The Other Alice

The Other Alice

A patriotic petite nurse with bobbing curly hair entered the tent. Fury was on her face. Her pretty face. She swirled and twisted around the tables and the beds. She didn't know what to do. I was lucky to be able to witness this. The other patients were so badly stricken by the war that they couldn't move a muscle or had lost their eyesight. Or their life. I suffered from a broken arm and a few broken ribs. So I could see her well. Her eyes were burning with agonizing anticipation.



'Miss, you want to talk about something?' I muttered.



She heard and turned her head in my direction. She calmed herself down by taking a deep breath and then walked towards me.



'Besides the fact that it's raining bullets out there?' she said with a half-smile.



'It's war. What do you expect? I thought something else was bothering you. Maybe something I could help you with.'



'You're hurt. I'm the one who is supposed to be helping you,' she said and she straightened my pillow.



'Don't crumple your face with frowns, miss. You're a pretty, young nurse. After the war is over, all kinds of men will be chasing you. And they wouldn't want to see lines on your face. Worry lines.'



She smiled at this and gave me a kiss on the cheek. She sat down on my bed and took a deep breath.



'I signed up for this. So it's not the war that's the problem. We're in the middle of a jungle here. A rain-forest if you will. And...'



She stopped and put her hands to her face. Hiding those blue eyes, the red cheeks. She smelled nothing like the surroundings. She smelt like warm peach sauce and zested lemons. With a touch of vanilla.



'There's a baby tiger out there,' she said after a while. 'It's so young. It's hungry. I don't know what to do.'



'Kill it,' I said. 'Don't waste food on it.'



She gave me a look that scowled at me. A look that made me fear her for a moment. Vulnerable as I was, I didn't know what to expect. And I was afraid she would hit me.



'Have you no heart? I would never do such a thing. Human beings are so monstrous and selfish. They go to war. They kill each other and the land they step on. And one tiny, innocent animal, they have no heart for.'



I looked at her and perhaps it was the first time that I didn't feel like a soldier. I felt like a friend, like a father. I felt like I could do something right even if for something so insignificant.



The nurse eventually let the baby tiger inside the tent. She warned me that if anyone found out about it, she would be scorned. Or even sent back home. We fed it and we hid it in a locker where it slept without a sound. We covered it with towels and sheets. And it was perfectly fine. We kept this secret for a month. I got better and the officials sent me a telegram to tell me to go back home. Honorable discharge. I read the letter and felt at peace. It was about time that I went back home and enjoy the little things I couldn't before.



I searched for the nurse that day. I couldn't leave without saying goodbye. I had to tell her that she had to take care of the tiger all by herself. But I couldn't find the nurse anywhere.



I went to the doctors' tent and asked for her. The answer I got was devastating. Alice had been hit while carrying a wounded soldier. Point-blank range with a 10mm at the back of her head. They wouldn't let me see the body. I feared they had already cremated the bodies to repel diseases. They just wouldn't say the truth.



I went back to the tent and packed my stuff. Tears in my eyes the whole time. And a weight in my throat threatening to be painful every time I swallowed. But before I could forget, I opened the locker and saw the tiger snoring on her towels. She was beautiful. She had already grown so big in a month. The orange wrapped her body in a furry burn except on her snowy tummy. The black stripes were vicious especially around her eyes. But I fell in love with her that instant. She was the surviving memento of Alice. I wrapped her in the towels and took her to the extraction point.



'What you got there?' the chopper pilot asked.



'Alice,' I said to him. 'Baby tiger. I'm going to take her home.'



And we flew over the massive trees and piles of corpses, along gunfire and other choppers. Alice's parents were probably down there somewhere, either dead or hiding. Now I promised to myself I would take care of her then. Not just because of the nurse or just because it was a reminder of that beautiful girl, but because I had learnt to appreciate such things. The war had made me love other things besides violence and my country. Now I've brought a souvenir from the enemy territory. And I've never loved something so dearly.