Irish Linen

by Andrew M. Greeley

  He made the sign of the Cross.

  I shook hands with him, picked up Nelliecoyne’s printer, lifted my spear, and followed herself out into the dull sunlight, filtered through disapproving clouds.

  Herself was in a buoyant mood.

  “Look at this street, Dermot love, all the different restaurants. We must try them out. Don’t we spend too much of our time in the narrow world down below.”

  SHE’S NOT BEING IRONIC.

  Don’t bet on that.

  “Won’t I be driving us home?”

  She reached out for the keys to our M1A3 tank.

  “Will you give that printer to Nelliecoyne?”

  “Why else would I buy it?”

  “But won’t that encourage her to waste a lot of precious time and become a nuisance?”

  “Our sweet little Nelliecoyne a nuisance? Give over, Dermot Michael! She has the talent and we should encourage her so that she knows we are on her side.”

  Right!

  With her usual skills and finding her way around, she steered us back to the Kennedy Expressway and towards the closed world down below. I didn’t tell her that she might want to take Lake Shore Drive. Save that for the next time.

  “Well, I was right all along, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “We know exactly where Des is.”

  “Was.”

  “And we know what he’s doing.”

  “Learning Aramaic and charming people.”

  “And we will get in touch with him and see if he wants to come home—just like your man in Berlin wants to take his Annalise home.”

  “Des will have an Assyrian bride on his arm when we extract him?”

  She thought about that.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So all we have to do is find a way to talk to him.”

  “You must learn to be patient, Dermot love. One step at a time.”

  SHE’S NOT BEING IRONIC.

  The hell she’s not.

  The kids and the dogs charged into the house when school let out, Ethne, proud of her huge diamond ring, in command.

  “Nelliecoyne!” me wife called out. “Come here this minute!”

  “Yes, Ma,” the young woman replied, not troubled by Ma’s preemptory summons.

  “Your da thinks that you’re so skilled with your pitcher taking that you should have a printer to make enlargements and the software necessary for …”

  “Cropping,” the da said.

  Ma’s statement was pure fiction. It was her idea to use a better printer as a ploy for dealing with Tariq. Da, however, went along with the fiction.

  “Hooray!” Nelliecoyne clapped her hands and jumped up and down.

  “However,” Nuala continued to speak in her sternest of tones, “there is one condition. You must absolutely finish ALL your homework before you begin to play with these things. Is that understood?”

  “Och, Ma, would I ever neglect me homework and meself a responsible and mature young person!”

  I produced the gifts.

  “Like totally cool! How did you know to pick the perfect stuff! Thank you, Ma!”

  And then as if in afterthought, “Thank you, Da!”

  She could have carried the whole charade off if she hadn’t giggled.

  “I’ll get started on my homework, so I will have all day tomorrow to print my pitchers. Course, don’t I always have me homework finished by Friday evening?”

  “Stop laughing, Dermot Michael Coyne!”

  “Am I laughing?”

  “You are inwardly. Stop it.”

  Then, after some consideration, she added, “That one knows how to kill her parents with responsibility. She’ll be the death of us still.”

  “Woman, she will not.”

  “Won’t I go upstairs now and feed me poor starving baby!”

  “Nuala Anne, you’ll just have to learn that the child sees right through us and loves us just the same.”

  “Hmf!”

  The next morning we were sitting in “our” office as Nuala tried to think of a way to get in touch with Des. She wasn’t making much progress. Nelliecoyne arrived with an eight-by-ten print held against her chest.

  “I’m having a little trouble using the new printer, so I do proofs on plain paper before I waste a sheet of the good paper. This is the first one that turned out kind of all right.”

  “How frugal of you,” Nuala said, glaring at me so I would stop my interior laughter.

  She turned over the print and revealed, not to my surprise, the image of a mother nursing her baby. The cropping was exquisite.

  “See, Ma, we see the mystical glow in your eyes as you feed the poor little punk. God adores us even before we adore God.”

  Nuala Anne, to give her full credit, resisted the temptation to assert for the record that she was not a mystic.

  “The Ma behind Ma,” I said.

  “You have the right of it, Da.”

  Nuala’s always ready floodgate of tears opened and the tears streamed down her face.

  “Hon, I’m so proud of you. It’s wonderful! And so are you!”

  After our daughter scampered away, me wife said, “Fair play to you, Dermot Michael, you were right all along. You can laugh at me publicly now.”

  “I’d never do that, wife. It’s no fun. I’d much rather laugh at you behind your back and yourself knowing that I’m doing it.”

  We went back on Sunday to Old Saint Patrick’s Church where Nuala reprised some of her Easter hymns. Her current platinum recording was Nuala Anne Sings for Spring Festivals, a combination of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish Passover songs with an Islamic hymn thrown in for good measure. She even wore a veil over her head when she sang the Muslim hymn. I told the pastor at OSP that he owed us a fee for the performance and he said that we owed him a fee for the public relations value. He laughed when he said it because herself was one of their top contributors—though it was none of my business how much she gave and I never asked.

  We went back in the rain to our house on Sheffield Avenue to read the papers and relax because, “After all, it’s still a day of rest and them awful NFL games over.”

  I was deputed to read the “funnies” to the children with my older daughter assisting in the womanly voices.

  The phone rang. No one answered it, so I played my usual role of backup switchboard operator.

  “Dermot Coyne.”

  “Hi, Dermot, it’s Megan Kim. Cardinal Cronin wants to talk to herself.”

  Me wife was sleeping on our bed, her child cuddled up next to her.

  “Wake up, woman, isn’t your man on the phone?”

  “Which man?” A clear violation of the Irish rule that you have to guess who your man is.

  “His Eminence Sean Cardinal Cronin, Archbishop of Chicago.”

  “Glory be to God and meself sleeping. You take it downstairs and I’ll talk to him from here … And you be quiet, small child, do ya hear. Won’t your ma be talking to a Cardinal Prince of the Holy Catholic Church.”

  Our son continued to sleep, notably unimpressed.

  I picked up the phone in the parlor, just in time to hear her say, in her best Dublin Irish, “Nuala Anne McGrail Coyne.”

  The addition of “Coyne” was a new gimmick.

  “Hi, Nuala, Megan Kim here. Cardinal Sean would like a brief word with you.”

  There were four Megans who acted as porter persons at the Cathedral rectory.

  “Hi, Nuala.” The Cardinal’s rich baritone voice was on the line. “I hate to bother you on a Sunday, but I have some news about your good friend Desmond Doolin. Incidentally, my spies tell me that you were like totally cool at the parish this morning.”

  “I did me best, but haven’t the childer worn me out altogether!”

  “How is the youngest?”

  “Fat and sassy, just like his da.”

  “I hope that your handsome and gifted spouse is on the line.”

  “He is.”

 
“Hi, Dermot.”

  “Hi, Cardinal.”

  GET OUR SPEAR, ME BUCKO, YOU’VE GOT MORE LISTENING TO DO.

  Got it.

  “I have some very interesting news for you. My brother bishop, the nuncio to Iraq and a notorious anti-American, has dodged and weaved and equivocated. So I put my Coadjutor, Archbishop Ryan, whom I believe you know, on the case. The good Blackwood, who has a very low tolerance for bullshit, forced the admission that there was an American monk up in Mosul who was ‘singularizing’ himself by meddling in political affairs, by which Blackie took it to mean making peace every time there was a bad situation up there. That sound like your friend, Des?”

  “Exactly.”

  “He says that he fears an incident in which Shiite activists might blow him up and the whole monastery with him. He didn’t say how many monks were in the monastery, didn’t seem to care. He said that such an incident would be very bad for the Church. To which Blackwood replied that doubtless it would be bad for the monks too.”

  “Sounds like him.”

  “Is this kid as good as he seems, Nuala Anne?”

  “He is astonishing, Cardinal Sean. And himself speaking Arabic and Aramaic—that’s Jesus’s own language—and Akkadian and … Dermot?”

  I stirred from supporting my spear.

  “Tigre, that’s an Ethiopian language. Also Eritrean.”

  “And understanding all the history of the Church of the East and also practically a doctor in Arab language and literature. And a peacemaker too.”

  “Blessed are the peacemakers, as Blackwood says, for they shall be shot at from both sides … Look, I don’t want to stand in the way of the Holy Spirit, but with all the people from the Middle East pouring into Chicago I need a point man. If you talk to him, tell him he’s got a job with me when he comes back.”

  “Did you get his phone number?”

  “Blackwood says that the monastery does not have a phone and that while the Bishop of Mosul does have one he wouldn’t be of much help. I don’t know if they do cell phones up there, though I guess the American military has them. They probably don’t have e-mail either.”

  “Och, won’t we find him and bring him back to Chicago where he belongs? Won’t we, Dermot?”

  “Woman, we will.”

  I didn’t even bother changing the spear for that comment.

  “Well, then see to it, Nuala Anne. Stay in touch with Blackwood. Bye, Dermot. Take good care of her.”

  “I do my best.”

  He laughed his boisterous West Side Irish voice and hung up.

  “All right, Dermot Michael Coyne, give me your damn spear. How do we learn his address?”

  “Well, we don’t ask Jenny because she’s bound to secrecy. Do you still have Siobhan’s phone number?”

  “Cell phone. Isn’t she a child of the twenty-first century too?”

  We found Shovie in her apartment studying for her final exam.

  “That’s a good idea, Nuala. Des couldn’t live without the Internet. Congratulations!”

  “Me man thought it up!”

  “Tell Mr. Coyne, I said congratulations.”

  Mr. Coyne, I felt like saying, is me da.

  ’Twas ever thus. Nuala was one of them. I belonged to the older generation.

  “He changed his address often to avoid pests. But it was always some variation of Des or Desmond and Dizzy. Like Dizdes or Desdiz. He always used AOL, said he could no more give it up than leave the Church. He’s still alive then? Didn’t they have a memorial service for him?”

  “Didn’t his mother want closure?”

  “She would, poor woman.”

  Me wife bounded off her bed.

  “Let’s go, Dermot, we have work to do.”

  “Woman, not till you do your exercise and have a cup of tea. I don’t want you coming down with a migraine.”

  “I don’t get migraines.”

  “You will if you don’t stop thinking too much.”

  So she did her exercises, drank a glass of iced tea, and prepared tea for the mob—ham and Swiss on rye with the crusts cut off the way they are in Ireland.

  There was also milk and iced tea and ice cream for dessert. Nuala does not hold with child-rearing practices which prohibit ice cream.

  “We found him, Dermot, and isn’t he alive and acting like himself.”

  “As we knew all along.”

  After the children were safely asleep, we sat at my computer and began to hunt for Des. The process was slow despite my broadband link and high-end computer. We used the same message: “Hiya, Des, What’s happening?”

  Then we sent it out under each successive address we were able to cook up—all at AOL:

  Dizdes, Desdiz, Desthedis, Dezdediz, Dizzydes, Desdizz.

  The sending party was on Nuala’s account mgmpa—McGrail, Marie Phinoulah Annagh.

  Each time the system bounced the message, telling us with austere haughtiness that there was no such member and asking us to correct the address. Nuala departed for a moment and returned with the bottle of Middleton’s we keep for special occasions and two Irish crystal tumblers.

  “Isn’t this to prevent migraine headaches?”

  “Does it work?”

  “It deals, Dermot love, with every human problem.”

  We tried every variant of everything we knew about Desmond David Doolin—Loyola Academy, Marquette University, Chicago, Illinois.

  We were interrupted by a wailing baby. Nuala went to feed him. He was decisively not hungry. She changed his diaper. That didn’t help. Both doggies appeared in alarm.

  “Sing some lullabies to the little monster,” I suggested.

  The little monster wailed more loudly. The doggies glared at me reproachfully.

  Nuala began to sing. The sound of her voice calmed him down enough so that he decided that maybe he would take a little food. “Maybe there’s enough of the crayture in me milk to put him to sleep.”

  However, he decided that he’d had enough mother’s milk laced with whiskey and closed his eyes, however tentatively.

  Nuala continued to croon. My rival relaxed in her arms. She tiptoed into the nursery, the pooches followed stealthily. Nuala returned. “The poor little guy just wanted some attention, like men always do.”

  “Aren’t you spoiling him rotten?”

  “Give over, Dermot, I’m just providing unconditional love.”

  We returned to our task. AOL seemed annoyed with our ineptitude because it periodically shut down.

  “Tomorrow is another day,” I said.

  “We gotta find him, Dermot Michael.”

  “We’re not going to find him tonight.”

  “We might try to talk to Jenny.”

  “Bad idea.”

  That was that.

  “I can’t see the frigging screen anymore.”

  “It’s a twenty-four-inch screen.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a twenty-four-foot screen,” she fired back, “aren’t me eyes blurring?”

  “You should have used your reading glasses.”

  “I only need them when I’m readin’.”

  “That’s what you were doing.”

  “I don’t care. I’m going to bed.”

  When my Nuala Anne crashes, she like totally crashes.

  I turned off the computer and joined her in bed. She was dead to the world, totally. Not that I was much better off. I fell into the land of Nod before my head hit the pillow.

  Then, much latter, I woke with a start. I had an idea in my dream. Des was marching with a huge band of monks into a monastery that looked like Cluny. That’s silly, I told myself. Cluny is in France. Des is in Iraq or Kurdistan or whatever.

  I struggled out of bed, careful not to wake my wife, and stumbled into the office. I booted up the computer, waited impatiently for it to come alive, then demanded attention from AOL which came slowly. Finally I sent our message to DESMONK.

  AOL insisted that it knew no such person.

  Damn! It was su
ch a good idea.

  I DO MY BEST TO HELP YOU.

  Shut up, this has nothing to do with you.

  Then I knew for sure the right address.

  DESMUNK.

  AOL accepted the message.

  There was someone out there in virtual reality who thought that was a cool name.

  What time was it over there? Let’s see, early afternoon, maybe.

  Then the computer told me that I had mail. I almost opened it. Then I realized that this better be a joint enterprise.

  “Nuala,” I shouted.

  No answer. So I bellowed again, at the risk of an awakened baby.

  “Dermot, are you all right?”

  She appeared at the door of the office in a splendid state of dishabille.

  “I’ve got a response!”

  She darted back into the bedroom and reemerged instantly with a throw around her shoulders.

  “Lemme see! … DESMUNK … You’re a friggin’ genius! What does he say!”

  “You know I never open your mail, even when there’s money in it!”

  She eased me out of the chair and opened the mail.

  She shifted into the instant message utility that she often used to talk to her own ma or her siblings around the world.

  20

  On June 6 the Brits and the Yanks landed in Normandy. As usual, Montgomery was one day late and then a month late before he achieved the assigned positions. The Brits thought he was a brilliant hero. Everyone else, including German intelligence, knew he would always be at least a day late. The Germans had been caught by surprise by a make-believe army under Patton’s command and by constant “leaks” from Brit intelligence about a landing in the Pas de Calais. The Americans, however, were surprised by the accidental concentration of two divisions, one withdrawing and one replacing, near their landing at Omaha Beach. There were heavy American losses.

  Or so Admiral Canaris told me during one of our now long and hard-fought chess matches the day after the landings.

  “How long will it last, do you think?” he asked me while pondering a move.

  “Less than a year. You have no more men to fight, only old-timers and Hitler youth. Hitler has destroyed the Wehrmacht.”

  “Ja, the Americans will fight Blitzkrieg style. They’ll be on or near the Rhine by Christmas and then on the Elbe by April. They will leave Berlin to the Russians.”

  Even though he was no longer director of the Abwehr, he still went into his office every day.