ii. I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls
If the first time he spoke to Medic is the clearest memory Heavy has of their early days, the clearest memory he has of the days following them is of a slim, towering building tucked away in a corner behind 2Fort, behind a garage that doubled as the team's storage room. To be more specific, the memory is of lounging on the building's girded, wooden balcony that overlooked the base, an ideal location for bouts of solitude, undisturbed introspection and a contemplation of the stars.
It was a refuge a loner like his teammate Sniper would appreciate. It was far away from the living quarters, minimizing the chance of the other RED members intruding on him, and the view from the balcony ensured that he could see anyone approaching the building long before they saw him. That is, if he was on the constant lookout for gatecrashers. Mostly, like tonight, his eyes were pointed up through binoculars at the New Mexico desert night sky, brilliant and humbling with its iridescent and eternal stars, planets, nebulas and galaxies like the Magellanic Clouds, the Great Nebula south of Orion's Belt, and his favorite, the spiral, purple-and-orange Andromeda Galaxy two-and-a-half million light years away from Earth.
It was also the safest place to indulge in one of his most hush-hush pastimes: Singing English songs from the '20s onwards.
Music-wise, he was particularly fond of jazz, of the piano oeuvres of Art Tatum and Thelonious Monk, of John Coltrane's cool saxophone mastery, of Miles Davis' and Duke Ellington's pioneering styles, Lady Day's resonant, personal vocals and Satchmo's virtuoso trumpet playing and scat singing. But most of all, he adored the soft baritone of Nat King Cole, and he owed it all to Johnny Berry, a Specialist in the US military he'd befriended at the end of 1943. Johnny was older than he was at the time, and physically as dissimilar from him as a man could get: Lanky, sinewy, long-limbed, with a head of curly, black hair and large brown eyes that twinkled with mischief and optimism.
Johnny was also a black man in a racially segregated institution that had permitted African-American men to only be in all-black units and strictly forbade them from commanding white men until 1940. Johnny was still considered a lesser being by his white counterparts, to be beneath them, and Heavy sympathized with his new comrade. He, of all people, knew how it felt to be ostracized simply for being who and what he was.
He being a hulking Soviet defector and Johnny being a skinny African-American G.I., they made a rather conspicuous pair at Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia. The attention on Heavy intensified when he was slotted into the Engineer Replacement Training Center's specialized courses for weapons operations as an instructor regardless of his mediocre English in late 1944, after his completion of Sasha and modified versions of Sasha were being used in the war. You're a prodigy, the higher-ups had told him, your knowledge should be shared with our engineers and no, as much as we value your enthusiasm to fight the Krauts, you can't rejoin the war, we can't afford for you to be bagged by the Axis or the Soviet Union again.
Despite that, many of the draftees did not like him.
"He's a communist," he had heard one of them whisper to another outside the classroom one day, the same way one would say, "He's a monstrous killer and eater of children."
He'd sighed to himself, a twenty-two-year-old man who felt older than a hundred, and brushed the erroneous opinion out of his mind and left it at that. Johnny, who was there to accompany him back to his lodging on campus, didn't.
"Oh yeah?" Johnny said, storming up to the two white men in uniform, glowering at them. "You ever bother asking him if he is? Or you just pulling that outta your ignorant ass 'cause you don't know better than to judge somebody?"
Johnny almost got his teeth knocked out for that. He would definitely have knocked out their teeth if Heavy hadn't intervened before more punches were thrown by wordlessly stepping in front of Johnny and shaking his head once.
No, tovarisch, you are better than them. Don't sink to their level.
The two draftees had bolted the minute Heavy stepped in, and Johnny's outrage seeped away beneath his imperturbable, chastening gaze.
"Sorry, buddy," Johnny said to him later as they exited the ERTC into the chill of an early Virginian winter and headed for the housing zone next to the center where Heavy's wood-frame apartment building was. "Flipped my wig, there."
"Is fine, Curly."
Johnny smiled at the affectionate moniker, then said, "I gotta admit, Chrome-Dome, sometimes I'm curious myself."
Heavy smiled at Johnny's tongue-in-cheek moniker for him. The first time he heard it, he and Johnny were casual acquaintances who knew nothing of each other beyond their names and statuses at the fort. When Johnny blurted out the slang at him, he'd asked for its definition and seen the terror in Johnny's eyes, terror that he would hit the shorter, scrawnier man with his gargantuan fists.
On the contrary, once Johnny nervously explained what Chrome-Dome meant while gesticulating at his more or less bald head, he'd chortled with amusement and playfully smacked Johnny on the shoulder. When Johnny realized he wasn't going to die that day, he'd laughed along with Heavy, laughed and laughed until there were tears in their eyes and thus, a beautiful friendship was born.
"Curious if I am communist?"
"Yeah. It don't matter to me though. I'm just curious. The Soviet Union says it's communist, so …"
"Da. Let me think."
Heavy pressed his lips together as he concentrated on choosing the most apt words and phrasing he could come up with for his answer. The question, though stated with a casual tone, was of great consequence. He had lived here at Fort Belvoir for a year and yet, he was avoided and given the stink eye by most people outside of classes. Some would mutter slurs about his ethnicity under their breath when they thought he couldn't hear or comprehend it. Even in the classroom, sometimes some of the draftees would scowl palpably at him, like they could make him drop dead if they stared long enough. As for the administration, he knew their true concern was solely for his knowledge and experience with weapons engineering. If they had some method of extracting it out of his head, he knew they would have done it and tossed the rest of him back to the Soviet Union without a pang of conscience.
None of them gave a damn about the man behind the nationality, the accent, the assumed political stance. All they saw was that someone, something was different from them and was therefore a menace and had to be dominated. Purged.
Sometimes, America wasn't all that different from Stalin's Russia.
"In Stalin's vorld, you vorship Stalin, or you are dead. Communist, socialist, capitalist, all is second to him," Heavy eventually said as they ambled past leafless cedar trees laden with yesterday's snow. "I never put label on me. Vhat alvays matter to me is people are safe and happy. Have food, home, school to study. Have life to live dream. Life to share vith family and friends. Help each other vhen there is trouble. That mean I am communist?"
Though his breath fogged in the air, Johnny's gaze was as warm as sunshine.
"No, my large friend. Means you're a decent human being."
Heavy smiled back, a forlorn smile.
You would not say that, tovarishch, if you knew what these hands of mine had committed, and that my heart is unrepentant of any of it.
"Labels are stupid," he said instead, and Johnny snorted and said, "Heh. Yeah, they are."
Johnny's reply was not a facetious one. Heavy knew that Johnny dealt with the same discrimination, maybe even more. On top of racist insults, he'd heard other kinds hurled at Johnny since they befriended each other: Commie-lover. Pinko. Russki-loving faggot.
The third one had angered him terribly. He'd never heard of the last word until he came to America, but in Russia, there were numerous words akin to it and he had all of them yelled to his face with undisguised abhorrence in the Gulag. So even here in America, homosexual people were despised.
Even here, he could not be free to be who and what he really was.
Johnny halted in his tracks when Heavy pressed the palms of his hands to his face and let out a growl of weariness. It echoed down the lane and between the apartment buildings, a lonely, doleful sound.
"Buddy? You all right?"
"I am sorry." Heavy inhaled deeply, then let his hands fall away and faced his concerned friend. "Vish I could say better vhat in brain."
"No need to apologize for that. We all get stuck sorting out our thoughts and feelings now and then. For somebody who learned English on his own, you speak it pretty good already." Johnny snapped his fingers with a lively tempo, doing a little dance at the same time. "You got your own sense of eloquence, man. Your own sense of rhythm and style."
Heavy smiled, eyes crinkling.
"Like music."
"Yeah! Exactly. Like music." Johnny suddenly straightened up and snapped his right thumb and forefinger once, louder, his eyes glazed as inspiration struck. "Yeah … like music."
"Curly?"
"We'll make a stop at the barracks first, okay?"
Johnny took hold of his right forearm and led him in the opposite direction towards the fort's unaccompanied personnel housing facility where the troops resided. There were six imposing buildings, each with almost a hundred rooms and a laundry room, conveniently near the fort's other facilities like the commissary, theater, fitness centers and chapel. Johnny's room was in the fifth one, and he and Heavy strolled languorously to it, enjoying the somewhat frosty, invigorating air and each other's company. In the distance, Heavy could hear the muted shouts of soldiers training in the new obstacle course at the ERTC.
"Music's the key!"
"Key to vhat?"
"To helping you learn English faster!" Johnny said, pleased with himself. "Yeah, and it's a fun way of doing it too. It's a lot easier to memorize a tune, see? You remember the tune, you'll remember the words better too."
Heavy nodded.
"Is good idea."
Johnny's room was on the third floor. It was, by American standards, a small room, with a single bed, a bedside table with a lamp on top, a wooden writing desk and stool, a cupboard with drawers and a curtained window facing some trees and another building. In Russia, an entire family could live in it. The bed creaked ominously when Heavy sat on its side, and Heavy chuckled when Johnny said with a mock expression of alarm, "Don't you go and break my bed now!"
Johnny was entertaining to be around. Johnny treated him like a human being.
He observed the African-American man rummage around in the cupboard's drawers, hands on lap. In the serenity of the moment, Johnny's inquiry was all the more unforeseen to him.
"Since we're talking about you …" Johnny's back was facing him, head bowed as the man carried on his search. "Some of the guys were saying that you, uh, that you escaped from a death camp in Russia all by yourself. Walked all the way to Tibet from there. That true?"
Heavy's eyes flickered down at his hands. In the sunlight streaming through the window, spotless and motionless, they were like any other pair of hands. Hands that could operate delicate tools and mold even more delicate components. Hands that could cook sophisticated meals, that could grasp and flip the pages of Russian and English literature as their possessor's eyes perused them during halcyon autumn and winter nights. Hands that nobody would have guessed had crushed human heads to a pulp between them, yanked out spines and ripped off genitals in a paroxysm of madness.
Heavy still had abysmal nightmares about Spassk and Dolinka Village.
He would probably endure them for the rest of his life.
Staring down at his hands, Heavy said, "Camp vas in Kazakh SSR. Next to Russia. Part of Soviet Union. Had help getting out of camp, but rest of vay, vas just me. Soldiers and dogs chase me to camp headquarters in country. I fight them alone there. I … killed many. I keep running. China friend vith Russia, so had to be careful all the vay. Sometimes had car ride, but very few because people scared of me." Heavy fell silent for a while, then murmured, "But da, is true."
He tensed, prepared for words of pity from Johnny who was kneeling on the floor, or repulsion. Or both.
Heavy received neither.
"Damn. You are really something, you know that?"
Heavy glanced sharply at Johnny, lips parted with surprise. What he saw in Johnny's eyes, it was … respect.
"I can't even begin to imagine what I would have done in your shoes. A Soviet death camp?" Johnny shook his head and sighed. "Most Americans your age, if they weren't drafted in the army, their biggest worry's where to go for a nice dinner, or whether to go to the movies or not. What they're gonna do after college, or whether they're gonna marry their sweetheart and settle down in a nice town, you know? And then there's you. You just turned twenty-one last year. Just turned into a man, and you've already seen and gone through more hell than any person deserves to."
Heavy gazed downwards at his hands again even as his chest swelled. Johnny still saw him as a decent person. Johnny was still his friend.
"Nyet." Heavy raised his head and smiled at the other man, poking his own chest with one thumb. "I be man long before."
Johnny grinned, the respect in his brown eyes no less than before.
"That you did. That you did." Johnny plucked something out of the top drawer and then sat next to him on the bed. "Here, I wanna show you something."
It was a small, rectangular photograph in black and white, a portrait of a young woman attired in a square-shouldered jacket and a high-collared shirt with ruffles, her long, black hair tied up in a bun on her head. She had a charming smile and straight, white teeth, a wide and attractive nose and kind, soulful eyes, just like Johnny's.
"That's Mary-Louise. She's my girl in Baltimore."
Heavy deftly gripped the photograph with his thumbs and forefingers, his expression mellow as he looked at it. So this was Johnny's love of his life. He could tell just from the photograph that she was a good person who took care of herself, that she was someone who loved Johnny very much, to smile like that for a picture for him.
"She is pretty."
"Yeah, she is." Heavy could hear the pride and joy in Johnny's voice. "We're thinking of getting married when the war's over. Buy ourselves a home in the suburbs. Have two kids, maybe more, when we can afford it."
Heavy's expression tinged with melancholy. Johnny was a very lucky man, to have someone to love, to be loved by that someone. Very lucky to be able to express that love at liberty, to celebrate it with others without the dread of being arrested, shamed and detested. Would he ever find a love like that here in America? Find someone who would accept him as he is, all of him?
So many Americans he'd met up to now could not even see past his origin. Who in this country would understand the ghastliness he had to witness, to undergo during the war and in the Gulag? Who would understand the darkness in him that that ghastliness had planted, that was still there, even now?
Who would understand, who was also homosexual like him?
No, love was not meant for one such as him.
"You got a girl back in Russia?"
Johnny was nudging his side with an elbow, smiling at him. He managed to dredge up a believable smile in reaction as his thoughts became more dejected.
Had men. Men who were too afraid of loving other men in a world that shot them in the head and threw their corpses into mass graves for it.
"Nyet," Heavy mumbled, shaking his head. "Nobody."
It was the truth, but his chest didn't ache any less.
Johnny put an arm around his torso and gave him a shake – as much as the lanky man could of his massive frame – of encouragement.
"Hey, you're not giving up already, are you? You're at the prime of your life here!" Johnny poked him in the chest with a forefinger and waggled his eyebrows. "And you know what, I bet that somewhere out there in this great, big country, there's a good American girl who's gonna fall in love one day with a certain big Russian bear I know!"
Heavy chortled with Johnny, infected by the other man's boisterous laughter. Although he knew from the age of nine that he was homosexual, he'd had a number of sexual experiences with women in Russia. On all occasions, he was able to achieve orgasm by masturbation after penetrative sex and satiate his female partners … but there was always something missing, something that all the sex he had with women couldn't bestow him.
If he had no other choice, none at all, he could envision himself being married to a woman and being sexually active with her. If, by sexually active, it was sex once every year or so.
Chyort, he might as well marry his right hand.
"Da. Who can say," Heavy said once the laughter dissipated, handing the photograph of Mary-Louise back to Johnny.
"See! That's the spirit!"
Johnny slapped him good-naturedly on the upper back, transforming Heavy's smile into a more sincere one. When the world was gloomy, Johnny made it a brighter place. He was very lucky to have a comrade like Johnny.
A few minutes later, Johnny said, "I like talking to you, you know? Everyone else, all they talk about is how much they're looking forward to being in the war. To killing as much of the enemy as they can. Like it's normal to kill another man just 'cause you were told to, like it's something you oughta be proud of." He stroked Mary-Louise's face in the picture with his thumb as he stared at it, a solemn expression on his visage. "No one talks about how scared they are of dying. How scared they are of never coming home. Never seeing their loved ones again." Then, he smiled self-deprecatingly. "Maybe I'm just a coward, huh?"
Heavy scrutinized the other man's features, perplexed by the rhetorical question. He didn't understand why Johnny would call himself a coward. Johnny had to confront bigotry every day of his life in the country of his birth, live with it and the fact that he had to battle his own countrymen for rights that should have been automatically granted him and fellow African-Americans. Live with it, and yet choose to lay down his life for said country and countrymen. That was no act of a coward.
Heavy was looking at the most valiant man he knew.
"Nyet. You are not coward." Heavy pressed one fist on the left side of his chest. "Take man vith much courage to speak heart."
The dismal cloud in Johnny's eyes dispelled at his resolute statement, and Johnny squeezed his right shoulder, smiling once more.
"Thank you, my friend."
"Nyet, thank you, moi droog. Your people, they … they …" Heavy waved his hands about in frustration when the words would not come to him. "Vashi sootechestvenniki ne pravy otnositʹsya k vam kak oni delayut!" Heavy smacked his left palm against his forehead, scrunching his eyes shut. "English no good! Hard to speak own heart."
"It's okay. Everybody's gotta start somewhere. Least you can speak two languages. Me, I can't talk Russian for shit."
Heavy gaped in bewilderment at the other man, not quite believing what he heard.
"Vhy … vhy you vant to have shit?"
Johnny laughed so hard and long that tears rolled down his face, but Heavy wasn't offended and ended up laughing almost as much, especially after Johnny clarified the colloquialism.
"That's why I like you, man. Never a dull day with you."
Johnny resumed his delving of the cupboard, soon exclaiming a cheerful, "Ah-hah!" and then carting to the bed a medium-sized, black suitcase and a stack of square record albums. Johnny opened the suitcase to display a portable, wind-up phonograph with a gold tone arm and red velvet interiors. Heavy had seen comparable phonographs in Moscow several years ago, but never purchased one. He had zero interest in rotting his ears with songs praising Stalin like a god.
"Here, why don't you give these a try?" Johnny said, passing him the stack of records.
"The King Cole Trio," Heavy read off one record album cover. "Straighten Up and Fly Right."
"I tell you, the lead singer? He's gonna be big. He's gonna be a singing star whose songs will be treasured for decades to come, mark my words on it."
"King Cole Trio … vhat kind of music?"
"The greatest music in the world! Jazz! Killer-diller stuff! You heard of it?"
"Have heard. There is Soviet jazz. But Stalin send Soviet jazz players to Gulag."
Johnny wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"Ugh. He's a real screwed-up meatball, isn't he?"
"Da. Bonkers meatball creep." After sharing another satisfying laugh with Johnny, Heavy glanced at the record album in his hand. "Anything he hate, must be good."
And so, with the insertion of a record on the phonograph's turntable, the selection of revolution speed and the lowering of the tone arm's needle onto the spinning record, Heavy's interpretation of music was forever altered. His English did indeed improve after a period of listening to Johnny's records, his vocabulary dramatically so. It cracked Johnny up every time he attempted an Alabama accent to sound more like Nat King Cole. By the time the war ended and Johnny was honorably discharged after getting wounded in the shoulder, Heavy had memorized every Nat King Cole song Johnny owned, going on to amassing his own collection of music over the decades. In 1948, as the best man at Johnny's wedding in Baltimore, he sang the King Cole Trio's cover of Makin' Whoopee, sending everyone into hysterics.
Like Nat King Cole, Johnny was also a chain smoker who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for over two decades. And like Nat King Cole, he died of lung cancer six years ago, survived by Mary-Louise and four children after fourteen years of blissful marriage. Heavy missed him.
"Johnny, you are vith the stars now," Heavy murmured twenty-five years after meeting his late friend, on the balcony of a building in 2Fort beneath the New Mexico night sky. "Do stars like jazz too?"
Neither Johnny or the stars answered him. Then again, he didn't expect it.
He sighed, then placed his binoculars on the wooden floor beside him and rested his head on his hands. He and Johnny were best friends till the man's passing. But he never told Johnny he was a homosexual. Johnny never suspected that he was, regularly introducing him to female friends and acquaintances, hoping he would meet that good American girl and get married and settle down too. They were all nice ladies, some of them stunning, actually. Some, he would have proposed to in a heartbeat, in another universe where he was a heterosexual man. It was pure luck that all the women liked him platonically and not more. He would have been hard-pressed to lie to them if they insisted on a romantic relationship with him. Maybe they knew, somehow, on some level that he wasn't sexually interested in them in spite of his determined ploy to be a ladies' man.
He wished that he'd told Johnny the truth. Maybe Johnny would have understood and accepted him. Maybe not. Maybe if Johnny was still alive, he'd be able to confide in his friend for one last time, to talk to him about … Medic.
Heavy sighed another time, a weightier and hopeful sigh. Ah, Medic, who'd become more fascinating the more he came to know the doctor since they met a month ago. After their very first chat in the dining hall, they didn't speak for almost four days. Circumstances – a leap straight into relentless combat with the rival team from BLU for three consecutive days, then a busy day of healing under the beam of Medic's marvelous Quick-Fix technology in the Infirmary – kept them apart.
Even when it was his turn to be treated, they hadn't talked much. At least, not on his part. He was in quite a bit of pain, more than he was willing to concede at the time, his innards exposed after Medic removed the bomb that had embedded itself in his chest courtesy of BLU's Soldier. Medic was rambling away about a patient with a missing skeleton and how some doctor was never heard from again, had behaved as if he'd just injected himself with an opiate drug and was riding high on the waves of chemical ecstasy and didn't pay heed to what the hell he was doing. It was the first time Heavy was frightened of someone else … which just caused him to like Medic tenfold.
Medic had laughed after narrating his tale, a high-pitched, gleeful laugh that compelled Heavy to laugh along with Medic although he was totally bemused and really, really wanted Medic to seal his chest. It spooked him that he could see his ribs, lungs, liver and whatever else dwelled in his body cavity. When Archimedes, Medic's pet dove, popped out of his guts drenched in his blood, he was speechless. By all rights, he should have bled to death or passed out but no, there he was, laughing until he was slamming hands on things, caring only that Medic was in a jovial mood. That Medic was talking to him again with that unique, accented voice that soothed his spirits –
Wait, did Medic say that he lost his medical license?
Heavy blinked up at the sky, frowning. No, it couldn't be, he must have misheard it due to the din of explosions outside the Infirmary. Medic must have been referring to that other doctor he was talking about. Yes, that must be it.
Heavy relaxed again, his eyes half-closed, smiling fondly as he recalled his healing by Medic. Medic had different kinds of laughter, and he cherished every one he'd heard. Well, okay, the maniacal laugh as Medic ÜberCharged his heart did startle him, but it was one of Medic's laughs and so, it was lovely. And Medic's smile after the ÜberCharge …
Heavy's smile broadened. Ah, Medic's smile at that instant was such a boyish, candid smile. Medic instantaneously appeared decades younger, brimming with elation that his heart had withstood the ÜberCharge and was now sturdier and healthier than ever. It was more than enough to compensate for the brief albeit agonizing reattachment of his heart to his body and the breaking of one lower rib in the process … along with Medic pinching his cheek and calling him baby.
Heavy's smile became a toothy grin. Yes, Medic pinched his cheek and called him baby. He still couldn't believe it. He'd been so bowled over by the Quick-Fix mending his body – and his clothes! – to their original state that Medic's demonstrative action had not sunk in for hours afterwards, not until he'd walked Medic to the Infirmary after dinner and bade the doctor good night, and Medic had said to him with amused eyes, "Do you vant your rib back?"
He knew he surprised Medic when he replied, "Is all right, Doktor. It vill grow back since you shorten it before you fix me."
He'd tried not to smile as Medic's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again to say, "You know about … You noticed."
"Da. I also notice you tease me vhen you say to Archameedees that ribs don't grow back."
Oh, if Medic's boyish smile was divine to behold, then Medic turning red as a rose from forehead to neck at his repartee was a feast for his eyes. It didn't upset him that Medic mumbled, "Gute Nacht, Herr Heavy," and dashed through the Infirmary doors before he could say anything else. Medic would probably have stabbed him with one of those bloodcurdling syringes for the immense smile on his face.
Ribs could grow back, if they were shortened properly, in a matter of two to three months. Heavy found it strange that the Quick-Fix could heal very critical flesh wounds and internal injury but not bone-related damage like his broken rib. It piqued his curiosity enough that he'd approached Medic two days after that night and requested for permission to examine the Quick-Fix and Medic's Medi-Gun to sort out this issue.
It was the sole reason for him frequently visiting the Infirmary since. Really. It wasn't like he was there to ogle Medic on the doctor's home ground, to bask in Medic's presence as much as he could without provoking suspicion. To see Medic's dark hair shine in sunlight and moonlight, Medic's graceful hands and long fingers in their red gloves wipe an assortment of medical implements and turn the mundane into a riveting performance. To see the gleam of intellect in Medic's eyes as Medic worked diligently with his clinical experiments. To see Medic out of his white coat, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up to reveal lean forearms dusted with fine hair that Heavy craved to caress. To see that childlike smile again. To hear Medic cluck at Archimedes and the other pet doves during feeding time. To hear Medic's many laughs once more, hear that voice with its varied moods, and listen to Medic's funny if sometimes mystifying stories. No, that would be rude, would it not?
So, Quick-Fix. Medi-Gun. Da, they were the only reason for his frequent visits to the Infirmary. They were efficient, well-built equipment, considering Medic was not an engineer by trade nor had formal training for such production. In his class back at Fort Belvoir, he would have graded both apparatuses an 'A' and no, it was not because Medic was obviously a smart, gifted man with multiple talents and had the handsomest face he had seen and would ever see in his life. It would be 'A' for effort, nothing else. Nothing.
Heavy heaved yet another sigh, breathing in the cool night air and then exhaling it audibly, his features tender with reminiscence. Ah, Medic. Medic, with whom he ate breakfast every morning and dinner every evening since they met. Medic, with whom he fought as one in their skirmishes with BLU, invincible and undefeatable. Medic, whom he saw when he shut his eyes in bed at night, whom he saw before he awakened at dawn.
Medic, whom he had permitted to touch and handle Sasha, as he had no one else before.
"You can touch Sasha vith no gloves."
A week ago, Medic showed up at his room after dinner. He had just finished cleaning Sasha at the time and was putting away the rags, brushes and solvents onto a shelf, and when Medic announced his presence with a mild knock on the door, Heavy thought it was his brain tricking him. Nobody visited his room. The majority of his interactions with his teammates occurred in the dining hall or recreation room where the television, pool table and bar were. However, when he opened the door and saw Medic standing there, he profusely thanked Fate for the anomaly and hurried Medic inside before the doctor changed his mind.
Medic's eyes were drawn straightaway to Sasha on the table next to the bed.
And for the very first time, Heavy wished for another person's hands upon his Minigun.
"Do not vorry. My hands are clean," Medic said as he stripped off his gloves and tucked them into a coat pocket, and Heavy nodded in acknowledgement. He wasn't worried. He trusted Medic.
Heavy didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until Medic's naked fingers made contact with Sasha's humongous barrel cluster. He said nothing as Medic traced the length of one of the barrels, from its mouth to the metal housing of Sasha's electric drive, rotary chamber and rotating firing pin assembly. Medic's fingers were pale, an eye-catching contrast to Sasha's black steel.
Medic's touch was elegant. Reverent. Faultless.
"You are only other man in the vorld to touch Sasha and live to tell it," Heavy said, euphoric.
Medic's eyes centered on him. They were unguarded, honest. Cognizant of the magnitude of Heavy allowing him to touch Sasha. Heavy gazed into their blue depths as Medic gazed back, and they remained that way for a while, Heavy seated on a chair by the table and Medic standing next to him, Medic's hands on Sasha's metal housing, his left hand on the barrel cluster. Again, Heavy didn't realize he'd been holding his breath until Medic's eyes glided away, back onto Sasha.
"You are a very skilled weapons engineer, Heavy," Medic murmured, and within Heavy's chest, a sun was aglow. Heavy appreciated the praise very much, as much as he did of Medic no longer addressing him in a formal manner. Medic saw him as more than a colleague now. Medic saw him as a friend.
"Spasibo, Doktor."
Medic's hands slid down Sasha's barrels again, and then, the fingers of Medic's left hand were but a hair's breadth away from his.
Heavy did not move his hand away.
Neither did Medic.
"Sasha ... It is a name used primarily by males in Europe. A diminutive of Alexander, ja?"
It took a couple of seconds for Heavy to catch the message between the lines. When he built and named his Minigun so many years ago, everyone who knew about it assumed Sasha was a female name since they assumed he was a heterosexual man. After all, why would a heterosexual man name his gun with a male name?
But he was not heterosexual, and Medic was correct. Sasha was a very common, non-formal male name in Europe. Heavy had calculatingly picked it because it was a unisex name, used by men and women in Europe. Everyone else was welcome to assume Sasha was female. Often times, he would reinforce that assumption. He alone knew his Sasha was male.
And until he knew for a certainty that Medic was tolerant of homosexuality and homosexuals, that he wouldn't lose the doctor's friendship, it had to stay that way.
"Is true. But Sasha …" Heavy rubbed the Minigun's barrels. His fingers tingled when they grazed Medic's. "Sasha is also from Alexandra. Woman's name."
The deceitful words were bitter on his tongue.
Medic removed his hands from Sasha, putting them on the table in front of the Minigun.
"I see," Medic muttered, and all of a sudden, Heavy felt cold inside. He felt as if he'd missed something important, something very important, but couldn't place his finger on it. He felt as if he'd disappointed Medic, as if Medic believed he had no reason to linger anymore.
No, no, that wouldn't do at all.
"I build Sasha during Vorld Var II," he said, going with what he knew to be an unbeaten technique at regaining attention: Talking about Sasha. "She weighs one-hundred-and-fifty kilograms and fire two-hundred dollar, custom-tooled cartridges at ten thousand rounds per minute. It cost four hundred thousand dollars to fire Sasha … for twelve seconds."
Medic was gazing at him again. He was warm again.
"And because it cost so much, US army build smaller, cheaper model. US army liked it so much, smaller models vere used in the var." Heavy looked into Medic's eyes and said, "Sasha's little brothers and sisters killed many, many Nazi during the var. Tens of thousands."
Medic gave Sasha a piercing glance. Then, Medic placed his hands upon the weapon a second time, with even more reverence than before, and Heavy rejoiced. If he had a smidgen of doubt left about Medic not being a Nazi, it was banished for good.
"Danke, Heavy," Medic whispered, staring downwards at the Minigun.
Heavy laid his hand on Sasha's barrel cluster once more, a mere inch away from Medic's left hand. He dared not move it nearer.
"It vas necessary thing to do. Vorld vould be in great suffering today, if they won the var."
"Ja."
The single word seemed to bear the weight of a whole planet's anguish. Medic's eyes had turned so old, so disenchanted.
Heavy yearned to set his hand on top of Medic's, to clasp Medic's hands in his and protect their owner from the demons of the past.
What happened to you during the war, moi darogoi vrach?
Heavy never uttered that aloud. Medic had departed from his room minutes later, though not before asking him quietly, "Do you know how to play chess?"
He'd said yes, yes, he did, and he would love to play chess with Medic some time, if that was Medic's desire.
Medic's small smile had said everything.
In the subsequent hours, stretched out on his bed in the dimness of night, Heavy couldn't stop smiling to himself. He hadn't felt so content in another person's company for so long. Before Medic, only Johnny could imbue such peace within him.
Johnny would have liked Medic. Maybe Johnny would have found Medic eccentric, but Heavy was sure, Johnny would have liked the German doctor too.
Johnny was a good man, a true friend, an exemplary soldier in the US army.
"WE LOST TODAY BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU RETARDED SOVIET GREASEBAG!"
Then there were men like Soldier.
"YOU GOT NOTHING TO SAY, MAGGOT?!"
Today's outburst of verbal rage was, by far, Soldier's most extreme towards Heavy. Soldier was, as Johnny would put it, crazy with a capital 'C'. Usually, he was capable of letting Soldier's frenzied rants roll off him like water off a duck –
"WE LOST TODAY BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU AND YOU, YOU SISSY NAZI CANDYASS!"
But whenever Soldier attacked Medic, that crossed the line.
"Doktor is not Nazi," Heavy grounded out, glaring down his nose at Soldier in the base's Intelligence room.
"OH, NO, HE'S NOT JUST A NAZI, HE'S JOSEF MENGELE NUMBER TWO!"
From the corner of his eyes, Heavy saw Medic's eyes go wide as saucers with indignation and shock, saw the blood drain from Medic's face. Heavy's vision went red.
"Soldier shut up now," Heavy snarled, lifting his fists in an unambiguous threat in front of Soldier's face. "Or I hit you dead."
Soldier evidently didn't give a shit that he was this close to a gory demise, Respawn system or no.
"YOU THINK I GIVE TWO FLAMING FUCKS WHAT YOU TRY TO DO TO ME, RUSSKI MAGGOT?! YOU AND THE NAZI KRAUT MADE US LOSE! AGAIN!"
"C'mon now, Solly, there's no need for this shouting –"
Engineer, in his typical yellow helmet, tinted goggles and dark grey overalls, was clinging onto Soldier's shoulder and upper arm in a near-futile attempt to restrain the uncompromising man from charging at Heavy and Medic. The other members of the team stood a safe distance away, watching the scene unfold like it was a primetime television special.
Pyro was covering the eye sockets of their mask with their hands and peeking through their gloved fingers. Scout's eyes zipped from Heavy and Medic to Soldier and Engineer and back, over and over like one would watch a ping pong ball bounce from one side of the court to the other in a feverish match. Sniper was gawping at Soldier, his facial features contorted in an expression of disgust that was plain even behind yellow aviator glasses and underneath a slouch hat. Demoman chugged yet another bottle of Scrumpy, occasionally licking his lips and burping. Spy was lighting a cigarette, thoroughly unimpressed with Soldier's range of insults.
All of them were sporting minor injuries and, with the exception of Soldier, all of them just wanted to be treated by Medic and eat dinner and go to sleep already. Heavy was certainly hankering for a hot, filling meal and a recreational hour or two of chess with Medic. Not this unnecessary, condescending vilification by this American … madman.
"I WILL GODDAMN SHOUT IF I WANT TO, DAMNIT! YOU TURNING INTO A PINKO, ENGIE?!"
"Solly! You're just being ridiculous now!"
Heavy didn't think he could have scowled more than he was, but he did when Soldier rebuffed Engineer, stomped up to him and jabbed him several times in the stomach with a forefinger.
"LOOK AT THIS FAT TUB OF COMMIE LARD! IF HE'D RUN FASTER, WE COULD HAVE STOPPED THE BLU SCOUT FROM TAKING OUR INTEL!"
Heavy snorted, his crossness receding a little at Soldier's juvenile criticism of his figure. Really, that was the best Soldier could do?
"Fat belly save me from dying in Gulag."
Engineer reared back in surprise at his calmly articulated statement. The other team members detached from the quarrel glanced at Heavy simultaneously, Spy eyeing him with curiosity, Demoman frozen in the deed of imbibing from his bottle of Scrumpy, Pyro lowering their hands to their sides. Soldier was also affected, going stock-still, eyes hidden by his combat helmet.
Heavy swore to himself, wishing he could slap his own mouth right then. Oh, zamechatel'nyy, now he'd gone and done it, now he'd never hear the end of it from Soldier –
"The Gulag, huh?" Soldier speaking at a tolerable level, with that insidious tone and lack of slurs, was doubly hair-raising. "Why were you sent to the Gulag?"
Heavy's insides abruptly felt as if it was being mashed into bloody slop by an iceberg. Everyone was staring at him now, including Medic whose expression was stricken. Heavy had told no one why he was shipped to the Gulag. Ever. No one, not even Johnny. Not even the lieutenant he'd met in Tibet who'd facilitated his exodus from Asia to America.
Not even Medic, who'd become his closest friend alive.
Like hell he was going to tell Soldier.
Heavy's eyes narrowed to angry slits, and he said through gritted teeth, "Is not your business, mu'dak."
Soldier's reaction was immediate. Ferocious.
"WHAT'D YOU CALL ME, YOU BASTARD?!"
Soldier leapt at Heavy, howling at the top of his lungs, fists flying towards Heavy's face and all hell broke loose with everyone yelling and joining the melee. Engineer, Sniper and Pyro hurtled themselves bodily at Soldier and seized his flailing arms and legs. Demoman waved his bottle of Scrumpy about and cackled drunkenly and goaded the hullabaloo on. Spy had his right hand in his suit jacket, appearing very persuaded to whip out his six-chambered revolver or Balisong and use it on Soldier. Scout scurried to and fro like a jackrabbit in flames, in a quandary as to who was friend and who was foe in this situation. And Medic –
"Lass ihn in Ruhe, du taktlos, schrecklichen kleinen Mann!"
Medic had wedged himself between Heavy and Soldier from the onset of Soldier's physical assault, back pressed to Heavy's chest and abdomen, arms spread to the sides in a protective gesture. Medic's hair was brushing Heavy's nose and lips, and its silkiness was all Heavy could focus on while Medic and Soldier bellowed at each other and the other RED mercenaries shouted as much at both of them. Medic's hair smelled so clean and pleasant even after a long day's battle. Only in his imagination had he felt Medic's hair against his face like this, and it was wonderful, so wonderful to feel Medic's lithe body against his that all his wrath flowed away, replaced by sweet stupefaction.
Heavy didn't remember how he and the rest of the team went from being in the Intelligence room to being in the waiting room outside the Infirmary. All he remembered was the scent of Medic's hair and the solidity of Medic's body, of Medic's arms reaching back impulsively around him to shield him from Soldier's savagery although he hadn't needed it. Medic stood up against a wacko like Soldier for him despite being harangued himself. Medic cared for him.
The illuminating realization was made twice as uplifting by the soundtrack of Soldier's whines and yells of agony emanating from inside the Infirmary as he was being … ministered to by Medic.
"Lie down on the stretcher, bitte," Medic said to him upon his entry, after a docile Soldier limped out with Engineer berating him for his lousy behavior.
Heavy had made sure he was the last to be treated. To resume his examination of Medic's Quick-Fix and Medi-Gun right after, of course. Just that. Nothing more.
He gazed at Medic's face as Medic switched on the Quick-Fix and directed its red, restorative beam on him, first on his face where Soldier slugged him, then on his chest and arms where he'd developed serious bruises from evading BLU Demoman's grenades. Medic's movements were brusque. Medic's lips were pursed into a livid line. Medic's brows were creased and his eyes were distrustful, and it saddened Heavy to know how much grief Soldier's reckless accusations had caused his doctor.
"You are credit to team," he murmured to Medic after the treatment. Medic was tidying up medical paraphernalia on a wheeled, metal table near the stretcher, and when Medic glanced at him where he sat on the stretcher, Medic didn't look away. Heavy did not look away either, his chest expanding with something he dared not name as the storm clouds in Medic's eyes dispersed and the light returned to them.
"Danke, Heavy."
Heavy slithered off the stretcher and stood up. Medic's movements had gentled, his expression eased, but Heavy knew the doctor preferred to be alone tonight. With a nod, he sauntered to the doors of the Infirmary, telling himself he was just imagining Medic's eyes upon him. At the doors, he halted, then pivoted around to face Medic.
Medic was indeed looking at him.
Knowing that, that nameless, magnificent thing within his chest flourished.
"Doktor … ve make good team," Heavy said tenderly, sincerely.
Once again, they regarded each other, the few meters of space between them seemingly a thousand kilometers long and at the same time, just a centimeter. The few seconds that passed, an eternity that Heavy didn't want to end.
"Yes. Ve do," Medic replied, the light in those big blue eyes vivid, and Heavy felt the floor beneath his feet fall away for that nameless, magnificent thing within his chest had become wispier than a feather but stronger than the toughest element in the universe. He was floating, even as he bade Medic good night, as he went to his room to pick up his binoculars, as he wandered outside to his private hideaway, and if he had done a skip and jump of bliss and smiled like a child, well, there was no one there to mock him for it.
Now, here he was on this balcony, staring up at the stars and galaxies, his chest so full from the song blooming in it, a song he first heard in 1955 when he watched the autobiographical, drama-romance film that inspired it. He favored Nat King Cole's cover of it, but the original by The Four Aces was as moving for him, and bozhe moi, how the other RED mercenaries would laugh their buttocks off at him if they knew his eyes had welled up like a baby's at the movie's concluding scene.
And with one deep inhalation, his hands upon his chest, his eyes glassy with nostalgia, he sang boldly, unworried about being overheard:
Love is many splendored thing
Is the April rose that only grow in early spring
Love is nature's vay of giving reason to be living
Golden crown that make a man a king
Once on high and vindy hill
In morning mist, two lovers kissed and vorld stood still
Then your fingers touched my silent heart and taught it how to sing
Yes, true love is many splendored thing
And suddenly, the image of Medic materialized in his mind, of Medic grasping his heart beating anew in those nimble hands, of Medic smiling so exuberantly, and Heavy's sight blurred, his voice turning soft and languid with emotion:
Then your fingers touched my silent heart and taught it how to sing
Yes, true love is many splendored thing
For many minutes afterwards, Heavy was struck wordless, his hazy eyes unseeing as it dawned on him what he'd just done. He had named it. Named that magnificent, unbelievable thing that had made itself at home in his chest … and there was no taking it back.
Love.
True love, for the extraordinary, breathtaking German doctor who'd touched his heart and taught it how to truly sing for the first time.
"Oh, heart, vhat have you done now?"
Heavy's heart didn't answer him, and Heavy sensed only the weight of an invisible golden crown upon his head, morning mist against his cheeks and smelled only the scent of fresh April roses in the early spring air.