by Peter Murphy
At least he wasn’t murdering anybody and saying it was just to defend his fuckin’ way of life. Yes, the world was a fine big fuck up, and as long as people were making money out of it nothing would ever change. If he didn’t have a drink once in a while, he’d go mad altogether.
If only it was once in a while.
“Ah, Martin, don’t be getting on my case again,” he whispered to his reflection.
I’m not going to give up on you.
“Well, maybe you should.” Danny raised his glass between him and the mirror behind the bar. “Because I’m done fighting it all. I’m just floating now like everybody else. Life is not worth it, you know. Everything that is supposed to be good and nice about it is just fairy tales.
“Tell me something.” He lowered his glass and stared straight into his own eyes. “Are we all really being judged or are we already in hell?”
Chapter 12 – 2008
When the Spanish courts reopened the case of the murdered scholars of Universidad Centroamericana, they also let loose a flood of emotions that John Melchor had penned up for years. In a way he didn’t mind. He’d been walking around in a pharmaceutical haze for far too long.
He needed to feel something again, even if it was painful. And he needed to be able to clearly hear the voices of the dead again. They had become so vague and muddled with everything that was happening around him. But he was also reluctant. At heart he was still from the old school, where men quietly suffered their burdens without complaint, even if it meant they were crushed under them, or lashed out at something in frustration. He saw it all around him. Old men who had given up all that life offered to devote themselves to a god who cared so little for any of them in the end. Bitter now and imposing their restrictions on everyone else.
Sometimes he envied women. They could share their feelings and their empathies even if they were often just enabling each other. Tivia had been to the café to plead with them all, and Miriam quickly became her advocate. Tivia’s child was on the way and she still hadn’t found a way to tell her grandfather, as they still weren’t talking. Miriam suggested that Giovanni should do it, but he didn’t feel it would be right coming from him. He was afraid her grandfather might think he was judging him. He thought Patrick should do it as he still saw Signore Pontecorvo regularly at the bookstore, and it would seem less of an issue if Patrick brought it up casually.
Patrick looked horrified at the prospect and turned to Miriam, but she avoided his eyes.
“Please?” Tivia turned from one to the other, her pretty brown eyes growing softer and softer.
That always fascinated John, how easily women could cry sacred tears from the depths of bruised hearts. Or were they just little girls getting their way? He could never decide. He usually depended on Miriam, but with Tivia she had become . . . almost maternal.
“Very well,” he announced when the silence became unbearable. “I will go and talk with him.”
“Are you sure?” Miriam asked. She looked at him until he responded, trying to understand what was going on inside him.
“Yes, I am. He and I are old enough and wise enough to be able to sit down and share this wonderful news.”
“Yes,” Giovanni agreed and rearranged himself as if the matter was settled. “It would be best for Padre John to talk to him. Signore Pontecorvo would appreciate it more coming from him.”
“Grazie, grazie, grazie.” Tivia fluttered from one to the other, kissed Miriam and Giovanni on both cheeks, lowered her dark glasses and turned to leave. “Ciao. Grazie mille.
“Ciao,” she called again over her shoulder, and walked off across the piazza without once getting her heels caught in the cobblestones. She waved again before sliding into her shiny, new Smart Car and, nosing her way through the crowd, waved again and was gone.
“That poor young woman,” Miriam commented to no one in particular.
“The poor old man,” John muttered into his raised coffee cup. It was the last thing the old bookseller needed. The whole business with his grandson had torn at his heart, and even though he still went about his day as he had for decades, John knew better. The old man had become distant. He’d still find time to talk with his friends but he always seemed distracted. “I will go and see him right now.”
He pushed his chair back and rose like Jesus from the supper. He might have argued but there was no point. He couldn’t leave it to his friends; they were stretched enough looking after him. He knew they all took their shifts keeping his devils away. He had gone along with it because he was lost, but now that all that had happened that night in San Salvador was to be re-examined, his life was coming back into focus. He was still a member of the Society of Jesus and he would bring what comfort he could to the poor old Jew whose granddaughter was about to leave the tribe.
“I will come with you,” Miriam decided and drained her cup.
“There’s no need,” John assured her, half-heartedly. “I’m sure I can manage very well alone.”
She insisted, and soon they were walking toward the river, slowly so he could keep up. When they first met, he was the one who led her. He was okay with that. He trusted her now.
“We all need a little bit of help with our crosses.” She smiled when he looked over at her.
*
Signore Pontecorvo still kept an apartment over the bookstore. It was far too big for him now, so he allowed clutter to gather in the corners. The place wasn’t dirty. His nieces took turns coming over to cook and clean for him, always ensuring that he had fresh clothes laid out for the week, laid out by day and spread on the large bed he hadn’t slept in for years.
He rarely spoke to them and gruffly when he did, as though it was expected of him. His nieces were good, kind women, but he couldn’t remember who was who so he didn’t risk getting into conversations. His nieces didn’t force the issue either, in case he started another of his tirades about Israel and how Zionism was the rejection of their covenant with God; about how they had turned the Promised Land into hell; about how they were becoming all that once terrorized them.
Even John was reluctant to get him started on the subject, given how he felt about his own beloved country, distracted again by the contorted voices of righteousness citing the twisted passages of the Old Testament to rationalize support for hate and intolerance, while those who had died in the towers cried out to him in shame. The dead were unanimous in that; they never wanted vengeance.
Old Pontecorvo often said the same thing. His people had been trapped by inherited fear. Cultivated around the mantra of “never again,” they used their dead as human shields against all that might dare to question them, careening hand-in-hand with those who wore Jesus as the mark, closer and closer toward Armageddon. And all the words of love offered so little solace. If the meek did inherit the world, it would be a barren, war-scarred wasteland.
“How are we going to raise the subject?” Miriam intruded as they turned the last corner and strolled toward the book store.
“In deference to his age, I think it should be a short, sharp shock.”
“Are you not concerned about giving him a heart attack?”
“No.” John laughed. “Old Davide will bury us all.”
He looked up from his desk as they entered. “Ah, a visit from the Catholic clergy. This type of thing has never ended well for Jews.”
His nephew, a short bespectacled man who Davide always accused of being underfoot, looked out from the back room. “Coffee?” Efraim asked and smiled in the hope that they might accept.
“We do not need coffee,” Davide chided and waved him back into the storeroom. “Go back and unpack those boxes while my friends and I talk.”
“Thanks anyway,” Miriam offered as the poor nephew looked crestfallen.
“You are well?” John asked, and sat directly in front of the old man, meeting his eyes.
“As we
ll as can be expected, but I doubt you have come all this way to discuss my health.”
“No.” John smiled a little but held the old man’s gaze. “We are here with news from your granddaughter.”
“News? Should I presume that she sent you because it is bad?”
“That will depend on you. She is with child.”
“And the father is not . . .”
“No he isn’t, but by all accounts he is still a good man.”
The old man lowered his head and stared at the floor for so long that they were beginning to wonder if he hadn’t nodded off.
“Signore?” Miriam checked after a while.
“And Tivia had to send you here to tell me all of this?” The old man raised his head and his eyes were dewy.
“She did. She wants you to know but she is afraid that you might reject her.”
The old man lowered his old gray head again, into his long bony hands that wrinkled around it.
“Is that what she thinks of me?”
“No, Signore.” But Miriam wasn’t convincing, and the old man stared some more.
“She is still your granddaughter and she is still a good woman. Please try to remember that, Signore.” Miriam reached toward the old man’s shoulder but John shook her off. The old man would need his time and space.
He started to shudder and they were both convinced he was crying. But when he looked up, he was smiling. “Please tell Tivia that I am very happy for her and, if she is willing to forgive such a stubborn old fool, I would like to give her my blessing for what it’s worth.”
Miriam rose with her phone in hand. “I will call her right now.”
She went outside to fill in the details in private.
“So,” John asked unsurely. “You are happy about this?”
“You do not have children, or grandchildren, do you Padre?”
“You know I don’t.”
“Well then you do not understand the joy this brings to me. So, for now, my great-grandchild is to be Goyim but I’m sure that can be negotiated.”
“And what if it isn’t?”
“Then one of the Pontecorvos might finally meet this Messiah you speak of.”
*
“So how can you be sure? It’s not like we’re surrounded by people living happily ever after.”
Martin and Rachael had just had dinner in one of the fancy little places on Mount Pleasant and had shared two bottles of wine, but they were walking some of that off. He never liked to let the world get out of focus. When you did that in hockey, there was always someone waiting to blindside you.
“My mom’s doing okay.”
“That’s my point, Martin. The only happy, successful person we know is divorced.”
“Then let’s get married, have two children, and you can divorce me.”
He had started on his dream job, straight out of school, and just had his first promotion. It had seemed like the perfect time to pop the question.
“See!” Rachael spun around without letting go of his hand, raising their arms like a bridge and gliding beneath it. “I knew you weren’t serious about it.” She was just teasing him, pouting a little while her eyes sparkled. “So how can you be so sure that we’d get to stay . . . happy?”
“Because I will never let anything make you unhappy.”
He tried to hold her close to kiss her soft lips, but she rolled out along his arm like a ballerina or as if they were about to tango. He hadn’t told her yet; he’d gone to see her father to ask if he could propose to her. It was the right thing to do. He felt bad about not telling her but it was still the right thing to do.
“Oh, Martin, don’t say things like that. What if I go crazy and start knitting for my twenty cats?”
“Only twenty?”
“Yes, but I’ll have a parrot too. And you’d have to make sure the cats didn’t get it—so I’m not unhappy.”
“I’ll get a big dog.”
“What if I dress it up in a chicken-lady costume and cover it with catnip?”
“I’ll hire a live-in shrink. Listen, you know if you don’t want to . . .” He held his arms open and exposed his heart. “Just tell me now, and I won’t ask again . . .” he sang as she tried not to giggle.
“No, I’ll let you marry me, but I want you to know from the beginning, I’m only marrying you for your money.”
“Shit. Really? I thought you had money. It’s off then.”
“See, you’re starting to make me unhappy already and you’re not doing anything about it.” She stepped closer so she could bat her eyelids directly at him, gently coming to rest against him.
He had to tell her. It was starting to bother him. He put his arms around her and drew her closer, almost lips to lips. “I went to see your father.”
She stood away abruptly and blinked. “Why? We already talked about that.”
“I know.” He rubbed his chin before lowering his arms and turning his palms forward. “But I had to.”
“Why?”
“It’s a man thing—and no I’m not saying that you’re chattel.”
“Martin, listen to me. I’m not angry. In fact I’m very touched, it’s only . . .”
“It’s only nothing,” he interrupted. “It’s the way it should be. For good or bad. He’s still your father and I respect that.”
“That’s all very well, Martin, but I wasn’t ready to talk with him about it. Not yet.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yes, Mr. Goodie-two-shoes. Shit. But, as a matter of interest—not that it matters to me—what did he say?”
“Thank Christ or Hallelujah. I can’t remember. He was so happy.”
“‘Christ?’ Really Martin, ‘Christ?’”
“He says he’s converting—for the sake of the children.”
“They’re going to be Jewish.”
“All of them?”
“No.” She grew serious for a moment and then smiled again. “Let’s have one for every religion in the world—except Rasta. We can’t have the kids smoking ganga. They’d have to go to Northern.”
“But we agreed: only two. And I’m sure Grainne can be relied on to produce the Rastas, especially if she sticks with Doug.” He was really down on Doug these days. He hadn’t got over not making it in the draft and had retreated back into his mother’s basement, only coming out to see Grainne and to eat at their house.
“Okay, we’ll just have two, but we’ll teach them all the religions.”
“Or no religion at all?”
“Or no religion at all.”
“So really,” she asked as they passed the cemetery and were almost at the corner of Moore and enough of the wine haze had floated away, “what did my father say? How did he react? Tell me! Tell me!”
“He got down on his knees and thanked me for making an honest woman of you again.”
“It’s the least you could do. After all, you are the only person I was ever . . . never mind. What did he say about inviting relatives?”
“I can’t remember, but he did say that he’d be proud to call me son.”
“Did he really? Did you have to sneak some Irish whiskey into his coffee?”
“Please, no racial profiling—you’ll set a bad example for the kids.”
He had thought about it though. Joel was hard to read. He had sat behind his desk and said that he would welcome Martin and he would be happy to see Rachael as his wife, but he would not have his wife’s family there. He did invite Martin to sit though, as if the matter were negotiable. “There are matters between me and those who drove us out of Montreal.”
“Sir . . .” Martin had approached it carefully. He was getting good at that—convincing hesitant clients to place their trust in him. “I understand there are issues, but I would ask you to consider the happiness of a woman we both lov
e dearly.” It was subtle. Charming on the surface, but also a very soft declaration that he was going to be the man in Rachael’s life from now on, with all due respect.
“Do you know what the issues are?”
“No, sir.” Martin lowered his eyes.
“My wife’s family was in Montreal during the war, espousing Zionism while my family was sacrificed for their precious Promised Land. And now, when you try to confront them with the truth, they shun you, saying you have taken sides with the enemies of Israel. Zionists. They were once hand in glove with the Nazis and betrayed us all.”
Martin was in way over his head but that wasn’t going to stop him. “Sir,” he began, but Mr. Brand stopped him.
“Please, do not call me ‘Sir.’ It’s far too militaristic. Call me Joel or Papa.”
“Joel,” Martin began again, more determined. “I’m Irish, and we’re no strangers to wars and suffering and dark family secrets, but Rachael and I have a chance at a whole new beginning.”
“True.”
“But we would like to have the blessings of our families when we start out. It would mean everything to your daughter.”
“I can’t. They drove me out, you know. Every time I mentioned my uncle they said he was nothing but a drunk and I was a self-hating Jew. Me, who lost everything.”
“Mr. Brand.” Martin was trying to think on his feet and needed something to sway the balance. “My father is a drunk and I will be inviting him.”
“Why?”
“Because your daughter asked me to.”
She had. She’d insisted on it and got his mother to agree too.
“And what did he really say about my relatives?” Rachael persisted.
“He said he’d think about it.”
“Thank you, Martin.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek but was careful to brush her breast against his arm. “I know I should have dealt with it myself but thank you. I owe you.”
“Yes, you do.” He pulled her closer and ran his hand down her back. Joel had agreed to consider it for his daughter’s sake but it had taken some convincing. “And you can start repaying me by being the one to invite my father.”