Brotherhood of the Tomb

by Daniel Easterman

  ‘I think they’re here,’ he said. ‘The people who killed those children. They’re here in Ireland. And I think they mean trouble. I’ve got to get to Eamonn. Now, tonight.’

  ‘How do you know they’re here? What happened?’

  ‘I saw one of them. I chased him.’

  ‘An Egyptian?’

  Patrick shook his head.

  ‘No. That’s the strange thing. I don’t think he was an Egyptian. I think ... I’m sure he was Irish.’

  What happened to him?’

  He told her.

  ‘And you think they could be watching De Faoite?’

  He shrugged. He had dressed now and was eager to be off.

  ‘It’s possible. Listen, Ruth, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘No, I’d rather you stayed here to watch the house. There may be another watcher.’

  She stepped away from him. Behind her, the bed had grown cold.

  ‘That isn’t the reason is it?’

  He had already turned towards the door.

  ‘I don’t want you involved, Ruth. I’m treating this as personal business: it has nothing to do with the Agency.’

  ‘You think so?’ She was growing angry again.

  ‘Okay, yes, I think so.’ But he was lying, desperate to avoid the thought that the past was drawing him in again, that no one ever truly escapes from that delicately fabricated world. ‘Don’t get involved, Ruth. Don’t get the Agency involved. I’ll be back when I’ve seen De Faoite.’

  ‘Suit yourself. But don’t expect me to be here when you return.’

  It was still raining when he left.

  SEVEN

  He drove distracted through a world of lights and shadows, like a ghost passing through someone else’s dream. The final stages of his journey took him through a landscape of broken fanlights, rusted railings, and dark tenement walls on which someone had written ‘FUCK’ in foot-high letters, time and time again. It was an invocation of sorts. But who was listening?

  The Liberties were the oldest part of the city, and not even the dark could cover the squalor and neglect on every side. As Patrick walked down Francis Street towards St Malachy’s, he could smell yeast from the nearby Guinness brewery, mixed with a rotting odour that came up from the quays. A thin, freezing mist had started to move in off the sea and was working its way slowly along the streets.

  Above him, in a tenement, a curtain was twitched aside. Unseen eyes watched him pass, then the curtain fell back into place. A dog barked angrily on his left. Open doorways, stained and rotten, graffiti on the walls, a smell of urine from the hallways, broken windows, broken lights, broken lives.

  Eamonn De Faoite had been parish priest of St Malachy’s as far back as anyone could remember. Every morning for almost sixty years he had left his scholarship upstairs and come down onto the streets to face his little world. The Liberties were his Calvary, he had told Patrick once: they had broken him and scourged him and nailed him to themselves, year in, year out, an eternal Easter. He had tended generations of the poor and the almost-poor: baptized them, married them, said Mass for them and their children, received their stammered confessions, administered the last rites, buried them in dealboard coffins. And still no resurrection.

  He approached the presbytery carefully, his senses alert for any sign of a watcher: a parked car, a shadow that moved, a sound. There was nothing. Keeping himself close to the house walls, he reached the door. There was nothing for it now: if someone was watching, he would just have to let them see him.

  He knocked on the presbytery door. His visits to De Faoite had not often brought him here. They normally met at Trinity College or the Chester Beatty Library in Ballsbridge: the old priest kept his worlds quite separate. Perhaps that was what kept him sane.

  ‘I’m not a good man,’ he had once told Patrick. ‘I find it hard to be a priest. I hate poverty. I loathe petty crime and the mess people make of their daily lives. If I had it to do over again, I don’t think I could face it. Do you know, if I believed in reincarnation like these Indian yogis, I think I’d go crazy. Imagine - having to come back again! Jesus, Patrick, doesn’t that give you the creeps now?’

  Patrick knocked again. Perhaps hating his vocation was what made a man a saint. He didn’t know: he was one of the people who made messes of their lives. He suddenly realized that he had not been to confession in twenty years. There were a lot of messes to get off his chest. Mist swirled round the enamel-painted door. Why didn’t De Faoite answer? There was a light on in the upstairs room that served as the old man’s study.

  There was no answer to his third knock. As he turned to go, he noticed that another light was burning in the church next door. He opened the iron gate and went through. The old church loomed out of the darkness, faintly menacing in a veil of mist.

  It had been built in 1689, and much of it was now in a state of serious decay. De Faoite had started a restoration fund and issued appeals for money, but who was going to dig into his pocket to gild a church among the tenements?

  Above the door, a weather-worn statue of the Virgin gazed down at him. The face was almost featureless, without nose or eyes or expression. On her head she wore a crown, and on her lap a deformed child, its limbs eroded by wind and dirt, stretched a fingerless hand towards a faintly delineated breast.

  The door opened to his touch. There was a smell of wax and incense, mixed with an underlying odour of damp. Beneath an icon of the Sacred Heart, a red lamp flickered in the draught from the door. He slipped inside noiselessly, feeling alien and ill at ease. When had he last set foot inside a church?

  Faint shadows moved beneath the ceiling. At the far end of the church, above the altar, a single lamp hung on a copper chain, shedding a dull sepia light to the top of the sanctuary steps. Nearby, half a dozen candles had burned to stubs at the foot of an alabaster statue of the Virgin.

  He called De Faoite’s name, but there was no answer. Mist followed him into the church, rolling gently across the floor. He closed the door behind him.

  ‘Are you here, Father?’

  A faint echo rang from the ceiling, hidden in darkness. Automatically, he dipped his fingers into the holy water stoup and crossed himself. The church was unheated, and tonight it felt like an ice-box.

  Perhaps the priest had been called out to hear an urgent confession from one of his parishioners. There were three confessionals against the west wall. Patrick made his way to them. They were all empty.

  He called again, but his voice was swallowed up in the damp, sacral silence. He was wasting his time here. Best to find a telephone and ring De Faoite again. He turned and started to go.

  There was a low sound. It seemed to come from the direction of the transept, possibly the sanctuary. Patrick froze. In the shadows, nothing moved. A candle sputtered and went out. He took a cautious step forward.

  ‘Is there someone there?’ he called.

  No one answered. He felt the hairs ripple on the backs of his hands and the nape of his neck. Why was he afraid?

  The sound came again, a little louder. It was like a moan, scarcely human. An animal, perhaps. A dog or a wounded cat.

  He padded through the darkness towards the transept. Above the host, a red flame shuddered. He strained to see in the gloom.

  There was something on the altar. Something living. He felt his breath catch in his throat, sour and frightened.

  ‘Eamonn,’ he whispered, ‘is that you?’

  The thing on the altar moved. Patrick climbed the steps, the scent of incense heavy in his nostrils. The air felt sickly, raddled with holiness. As he drew near, he saw that the white altar-cloth was stained. Like juice or wine, a long streak of red had soaked into the cloth. Memories rushed in from his childhood to dismay him, the horror of the chalice of blood, the horror of the flesh offered up as bread, the horror of Christ’s bleeding from seven wounds across the altar. The thing on the white table was a man.

  They must have tied him be
fore dragging him here. They could not have done what they had done while he was loose: he would have struggled, in spite of his age. He seemed unaware of Patrick’s presence, unaware of anything but the pain surrounding him. But he was conscious, that was the horror.

  Patrick’s fingers fumbled with the ropes. He felt bile rise in his throat, burning him. They must have hacked out the eyes: the sockets had filled with blood, like rock pools after high tide. Like a basin of blood in an abandoned Egyptian temple.

  ‘Eamonn,’ he said, ‘it’s me, Patrick. Can you hear me?’

  The old priest moaned again, but showed no other sign of recognition. The ropes were tight, lashing the frail body like the threads a spider uses to secure its prey. But they were not needed now. The old man had no strength left in him.

  ‘Who did this, Eamonn? Why? Why?’ He was crying. Tears touched the altar cloth. His hands trembled, loosening the knots. He looked up and saw the figure of Christ, suspended in semi-darkness, a wooden figure nailed with wooden nails. The old man groaned and tried to move.

  ‘It’s all right, Eamonn. Don’t try to speak. I’ll get an ambulance. We’ll get you out of here.’

  The last knot came undone and he pulled the ropes loose. There was nothing more he could do here. He had to get an ambulance. Taking off his coat, he rolled it up and placed it under the priest’s head as a pillow. He knew he should wipe away the blood from De Faoite’s face, but he had a horror of the bleeding sockets.

  ‘You’ll be all right, Eamonn. We’re going to get you to hospital. I’ve got to go to ring for the ambulance. But I’ll be back soon.’

  As he looked up, he caught sight of something on the back wall. Above the altar pyx, someone had scrawled a message in large black letters. There were two lines. The words meant nothing at first, then, with a shock of recognition, he saw that the letters of the First line were actually Hebrew and that the inscription was in the same language. The second line was in Greek.

  The first line was easy to translate:

  Eye for eye, it read, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

  He was less familiar with Greek, but the inscription was not difficult:

  And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.

  The paint was still wet. It had run in places. The writer had been in a hurry. But not too much of a hurry. Underneath the lines of writing, the same hand had drawn a circle. In the centre of the circle was painted the outline of a candlestick. A candlestick with seven branches. A menorah with a cross.

  ‘Eamonn, if you can hear me, nod. I’d like to know if you’re aware I’m here.’

  Suddenly, De Faoite’s hand reached out and grabbed Patrick by the wrist. He pulled him down towards him. His lips were moving, trying to form words. His breath came in jagged lumps. Saliva ran across his lips and chin.

  ‘Pass ...’ It was scarcely a whisper. Patrick bent his

  head closer, his ear against the old man’s trembling lips.

  ‘I can hear you, Eamonn. What is it? What are you trying to say?’

  Again the lips moved.

  ‘Pass ... Pass ... over...’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Soo ... soon ... Pass ... over ... soon. Find ... Balzarin ... Gave him papers ... Knows ... something ... Ask ... Balzarin ...’

  De Faoite’s hand relaxed and let go of Patrick’s wrist. His body fell back limp. At the foot of the Virgin, another candle gave itself up to darkness.

  EIGHT

  The footstep was soft, but magnified in the stillness. Patrick whirled round. Shadows. Darkness that was not quite darkness. A sound high up in the ceiling: mice? bats?

  ‘Al-salam alaykum, Patrick. You’re a long way from home.’

  The soft voice sounded exaggeratedly loud in the hushed emptiness. It had come from a clump of shadows in the central aisle. Patrick took a step back, almost tripping at the foot of the altar.

  What’s wrong? Getting nervous? You were never nervous, old friend.’

  The voice was so familiar. Familiar yet strange, as though someone had borrowed it. The greeting had been Arabic, but the speaker was not an Arab.

  ‘Alex? Is that you?’

  ‘Who were you expecting? Jesus Christ? That famous Jew who abandoned the working classes for...’ A figure stepped out of the shadows into a pool of weak light. He gestured vaguely with a gloved hand. ‘... for this.’ What did he mean, Patrick wondered. The wood? The plaster? The cheap candles? The silence?

  What are you doing here, Alex?’ Patrick’s voice was stiff and unwelcoming.

  We’re on neutral ground now, Patrick. Relax.’

  The newcomer held out a hand, but Patrick stayed where he was. Aleksander Chekulayev had been RGB station chief in Beirut during Patrick’s last spell of duty there. They had met several times before that, twice in Cairo, often in Baghdad, once in Najm al-Sharq, a dirty cafe in Damascus where Patrick had contracted food poisoning. His stomach remembered the fat little Russian in the same mouthful as it did rancid hummus. According to the political winds, they had been rivals, enemies, friends, partners in crime - sometimes all at once. Alex had tried to have him killed on one occasion. There is no such thing as neutral ground.

  ‘What is it, Alex? What do you want?’ He was not prepared for Alex. His thoughts were still on the altar with Eamonn.

  ‘I was about to ask you just that myself.’

  Chekulayev took a cautious step forward. Patrick could see him more clearly now. The Russian seemed greyer than he remembered. Beneath its natural pallor, his skin appeared as though covered in a fine grey dust, and his eyes were circled by darker lines, like the hair-thin cracks on a raku bowl. Patrick wondered if the greyness was the price or the reward for a lifetime of thought and lies and insinuation.

  Glasnost had sniffed at Chekulayev’s edges and drawn back, perhaps more saddened than frightened. He was too old to change, too young to have learnt how. The system might mellow, but he could wait. In the end, it would grow grey like him. In a sense, he was the system.

  The Russian nodded in the direction of the altar.

  ‘May I see?’

  Patrick said nothing. At least he had no reason to think Chekulayev was responsible for this particular mess.

  ‘Don’t worry, Patrick, I’m quite alone.’ He came forward slowly, like a mourner approaching the bier to view the deceased. Patrick stood aside to let him pass. The Russian stepped up to the altar and stood for about a minute, his head bowed, as

  though in prayer. When he turned, his face was grim.

  ‘Not a pretty sight. You knew him?’

  ‘Yes. He was the priest here. And he was my friend.’ Patrick still felt numb, unable to take in the horror of Eamonn’s death.

  ‘Yes, of course, the priest.’ Chekulayev looked round, as though aware for the first time he was in a church. ‘The letters on the wall. Hebrew and Greek. You understand them, of course.’

  Word for word, yes. But why they were put there, who wrote them - I’ve no idea.’ High above, the mice moved slowly in the darkness. Or were they bats after all?

  ‘Oko za oko, zub za zub?

  Patrick looked puzzled.

  “An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.” Someone wanted revenge. A spiritual revenge ... by very earthly means. What commandment had your priest sinned against, Patrick?’

  ‘Most of them, I should think. Or none. What difference does it make?’

  ‘To me, none at all. But perhaps it made a difference to someone. What’s this all about, Patrick?’

  Patrick stared at the Russian, as though challenging him.

  ‘C’mon, Alex - what are you telling me? That you didn’t know what you’d find here, didn’t know I was here - is that it? I suppose you’re just in Dublin on holiday and dropped in here for an early-morning tour of one of the city’s less-visited churches.’

  Chekulayev said nothing. It needed only a camera round his thick neck to transform him into the archetype of a certain type of
tourist. His fawn coat and burgundy scarf were neatly pressed, his shoes reflected the light of the candles. He could have been a businessman on leave, meddling in holiness for his soul’s pleasure. But Alex Chekulayev did not have a soul.

  ‘Let’s sit down, Patrick. I feel exposed up here, like an actor on a stage. All those empty pews back there, all those shadows piled up behind the pillars - they make me nervous. Let’s sit down.’

  Patrick shuddered and looked away. He remembered - how many years ago? - a performance of Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. Where had it been? St Patrick’s? Christchurch? He forgot. But he had not forgotten those final images: Becket by the altar, pierced and bleeding, the knights-tempters with their reddened swords, the chorus of the women of Canterbury chanting in the shadows:

  ‘The land is foul, the water is foul, our beasts and ourselves defiled with blood. A rain of blood has blinded my eyes.’

  A rain of blood. An eye for an eye. And now Alex Chekulayev like a ghost come out of nowhere to haunt his present. Or a knight with a bloody sword, stepping forward to regale his audience with rational explanations for a bloody act.

  They walked together to the back of the church and sat in the rear pew, like penitents come to wait their turn for confession, ringed by shadows.

  ‘If I believed in anything,’ said Chekulayev, ‘I would become a Muslim. Churches are such gloomy places, don’t you think? They give me the creeps. But mosques are all right. No statues, no memorials, no dead men nailed to crosses. It’s morbid, don’t you think, this religion of yours?’

  Patrick thought of Eamonn. He had never been morbid. Patrick realized that he had always loved the old man, even throughout the long years when they had seldom met.

  ‘You were going to explain how you come to be here.’

  Chekulayev reached inside his pocket and drew out a packet of cigarettes. He held them out to Patrick.

  ‘No thank you.’

  The Russian shrugged and took one before returning the packet to his pocket. He jammed the cigarette into a small ebony holder ringed by a thin line of ivory and lit it. He used a match, cupping the flame in thick hands. For a brief moment, his face was lit up, like an icon in darkness, faded and grey and peeling. The face had matured, thought Patrick. Or perhaps just aged.