dark and muffled, with only the red glow of a cigarette tip from the guard tower to remind you it was manned by a bored soldier with a rifle. Inevitably there was a little muted rock music from some corner of the compound, a radio turned down low.
The ward was quiet, too, those first few nights except for a whisper of pages turning in Ryan's book. I still took the flashlight and rolled Dang Thi That's graft, but now she sometimes slept through the procedure. I was more curious than ever about Xe, but he slept all night. Sometimes Ahn would wake up when I did rounds and climb into his wheelchair and come sit with me by the desk, watching with serious dark eyes as I charted or read or wrote letters. I showed him how to write his name in English and he drew the letters like an artist, his small grubby hands oddly graceful, the hooded light of the lamp at the nurses'
desk gleaming on his bowl-cut black hair. He was very quick. The worst problem was keeping him quiet. Already his sessions with Xinhdy and Mai had him babbling away in fluent pidgin. Still, he would leave them to follow me if he thought I had a scrap of attention to spare him. I wrote my mother and asked her to comb the garage sales for children's clothes.
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.
