Chapter 3

Welcome back readers! I have just finished reading the chapters “Sometime a Fire” and “South Cairo 1930-1938”. In this post, I will be focusing on “Sometime a Fire” as it is very dense and character-heavy while “South Cairo” is a complete tonal shift that is very brief and would be better placed in my next post. I can’t wait to share my thoughts with you!


“Sometime a Fire”


Well, it appears this blog is living up to its name, as yet another character has entered our little Italian villa. In this chapter, we meet Kip: an Indian soldier who specializes in defusing bombs, also known as a sapper. He’s introduced to us when he hears Hana playing piano, and remembers that Germans would often hide bombs inside them. Luckily no such thing is found in Hana’s piano, and Kip makes himself at home in a tent just outside of the villa.


Kip


At first he appears to be a concrete character, with his job as a sapper being a major part of his identity. Even at the kitchen table “he peeled onions with the same knife he used to strip rubber from a fuse wire (86).” He always has a rifle on his back, is constantly washing his hands, and can be heard whistling almost constantly whenever he roams the villa. His actions are repetitious, something that would be expected of a soldier with such an intense job that requires control. But as Kip forms relationships with the other residents, his layers unravel. In a flashback to Kip’s life before the villa, when he acted as protection for an Italian village celebrating the Virgin Mary. He develops a fondness for the statue that represents her, saying that she had “a face which in the darkness looked more like someone he knew. A sister. Someday a daughter. If he could have parted with it, the sapper would have left something there as his gesture. But he had his own faith after all (80).” Despite being Sikh, Kip shows empathy for the Italian people and their own religious views, even connecting with a religious figure that he doesn’t follow. Even in the midst of war, he can express vulnerability.


One of my favorite moments in this book so far is when Kip and the English patient first meet. After being sure that the two wouldn’t get along, Hana walks in on them geeking out over weapons. “We’re getting along famously! (88)” says the Englishman; and thus the bromance begins.


Kip and Hana


Another highlight of the chapter is the emotional exchange between Hana and Kip when Kip finds a bomb in the garden, and needs another set of hands to find which wire to cut. They get it done, but not without Hana promptly spilling her feelings out to Kip in a lengthy, incoherent monologue of pure honesty. It’s not the first time she admires his physical appearance, but it's the first time she says it aloud. She comments on her fondness of his skin tone, saying:


“I’ve always liked flesh the colour of rivers and rocks or like the brown eye of a Susan, do you know what that flower is? Have you seen them? I am so tired, Kip, I want to sleep. I want to sleep under this tree, put my eye against your collarbone. I just want to close my eyes without thinking of others, want to find the crook of a tree and climb into it and sleep (103).”


He then lets her sleep under the tree with him, contemplating her seemingly innocent remarks. Ondaatje writes:


“But he was a professional. And he remained the foreigner, the Sikh. His only human and personal contact was this enemy who had made the bomb and departed brushing his tracks with a branch behind him (105).”


This is when I realized that even I, the reader, was guilty of seeing him as “the professional” and “the Sikh”. Ondaatje did this on purpose. Kip was simply referred to as “the sapper” when he was introduced as if that was all there was to him. As long as Hana sees him for his skin color and his war title, he won’t really be seen.


Hana


Where do I even begin with Hana? She may just be one of the most complex characters I’ve ever come across. Her past is the most detailed and influential. In this chapter we learn that she almost had a child while working as a nurse, but had an abortion after the father was killed. She shares this with Caravaggio:


“I had continued conversations with the child. I worked very hard in the hospitals and retreated from everybody around me. Except the child, who I shared everything with. In my head. I was talking to him while I bathed and nursed patients. I was a little crazy (82).”

Not a lot of people would admit that they are crazy, but Hana is an open book at this point in her life. Just like with Kip in the gardens, she is quick to trust the men in the villa with very personal things. I believe this to be therapeutic for her. She spent so many years being strong for the patients who were in pain that she did not care for herself, thus causing her to bottle up a sea of inner turmoil. This was really emphasized when Hana told Caravaggio about how quickly she would lose patients, saying “soldiers were coming in with just bits of their bodies, falling in love with me for an hour and then dying.” She recalls a time when a dying man’s last words were calling her a bitch: “Who would want to die like that? To die with that kind of anger? You bitch! (83).” As I continue to read into Hana’s past, her aloofness and constant need for human connection makes more and more sense. She, like Kip, is driven by empathy due to her rich understanding of other peoples’ pain. It’s the reason she is so attached to the English patient. He is in need of constant care but has also lived enough for her to form a relationship with him. This makes the fact that the English patient’s death is inevitable all the more troubling.


“South Cairo 1930-1938”

This chapter shifts us into the English patient’s past, revealing that he was part of a group of European explorers who mapped out deserts in different parts of the world. I will be focusing on this chapter in the next post, as I believe the upcoming chapters will allow me to focus on the English patient’s character in depth.


Thank you so much for coming back and catching up on my thoughts about The English Patient. I’ll see you next week!