I sat down at a desk in my room (shared by many, which I didn't mind), paper and pen before me. I stared at it all in disguise and annoyance, wondering what to do with it. I knew that, with letters coming to me at a rapid rate, accusing me of this and that, I had to pick up the offending pen and write on the white stationary to refute the charges or whatever else may come to me. However, the black and white lines of works already written caught my eyes, teaching me once more. They were former lessons, present ones and those yet to come.
Korean words even danced before my eyes on some of those written pages, characters of old and ancient ways that help me to communicate with the people of this country. Others stared at me blankly still, waiting for me to write on them with more of those morals or words of my own. It was just up to me to figure out what I wanted to do with myself. Was I to forever push away those who accuse me of crimes or was I to forget and remember new lessons alone?
My little teacher, an older orphan named Hee Young, had left me to learn Korean on my own (for the time being), having chores of her own when Father Mulcahy came to visit, much like this occasion, when choices flew before me and I did not choose one yet. I knew that at the moment, she was making sure that the children younger than her received food before anything else, pushing herself to limits I could not understand. She was a playful and cheerful child for someone of her age, always teaching me more than the words of her family and her ancestors. She taught me the meaning of life and what it truly meant to be living in a life of hellish proportions.
Time had passed since that night in Henry's tent, months in which I could not squander my time. It was the summer of 1951 finally, a summer in which I thought there was no end to the misery and shame, working at each day (and in the garden with Father Mulcahy) with as much grace and acceptance as I could. I was luckily back at Sister Theresa's Orphanage, ten miles away from the 4077th once more. I was ten miles away from my duties, ten miles away from what I considered slowly to be home (the pigpen of the camp not included) and ten miles away from Hawkeye, who I missed every waking moment of my existence here (and wrote me letters as much as he could). Granted, I am safer here and actually more needed here, but I still miss being at the 4077th and being a normal person. I missed having Dean around to talk to. I missed having Hawkeye to kiss or Trapper to tease. I missed being with Henry and listening to military double-talk between him and Radar. And most certainly I missed playing pranks on Frank and Margaret, the latter whom wrote me a stinging note the other day.
However, a strange calm had descended upon me and I accepted it. I was happier than I had ever been and loved every moment I worked with the orphans. Being at the 4077th was a lesson about life and death decisions. At the orphanage, there was a lesson in everything else, the same that they had taught me months before, when I was first with them and wondering when we'd be moving.
Finally deciding to pick up the pen and write, a few minutes after thinking everything out most carefully, I moved aside the Korean words Hee Young had written out for me and read, copy and recite back to her later. Poor girl, who learned to read and write in English and Korean only just recently, lost her family when the North Koreans and Chinese bombed her village. Granted, she was happy with her lot and was respected as one of the eldest children in the orphanage. Unlike her, I was not satisfied with what was happening to me from other letters, especially after those accusations I had been receiving. Honestly, I had not been in some time.
Heavily pregnant and heavy with the bundle inside of me and hot and tired as well, I had to only write back to my mother and Clarence, to tell them the truth of the matter. However, seeing the single, small letter from Clarence froze my heart. No letter from my mother had accompanying it, perhaps his words enough to represent what she felt, as if she had not written enough to me about this joyous occasion of mine. I didn't need to reply to her, but to him…
Granted, the man wrote words of regret about my folly, as my mother had done before (his own words in the letter after hers only repeated a lot of things). His own letter, mailed to me and arriving that day I sat there, alone and wondering about the choices in my life, had made me hate him more. It was a day I wanted to tell them the truth, though they would never listen to me…a day in which my heart froze and could not be thawed…a day in which I could only come up with curses as a response. I had to somehow come to grips with reality still.
No, I was. I was…I was…yes, I was only angry at this letter from Clarence and could grasp at the situation clearly without wanting to make my head spin. Yes, that's it. Reality had nothing to do with it, even in those depths of my mind, when the corners seemed too small and the hands too tight around my throat.
July 9, 1951
Bloomington, Illinois
My dearest little stepdaughter, Jeanette,
You have, by now, received the previous letter from your mother and myself, explaining how we are displeased with you, an ongoing and delicate situation since April. I also could not believe my eyes when I saw the letter, telling us that you were to have our first grandchild without getting married…and a bastard at that! Your mother fainted at the thought again, stuttering about Church and how they were going to throw her out for having such an ungrateful and undutiful daughter. An unmarried daughter was going to be her downfall and one that could not even tell us who the father was.
You are indeed, my Jeanette, such a daughter and I am not happy with you. Even Henry Blake's letter could not help your mother, as she is discontented with you very much. He spoke of many things, of your duty to the camp and such, but there is nothing he can salve.
My Dear, I must confess to you my deeds of course, which is the purpose of this letter, despite what your mother feels and does not know. I have heard about Daniel Simmons and, I must say, I have taught him well, even before he went to Korea. I have helped him to get into your unit, with my connections here and there, and he has kept an eye out on you when I could not. He tells me all, in his letters, before your own father found him out and had him sent away. I even read of this "Hawkeye Pierce" fellow, whom you seem to be lusting over and could not bother to marry, even when you are pregnant.
Indeed, Daniel Simmons has been a good informant before he left the country, you clueless slut. You encouraged his advances and now, this is your folly and your sin, and one that you must carry. It is a burden that must be carried, as your mother said, and one that will be killed as quickly as it started.
And what your mother does not know will not hurt her.
It is your fault, Jeanette, and you know it. You could have been saved from Daniel, a savior to you in every way. You could have married him even! Just name him as the father and you could be saved from a life of miserable proportions, one that could salvage your reputation. You could come back here to Bloomington and not be bothered by anybody anymore. You won't be in Korea anymore, living in sin with that man named "Hawkeye Pierce". Daniel will come out of Leavenworth after you tell the Army that the charges were false and you face the consequences of lying to them. He will watch over you and make sure that you will follow the American way of life and the two of you shall be happy.
You could have a happy and easy life, Jeanette. Just tell them what I said to and you'll be fine. You will have a good ending after all. Marriage and children are your lot anyhow. You will be happy in your duties, especially to Daniel, who has been told much of you and has wanted you since I've met him so many years ago.
I cannot judge you anymore, my stepdaughter. Just write back to me, telling me of your beautiful daughterly love and devotion to those who know better, and not to that man who fathered you and left you. Tell me everything, Jeanette, and be a friend to me. And I will assist you in getting out of Korea and into the life that you've always desired.
As ever, I will love you more for begging for forgiveness. Remember the night and remember it well, my stepdaughter.
Clarence
The words continued to leap without passion on the page as I reread them and denied that they existed. Although seeing this as a way to treat me as a child, I was tempting myself to write back and tell Clarence that I wanted nonetheless. I wanted that happy ending so badly, but with only person and that was Hawkeye. However, I knew the truth and even Clarence couldn't change it. I was to stay in Korea and my baby was going to be growing up someplace else, out of my arms and on its own before I came home to him or her.
I could not contemplate it now. I could not have that happy ending I wanted in the near future, not even with Daniel Simmons, who would have killed me before marriage and taken my baby away to who knew where and why. To have him out of Leavenworth for good, to ruin the last of my reputation in society horribly, was to court disaster. Daniel Simmons on the loose outside of prison, with my stepfather in the picture controlling the strings if Simmons was not, was to doom my world and life, as well of my child's, forevermore. I didn't want that, ever.
I gulped, knowing what to write finally without the barbs and sarcasm. It would be with conviction, without regret and, most certainly, without fear of losing everything, especially my family. I would put aside the years of words, words that would forever speak to me from somewhere deep in my soul, and write another, this time from the depths of my mind. That alone would be my only redemption, my only salvation before my soul was set free.
Moving aside my Korean words to study and the other miscellaneous things around the old desk, I found the words to say to my stepfather. The blank pages of new could only give me courage to write more. However, I only needed a page to say my mind and hopefully, it'll be the last time I would hear from Clarence Lowes and my mother ever again.
July 30, 1951
Korea to Bloomington, Illinois
Dear Clarence,
I have received your letter from earlier this month and, I must say, what words you have written to me! Your offers are too tempting for me…FAR too tempting, even for someone not allowed out of Korea for now, the security risk of the United States and one that you never seemed to have known about. It seems too great of an offer to be let up, although it might never come true, considering the circumstances of my past assignments and what the Army will do to me when found to be in contempt. And the rest of that, you need not know anything about.
However, what my life will be like and what it has been will be entirely different because I chose to keep it in my hands. Some people are responsible for the past and how it shaped me now, even my own father. At the same time, though one person stands out. And you know who it is.
You and you alone have made my life a complete one full of utter despair. You alone helped to orchestrate the greatest trials of my life, my mother blindly behind you since your affair with her before her marriage's end, because you have created an image in her mind from the very start. You claimed to be faithful and innocent. You should know better that it would come to an end soon enough before your own hell will take over. Your own time of trial will come and when it does, you will be alone and without my mother to hold you up. You won't have that help and support you always have had.
Slowly finding out the truth of the matter has made me angrier, my dear stepfather…if I wish to call you that. You and Daniel Simmons have plotted against me and, for that, I cannot forgive you for it, added to whatever else you did before I even left Bloomington and perhaps afterward, if you continue to meddle anymore. When you could no longer do your own work, you appoint another to continue it, using whatever means you had to achieve it. I should have known.
Oh, how clever of you to say those things, to reassure me of your so-called love! What beautiful work you have mastered! And to blame me for it is a nice touch. It reminds me of how much you never change, especially when you continue to make it all about you, the victim of it all. You remain the same and somehow, I am grateful that you are always predictable. It makes my moves against you easier, with less to think about on my end.
To my mother, I give her one message, if you dare to show this to her and name my pretty little lies at her. I remain her dutiful and grateful child, insofar as the so-called Law of God allows it. I remain with her alone and will be as obedient to her as I dare myself to be.
And to you, I curse the day you came in our lives, a long time ago that has been and my mother's fault as well. May all of the heavens I cannot believe in curse you and your life, blighting your life and ending it soon enough, hopefully with agony and without the help you so crave. Let yourself rot in a hellish, fiery pit and be it for eternity.
As well you know me –
Jeanette
I put the pen down, looking to my last sentences, curses of a different nature and something so unreal and unusual for me to say. My stepfather would be displeased of course and call me out to be a Communist pagan of all proportions (as will my mother, if she saw the letter and read it). I did not care though, feeling it justified. I believed in no particular religion, but called upon everything I could to make his last days so miserable. I sure hope that they are coming. My mother mentioned in a letter some time ago how sickly Clarence looks already (because of what I did, she claims). May I never see him again in this life. May he die a slow, long-lasting death!
I sighed, folding up the letter of a single page and stuffing it into an envelope with a stamp and address on it already. I sealed it without another thought and without rethinking the words, checking the address on it mechanically and smoothing out the stamp it easily enough. The actions itself were inane and even forlorn, as if I wasn't paying attention, as if I had been freed from my own curse. I then got up and walked out of my room to find Father Mulcahy outside, playing with the children. He would be sure to mail it for me when he had the chance. He was good to help me in any way he could, as I did to him.
It was the old and familiar ritual of my life, the Army ruling me for so long because I allowed it to, a runaway with nothing on my mind except being an adult. With this in mind, I knew that it was going to be a long war. There would be more troubles to come, even if it wasn't in the form of Clarence or Flagg even. There would be so much more than having children, helping to keep them alive and seeing them off to war. There was more than bombs and bullets, constant shelling and propaganda that made my head spin. It was the routine of something I had held for so long, but now longed to be rid of, and all those curses to misery and false hopes they had given me, even from home.