by Anne Emery
She laughed. “No, I never thought of it, because we hear so much about the United States and England.”
“I could help you come to Canada.”
She looked at him without her usual cynicism; what he saw in her face was hope. But then, “I do not want to go where my mother was, where people knew her.”
“You wouldn’t have to see them. Halifax is not a huge city, but there are enough places to live and work that you wouldn’t have to worry about crossing their path if you didn’t want to. And there are lovely small towns nearby with a strong German heritage, one of them being Mahone Bay, another being Lunenburg.”
“That would be, I don’t know, comforting I suppose. There is a university in your city, as I know from the news I heard about her.”
“There are several, along with community colleges, trade schools, art school, all kinds of opportunities.”
“I did well in maths and science, and I always wished to train as an engineer.”
“There you go. Dalhousie University has an excellent engineering program.”
“But that’s where she worked.”
“No, actually, she taught at another university, Saint Mary’s.”
Imke emerged from her room then and gave her mother a questioning look. “Are we going away?”
“The walls have ears,” Leni said, “but they always have had, here in Berlin.” To Imke, she said, “I was telling Father Burke that you are very good at speaking English.”
“I know a song, and it’s in English! Mutti doesn’t know it. It’s about raindrops and kittens. And strudel!”
“Oh, that sounds wonderful. Would you like to sing it for me?”
She retreated to her mother’s side again. Had Brennan’s reputation as a tough audience for music accompanied him to Germany?
“I want somebody to sing it with me.”
Brennan didn’t think that should be him, but he had an idea. Surely “My Favourite Things” was known to someone known to him in Halifax. What time was it? Twenty past one in Germany, so twenty past eight in Halifax. She would be getting ready for school; well, if she was late one day out of the year, Brennan would see to it that the infraction was not entered in her permanent record. “I know a girl who would love to sing with you.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I have a music school in Canada.”
“A school for music?” She looked as if she had just won the lead role in The Sound of Music.
He dialled the Collins home number and waited. The MacNeil answered. “Hello?”
“Morning, sunshine. Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Did I blast a string of obscenities into the phone, or did I merely say ‘hello’?”
“Grand. I didn’t wake you. I shall be able to return to Halifax without fear of reprisal.”
“I make no promises. Where are you?”
“Just another day in Berlin for me.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Well, that would depend on —”
“Don’t launch into a philosophical treatise, Brennan. Just reassure me that you are safe and sound, of body if not of mind.”
“I am. Now I have a young girl here —”
“A girl! Should I even ask?”
“Just ask Normie, if you would, to come to the phone and sing a song with Imke.”
“Of course. Why ever didn’t you say so?”
So, he greeted a puzzled Normie, gave her a short explanation, and passed the phone to Imke. She spoke hesitantly into the phone in English and then launched into the song. The animation in her face told him that Normie was playing her part. He took out a few Deutsche Marks and placed them on a nearby table. “For the phone call,” he whispered to Leni. He waved off her protests. When the singing wound down, he gently took the phone, thanked Normie, and said he would see her soon. Imke danced off into her room, singing “Edelweiss.”
Brennan turned his attention to Leni and the nascent idea of emigration from Germany. “It’s a hell of a lot for you to consider. But if after giving it some serious thought, you’d like to go for it, I’ll do everything I can to smooth the way.” He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of cigarettes. He smiled at her and said, “This is all I have for your first immigration papers.” He wrote out his address and phone number on the top of the package, tore it off, and handed it to her.
“Thank you. You are being very good to us.”
“You are more than welcome, Leni.” Now there was another question he had to ask. “Em, would it be the two of you, or . . . ?”
Leni laughed. “Is there a man, you’re asking? Well, there was, obviously. But he found a better location on the other side of the city, and a better class of person to share it with.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We are better off without him.”
Brennan was forced to examine his conscience: am I doing this for her or for me? Both, he knew, but if Leni and her little girl could make a fresh start in a new city, they would benefit greatly from it.
As Brennan was standing at the door, about to take his leave, he saw that there were tears in Leni’s eyes. “Tell me something, Father. Maybe something from the Bible, or from the poets, something that will help me look past all that has happened to me, that will reassure me that I’ll be the kind of mother I should be, for Imke.”
It wasn’t scripture that came to mind. It was a loose translation of Aeschylus:
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”
She stared at him and then spoke softly. “I hope I’ll have that wisdom someday. I hope my greatest fear never comes true. Do you know what that is? I have known fear, but this is the worst. I am afraid that somehow I will cause pain to my daughter, harm her in some way. If I hurt my daughter the way my mother hurt me, I could not live with myself.”
Brennan’s reply was quiet, sorrowful. “Neither could she.”
Chapter XXXIII
Monty
Three days after Lieutenant-General Patriquin’s astonishing admissions, and after Monty had set him up with Saul Green as his new counsel, Monty got a call from Bill MacEwen in the Crown’s office.
“Couple of things, Monty.”
“Okay, Bill, let’s hear them.”
“You may have heard that the Mounties had Commodore Rendell in for questioning.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard.”
“Well, Rendell is off the hook. He had a couple of drinks and then drove out to Lawrencetown Beach to visit a friend, someone in the Navy. A woman named Lesage. This was the night MacNair was killed, but it wasn’t the only night Rendell had been out to Lawrencetown recently. Anyway, after first denying he’d left his own house, he changed his story and said he’d been out to this Lesage’s place. But he’d been worried before this that if anybody knew he’d been visiting this woman, people would think he had a mistress, and he might have had a hand in his wife’s death. So he told Petty Officer Lesage to deny he’d been there if anyone ever asked. When the RCMP got in touch with her, she was a good soldier — well, a good sailor — and lied and said Rendell hadn’t been there. It all got straightened out — comedy of errors kind of thing — apparently he and Lesage are, after all, just friends. Her romantic interests lie elsewhere. So, his alibi stands up.”
Monty was well aware that Rendell’s alibi would stand up, given that he had heard in person from the man who really was responsible for MacNair’s death. When it came time for the plea bargaining, the Crown lawyer would know the identity of the man who had killed MacNair, but he would never know why. But this was Bill MacEwen’s day, and he had not quite finished.
“Monty, have you ever gone wreck diving in the harbou
r here?”
“Can’t say as I have, Bill.”
“Well, as I’m sure you know, there are thousands of wrecked ships and boats along the coastline of this province, scads of them in and around Halifax Harbour. Some date back to the 1800s and even earlier.”
“Oh, yes, I know about the wrecks, but I’ve never gone down to see them close up. Pretty spooky, I imagine.”
“And cold. Especially at this time of year. But there’s many a hardy soul who goes down there in scuba gear, even in the early weeks of spring. Quite the tourist attraction for the dive community.”
“The Dive Community — that’d be a good name for a bar.”
“Good place for you to have savoured a celebratory drink. If it wasn’t too late, which sadly it is.”
“What are you getting at, Bill?”
“If Alban MacNair hadn’t been whacked, we would have been dropping the charges against him.”
“What?”
“Couple of cold-water divers, Americans, were down there in the water out beyond Point Pleasant. They’d been there in the summer looking at a wreck and wanted to go down again and take some more pictures. This time, they saw something that hadn’t been there before. Old wooden rowboat with the oars fastened in, some rocks in it for ballast, and a couple of holes in the hull and couple of boards wrenched loose enough to let water in. In other words, deliberately sunk.”
“Jesus.”
“Little metal plaque on the stern, with the name Lumberyard Leviathan. Bit of humour there. A little homemade rowboat, old and not in the best of shape, and the police traced it to a couple by the name of Pemberton. They live in the south end, right on the shore on Chain Rock Drive.”
On the western edge of Point Pleasant Park. Close to the home of Meika Keller and Hubert Rendell.
“The Pembertons are away for an extended vacation in Cuba, but the police got in touch with their son here, and he went over to the parents’ place and looked in the shed. Saw that the boat was gone. Also missing were a crowbar and a hand-powered drill and bits. Taken along to make sure the hull of the boat could be pierced or wrenched open. All this leaves Alban MacNair out of the picture. We would not have been able to make a case that he got her into a tiny boat, rowed her out to the depths, pushed her off, then sank the boat, and swam back to shore in water that is barely one degree centigrade. Nor can we picture him taking another boat out and following her. She was an athletic woman. She could have rowed away from him, back to shore. And if he had a gun, why not just shoot her? That would have been quicker and would not have left him possibly on view with a boat to deal with in the winter. We don’t see any of that happening. She did it herself. We don’t know why, but we know this much: we could no longer have made a case against Lieutenant-Colonel MacNair.”
“Jesus, Bill, this gets more bizarre by the day.” Monty couldn’t let on to the Crown attorney what he had learned about Meika Keller, or the conspiracy she entered into with Alban MacNair and John Joseph Patriquin. Did a guilty conscience finally catch up with her? Why now, after twenty-two years? Was there something about that postcard that had pushed her over the edge?
“So,” Bill said, “poor MacNair was innocent after all. But somebody out there is guilty of beating MacNair and pushing him to his death.”
Bill would know soon enough who was guilty, Monty reflected. As soon as Saul Green and Lieutenant-General Patriquin worked out their strategy for a plea bargain.
“So there you have it, Monty. Stay tuned.”
“I will. Thanks for letting me know, Bill.”
Monty remembered Brennan Burke’s little jest: “Maybe she took a ship out and scuttled ’er.” That’s exactly what she did, according to the prosecutor. A boat, not a Navy ship. For whatever reason — guilt? fear of exposure? — Meika Keller took her neighbour’s rowboat out of the shed, loaded some tools into it, dragged it down to the shore, added some ballast in the form of heavy rocks, and rowed it around to the southern tip of the peninsula and out into the Atlantic. And scuttled the boat. Why do all that work? Why not just tip it over? So she wouldn’t be tempted in her panic to climb back onto the hull if it was still afloat? Once the boat went under, she was on her own in the frigid waters of the ocean. Death was a virtual certainty. And it was obviously well planned. She did not come up with this scheme spontaneously after her midnight altercation with MacNair. Late that afternoon, she had approached Father Burke and asked to speak to him at ten that night. Whatever drove her to this desperate act, she knew all about it before going to — trying to — see her priest. If and when Brennan Burke learned of this, Monty could not imagine how heavily the knowledge would weigh on him.
Chapter XXXIV
Monty
Monty was sitting in Saint Bernadette’s church the evening of Holy Thursday. There were a few choral pieces before the Mass would begin; the men’s and boys’ choir was up in the loft with the children’s choir from the school. The men and boys were doing “Ubi Caritas” and their magnificent singing earned Monty a malevolent look from his wife beside him in the pew. Yes, he should be up there. And he would be; he had to get past all the awkwardness with Burke and take his place in the tenor section where he belonged. Then the children’s choir sang a piece he didn’t recognize, but it was something from the Renaissance, possibly Palestrina. As always, the children’s voices blended beautifully, and their intonation was perfect. After that, Monty and Maura were in for a surprise: they heard the voices of two young girls, an alto and a soprano, singing in German. It was “Maria Wiegenlied.” Mary’s lullaby. The voices were heartbreakingly beautiful, and it was time for another look passing between husband and wife, father and mother. The alto voice was Normie’s, the soprano Kim Kennedy’s.
That’s when Monty remembered something he had overheard the day before. He had come home early from the office and heard Normie and Kim chatting, their voices coming up from the den. Monty had cracked up when he heard Kim say in a wonderfully accurate imitation of the Irish voice of their choirmaster, “Burke will be pissed. Can’t you hear him? Sure d’yez think it’s feckin’ Christmas?”
His daughter laughed but said, “Yeah, but I really want to sing it for her. And nobody in the church will catch on it’s about Christmas, ’cause it’ll all be in German.”
The rest of the conversation went something like this:
“What was her name again?”
“Imke.”
“That’s a cute name.”
“Yeah, I really like it. I only talked to her for a few minutes on the phone, but I know she is so sweet! I helped her with her English for a song, and I told her I’d sing one in German for her. And she said ‘Maria Wiegenlied.’ It’s a lullaby. She loves it, but her mum is too shy to sing it for her; her mum says she’s no good — the mum is no good — at singing. So, me and you will sing it, and if Father Burke says we’re good, we’ll phone Imke in Germany and sing it to her!”
That was the conversation as far as Monty could recall. Then the girls must have heard his footsteps above them, because they fell silent. He of course wondered who Imke was — a relative of one of the visiting scholars at the Schola Cantorum? — but he didn’t hear anything more and hadn’t thought about it again until now. Apparently, Burke hadn’t been “pissed” after all, if he’d permitted the song on Holy Thursday.
Speaking of Burke, here he was now in the procession, walking up the aisle to begin the Mass. Maura shook her head and whispered to Monty, “He looks like one of the Irish Republican prisoners on hunger strike. Either that or one of those God-haunted saints who starved themselves in the desert.”
He did indeed look haunted, thin and exhausted, but he “said a beautiful Mass,” as Monty’s aunts would say, and at the end when he sang the Gregorian chant, “Pange Lingua,” his baritone voice was as rich and inspiring as ever.
And that brought it all back to Monty: the brilliant talent that came bla
zing through, despite everything Brennan Burke had endured. Monty felt, like a knife in his gut, the painful memory of dismissing Brennan as a spectacular Irish flameout. Now here he was, walking down the aisle in his vestments after the beautiful ceremony. How did Brennan manage to keep it together? There was the pain of his all-too-human failure to meet Meika Keller the night when she was planning to end her life. And that wasn’t by any means the only thing weighing on Brennan’s mind, Monty was sure. He had come home to Halifax after his harrowing experience in Belfast to find his choir school in the hands of an occupying force, a crowd of bean counters more interested in the ringing of a cash register than the ringing tones of a heavenly choir. At least there was some good news on that front: W. Langston Soames, who had installed himself as the school’s chairman of the board, had resigned in a huff, taking his bags of gold with him. Good riddance.
But there was no getting away from the events that had precipitated Brennan’s woes and his excessive — even by Burkean standards — drinking. And there was no getting away from the role Monty himself had played, and tried to downplay, in what had befallen Burke in Ireland. Monty had laughed off the warning he had been given late at night on a Belfast street, just as he had more recently laughed off Burke’s insistence that the motive for Meika Keller’s death lay in her German past. The warning in Ireland was to tell Monty that certain legal work he was doing could “hurt” certain people he knew in Belfast, including his friend Father Burke. The reason Monty had laughed was that, as far as he knew, the only risky endeavour Brennan had taken part in was his undeniably droll impersonation of an American tourist in order to disguise himself and get close to and identify a man in an East Belfast bar, a man suspected of committing an atrocity decades before. But there had in fact been more going on than Monty realized. And to say Burke had been hurt as a consequence was a gross understatement. It all came back to Monty now in a wave of pain and guilt. He remembered how horrified he’d been when he read the news out of Belfast, the stories of the fallout from his own legal case over there; Monty had felt as if he himself were one of the Belfast gunmen, that he had fired a bullet into the heart of his friend. So, now, with Father Burke greeting his congregation at the back of the church, what could Monty possibly say?
