Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan

by Ruth Gilligan

  But Esther continued on as if her sister hadn’t even opened her mouth. Not now and not ever. ‘I will stay with Uncle Dovid and get a job on Broadway – I am nearly twenty-one, after all. And of course, with the movies starting up…’

  Oh yes, Niamh had told her about them too!

  But no, Ruth decided, no point in trying again; please them more by shutting up.

  ‘And just think, Tateh,’ the beauty went on, saving the best ’til last. ‘As soon as I am famous I will be able to convince some famous director to put on your show. How Lady Gregory will eat her hat then, eh?’

  As soon as Ruth had seen the look in her father’s eyes, she knew that Esther would be on that boat; that they would stand amidst the wailing carnival of Queenstown Port waving her off, back and forth until their arms lost all their feelings, the rest of the mammies saying prayers as if over the dead, almost as if they knew.

  It was an hour before the dot on the horizon dropped away completely. Another week before the bad news washed up.

  Mame cleared their plates and disappeared into the kitchen, refusing all offers of help. She made no noise as she went. She stayed away that bit too long.

  When she finally returned with the main course, though, the plates that she carried were piled high. Ruth and Tateh made a fuss, heaping their compliments in return:

  ‘It looks delicious.’

  ‘What about a feast so tasty that— ’

  ‘Just eat.’

  But it really was good, too much for three but they were not complaining, drowned in a sea of gravy, the scald of it so hot you might burn your tongue off, or better yet, your grief. Ruth passed around the potatoes, her very favourite – dripped with butter, which made them even nicer – then the carrots and peas, each mouthful speckled bright. And after a while, the eating began to soften them again, the most ancient comfort of all. An extra comfort for Ruth especially, since it was just such a treat to be served dinner like this any more. Because it was her job to do all the cooking now; to recreate Niamh’s recipes as best she could; to recall the ingredients and the tricks that went into every one. And sometimes she even tried to re-tell Niamh’s stories while she worked, plucking the chickens or stirring the slick of stews, knowing the food would taste better if she could just remember the tales the right way round.

  She sliced open her third spud with her knife. She checked for flecks of black against the white.

  And maybe it was all the cooking that meant her body had started to fill out a bit, her dresses finding curves she hadn’t known before – in a way, the very opposite of Mame’s shrinking – as if she were compensating. She smiled. She would have to get Leb Epstein to tailor her a new frock. Though in truth, she had barely even noticed the change herself until she had heard the women’s whispers up in the balcony at Shul, a fresh batch of gossip aimed her family’s way.

  A tiny part of her had almost felt pride for the attention.

  The whispers, however, dealt mostly with shame; said that she was letting herself go – twenty-eight now and still single. ‘Nu, isn’t she running out of time?’ While others said it wasn’t natural, the friendship she had had with that local girl; the interest she seemed to take in native matters. And that maybe, God help them, but maybe… it had been the wrong sister on that ship?

  Ruth lost her smile now and closed her eyes. She felt another stretch in her hand-me-down dress, this time for the thump of her chest.

  ‘And don’t forget we must pour some wine for Elijah. It is time for the Prophet’s Cup.’

  At the sound of her mother’s voice Ruth took a breath. She opened her eyes, adjusting them back to the room. The candles. The oval mirror. The almost-nothing else.

  ‘Well, what is the hold up?’

  ‘Yes yes, Girlie. Go open the door in case the prophet comes.’

  Slowly, Ruth stood, tilting with the bulk of her hips. Her stomach grumbled. Her dinner would go cold.

  But of course, she had to remember that she was happy now to follow the ritual; to do precisely as she was told. Because the women could whisper all they wanted, but these past few days had reminded her all over again just how much she was needed here – a different kind of girlhood dream for a very different type of girl, realised at last.

  She glanced back at her parents; the splash of gravy on her father’s beard; the knuckle-jag of her mother’s collar. She smiled.

  Because with Esther gone, and now Niamh as well, Ruth knew that they would be scuppered if they lost her too; that actually, they relied on her more than ever before. So in a way, she asked herself, as she crossed the room and reached for the handle, but in a way wasn’t that almost the same as love? Or at least, the closest she might come?

  She yanked the door across the swollen step, the lip of it fattened from last night’s rain. She returned to her seat and crossed her legs; poured a glass of wine and placed it out in case the prophet decided to join them.

  She noticed the candles were running low, the wax drips brittle like fingers.

  In the silence, the three of them waited, each one staring at the doorway; each hoping for a different soul to step inside.

  Elijah?

  Esther?

  Niamh?

  The breeze from the street reached the table, sucking the last of the steam from their half-eaten plates.

  Lady Gregory?

  Uncle Dovid?

  The man I married?

  The draught of air that tasted of nothing but sea.

  Soon, they had had enough, leaning back into their chairs and picking up their Haggadah pamphlets one last time.

  Next year in Jerusalem!

  Next year in Jerusalem!

  Next year in Jerusalem!

  All three of them read the final blessing – the same phrase as every year – though of course Mame was the only one amongst them who really wished it true.

  Ruth turned to her mother now, a little bird in her emerald dress. The nubbin of candlelight had turned her softer, a different woman than at the start of the meal – the Princess of the Bees with her wine-stained lips, staring across at the Ratman with his flushed little pocks. And Ruth smiled at the thought, because even now the pair of them remained united by that story, the one she would never get to hear. It made her glad to know they still had that at least.

  She took another drink, feeling it sweet on her tongue; a swoon between her temples. No doubt there would be headaches in the morning. But as she watched her parents watching one another, it wasn’t just her head that felt lighter. Because the rest of her felt it too, a little fist unfurling from its perpetual scrunch and a chance that maybe next year didn’t have to be Jerusalem, but something else; something better.

  The year her father’s play was accepted.

  The year her mother stopped her mourning.

  The year their family came together again, no maid and no friends, but each of them as one.

  North

  South

  East—

  ‘Right, time for a stroll!’ Out of nowhere, Tateh’s announcement stood them up. The chairs screeched like animals in pain.

  She checked the door. It was already waiting for him, ajar.

  He said he needed to stretch his legs; to get some air after such a beautiful feed. ‘And don’t forget, Girlies,’ he cried as he bounded away, ‘next year in the Fifth Province!’ before he slammed the door behind him with a bang that shocked the place still.

  The women waited, allowing the air to readjust to the absence – a loss they felt so much more than they should. And then they began to clear, working in silence, scrubbing the place all over again, though the weariness upon them felt more good than bad.

  ‘You have had a busy week,’ Mame said as she rinsed the plates. ‘You have worked very hard.’

  Ruth looked at her mother, carefully; at the closest to a thank y
ou she could ever bring herself to come.

  ‘And Ruthie,’ she added then. ‘Do you think…’ She paused, as if choosing the right words. ‘Are you sure he will be…’ Her eyes flickered towards the doorway and beyond, seeing but not quite. Before they returned again to the water, the unasked question rising up like a bubble between them, higher and higher through the air until it burst.

  ‘And what about a blind man who travels the earth telling myths and legends to kings and queens, until one day he arrives at a palace where a beautiful maiden starts to tell him a story instead? It is a story about a blind man who travels the earth telling myths and legends to kings and queens… And upon hearing this, the blind man falls down dead on the spot, his heart ripped through by the ecstasy of knowing that his dream has finally come true. For now it will be others who tell tales about him, and in this way he will live forever.’

  From the moment Ruth opened her eyes, she knew.

  The room was lit up, honey-bright, even if it still felt too soon to be day. She slid from the bed, the floor gasping cold beneath her feet. She tiptoed the landing to the door of her parents’ room and peered in on the snoring heap of her mother, the left arm thrown across the empty flat of blankets stretching for something or someone it couldn’t quite reach.

  Ruth went downstairs and outside without a pause, no bother with a jumper or a pair of shoes, the little shards of ground pricking up into the pads of her heels.

  She made her way through the maze of alleyways; spotted a cat on a ledge, deep asleep. She turned her head left and right, but already she knew exactly where she would find him.

  Her fingers tingled for a go of her compass.

  When the cove came into sight she called for him. ‘Tateh?’ The word so much smaller out in the air, gobbled by the shingle’s crunch. ‘Tateh?’ But no, maybe she shouldn’t wake him yet – God only knew how long he had stayed up last night walking, rehearsing, digesting; telling the sea his latest tricks.

  She stopped when her shadow was just short of his, the two silhouettes about to butt heads. The paleness of his torso glared, the girlish pink of the nipples and the giant hollow in the middle like a heart scooped out. His feet were bare, his glasses off, but he had kept his trousers on, the brown soaked a darker, earthier shade.

  ‘Tateh?’

  When she noticed the bulge in his pockets she reached down to pick one out. The limestone fitted snug in her palm. She recognised it – the same kind of rock as the country walls he walked alongside every day. She rolled it in her hand; felt it smooth across her skin. She noticed a fleck of green running through the grey that looked like a flaw. A rupture.

  And as she made her way back through the Cork silence she remembered Niamh once telling her how in Irish beekeeping lore it is said that, after a death, you must ‘tell the bees’ – go out to the hut and drape it with a black cloth; then inform them of the loss. Because otherwise they will be hurt by the neglect. Frantic. Maybe even abandon the hive altogether.

  ‘How do I look?’ Mame arched her back to the fall of her red dress, the waist cinched tight before the stiff frill to the floor. It was a dated fashion, but of course, it was years since she had set the frock aside, waiting for that special day – her first step on Palestinian soil.

  Today the cream shoes would step on Curraghkippane soil instead, the muck staining the sheer of the satin black.

  It had been a busy week. Another one. Maybe even more so than the Passover build-up since this time the locals also seemed keen to play their parts, nervous tweeds clustered on the doorstep, curios­ity and condolences in equal measure.

  ‘Used to buy me Babby Jesus figurines off him, boy.’

  ‘And if you’ll pardon me asking, but is it true that a Jewman does be buried standing up?’

  Of course, it wasn’t true – the Burial Society placed his body in a casket, lying down, the flesh washed and the fingernails cut short. Meanwhile, Ruth had a cut of her own to show that she was in mourning – a little rip there in her left sleeve as is fitting for someone who has lost a parent, to symbolise the tear in her heart. She noticed Mame had opted to wear a black ribbon instead. The frock would not be harmed.

  Once the preparations were complete they led the coffin out to the horse and hearse while Ruth and her mother followed behind, just the two of them now, NorthEast, walking in formation all the way to the Jewish Cemetery. It was a giant plot, too huge to ever be filled, even with all the bodies that were sent by train from the surrounding counties – as the locals sniggered, ‘wandering even after their death’.

  Each headstone was covered with pebbles, weights to hold down the scraps of paper scribbled with prayers and offering notes. Ruth looked away. She was glad tradition meant it was a year before anyone would leave stones for her father.

  Later, back at the house, the room was stuffed with people, the table buried in stews and treats the neighbours had brought – all the smells of somewhere far away. Ruth knew that she should offer them around; see if anyone needed a drink, a chair. But she seemed barely able to stand herself, legs rocking like they had done after being at sea, EastWest, EastWest. She had to clutch the banister for support as she accepted the blessings of long life and avoided the sentimental eyes, more attention than she knew what to do with.

  Just when the farewells had begun, there was a knock on the door, a latecomer across the threshold.

  She said she was only sticking her head in, like, to pay her respects. To tell Ruth and Mame that she was so very very sorry.

  Ruth’s heart wished it had the strength to swell.

  And her body too, to leave the banister behind and go to her; to hug her and beg her not to leave again. Even if Niamh’s face somehow looked a little different now, the eyes raw, the lids drooped like someone had pulled on them for too long.

  But she would always be a great one for a smile. ‘Ah now, lads, this isn’t what he would have wanted!’ Her announcement came as a singsong across the knackered fug of the room. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, but in our custom a night like this is for tales. Stories, like, about the dearly departed – sounds right up his street, wouldn’t you say?’ Before anyone even had the breath to reply she had begun, hunched on the arm of a chair, prattling out a gem from years ago. It was back when she was only their shabbos goy, popping in to light their stove of a Saturday morning – back when they were only here for a while until they moved on to a place, sup­posedly, called ‘home’.

  ‘And I does be fiddling with the matches, right,’ Niamh explained, cosied up to them all with her shock of sunset-red hair, ‘when suddenly your man turns to me and says: “Miss Niamh, there is a question I am having.” That strange back-to-front English he used to speak, arseways altogether. So I says: “Go on,” and he says: “Down in the village I was yesterday when I heard someone ask the butcher: ‘How is she cutting?’ and then someone else tell the barber he was ‘on the pig’s back’. And I have been trying to figure it out but your people… they seem very confused with their professions and their words!”’

  The room traded glances while she spoke, but by the time the punch line came they had no choice. Their laughter bounced off the ceiling to the floorboards above, buffeting into the cracks.

  Ruth felt a twinge of pride for her friend, then another kind of twinge for her foolishness.

  Leb Ebstein spoke next, his neck host to more jowls than ever these days. ‘Well, it was me and Moshe, may his name be blessed, who went to the Housing Office when we first arrived. But on the way back on the tram a lad takes one look at our garb and asks: “Where are ye boys from?” And Moshe replies: “Kh’hob shoyn fargsen” – that is, for those of you who don’t… “I have forgotten”. Because I think his head is in a right spin at this point, trying to take it all in. But then the lad replies: “Well, Séan Ferguson, pleasure to meet you, boy, and welcome to Cork.” Shook his hand and everything! And so I called him Séan fro
m that day forward. His Irish alter ego!’

  There was a unanimous smile this time, as contagious as a yawn. They had to speak over one another to decide whose turn it was to go next.

  And the more that was told the more the room reclined, easy on the tales. Stories about the deceased but also by the deceased, favourite ideas recalled. Like the one he had about the women knitting, or the couple and the pigeon, or his Fifth Province business, nu – I always wondered where he conjured that one from?

  Ruth looked to Niamh. The pink face gave a slow, generous nod.

  Eventually it was Mame’s turn. As she stood she flattened the frills of her dress; adjusted the ribbon on her chest. It looked a bit like a debutante’s corsage. And it took a moment for Ruth to hear what her mother was actually saying, because it almost sounded like she was using English; making sure that everyone in the room could understand. ‘Well, the first… the first time I met Moshe was at the theatre. Ironic, no? A play in a theatre in Vilnius.’

  Ruth clutched the banister even harder. Her body longed for the landing up above – the vantage point for the little listening girl.

  ‘I had read some reviews and, being the curious thing I once was, if you can believe it, lied to my parents and sneaked off to the show. Alone.’

  Ruth watched the moving lips, transfixed by the confidence with which they shaped the foreign words; the unknown past.

  ‘It was a play in seven acts, with an intermission between each one, and during the first break Moshe came up and introduced himself. He was a scrawny man with his shirt untucked, but being on my own I had no choice but to say hello. Of course, I tried to be as rude as possible, but during the second intermission he was over again. A few words, mostly about the performance, but then during the third one he made me laugh. A stupid thing, I can’t even remember, but it was too late after that, and during the fourth he offered me a glass of something sweet.’