“We’re almost there,” Mi-ja said and began to gather the bags. The few people who were working in the fields lifted their heads when the truck stopped. We jumped off. The loud island voices of our neighbors greeted us.
“Mi-ja!”
“Young-sook!”
A mother sent one of her children to run to my house to announce my arrival. Women on the truck threw our belongings down to us. We were about half done unloading when whoops and calls began to reach my ears. There, running up the olle, were Third Brother and Little Sister. They looped their arms around my waist, burying their faces into each of my shoulders. Then Little Sister pulled away, hopping about in excitement. She was sixteen now and already working as a haenyeo in Do-saeng’s collective. Our lives would be easier now if the Jeju saying held true: A family with two daughters of diving age will have no problems borrowing money or paying their debts. I was so happy to see her! But not everyone had come, and I looked down the olle for the rest of the family.
“Where’s Father? Where are First and Second Brothers?”
Before they could answer, the truck driver yelled out the window. “Hurry up! I can’t wait here all day!”
With my siblings’ help, Mi-ja and I caught the rest of our things as they were tossed to us. Third Brother picked up what he could and started down the olle toward home just as Mi-ja’s Aunt Lee-ok and Uncle Him-chan appeared. Mi-ja bowed deeply to them, but they barely noticed, so focused were they on what we’d brought home.
“Young-sook has arrived with more than you,” Mi-ja’s aunt nitpicked. “She’s thinner too. Did you eat your earnings?”
I tried to intervene. “I bought different sizes of things. My pile only looks like more—”
But Mi-ja’s aunt ignored me. “Did you buy white rice?” she asked Mi-ja.
“Of course not!” I objected, trying again to protect my friend. “Mi-ja is always practical—”
“Yes, Auntie Lee-ok, I have brought white rice.”
I was stunned. Mi-ja must have purchased it when I wasn’t with her. She worked so hard and gave so much of herself. She shouldn’t have been buying them something so frivolous. This wasn’t the time to ask her about it, though, and I couldn’t have inquired anyway, because Third Brother came running back to help Little Sister and me. In minutes, I was trailing after my siblings, leaving Mi-ja alone with her aunt and uncle.
The sounds of my sandals echoing in the olle and the waves rhythmically crashing to shore felt reassuring and welcoming. I was home! But as soon as we stepped through our gate, I sensed something was wrong. The space between the main house and the little house, where Grandmother lived, looked untidy. The side slats to Grandmother’s front wall were raised and sitting on bamboo poles. She slowly struggled from the floor to stand. She ducked under the slats and joined us. Even when I was a small child, she had looked old to me, but these last nine months had diminished her vitality. As I glanced questioningly to my brother and sister, a feeling of dread shuddered through me. Their greeting just minutes ago, I realized, had been less about happiness than about relief, for my sister especially. It had been her job to shoulder responsibilities for the family while I was away.
Once again, I asked, “Where is Father? Where are our brothers?”
“The Japanese took our brothers,” Little Sister answered. “They were conscripted.”
“But they’re only boys!” Or were they? First Brother was nineteen and Second Brother was seventeen. Many soldiers in the Japanese army were far younger than that. “When were they taken?” I asked, thinking that if it had happened recently I might have a chance to get them back.
“The Japanese grabbed our brothers just after you left,” Little Sister answered.
So nine months ago.
“Maybe I can trade some of the food and other provisions I bought in exchange for their release,” I suggested, trying to be positive.
They looked at me sadly. Despair washed over me.
“Have you heard any word of them?” I asked, still trying to find something auspicious in my homecoming, but the three of them stared at me woefully. “Are they here on Jeju?” That would mean only hard labor.
“We haven’t heard anything,” Grandmother said.
My family had been reduced yet again, and I hadn’t known. Whatever happiness I’d had coming back to Jeju—meeting Sang-mun, anticipating the joys of reaching home, and seeing my siblings’ faces—melted away, leaving my insides blackened by sadness. But I was the eldest in our family. I was a haenyeo. It was my purpose to be a provider of goods and stability. I formed what was surely a thin smile and tried to reassure my siblings.
“They’ll come home. You’ll see,” I said. “In the meantime, let’s sell some of the things I brought home. We can use that money to send Third Brother to school for a while.”
My sister shook her head. “It’s not safe. He’s barely fourteen. The Japanese will take him to help build one of their barricades or send him to battle. I’ve told him he needs to stay hidden at home during the day.”
I was pleased to see that my sister had good judgment. This trait would serve her well as a haenyeo. Still, all this sorrow was hard to take in. But the news about my brothers wasn’t the worst shock. That came when my father staggered home very drunk long after midnight.
On my first morning home, the weather was miserable. Thick clouds blanketed the island. The hot and humid air felt oppressive. A downpour would begin soon, but it wouldn’t refresh. It would just be more warm liquid to mix with my sweat. I spent the day bent over, digging up sweet potatoes without damaging the skins, then dividing the tubers into three bins: what we would eat soon, what we would sell to the refinery to be made into alcohol, and what we would slice, dry, and store—another tedious chore—for winter eating. I would have much preferred to be under the sea.
I felt unsettled. It wasn’t that I missed honking cars, buses, and trucks, or the roar of factories, canneries, and refineries. Rather, I missed hearing Jeju’s whistling wind, which was drowned out by the rumble of Japanese planes as they took off without stop from the three air bases they’d built on the island. The roar of the engines of those birds of death was an endless reminder of Japan’s intentions for the Pacific.
So, above me, images of death. Beneath me, the soil. Beside me, Mi-ja, as always. Next to her, Little Sister, who wouldn’t stop talking about boys. She was more interested in them than we were, and she kept asking about when she would get married.
“Custom says I should wed first,” I said. “Whining won’t change that. You’re too young anyway!” I tried to soften my tone. “You’re a pretty girl, and if you turn out to be a hard worker, Grandmother will easily find a match for you.”
“Easily?” Little Sister echoed as she dug deep into the earth with her spade, lifted out a sweet potato, and gently shook away the loose dirt. “There aren’t many Jeju men left. Haven’t you noticed?”
I recited the usual excuses: “Our men have died at sea in typhoons and other storms. They were killed or exiled by the Mongols, and now—”
“Now they’re being conscripted by the Japanese,” my sister finished for me. In her concern for her own nuptials, she didn’t seem to care that she was talking about something that had happened to our own brothers. “I’ve seen lots of girls my age already go into arranged marriages, but no proposals have come for me.”