“My God. You helped them?”
“I gave them permission.”
“Oh, Father.”
A murderer. This sallow-faced, boyish man had committed what Norman Mailer called the ultimate act, the only act that defined and proclaimed absolute freedom. He had murdered a fellow human being. The girl in white could never understand such a person. But the old Jackie understood him. So did the new Jackie.
“Stop calling me Father. My name is Philip.”
“Philip. Yes, Philip.”
“I have to tell you something else. I’m a virgin.”
“That makes me … almost cry. It makes me feel … honored.”
It was incredible how much she wanted him. She felt creamy inside at the thought of him entering her. It would be like making love to a piece of God. Embracing something old and sacred. The girl in white would understand that, even if she did not completely approve it. Some lines from Dylan Thomas leaped into Jackie’s mind.
A process plows the moon into the sun
Pulls down the shabby curtains of the skin
And the heart gives up its dead.
Yes, perhaps she could give up the dead at last, Great-grandfather Yid and Grandfather, aka Ronald Colman, give up bitchy mother and chastened father, who were as good as dead, give up all the years of garbage sex for a new beginning with God.
Breathlessly, almost strangling on the words, Jackie told him about the girl in white. He wept. She touched the salt tears with her fingertips, then with her lips. Never, never, had she wanted a man so much, never had she wanted to give a man so much.
He was so shy, so naive. He undressed first and then undressed her, an unbelievably bad tactic for a seducer. But it didn’t matter. Her body blazed with wanting; she lay on the bed, ignoring the chill in the room, and watched him strip. She raised herself on one elbow and took his penis in her mouth—a completely spontaneous gesture. It simply seemed right to her. He gave a little cry, of pleasure or of fright. Her tongue explored the head as it swelled; she seized one of his hands and placed it on her breast.
An oddity: the penis was cold, icy cold. It had to be the terror of the first time, the dread of damnation still lurking in his Irish-American soul. There was an answer to that problem. She fell back on the bed and opened her legs. “Now, Philip, now,” she whispered.
He entered her and she knew, somehow, what he was thinking and feeling. He was entering freedom, entering the America that his priesthood had denied him for so many long, dry years. He was entering woman, the other half of the known world, after so many years trapped in the arid dungeon of maleness. He was entering triumph, ascension, Moon-Mars-Venus walking, the starry reaches of outer space. He was entering life, love, courage.
She soared with him. It was so different from Mick; there it had been surfing. No flight, simply the mounting wave, the spasm of release, the long ebbing ride to the beach of satisfaction. Surfing or a whirling ride around a track in a souped-up Audi 5000S or Acura Integra across a finish line to the blare of a brass band.
Yes, there was more than one thrill in Mick’s repertoire, but none of them equaled this transcendent ascent. Up, up, in wild, ever-widening spirals until the whole sky, sun, moon, and stars were in her, she was the universe and the universe was her and him and God in an ecstasy of oneness beyond anything she had ever known. How could she ever come down? How could she ever walk the humdrum streets again?
When it finally ended, they lay there for a long time in silence. If they had returned to earth, it was a remarkably soft landing. Perhaps they were on an asteroid somewhat south of Venus. Finally, he spoke. “The mafiosi—when they were going to hurt you—they tied you to the bed?”
“Yes,” she said, shuddering involuntarily at the memory.
“That must have been terrifying.”
“It was. I get sick to my stomach every time I think of it.”
“Horrible,” he said, cradling her in his arms. He pressed her against him, as if he wanted to squeeze the evil memory out of her body. Jackie trembled and almost wept.
“What if we did it that way? What if I loved you that way? It might heal the wound.”
Enormously touched by the word heal, Jackie agreed. She let him tie her arms and legs to the ends of the bed, exactly as Joey Zaccaro and his bodyguard had spread-eagled her that awful night. Philip Hart knelt beside her, his long, bony body trembling. Was it that cold? He should have gotten over the shock of desire. She decided it was that cold in the room. Hunched beside the church, the rectory did not get much sun.
Philip’s hands traveled down her body. He knelt between her legs and she watched him grow hard. Then, with both hands on her breasts, he entered her. Jackie looked into his eyes, expecting to see concern, tenderness, adoration. Instead she felt as if something were sucking her soul out of her body down a long, terrifying tunnel toward a tiny pinpoint of light, like the twinkle of a single infinitesimal star. Inside her his penis was incredibly cold, like a tube of icy steel. On her breasts she could swear she felt the furry sensation of an animal’s paws.
From Philip Hart’s mouth came a guttural laugh that was totally out of character, a chortle of pleasure she might have expected from Joey Zaccaro. “I’ve got a wonderful idea,” he said in a strange croaking voice, as if the cold in the room had settled in his throat.
He vanished and in a few minutes returned wearing the outer vestment of the mass, the long green garment with a golden cross on the front and back. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Fucks,” he croaked as he mounted her again.
What was happening? Suddenly all Jackie could remember was a prayer Great-grandfather Yid had taught her when she was four years old. Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord. It did not make any sense but it was the only prayer she had ever learned, and prayer, nothing but prayer, seemed vital at this terrifying moment.
She did not know why. Was it because she was encountering another face of God, the side that was adored in darkness and fear? Was this the murderous Philip Hart, the worshipper of Jesus the guerrilla?
“I don’t like this. It’s not helping,” Jackie said as the icy penis stroked her. She twisted and turned but the knots were well tied.
“Say the prayer after me,” Hart croaked. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Fucks.”
“No. Untie me!”
He withdrew, reared back, and crouched above her. She stared up the green vestment and the gold cross to the sallow face above them. It swayed there like an unfinished moon, strained by bewilderment. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
Suddenly a round stain appeared on his forehead. Exactly like the stain on Joey Zaccaro’s forehead. The bewilderment on Father Hart’s face became absolute, final. His eyes careened to the left and he fell forward on top of Jackie. She twisted her head and saw Billy Kilroy in the doorway, the gun with the bulge beneath the barrel in his hand.
“You fookin’ capitalist bitch. Seducin’ a fookin’ priest,” he said.
He stifled her scream with a handkerchief jammed in her mouth. Then he went downstairs and came back with two bottles of Irish whiskey. He poured them all over Jackie and Father Hart and the bed and dropped a burning match beside them. Everything—flesh, vestments, sheets---exploded into flame.
To Jackie’s amazement there was no pain. Or perhaps the pain was so total, nothing else existed for comparison. Like absolute cold the flames extinguished everything, obliterated opposites, annihilated possibilities. The universe was on fire and Jackie only had time for one last prayer. And death shall have no dominion. It was a poem but it was also a prayer. Great-grandfather Yid’s prayer had made Dylan’s poem a prayer.
Was it heard? Was it answered? Did Great-grandfather burst through the flames to gather the girl in white into his arms and stagger, smash, bang his way through a thousand million stars to eternity? I hope so.
LOVE AMONG THE RUINS
For the last ten days o
f March the bomb had been ticking away in the bedroom, in the kitchen. Nora Haines McGinty knew it was going to explode. Bombs always exploded. They had torn apart the Belfast of her youth. Was it so surprising that they should follow her to America?
Part of the bomb had already gone off. The shock of learning that Hughie was working for the IRA again had lost the baby. It had been a simple miscarriage, the doctor said in his cheerful way. He was a Protestant and didn’t think Nora should have gotten pregnant in the first place. Two children were enough. It had left her feeling unbearably sad, thinking about the little life that the war for Ireland had claimed.
Weeping, she labored over a letter to her father. Because of the bombing campaign, Nora had seldom gone to school. Her mother had kept her home because the streets were not safe for anyone, much less a girl.
Dear Da: I’m sorri to heer you are still sick. Can’t you get your lawyer to stop them from putting you out of hospital that way, even when you have a fevir? It’s terible the way they mistreat you and Eddie. I lie awake at night thinking of the good old days before the Trouble started. When you had your job at the shipyard and you’d get out your fidle and play for us when you come hom. Eddie was such a good dancer. I bet he could have gone on the stage. The bulet in his knee ended all that, alas. The way things are makes me glad Mother is gone from us. She’d have never been able to bear the thot of you and Eddie caged for life. It would have driven her mad. She’d have shot a policeman or something. I’m sure she’s praying for you wherever she is. I pray every night too and so do the kids. Hughie doesn’t, he says he doesn’t believe in God anymore. He’s a good man in spite of it. We’re still hapy and the kids are thriving. Your loving darter Nora.
You’re becoming a liar at all points, Nora thought, mournfully sealing the letter. Maybe you get like the people you live with, as the Americans say.
In the cellar, in the attic, in her mind, the bomb ticked. Something was wrong. Hughie was not telling her the truth about working for the IRA. She sensed it constantly, in the way he talked about it, in the way he looked at her across the supper table with a strange anger on his face. She had been horribly upset by the discovery. Even more upset to see that slimy bastard O’Gorman again.
But the job did not seem that dangerous, compared to duty in Belfast. There she had watched men go out to risk violent death night after night. She had watched her mother’s heart falter under the strain. Compared to that, the danger of arrest, perhaps a jail sentence, was mild. She had calmed down and made Hughie promise it was the last time.
Then the bomb began to tick. It started in the bedroom. Hughie tried to make love to her that night. She had encouraged him, she had worn the shocking pink nightgown he had given her for Christmas, the chorus-girl special, she called it. She liked the way he wanted her. He was not her heart’s desire, but he was a good husband and she liked to make him happy.
Hughie couldn’t do it. She had heard of it happening to men, but it was the first time it had happened to them. He said he was tired and flung on his pajamas and hurled himself into bed with his back to her. That was when the bomb began to tick.
After that it was the silence. Hughie was a talker. He was always spouting his opinion about President Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or the pope. Now he said almost nothing. Then he stopped bringing candy to the kids. He barked at them for playing the TV too loud and yelling in the house when he used to make more noise than both of them, romping around like a ten-year-old.
What was it? Nora could only think of one thing—the job was a lot more dangerous than Hughie had told her. They were going to kill somebody, kill an informer. The IRA never forgot or forgave an informer. They hunted them down around the world. More than a few of them were in America, men who couldn’t stand the bombing campaign, the maximum war they had launched in Belfast.
Nora felt sorry for them, mostly. She could barely stand it herself and all she had to do was live with it. She did not have to drive those ticking car bombs through the British roadblocks, break into Protestant houses in the middle of the night and shoot a man with his wife screaming beside him in bed.
It was terrible but what the British had done to Ireland for four hundred years was a lot more terrible. What the Protestants had done to the Catholics in Belfast was part of it. Nothing in this world was achieved without suffering. Even the priests admitted that much. So it had grown clearer and clearer to Nora over the past ten days that Hughie was going to kill somebody and he was afraid, he was sick with the fear of it.
That was the bomb, trying to find a way to tell Hughie she knew he was afraid and understood it, that she forgave him just as she forgave him for running to America in the first place. There was nothing left for her in Belfast once her father and brother got those life sentences. Nothing but being screwed around by black-eyed bastards like Dick O’Gorman. She had told certain people about O’Gorman, and they had assured her that one of these days they would deal with him.
The telephone rang. “Nora. Come on next door for a cup of real coffee”
It was Suzanne Conti, her best friend on the block. Suzy was Italian and a talker beyond belief almost. Nora put on a sweater and slipped out the back door. The cappuccino machine was smoking away in Suzy’s kitchen. She claimed only Italians knew how to make coffee, and Nora was inclined to agree with her whenever she tasted a cup of her cappuccino. Suzy’s husband had given her the machine for Christmas last year. It cost $650. The presents that American husbands gave their wives left Nora breathless sometimes.
The wives were hardly ever impressed by them. They talked about their husbands in such condescending ways. Suzanne called Joe Conti “the Raging Bull,” after a character in a movie. He was actually a big, easygoing fellow who worked as a salesman for Merrill Lynch, a stockjobbing company.
This morning Suzanne was off on her latest obsession. She was going to start an interior-decorating business and she wanted Nora to join her as an equal partner. Nora would be the salesperson, calling on people; Suzanne would handle the decorating. Her sister had started a similar business in Connecticut and was getting rich. It was an exciting idea but Nora thought her brogue and her lack of knowledge of decorating were severe handicaps.
“Nuts to that,” Suzanne said—her favorite exclamation. “The brogue is cute. It makes you sound honest. As for the decorating, I can teach you enough to sell our approach in twenty minutes. The idea is not a complete overhaul, see? We’re going to specialize in accessories, rugs, paintings, draperies. Things that will make a room go from a four to a nine or ten.”
Ten was perfection, Nora knew that much of Suzy’s slang.
“You’re serious about this?”
“Am I ever? I got the Raging Bull to put up ten thousand dollars to get us going. He’s coining money over there on Wall Street.”
“It’s a deal,” Nora said, holding out her hand. It would be exciting to have a job, like so many American wives these days. With both children in school, she had plenty of time on her hands. Maybe a job was better than a new baby. Maybe Hughie would take heart and not be so terrified of the killing he had to do if he knew she could support herself and the children should the worst happen.
But it wouldn’t, it couldn’t happen. She had paid her price of admission to a little happiness. Leaving Suzy’s, Nora walked to the corner in the spring sunshine to mail the letter to her father. Tonight she would defuse the bomb. She would give Hughie the courage he needed, somehow.
He was barely in the door when he blurted the news: “Tomorrow’s the day.”
“I’ll be so glad to get it over with.”
“You’re to call me in sick. The flu or some damn thing.”
“Can’t you tell me what you’re going to do?”
“No.”
“My brother Eddie used to tell me. Da stormed his head off when he found out. But Eddie kept on tellin’ me. I wanted to know. It made me feel better.”
“This won’t make you feel better.”
“It w
ould. No matter how dirty it may be, I’ll find a way to be proud of you, Shewy dear.”
“Oh, you will,” he said with a strange bitterness that she took to be fear of admitting his nerves.
“Yes. I didn’t marry you for your courage, but it would be a reason to love you so much the more.”
“What did you marry me for?” he snarled. “A ticket to America?”
“I married you because I thought we could love each other as well as any man and wife in the world. It’s turned out a good deal better than that. I love you tremendously, Shewy. You know that.”
“Do I? After Dick O’Gorman comes to visit?”
“What’s that slick blatherskite got to do with us?”
“More than you’d think. A lot more. He told me about the two of you. He told me everything, laughing in my face, the day before we sailed.”
“The bastard. If I see him again I’ll kill him. I’ll stick a knife in his heart.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’m going to do that, tomorrow.”
“You’re going to kill O’Gorman? Is that the job?”
“I’m doing better than that. I’m turning him and that little ferret Kilroy in to the FBI. They’ll get ten to twenty years and we’re going to get forty thousand dollars and a new life, far far away from this coast, where no one’s ever heard of the IRA. We’re going to Arizona and I’m going to own my own business and never take another lousy order from the likes of Friel.”
The bomb had gone off. The explosion was tearing through Nora Haines McGinty’s life, ripping it into a million bloody fragments. She felt her body, her soul, catapulted into a black oblivion infinitely worse than on the day she had heard about her father and brother receiving life sentences in England. That bomb had left her clutching love to her breasts like a frightened child, the one possession she had left, but a precious one. This bomb annihilated love and loyalty, its blast left her naked, bereft, destroyed.
Hours of Gladness Page 24