Chapter 10. Scars

  ~

  Tanya watched as Visha walked back into the waiting room waving goodbye to the Russian doctor. She seemed to be in good spirits, so nothing too serious must have gone wrong.

  Tanya wasn’t feeling too concerned about her own upcoming exams but a nagging doubt kept creeping into her head, that something bad was going to happen. It wasn’t the same kind of gut feeling she’d have during the war when walking into an ambush.

  No, it was more like the feeling she got when she knew someone was heading her way with a big stack of extra work and unpaid overtime.

  “Report, I mean. So how did it go?”

  She asked as Visha sat down next to her.

  “All good, I’ve got a clean bill of health. Though there was one thing.”

  Visha looked both left and right making sure no one was listening. Not that it mattered since they were both speaking German. Leaning in she whispered to Tanya.

  “It got a little awkward when they asked me about my scars, but that wasn’t even the strangest part. They were very thorough when they examined me um, down there. Much more than the military doctors, they even went so far as to use a device, said they needed to check for cancer.”

  Sweat was now pouring down Tanya’s back. Oh shit! shit, shit, shit! She wailed internally. Tanya wanted to believe she had come to terms with her new body. After all it had been fourteen years now of being a girl. But so far, she had never experienced the indignity of being so thoroughly examined.

  Her cool calm attitude from earlier was gone in a blink and now she found herself staring at the doorway with trepidation. Dreading the moment when the nurse would walk in and call her name.

  Visha had kept talking, rambling on with some inane babble, about unimportant things. Wondering about some of the medical machinery she had seen in the exam room.

  But Tanya’s mind was somewhere else, she had been so wrapped up in surviving the war that she hadn’t thought much about her body. Not since that one time she had gone to a doctor to ask why she wasn’t growing.

  Unsurprisingly the results then had been a lack of nutrition and stress. Now however, Tanya could see a future where those things wouldn’t be a problem any longer. She was happy at the prospect of growing taller and stronger.

  However, she didn’t know how to feel about developing in other areas as well.

  “Miss Kaizaki Tanya, the doctor will see you now.”

  Tanya followed the nurse into the other room as if performing a death march. She followed the nurse’s instructions to get undressed as if on auto pilot. Only snaping out of it when she was down to her underwear.

  Turning very red, she finished undressing and put the gown on. Trying desperately to think of anything else but what was going to happen in this exam.

  Her wondering mind latched onto an idle thought. How many people had died in the gown she was now wearing. Then the doctor came in.

  “Hello dear, I’m Dr. Matsufuji Anon. You're Tanya chan correct?”

  “Yes doctor.”

  “Ok, well to start out. I am very concerned with your height and weight. For your age you are showing some troubling signs and while we don’t have all your bloodwork back from the lab some of our preliminary tests have come in.

  “Tanya your body shows clear signs of chronic malnutrition. This has caused a load of problems in your development. If this continues it may lead to irreversible impairment of physical and cognitive growth, and or a weakened immune system.

  “Though I am worried that you may have already suffered permanent stunting or height loss. You may also suffer from night blindness. We will have to check back on that after your full blood panel comes in.

  “I am going to be referring you to a dietitian who will be working with you to try and correct some of your past deficiencies and hopefully get you back on track. With any luck you might avoid any further permanent issues.

  “I’m sorry, this is a lot to take in. Do you have any questions, or anything you are confused about?”

  “Are you saying I’m never going to get any taller or that I will, but just not by much?”

  “Well, we don’t have your parents’ information on file so we can’t compare you to them. But I would say for sure you will grow some more and if we can get you eating right. You should hit another growth spurt in a few years and get a little taller. But I doubt you will ever reach what would have been your full potential.

  “I’m sorry I know that it can be a bit upsetting to hear.”

  “It’s alright doctor, it’s to be expected.”

  “OK with that out of the way let me check your heart and lungs, then we’ll check your back for scoliosis, and move on from there. Lean forward please.”

  The doctor asked pulling out her stethoscope.

  As the exam moved forward the doctor couldn’t help but make a few additional checks.

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  “You have some serious scaring along this shoulder could you do some flexibility exercises for me. Move you hand up palm down. Now move it out…”

  After checking a few more areas the doctor sounded surprised.

  “You have quite a few places with severe dermal scar tissue but it doesn’t seem to affect the muscles underneath. You have on your arm here what appears to be an entry and exit wound right in the middle of your bicep, but I can’t feel any scared tissue beneath the skin or any loss of motor function.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Oh, oh no, sorry, I just found it fascinating, your body healed itself up well is all. Let’s continue…

  “Now this next part is never fun for us girls lay back and put your heels up on these…”

  ~

  Tanya trudged back into the waiting room slinking down into her chair next to Visha. Trying not to make eye contact with anyone. So great was her distress that she didn’t even notice as Visha pulled her into a side hug and began running her hand through her hair.

  The shame and indignity of it all was too much right now. She didn’t ever want to repeat that. Tanya had had trouble seeing herself as a girl at times, well with this she had been disabused of that notion, completely. Now she felt too much like a girl. What’s more, is that it had hurt.

  What followed after was almost worse, almost.

  It had been embarrassing talking about it to the doctor. She had been asked when her last menstruation was and after having to admit she had never had one. Had opened up what seemed like a whole tsunami of dialogue from the doctor.

  What to expect, what to do, things to look out for, a pamphlet demonstrating how to apply things. What medicines were ok and what ones might be too strong for a girl her size and weight. On and on.

  Tanya now had a plastic bag with a not insignificant amount of literature on the subject. As well as a large variety of sanitary products.

  She wanted to toss the whole thing in the trash or better yet burn it all. But she knew that despite her feelings on the matter she would eventually need these supplies. So, she stayed her hand.

  Leaning into the warm feeling at her side and drawing comfort from the familiar hand running through her hair. Well, she supposed as long as Visha is around, I guess it will work out, she must know how all this works.

  ~

  Visha hummed to herself as she maneuvered one hand to turn the page of the magazine on her lap. Her other hand was occupied comforting her distraught friend. The exam had been incredibly uncomfortable for Visha, she imagined it had been downright traumatizing for Tanya.

  If given the option to launch herself in another V-2 attack or go through that procedure again. Visha was positive she knew which one her commander would pick.

  The poor girl was so confused, Visha felt bad that not only had she had so much trouble accepting that she was a woman, but also how lost she must be not having had a mother to teach her.

  The fact that Tanya had been raised by the men of the army was not lost on Visha. In fact, it was probably the second major reason that Tanya had taken so long to see herself as a girl and still struggled with it to this day.

  The first being that Tanya stilled remembered her life as a man. She was going to have to talk about that with Tanya one of these days, sooner rather than later. First, they needed privacy, but also Visha got the feeling that it would be best to let Tanya broach the subject on her terms.

  So, she continued to stroke her hair and hum a soothing tune while awkwardly flipping through a magazine with colored pictures, on almost every page. Visha couldn’t read any of the writing but she didn’t need to, to appreciate the beautiful images and interesting clothing designs.

  Thinking back at not being able to read the language Visha blushed in embarrassment. She had gone to the washroom during Tanya’s exam. having sat down and after finishing her business, not understanding any of the writing by the toilet had pressed a button only to be very surprised.

  She didn’t expect Tanya’s people to take after the Francois in this manner. After the initial surprise she cleaned up and left the restroom her face still red.

  The memory of that incident made her flush in embarrassment all over again and she was glad the Colonel was currently too catatonic to notice and ask her what was wrong. Shaking her head Visha set the magazine back on the table next to her and selected another one.

  This one looked interesting, it even had some more of those cute cartoon caricatures that she noticed on the vending machine. Smiling contentedly to herself, her humming becoming a little happier Visha continued to flip through pages of this new world.

  ~

  In a certain break room, in a certain hospital in Tokyo Japan.

  “I’m telling you Rakki you should have seen the scars on this girl. I’ve been around a long time and that girl had scars from knife wounds and what that looked like a firework had gone off too close to her.”

  Anon walked into the breakroom to the sound of Nurse Joi talking to Nurse Rakki in an animated tone.

  “What was that about knife scars on a girl, you’re not taking about miss Kaizaki Tanya are you?”

  “Oh, Dr. Matsufuji, I didn’t see you there, no we are talking about the other girl, the Russian one, why did you bring up Tanya chan?”

  “I heard you talking about a girl with scars and that girl Kaizaki Tanya has several blade scars as well as what I recognized as bullet wounds. Not to mention the burn scaring.

  “The scary part is that none of the scars were over vital areas almost like whoever inflicted them wanted to make sure she survived the injuries.”

  “That’s not scary that’s heartbreaking what kind of monster was torturing that girl? What must she have gone through. No wonder she has such dead vacant eyes. Have you looked at them? I swear, it was like staring into a pair of swirling silver whirl pools.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean, have you seen the way she smiles sometimes? Like one of those demonic Hina dolls you see in horror films.”

  “The Russian one wasn’t much better. Poor thing you could practically see her ribs through her shirt she was so skinny, and from what I saw she had almost just as many scars as what you described your patient having.”

  “Wow so both of them must have been victims of some serious violence the poor dears.”

  “Or they committed said violence. The ones I saw didn’t look like defensive wounds to me. And when I talked to the girl about them, she seemed unaffected by the conversation. Not showing any signs of remembered pain or fear. In fact, she was more disturbed talking about her period then the bullet hole in her arm.”

  “So, what do we do, do we tell the police?”

  “I don’t know, what would they really do with the information? I doubt it would help them find out who took these girls. Plus, what would we even say, this is all our own conjecture at this point.”

  “Do we write our thoughts and included them in the medical report?” Nurse Joi asked.

  “I think not, doctor patient confidentially might not completely apply in these cases, but these girls have clearly been through a lot and the truth is we don’t have any facts one way or the other.

  “What I do know is, whatever they’ve done or whatever’s been done to them. It’s not like they had much choice in the matter. Let’s give them the chance to go out and start over, let them choose the kind of life they want to lead.”

  “Sensei Sawaki kodo your wise words humble us.”

  “Oh #@$% off!”

  The room erupted with laughter at Nurse Joi’s comment, to Dr. Matsufuji’s further embarrassment, she had only meant for them to give the girls a chance. She wasn’t trying to get all philosophical.

  ~

  Tanya was frustrated at how inefficient the day had been. After her and Serebryakov’s exams, the two had ended up waiting another two hours for their turn to talk to a mental health specialist. Only to be told that all appointments had been filled and that they would be returning tomorrow.

  Tanya couldn’t believe they had made them wait a whole two hours before telling them that. Sure, they didn’t have anywhere else to be and no way to leave but it was the principle of not valuing your customers time that she took issue with.

  Well, what’s done is done and they were on their way to what would be their headquarters for the next few days, if not weeks.