Chapter 8
“DOCTOR, DO YOU think she was beautiful?” The voice was soft, cultured, and full of compassion.
“I imagine she was,” Singin Vinh said helplessly as he stared down at the patient. He’d managed to stabilize her, but just barely. “Has she said anything?”
From a faraway place she couldn’t identify, Casey Adams strained to hear what the voices were saying. She moved restlessly. She must be in a hospital, nothing else would explain the pain she was feeling. Once before, when she was conscious, she thought she smelled hospital odors, but in a second she was asleep. God, where was she? Then she remembered. Her bandaged arms flailed. She was filled with more pain. From a long, dark tunnel she heard a voice whisper. “Shh, you’re in good hands, Miss Lily. If you remain very still, I will tell you what we know. You were in Saigon, probably for the New Year festivities. There was an offensive action. The Viet Cong attacked your American embassy. It was quite brutal. We think you were headed for the embassy, since the car you were in was firebombed on Thong Nhut Boulevard, which is where the embassy is located. The driver of the car, a marine, was killed, along with two other women. We were told their names were Casey Adams and Sue Collins. Both women’s bodies were so badly burned it was difficult to identify them. We understand there was a child, a baby in the car too. He was taken to an orphanage. This is what was told to us when we called the embassy in Saigon. They made your identification from a small colorful suitcase and Miss Adams’s dog tags. The American embassy said they sent a driver to pick up Lieutenant Adams, who was an army nurse. They don’t know why or how Sue Collins and the baby came to be in the car, or you for that matter. The little suitcase was thrown clear and so was the child. Fortunately, the little one landed on it when he was thrown from the jeep. The suitcase had half a name tag on it. The marine medic who had you airlifted said you kept saying Lily, Lily, so we assumed that was your name. We did our best to make a proper identification. It seemed logical to him and to us you are Lily Simon. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”
Of course it was familiar. She’d borrowed fellow nurse Nancy Simon’s Mickey Mouse suitcase at Christmas time when she’d gone to Saigon to meet Mac. When the marine arrived to take her and Lily to the embassy, she’d thrown underwear and her toilet articles into the bag. Lily had the baby and an armful of diapers in her arms. Did she remember? She would never forget. She herself had been sitting on Sue Collins’s lap. She remembered sailing through the air, her body on fire. The baby must have been thrown clear the way she was, while Sue and Lily were trapped in their seats. Lily, because of their likeness in size, had been taken for her. But if that was the case, how did the embassy and the military account for her being here? And what about Lily? Did anyone know if Lily was dead? Was anyone mourning for her? Of course not, no one knew she was dead. The enormity of her situation hit her full force then. Lily’s parents didn’t know their daughter was dead . . .
“I think she’s asleep again,” the nurse said quietly. “Will she die, Doctor?”
“No, she won’t die, but before she is well again, she will wish she were dead.” The doctor closed his eyes wearily when he thought of what the faceless patient was going to endure in the coming months. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how many grafts it would take to repair her burned body. “Twenty-four-hour nursing care, Maline.”
The tiny nurse’s eyes shimmered with tears. “Does this mean you won’t be going to Vietnam to help your friend Luke Farrell?” She held her breath, waiting for the surgeon’s reply.
“That’s what it means,” Vinh said tiredly. He’d gone without sleep for forty-eight hours as they worked tirelessly to stabilize their patient.
“Do you realize we missed every New Year festivity, Maline?”
“There will be other New Years. Miss Lily had only this one chance to be made whole again,” Maline said softly.
How pretty Maline is, Singin thought. And how very tired. Maline had lost as much sleep as he had. He wondered why he’d never noticed before how pretty she was. In fact, Maline was beautiful. He ran his fingers through his thick, black hair. “Do you have many boyfriends?” he blurted.
Maline didn’t blush, didn’t stammer, and her color didn’t change. Her heart, however, skipped a beat. Long ago she’d given up hope of having Singin notice her, and now he was asking such a personal question. She thought about the question before she replied, and when she did, her response startled her. “Why do you ask, Doctor?”
“I thought it might be . . . nice if we went on a picnic, but I can’t very well ask you if you’re . . . spoken for.”
“I’m a modern Thai, Doctor. If you want to ask me to go on a picnic, then ask me.” She held her breath waiting for the invitation. When it didn’t come, she wanted to stamp her tiny foot in frustration, but that would have been unprofessional.
“I’ll be back in an hour, Maline. I have to see about getting word to Luke Farrell that I’m on hold for the time being. Call me if there’s any change at all. I’ll be staying at the hospital until Miss Lily is ‘out of the woods,’ as they say in the States.”
He was gone, the door swooshing closed behind him. Maline sat down and let her shoulders slump. She’d been in love with Singin since she was a little girl. When he went to the United States for his education, she went too, but not until he was serving his residency in Seattle. When she finally got up the nerve to call him at the hospital where he worked, he’d been so polite, so reserved, so . . . so . . . she coined a new word—doctorish. He’d worn sneakers and blue jeans and parted his hair on the side. She’d bought sneakers and blue jeans too, and had gone one step further and got a permanent wave, which had been a disaster. He’d teased her unmercifully, until she’d been forced to cut it all off. For the longest time she’d walked around with her hair cut like a boy’s.
When she returned to Thailand, with a fashionable hairdo, gold jewelry, high heels, and Western clothes, she’d seen Singin blink in amazement. His neck got red and he said, “Maline, is that you?” It was such a stupid question, yet endearing somehow. She hadn’t bothered to respond, simply because her tongue was too thick in her mouth. So she winked and batted her eyelashes before she sashayed down the hall. Halfway down she’d turned and said, “I’ll be working with you, Doctor.” Even at that distance she could see the red in his neck travel to his face and ears. She’d felt so powerful then. But all that was five years ago, and nothing had transpired since. She still loved him—that would never change.
Her patient stirred restlessly. “Shh,” she said. “Please do not move, first listen, Miss Lily. You’re in good hands. The best hands in Southeast Asia. You’ve been in a terrible accident, but you will recover. I’m Maline, Dr. Vinh’s nurse. You’re safe here. Nothing more will happen to you.” She wanted to say more, but her patient was asleep again, full of painkiller.
Dutifully, Maline wrote on the patient’s chart, Fretful for several minutes. I calmed her. Maline logged the time. Her vision blurred when she looked at the long list of things wrong with her patient. Ruptured spleen, broken shoulder, shattered jaw, broken wrist, fingers smashed, shattered ankle, four cracked ribs. Burns over thirty percent of her body. Face burned, cheekbones shattered, nose broken, damage to eyes.
It could all be dealt with, Singin had said. Reconstructive surgery was his specialty. Skin grafts were the important thing now, and doing every thing possible so the patient didn’t develop pneumonia.
DAYS PASSED, THEN weeks, and finally months. It was summer before Casey was able to respond to her surroundings. She wanted to communicate, to tell Maline and Dr. Vinh her name wasn’t Lily Simon, but her jaw was wired shut and her hands were heavily bandaged; all her fingers were broken, as well as one of her wrists. She’d tried wiggling her toes as a means of communication, but the Thais hadn’t picked up on it. She’d had optical surgery and now had permanent contact lenses implanted. Her eyes hurt and watered continuously, but she could see. For so long she’d been “blind,” with patches over her eyes. Now, for a while, she had to wear dark, wraparound sunglasses. Her ribs were healed, her spleen removed. Her ankle was reconstructed, and she would walk, but with a slight limp. She still had many skin grafts to go, and the work on her face would take even longer. At least another year.
Months ago she’d lost track of time, and only when one of the nurses read an American paper to her, her only entertainment, did she know what day or month it was. It was done religiously, at four o’clock every day, on the hospital terrace where she sat in the shade, bundled from head to toe. Each day, as she waited for her reader, she also waited for Mac to find her, or for someone, anyone, to say, “Thank God, we finally found you.”
Casey listened to the breeze ruffle the leaves overhead, and to the soft squish of the nurses’ rubber-soled shoes as patients were wheeled in and out of the terrace. She loved the clink of glassware and the sounds of birds chittering nearby. Part of her wanted Mac to appear, to take her in his arms and say, “Marry me, I don’t care what you look like.” The other part of her didn’t want him to see her ugliness, and she knew without having to be told that she was scarred and ugly. There was nothing she could do about it but cry behind the sunglasses.
All she did these days was to think. Think and cry, cry and think. Did everyone believe she was dead? What was Mac told? Had he extended his tour of duty or had he returned to the States? He would be out of the army now, a civilian, if he had rotated back home. And Lily? She was dead; Casey knew it, felt it. Sue too. Sue who only lived to see Rick for twenty minutes a month. The child, she seemed to remember, was in an orphanage. Half the time she didn’t know what had been said and what was in her thoughts. The drugs they had her on fogged her brain. If she came out of this in one piece, she would never take another drug, not even an aspirin, for as long as she lived. Oh, Mac, where are you?
Sooner or later she was going to have to think about Pleiku, Saigon, Luke Farrell, and all the wounded, but not now. Her heart was too sore and bruised, and she was in constant pain; but the dreams, the cold sweats were the worst.
She smelled Maline’s sweet scent before the girl came around her chair to sit opposite her.
“It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” Maline didn’t wait for a response but rattled on. “It’s the kind of day that is wonderful for a picnic with one’s lover. Today is Sunday, Lily. I checked with the office before I came on duty, and no paperwork has arrived in regard to you. Dr. Vinh is staying on top of it. It’s taking much too long, but you are not to worry. Your army has other things to concern itself with besides paperwork. You’re alive, and that’s all that matters. Now,” she said cheerfully, “I have two newspapers, and they’re only three days old.”
Casey leaned back against the soft pillows. This was the best part of the day, the only part of the day she liked. She half listened to the words, paying more attention to the soft, musical, cultured voice. It wasn’t until Maline said, “The political news is that Major Malcolm Carlin of McLean, Virginia, has thrown his hat into the senatorial ring. There’s a picture of Major Carlin, his wife, baby daughter Jennifer, and his father, Supreme Court Justice Marcus Carlin. Everyone is smiling. It says Major Carlin served in Vietnam for two years, and then it mentions all the medals he was awarded.” With her eyes riveted to the newspaper in front of her, Maline failed to see Casey’s back stiffen and the tears rolling down her cheeks.
Wife and daughter. A child. Mac was married with a child. It wasn’t possible. He’d never given any indication of a child or that he was married. At least Eric Savorone had told Lily that he was married. She, Casey, was no better than Lily, and she’d had the nerve to chastise the Asian girl. She swayed sickeningly in her nest of pillows. Married. She felt herself slipping into blackness, powerless to stop what was happening to her. When she awoke, she was back in her room, the nest where she’d been for so many months. She could hear voices coming from a long tunnel, those of Maline and Dr. Vinh.
“Did something happen?” he asked sharply.
“Nothing, Dr. Vinh. We talked about how nice it was today with no monsoon rain. I read the paper to her. It was political news, nothing alarming. Perhaps it was the heat.”
“It’s not your fault, Maline,” Singin said kindly. “I’ll feel so much better when we can unwire her jaw and she can talk. Another week or so and she can tell us what happened. Her vital signs are fine now, but I still want her watched carefully. I don’t want her left alone even for a moment. Is that understood, Maline?” He knew it was understood. He’d never had to admonish Maline and didn’t know why he was doing it now. She was a dedicated nurse, and Lily seemed to grow calm and respond only to her. He was worried though and didn’t know why.
Casey wanted to cry, to sob her heart out, but she lay still, sick with humiliation. The beautiful memories, the wonderful notes and letters, were all lies. Her love, like Lily’s, was based on a lie. How fitting that they should call her by Lily’s name now. She cowered in the bed, tears of shame at her own stupidity sliding down from behind the darkened glasses.
In her drugged daze, Casey listened to the conversation from a faraway place, her humiliation so total, so secret, she wanted to die, until she heard Luke Farrell’s name mentioned. She tried to struggle up from her cocoon, but she was powerless to speak, to tell them to get in touch with Luke.
“I heard from my American friend in Pleiku yesterday,” Singin said softly. “He says I am needed desperately, and once again I must tell him I cannot accommodate the American forces. I wrote him early this morning and told him about this patient. I feel so guilty, Maline, I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. Lily needs me and so does Luke. I could be helping so many. Instead, I am here trying to restructure this one person’s body, because this is what I was trained to do. I can’t cast her aside or turn her over to another doctor. I’ve done nothing but think about this all night long. I’ve sent a letter to the doctor under whom I trained back in the States, but so far there has been no response. I took liberties and was quite forward in asking him to come here. If he comes, I know Miss Lily will be in safe hands, and I would be free to help Luke. I want desperately to give back to the Americans for giving me my fine medical education, but I cannot do it at the expense of this patient,” Singin said sadly.
“Is it possible to send Miss Lily back to the States?” Maline asked quietly. She knew it was impossible, but she felt the need to voice the question aloud.
“Look at her, Maline. If it were you, would you want me to ship you off in this condition? She has no stamina. She is nothing but skin and bones. I think I’d give everything I own to know what is going through her head, to know what she thinks. I haven’t heard one whimper all these months. That in itself is amazing. My God, what we’ve put her through. I must see it through, or I won’t be able to live with myself. I couldn’t have done all this,” he said, waving his arm about tiredly, “without your excellent nursing care. It’s amazing how your touch and your voice seem to reassure her. I truly believe she knows she’s in good hands. Now, it’s time for rounds, Maline,” he said briskly, changing the subject.
In the corridor, his patient list in hand, Singin stopped long enough to say, “Will you have dinner with me this evening?”
Maline’s eyes sparkled before she replied, and even then she answered his questioning invitation with one of her own. “Will we talk of patients and medicine?”
“No, we’ll talk of wildflowers, summer rains, and Hollywood.” Singin smiled, his eyes warming at Maline’s blushing face.
CASEY DIDN’T LIKE the blinding whiteness of the operating room or the strong antiseptic smell. She knew if she closed her eyes she could pinpoint where everything was, right down to the tongue depressors. She’d lost track of the times she’d been wheeled in here and then wheeled out. In a little while, probably less than an hour, when the anesthesia wore off, she’d be able to speak. Questions would be asked and answers would be expected.
All she’d done this past week was think about what she would say. Just last night she’d finally come up with answers. She knew they were the wrong answers, but she didn’t care. When they asked her if she was Lily Simon, she was going to say yes. She would claim that she couldn’t remember anything and that she knew her name was Lily only because they’d been calling her that for all these months. She was never going back to nursing—she’d decided that too. She’d seen too much death, a hundred times more than an average nurse would see in a lifetime. If she ever recovered fully, she wanted no reminders of this time in her life. If she had to sum it all up to someone, to herself, it was simple: she had lost the ability to care. Right now her life as she knew it was over. God alone knew what her future held.
Her future. Was there going to be a future for her? If she mended and was eventually discharged, she would return to Paris and get a job in a shop as a salesgirl. Nicole was banking her money, and there would be more now if the United States government paid off on her death policy. None of that mattered anyway. She was going to be ugly and deformed. All night long she’d dreamed about going to work for the rest of her life wearing a black veil.
It was dawn when a horrible thought struck her. When she was discharged, there would be a hospital bill. Who would pay it? The doctors’ fees must be enormous, with all the skin grafts and operations she’d had.
She hadn’t wanted to cry, but she had, great gulping sobs when she thought of Lily and Sue Collins. She didn’t know where little Eric was now, and if she was going to go through with her plan to pretend to have amnesia, she couldn’t ask.
Could she pull this off? She had to, she had no other choice, she decided. She forced herself to relax when she saw Maline at the foot of her bed, hypodermic syringe in hand. “In just a little while, Lily, we’ll be able to speak to one another. I’ve tried so many times to imagine what your voice sounds like. Very American, very soft and gentle, is what I think.” The needle shot home. It was a trick every nurse used. Talk to the patient, say something pleasant, and then, pow.
For the first time, Casey fought the drug she’d been given. Maline had said something, something she had to pay attention to, something that could cause her a problem. Her voice, she thought groggily. They wanted to hear her voice. Maline’s voice was different too. She’s in love with Singin. It was Casey’s last thought before slipping into the deep, drug-induced sleep that would allow the surgeon to remove the wires imbedded in her jaw.
AFTER SURGERY, PATIENTS normally awake in degrees, but Casey awoke fully, instantly aware that she was in the recovery room. She knew without opening her eyes that Singin and Maline were at the foot of her bed. They’d already done her vitals. Careful, go carefully, an inner voice warned. Give one-word answers and remember all your English lessons. Don’t sound French!
“Today you will have noodle soup, which you will drink through a straw,” Singin said softly. “Tomorrow you won’t need the straw.”
He’s in love too, Casey thought. She could hear it in his voice. She wanted to weep. She lay quietly as he prodded her tender jaw with deft fingers. “Tell me your name. Make your jaw work, but do it gently, easily. If it hurts too much, speak around your teeth.” She did as ordered.
“Wonderful! Is there much pain? No, that’s good. Do you want the noodle soup now? Ah, I thought so. Maline, please fetch it.”
“Well what do you think? I think I do good work.” Singin grinned.
“Mirrrorr,” Casey mumbled.
“No!” Singin said sharply.
“Ugly?”
Singin felt his throat constrict. “Very ugly,” he said honestly. “But,” he said, holding up his hand, “I’m going to fix that. Do you trust me?”
“No.” The horror on Singin’s face was so total, Casey would have laughed if she could have. She would never trust a man again. “Ah, I see, it is a joke! Ha ha,” he said self-consciously.
Think what you want, Casey thought bitterly.
Maline would try next, but not today. She would try to feel her out, to use her influence, since Casey trusted her, and then report back to the doctor. She’d gone that route herself many times. All in the best interests of the patient, of course.
“As you know, there has been no word from the United States about you. We have filed dozens of reports, filled out many forms, all with numbers on the top. We then make copies of those forms when we file our next report. You are Lily Simon?”
Here it is, Casey thought. She worked the words around in her head before she uttered them. Talking through her clenched teeth garbled the words, but the meaning was clear. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if you’re Lily Simon? It is a joke, ha ha.”
“No joke,” Casey said forcefully.
“You don’t remember who you are? Do you remember anything prior to the accident? Do you remember the accident?”
Casey waited until she was certain there would be no other questions before she answered. “No.”
“You are American? Lily Simon is . . . American-sounding. Over here Lily is a very common name. Much like the name Mary back in the States. Simon is American. If you aren’t American . . .” He let the rest of what he was about to say hang in the sterile air. Casey waited. “You are not Vietnamese, you’re Anglo. We checked with the Red Cross and none of their people are missing. You must be what they call a WAC. Is this possible?” He didn’t wait for a response. “A middle name. Do you have a middle name?”
Did she? What would go with Lily? Nancy, she almost blurted. She thought of the real Nancy Simon and wondered if she was still in Pleiku.
The way the army took its time doing things, she just might get away with this. She waited, every nerve in her body twanging. “Bills,” she whispered. She almost blacked out then.
“Yes, yes, the bills are mounting. Lily Simon. I’ll have the office start all over and see what can be done. Can you tell us anything about the accident?” At Casey’s blank look, Singin backed away from the bed to allow Maline access to the hospital stand-up tray. “You have no recollection of anything until you woke here?”
“No.”
Casey tried to listen to the whispered conversation between nurse and doctor, but couldn’t make out any of it.
“How awful for you,” Maline said, her voice full of compassion. “All these months we didn’t know . . . that you didn’t know who you were. You are a very brave woman. I would have . . . freaked out. You are familiar with that term?”
“Yes.” Play dumb, Casey cautioned herself.
“That is good, Lily. They say that in America. I love American slang,” Maline said, fixing the straw between Casey’s teeth. “Suck,” the nurse ordered. “The noodles are small and fine and will easily go through the straw. Just a little,” she cautioned, “or you will get sick. You’ve been on intravenous nutrients a long time, so we must do this very gradually.” Casey sucked greedily. Nothing in her life ever tasted so good. “We must talk, Miss Lily.”
She removed the bowl, then wiped Casey’s chin.
Casey listened to the nurse’s words, she’d heard it all before, from the doctor and from Maline herself. What they wanted now was for her to verify what they’d been told.
Casey’s thoughts drifted to Lily, to Mac. Sweet, gentle Lily. Mac. Did anyone know Lily was dead? Did Mac know? The baby, that sweet cherub who Lily loved with all her heart, was he safe and in good hands? Did Lily’s parents know? To her mind, Lily’s parents didn’t love their daughter or they wouldn’t have abandoned her. Eric Savorone had abandoned her too. And Mac betrayed me, she thought. No one cares about me and no one cares about Lily. I have to think of myself now. There’s no one in this whole world to help me but myself.
Maybe she wouldn’t go back to Paris. Nicole and Danele had probably spent all her insurance money by now. Damn, she couldn’t think anymore. All she wanted to do was sleep. But as she drifted off, she made a promise to herself. If the day ever came when she was well and fit to take her place in society, then and only then would she think about setting the record straight. For now she was Lily Simon, and she would stay Lily Simon for as long as it took to get her life back together, if that was possible.
Casey dozed fitfully before slipping into a deep sleep, a sleep invaded by demons of her past. She was in Da Nang, in the sterile white hospital, moving among the rows of operating tables, looking at the faces of the injured men. Every patient looked like Mac. Mac minus a foot. Mac minus an arm. Mac with a deep belly wound. Mac with half his face blown away.
I don’t care if you’re crippled! I don’t care if you’re ugly! I love you! Do you hear me? I love you! Luke! Make him whole again. Please. Please make him whole again, for me. If you love me, you’ll do this for me. Damn you, Luke, stop whistling. “When I’m Sixty-Four, ” is my song, mine and Mac’s. You have no right to whistle that song. Please, Luke, don’t let him die! Damn you, give me that scalpel, I’ll do it myself! He’s dead. You waited too long. I hate you, Luke Farrell . . .