Sorj Chalandon - Return to Killybegs

The man at the window turned around. He sat on the edge of the table.

— My name is Stephen Petrie and I’m an agent of MI5, British counter-intelligence.

I stood up.

— I don’t want to know anything.

He smiled.

— Sit down, Tyrone, everything’s okay.

He pointed at the man who’d served the tea.

— May I introduce Willie Wallis from the Special Branch.

The other man gave a slight nod.

— And this is Frank Congreve, officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

Same polite gesture from the redhead.

— But to keep it simple, you can call us ‘the agent’, ‘the hunter’ and ‘the handler’. Or ‘the RUC’ if you want to be polite.

I had remained standing.

— I have no reason to know you or to call you anything. If you have nothing to charge me with, let me go.

I was surprised by how calm I was. They weren’t afraid of me, I wasn’t afraid of them. I felt we were on an even footing. The agent sat in an empty chair to my left. It was him talking.

— I’m going to tell you a fairy tale, Tyrone.

I crossed my arms.

— Children like fairy tales, don’t they? Elves, pixies, all that kind of thing…

The agent turned towards the red-haired handler.

— You’re from these parts, what do they call pixies around here?

— Leprechauns.

— That’s it, the leprechauns.

I absentmindedly closed a button on my pyjamas.

— And then when he grows up, the Irishman dreams of martyrs and heroes.

The agent pushed an ashtray towards me.

— Heroes are essential in this country, isn’t that right? Am I mistaken, Tyrone?

I didn’t answer. He looked at the red-haired cop.

— And what about you, Frank? Do you think the hero is important in Ireland?

— Vital, Stephen, vital.

— An Ulster Protestant’s word, the agent said.

He addressed the hunter.

— Willie?

The other tipped his chair back.

— I have the feeling that our friend is getting impatient.

The agent, the hunter and the handler were swopping roles, questions, geographical positions in the room. Sometimes one would finish the other’s sentence. Or they’d cut across one another. It was as if they had even allocated the silences. They were forcing me to look from one to the other, follow one question after another. I had to constantly turn my head to maintain eye contact. I was surrounded. I felt dizzy, with the nausea of rough journeys rising to my lips.

The agent looked at me. He nodded.

— We’re boring you, Tyrone?

— Is it over? Can I go?

I crushed my cigarette in the royal cup. The handler looked slightly annoyed. He sighed. He opened a leather satchel.

— Go? Of course we’re going to let you go. But before that, I’d like you to take a quick look at this.

He took a plastic bag from his satchel. A small transparent pocket that he placed in front of me. Inside, three crushed bullets, deformed from an impact, and a label tag folded in half.

I sat down. My legs wouldn’t support me.

— Take the packet, Tyrone.

I rubbed my hands on my thighs. I was sweating.

— Are you afraid of bullets? That doesn’t seem like you, Meehan, said the red-haired handler.

He emptied them out on the table.

— Go on, take one.

— To put my prints on them? What do you take me for?

The agent smiled.

— Do you know the calibre?

I shrugged, and held out my hand.

— 45 ACP, Tyrone. Ammunition from the Thompson submachine gun.

The handler got up and dropped a bullet in my palm.

— Are you beginning to get an inkling why you’re here?

I looked at the piece of copper. I shook my head. No. I didn’t understand.

Then he unfolded the yellowing tag and placed it in front of my cup.

Red handwriting:

Daniel Finley/Aug/14/69 .

I let the bullet fall. It slipped between my fingers like sand.

— My God, I said.

I crossed my arms behind my neck, elbows raised, forearms pressed against my ears, eyelids closed. I lowered my head. My mouth was open, my jaw hurt. I was suffocating. I could hear my heart beating. I was in Dholpur Lane, in the smoke of the tear gas.

— Danny didn’t suffer. He died almost on the spot, said the redhead.

Our street. The barricade. His wide eyes. His surprise.

— Your first bullet was close to his heart. We pulled the others from his hip and his thigh.

— You know nothing, I murmured.

— Everything, Tyrone, we know everything. Our men were in the crowd. Two of them were there when you shot. They testified, the spy asserted.

— Stumbled and fired, added the handler.

— Yes, stumbled and fired. It was an accident, Tyrone. We know that.

My hand was shaking like it did in prison.

— Before we’d even retrieved the weapon, we knew, Meehan.

— And then there was that song, the agent came out with.

He turned towards the man from the Special Branch.

— How did that song go again? You remember, Will?

The other nodded.

— Sure I remember!

Then he sang softly:

Danny fell for Ireland

Shamefully murdered

But with his old Thompson

His comrade in rage

Sent the killers back to hell.

—‘His comrade in rage’! They did well to come up with that, grinned the agent.

— I have to be honest with you, when that ballad started doing the rounds, we had a good laugh, the handler told me.

The agent put his hands in his pockets.

— It’s true. It seemed strange to us to see Finley’s killer being applauded by his widow the day he was buried. But you know what? We decided not to interfere. We let it go. It’s important not to crumple beliefs.

— In fact, you created the ideal martyr and we helped you become the perfect hero, the handler added.

They laughed. I kept my eyelids closed.

— Pay close attention, Tyrone.

The agent’s firm voice.

— Look at me.

I opened my eyes again. Coloured dots danced in the neon light.

He crouched down, level with me.

— Either you leave here and you tell the IRA everything, or you decide, like us, not to interfere with this fairy tale.

The handler held out a glass of water. My eyes were fixed on the film poster. A realist drawing of a woman protecting her head and shouting, and the birds attacking her. ‘It could be the most terrifying motion picture I have ever made’, said the ad. Terrifying. I felt nothing, neither cold, nor hot, nor fearful. I was empty inside. I drank. The water bore through my stomach. The rain was hitting the window. I looked at my pyjamas, my bare feet on their floor. I was no longer anyone. They were all talking at the same time.

— To own up ten years later, that’d be taking some risk, wouldn’t it?

— It would be better to leave the martyr and the hero in peace, don’t you think?

I asked for another glass of water.

— What do you want?

My voice, throat dry and lips burning.

— To protect you, Tyrone.

— Answer me, for Christ’s sake!

— For you to help us.

— Never!

— Think of Sheila, Tyrone. A decent, vulnerable woman caught up in the war. I’m not so sure she’d enjoy Armagh Prison.

— And Jack? Your son, Meehan? A simple signature and we can send him to serve out his sentence on the mainland.

— Can you imagine that, Tyrone? An IRA man? A fucking Fenian? A killer of Brits flung into a Scottish cell crammed full of murderers?

— And as for you, do you really want to go back to your shit?

The agent got up. He gave the others a signal. The handler left the room, followed by the hunter. The agent stayed there alone with me, in front of the open door. He spoke to me very quietly. A low voice.