She laughed. “How’s that supposed to happen? It’s a small village and—”
I cut her off. “You’ve been given so much. Food. Schooling. You’ve had such an easy life that even your monthly bleeding has come early.” I gave her the sternest warning I could. “If you share love with Yo-chan, you could get pregnant.” I followed up with the worst curse a mother can give her daughter on an island with no beggars. “You’ll end up a girl who’s going to beg.”
She cocked her head. I felt like I was watching her think.
“It’s not like that,” she said at last.
“He’s a boy. You’re a girl—”
“I’ve known Yo-chan my entire life. He’s like a brother to me.”
“But Yo-chan is not your brother. He’s a boy—”
“Mother, we are not having sex.”
I blinked, stunned. I was hinting at this certainly, but I never expected her to be so blunt, especially in front of her little sister. Trying to regain my footing, I turned my attention to Joon-lee. “Yo-chan is not your brother either. And he’s not your friend. Stay away from him.”
Joon-lee lowered her eyes. “I’ll do my best.”
“Best is not enough,” I said. “So you understand how serious I am, tomorrow you will not be allowed down by the tents.”
“But—”
“Keep talking. For every word, you’ll stay home another day.”
The next morning, Joon-lee moaned a bit about her punishment and how unfair it was, and I told her she should have thought about that before getting on a bicycle. Then Min-lee, Do-saeng, and I left the house together. We met Gu-sun and Wan-soon in the olle. Wan-soon apologized once more for her part in last night’s accident. Her eyes were swollen from crying and the color of her usually rosy cheeks had drained to an off-green. Acknowledging her suffering, I said, “Thank you, Wan-soon. I appreciate that you’ve taken greater responsibility for what happened than my own daughters.”
“And I’ve made her promise she won’t be a part of anything having to do with Yo-chan or his mother in the future,” Gu-sun reported.
Again, Wan-soon and Min-lee exchanged glances, wordlessly sending messages back and forth. Again, I thought of how Mi-ja and I had once done the same thing, which further convinced me that Gu-sun and I would need to keep an eye on these two.
When we got to the laboratory tents, Dr. Park inquired after Joon-lee. I let him know she wouldn’t be coming today.
“I hope to see her tomorrow,” he said. “She should be exposed to things that will put her ahead of the city children.”
He was right, of course. The next day, I let Joon-lee return to the lab, where it seemed Dr. Park had confided to the others the news about the competition to which she’d been invited. For the first time, she was allowed to put a thermometer in a woman’s mouth and pump the cuff that went around her arm.
Two days later, Dr. Park and his team packed up their instruments and left Hado. They would return in another three months. I worked in my dry field, while my children started their fall semester. After school let out, when her brother and sister went to the shallows to visit friends and cool off, Joon-lee sat in the main room to do her homework, study for the competition, and read.
The next diving period arrived on a Sunday, which meant that Wan-soon and Min-lee were able to come. It was a particularly blustery day, and wind pressed our clothes tight against our bodies. Waves frothed and sprayed as though pushed by a storm. Once inside the bulteok, Gu-ja took her honorary position. The rest of us sat according to our skill levels. Gu-ja was peevish. The recent visit from Dr. Park and his team reminded her how irritated she was that she’d been dropped from the study, but I figured she’d return to her normal irascible self after a day in the water.
Forgoing the usual pleasantries, Gu-ja began. “Today is going to be hot—”
“And it’s certainly gusty,” Gu-sun interrupted. “We’ll need to be careful where we dive—”
Irritated, Gu-ja waved off her sister. “I’m willing to hear suggestions for where we should go. Anyone?” she asked.
Although it seemed apparent that she was deliberately not asking her sister, Gu-sun offered the first idea. “Let’s walk to the cove north of us. The cliffs protect that area from the wind.”
“It’s too hot to walk that far,” Gu-ja said.
Gu-sun tried again. “We could stay here and dive off the jetty.”
“Did you not notice how the wind is pushing the surf?” Gu-ja scanned the faces in the circle, but her sour mood invited no other proposals. “All right then. Let’s row straight out to sea to the plateau. Hopefully the waves will be milder than what we’re seeing from shore, and the deeper waters will be colder.”
Next to me, Yang-jin muttered under her breath, “This is not good.”
I agreed. Gu-ja was the chief, but she’d made her decision just to be contrary.
We changed into our water clothes, strapped our face masks on the tops or sides of our heads, gathered our gear, and filed out to the boat. Gu-ja’s mood may have been off, but she was right that on this unseasonably hot day the deeper and cooler waters would feel refreshing. We took our places on the boat. Min-lee and Wan-soon sat across from each other. Soon we were bending over our stomachs and pulling back, dipping our oars into the water together. The girls’ voices sounded clear and fresh as we sang. A single wisp of a cloud raced across the sky, seagulls soared and swooped, and just as Gu-ja had predicted the sea was uneasy but not as bad as at the shore. Nevertheless, ruffling whitecaps were not welcomed by those with weak stomachs. A haenyeo pregnant with her fourth child pulled in her oar, threw up, and then resumed rowing. We cheered for her and then went back to our singing. I noticed, though, that Wan-soon’s complexion had faded to an even more unsettling green. She didn’t look well, but in the year and a half she’d been diving with us I hadn’t known her to get seasick.
Gu-ja raised an arm, signaling us to stop. After the anchor was dropped, she made the traditional offerings to the sea gods. When she was done, she said, “Together, let us scour the ocean floor.” With that, we pulled our face masks from our foreheads, rubbed mugwort on the glass, and positioned them over our eyes and noses. Each woman double-checked her tools. Then two by two, women threw their tewaks into the water and jumped in after them. Gu-sun and Gu-ja went down together. I told Min-lee to be careful, as I always did, and then she and Wan-soon dropped over the side of the boat. I nodded to Yang-jin, and together we entered the sea.
We were far from shore, as Gu-sun had wanted, but the underwater geography made it ideal for divers of all levels. Unlike the spot my mother had chosen for my first dive, which had a deep canyon, here a wide plateau rose up—high, flat, easy to reach but deep enough not to scrape a boat’s hull, and so wide it presented a vast field of opportunity. In the murky waters, I couldn’t see the full circumference, but if the baby-divers stayed together, they’d be fine.
Down I went. Yang-jin and I stayed within sight of each other but not so close that she would invade my territory or I hers. I went up for sumbisori and to put what I’d harvested in my net. The water felt wonderful. Down. Up. Sumbisori. Down. Up. Sumbisori. The concentration involved to stay safe, grab as much as I could, and forget the troubles of land created the pattern of my life.
Once our nets were full, Yang-jin and I returned to the boat. We stored our gear and began to sort what we’d harvested. As Gu-ja, Gu-sun, and the other women came in, we helped them haul their nets into the boat. Many of these women also sorted their harvests, while others drank cups of tea. A few propped themselves against their full nets and allowed the rocking of the boat to lull them to sleep. I kept an ear tuned to the sumbisori of the haenyeo still in the water, always relieved when I heard Min-lee’s distinctive hrrrr. She was still learning how to dive, but I trusted her skills. That said, my shoulders relaxed when I saw her loop her arms over the side of the boat. But when she didn’t try to push her net on board or hoist herself up, I knew something was wrong.