War Trash (8 page)

I nodded yes. As she bent down to examine my thigh, the other doctor and nurses also gathered around to observe. My wound was very close to my groin, so my sex was fully exposed, which made my cheeks burn with embarrassment. Wordlessly I shut my eyes tight. Her fingers were sensitive, touching and pressing my wound gently. I felt as if something cool and soothing were being applied to it, easing the pain somewhat.

After examining me, she drew herself up and said, "Your wound is very deep and was already festering when you arrived. We had to get rid of the gangrenous tissue first and wait for the inflammation to subside a little before we could take out the bone fragments and the shrapnel. I can assure you that Dr. Thomas did a good job in setting the femur last time, so today we can open the wound to remove the shrapnel and the bone fragments."

"Thank you. I was so worried," I sighed and turned to look at Dr. Thomas, who was a first lieutenant. He grinned at me like a big boy.

"I understand," she said.

After talking with Dr. Thomas briefly, she asked me with a smile, "Can I operate on you today?"

Eagerly I nodded my agreement. She ordered the nurses to give me an IV and put the ether mask on me. I felt calm in her presence, as if she had been sent over to save me. At the same time I heard some metallic clanks that were disquieting, and something warm was placed on my right leg.

Soon I lost consciousness.

I don't know how long I was out. It must have been three or four hours, because when I woke up I heard a male voice shout in the corridor, "Chow time." Then I saw beads of perspiration on the woman doctor's smooth forehead. Her large eyes observed me intently as she said, "Do you want to see what I got out of your leg?"

I nodded, so parched I couldn't utter a word. With forceps she lifted from a white enamel dish a splinter of shrapnel, black and bloody like a twisted button. She said, "It was this sucker that shattered your femur. We took out all the bone fragments too."

"Do you think I can walk again?"

"Of course, I'll make you walk. But for the time being you'll have to stay in bed. Then we'll have another operation to fix everything once and for all."

Another operation! Tears welled up to my eyes. Ashamed, I averted my face.

She patted me on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry. I'll put you back on your feet."

When I turned to look at her, she was heading for the door. Her white back was straight, her shoulders thin and delicate.

This operation alleviated my pain and I began to mend both physically and mentally, though I had grown more homesick, often fingering my half of the jade barrette at night. My captors had stripped me of everything except for this token of Julan's love and her snapshot, both concealed in my undershirt pocket. The smoothness of the jade reminded me of my fiancee's skin and often set me daydreaming.

Sometimes I also thought of other women – some Korean women who, from somewhere close by, would sing in chorus for an hour or two every evening. Their songs would drift in the dusk, sad and soulful. Sometimes the tunes were wistful as though complaining about a betrayal or a missed opportunity that wouldn't be offered again. Whenever they started their chorus, I would listen to them. As they sang, the air would seem galvanized and the men in the ward would stop chatting, their eyes turning more distant, brighter, and sometimes watery. How I wished I could have made out the women's words. Their fearless voices brought to mind the girls in the countryside of my home province, who often vied with one another in singing love songs when they were working in the rice paddies or picking tea leaves on the hills. If only I could have walked out of the tent and looked at those women across the barbed wire!

Wanlin and I talked about them, but he couldn't figure out who they were either. In the evening he often went out; once he saw a few Korean women who were all civilians, though they seemed to be detainees too. Our Korean ward mates certainly knew more about the singers, but there was no way for us to communicate with them on such a subject. I felt too awkward to ask Captain Yoon about them.

In the meantime, Gushu's leg, unlike mine, was deteriorating. Seeing that I was recovering rapidly, he pleaded with the hospital to let Dr. Greene treat him too, or to give him Colonel Osman, who was an experienced surgeon from Florida, known to the prisoners as a kind-hearted man.

Two weeks after my operation, Dr. Greene and Dr. Thomas came to our tent, both wearing white coats. At the sight of them I tried to sit up, but she stopped me and said in English, "Lie down. We just came to see how you've been doing."

She and Dr. Thomas must have been making their ward rounds. She checked my wound. "Excellent, it's healing very well," she said, her eyes lighting up. "Tomorrow we can operate on you to repair the bone once and for all."

"Thank you, Dr. Greene," I said.

I was still excited after they left. At last I believed I would walk on both legs again.

The following day I was taken to the Operating Section for the third time. Again Dr. Thomas was present in the room. After I was laid on the table, Dr. Greene bent forward a little, putting on gloves. She asked me, "You very much want to walk without a crutch, don't you?"

I nodded.

"After this operation," she said, "you should be able to walk soon."

My eyes misted, so I shut them immediately. She didn't see my face, since the chubby anesthetist was putting the ether mask on me. Soon I was unconscious.

When I woke up, I saw Dr. Greene leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. She looked pale and exhausted. I wasn't sure whether she was taking a breather or was already done with the operation. The front of her white gown was stained with my blood, but she didn't wear gloves. Seeing that I had come to, she gave me a half-smile and said, "Everything went well." Her words set my mind at rest.

Every three days after the operation, she came to check on me and the other orthopedic patients. It was getting cold: cicadas had stopped chirring in the willow crowns and all the bumblebees had vanished. In the early morning I often saw little frost clouds hanging above my ward mates' faces. We had been issued more used clothing. Each man now had a felt coat, another blanket, and a set of olive fatigues. On each jacket were painted two white letters, P on the right sleeve and W on the left one. A few men had the P and W on the breast pockets of their jackets instead. As for the overcoats, the two letters were stenciled on the backs. I couldn't put on my pants yet and had to cover my legs with two blankets all the time. During the day, when Wanlin had no need for his bedding, I used his blankets too.

I remember vividly the day when Dr. Greene came to take out my stitches. It was on October 31, 1951, six days after the first anniversary of China 's entering the Korean War. Having removed the twelve stitches with scissors and tweezers, she helped me get out of bed, then said, "See if you can stand on your feet now."

I began trembling, both hands gripping a tent pole, a piece of rough-hewn timber. I dared not let go of it at first. Then slowly I shifted all my weight to my legs and released my grip. She came around and stood in front of me, saying, "Ah, you can stand by yourself now, very good. I'm impressed. Come on, a step toward me."

Several inmates were watching us. Although I pulled myself together, I couldn't move. It was as if my feet had rooted into the floor. She urged me, "Come on, take a step. Be brave, soldier."

Too ashamed to disappoint her, I clenched my teeth and slowly stretched forward my left foot. But after having lain in bed for more than three months, I couldn't keep my balance. As my body lurched forward, she reached out and held me by both shoulders. She said, "Come, try again. Don't be afraid. You can do it."

Her face was so close to mine that I smelled her sweetish perfume and I felt myself blushing. I made my utmost effort to straighten up my back and then advanced a step. Miraculously, I didn't fall!

"Good, try another step," she said.

So I did one more, which marked a new beginning in my life. Clapping, she smiled like a child. If she had not been in uniform, nobody would have taken her for a soldier, let alone one on the enemy's side. When she had helped me come back to my bed, I was sweating all over. She sat down too.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Feng Yan." I was surprised by her question.

"I know. I mean what two characters do you go by?"

I had no pen, so she pulled out her ballpoint and handed it to me, together with a prescription pad.

I wrote out the words "Feng Yan" in a cursive script. I had practiced calligraphy for years, so the characters came out handsomely.

She looked at the two words for a moment, then said, "You're an excellent calligrapher and a good-tempered man, I can tell. Can you teach me how to write the characters?"

Unsure whether she asked that as a lark or in earnest, I answered, "You speak Chinese very well, so you must write it well too."

"Not at all," she said. "Although I grew up in China and graduated from Tongji Medical School, I've never been able to write the characters well. When I was a child, I didn't spend time doing calligraphy.

Later in college when I took notes in class, I just scribbled everything down and didn't pay attention to my handwriting."

Now I understood why she spoke Chinese so fluently and treated us so kindly. I didn't ask about her parents, who must have been missionaries. The medical school she'd attended in Shanghai had been well known for its Western-style education, where most courses had been taught in English and some by foreign professors. After the Communists took over the country, that school had been closed down. I couldn't contain my curiosity and said to her, "May I ask you a question?"

"Of course you may."

"How come you've become an army doctor here?"

"It's a long story."

"Did you volunteer?"

"Yes and no. Last year, after graduation I went back to the States to see my biological mother. On my way back I stopped in Japan. The Korean War had just broken out and army doctors were in short supply, so I was recruited by the Far Eastern Headquarters. Then I came to Korea."

"Don't you hate China because we came to fight the U.S. Army?"

"When I joined up, I'd never thought China would take part in this war. Later China rushed in, but I still can't hate China, to be honest. I was raised in China, which is my second country." She turned thoughtful, then continued, "I have a question for you too. You have no airplanes, no warships, and no tanks; how can you possibly win this war?"

I said sincerely, "MacArthur's army would have crossed our border and seized Manchuria if we hadn't come to Korea. We had no choice but to fight the better-equipped aggressors. But with justice on our side we will win this war."

"You're very idealistic," she said. I could tell she was dubious.

By now several inmates had moved closer to listen to our conversation, so I switched the subject. "Do you really want me to teach you calligraphy?" I asked.

"Of course."

"But how can I do it?"

"That's easy. Tomorrow I'll bring you some paper and a pen. You write a sheet of characters as models, like in a copybook. I'll take it back with me and copy the words. This will be a good way to spend my off-hours."

I agreed readily, determined to do what I could to repay her.

Toward the next evening, she came with a shiny black fountain pen and a sheaf of white paper. On the top page were three big characters, Ge Su-Shan, which looked stiff and slanted toward the right. Obviously her handwriting had been affected by her sloping English hand. She said, "Here's my Chinese name. You see, this is the best I can do. Can you teach me how to write my name well first?"

I began to explain to her how to inscribe the individual strokes, the horizontal one and the vertical one. Then with the pen I illustrated the left-falling stroke, the hook, the dot, and the right-falling stroke. She tried to write a few, but couldn't do them well. I was surprised that this was difficult for her, but I also could see that she had attempted calligraphy before, just as every pupil had to practice it in a Chinese elementary school. Frustrated, she asked me to hold her hand to inscribe the strokes so that she could feel how the pen was supposed to move. This was a common method in teaching calligraphy, we both knew. Yet I hesitated, reluctant to touch her hand, in part because I was a prisoner but mainly because of the inmates gathering around to observe. Their eyes unsettled me.

"Come on," she said. "Don't you Communists believe in equality between men and women? At this moment I'm your student."

Her words embarrassed me, so I held her hand. Together we began writing the strokes. Her hair and her clothes exuded a whiff of tobacco; she must have been quite a smoker. I had noticed that the tips of her index and middle fingers were slightly yellow. Although her hand had silky skin and slim fingers, it was quite strong, its muscles tight and its bones sturdy. I was surprised to find her fingernails rather stubby. Her hand felt more like a male laborers. This put me somewhat at ease, and we concentrated on the hook and the right-falling stroke. In a way I was moved by her letting me hold her hand to practice. I smelled of DDT, which had just been sprayed on me for delousing.

After half an hour's practice, she could do most of the strokes decently. She was happy about the progress.

When we stopped for the day, she asked me to write some words she could take back and copy in her spare time, since she couldn't come every day. I thought for a few seconds, then carefully wrote down this ancient poem:

Sand dunes are glimmering like snow Beyond our camping ground. Behind us, moonlight Is frosting a frontier town.

Whence comes the tootling pipe? For a whole night The soldiers think alike Of the distant fireside.

She read the lines silently, her lips opening and closing, revealing her strong teeth. Then she told me, "Actually I studied this poem in middle school. But it means more to me now."

Lifting her head, she said to the patients around, "You should all take good care of yourselves. When the Panmunjom negotiations are over, you can all go back to rejoin your families." A few men sighed. She glanced at a man's handless arm and added, "I hope this is the last war of mankind."