A History of Loneliness

by John Boyne

  I nodded. ‘My father knew Seán O’Casey,’ I told him.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Briefly. He acted in one of his plays.’

  ‘Have you read Ulysses, Odran?’ he asked me.

  ‘No, Holy Father.’

  ‘No, neither have I. Should I, do you think?’

  I thought about it. ‘It’s very long,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure I’d have the energy for it myself.’

  He laughed. ‘And Mr Haughey,’ he said. ‘What do you think of him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, Holy Father.’

  ‘Should I tell him you said that, the next time he calls? You know he’s phoned three times already and I’ve only been here a week.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t, Holy Father,’ I said. ‘He’d have me shot. Metaphorically speaking, of course.’

  He smiled. He seemed amused by me and I thought that if I could take his mind off the papers before him, then he might sleep better that night and perhaps that was part of my job: to ensure that he was not agitated before bedtime.

  ‘Of course,’ he said quietly after a long pause, ‘we have a problem with Ireland.’

  ‘A problem, Holy Father?’

  He nodded and massaged the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger. ‘Yes, Odran.’

  ‘May I ask what kind of problem?’

  He shook his head. ‘One that my predecessor chose to ignore. One that I intend to tackle. I have read some things that …’ He paused and sighed. ‘Things that make me wonder what kind of men are running the Church there. It is one of a hundred things that I must concern myself with, but I will attack it soon, I promise you that. And by God, I will put an end to it. In the meantime’ – he waved his hands over his papers – ‘there are these accounts to be sorted out.’

  ‘Did you ever visit Ireland, Holy Father? Before your elevation, I mean?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps some day. I would like to see Clonmacnoise and Glendalough. And the town where The Quiet Man was filmed. Where is that?’

  ‘In the west, Holy Father,’ I told him. ‘Somewhere near Ashford Castle.’

  ‘Did you ever see that film, Odran?’

  ‘I did, Holy Father.’

  ‘Seán Thornton and the Squire Danagher. And the little fellow on the horse, what was his name?’

  ‘Was it Barry Fitzgerald?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, but in the film.’

  ‘I can’t remember, Holy Father.’

  ‘I’ve seen that film a dozen times. You could make a strong case for it being the greatest film ever made. If I ever go to Ireland, I will make certain that I visit that town.’

  ‘Sure Maureen O’Hara would show you around herself,’ I said, smiling. ‘She lives in Dublin, I think.’

  He slapped a hand to his heart and gave a sigh, bursting out laughing. ‘I don’t know that I could stand it,’ he said. ‘Mary Kate Danagher? I wouldn’t know what to say to her. I would be like a tongue-tied schoolboy.’

  Lord, I wanted to sit down on the seat right next to him, phone down for a couple of Italian beers and talk into the night. I loved this man.

  ‘And what of your family?’ he asked me then. ‘You must miss them, being so far from home. Do you think of them?’

  ‘Every day, Holy Father.’

  ‘You have a large family?’

  ‘Just my mother and sister. Both in Dublin.’

  He nodded as he considered this. ‘Your father is dead then?’

  ‘Fourteen years now,’ I told him.

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘He drowned. On Curracloe beach in Wexford.’

  He raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Was he not a strong swimmer?’

  I shook my head and told him the truthful story of the summer of 1964 from start to finish. He listened without interruption.

  ‘We cannot understand why the world turns as it does,’ he said finally with an exhausted sigh. ‘Perhaps if I could see more clearly, if I was a wiser man, then I would prove more capable in this position.’

  ‘Do you miss Venice?’ I asked and now that great smile of his filled the room, as wide as it had been when I had invoked the name of the goddess O’Hara.

  ‘Ah, Venice!’ he said. ‘La Dominante! La Serenissima! If only the Vatican could be relocated three hundred miles north, then I think I might have more strength for the task ahead. If the view from my bedroom window was across the Piazza San Marco and not the Piazza San Pedro. If it was not the Tiber I smelled or the shouts of the tourists that I heard all day long, but the cries of the gondoliers as they made their way along the canals.’

  He shook his head sorrowfully and looked down at his papers once again and I took this as my cue to leave. I wished him a good night’s sleep and he waved me away, returning to his paperwork.

  ‘Odran, before you go,’ he said, ‘leave a note for my secretary that I want to see Signor Marcinkus in the morning.’

  ‘Signor Marcinkus?’ I asked; the name was unfamiliar to me.

  ‘The head of the Vatican Bank,’ he said. ‘And say that I will need at least an hour with him. There are many …’ He looked down and shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Just make sure that he comes to see me. And Odran?’

  ‘Yes, Holy Father?’

  ‘Michaeleen Óg,’ he said, smiling. ‘That’s who Barry Fitzgerald played. Michaeleen Óg Flynn.’

  And then he broke into a quiet song:

  ‘There was a wild Colonial Boy,

  Jack Duggan was his name.

  He was born and raised in Ireland,

  In a place called Castlemaine.

  He was his father’s only son,

  His mother’s pride and joy,

  And dearly did his parents love

  The wild colonial boy.’

  My obsession with the woman from the Café Bennizi came to a head towards the end of September. I no longer sat in my usual seat every afternoon with its narrow view of the dome of St Peter’s, watching as she cleared tables and served espressos. I no longer had to endure the contemptuous stares of her father, who, I know, would have confronted me long ago were it not for the clerical garb that I wore. However, I still spent most evenings following her home, keeping at a safe distance so she would not see me, waiting in the darkness of the Vicolo della Campana in case she came out on to the balcony again or removed her dress with her back to the window, as she had done once before.

  I do not know what I wanted from her exactly; it was not the obvious thing. Had there been an opportunity to pursue a romance with her, I don’t believe that I would have taken it. I was still as determined to be a priest as I had ever been; I was not looking for a way out or an excuse to leave, even at this late stage. No, it was simply a desperate desire to be around her, to look at her, to have her near me. I felt more alive when I was in her presence. She was so beautiful. The pangs of desire were in themselves like an addiction, one that I had not experienced before. And yet it did not make me look at other women in a yearning way; she did not awaken a dormant sexuality inside me. It was her, just her. Years later, when Jonas wrote Spiegeltent, I would recognize those same qualities in the feelings that the young narrator felt towards the musician in Sydney’s Hyde Park. The sensation that for the world to exist with such an object of beauty in it, and for that object to be unattainable, was the very sweetest kind of pain imaginable.

  At nights, I did not go back to my room and touch myself as I indulged in fantastical scenarios involving the two of us. I never dreamed about her, not a single time. But awake, alive, alert, I thought of her constantly, wanted to know where she was and what she was doing. Had I known her phone number, I might have called to hear her voice, then hung up, like an awkward teenager, when she answered. Had it been thirty years later, and a less civilized world, I might have attached myself to her digital presence to follow her life, her friendships, her relationships and activities through random sentences and spontaneously taken photographs.
I suppose today I would be called a stalker and it is true that I lived up to this word, following her from her café in the Piazza Pasquale Paoli, along the bridges and streets of Rome, towards her balcony.

  And then, on the third-to-last night of September, I made an error of judgement that still, more than three decades later, has the power to wake me in the night with the horror of it all.

  I had been held up in the Irish College later than usual that afternoon – a debate in our moral theology seminar had gone on tediously long – so rather than making my usual journey to the café and then following her home along the banks of the Tiber, I walked directly to the Vicolo della Campana and took up my usual spot, hiding in the shadows. Understand that I was so accustomed to living like this by now that I no longer questioned my behaviour; it was irrational and dangerous, of course, but it had become an addiction. She was a television programme, this woman. She was living her life for my pleasure before my eyes and even if I could not speak to her, I could watch and I could imagine. I felt a sense of ownership over her.

  She was already at home when I arrived. The lights were on in her rooms and I could hear her as she moved around. Typically, she would stay in on these mid-week evenings; her father would come home later and they would eat together, at which time I would have to leave to return to my duties in the Vatican. Tonight, however, she surprised me by exiting the building shortly after I arrived, and as she left, I wondered should I follow her – was she meeting a man? If so, who was he? And what would they do together? – but instead I found myself crossing the road and opening the unlocked door that led on to the street, stepping inside the cool foyer and looking around.

  I had never been here before and I felt a surge of adrenalin, such as a burglar must feel when after watching a home for a long time he finally breaks in. There was a small garden in the centre of the atrium with a fountain at its centre, a statue of a naked boy balanced atop, and I turned towards the wide stone staircase that led to each apartment before making my way up, keeping a clear idea in my head of where I was in relation to the street, so that I might know which was hers when I reached it. Happily, her door was built into an alcove so no one entering the lobby below could look up and see me, question what I was doing there. I put my hand, then my cheek, to the wood, listening for sounds from within, but all was quiet. What was I doing here? I didn’t know. I turned, almost laughing at my own madness, and then, on an impulse, I lifted the mat outside the door, wondering whether she might keep a spare key there, but no. I tried behind the hanging light outside, but there was nothing there either.

  Leave, I told myself. Leave, Odran. I turned, determined to make my way back down the stairs and out on to the street once again, when I noticed a heavy plant pot along the corridor, containing an oversized boxwood that looked badly in need of watering. I stared at it, swallowing nervously – I knew! – then walked towards it, spun it to the side and there it was, a single key, a spare key, hidden underneath. I lifted it, held it to the light; it was rusty and dirty from too long beneath the pot, the metal tattooed with soil, water and mildew, but when I inserted it into the lock of her apartment, it turned easily, the door swung open and I stepped inside.

  My heart beat fast inside my chest as I looked around. I could scarcely believe that I was here, that I had behaved in such an irrational manner, but put any concerns to the back of my mind. I felt more alive at that moment than I ever had in my twenty-three years of life. Than I have ever felt since. To my right was a small kitchen and I saw that she had left an oversized saucepan of water boiling on a low heat. Should I turn it off, I wondered. But no, it was only water, it would evaporate and the pot would burn, but no harm could come to her apartment. I moved further down the corridor, passing a living room on my left and then a bathroom before reaching the bedroom, which was surprisingly large and led to the balcony where I had seen her so many times over these last few months. I stepped inside cautiously; her day clothes were strewn on the bed and the lockers on both sides held an array of items: half-drunk glasses of water, paperback novels, lipstick, an overflowing ashtray and a man’s comb.

  The bedroom was enormous; it was as if two rooms had been converted into one by the removal of a central wall. An oak wardrobe stood flat against the wall facing the bed – an antique, perhaps handed down through generations of her family – and I opened it, running my hands down the fine silk of a trilogy of nightgowns hanging within, their femininity overwhelming me as I pulled one towards me and pressed it to my face, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply; the lingering scent, so alien to me, was dizzying. It felt like being introduced to a stranger but feeling that somehow you had always known them, that their existence was hidden deep within your soul, a secret even to you. I closed my eyes and thought that I could happily smother myself inside her clothes.

  Of course this was a sensory experience unlike any I had ever known. And I was engaged in an act of criminality that was as exciting to me as it was novel; perhaps that’s why I failed to hear her key in the door or her footsteps in the corridor beyond, the sweep of her shoes as she kicked them off against the wooden floor beneath her bare feet, the sound the eggs made – the eggs that she had just bought in the market at the end of the road – as she set them in a basket on the kitchen table. Or why I did not hear her walking down the corridor towards me? It was only as she gasped and I turned around to see her standing in the doorway that I realized how stupid I had been, the risks that I had taken. I stared at her, the blood draining from my face, and she stared right back, showing no fear, her eyes aflame with anger. The memory of how she roared at her father at the Café Bennizi flashed through my mind.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, the words catching in my throat. I threw her nightdress back inside the wardrobe and stepped towards her; she did not rear back in fright but marched towards me furiously, causing me to retreat instead.

  ‘How did you get in here?’ she repeated, raising her voice then releasing a wave of Italian invective that I did not understand.

  ‘The key,’ I said. ‘The spare key. I guessed where it was.’

  ‘What is it you want?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I don’t want anything. I promise. I don’t mean to hurt you.’

  She smiled, a look of contempt in her eyes, and shook her head. ‘You think I’m the one in danger?’ she asked me.

  ‘I’ll leave.’

  ‘I know you,’ said the woman, pointing a finger at me. ‘You sat every day for so long, watching me.’

  ‘It was stupid of me—’

  ‘And you follow me,’ she added.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ I said, trying to brush past her, but she pushed me back hard against the wall. The force of the blow winded me for a moment.

  ‘Do you think I don’t see you when I’m walking home?’ she asked, sneering at me. ‘And then at night …’ She nodded towards the balcony. ‘Do you think I do not know that you are down there?’

  I looked down at the ground, mortified by my actions; I couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘You knew?’ I said.

  ‘Of course I knew,’ she said. ‘You don’t even have the sense to hide yourself well.’

  ‘Why did you never say anything?’

  ‘Because I was laughing at you.’

  I stared at her. ‘Laughing?’

  ‘Of course. There’s something so amusing about you, don’t you think? Something pathetic. A grown man – a virgin I expect, yes? – standing on a street corner like a prostitute, staring up at a woman he can’t even talk to. I found it funny. We lay in bed, Alfredo and I, laughing at you.’

  ‘Alfredo?’

  ‘We work together. You know him. He laughs at you too.’

  Not her father then; her lover.

  ‘Did you think I would be interested in you?’ she asked. ‘A peeping Tom who likes to spy on me?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, desperate to leave but somehow unab
le to simply run past her and make my way out the door. ‘I’ll go. I’ll stop.’

  ‘What is it you want?’ she asked, stepping closer to me so that I could smell coffee on her breath.

  ‘I don’t want anything.’

  ‘Of course you do. Everyone does. Say it.’

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ I repeated. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She was wearing a light summer dress, barely more than a thin skin above her own. ‘Is this it?’ she asked, her face close to mine now. ‘Is this what you want? You think I would give this to a boy like you?’ she asked.

  I felt the room start to grow dark around me as she came closer, her fingers on my face.

  Are you a dirty boy, Odran, are you?

  There he was; he was standing next to me now, his foul breath in my ear, his arm around my shoulder, pulling me to him, his hands tugging at my pants, reaching inside. I pressed my hands against my ears. He was there. He was all over me.

  I’d say you are. I’d say you get up to all sorts in this room, do you, Odran? Late at night. When you think no one can hear you. Are you a dirty boy, Odran, are you? You can tell me, come on.

  The door opened and Alfredo walked in, his eyes opening wide as he stared at us, and I stumbled past him, down the corridor, out the door, tripping and almost falling down the stairs, before throwing myself into the street beyond and running as quickly as I could away from the Vicolo and the scene of my degradation.

  It was what I suppose could be called a long dark night of the soul. Eight o’clock came and went, the very latest that I was supposed to be back at the Vatican, but I barely noticed the time. It could have been midday, it could have been midnight for all the difference it made to me. I wandered over bridges, in and out of streets, circled piazzas like an inebriate without thought for where I was going. I might have been in any city for all the awareness I had of my environment. And yet I remember the churches, for somehow they called out to me as I passed them, beckoning me home. I walked as far south as San Crisogono before turning back in the direction of the Franciscans’ home at Santi Apostoli; I passed the basilica of Santa Maria in Via, where they say that an image of the Virgin was discovered in the water, walked across the Piazza della Rotonda, where tourists congregated every day to enter the Pantheon, before resting with my head in my hands outside the Doric columns of Santa Maria della Pace near the Piazza Navona. I felt my spirits dip as low as they had ever been outside Sant’Agnese in Agone, then rise to unexpected levels of euphoria at San Salvatore in Lauro, before falling again, slipping again, diving again as I passed back across the Ponte Sant’Angelo and saw the dome of St Peter’s basilica rise accusingly before me.