Dinner finished slowly; the priests shared a bottle of wine and then took a cognac each. Robert drank what they called lemonade, a sweet, fizzy red drink that burbled in his nose. Father Madden excused himself, saying, “We'll leave early in the morning, ‘tis a long enough drive.”
When Father Madden had left the room, the little priest drew his chair closer to Robert.
“Tell me now, do you know Cardinal O'Connell at all?”
Robert said, “He ordained me.”
“Now he's a man I'd like to meet. A misunderstood man, by all accounts.”
Robert flinched. Father Dillon put out a hand, then drew it back. His face became suddenly painful.
“I— I wish you could hear my confession.”
For an endless moment they sat and looked at each other. Finally Robert touched the little priest's arm.
“Father, nothing is easy.”
“But America is a big place; this place is as small as a pocket. And ‘tis a pocket full of nails.”
His Eminence took a famous vacation every summer. Each priest and prelate under his command knew when he was away; The Boston Globe published it, part of the image making. Sevovicz took advantage of Cardinal O'Connell's absence and dropped by the residence (which also housed the church offices). He pretended that he wanted to pay his respects to His Eminence and seek his advice while passing through.
While there he engaged in conversation with the priests in the chancery where the money was reckoned. Sevovicz called down great praise upon them for the “financials”—as he saw them— of the archdiocese. They barely knew him, but they had heard about “some weird Polish coadjutor down in Hartford.”
He charmed them; he discussed episcopal finances knowledgeably— as indeed he might, given his experience— and they felt complimented by his observations; this man understood, he perceived. Easily he brought the conversation around to the names of laymen who supported the archdiocese and how they helped His Eminence.
Sevovicz took them into his confidence with a confidential worry regarding Bishop Nilan's generosity. Hartford needed an objective eye.
Now that Providence, Rhode Island, influenced Hartford less than it used to, perhaps their contacts knew somebody helpful. They pointed him in the direction of the accountant and gave him a letter of introduction.
Next morning, Robert and Father Madden climbed into a beautifully painted and polished pony trap with gleaming harness. A basket of food sat at their feet, along with Robert's rucksack.
“If you want to follow on your map, Robert, we're going away from the Shannon to get to the Shannon Pot. We'll go on better roads, up toward Leitrim, cut across to Ballinamore, and come back through Swanlinbar. We might stay the night in Drumshanbo, I've a house there.”
When they had traveled for about five minutes, Robert asked, “How long have you known Father Dillon?”
The priest scarcely allowed him to finish. “Robert, Ireland is a very small country.” Saying which, he closed his mouth in a line and looked straight ahead.
They veered onto another road, heading northeast, a small narrow road with stunted trees bent in from the west. Although they had left the river behind, the land began to fill with water; lakes shone everywhere, some bright, some gunmetal in color, some dark as a frightened eye. They turned west again, down a steep slope, and then up a steep incline on a road barely wide enough for their little carriage. On a high rise, Father Madden reined in. Out under a remote sky, they overlooked many of the small lakes, with not a house in sight.
“We might as well have a nice view if we're going to eat. We're in Keshcarrigan. If you were a crow you'd fly straight up there”—the priest pointed north—”and you'd land in the Shannon Pot.”
The skies darkened from the west as they ate. Rain swept in, heavy deep rain, lashing the horse, filling the trap with water. They moved from their pleasant view and pulled in under a tree, where they sat and watched as the rain grew ever heavier. Morose and silent, the lonely Father Madden gazed into an unseeable distance. The temperature dropped. A troubling smell floated across the fields, and Robert sniffed.
“You're smelling sulfur. This land is full of brimstone. There's places here could be the door into Hell.”
In an hour the rain had merely increased, so they sat yet another hour. Finally the priest said, “I can't take you there today. We'll go to Drumshanbo.”
Robert, simply to relish the word, murmured, “Drum … shan … bo.”
“Drum, the back; shan, old; bo, a cow.”
“The back of the old cow?”
“That's her,” said the priest; he had a perfect wart like a tiny drum at the corner of his mouth.
The rain soaked them to the skin. As the horse galloped along, pulling the light trap easily and well, the rain intensified, falling in sheets heavy as blood. Robert had no hat, and he fancied that he felt streams flow down his head and his body into his shoes. Father Madden's hat became sodden; water flowed from its brim onto his knees, so he took it off.
An hour or more later, down among houses again, they swung through a gate and into the dry warmth of an open-doored barn. “I live here,” said the priest, and never spoke again. He led Robert indoors and upstairs, indicated an empty room.
Robert set down his rucksack. He found towels; he would have welcomed a bath, but the house had neither running water nor electricity. When he had changed he went to his door and called, but nobody answered. Down in the hallway, he called again and got no answer. He walked from room to room, upstairs and down and found nobody. Downstairs, in the kitchen, he searched for food and found cold chicken in a pot. He helped himself and drank some water.
The pictures on the walls, the letters on the hall table, the appointments of the house— everything told him he had come to a parish house. For curates, obviously; a parish priest's house would surely have been more opulent. No American priest would live like this. And I still have the smell of sulfur in my nose.
Sevovicz had an agreeable lunch with the accountant and one of the other prominent laymen. They shared a long conversation regarding diocesan finances—the management thereof—and funds—the raising thereof. Sevovicz charmed them with anecdotes: of his antics in Elk, of the Vatican finances, and of the astounding money management perpetrated by Italian banks on behalf of the pope.
As the cigars sent their incense of power to the elaborate ceiling, he complimented “all associated with His Eminence” for the astute management of the “difficulties.” Into this he pitched not the name but the identity of Robert Shannon. He said he had personal oversight of an unfortunate young man whom he'd had to dispatch abroad to dim the calumnies that the young priest had been airing. Now of course he had the worry of what would happen when the fellow came back.
Like a pair of lizards the laymen smiled at each other. Cognac also whispered. Lizard Number Two blew on his cigar to redden the tip and said to Lizard Number One, “Tell him?” And Lizard Number One, the accountant, said, “Don't worry, Your Grace, we've taken care of it. Well, more accurately, we're taking care of it. In fact your worries might be over by now.”
Sevovicz felt a cold fever clamp his legs and arms. I was right! I was right to feel unease! My judgment is excellent!
But he never stopped to consider how reckless he had been in sending Robert off alone. A less self-centered man might have gone to Ireland with the first tremor of black concern. But Sevovicz had considered— perhaps too strongly— Dr. Greenberg's advice not to go with Robert; the remark came back to him now: “might as well walk the coast of Massachusetts.”
He looked at Lizard One and Lizard Two and said, “Does His Eminence know the depth of your service? He must appreciate you so much. I would.”
In their eagerness they spoke in unison: “Oh, no.”
Lizard Two said, “You understand, don't you? The necessary delicacy, Your Grace. His Eminence must never know.”
And the accountant said, “He must feel nothing but relief.”
T
he rain poured down on Drumshanbo all night and all the next morning. Robert would have thanked his host for the hospitality, but he had vanished. Evidently he had gone right after he showed Robert to a room. From the open doorway he looked out again and again; Nobody could travel in this weather.
In the hallway, he saw his own face in the mirror of the hatstand. The beard had developed, and he had enough awareness by now to register some amusement at himself. He peered closer and smiled at his image with an ease he had not known for a long time.
And yet—and yet! He began to register a disturbance, a stirring— not a warning, more a feeling. Something's bothering me. What is it?
It had sufficient energy to send a zing! into his brain— and his heart. Fighting confusion, he stepped away from the mirror. He opened the front door again, to look at the sheets of water coming straight down. Something's tugging at me, something good. What is it? I need to— I must— go back down the country. Why?
Just after eleven o'clock the rain stopped suddenly, as it does in Ireland, and sunlight began to emerge. The soaked land gasped with relief. Robert supposed that floods had spread into the fields, and he wanted to see them. Rucksack on his back, he closed the door of the house behind him and walked south from the town. The impulse came back again, this time with a power as warm as the sun: Did I dream something during the night? What did I dream? I did dream something. What was it?
Floods had indeed spread far and wide. On the roadside stood a man and a woman, gauging the stream, watching its vigorous flow. He had seen many people do that all along the Shannon: looking into the water, feeling the river's power. Suddenly, seeing the river again, Robert knew what he wanted to do, where he wanted to go. He caught his breath. Right! Right! That is right!
He approached the couple on the riverbank.
“Hi.”
They turned and spoke as though they had always known him.
Said the woman, “Didja ever see a spate as big as that?”
Her husband said, “Didn't we have twenty-four hours of rain?”
Robert said, “This is Drumshanbo?”
“As ever was,” said the man. “Where are you looking for?”
“How would I get to Lanesborough from here?” He felt so excited he almost couldn't speak the words.
“Oh, straight down the river,” said the husband.
“No, he means should he walk?” said the wife, who had a witch's chin.
The roads of Ireland in 1922 (and sometimes today) could best be described as well-intentioned, a state of mind. Although sincerely optimistic in terms of creating routes, the concept of moving with ease and comfort from point of origin to destination had always required spirit.
Geography dictates. The saucer that is Ireland— a high perimeter of mountains surrounding wide plains— decided long ago where people would live. Unsurprisingly, the building of roads proved more successful in the generally level heartlands.
Well, up to a point. As in the rest of the world, most Irish roads began as pathways formed by animals. Then came the hunters, and the generations of their descendants, and the farmers and the dwellers and the travelers. In small countries, these routes stayed particularly narrow, because no owner of precious land wished to sacrifice any fraction of a sacred acre.
As with the world in general, modes of transport forced the Irish roads to widen, as did military conquest. Dublin, for example, had one of Europe's earliest planning authorities. The eighteenth-century Wide Streets Commission designed urban passageways broad enough for regiments to march, several men abreast; all restless natives need to see a show of force. By then, carriages and other rigs required more width than a rural donkey and cart.
But not everywhere— and in the general countryside the roads remained narrow. To this day a motorway in Ireland is slender by world standards; two lanes per direction has long been the upper-limit norm. For many years they never needed to be wider. The facility to travel through Ireland developed slowly. A Victorian railway system kept pace with— or some paces behind— the train in Britain; the automobile more or less likewise.
But not for decades did train or car give the average Irish rural dweller any swift transport. Not every town had a railway going through it, and cars remained prohibitively expensive for generations. A breakthrough, such as it was, came with the bicycle, which the country took to heart. It became a matter of the soul almost, with great feats of travel reported. National and local newspapers carried stories and photographs of cyclists who traveled vast distances in a day.
When Robert Shannon asked for advice on retracing his steps, on getting back down the river to Lanesborough, he took out his Letter of Introduction. The husband at the river read it aloud.
“Father, here, take my bicycle. ‘Tis the quickest way.”
Robert was astonished. “But you don't know me!”
“Ah, Father!” the man answered. “Why would you steal a man's bike?”
Robert insisted on giving the man money, “If only as a surety.” Then he grabbed the bicycle and climbed on. With not a notion of how many miles he had to ride— at least fifty, given the convolution of the route— he set off south by the river like a man chased by hounds.
On his way back to Hartford after lunch with the Lizards, Sevovicz saw a New York Times front page, where he read at gasping speed a dateline of 18 July:
The centre of fighting in the Irish Civil War is now at Limerick, the headquarters of the Insurgents, and arrangements are being pushed forward for an offensive which, it is hoped, will crush the rebel forces. The Irregulars are being rounded up north and west of Limerick as a preliminary to this operation. In the city itself, fighting has been going on for eight days.
Sevovicz's anxious eyes flicked down the page:
… machine guns and grenades … battle was resumed … wing of the building burst into flames … sixteen killed, as many wounded…supplies have been cut off by the rebels and many citizens are faced with starvation.
He raged, with nobody to rage at but himself: What a fool I am! What have I done, sent Robert to his death? His suicide? Why did I allow myself to be talked into it? Why didn't I check?
When he added to his mood the chill of the lunch with the Lizards, he left himself with no choice.
Anthony Isidore Sevovicz had never killed anybody. Could he, if pressed? Who knew? He had a foul temper, but not a rage— meaning that he mouthed off at people. He yelled if his caviar had gone rancid; yelled if the wine had corked; yelled if the béarnaise had a smidgen too much butter.
But, much as he might like to, he couldn't kill for any of those things.
He couldn't kill for revenge. Nor could he kill in cold blood or combat, meaning that he couldn't kill in self-defense.
That, therefore, could be called his first disadvantage as, with enough discretion to tell nobody, he made hasty preparations to sail across the Atlantic. He rushed too fast. He brought no documentation on the Irish Project. He didn't even know where in Ireland to begin looking for Robert, which could be called his second disadvantage.
As to his third disadvantage, Sevovicz knew he tended to get things wrong. Competent in many areas of life, he flustered easily, and this time he embarked upon his journey without bringing the names and addresses of the Irish bishops to whom he had written when setting up his Irish Project. He soon found himself on the high seas with only his instinct to drive him.
He needed it. The agitation of this appalling discovery in the company of the Lizards had driven all detail from his brain. He couldn't even recall where in Ireland Robert was to have been put ashore. So he focused on Limerick, the place mentioned in The New York Times. He seemed to recall that it had some connection to Robert— but that was all.
From the bicycle, Robert saw a different Ireland. Away from the Shannon, on roads that didn't wind beside the river, he still, to his comfort, glimpsed distant water from time to time. Now he also saw towns and villages.
Leitrim, Drumsna, Dromod— he raced thro
ugh places that had been named in the early days of European languages. In the fields either side of him, moorhens and other marsh birds lived, on land of notorious poverty. “Snipe-grass country,” the locals still called it, meaning reeds and wet moors interspersed with coarse grass that feeds nothing but marsh birds.
In here, in this bowl of the early Shannon reaches, effective farming had long been a matter of luck or wrestling— reclaiming fields, earthing and draining them, winning them back from the dampness of centuries. Any good land had been taken from these people long ago.
But change was coming. Even though Robert couldn't as yet see it from the saddle of his bicycle, it had begun. Those who dared to have any political sense already felt this change— they felt it as though transfused.
It had taken some time for the mood of independence to sink in. Hard on its heels came the worry as to how the new nation would survive. International allies would help, notably the United States, where many generations of Irish-Americans, including those of Irish birth, thrilled to the creation of the new Irish state. Most people believed that time would unite the entire country.
That summer of 1922, the young were already putting their shoulders to the national wheel to get it to turn. They talked among themselves— in some cases they were shamelessly emotional— about the opportunities. How they reveled in the chance to take this ancient and glorious heritage and make it more wonderful than ever!
Robert, naturally, saw none of this. Even if he had he wouldn't have stopped, because his journey had the energy of all frantic people— although in truth he didn't know whether he was excited or fearful. When he joined the Shannon again at Roosky his spirits lifted at the sight of his river so close. And when, farther down, he reached Lanes-borough, he wanted to sing. Oh, I'm right! I'm right.
Although he raced— as did his heart— an element of control had entered his life. Not wholly sound yet, it no more than boded well. Fragility still controlled him, but a great chunk of the most important faculty had returned: memory. And memory drove his journey, memory that reached him in a jumbled and not unfrazzled way, memory of childhood and memory of loving care.