“Baby-divers would only cause more problems—”
“In a rescue—”
I could barely take in what they said.
Other women began to arrive. I forced myself to sit up. Mi-ja and the Kangs went to the edge of the boat and reached down their arms. I joined them and helped grab Yu-ri. She felt heavy—a deadweight. We pulled her up and over, and we fell back to the deck. Yu-ri lay on top of me, not moving. The boat pitched, and she rolled to the side. Do-saeng came next, followed by my mother. They knelt next to Yu-ri. As the other haenyeo clambered aboard, Mother lowered her cheek to Yu-ri’s mouth and nostrils to feel if any breath escaped.
“She’s alive,” Mother said, sitting back on her heels. Do-saeng and some of the other haenyeo began to rub Yu-ri’s limbs, seeking to bring life back into them. Yu-ri didn’t respond. “We should try to empty her of water,” Mother suggested. Do-saeng edged out of the way. Mother pressed hard on Yu-ri’s chest, but nothing came out of her mouth. Unsuccessful, Mother said, “We must consider that the octopus saved her life by covering her face. Otherwise she would have inhaled water…”
The other women circled back in for their massaging.
Mother suddenly turned her attention to Mi-ja, the Kang sisters, and me. She regarded us, considering our actions. We were supposed to stay together. Mi-ja and the Kangs had, but they looked embarrassed. Mother didn’t have to say a word before the excuses began to sputter out.
“I saw her the last time I came up for air,” Gu-sun stammered.
“We were never out of Yu-ri’s sight,” Mi-ja choked out. “She watched over us all day.”
“She said she saw something big,” I mumbled.
“And the two of you went. I saw you go, even though I’d sounded the call.”
I couldn’t bear that Mother would think I’d been partly responsible for what had happened to Yu-ri, so I said, “We didn’t hear you.” I lowered my gaze and shivered—from shock, sadness, and now shame that I’d lied to my mother.
Mother shouted for everyone to take her place. We picked up our oars. The boat lurched as it began moving over and through the white-capped waves. Do-saeng remained by her daughter’s side, pleading with her to wake up. Yu-ri’s future mother-in-law took responsibility for leading our song. “My shoulders on this icy night shake along with the waves. This small woman’s mind shivers with the grief of a lifetime.” It was so mournful that soon we all had tears running down our cheeks.
Mother placed a blanket over Yu-ri and another over Do-saeng’s shoulders. Do-saeng wiped her face with a corner of the rough cloth. She spoke, but her words were carried away by the wind. First one woman then another stopped singing, each of us needing to hear Do-saeng. Yu-ri’s future mother-in-law kept our rowing rhythm going by beating the wooden handle of a diving tool on the edge of the boat.
“A greedy diver equals a dead diver,” Do-saeng lamented. We all knew the saying, but to hear it from a mother about her own daughter? That’s when I learned just how strong a mother must be. “This is a haenyeo’s worst sin,” she went on. “I want that octopus. I can sell it for a lot of money.”
“Many things exist under the sea that are stronger than we are,” Mother said.
She wrapped an arm around Do-saeng, who then expressed her worst fear. “What if she doesn’t wake up?”
“We have to hope she will.”
“But what if she remains like this—suspended between this world and the Afterworld?” Do-saeng asked, gently lifting her daughter’s head and placing it in her lap. “If she’s unable to dive or work in the fields, wouldn’t it be better to let her go?”
Mother pulled Do-saeng in closer. “You don’t mean that.”
“But—” Do-saeng didn’t finish her thought. Instead, she smoothed strings of wet hair away from her daughter’s face.
“None of us yet know what the goddesses have planned for Yu-ri,” Mother said. “She may wake up tomorrow her usual chatterbox self.”
Yu-ri didn’t wake up the next morning. Or the morning after that. Or the week after that. In desperation, Do-saeng sought help from Shaman Kim, our spiritual leader and guide, our divine wise one. Although the Japanese had outlawed Shamanism, she continued to perform funerals and rites for lost souls in secret. She was known to hold rituals for grandmothers when their eyesight began to fade, mothers whose sons were in the military, and women who had bad luck, such as three pigs dying in a row. She was our conduit between the human world and the spirit world. She had the ability to go into trances to speak to the dead or missing, and then transmit their messages to friends, family, and even enemies. Do-saeng hoped Shaman Kim would now reach Yu-ri’s soul and bring her mind back to her body and her family.
The ritual was held in Do-saeng’s home. Shaman Kim and her helpers wore colorful hanboks—traditional Korean gowns from the mainland—instead of Jeju’s usual drab trousers and jackets. Her assistants banged on drums and cymbals. Shaman Kim spun, her arms raised, calling out to the spirits to return the young haenyeo to her mother. Do-saeng openly wept. Jun-bu, Yu-ri’s brother, who was just beginning to develop peach fuzz on his cheeks, tried to hold in his emotions, but we all knew how much he loved his sister. Yu-ri’s future husband was pale with grief, and his parents did their best to comfort him. It was painful to see their sorrow. Still Yu-ri didn’t open her eyes.
That night, I told Mi-ja my secret—that Yu-ri had asked me to disobey my mother, and I had. “If I hadn’t agreed to go down one more time, Yu-ri wouldn’t be the way she is now.”
Mi-ja tried to comfort me. “It was Yu-ri’s duty to watch over you. Not the other way around.”
“I still feel responsible, though,” I admitted.
Mi-ja mulled that over for a few moments. Then she said, “We’ll never know why Yu-ri did what she did, but don’t tell anyone your secret. Think of the pain it will bring to her family.”
I also thought of the agony that would be added to my mother’s heart. Mi-ja was right. I had to keep this a secret.
After another week, Do-saeng asked Shaman Kim to try again. This time the ceremony was held in our bulteok—hidden from the prying eyes of the Japanese. In fact, no men attended. Not even Yu-ri’s brother. Do-saeng carried her daughter to the bulteok and laid her next to the fire pit. An altar had been set up against the curved stone wall. Offerings of food—so scarce—sat in dishes: a pyramid of oranges, bowls holding the five grains of Jeju, and a few jars of homemade alcohol. Candles flickered. Mother had offered to pay Jun-bu to write messages for Yu-ri on long paper ribbons. He did it for free. “For my sister,” he told me when I went to his family’s house to pick them up. Now the ends of the ribbons had been tucked into the wall’s rocky crevices, their tails flapping in the breeze that squeezed through the cracks.
Shaman Kim wore her most colorful silk hanbok. A sash the tint of maple leaves in spring tied closed the bright blue bodice. The main part of the fuchsia gown was so light that it wafted about her as she moved through the ceremony. Her headband was red, and her sleeves gleamed the hue of rapeseed flowers.
“Given the dominance on Jeju of volcanic cones, which are concave at the top like a woman’s private parts, it is only natural that on our island females call and males follow,” she began. “The goddess is always supreme, while the god is merely a consort or guardian. Above all these is the creator, the giant Goddess Seolmundae.”
“Grandmother Seolmundae watches over us all,” we chanted together.
“As a goddess, she flew over the seas, looking for a new home. She carried dirt in the folds of her skirt. She found this spot where the Yellow Sea meets the East China Sea and began to build herself a home. Finding it too flat, she used more of the dirt in her gown, building the mountain until it was high enough to reach the Milky Way. Soon her skirt became worn and tiny holes formed in the cloth. Soil leaked from it, building small hills, which is why we have so many oreum. In each one of these volcanic cones, another female deity lives. They are our sisters in spirit, and you can always go to them for help.”