“I have no choice.”
“You are not required—”
“A prior oath,” I said dreamily, floating, swaying. “Just take my word for it. I have no choice.”
“It’s working for the enemy.”
“Doctors have no enemies unless they sue,” I said, and was giddy, this vaudeville, this Irishman and this Chinese and this Jew, you see, they were walking down a street in Korea and one of them says—I am still alive. I am still alive. The room whirled, and I with it, serenely, grandly, regally, and Ou-yang caught the small teacup as Kinsella caught me. Shame. A grown man. He told me I lay there smiling.
8
This time another officer sat with Parsons. It was another day. Benny said to himself, another day, another dolor. He had slept well but had dreamed of Howard rising from the dead, walking. “You look better every day,” Parsons said. Alex.
“Thank you,” Benny said. “It’s a healthy life. The help are courteous and efficient.”
Parsons smiled, not politely but in real pleasure, as one might say, I like jokes. “Sit down. This is Captain Gabol.”
“How do you do.”
“How do you do.” Captain Gabol was handsome and red-haired with a wide nose and wide nostrils. He was Benny’s notion of a farm agent in Indiana. “I’m a psychiatrist,” he said.
“Freudian?”
Gabol grinned. “Eclectic.”
“I’m somewhat eclectic myself,” Benny said.
“That’s all right then,” Gabol welcomed him.
“How goes the questionnaire?” Alex asked.
Benny said, “It’s long. You’ll have a problem with some of these comic-book fans.” He was no longer seasick and rather enjoyed the comfort and conversation of the wardroom, the elegant saloon. “I’m not really answering the way you want me to. I’m just writing it all down. Everything.”
Gabol offered a cigarette and Benny declined politely: “I quit some time ago.”
“So we heard.”
“Should you be telling me what you’ve heard?”
“Some of it. Why not?”
“Some of it,” Benny said.
“You were a cigar smoker,” Parsons said.
“You’re in the right job,” Benny said. “You remember things. That’s how you got to be a spelling champ.”
Parsons laughed happily. “You too, you remember.”
“Everything,” Benny said. “Every bloody thing that ever happened to me. Every time I hurt anybody or did wrong. Every time I was too smart for my own good. Every wrong guess.”
“The right ones too,” Gabol said.
“No. You forget those.”
Gabol asked, “Why did they hurt each other?”
“I can’t tell you,” Benny said. “Or I can give you ten reasons, which amounts to no reason at all. Mainly because they’d never had to worry about survival before, hardly knew what the word meant, and all of a sudden they were right up against it. Don’t ask me to judge them.”
“No,” Parsons said. “It’s not our job to judge. Only to gather information.”
“That’s a judgment right there,” Benny said.
“Some of them killed. Their own comrades. That is, buddies.”
Now Benny laughed. It was a moderately painful experience. “Comrades is all right,” he said. “An ancient and honorable word.”
“You’re thinking better,” Parsons said. “Quicker.”
“Good food,” Benny said, “fresh air. Shuffleboard.”
“You got the cable?”
“Yes.”
“You knew about the little girl.”
“Yes. I had three letters in all.”
“Home soon,” Parsons said, and sighed.
“Are you married?”
“No,” Parsons said. “Almost, once. Better without. I move around too much.”
“I move around too much too,” Benny said.
“You’ve never seen your son?” Gabol asked.
“Oh yes. He was three or four months old when I left. The usual pound of hamburger:”
“It’ll all be so new,” Parsons said.
“Well yes,” Benny explained. “I’ve been away for some time.”
Gabol said, “If you were a tough professional officer, what sort of thing would you report? What sort of bad conduct? In general. Never mind about Ewald.”
Dying, Benny thought. The worst sin. Maybe the only sin, the ones who simply sat there and died. “You’re asking me to judge.” The hopeless. But hope was the last sham. Man’s whatness; nature’s so-whatness.
“Use military standards,” Gabol said. “We won’t hold you to them or ask for names. We just want an idea.”
“All right,” Benny said. “Stealing food and cigarettes, even from the wounded. Also clothes. Informing. Assault on an officer. And at least one officer struck enlisted men and beat one up. Murder. Refusal to obey orders. Refusal to accept, abide by, acknowledge rank. Refusal to escape. Refusal to live.”
A silence followed. Benny gazed first at Parsons and then at Gabol and then at his own hands folded in his lap. He felt prim and wanted to laugh.
“Well, you’ve left out at least one,” Parsons said finally. “Collaboration.”
“Let’s talk about that one,” Gabol said.
“All men are second cousins,” Benny said.
9
From the compound we could see the Yalu River, gray and sluggish, jostling sullen floes westward; unnamed black birds swept low, beat lazy wings, planed into the white woods. The camp had been a village, and I wondered where the villagers were. We had been shipped north by truck, some of the trucks open and the men freezing again, hunched and huddled again, too cold for tears. Again we had arrived by night, so that I never knew through what gate, beneath what sign of doom or welcome, I had entered upon a new life; and we were herded into huts, again regaled with millet and boiling water. In the morning we saw that our huts were houses, homes once, thatched, mud walls, two or three rooms. After more millet and hot water I took a turn about the grounds, checking my men in three of the huts and repulsed by guards here and there until I knew my perimeter. I could see the river and dozens of huts and decided that this would be home for some time. Back in my own hut I attempted cheer. “They going to give us food?” Bewley asked. Bewley was a slim black Pfc. and a Christian.
“I hope so. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Trezevant said, “No stoves, Lieutenant. But there’s a crazy kind of basement, a hole in the ground and some kind of tunnel.”
“I’ll ask. I saw smoke.”
“Yuscavage’s shoulder’s bleeding again.”
“We need food.”
“We need clothes too. Socks worn out and all.”
“Paper panes,” I said. “They have glass in one of the huts.”
“Some of the men shitting their clothes a lot.”
“I know. Let’s put them together.”
There were eleven of us in the three rooms. Thronging the largest, we sat against dusty walls. In the dim morning light we were phantoms, the remnant of a plague. “We can’t change clothes,” Scafa said weakly. “No clothes.” He picked at a scabby pimple. Pale: they were paper-pale.
“It’s all right,” I lied. “We all smell rotten. I’ll see the commander today. Or somebody. It can’t get worse. Now listen, you’ve got to take care of each other. You’ve got to take care of the sick ones. The rest of you have got to have work, something to do, some purpose. You understand?”
No one spoke.
“They’re going to starve us,” Trezevant said.
“I doubt it.”
“They’ll just let us die,” Yuscavage said. “I got blood all over.”
“No. They could have shot us. They don’t give a damn about us, but we’re hostages and we’ve got some of theirs too.”
“They don’t give a shit about theirs,” Mulberg said. “There’s millions of them. They don’t care if they lose half.”
“They’re men an
d they care,” I said, not sure. “And then”—the foolish things a man could say—“there’s public opinion. World opinion. Propaganda. We have to hang on, live till spring. We start with today.” Hit that line. “We live one day at a time. Settle in all you can, and try to keep clean. How many dysenteries?”
Three.
“You three in one room. Trezevant, detail orderlies. Two hours each healthy man, for two hours he’s responsible for the sick. Feeds them and cleans them up.”
“With what?”
“Rags, anything. I’ll scrounge. Keep moving all you can. Walk around.”
“I can’t walk ten steps,” Scafa said.
“Not you three.”
Mulberg asked, “Where’s the toilet?”
We gaped at him. “Somewhere outside,” I said. “Another thing: decide among yourselves whether you want to share and share alike. There may be a cigarette now and then, or a piece of bread.”
“Bread.” Collins clowned, panting like a dog. “Jesus Christ, bread.”
“Try not to think about food,” I said. “It won’t be easy, but try not to think about it.” I sought the right words, why was I not Kinsella. “This is the worst you’ll ever have it. In your whole lives. Whatever you have in you, God or politics or gung ho, you need it now. You can die like pigs or live like pigs and it doesn’t seem much of a choice but it is. The one big choice and nobody can make it for you. You can starve and freeze and live up to your nose in shit and blood and pus and vomit and still make it. If it’s any help, the officers are no better off.”
“No officers here,” Mulberg said.
“I said officers. You’ll do what Trezevant says and Trezevant will do what I say.”
“Bullshit,” Mulberg said.
Collins said, “Haw.”
“Shut up,” Trezevant said.
“We’re dying,” Mulberg snarled. “What the hell good is officers?”
“You’re not dying,” I said. “And if your officers are no good, you’ll know about it soon enough. For now, do as you’re told. Start with a dressing for Yuscavage. He’ll tell you how. I’ll go make trouble, and see what happens. Settle in, now.”
Scafa said, “Will we get mail?”
So I made a sortie to my perimeter, and was menaced by a guard, a rifle, a bayonet, and pronounced the magic words. “Die-foo.” The guard paused. I pointed with authority to a tendril of gray smoke rising from the center of the village. “Die-foo. I want to talk to an officer.” I prodded imaginary epaulets. The guard inspected me like a motorcycle cop; he grounded the weapon and cocked his head instead. He wore a quilted coat and a fur hat and canvas boots. Our steaming breath mingled. Right. All men are brothers. “Die-foo,” he said. I nodded. I wondered what I looked like. Helmet, lined jacket bloody now, wool trousers also bloody, even the boots, encrustations and gobbets. Long hair, dirty beard: a god damn guerrilla, that’s what I was. I took heart. Partisan Beer. And then, a moment I would always remember, the end of the war, the end of all war, bizarre and durable mankind vanquishing the poxy fates, this guard dug into a pocket, extracted a cardboard box, drew from it one cigarette, and offered the cigarette to me. I stood paralyzed: old movies again, a trap. Nonsense. Slowly my hand rose; I accepted the cigarette, and nodded. “Hsieh-hsieh,” I said, Benny of a thousand tongues, knowing “thank you” by now, the rootless cosmopolite, and the guard grinned, erupting in a long string of nonsense syllables, his eyes laughing. I smiled weakly, a forced smile but the first in some time; I felt the unaccustomed tug at socially atrophied muscles. Therapy required. I slipped the cigarette into a shirt pocket. I gestured again at the rising smoke and gabbled, making the sign for speech with my frozen fingers. White man speak with forked thumb. The guard seemed dubious, and waved me back to the hut.
Inside, I handed the cigarette to Trezevant delicately, cautiously, ceremoniously, and said, “Sergeant, distribute this.”
Before noon Ou-yang came to us with a squad of armed soldiers. “Doctor Beer,” he said. “I trust I find you well.”
“We need everything,” I said. We were standing in the doorway, Trezevant a little way off; the others sprawled or came to sit against the walls; they watched like orphans. “This is inhuman.”
“We too need everything,” Ou-yang said harshly. “Unlike you, we are not prepared to make war all over the world.”
I stood mute.
After an angry moment he went on. “How many are you?”
“Eleven.”
“And how many able-bodied?”
“Seven, counting myself.”
“Have four men go with these two. They will carry wood. Who is your second in command?”
“Sergeant Trezevant,” I said, and Trez stepped forward.
“A Negro,” Ou-yang said. “How do you do, Sergeant.” He extended a hand.
Trezevant hesitated.
“It’s all right,” I said.
They shook hands. Ou-yang spoke in Chinese and then said to Trezevant, “Go with this man. He will demonstrate the stove.”
My men murmured and sighed. “Go along,” I said. “Mulberg. Collins. Bewley. Sunderman. Go with these soldiers and fetch wood. Don’t fool around. Just do it.”
To Ou-yang I said, “We need blankets badly and some cloth for dressings and cleaning. Warm clothes. I see wires and a socket. Is there power? Can we have a bulb?”
Ou-yang smiled, suddenly and broadly. Why? I was taken by surprise, almost by warmth. “Yes,” he said. “You may have a bulb. You will not need blankets.”
“We’re not supermen,” I said. “We freeze to death like anybody else.”
“I must remember that,” he said, and laughed. “You will not need blankets because the heat of the fires will circulate beneath the floor.”
“Thank God. We can strip the sick.”
“I can give you rags. There will be a distribution of clothing this afternoon. There are no medicines. But in honor of your arrival there will be an extra ration tonight.”
Again the men murmured and sighed. Ou-yang took them all in with an orator’s glance. “We are, whatever you think, civilized people, far more so than you. We have not invaded California. We have no prisoners abandoned to their fate in camps along the Canadian border.” He chuckled, jolly and pleased, and fell cold again. “You are prisoners, and not guests. We will not let you die but we will not … baby you either.” Another linguist. What was this odd habit, this affectation, where had he learned it, emphasizing a word here and there, shouting it almost, as if he were transposing Chinese tones into English. At random. “You will fetch your own wood, every day, under guard, or every second day. You may wash clothes when there is water left from meals. You may dig a latrine under guard. Later on you will perhaps write letters and be given reading material. An officer will come later with more regulations. And in summer,” he paused and nodded amiably, dreamily, the emperor, the great Khan, a boon, a boon, “in summer you may swim in the Yalu River.”
The frozen earth refused spades. Bewley was marched off and returned with two picks. He and Ewald assaulted the adamant ground, alternating blows, marrying into an angry, explosive rhythm; we others watched, breathed at the same angry pace so that each stroke seemed to raise a puff of frosty mist. Bewley and Ewald set their teeth; their eyes glittered, their chests heaved, the picks rose and fell, rose and fell; they grunted and we grunted with them; stroke, grunt, puff, stroke, grunt, puff. They halted, we all halted; Collins and Mulberg stepped in. Bewley slumped. Ewald stood grim, triumphant. We—they—worked for a full hour. We admired our creation. Ewald urinated before us all and a cheer went up with the hiss, the hovering white steam. Bewley and Sunderman were marched off with the tools. “Good arch,” Trezevant said to Ewald, “great range.” We returned to the hut. Scafa had fouled himself. We sprawled. We waited.
The extra ration proved to be one cup of cracked corn for each man. The black kettle squatted neutral over the fire; into the boiling water we chuted our millet, our cracked corn; Trezevant st
irred, like an alchemist. The men sat sullen, cradling cups like blind beggars. Collins and Mulberg swore steadily. Those two were brown-haired, large-nosed, might have been brothers; Mulberg was taller and heavier. I fed Scafa, Trezevant fed Cuttis, then I fed Oldridge. It was more than dysentery; it was exhaustion, despair, hunger, loss of blood, of juices. Sunderman said, “How long till real chow, I wonder,” and I had not the heart to tell him, but Trezevant did: “This is real chow. You eat it all, soldier. Remember there’s children starving in China.”
“I mean, when the kitchens get set up.”
“The kitchens are all set up,” Trezevant said, hulking, calm. “Shit. I grew up on meals like this.” The men were warm; in places the floor was hot, and they shifted.
“Plenty of wood, anyway,” I said. “We’ll keep a fire watch at night.”
Mulberg said, “We?”
“You,” I said. For a moment, after the grainy slush, the belly was full, but soon the hunger returned, like a boy’s lust, a miser’s greed. In the first camp shock had protected us; in the storm of rage, hate, guilt and fear there had been little passion to spare for hunger. And then days of dull indifference; reprieved from death by fire, we clotted slowly into death by ice, and the spirit glimmered low; even Kinsella congealed. Then we had been moved, and it was as if the simple conquest of physical space revived us; first onto the trucks, then into the sharp wind; men complained of hunger again, and I rejoiced that they were so alive. In the hour before our arrival, and for the rest of that night, I had known hunger as a cancer, an intruder, a hostile foreign body sucking my substance; I had contracted, quivered, clenched my teeth against it; I was popeyed and brittle with hunger, and visions of sugarplums danced in my head, also brisket, Yankee bean soup, charlotte russe, fried eggs and even beef testicles, which I had eaten only once and which were prodigiously listed as frivolités du chef (“The turnover in the kitchen,” my then inamorata had remarked, “must be considerable”).
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