Mr. Was (17 page)

Patient: The door is cold.

L. G.: Excuse me? What did you say?

Patient: Cold.

L. G.: You are cold?

The patient's face reverted to its former blankness, and he did not say another word. I plan to
reduce the dosage of chloral hydrate beginning tomorrow.

(signed)

Captain Lazlo C. Groth, MC USA

Chief Psychiatry Service

Pearl Harbor

r-82399

From:      LAZLO C. GROTH

To:          FILE

Subject:   Patient MZ-54764-8

Date:       8/21/43

Forty-eight hours after reducing his chloral hydrate dosage, I am observing a marked increase in the patient's general awareness. Specifically, the patient seems to be staring at the apple on my desk. I offered to share it with him, and he became agitated, straining against the straitjacket and rolling his eyes like a trapped animal. I asked him what was wrong.

Patient: What year is this?

L. G.: It's nineteen forty-three. Why do you ask?

Patient (agitated): I'm not alive. I was—

At this point the patient paused for several seconds, as if trying to remember something, then he continued.

Patient (voice rising): I was, was, was, was, was, was, was—

He appeared to be stuck on that one word, like a person who stutters, but more so. His voice became extremely loud.

Patient (screaming): WASWASWASWASWASWAS!

At that point his eyes closed and he pitched forward out of his chair onto the floor, where he curled up into a ball, still screaming, “WASWASWAS . . .” Nothing I could do would stop him until a nurse arrived with a syringe full of sodium pentothal. I gave him an injection, and within seconds he lost consciousness and was returned to his room.

(signed)

Captain Lazlo C. Groth, MC USA

Chief Psychiatry Service

Pearl Harbor

r-82399

From:      LAZLO C. GROTH

To:          FILE

Subject:   Patient MZ-54764-8

Date:       9/1/43

The patient has been unresponsive for four days now. We have initiated intravenous feeding and hydration.

L. G.

r-82399

From:      LAZLO C. GROTH

To:          FILE

Subject:   Patient MZ-54764-8

Date:       7/14/45

Yesterday afternoon one of the attendants on F Ward reported that, after nearly two years in a vegetative state, the patient suddenly awakened and requested a peanut butter sandwich. When I arrived, the patient was sitting up in bed attempting to remove the bandage covering his eye. I greeted him, and suggested that he leave the bandage in place. The patient complied. (It should be noted here that the bandage covering the patient's left eye was placed there for cosmetic reasons. The eye socket was completely healed, but its appearance is such that it was upsetting to the nurses and other patients.)

Patient: I'm a little hungry.

L. G.: What would you like to eat?

Patient (staring at his hands): Peanut butter. What happened to me?

L. G.: You were injured. Don't you remember?

Patient: If I remembered I wouldn't be asking you.

L. G.: What is your name?

He opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. At that point the patient's face turned red and
his good eye seemed to bulge, as if he were trying to force an answer from his own throat. Then he actually reached into his mouth with the fingers of his right hand and probed his tongue, as if checking to make sure it was there.

I pulled his hand from his mouth and told him to try to relax. The patient took several deep breaths, his eye closed. He opened and closed his mouth, working his jaw back and forth.

Patient: Tell me where I am.

LG.: You are in the Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital.

Patient: How was I hurt?

LG.: We don't know.

Patient: What's wrong with me? I don't remember anything. I don't even know who I am.

Further attempts to question the patient elicited no response. His eyes closed and he fell into what appears to be a normal sleep.

(signed)

Captain Lazlo C. Groth, MC USA

Chief Psychiatry Service

Pearl Harbor

r-82399

From:      LAZLO C. GROTH

To:          FILE

Subject:   Patient MZ-54764-8

Date:       7/28/45

The patient's recovery appears to be complete but for the fact that he claims not to remember who he is. Recently, he has taken to calling himself “Mr. Was.” Records show that there were no U.S. military personnel by that name stationed in the Solomon Islands.

I have met with the patient daily over the past two weeks. He is friendly and talkative unless I broach the subject of his identity or his past, at which point he becomes agitated. I have not seen any need for restraints at this point, although an orderly is present during our interviews.

The patient claims to have been experiencing vivid dreams, most of them having to do with a metal door. Other objects that have appeared repeatedly in his dreams include a baseball bat, a dog, and a girl with green eyes. Very little seems to happen in his dreams. In every case, he feels as though he is propelled through a landscape by some unidentified force, with no volition of his own.

The patient is willing to discuss his dreams, but I notice that he becomes tense and pale while doing so.

At this point, I am unable to determine whether
the patient's amnesia is actual or feigned. I plan to administer a moderate dosage of scopolamine before our session tomorrow afternoon.

(signed)

Captain Lazlo C. Groth, MC USA

Chief Psychiatry Service

Pearl Harbor

r-82399

From:      LAZLO C. GROTH

To:          COLONEL CHARLES FREEMAN
                Deputy Director, Office of Strategic Services Washington, D.C.

Date:        8/25/45

Dear Chuck,

Now that the war is pretty much over I hope it's not too late to congratulate you on your job with the OSS. The word is, you undercover guys get a lot of the credit for bringing down der Führer and his boys. It seems a long time since our days at Kansas State! Can you still drink a bottle of beer in one gulp? Next time I'm in Washington, I'll want to see it again.

I'm writing today because of a peculiar, and probably meaningless, occurrence here at MacArthur. I decided to contact you because I heard through the grapevine that the OSS is taking a particular interest in maintaining security around the new atomic weapons program. I don't know whether or not that is true, but if you aren't the right person to contact with this, perhaps you can rechannel the information. In any case, here is what happened.

We have a patient here who was found wandering around naked on Guadalcanal two years ago. As near as we can tell from his behavior and speech, he's an American, but we don't know what his name is, and neither does he. Or so he claims.

Shortly after arriving here at MacArthur, the patient lapsed into something resembling a catatonic state, and remained unresponsive for nearly two years. One month ago he spontaneously regained his ability to move about and interact with our staff. He seems perfectly normal now, except that he has adopted the nonsense name of “Mr. Was,” and he insists that he has absolutely no memory of who he is. I encouraged him to keep a journal, in hopes that he would provide some clues to his origins, but it hasn't helped.

On 7/29/45, I injected the patient with scopolamine before interviewing him. We learned nothing about his identity, but the patient made some odd comments which, at the time, seemed meaningless. He told me that the Japanese would keep coming until they were stopped by “the atom bomb.” I had never heard of the atom bomb before, and I assumed he was talking nonsense.

That interview took place about one week
before
we dropped the big one on Hiroshima.

Coincidence? Probably, but it's been weighing on my mind ever since, and when I heard you'd signed on as DD of the OSS, I thought I'd bring it to your attention. Until our patient uttered the words “atom bomb,” neither I nor anyone I know had ever heard of such a weapon.

I am enclosing a transcript of that interview.

That's all, Chuck. I don't know whether this fellow is for real or not, but since the atomic program is of
such importance, I felt the need to pass this information along.

(signed)

Captain Lazlo C. Groth, MC USA

Chief Psychiatry Service

Pearl Harbor

enclosed: transcript: interview: MZ-54764-8

Transcript of interview with patient MZ-54764-8 on 7/29/45 (15 minutes after administration of scopolamine)

Dr. Lazlo Groth: Can you hear me?

MZ-54764-8: No.

L. G.: I know you can hear me.

MZ: Okay.

L. G.: Do you know who I am?

MZ: Dr. Groth. The headshrinker.

L. G.: What is your name?

MZ: Mr. Was.

L. G.: Do you remember your mother?

MZ: (silence)

L. G.: Do you remember being on Guadalcanal? In the jungle?

MZ: Jungle.

L. G.: Yes. What happened to you?

MZ: Rain. Japanese. Thousands of Japs.

L. G.: Yes?

MZ: They keep coming. Have to stop them.

L. G.: What do you do? How do you stop them?

MZ: The bomb.

L. G.: What bomb?

MZ: The atom bomb.

L. G.: What is that?

MZ: We stop them with the atom bomb.

L. G.: What is “the atom bomb”?

MZ: (laughs)

L. G.: What is your name?

MZ: Mr. Was.

L. G.: What happened to you on Guadalcanal?

MZ: I died.

TOP SECRET

From:  COLONEL CHARLES FREEMAN
           Deputy Director, Office of Strategic Services Washington, D.C.

To:      CAPTAIN LAZLO C. GROTH MC USA
           Chief Psychiatry Service
           Pearl Harbor Naval Hospital Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

Date:   9/1/45

Lazy:

I'll be there with my team before you can say “chug-a-lug.” The patient is to be kept segregated from other patients and nonessential staff until our arrival. Please prepare the patient for transfer to D.C.
DO NOT
conduct any further interviews.

Chuck

P.S. You mentioned something about the patient keeping a journal. Please confiscate same pending our arrival.

The body of the third notebook is a collection of unlined pages punched and bound into the three-ring binder. The handwriting in the early sections is small, close-spaced, and dark. The paper is frequently torn or punctured, as if the writer were pressing the pen with great force into the page.

—P. H.

(undated)

Dr. Groth suggested that I keep this journal. He said it might help me find out who I am. He said that the things we write are often revealing, that one day a clue to my identity might flow from the tip of this ballpoint pen. Frankly, I think he's full of crap, but what else is there to do here?

The first thing I remember is waking up and no one was there. The corners of the room looked flat and dimensionless. I moved my hand toward my face, felt the bandage over my eye.

I sat up. My gut felt like a bag full of needles and knives. I saw flashes of jungle, smelled burning, heard machine-gun fire, a wall of fire.

The vision passed, I returned to the flat room with the white walls.

I had no idea where I was. Or who I was.

My hands were stiff and clumsy, but I got hold of the chart hanging at the foot of the bed.

Patient XMZ-54764-8.

I had no name.

Doctor Groth warned me not to expect too much. He said I would look different.

“The surgeons had to rebuild much of your face,” he said. “But there's a good chance you'll recognize yourself.”

He handed me a mirror, and I looked upon my face for the first time.

My stomach went cold and I began to shake.

It wasn't the scars. I had expected that. Even the collapsed left eye didn't bother me so much. What really got me, what made my guts spin, was the fact that the face in the mirror looked utterly unfamiliar. With or without the scars and bruises, I had never seen this man before.

They showed me a list of MIAs, soldiers who had disappeared on Guadalcanal, the small Pacific island where I had been found. One of these names must be yours, they told me. I looked at each of the names on the list, but not one of them was even remotely familiar. They left a copy by my bedside.

It was a game to them. They tried everything they knew to get a name out of me, but I had none to give.

Nurse Bass would come in with a tray of tasteless hospital food. “And how are we today?” she would say, smiling, chin thrust forward, dark eyebrows waggling.

“Fine,” I would say.

“Isn't it a nice day?”

“Yes it is,” I would reply, thinking it a stupid question because, as I had learned, we were in Hawaii, where it is always a nice day, and in any case I had no window. It could have been any sort of day at all.

”What's your name?”
Nurse Bass would ask with sudden intensity, shoving her pointed chin in my face, attempting to startle the missing information from my scrambled brain. She got nothing from me.

One day I overheard a couple of the doctors
talking about someone named “Mr. Was.” After a moment, I realized that they were talking about me. At our next meeting, I asked Dr. Groth why they were calling me Mr. Was. He seemed embarrassed, but then explained that I'd had some sort of fit when I first arrived at the hospital and had screamed the word “was” repeatedly. It must have been some fit.

I was sitting up in bed reading
Stars and Stripes
later that day when Nurse Bass sneaked up behind me.

“What's your name!” she barked.

I decided I was sick of it. I told her my name was Mr. Was.