The Healer's War (20 page)

Evenings when I came on duty, Xe would be visiting with Dang Thi That or with Xinhdy. He nodded courteously to me if I happened to catch his eye, but otherwise paid me no observable attention, though sometimes I felt him watching me. I wondered about him more than ever. That always seemed to feel better after he left, but while her wound improved with each new procedure, the process was as long and gradual as Joe expected.

I wonder now if Xe's power was really so diminished at that point, or if he simply felt that the hospital was the safest place for all of them to be.

Anyway, casualties came and went, including a pair of VC. I had no idea they were VC. They just looked like your average injured villagers to me, although, looking back, I remember them as a little more demanding and aggressive than most, but that could be my imagination. Anyway, one day they were admitted, seriously wounded, and when I came on shift again they were gone. I asked what had happened.

Mai chimed in. "Patients say they VC. Xinhdy say to me if we not move VC patients, other patients kill them," and as she said the last she ran her finger across her throat.

"So where'd they go?" I asked.

"The POW ward," Marge said. "The MPs came and got them."

I tried not to wonder what became of them after that, and not to imagine what might have happened to us or our patients if Xinhdy and Mai weren't so close.

The last night I was on the ward was quiet and Xinhdy la daied me down to her bedside. She took my hand and looked at my ragged nails. "Numbah ten," she said and got out her file and polish and started giving me dragon-lady points. I let her. My work was caught up until midnight and I'd missed her cheerful, normal company. She more than anyone else let me imagine that at one time there must have been a happier kind of life in Vietnam, where people could be frivolous and worry about what was pretty.

"Kitty, when you fini Vietnam?" she asked.

"Oh, I still have months to go," I said.

"Good. I cry when you fini Vietnam."

"I'll miss you too," I said. "Do you think you might ever get to come to America?"

"I don't think so, but maybe. I like America. You know Hollywoo'?

Vietnamee movie stars, they poor. Mai have more money than movie star.

Not like Hollywoo'."

"I guess not. Why, do you want to be a movie star?"

"Hollywoo' movie star, yes. Vietnamee movie star not so good. My family say movie star not so good for Vietnamee lady."

When she gave me back my hands I resembled Madame Nhu from the wrists down, stiletto nails, blood-red polish, and all. But Xinhdy thought I looked glamorous.

When I got back to my quarters that morning, Julie Montgomery was waiting at my door. I didn't much like Julie, as I'd mentioned to Tony.

She had two topics of conversation: how irresistible she was and how many men agreed with her. Most of the other girls disliked her, too, and openly snubbed her, but I'd tried to be at least polite. Being new in country wasn't easy. Still, I didn't welcome her visit. I had no desire to be bosom buddies with someone who was her own biggest fan.

"Kitty, I have to talk to you," she said, her voice carrying a tragic wobble to it.

"Sure. Come on in."

She stood in the doorway and lit a cigarette. Her gestures were short and jerky and she tried to make a tossing motion with her head, but hair as damaged by overtreating as hers doesn't move very well. In the sunlight streaming in the door, not one glint reflected off that pile of dead straw she had teased into a bouffant. "I couldn't bear the thought that you'd hear this from anyone else, so I decided, painful as it was, I had to come and tell you myself. You see, I don't want you to be hurt. You've always been nice to me. But he said-he said you wouldn't mind sharing. And since he's married, I figured it couldn't be really serious or anything and"-she giggled-"he's such a dish and he was so lonesome. . . ."

I had been getting her a Coke from the fridge, but I put it back and kicked the door shut. "Wait a minute. Are you talking about Tony?"

She nodded, giving me a soulful look through her cigarette smoke. "The way Carole Swenson acted, I thought maybe you might not know and I wanted you to hear it from me instead of her. Oh, Kitty, say you won't hate me forever. It was just a date and you were on quarters."

"Let me get this straight. Tony told you that he's married?"

"Well, yeah-"

"Thank you, Julie. I appreciate you telling me, but you'll have to excuse me now, I've got a murder to plan."

Well, at least I knew who the demure creature he wanted me to be like was. I supposed that was faithfulness, of a sort. I called Red Beach and told Tony what I thought of him and never to darken my doorway again. I surprised myself by not crying. Instead, I flopped onto my cot and read until I fell asleep, feeling strangely relieved for someone who'd been jilted, as if I'd just peeled out of a tight girdle.

At least now I wouldn't have anyone harping at me about being ladylike or nurselike or like anything else but myself, or as much of myself as I could still find after seven months in country. Tony's wife was probably having a ball at home. He ought to have sense enough to know that even Is perfect wife would probably be a lot different if she were in my shoes. Being a dust-off pilot wasn't the only job that had to be done after all.

I knew I'd miss him, but it was just physical, I told myself. just because his legs were longer and prettier than mine, and his hair was so tritely perfect to run my fingers through, was no reason to fall apart.

just because his strong, beautiful fingers felt better than salt water and sun on my skin. In my mind's eye I saw him stride jauntily toward the pad. If only the jerk hadn't lied to me, damn him.

The monsoon drizzle started at around three that afternoon, in keeping with my mood. I didn't bother with a poncho but let the rain soak my red alligator-bedecked polo shirt. My flip-flops smacked against the wet cement walkway leading to the hospital and mail call. I didn't get mail, of course, but Marge Canon clutched another letter to her bosom, this one unstamped, which meant it came from in country.

I'lutty, you got time to come back to the ward for a cup of coffee?

I want to ask you about something."

"Sure thing," I said, almost hoping she'd ask me to give up my afternoon off and work extra. I felt miserable and useless, and when I felt like that, the ward was the best place for me.

"Kitty, you ever been to Quang Ngai?"

"No," I said cautiously. Had I screwed up again or had it simply taken the powers that be this long to find somewhere to send me? "I never had any reason to. Why? Am I being transferred?"

"No, but I hope I am. Remember I told you about Hal? Well, he's in Quang Ngai now as hospital administrator at the 85th Evac. He wants me to try for a transfer."

Her eyes sparkled. I didn't know whether to be happy or bitter that at least somebody's love life was going well, but if anyone deserved to be happy it was Marge, so I said, "That's terrific, but when would you leave?"

"Oh, not till I'm processed. And after your promotion, of course. Which is tomorrow, by the way, in case you'd forgotten."

"Promotion?" I asked stupidly. Even though promotion to first lieutenant was supposed to be automatic, the brass could withhold or delay it, as Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock had pointed out to me on a couple of occasions.

"Don't look so shocked. You've grown tremendously since you came here.

You're one of the best-organized charge nurses in the hospital and your rapport with the Vietnamese is outstanding. As a matter of fact, I shouldn't tell you this, but I'm putting you in for a Bronze Star and Joe is writing a commendation for your file before he leaves. And I'm recommending you for head nurse if my request for transfer goes through.

So everything's going to work out great with you getting promoted right away. Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock wouldn't like leaving a second lieutenant as acting head nurse but plenty of first lieutenants are. So I won't have to wait until my replacement arrives in country."

When I arrived at work the next day, I walked about six inches taller and chirped my way around the ward with more energy than usual.

,Good morning, Melville," I greeted one of the GI patients, "How's the ankle doin'?" Melville had sprained it while stocking supply shelves. I suspected he had fallen off the ladder while stoned. He stayed stoned a lot, though nobody on the ward ever saw him smoke.

"Oh, sir," he said, "I think gangrene is setting in. Can I have a Darvon?"

Usually I would have snarled. Today the milk of human kindness filled my circulatory system.

"Of course you can, Melville. Just a sec." It was a wonder I didn't tell him to take two, they're small.

My promotion was held on the Vietnamese side, with Marge, Joe Giangelo, Sergeant Baker, Mai, and Voorhees in attendance. Meyers had been pulled to ICU.

I stood at attention while Marge read me the paper telling me in Armyese that I had met their requirements (though it sounded, in typically inflated bureaucrat language, as if I had won the Congressional Medal of Honor instead of merely an almost guaranteed promotion) and pinned a set of shiny silver bars over the embroidered ones on my fatigues that corresponded to a second lieutenant's butter bars. The shiny silver ones were for symbolism's sake. You didn't wear metal insignia on combat fatigues. I had learned this soon after coming in country, when the rationale of Army couture was explained to me by the supply sergeant. "No, ma'am. No shiny brass in the field. Sun catches on it and announces your arrival to the enemy, sure as shit."

But I looked at my new bars as if they were platinum and shook hands all around.

I felt a tug at my hip pocket and turned around to see Ahn wearing an officious expression. "Mamasan, mamasan, la dai. Chung Wi Long say you come."

Lieutenant Long, in the bed directly across from the nurses' station, was nodding a smiling endorsement of Ahn's summons. Long had been with us about two weeks. He was an educated man who spoke both French and Vietnamese and sometimes translated for us on nights. He'd lost a leg but seemed to have accepted his loss with equanimity. He was glad to be out of action, I think, but I wished we could medevac him too. After all, when the NVA took over as seemed inevitable, Long would still be in Vietnam. I didn't think a disabled vet from the losing side whuld stand much of a chance.

I followed Ahn to Long's bed. In the next bed, That shifted painfully and gave me a tired smile. On the far side from us, Xe woke muttering from an afternoon nap.

Lieutenant Long cleared his throat. "Miss McCulley, you have promotion.

You are now chung wi, same-same me, yes?"

"Yes. See my pretty new bars?" I flipped up my collar for him to admire them.

"Very nice." He reached under his pillow and held out a couple of small brass flower-shaped clusters, hooked together. "This is Vietnamese rank for chung wi. Please accept with my congratulations."

"Are these yours?" I asked.

"Yes. I have more. Please accept."

"Oh, I do. Thank you very much." And added formally, as I pinned them on my shirt pocket flap, where sometimes we wore extra little pins, unauthorized, of course, "I will wear this proudly. I feel very honored." And I did. Even though no extra pay came with it, I was almost more pleased at being promoted by Lieutenant lmng than I was at being promoted by Uncle Sam.

Then, of course, Xinhdy and That and Ahn all had to admire my new rank, both American and Vietnamese. That bobbed her head respectfully. Ahn wanted to know if he could have my old ones. Even old Xe la daied me imperiously, gravely surveyed my new ornamentation, and nodded his approval. I patted his hand, despite his lordly air, and I thought his eyes brightened.

Xinhdy took out her lipstick and a Kleenex and polished the bars for me.

It was the kind of totally off-the-wall thing she was always doing to try to please me, just because she was a generous and outgoing girl. I never got a chance to pay her back for her attempts to make me glamorous.

Sergeant Baker called me from the door. "Hey, Lieutenant, you got a visitor," he said.

I turned from Xe to see Ginger Phillips shuffle onto the ward, her hands on the shoulders of a gangly, crew-cut Vietnamese child in a faded pink dress.

They met me before I came around the bed and the child threw her arms around my neck. I returned her hug, though I was a little puzzled.

"Tran just wanted to say good-bye and thank you, Kitty," Ginger said.

"She's going home today so she can spend Christmas with her folks."

"Cam ong, co," Tran said softly. "Tank you." I had no idea what she was thanking me for, but I suspected Ginger had put her up to it. She had worked on ward six since a little before I had, and had continued to speak to me after my transfer.

"No sweat, Tran," I said, stroking her bristling head. The words had a hard time coming out. My throat had closed over and my eyes watered like an old woman's.

Ahn grabbed my hand as soon as I let go of Tran, and didn't release it until she left.

I was promoted on Wednesday, switched to days on Thursday.

mISunday morning I worked alone on day shift. I walked onto the Vietnamese ward to find Sarah still running around trying to get morning meds and charting done. Her face was set and tight with emotion and she would not look at me. There was something else, too, something awful about the ward that made me stop at the door and hesitate to look around. My eyes went first to Dang Thi That and Xe, but they both seemed to be sleeping. I was noticing that the old man looked even more drawn and drained than usual when Ahn sat up, saw me, and catapulted into his wheelchair like a cowboy in a movie, barely stopping himself from knocking me over by throwing his arms around my waist and sobbing.

I knelt down to pet him and that was when I noticed Xinhdy's empty bed.

"Sarah, where's Xinhdy?" I asked as casually as I could. She could have been in X-ray, or surgery. She was young and healthy and . . .