The Mermaid from Jeju

by Sumi Hahn

  The Mermaid from Jeju

  A Novel

  Sumi Hahn

  For my beloved Mike

  Griffin, Raven, Kira

  HISTORICAL TIMELINE 1910–1945 KOREA OCCUPIED BY JAPAN

  AUGUST 1945

  United States drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, forcing Japan’s surrender. 60,000 Jeju residents return home. Korea is divided along the 38th Parallel, with the USSR occupying the North and the US occupying the South.

  NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1945

  US Army Military Government established on South Korea. Despite Korea’s pleas for independence, the Allies divide Korea between two occupying foreign powers in a trusteeship between the Soviet Union, the United States, China, and Britain.

  MARCH 1947

  Jeju’s April 3 Incident begins with police firing shots into a reunification demonstration. Six people are killed, including a child. Workers and officials strike in mass protest. Thousands of people arrested and jailed; some are tortured to death

  APRIL–AUGUST 1948

  To protest the elections of May 10, the Jeju Chapter of the South Korean Labor party attacks police stations and other areas under jurisdiction of the US Military Government. Thirty military police officers are killed, many of them former Japanese collaborators. The US Military Government deploys more troops to Jeju while also purging the Jeju constabulary of any officers sympathetic to the South Korean Labor party. Rhee Syng Man is declared president of the Republic of Korea (“South Korea”) in July. In response, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”) declares Kim Il Sung the Premier of North Korea on August 25, 1948.

  OCTOBER 1948–FEBRUARY 1949

  President Rhee Syng Man declares martial law on Jeju as the US Military commences a scorched earth strategy against Communists. Most of the 14th Regiment mutinies before deployment to Jeju, not wanting to commit atrocities against their own people.

  JUNE 1950

  The Korean People’s Army crosses the 38th Parallel and invades Seoul, officially starting the Korean War.

  PHILADELPHIA, 2001

  That summer, the embolus lay snug in its hollow behind Mrs. Junja Moon’s right knee. The little clot gave no twinge nor any other hint of its existence. Trembling in the brisk current of Mrs. Moon’s bloodstream, it was unaffected by the hours she spent pickling kimchi and unmoved by her attempts to improve her golf swing. The red blob was even impervious to her rare fits of homesickness, when she turned on the shower to muffle her sobs for Jeju Island, which she fled in the winter of 1948.

  At 6:47 PM on August 29, 2001, a sharp pain shot up Mrs. Moon’s right leg. Did she forget to stretch after her golf lesson? She summoned her husband, Dr. Moon, from the living room, where he was watching an instructional video and practicing his putting.

  “Time to eat dinner, yobo.” She bent down to rub her calf, which ached a bit. Dr. Moon grunted in acknowledgment as the golf ball rolled into the cup.

  The family of four sat down and gave their proper Christian thanks for the food. As napkins were adjusted and chopsticks readied, Mrs. Moon gathered her thoughts to address her visiting daughters: Hana, whose name, the delivery room nurse had promised, sounded American, and Okja, who was named after her grandmother.

  It was a matter of urgency that her daughters find husbands and that she be given grandchildren, preferably grandsons. As a pillar of the Korean American community in Philadelphia, Mrs. Moon wanted to plan weddings and hundredth-day birthdays instead of church dinners and golf games. Most of all, she longed to stop the polite inquiries about her daughters, who, though smart and attractive, were still spinsters at the overripe ages of forty and thirty-seven.

  Mrs. Moon cleared her throat to speak. The little clot popped free and fell into the red rapids of her bloodstream, where it took a short thrilling ride to the spongy swamp of her upper left lung. Mrs. Moon mistook her sudden heart palpitations for anxiety. She pounded herself on the chest as she gasped, recognizing the clamor in her body: she was drowning, even though she was on dry land. Her fingers scrambled at her throat, trying to seize oxygen from the air.

  Her daughters and husband froze, chopsticks midway to their mouths, as Mrs. Moon rose from her seat, grabbed the edge of the table, and coughed out a spray of red that landed on an empty plate.

  * * *

  When his colleagues described the deadly embolism, Dr. Moon swayed on his feet as the floor betrayed him. All the scientific words receded from his head, which filled with a roaring mist. He had taken Junja away from her ocean home, and now she had journeyed elsewhere, without him.

  A soft keening brushed his ear. Dr. Moon blinked at his daughters, whose tears splashed his face, filling his mouth with the warmth of salt. Their hands were holding his, their fists an anchor. He closed his eyes again.

  He remembered a bright day on the Jersey shore, when the girls were small and quick like rabbits. They had been gathering stones to put into red plastic buckets. Junja squatted down to watch. Her hands had stroked the sand as she talked.

  “What are you doing, Hana?”

  “Working.”

  “You’re so busy, Okja. Why?”

  “We’re gonna catch fishies, Umma.”

  Junja’s voice had grown soft. “You have no fishing stick. No net. How are you going to catch fish?”

  Hana shrugged. “With our hands.”

  Junja smiled. “You are smart, like haenyeo.”

  “What’s haenyeo?” Okja squinted at her mother as her big sister left to get another bucket of water.

  “Haenyeo is like a Korean mermaid. From Jeju Island, the most beautiful place in Korea. I lived there when I was small like you.”

  “Are they real mermaids, Umma? Or pretend ones?”

  “Real ones. They brought food for my family every day.”

  “I wanna see them!”

  Junja had stroked her daughter’s hair. “When you are bigger, I will take you.” She leaned in to whisper. “Here is a secret: A long, long time ago, when I was a girl, I was a mermaid too.”

  Acknowledgments

  The first draft of this novel was completed in 2018, the seventieth anniversary year of the April 3 Jeju Incident, the tragic massacre alluded to in this story. The year 1948 was rocked by turmoil, similar to another rat year, 2020, when this book was published.

  It takes a very long time to weave such a tale. Foremost thanks to the teachers, who taught my hands how: Dr. Lucy Chu, Prof. Sylvia Zaremba, and Mary Alice Fite of Columbus, Ohio; Prof. Philip Fisher of Harvard; Lucie Brock-Broido; and Prof. Frederick Crews of University of California, Berkeley.

  For all matters Korean, I bow to the original Kim Dong Min of Jeju; shaman Lee Young Sook of Jeju; paksa Hyung Il Pai of University of California, Santa Barbara; lawyer Jennifer Sohn of Bellevue; and the original Gongja, my gomo Marie Lee of Los Angeles.

  On Jeju Island, I am indebted to the Seong Up Folk Village Senior Center (especially members Kim Chang Ok, who was a policeman in Mosulpo during the tragic events, and Cho In Hung, who sang songs from his childhood); the April 3 Memorial Peace Park (especially Son Myoung Ki); the Seong Up Jeju Folk Village; the Jeju Folklore and Natural History Museum; the Jeju National Museum; and the Jeju Haenyeo Museum.

  The haenyeo of tiny Gappado Island gave me blunt answers while sharing their catch. On the mainland, the War Memorial in Seoul was a trove of wartime paraphernalia and propaganda. For the medical facts: Dr. Ralph Rossi of Seattle and Dr. Ha Jong Won of Seoul.

  The credit belongs to everyone else; the blame is mine.

  Friends and family I must thank, in order of their appearance in my life: Boomee, Jennie, and Arlene; Nellie Kim; Nina Lee; Dwight Huffman; Kathleen Bulger Webb; Ari Jaffe and Lena Verkhovsky; Tyrone Haye
s and Katherine Kim; Jane Po; Brad Berens; Margaret Stude Michael; Holly Kim; Emily Baillargeon Russin; Edwin Curry, Tara Young, Brobson Lutz, and Gerri Jumonville; David and Marita Almquist; Brooks Whitney Almquist; Chewie; Martha Brockenbrough; Wendy Minick Heipt; Divya Krishnan; Linda Berger Bean; Mary Ingraham; Ruth Dickey; Anne Kalik; Daniel Moceri; Dong Mei and Robert Peng.

  The two men who gave my words a chance to be heard: Seattle’s David Brewster and New Orleans’s Jim Amoss.

  The two women who believed that this story would take flight, even as a misshapen hatchling: Jenny Chen of Alcove Books, truly a beautiful shaman, and Priya Doraswamy of Lotus Lane Literary, with her clairvoyant eye.

  Thank you all for keeping me company.

  May this book serve as a jesa, of sorts, for my parents: Hahn Seong Hack (1937–2014) and Kim Yung Hee (1940–2012). Their graves may be far away in America, but I know where their spirits have gone.

  Part One

  The oar breaks, but never the true timber from Hallasan

  The rope snaps, but never the strong coils from Seonheul Cape

  Warship on the ocean, please go away

  Any direction at all but here

  —from “The Songs of the Jeju Haenyeo,” recorded by the Haenyeo Museum

  One

  JEJU ISLAND, 1944

  “Junja!”

  Hands shook her so hard her teeth clattered like pebbles.

  “Wake up, Junja!”

  She’ll be forced to scrub abalone shells and carry buckets of water to the cistern if she doesn’t obey. But she’s so tired, she’d like to sleep now.

  “Junja!” A slap landed hard on her face.

  Her eyes opened—too bright!—she shut them.

  Out of her mouth spilled the tides.

  Junja’s eyes blinked open as she gasped.

  Mother was standing over her, the sea streaming down her skin like silver. Junja started sneezing. Mother fell to her knees and cradled her head on her lap, stroking her hair.

  “You are alive, Junja.” Mother’s hands were so warm. “You dove too deep, but the sea king returned you, and you are safe on land again …

  Grandmother’s voice: “We must ask her what she saw while she was there.”

  “Hush—not now,” said Mother. “Don’t worry her.”

  Grandmother’s whisper was hot against her ear: “Remember your sea dream, Junja. When you wake up, dry and warm, remember the true dreams you dreamt under water …”

  Wrapped in Junja’s fist was something hard and jagged that hurt. She opened her hand. Lying in her bleeding palm was a shell. She held it up to her mother, who shrieked while lifting it up high.

  “She never let go!”

  Shouts of joy and admiring murmurs. Junja looked around. She was lying in a circle of women all draped in wet ribbons of ocean, like Mother and Grandmother.

  “You are a true haenyeo now,” whispered Mother. “You belong to the sea, like I do, and like your grandmother. You have visited the sea king like Sim Cheong, the beggar maiden, and returned alive, bearing his gift.”

  Mother smashed the shell with a rock and clawed out the meat. “Eat this,” she commanded.

  Junja turned her head. She couldn’t stomach any more of the sea.

  Mother pushed the briny blob past her lips and made her swallow. The little piece of sea mass plummeted down Junja’s body, making her cough as it settled deep inside her.

  She spat out a stone.

  * * *

  Ever since her near-drowning, Junja was allowed to follow her mother and grandmother to the seashore, instead of staying home to watch her little brother. That task now belonged to second sister Gongja, who was only eight but already knew how to make a fine millet porridge.

  “I could probably cook a chicken too,” boasted Gongja.

  “But you don’t know how to kill the chicken,” yelled Jin. “Or pluck out its feathers and clean the innards!

  “Pretty soon you’ll have to take care of yourself, useless boy,” said Gongja. “Because I’ll be old enough to do water work with Ummung and Halmung and Junja.”

  “Hush,” Mother said, crouching down to look her son in the eye. “Heed your noonah well. Don’t forget that Gongja is your mother while we are gone. Behave like a man. Both of you must weed the garden and feed the chickens. When you finish, write the alphabet three times. Over there, on the dirt near the garden fence, so the chickens can’t walk over it. Then, you may play.”

  Mother rose to gather the supplies they needed for their day of work, dividing everything between her eldest daughter, her mother, and herself: picks, knives, scythes, hemp nets and rope, twig baskets, dried gourds, lengths of cloth, kindling, and fresh water.

  The three of them walked down the rocky path toward the beach, large bundles balanced on their heads. The dawn sky was inky, but their eyes were accustomed to the darker pitch of the ocean. They navigated the shadows, their bare feet steering.

  “Aigoo,” said Grandmother, “My feet are too old for these bad black rocks.”

  “Aigoo,” said Junja, giggling, “My feet are too young for these bad black rocks.”

  “Such noise!” scolded Mother. “You will wake the clams in their beds.”

  “Tell me, what do you remember of your sea dream?” Grandmother asked, when Mother walked a few steps ahead of them to kick the large stones away from the path. Grandmother had asked this question every morning and every night for weeks, hoping that something would dart out of the crevices of her granddaughter’s memory and be caught.

  “I cannot remember much, Halmung,” apologized Junja. “I remember falling and falling. Everything was dark and cold and wet. I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t move. I remember thinking, ‘I am dead now. Instead of helping Mother, I am only bringing her sorrow.’ Suddenly, I could move again. The sea king and his maidens watched as I swam back up. I kicked and pushed toward the light. When I woke, I was holding something in my hand, something I knew I couldn’t let go.”

  “You kept the pearl,” said Grandmother, “but you lost the treasure.”

  Junja stayed silent.

  “Your sea dream was the true treasure, but the sea king tricked you with a pearl so you’d return to this world holding onto a stone instead of the truth.” Grandmother sighed.

  Mother had traded that pearl for a large sack of white rice and a new garden hoe. Junja didn’t understand how a dream could have been more helpful, despite Grandmother’s stories about her great-great-grandmother, who had captured a sea dream and shared its riches with everyone in her village.

  “She dreamed her entire life in that sea dream. After she coughed the ocean out of her body, her mind cleared, leaving behind a detailed picture of everything that was going to happen in her life. She knew when typhoons would blow, which winters would freeze solid, and which summers would shrivel up in drought. She knew which parts of the ocean were teeming with delicious living things and where there were only barren rocks and sand. When she met the man she would marry, she told him, ‘I dreamed about you, and you will be my husband.’

  “It wasn’t always easy to bear, knowing what would happen. Usually she would bite her tongue. On the day her mother drowned, she tried to stop her, begging her not to go out. The mother, wiser than her gifted daughter, continued on her way, because knowing never stopped the sun from rising or the tides from coming in.”

  “Did your great-great-grandmother know how she’d die as well?” Junja wondered if knowing about your own death could somehow delay it.

  Grandmother clucked. “She probably did, but she never told another person that secret. She grew so sad, knowing when everyone else would die, that all sorts of troublesome spirits were able to enter and cloud her mind.

  “One night, she slipped and hit her head on some bad black rocks. When she woke up, she was as simple as a child of two. The villagers had to tether her to a tree so that she wouldn’t wander off a cliff. While no one was watching, she loosened the knots and slipped away. They found he
r body washed up on the beach, head cracked like an egg. It was the sea king’s way of reminding us that whatever comes from the sea will always return to it.”

  * * *

  On the beach, bonfires were blazing. Women scurried about, stoking flames, coiling lengths of rope, and inspecting gourds for breaks and nets for tears. Some of the divers were singing a song that keened like the wind. Others were rubbing their hands together as they chanted prayers to the sea god. Seabirds hovered as the sky began to brighten. Junja added her family’s kindling to the community pile.

  “Gather your dolchu,” an elder barked. Junja hurried to the water’s edge, where speckled black-and-white stones had been washed clean by the night tides. She found a smooth one, the size of a summer squash, and showed it to her grandmother, who hefted it with an approving grunt. The first group of divers were standing before the fire in their water clothes, eyes shut, faces glowing with heat.

  “Water time! Water time! Go into the sea!”

  The divers secured their seaweed scythes and shellfish picks. They spat into their masks and rubbed the bubbles over the glass. Junja’s mother, hands in thick wool mittens, stirred the embers with a stick and pulled out stones to cool on the sand.

  With the warm anchor stones nestled in their hemp slings, the first group stood ready, led by an elder who would guide them to the first dive site.

  The barefoot women waded into the water, arms wrapped around their gourd floats. The anchor stones warmed their bellies. Their linen swimsuits darkened before puckering to cling to their skin. As the women kicked their way through the surf, the sound of singing grew fainter, giving way to the slapping waves and the pounding of their pulse.

  The ocean sucked each diver down greedily. But the women were prepared for battle. They swiped their knives at the fingers of sea grass that clutched at them. They used picks to pry away shells clinging to underwater rocks. They worked the waters, humming the chants of their forbearing mothers, who had explored the deep before them.