The Island of Sea Women(54)
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Ours was not a traditional marriage. Jun-bu went to work every morning, which meant someone had to take care of Min-lee, which, in turn, meant I couldn’t dive. In addition to baby chores, I had to make sure Yu-ri didn’t wander off. I cleaned the house and washed clothes. Jun-bu came home tired and still having to grade his students’ work, which meant I had to cook dinner. He kept encouraging me to go to the night school to learn to read and write, so I went. I didn’t have a gift for reading and writing, though. My skills were in the sea, but I was trying to be a traditional Korean wife. I sowed seeds in my kitchen garden. On a rare hot fall day, I made my husband a chilled soup with shredded cucumber and homemade soybean paste in raw damselfish broth. When my husband caught a cold, I stirred for him bean-powder porridge with tofu and wrapped rice in young bean leaves. For his part, my husband did not sit under the village tree, make and feed our baby abalone porridge, gamble, or drink. Our lives were upside down and contrary to the nature of Jeju. I thought we’d be fine. Then, as the moon moved across the night sky and I saw that the next diving period was coming, I felt the pull of the sea very strongly. I had made it a little over three weeks.
One night—after the baby and Yu-ri fell asleep and Jun-bu and I had made love—I gathered my courage to speak. “We’ve been living under the same roof for only a short time after almost a year of separation. Before that, we were together for only a few weeks—”
“And we still don’t know each other very well,” he finished for me. “I want to know you better and not just on our sleeping mats.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Have I hurt your feelings in some way? I hope you know how grateful I am for all you do. Taking care of my sister alone . . . But please, tell me how I can be a better husband.”
“You’re a wonderful husband, and I want you to be happy always,” I said. “But I miss the sea.”
He turned toward me, a confused expression on his face. “I don’t want to be the kind of man to live in a household that depends on the tail of a skirt.”
“I’m not saying you are.” I tried to explain it to him in a way he’d understand. “I love the way you touch me and the time we spend together on our sleeping mat, but being a haenyeo—”
“Is dangerous.”
I corrected him. “Being a haenyeo is who I am. There are parts of it I need. I long for the water and the triumph I feel when I find something valuable. I miss the company of women.” I didn’t add that I loved how women could speak and laugh in the bulteok without fear of hurting a man’s sensitive ears. “Most of all, I miss contributing. I’ve worked my entire life, why should I stop now because you’re a teacher?”
“I had hoped to keep you safe after what happened to your mother and Yu-ri, but it’s clearly important to you, and I won’t fight you on this matter. I am my mother’s son. She didn’t quit diving when my sister had her accident, and she hasn’t given up now that my father is . . .”
Even Jun-bu couldn’t say what had to be true—that his father was a hungry ghost, roaming the shattered ruins of Hiroshima.
“We already have a daughter,” he said, quickly changing course. “If Halmang Samseung is good to us, maybe we’ll have many more children. Whether they are boys or girls, I want them to be educated, just as I want you to have the opportunity to learn.”
Send a daughter to school? I wasn’t sure I could do that, despite my husband’s passion for education. Even if a girl could attend public school, I wouldn’t want to spend the fees to send her there. And the idea that we would send a daughter to a private school . . . Jun-bu must have sensed my thoughts.
“We can decide together what’s best for our children. The sea is important to you, and education is important to me, but on what I earn, I could never pay the tuition to send five, six, or seven children to school. I’ll need your help.”
“Seven?” I tried to calculate the school fees in my head. Impossible.
We both laughed, and he pulled me toward him.
“Even if we have only our daughter, I want her to have the same opportunities my mother gave me. She’ll go to school and—”
“But not if we have seven children! I’ll need her help to take care of the younger ones and later help put her brothers through school.”
“Brothers and sisters,” he reminded me.
I patted his back. So much wishful thinking, but what else can you expect from a man?
The next morning, I went from door to door, looking for a young girl or a grandmother I could hire to take care of Yu-ri and Min-lee. I found an older woman, who’d recently retired from life in the sea. Granny Cho agreed to work for five percent of what I pulled from the ocean floor for her home eating. That night, I rummaged through my belongings to gather together my water clothes, goggles, tewak, and other harvesting tools.
The following day, Granny Cho arrived early. The baby went to her easily. Yu-ri didn’t seem to care one way or the other that we had a stranger in the house. Every mother must leave her children to work, and every mother suffers, but we do it. After goodbyes, I picked up my gear and walked down to the bulteok.
“We wondered how long it would take you to come,” Gi-won shouted her greeting. “A woman is not meant for the household!”