Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan

by Ruth Gilligan

  Aisling squeezes her cup. The stubs of her nails dent little smiles into the cardboard.

  It has been a while since she was home all right. Or at least, so her friends are forever reminding her:

  ‘Why so long?’

  ‘Come to Gráinne’s engagement party?’

  ‘Kitty’s baby shower?’

  But there is always an excuse. The newspaper. The Tube Strike. The Jewish Magician (or the ‘Sexy Yid’, as they like to call him, somehow thinking it is OK) – always busy with her new life, trying to become a better version that will make them all so proud.

  Well, how about this? she dares to think now, denting a little harder. I’m going Yid myself! Changing for the man I love – what about that for better, eh?

  As if in warning, the seatbelt sign pings on. She looks up; sees the little red light. And she thinks of the locker above it, the one that holds her case that holds the envelope that holds the black leather book, Russian Dolls that make her feel dizzy. She needs a drink. Or really, she just needs to stay up here a little longer, somewhere in between, sipping tea and breathing oranges until she decides where it is she actually wants to land – who it is she actually wants to become.

  But then they descend.

  The lad beside her blesses himself, another stubby cross. She mimics the gesture, an ancient habit. The clouds are rough as they shove the aircraft through, raindrops on the window as if on cue and then the view below.

  Dublin.

  Her Dublin.

  Quicker than she’d even remembered it.

  They land with an almighty thump, dents in the runway like the dig of nails into a cup. The cringe of the on-time fanfare sounds out over the announcement system. Disarm and crosscheck. Forward and shortly the rear doors. A garbled Christmas greeting from the air hostess in an accent that makes Aisling wonder whether the poor girl will make it home herself for the big day. Because it is the only time of year that people go back to where they came from, before a hand reaches down and shakes the world like a snowglobe, scattering everyone again – a thrilling, melancholy flurry.

  The arrivals hall is full of smiles; a sea of A4 signs.

  WELCOME HOME!

  MUMMY.

  HAPPY XMAS PAT.

  They remind her of a homeless man she once saw on the Tube holding a square of cardboard that was completely blank.

  The taxi slides down Parnell Street, past Polish supermarkets and phalanxes of umbrellas. Every second lamppost brandishes an advert for The Abbey Theatre’s Christmas show.

  ‘My God,’ her mother shrieks when she opens the front door. ‘Aisling! But I thought— ’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘It’s me.’

  Until finally, she lets herself collapse.

  Home.

  The thick folds of relief come cashmere-smooth, her first touch in too many hours. The smell of perfume under smoke. The impale of earring on cheek. Her mother holds on with an unusual force, as if somehow she knows not to let go, only to wheel her daughter in through the beige of the hallway towards the AGA-swelter of the kitchen; to sit her down and put the kettle on.

  ‘Dad at work?’

  ‘Where else.’

  ‘And Séan? I thought he…’

  ‘Tomorrow. Now darling, tea or stronger?’

  And despite herself, Aisling almost smiles; sees the tasteful tinsel in the window and the warmth of the holiday she knows she could never give up, no matter who was asking.

  ‘Tea, I think. Thank you.’

  Though after the first pot of Barry’s her mother insists on taking her suitcase upstairs, struggling with the heft of the load. ‘Christ, child, what on earth have you got inside?’

  And Aisling feels a draught then, as thin and cold as doubt, coming from underneath the door.

  part three | And he called…

  1921

  What about a man who courted his woman via pigeon mail, so he called the chef the night before their wedding to ask if he can cook the bird and serve it at the reception, to allow the guests to ingest the effort of their love? To tear the brown, gamey flesh and hook the wishbone with their little fingers and pull either side ’til it snaps?’

  The Cork sky was a faint almost-blue. Ribbons of white cloud spooled downwards, unravelling all the way until you would half-­expect to find a pile of them gathered on the ground or caught in one of the church spires poking up across the city.

  It was the day before Passover, and Ruth was down on her hands and knees in the middle of the yard. To her left in the muck sat a bucket filled with kitchen knives; to her right an empty one. She picked up the first blade and held it to the light. A little tilt to see. Before she plunged it, deep into the soil; pulled back and then stabbed again, over and over, hacking at Ireland as if the poor thing hadn’t endured enough violence lately to last a bloody lifetime.

  Ruth paused, panting with the effort. She felt the hairs at the bottom of her spine smooth moist, a swirl of patterns like the print of a finger or a thumb.

  All week it had been like this, working lives aside, the entire neighbourhood hell-bent on getting everything prepared for tomorrow’s Passover feast. The local kosher shop, Shalom Stores, had imported most of the ingredients over from Manchester – massive crates of the stuff, weighing the ships down – though even still there didn’t seem to be enough to go around, the neighbours bartering with one another or taking the train up to Dublin for that last batch of horseradish or else the whole holiday would be ruined. Ruined!

  Back at home, Ruth had been relentless with the effort. Boiling the eggs; sorting the Matzoh crackers; stabbing the knives into the ground ten times each to make sure they were purified, just as the ritual decreed. And as ever, she was happy to help out – of course she was – her role in life, to be sure. But this year she couldn’t deny the burden felt just a little different. A little heavier.

  She picked up another knife and clenched. The whites of her nails were already clogged black and full.

  Niamh had always worked overtime in the run-up to the festivals, extra hours and extra days. Apart from the cleaning and tidying she had done the main whack of the cooking; had mastered all the special dishes, finding such craic in the strange holiday routines she had never heard before:

  ‘So what, we do it ten times, boy?’

  ‘In ten different places.’

  ‘And what if we end up accidentally decapitating a worm?’

  ‘Oh no. Then we must start again.’

  Ruth paused at the memory of her friend’s laughter. She felt it in her chest, a little hack of its own.

  It was nearly six months now since Niamh had said goodbye. One hundred and seventy days, to be exact. It had come from nowhere, but as soon as she was out the door the rumours hadn’t taken long to mill – that Mame had finally given her the boot; had finally acted on a long-held jealousy.

  ‘Well, it is no coincidence that the Ratman has not put on a single play since the help arrived.’

  ‘I hear he’s had his hands full, all right.’

  ‘And not with his Princess of the Bees…’

  And Ruth had even fantasised about some version of the gossip herself. Niamh, Tateh and her, the family that might have been – the other origins we construct, better versions in our dreams. But the truth of it was far more cruel, because Niamh’s brother had been an IRA man in the recent War of Independence, his limbs blown off by the Brits – freedom, it turned out, came at a price – so now his sister had to stay put in their countryside home and care for him instead.

  Ruth checked the next blade for nicks, imperfections. She squinted so hard it made her eyes sting.

  In the beginning, she had written letters to Niamh, to keep her company in that faraway cottage – they were friends by now, ­weren’t they, so wasn’t that what friends did? She wrote about the local gossip she had overheard; abou
t the horrors she had read in the Cork Examiner, the War still doing its worst – she asked Niamh when she thought it would end? When the Brits would set them free? And then she also asked if Niamh would mind sending back a few stories in return, because the place was starting to feel empty without them, without her, a sort of dampness creeping in as the days went on.

  In the end, no letter of reply had ever come. Not a single word, boy.

  Ruth turned the blade to its side and spotted a dent at the tip. She dropped it back into the bucket with a clang. It would have to stay there now, away from all the others, unclean and untouched.

  The following night the candles made a pair of yellow spotlights on the table – centre-stage, awaiting the actors’ arrival – while the rest of the room lay in shadows, so dark that you might not even notice the emptiness of the place. By now most of the furniture had been given away, either to one of Mame’s JNF fundraising sales or shipped directly East to Palestine to decorate the homes of those who had already made that splendid, Promised journey.

  Ruth looked at herself in the oval mirror on the wall, one of the few luxuries to have survived. The face it framed was an adult’s face now – twenty-eight years turned wide and round, the curls wrenched into a bun so that the skin beside her mismatched eyes was pulled tight into surprise. And in the half-light, she could have almost been… pretty. Maybe. If only God had been able to decide, green or brown – belonging to one or the other – instead of leaving her botched up somewhere in between.

  Across the room the table was filled and ready to go. The candles. The flowers. The copies of the Haggadah story, all set out between the four place settings.

  NorthSouthEastWest.

  Though the wood on one of the chairs had faded in a different pattern to the rest, since the sunlight always caught it in the same position these days, unmoved and unused.

  Ruth looked at it. The scars of another loss.

  ‘Oh for goodness sake.’ Mame raged in from the kitchen, her body shrunken, though her features were still at their most striking when they glared. ‘What time do you… he’s late! The meat will be dry as a bone!’ She had been hiding in the kitchen since sunrise – of all the tasks, she had insisted on doing the actual cooking for once, basting the lamb until the knuckle shone like a gem.

  Mame caught her daughter’s eye, then looked away; focused instead up the stairs towards the man they both needed – in a way, the only link between them any more. ‘For God’s sake, Moshe, would you please come and join your family at— ’

  Until finally they heard it, a voice crying out in the wilderness. ‘Ah, but what if there doesn’t be any more space for you, Girlie? The island will sink under the weight.’

  The sound of the questions made Ruth flinch, even if their familiarity couldn’t help but bring comfort too – the words she knew so well, whether she liked it or not.

  ACT TWO, SCENE ONE. A FARMER’S YARD.

  He had been working on the script for over ten years now – not quite the Haggadah, but still a very old story at this stage.

  ‘Moshe. Where have you been?’

  ‘But it is these Provinces, Mr Murphy,’ Tateh squeaked on, treading carefully down the stairs. ‘These regions that Ireland is split into – four of them, I am believing.’ He skipped the last step and kissed Mame on the cheek, then Ruth too, never once breaking the rhythm of the monologue. ‘And I have been told we can make it our home, and send to our families elsewhere and tell them to come too.’ He patted the top of the spare chair before, finally, he reached his own. ‘Ach, Girlie, and what a delightful Seder table we have here before us!’ He smiled his best smile at the punch line, the pockmarks on his cheek shoved high with delight.

  The women looked at one another again, this time linked by something else. Was it fear? Ruth wondered as she sat, laying her napkin across her lap. Or maybe, she thought, maybe it was shame?

  In the beginning it had been a strength not a weakness, her father’s cheer; his grinning in the face of… everything. For weeks after Lady Gregory’s rejection he had been unreachable, practically mute, but soon his bounce had returned, convinced that his beloved play just needed a few small tweaks before it got the thumbs up; before their lives were totally transformed. Every month a fresh draft of The Fifth Province was sent up to Dublin, the envelope ­covered with enough stamps to take it halfway around the world, just in case. And at first, the patroness had written back, a few lines of politeness. Excuses.

  I have been busy taking Playboy of the Western World to America.

  The Easter Rising – Dublin is in chaos. But at least Independence is drawing near. This time we cannot lose!

  Until soon, the replies were the thing that got lost; awkward eyes from the postman and Mrs Geary at the Post Office, unable to meet the playwright’s weekly enquiry.

  ‘And what about the land of unsent mail?’ Tateh had speculated, the way only he could. ‘A realm filled with all the things we wish we had said?’

  Ruth sighed. She wondered if that was where all her letters from Niamh had ended up too.

  And even now, ten years on, still Tateh’s conviction hadn’t faltered – if anything, it had only grown – so that whenever the neighbours dared to ask he told them that yes, The Fifth Province was about to sweep the nation, The Abbey’s finest debut yet! But then again, if they asked him anything these days he gave a beaming answer. That his peddling work was going well; that his daughter had lots of friends.

  That the family was better than ever, not struggling a bit.

  Ruth stared down at the white of her napkin. She had cleaned her fingernails, but still they looked grey against the cotton.

  All along, she had tried to follow her father’s optimism. She had been raised on it, sure – why stop now? And even when something inside him had started to slip, a manic flash, still she would wave him off each Monday morning and truly believe that he would earn a little more this week; that he would get the play right this time and everything would be grand.

  Recently it had been pencils – the only thing he seemed to be able to sell. The irony of a playwright who has been writing the same thing for over ten years making his pittance by flogging cheap pencils.

  If anything, it sounded like one of his crazy ideas in itself.

  But then even on the weekends, back at home, he spent his days out wandering too, venturing far beyond the Boundary Markers they were meant to stay within on the Sabbath. He claimed he just liked to go for a stroll down to O’Leary’s pub, to improve his ear for the regional lilt – he had realised that that was the thing holding back the play. But then one afternoon Ruth had been wandering the docklands herself, sneaking to the letterbox to post more pleas to Niamh, when she saw him, down by the cove.

  He was alone, though he spoke and laughed aloud. ‘Scattered we will be no more… Girlie speaks a little louder.’ He thrashed his arms through the air like they were punches or wings. ‘For this island holds the place we have been searching… No no no, the place we have been searching for, this island holds… yes, better, much better.’ He rubbed his hands together like a magician, then ripped off his clothes and sprinted into the freeze of the Atlantic, his body ghost white against the current and—

  ‘Right, shall we begin?’

  Ruth looked up, back from the sea to where they sat, all three of them here at the kitchen table.

  Slowly she nodded at her mother’s request and picked up her faded Haggadah pamphlet. The pages smelled damp, stiff from wherever they had been buried for the last twelve months – almost, but never wholly forgotten. She looked at her parents, the smile and the frown. She looked at the empty chair and the silent kitchen.

  And then, despite everything, she joined them as they read:

  In the beginning, there was the story of Exodus…

  In the beginning, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt…

  In the begi
nning, Moses transcribed God’s commandments, until his people turned their backs and he smashed the tablets into pieces…

  ‘You see, Austėja,’ Tateh chimed in. ‘Even Moses had to do a big re-write!’

  The women sipped their wine, pursed lips to rims.

  When his laughter had run out they carried on.

  But after a while the lips began to relax, the reading loosening them up. Because there was no need to worry about saying the wrong thing – or worse, sitting there in silence – when the words were right in front of them, telling them what to say.

  If he had given us the Torah, it would have been enough…

  Ruth reached for the wine to top up their glasses, to will the moment on.

  If he had led us to Mount Sinai, it would have been enough…

  She liked this bit especially, the repetition like a momentum driving forward.

  If he had split the sea for us, it would have been enough…

  ‘And what if the Atlantic had split for our Esther, Girlie? Maybe she could be all right after all?’

  At her father’s words, Ruth placed the wine back on the table.

  By now it was a full nine years since that other departure from the house; that other boat that never made it to America.

  Esther had bought her ticket without a single hint – even after the announcement she refused to confess where she had managed to procure such a sum.

  ONE WAY the document said. CORK TO NYC.

  The final chapter of the journey after all.

  At first Mame’s face had flared livid, incandescent in its rage, then had collapsed just as quickly again. ‘But what about the Homeland?’ she begged. ‘If we are going to leave, Esther, it should be there.’

  While Tateh only smiled same-old smiles: ‘But we are happy here, my darling. So nearly ready is The Fifth Province.’

  And somewhere in the background, Ruth had seized the moment, a rare chance to try to impress: ‘Well, Niamh did say it is the largest ship the world has ever seen. It was built by the White Star Line up in Belfast, and then Cork is the last port, so really it is an all-Irish affair!’ She was pleased with how she had put it, the last bit especially. She wondered if she would ever be described as ‘all-Irish’ herself?