World Without End, Amen

by Jimmy Breslin

  Inside the doorway, it was only a full step to a tiny staircase. Halfway through the step there was a space to the right. The space was so small you couldn’t call it a doorway. They went through it into a room where babies were on the floor and older kids sat with their legs drawn up on a couch with ripped fabric. The woman, Deirdre, the mother’s uncle, and Dermot could not move. The air in the room was smothered with mold. It was the kind of smell you get in some rattrap when you open a closet where a wet floor mop has stood for weeks. Another smell, not quite as thick, came streaming out of the diaper of a baby who sat on the floor playing with a cardboard box. One of the children on the couch said something, running the words together incomprehensibly. The mother pushed through the room. A small white television set with a tiny screen was on the table against the wall. An indoor antenna was suctioned to the wall over the set. A rerun of an American space-adventure series was on. The kid on the couch said something else. The mother turned up the sound. When she moved to do it, a wave of heat came from a little mound of red coals in a fireplace. When the mother stepped back from the television set, her body blocked out the entire fireplace. There was a noise outside. The Venetian blinds were drawn on the one window in the room, but they gave no feeling of safety. Anybody tripping on the sidewalk would come right through the window. With people shooting on the street, being in the room was the same as walking around a pistol range. Dermot started to say something but the woman reacted to the noise by herself. She picked the one baby off the floor, putting him under her arm like a loaf of bread, his dirty diaper fuming, then scooped up a baby girl whose diaper was sopping wet and hung down to the insides of her knees. She went upstairs.

  At the sound of another shot somewhere up the street, the oldest one on the couch, a boy, darted to the front door, pulled it open, and flopped on his stomach, his hands out as if he were firing a rifle. He was going “Chew! Chew! Chew!” and inching out so that his head was going to be showing in the doorway. Dermot moved quickly and hooked his foot in front of the kid’s shoulder and shoved him back while he slammed the door shut. The boy scrambled up and was trying to slip past to open the door again. Dermot called for the woman. She came to the top of the tiny staircase.

  “Aye?” she said.

  “Can you tell him, please?”

  “Martin, back to the telly.”

  “Oh.” Martin went back to the couch, stamping his rubber boots.

  The front door was made of frosted-glass squares. You could see the darkness now on the other side of the glass. Dermot told the woman he didn’t think they should be showing any light in the house and that he’d turn off the television.

  “Oh, everybody watches the telly during a riot,” she said.

  In the room, four heads were in the blue light from the television set, the heads higher than the window sill. Dermot shook his mother’s uncle, who was asleep in a straight-backed chair. His eyes opened but he didn’t see anything. Dermot got him off the chair and onto the floor. He sat with his legs stretched out and his head propped against the seat of the chair. His eyes closed. Dermot told the three kids to get off the couch and onto the floor. They looked at him as if he was crazy. “Come on,” he said. They slid off the couch and onto the floor. They watched television with their legs out and their heads resting against the seat of the couch. That was still no good. All the heads were still above the window line.

  Deirdre was in the narrow frameway separating the front room from the kitchen. Dermot stepped past her into the kitchen, a kitchenette, really, a square of dirty linoleum. If you turned quickly you hit either a sink with rust streaks in it or a stove with thick crusts on the burners.

  “Where do they keep the refrigerator?” Dermot asked Deirdre.

  “The fridge? Oh, the fridge. In the back of course.”

  There was a door opening onto an enclosure about the size of two telephone booths. The back wall of the enclosure was part of the cement wall running behind all the houses on the block. An outhouse took up one side of the enclosure, a coalbin and garbage cans the other. A half-filled pint milk bottle and a roll of butter were on a window ledge.

  “That’s some refrigerator,” he said.

  “As a matter of actual fact, I thought you were codding me about a fridge,” she said.

  He shut the door. It was cold. The topcoat was no help to Dermot because it was damp from being out in the rain. The woman was back downstairs now. She picked her way over the legs and edged past him to the kitchen door. She brought in the milk bottle. “Jesus sake,” she said, “I’ve not enough.” She went to a shelf and reached up into the darkness and brought down two plastic baby bottles. Both of them were discolored. She held the baby bottles in the sink and ran water over them. She split the half pint of milk between the two baby bottles. “Jesus, I’ve not enough, I’ve not enough,” she said. She put the nipples on and stood rubbing the baby bottles across her blue raincoat to dry them. “I hope the wee ones can sleep on this little amount,” she said. She shook her head. In the dim light her face, deep lines running through pouches, held more years than it had seen. Dermot told her his name and asked hers.

  “Marie,” she said.

  “Marie what?” through the room. A

  “What’s it matter, Marie what?” Deirdre said. “Her name is Marie.”

  “At least let me ask her if somebody else is expected here tonight. I would like to know what to do if somebody starts coming in here.”

  “That’s different,” Deirdre said.

  “He’s workin’,” Marie said.

  “What time does he get off work?” Dermot asked her.

  “About this time.”

  “He’s got a problem getting home tonight,” he said.

  “He could be doin’ somethin’ else too, but I suppose he’s workin’.”

  “Is he Provisional?” Deirdre said.

  “Aye, Provisional.”

  “Think he’s doin’ something else too,” Deirdre said.

  “Oh, he went to work, he always goes to work. He must be the only man on this end of the street what’s with a job. Oh, he goes, all right. But just now. I don’t know what he’d be doin’ just now.”

  “What’s Provisional?” Dermot asked Deirdre.

  “The provisional wing of the IRA,” she said. “They’ve two groups in the IRA. One is the Official IRA. The Official IRA are Socialists and would prefer other ways than violence. The Provisionals, the Provisionals are here. They believe in, well …” She looked at the woman. “No mind what they believe in, we’re all here and that’s all there is to it.”

  “They believe in people havin’ two legs to stand on, not two knees to bow down on,” Marie said.

  “Of course,” Deirdre said. She went into her coat pocket and came out with cigarettes. She offered the box to Marie, who took one. Dermot took out his lighter for her.

  “I’ll go up and blow smoke in their eyes to keep them shut,” she said. “Maybe that’ll do it. There’s not enough milk for them, that’s as sure as Christ.”

  She stepped back over the legs with the cigarette sticking straight out of her mouth. On the television there was a Popeye cartoon, the big guy who looks like an ape was holding Olive Oyl in one hand and with the other he was trying to put a huge thumbtack through the top of Popeye’s head. Dermot sneezed, and sneezed again; his eyes started to sting again. The woman, Marie, had left her bowl of vinegar and water on a little drainboard next to the sink. He cupped his hands and splashed his face. “I forgot we’re next door to the goddamned saloon,” he said.

  “Takes a bit more for us,” Deirdre said. “Coming from Derry, you get used to the gas. It’s like breathing out and breathing in.”

  “I’m just realizing,” Dermot said.

  “Realizing what?”

  “Realizing how, excuse me, but just how fucked we are. If a lot of gas gets around here, what the hell are we going to do? Where can we go?”

  “I don’t see why you should be concerned. You thought eno
ugh to bring them a wonderful gun; then you certainly must have thought about all else that would go on.”

  “I’m just worried about all these kids here,” he said.

  “Why worry about them? Every house on the street is filled with wee children. You must have taken them into consideration when you arrived here with your gun.”

  “I don’t know what I thought or what I did. All I know is that I wish to Christ I’m out of here and in some place where I belong.”

  “Ah ha.” She crouched down, picked a spot on the floor, and sat down, her knees drawn up. She took a quick drag on her cigarette and blew it out. “Best make yourself easy. We might be here a long time.”

  Dermot sat down on what was left of the floor and squirmed around until he had his head up against the kitchen door. “Who is out there, just the Army?” he said.

  “Just the wee British Army.”

  “And where are the Protestants, right behind them?”

  “Oh, the Protestants are over on the Shankhill having a celebration. The Catholics are committing suicide.”

  “Oh, no, they weren’t celebrating when I saw them last night. They were out on the street looking to fight, Christ, the Army had to come to break it up.”

  “The Army are supposed to stand between both sides. But all they do is stand between us and liberty. Now and then, when it moves them, they stop Protestants and Catholics from murderin’ each other. Just now and then.”

  “Why the hell do people have to fight over religion?”

  “Who was it that told you that everybody fights over religion?” she said.

  “Well, that’s what it’s about.”

  “Oh, is it, is it?”

  “Well, fuck, isn’t it?”

  She took another drag of the cigarette and waved it at him. “I don’t think you know so much about the history of the situation.”

  “Well, I know something.”

  “Whatever it is you know, I can tell you it isn’t as much as it should be. Religion, sectarianism, is a great weapon of the aristocrats. They’re livin’ in their manor houses and they’re runnin’ their factories. All the Scottish Presbyterians are livin’ in wee kitchen houses just like this one. Whenever the situation gets so that the Prods and the Catholics seem to be talkin’ to each other, the wee rich men in their factory offices yell out that Rome is threatenin’ all of us.”

  “Were the Protestants and Catholics getting together?”

  “We had this civil-rights march last year. We had some wee Protestant girls and boys and we had some wee Catholic girls and boys. Comes a bridge we’re marchin’ across goin’ to Derry and all these men are attackin’ us. The government are up on the hill watchin’. Next the B Specials run into a Catholic housing off the Springfield Road and set fire to everythin’. The factory bosses let the men off the jobs early so’s they could set the fires. Jesus, they couldn’t allow Catholic and Protestant working-class people to get together. We’d all look up the hill at the aristocrats and find out who the real enemy is.”

  She started stamping her foot on the floor and singing in a voice that was between a wail and a moan.

  “… bayonets flickerin’ in the sun

  and the Tans they flew

  Like lightnin’ to

  The rattle of the Thompson gun …”

  She stopped singing the words and hummed it for a while. When she stopped she said, “Do you not have that on your music boxes in America?”

  “Only on about three thousand of them on the East Side, and in Sunnyside.”

  “Ah, Christ, I’ll bet they do. They run out and send guns to the Bogside and go home to their warm beds.”

  “Oh, I don’t know what they do.”

  “On your music boxes, do they sing any songs about the wee children of the Falls Road being smothered by gas while they lay in their beds?”

  “I don’t know all the songs.”

  “Or do they have any songs about a wee girl in Derry trying to run to her mother and being shot through the head by a British soldier who was shooting at a shadow?”

  Dermot said nothing.

  The foot was stamping again and she let out another moan and wail.

  “The only thing they did that night

  That filled my heart with fear,

  They took the ice right off the corpse

  And put it in the beer.”

  “How’s that one?” she said.

  “I don’t know if I ever heard that.”

  “Why would you not? Certainly it’s on your music boxes.”

  “I don’t know, how would you know?”

  “In university we looked up many of the songs and books you have in America. Tracin’ the legend, you see. We chose this song as our favorite, being there isn’t a piece of ice in all of Ireland big enough to cool your finger.”

  A shot went off in the street right in front of the house. She sucked in air and her body shook. He crept into the front room to turn off the television and get the kids upstairs. He moved just in time to find the one kid, Martin, off the couch and at the front door again. He was opening the door and Dermot came off the floor and made one leap to catch him. He had his hand out as if he had a pistol and he let one “Chew!” go and then Dermot had the door shut, him by the shoulder and onto the stairs. He gave him a push and told him to keep going, then got down and crept over to the television set and turned it off. The two kids on the floor in front of the couch gave this “Oh gee. Thanks a lot!” Dermot said come on and gave them little taps on the head. The two started to stand up to go upstairs and Deirdre put her hand out to push them down. “If you stand, you’ll frighten us to death,” she said. The kids giggled and went up the stairs crouching.

  Deirdre and Dermot sat on the floor directly under the window. She put her head back against the wall and let her breath out. “Ah, that feels so good on the back of my neck,” she said.

  “Nerves,” he said.

  “Always nerves. Nerves always get me in the back of the neck, the nerves do.”

  “You shake like a leaf,” he said.

  “I’m so afraid of guns,” she said.

  “Well, what did you come around here today for? It’s bad enough I didn’t know what I was doing and I’m here. But at least you knew.”

  “Oh, ah … dunno.” She held the cigarette between her thumb and forefinger, but the red ash was still so far down that another drag or so would have it touching her fingers. She did not look at the cigarette and took another drag. “As an actual fact, it doesn’t matter where you go. Guns are everywhere. We used to have no shooting in Derry. Now we’ve all you can hear.”

  “Are you always this scared when you’re in Derry?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  The shot that went off this time made the window shake. Right away there was another shot. She flinched badly and had her eyes closed tightly. There was shouting on the sidewalk directly outside the window.

  “Has this place got a cellar?” he said.

  “No,” she said, and smiled.

  The mother’s uncle was awake now. He began working his big mouth around. He gulped, swallowed, licked his lips, choked, worked the saliva back and forth over his gums and then began gulping again. The little noises went through Dermot and made him squirm.

  “No cellar, only floorboards here,” he said.

  Dermot twisted himself around and came up to the window. He poked a finger in front of the tin blinds and drew them back a couple of inches, then brought his head up and looked out into the street. It was night by now. There were fires on the other streets, and probably somewhere up at the head of Leeson Street, because there were wavering patches of half-light, reflections of fire, on the dark cement outside the window.

  A man came running out from Balaclava Street, running out from the corner the saloon was on. He put one foot into the gutter and had the other one on the sidewalk. He crouched down and the arm came straight out and he fired a pistol up toward the Falls Road. He started
back toward the corner but when he tried to push off his right foot, the one in the gutter, the shoe slipped and he nearly went down and he had to stumble back around the corner. Dermot pulled his fingers from the blinds and put his head down on the floor. He could hear the whine and slap of bullets going against the brick walls. He looked out to see if the guy had been hit. The street was empty and dark.

  “The guy is completely infuckingsane.”

  “What?” Deirdre said.

  “I don’t know, they run into the street, I don’t know, they’ll get themselves and everybody else killed,” Dermot said.

  “Where do they run?” she said.

  “Right into the middle of the fuckin’ street.”

  “Oh. That’s proper form.”

  “That’s what?”

  “Aye, that’s proper form. If a man stands out where the soldier can see him and then he shoots and kills the soldier ’tisn’t as bad as it would be if he were to sneak up and kill the soldier. This way he kills the soldier in a fair battle. He killed the man, but he also gave the man a fair chance to kill him first. When you die and are judged by the Lord, He will take this into consideration. You will not be a murderer. You will be judged as a soldier. Therefore, the Lord will only send you to Purgatory for killing the soldier. Christ won’t doom a person to Hell for that. The way He would if you murdered a soldier.”