Colum Mccann - TransAtlantic

A quick merge and swerve. Onto the Triborough Bridge. A glimpse of water. In the distance, somewhere up the river, is Yankee Stadium. He is all of a sudden back at Fenway Park, thirteen years old: the great swell and hush of green as he steps into the top tier of seats, his first flash of ballpark, Birdie Tebbetts, Rudy York, Johnny Pesky at shortstop. A country boy. First time in the city. Watching Ted Williams step up to the plate. The Kid, the Thumper, the Splendid Splinter. He can hear the crack of the first ball cut across the floodlights. Good days, those. Long ago, not far away.

He leans against the cool of the seat. He has traveled in all manner of cavalcades, processions, parades down through the years, but what he likes most of all is this silence. To travel under the radar. If even just for an hour or two.

He opens the briefcase. They cross the bridge at a clip. Ramon has a badge that he flashes at the tollbooth. Sometimes the police try to peer inside, past the dark glass, as if they are looking beneath the surface of a river. To gauge the importance of the catch. Only me, I’m afraid. His staff is already in Belfast and Dublin. And he has refused security while at home in New York, Washington, Maine. No need. They will hardly strap a bomb beneath his lawn mower anyway.

There is much to catch up on. A report from Stormont. An internal memo on decommissioning. A file that came through from MI-5 on the prisoner release. All the secret histories. The ancient longings. The violence of feeble men. He is weary of it all, tired of the permutations. What he wants is a clear, fine skyline. He puts the files aside a moment, looks out the rain-hammered window at the riffle of New York. All the grays and yellows. The concrete cubes of Queens. The broken neon signs. The leaning water towers with their rotting wood. The spindlework of the elevated trains. It’s a primitive city, aware of its own shortcomings, its shirt stained, its teeth plaqued, its fly open. But it is Heather’s city. She loves it. She wants to be here. And he has to admit that there is something grudgingly attractive about it. It is not quite Maine, but nothing is ever Maine.

He has heard once that a man knows where he is from when he knows where he would like to be buried. He knows his spot already, on the cliff, looking out to sea, Mount Desert Island, the deep green, the curve of horizon, the angled rock, the waves spindrifting upwards. Give him a small square of grass over the cove, a low white fence around it. A few sharp rocks to dig into his back. Sow my soul in the rugged red soil. Let me rest there, happy, watching the lift of the lobster pots, the slow saunter of seacaps, the curl of the gulls. But have some patience, please, Lord. Another twenty years at least. Thirty, even. Thirty-five, why not? Many mornings yet left. He might as well crawl up towards the full century.

The hiss of rainwater sounds underneath the tires. Ramon has a heavy foot when it comes to highways. Onto the Grand Central Parkway. From lane to lane. The brief thwap of dryness beneath the underpasses. Out towards the Van Wyck. No going back. The light fading through the slender shoulders of afternoon rain.

Easter two weeks away.

Last chance.

Si vispacem, para bellum .

YESTERDAY, IN CENTRAL Park, in the yellow sunlight, she reached for a backhand, caught it perfectly, sliced the racquet so that the ball floated a moment and dropped just over the net, and he lurched forward, laughing at the audacity of the shot, the perfect backwards spin, as he went crashing into the net. All around, the applause of the city, in the leaves and trees and buildings, and a red-tail hawk shooting over the courts, and some clouds skillful overhead in the blue, and the babysitter in the background, rocking the carriage, and he had the fleeting desire to make the phone calls to Stormont, leave it all at deuce.

AT THE CURBSIDE he quietly slips Ramon a gift. Three tickets for Opening Day. The Mets. Second deck. Not far from home plate. Bring your boys, Ramon. Teach them well. Tell Bobby Valentine to let loose the cowhide.

THEY KNOW HIM so well at JFK that it almost feels as if he should stand at the counter and negotiate from there. Your air rights. Your refunds. Your delays.

The stewardesses have a fondness for him, his quietness, his humility. From a distance he looks like a man who might shuffle through a constant gray, but up close he is fluid and sharp. His shyness carries a form of flirt.

At the British Airways desk he is taken by the arm and brought beyond check-in to what they call the Vippery. No metal detectors. No search at all. He wishes he could go through the channels, like a normal traveler, but the airline insists and they always whisk him through. This way, Senator, this way. The corridor to the Vippery is rutted and stained. Odd how badly painted the walls are. A sickly mauve color. The baseboards broken and scuffed.

He is brought through the back entrance into the gold-plated shine. Two lovely beaming smiles from the front desk. Girls in silk scarves of red, white, and blue. Their perfect English accents. As if serving all their vowels on a fine set of tongs.

— Wonderful to see you again, Senator Mitchell.

— Good afternoon, ladies.

He wishes they weren’t quite so loud with his name, but he nods to them, glances at their name badges. Always a good idea to have a first name. Clara. Alexandra. He thanks them both and he can almost hear the noise of their blushes. He glances over his shoulder, the slight rascal in him, and is guided towards the back of the lounge. He has met movie stars here, diplomats, ministers, captains of industry, a couple of rugby players up to their broad shoulders in wine. The minor figures of public glory, their Rolexes peeping out from beneath their cuffs. It doesn’t much interest him, the spotlight. What he looks for is a seat where he won’t be disturbed, yet can get up and stretch his legs if needs be. He has taken to yoga in recent times, on Heather’s insistence. Felt rather stupid at first. Downward dog. Dolphin plank. Crane pose. But it has loosened him up enormously, untightened all the bolts. In his younger years he was far less supple. A certain mental agility in it, too. He can sit and close his eyes and find a good meditative point.

He spots a likely place, in the far corner of the lounge, where the rain rolls decoratively down the darkness, shifts his weight towards the window, allows the young lady to shepherd him along. As if she is the one to have chosen the seat. Her hand at the small of his back.

He keeps the briefcase between them. For distance and decorum.

— Can I get you a beverage, Senator?

He has become a man of tea. He never would have believed it. This unasked-for life, it always surprises. It began in the North. He couldn’t get away from it. Tea for breakfast, tea for lunch, tea in the afternoon, tea before bedtime, tea between the tea. He has learned the art of it. Choosing the right kettle. Running the tap water until cold. Boiling it beyond the boil. Heating the teapot with a swish. Doling out the leaves. Timing the brew. Wetting the tea, the Irish call it. He is not a man for alcohol, and it is the tea that has dragged him through many a late evening. With cookies. Or biscuits as they say. Every man with his own peculiar vice. His will hardly rock heaven or hell. McVitie’s Digestives.

— Milk and three sugars, please.

He is careful not to watch the swish of her as she moves away through the lobby. He leans back against the seat. But Lord, he is tired. He has, in his briefcase, a few sleeping pills prescribed by a doctor friend, but he is not fond of the idea. Perhaps in an emergency. A newspaper wag said: Some calm in the Stormont . He can already feel the weight of the days ahead, the changed minds, the semantical shuffling, the nervous search for equilibrium. He and his team have given them a deadline. They will not go beyond it. They have promised that to themselves. A finishing line. Otherwise the whole process will drag on forever. The rut of another thirty years. Clauses and footnotes. Systems and subsystems. Visions and revisions. How many times has it all been written and rewritten? He and his team have allowed them to exhaust the language. Day after day, week after week, month after month. To roil in their own boredom. To talk through the vitriol towards a sort of bewilderment that such a feeling could have existed at all.