Grace

by Paul Lynch

  Three days of rain from a shivery sky and today the market square of Gort is deserted. The jarveys and coaches like dogs sat quiet to listen. Last week she counted twenty-seven townsfolk gathered but today there are six, an unlucky number not counting the children, we need one person more. She thinks, who wants to stand about in this weather but the usual half-clads and draggles. She pities a young woman with her children dressed in mud, it seems. Most do not listen but eat with their eyes at the baskets of bread that will be handed out after Father’s sermon. A lame boy has dragged himself on a sack and sits under Father, watches the way Father opens and closes his hands as he speaks as if making pliant some obscure knowledge, the boy nodding as Father sends tongue into every word to transform each one into something shining and terrible. Never has she heard Father speak with such spirit. Lately, she thinks, he has not been himself, snapping through prayer and cutting short his sermons and never a word said about Mary Collan. And the who that did it to her she cannot figure, there are different men about the farm and does it even matter, it was Mary Collan who invited the sin. Today Father stands broad to the street, lets the sickle wind curve the rain around him.

  She watches the approach of a man who will be the lucky seventh, sees he is dressed much too well. Sees trouble in the step. The sun in his silk cravat and flashing cuffs as he folds his arms and cocks his head to listen. The way he smiles when Father shouts, the devil is riding into town on a bull! She tries to alert Father with her eyes but Father is fuming about the farmers of Ireland, how they have armed themselves against you, how they have kept their grain for the speculators, how they have taken animals off you in false payment—

  He pauses for breath and the stranger seizes upon the moment. Nonsense, he says.

  Father pretends not to hear but every head turns to look at this fellow. His matter-of-fact face and that mouth opening again to utter the same word, nonsense, sliding the word as if into Father’s mouth, where it snags his tongue. An immense quiet has spread now. A strange catlike sound comes from the throat of Mary Eeshal. She has heard the priests threatening away parishioners, words being shouted, pietists and such. But never has anybody stood up like so to Father.

  She watches Father burn his eyes at the man as if eyesight alone could wish a man his death. Then he makes as if to laugh, says, what have we here but the very bull rider before us. Didn’t I say the devil had come into town?

  The man says, I am no devil but a doctor, John Allender, and I am well known here. There is only one of me but let me suggest there is one of you in every town, tying your flaxen beard to the face of Christ, speaking with false lips of miracles and such.

  Somebody titters and she thinks it might have been the lame boy and she would drag him by his useless legs and hurt his arms for good. Then she sees his face is pained and staring at Father, who raises a finger towards the face of this man called John Allender.

  Father says, now we know what we are dealing with. The devil’s emissary stands here among us brazen in his false glory. Do not give what is holy to this dog. This bull rider who cares only for the lies of his profession, the priests who lie in simony and tend only to their rich masters, the shopkeepers who steal from your pockets, the merchants who collude with the speculators to drive the prices up and keep you in living death, the officials with their nods and their winks who allow such things to—

  Of a sudden he lunges towards Grace, pulls her by the wrist in front of the crowd. Let me ask you this, what priest do you know of who has risen the dead? This young woman here was risen from her grave. God spoke and said he would send sign of His word, that He would send a miracle. We found her in her grave out in Kilcorkan and the sextons there were witness. Behold, I tell you. This is the face of a miracle. A living example of God’s grace.

  The man called Dr. John Allender says, who says she was dead?

  Mary Eeshal begins to shout at him. I say she was dead, I saw it. We all saw it. That is God’s truth. Who are you to question?

  The man called Dr. John Allender says, did anybody confirm the death? There have been many fevered giving the likeness of the dead. Was the looking glass put to her lips?

  The look on Father’s face would turn a living man to dust. He turns and stares at Grace as if willing her to speak the truth of this gospel, but how can you speak when no words will come out, she thinks, and anyhow, what is there to say when you cannot remember a single thing, when you weren’t even there at all, perhaps you were dead and perhaps you weren’t dead, perhaps you were sleeping, who am I to say and how could I say it? And perhaps this Dr. John Allender is right after all.

  It is then that Father pushes through the crowd and comes upon an old harassed mule. He raises his fist and strikes two hard blows upon the animal’s head and the mule despairs an old wind sound, drops to one knee before Father as if penitent. How he turns then lit by fury, begins to shout at the crowd, every one of you here is a mule, you take the blow, blow after blow, you stand blinking before your own corruption. May God strike every one of you down. His hand to blood and Mary Warren kissing it and there is only the sound of the wind whetting itself off every stone in the town, the windows already darkened and the rain carrying the smell of despair and the smell of basketed bread into every nose and mouth.

  The dream comes in spate off God’s high mountain, takes her in its river of blood, the blood quickly gathering from her feet to her waist and then it is rising, tightening around her chest, becomes a red mouth that reaches past her neck and carries her downwards until she drinks the blood water, rises to breathe but goes under again, tells herself this is drowning—dead rats in the water and strange animals swimming and they are animals she has not seen in any life, black-bodied with gleaming mouths and she can see the hand faintly of somebody under the water, the hand taking hold of her leg, the hand pulling her downwards into the blood, and she can see the face and it belongs to Colly, who now looks like Bart, and she can see others helpless and adrift and silent, and then she finds herself on rocks covered in blood and tries to waken, sees the man called Dr. John Allender shaking his head, sees he is the old man Charlie and he tries to speak and she knows what he wants to say, that he will row her back across the estuary but first you must return—

  She is awake. The room swims its black into her eyes. She can hear the low snuffling of Mary Warren crying on her mat. She lies still and tries to hear the dream, thinks she might have been screaming in her sleep. The blood-water taste still dreaming itself in her mouth. She thinks, dreams are not real but what she dreamt was so real she feels wet all over, tries to sit up and it is then she becomes aware of it, the wetness between her legs. Tests and is shocked by what she knows is the return of her blood, this womanly curse, cannot remember how long it has been, a long year at least.

  She stares into the squeezed-shut of her eyes and understands it is a silence she seeks. Not all this, what is shaped by words, belief and anger, but something deeper and unsaid, a single truth that silence comprehends and cannot be spoken. Her thoughts come into the Boyces’ prayer room. She has heard her name being said. She thinks, do not open your eyes, do not open— opens her eyes to see Mary Eeshal fixed in scowl at her, every other eye upon her too but for Mary Warren searching her knee for an itch. The eyes of Father like weight.

  His eyes say, why is it you do not answer me, Mary Ezekiel, were you asleep?

  Her eyes say, I was trying to listen.

  He raises his hand as if to take something from her, the gift of her soul, the gift of her dumb mouth, this hand with the knuckles bruising around a pair of beads.

  He says aloud, bring it up so that everyone can witness.

  She does not know what he means, thinks she has been collared, that he wants her pipe and tobacco. Some fool you are, she thinks, you should have kept the pipe hidden and not in your pocket. She casts a look for some snitch face, stares at the metal tub hanging on the dresser and wishes it would fall with a bang to cover her own disgrace, this room today full of oth
ers, strangers in fine cloth who have come and asked to touch her, a man and a woman with soft unworked hands and money for the mission that Father will put into Robert Boyce’s hand.

  Father says, give it to me, this sign of your blood.

  She feels the deepening puzzle, feels the smallness of the room and every eye upon her. Mary Eeshal’s whisper is spit. Give him the rag.

  She tries to turn her back to the room but how can you turn your back when you are surrounded by eyes, reaches for the rag wet between her legs and takes it towards him hoping to die, to disappear into whiteness. Father holding the bloody rag aloft before the others, a bead of blood gathering to drip. He says, the devil took form yesterday, came to denounce our miracle as shadow and deception. He spreads fear and doubt. But today we have our answer, the living blood of Christ, for this blood of Christ flows again in this woman whose blood went still in her grave. Christ has given his blood to you so that you can be woman again, so that you can be unclean again, so that you can purge the stain.

  Today the talk is of a neighboring townland where a lamb was born with two heads. Or so they say. Mary Rachel and Mary Child whispering of omens like conspirators. It sounds to her like superstition, something she might have heard said in Blackmountain. Last week there was talk of a man struck by lightning in nearby Grange. Ball lightning in a field that followed the man as he ran from it, Mary Eeshal said. God killed him in his own field, God’s vengeance upon a great sinner.

  Feet press the grass behind her as she walks towards the mission. She turns because she knows it is Henry Good, come to sneak her some tobacco and ask for a kiss but not out in this open, where everyone will see. Twice now she has let him, though his mouth is too wet. She turns and meets instead the presence of Father. Her arms fold across her chest as if to guard the sinning thought. For a moment Father does not speak, then he says, peace be with you, walk with me a little.

  Now she knows he knows her thoughts, every thought a sin. She wants to say, let me tell you of my guilt, the weight of my sin, wishes she could yearn for penance like newcomer Mary Rachel, whose hands were tied to her ankles so that she could not move from her knees all night in whipping rain.

  His eyes smile at her. He takes hold of her elbow and says aloud, come to my room tonight and you can receive the spirit.

  She walks rapt in happiness, Godlight in every thought and step. A confession will come and then true grace. She thinks of her sorrow, all the sins of a life and how they link together, one sin to another until the weight of its chain drags you down to the punishment of hell. Sleep will not come tonight but tomorrow there will be peace. She goes to her rock and sits with her knees to her chest burrowing pipe smoke, watches evening stoop to gather the last light. Of a sudden she grows restless. There is the shape of Mary Eeshal walking with Father. Considerate Mary Eeshal escorting Father with the lamp and what are they whispering together? No doubt, Mary Eeshal asking Father to confess her. How it is that woman brings the poisoned thought into every moment of goodness.

  The others do not go to his room till past midnight. From a distant church she hears the clock strike eleven. Wait now, daughter. The room an awakened silence, every ear tuned to the steps of her feet as she rises and goes outside towards Father’s cabin. Her hand a night orchid upon the latch of his door. Inwards then expecting candlelight but what she meets is his shadow upright in a chair lit by the nightblue window.

  He says, wait till later, daughter, then come.

  She returns to her room and hears judgment in the silence. They will think he refused to confess you. Watching this long hour of night. Watching the black of the room and what lies beneath it, the same dark always, she thinks. If black is sin and light is blessing then light and dark should never mix and yet they do, the dawn and dusk are not separate things but take the light and the dark equally. She can hear Mary Warren zizzing words to heaven in her sleep, dreaming up nonsense to talk of tomorrow, a pig with a wolf’s head or a bat flying overhead with no wings. Sweet Mary Warren, witless and lying.

  Mary Eeshal creeping towards his room— it is only a thought but do not wait another half hour, she thinks. Her hands feeling their way through the sinning dark until she finds his door and opens it. The room simple in night purple that illumines the room from a pocket window and wraps his sitting shape. She yearns for his eyes to free her of these dreams that howl at night. To free her speech, for she wants now to speak, not of what has been or what she has seen, but of simple things, this world now as it is.

  His voice reaches towards her in whisper.

  Kneel down there, daughter.

  Then he says, we have been waiting such a long time for this.

  Then he says, take off your clothes, daughter.

  His words strike her like some unanswerable question. She watches now what awakens in his silence, his shape as it stands and moves towards her, his black shape not Godlight at all but an unspeakable dark and she cannot breathe, cannot move, the hand reaching to touch her shoulder some old man’s hand the serpent’s touch or a brand of fire, his hand softly to her shoulder and yet she recoils as if struck.

  He steps back, whispers, easy now, daughter.

  All time that is past and hereafter is brought to a stop in this room, the gap between them a strange emptiness in which nothing manifests and everything manifests and it is God’s voice a roaring lion and it is the great silence of nature, the gap between heaven and earth. A long moment and she thinks he is measuring her every thought.

  He says again, take off your clothes, daughter.

  She can sense his reaching breath as he creeps again towards her, bread and milk and some sour smell. Can feel his eyes without needing to see and then he stops and moves towards the window. He reaches for the lamp and lights it, turns around and strikes her with his eyes. They are a long time looking at each other. She wants to get up off her knees but cannot, watches the lines webbing his eyes and wonders if he has met with sudden age, his hair and beard more gray than ever, his back so slightly bent.

  He says, why won’t you do what I tell you?

  Her eyes say, what has my body got to do with my confession? I never heard of such a thing.

  He says, you are an ignorant child, nothing but a wretch, a worm, vermin dug from a ditch, a miscreant and a sinner—tell me, what do you know of God’s will?

  Her eyes say, I know that I am alive again but that might have nothing to do with God’s will.

  He says, you are alive because of me, I gave you that power—if I had not come for you, you would be in hell right now dying a daily death. If it wasn’t for me you would be in that grave with the sexton spading earth over you, into your mouth, into your ears, trapped under the weight of the earth with your sin—

  He stops speaking.

  Her eyes say, so what does God want with my body when He had it already?

  He says, you behave as though you know the will of God, but you do not know His will, you can only know God through those who speak for Him.

  Her eyes say, I know there is what God wants and there is what man wants but they are different. Why should God want what man wants? Why does God behave like a man all the time with his various afflictions?

  He is silent a moment. Then he says, I know the devil visits you when you sleep—this is why you wake up each night screaming.

  Her eyes say, what you want from me is sin.

  Finally, he lifts his eyes off her. He says, you have come here for confession but will not give it. He begins slowly to lie down on his mat, waves his hand for her to leave. What she hears is the sighing of an old man. Sees herself kneeling on the floor wondering if she has sinned, wondering why she feels so ashamed, if she is one step further from grace or not. Of a sudden he sits up and stares at her, reaches for the lamp and blows it out. His voice aloud in the dark.

  Get out.

  The sound of hard rain hurtling through the dark is a cold hand that grips her. As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end. T
hought falling out of prayer until she can hear only rainfall. She rests her forehead against her hands. How the rain carries the sound of eternity within it, carries the sound and shapes of other places, the mountains and the hills and the bogland where you come from, the sounds of other voices, the looks that others put upon the rain in other places and how the rain carries their looks, puts them down here. She opens her eyes and stares at the pitch window, the rain hidden, she thinks, our own lives hidden and everything falling.

  It is then she sees him. Bart’s ghost in the rain.

  She watches Mary Warren carry herself plodfoot through the yard, how she moves through the world oblivious to the eyes that strike her. Now Mary Warren is coming towards her cradling an orphan lamb as though it were a child, suckling it from a bottle, her huge hands expertly gentle. She has heard how Mary Warren wept through the night when the lamb’s mother died. Mary Warren begins pulling softly on the lamb’s pink-white ears and the lamb’s black-button eyes close in delight. She stands watching Mary Warren and sudden knowledge strikes her. That Mary Warren once had a child.

  Mary Warren says, Anne Boyce says them people over in Knockshane were selling smashed-up coffins for firewood. Going around door to door asking. Anne Boyce says they came here and that she met a sexton who says they left bones all over the place the way a dog does. That somebody left a spaded skull lying in a field. Somebody’s head—imagine.

  Grace has stopped listening, for Father’s face intrudes all thought. The way he lit his eyes upon her during first prayer, an accusatory, rancorous look. He will do the same at late prayer and supper. How a man can look at you two ways in public. How he has made her aware now of her own movements, the way she walks, the way she sits, the way every thought speaks in her head. She stares at the field and sees the head of Father severed on a platter and a gray crow eating at his eyes.