Grace

by Paul Lynch

  Fuck off dog— sick on yourself— sick on yourself sick rot taste. Fuck off dog—

  Roadcrawler— walking on hands like a younger—

  Sleepy-sleep—

  Slowwaking— morning sort of—

  Lie— lie here— in the lying of the lie— not lying to yourself

  ha ah—

  Sleep-lie— lie-sleep— sleep-lie— sleep

  Listen you— hey you sir— listen up listen you— quit pulling on me— leave me lie here— listen listen listen listen listen— why can’t I hear me— why can’t you hear me— where voice— listen listen listen listen mister mister mister mister don’t lift me— leave me here— don’t lift don’t lift— not into this cart listen listen listen listen listen listen listen these are dead— why won’t you listen— I’m not— movingcart— lift yourself off try try try, movetry— can’t move— come on try again— isn’t this what you wished for— all the meat in the world— try try try try try— sleepy-sleep is easier sleepy-lie is it not then this goes away— close your eyes now—

  pulling man wake up—

  get off get off me— get off—

  listen listen listen listen listen why won’t you listen—

  why won’t my words sound—

  listenmister listenmister listenmister listenmister listenmister listenmister

  listen— list— liss— liss—

  Don’t put—

  I’m not one—

  Not—

  Of them—

  Don’t— daghhgh—

  Wriggle show them you can wriggle—

  show them— show them— daghhgh—

  sleepy-sleep— sleepy— listen—

  listen up muc you can do this—

  you can sleep—

  trywriggle— trywriggle— try try try try try try— look at me— listen trywriggle—

  Look at me! Look look look look—

  gwahhhuh

  no matter now no matter—

  no—

  no matter—

  VII

  Light

  She knows this angel from dreaming and tries to smile at the hovering face, the angel’s voice a sweetened milk that brings her back to Sarah. The voice says, quiet now, daughter.

  She thinks, so this is dead.

  She is made to sup soup from a porcelain cup. A hand floats a muslin cloth that brings soothe to her face. It is only a cloth and yet she is made physical by it. This feels like your body, she thinks, are you sure you are dead? Later the same hands help her into a feeble sit. Her eyes trying to gather the room. Mauve light outside and just the throw-light of a lamp that flutters gold upon the wall a tremble-throat finch and she wonders where such a thought comes from. She feels like a child again in another’s bed-dress. The whoever-she-is of this woman beside her who says, quiet now, daughter, reaches the heel of a hand to take the weight off her face. Sliding into sleep, where she grabs at slippy thoughts, the likeness of this angel to her mother.

  She knows the angels are watching her sleep, awakes to see five women gathered in day-bright around the bed, five faces not the faces of angels but simple women dressed in black gowns, the who of them she cannot figure. Their watching narrows the room. She closes her eyes but they do not disappear.

  A voice says, rejoice, daughter, you are alive.

  She opens her eyes. The speaker has lips that move but the eyes are without expression. Another woman steps softly forward and hands her a looking glass and she knows these hands, meets the woman’s kindly eyes and takes the mirror and brings it to her face to see who she is, because you never know all the things that can happen, it might be that you went to sleep and woke up as somebody else, there are stories of such things happening. Her breathing fogs the looking glass and she thinks, this is my breathing, this is my breath, and she wipes the glass to reveal the face and the eyes that are not her eyes, not her face, she thinks, but the ghost of a face on a body that is dead.

  She drops the looking glass onto the bed and the kindly-eyed woman reaches quickly for it. The sullen woman scolds. Let her look, let her behold the face of her own miracle.

  The kindly-eyed woman says, what is your name, daughter?

  She stares at each face. Like stones arranged the way each face is different and similar, their hair cut short but for the woman with the looking glass, who wears her long hair tight in a bun. She thinks she would like to tell them her name. She would like to tell them from where she comes. She reaches for the thought but cannot form words. She senses the words but they cannot be spoken. It is then that she knows her tongue has been struck dumb and no word ever again will sound out of her. A third voice says, rest easy, daughter. Another voice says, you will speak in your own time. The sullen woman steps around the bed and takes the looking glass from the kindly-eyed woman. She says, take a look at yourself, daughter. He said that a sign would come. That a sign would show the true meaning of His words. You are that sign. You are the miracle promised to us. Father has brought you back from the dead.

  By night and by day a bare alder raps at the window as if asking to be let in, to whisper its thoughts perhaps about the where and the what of all this. She thinks, a day, a week, a month in this hidey-hole, what does it matter being among such folk and their strange talk? Just nod at whatever they tell you. The soup is regular. Not once have you been cold. Far better here than being out on the road. She leans out of bed and sees her boots near the door. Better just in case to have them.

  She watches the days deepen in length and color and feels such strength growing inside her, everywhere except her throat. Unthinking herself into the same silence as the house, though in the early mornings and evenings she can hear the walls carrying voices in prayer. Sometimes she imagines their voices gathered to judge her, all the sins you have done and the guilt you feel about the things that have happened and why is it you are alive but others are dead? Sometimes she thinks they are the voices of such dead, that no matter how much you try and forget, a dead person is tied around you like weight. For isn’t it true that every dead person has something to tell you?

  Perhaps it is best you do not speak, she thinks. Then you cannot answer them.

  Evening has sent the shadow of a tree tangling through the room. The door is unlocked and a woman enters. She is the kindly one by shape and footfall come to bring light. Grace pretends to sleep though in secret she watches the kindly one take the lamp and unscrew the reservoir, pour oil from a tin, screw the wick back on. The kindly one then strikes a match and utters a curse, drops the flaming match and sucks on her finger. She turns to Grace. Forgive me, daughter, she says. The devil hides his forked tongue in fire to remind us he is always present.

  Grace stares at the lamp as it bouts smoke.

  The woman says, you woke screaming again in the night. You had to be comforted. I had to come into the house and lie on the floor here beside you. It sounded like you had met your second death.

  How the woman’s words reach in and astonish her.

  I must be dead so, she thinks. And this must be purgatory. That’s why the door is kept locked.

  She tries to remember the night before, but it seems to her the nights are black as if a hidden hand had poured all dream from sleep. It is then that it comes to her, a thought from the deep that grasps something unspeakable, not dream at all but shadow-shape, not something dreamed but something that has happened, something she has done, how it rises and like a snake comes hither. Backwards she flinches in the bed and the woman takes her hand, says, calm now, daughter.

  She shouts at the woman to stay away from her, that it is death in the room not the devil, but no sound leaves her mouth.

  Later this woman tells her, you shall know me as Mary Eeshal, it is where I come from. There is kindness in the way she fixes the blanket. Her face and hands a perfect paleness, she thinks, her skin almost without blemish. And though there is dirt under her fingernails they are the soft hands that come from good stock. She wishes Mary Eeshal would never leave, wo
nders where that other woman has gotten to, the sullen one with a face that speaks no forgiveness. Mary Eeshal seems just a few years older than she is and yet she is sister and mother. She wants to ask her where she is, if she is in some kind of convent or prison or if indeed this is purgatory, who knows the things that can happen to you.

  Mary Eeshal says, Father is coming to see you tomorrow. He had to go to Dublin soon after you came. He is the one who brought you.

  She blinks at the woman. She wants to ask, who is coming to see me? The priest? The doctor?

  Mary Eeshal says, he is coming to see his miracle. He says that word has spread.

  As she speaks her eyes glisten. She holds Grace’s hands to her chest. She says, Father said he would produce for us a sign that would speak of his true knowledge of God. And that is what he did. We were traveling to a townland just south of here when Father called for the jarvey to stop. He climbed down and began walking towards— her voice catches as if caught on a hook. She takes a deep breath. It was a burial field, she says. Father began towards it and it was then the light came upon him and we all saw it, the light from the sky like a pillar and Father went past the sextons who were taking the bodies one by one off the dead-cart and all of them stopped to watch Father step into the pit, one sinner sexton telling him to get out, that the pit was full of people who died of the fever, and it was then that Father went on his knees and found you amid the dead, and he said the Lord’s power had reached you because you showed him the sign, and he read that sign and took you in his hand and it was then that you were risen.

  She hears footsteps and whispering women. A key asks the door open and the women enter barefoot. She watches the sullen one stand to the wall with the key in her hand, the other women fanning around the bed, Mary Eeshal and three others with severe faces while a man enters behind them and sits on her bed. It is his voice that says, wipe her brow, Mary Collan. She sees he is no priest and no doctor. He wears a white shirt open at the neck. His black beard running to gray. She has never seen eyes like this, for they are eyes that speak his thoughts into her. These are the eyes of the man who has saved you, she thinks. The sullen woman—Mary Collan—steps forward, her hand reluctant and rough with the cloth. She thinks, they must think you’ve had the sickness. That is why nobody but Mary Eeshal has ever touched you.

  This man called Father. She feels him now not as man but as presence, the way his eyes hold you so that you see only his eyes and no other part of him.

  Father says, they say you do not speak but I bet the devil speaks in your dreams, does he not?

  He smiles as if her startle were her answer.

  He stares into her eyes until she can see only his eyes and it is her eyes that speak not her mouth.

  Her eyes ask him, who are you? Why have you rescued me?

  His eyes say, from now on you will be with me, you will serve here and do whatever is asked of you and be among these women and that will be your peace, better than being out on the roads.

  Her eyes say, is this a house of God?

  His eyes say, yes, this is a house of God. He speaks out my eyes and He can hear everything you think so be careful.

  He reaches forward and touches her throat, says aloud, you can speak, speak to me, daughter.

  She feels a great blubbing in her throat, goes to speak, watches the others lean forward but no words come out.

  Her eyes say, I try to speak all the time but the words will not come. The words remain hidden and maybe it’s because if you say one thing it will lead to another thing and how could you explain it? The things that have happened? There are things in this world that cannot be met by words. I have done things I cannot speak of. I have—

  Father says aloud, you were judged in your first life and you were cast down and then you were saved from your first life when you raised your hand to God.

  He stands and bellows his hands open and shut as if pumping air to his thoughts. He turns to the others, who begin to murmur and nod.

  He says, I’ve seen a lot on my travels. I’ve walked the ends of this island and farther afield and I’ve even been to Europe and I’ve seen the tulip eaters in the Dutch lands and I’ve seen the frog eaters in the French lands, though I have never been to China, for one does not need to go to China to see people eating dogs and cats. Sustenance—never has there been a more important question in a time such as this. What you put into your body. There is clean sustenance, fresh, natural, pure sustenance, and then there is the other kind that is the filth that gets eaten with the eyes, the mouth, the ears. The food of impurity and indecency that makes a body corrupted. Take a look around. What do the people put into their bodies? Take a look at the cattle boys standing idle and the spade men. The stone suckers you see on every road. They feed on sin. Their children eat sin. Their children sleep with their mouths open and Satan’s worm creeps into their throats and slides all the way down. Satan’s worm feeds on their sin and feeds its sin into them so that sin feeds on sin in a cycle of evil. This is the true nature of the world.

  The worm makes the body hunger for ever more sin. Everywhere one looks you see drunkenness, lassitude, dissolution. The wretched feeding the worm. Is it any wonder that every craftsman and laborer across the land is out of work, for they have gambled away their livelihoods without true sight of God. But God has spoken. God has shown them the true meaning of hunger. God said this land would be smitten and it was. It was His blight that struck. And God said that famine would follow and it did. And God said that plague would follow famine and it did. God is starving the worm out of the earth. And now, all of a sudden, the country has been struck by religion. The churches are filling with sinners who’ve never seen the door of a church. Sinners looking for respite from God’s wrath. Sinners looking to purge their sin. Where were you all before? Mary Collan, what were you but the spoiled daughter of a rich farmer? All of you have come to this mission in search of contrition. But what will one find when one is not truly repentant? It is written that there will be a final massacre to put an end to this world. Will you be ready and repentant? God’s armies will come down off every mountain in Ireland. They will march down off Croagh Patrick and Errigal and Carrauntoohil, Cnoc na Péiste and Lugnaquilla. Godlight will travel through all things and there will be no more want or need or pain or hunger. Godlight will stand upon every field in Ireland and the bodily waters of every man, woman, and child on this island will be clean as if drawn from a spring.

  It is then that Father turns and stares at her. How each word has entered her body and made her tremble. For everything has to have a reason, she thinks, and this is the reason for the wintering, is it not?

  His eyes say, do you see now how I am going to save you?

  She thinks, the black of your soul and the light in this room. She begins to nod her head.

  He says aloud, you are the sign He has promised. You are a sign of His mercy. The power of life that has been given back to you is the power of God. You have been risen. Now you are a daughter among us, the sign of His miracle, the sign of His Grace.

  She hears her name spoken and startles, cannot understand how he knows her name. She tries to push past the silence in her throat but cannot. This power he has over her, this power that pulls her towards him with his forgiving words and promise of a better life and no more pain and suffering, and perhaps you can learn to live with these people.

  Father dips an aspergillum into a chalice of water then shakes it upon her. Water upon the bed, water upon her hands and face and forehead, and she thinks, this is what is meant by Christ’s tears.

  Everyone in the room speaking her name.

  His Grace. His Grace. His Grace.

  He leaves his eyes inside the room. She tries to close her eyes but still his eyes watch over her. She dizzies out of bed and stares at her bare feet and tries to unthink his eyes. These feet washed clean by Mary Eeshal, these feet thickened to the feet of some old crone. She watches the door as if she expects it to open, can hear the walls carry th
eir voices in unison prayer like some wake for the dead, she thinks, his voice carrying over them and through them, and she steps towards the door and it is then her unseeing foot kicks the bedpan rattling towards the wall. She stands snared, waiting for the voices downstairs to stop and hurry towards the room but instead they carry on, and it is then she is struck by the feeling he can see her like this, can see her trying for the door, can see into her mind and hear every thought, knows everything she has ever done. That he is watching her now climbing back into bed.

  Why does he not come? she thinks. He said he would come but he has not. She craves his eyes, dreams he has come into her room at night, stood beside the bed in silence watching her sleep, thinks she has awakened to this but cannot be sure, for who knows what is dream and what is real anymore? Perhaps it is a test, he is testing me to see if I am worthy.