No Country: A Novel by Kalyan Ray

the wrist and held her thumb gently on the bluish neck. Ah, there it was: The slow tap of life. Brigid began to groan, wrenched out of her dead apathy.
    Maire could tell the pains were coming. The thin knees were drawn up, her pale feet at the end of her narrow legs were jerking up and down unevenly. Brigid’s face was contorted, and she was saying something. Maire bent her head close.
    “Padraig, Padraig,” she heard, “O Padraig, what will happen to us?”
    “I am here, child,” soothed Maire Aherne, even as it dawned on her that it was still far to Christmas, a good six weeks, and this clotted blood and the ooze that had wet the bed so early was not a good portent. “Aye, so ’tis an early baby,” she muttered, then to cheer Brigid up, she said aloud, “The baby’s in a hurry, like his da, who is always so.”
    Brigid looked at her, uncomprehending, then slowly as the pain subsided, she understood. She smiled tentatively at Maire and asked, “Is the boy born yet?”
    Mrs. Aherne laughed in sheer relief. “And how did you know that it is a boy?”
    “ ’Tis a girl then?” asked Brigid.
    “Ah, child,” she said, “birthing is not that easy. It’s the first wave of the good pain. We will not know if a mad boy it is or a wild girl, until some hours now.”
    Brigid’s face fell.
    “Now save your strength, my girl, and don’t push yet. I will tell you when ’tis time.”
    •  •  •
    ’T WAS NOT TILL much later that I came to know about all this. It was the tenth of November. I had gone as usual up to Mr. O’Flaherty’s school. More and more these days, it was I who taught school while Mr. O’Flaherty would sit on his chair under the tree in front and enjoy a bit of sun on the odd day, puffing on his pipe. I could tell he was enjoying my telling all the stories he used to tell us, when we were children.
    Ever since he decided to teach me all the Latin he knew, he gave me half a dozen books in that tongue. After my teaching of the young ones was over, I would stay on for my Latin lessons, which ran into the evening, and he would offer me some of his simple dinner, embered potatoes, buttermilk, an egg—if his birds had laid. I would be that tired by then, my head full with all the good talk and smoking a twist of his tobacco. I would often take his offer of a straw pallet in the corner of his hut. But this day black clouds had swept up from the Atlantic. Once the thick sea-blown rain started, the roads would be impassable for the next few days. Already the prow of Ben Bulben looked hazy in the light as I walked home quickly.
    As I was turned the bend on the sloping road into the village, I saw a clump of folks standing in front of Padraig’s cottage. Ah, he has returned, I thought and, throwing my bag of books over my back, ran until I was nigh out of breath at his front yard, when something odd struck me.
    In the way they stood about, the neighbours seemed shaken, and there was no talk, nothing lively. What is it? I thought, Whatever could it be with Padraig? There was a bit of struggle of some kind at the front door. I could see the corduroy of strained backs, for they seemed to be pulling something out—and it was surely a bad fit. Then they did get through. What they were grappling out of the cottage was a coffin. I shuddered involuntarily and stood still.
    The women had broken into a high-pitched keen but Padraig’s mother stepped out, pale and gaunt, and spoke urgently. “ ’Twill fright and wake the baby,” she said. The women became silent, wrapping their black shawls about themselves. Then all began to follow the coffin box. Father Conlon was there, his head bowed, holding his little black Bible in his left hand, the rosary hanging from it, each bead small as an autumn blackberry ruined by frost.
    ’Twas a small enough procession that was headed for the cemetery. I followed, numb. We reached in no time, walking through the stone gate on which leant its rusty Celtic cross. The