No Country: A Novel

by Kalyan Ray

  “Maeve?” I asked her.

  “I will always be with you, Papa Brendan,” she said.

  “I know,” I responded, wonder filling my mind at the words of this child. I looked over her head and now understood.

  There, on the captain’s chair, sat Mr. O’Flaherty—as he had through the night—head tilted as if he were still reading the book on his lap, calm and dead.

  • • •

  ALL ABOUT US the furor grew until it turned into an unbearable cacophony. I held Maeve in my arms. Through a veritable forest of swaying arms, swinging pieces of clothing, amid logs lit and smoking like impromptu flambeaux, the pig snorting and cavorting underfoot, I finally saw it: a large ship, with all its sails bulging, bearing straight for us.

  The Beatrix could not get close to our shelf of ice. When they lowered a boat, there had been a general stampede to the edge where they all stood screaming, though there was now no need to do so. Maeve and I stayed beside Mr. O’Flaherty on his chair. The pig kept going back and forth, snorting, running and wheeling back, unable to make up its mind.

  The ship was Dutch, flying its flag, and its passengers, well fed and curious, lined the deck, watching. Among us, many were pushing to get on the rowboat, but the officer in charge, a small, pink man in a blue coat with two rows of shining brass buttons waved them back. He chose the women with young children first. As they pushed off towards the ship, the men began to get restive. Were they going to take us all? Just the women and children? It was a slow procedure getting the women—weakened by hunger, with children clinging to them—up the rope ladder.

  The captain now sent two rowboats, and he himself came out in the second boat. As he made his way to us, at the middle of the ledge, I noticed how long his shadow was on the white expanse. Maeve, held the blanket around herself, and with great composure, said, “Good day to you, sir.”

  An enormous smile broke over his face, revealing a gold tooth which glinted momentarily in the sun. I struggled to my feet and steadied myself, holding the edge of the table. He was an immensely tall man, with a golden beard, eyebrows like gilded wires, and brown eyeballs as large as coins. He spoke in a strange lisp. It was clear that he thought of our threesome as a grandfather, father, and child. We are that, I thought and did not offer any explanation. I did not have any Dutch, and given his English, I doubt I could explain much.

  He beckoned Maeve to come, but she did not want to leave my side. Observing this, he gestured discreetly at Mr. O’Flaherty, unsure whether I realised that he was dead. I simply nodded my head to indicate that I already knew.

  “Komm,” he said to me and led the way. I held Maeve’s hand and followed him, sensing the urgency. The rowboats came back quickly for the last trip. The short officer was also there: Meinherr Hoogstraaten, who spoke fluent if broken English, lightly accented. He gestured at Mr. O’Flaherty. I stepped aside with him, and explained what I wanted. Then I took Maeve and boarded the rowboat.

  Hot black tea was being handed to us as we came on board. One small piece of bread had been given to each, and curiously enough, a tiny lump of salt.

  “Captain DeLeeuw asked me to tell for you,” said Officer Hoogstraaten, “welcome on board. You eat this little bread and tea only now, because your stomach needs to get used. The salt help your health. Don’t throw away.”

  On the deck behind us, snorting after its meal, was the pig, which had also been rescued and seemed to have chosen us, especially Maeve, as his companions. We were, we had just been told, only two days’ sail from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and from there it was but a short way to Grosse Isle, Quebec, where the Beatrix would disembark us.

  From its deck, as the Beatrix sailed away, I began to discern the shape of the great white mass from where we stood: Its height, its great level top, and the steepness that led to it, was exactly Ben Bulben itself. And below this floating and evanescent Ben Bulben, in the now deserted and temporary sloping valley, on a chair facing the open sea sat Mr. O’Flaherty.

  On his lap lay the book I had seen him read so often in my school days, his battered copy of Cicero. I had picked up the book to glance at what he had been reading: et ex vita ita discedo tamquam ex hospitio, non tamquam e domo. Commorandi enim natura devorsorium nobis, non habitandi dedit. I put the book back on his lap. I have often thought of these words in later years.

  Hand in hand Maeve and I stood by the deck rail as long as we could see Mr. O’Flaherty on his chair, until the receding Atlantic withdrew him from our lives. She was too young yet to understand the words our schoolmaster, Padraig’s and mine, had been reading: And I quit life as I would an inn, not a home, for nature has given us lodging for a sojourn, not a permanent residence.

  • • •

  HAVING BEEN RESCUED from certain death, we should have thrived on this hospitable ship. But almost a dozen of our rescued shipmates could not get up even for their meals the next day. Their febrile faces pale, all dangers seemingly past, they began to falter from something within themselves. How strange it is, I thought, that had our goal been the far end of the new continent, these doughty ones would have trudged doggedly on, across hard mountains. If the aim had been the Pacific edge, they would begin to wither as they approached that far coast. I wondered if I were making a fool’s observation, or whether we are all allotted the full measure of journeys that will exactly wear us out.

  I could not help but wonder every so often where Padraig could have gone. He might have gone heedlessly to see England or France perhaps, but why, in heaven’s name, would he not send word! He knew surely that Brigid would return. And what of his mother? Nothing could ever come between Padraig and his ma. Nothing, I thought with a shiver, but death. If he is alive, he will have a heartbreaking journey when he thinks to return. Brigid gone, Mrs. Aherne dead, his world swept away, and he not even knowing all that—or his own daughter.

  • • •

  A LARGE AND twittering flock of birds came winging, and rested on the masts and halyards. I could not tell you how pleasing and strange at once this felt. It was as if I were Noah of the old times. I observed the gabble and clucking of the great seabirds, ogling quietly from the riggings high overhead, the oozy splat of their guano, their yawping cry when I could see their pink open mouths. Behind the masts was a sky frizzled with clouds, and the morning breaking like milk over the waters. It seemed inconceivable that it was the same sky I had looked at the other night, with the stab and twinkle of the stars overhead.

  I cannot say how many times I opened my mouth to speak to Mr. O’Flaherty, and then remembered. But Maeve was full of questions at every turn, and all that I could, I answered.

  The weather turned in the evening. The fever and pitch of the waves brought back all the dread memories. The strong Mr. Sweeney was stricken by the fever. Perhaps the first time I saw him, big-boned and mighty, carrying his poor wife cradled in his arms, his innards might have been turning mouldy with the eating of black potatoes, boiled or no. He had been taken with a sharp turn, and his great frame now looked hollowed out by the misery, yet he laughed at my look of concern and said, “I’ll eat that pig yet.”

  As we were nearing the dreaded Mingan Rocks which lie at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, we heard a commotion on deck. Maeve went in a flash—and there was the pig, cornered by three Dutch sailors who had begun by pestering it, and when that obstreperous beast snorted and turned the corner on them, were determined to make sausage of him. But Maeve’s shrill protestation must have reached Mr. Hoogstraaten’s ears, for he appeared in his nightshirt, but hat in place. He said something rapidly and angrily to the sailors, who slunk away. Then Officer Hoogstraaten told Maeve in his stilted English that her pig was safe, and he was guaranteeing its safe passage. At that moment, the enormous stud pig became the child’s property, and no one did challenge it.

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING we saw Canada. The land unfolded before our enchanted eyes, richly wooded and green. The northern bank seemed more rugged
, but both sides remarkable for their beauty, with a sweet slope visible along the southern bank. Every once in a while a church steeple rose from the surrounding green, white farmhouses, and there was a palpable sense of peace. In front of us and behind, the wide and majestic river gleamed under a sky of sunshine.

  From the deck I saw what looked like charred timber floating past. Then I realized these were cadavers consigned to the river. The bodies looked wasted and contorted, utterly naked. I made some excuse to draw Maeve away, and she quietly said, “I do not want to see all this.” How much had she seen, I wondered, and how much resilience are we born with?

  We had reached the island where we were going to be quarantined. This was where all the Irish went. I could hear people speak the name Grosse Isle in tones of dread. The Dutch passengers would stay on board, to be taken directly to the City of Quebec, where they would be received in a very different manner.

  Some of my fellow Irish were beginning to excoriate the captain, but it was hardly generous to hold him at fault, forgotting that without him we would all have perished. His Dutch passengers had become alarmed with all the fever deaths, and had insisted that now the sea rescue was over, we Irish were to be put on land at once.

  So we arrived, Maeve and I, accompanied by her pig and little else. The officer, Meinherr Hoogstraaten, had stepped over to us before we disembarked and spoken very formally to Maeve.

  “I would like you to this doll have,” he said gravely. “Is something from Delft, nice place.” With that he handed a small figure, a doll-like object, to Maeve. Then he bowed. Maeve took it from him without shyness and coyness. She bowed back as formally and said, “Thank you kindly, sir. You have been a grand gentleman to Papa Brendan and me.” She shook his hand very properly and returned to me.

  On shore with Maeve and the pig, I got a better look at the figure. It had the exquisite porcelain face of a white-haired old man, with a genial half-smile, dressed in quaint Dutch clothes; on his feet were wooden clogs. But the face, the posture, had a familiar, unmistakable likeness.

  “He is very like Mr. O’Flaherty,” said Maeve.

  • • •

  THE DECREPIT LANDING dock stood on long legs as unsteady as any seasick man’s. Around it swirled swollen straw mattresses discarded overboard, human ordure, and other putrid matter. One ship, obviously from Ireland, was waiting to unload its human cargo. I noticed with horror a sailor lowering a bucket into this filthy Lethe for an impatient group on deck who were obviously at the extremity of thirst.

  We were the talk of Grosse Isle. Our time on the iceberg had made us famous. But as long as I live I shall think of this island as the native place of Death itself. The isle lay in the middle of the St. Lawrence River, damp and rank, its greenery extending down to the water itself. In the interior, on higher ground, a church building was out of bounds. Although we were not allowed to step off the perimeter of the quarantine, men from Quebec came to ogle the strange and sickly Irish as at a zoo.

  Beyond the rickety landing dock were two long sheds which housed a series of bunks. No fire or any such provision had been made. In dismal rows, people lay in different stages of their journey to death, off ship after ship from Ireland.

  One of the first men to meet us was an Anglican priest who gave Maeve an apple. Alan Chisholm was a Scotsman who had come to Canada many years ago, as a child. He had a thin, ruminative face and a shy smile, and was so disarmingly gentle that I wished for more of his kind among our priests, with their hectoring rant of sin and damnation.

  Mr. Chisholm told me that the hale lying among the sick in the sheds quickly fell ill. This was simply spoken, an observation. I know an intelligent man by his quiet talk and had learnt to listen, and so I resolved for us to lie at the far long end of the second shed, away from the crowd. There were rows of empty bunks between us and them. I soon understood the reason for this crowding when they brought in a small cauldron of soup. They began distributing it from that end, and it was gone before we got near it.

  Maeve and I tried to sleep while the pig went off to root somewhere but came back soon. It seemed to have realized that if it was captured out of our sight, it would end up cooked and eaten, and its best chance of survival was to put itself under the patronage of our Maeve. We woke after a fitful and hungry slumber. Mr. Chisholm appeared, tending to the gravely ill. By the time he made his way to us, it was past noon.

  A naturally reticent man, he had the habit of a half-smile and a pursing of his lips before he spoke. “You would not take it amiss if I offered you a piece of bread?” he said.

  “Sir,” I joked grimly, “you might ask me if I would be offended to find a piece of gold stuck to my shoe. Introduce us to this piece of bread, if you will.”

  From the large pocket of his old-fashioned peacoat, he took out a brown packet which held two thick slices of brown bread with a bit of butter between them, for he had realized we had not had a crumb overnight. The pig stirred and sat up with a lively show of interest, much like a dog at a supper table.

  “Merry Christmas,” Mr. Chisholm said, for so it was, and Maeve and I ate the kind Anglican pastor’s bread, the first morsel I had on this land.

  “Are you a farming man, Mr. McCarthaigh?” he asked me.

  “Nay, sir,” I said between chewing the bread, “not much of one. I used to be a schoolteacher.”

  “Is this your pig, Miss Maeve?” asked Mr. Chisholm.

  “No, sir. He likes us for company because most people want to eat him,” said Maeve.

  “Ah,” said Mr. Chisholm, who did not have the look of a pig dealer at all, in spite of this line of talk. I thought he was making small talk. “Tomorrow I will ask my friend Mr. Josiah Braithwaite to come. You may find him interesting,” he said.

  “Any friend of yours, Mr. Chisholm,” I said cordially, “will be welcome at our residence.” I realized my humour was being affected by my sense of despair. In the rising fog, I wondered how long it would be before Maeve and I would fall prey to the miasma.

  • • •

  MR. JOSIAH BRAITHWAITE WAS an enormous man, pink and rotund, with large upturned nostrils. He twinkled his eyes at Maeve and said, “Fine Fine Fine Pig.”

  “Good morning, sir,” responded Maeve.

  Mr. Braithwaite tickled the pig and ran his hand on its haunches, and made snuffling sounds, while the pig wriggled with delight. After a point I was not sure who was making which noise. And to cap the absurdity, Mr. Chisholm and I spoke calmly about the weather. Mr. Braithwaite continued in his adoration of the pig; he looked amazingly similar to the creature, although he was in human clothes and enormous shoes, the bottoms of which I could see, since he was kneeling.

  Abruptly Mr. Braithwaite, still kneeling, addressed us. “I would . . . ahem . . . I would like to offer you a Happy Proposition.” For an absurd moment I thought Mr. Braithwaite was going to ask my permission to marry the pig.

  “My proposition is: Let Me Have Your Pig.”

  “He belongs to himself,” Maeve asserted.

  “Ah, I see,” he said, turning ceremoniously, and addressed the child. “Miss Maeve, I would very much, very much, like the company of the Pig.”

  “Will you eat him?” Maeve asked apprehensively. “Everybody wants to.”

  “Eat him!” Mr. Josiah Braithwaite was clearly shocked. “Eat him!” he repeated, as if it were unspeakable heresy. “Indeed not, miss. I will have him breed a magnificent stock, a great and notable line.” His eyes were staring into the middle distance, his nostrils flared, and his voice became dreamy, contemplating the glorious dynasty. “He will be the first, the Paterfamilias of an illustrious breed.”

  Maeve and I listened, fascinated. But Mr. Braithwaite descended abruptly from this vision of porcine glory and spoke briskly to me. “I have a farm to the south, beside Lake Champlain. I was going to leave today, but Mr. Alan Chisholm told me that I would meet the Great Pig if I accompanied him here. Hence . . .” he broke off and clapped his hands in joy, “my propositio
n is, let me, let me have the Pig. And in return, I will take you both to my farm. You said to Mr. Chisholm that you wished to find employment, Mr. McCarthaigh. Well, you can work for me on the farm or work the ledgers—for my brother Jeremiah takes care of our dairy business, which supplies the cities. As you wish, as you wish,” he said, “but I’d say, try our farm life for a while, and you will see for yourself how your pig prospers there.” He stopped suddenly in full flow of words. “We leave tomorrow.”

  “Shall we get permission to leave so soon?” I asked.

  “You could break for freedom with your pig,” suggested Mr. Braithwaite, his eyes shining with adventure. He snorted with glee at the idea.

  “No, no,” interceded Mr. Chisholm with alacrity, “I will speak to Dr. Douglas immediately. With Mr. Braithwaite’s guarantee of employment, there should be no problem about your departure.”

  “I have little experience on a farm,” I said candidly to Mr. Braithwaite, “but I can do the figures, if accounting is what you have need for.”

  “Can you, can you indeed?” he sang out. “The figures keep me up nights and put me off my food. Will you do all the accounts?”

  I sat up most of the night, tense and uneasy. All this seemed almost too good to be true. But some providence had reached out and saved us from utter ruin or shipwreck. From the time the Dutch ship arrived out of the ocean’s horizon to this present moment, I was amazed how much like a child—like Maeve—I had regarded the world, and not in my usual cogitative manner. The events were unfolding as if in a child’s storybook, as she turns the pages and finds on them a benevolent golden-haired giant, an elf-like man bearing gifts, a deadly island sojourn ended by an absurd man’s obsession with a pig. I wondered if I should rub my eyes.

  I looked at the sleeping child beside me and thought how this child would grow up one day find her mate, birth children. So would they, in turn. This human pyramid, at whose apex Maeve now lay asleep, increasing with each generation would not, otherwise, come into existence—and this earth cumulatively and surely—would be a very different place. It was no country I was destined to see in its entirety, in my lifespan. But all this would not have come to pass—were it not for a series of mischance, fortunate meetings, unlikely escapes, and, for the nonce, a pig.