Return to Killybegs by Sorj Chalandon, Ursula Meany Scott Page B

protest. The older man said yes. That was it. Exactly. He explained that the villagers were starting to talk. I’d been recognized, first by the shopkeeper, and then by the guy from the post office. The owner of Mullin’s was wondering whether he should bar me. They weren’t judging me, according to the guard. Nobody was out to blame, or even to criticize me. They were simply afraid for themselves.
    —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