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His shadow, lanky as the man, falls on the gentle autumn riot of hardy flowers. Their small bed has been scooped from the earth, Pierce knows, with a military-issue helmet. If that isn’t a modern day swords into ploughshares, exactly, it’s close!
The surgeon looks down at the kneeling man. “Why do you plant them father? For death?” Hawkeye knows that marigolds symbolize grief. He can’t imagine a better flower for this place.
But Mulcahy smiles up at him. An echo of that original gardener? Hawkeye wonders, amused. Was Adam’s face as open and carefree? He really doesn’t know how their priest does it. He should be offended by mere proximity to such carnage and sin, trampled down by the Hell of this place and the way he is often brushed aside, the way that his main source of utility stems from the dying and the dead.
His voice pulls Hawkeye from his thoughts. “On the contrary. When I was a boy, I thought the proper spelling was M-E-R-R-Y G-O-L-D.”
A grin splits his face, now. “Just like you. I bet you were the sweetest tyke.” There is always something boyish about Mulcahy even now; it’s further emphasized, today, by the smudge of dirt on his cheek, a mark reminiscent of the type Hawkeye had once earned as a boy, digging up worms to go fishing.
“Selfish, rather. The rule of Irish families is that there is always room for one more, but when you are one of the ‘ones’ fighting for a place or for recognition… it’s easy to wish it wasn’t the rule.”
This surprises him so much that, thereafter, Hawkeye makes it a point to learn more, stopping by of an evening when he can. The priest is not only gentle, however, but shrewd. After the third of these visits, he asks, “Are you worried about me, Hawkeye?”
“Not worried. Thing is, I saw a kid in Post Op the other day. He had chronic ear infections as a kid - which was, you know, yesterday . Get enough of those, and they damage the inner ear - can even cause deafness. Of course, for this kid, a little deafness was like winning the lottery. The army won’t keep a soldier that can’t hear.”
They share a look.
“Don’t tell Corporal Klinger. He might ‘miss’ next time he goes to pierce his ears!”
“Klinger…” Hawkeye grins. “I bet you get interesting confessions from that one.”
Mulcahy shakes a gloved hand at him. They are gardening together, this time, the priest pointing the surgeon to the places where weeds may be tugged free. “Just because you’re helping me tend the tagetes doesn’t mean I’ll violate the sanctity of the confessional. A shriven soul shines with the light of the Lord, they say.”
“Even if it isn’t Catholic?”
Mulcahy thinks of his most devoted parishioner with his white gloves and his kind heart. “God has never come to me and asked me to make those distinctions.” He tidies the trowel, loosening clumped earth disturbed on a continent neither man had ever thought to see. “I shouldn’t say so, but I don’t think He does, either. Not really. He must be so much vaster and grander than our petty prejudices - or else what use?”
Hawkeye considers. “I like that. Still, you can’t convince me you won’t want to tell your priest pals back home that you spent your Sundays blessing a Lebanese transvestite in love with a Boston aristocrat who he’s slowly wearing down.”
Mulcahy admits nothing. “Is Rizzo still overseeing the pool?”
“Yeah. Wouldn’t be fair to use info gained in the confessional to swipe all our money, either, padre.”
But Mulcahy brightens, eyes twinkling. “Ah, but if that money went to the orphanage? The ends might justify the means, then!”
Hawkeye pelts him with dirt until they’re both laughing. Their priest is quite the fighter when it comes to providing for his orphans. “Cocoa now? It’s getting chilly.”
Mulcahy agrees and is surprised when Hawkeye takes over the preparations, even draping a sweater over his shoulders. “Sometimes I wonder that you aren’t married, Hawkeye.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re such a natural caretaker. Sure, there’s your patients, but it seems a shame that no one benefits during your off hours.”
“Dad does.”
“You should try showing yourself some care, too.”
“Feels like a pot and kettle situation, Father. Which brings us full circle, I guess. That kid with the ear I told you about?”
“Yes? The one being sent home?”
“Like they all should be, right. Well, he got me thinking about you. We bring all our complaints and secrets to you - and the nuns do, at the orphanage, and the villagers. We’re wearing out your ears - have to be! But who do you talk to?”
Mulcahy wraps himself more tightly in the blanket “God, I suppose.”
“Makes for kind of a one-sided conversation.”
“Sometimes, yes. But that may be my spiritual deafness, you know. Not His silence.”
Pierce shakes his head. “Not a chance. Good as you are? I’ll bet he holds His other calls when you dial in.” His is joking - for Hawk cannot do otherwise - but only a little. “So I thought I’d offer a pair of ears. Find out more about you.”
To his own surprise, Mulcahy talks. Mostly, he talks about Katie. “Sister Maria Angelica, now,” he explains, “but, growing up, just Katie. She was the oldest. When mom was pregnant - and that was often, she was the mom. She made my meals and mended my socks.” He laughs as a memory strikes him. “She had this trick of using ice cubes to divvy up a bottle of soda between all of us, to make it seem like each one of us got the most. But I think she really gave the most to me.”
“You were her favorite.”
“Yes. It’s a shame, really, that she never got to be the favorite. Never got to be spoiled. You know, I probably watched her fry fish for a thousand suppers. Bake bread, set the table, do dishes, wipe lemon oil into the furniture… She had beautiful long-fingered hands, like a piano player. But they got old when she was just a girl. Cut and calloused. The nails always chipped. I doubt it’s much different, now. Nuns work very hard, you know.”
“You wish she’d picked something else?”
“I guess I wish something else had picked her. Selfish - I told you so. I wish she had a fine home that she didn’t have to clean on a quiet street. My uncles used to wish a woman herring, barley, peat for the hearth, and healthy babes when she got married. That wouldn’t be a bad wish for Katie. She loves children.”
“So the orphanage…?”
“In part. It is part of the job description. But I do see her face in those little faces. Imagine the nieces and nephews that might have been.”
Hawkeye resolves to do something atypical, that night, and say a prayer for the princess of a girl who sought her protective tower in the church… and for the brother who would give her a crown. Maybe he will even write, find out if she thinks her brother as much a gentle candidate for sainthood as he is coming to.
***
On his next visit, Hawkeye brings a paper packet of seeds. “Klinger helped me get them,” he explains. “He’s not just a pretty face, you know.”
“God sometimes puts us where our talents may best be used,” the priest observes. “But wouldn’t the Corporal’s time be better spent acquiring medication?”
“He did that, too. First class scrounging all around. Don’t you want to know what they are?”
“Of course.”
“Forget-me-nots, Star of Bethlehem, passiflora.”
Hope , Mulcahy thinks. Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce, though lapped at by internal darkness and deluged by horror in the OR, has brought him the core of plants that symbolize hope. His smile, soft on a face that needs shaved, knows it. His eyes hope, too.
“It’s too late in the season to plant them, I fear.”
“I know. I was hoping you might invite me back. In the spring.”
Mulcahy thinks of the winter wait. His small garden is unlikely to leave Korea much changed… but he hopes it will do some good, lift at least one heart. Hope, he thinks, is sometimes all we have… and sometimes the greatest thing, too.
“I would like that… Ben.”
Their hands meet on the packet, exchanging the briefest touch. It means hope, too.
End!