to the boat. The boatman grabs Young-sook by the back of her wet suit, while the women lift her up from below. Once everyone is on board, the boatman pushes the throttle. One of the women calls for help on her cellphone. Young-sook is aware of none of this—her eyes closed, her body limp.
An ambulance waits for them at the shore. Young-sook, awake now, already berates herself for being so foolish.
The doctor in the emergency room is a woman, young, pretty, and born on the island to a haenyeo mother. Dr. Shin’s questions are nonetheless pointed and embarrassing. She ticks off a list of symptoms and possible causes. “Perhaps this is what you haenyeo call shallow-water blackout. It could have been caused by hyperventilation before your dive. I’ve seen several deaths from this. You take too many rapid inhales to expand your breath-holding capacity, but this type of hyperventilation lowers your carbon dioxide levels. This, in turn, can cause cerebral hypoxia.”
The technical terms mean nothing to Young-sook, and it must show on her face, because the doctor explains, “When the brain stem forgets to send the signal that you need air, you pass out in the water. But you keep breathing… Water… If people hadn’t been there…”
“I know. Quiet drowning,” Young-sook says, using the haenyeo expression for what happens when a diver loses her thinking capabilities and takes a breath as normally as if she were on land. “I wasn’t taking proper care with my breathing, but that’s not what happened.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“All right,” Dr. Shin says when it becomes clear that her elderly patient has nothing more to add. Then she goes on, musing to herself. “We can rule out a heart attack, but should we consider nitrogen narcosis? Deep diving can cause general physical impairment but also a feeling of euphoria—loss of judgment aggravated by forgetfulness that comes from exultation, for example. Some say these moments of bliss are what addict the haenyeo to the sea.” She purses her lips, nods sharply, and returns her focus to the woman before her. “Did you forget about breathing and the distance to the surface, because you were feeling elation, ecstasy, and joy—like you weren’t in your own body anymore?”
Young-sook is barely listening. She aches all over, but she doesn’t want to admit it. How could I have been so stupid? she asks herself, sure the doctor thinks the same thing.
“What about the cold?” Dr. Shin asks. “The human body cools very quickly in cold water.”
“I know that. I dove in winter. In Russia—”
“Yes, I’ve heard this about you.”
So, Dr. Shin knows Young-sook’s reputation…
“You should be more careful out there,” the doctor says. “You have a dangerous job. I mean, do you see men doing it?”
“Of course not!” Young-sook exclaims. “The world knows that the cold water will cause their penises to shrivel and die.”
The doctor shakes her head and laughs.
Young-sook turns serious. “Actually, I’ve seen haenyeo die the moment they hit cold water.”
“Their hearts stop—”
“But it wasn’t very cold today—”
“What does that matter?” Dr. Shin asks, letting her impatience come through. “At your age, even diving in warm weather is dangerous.”
“I have some numbness on the right side of my body,” Young-sook suddenly reveals, but what she’s feeling is much worse than that. The aches have turned into burning agony.
“Strokes are common for women who’ve been diving as long as you have.” Dr. Shin stares at her, assessing. “You look like you’re experiencing pain.”
“I hurt everywhere.”
The doctor’s eyes light with understanding. “I should have recognized this right away, but it’s hard when patients aren’t forthcoming. You’re a breath-hold diver. I think you’ve got decompression sickness—”
“I didn’t go down that far—”
“You haenyeo learned from your mothers and grandmothers, but what they taught you is the worst thing you can do. All those short breaths, followed by a deep dive, where you hold your breath for the entire time, and then the quick rise to the surface. And then you do it again and again and again? It’s terrible and very dangerous. You’ve got the bends. You’re lucky the air bubbles in your veins and lungs haven’t reached your brain.”
Young-sook sighs. She won’t be the first haenyeo on Jeju to spend time in a hyperbaric chamber. Still, she worries. “Will I be able to dive again?”
The doctor examines her stethoscope, refusing to meet Young-sook’s eyes. “There comes a point when you can no longer cheat the limits of the human body, but if I told you no, would you stop?” When Young-sook doesn’t respond, the doctor goes on. “What happens next time if you fall unconscious underwater? Sudden death at your age would not surprise me.”
Young-sook shuts out the doctor, not wanting to hear the lecture.
She closes her eyes as she’s wheeled through the corridors to another room. Nurses help her into a tube that looks like a coffin with a window that allows her to look out. She’s told she’ll have to remain in the hyperbaric chamber for several hours.
“Do you want us to play music?” a nurse inquires.
Young-sook shakes her head. With that, the nurse dims the lights. “I’ll be right here. You aren’t alone.”
But in the chamber, Young-sook is alone. In the past, before we had modern medicine, I would have died. But in the past, I would have had Mi-ja to protect me. Things spiral from there, and all the thoughts she’s been trying to avoid since meeting that family yesterday crowd in around her.
PART II
Love
Spring 1944–Fall 1946
Leaving-Home Water-Work
“Did my mother give birth to me only so I would have callused hands?” Mi-ja sang.
“Did my mother give birth to me only to have future prosperity?” we sang back to her.
“Look at how well our boatman goes!” Mi-ja trilled.
“Money, money that doesn’t speak,” we responded, matching her rhythm. “Money, money that I take home. Go, boatman, go.”