John Brady - Kaddish in Dublin

Minogue glared at the wolf who had entered as Florence Nightingale.

“I hope you can control your hyperbole when you see him,” he said.

Minogue had picked up the cold on the previous Sunday. He and Kathleen had motored up to Sallygap-his choice-and had sat in the car with the Sunday papers and a set of binoculars. Minogue had spotted two hawks before evening. It was chilly and damp in the car, and the flask of tea was soon gone. Minogue hadn’t turned on the engine for heat because he saw that Kathleen has fallen asleep across the back seat, with a blanket over her legs.

Minogue surveyed the desolate bog plateau which led into Wicklow proper. He loved the place. It was a brown and grey darkening world, falling away into an early winter. The low clouds covered the television mast on Kippure Mountain high over the empty landscape. Minogue’s mind lingered over the view of the bog as he tried to remember the names of the chieftains who had escaped the dungeons of Dublin Castle and fled across these mountain passes in the dead of winter. Red Hugh O’Donnell was one of ours… the same year they founded Trinity College was it? 1591? Them and us.

A few drops of rain were all that had come so far from the heavy, low cloud. With the light going fast now and Kathleen stirring awake, Minogue gathered his wits and started the engine. As he had a last look at the fading world here-a view of the high boggy plains which he could take to work with him tomorrow-a mile off in the distance, under Kippure Mountain, he spotted a figure moving steadily across the heather. He put the binoculars to his eyes and looked to see what hardy hill-walker was racing the darkness back to whatever spot he had parked his car. The nearest house was four miles in off the pass, in the village of Glencree. The binocular view compressed the scene and crowded the walker into a tighter world. The low clouds seemed to be but feet over his head as he plodded along.

“There’s a citizen who’s fond of his mountains,” he said to Kathleen as he headed for Glencree. Coming down off the plateau, the road snaked and hairpinned under the beginnings of Kippure Mountain, bringing Minogue closer to the figure still striding across the moor. Might have parked his car anywhere along here, thought Minogue, before taking off along one of the sheep tracks. Turning a blind bend, Minogue saw the person more clearly now. Definitely a man, wearing a green anorak and an aran hat. He stopped the car and took up the binoculars again.

“Declare to God, Kathleen, do you know who that looks like? I was thinking about him, maybe that’s why I’m imagining it’s him.”

“A ghost?”

“Not a bit of it. That’s Billy Fine.”

“You’re joking. It’ll be pitch black within the hour, lovey. How can you see anything at all?”

“I think it is, you know.”

Minogue stepped out of the car and opened the boot. He took out his Wellingtons and leaned against the back door as he donned the rubber boots. Kathleen stayed in the back seat, looking down the road toward the valley of Glencree.

“I’ll find out soon enough,” he said apologetically. “Then I’ll hot-foot it back.”

“Mind the bog-holes,” said Kathleen with irony plain in her caution. “The light is poor already.”

Minogue shouldered his binoculars and made off over the heather. Walking, he thought over Paul Fine’s funeral. The crowd waiting for the coffin to be carried out of the little house within the Jewish cemetery at Aughavannagh Road. Archbishop Burke, who was there before Minogue and Kilmartin, had worn a yarmulka with no trace of the embarrassment afflicting Kilmartin and the Commissioner, who walked stiff-necked in the fear that theirs might fall from their heads. After Johnny Cohen had slipped him one, Minogue had put it on his head and promptly forgotten it.

As a species (which species or genus Minogue wasn’t sure, Gentile or merely policeman), Minogue and Kilmartin found themselves beside Tynan and the Commissioner. The trio of Mickey Fitz, Downey and Mary McCutcheon stood off to the other side of the crowd, nearer to the dignitaries from the government and Dail. Minogue noted Tynan’s almost uninterested attention as Tynan explained parts of the ceremony. The body, taken but an hour previously from the hospital mortuary, had been driven in a Flanagan’s hearse to the burial ground. It had been collected and accompanied by three men from what Tynan called the Holy Society.

“They’ll wash and dress the body, all under a sheet,” Tynan murmured. “All in white. Jews are enjoined to treat the burial of their dead with the greatest respect. All in white, from head to toe. Rich or poor. You don’t see any wreaths, do you?”

Minogue looked around. There were none.

“That’s how it is with them. Nothing showy. Go to God plain.”

They watched. the unvarnished coffin being carried to the graveside. The wooden pegs, Tynan explained when the four policemen were seated in the pub afterwards, were supposed to stick out like that. They were not hammered in tightly because God must know that the living were reluctant to part with the dead.

“They’d not be happy burying someone so late after death, you know. Especially with the PM,” Tynan had whispered.

Kilmartin had every appearance of being pleased to be in a pub with his own kind after the funeral, Minogue remembered.

“Tell ye something now,” Kilmartin had confided. “It wasn’t so much the hat falling off me head that had me nervous. When they started to say the prayers and some of them started bowing and waving around… But then, to cap it all, when the prayers started up I automatically began with an Our Father and a Hail Mary. Jases, such an iijit, I thought to meself. I hope nobody heard me.”

The Commissioner thought that Kilmartin’s addition to the Kaddish was very funny. “No fear of anyone overhearing you praying, Jimmy. There’s nobody has heard you saying prayers yet.”

Kilmartin had felt obliged to laugh, as the Commissioner was happy with his joke.

Minogue stepped around a turf-cut now and found a sheep track which led toward a point where the figure in the gloom ahead would cross his path.

Tynan had described the week of mourning awaiting the Fines after the funeral. The family members shouldn’t leave the house before nightfall, but should be together during the day. The prayers they were not expected to join in before the burial could now be uttered by the family members aloud. The bare maintenance of physical needs was to suffice, and even those things would likely be taken care of by friends and relatives. Minogue had wanted to tell Tynan that Fine had mentioned thinking of emigrating to Israel, but Fine would not have people know this. Tynan had not laughed at Kilmartin’s wrong prayers either. God, if he was worth his salt as an Omnipotent, had to be multilingual. Minogue remembered the smell of the Commissioner’s whiskey breath as they parted outside the pub, the frown of sincerity as he told Minogue that excellent police work had been done, with the minimum fuss over such a major crisis.

Fine had phoned Minogue at home some two weeks after the funeral. He had thanked Minogue for his work and said no more.

Minogue stopped in the heather and used the binoculars. It was Billy Fine. He seemed to know exactly where he was going, and was so intent on his path that he hadn’t noticed Minogue yet. Minogue looked back toward the car but it was no longer in sight. The roadway was hidden under a dyke which had been dug as an aid to getting turf out of the bog.

“Hello!” he called out over the bog. Fine did not turn. Minogue adjusted his direction to cross Fine’s path, and quickened his pace. Without warning, a fine drizzle began to settle over the bog. Minogue called out again, and this time Fine turned.