Ha Jin - War Trash

"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."