janecarnall (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} janecarnall) wrote,@ 2007-03-30 11:13:00 |
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Mirror M*A*S*H: Through the Mirror, Part Nine
This is by way of being a sequel to MirrorM*A*S*H.
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 are here.
Yes, yes, I know: the last time I posted a MirrorMASH update was over six months ago. I am terribly sorry, even though I have a host of convincing excuses why not. Real World Stuff intervened quite alarmingly in multiple ways, but also, er:
It appears I am much more likely to write MirrorM*A*S*H if I am working on a non-Mirror story at the same time. However bizarre and wrong I find it to be writing mirrorverse while writing standardverse, it appears to be that very bizarrewrongitiveness (which is now a word: I declare it so) that kickstarts my brain into MirrorM*A*S*H.
Also, when I finished Part Eight, I didn't have the least idea of how to make what happened next, happen. Still, here it and there it is. I would say that hopefully the gap between Part Nine and Part Ten won't be another six months, but you may need to go talk to a good psychiatrist about that.
Part Nine
There were images of a man tortured to death in every room. It had taken him three days, with the French dictionary, to struggle through the first book of the four Francis had given him, and find that this was how Christians believed their god had been killed. That had been four days ago. Hawkeye had had innumerable imaginary arguments with Francis since.
Crucifixion was not a method MATH units used: after the first day, the victim couldn’t talk, and even during that first day, they didn’t have enough breath to talk much. But the army used it, and the government used it: a young healthy body could take four or five days to die on the cross. Hawkeye knew. He’d seen it happen. Even an elderly man in poor health might live for a couple of days. Dad.
No. Hawkeye turned his mind away from that. Arguing with Francis – even when Francis wasn’t there – was better than thinking about Dad.
At the time of the harvest, the god was killed: and, after spending a time in the land of the dead, the god returned to the world of the living. That was a truism across all religions, even Christianity, it seemed. But this god seemed peculiarly human. If the god had been tortured because he was supposed to suffer, he hadn’t suffered very long: he’d been crucified for only a few hours before he was killed.
None of the four books were long, but Hawkeye’s French was rusty. (He knew no Spanish. He was trying not to think about that.) He struggled through them all, though, even the one that began with a list of forty-two generations of fathers and sons. It took about a week, a silent week in which no one spoke to him and he spoke to no one, unless he counted the hours spent lying on his bed talking to himself, just to exercise his jaw muscles.
When he opened his eyes to see himself standing over the bed, he somehow wasn’t surprised.
He didn’t say anything.
Hawkeye shifted himself backwards on the bed and got himself up on his elbows. The book open on his chest fell on to the floor: the man’s gaze fell on it.
He frowned, and reached down to pick it up. It was the book that began Au commencement était le Verbe et le Verbe était avec Dieu et le Verbe était Dieu. The momentary distraction gave Hawkeye time to sit up – though it occurred to him that he was less likely to be punched if he stayed lying flat.
“What’s the matter, Gideon run out of Bibles in English?” the man said.
Hawkeye shook his head. “I got it from Francis.” As far as he knew, none of the Christians here were named Gideon.
He had no idea how he could tell that the man wanted to punch him: he’d never seen himself this angry.
“He wants a transfer!” The man’s shoulders jerked forward, his face distorted into unfamiliarity. He didn’t look like Dad when he was angry. “He wants to get away from me because you – because we – I – ” His voice rose, and cracked. He turned away. He was facing the wall when he said “I didn’t come here to talk to you about that.” The words were strained and thick. “I can’t talk to you about – ” He fell silent.
Hawkeye got to his feet. He was feeling unfamiliar to himself. “Yeah. I can’t say I want to talk to you about that either. What did you come here for?”
“I want to get you to the 4077th.”
“Where?”
“The 4077th. The MASH unit. I want to get you there for tonight.” The man turned round. Hawkeye eyed him in fascination. He hadn’t known the bones in his jaw could stand out like that. “Sidney Freedman’s coming here – there – look, the Father needs to talk to someone, he won’t talk to me, and he hasn’t talked to Sidney, and I bet it’s because he thinks if he tells Sidney there were two of me Sidney’s going to think he’s crazy.”
“Oh.” Hawkeye closed his mouth and nodded. The rush of words was almost comforting. “Who’s Sidney?”
“Sidney. Doctor Freedman. He’s a psychiatrist. He’s a good man. The best. He always comes over here – there – Thursday nights for poker.”
“It’s Thursday?”
The man looked at him. Hawkeye threw out his hands. “I haven’t seen a calendar in weeks.” He glanced round the room. “I’m supposed to go to Spain on Sunday. I think. Can you get me back here?” He looked round again. “And do I care? Let’s go.”
“Wait a minute.”
“Why?”
“I want to spell this out to you,” the man said. “You aren’t going to get to see Father Mulcahy, and he isn’t going to have to see you. I’m going to smuggle you in the back of the jeep, sneak you into the VIP tent, let Sidney see that there really are two of us and have you tell him where you’re from, and then I’m going to get you back here. That’s it. Got it?”
“How are you going to make me do that?”
From under his jacket, the man produced a gun – a revolver, military issue. He pointed it at Hawkeye. “Even I can’t miss at this distance,” he said.
Hawkeye stared. He scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “I have an unbreakable habit of always doing what someone says whenever they point a gun at me,” he said.
“Good.” The man made a gesture at the door with his gun hand.
“Except, if I know me, that revolver isn’t loaded.”
They stared at each other. As the man’s mouth twisted, Hawkeye felt it like disgust in his own belly.
“Meant to load it.” The man’s gun-hand dropped, swung. “Couldn’t find the cartridges. Look, do you want to help Father Mulcahy or not?”
Hawkeye shrugged. He wanted his voice to sound flippant. “I’d help a Boy Scout cross the road, if it meant getting out of this room for a few hours. Do I get a game of poker, too?”
“No.” The man’s hand moved the gun restlessly. “Anyway, what would you stake?”
“Blow-jobs?” Hawkeye offered, still watching the gun. Even if it wasn’t loaded, it made him nervous.
He was startled when the man laughed. More than startled when the man bent double, laughter seeming to break him, his face cracked out of all familiarity. The fit didn’t last long: the man straightened, brought his hand up to knuckle at his eyes, seemed to realise he was still holding a gun, and put it back under his jacket.
“Will you do it, or not? For Father Mulcahy?”
“Sure,” Hawkeye said.
“What?”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
The man had brought along a cap and a jacket, both of them military green. “If we get stopped by MPs, pretend to be drunk, okay?”
“I can do that,” Hawkeye said.
They saw no patrols on the way out of Seoul, and none of the patrols they saw on the road seemed interested in stopping them.It was a long strange silent drive, through half-familiar sunlit countryside, watching his own hands on the wheel.
The man made him get into the back seat of the jeep and lie down before they reached the camp. “Pull the cap over your face.” No one challenged them on the way into camp, or searched the jeep. When it came to a stop, the man leaned over the back. “Okay. I don’t think anyone’s looking this way. Just get out of the jeep and head into the tent, and don’t pull your jacket over your head or anything else suspicious-looking, just...” his voice trailed off.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Hawkeye asked dryly.
The compound was eerily familiar, in the half-glimpse he got of it: the same packed red dirt paths, the same military green tents. The tent was cool and dark. After a minute or two getting rid of the jeep, the man followed him in.
“This isn’t your place,” Hawkeye said, half-question, half-certainty. It looked too tidy, too empty, and smelled too clean.
“This is the VIP tent.”
“Oh, I’m flattered.”
“Sidney’s due in a few hours.” The man glanced at his watch. “Two hours twenty minutes, if he’s his usual self. Okay. No one should come in here before then. I’m going to – I need to head over to post-op. Listen, if anyone does come in here – ” He broke off. “Can you hide under the bed or something?”
They both looked at the army cot.
“Okay, tell them you’re my cousin or something.”
“Pretend to be drunk?” Hawkeye suggested. He grinned, briefly.
“Yeah,” the man said. He glanced at his watch again. “No one’s going to come in here. I’ve got to go. Everything’s going to be fine. This was all set up for Sidney this morning, no one needs to come in here again – ”
Someone was standing outside the tent door. The man glanced at the shadow against the light, and broke off. The Colonel’s voice, coldly familiar, said “Hawk? You in there?”
Hawkeye froze.
The man grimaced widely. “Dammit.” But he went to the door, looking far calmer than Hawkeye felt, and pulled it open. “Come on in.”
The Colonel had shaved. He stood in the tent, as the man closed the door behind him, staring from one to the other with a cool, puzzled look that made Hawkeye twitchy.
“Relative of yours?”
“Yeah,” the man said, “my cousin. From Maine.”
“Your cousin?” The Colonel took a step closer to Hawkeye, frowning: it was all he could do not to flinch back. The scars on his chest and belly itched.
This wasn’t the Colonel. Of course it wasn’t. Hawkeye swallowed. “Yeah, we’re cousins,” he said, trying to pitch his voice differently.
The Colonel half-laughed, still frowning. “You – ” His head turned, the familiar fast switch of attention that bore trouble, staring now at the man. “You didn’t tell me you had a cousin.”
“Didn’t I? We don’t get on. This is my cousin Billy. Bill, this is BJ Hunnicutt.”
“Yeah,” Hawkeye said. “I’ve – ” The Colonel’s gaze had switched back to him. Hawkeye was sure his voice had gone higher from sheer nervousness. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“All of it good, I hope,” the Colonel said.
“Oh yes,” Hawkeye said. “Definitely. Of course.”
The Colonel was still frowning, staring at him. His hand came out: after an instant, Hawkeye realised he expected to shake hands, and did. The Colonel’s hand felt as it always had: strong, larger than Hawkeye’s. “Sorry,” the Colonel said, and his voice sounded amused and apologetic, though his gaze was still intimidating. “But you and your cousin look – look incredibly alike.”
“Inbreeding,” Hawkeye said. He rubbed his hand against the leg of his trousers. “We don’t have a lot else to do up in Maine in the long winter evenings.”
The Colonel laughed, the abrupt brief noise that rang alarm bells down Hawkeye’s spine. He shook his head, looking genuinely amused. “Good to meet you, ...Bill. How long are you here for?”
“Oh, not long,” Hawkeye said.
“Yeah, he just dropped in for a few hours,” the man said. “We’ve got things to talk about. Family stuff. You understand.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t want anyone else to know he’s here, okay?”
“Sure,” the Colonel said again. He sounded questioning.
“Family stuff,” the man said again.
“Okay,” the Colonel said. “I’ll cover for you in post-op.”
“Thanks.”
“Any time.”
“I’ll step over to post-op with you,” the man said. “Bill, you’ll be okay on your own?”
“Sure,” Hawkeye said. “I’ve got something to read.” He’d stuffed the French dictionary and one of the books Francis had leant him in his pocket.
“You don’t want to stay and talk with your cousin?” the Colonel asked.
“I do?” the man said. “Yeah, of course I do. But I – there’s a couple of patients I ought to take a look at in post-op.”
“Relax,” the Colonel said. He sounded reassuring, almost gentle. Hawkeye sweated. “I’ll take care of them. You want to talk with your cousin.” He headed towards the tent door, but as he laid his hand on it, he turned back to look at them again. “Sidney’s due here at six for the poker game.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well.” The Colonel shrugged. “Shall I steer him away from the VIP tent till you’re done talking with your cousin?”
“No,” the man said, with instant decision.
The Colonel – not the Colonel, Hawkeye told himself, but his voice, his hands, his mannerisms – Hunnicutt frowned at the man.
“We’ll be done talking by the time Sidney gets here. He can just come right over. Don’t stop him.”
“Okay,” Hunnicutt said again. This time, he left without a parting shot.
Hawkeye felt himself relax all over. By contrast, the man looked as if he had gone tense as a wire. “God, now I’m stuck in here with you for the next two hours,” the man said.
Hawkeye glanced round the tent. There were no images of anyone being tortured to death. He fished the books out of his pocket. “Want a dictionary to read?”
to part 10
This is by way of being a sequel to MirrorM*A*S*H.
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 are here.
Yes, yes, I know: the last time I posted a MirrorMASH update was over six months ago. I am terribly sorry, even though I have a host of convincing excuses why not. Real World Stuff intervened quite alarmingly in multiple ways, but also, er:
It appears I am much more likely to write MirrorM*A*S*H if I am working on a non-Mirror story at the same time. However bizarre and wrong I find it to be writing mirrorverse while writing standardverse, it appears to be that very bizarrewrongitiveness (which is now a word: I declare it so) that kickstarts my brain into MirrorM*A*S*H.
Also, when I finished Part Eight, I didn't have the least idea of how to make what happened next, happen. Still, here it and there it is. I would say that hopefully the gap between Part Nine and Part Ten won't be another six months, but you may need to go talk to a good psychiatrist about that.
Part Nine
There were images of a man tortured to death in every room. It had taken him three days, with the French dictionary, to struggle through the first book of the four Francis had given him, and find that this was how Christians believed their god had been killed. That had been four days ago. Hawkeye had had innumerable imaginary arguments with Francis since.
Crucifixion was not a method MATH units used: after the first day, the victim couldn’t talk, and even during that first day, they didn’t have enough breath to talk much. But the army used it, and the government used it: a young healthy body could take four or five days to die on the cross. Hawkeye knew. He’d seen it happen. Even an elderly man in poor health might live for a couple of days. Dad.
No. Hawkeye turned his mind away from that. Arguing with Francis – even when Francis wasn’t there – was better than thinking about Dad.
At the time of the harvest, the god was killed: and, after spending a time in the land of the dead, the god returned to the world of the living. That was a truism across all religions, even Christianity, it seemed. But this god seemed peculiarly human. If the god had been tortured because he was supposed to suffer, he hadn’t suffered very long: he’d been crucified for only a few hours before he was killed.
None of the four books were long, but Hawkeye’s French was rusty. (He knew no Spanish. He was trying not to think about that.) He struggled through them all, though, even the one that began with a list of forty-two generations of fathers and sons. It took about a week, a silent week in which no one spoke to him and he spoke to no one, unless he counted the hours spent lying on his bed talking to himself, just to exercise his jaw muscles.
When he opened his eyes to see himself standing over the bed, he somehow wasn’t surprised.
He didn’t say anything.
Hawkeye shifted himself backwards on the bed and got himself up on his elbows. The book open on his chest fell on to the floor: the man’s gaze fell on it.
He frowned, and reached down to pick it up. It was the book that began Au commencement était le Verbe et le Verbe était avec Dieu et le Verbe était Dieu. The momentary distraction gave Hawkeye time to sit up – though it occurred to him that he was less likely to be punched if he stayed lying flat.
“What’s the matter, Gideon run out of Bibles in English?” the man said.
Hawkeye shook his head. “I got it from Francis.” As far as he knew, none of the Christians here were named Gideon.
He had no idea how he could tell that the man wanted to punch him: he’d never seen himself this angry.
“He wants a transfer!” The man’s shoulders jerked forward, his face distorted into unfamiliarity. He didn’t look like Dad when he was angry. “He wants to get away from me because you – because we – I – ” His voice rose, and cracked. He turned away. He was facing the wall when he said “I didn’t come here to talk to you about that.” The words were strained and thick. “I can’t talk to you about – ” He fell silent.
Hawkeye got to his feet. He was feeling unfamiliar to himself. “Yeah. I can’t say I want to talk to you about that either. What did you come here for?”
“I want to get you to the 4077th.”
“Where?”
“The 4077th. The MASH unit. I want to get you there for tonight.” The man turned round. Hawkeye eyed him in fascination. He hadn’t known the bones in his jaw could stand out like that. “Sidney Freedman’s coming here – there – look, the Father needs to talk to someone, he won’t talk to me, and he hasn’t talked to Sidney, and I bet it’s because he thinks if he tells Sidney there were two of me Sidney’s going to think he’s crazy.”
“Oh.” Hawkeye closed his mouth and nodded. The rush of words was almost comforting. “Who’s Sidney?”
“Sidney. Doctor Freedman. He’s a psychiatrist. He’s a good man. The best. He always comes over here – there – Thursday nights for poker.”
“It’s Thursday?”
The man looked at him. Hawkeye threw out his hands. “I haven’t seen a calendar in weeks.” He glanced round the room. “I’m supposed to go to Spain on Sunday. I think. Can you get me back here?” He looked round again. “And do I care? Let’s go.”
“Wait a minute.”
“Why?”
“I want to spell this out to you,” the man said. “You aren’t going to get to see Father Mulcahy, and he isn’t going to have to see you. I’m going to smuggle you in the back of the jeep, sneak you into the VIP tent, let Sidney see that there really are two of us and have you tell him where you’re from, and then I’m going to get you back here. That’s it. Got it?”
“How are you going to make me do that?”
From under his jacket, the man produced a gun – a revolver, military issue. He pointed it at Hawkeye. “Even I can’t miss at this distance,” he said.
Hawkeye stared. He scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “I have an unbreakable habit of always doing what someone says whenever they point a gun at me,” he said.
“Good.” The man made a gesture at the door with his gun hand.
“Except, if I know me, that revolver isn’t loaded.”
They stared at each other. As the man’s mouth twisted, Hawkeye felt it like disgust in his own belly.
“Meant to load it.” The man’s gun-hand dropped, swung. “Couldn’t find the cartridges. Look, do you want to help Father Mulcahy or not?”
Hawkeye shrugged. He wanted his voice to sound flippant. “I’d help a Boy Scout cross the road, if it meant getting out of this room for a few hours. Do I get a game of poker, too?”
“No.” The man’s hand moved the gun restlessly. “Anyway, what would you stake?”
“Blow-jobs?” Hawkeye offered, still watching the gun. Even if it wasn’t loaded, it made him nervous.
He was startled when the man laughed. More than startled when the man bent double, laughter seeming to break him, his face cracked out of all familiarity. The fit didn’t last long: the man straightened, brought his hand up to knuckle at his eyes, seemed to realise he was still holding a gun, and put it back under his jacket.
“Will you do it, or not? For Father Mulcahy?”
“Sure,” Hawkeye said.
“What?”
“Sure. Let’s go.”
The man had brought along a cap and a jacket, both of them military green. “If we get stopped by MPs, pretend to be drunk, okay?”
“I can do that,” Hawkeye said.
They saw no patrols on the way out of Seoul, and none of the patrols they saw on the road seemed interested in stopping them.It was a long strange silent drive, through half-familiar sunlit countryside, watching his own hands on the wheel.
The man made him get into the back seat of the jeep and lie down before they reached the camp. “Pull the cap over your face.” No one challenged them on the way into camp, or searched the jeep. When it came to a stop, the man leaned over the back. “Okay. I don’t think anyone’s looking this way. Just get out of the jeep and head into the tent, and don’t pull your jacket over your head or anything else suspicious-looking, just...” his voice trailed off.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Hawkeye asked dryly.
The compound was eerily familiar, in the half-glimpse he got of it: the same packed red dirt paths, the same military green tents. The tent was cool and dark. After a minute or two getting rid of the jeep, the man followed him in.
“This isn’t your place,” Hawkeye said, half-question, half-certainty. It looked too tidy, too empty, and smelled too clean.
“This is the VIP tent.”
“Oh, I’m flattered.”
“Sidney’s due in a few hours.” The man glanced at his watch. “Two hours twenty minutes, if he’s his usual self. Okay. No one should come in here before then. I’m going to – I need to head over to post-op. Listen, if anyone does come in here – ” He broke off. “Can you hide under the bed or something?”
They both looked at the army cot.
“Okay, tell them you’re my cousin or something.”
“Pretend to be drunk?” Hawkeye suggested. He grinned, briefly.
“Yeah,” the man said. He glanced at his watch again. “No one’s going to come in here. I’ve got to go. Everything’s going to be fine. This was all set up for Sidney this morning, no one needs to come in here again – ”
Someone was standing outside the tent door. The man glanced at the shadow against the light, and broke off. The Colonel’s voice, coldly familiar, said “Hawk? You in there?”
Hawkeye froze.
The man grimaced widely. “Dammit.” But he went to the door, looking far calmer than Hawkeye felt, and pulled it open. “Come on in.”
The Colonel had shaved. He stood in the tent, as the man closed the door behind him, staring from one to the other with a cool, puzzled look that made Hawkeye twitchy.
“Relative of yours?”
“Yeah,” the man said, “my cousin. From Maine.”
“Your cousin?” The Colonel took a step closer to Hawkeye, frowning: it was all he could do not to flinch back. The scars on his chest and belly itched.
This wasn’t the Colonel. Of course it wasn’t. Hawkeye swallowed. “Yeah, we’re cousins,” he said, trying to pitch his voice differently.
The Colonel half-laughed, still frowning. “You – ” His head turned, the familiar fast switch of attention that bore trouble, staring now at the man. “You didn’t tell me you had a cousin.”
“Didn’t I? We don’t get on. This is my cousin Billy. Bill, this is BJ Hunnicutt.”
“Yeah,” Hawkeye said. “I’ve – ” The Colonel’s gaze had switched back to him. Hawkeye was sure his voice had gone higher from sheer nervousness. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“All of it good, I hope,” the Colonel said.
“Oh yes,” Hawkeye said. “Definitely. Of course.”
The Colonel was still frowning, staring at him. His hand came out: after an instant, Hawkeye realised he expected to shake hands, and did. The Colonel’s hand felt as it always had: strong, larger than Hawkeye’s. “Sorry,” the Colonel said, and his voice sounded amused and apologetic, though his gaze was still intimidating. “But you and your cousin look – look incredibly alike.”
“Inbreeding,” Hawkeye said. He rubbed his hand against the leg of his trousers. “We don’t have a lot else to do up in Maine in the long winter evenings.”
The Colonel laughed, the abrupt brief noise that rang alarm bells down Hawkeye’s spine. He shook his head, looking genuinely amused. “Good to meet you, ...Bill. How long are you here for?”
“Oh, not long,” Hawkeye said.
“Yeah, he just dropped in for a few hours,” the man said. “We’ve got things to talk about. Family stuff. You understand.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t want anyone else to know he’s here, okay?”
“Sure,” the Colonel said again. He sounded questioning.
“Family stuff,” the man said again.
“Okay,” the Colonel said. “I’ll cover for you in post-op.”
“Thanks.”
“Any time.”
“I’ll step over to post-op with you,” the man said. “Bill, you’ll be okay on your own?”
“Sure,” Hawkeye said. “I’ve got something to read.” He’d stuffed the French dictionary and one of the books Francis had leant him in his pocket.
“You don’t want to stay and talk with your cousin?” the Colonel asked.
“I do?” the man said. “Yeah, of course I do. But I – there’s a couple of patients I ought to take a look at in post-op.”
“Relax,” the Colonel said. He sounded reassuring, almost gentle. Hawkeye sweated. “I’ll take care of them. You want to talk with your cousin.” He headed towards the tent door, but as he laid his hand on it, he turned back to look at them again. “Sidney’s due here at six for the poker game.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Well.” The Colonel shrugged. “Shall I steer him away from the VIP tent till you’re done talking with your cousin?”
“No,” the man said, with instant decision.
The Colonel – not the Colonel, Hawkeye told himself, but his voice, his hands, his mannerisms – Hunnicutt frowned at the man.
“We’ll be done talking by the time Sidney gets here. He can just come right over. Don’t stop him.”
“Okay,” Hunnicutt said again. This time, he left without a parting shot.
Hawkeye felt himself relax all over. By contrast, the man looked as if he had gone tense as a wire. “God, now I’m stuck in here with you for the next two hours,” the man said.
Hawkeye glanced round the tent. There were no images of anyone being tortured to death. He fished the books out of his pocket. “Want a dictionary to read?”
to part 10