Blood From A Shadow (2012) Page 9

  I traced my fingers over the s, BULL RUN, NEW YORK. I felt something ok, but not pride. More like the emptiness of battle fatigue that I still had trouble escaping.

  “I was on the flight with Mayor Bloomberg when he came over to unveil it, back in 2006,” he said. “See the base? There’s part of a girder from the World Trade Centre in there, donated by the family of a firefighter who fell on 9/11”, Artie said, “the family were from these parts too, named Lynch.”

  I had known some FDNY guys who were there on 9/11, probably why I hit Iraq with such hunger. My throat plumped and I sucked the wet air. I thought of my own comrades. McErlane, Lopez, Rico, Falco, Reitner and the rest. They had been my real family, lost to me now.

  “I know you received some help when you got home, Con,” he said. “You did research on the Irish Brigade in the Civil War, didn’t you, to help you work through your own real life trauma?”

  The fucker knew more than I thought. My army shrink had plotted that therapy, arranged access to Fordham campus for me. Supposed to be confidential. I couldn’t believe it was her, Florencita Conroy, had let me down, not that way. Rose knew the therapy just made me worse, saw I was obsessed with the slaughter, infatuated with Conroy. Rose gave me an ultimatum, forget the civil war, stop seeing Conroy, or get out of her life. Ultimatums never worked with me, Rose should have known that, and now I was a shadow in her life.

  “You know enough about me to know I might break your neck, Artie, so start talking,” I said.

  “You asked me about Duffin, how come I had contact with him,” he said. “This monument goes some way to explain it, I hope. I spent a lot of time in the United States. I saw things which shouldn’t be tolerated in any civilised society, like abject poverty, institutionalised racism, unfettered greed. Still, it’s a great country, the most civilised country the world has ever known, I think. And our own people have played their part to get it there, that’s what this monument means to me, anyway.”

  Splashes of snow melted on contact with his scented, pink cheeks.

  “My own family has had a foot in New York since Corcoran’s time,” he said. “They settled in Vinegar Hill first, then Hell’s Kitchen, one of them ran a Speakeasy there. Now I have relatives all over the place, and not just the old Irish neighborhoods either. Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, even Nolita. They go back and forward all the time, mostly legal, thank God.”

  The fine Italian threads were no match for the Siberian winds, Artie wanted to get back into the warm Saab. I didn’t move.

  “How does that connect with my story, as you call it?” I said.

  “Just that we all have responsibilities. Those 200,000 Irishmen could have opted out, instead they were in the thick of the fighting, you know that better than me. Well, I was presented with the call to serve, I felt it was my duty to stand up and be counted, that’s it,” he said.

  “But you’re a priest, Artie, a fucking priest! Isn’t that enough?” I said.

  “It’s not enough to hide behind this collar,” Artie said. “If people like me abdicate responsibility then scum like Duffin and Swansea take over. Men of religion have a responsibility to lead by example as much in this modern world as in the past. That’s what I’ve been charged to do.”

  “I thought you said all that stuff doesn’t matter, it’s only what God sees in your heart that matters?” I said.

  “Bollocks, that’s not what I said! But it’s time you looked in your own heart, Con. You want me to tell your story but nobody can do that for you. Isn’t it time you faced up to your own exploits, the story you created yourself, you and Ferdia?” he said.

  “And you think bringing me here to this slab of stone is going to do the trick? It’s that easy?” I said.

  “Do I expect too much of you? Perhaps I do. I only know the last man I brought here knew what it meant. He knew the value of his own culture and that meant he could treasure all cultures. You know who that was? Mehmet Kaffa, the Turkish Muslim who saved your neck!” he said.

  Artie pushed past me and got into the automobile. I stood to attention in the driving sleet and snow. I saluted General Corcoran, and all the 69th, past and present.

  My story. That’s what Florencita Conroy’s therapy was supposed to resolve. It hadn’t worked so far, but I knew it wasn’t over yet, and I understood now that Kaffa was somehow still a player in it.

  Artie, black suit and white collar, touched the whiskey flask to his red lips. An image flicker streamed into my head, Artie as the black bird lapping my blood in the snow.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Artie’s guys tik-takked my black ghost through the airport, invisible to anyone in uniform. On the plane, I squeezed on to a small stool in a cramped recess beside the toilet. It was like sitting in a photo booth, a curtain hiding me from the knees up. If any passengers had peeped in, they might have thought I was offering the sacrament of confession to the good Catholic patrons. From the traffic of black trousers and shiny brogues that tripped over me en route to the toilet during the four hour flight, I guessed most of the other passengers were priests, all working overtime to pretend I wasn’t there. By the time we reached Milan, all their conversations were in Italian.

  I watched the feet and ankles troop off, thought I recognised Artie’s immaculate fashion go past. Then there was silence, except for two female crew members exchanging giggled reports on the passengers. They left, and I was on my own. I waited, as instructed, and was quite calm. My mind wandered. I wondered what I would do if it became necessary to kill Artie. I imagined his indignation as I slit his throat, the frothy bubbles as he cursed me. Lutterall? I would dismiss him with a quick twist of the neck. Duffin would squeal for mercy as I slowly, very slowly, squeezed the life out of him. No qualms about any one of them. No regrets. Gallogly would be different. I knew I could do it if I had to, but he was the only one left who could share many of my happy memories. Killing him would be killing a piece of myself, but I could do it, I knew that.

  My curtain was tugged back by a big fit guy in black trousers and a leather jacket. He gestured for me to follow him. In the darkness outside, a Range Rover with blacked out windows waited beside the stairs from the plane. He jumped in to drive and motioned for me to stay hidden on the floor. I stayed there until we were on a motorway, Autostrade del Sole, the A1 from Milan to Naples. There were signs for Firenze, which everyone else calls Florence, Venezia, Genoa, Bologna and Roma, 476 km. The man in black didn’t try to understand my English, so I sat back, and drifted off to sleep.

  It was still dark when I woke a couple of hours later, and had to mimic taking a leak to make him pull over to a service area. He stayed within touching distance of the urinal, taking no chances that would allow me to abscond into the night. He wanted coffee but couldn’t risk me being spotted in the cafe, wouldn’t leave me on my own outside, so he paid a lorry driver to bring out two small, but intense, coffees and hot pastries with melted chocolate fillings. I started to imagine how I might kill the driver too, but shook myself out of that and relaxed as he drove on.

  We reached Rome before daybreak, but the city wasn’t asleep, tooting scooters and taxis fizzed past like Chinatown firecrackers. The driver was no tour guide but I didn’t need him to point out the Colosseo. We joined the flow along the river, must have been the Tiber, until he pulled a left turn over a wide bridge, left again into a broad avenue, and there was the dome of the Vatican straight ahead. Half way up the avenue, we pulled a left through a gateway into a hotel car park. He jumped out before me, opened my door and used his chin to point out the hotel entrance. I moved to shake, he slipped a ringing cellphone in my hand, jumped in and disappeared.

  Artie spoke in my ear.

  “You’re at the Hotel Columbus,” Artie’s voice said. “I thought that would be appropriate. They’re expecting you, you are Father Macy, that’s a good American name. Everything is booked, you don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  “What if somebody starts speaking priest-talk to me? I won’t f
ool any Italians!” I said.

  “You’re an American priest, so they won’t be surprised at anything you say or do, they have seen it all before. Just stay in your room until I get there, I’ll be around in a couple of hours,” he said.

  “Well hurry up, Artie, I don’t know how long I can keep this up. I’m getting bad images, thoughts in my head you don’t want to know about,” I said.

  “Yes, well, like I said, you’re an American priest, so that sounds pretty normal. Don’t worry about anybody else, just act natural, as if nobody else matters. But listen, Con, be careful. Your name has been linked to Swansea, nothing public yet, so we can still manage it, but just don’t try to contact anyone at home, you can be traced a lot easier than you would think. Just stay in your room until I get there. You could even try saying some prayers, it might do you good,” he hung up.

  A man in his sixties was at my side. “Father Macy?” he guessed, then led me into the hotel and straight up to the 4th floor. No paperwork to complete, no forms to sign. My room sat on its own at the end of a corridor, overlooking an enclosed garden at the back of the hotel, maybe 200 feet by 75. The things I had left at Mrs McErlane’s house were already on the bed.

  I had to speak to Rose and Gallogly. Rose because I needed her voice to give me the steam to carry on, Gallogly because he must know something about Duffin. It was too early in New York, I would find a public payphone later on. I pulled out my wallet from the bag, but the money, plus Duffin’s credit card, hadn’t made it to Rome. No passport in the bag, either. Artie was making sure I was going nowhere without his say so.

  * * *

  I didn’t take Artie’s advice to pray, but I did feel like a cloistered monk in that room. The place must have been built as some sort of monastery in the middle ages, and some of that atmosphere still breathed through the low wooden beams, black with age, that looked like they could have been carved under order by Columbus for La Gallega.

  If only I had known how to pray, I could have avoided thinking. Thinking was torture now, it shattered the bliss of the comatose brain I needed, but was never going to lead to the vindication I craved. My wonder and awe was restricted to the looped rehearsal of everything I couldn’t forget. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t picturing Swansea’s satisfied face under an empty skull. All I could see were dusty roads and crumbling shacks, hear the throaty screams, smell burning flesh and powder. These were vivid, still real. My breathing exercises were losing their power, I was relapsing. Maybe Artie could teach me how to pray.

  I was almost grateful when he appeared a couple of hours later, freshly groomed. He called me down to the hotel garden.

  “I’ve spoken to people, here and in the United States, they know you weren’t involved. We just need time to convince the Brits to leave us out of it,” he said.

  “Do you trust whoever it is you’re speaking to?” I said.

  “Sometimes you have to show faith in people, Con, accept your own limitations and defer to your superiors. You can’t always know best about everything,” he said.

  “Unless you’re the Pope?” I said.

  “The Doctrine of Infallibility is rarely applied, except by people like Swansea. We know how things go wrong then, don’t we?” he said.

  Someone opened a window on the second floor. We both stopped and looked up. The window closed again.

  “So, what happens now? How long do I have before they tell you to hand me over?” I said.

  “How long? Take a look around you, this scene hasn’t changed in 500 years,” he said. “We won’t be hurried. You just take it easy, let me make arrangements with the civil authorities. Like you told me, ‘breathe in, breathe out, slow down, control’, remember?”

  Ferdy’s twinkle again, but he was on the button, from right here in this garden, the last 500 years might never have happened.

  “Hotel Columbus? Was he a guest here too?” I said.

  “I think he probably was,” Artie nodded. “It was the Palazzo of Cardinal Della Rovere, from a very important family, Columbus could easily have stayed here. You’re walking in the footsteps of many great men when you walk this garden, those corridors and halls inside. Who knows who else has looked up at that ceiling of yours? The Knights of the Holy Order of the Sepulchre used this building, you know. Crusaders, defending the Faith against Saladin’s Muslims. You followed in their steps over there too, really, didn’t you?” he said.

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll tell you about that sometime, but there’s something I need you to do right now, Artie, ok?” I said. “I want you to contact my wife, tell her I’m ok, not to worry. If I take the fall for this, let her know the truth. You’ve got the contacts to do that, haven’t you?”

  “I’m sure we can arrange that, Con. Better if you don’t try to contact her, of course. By the way, that cellphone the driver gave you only takes incoming calls. It’s blocked against outgoing calls,” he almost sounded apologetic.

  “Whatever, but I can’t hide out here forever,” I said. “I’m innocent as far as Swansea is concerned but, well, I’ll face the music, let them throw whatever they want at me. Like you said, sometimes you deserve to be humiliated, you only get what you deserve in the end.”

  A figure appeared behind me from an entrance to the garden from a side street. Artie looked over, almost nodded.

  “Sometimes I think we speak a different language,” he said. “I said put your faith in people, but be selective, try starting with your friends first.”

  “If I knew who my friends were, Artie. Anyway, people change, nobody’s who they used to be,” I said.

  Artie was heading for the side exit.

  “Just hold on, I’ll have news for you tomorrow. In the meantime, don’t be so hard on yourself, I’ve seen worse,” he said.

  “Fine. One thing before you go. I don’t have a dime. Any chance of lending me a few dollars?” I said.

  Artie took 20 euros from the inside of his perfectly tailored jacket. Don’t spend it all at once, he told me, before joining his friend out on the street.

  I walked around the garden twice, then followed Artie out the exit to a side street. I headed back along the Tiber, there would be an internet cafe with phone booths along here somewhere. A bus came along, stopped for six or seven locals. I stepped on the bus after them. No conductor, just a machine to punch your ticket. They all ignored it, so I did the same. I rode along for about a mile, until it became busier, then jumped off and crossed the river.

  This bridge was ancient and crossed to an island on the Tiber before reaching out to the other side. I slowed down behind a very pregnant young woman being helped along by her beaming husband and two green gowned medicos, going into the hospital, Ospedale San Giovanni Calibita Fatebenefratelli. Great name. The bridge led from the island to the other side. A small church sits at the edge of the island. I passed a young girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, crying without learnt inhibition, her ripe tears falling freely. Holding her hand, her mellow mother looked like she needed to cry but couldn’t. A funeral mass for someone they loved but would never see again was in progress. I wondered how Swansea’s rugby playing grandson would cope.

  A Polizia Alfa Romeo sat opposite the bridge, two officers in shirt sleeves and dark glasses didn’t feel the cold. They would have no reason to be interested in me. A street headed up to where the city centre must be. On one corner was a fortified building, with a manned security bunker. I kept going, saw this was a Synagogue. The street curved upwards and to the left, widening into a scene from Manhattan’s old Lower East Side. Kosher restaurants selling knoblewurst, matzo ball soup, noodle kugel, fried Jerusalem artichokes. Giggetto Kosher, La Taverna del Ghetto, Ba Ghetto. So Rome has a Jewish neighbourhood, no reason why not, just surprising when you only expect pasta and spaghetti.

  Past the restaurants and into a broad, modern shopping street. There, on the corner, an internet cafe with a sign in English “International Phone Calls”. I got a booth, called Rose, she wouldn’t have left for work yet. Ri
nging, don’t let it go to voice mail, just answer it. Then a voice.

  “Hello?”

  But not her voice.

  “Gallogly? What the fuck are you doing there?” I shouted.

  No answer, hushed voices, then Rose.

  “Con? Con, where are you? What’s happening?” she said.

  “I’m ok, I’m ok, don’t worry. What’s Gallogly doing there?” I said.

  “Con, what are you doing? I told you not to get involved! What’s going to happen?” she said.

  “It’s all mixed up, I don’t know what’s happening, but I’ll be ok, I’m just lying low until it’s all sorted out. But I phoned because I needed to hear your voice, I need to know you’re still there. I’m seeing things in my head again, hearing things. I don’t think I can do it on my own any more, I need you and young Con. But I phone and fucking Gallogly answers! What’s he doing there?”

  “Nothing. He says you’re in trouble. Look, Jack needs to speak to you, ok?” Rose said.

  “No, it’s fucking not ok! I want to come home and get my life back, you were right, I know that now!”

  “I don’t know anymore, Con, do you really think you could be content, just living here with us, like an ordinary family?” Rose said. “Listen, we’ll talk about it later, there’s a lot to think about right now. Here’s Jack,” she was gone.

  “Con, where are you now?” Gallogly said. “Duffin says you’re in trouble, you fucking whacked a cop over there?”

  I didn’t answer, I couldn’t. Rose didn’t know anymore. I slumped against the cold glass of the booth. Felt my heart sink, shrivel, turn inside out. I felt hollow inside. I didn’t deserve this. I hung up, I would see Gallogly sometime, maybe break his neck.

  I drifted back. I didn’t care what happened next. Just felt weary, had no purpose, no reason to keep struggling. Down past the Jewish restaurants. A tourist asked me for directions, in English. Didn’t answer, just kept walking.

  At the bottom of the Jewish street, I looked up and saw a plaque on the wall. Another memorial. It was in Italian, but I understood enough. Words like Nazisti, Auschwitz, 1943. Here, in a Jewish neighborhood, that was enough.