Too Close to the Wind

by Richard Attree

  I nodded.

  “So, what did you think of it?”

  “Well, it feels like there’s still a lot I don’t know” I replied, “but yes, I read the journal and I must admit: I found it fascinating.”

  He nodded, approvingly.

  “Your father, Dr Langer, was an extraordinary man. I sympathised with him over the dilemma he faced. He chose survival, as I would, but it came with a high price—to abandon the love of his life, Caitlin, and his son, Martyn, and then find himself accused of betraying them.”

  He nodded again, appraising my critique.

  “I gave the journal to your brother, by the way, as instructed.”

  “Thank you, Nick. And what did you make of Martyn?” He probed me with those laser eyes.

  “Well, he’s another fascinating man ...” I swallowed a swig of Guinness. “I can see that he’s nothing like you. His life has been politics, the ‘armed struggle’ as he put it, the Troubles ...”

  “And my life … ?” he asked quietly.

  I looked at him, again shocked by how much he’d aged.

  “You’re more like your father. You value ideas over politics or violent action.”

  “Yes, that’s true Nick. I am glad you see this. It makes me hopeful that you’ll understand what we must do tonight.”

  He left a pause, heavy with significance, but our food arrived before I could ask him what he meant. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. For a while we ate in silence, both of us lost in thought and Spillane’s excellent cuisine.

  Eventually he looked up, but a light had been switched off in his brain. He appeared to struggle to remember who I was, why he’d brought me there, even my name:

  “I’m sorry, Mister umm ... I’m afraid I’ve lost track of this conversation.” His voice was frail now. “It has been happening more frequently lately. But don’t worry, it will come back to me in a moment ...” He stared into the distance.

  I sat there embarrassed, unsure what to say, what to feel. So, it seemed that Alejandro had inherited his father’s dementia. I wondered if he’d also been saddled with Ludwig’s guilt and depression. But then the light was switched back on:

  “Ah yes, Nick, of course. Please forgive me. Remember how I told you that after I left Buenos Aires I lived in Dublin?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, ever since then this country and the people have always been special for me. I fell in love with their traditions, their myths, the deep mystery that surrounds things here. The Irish have always welcomed strangers, but there are fault lines that run deep and have divided them for centuries.”

  I gulped down the rest of my Guinness and hoped he’d notice the empty glass, but he was in full flow now:

  “These fault lines can also be seen between myself and my brother—even though I’m not Irish and I have no political allegiance. There is a chasm dividing us. Ironically, as I told you in my note, I didn’t even know he existed when I lived here in the 1970s. It was only when I read the journal that I found out I had a brother. I contacted him and we met once ...”

  He faltered, lost for words as he searched his failing memory. I helped him find them:

  “Yes, Martyn told me it was in 1981 and it didn’t go well. He said you disagreed about everything. He accused Ludwig of selling out his mother’s ideals and you of inheriting your father’s guilt along with his money. He said you asked him to join the Group?”

  “Yes, well that was a mistake. He hated our principles, our goals, as I despised his. He has blood on his hands, Nick. He carries a weapon and he has to watch his back for the rest of his life.”

  He spat out the last sentence with such bitterness, such venom, that I wondered, again, whether this final mission might be to assassinate Martyn, or one of his associates. But before I could press him on this, a young man in a Rip Curl fleece wandered past, glanced in my direction, gave me a second look, and asked me in a friendly Irish drawl:

  “Excuse me for interrupting fellas, but were you the sunset sailor with the Severne sail and a custom board, sailing Gowlane on your pat late this afternoon?”

  I sighed and glanced at Alejandro. He’d already retreated into his shell again. We seemed to be stuck in a loop—a bit of story revealed and then an interruption. But perhaps that was part of the charm of the place.

  “Yep, that’s right. G’day mate, my name’s Nick” I replied, forgetting that it wasn’t my name. I should have said Brian, of course, but it was too late now.

  He shook my hand and told me his name was Niall. “You’re Ozzie right, Nick? I spent a whole season in WA driving up and down that coast. You fellas have some feckin marvellous spots there!”

  I’d already guessed that he’d spent time in Australia when he used the expression: ‘on your pat’—short for ‘on one’s Pat Malone’, as in: ‘on your own’—Ozzie rhyming slang.

  “Pleased to meet you Niall” I said, raising my glass. “Your back yard’s not too shabby either, mate. I can see why Red Bull come here for the Storm Chase. Bloody good waves you’ve got here, and not exactly crowded either.”

  He grinned at my understatement. As usual, I felt an instant connection with a fellow windsurfer which cut across race and nationality. He didn’t give a damn about my ‘exotic’, half black ethnicity. He just wanted to welcome me to his home spot and share the craic:

  “Welcome to Brandon Bay, Nick. I watched you for a bit, until it got too dark. I was going to rig up and join ya, but I didn’t fancy it—too late, raining, bloody windy and the shore-break looked heavy.”

  I smiled and agreed that my session had been a bit sketchy, but having spent most of the day driving over from Dublin I was desperate to get on the water.

  “Respect dude! You were pullin’ some cool moves out there! But listen: you should be careful, Nick. Don’t be an eejit, OK? Those waves are heavy, and with zero visibility like that ...”

  I shrugged, but I knew what he was saying—I had Robo’s death to remind me not be an “eejit”.

  “The locals here are a friendly bunch y’know.” He gestured expansively around the pub. “Not like some places I’ve been to. You don’t need to sail on your pat. We share waves and then we share the craic in here.”

  I smiled and told him I was looking forward to sailing with him and his mates. I’d have loved to have spent the rest of the evening with them but I was getting a little worried about Alejandro. He’d slumped down in his seat, head drooping towards the table, ageing by the minute. Niall picked up on my anxiety:

  “Ah, look at me jabbering on like this. It’s the gift of the gab we Irish have, t’be sure. I’ll see you around, Nick. How long are you staying in the Maharees—you and your dad here?” He gestured towards Alejandro.

  I laughed, self-consciously. “No, Niall, Alejandro isn’t my dad. He’s a ... friend.”

  “Ah, right. Pleased to meet you.”

  Niall offered his hand to Alejandro but there was no response. I grabbed it instead and said I’d see him on the water. Niall went back to his friends, who were now contributing enthusiastically to the music-making and general revelry in the other corner.

  I went to the bar and returned to our table with fresh pints of Guinness, hoping this might revive Alejandro. After a couple of sips of the Black Stuff he looked up, but he seemed confused again:

  “Nick, you’re here?”

  “Yes, Alejandro, Pablo drove me from Dublin this afternoon, as you instructed ...”

  “Yes, of course, now I remember. Pablo ... he’s a good man ... I shall miss him.”

  The voice was barely audible, dragged up from a deep well of pain and despair. He was coming apart at the seams. Slumped there, in his black suit, he looked like he’d just attended his own funeral and his ghost was getting morosely drunk at the wake. He picked up his pint, spilling most of it as his hand shook, and drained the rest of it in one gulp. Then he sat up, stared at me, and tried again:

  “Let me tell you why we are here, Nick ...”

  I
leant forward to hear his fragile voice over the din.

  “I returned to Ireland to complete my father’s work and to show that he made the correct moral decisions. I’ve always maintained that his guilt was unfounded, that his depression and mental instability could have been avoided, that his suicide was a tragic mistake ...”

  The old look was back in his eyes again.

  “I hoped my return would be a healing process, but I was wrong. It seems I have inherited the same troubles that ended my father’s life.”

  Again that word: troubles. It seemed to be the theme here.

  “I came back to Dingle to put things right with Caitlin’s family. I needed to do this before I die. This was my final mission—to die correctly.”

  His voice had the familiar, steely conviction now.

  “But then I had to confront the terrible things my brother did during the Troubles.”

  I shook my head. It was all such a long time ago—twenty years before I was even born. There was a peace process now. The country had come to terms with the past and moved on—why couldn’t Alejandro? Why couldn’t he make peace with his brother? But no, he had to prove that his father was right and Martyn wrong:

  “My brother needed to understand that Ludwig chose the right path in 1943—there was no betrayal. Martyn had to read Ludwig’s journal, just as I did. I had to give it to him so he would understand the importance of our father’s work, but I knew he’d never agree to meet me, so I sent you, Nick.”

  “Why didn’t you send Pablo?” I asked, frowning.

  “Yes, that would have been a possibility, but I needed to give you one more test—to prove that you were ready for your final mission.”

  A pause, while I thought about this.

  “What do you mean: ‘test’?” I asked him.

  “Your last two years have been a series of challenges” he replied, “tests that have taken you on a learning curve.”

  I swallowed hard—a large slug of Guinness, and waited for him to continue.

  “The year you spent with Nicole in the Dominican Republic was one such test ...”

  I looked up sharply and locked eyes with him, trying to hold his gaze. He could feel my bitterness, my anger, but he put his hand up to prevent my intervention.

  “When I sent you back to your homeland, to put things right there and to help Mandu’s people, it was another test ...”

  Again I tried to butt in, to register an opinion, and again he raised his hand to stop me. It was shaking, and tremors were racking his body. I could sense the effort it was taking to control them and somehow I knew he didn’t have much time left. We were in the end game now and he was telling me, with that gesture, that there couldn’t be any more interruptions.

  “You survived these challenges and you grew stronger, Nick. Then when you met my brother in his stronghold, his bunker ...”

  I could hear the anger, the disgust in his voice as he spat out the word: ‘bunker’ with its connotations of Hitler’s final days in Berlin.

  “... it was your last test before your final mission—the solution to these troubles—the final solution ... here ... in the next few hours.”

  I shook my head. This ‘final mission’, his ‘solution’, had chilling overtones of the Nazi’s own ‘Final Solution’. I shuddered at the thought and opened my mouth to protest. For a third time, he held up his trembling hand.

  Now everything was shaking, falling apart—Alejandro, me, even the room itself. The music had erupted like a volcano, going from a gentle foot-tapping jig to a full-on stomping rave, and literally everything was shaking. It was impossible to continue our conversation and I needed to escape, so I got up and merged with the merry throng enjoying the craic.

  Time jumps. For a while I lose myself in the music, surrendering to the rhythm as I do when I’m windsurfing—in the moment, in the zone. The original three musicians have been joined by several others: on accordion, banjo, and bodhrán—a traditional drum struck with energy, dexterity, and a stick. The audience are contributing enthusiastically: singing, clapping, stamping, whooping and dancing wildly.

  Music, passion, and audience participation all remind me of the flamenco sessions that used to spontaneously erupt in the bar where I worked in El Médano, or the manic Merengue salsa-on-speed fiestas in Cabarete.

  The crowd is like a wild animal—twisting, contorting, roaring, sweating. Spillane’s is a heaving, bacchanalian orgy, minus the sex. The craic is like the Plant, minus the paranoia. It strips away my layers. I let go of my self and merge with the crowd. We are one now, no longer individual egos.

  I don’t know how long it went on, but it was late when the musicians finally packed away their instruments. The audience looked around, dazed, as if they were just waking from a trance.

  I’d forgotten all about Alejandro, but he was still there, slumped in our corner of the room. His eyes were closed and for one shocking moment I thought he’d kicked the bucket, right there, while I’d been dancing the night away. A closer inspection revealed that he was still breathing, just sleeping.

  Looking around the bar I realised he wasn’t the only one. All around us punters were either fast asleep or preparing to bed down. A few were still talking quietly in another corner. The bar staff seemed to have melted away and the proprietor had simply locked the front door and gone up to bed himself, leaving us to our own devices. So, this was the notorious ‘lock-in’—an eminently civilised approach to licensing bureaucracy, I thought to myself, as I made myself comfortable, closed my eyes, and drifted into blissful unconsciousness.

  23

  The Cliffs Of Moher

  Spillane’s bar, the Maharees, County Kerry. Sunday, November 5, 2017, 04:00. I’m lost in the same dream that’s haunted me for the past two years—a nightmare that’s followed me, like my paranoia, subtly mutating to include my latest fears ...

  I’m drowning. A beautiful bird, with Alison’s face, dives out of the sky and pecks out my eyes, laughing as she drops them into the sea. Robo appears, as a shark, tearing great chunks of my flesh and tossing them to a pack of monster crayfish to mince in their giant claws. The cray all have features I recognise—my brothers, my dad, mister Big Fish. An old man, in funereal black, points a gun at me and shoots me in the back. The consortium of Great White Mafia sharks, led by the mayor of Broom, circle me, shouting profanities while casually gnawing at the remains of my corpse ...

  I’m thrashing around in my sleep, making hideous noises, trapped in the dream’s ever-present moment ... then, mercifully, I’m wrenched from the horror by a hand on my shoulder.

  I opened my eyes to find Alejandro staring at me. For a moment I was confused. I looked around the pub, unsure of where I was, what I was doing there.

  “I was dreaming” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes.

  He nodded.

  “It’s time, Nick.”

  I looked at my watch—it was 4 am for fuck’s sake!

  “Time for what?” I demanded, tetchily.

  “Time for your final mission—your ultimate test.”

  He raised his hand to block any further discussion.

  “We have a long way to drive, Nick, and we must get to our destination early, before any unwanted spectators arrive.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but the puppetmaster was pulling my strings again. He struggled to his feet. I handed him his walking stick and followed as he hobbled toward the back door of the pub.

  We stepped outside, into the darkness. It was still raining, same as it ever was, and bitterly cold. We sat in the van, shivering. I started the engine and turned on the heater full blast. Alejandro punched some coordinates into the GPS and the disembodied voice announced that our destination was 203 kilometres and a three hour drive away. It ordered me to proceed, along the only road that led away from the Maharees peninsula.

  We drove most of the way in silence, just the ghostly voice giving directions and announcing the names of towns: Castlegregory, Tralee, Limerick, Shannon,
Ennis, Lahinch ... names that were steeped in Celtic mystery. I caught glimpses of majestic scenery through the darkness and mist, but mostly I just focussed on the rainswept tarmac in the headlights and the hypnotic rhythm of the windscreen wipers.

  Eventually, the voice announced that we’d arrived at our destination—an empty car-park at the very edge of the continent. I parked the van and turned off the engine, exhausted. We sat there in silence. It was still dark, but the first flickers of dawn were just starting to show themselves in the East.

  I closed my eyes and was just drifting off when Alejandro abruptly reached down and produced a small black briefcase. He took out a package wrapped in the inevitable brown paper, handed it to me and told me to open it. Inside was a book and a brown A4 envelope addressed to me.

  The book was beautifully bound in red leather—the kind of old-fashioned notebook that no longer has a place in our world of digital communication. I opened it and recognised Dr Langer’s spidery German script, familiar from the scanned extracts on the Master’s website. I was holding his father’s original handwritten journal.

  “I want you to have this. It is yours now, Nick.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped me:

  “We don’t have time for questions. No time for doubts. Time has run out for me, but for you, it starts here. You are the guardian of my father’s work now.”

  The look he gave me was as penetrating as ever, but there was such sadness in those eyes. I couldn’t meet his gaze so I stared out of the window. The landscape was just emerging from the gloom. A path led off to the West, up a grassy hill, and then disappeared into space. Beyond that was just sky. I turned back to him and listened as he explained why we were there, in that desolate spot.

  “Last night I explained how your previous missions have prepared you for this, Nick. If you are able to complete this last test you will be free of me, and you will be the leader of our Group.”