There was silence in the tent. They were men. They could not cry, and they could not cross the line Jo had crossed—they could not do the nothing that is everything, that no man understands, that every man craves and hates woman because he craves it and needs it and cannot give it himself and cannot live without it. Her patients stared, lips parted, lusting after the caresses she had given to this stranger that she would never give to them. The Rangers, hard men of steel and iron, stood in an impotent semicircle around the woman who had given to their fallen brother the only thing she had, the only thing he needed. They looked at her as the dead boy had done only a moment before—as mercy itself, as love incarnate, but above all else, as safety in a world that absolutely terrified them. They looked at Jo and marveled at her, at her softness and goodness and warmth.
But Jo was none of those things, not anymore. The boy was dead, the part she played was over. She pushed him away from her numb body, the front of her jumpsuit soaked through and warm with his blood, easing her way out from under the heavy weight like a prostitute getting out from under a spent john. Then, with a callousness that made even the Rangers start, she dropped the lifeless thing back onto the table, insensible, his head making a sickening thud as it hit the cold, hard metal.
8
Kay Elliott
Winter 1945, Santo Tomas Internment Camp,
Manila, Philippines
Kay held the limp thing in her hands and did not move. She could not. She just sat there, staring, looking down at it, incredulous, confused, amazed. What did they tell them back home? What did they think it was like over here? She thought of the beheadings, of the impalings, of the firing squads and drownings; of the small children and old women prostituting themselves for food in their desperation, being raped but never paid, never receiving anything for their pain and suffering other than the end of a bayonet or a swift kick into a dark corner where they could gnaw at themselves and their guilt and their shame.
She thought again of Malinta, that mouth of hell that had swallowed them up and then spit them out into an even worse place. For the first time in a long time, her mind wandered back to a time before Malinta, to the nurses crossing Manila Bay under cover of night, the men rowing them out toward Corregidor and the false hope it offered, the burning buildings and ammunition dumps lending everything a lurid, reddish light. Kay could see the tiny craft all around her again—military dinghies and fishing boats, junks and homemade rafts, people holding on to barrels, on to crates strung together with rope, on to nothing but trying to swim all the way out to the island. Tiring halfway. Starting to drown. Screaming for help. And then clawing at anything, at anything afloat, grabbing on to wood, on to metal, their nails scraping the sides, overturning, overloading, bringing everything down with them. “Don’t look, miss,” the sergeant rowing them had said, and she had listened to him and closed her eyes. But she had felt the rowing stop, felt the boat sway as the man stood up, heard the swish of air as he swung the oar over them, bringing it down hard on something in the water, on something that gave out a low moan, that exhaled as if exhausted, and was silent. Then the boat had seemed lighter, bobbing on the choppy waters, and he had begun to row again, pulling out quickly into the deep, telling her she could look again, it was okay, they would be safe when they got to Corregidor.
She fingered the new fabric now with her skeletal hands. Lastek, the label had said. They must not use wool anymore. It was smoother than wool, much more sleek and stretchy; it wouldn’t be as rough as wool or rub you the wrong way, leaving scratch marks under your arms or in the crotch. She wondered if it would repel water as well as wool. Wool was good for that.
“Whaddya have there, Elliott?”
“Hmm?” Kay’s mind was slow. Slow and stupid. She looked down at the label again, but now the letters swam. Latesk. Lt. Esk. Lkatse.
“I saw a package got through, after all this time. Can’t believe it. Japs must’ve let it in, just for show. What’d you get from home? What’d they send you?”
Kay thought of all the things she could have used, of all the things her family might have sent her—that, in all probability, they had been sending her all these years, only to be confiscated by the Japanese half a world away. Cans of tuna fish. Jars of peanut butter. Pilot bread. Evaporated milk. Coffee. Chocolate. Her stomach twisted painfully. Kay closed her eyes, gritting her teeth, struggling to hold on. A full half-minute later she reopened them.
“A bathing suit. They sent me a bathing suit.”
“What?”
Kay stopped fingering the silky stuff. They must think it’s still a paradise over here, that this is one long vacation for us, that we get their packages and letters even if they never get ours. They must tell them something to account for that, they must make something up. My family loves me. They would never send me this useless, stupid thing with me dying here and them having so much—butter and cream and eggs from the farm, oh God—they would never forget me. They haven’t forgotten me, she screamed and screamed until her head ached. Or she thought she did. All she really said was, “Uh, huh.”
Kay watched as the nurse next to her carefully did up her lips with a little red stub of lipstick. Kay watched her curiously. How had she made the grubby little thing last all this time? For as long as Kay could remember, Kelly—or was it Kathy? Kitty? the names jumped around in her head, interchangeably, she didn’t know who this woman was—had done up her lips like this, even here in hell. Kay wondered how she could resist the oily richness of that lipstick, why she didn’t just eat it instead. The woman had always been smearing the stuff on, red and greasy and garish now on her emaciated face. She must have had a dozen, a hundred lipsticks on her person when she was taken captive. Why had she brought them? Who cared how she looked? Did she? Did she notice she still did this ritual, always in the same way, always in the exact same way? Taking time over the right upper lip, getting the slanted curve just right. Then the other half, just as carefully, picking at it with her pinky nail if she drew it too wide. Then slowly, deliberately, the entire lower lip, left to right, pulling it out to the side, the lip rebounding quickly as she released the pressure, replaced the cap, pressed her lips together. Smacking them again and again in a futile kiss until they were perfect, until they were coated, until they were as beautiful and as hideous as she could make them. Kay wanted to slap her stupid, empty face, unreal and freakish, smiling a smile that was just another mask for death.
“Kay?”
Kay looked at her companion, and for a moment she could see her again. For a moment she was herself.
“Kay, honey? Thought I had lost you there for a moment.”
Kay thought she had too, but was too weak to answer.
“It’s time for our shift, sweetheart. Time to go to work.”
Kay rebelled. Every ounce of her. The person she was, the person she had been, all of her. That little girl in Mount Carmel, waking up on a beautiful, surprisingly hot September morning, listening to the birds outside, trying to decide if she would go fishing or hiking or try out that new recipe for sour cream doughnuts—only to realize it was a school day, she would be cooped up all day in class. She didn’t want to go. She wouldn’t go, she wouldn’t. She had been angry then, and she was angry now, she could not move, she could barely stand. The Japanese had relocated the nurses to another building, across the way from the hospital. Just a few paces away, but it would be impossible, it was impossible, the rain had filled the long trench that ran between the two buildings, they would have to wade through the filthy water. She wasn’t strong enough, she would never make it, she couldn’t; she wanted to curl up where she sat and go back to sleep, maybe she could pretend to be sick and her mother wouldn’t make her go to school today and she could make those doughnuts after all.
Her head felt funny for a minute, and suddenly she wasn’t a little girl anymore, but she was back in New York, in the hospital. How had she gotten here? Everything seemed clearer, all at once, the fog lifted. The bright lights o
verhead, the tinge of chlorine bleach in the air, her leather shoes making dark scuffs on the polished wax floors. Jo had walked in. Walked into the break room and closed the doors behind her, then stood silently in front of Kay, staring at the ground. Jo was shaking her head, just the tiniest motion back and forth, back and forth; she was mouthing some words, but no sound came out. When Kay stood up from the table and walked over to her, Jo held out a hand, but not to hold on to Kay. She was warding her off, pushing her away.
“Jo. Jo, honey.”
But Jo was frowning now, as if that wasn’t her name, as if Kay had somehow gotten it wrong. She shook her head more vigorously, as if troubled by something she saw, playing and replaying it in her head. She waved her friend away, distractedly; Kay was superfluous.
“Jo, what happened?”
It had only been half an hour . . . no, less; they had transported that heart patient to the third floor together, then Kay, scheduled for surgery, had gone to get a quick cup of coffee; Jo had said she was going to show one of the new nurses the wards, teach her the ropes, she had laughed. That had been, what, fifteen minutes ago, not much longer, but looking at Jo now, she wasn’t the same woman, she didn’t seem to be there at all. Kay gently touched Jo’s arm, and she jumped, Jo jumped as if she hadn’t seen her standing there at all, had never seen her before. She was scowling at Kay, looking her straight in the eye, looking through her, and then all of a sudden Jo knew Kay, and her face contorted in an agony of recognition.
“Oh, Kay,” she whispered. Jo tried to sit down on the wooden bench, but sat up again with a start, it hurt too much, and then Kay understood and wrapped her arms around her and said, “God no, God no,” over and over again until she was so blind with anger, with pain, that their pain was one, it had happened to them both.
“My God, Jo, how?”
Jo’s mouth was moving, working silently, nothing coming out, she was still shaking her head.
“I’m going to tell,” Kay said hoarsely, still holding Jo close to her, feeling her own pulse in her temples, a throbbing swoosh in her ears, but even before Jo gasped no she knew they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t dare. The two women had survived the Depression, but only barely; it was not in them to give up a job in a country with ten million unemployed. The hunger and the want of their childhoods paralyzed them still. But they had thought they would be safe together, that they could protect one another, and they hadn’t; and then Kay swore, seeing her friend begin to shut down, begin to shut out life, “All right then, Jo, but this ends here. We find our chance. I swear this ends here.”
And then, one day, their chance finally came. A maternity case. Not Jo’s (thank God not Jo’s), but a charity case, no money. It was the poor woman who had stood in the rain that night—she had nearly hemorrhaged to death, but they had saved her, and in the end she had had a boy, a healthy boy, except for his clubfoot, which was rather severe, a bad case of it actually. Several specialists had been called in; they were going to use the case study for the medical college. That was all they had needed. Kay could still see Jo, holding her hand, as they walked into his office. Kay’s knees had been shaking, but they were going to do this; she had sworn they would do this, together.
“You will never assault another nurse in this hospital again—” Kay had begun, without preamble.
“What? What is your name? Elliott? You’re fired, you’ll never work in this—”
“In this city again. Yes, I know. But”—Kay managed the tiniest hint of a smile—“I don’t think you’ll do anything of the kind, doctor.”
Kay could still hear him yelling, outraged. “How dare you? You two are fired, Elliott and McMahon,” scribbling their names down on a prescription card. “I will have you troublemakers blacklisted—”
“If you do”—Jo had spoken up, fighting to keep her voice steady, her fingers squeezing Kay’s hand tight—“if you blacklist Kay or me or any of us, if we hear you even brushed up against a nurse while walking down the hall, then we’ll tell everyone about your baby.”
“My baby? Are you out of your mind?” The mask was off, he was no longer the man behind the desk, busy with his work, dismissive, annoyed at their intrusion; he was becoming that baser thing, all hatred and hurt and searing, burning pain.
“Your baby, the one we just delivered up in maternity tonight. Born to that poor woman. We wondered that night why you didn’t want us to help her, didn’t want her around. She knew you. I could see it in her eyes.”
“No one will believe you, you’ve got nothing on me—” He rose menacingly out of his chair.
“We could see it in her eyes—and anyone can see it in your son’s feet.”
Kay remembered that he had stopped blustering, stopped threatening; he was listening, leaning on his desk, half in, half out of his chair, his upper lip twitching nervously.
“Funny thing about clubfoot,” Kay went on, gaining courage. “It’s so hereditary. And rare. If that woman wanted to claim paternity, press charges even . . .”
“She wouldn’t dare—”
“Wouldn’t she? I can’t imagine you treated her better than you’ve treated any of us. But no, somehow I don’t think she will say anything. I don’t know why. I think she’s forgiven you or something—”
He had seemed to relax at that, sitting back down, exhaling slowly; he was regaining control.
“But we won’t forget. We won’t forgive. We’ve told every nurse in this hospital whose baby that is. Each one has that power over you now. All any of us have to do is go to the administrators—or to your wife. They might not have believed us coming to them without any proof. But a clubfooted baby, born to a prostitute you hired—now I don’t think that will help your career any, doctor.”
The man just sat silently, staring at them out of the slits of his eyes.
“Get out of my office—” he said at last, but Kay saw their aggressor defeated, visibly deflating. They could see it in his face, the slump of his shoulders; his eyes cast down, compulsively taking in every object on his littered desk, not looking up, not meeting the girls’ gaze.
Kay remembered her knees had stopped shaking then. She remembered standing tall, next to Jo. All that power had made her feel giddy, made her feel like her head would burst. She felt so very light now that they were finally free of him. Jo would make it, in time—she’d begin to heal. They had banded together and protected themselves at last; as they turned to go her feet barely touched the ground. She hadn’t felt the floor at all.
“This is blackmail,” the thing behind the desk had called after them, lashing out blindly, spitting his anger at them only to see it fall impotently at their feet.
“No.” Kay had put her arm around Jo’s waist to steady her, to hold themselves up. Turning toward him quickly, eyes flashing, “This isn’t blackmail. This is us winning. You can never touch us again.”
Kay could still hear the door close noisily on its hinges.
“KAY, HONEY.”
The nurse with the red lips was shaking her now, gently but persistently. This woman had been with her every day since Clark Field, and she was her best friend and a stranger, and now Kay thought her name might be Frances. With an e.
“C’mon, baby.”
Kay tried standing up, and fell painfully to the ground. Frances (or maybe Emily) helped her get back on her feet, led her toward the door, then outside, handing Kay her duty uniform wrapped up with old twine.
“We’ll put it on when we get to work. We’ve got to cross that ol’ ditch first.”
They were wearing their shortest shorts as they stepped into the stagnant water, balancing their clean uniforms on their heads, steadying themselves with a rope that had been fastened to the buildings on either side. “No short, no pant,” the Japanese had told the women. “Only skirt. Only dress.” Kay could see the officer’s outraged face, hear him yell at her again as he had the week before during the interminable bowing class they had been subjected to. Eighty percent of the camp dying from beriberi
, the rest ravaged by dysentery and fatigue, and they had had to listen to that mad man prattle on about the varieties of respect women owed him, owed to all Japanese, owed to all men.
“Fuck you,” Kay said aloud now to the phantom, and her friend, waist-high in water, smiled without looking back, knowing Kay was doing battle with demons in her own head. She was silently encouraged by her friend’s show of spirit—but glad no Japanese officer had been there to hear it.
Kay didn’t remember getting changed, but there she was in her ward, dried off and in her uniform, her hands shaking. She tried to fill the kettle, sloshing water everywhere. She added the dried guava leaves that helped lessen the symptoms of bacillary dysentery, but spilled half the tea on herself, on her patients. She gave out the last of the medicine to patients with amoebic dysentery; at least she thought it was amoebic. That was what the chart had said back when she could read. Who the hell knew anymore. It was high noon, but when she looked at the old classroom clock five minutes later, it read six o’clock and yellow sunlight was slanting in through the windows.
The Fire by Night Page 11
