Sorj Chalandon - Return to Killybegs

— Killybegs is a peaceful village, Meehan. Do you understand that? They don’t want to be caught in the crossfire.

Meehan. Not Tyrone, not Mister, nothing but my surname.

I stiffened. I started shaking. The leather ball hit the ground. The young cop picked it up and handed it to me.

This was the first time anyone had addressed me just by my surname since 16 December. That night I had been arrested by the IRA and taken in secret to the Republic to be interrogated. During the car journey, I was initially afraid they would execute me. A dirt track, one bullet, somewhere just over the border. They’d done it often enough. I’d done it, too. A bullet in each knee and a third one for the nape of the neck.

We were in two cars travelling in convoy. In the first were two officials from the Republican party, a member of the Belfast Brigade, and Mike O’Doyle. He was a decent lad whose birth I remembered from forty years previously, and who had made me godfather to his daughter. I was in the back seat of the second vehicle, squeezed between Peter Bradley and Eugene Finnegan, a lad of twenty-eight who thought himself a soldier. Pete ‘the Killer’ kept one hand on my left knee the whole way from Belfast to the outskirts of Dublin. Eugene ‘the Bear Cub’ dozed for the entire journey. I had often seen him in the Republican clubs, on lookout in our streets, marching during commemorations. He was a familiar and friendly figure. One Easter Monday he was parading with the 2nd Battalion of the Belfast Brigade and I asked him to rectify his position. He was wearing the green uniform of the Irish Republican Army, a beret, black sunglasses, a belt and white gloves. Despite his balaclava, I recognized him. I called him the Bear Cub, like a father murmuring to his son. He lowered his eyes, taken aback by the sudden exposure. He was the warrior and I was his superior. And then, many years later on that December night in that car, when I had become a traitor and he had remained a soldier, he still used my Christian name. He was my tenuous thread, my last link with the living.

My guards were unarmed. The ceasefire protected me. Years ago, before everything changed, I had escorted a grass to be interrogated. There were five of us, dressed in yellow security outfits with grey reflective bands and piled into a van disguised as a road-service vehicle, with orange emergency lights and road-works signs piled on the roof rack. All the authorities saw were road cleaners, so they didn’t pay us any attention. We passed two armoured cars, Land Rovers belonging to the RUC, and were waved through a road block. The traitor was stretched out on the floor under a construction tarpaulin, blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back and our feet resting on his body. For miles I sat there leaning over him, the barrel of my gun pressed into the green fabric. A car led the way ahead of us. We were linked up by radio. A south-Armagh unit was waiting for us at the border. It was dark. The guy was led away by three men. His name was Freddy, he was nineteen. I read about it in the newspaper when the gardaí found his body.

When we arrived in Dublin, Eugene asked me if I wanted some water.

— That man isn’t thirsty, the driver answered.

— But Tyrone told me he was…

— Tyrone is dead, the other interrupted.

The Bear Cub put the cap back on the bottle. I still had my hand outstretched. Ireland was refusing me its water. I was smuggling its air. This country had nothing left to give me.

After dragging me through a press conference, the Republican party handed me back to the IRA. During the interrogation, I wasn’t tied up, I wasn’t blindfolded. I could look them in the eye. They were always unarmed, their faces uncovered. I knew they weren’t going to execute me, but I repeated it to myself over and over. Across from me was Mike O’Doyle, who was now acting as judge. An older guy with a Dublin accent was standing next to Mike behind the table. Mike called me Tyrone, the other just called me Meehan. It was at that point that I understood. First I had lost my country, and now I had also lost my Christian name, my fraternal identity. I was alone.

— What information did you hand over to the enemy, Meehan? the stranger asked.

A camera was watching me, and I decided not to respond. Not another word.

That’s the way the older Irish guard had just addressed me — frostily, like an IRA man. My first name still hovered timidly on the younger man’s lips, but the older man was already throwing my surname at me like an insult. I was no longer of this land, or this village, either. Padraig Meehan had given Killybegs a traitor. After the monstrous father came the disgraceful son. Our line was cursed. This guard would turn a blind eye when death came looking for me. He’d show death the way through the forest, open my door for it, point me out with a jerk of his chin. I disgusted him. He knew that I knew it. My silence clearly told him as much. The younger guy asked me three more feeble questions and the older man’s eyes never left me. He listened to my eyes, not my responses.

— What’s your name?

I asked him, just like that. My fear forgotten in the face of his contempt.

— Seánie, the guard answered softly.

— That’s my brother’s name.

He smiled. A real one, a lovely smile.

Then he handed me a folded piece of paper.

— Here’s the telephone number where you can reach us any time.

And all my impressions were turned on their head. His face was no longer the same, his brow looked troubled. He was worrying about me, quite simply. A gallant keeper of the peace, a country guard, harmless, genuine, wanting to get home to his loved ones. I had got it wrong. After so much lying I no longer knew how to read men.

— Be careful, Tyrone, Seánie said.

Everything lurched around me. My chin trembled slightly, barely noticeable. Just a leaf shaking on the end of a branch.

I went back in and locked the door behind me, pushed the latch across, habitual gestures. The fire was dying. I poured myself a large glass of vodka. The light was fading behind my curtains. I looked at my hands, I don’t know why. They were ruined after too much life. Battered, gnarled, rough and stiff. I feared time.

— With fingers like that, you’d be better off holding a gun than a violin!

I smiled. I thought of Antoine, the Parisian violin-maker I had met in Belfast thirty years before, that silent Frenchman who had one day declared himself an Irish Republican. He thought like us, lived like us, dressed like us and fought to make a place for himself between our dignity and our courage.

On Saturday, Sheila told me that he had called her. He asked her if he could meet me. What did the wee Frenchie want? To judge me? To understand me? Or to claim his portion of the treason?

The owner of Mullin’s had never been well disposed towards me. Since the gardaí’s visit, though, he has become hostile. Yesterday, after I left, he moved the round table where my father always sat and placed a coat stand in its place. The pub was packed when I went in this evening. The heads turned towards me, silently, the barman pulled an ugly, disgusted face. His crossed arms told me that this spot no longer belonged to me. My survival was at stake. This dark and sour chapel was Padraig Meehan’s final Station of the Cross. His last sanctum while still living. It was from here that he’d left to die in winter. If the sea had taken him, this dark corner would have been his grave. And I couldn’t let these people desecrate it.