Nine Folds Make a Paper Swan

by Ruth Gilligan

  In the end the struggle had been almighty, but she had made it; had delivered a whole new little life.

  Her feet slapped against the concrete steps. The basement darkness was bone-cold, the shadows scattered with disused equipment and dribbling pipes gone gombeen with the bleakness. Ruth bowed her head as she passed the first section, the metallic trays for the poor little bodies who hadn’t quite made it, may their names be blessed. They lay wrapped and chilled for the undertakers to lift away. It only took the strain of a single arm to carry the weights.

  She kept going, all the way to the end where the rows of filing cabinets stood tall, drawers knackered beneath the hefty burden of all the names and details of every human being who had begun their existence – their very own story – here in these draughty corridors.

  A noise from behind sent her crossways. She had already complained about the rats.

  Her drawer was the second one down, third unit from the end. She reached for the cold metal handle and tilted her head to where the necessary folder would sit, a tab that poked upwards with the small letter K for Klein.

  Nataniel Joshua. 7 lbs 7 oz.

  Still his screeches rang in her ears, the throaty things more animal than human.

  When she opened the drawer, it was a smell not a sound that hit her first. The wet ash had a metallic reek, alkaline and harsh. It sent her retching. Once. Twice. Doubling over to grab her gut. Until eventually she managed to straighten up and look.

  The metal sides of the drawer were coated in char, a crust like rust gone black, while below, the soggy mess looked as dark as soil or peat. But it wasn’t either – it was the cremated remains of her folders. Her babies.

  Her Irish-Jewish babies.

  She coaxed herself to stay calm. To breathe. She reached for the drawer above hers, to prove the taste in her mouth wrong. But Mary Kelly’s batch sat neat in their brown paper rows, the tabs from A to Z, while down below, Deirdre Fanning’s were grand as well – totally out of order, the letters all over the place like a bombsite or a bout of dyslexia, but what mattered was that they were safe and Ruth’s were not. No, it seemed Ruth’s were the only ones that had been destroyed; the only ones that had been Chosen.

  When she slammed it shut the unit shuddered hard, almost as if it understood. Some flecks of black coughed out and fell to the ground. She wondered if the rats would eat them up.

  The funny looks had been one thing, all right; the murmurs in the canteen; the headlines that had started to appear in all the magazines:

  IRELAND FOR THE IRISH!

  A JEWRIDDEN RACE!

  Though they tended to be tucked away down the margins – easy to pretend she just couldn’t see.

  Then there had been the pelt of rashers on Dr Solomons’s car – some cleaning staff over a lack of pay rise, he had told her. ‘Nothing to worry about, my dear!’ But the sense of something wider, something uglier, had begun to fester, threatening to pounce, until this afternoon down in the basement morgue she couldn’t swallow it back any more; couldn’t just put on a brave, mismatched face and laugh off the jokes; see the good that her father had taught her, so blindly, to see.

  She smoothed down her blood-smattered smock, nice and flat. She would need to do a wash when she got home. And then, without fuss, she decided to escape.

  Outside the traffic din was deafening, the cars all racing towards O’Connell Street, the Liffey’s borderline. The air was quick and unfriendly as she went, through the car park past the giant marble colonnade with the roof curved smooth into a dome. It was the ‘rotunda’ – the city’s very own pregnant belly – only it didn’t even belong to the maternity hospital any more, not since they had sold it off last year – to a theatre company of all things – an offshoot of The Abbey Theatre. Well, bully for them! Ruth thought now, her face flinched ugly against the gale. Lady Gregory must be delighted! A petulance she barely recognised.

  But as she reached the car-park exit, her body began to falter. Because actually, where on earth was she going to go? She pictured her tiny bedsit, there on Clanbrassil Street, all the papers piled high with the million different tasks she had agreed, wholeheartedly, to do. There was the Social Society annual dinner; the Cheder fundraiser accounts; the cake recipes for the Shul Visitors’ Tea – every day another request, another favour. Always happy to help! But she wasn’t sure she had the energy for all that now. And what about some Irish cakes to liven things up? Yes, I know it’s not the usual, but I think it’s worth a go, don’t you? After all, we are—

  ‘Are you all right?’

  In retrospect, it was a miracle she didn’t scream right into his mouth.

  Through tears she hadn’t even noticed, Ruth could just make out the stranger. He was a stocky chap, not much taller than her but nearly twice as wide. He held his hands aloft in apology, or perhaps, in defence.

  To their left a man moved through the car park armed with a fistful of flowers. Ruth wondered if they were for the theatre or the hospital. Either way, for his leading lady.

  The stranger, though, was busy figuring answers of his own. ‘That’s where I’ve seen…’ he began. ‘You live on Clanbrassil Street, no? A newcomer, up from County Cork?’

  Despite everything, Ruth felt a little blush at the recognition.

  ‘Well look,’ he went on now, ‘I’ve just finished rehearsals, and I’m heading back to Little Jerusalem. So if you wanted me to escort you I’d be happy— ’

  ‘No!’ It was her first word. The force of it surprised them both.

  The gust hurled bits of Dublin at their ankles, flitters of fag ends and theatre stubs – all of yesterday’s highs – until eventually there was a mention of a bar. It was a grubby place, like, upstairs at the theatre; the kind of establishment she never visited. But then, she was also the kind of woman who never cried; who never ran away; never allowed herself to acknowledge the shadows that had slowly crept their way in. So before she could think she turned and led the way around the corner, up towards the main entrance of The Gate Theatre, trying to ignore the curious glance that skidded freely over the wetness of her cheeks.

  The bar was grubby as promised. Exhausted paint. A savoury tang on the air you could almost chew. He ordered two halves of Guinness, even though she had still never touched a drop of the stuff; still remembered her mother’s rants about the natives’ alcoholism. And each evening at the hospital she would watch as the other nurses headed off arm in arm for their sessions in Mooney’s, gossip and hangovers giddying the corridors right through the following day. But she never seemed to hear about the outings in time. Or maybe they just thought her a bit old to want to join – the law still remained that women had to give up their jobs as soon as they married, so at thirty-eight she was the only one left on the wage list above the romanceable age.

  Ruth Greenberg. Betrothed to her babies.

  ‘So go on then, what has you so upset?’ The stranger placed the storm of black and white before her.

  She looked down. She had forgotten she was still wearing her smock.

  She tried to make her reply sound casual, mortified now for the state he had found her in. She said it was just a bad day at the office, the maternity hospital, like.

  ‘A death?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘A still-born?’

  ‘No!’ she laughed, startled by his bluntness. ‘In fact if anything, quite the opposite – a good noisy one.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Nataniel.’

  ‘Well, Mazel Tov, Nataniel!’ He clinked his glass against hers and began to drink. As the locals put it, wetting the baby’s head.

  She could still see the tiny squeal of a thing, the image calming her now; loosening something in her chest. And then somewhere else too, somewhere lower down. ‘Only I called him Oisín.’

  ‘What?’

  She shut her lips; busied them with a s
ip of her Guinness. She had heard they sometimes gave it to expectant mothers, to dose them up on iron.

  ‘Go on…?’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t…’ she swallowed. ‘I just… well, I like to give the babies nicknames, you see. Register them under their proper title, of course, but then I have my own private list back home, where I name them after whatever story I was— ’

  And yes! she remembered now – her list – of course! Tucked away in her bedside drawer, still safe from the world. This time she took a hefty glug of the drink, some consolation there at least.

  The stranger’s name was Harry, though he assured her she was welcome to re-title him as and when she saw fit. He was a History teacher turned actor; the youngest of three brothers who had come to Ireland back when the boys were still wee. The other two were married now, both shacking up with one of the English girls shipped over once a year to give the scutty community a better bit of choice. A boatful of romance.

  ‘And how about you? Why did you leave Cork?’

  Ruth stared down at the table between them. A pattern of circles glossed the wood like one of those Russian wedding rings, linked for all eternity.

  She kept her answer vague, saying simply that ever since the rest of her family had gone overseas it had been time for a fresh start; a new beginning. ‘And of course, after the Civil War,’ she added then, steering the sentiment away, ‘I had to get out – sure, poor Cork was blown to bits!’

  Oh yes, the Civil War had been vicious all right – on that they could both agree. Horrible the way a country could just turn on itself, even after all she’d been through. The fighting had lasted eleven months after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed, more bombs and bullets than ever before. Even families were divided right down the middle, the whole country covered in rubble and dust.

  But the memory only made Ruth shudder now, the smell of fire and ash too close to home. ‘Another round?’ So instead she padded across the bar to order a fresh pair of drinks. A bowl of American peanuts. When they came she ate a handful and then another, though still she couldn’t taste their taste.

  Dear Mame,

  Greetings from Dublin all the way to Palestine. Shalom Aleichem!

  Ruth looked down at the clumsy Hebrew, the ancient letters so heavy from her pen. Though apparently they weren’t so ancient any more, because out in the Holy Land they had started to revive them; to try to bring the language back from the dead.

  Ruth thought of Irish, the poor thing – the deadest tongue of all.

  Now, I do not wish to alarm you. Or even quite know how to put this…

  She paused again, this time at her clumsy English, like an awkward little sister confessing something that was really her beautiful sibling’s fault.

  …but I have a piece of good news, and I thought that you might like to…

  She put the pen down completely and leaned back in her chair. To her left on the desk sat a cold cup of tea; to her right her paperweight, a hand-sized chunk of limestone. She picked it up. A flectrum of green ran through the grey like a streak of fat through a steak.

  And what about the one where a lonely spinster who doesn’t even realise she is lonely finally meets herself a man?

  She smiled at the ancient formula as she put down the stone and crushed the page into a ball. She aimed it towards the bin, but looked away as soon as she threw. She knew by now she never made the shot.

  And she knew it was a silly idea, writing to Mame like this. Embarrassing, really – a woman of her age. It probably wasn’t even true that she had ‘met a man’, not in the proper sense, like. And even if it was, why this sudden compulsion to spiel it all the way East?

  To brag?

  To prove?

  To please?

  The walls of Ruth’s bedsit were mostly bare. A small oval mirror. A map of Ireland, the one she never let herself touch for fear she would rub it all away. The garret was on the top floor of a Clanbrassil Street terrace, right in the heart of the community. Trapped on all sides, she sometimes joked. But no, she didn’t mean it really – she loved it, of course she did – the frantic babble of market days, ­pickle-stenched and shrill; cabbage and fish and weekly gossip traded above all else.

  ‘Twelve beetroot for a tanner.’

  ‘Did you hear Lottie Epstein’s after getting herself up the duff?’

  Ruth looked away towards the window, the glass smeared tearful with rain. It had been torrential all week, or ‘Biblical’ as the locals liked to say. Though according to the papers it wasn’t near as bad as it was down in Cork where the Lee had burst its banks – over half the houses flooded and not an Ark in sight. She pictured their old terrace, the pokey yard now a boggy mess sunken black and deep with memories.

  Ruth cracked her knuckles. Writing always made the old ache worse.

  The letters came and went about four times a year, usually coinciding with the festivals. The Chanukah update. The Passover check-in. But of course, according to Mame every day was a festival out East – a Holy day and a happy day and above all, a Chosen Day.

  Dear Ruth, May God in Heaven be blessed…

  She always began with the same formal opening line, the vague flicker of closeness they had finally kindled towards the end now vanished from sight entirely.

  And how is everything in Dublin?

  The community doing well?

  And the children…?

  Ruth stared at the last question that almost sounded like Mame was just a proud grandmother, asking after her next-next of kin.

  Of course, she was more than a grandmother’s age these days; probably grey and shrunken, sweating into her beloved red dress as she scrubbed the floors and picked the oranges and tilled the fields on the kibbutz, taking much-needed breaks to jot down stiff, unfeeling letters, the ink crusted by the sun before the sentences were even complete.

  As for the Homeland, I think we are nearly there. And I heard we have been looking for some advice from your lot? Nu, who would have thought? But then last time – for once – Mame’s letter had actually found a bit of feeling for her younger daughter; a bit of praise, even, for the Emerald Isle.

  There had been rumours doing the rounds that the Zionists were planning to send an envoy over to the IRA, to borrow some military strategies. Because if the Irish had beaten the Brits and secured themselves a homeland – everything the Jewish people so desperately wanted – then maybe they could be so kind as to pass on a few words of wisdom; a couple of tips.

  Ruth smiled at the connection – the affinity she wished other people could somehow see – so much more than awkward letters linking that desert to this bullet-grey rain. She folded her papers and put them back in the drawer. She drank a mouthful of cold tea.

  She had found another box of correspondence when she was clearing out their Cork house, shortly after Mame had caught the East-bound boat. It had departed from the very same port that had swallowed them in, twenty-five years previous – a symmetry of waves if nothing else.

  Alone at last, Ruth had read through the letters. There were ones from Uncle Dovid from New York; from Lady Gregory from The Abbey Theatre – a boastful rant about her latest play The Deliverer which she wanted Tateh to see, little doubt as to why she had invited him to Dublin. But at the time, of course, his dreams had got the better of him. Maybe even the very best.

  Ruth shook her head at the memory and tried to smile. The Deliverer, she thought to herself. A bit like her over in the hospital every day, delivering those babies – sure, that’s what they should call me. The Deliverer indeed!

  She looked around. She wished Harry were there so she could share the joke and earn a rare little laugh. But no, she decided – it would need too much explanation; too much history. Probably better as usual to just say nothing at all.

  It was six months now since she had stumbled into him. They had made something of a ritual of it, me
eting every day in the car park between The Gate and The Rotunda.

  ‘From one theatre to another,’ he liked to say. ‘A great poetry to that, Ruthie, you know?’

  Sometimes they would stroll to The Savoy to catch a film, the audience standing up at the start for a rousing rendition of the country’s brand new Anthem. Ámhráin na bhFiann. The Soldier’s Song – a nation once again! Other times they would take a tram back to her place where she would prepare an almighty feast. Chicken soup and pickled herrings – all the ancient mouthfuls. He said he hadn’t tasted grub like it since his darling mother, and of course Ruth hadn’t had anyone to cook it for since Mame, so there was a common ground in that at least.

  While they ate, he would tell her about his rehearsals; about which plays he wanted to audition for next. And she would nod and agree in her way; offer a cameo of her own from time to time: ‘Not that it matters, but I mentioned to Dr Solomons about the filing cabinet like you said.’ The one item of hers that commanded his attention.

  ‘And what did he say? Has he launched an investigation yet?’ Harry took his knife and plunged it into his bread roll, sectioning it open. ‘Found the bastards that carried out the attack?’

  ‘Well now, Harry, I would hardly call it— ’

  ‘Well, what would you call it, Ruthie?’ His voice was suddenly like a fist slamming the table, startling the cutlery awake.

  Ruth looked down at her plate, a heap of the uneaten. She saw the pile of ashes again, there where her babies should have been – the contents of the drawer arsonned black. And then she saw the look of horror on her boss’s face when she had reported the incident; the sadness between them when they knew it could go no further.

  Sometimes after dinner Ruth and Harry would nip down to the Bernard Shaw off the South Circular Road. She had taken quite a shine to the Guinness, the lick of foam along her lip, soap-thick. Or they would curl up on the couch so she could read to him, great tomes of plays he borrowed from the Rathmines Public Library. The rows of due dates on the inside cover looked like a midwife’s private list. Harry said it was his duty as an actor to guzzle as much of the canon as he could. Wilde and Chekhov. J. M. Synge. Act after Act ’til the darkness gatecrashed and his eyes sagged shut beneath the weight of stout and tragedy. But she would always be sure to finish, right to the end. To feel the catharsis land.