“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
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 the 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.