I smelled smoke and heard the crackle of fire before I saw it. When we darted around a corner, burning balls careened toward us. They were rats on fire! Behind them, flames shot up from thatch roofs, with several houses already engulfed. Men in uniforms and carrying torches jogged from house to house, igniting more roofs.
“Come! There’s another way!” I shouted.
We turned and sprinted back the way we’d come, pushing through those who were coming toward us. But soldiers were everywhere. We were quickly surrounded.
“Do not move!” one of them shouted at us.
“Do not run!” another yelled.
But my children! I looked frantically in every direction. I had to get home. Another dozen or so people ran into the same trap that had caught Mi-ja and me. Surely every one of us wanted to flee—out of a desire to live or to find our families—but with rifles pointed at us and flames heating our backs, we had to obey. If I was shot in this olle, I could not help my children, and I wouldn’t find my husband and my sister-in-law. The haenyeo in me was filled with righteous anger. I will survive for my family. I will protect my family.
The soldiers herded us like cattle, pushing us forward. Other soldiers with more captives flowed into our group.
Mi-ja held my upper arm in a fierce grip. “Where are they taking us?” she asked, her voice tremulous.
I had no answer. Mi-ja and I were in the middle of the pack. Bodies pressed against us on every side. We were funneled around another turn and came into the olle with the row of teachers’ houses, where I lived. I squeezed through the press of humans until I reached the edge. The gate to my courtyard was pulled open. Yu-ri’s tether lay limp and useless. The door to the house was ajar. It seemed like no one was there, but I shouted anyway. “Min-lee. Sung-soo. Granny Cho.” No answer. I hoped Granny Cho had taken the children to a secure place—whether to her own home or to the fields. But deep in my heart, I knew that wasn’t likely. I was sick with terror, but my blood felt like molten steel. I let myself be pulled back into the crowd.
“The school.” I did not recognize the voice that came out of me. “They’re taking us to the elementary school.”
“Jun-bu—” Mi-ja said.
“Maybe he already has the children.”
We were steered through the school’s main gates. Husbands, brothers, and fathers were separated and pushed to the left. Many of them still carried babies and small children in their arms. The rest of us, including old men, were shunted to the right. At the point of separation, the ten Bukchon elders, who’d taken the two dead soldiers to Hamdeok in an attempt to avert reprisals, were stretched out like seaweed to dry on the playground. They’d each been shot in the head.
“Keep moving! Keep moving!” soldiers yelled at us.
My limbs bumped into those ahead of me. I was shoved from behind. Mi-ja clung to my arm. There was comfort in having her with me. At the same time, I fought the urge to shake her off. I had to find my children.
I rose on my tiptoes, hoping to see Jun-bu and the children, but the entire population of Bukchon seemed to be here. Having heard of whole villages being wiped out—burned to the ground, all inhabitants killed—I was terrified, thinking what the soldiers might do to us.
We came to an area with another group of soldiers, who had new orders for us. “Sit! Sit! Sit!”
In an undulating wave, we dropped to the ground. Around me people sobbed. Some prayed to goddesses. One old woman chanted a Buddhist sutra. Babies wailed. Older children cried for their mothers. The old men hung their heads. A few people, weak or sick, lay crumpled on the ground, too exhausted to move. Opposite us, across a barren stretch of dirt, sat the men and teenage boys of Bukchon. Above us, black crows circled. Their dinner was coming.
Soldiers stood with their legs spread to anchor themselves to the ground. Their weapons swung back and forth, roaming over us, searching for anyone who might try to bolt. Smoke clogged the air, making it hard to breathe. The whole village, except for the school, seemed to be on fire.
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.