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Mirror M*A*S*H: Through the Mirror, Part Fifteen
This is by way of being a sequel to MirrorM*A*S*H. Please note this is Part Fifteen, which comes after part fourteen.
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.
Part Fifteen
“They don’t tell you when you get the letter from the draft board,” Hawkeye said, staring at Shalev’s hands on the wheel. “I mean, you know some medical staff get picked to do the cutting work, but that’s not the only reason they draft doctors. Not even surgeons. They don’t tell you where you’re going to serve till you’re in and on your way. I turned out to be good at it. You did too. I do the cutting, you do the psych work.”
“So I was drafted too?” Shalev asked. He sounded interested. Shalev Friedhof was an easy man to talk to: in either world, that seemed to be his peculiar talent.
“Yes,” Hawkeye said, automatically. “I never asked. Why would anyone volunteer?”
“I suppose that would depend what they were volunteering for,” Shalev said.
“I never met anyone who enjoyed the cutting,” Hawkeye said, after a while. He had been thinking about what Shalev had said. “It’s messy.” Not just the blood: vomit, shit, urine – almost anything that a human body could produce would be made to come out of it in OR.
“I would imagine so.”
“And it’s hard work. I mean physically hard work. Not that I ever noticed that during a cutting session. Too much else to think about.”
Shalev made a familiar noise, a kind of grunt of agreement, neither yes nor no.
“And you can’t talk about it. Not to anyone outside.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s not allowed,” Hawkeye said: it seemed self-evident.
“The cutting?” It was almost not a question.
Hawkeye laughed: it was almost funny. “Talking about – it. You know. Not in the right words.” He looked at Shalev Friedhof’s hands on the wheel. He lifted his own to look at them. “There aren’t any right words,” he said. “I got letters from Dad I hated to read. He thinks I’m dead.”
“He wrote to you, thinking you were dead?”
The joke was sour, but Hawkeye laughed. He was so tired it almost felt like freedom, so easy and relaxed it was easier to laugh than cry. “The Colonel knocked me on the head and took me away from the camp, and they’d have found all the blood from where he started cutting me. Enough of my blood to kill me, and no bodies at all, but they probably decided some Koreans robbed our corpses and ditched them. Plenty of places to get rid of a body in Seoul. Some of them are more hygienic than others. They probably already terminated a couple of Koreans for robbing a deceased army officer and did all the paperwork to match it up. I’m dead. Dad’s safe. They’d crucify him if they thought I’d deserted.”
“How long have you felt this way?” Shalev asked, after a pause.
“Since I woke up in hospital with Francis.”
“Are you sure?”
Hawkeye didn’t answer for a while. He didn’t have any of Dad’s letters. He had written back pleasant lies in response to Crabapple Cove gossip. He hadn’t kept the letters.
“I had to do it,” he said. “Once I was drafted. If you run away or refuse orders or spread sedition…” Frank Burns had been fond of that word. He could splutter “Sedition!” even when too drunk to walk straight.
“They do things. To your family. They’d have killed Dad.”
“So you did it to save your father’s life?” The words were admiring. The tone was, too – almost.
“I was drafted…” Hawkeye rubbed his face with the back of his hand, knuckling at his eyes. “They’d have killed me,” he said.
“To save your own life?”
Hawkeye turned his hands in front of his face, conscious – repeatedly conscious – of the clever musculature and nerves. He flexed his fingers, feeling their strength.
“You don’t think about that all the time,” he said finally, slowly. “After a while, you don’t think about that at all. What Francis said, about what it was like for him in the brothel: he went on wanting to fight, even though he couldn’t, even though when he saw me he just begged me to go away. After a while you – ” he heard what he was saying, and laughed. “I don’t know how it was for you. After a while, I stopped thinking about it at all. Most of the time. Mostly when I was in OR, I thought about what I was doing, not why I had to do it. If you have to think about why you have to do it, I think you crack up.”
The new subjects, just in, being strapped down to the table, were usually doped: they would come round on the table, when Hawkeye’s hands were already deep inside them, and unless there was a special military observer to interrogate, it would be Houlihan’s lieutenants who would hear what they had to scream. Hawkeye had found he could feel when the body on the table was sliding, inexorably, down away from the living: the flesh seemed colder than it should be, the heart’s pulse labouring. If he was better than the rest of the cutters, it was because he knew to his fingertips when one of his bodies was dying.
“I could always make them live,” he said finally, not looking at Shalev any more. “Mine lived longer than anyone else’s.”
The brief Korean twilight was gone and they were driving in the city’s darkness in Seoul. If he’d ever tried to tell Dad what he’d done, that he’d done it to keep Dad alive…
“I couldn’t have gone home, anyway,” he said at last. “I didn’t think about it then, but the more I did – the better I worked – ” He could remember committing multiple lacerations to the face of a man who had been a handsome guy: starting at the scalp, moving down to ear and eye, cutting at the cheek, neck, and shoulder. The man was to be terminated slowly, and Hawkeye had kept him alive for 48 hours, the Colonel had told him afterwards, though he could not remember a great deal about the time after he had begun to cut below the collarbones. He could remember working well, scalpel moving, the blood and flesh like living paint and clay. He could remember what the contents of a person’s lower intestine smelled like when his guts were opened up.
“I need to die,” Hawkeye said out loud. The jeep was parked in the convent’s courtyard. Shalev was looking at him with a kind of detachment, as if Hawkeye were a subject. “You understand that?”
“Yes,” Shalev said. “I’ll see you again.”
“All right,” Hawkeye agreed. “Francis won’t. Someone should. Tell him…” He wished he could think of the right words. “I’m glad he got home.”
“Sleep well,” Shalev might have said, but Hawkeye wasn’t paying much attention any more. He went into the convent, walking steadily, aware of how his body moved, alive and balanced and sure on his feet. He paused by the door to the room where he’d slept, wondering if he should put the two books back on the pile to be returned, and then remembered he’d left them at Francis’s unit. Francis would get them back.
The tiny infirmary smelled like home. There were two scalpels, unused, in clear protective wrappings. Hawkeye picked one and lay down on the bed where Francis had slept. He held his right hand up in front of him, palm facing him: he was awkward but not clumsy with his left. A long deep cut down his arm. His fingers on his right hand folded over, without his feeling them do it: he had cut deeper than the vein, and the vein was sliced deep through. He couldn’t do his left wrist now, but one would be enough. No one could make him use his right hand again, not for anything.
He turned on his side, his hand out, letting the blood flow free, and closed his eyes. That was done.
The path up from the cove was a steep pull, the rocks were jagged and slippery, but the smell of the sea was in Hawkeye’s mouth and nose, and he was going home. He was holding a basket with live lobster struggling in it, claws tied so they couldn’t climb out. He’d been out fishing all day, he was tired all over, it got harder and harder as the path got steeper and the rocks got wetter.
He reached the top of the path with a last effort, swinging the basket, and the path lay clear and a little downhill to home. The porch light was on, and through the kitchen window Hawkeye could see Dad and Mom at the table. He was walking home, alive and balanced and sure on his feet.
The lobster had got its claws free and it was clinging to his wrist. His wrist hurt and he was bleeding, but he’d be home at the end of the path. It seemed to be taking a long time to walk it, and the smell of the sea only got stronger as he walked.
Francis was standing in the doorway. He looked white and tired and afraid. “You can’t go in there.” He lifted his hand, as if he could stop Hawkeye. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just lobster,” Hawkeye told him. “Don’t worry about it.” The lobster’s claws dug into his wrist. “I need to get home.”
“You can’t,” Francis said. His voice had that strange cold authority. “You can’t go home.”
“Who’s going to stop me?” Hawkeye lifted his hand. “Look, it’s just a lobster.”
The path up from the cove was a steep pull, the rocks were jagged and slippery, but the smell of the sea was in Hawkeye’s mouth and nose, and he was going home. He was holding a basket with live lobster struggling in it. He was tired all over. The path got steeper and the rocks got wetter.
He reached the top, and the path lay clear and a little downhill to home. The porch light was on, and through the kitchen window Hawkeye could see Dad and Mom at the table. He was walking home, alive.
The lobster was clinging to his wrist. His wrist hurt and he was bleeding, but he’d be home at the end. The smell of the sea only got stronger as he walked.
Francis stood in the doorway, white and tired. “You can’t go in there.” He lifted his hand to stop Hawkeye. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just lobster,” Hawkeye told him. “Don’t worry about it.” The claws dug into his wrist. “I need to get home.”
“You can’t,” Francis said. His voice had that strange cold authority. “You can’t go home.”
“Who’s going to stop me?” Hawkeye lifted his hand. “Look, it’s just a lobster.”
The path up from the cove was steep, jagged and slippery, and the smell of the sea was in Hawkeye’s throat. He was going home.
At the top, the path lay clear and a little downhill to home. The light was lit: through the window Hawkeye could see Dad and Mom at the table. He was going home.
The lobster hurt his wrist and he was bleeding, but he’d be home. The smell of the sea was strong and bloody.
Francis stood in the doorway. “You can’t go in there.” He lifted his hand with strange cold authority. “You’re bleeding.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hawkeye told him. The blades dug into his wrist. “I need to get home.”
“You can’t go home.”
“Look,” Hawkeye lifted his hand, to show Francis. “It’s just a lobster.”
Jagged rocks, choking sea-smell. The path lay clear and a little downhill to home. Through the lit window Hawkeye could see Dad and Mom.
The lobster hurt his wrist. He was bleeding. Home. The smell of blood was strong and salty.
Francis stood in the doorway, barring his way with cold authority. “You can’t go home.” He lifted his hand, and Hawkeye saw:
The pain was not a lobster’s claws: never had been.
to part 16
This is by way of being a sequel to MirrorM*A*S*H. Please note this is Part Fifteen, which comes after part fourteen.
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.
Part Fifteen
“They don’t tell you when you get the letter from the draft board,” Hawkeye said, staring at Shalev’s hands on the wheel. “I mean, you know some medical staff get picked to do the cutting work, but that’s not the only reason they draft doctors. Not even surgeons. They don’t tell you where you’re going to serve till you’re in and on your way. I turned out to be good at it. You did too. I do the cutting, you do the psych work.”
“So I was drafted too?” Shalev asked. He sounded interested. Shalev Friedhof was an easy man to talk to: in either world, that seemed to be his peculiar talent.
“Yes,” Hawkeye said, automatically. “I never asked. Why would anyone volunteer?”
“I suppose that would depend what they were volunteering for,” Shalev said.
“I never met anyone who enjoyed the cutting,” Hawkeye said, after a while. He had been thinking about what Shalev had said. “It’s messy.” Not just the blood: vomit, shit, urine – almost anything that a human body could produce would be made to come out of it in OR.
“I would imagine so.”
“And it’s hard work. I mean physically hard work. Not that I ever noticed that during a cutting session. Too much else to think about.”
Shalev made a familiar noise, a kind of grunt of agreement, neither yes nor no.
“And you can’t talk about it. Not to anyone outside.”
“Why is that?”
“It’s not allowed,” Hawkeye said: it seemed self-evident.
“The cutting?” It was almost not a question.
Hawkeye laughed: it was almost funny. “Talking about – it. You know. Not in the right words.” He looked at Shalev Friedhof’s hands on the wheel. He lifted his own to look at them. “There aren’t any right words,” he said. “I got letters from Dad I hated to read. He thinks I’m dead.”
“He wrote to you, thinking you were dead?”
The joke was sour, but Hawkeye laughed. He was so tired it almost felt like freedom, so easy and relaxed it was easier to laugh than cry. “The Colonel knocked me on the head and took me away from the camp, and they’d have found all the blood from where he started cutting me. Enough of my blood to kill me, and no bodies at all, but they probably decided some Koreans robbed our corpses and ditched them. Plenty of places to get rid of a body in Seoul. Some of them are more hygienic than others. They probably already terminated a couple of Koreans for robbing a deceased army officer and did all the paperwork to match it up. I’m dead. Dad’s safe. They’d crucify him if they thought I’d deserted.”
“How long have you felt this way?” Shalev asked, after a pause.
“Since I woke up in hospital with Francis.”
“Are you sure?”
Hawkeye didn’t answer for a while. He didn’t have any of Dad’s letters. He had written back pleasant lies in response to Crabapple Cove gossip. He hadn’t kept the letters.
“I had to do it,” he said. “Once I was drafted. If you run away or refuse orders or spread sedition…” Frank Burns had been fond of that word. He could splutter “Sedition!” even when too drunk to walk straight.
“They do things. To your family. They’d have killed Dad.”
“So you did it to save your father’s life?” The words were admiring. The tone was, too – almost.
“I was drafted…” Hawkeye rubbed his face with the back of his hand, knuckling at his eyes. “They’d have killed me,” he said.
“To save your own life?”
Hawkeye turned his hands in front of his face, conscious – repeatedly conscious – of the clever musculature and nerves. He flexed his fingers, feeling their strength.
“You don’t think about that all the time,” he said finally, slowly. “After a while, you don’t think about that at all. What Francis said, about what it was like for him in the brothel: he went on wanting to fight, even though he couldn’t, even though when he saw me he just begged me to go away. After a while you – ” he heard what he was saying, and laughed. “I don’t know how it was for you. After a while, I stopped thinking about it at all. Most of the time. Mostly when I was in OR, I thought about what I was doing, not why I had to do it. If you have to think about why you have to do it, I think you crack up.”
The new subjects, just in, being strapped down to the table, were usually doped: they would come round on the table, when Hawkeye’s hands were already deep inside them, and unless there was a special military observer to interrogate, it would be Houlihan’s lieutenants who would hear what they had to scream. Hawkeye had found he could feel when the body on the table was sliding, inexorably, down away from the living: the flesh seemed colder than it should be, the heart’s pulse labouring. If he was better than the rest of the cutters, it was because he knew to his fingertips when one of his bodies was dying.
“I could always make them live,” he said finally, not looking at Shalev any more. “Mine lived longer than anyone else’s.”
The brief Korean twilight was gone and they were driving in the city’s darkness in Seoul. If he’d ever tried to tell Dad what he’d done, that he’d done it to keep Dad alive…
“I couldn’t have gone home, anyway,” he said at last. “I didn’t think about it then, but the more I did – the better I worked – ” He could remember committing multiple lacerations to the face of a man who had been a handsome guy: starting at the scalp, moving down to ear and eye, cutting at the cheek, neck, and shoulder. The man was to be terminated slowly, and Hawkeye had kept him alive for 48 hours, the Colonel had told him afterwards, though he could not remember a great deal about the time after he had begun to cut below the collarbones. He could remember working well, scalpel moving, the blood and flesh like living paint and clay. He could remember what the contents of a person’s lower intestine smelled like when his guts were opened up.
“I need to die,” Hawkeye said out loud. The jeep was parked in the convent’s courtyard. Shalev was looking at him with a kind of detachment, as if Hawkeye were a subject. “You understand that?”
“Yes,” Shalev said. “I’ll see you again.”
“All right,” Hawkeye agreed. “Francis won’t. Someone should. Tell him…” He wished he could think of the right words. “I’m glad he got home.”
“Sleep well,” Shalev might have said, but Hawkeye wasn’t paying much attention any more. He went into the convent, walking steadily, aware of how his body moved, alive and balanced and sure on his feet. He paused by the door to the room where he’d slept, wondering if he should put the two books back on the pile to be returned, and then remembered he’d left them at Francis’s unit. Francis would get them back.
The tiny infirmary smelled like home. There were two scalpels, unused, in clear protective wrappings. Hawkeye picked one and lay down on the bed where Francis had slept. He held his right hand up in front of him, palm facing him: he was awkward but not clumsy with his left. A long deep cut down his arm. His fingers on his right hand folded over, without his feeling them do it: he had cut deeper than the vein, and the vein was sliced deep through. He couldn’t do his left wrist now, but one would be enough. No one could make him use his right hand again, not for anything.
He turned on his side, his hand out, letting the blood flow free, and closed his eyes. That was done.
The path up from the cove was a steep pull, the rocks were jagged and slippery, but the smell of the sea was in Hawkeye’s mouth and nose, and he was going home. He was holding a basket with live lobster struggling in it, claws tied so they couldn’t climb out. He’d been out fishing all day, he was tired all over, it got harder and harder as the path got steeper and the rocks got wetter.
He reached the top of the path with a last effort, swinging the basket, and the path lay clear and a little downhill to home. The porch light was on, and through the kitchen window Hawkeye could see Dad and Mom at the table. He was walking home, alive and balanced and sure on his feet.
The lobster had got its claws free and it was clinging to his wrist. His wrist hurt and he was bleeding, but he’d be home at the end of the path. It seemed to be taking a long time to walk it, and the smell of the sea only got stronger as he walked.
Francis was standing in the doorway. He looked white and tired and afraid. “You can’t go in there.” He lifted his hand, as if he could stop Hawkeye. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just lobster,” Hawkeye told him. “Don’t worry about it.” The lobster’s claws dug into his wrist. “I need to get home.”
“You can’t,” Francis said. His voice had that strange cold authority. “You can’t go home.”
“Who’s going to stop me?” Hawkeye lifted his hand. “Look, it’s just a lobster.”
The path up from the cove was a steep pull, the rocks were jagged and slippery, but the smell of the sea was in Hawkeye’s mouth and nose, and he was going home. He was holding a basket with live lobster struggling in it. He was tired all over. The path got steeper and the rocks got wetter.
He reached the top, and the path lay clear and a little downhill to home. The porch light was on, and through the kitchen window Hawkeye could see Dad and Mom at the table. He was walking home, alive.
The lobster was clinging to his wrist. His wrist hurt and he was bleeding, but he’d be home at the end. The smell of the sea only got stronger as he walked.
Francis stood in the doorway, white and tired. “You can’t go in there.” He lifted his hand to stop Hawkeye. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s just lobster,” Hawkeye told him. “Don’t worry about it.” The claws dug into his wrist. “I need to get home.”
“You can’t,” Francis said. His voice had that strange cold authority. “You can’t go home.”
“Who’s going to stop me?” Hawkeye lifted his hand. “Look, it’s just a lobster.”
The path up from the cove was steep, jagged and slippery, and the smell of the sea was in Hawkeye’s throat. He was going home.
At the top, the path lay clear and a little downhill to home. The light was lit: through the window Hawkeye could see Dad and Mom at the table. He was going home.
The lobster hurt his wrist and he was bleeding, but he’d be home. The smell of the sea was strong and bloody.
Francis stood in the doorway. “You can’t go in there.” He lifted his hand with strange cold authority. “You’re bleeding.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hawkeye told him. The blades dug into his wrist. “I need to get home.”
“You can’t go home.”
“Look,” Hawkeye lifted his hand, to show Francis. “It’s just a lobster.”
Jagged rocks, choking sea-smell. The path lay clear and a little downhill to home. Through the lit window Hawkeye could see Dad and Mom.
The lobster hurt his wrist. He was bleeding. Home. The smell of blood was strong and salty.
Francis stood in the doorway, barring his way with cold authority. “You can’t go home.” He lifted his hand, and Hawkeye saw:
The pain was not a lobster’s claws: never had been.
to part 16