The Healer's War (15 page)

Xe's eyes fastened on mine as I stepped back, his eyes brimming with a feeble old man's leaking tears.

My hand was on my chest, but as soon as I stepped away, the pain within me disappeared. It was as if I was feeling all over again what I'd felt that night by Tran's bed, only worse, much worse. And it was all there, in that old man's face.

I returned to my desk and filled out the incident report.

"What did you do when the incident occurred?"

"I attempted to calm and restrain Private Dickens while Spec-4 Meyers assisted Mr. Xe."

"What could you do to prevent such an incident from recurring?"

I chewed on my pencil for a long time over that. Maintain strict segregation of patients? Gag all overwrought patients during dressing changes? Never start a dressing change until the riot squad is handy for backup? I gave it an appropriately vague answer in bureaucratese:

"In the future ensure that all patients understand ahead of time that they are not to interfere when staff members are treating other patients."

That night I went straight to the club from work and systematically proceeded to get very, very drunk.

In spite of my hangover, the following day started out a little better.

Marge and Joe took care of Dickens's dressing change during Joe's morning rounds, and I learned that most of this particular batch of casualties would be transferred to Japan the next day.

Sergeant Baker kept Meyers and Voorhees scurrying all morning cleaning up the ward. Blaylock informed Marge that VIPs would be touring the hospital later on. And sure enough, sometime around noon a handful of colonels and a general or two arrived with little jewelry boxes full of medals, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts, and so on.

We all stood at attention and they handed Marge a list of patients to be decorated. I was supposed to help prepare everybody to be honored.

Ken Feyder was up for a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. He was basking his buns under the heat lamp when the VIPs started their rounds. "C'mon, Ken, time to turn over and get your just reward," I kidded him. I couldn't be more pleased for him. After yesterday, I didn't need anybody to tell me he was a hero. And I always liked my heroes to be nice people, too. But I was a lot more thrilled by his official recognition than he was. For the first time since he'd arrived on the ward, Feyder was less than cooperative.

"Just have 'em pin it on my butt, Lieutenant," he said, and withdrew and refused to discuss it, pretending to be asleep. They finally presented it to his pillowcase.

A surprise came when Heron appeared on the GI side that afternoon and had a long visit with Ken Feyder.

"Okay if I take Feyder for a little wheelchair ride, L.T.?" he asked me.

" I don't know. He's got those wounds on his hips and Joe hasn't authorized-"

"Do me a favor, will you? Call Joe, ask him. Ken's about to go nuts in here with the heat and the noise. He'd sure like to go out for a spell."

He was giving me his most helpful good-ol'-country-boy routine, his eyes trying hard to look round and sincere.

"Are you and Feyder old buddies or something?" I asked. "I thought you were only interested in Xe."

"I heard what happened yesterday. You know, surely? Meyers said you were standing right there." The way he said "standing right there" made it clear he thought I should have been doing more than that. And he was right, of course. But I had been so taken by surprise I hadn't known which way to move or how fast. "Meyers could come too, for that matter," he continued, hurrying past the reproachful jab at me, no doubt having been told by his Southern mama that he could get more flies with molasses than with vinegar.

"Oh, okay, just a minute," I said. Joe okayed it, providing the chair was amply padded with Chux and heavy dressing pads. I asked Ken if he wanted a pain shot and saw him look toward Heron, who shook his head, very slightly, which I thought was a little odd. Meyers and Heron loaded Ken in the chair and the three of them left by the back door.

I passed them on the way to pick up my mall. I'd have missed them except for the wheelchair. The three of them were huddled behind some canvas and scaffolding between two of the wards. I saw only their feet, but I caught a strong whiff of pot as I passed. I could have confronted them then, I suppose. As Meyers's superior officer, I should have. I didn't condone smoking pot on duty. But maybe he wasn't. Maybe it was just Heron, who wasn't on duty, and Ken Feyder. And I really didn't want to get Feyder in trouble after all he'd been through. I kept walking, and decided to send Sergeant Baker out to collect Feyder later on. Discipline was the ward master's province mostly, anyway. However, by the time I returned, Feyder was in bed sleeping and Meyers had resumed his duties, though he was wielding the mop in a very dreamy fashion. Heron had wisely made himself scarce.

When I made rounds with Joe that evening, the doctor tried to encourage Xe to try the wheelchair again, but the old man folded his arms stubbornly and refused to so much as look at the chair, which was about what I expected. But when we came to Ahn's bedside it was a different story. The boy said, "Mamasan, mamasan," and pointed at the chair, then, "Ahn, Ahn," patting himself on the chest. We got the point and Ahn got the chair.

As I passed my P.m. meds on the Vietnamese side that night, I felt something tug at my fatigue blouse. "Mamasan, la dai [come here].

Mamasan I turned and there was Ahn, enthroned in his chair, one hand tugging at my shirt, the other pointing at an I.V. about to go dry.

"Why, thanks, Ahn," I said, and hurried to replace the bottle.

Sergeant Baker looked up from the bedpan he was cleaning and shook his head. "My, my, looks to me like you done got yourself adopted, Lieutenant McCulley."

chattered to Tony about Ahn, Xe, Xinh, and Heron in the jeep ion the way to the PX Monday.

"Yeah, those little gook kids are cute okay," he said when I told him about Ahn. "Just as long as you watch your wallet."

"Well, I think it's pretty amazing how fast a little hooligan like that can start acting like a normal kid once he's treated like one," I said smugly.

His arm was around my shoulders and he rubbed his hand back and forth, his long fingers curling and uncurling. It felt good, exciting and comforting at the same time.

"And did I tell you about Xinhdy?"

"Who?"

"Her real name is Xinh. She's a Vietnamese girl on the ward, really sharp. Mai's been teaching her English. She's always talking and laughing and polishing her nails and stuff-she reminds me of this girl I was in training with, Cindy Schroeder. So I called her Xinhdy the other day, just sort of teasing. She got real offended and said, 'No Xinhdy, Xinh." I asked Mai to tell her she reminded me of my friend in America whose name was almost like hers, and that was why I called her that.

Yesterday one of her friends came to visit her and called her Xinh, and she was so funny, Tony. She stuck her nose in the air and said, 'No Xinh. Xinhdy."'

He turned his head toward me a little and I saw my face reflected in his sunglasses. "Yeah, well, babe, you want to watch getting too close to these people, y'know? Don't get me wrong, I know how you feel.

Our hooch mouse is a great gal, and it's hard not to feel sorry for some of those poor bastards we pick up in the villes. But we're going to be pullin' out of here one of these days, and these folks will be on their own. You better hope your friends are carrying rockets for the VC at night if you care about what happens to them later."

He wasn't telling me anything new, but I was trying to amuse him with human-interest stories and he was insisting on turning it into hard news. Nobody wanted to talk about that. I'd already asked him about his background and family and how it went in the field and he was vague about everything. What was left? Talking about helicopter chassis?

"Hey, cheer up," he said, giving my shoulder an extra-hard hug. "Have I got a surprise for you."

"What?"

"Wait till you see." He led me inside the PX, a hangar filled with counters and shelves holding junk food-nonmeltable candy like M&M's and Pay Days, potato chips and sticks, canned chocolate milk, sodas-paperback books, mostly either smutty or the action-adventure kind all about what fun war is, and magazines whose illustrations looked like a day in the gyn. clinic from the doctor's point of view. They also had cheaply priced expensive watches, which was good because the sand worked its way through watch cases, and I'd ruined two already, and perfume.

The only other items for women were beaded sweaters from Hong Kong that looked like costumes for midget leading ladies in forties movies. In the back of the building was a walled-off section set up as a snack bar, where a Vietnamese entrepreneur offered anemic hamburgers certified by the PX to be beef instead of dog, and a plate of cold chips. That was where Tony steered me. But at the last moment he blocked the door with his body and said playfully, "What's your favorite Italian food?"

"Spaghetti?"

He shook his head.

"Pizza," I moaned.

"How long since you had some?"

"What's this all about?" I thought he was teasing me. It was a favorite game when the ward was quiet to dream of American junk food: "I'd give twenty dollars for a taco."

"I'd give thirty dollars for a slice of pizza." Though we got spoiled rotten on steak and lobster regularly, we lusted for cuisine from McDonald's, Shakey's, and Taco Bell. One doctor, returning from R&R in Hawaii with his wife, had built a little shrine of a Big Mac Styrofoam container, foil wrapper from fries, and a fried-pie box.

He stepped aside and gestured. "Voild. An authentic Vietnamese pizza parlor."

They'd tried. Under a nylon parachute awning, two skinny men and one bewildered-looking girl, wearing white aprons and chefs' hats, industriously made dough and popped things into ovens. The product was nothing for the Italians to worry about. It consisted of a crust, floury enough to make you pucker, topped with a little ketchup and pieces of hot dog. They'd completely missed the point about cheese. But we ate it and laughed and pretended it was the real thing.

We went to the beach for a couple of hours and swam and played in the water and lay on the sand. I enjoyed it more than I ever had before, because nobody interrupted us or tried to hustle me with Tony there. He acted as if he owned me, which was just fine under the circumstances. I was delighted to be with such a good-looking, sexy guy. I knew that back in the States I wouldn't have such a knockout for a boyfriend. It was just that in Nam the competition was all among the men. I wondered if there was any way I'd be able to hang on to such a fellow when we returned home. Shared experience maybe? I was pretty sure my family would like him and Duncan would be absolutely mute with jealousy-if not on my account, then because Tony was everything Duncan just talked about being.

We drove back to the compound. My hooch maid bobbed at us as she emerged from my room. I turned on the fan. He put Joni Mitchell on the tape deck. And there was a lot more trying each other on for size in every conceivable erotic position. Instead of being all steaming flesh, as it said in the novels, it seemed to me that we were more all knees and elbows with no place on that narrow cot to go without being in the way. I started giggling and he growled, "What's so funny? Why don't you close your eyes?"

I thought he had to be kidding. I shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes sex just strikes me as funny. Why?"

He didn't answer but finished soon after that and grabbed enough clothes to run over to the doctors' shower. I rinsed off too, but I returned to the room before he did. Well, hell. Sex was sometimes funny to me, but mostly because I was having a good time and having a good time always meant laughing, as far as I was concerned. Jesus, I couldn't summon up all that dead-serious panting passion you saw in the movies. Tony was serious enough for both of us. At some points I'd felt like a patient getting a particularly thorough examination. I had the sneaking suspicion the whole afternoon would go on my chart with detailed graphs of my anatomical assets and failings. But I didn't want it to end. I just wanted him to think I was flawless for a little while before he started criticizing. I picked up my guitar and started playing a song I'd learned from a Tom Paxton songbook. Sarah poked her head in my door. "Do you know 'BIowin' in the Wind,' Kitty? There's one chord I can't get."

We sat on lawn chairs on the porch trying to figure it out, and by the time Tony joined us I was feeling better. The South China Sea was gleaming beyond the beach, the palms were waving on Monkey Mountain.

Judy, who was also off for the day, and the corpsman she was illegally dating 'Joined us, chiming in on the choruses as they sat on the porch swinging their legs off the side to the rhythm as we sang.

"I'm just learning this one," I said. "We could do the chorus together." I sang a couple of verses of "The Last Thing on My Mind" and Judy and Sarah tried it with me, but Tony hissed in my ear, "Why do you have to grandstand? You could sing something we all know."

I didn't much feel like singing after that. Or talking to Tony either.

I retreated to my room while they sang outside. He was doing something nobody else knew either. Pretty soon Sarah and Judy and her friend drifted away. I sat against the wall in the corner, with my knees drawn up and a book I wasn't reading propped up on them. Tony lingered in the doorway. "I'd better get back over to the unit."

"Okay," I said, trying to sound indifferent instead of disappointed.

'Bye." This time he didn't kiss me.

But he called later that ilight and said he had to go in the field for a while but would miss me and wanted to see me when he got back. His voice was warm and tender and I decided I got my feelings hurt too easy.

One side benefit of my new relationship was that I could now fit right in when the other girls were bitching or bragging about not just men in general but a man, the man each of them was going with, in particular.