by André Costa
A whole new civilization immersed in social media, David concluded, is doomed to a dramatic decline in its reflective thinking, both in daily life and concerning global issues. “Could this be the rise of a new Dark Age exactly at a time when urgent global challenges galvanize us to see ourselves as inseparable parts of the whole?”
David was fully aware that had he taken to the streets in his current state of mind, he would probably have served as no more than a harbinger of the apocalypse. As a result, his self-imposed exile became even more rigorous from then on. “Humanity does not need one more pessimist,” he told himself, recalling his last conversation with Jack.
Furthermore, he also recalled the letter—given to him by Dr. Ecklund—whose last paragraph read:
“Father Callaghan, I may know too much of anthropology to believe in humankind. I’m skeptical of the idealists and, sorry, I tend to keep a safe distance from those who act on the behalf of a God. But why does science strive to discover the most straightforward relation that unites all known facts, seeking a basic formula that unifies all physical laws? Because science believes in the simplicity, stability, and unity of all nature. Thanks to Jack, it has become increasingly clear to me that science must, therefore, agree with the old mystical belief in the existence of a cosmic order rather than absurd chaos. Does it make me a believer? God, forgive me!”
“Maybe Gretha was right, and Mr. Elliot was indeed a dangerous man,” David laughed, folding back the letter.
As his musings directed his gaze once more to the bookshelf, he was surprised to notice the presence of a familiar volume. Among the series of self-help titles was a pompously bound edition of the Hebrew Bible. This fact alone was not new; he remembered the exact position the book had stood in for years. What shocked David, however, was his observation that the Bible, in fact, rested at ease amidst the neighboring publications. He realized that it was indeed the earliest self-help work ever published.
What Father Callaghan found troubling was that the work fit in so well with the aesthetics and literary content of his mother’s bookshelf and he hastened to rescue it, giving the Bible a most dignified lodging on the piano, among the bells and close to the oratory.
Despite the rescue mission, David felt increasingly guilty. His mother might have been right, after all: the Bible and its companions did seem to sing together—though not in unison—the same chant. Adding to that, Marie´s anthropological view of its content now fed his demons atrociously. His mood could not have shrunk an inch more, but they did. The whole script was a disaster, he concluded.
Chapter II
It might have been a week or so. David no longer kept track of the passing of days and hours. The fact was that one morning—and it was definitely morning since he had endured long hours of sleeplessness before the first light snuck in from behind the curtains—he felt claustrophobic and breathless. Maybe the amount of information consumed on human decadence was too overwhelming. Perhaps David had been unaware of the physical effects of self-imprisonment.
Half an hour later, unshaved and wearing black sunglasses, he was on his way to the town center. It was only a few blocks away, and he managed to wrap every step in a liturgical movement that reverenced the surroundings. As he walked, he focused on paying tribute to trees, rocks, animals, and even to familiar faces.
He thought that observing human behavior so strictly might cause him to no longer identify with his own race. Him, the observer, could not be the object of observation. This presumption, however, did not follow him to the next quarter.
It was time to throw in the towel: a cup of hot chocolate with chocolate cake at Marguerite’s. The sinful overdose was one hell of a way to numb the demons. It so happened that at that very moment inside the prestigious café, Elizabeth O’Brien was seated at a corner table with three well-known ladies from the parish council.
David had voluntarily left his exile, but he had not weighed up the consequences. He walked over to the ladies’ table and economically greeted them. Elizabeth jumped off her seat, kissed the young priest on both cheeks and made sure his passage did not go unnoticed. The other ladies accepted David’s timid approach and just smiled back; their countenance burning in curiosity. Then he moved to an empty spot near the entrance and settled in. There was something magical about the fact that wherever he went, people—like the big cats of the Kalahari—were not indifferent to him.
In the inquisitive ambiance, David could not avoid glancing at the old ladies from time to time. He was sure that they reciprocated the gesture far more often. Once his gaze met Elizabeth’s, who smiled and interpreted the coincidence as an invitation. In a few seconds, she was sitting next to him.
“My God, how exciting it is to finally see you again,” she said.
“Likewise... it has been just about a month, but you never left my thoughts... or my prayers,” he said.
“Oh, David, look at you. You’re so much thinner... I’m glad you’re back! We miss your beautiful face at the altar. You’re returning to Church soon, aren’t you?”
“The plants in my garden are very well cared for, Elizabeth, and I’m very grateful,” David said after a few unmet glances.
“I saw that you’ve been improving the garden as well...” Elizabeth giggled.
“Improving? Not at all… I made some changes to keep myself busy. In fact, we both did, and it’s as if we’ve been having an interesting dialogue through the plants.”
Elizabeth now burst into laughter.
“I never thought we were having a chat through your garden; I’d surely have paid more attention to it. But since this is the first chance I get for a conversation, I need to know when I should return St. Samantha’s relic.”
“Oh, please, don’t! For the time being, it’s in much better hands…”
The dialogue went on a cat-and-mouse trajectory, frustrating them both. At some point, David realized that he owed Elizabeth an explanation, not for her religious matters, but for the many hours she had devoted to his physical and emotional well-being.
“My sweet Elizabeth, please understand that I love you, and it hurts me dearly that I cannot fully answer all your questions, but believe me, I carry the same frustration,” David murmured under the scrutinizing glances of the ladies at the table in the corner.
He knew he was exposing himself by allowing the president of the pastoral council to interrogate him in public, but she was also his dear friend, part of what remained of his affective family. At one point, David considered stating unequivocally that he had no intention of immediately returning to the priesthood, but he decided against it due to the crumbliness of his conviction.
The barrage of questions he would not and could not please became unbearable, so he said goodbye to Elizabeth and the ladies, leaving behind a half-eaten piece of chocolate cake. He stepped out into the fresh air and decided to walk to the Old Boys’ to surprise his uncle. When he arrived, Buckley was already preparing his establishment for a long evening with dream-gatherers. This was how David had nicknamed the regulars, whose ears took turns listening to their own repeated stories.
“Thanks for stopping by,” Buckley said, placing a box of beer bottles on the counter and gesturing for David to sit on one of the bar stools.
“If it’s any consolation, Uncle, I haven’t told anyone about my experience in Africa yet.”
“Well, if you kept it even from your loyal followers, then I think it would be best to close the bar and be all ears,” Buckley said with a smile.
“No need. I’ll be brief and to-the-point.”
Generally pragmatic and blunt in his analysis, Buckley, on this rare occasion, wished for exactly the opposite. He hoped that his nephew would describe every detail of his recent experience, especially the mystery that had led to his fast return.
“I know it’s your way, so let’s be straightforward. I’m looking for a job, Uncle John.
Can I work for you?”
The question seemed simple, but the devil loves simple questions because it drags a multitude of others with it, involving everything and everyone to the point of disharmony and conflict. John Buckley’s eyes threatened to pop out of his head, but he made every effort to compose himself and focus on the question.
“It’s up to you, David. There will always be a place for you here, especially with your damn good cooking skills. I just don’t see any room for Father Callaghan” said Buckley, bursting into laughter as unexpected as his nephew’s question. “This is a profane temple by nature, son.”
“I’m not going to work in a cassock, Uncle, and I really would prefer to remain in the more private kitchen environment,” he said with a restrained smile. “For a long time, you’ve been in need of sharing the task of chef with someone; plus, the menu deserves to be updated. But I won’t mess with the soups…”
“Whatever happened to you in Africa, David, I see that it still has power over you. Then it’s probably best if you stay close to me; I’m what’s left of your family, and I’ll keep an eye on you,” Buckley said, reaching out to touch his nephew’s shoulder.
Although David rejoiced at his uncle’s warm welcome to the idea, he was not surprised. John Buckley was known for receiving surprising news and turning it into an ordinary matter. He had the gift of making any subject a trivial fact. Perhaps it was a self-defense mechanism of those whose profession required cleaning tables that were stained daily by human folly and drama.
From that encounter onwards, David, at least in appearance, became another person. His body made peace with the hours and the calendar. He woke up early, a little before six every morning, and went running for an hour down St. Mary’s Road to Assumpta Park at the edge of the town. On the way back home, he bought fresh bread and from time to time a piece of his favorite chocolate cake. After a shower and breakfast, he spent half an hour at the grocery store, before going to the Old Boys’ with arms laden with ingredients to meet the dietary needs of his customers. He followed this script religiously six days a week and rested on Sundays.
Due to his new assignment, he unconsciously dropped the daily habit of monitoring the behavior of social media users. In his spare time, he could now be found reading literary classics and meditating. The latter, Jack’s legacy, became a daily habit, practiced during his afternoon breaks at work, before rush hour. People would spot him on the bench next to the stone bridge leading to the front yard of the Immaculate Conception Church and assume that he was either lost in prayer or asleep.
It should be said that David had also been attending church, but not Mass. Instead, he was a frequent visitor of the confessional on Thursday mornings. The first of his visits had been the most time-consuming since every sin had a backstory. The breaking of his vow of chastity was undoubtedly the most difficult one to talk about. Yet the difficulty lay not in the plot itself, but rather in the fact that his soul refused to acknowledge the error, which would render the grace of forgiveness impossible. With no absolute regret, David tried to obtain a circumstantial and impractical exoneration from his colleague.
“Father, I believe that my sin is that my conscience recognizes the mistake of my carnal relation with the young lady, but my soul does not feel the same way. Thus, I’d rather ask God to forgive my soul, and have mercy.”
This particular use of confessional logic seemed to have yielded some results, since the Thursday mornings that followed became a mere bureaucratic and expeditionary religious exercise.
For the most part, his spiritual life was cultivated in the pub’s kitchen, a fifty-square-foot area that David shared with two assistants, old furniture, a myriad of utensils, a reliable stove, and an inconvenient freezer. While peeling, chopping, slicing and dicing, and frying, baking, boiling and grilling, David focused his mind entirely on the movements of his hands, thereby perfecting his craft. As the days went by, he realized that his fingers’ choreography were indeed an uninterrupted form of meditation., freeing his mind from past and future concerns. And soon the senses of smell and taste joined the sense of touch as he sampled the dishes before they were served.
There, in the small kitchen, he was present, complete, and satisfied. And the Old Boys’ was the only bar in Newcastle West to offer a complete menu, from lunch to the renowned evening soups. At its best, it rivaled good local restaurants—which sometimes drew the attention of authorities concerned about a possible infringement of the commercial nature of Buckley’s establishment.
The prosaic, non-legal justification for such a busy kitchen was that the burly owner, who lived alone, devoted himself entirely to his clients and therefore needed to dine permanently at the pub. So why not extend the meals to the guests, he thought one day. His taste for multiple types of food later explained the extravagant menu.
Buckley was as yet unaware that the new chef planned to dissociate the list of meals from his demanding stomach, making the menu much leaner and thematic. David had, however, full autonomy in the kitchen and decided to attract the particular interest of tourists visiting the historical and commercial center of the town, while continuing to serve his stubborn costumers soup in the evening.
“Thematic menu?” Buckley was surprised.
“Irish! So don’t worry, Uncle, potatoes and pork will always be there.”
The new menu David proposed included at least five traditional Gaelic dishes. The most popular soon became the “boxty,” a kind of potato cake; “colcannon,” a dish made from cabbage with potatoes, butter, and milk; the “drisheen,” a black pudding made with sheep’s blood, milk, salt, and fat; and the “barmbrack,” a bread baked with spices and fruit, served with coffee or tea between meals. The initial success was extraordinary, and it did not take long before John Buckley suggested extending the menu to the evenings. Aware that the extra work would compromise his meditation break, David refused.
With his hands busy and his mind immersed in a continuous process of detoxication, Father Callaghan did not realize that the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. He lived from shift to shift and was perhaps the citizen in Newcastle West who paid most attention to the rising winds, the changes in temperature and humidity, the beauty of the dried leaves, the morning fog, and the increasing waves of cold. For David, Christmas did not come; it was always there. And so, it continued long after all the presents had been unwrapped, the last carol sung, and the baubles, lights, and mistletoes had been taken down.
Chapter III
David woke up on the morning of May 22, 2015, with two significant events awaiting him. The first was entirely predictable, but the second he could not have imagined even if a flock of birds overlapped his way. Deprived of the fortune-telling power of a shaman or a druid, the morning had indeed come out unsuspiciously. And after the first routine hours of running and breakfast, he went to a polling station. It was finally time to take part in the referendum in which citizens throughout the country would decide for or against adding to the Constitution of Ireland the following text: “Marriage can be contracted, in accordance with the law, by two people, without distinction of sex.”
On his way to the ballot box, he thought about the long emotional distance that separated him from the local debate and remembered his timid participation in it prior to his escape to Africa. He voted out of a sense of civic duty, feeling neither enthusiasm nor apathy. His thoughts floated around religious dogmas, but also metaphysics, Christian animism, Jack, Marie’s lips, and quantum physics. His reasoning had begun to become inadvertently holistic, and he eventually voted with his mind fixed on Michael Duane. If it had been allowed, and in honor of his old friend, David would have cast two votes into the ballot box.
The day quickly resumed its usual routine without much effort. It was indeed a busy Friday at the pub; he worked hard and had no opportunity or interest to keep up with the results of the referendum. Toward the middle of the afte
rnoon, with the lunch crowd still filling the house, David was called to explain what “colcannon” was to a couple of Scandinavian tourists. A simple request he was used to, and yet the day was about to present its second extraordinary event.
Buckley, who had requested the chef’s presence, noticed the color fade from David’s face as he approached the couple.
“It cannot be…” David said to himself, feeling as if he had been punched in the stomach and holding his breath. Only partially recovered, he pulled up a chair and sat down between the couple, which was waiting patiently for gastronomic clarity. David tried to avoid looking at the woman, even though the first question came from her lips. Her hoarse, soft voice made him shiver, and his heart beat faster. When he hesitantly turned toward the woman, his blood drained completely from his face. He looked at the contours of her cheeks, the lines of her chin, the shape of her nose, and her grayish blue eyes. Everything was frighteningly familiar to him.
“What’s your name?” David asked the stranger.
Her reaction to his question was an awkward, perplexed smile. Breaking the uncomfortable silence, the man who accompanied her quickly answered: “Her name is Lene.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. For a moment, I thought I knew you,” said David. He swallowed his embarrassment and began to speak in a professional tone about the dish traditionally served at Halloween parties. By the time he had finished the short explanation, the color had returned to his face, but not its grace.
From the counter, Buckley continued to watch David as he pretended to pay attention to the Scandinavian couple’s small talk. His nephew was right, he thought; there was, in fact, a demand for traditional cuisine because of the high number of foreign tourists who visited the neighboring city of Limerick and explored surrounding attractions, like Desmond Hall. Events—such as the “Westfest,” which combined the traditional festivals of the historic “Knights of the Westfest” with modern attractions, and the annual literary festival in honor of the local poet Michael Hartnett, regarded as one of the most brilliant minds of twentieth-century Irish literature—also drew visitors.