The Healer's War (22 page)

Sick of the Army, tired of the military milieu in general, alone in a foreign country I had never explored before, I headed straight for the naval base. I don't remember why. Maybe I needed time to become acclimatized to a week playing tourist. But I found I'd been missing things I'd taken for granted, even despised, before. I met a Navy wife at the PX coffee shop and sat for hours drinking coffee and listening to gossip and routine marital problems that would have normally bored me stiff. It felt good to hear another woman a normurse, nonmilitary woman, talk about ordinary, everyday housewifing business that had nothing to do with sickness or war or dying. I found her child-rearing traumas fascinating, her struggles with the base schools gripping. I cannot for the life of me remember if I even got her name.

After I left her I wandered around the commissary in a daze, and at one point stood between the rows of sugar pops and frosted flakes and remembered all my junk food breakfasts and Saturday morning cartoons and prizes and box tops and good old American come-on advertising, and I stood there and wept like a fool. I never thought I'd miss crass commercialism so much, and realized that I was capitalist to the core. I missed the damned radio and TV commercials. I wished Xinhdy could have seen, oh, a Maybelline ad, or a Clairol one. She'd have thought them very glamorous. On Armed Forces Radio, the only commercials were "Do preventive maintenance on your vehicle," and "Clean your weapon," and

"Don't use captured enemy weapons and, if you happen to be an enemy listening, we wouldn't advise you to use your own weapons either."

Later I shopped and bought jewelry and presents for friends at the 83rd and the family and went to a Taiwan aboriginal dance where they dressed us visitors up in native costume and had us dance with them, something a lot like the squaw dances the Indians hold at powows at home. I had dresses made and I smelled flowers and traveled inland to the gorgeous Taroko Gorge and saw a turquoise river flowing through the mountains and the marble factory. The funniest thing was getting on a FAT airlines plane and hearing only oriental voices and seeing only oriental faces all around me. I began to feel panicky when all the speeches by the stewardesses were in Chinese. To my relief, a man's voice with a heavy Australian accent announced that "this is your captain speaking." Of course, there are undoubtedly lots of marvelous oriental pilots, but I knew only of the mess the ARVNs made of our technical equipment, and the association was automatic.

I felt like a large barbarian, a feeling that was reinforced when I went shopping. I kept forgetting, surrounded by small oriental people, that I was no longer in Vietnam. I was looking at one ring in a jeweler's stall and said, "Oh, that one. I like. Numbah one." And the man in the stall said, "Yes, madame, that is an emerald of the finest quality.

Would you care to try it on? Could I offer you tea, perhaps, while you are considering your choice?" I felt like a condescending fool.

And once my cab passed a construction site and somebody dropped a board or a hammer or something. I was on the floor of the cab before I knew what I was doing.

The driver was alarmed. "Miss, miss, you okay?" he asked.

"Oh, sure, thanks. just-uhropped my contact lens. There you are, you little devil."

But the country was more beautiful than I had ever imagined, and I almost forgot about Vietnam in the fun of going shopping, dressing up and eating in nice restaurants. People were unexpectedly kind. I ran out of money before I could collect my developed snapshots and the man at the photo store told me not to worry, to send the money to him when I got back to Nam, no sweat, he had a brother who was a dentist in the States and so that made me okay too. And the girls in the hotel gift shop, where I had bought a couple of rings, called me over on my last day to give me a sack of dried pineapple as a going-away present.

I returned to the 83rd, if not eager to get back to work, at least eager to share my adventures with my friends and play lady Bountiful with the presents: a book for Marge and jade earrings for Voorhees's wife, a pirated rock tape for Meyers and an ivory back scratcher for Sergeant Baker, strings of beads for Carole and Judy, a woven Chinese handcuff for Ahn, and a delicately carved wooden hair ornament that struck me as something that would be beautiful in Mai's hair if she kept her locks dry long enough to wear it. It cost maybe thirty-five cents in American money and I intended to get her something nicer but ran out of money. I felt guilty about being so chintzy when I had been so little comfort to her over Xinh's death.

So I was surprised at her reaction when I intercepted her and gave it to her.

"Very pretty," she said admiringly and handed it back to me.

"No-it's for you," I told her. "I don't know if you wear this kind of thing or not, but I thought it would look nice in your pretty hair."

"For me? You buy present for me?" Her eyes started filling as she handled it. "Thank you, thank you very much. Is so beautifoo. Wait. I have present for you too. It not here today. I bring it tomorrow-,,

"Oh no, Mai, you already gave me a present. You were right. The plane was very hot and I used your fan all the time. I just wanted to bring you the comb because I think a lot of you. It's so little really."

But the next day she was there with a bolt of purple silk. She held it up against me, measuring. "It maybe too long for Western dress."

"But that's good," I said. "I've really been wanting a Vietnamese dress. I'll have mamasan at the gift shack make me one. You always look so pretty in yours."

She took the cloth back. "No way you have her make Vietnamese dress for you. I make you go dal." The next day she measured me for it and within a couple of days brought it over to the ward, along with an invitation from her family to come to the village and have dinner with them. So far as I knew, none of the other girls had been invited to a Vietnamese home. I had to get special permission, but Mai was well known and liked at the 83rd and had doctors, nurses, and corpsmen she had worked with in the past writing to her from all over the world.

Permission was granted. The day we were to go, we both dressed in our go dais, my purple one so much larger than her little pink flowered one, and Joe took our picture. We walked down the road unmolested though not exactly unnoticed through Dogpatch and to Mai's house. Her mother had fixed a chicken dinner and left the beak and the claws on top of the cooked meat so I would know that it wasn't dog or cat. Their house was large and spacious, with covered decks for eating and cooking.and big fan-cooled rooms full of books. After dinner, Mai's brothers and I played guitars and I chatted with her mother while Mai translated. By then it was well after dark, and Sergeant Baker came for me in the jeep.

I think Mai and I were trying to start a friendship that would expand to fill some of the gap left by Xinh's death, though we never spoke of her.

But though the friendship was cut short, I remember that peaceful, relaxed evening with gratitude.

I had been looking forward to monsoon season as a break from ithe bleak simmer of the heat. The first weeks of rain were welcome, but soon everything stayed clammy with damp. The sheets were damp, the towels were damp, even my sweater didn't offer much warmth because it was damp, too. I worked an unexpected run of nights when Sarah caught amebiasis and had to lie on a stretcher and take I.V. fluids every morning before work because anything she ate or drank was lost to diarrhea and vomiting. The wards were cold in the daytime, and high winds brought storms in off the sea. Dressed in ponchos and wet jungle boots, we waded to work across half-submerged islands of sidewalk. About an inch of water covered the floor of the central corridor. The roof leaked and bedpans and urinals sat around everywhere to catch the drips while poncho-clad Vietnamese workmen crawled around on the roof, laboring slowly to plug the holes. Little lizards darted through the halls, and Ahn, now equipped with a crutch and a makeshift wooden leg Joe had fashioned from a crutch, limped after them with more agility than I would have thought possible.

Marge's transfer to Quang Ngai was reluctantly approved with the help of her boyfriend's connections. Joe's DEROS date was fast approaching, and between the two of them, you'd have thought the place was a photography studio instead of a hospital ward. We took turns snapping pictures of Marge and Joe, Marge with Mai, Joe with Mai, Marge and Joe together and separately with Ahn, me, Sergeant Baker, Voorhees, Meyers, Ryan, That, and any other patient or staff member who would stand still long enough to be snapped. Then we had to do more of the same because Marge's camera was a Polaroid and Ahn and Mai wanted duplicates of every picture with them in it.

Then Sarah suddenly got a drop because of her amebiasis, which meant they sent her home two months early to recuperate. I was pleased for her, but it made a lot more work for me, since her position and my old one were filled with two new nurses. I spent a lot of time being teacher. One of the new girls got amebiasis her second week in country and, like Sarah, had to report early for I.V.s every morning. She and Sarah left on the same plane.

Marge hugged me when it was time for her to leave. "You'll do fine, Kitty. Write and let me know how everybody is, okay?"

"Okay. just take care of yourself and kick Hal in the shins for me for taking you away from us."

Soon to be ex-Major Joe Giangelo and another major made it to the door in time to block her exit. Joe grabbed Marge for a hug. "You be a good girl, Margie, and oh, I almost forgot, I have something for you here."

His brown eyes twinkled as he handed her a couple of pieces of paper.

"They're exercises to correct bowless-after you've been with old Hal for a while you're probably going to need them."

"Don't let me take the copies you were going to mail to your wife, Joe.

How long have you got left now?"

"Six days four hours three minutes and"-he checked his watch

-"twenty-one seconds. By the way, I'd like you all to meet my replacement. Major Krupman, Major Marge Canon, the best ortho nurse in Vietnam and possibly the entire military and an incredible fink who is splitting our fabled beaches. And this is Lieutenant McCulley, her second-in-command."

Marge said hi and then had to run for her ride. I said hi, but Krupman ignored it. "I'd like to make rounds now, Joe, if you don't mind," he said briskly.

"Sure thing. We'll start here."

"Here? But these aren't American servicemen, they're gooks."

Joe looked around him at all of the familiar faces and the few new arrivals. "No kidding? How about that? You mean you guys aren't from 1st Cay?"

Mai giggled. I decided it was a good time to get That up for her afternoon walk. Her grafts had taken and her hip was healed except for a single small area, from which a drain protruded. She had already walked twice. This time when I raised her, she only hissed between her teeth, but did not cry when I got her to her feet, slung her arm around my shoulders-which was a reach for her-and put my arm around her waist.

She hissed again and groaned once.

"Sorry, That," I said. "Sin loi." I hated to hurt her.

She turned her face to me and on it was the biggest smile I had ever seen. She was walking. It hurt, but she was walking and she hadn't ever thought she'd do that again, the smile said. We made the route twice. In a couple of weeks the drain could come out and with a little help she could go home, wherever that was.

"Hey, Joe, look at That!" I said. Joe looked up and waved.

"Numbah one, mamasan!" he called to That from Xe's bed. "You gonna run footraces pretty soon."

Krupman straightened and glared.

Joe made rounds for three more days. Krupman usually made it just in time for the rounds on the GI side, but was unavoidably detained elsewhere when it came time to examine the Vietnamese. Even when Joe was not technically on duty, during the three out-processing days, Krupman didn't make rounds on the Vietnamese ward, despite our having a flock of new casualties, though he spent a lot of time patiently explaining back exercises to the incapacitated clerk-typist from Marine headquarters.

The day Joe got on the plane, however, I returned from lunch and saw that the new doctor had finally deigned to visit the Vietnamese ward long enough to stack a pile of charts where I could take off the orders.

The first chart was that of an old man with a fractured collarbone and possible pneumonia. He had had his arm in a sling and had had I.V.

antibiotics for the last day or so. The new order said "Discharge," as did the orders on the charts of a girl with multiple shrapnel wounds to her lower body and a fractured humerus. The third discharge order was for Lieutenant Long, and already his bed was neatly made up and his bedside table cleared.

"Mai, did you see somebody take this order off already?" I asked, puzzled, since as the only nurse on the shift I was the only one who could pass along the orders to be carried out.

"No, Kitty. Chung Wi Long, he hear Dr. Krupman say, 'Send that man away, is no more we can do for him." Chung Wi Long go."

"Go? Where can he go?"

Mai just looked unhappy.

"Does he have family here, Mai?"

Mai looked even more miserable and finally she mumbled that she supposed he must, and left.

"Sarge, Lieutenant Long just took off and Mai doesn't know where he's gone."

"Oh, yes, ma'am. Major Krupman said he could go. Only he didn't exactly put it like that."

"Go where? He's got one leg and no family around here anymore. He said they were all wiped out at Tet last year. Where could he have gone?"

Baker gave me a long look. It said I'd had a sheltered life and didn't understand much about people with no choices. It said what did I think happened to former Vietnamese officers with no family and wounds that left them helpless and dependent.

"Beats the hell out of me, ma'am," was all Baker said.

My hand went to my brass rosettes and my eyes swam as I opened the fourth chart, Dang Thi That's. "Transfer to Province Vietnamese Hospital," the order said.