WOUNDED SOLDIER
(Cartoon Strip)
WHEN THE TIME CAME at last and they removed the wealth of bandages from his head and face, all with the greatest of care as if they were unwinding a precious mummy, the Doctor—he of the waxed, theatrical, upswept mustache and the wet sad eyes of a beagle hound—turned away. Orderlies and aides coughed, looked at floor and ceiling, busied themselves with other tasks. Only the Head Nurse, a fury stiff with starch and smelling of strong soap, looked, pink-cheeked and pale white as fresh flour, over the Veteran’s shoulders. She stared back at him, unflinching and expressionless, from the swimming light of the mirror.
No question. It was a terrible wound.
—I am so sorry, the Doctor said. —It’s the best we can do for you.
But the Veteran barely heard his words. The Veteran looked deeply into the mirror and stared at the stranger who was now to be himself with an inward wincing that was nearer to the sudden gnawing of love at first sight than of self-pity. It was like being born again. He had, after all, not seen himself since the blinding, burning instant when he was wounded. Ever since then he had been a mystery to himself. How many times he had stared into the mirror through the neat little slits left for his eyes and seen only a snowy skull of gauze and bandages! He imagined himself as a statue waiting to be unveiled. And now he regretted that there was no real audience for the occasion except for the Doctor, who would not look, and the Head Nurse—she for whom no truth could be veiled anyway and hence for whom there could never be any system or subtle aesthetic of exposure or disclosure by any clever series of gradual deceptions. She carried the heavy burden of one who was familiar with every imaginable kind of wound and deformity.
—You’re lucky to be alive, she said. —Really lucky.
—I don’t know what you will want to do with yourself, the Doctor said. —Of course, you understand that you are welcome to remain here.
—That might be the best thing for any number of good reasons, the Head Nurse said. Then to the Doctor: —Ordinarily cases like this one elect to remain in the hospital.
—Are there others? the Veteran asked.
—Well … the Head Nurse admitted, there are none quite like you.
—I should hope not, the Veteran said, suddenly laughing at himself in the mirror. —Under the circumstances it’s only fair that I should be able to feel unique.
—I am so sorry, the Doctor said.
Over the Veteran’s shoulder in the mirror the Head Nurse smiled back at him.
That same afternoon a High-ranking Officer came to call on him. The Officer kept his eyes fixed on the glossy shine of his boots. After mumbled amenities he explained to the Veteran that while the law certainly allowed him to be a free man, free to come and go as he might choose, he ought to give consideration to the idea that his patriotic duty had not ended with the misfortune of his being stricken in combat. There were, the Officer explained, certain abstract obligations which clearly transcended those written down as statute law and explicitly demanded by the State.
—There are duties, he continued, waxing briefly poetic, which like certain of the cardinal virtues, are deeply disguised. Some of these are truly sublime. Some are rare and splendid like the aroma of a dying arrangement of flowers or the persistent haunting of half-remembered melodies.
The Veteran, who knew something about the music of groans and howls, and something about odors, including, quite recently, the stink of festering and healing, was not to be deceived by this sleight of hand.
—Get to the point, he said.
The High-ranking Officer was flustered, for he was not often addressed by anyone in this fashion. He stammered, spluttered as he offered the Veteran a bonus to his regular pension, a large sum of money, should he freely choose to remain here in the hospital. After all, his care and maintenance would be excellent and he would be free of many commonplace anxieties. Moreover, he need never feel that his situation was anything like being a prisoner. The basic truth about any prisoner is—is it not?—that he is to be deliberately deprived, insofar as possible, of all the usual objects of desire. The large bonus would enable the Veteran to live well, even lavishly in the hospital if he wanted to.
—Why?
Patiently the Officer pointed out that his appearance in public, in the city or the country, would probably serve to arouse the anguish of the civilian population. So many among the military personnel had been killed or wounded in this most recent war. Wasn’t it better for everyone concerned, especially the dependents, the friends and relatives of these unfortunate men, that they be permitted to keep their innocent delusions of swirling battle flags and dimly echoing bugle calls, rather than being forced to confront in fact and flesh the elemental brute ugliness of modern warfare? As an old soldier, or as one old soldier to another, surely the Veteran must and would acknowledge the validity of this argument.
The Veteran nodded and replied that he guessed the Officer also hadn’t overlooked the effect his appearance might have on the young men of the nation. Most likely a considerable cooling of patriotic ardor. Probably a noticeable, indeed a measurable, decline in the number of enlistments.
—Just imagine for a moment, the Veteran said, what it would be like if I went out there and stood right next to the recruiting poster at the Post Office. Sort of like a “before and after” advertisement.
At this point the Officer stiffened, scolded, and threatened. He ended by reminding the Veteran that no man, save the One, had ever been perfect and blameless. He suggested to him that, under the strictest scrutiny, his service record would no doubt reveal some error or other, perhaps some offense committed while he was a soldier on active duty which would still render him liable to a court-martial prosecution.
Safe for the time being with his terrible wound, the Veteran laughed out loud and told the Officer that nothing they could do or think of doing to him could ever equal this. That he might as well waste his time trying to frighten a dead man or violate a corpse.
Then the Officer pleaded with the Veteran. He explained that his professional career as a leader of men might be ruined if he failed in the fairly simple assignment of convincing one ordinary common soldier to do as he was told to.
The Veteran, pitying this display of naked weakness, said that he would think about it very seriously. With that much accomplished, the Officer brightened and recovered his official demeanor.
—I imagine it would have been so much more convenient for everyone if I had simply been killed, wouldn’t it? the Veteran asked as the Officer was leaving.
Still bowed, still unable to look at him directly, the Officer shrugged his epauleted shoulders and closed the door very quietly behind him.
Nevertheless the Veteran had made up his mind to leave the sanctuary of the hospital. Despite his wound and appearance he was in excellent health, young still and full of energy. And the tiptoeing routine of this place was ineffably depressing. Yet even though he had decided to leave, even though he was certain he was going soon, he lingered, he delayed, he hesitated. Days went by quietly and calmly, and in the evening when she was off duty, the Head Nurse often came to his room to talk to him about things. Often they played cards. A curious and easy intimacy developed. It seemed almost as if they were husband and wife. On one occasion he spoke to her candidly about this.
—You better be careful, he said. —I’m not sexless.
—No, I guess not, she said. —But I am.
She told him that she thought his plan of going out into the world again was dangerous and foolish.
—Go ahead. Try it and you’ll be back here in no time at all, beating on the door with bloody knuckles and begging us to be readmitted, to get back in. You are too young and inexperienced to understand anything about people. Human beings are the foulest things in all creation. They will smell your blood and go mad like sharks. They will kill you if they can. They can’t allow you to be out there among them. They will tear you limb from limb. They will strip the meat o
ff your bones and trample your bones to dust. They will turn you into dust and a fine powder and scatter you to the four winds!
—I can see you have been deeply wounded, too, the Veteran said.
At that the Head Nurse laughed out loud. Her whole white mountainous body shook with laughter.
When the Veteran left the hospital he wore a mask. He wanted to find a job and wearing the mask seemed to him to be an act of discretion which would be appreciated. But this, as he soon discovered, was not the case at all. A mask is somehow intolerable. A mask becomes an unbearable challenge. When he became aware of this, when he had considered it, only the greatest exercise of self-discipline checked within him the impulse to gratify their curiosity. It would have been so easy. He could so easily have peeled off his protective mask and thereby given to the ignorant and innocent a new creature for their bad dreams.
One day he came upon a small traveling circus and applied for a job with them.
—What can you do? the Manager asked.
This Manager was a man so bowed down by the weight of weariness and boredom that he seemed at first glance to be a hunchback. He had lived so long and so closely with the oddly gifted and with natural freaks that his lips were pursed as if to spit in contempt at everything under the sun.
—I can be a clown, the Veteran said.
—I have enough clowns, the Manager said. Frankly, I am sick to death of clowns.
—I’ll be different from any other clown you have ever seen, the Veteran said.
And then and there he took off his mask.
—Well, this is highly original, the Manager said, studying the crude configuration of the wound with a careful, pitiless interest. This has some definite possibilities.
—I suppose the real question is, will the people laugh?
—Without a doubt. Believe me. Remember this—a man is just as apt to giggle when he is introduced to his executioner as he is to melt into a mess of piss and fear. The real and true talent, the exquisite thing, is of course to be able to raise tears to the throat and to the rims of the eyes, and then suddenly to convert those tears into laughter.
—I could play “The Wounded Soldier.”
—Well, we’ll try it, the Manager said. I think it’s worth a try.
And so that same night he first appeared in his new role. He entered with all the other clowns. The other clowns were conventional. They wore masks and elaborate makeup, sported baggy trousers and long, upturned shoes. They smoked exploding cigars. They flashed red electric noses on and off. They gamboled like a blithe flock of stray lambs, unshepherded. The Veteran, however, merely entered with them and then walked slowly around the ring. He wore a battered tin helmet and a uniform a generation out of date with its old-fashioned, badly wrapped puttees and a high, choker collar. He carried a broken stub of a rifle, hanging in two pieces like an open shotgun. A touch of genius, the Manager had attached a large clump of barbed wire to the seat of his pants.
The Veteran was seriously worried that people would not laugh at him and that he wouldn’t be able to keep his job. Slowly, apprehensively he strolled around the enormous circle and turned his wound toward them. He could see nothing at all outside of the zone of light surrounding him. But it was not long before he heard a great gasp from the outer darkness, a shocked intaking of breath so palpable that it was like a sudden breeze. And then he heard the single, high-pitched, hysterical giggle of a woman. And next came all that indrawn air returning, rich and warm. The whole crowd laughed at once. The crowd laughed loudly and the tent seemed to swell like a full sail from their laughter. He could see the circus bandsmen puffing like bullfrogs as they played their instruments and could see the sweat-stained leader waving his baton in a quick, strict, martial time. But he could not hear the least sound of their music. It was engulfed, drowned out, swallowed up by the raging storm of laughter.
Soon afterwards the Veteran signed a contract with the circus. His name was placed prominently on all the advertising posters and materials together with such luminaries as the Highwire Walker, the Trapeze Artists, the Lion Tamer, and the Bareback Riders. He worked only at night. For he soon discovered that by daylight he could see his audience, and they knew that and either refused to laugh or were unable to do so under the circumstances. He concluded that only when they were in the relative safety of the dark would they give themselves over to the impulse of laughter.
His fellow clowns, far from being envious of him, treated him with the greatest respect and admiration. And before much time had passed, he had received the highest compliment from a colleague in that vocation. A clown in a rival circus attempted an imitation of his art. But this clown was not well received. In fact, he was pelted with peanuts and hotdogs, with vegetables and fruit and rotten eggs and bottles. He was jeered at and catcalled out of the ring. Because no amount of clever makeup could rival or compete with the Veteran’s unfortunate appearance.
Once a beautiful young woman came to the trailer where he lived and prepared for his performance. She told him that she loved him.
—I have seen every single performance since the first night, she said. I want to be with you always.
The Veteran was not unmoved by her beauty and her naïveté. Besides, he had been alone for quite a long time.
—I’m afraid you don’t realize what you are saying, he told her.
—If you won’t let me be your mistress, I am going to kill myself, she said.
—That would be a pity.
She told him that more than anything else she wanted to have a child by him.
—If we have a child, then I’ll have to marry you.
—Do you think, she asked, that our child would look like you?
—I don’t believe that is scientifically possible, he said.
Later when she bore his child, it was a fine healthy baby, handsome and glowing. And then, as inexplicably as she had first come to him, the young woman left him.
After a few successful seasons, the Veteran began to lose some of his ability to arouse laughter from the public. By that time almost all of them had seen him at least once already, and the shock had numbed their responses. Perhaps some of them had begun to pity him.
The Manager was concerned about his future.
—Maybe you should take a rest, go into a temporary retirement, he said. People forget everything very quickly nowadays. You could come back to clowning in no time.
—But what would I ever do with myself?
The Manager shrugged.
—You could live comfortably on your savings and your pension, he said. Don’t you have any hobbies or outside interests?
—But I really like it here, the Veteran said. Couldn’t I wear a disguise and be one of the regular clowns?
—It would take much too long to learn the tricks of the trade, the Manager said. Besides which your real clowns are truly in hiding. Their whole skill lies in the concealment of anguish. And your talent is all a matter of revelation.
It was not long after this conversation that the Veteran received a letter from the Doctor.
—Your case has haunted me and troubled me, night and day, the Doctor wrote. I have been studying the problem incessantly. And now I think I may be able to do something for you. I make no promises, but I think I can help you. Could you return to the hospital for a thorough examination?
While he waited for the results of all the tests, the Veteran lived in his old room. It was clean and bright and quiet as before. Daily the Head Nurse put a bouquet of fresh flowers in a vase by his bed.
—You may be making a big mistake, she told him. You have lived too long with your wound. Even if the Doctor is successful—and he may be, for he is extremely skillful—you’ll never be happy with yourself again.
—Do you know? he began. I was very happy being a clown. For the first and only time in my life all that I had to do was to be myself. But, of course, like everything else, it couldn’t last for long.
—You can always come back here. Yo
u can stay just as you are now.
—Would you be happy, he asked her, if I came back to the hospital for good just as I am now?
—Oh yes, she said. I believe I would be very happy.
Nevertheless the Veteran submitted to the Doctor’s treatment. Once again he became a creature to be wheeled into the glaring of harsh lights, to be surrounded and hovered over by intense masked figures. Once again he was swathed in white bandages and had to suffer through a long time of healing, waiting for the day when he would see himself again. Once again the momentous day arrived, and he stood staring into a mirror as they unwound his bandages.
This time, when the ceremony was completed, he looked into the eyes of a handsome stranger.
—You cannot possibly imagine, the Doctor said, what this moment means to me.
The Head Nurse turned away and could not speak to him.
When he was finally ready to leave the hospital, the Veteran found the High-ranking Officer waiting for him. A gleaming staff car was parked at the curb, and the Veteran noticed by his insignia that the Officer had been promoted.
—We all hope, the Officer said, that you will seriously consider returning to active duty. We need experienced men more than ever now.
—That’s a very kind offer, the Veteran said. And I’ll certainly consider it in all seriousness.
THE LAST OF THE SPANISH BLOOD
THAT WAS THE SUMMER my cousin Harry came to live with us. We weren’t going anywhere that summer because the War was on. Harry’s father had to have a serious operation and go all the way to Baltimore to have it. He would be in the hospital a long time. Aunt Jean would have to go and take a room near the hospital to be with him.
So Harry came to stay with us.
Harry was just my age, but I didn’t know him well. They seldom came to any of the family gatherings. Except, of course, the funerals. Everybody, cousins and uncles and aunts and pets, people you never heard of, showed up for funerals. A good-size family funeral was pure delight for the children, I remember. We ran free underfoot. There would be too many grown-ups around, and they’d be too stiff and sad and soft-footed to bother about scolding children. The only thing you had to do was to behave in the church. The rest of the time, the days before and after, was all yours. And I vaguely remember Harry from those times, dark, about my size, shabby, because his branch of the family was poor, quick-tempered, apt to throw a tantrum, but shy, too, as a wild animal is shy. Not timid, that is. Just not tame. I had a strange idea about him even then, the kind of notion a child will pick up and hold like a coin in the palm and flip, heads or tails, just for the fun of it. As I say, Harry and I were about the same age and size, but he had dark hair and I was redheaded; and in temperament and interests we were from the beginning just the opposite. So I used to think (if you can call the flow, the torment and joy, the visionary dance of a child’s mind thinking) that we were really somehow the same person somehow and that when I looked at him I was really looking at myself, changed and different, strange and wonderful, the way your own face and body comes back to you as a stranger from one of the crazy mirrors in the Funhouse at the Fair.
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