my patients had before they qualified as patients. But I, for one, did not give a shit what he believed.
'Tony, I'm sorry about that, but I have a few other things on my mind, all right? I'm cold and wet and I just finished talking to a so called physician who cheerfully accepted that he murdered one of my patients and intends to go on murdering them, all perfectly legally and with the Army's blessings, because he blames my patients and maybe me for the death of his brother.'
'He killed your patient?'
'Yes. It was Dang Thi That.'
'The old lady with the hip?'
'I'm surprised you remembered. You never liked me to talk about my patients, if I recall. They weren't as interesting as your goddamn helicopters.'
'Okay, okay, I deserve that, I guess. Carole tried to tell me a little how you felt, and believe me, I never thought you were cheap or anything. It's just, we were so good together I couldn't see why you couldn't just be happy with that. Why dwell on the war all the time?'
'I wasn't talking about the goddamn war. I was talking about my patients. The same way you talk about your fuckin' helicopters. It's my work and-and that bastard is destroying everything......... I started bawling again, and could have shot myself for it.
But Tony had made up his mind to be charming, and I had forgotten how good at it he could be. He ran his hand up the back of my neck and kneaded, comfortingly, warmingly. 'God, babe, I'm sorry. Tell me about it, come on. Let's go back to your place, or you won't be in any shape to do anyone any good.'
I stopped crying before I told him because I didn't want to give him an excuse to hold me, much as I wanted to be held. He was unexpectedly concerned, however, and I remembered that a lot of my patients had been his patients first, in a way. He had delivered them. And Tony was a lot of things I didn't like, but for Vietnam, he wasn't much of a racist.
'Now he says he's going to do the same thing to the others-'
'Can't you head him off?'
'How?'
'I don't know. Where are they from?'
Somewhere near Tam Ky.'
'Okay, I'll check it out. If we can get some relatives up here, your patients will have someone to look after them at Province anyway.'
He was talking about an awfully long shot and we both knew it. Uninjured Vietnamese were even lower priority than injured ones.
'Christ,' I said. 'It's like triage. It's bad enough for the new people, but old Xe and Ahn . . .' He reached over and stroked my cheek with that beautiful hand and gave me a melting look from those beautiful eyes and I almost fell into his arms. But I wasn't about to. Maybe he wasn't a complete rat, but That's death was the issue here, not my sex life or his.
'Don't they have anyone?'
'Nobody. Ahn's an orphan and Xe-Tony, do you know a Special Forces type named Heron?'
'Heron, Heron . . . no, babe. Sorry. I don't-sounds familiar, but .
. .' He let his arms raise and drop and the pungency of his sweat rose up between us from the darkened green patches under the arms of his fatigue shirt.
'Will you ask around for me? Please? He's a friend of the old man's.
He got sent back to the field, but he might be able to pull some strings and get Xe sent home. But I don't know what to do about Ahn. If Marge were here she'd know what to do.'
'Where is she?'
'In Quang Ngai, with her buddy Hal, who runs the hospital. If she hadn't left, that bastard Krupman would never have gotten away with this.'
'She knows the kid, Ahn, huh?'
'Sure. She knew all the long-term patients. Ahn's not so sick, but his stump isn't all that healed over yet, even though he has that prosthesis Joe cobbled out of an old crutch. We've been waiting for a real prosthesis.'
'He'd just sell it on the black market,' Tony said.
I started to swing on him.
'Okay, okay.'
'I'm sorry. You're right. But he doesn't have any place to go or any chance.'
'You could say that about half of Vietnam.'
'Yeah, well, half of Vietnam doesn't call me mamasan. Tony, I can't let him die like That, I just can't. Shit. If only Marge were around.'
'Well, hell, if she's the answer to everything, why not take the kid down to her?'
'I can't. I-'
'I could. I go down there every once in a while. We could go down and visit your friend and you could drop the kid off.'
'Is that-I mean, is it okay to carry a Vietnamese civilian?'
'I do it all the time.' He grinned. 'Part of my job description, babe, remember? And why do you care about okay? You're the one who needs to get around regs now. just tell me when to pick you up.'
'Well, I couldn't go-I mean, I'm on duty.'
'You could go after, couldn't you? You're head nurse now. Rewrite the schedule. Give yourself a day off. Nobody will know. I'll have you back day after tomorrow night, and if not, hell, what can they do, send you to Vietnam?'
'But couldn't you just find Marge once you get there and get her to admit Ahn?'
'Baby, I don't give a shit about Ahn, or Marge. I'm in this for ulterior motives, remember? I want my best girl back.'
'Tony, you're married,' I said wearily. 'And you lied to me about it.'
'Well, so what? She's not here and you are. Is it a deal or not?'
That's face flashed in front of me again and Ahn's sad, knowing eyes as Tony's scent smoked up my nostrils and his hand brushed my cheek again.
'What you say, babe? Deal? Huh?'
'Okay.'
'Seal it with a kiss?' His mouth came close to mine and his arms slid up mine.
'Tony, believe it or not, I'm just not in the mood right now.'
He grinned. 'I bic, baby. That's okay. I know a guy in Quang Ngai I can kick out of his hooch for the night. See you tomorrow.'
'Tony?'
'Yeah?'
'You think this will work?'
'Sho 'nuer, baby. No sweat.'
The atmosphere on the ward the next morning was as dismal as the weather. Navy-gray clouds rolled in from the South China Sea like tons of concrete, dropping rain in thick splats. The din of rain on a tin roof can be rather pleasant if you're inside. But combine the din with the discordant notes of those same drops plonking into basins and bedpans inside your shelter and the cursing of personnel tripping over the basins, and it's too noisy to think.
Sergeant Baker glowered at me when I came in and Voorhees declined to meet my eyes. I made old Xe's bed with him in it that morning. He was still asleep when I brought his medication, but his respirations were loud enough to be heard from several feet away over the rain. His chest sounded like a rattle. Ahn sat in bed and watched, his eyes as round as if he'd never seen anyone sick or hurt before. I thought again how quickly he had begun to act like a normal child. I wondered if I had done him any favors by convincing him that he could afford the luxury of a childhood, however brief.
The sheets I bunched under the old man were damp. Ahn slid out of bed, grabbed his crutches, and helped me. Watching Mai and the corpsmen, he'd learned to make hospital corners as sharp as any probationer's, and while he tucked, I rolled Xe toward me. When I rolled him onto his back again, his eyes were open-one of them, anyway. The other lid drooped heavily over the eye and the side of his mouth tugged at the corner. I grabbed a blood pressure cuff, but there was no particular change. At some point, while he slept, Xe had had a stroke.
It could have happened to anybody his age, but combined with his amputations and the rattle in his lungs, it was ominous.
'Aw, shit,' I muttered, half to myself, half to Ahn, who had moved to my side and was watching the old man as if he might explode. 'Now I have to call Krupman in early.' I couldn't help but take a hard look at Ahn.
'No, mamasan, no call bac si. He cat ca dao papasan, same-same Ba That, Mamasan, you make papasan numbah one.'
'No can do, Ahn. Sin loi,' I said, and started for the phone as Ahn continued his protests in ever-shriller Vietnamese. Xe's right hand curled over his chest like a claw, but his left one whipped out and grabbed my arm in a viselike grip.
He moved his mouth, but nothing save a dribble of spittle emerged.
'What did he say, Ahn?' I asked. 'Does he need anything?'
'Papasan say he fini pretty quick.'
'Give me a break, kid. You sound like Krupman now.'
The right hand stayed hovering over the chest, but the left one steered my hand to the old man's neck and the theng, and my fingers found the amulet. Together we steered it back to its place over his sternum, and his good hand clamped mine over his bad one and the amulet. A violet-gray light oozed from him like a slowly spreading hematoma. I started to check his pupils, but suddenly life-real, knowing, painful life-leaped back into his good eye like a revived candle flame and focused on me. I felt as though we had clasped hands across a deep crevasse. I had seen, felt, such a thing from patients before, when they prepared to die, especially those who couldn't talk-this is who I am, remember me, it said. But never before with the bruising strength of will that
