Mirror M*A*S*H: Through the Mirror, Part One
The first half of this section was originally posted on my livejournal. The story will continue on this journal.

This is by way of being a sequel to MirrorM*A*S*H.

Part One

There were images of a man tortured to death in every room.

The bed was actually more comfortable than an army cot. The food here was better, too. And, once he’d got used to the bells (Matins, Lauds, Prime, they told him) he could sleep the night through.

He could sleep the day through, as well. No one expected him to do anything, beyond show up for meals in reasonable time (even then, if he didn’t, the Korean cook in the kitchen would always feed him).

The food was good. He could sleep as much as he liked. The Christians didn’t make him go to their services. There were images of a man tortured to death in every room.

There was a knock on the door and Hawkeye looked up: Francis came in.

Unlike most of the other Christians in this house, he wasn’t wearing black: he was in army drab. Like them, he wore a white collar. He was wearing glasses, and a silver ornament on his chest.

“I have to go back to my unit,” Francis said. He sounded awkward, diffident, but -

Francis was different. Not just wearing clothes that fitted, and glasses that changed the shape of his face.

“Sure,” Hawkeye said. He was still staring. There was something more than different about Francis now. Not just that he wasn’t scared or tired or hungry.

“Father Joseph says that you’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” Francis said. “But the Society will - will fix up some way you can go - ” He stopped. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Hawkeye said, and then laughed, because it was funny. “No,” he said again, stopping himself from laughing with an effort. He rubbed his face. “I haven’t had this much sleep since I was in high school.”

“Father John says you’re sleeping rather a lot,” Francis said.

“What else is there to do?”

“There’s a very good library here,” Francis said.

“Any detective novels?” Hawkeye had endured one tour of the house, had memorised the route from his room to the bathroom and to the kitchen and the dining room that passed fewest torture victims, and kept to that route.

Francis looked doubtful. He glanced around the room.

Hawkeye had taken down the torture victim that hung over the bed - the man’s eyes were open, though he looked nearly dead - and shoved it under the bed. The man who cleaned the rooms had stopped sweeping under the bed.

“Brother Won-sik said you’d taken down the cross,” Francis said.

Hawkeye twitched. “Yeah,” he said.

“It would probably make the Brother more comfortable if you put it somewhere than under your bed,” Francis said.

“Anywhere I don’t have to look at it,” Hawkeye said, unguardedly.

Francis’s hand came up in an oddly familiar motion to clasp the silver ornament. He let go of it again, after a moment, and said “I know you’re not a Christian, Hawkeye. I know you - I gathered that where you come from, Christianity isn’t... isn’t respected - ”

Hawkeye laughed suddenly, unstoppably. It wasn’t funny, but he couldn’t stop laughing. When he ran out of breath, Francis was still there: he was still here, in the whitewashed room in this house called a convent, in a city - in a world - he had chosen. Not that there had been a great deal of choice at the time, but he had chosen it, and he had to get used to it, Christianity and all.

“I’m sorry, Francis. That was stupid of me.” He leaned back against the wall and looked at Francis, who looked - offended and trying not to show it: a little angry, and muffling it because he was being kind. He was being kind to Hawkeye.

It wasn’t just that Francis wasn’t starved or beaten or exhausted or scared: he didn’t look as if every second he was bracing himself for what would come next. He looked comfortable in his skin, here: he was behaving as if he were at home. He was at home. He was a Christian priest, and here that didn’t mean what it meant at home. (“At where?” Hawkeye’s internal monitor asked him.)

“I can’t stand looking at the guy being tortured.”

Francis frowned. “What...?” And then, as if something had occurred to him, “Oh.” He came across the room then and sat down on the bed, letting out a long sigh. “I see.”

Hawkeye turned and stared at him. This was the closest Francis had got to him since they’d both been delivered here from the hospital.

“Will you be all right here for a while? The Order is going to get you out of Korea as soon as they can arrange it, but there’s really... I don’t know of anywhere else you could stay just now.”

With no money, and no papers, right. “The Order?”

“The Jesuits,” Francis said. He seemed to realise suddenly where he was - Hawkeye saw him twitch, as if he were about to get up, and then not move. “You won’t have to be here forever, but...”

“The food’s good,” Hawkeye said. “And they let me sleep a lot.”

“Yes.” As if casually, Francis stood up again. The silver ornament flashed in front of Hawkeye’s eyes as he stood: it was, Hawkeye realised, a stylised version of the tortured man. “I could... I’m expected back at my unit this evening, but I could get you some books before I go.”

Hawkeye didn’t get up. “Thanks,” he said, sitting still. Francis wore a torture victim on a chain round his neck: that would take getting used to. “I’d appreciate it, Francis.”

“You should call me Father...” Francis said, and trailed off.

“No,” Hawkeye said. He was probably going to have get used to more bizarre things than he could think of, here: not just the Christianity thing, though that was bizarre enough. But he could not imagine getting used to calling Francis “Father”.

Francis didn’t push the point. He was gone for several hours. Hawkeye’s watch still worked, and seemed to keep good time. Hawkeye lay and watched the hands push time round the dial, both tired and bored.

Francis came back carrying a stack of books: six of them. None of them looked new. “I’m sorry I took so long,” he said, handing them to Hawkeye, sounding apologetic.

Hawkeye clutched at them. After a moment, with an effort of will, he put them down on the bed, and sat down on the bed himself. “Books,” he said. He put his hand on the top volume in the stack, feeling the cloth binding. He wanted to open them up and dive in: but it would be a waste of what time he could have with Francis to read them now. “You have no idea – ” He caught himself. “Well, actually, you probably do. Books. Thank you.”

“You haven’t looked at them,” Francis said.

“I don’t care,” Hawkeye said. He tucked his hands over his knees. “You could give me volumes of Shinto theology and I’d read them.” He glanced down at the top book – the title was The Nine Tailors. “You could give me a book about sewing and I’d be grateful. Something to read. Thank you. When am I going to see you again?”

Francis’s hand came up to rub at his upper lip and dropped to touch his chest. He looked at Hawkeye inexpressively. “I don’t – “ He stopped. “Father Joseph said – have you spoken to him?”

“He’s the tall one with the big nose?” He was the priest in charge here, and he talked to Hawkeye in small careful sentences, always soothing, never informative.

“No, that’s Father Neill,” Francis said. He sounded as if he were deliberately trying to keep his voice even. “He’s a very good man.”

“Who’s Father Joseph?”

“He’s the infirmarian,” Francis said. “He’s shorter than me, with red hair?”

“What’s left of it,” Hawkeye said. That was the priest who stopped by this room every day or so to ask if Hawkeye wanted something and how he was sleeping.

Francis lifted his hand again to shield his mouth. “Father Joseph said they would try to get you out of Korea in a few weeks with some patients. He said you seemed to be having nightmares, but you didn’t seem to want to talk about them.”

Hawkeye shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about my dreams to a – “ He stopped himself in time. “To anyone. When will I see you again?”

“I – ” Francis swallowed. He said, more firmly. “I can’t say. I have to go back to my unit. But I will come back. I promise. I – ” He backed towards the door. “I hope you enjoy the books. Goodbye.”

Hawkeye didn’t look back down at the books until the door closed behind Francis: he began to unstack and examine his treasure trove. Six volumes.

Three novels. Two anthologies. Two books by a writer Hawkeye had never heard of, Dorothy Sayers: The Nine Tailors and Clouds of Witness. Two by a couple of writers Hawkeye had heard of but never read: The Innocence of Father Brown and The Life of Our Lord. A collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling, Twenty One Tales -some of the titles looked familiar, others Hawkeye had never heard of, though his dad had liked Kipling and Hawkeye thought he had read everything he’d written. And – this was treasure – a one-volume encyclopedia. A child’s one, he realised, leafing through it. Where had Francis dug it up?

There was a red stamp on the inside front cover: Korean characters and English. St Mary’s Elementary School, it said in English. The book by Dickens came from the same place. The other four had handwritten names inside, and The Innocence of Father Brown had a bookplate: Awarded to John Anthony Joseph Wilson, Assumption Catholic School, and an American address. The name was written on the bookplate in formal copperplate.

Hawkeye stared at the bookplate for some time, running his finger over it. Schools all over America bought books like this and awarded them as prizes. He’d seen bookplates like this in books his dad had won, he’d won a couple himself. What this bookplate said was unmistakable: there were schools in America, in this world, run by Christians. Public schools. Schools that ordered a gross of bookplates and stuck them in books and gave them away as prizes. People kept these books, lent them out, didn’t hide them, weren’t concerned that people would know they’d gone to a school run by Christians.

He’d been thinking, he realised, looking at the bookplate, as if once he got out of Korea he’d be back in the normal world. But he never would. This was the normal world. If his dad was alive in this world, his dad would be a different person: the person he himself was in this world – and that was a spooky thought – was a different person. Not just because the other Hawkeye had never worked in a MATH unit. Not just because February third had never happened.

“I’m not myself,” Hawkeye whispered. He put the books down and put his head in his hands. “I’m really not myself.”

He wanted Francis. Francis would be back. He’d have to settle into his unit – but he’d be back: he said he would.

Hawkeye picked up the child’s encyclopedia. He looked at the stack of books on the bed. They seemed to lurk there, holding the gods knew what.

“Okay,” he said finally. In exchange for promising never to torture anyone again, he could stay in a place where he’d never have to torture anyone again. That was the deal. However strange things were, he could deal with it. “Okay,” he said, hearing himself sounding surer than he felt.

He opened the encyclopedia. Begin with A.



To part two

(As of 13th February 2008, this story is up to: Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four, Part five, Part six, part seven, part eight, part nine, part ten, part eleven, part twelve, part thirteen, part fourteen and part fifteen part fourteen part fifteen, part sixteen and part seventeen. But it still isn't finished.)