The Mermaid from Jeju

by Sumi Hahn

  One of these men was as black as the rocks on the beach. He noticed Junja staring at him and winked. The girl hurried away. When she peeked back at him over her shoulder, he was grinning.

  “Halmung, I didn’t know Americans came in different colors. That one over there is dark as soot!”

  The old woman slapped down her pointing finger. “Didn’t I tell you to stop staring at them?”

  Junja yelped as Grandmother pinched her. “I’m just looking, Halmung.”

  “Men take any sign of interest as encouragement. Keep your eyes on the ground.”

  When the two of them passed a stand displaying photos of nearly naked foreign women, Junja gasped. Grandmother yanked her into an alley where the stalls offered more familiar sights: glinting piles of dried anchovy, squash lashed with yellow stripes, fiery mounds of chili powder, green-and-white cabbages. Black ribbons of dried kelp dangled from the awning of an impressive wooden stand where fish glinted on blocks of ice. The fishmonger shouted, her voice clear above the din.

  “Fresh fish! Fresh fish! Just off the morning boat!”

  Grandmother stopped, intrigued. “How can you afford to buy so much ice? It’s worth more than the fish!”

  The fishmonger looked pleased with herself. “I get it from my American fiancé.”

  “You’re going to marry a foreigner?”

  “Yes, auntie. And I’m going to move far away from here, to America.”

  “Is that so?” Grandmother elbowed Junja. “She’s a brave one, eh? To marry one of those hindoongi!”

  The fishmonger looked at Junja. “If you’re smart, you’ll get yourself a GI husband too. You’re young and pretty. Get out while you can.”

  Grandmother frowned and walked away, pulling Junja after her. “Never forget you’re a haenyeo, a woman worth two men.”

  After dragging Junja through several side streets, the old woman finally settled on a spot that satisfied her. She squeezed in between a silent basket weaver and a thin woman with a worried face who was selling dried sunflowers, pots of oil, and seeds. Grandmother fell into conversation with the sunflower ahjumma and left Junja to mind the wares.

  The girl started shouting—“Fresh kkaennip! Delicious kkae—” when she was cut short by a glare from the basket weaver. Sighing, Junja studied her surroundings. Hardly any passersby here. American soldiers did not venture into this part of the market, which catered to locals. The crowds clustered along the outer fringe of the market, adjoining the port, where the stands were attended by women with painted faces and loud laughs.

  “Grandmother, I think I’d sell more kkaennip if I walked around. Could I take one of the baskets and try?”

  The old woman did not seem to care about their lack of patrons. She waved Junja away. “Good idea. Go see the sights. Move your legs and get some exercise.”

  Sixteen

  Grandmother watched Junja venture forth. The girl was too distracted to notice the appraising stares of the men around her. The old woman stifled a sigh. She knew well the market’s many novelties and diversions.

  She had carried secrets then too. But her body had been young, and her hopes had still been high.

  Her jaw clenched. To ward against self-pity, the old woman started counting the dead. Her daughter. Her two sons. Her husband. Her friends: Chun-hwa, Ok-ryeon, Deok-ryang, Cha-dong, Gye-seok. Mother. Father. Her three older brothers. Each loss reverberated, part of a familiar dull ache, the only constant in her life.

  There was a time, once, when she had been fueled by outrage. Fury, mixed with youth, had given her boundless courage and strength. She and her friends joined the underground resistance during the Japanese occupation, to annoy and torment the invaders. During the day they read Japanese words, sang Japanese songs, and bowed to the Japanese flag. But by moonlight, they prayed in Korean, spit out Korean curses, and sent treasonous messages scripted in forbidden hanggul.

  The Japanese seemed to consider everything a crime: a late delivery of seaweed; a cracked pot of bean paste; a slap against a drunken advance. The worst offense, for which no punishment ever sufficed, was being Korean in Korea.

  The sheer volume of petty charges against the haenyeo provided a useful distraction, shielding the women’s more serious and secret transgressions. How they had laughed at those bow-legged brutes, too stupid to recognize the true danger of women patronized by the lord of the seas.

  The first Japanese soldier they drowned had a taste for unripe virgins. After he forced himself upon several young girls, the haenyeo had dragged him into the sea caves, gagged and bound. The mothers of the children he violated had waited with knives. They had taken care that he not lose consciousness, that he feel each caress of the blades. When they finished, he had been thrown off a cliff. Below, in the seething water, sharks completed their vengeance.

  The women fit the punishment to the criminal with the care of seamstresses. There was a teetotaling Japanese officer who liked to defecate on the floor and then watch, pleasuring himself, as a woman cleaned the mess on her hands and knees. That monster had been given sweet rice cakes compounded with herbs and his own excrement. He had been shipped back to the motherland in a bloody diaper. The conscripted Korean sailors on that trip—stolen sons and husbands—reported that the man died on the journey, his body tossed overboard on the orders of his disgusted countrymen.

  The women had grown careless in their boldness. When they were betrayed, her five closest friends had confessed to everything, to spare the others. At least they had died quickly, executed at gunpoint.

  Of her many regrets, the one that pained the old woman the most was her failure to tell her daughter and granddaughter the truth about the shameful things she had done. She had been terribly wrong to believe that the world would right itself once the Japanese finally retreated.

  An unnatural light had exploded in the southern skies that late summer day, creating a demonic force that changed the tides and darkened the horizon. The remains of the Japanese militia tried to understand the tattered transmissions from their radios. Why had the emperor surrendered?

  The sea answered that question. Bloated fish washed up, bleached an evil white. Returning fishermen described a divine ball of fire annihilating an entire city. Days later, American military ships had sailed into Jeju City to oversee the Japanese withdrawal. They took down the red-and-white Japanese flag and replaced it with their own banner.

  Fronted by these hindoongi soldiers, the mainland government had sent troops. Who would have thought your own countrymen capable of such betrayal? The louts treated Jeju like a fiefdom, desecrating family shrines and plundering food stores. The Japanese occupation seemed, by comparison, an idyll. What the bloodsuckers disdained—because Koreans were beneath them—Nationalist thugs seemed to relish. They forced fake marriages upon the haenyeo, to seize their lands and property. Family pigs and horses were seized and eaten, to punish villagers who didn’t obey the emissaries of a flag they had never seen before.

  The old woman rubbed her face. Her supreme misfortune of living during a time of invasion had overpowered her family luck. The Goh family’s wealth had been sapped by the occupation, their proud compound overrun by Japanese officers. She had learned to dive in her girlhood, as a diversion, and so she joined the ranks of the haenyeo, to keep her belly full.

  Her fingers lingered over the lines on her face. And what of her personal luck? Her long life and her health were marks of divine favor, to be sure. She had married a man who, though beneath her, was easy to love. She had been blessed with two sons and a daughter. But her husband and the boys had been stolen by the Japanese, taken away on boats that never returned.

  The loss of the menfolk in her family did not count against her. It was a common fate, for husbands and sons to be sacrificed in war.

  The loss of her daughter, however, had broken something that now rattled like bones inside her.

  As Junja disappeared into the crowd, the old woman looked to her neighbor and lowered her voice to a hiss
.

  “Five hundred additional troops are being stationed along the southern coast. They’re building fortifications. All access to the mountain will be closed within the week.

  The sunflower peddler momentarily froze. After a moment, she resumed her flower waving. She spoke through a bright smile.

  “Are you Goh Okja?”

  “Yes.”

  “My mother is Bu Malja.”

  “You look like her.”

  “Mother’s health isn’t very good. She isn’t diving anymore. But she says she will do what she can.”

  “That’s all we can expect from anyone.”

  “How many soldiers are expected in your village?”

  “Several dozen.”

  “Fully provisioned?”

  “That’s what I’ve been told.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Two men for every gun. At least half the group is sympathetic to us.”

  “What about the other half?”

  “Dogs.”

  “How do you know who’s who?”

  “I’ve been hired as the camp cook. I’ll figure it out.”

  “What about your granddaughter?”

  “She knows nothing. I promised her mother I’d spare her from all this ugliness.” The slightest of quivers in her voice betrayed the old woman’s feelings.

  After a pained silence, the sunflower peddler finally mustered the courage to speak again.

  “Was it really a diving accident?”

  The old woman gripped her basket. Her daughter had been the highest-ranking diver in the village. “It wasn’t enough for them to lie, to cover up their crime. They had to insult her as well.”

  The sunflower peddler groaned softly. “Who’s responsible?”

  “Mainland curs acting on behalf of their American masters.” The basket trembled in the old woman’s hands. “They wanted her to sign a confession. But the paper was blank. When she refused, they beat her and dumped her body on the beach.”

  The sunflower peddler cleared her throat. Her hoarse words hardly gave any comfort, but she offered them anyway. “She’ll be protecting her daughter, you can be sure of that. You concentrate on avenging her.”

  The old woman had already swallowed a bellyful of revenge in her life, and she was sick from it. What she wanted now was redemption.

  “What is to be done? What do I tell the others?” The peddler waved her sunflower back and forth.

  “Hide as much food as you can. Keep anything that could be considered a weapon out of sight. Be suspicious of everyone. If you see signal fires on Hallasan, leave your homes and go into hiding. Do whatever you can do to protect yourselves. Tell as many people as you can.”

  Seventeen

  As soon as she left her grandmother’s line of sight, Junja bent down to roll her pants higher, revealing her ankles. She pinched her cheeks to bring out a flush. She copied the smiles of the other women in the marketplace, lips open and teeth bared in both promise and warning.

  A tall man with yellow hair shouted gibberish into her face. “Hey, sweetheart, what’re you selling?”

  Junja looked into his pale eyes and tried out the only English word she knew.

  “Heh-roh!”

  “Hello, beautiful!” He grinned.

  Junja smiled back, bobbing her head. “Heh-roh! Heh-roh!” The man continued to babble, a stream of nonsense. Junja’s mouth tightened. The man retracted his smile and walked away.

  “If that’s all you can say, you’re not going to get much. Come over here. I’ll help you out.”

  The fishmonger with the ice was waving to her. Despite Grandmother’s warning, Junja was fascinated by this woman, whose shrewd face was softened by the kindness of her eyes.

  “Where’s your granny?”

  Junja tilted her head. “Back there.”

  “You need to sell to foreigners. They’ll pay whatever you ask.”

  “I can’t understand them.”

  “Let me do the talking. We’ll split it fifty–fifty.”

  When Junja hesitated, the fishmonger appraised the girl, looking her up and down. “What’s your name?”

  “Junja.”

  “I’m Yoonsoo. My sister Yoonja’s about your age. Eats meat or fish every day because of me. You can keep all of nothing, Junja, or you can have half of what I’ll get for you. I promise it’ll be more than your grandmother makes, if she sells anything at all.”

  Junja bit her lip. “You didn’t even ask what I was selling. Do foreigners like kkaennip?”

  The fishmonger laughed. “They don’t need to like it. They just need to buy it.” Her lips pursed. “We need to do something about the way you look. Take off that vest.”

  “I only have my small clothes on.”

  “That’s a lot more than most of the women around here are wearing.”

  Junja pulled off her rust-colored vest. Her breasts pushed against the thin fabric of her shirt in a way that made her think of Suwol. Her face flushed. Mother would have insisted that she cover herself back up immediately.

  “That’s good. Keep blushing. Take out those braids and let your hair loose.”

  Junja hesitated. Mother would have left by now, but Grandmother would probably follow the woman’s directions, to see where they led. Junja decided she was curious enough to remove the string binding her hair. Her fingers combed through the long strands to smooth them out.

  “Foreign men love long, loose hair.”

  Junja suddenly understood. “I’m selling kkaennip, not myself.” She gathered her hair, trying to tie it back again.

  The fishmonger batted her hand away. “I know that. And you know that. But they don’t. We let the men think what they want to think.” The fishmonger paused to help a customer before resuming her conversation with Junja. “Don’t worry. No one is going to lay a finger on you. My promise, as a fellow haenyeo.”

  “You’re a haenyeo too?”

  “What Jeju woman can afford not to be?”

  “But you’re selling fish.” Not seaweed or shellfish, which comprised the bulk of a diver’s daily catch.

  “I have my own boat.” Yoonsoo was pleased by the look of respect on Junja’s face. “Used to be my father’s. When he passed, I took over the fishing. A lot warmer and easier than diving.”

  A foreigner stopped in front of the Junja, looking her over. “How much, gorgeous?”

  Junja glanced at Yoonsoo.

  The fishmonger smiled. “She sell spicy leaf. Good for mens. Make strong long time. Taste good. Try.” She turned to Junja. “Act like you’re going to give him a taste.”

  The man leaned in close. “What’s your name?” His teeth were stained brown.

  The fishmonger answered for Junja. “She my cousin. She no speak English.”

  “Tell your cousin I’d love to take her dancing.”

  To Junja: “He’s interested. I think he’ll buy something.” To the man: “She no dancing. Only selling leaf. You wanna go dinner date?

  “I want to go dancing.” The man’s smile began to slip.

  “Maybe I was wrong. Don’t think he’s going to buy.” Yoonja waved the man away. “See you later.”

  Junja watched the man disappear into the crowd before turning to Yoonsoo. “How did you learn how to speak English so well?”

  The fishmonger tapped her head with a finger. “Because I listen and I’m smart. And my American GI teaches me. I’ll say it again: get an American boyfriend. Best way to protect yourself from what’s going to happen.”

  “What do you think is going to happen?” Junja thought of the running argument between Mother and Grandmother. Mother had begged the old woman to ignore what was going on and stay out of trouble, while Grandmother insisted that it was their duty to get involved. After what Mother had suffered, Junja found herself agreeing with her grandmother. What was the use of avoiding trouble when doing so could still get you killed?

  Yoonsoo gestured with both hands. “Look around. What do you see? Soldiers and guns, most
of them foreigners. If you still can’t figure it out, then maybe you’re stupider than I thought.”

  “Hey, miss. What’s in your basket?” A thin man with curly brown hair and pimples approached Junja awkwardly.

  Yoonsoo leaned forward to speak for Junja. “My cousin she sell delicious leaf. Make mens strong.”

  “What’s your cousin’s name?”

  “Her name Junja. What’s your name?”

  “My name’s Charley.” The young man looked at Junja. “Junja, how much are those leaves?”

  The fishmonger replied, “She only speak Korean.”

  “Does she dance?”

  “She good girl. She only selling leaf.”

  The young man looked relieved. “I’d love to take her on a date. Just dinner. No dancing.”

  “You buy some leaf, I tell her.”

  “How much?”

  Yoonsoo named her price.

  The young man reached into his pockets.

  Yoonsoo turned to Junja. “This one’s a good guy. He’s going to buy some kkaenip just to talk to you.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “They’re so rich, our money is like dirt to them.”

  The man dropped the coins into the fishmonger’s open palm.

  “He wants to eat dinner with you. Do you think you could escape your grandmother for a couple hours? I promise nothing would happen.”

  Junja frowned as she considered. How far was she willing to go to pretend to be someone else? It would depend on the stakes, she thought. Was a free dinner worth the deception?

  “Don’t do that! Just smile and nod, no matter what I say.”

  Junja shook her head. “I don’t trust him. And I’m not sure I trust you.”

  “What if my fiancé and I joined you? We could chaperone. Your granny could come too.”

  “He’d buy my grandmother dinner too?”

  “I think I could set that up. Lemme find out.” The fishmonger spoke to the young man. “You wanna double date? My boyfriend Joe from Chicago, me, Junja.” Yoonsoo jerked her thumb Junja’s way.