“Where to now, Father?”
“I've been told there are Shannons in Roosky”
“There are, Father. But they're in the graveyard.”
Robert went back to his pathway on the river and walked a fine, fast step.
In the hours after Robert's departure, Anthony Sevovicz grew intensely depressed. Doubt ripped at him; fear rattled the windows of his mind.
He had watched the ship clear the harbor and then begun to put himself first again; he persuaded himself that he had nowhere to go. The house, so empty now, would be reclaimed by Bishop Nilan. He would do it subtly, probably by moving in the new coadjutor, Bishop John G. Murray. Already he could hear Nilan's voice, close to wheedling. “You don't mind, Tony do you? After all, we don't know when Father Shannon'll be back, do we?”
That was another thing worth hating about the Archdiocese of Boston and the Diocese of Hartford— being called Tony by Bishop Nilan.
Sevovicz sat on the high stool of the quayside coffee joint and watched two things, the departing freighter and his own reflection in a mirror. Did he still look imposing? He told himself that he did, especially in his black coat and homburg. At his throat, the hint of purple gleamed brightly enough for the owner to say, “No charge, Bishop,” when Sevovicz offered to pay for the coffee.
Outside, he walked; his best thoughts came to him on walks. His main concern lay in the question, “What now?” By the end of his walk he had decided to go to the source of his coadjutorial appointment— the Vatican itself, in the shape of the Papal Nuncio to the United States. The pope's own legate, another archbishop, Giovanni Bonzano, had a reputation for adroitness.
Justifiably so: Bonzano proved so adroit that he refused to see Sevovicz. He left him in the care of a monsignor who advised that any fresh duties for Archbishop Sevovicz would, of course, be up to His Eminence Cardinal O'Connell. In the meantime, Archbishop Sevovicz should go back to Hartford, where doubtless Bishop Nilan would welcome his help.
As, indeed, Bishop Nilan did— up to a point. Over the long weeks of May and June he began to demean Sevovicz in ways that the big archbishop couldn't counter. A friend of Bishop Nilan's was coming to stay. Would it be all right, Tony to give him the spare room, now that it was empty? And there were duties, of the most menial kind: baptisms at inconvenient times; hours and hours of confessions in accents that Sevovicz could rarely understand. His housekeeper disappeared— and later surfaced in the home of the new coadjutor, Bishop Murray. Life moved from irksome to unendurable.
By now, Sevovicz was getting a clear view of the next move: O'Connell will wear me down. Leave me in Hartford to languish. Some minor duties. Bishop Nilan will be whispering: “Supernumerary,” “Drain on diocesan funds,” “I need the house. “ Oh, yes.
His Eminence would then write a letter, send it in a sealed envelope to Sevovicz, and ask him to deliver it to Rome— by hand. And pay his travel fare, of course. The letter would say that, try as he did, the cardinal could find no work for Anthony Sevovicz— who had, he must note, done a splendid job of rehabilitating a young chaplain who had had some difficulties in the recent European war.
As the weeks dragged on, Sevovicz grew not only in frustration but unease. He began to take the Irish Project apart and put it together again to see whether he could build a different picture. One piece kept glowing red— the cardinal's eagerness for Robert to travel. I didn't look at that closely enough, Sevovicz told himself.
In the days and weeks after Robert's departure he had certainly felt uneasy, but he'd put it down to discomfort at the thought of Robert traveling alone. Hartford and its bishop gave him no help. The pastoral duties bored him, and Nilan had now become so circumspect that he seemed to parse every “Good morning” that Sevovicz spoke.
Soon he had moved into complete unease. Something had gone amiss. He didn't know how he knew, and, with his behavioral record, he had no right to trust his judgment. This instinct, however, came from a different locus.
In this frame of mind Sevovicz had gone off to Chesapeake Bay on his walking holiday, had conveyed this thinking to his wise friend, and had heard of the possibility of homosexual scandal.
“Think as O'Connell might think,” the friend advised him. “What would he do if the positions were reversed?”
Sevovicz's first inner response was typical: Why didn't I think of that?
By early July, when he came back, he had reached a solution; he would arm himself with as much information as he could find out about the Boston Archdiocese— with special reference to recent behavioral history and ongoing conduct.
The city of Boston has always respected its clergymen. In 1922 a priest in a collar received respectful greetings when he moved about the streets. If he wore a little sting of ecclesiastical purple he was noticed even more, especially if he stood well over six feet and possessed a large presence (and a large nose).
Old saying: You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy. Sevovicz had a farmer's habit of testing the ground beneath his feet. When word of a troubled parish reached him in Poland, he had gone there unannounced in mild disguise and walked the land, the streets, the villages. On the day he arrived in Rome, early and soiled from the trains and irked beyond words by his reduction in the Church, he walked the city and then the Vatican.
Now he went to Boston— just to walk. Everywhere he went, men doffed caps and women smiled. This is no good. They know I'm an archbishop.
So he returned the following week, early one morning, in a gabardine raincoat, cap, and workman's clothes. He moved unnoticed; he slipped in and out of stores and diners; he roamed.
On his previous ramble he took in the fact that the Irish had given Boston a strong pub culture, and this time he sampled it. He deliberately chose a place not far from the cardinal's residence. And he struck it lucky. He got a spike into the seam that he was mining.
To some degree, Sevovicz had the mentality of a criminal. He believed in shortcuts to power and riches. He believed in extreme measures to remove obstacles. He believed in status and its demonstration. So in the period that he had already spent in the Archdiocese of Boston, he had come to believe that he shared certain qualities of character with His Eminence. Trying to think like O'Connell, he hacked out a line of inquiry.
He had a head hard as a rock for drink, and he knew how to use it. In the pub, he was lucky enough to meet a Polish couple. Speaking in Polish made him their instant friend. Immune to eavesdroppers, they told him that they heard O'Connell was protected by a bunch of businessmen (which was true). The couple, ardent Catholics, spoke with outrage. Scandals in the cardinal's household. Property deals. Lawyers and accountants using the Sunday collection money. And worse. Priests who were married. And yet more, things of which they couldn't speak.
The Polish husband said, “Those two men must feel lucky to stay alive.”
“What?” Sevovicz asked.
The wife amplified. Some of the cardinal's friends— they'd heard this from a good source— were known to have wanted to get rid of the two scandalous priests. “They'd have accidents, of course. The cardinal would never know.”
But they couldn't do it— because one of the men was the cardinal's nephew.
“But this is like the Medicis!”
To which the Polish husband said, “They're Irish. What do you expect?”
When Sevovicz asked in pretended outrage, “But who are these men?” the couple shrugged and said, “Businessmen. They advise the archbishop. They raise money for him. They keep his accounts.”
The path to Roosky meandered. Now the river acquired a friend, a canal that disappeared quietly to the east. Ivied buildings suggested a strong commercial history.
By a lock a man painting a pillar explained that this was the Royal Canal. It had opened a hundred and five years ago and went straight to Dublin, so you could “get on a boat here and find yourself landing up in Brazil.” To Robert's inquiry about the journey ahead, he replied, “Y
ou can't miss Roosky unless you fall into the river.”
Past Lough Forbes, his journey almost slowed down because of the varied birds that caught his attention. They seemed— as before— to have little fear, waiting until the last moment before flying out of his path. Here and there, benches had been placed on the pathway.
On the road that ran parallel to the path stood two people, a woman and her small son.
“I'd say ‘twill be on in a minute,” said the woman— uninvited— to Robert. “And ‘twas on time last week.”
He guessed, and indeed a bus did arrive, cream with a green stripe along the side, bicycles and boxes higgledy-piggledy on the roof. It stopped for the woman and her boy and Robert climbed aboard too. No more than six people sat in the seats, and a conductor with a metal ticketing apparatus hanging on a strap around his neck stood talking to a couple at the rear. Before Robert could ask whether it had a destination of any value to him, the bus took off with a lurch.
Never reaching more than thirty miles an hour, it swayed alarmingly and belched smoke. He extracted money from his rucksack and sat with it in his hand, ready to pay his fare; nobody asked him for it. The conductor went on talking to his friends. Two of the passengers nearest him fell asleep; a hen clucked somewhere under a seat.
Several miles into the journey— Robert could still see the river— the bus halted abruptly and sagged to one side. The driver climbed down and went to look; the conductor opened a window.
“We've a broken spring,” said the driver.
“Have we?” said the conductor.
“We have,” said the driver.
For two hours they sat there. The conductor came by.
“How ya doin’ here?”
“What happens now?” asked Robert.
“Ah, we're waiting till somebody passes that'll go back and tell the garage.”
“Will that be long?” “Where are you headin’ for yourself?” Robert, hungry said, “Drum-something.”
“Well, if it was me,” said the conductor, “I'd walk, but I've only the one good leg, like.”
He showed Robert an immense left boot.
The Shannon can be exceptionally beautiful in its narrow northern reaches. Robert left the bus, found the path close by, and set out again. He saw few houses— and he didn't resist dawdling. More than once he walked to the river's edge, crouched, and let his hand trail in the water.
Other than the water and the trees on both banks, he saw little of note: a green boat moored on the far side; a large bird that might have been a goose; a number of blue-black waterfowl who seemed terribly official; an aristocratic swan. After an hour of meandering, he again picked up stride and settled into his usual good pace. Not another human being did he see; a horse in a field raised its head, but he saw nothing and nobody else.
The sun came out now and then, and after a steady two hours of walking he saw, to his right, in the near hinterland, some houses. Across the fields he heard music; So early in the day?
He left the path, walked across a field toward the houses, and found a lane. From an open door came the bright sound. When he looked in, he wasn't surprised to see the musicians from the circus, sitting in somebody's kitchen, playing merrily away. Enda waved and beckoned. On a table sat great plates of sandwiches and mugs of tea in a kitchen full of people. The archbishop will ask, “Is that all they do all day? Do they work? Do they have jobs?”
Sincere and ardent, the husband and wife of the house welcomed Robert. Whiskey was poured; Robert pushed his glass discreetly toward Jarlath, who obliged. Food came in mountains: sandwiches thicker than Bibles, slabs of dark, almost black, raisined fruitcake, huge mugs of tea.
“You could use that to practice your diving in,” said PaulTom.
Robert sat there for hours. The musicians played without a break. Others arrived, with pipes, a fiddle, tin whistles, and a skin drum.
“That's a bowrawn?” he said to its owner.
“Good man yourself,” said the drummer.
For hours on end, merry or slow, vivacious melodies filled the air and made the world better. The music thrilled Robert— thrilled him in a way that ran through his nerves like tiny bolts of lightning. He stared at the musicians’ hands— the fingering so fast he could almost not follow it. He stared at their faces— the closed eyes, the little half smiles of bliss. He stared at the instruments— the shiny buttons of the concertina, the dull color on the drum's parchment where it got struck oftenest, the proud strings of the fiddle, stout and taut against the flashing bow.
Most of all he felt the music in his ears, he felt the notes bouncing into his brain. Note followed note. The tunes were like chains of laughter, and his thoughts began to tumble like acrobats. Colors filled his mind, and a lightness came to him, a lightness of mood that he now knew had been absent for some time. He wanted to dance.
At four o'clock in the afternoon, Robert reluctantly left the music house. Nobody wanted him to go; they begged him to stay. Men in the kitchen stood up and shook his hand. Women folded banknotes into their handshakes—”Pray for us, Father, won't you?”—and the three musicians, Enda, Jarlath, and PaulTom with their happy faces, said, “Keep in by the wall, Father,” and went on playing.
In no more than an hour, Robert arrived at the destination addressed in his letter. Easy to find in tiny Drumsna— Miss Dillon in Lanesborough had said that her brother lived “in the best house in town.”
A small man in the formal garb of a city priest— black suit, full stock, and high stiff round collar— answered the door knocker. Robert handed him the letter from his sister. Father Dillon read it on the doorstep and said, “Who are you?” He had a voice high as a boy's.
Robert reached into his rucksack and took out the Sevovicz letter. The priest read this letter too and said, in some doubt, “I suppose you'd better come in.”
He showed Robert into a surprisingly elaborate drawing room and said, “Wait here.” After a few minutes he came back, sat down opposite Robert, and said, “Now, what can I do for you?”
Robert said, “I'm traveling through Ireland in search of the Shannon family.”
“But why have you come to my door?”
“Your sister. Her letter.”
“Is that the only reason?” His suspicion could be calculated by weight.
“Yes.”
“Tell me who this Sevovicz is. I never heard of him.”
Robert explained— not that he knew much— the archbishop's coadjutor position with Bishop Nilan in Hartford, Connecticut.
“So he was sent there by the Vatican?”
“Yes, Father.”
The well-dressed priest said, “I see. So—were you sent here by the Vatican?”
“What?”
“There are some very bad people in the Vatican.”
Robert began to rise from his chair. The priest said, “Where are you going?”
“Father, I am not a Vatican spy.”
The little man shot out of his chair and grasped Robert's arm. “Please don't go.” And in a massive blurt he added, “I want you to hear my confession.”
Robert looked down at him. “Father, I'm not here as a priest. I do not even have faculties, permissions, for my priestly duties. And I'm certainly not here on behalf of the Vatican or anyone else.”
How Dr. Greenberg would have cheered! “When he argues with you, tell me,” he said one day to Sevovicz. “That's an early sign of recovery: when a patient resists a criticism, or himself criticizes, or raises a challenge.”
A wave of tiredness swept over Robert. He returned to his chair, sat down, and closed his eyes. Within minutes he had fallen into one of his deep sleeps. The little priest sat watching him. After some time he tiptoed from the room and returned with a green plaid rug. He draped it gently over Robert's body, tucked it under his chin, drew down the blinds, and went out.
An hour later, Robert awoke in darkness. For several moments, the memory of where he was and how he had got there didn't come back. And t
hen he recalled music and sat up. He registered the room, took in the rug, and began to come back to the world.
Through the ajar door he saw a glimmer of light and rose to follow it. It took him to a dining room, where Father Dillon and another priest sat in silence, eating and reading. A third place had been prepared at the table.
The dapper little man stood up and said, “This is Father Madden; he shares the house with me. I'm the senior curate and he's the junior curate.”
Father Madden had eyes like a bloodhound, which gave him the loneliest expression in the world. He shook hands without looking at Robert, or standing up, and pointed to the place ready for their guest.
Feeling oddly at home in this replication of parish atmosphere, Robert sat down. Father Dillon served him food: a wide pork chop an inch thick, with a yellow vegetable that Robert had never tasted before, and ten small potatoes.
“D'you drink a glass of wine at all?” said the little priest.
“No, it'll be lemonade,” said the lonely priest.
“A good guess,” said Robert.
“I was telling Father Madden about your ancestors.”
“I'm afraid to tell you, Father,” said the lonely priest, “that the only Shannon I ever knew was the one I swim in. I suppose everybody makes that joke to you.”
Father Dillon said, in his boy's voice, “While you were resting, I looked at some of the parish records. We had a very careful parish priest here— he died about eight years ago— and he kept everything in alphabetical order. There was never a Shannon born here, and never a Shannon buried here.”
“Do you know what the name Drumsna means, Father?” said the lonely priest. “It means a humpy place where people go swimming.”
They chatted easily throughout dinner, and Robert asked how far he had come toward the source of the Shannon.
“They call it the Pot,” said the dapper one. “The Shannon Pot.”
“You want the town of Swanlinbar,” said the lonely priest. “No, you don't. Go over the mountain. Go up through Ballinamore.” He looked at Father Dillon, made up his mind about something, and said to Robert, “Look. I'll take you there myself.”