The Orphan Master's Son_ A Novel - Adam Johnson [72]
Dr. Song looked frantic. “No, no need, son. I knew this time would come. There’s no bravery lost in seeking medical attention.” He looked to Wanda. “You wouldn’t have a knife or some scissors we could use?”
Wanda looked to Jun Do. “Is your arm hurt?” she asked. When he nodded, Wanda called the Senator’s wife over, and for the first time, Jun Do took true notice of her—a lean woman with shoulder-length white hair and pale, pearled eyes. “I think our friend here is hurt,” Wanda told her.
To the Senator’s wife, Dr. Song asked, “Is it possible to get some alcohol and a knife? It’s no emergency. We simply have some stitches to remove.”
“Are you a doctor doctor?” the Senator’s wife asked.
“No,” Dr. Song said.
She turned to Jun Do. “Where are you hurt?” she asked him. “I used to practice medicine.”
“It’s nothing,” Dr. Song said. “We probably should have removed the stitches before we left.”
She turned to Dr. Song, glaring. Her lack of patience for him blazed until he looked away. She brought out a pair of glasses and placed them on the end of her nose. “Show me,” she said to Jun Do. He removed his suit coat, and then his shirt. He offered his arm for the Senator’s wife to examine. She lifted her head to employ the lenses. The eyelets of the sutures were red and inflamed. When she pressed her thumb, they wept.
“Yes,” she said. “These must come out. Come, I have a good light in the kitchen.”
Soon the Senator’s wife and Wanda had him shirtless, sitting on the kitchen counter. The kitchen was bright yellow, the walls papered with blue checked print and sunflowers. Pinned to the refrigerator by magnets were many snapshots of children, but also groups of young people, arms thrown around each other. One photo depicted the Senator in an orange astronaut’s suit, space helmet tucked under his arm.
The Senator’s wife scrubbed her hands under steaming sink water. Wanda did, too, in case she was needed. The woman Wanda called Pilar came into the kitchen carrying the cooler of tiger meat. She said something in Spanish when she saw Jun Do shirtless, and she said something else in Spanish when she saw his wound.
The Senator’s wife scrubbed well past her elbows. Without looking from her work, she said, “Jun Do, this is Pilar, our family’s special helper.”
“I’m the maid,” Pilar said. “John Doe? Isn’t that the name you give a missing person?”
“It’s Pak Jun Do,” Jun Do said, then he pronounced it slowly. “Jhun Doh.”
Pilar looked at the cooler, studying the way someone had attempted to scrape away the Red Cross insignia. “My nephew Manny drives a truck that moves organs and eyes and things between hospitals,” she said, “He uses a cooler just like this.”
The Senator’s wife popped on latex gloves. “Actually,” she said, “I don’t think a John Doe is a missing person. I think it’s when you have the person, just not his identity.”
Wanda blew into her latex gloves. “A John Doe has an exact identity,” she said, and considered the patient. “It’s just yet to be discovered.”
The Senator’s wife poured hydrogen peroxide up and down his arm, massaging it into the wounds. “This will loosen the sutures,” she said.
For a moment, there was only the hiss of his arm foaming white. It didn’t hurt, exactly—it felt like ants, maybe, swarming in and out of him.
Wanda said, “Are you all right being treated by a female doctor?”
Jun Do nodded. “Most of the doctors in Korea are women,” he said. “Though I’ve never seen one.”
“A woman doctor?” Wanda asked.
“Or any doctor?” the Senator’s wife asked.
“Any doctor,” he said.
“Not even in the military, for a physical?” the Senator’s wife asked.
“I guess I’ve never been sick,” he said.
“Who patched you up?”
“A friend,” Jun Do said.
“A friend?”
“A guy I work with.”
While the wound foamed, the Senator’s wife lifted his arms, spread them wide, then brought them forward, her eyes following invisible lines on his body. He watched as she noted the burns on the undersides of his arms—candle marks from his pain training. She touched the ridges of the scars with her fingertips.