Tag: death

In the Quiet After Slaughter

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But their censure didn’t weaken her resolve. She savoured my
father’s embarrassment — and cursed his having been conceived
every step of the way home.
He drank with old navy buddies at one of the Canadian Legion
branches and foolishly denied doing so. He attempted to disguise
the alcohol on his breath with Halls Cough Drops. Tobacco fumes
clung to his clothes like an invisible lint. Sometimes my mother
alleged the scent of woman.
On occasion, it was true, my father would take off for a few days
—to where, no one knows. Going absent without leave guaranteed
an intensified resumption of their conflict at some future date. The
air in our house crackled in anticipation of the rematch.
Once, to regain entry, he claimed to have gone angling with
friends.Mymother circled him warily, a dog sniffing a fire hydrant.
– Lying bastard!
Punishment often entailed his eviction from their bedroom. Banishment
could stretch from three days to three months, depending.
He appeared relieved to be sentenced to an air mattress on the living-
room floor. Because mybrother Burt and I often took myfather’s
side, it was self-serve in the kitchen until a truce was reached. Our
body weights fluctuated accordingly.
I viewed my father’s carousing like this: he was born during the
First World War and orphaned in the Depression. He spent the best
part of his 20s fighting the Second World War. I reckoned the occasional
disappearance was his way of making up for lost time.
People sometimes remarked that my parents seemed to have little
in common. This may have been the case. But there had to be a reason
they were able to cohabit for as long as they did. I think they
were joined together, as many unions are, by the sum of their unfulfilled
expectations, and because as the years passed, options
decreased and habits fossilized.
My parents, you see, were either in love or at war. Rancour
seemed an aphrodisiac. There was no Switzerland, no neutral
ground. It was the one thing they seemed to agree on: the enemy of
love is indifference.
My mother, in anticipation of their evening fete, had passed the afternoon
tethered to the dresser. Her features had been transformed by …

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The Unquiet Land

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She used to stick up for Nora like an older brother. Fearless, she was. What a girl.”
Finn’s voice trailed away, but the wistful look remained. He was recalling scenes from long ago. “I was working on the boat one summer afternoon. Hot as an oven, I remember. Had been for several days. The children were playing on the harbour. Half a dozen of them. Boys and girls. They must have been ten or eleven years-old at the time. Clifford Hamilton was there. He was a bumptious young fellow even then. He started teasing Nora. I don’t know what he was saying because I was too far away. But you know Nora. Always sensitive, easily embarrassed. Whatever young Clifford said, Nora took it ill. It obviously upset her. That got Caitlin’s back up. Man alive, she lit into Clifford like a she-cat. Next we knew, Clifford was over the edge and into the water.” Finn chuckled. “It happened so quickly no one could do anything to prevent it. I saw it coming and I shouted, but I was too late. Even if they heard me, which I doubt. And Caitlin just stood up there on the lip of the harbour, hands on her hips, and continued shouting at poor Clifford who was swimming to the ladder to get out.”
“The tide was in then,” Padraig said.
“By good fortune it was.” Finn said. “Clifford would have been in one hell of a mess if it hadn’t been.”
Then the old man fixed his pale grey eyes on Padraig’s emaciated face for a few moments of silent but stringent admonition. “I hope you’ll leave Caitlin alone, Padraig. I hope you won’t try to force her to conform to your impossible Christian practices. Keep that nonsense for the saintly Nora. Caitlin’s different. She has pride in herself, and I want her to keep it. I want her to know that her accomplishments—and they are many—are her own, her very own. I would hate her to go through life thinking that she owed them to a non-existent god, that they were the hand-outs of divine charity. What pride can anyone derive from that? So leave Caitlin alone. Do you hear me?”
Padraig remained silent. He returned Finn’s unwavering gaze with a look of obdurate purpose. The two men sat in this dualistic pose for several seconds.
“So that’s how it is,” Finn said at last.
Still Padraig did not answer. He looked away from Finn with harrowing sadness and regret, his glance settling on the pale porcelain of the Victory of Samothrace.
“Damn you, Padraig,” Finn said with feeling but without raising his

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The Circle

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“Yes, he spent so many years earning blood money, Bevan. I know; you’re
right. The agency is the first and foremost concern for all of you. The agency, no
matter what the result, no matter what the human cost,” Emily says, angrily.
Bevan knows this feeling of helplessness, this feeling of betrayal, and this
feeling of loss, particularly when the loss is for something you don’t agree with.
He knows all this because he feels that way most of the time himself.
“Yet, there is a reason why everything happens as it happens, my dear Emily,”
he says, as a way of inserting a sense of justice into something gone wrong.
“Also, don’t forget the police lieutenant mentioned that you told him, as you
told me, that Matthew was cleaning his service pistol that morning. After you
left, the accident took place.”
“Yes, Bevan, the accident took place while I was out with Cathy,” she repeats
monotonously.

The devastation is impossible to describe and the words are so humble and poor, trying
to explain to the flawless mind the inconceivable, the disappearance of logic, and
the return of mass mania for the slavery of feelings in the thirst for blood. The blood is
someone’s, anyone’s, as long as blood is shed and it paints the roads and the cobblestone
streets of this desolate place in red, this place that belongs to people who know
well the hunger and thirst for life.
The houses are mostly demolished; one cannot tell the wall of one from the yard
of the other—the doors, windows, gates, all destroyed. The roofs have collapsed and
walls lean on other walls as injured people try to hang onto one another in order to
stand. They resemble people trying to stay on their feet as others struggle to walk
uphill on crutches.
People shyly and full of fear come out of one hole or another, one by one, like
rodents in the fields popping their heads out to see the devastated condition of the
land and the devastated condition of the human race whose advanced technology
has enabled them to create so much destruction. People come out of their holes to
witness whether death has surpassed them, whether he went to the neighbor’s
house or took some unknown person; after all, Hades is here to take. They come out
of their holes to see whether Hades is still around in the form of a bullet from the
rifle of the soldier from the foreign land. The older ones have seen this before and
know well the pain and anger, but the children, for the first time, taste the loss of a
mother or a father who has died under the cement of their collapsed house, or the
loss of a brother or a dear friend killed by the non-discriminating bombs that fall
from the arms of the sky. The children run out into the desolate backyards and
behind the armored cars of the soldiers. They try to steal something of value…

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In Turbulent Times

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Then Liam was still. With a low moan his body relaxed, and she felt the full weight of it pressing on her. For a moment he lay upon her with his chin on her shoulder. Then he pulled himself away and rolled over on to his back with a sigh. Nora winced at the hurt of his withdrawal and burst into tears.
҂
Liam Dooley sat in his armchair by the fire reading an old, leather-bound copy of The Confessions of Saint Augustine that was old even when his grandfather bought it in Smithfield Market in Belfast many years before.
‘Grandda, if I was to ask you to name the book that most influenced you,’ Liam had once asked of the old man, ‘which one would you choose?’
‘The Confessions of St. Augustine,’ Grandfather Owen Dooley had replied with no hesitation. ‘That book gave me a whole new way to think about God and religion. It took me deep into the meaning of life, and continues to do so. He’s been the most influential thinker that I’ve ever read. I have an old copy in the bookcase there. Read it as often as you can. And when I die, I want you to have it and cherish it.’
When his grandfather died the book had indeed passed to Liam, the only physical keepsake Liam had of the old man whom he had venerated for as long as he could remember. Often he felt that his grandfather watched over him from Heaven, that everything he did had to be good because his grandfather was always there, watching. Liam’s great fear was that his grandfather could read his thoughts too. But he calmed himself by arguing that his grandfather would understand the often lustful thoughts of a young, single man. As long as Liam kept his lust on a tight leash his grandfather would appreciate the struggle and commend him on its victory. Only once had he surrendered; and since the day of his lapse with Nora Carrick he had taken to praying not to God, not to the Virgin, not to St Francis, but to his grandfather, asking his grandfather to forgive the humiliation he had caused him in the sight of God and begging the old man to intercede for him with the blessed saints, with God Himself.
‘I’m not like Padraig,’ Liam argued with the spirit of his grandfather. ‘I am not a priest. I have taken no vow of celibacy. Nora is an adult woman. She came to me of her own free will. Pressed her body against mine. I could not have done what I did otherwise. You know that. I would never touch a woman unless she encouraged me. And Nora encouraged me. It was she who suggested going to bed. She wanted to have sex with me.’
Liam looked up from his book. The fire was low.

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The Unquiet Land

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Finn MacLir dragged his feet back into the dining room after seeing his guests off into the night. He paused in the doorway, raised his outspread hands to his face, and drew them down over his cheeks. “Padraig, I’m tired.”
He was a tall man, over six feet in height. His broad, beefy shoulders were more rounded now, his waist wider than in his younger days. As Padraig remembered him, he had always been a burly, muscular man, full of energy and vitality. Now, at seventy-five years of age, that energy and that vitality had begun to ebb away.
He approached the table unsteadily, lifted the wine decanter and tipped it to his glass. But only a drop or two dribbled out.
“So much for that,” he said. He thumped the decanter down again on the table, and a few knives and forks jumped on their plates. Finn turned to face his remaining guest.
“These are troubled times to be returning to Ireland, Padraig.”
“When are there not troubled times in Ireland?” Padraig said.
“Ay, when indeed?” Finn sank into his chair with a sigh. “The last election left us in a pretty mess, didn’t it? A real shipwreck.” He paused in thought for a moment, tapping the empty wine glass with his finger. “Ay, a real shipwreck. The old ship of state, the S.S. Ireland—remember her?—she ran aground on rocks during a mutiny. A rebel crew tried to take her over. We didn’t know it then, but it seems this rebel crew, this Sinn Fein, had a lot of support on board. The passengers have since voted them into positions of command. Seventy-three of them no less, with Eamon de Valera, one of the old mutineers, escaped from the cooler and appointed captain. It could only happen in Ireland.”
Finn MacLir stared at the empty wine glass, silent, serious, disillusioned. “And half a dozen of the old crew, all that’s left of our old Irish Parliamentary party, cast adrift on a raft in very stormy waters. They’re doomed, I fear. But the situation doesn’t look too good for any of them; or even for the ship itself. They’ve renamed her the S.S. Republic but they haven’t got her off…

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Arrows

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She was scrutinizing me as though willing herself to see
my soul.
Her hand came up to my cheek, and her thumb followed the line of
my cheekbone. An insurrection was taking place inside me. I wanted to
be close to her. Closer. My hands hurt with desire to touch her. My
breathing became jerky, and I felt myself grow hard in the way I knew I
must not, and the urge to satiate that hunger was ruining my
judgment. She said something, but I could only admire the fascinating
movements of her mouth—a ripe fruit, sweet and yielding.
Thank God she buried her face in my neck, though her breath,
warm on my skin, only added to the mayhem inside me, for it gave
me the time I needed to rally my wits about me. I pushed her softly
away. “Noli me tangere,” I breathed in Latin. Do not touch me. Her
big, dark pupils looked up at me, searching my face. I swallowed
awkwardly, conscious of the movement of my throat. “Chi’ka,” No, I
added in Carib. But it came out more like a strangled plea.
She knelt back, her hand on my thigh. I pushed it off, noticing as I
did the stake lifting my frock obscenely. She saw it, too. I pushed my
knees up, giving my privates the only touch and pressure they
would get. I breathed deeply, swaying softly back and forth.
Thoughts of Jesus on the Cross, at Calvary, flooded my mind,
slowing my heart.
Apacuana left me, a bit confused, I dare say, by my pushing her
away as I did. She fumbled for a long time at the entrance, building
some sort of barrier. I found it a sweet demonstration of her care for
me, but then began to worry she might have a more solid reason for
taking such precautions. I was left with a small fire burning and
enough kindling within reach to feed it.
I slept like the dead but woke up suddenly, certain I had heard
something. I tossed a handful of twigs into the glowing embers and,
moving gingerly, poked the fire until a timid flame revived. I
listened with expectation. Had I dreamed it? No, there it was again,
as if someone were shuffling at the entrance. My spirits lifted at the
thought of Apacuana’s return. But why not come in? I called to her.
Was it perhaps a beast instead?

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In Turbulent Times

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‘Oh yes, I knew him well. And admired him. He’s a monk in Loughinish Abbey in south Armagh now. Why do you ask?’
‘He was epileptic too, wasn’t he?’ Nora’s hands rested on the table with the knife and fork still in them. She looked earnestly at Liam. She accepted the fact of her epilepsy with no embarrassment. She had long ago come to terms with it. It meant no more to her than the dark brown of her eyes or the black of her hair. But she wanted others to accept it, to regard it simply as a normal aspect of her being. Most of all, though she could not explain why, she wanted Liam to accept it. So she watched his face and was disappointed. Liam’s mouth twitched, and his eyes looked down at the bacon and eggs on his plate. He reddened a little and then said, ‘Yes, he was;’ but his voice could not hold the nonchalance he tried to charge it with. Internally Liam knew he had failed her. He wished he could kick himself.
Why do I react this way? he repeated to himself while silence extended into a solid barrier between them.
‘Do you believe the gossip that Padraig was my father, Liam?’
Nora’s question exploded in his face. The barrier disintegrated with a crash that reverberated through the house, through the empty schoolrooms.
‘Nora! How could you …? How can you … ?’ Liam struggled to regain his composure. The blast from her gelignite question had hurled him off his feet.
She smiled. The smile leered with malicious sadism. Liam was totally confused, disoriented, unbearably discomfited. He liked to feel solid, familiar ground beneath his feet. He liked the trodden paths of life, however narrow or however straight, and he did not stray from them. He was at one with those whom Grey elegised in his English country churchyard. He was one of the living dead, his life already past, like a swift, irrecoverable dream, his being already buried under a smothering mound of moral precepts, religious commandments, social expectations and private, psychological inhibitions.
‘Some people in the village have hinted that I might be Father Padraig’s bastard, haven’t they?’
Stop it, Nora, stop it, Liam cried silently. He gripped his knife and fork fiercely. He clenched his teeth. He pushed his back hard against the chair till he felt the wood bruise his spine. He drew in a deep breath. ‘Whatever put that silly notion into your head?’ he blurted out, and then realised how weak his question was. ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘You understand me well enough, Liam Dooley.’ Nora’s voice was hard, penetrating, like the bull the stoneworkers pounded into granite to split it. ‘I know what they say. I know that you know also.’

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The Circle

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it’s best for their morale, for their belief in the rationality of what they do every
day, and for their steadfastness in moving ahead. He has been around these
people and this agency for a long time since leaving Baghdad, since the days he
thought he had a good future with the CIA. Time has passed along with his belief
in a good future. What went wrong? He has wondered many a time; Ibrahim is
right. Bevan knows deep in his heart that Ibrahim is right. The problem is what
the agency does and what his department does is often questionable. This has
troubled him for a while. He has a hard time understanding the reasoning
behind decisions taken that are based on a mounting fear in the psyche of the
American people. He has been abroad for many years in which he has come
across people of many different nationalities; Muslims and others and they are
seldom the way they have been portrayed by the administration and by the
Ameerican media at the best of times. Following the end of the term of the “war
president” the people elected a different party and the stand of the country
abroad softened a bit, but after a couple of terms they were back at the same old
doctrine of pre-emptive strikes whenever it felt right, and Bevan knows that’s
not the best approach. Sometimes it’s better to sit and talk to a person instead of
unleashing the power of the killing machine and later trying to find answers to
questions you never asked to begin with.
He knows something has to be done about all this. Yet there are times when
he doubts even himself, even the comments from Ibrahim, his good friend. Does
he doubt his friend? A number of times he has thought about that, as well. After a
while his mind gets stuck on the idea that something has to be done with this
department, something has to change; it cannot keep on going like this for ever,
it cannot keep on going on with the killings and the atrocities. Yes, he knows,
something has to change.
He has tried over the past five or six years to change the mentality of a
number of people whom he has talked to; but has found it difficult to convince
most of the people in higher positions that what they do and how they approach
things is wrong. Some seem to thrive on other peoples’ misery and cannot
suddenly change direction because Bevan Longhorn wants it. He knows the only
way something will ever change is when something dramatic happens. Bevan has
been thinking about that for quite a while.
Ibrahim is right; substantial change takes place only when dramatic events
precede, like the attack in New York in 2001. He takes a copy of the memo he has
issued to his personnel and puts it in his wallet. He closes the file and calls his
secretary to pick it up. Then he finishes eating his sandwich and asks Dorothy to
remove his cold coffee.

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The Unquiet Land

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“In one way they were right,” Michael interrupted.
“Yes, that’s true enough,” Caitlin agreed. “The doctor tried to tell the people it was epilepsy, but they said that epilepsy was just a doctor’s big word for seizure by the Devil. Then a fishing boat went down in a storm with the loss of all hands. The people in the fishing village blamed Padraig. They dragged him from the doctor’s house, but on the way to the harbour, where they might have drowned him, he suffered another seizure. He was writhing on the ground and foaming at the mouth when my father rescued him. The doctor agreed with my father that the best thing for his own safety was to let Padraig go.”
“What a terrible life that poor man has had,” Michael observed.
“Only the first dozen years,” Caitlin said. “He was twelve when he came here.”
“So he lived with the doctor and his wife for three years?”
“About that, yes. But he was mostly confined to their house. Children stoned him one day when he went outside.”
“Imagine being stuck in a house for three years.”
“It was a lot better than the house he came from. The doctor continued his education.”
“Padraig’s education?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean, ‘continued’ it?”
“His mother, the school-teacher, educated him herself as best she could under the circumstances in her brother’s house. She did a good job of it too. Padraig is a clever man. A very quick learner.”
“You should know, shouldn’t you?” Michael said. “You spent a lot of time over his books too, as I’ve heard.”
“I learned as much from Padraig as he did from me,” Caitlin said modestly, but honestly. “Old Shaughnessy, the schoolmaster, didn’t know what to make of Padraig. I did. I taught him what I could. Except for theology.”
“Theology?” This was a new word for Michael.
“The study of religion.”
“I see.”
“Padraig was quite well versed in that. The doctor or his wife must have known a lot about it. Padraig actually taught himself, Michael, in between the odd jobs he did for my father. He did well enough to get to university. After that there was no stopping him.”

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Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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Brother Rordan looked around for Svend or Ul, whichever his name was. Determined
he’d find him, he only wished to apologize for his earlier blunder and perhaps
be his friend. Maybe Ul was being ‘used’ by the captain and felt ashamed of his position.
The crew, apart from the captain, seemed to give him a wide berth. Perhaps
already on board, the Irish thrall was nowhere to be found.
When the feast wound down, the late summer sun had moved along the far horizon.
Songs and games became more boisterous. The Norsemen wrestled, stripped
to a narrow loincloth, their bodies glistening with lamb fat. Bjorn, strongest of them
all, won every bout. Bjorn was aptly and fondly named the Blonde Bear for his massive
bushy beard and hairy chest. No Norseman ever refused his challenge. Each
preferred to be thrown by the mighty Bear than be seen as any less than a brave son
of Odinn, god of war. Spectators circled the wrestlers, cheering on each challenger
in his turn. Sometimes, Bjorn allowed a man to hold him for a while, but never long
enough to claim a victory. As each challenger lay defeated, the great champion lifted
him up with the love of a Nordic brother. In all his show of strength, Bjorn was
almost gentle.
When the wrestling was done, other games of skill took place. Some competed in
feats of archery and knife throwing with targets set at greater and greater distances.
Prizes of bone-handled knives and silver jewellery were awarded to winners in each
category. Several men began a game with a leather ball. They used sticks to hit the
ball and one another’s legs. Competition grew loud and fierce. The ball, the size of a
man’s fist, flew hard and fast.
At last, the casks of beer were drained. One by one, the players left the game to
sit in small groups and talk about home and women and their dreams. Each man
speculated on his share of the profits, when they’d sell their catch of sheep and slaves
at the marketplace in Thulé.
By the dying embers of the fire, the captain filled his men’s cups with sweet mead.
He and his crew toasted further adventures and Valhöll, where all slain warriors
would live for all time, happily feasting with Odinn. All grew serious for a while.
Then Bjorn tossed the ball to Kyrri, the Quiet One. Kyrri tossed the ball to Captain
Hjálmar. This was a different game, played with a twist of humour. While Bjorn and
Kyrri covered their eyes, the other men began a song.
“Treasure hidden in the night, so safely out of view,
will not be gained without a fight. The search is up to you.”
Hjálmar tiptoed off to hide the ball. Much to the amusement of the onlookers,
he slipped it up the loudly snoring Finten’s tunic, then stood apart chuckling. On a
signal from the singing crew, Bjorn and Kyrri began the search from man to man, accompanied
by cheers and sighs of “koer, varmr, heitr, kaldr” and the Brothers joined
in with their own shouts of “close, warm, hot, cold.”
Finally, with whispered hints from various members, Bjorn snuck up on the apparently
sleeping monk. But as Bjorn reached under the priest’s tunic in search of
the hidden ball, Finten grabbed his wrist and bellowed, “Do you take me while I am
sleeping? You are desperate, my poor fellow, but I have a vow, and my vow applies to
women and to men. I cannot satisfy you asleep or awake. For shame.”

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