by John Irving
A spokesman for the U.S. Army Air Forces paid a personal visit to Olive and told her that there was some reason to be optimistic. That the plane obviously had not exploded in the air meant that the crew might have had time to bail out. What would have happened afterward was anyone’s guess.
That would have been a better name for the plane, thought Homer Wells: “Anyone’s Guess.” But Homer was supportive of Olive and Candy’s view that Wally was not dead, that he was “just missing.” Privately, Homer and Ray Kendall agreed that there wasn’t much hope for Wally.
“Just suppose he didn’t go down with the plane,” Ray said to Homer, when they were pulling lobster pots. “So then he’s in the middle of the jungle, and what does he do there? He can’t let the Japs find him, and there’s got to be Japs around—they shot down the plane, didn’t they?”
“There could be natives,” said Homer Wells. “Friendly Burmese villagers,” he suggested.
“Or nobody at all,” Ray Kendall said. “Some tigers, and lots of snakes,” he added. “Aw, shit. He shoulda been in a submarine.”
“If your friend survived all the rest,” wrote Wilbur Larch to Homer Wells, “he’s got all the diseases of Asia to worry about—lots of diseases.”
It was horrible to imagine Wally suffering, and not even Homer’s longing for Candy could allow him any comfort with the idea that Wally was already dead; in that case, Homer knew, Candy would always imagine that she loved Wally best. Reality, for orphans, is so often outdistanced by their ideals; if Homer wanted Candy, he wanted her ideally. In order for Candy to choose Homer, Wally had to be alive; and because Homer loved Wally, he also wanted Wally’s blessing. Wouldn’t any other way be compromising to them all?
Wilbur Larch was flattered that Homer asked his advice—and on a matter of romantic love, of all things! (“How should I behave with Candy?” Homer had asked.) The old man was used to being such an authority that he found it natural to assume an authoritative voice—“Even regarding a subject he knows nothing about!” Nurse Angela said to Nurse Edna indignantly. Larch was so proud of what he had written Homer that he showed his letter to his old nurses before sending it along.
“Have you forgotten what life is like at St. Cloud’s?” Dr. Larch asked Homer. “Have you drifted so far away from us that you find a life of compromise to be unacceptable? And you, an orphan—of all people. Have you forgotten how to be of use? Don’t think so badly of compromises; we don’t always get to choose the ways we can be of use. You say you love her—then let her use you. It may not be the way you had in mind, but if you love her, you have to give her what she needs—and when she needs it, not necessarily when you think the time is right. And what can she give you of herself? Only what she has left—and if that’s not everything you had in mind, whose fault is that? Are you not going to accept her because she hasn’t got 100 percent of herself to give? Some of her is over Burma—are you going to reject the rest? Are you going to hold out for all or nothing? And do you call that being of use?”
“It’s not very romantic,” Nurse Angela said to Nurse Edna.
“When was Wilbur ever romantic?” Nurse Edna asked.
“Your advice is awfully utilitarian,” Nurse Angela said to Dr. Larch.
“Well, I should hope so!” Dr. Larch said, sealing the letter.
Now Homer had a companion in sleeplessness. He and Candy preferred the night shift at Cape Kenneth Hospital. When there was a lull in their work, they were allowed to doze on the beds in the children’s noncommunicable ward. Homer found that the music of the restless children soothed him—their troubles and pains familiar, their whimpers and outcries and night terrors transporting him beyond his own anxieties. And Candy felt that the drawn, black curtains in the nighttime hospital were suitable for mourning. The prevailing blackout conditions—which she and Homer had to observe in driving to and from the hospital, if it was after dark—were also to Candy’s liking. They used Wally’s Cadillac for these occasions—they were permitted to travel with only parking lights on, and the Cadillac’s parking lights were the brightest. Even so, the dark coastal roads seemed barely lit; they drove at funeral speed. If the stationmaster at St. Cloud’s (formerly, the stationmaster’s assistant) had ever seen them passing, he would have thought again that they were driving a white hearse.
Meany Hyde, whose wife, Florence, was expecting, told Homer that he was sure his new baby would share something of Wally’s soul (if Wally was truly dead)—and if Wally was alive, Meany said, the appearance of the new baby would signify Wally’s escape from Burma. Everett Taft told Homer that his wife, Big Dot, had been plagued by dreams that could only mean that Wally was struggling to communicate with Ocean View. Even Ray Kendall, dividing his underwater attention between his lobsters and his torpedoes, said that he was “reading” his lobster pots, by which he meant that he found the content of the traps hauled from the deep to be worthy of interpretation. Untouched bait was a special sign; if the lobsters (which prefer food that’s truly dead) wouldn’t take the bait, it must mean that the bait was manifesting a living spirit.
“And you know I ain’t religious,” Ray said to Homer.
“Right,” Homer said.
Because Homer Wells had spent many years wondering if his mother would ever return to claim him, if she even thought about him, if she was alive or dead, he was better at accepting Wally’s undefined status than the rest of them were. An orphan understands what it means that someone important is “just missing.” Olive and Candy, mistaking Homer’s composure for indifference, were occasionally short-tempered with him.
“I’m only doing what we all have to do,” he said—reserving special emphasis for Candy. “I’m just waiting and seeing.”
There were few fireworks that Fourth of July; for one thing, they would have violated the blackout conditions, and for another, any simulation of bombs and gunfire would have been disrespectful to those among “our boys” who were facing the real music. In the nighttime hospital at Cape Kenneth, the nurses’ aides conducted a quiet Independence Day celebration, which was interrupted by the hysterics of a woman who demanded an abortion from the young and imperious Dr. Harlow, who believed in obeying the law. “But there is a war!” the woman countered. Her husband was dead; he’d been killed in the Pacific; she had the wire from the War Department to prove it. She was nineteen, and not quite three months pregnant.
“I’ll be glad to speak with her again, when she’s behaving reasonably,” Dr. Harlow told Nurse Caroline.
“Why should she behave reasonably?” Nurse Caroline asked him.
Homer Wells had to trust his instincts regarding Nurse Caroline; besides, she had told him and Candy that she was a socialist. “And I’m not pretty,” she added truthfully. “Therefore, I’m not interested in marriage. In my case, I’d be expected to appear grateful—or, at least, to consider myself lucky.”
The hysterical woman would not be calmed, perhaps because Nurse Caroline’s heart wasn’t in it. “I’m not asking for anything secret!” the woman shouted. “Why should I have to have this baby?”
Homer Wells found a piece of paper with columns for laboratory analysis. He wrote the following across the columns:
YOU GO TO ST. CLOUD’S, YOU ASK FOR THE ORPHANAGE.
He gave the piece of paper to Candy, who gave it to Nurse Caroline—who looked at it before she gave it to the woman, who instantly stopped protesting.
When the woman had gone, Nurse Caroline made Homer and Candy accompany her to the dispensary.
“I’ll tell you what I usually do,” Nurse Caroline said, as if she were furious with them. “I perform a perfectly safe dilation without the curettage. I just dilate the cervix. I do this in my kitchen, and I’m very careful. They have to come to the hospital for a completion, of course. Someone might think they tried to do it to themselves, but there’s no infection and nothing’s damaged; they’ve just miscarried. They’ve had the D without the C. All they need is a good scraping. And the bastards have to be acco
mmodating—there’s all the bleeding, and it’s clear the woman’s already lost it.” She paused, and glared at Homer Wells. “You’re an expert about this, too, aren’t you?”
“Right,” Homer said.
“And you know a better way than my way?” she asked.
“Not that much better,” he said. “It’s a complete D and C, and the doctor is a gentleman.”
“A gentleman,” Nurse Caroline said doubtfully. “What’s the gentleman cost?”
“He’s free,” Homer said.
“I’m free, too,” Nurse Caroline said.
“He asks you to make a donation to the orphanage, if you can afford it,” said Homer Wells.
“Why hasn’t he been caught?” Nurse Caroline asked.
“I don’t know,” Homer said. “Maybe people are grateful.”
“People are people,” Nurse Caroline said, in her socialist voice. “You took a stupid chance, telling me. And a more stupid chance telling that woman—you don’t even know her.”
“Yes,” Homer agreed.
“Your doctor isn’t going to last if you keep that up,” Nurse Caroline said.
“Right,” Homer said.
Dr. Harlow found them all in the dispensary; only Candy looked guilty, and therefore he stared at her.
“What are these two experts telling you?” Dr. Harlow asked. He spent a lot of time looking at Candy when he thought no one saw him, but Homer Wells saw him and Nurse Caroline was very sensitive to the longings other women inspired. Candy was tongue-tied, which made her seem more guilty, and Dr. Harlow turned to Nurse Caroline. “You got rid of the hysteric?” he asked her.
“No problem,” Nurse Caroline said.
“I know that you disapprove,” Dr. Harlow told her, “but rules exist for reasons.”
“Rules exist for reasons,” said Homer Wells, uncontrollably; it was such a stupid thing to say, he felt compelled to repeat it. Dr. Harlow stared at him.
“No doubt you’re an abortion expert, too, Wells,” Dr. Harlow said.
“It’s not very hard to be an abortion expert,” Homer Wells said. “It’s a pretty easy thing to do.”
“You think so?” Dr. Harlow asked aggressively.
“Well, what do I know?” Homer Wells said, shrugging.
“Yes, what do you know?” Dr. Harlow said.
“Not much,” Nurse Caroline said gruffly; even Dr. Harlow appreciated this. Even Candy smiled. Homer Wells smiled sheepishly, too. You see? I’m getting smarter! That is what he smiled to Nurse Caroline, who viewed him with an expression of condescension that was proper for nurses to exhibit only to nurses’ aides. Dr. Harlow seemed to feel that the pecking order he revered was being treated with the reverence that was mandatory from them all. A kind of glaze appeared to coat his face, a texture composed of righteousness and adrenaline. Homer Wells gave himself a brief sensation of pleasure by imagining something that could wake up Dr. Harlow, and humble him. Mr. Rose’s knife work might have that effect on Dr. Harlow—Homer imagined Mr. Rose undressing Dr. Harlow with his knife; every article of clothing would be gathered around the doctor’s ankles, in strips and tatters, yet on the doctor’s naked body there wouldn’t be a scratch.
A month after Wally’s plane was shot down, they heard from the crew of Opportunity Knocks.
“We were halfway to China,” the co-pilot wrote, “when the Nips took some potshots. Captain Worthington ordered the crew to bail out.”
The crew chief and the radioman jumped close together; the co-pilot jumped third. The roof of the jungle was so dense that when the first man crashed through it, he could not see the other parachutes. The jungle itself was so thick that the crew chief had to search for the others—it took him seven hours to find the radioman. The rain was so heavy—it made such a din against the broad palm leaves—none of the men heard the plane explode. The atmosphere was so rich with its own scents that the smell of the burning gasoline and the smoke from the fire never reached them. They wondered if the plane had not miraculously recovered itself and flown on. When they looked up, they could not see through the treetops (which everywhere glittered with bright green pigeons).
In seven hours, the crew chief contacted thirteen leeches of various sizes—which the radioman thoughtfully removed; the crew chief plucked fifteen leeches off the radioman. They found that the best way to remove the leeches was to touch the lighted end of a cigarette to their posterior ends; that way, they would release their contact with the flesh. If you just pulled them, they kept breaking; their strong sucking mouths would remain attached.
The radioman and the crew chief ate nothing for five days. When it rained—which it did, most of the time—they drank the rainwater that gathered in puddles in the big palm leaves. They were afraid to drink the other water they encountered. In some of the water they thought they saw crocodiles. Because the radioman was afraid of snakes, the crew chief did not point out the snakes he saw; the crew chief was afraid of tigers, and he thought he saw one, once, but the radioman maintained that they only heard a tiger, or several tigers—or the same tiger, several times. The crew chief said that the same tiger followed them for five days.
The leeches tired them out, they said. Although the roof of the jungle made the pelting rain louder, it did keep the rain from falling directly on the two men; yet the jungle was so saturated that the rain almost constantly dripped on them—and when, for brief intervals, the rain stopped, the roof of the jungle allowed no sunlight to penetrate to the jungle floor, and the raucous birds, silent in the rain, were louder than the rain when they had their opportunities to protest the monsoon.
The radioman and the crew chief had no idea where Wally and the co-pilot were. On the fifth day they met up with the co-pilot, who had reached a native village only a day ahead of them. He was quite badly drained by the leeches—since he’d been traveling alone, he’d had no one to burn off the leeches he couldn’t reach. In the middle of his back, there had been quite a gathering of them, which the natives were skillful at removing. They used a lighted stalk of bamboo, like a cigar. The natives were Burmese, and friendly; although they spoke no English, they made it clear that they had no fondness for the Japanese invasion, and also that they knew the way to China.
But where was Wally? The co-pilot had landed in a grove of ironwood; and the canes of bamboo that he had to hack his way through were as stout as a man’s thigh. The edge of his machete was as dull and round as the back of the blade.
The Burmese let them know they were not safe to stay and wait for Wally where they were; some of the villagers would lead the co-pilot, the crew chief, and the radioman into China. For that trip, they darkened their skin with mashed peepul berries and tied orchids in their hair; they didn’t want to look like white men.
The trip took twenty days, walking. They traveled two hundred twenty-five miles. They cooked no food; at the end of the journey, their rice was moldy—there was so much rain. The crew chief claimed he was terminally constipated; the co-pilot claimed he was dying of diarrhea. The radioman shat rabbit pellets and carried a low-grade fever for fifteen of the twenty days; he grew a helmet of ringworm. Each man lost about forty pounds.
When they reached their base in China, they were hospitalized for a week. Then they were flown back to India, where the co-pilot was retained in the hospital for diagnosis and treatment of an amoeba—no one could say what amoeba it was. The crew chief had a colon problem; he was also retained. The radioman (and his ringworm) went back to work. “They took all our gear when they put us in the hospital in China,” he wrote to Olive. “When they gave it back to us, it was all lumped together. There was four compasses. There was just three of us, but there was four compasses. One of us jumped out of the plane with Captain Worthington’s compass.” In the radioman’s opinion, it was better to have crashed with the plane than to have landed in that part of Burma without a compass.
In August of 194_, Burma officially declared war against Great Britain and the United States. Candy told Homer that
she needed a new place to sit, to be left alone. The dock made her want to jump off; she’d sat too many times on that dock with Wally. It didn’t help that Homer would sit there with her now.
“I know a place,” Homer told her.
Maybe Olive was right, he thought; maybe they hadn’t cleaned the cider house for nothing. When it rained, Candy sat inside and listened to the drops on the tin roof. She wondered if the jungle sounded as loud as that, or louder, and if the sweet rot smell of the cider apples was anything like the stifling decay-in-progress smell of the jungle floor. When the weather was clear, Candy sat on the roof. Some nights she allowed Homer Wells to tell her stories there. Perhaps it was the absence of the Ferris wheel and of Mr. Rose’s interpretations of the darkness that prompted Homer Wells to tell Candy everything.
That summer, Wilbur Larch wrote to the Roosevelts again. He had written to them both so many times under the constellations of ether that he was unsure whether he had actually written to them or had only imagined doing it. He never wrote to one without writing to the other.
He usually began, “Dear Mr. President,” and, “Dear Mrs. Roosevelt,” but occasionally he felt more informal and began, “Dear Franklin Delano Roosevelt”; once he even began, “Dear Eleanor.”
That summer he addressed the President quite plainly. “Mr. Roosevelt,” he wrote, dispensing with the endearment, “I know that you must be terribly busy with the war, yet I feel such confidence in your humanitarianism—and in your commitment to the poor, to the forgotten, and especially to children . . .” To Mrs. Roosevelt, he wrote: “I know your husband must be very busy, but perhaps you could point out to him a matter of the utmost urgency—for it concerns the rights of women and the plight of the unwanted child . . .”
The confusing configurations of light that dazzled the dispensary ceiling contributed to the strident and incomprehensible manner of the letter.