Held it back, though. Instinct said tears would keep me in here, longer, and already I wanted out. I didn’t know where else I’d go, because I didn’t know where the hell I belonged, but it wasn’t here.
I went over to the glass and knocked; a nurse looked up at me, startled. She had light blue eyes, and blond curly shoulder-length hair showering from under her white cap. Petite, fine features. The faintest trail of freckles across a cute, nearly pug nose.
She slid a window to one side and looked at me prettily from behind the counter. “Ah-you’re the new patient,” she said. Pleasantly.
“Am I?”
She checked her watch, glanced at a chart on a clipboard on the counter. “And I think it’s about time for your Atabrine tablets.”
“What is it, malaria?”
“Why, yes. You’ve had quite a flare-up, as a matter of fact. You were just sent over from M and S after several days there.”
“M and S?”
“Medical and Surgical building.”
She got me the pills-small, bright yellow pills-and a little paper cup of water; I took the water and the pills. The aftertaste was bitter.
“Tell me something,” I said.
She smiled and I loved her for it; tiny white teeth like a child. “Certainly.”
“Do they have palm trees outside the window, over at M and S?”
“Hardly. You’re at St. E’s.”
“St. E’s?”
“St. Elizabeth’s. Near Washington, D.C.”
“I’m in the States, then!”
“Yes you are. Welcome home, soldier.”
“Never call a Marine ‘soldier,’ sweetheart. We take that as an insult.”
“Oh, so you’re a Marine.”
I swallowed. “I guess I am.”
She smiled again. “Don’t worry,” she said. “After a few days, you’ll get your bearings.”
“Can I ask you to look something up for me?”
“Sure. What?”
“My name.”
Her eyes filled with pity, and I hated her for it, and myself, but the feeling passed, where she was concerned; she checked on the clipboard chart and said, “Your name is Heller. Nathan Heller.”
It didn’t mean a thing to me. Not a thing. Not the faintest fucking bell rang. Shit.
“Are you sure?” I said.
“Unless there’s been a foul-up.”
“If this is a military hospital, there could sure as hell be a snafu. Double-check, will you? If I heard my own name, I’m sure I’d recognize it.”
Pity in the eyes; more pity in the eyes. “I’m sure you would. But we’re not strictly military here, and…listen, Mr., uh, sir, why don’t you step into the dayroom and relax.” She gestured graciously to a wide, open doorway just down and across from us. “If I can straighten out this snafu, I’ll let you know.”
I nodded and walked toward the dayroom; she called out after me.
“Uh, sir!”
I turned and felt my face try to smile. “I’m no officer.”
“I know,” she said, smiling. “You’re a PFC. But that gives you plenty of rank to pull around here, believe me. You guys are tops with us, never forget that.”
Pity or not, it was kind of nice to hear.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Those palm trees you mentioned?”
“Yeah?”
“You were in Hawaii three days ago. At Pearl Harbor, in the Naval hospital there. That’s where you saw the palm trees.”
“Thanks.”
Only I had a crawling feeling Hawaii wasn’t the only place I’d seen palm trees.
The dayroom stretched out like the deck of an aircraft carrier, eighty feet long by forty feet wide, easy. The same institutional pale green walls dominated, with an expanse of speckled marble floor where massive furniture squatted-heavy wooden tables, chairs, a piano, the smallest stick of this furniture would take two guys to toss around, and maybe not then. That was when I figured it.
I was in the nuthouse.
Hell, where did I expect to be? I didn’t know my own fucking name, right? Of course, I knew who was singing “White Christmas,” as the radio was piped in over an intercom system: Bing Crosby. I was no idiot. I knew the name of the song and the name of the singer; now, for the sixty-five-dollar question: who the hell was I?
If I had any doubt about where I was, the human flotsam sprawled across the heavy chairs cinched it. Hollow cheeks and hollow eyes. Guys sitting there shaking like hootchie-coo dancers. Guys sitting there staring with ball bearings for eyes. A few very ambitious guys playing pinochle or checkers. One guy sat in the corner quietly bawling. Made me glad I held my own tears back. I had enough problems just being minus the small detail of an identity.
Most of the guys were smoking. I craved a smoke. Something in the back of what was left of my mind told me I didn’t smoke; yet I wanted a smoke; I sat next to a guy who wasn’t shaking or staring; he was smoking, however, and he seemed normal enough, a tanned, brown-haired, round-faced man with distinct features. He was sitting along the wall over at right next to a window; this window, like all the other windows, looked out at a nearby faded red-brick building, through bars.
I was in the nuthouse, all right.
“Spare a cig?” I asked.