Green Shadows, White Whale Part 17

"Tenshun!" cried Finn, for all was in readiness. On both sides of the grave, the men and I waited, each with a full bottle of vintage Chateau Lafite Rothschild or Le Gorton or Chianti.

"Do we drink it all?" asked Doone.

"Shut your gab," observed the priest. He eyed the sky. "O, Lord." The men bowed their heads and grabbed off their caps."Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful. And thank you, Lord, for the genius of Heeber Finn, who thought of this." "Aye," said all, gently. " Twas nothin'," said Finn, blus.h.i.+ng.

"And bless this wine, which may circ.u.mnavigate along the way, but finally wind up where it should be going. And if today and tonight won't do, and all the stuff not drunk, bless us as we return each night until the deed is done and the soul of the wine's at rest." "Ah, you do speak dear," murmured Doone. "Shh!" hissed all.

"And in the spirit of this time, Lord, should we not ask our good lawyer friend Clement, in the fullness of his heart, to join with us?" Someone slipped a bottle of the best into the lawyer's hands. He seized it, lest it should break.

"And finally, Lord, bless the old Lord Kilgotten, whose years of saving up now help us in this hour of putting away. Amen." "Amen," said all. "Amen," said I. "Tenshun!" cried Finn.

The men stiffened and lifted their bottles. I did the same. "One for His Lords.h.i.+p," said the priest. "And," added Finn, "one for the road!" There was a dear sound of drinking and, Doone claimed, a glad sound of laughter from the box in the grave.

19.

It was twilight in Heeber Finn's pub, with only Finn and myself and Doone and Timulty there to listen to the spigots and nurse the suds.

"There is no figuring us," said Finn. "We Irish are as deep as the sea and as broad. Quicksilver one moment. Clubfooted the next."

"To what do you refer, Finn?" I asked.

"Take the case of the AMA invited to Dublin in the final part of last year, for instance," said Finn.

"The American Medical a.s.sociation?"

"That one, yes."

"They were invited to Dublin?"

"They were, and did."

"To what purpose?"

"To enlighten us." Finn turned to gaze in the mirror and comb his soul straight. "For we need enlightenment. The great unwashed is what we are. Have you stood in line at the pustoffice . . . ?"

"Post office? Yes." I wrinkled my nose.

"Is it not like trudging about a sheep-sty pigpen?"

"Well ..."

"Admit it! By midwinter, the average Dubliner, for months not out of his clothes or into the tub, walks higher than his shoes by Christmas. You could plant bulbs in his armpits by New Year's. Pick penicillin off his s.h.i.+ns Easter morn."

"What a poet," said Doone admiringly.

"Get to the point, Mr. Finn," I said, and stopped.

For you must never ask an Irishman to get to the point. The long way around and half again is more like it. Getting to the point could spoil the drink and ruin the day. "Ahem." Finn waited for the apology.

"Sorry."

"Where was I? Oh. The AMA! Invited to Dublin they was, to teach us the cleanliness that lives skintight to G.o.dliness."

"How many medics were invited?"

"A team of surgeon-rascals, and a platoon of pill-prescribing learned physicians. There was a big ta-ta about it in the Irish Times. Headlines, by G.o.d. 'American Doctors Arrive to Educate the Irish and Preserve Lives!' "

"Sounds wonderful."

"It was, as long as the good feelings lasted."

"They didn'tl"

"The College of Surgeons, Dublin branch, invited their American cousins across. It seemed a grand idea in the pub, along the bar and over the drinks. Someone must have sent a telegram late at night, when all was awash and no one recalled. Next thing you know the New York surgeons respond: 'Yes, by G.o.d. Stand back! Here we are!' "

"And no sooner the cable read when at Shannon a planeload of menthol-smelling docs step off and smile 'round, full of brains and lacking the wisdom to use same carefully."

"But they were given the grand tour, nevertheless?"

"Embarra.s.sed, because they could not remember having sent the drunken telegram, the College of Surgeons, Dublin branch, put on a brave face and gave them the free rein to peer in this ward, then that, for a full week. A terrible mistake. The surgeons pared every fingernail, checked laundries for unwashed frocks, tested scalpels to see if they could split hairs or cut cheese, took snorts of oxygen, tried the anesthetics on for size, and at last-can you think it?-unmasked the Irish surgeons, college and all. A devastation."

"What happened then?"

"Why, h.e.l.l man, we threw them out of the country!"

"They let themselves be thrown out?"

"It was that or be served fresh for the postmortem. They was hustled to Shannon!"

"They flew back horneT'

"With their tails between their legs!"

"But they were invited ..."

"None of that! They should have known, by reading the tacked-together way of the telegram, it was insufficient wits that sent the words."

"I suppose they should've ..."

"But no, they came They looked. Looking was bad enough. It was remembering what they saw 'twas bad. And worse, commenting on it! It got in the papers. The Irish Times rioted. Drive them from the country! the headlines said. Down AMA! Goodbye, surgeons, so long American docs. Farewell and to h.e.l.l with you, Yanks!"

"And off they went?"

"Never to return."

"Yes, well, if I were them-"

"But you aren't, thank G.o.d." Finn refilled my gla.s.s.

"Will Dublin ever reform its hospitals, do you think?"

"No need, when there's the postoffice at hand."

"And penicillin in the post office."

"On every sheepfold man and winter-moldy girl. We lug our own cures with us."

"I'll drink to that," I said.

"I'll join you!" said Finn.

20.

"Have you ever thought, Finn-"

"I try not notto."

"Have you ever noticed life is like those masks seen in theaters-comedy here, tragedy there?" I said.

"Before the curtain and during intermissions at the Gate, I have seen those masks. And?"

"Doesn't it strike you that the events of each day, or the expressions on the faces of all of us, resemble those masks, every hour changing and changing back?" I said.

"You run deep. It's simple."

"Is it?"

"On the good days, when a laugh is splitting your face like you been hit with an ax, you use the front door of Finn's."

"And on the bad?"

"Sneak in the back so no one sees you. Hide in the philosopher's cubby, where doubles and triples line up."

"I'll remember your back door, Finn."

"Do that. And stop thinking. It'll increase your ruins. My uncle in Rome once, died of the ruins. He saw so many spoiled buildings he took a fit of melancholy, sailed home, ran in my front door, and sank before he could reach the bar. If he'd only thought to use the back, he might have lived to drink again."

"Which uncle was that, Finn?"

"It will come. Meanwhile, take your sweaty hands off your mind. Have you ever thought, all the college professors who've wandered in here with migraines?"

"I never-"

"It's from trying for answers that brain damage occurs. Do you agree?"

"I'd like to, Finn."

"Shall I tell you what those professors need? To attend a funeral. Like the one we just had. Yes! After a great long sermon and longer drinks, they'd be glad they're alive and get the h.e.l.l out and promise not4o read another book for a month, or if read, don't believe it. Are you heading back to Dublin early this night?"

"I am."

"Then take this card. It's a pub on upper Grafton Street with a fine back door, where the cure is quicker and the results longer."

I looked at the card. "The Four Provinces. Is there another pub as good as Finn's in Dublin? Why didn't you tell me!"

"I like your palaver and feared the compet.i.tion. Go. It's not the best, but 'twill do when Sunday stays on a full week from noon to sundown."

"Provinces," I said, reading the card aloud. "Four."

21.

It was Sunday noon and the fog touching at the hotel windows when the mist did not and rain rinsing the fog and then leaving off to let the mist return and coffee after lunch was prolonging itself into tea with the promise of high tea ahead and beyond that the b.u.t.tery pub opening belowstairs, or the Second Coming and the only sound was porcelain cups against porcelain teeth and the whisper of silk or the creak of shoes until at last a swinging door leading from the small library-writing room squealed softly open and an old man, holding on to the air should he fall, shuffled out, stopped, looked around at everyone, slowly, and said in a calm drear voice: "Getting through Sunday somehow?"

Then he turned, shuffled back through, and let the door creak-whisper shut.

Sunday in Dublin.

The words are Doom itself.

Sunday in Dublin.

Drop such words and they never strike bottom. They just fall through emptiness toward five in the gray afternoon.

Sunday in Dublin. How to get through it somehow.

Sound the funeral bells. Yank the covers up over your ears.

Hear the hiss of the black-feathered wreath as it rustles, hung on your silent door. Listen to those empty streets below your hotel room waiting to gulp you if you venture forth before noon. Feel the mist sliding its wet flannel tongue under the window ledges, licking hotel roofs, its great bulk dripping of ennui.

Sunday, I thought. Dublin. The pubs shut tight until late afternoon. The cinemas sold out two or three weeks in advance. Nothing to do but perhaps go stare at the uriny lions at the Phoenix Park Zoo, at the vultures looking as though they'd fallen, covered with glue, into the ragpickers' bin. Wander by the River Liffey, see the fog-colored waters. Wander in the alleys, see the Liffey-colored skies.