Hugo Hamilton - The Speckled People - A Memoir of a Half-Irish Childhood

‘Are you thinking of starting a guest house?’ she asked, but that was a joke and Marianne didn’t know how to answer. They didn’t know how to talk about it. Everybody was afraid to say anything that didn’t have to do with things like washing and ironing. And then it was time for my mother to leave. They looked at each other for a long time and said ja, ja, ja and nein, nein, nein , until my mother put on her coat and stepped out into the snow.

The walk down the Mönchberg was harder than the walk up, she says. It was icy and you had to hold on to the fence sometimes to make sure you didn’t slip and break your teeth. At the station, the guards checked her papers and she was in trouble because she was very late and should have been in Hamburg ages ago. She was told to take the next train to Nuremberg, but there she was arrested and taken into a police station. They accused her of not following orders like everyone else in Germany. They asked lots of questions and she said she was just trying to bring some food to her sister who had a husband in the war and mother-in-law who was sick. They didn’t believe her. They didn’t think she looked eager enough to go back to the war. They said she was a deserter. Fahnenflucht , they called it, running away from the flag. They put her on a train to the east and locked the carriage door. They didn’t tell her where she was going, but she knew it was to the east, that’s all. She was locked in the carriage with a young soldier who was not much older than fourteen, my mother says, and he was chained to the seat by his ankles.

The fog is starting to disappear, but the foghorn keeps going just in case. It has begun to rain a bit, just a few drops on the window. It’s dark now, but it’s clear enough to see across the gardens to the next street. From my bedroom I can see the light and the branches in front of it. There is a bit of a breeze and the branches are dancing across the wall behind me and across my face, too. If anyone saw me, they would think there was something wrong with me. They would see spots all over my face from the raindrops on the glass. They would see a speckled face and say that I was diseased. Nobody would want to touch me. The foghorn is still going, but it sounds more tired, as if it’s been saying the same word all day and now it’s getting fed up with it. In my room I have some books that my mother gave me and that Onkel Ted gave her. I have some books about Irish history and some magazines that my father gave me, too, about geography, with stories about people in other countries like South Africa and Tibet that are still not free. Sometimes I read them and sometimes I just look at the pictures because I don’t like any more words. I just want the one word from the foghorn to go to sleep with. ‘Roooooom …’

I looked at the books and noticed that the picture of the man who put the bomb in a briefcase for Germany looked a bit like the picture of the man who started the Easter Rising for Ireland. I had to bend the books a little bit, but when I put the pictures together they looked alike. And they were facing each other, as if they were talking. Patrick Pearse was looking to the right and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was looking to the left. They seemed not to be even surprised to be in the same room together. Patrick was saying to Claus that he thought he was in Germany. Claus looked back over and said he was only here in Ireland for a short visit. There was a lot of trouble in Germany and he wanted to know if anyone in Ireland could help. He heard that the Irish were good at saying the opposite. And Patrick Pearse said he was having a lot of trouble with the British at the moment, and the only thing to do was to make a sacrifice. You can’t be afraid of looking stupid.

They looked like brothers. Claus and Patrick. I sat up in bed and held the two photographs together. Claus was planning a puppet show against the Nazis and Patrick was planning a puppet show against the British. Claus knew that people might laugh at him in Germany and Patrick knew that people would surely laugh at him in Ireland. They both knew that people would say they might as well not have bothered. Patrick said that Ireland unfree shall never be at peace and Claus said long live the real Germany. Before they had to leave, they wondered if there was time to go for a walk down to the sea. Or maybe even a drink in the Eagle House. But they were in a hurry and there was no time to waste. They were not sure their plans would work either, because they were not very good at hating anyone yet. But they were not afraid to lose. They were not afraid of being put up against the wall and executed. And that’s what happened to both of them in the end in different countries for the same reason. They met for one last time in my room with the foghorn still going outside. They shook hands and said ‘Down you bully belly.’ They laughed because they were not afraid to be Irish and not afraid to be German. I told them that Tante Marianne was going to save Jewish people who could not breathe very well and that my father was going to help people who wanted to breathe in Irish. When they were gone and the light was out, I lay back and listened to the foghorn going on and on, saying the same word over and over again until it was hoarse and had no voice any more.

Everything keeps happening again. Now I’m going down to the seafront and holding my little brother Ciarán’s hand. We’re going to look at the sea and throw stones at the big bully waves. I help him to walk on the wall and hold his hand to make sure he doesn’t fall. He sings the same song that Franz sang when we were small and we didn’t know any better. He says good morning to everyone that we pass by in English and sings ‘walk on the wall, walk on the wall …’ I’m Ciarán’s big brother now, so I have to make sure he doesn’t fall off and break his nose.

The dog is still there every day but he doesn’t bark as much any more. Sometimes he just sits on the steps and says nothing, as if he’s fed up fighting and he knows there’s no point in trying to stop the waves. He still keeps an eye on them and maybe he’s waiting for a big one, or waiting for somebody else to come and throw stones and then he’ll start again, barking as much as ever before. He still has no name and belongs to nobody and follows anyone who pretends to be his friend for life. So we decided that he would belong to us from now on. We clicked and he came after us. We had a dog now that would protect us and we gave him a name, Cú na mara, which is the Irish for seadog. But that was too long so we tried Wasserbeisser instead, water-biter. But that was even harder, so in the end we just called him nothing and said: ‘Here boy.’ Every time we looked back he was still there. Even when we went into a shop to buy chewing gum and an ice pop for Ciarán, he stayed outside and waited. But then we met a gang coming towards us.

‘Hey Eichmann,’ one of them shouted.

They were not scared of the dog at all. They came across the street and asked if I had any cigarettes. I told them I didn’t smoke yet. They called me a Kraut and wanted the chewing gum instead. They started kicking me and Ciarán was crying. The dog said nothing, but there was a man working in a garden nearby who stood up and told them to stop.

‘Leave them alone,’ the man said. ‘Off you go about your business.’

They didn’t have any business because they were the fist people. Instead, they tried to pretend that we were the best of friends. One of them put his arm around me and whispered into my ear.

‘Listen, Eichmann. We’re not finished with you.’

Then they walked away, laughing and eating the chewing gum that I bought. One of them whistled and the dog followed them instead of us. The man in the garden saved us and we were lucky. We were free to go home now, but I knew that wasn’t the end. I know they’re still after me.