“Jack used to train hitting hundred pound sacks of flour. He even used his fist to pump the carillon in the cathedral, could only play one song, The Old Rugged Cross.”
I finished my meal, swallowed the last of the Guinness, paid the bill and got up to leave. Hugh said, “You sure you aren’t Jack Doyle’s son? There is a strong resemblance. Whose son are you, or as my Irish cousins say in the states, whose your daddy?”
“Good meeting you, Hugh.”
He extended his hand. I shook it and he said, “Good luck to you, lad. May you discover what you came here to find.”
I drove to the WatersEdge Hotel and checked in under the name Mark Taylor. I entered my second floor room, tossed my one travel bag on the bed and stepped to the sliding-glass doors leading to the balcony overlooking the Cork Harbor. I stood on there and watched the freighters and cruise ships in Cork Harbor, a moderate breeze blowing from the east, the moon above the harbor, the slight smell of salt and diesel in the night air.
I thought about the people who boarded Titanic from this harbor, and how their lives would forever change a few days later. I remembered what Dave had said on his boat before I left. ‘It’s the tip of the iceberg, and right now Gibraltar is beginning to feel a bit like Titanic.’
I tried to picture what this harbor looked like three years after Titanic went to the floor of the Atlantic, when more than a 1,195 survivors of Lusitania were rescued in the Irish Channel and brought in to this harbor, most badly injured. And I tried to place myself in the shoes of the German officer who gave the command to fire the torpedo at the ship with full knowledge it was a passenger liner.
I couldn’t.
Then I stepped to the edge of the terrace and looked to my left, up the hill. St. Colman’s Cathedral stood at the top of the hill, lights pointed upward from the ground lighting the old stone. I could see a large clock halfway up the largest spire. The clock was big enough for me to read the time. Midnight. In fifteen hours, I would meet Father Thomas Garvey. I tried to place myself in my mother’s shoes as she was about to be raped.
I couldn’t.
87
I arrived at St. Colman’s Cathedral at 3:00 in the afternoon, glad it was a Saturday. Limited office staff, if any. The front doors were slightly ajar. I opened them and entered the old church. The sanctuary was cavernous, massive marble columns supporting ornate and carved marble arches, the afternoon sunlight igniting the stained-glass windows, casting rainbow colors over the marble floor and wooden pews.
The sanctuary appeared vacant. I walked toward the altar, my hard soles echoing off the marble. The air was cool and smelled of incense and candles. I could see the confessional booth in a far corner, hand carved, polished wood. There was a small red light burning above the closed door to the right. The door on the left was closed as well. I sat in a pew closest to the confessional and waited. I could hear the subdued voice of a woman speaking, weeping, and followed by a man talking in a monosyllabic, rehearsed response.
A few seconds later, the door to the right opened. A woman dressed in black exited the booth. She knelt in front of the altar, looked up at a carved statue of Christ and made the sign of the cross. She bowed her head, whispered a silent prayer, got up and left. She never saw me sitting alone in the pew.
The light above the right-side door turned green. I entered the booth. It was lit with one small wattage blub. I looked at the lattice that separated the left side of the booth from the right. Entering into full combat mode, my senses were heightened. I could hear him breathing. I could smell his aftershave lotion. He was less than three feet from me. I said, “I’m here in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” I pressed the audio record button on my cell phone.
He said nothing for almost fifteen seconds. And then he spoke. “Do you wish to confess your mortal sins?”
“I do.”
“Proceed.”
I quietly opened the door to my side of the booth, then reached for his door — jerked it open. He was an old man, sitting in a high-back wooden chair, one elbow resting on the arm of the chair, the other hand in the folds of his white robe. His eyes had the color of a butane torch, intense, piercing, silver hair combed back. I said, “I’ll confess, but not before you do.”
He looked up at me. “Who are you, son?”
“I’m Sean O’Brien, and I’m sure as hell not your son.”
“Are you a member of the congregation? Do I know you?”
“No, but I know of you. You raped my mother more than forty years ago.”
He pushed back in the chair, stunned, unable to maintain eye contact with me. His eyes moved from his lap to the floor, as if his contact lens had fallen out. Finally, he looked up at me. “What do you want?”
“Are you not even curious as to who my mother was? Or did you rape so many women and girls you’ve lost count?”
He said nothing. His eyes now smoldering, staring straight at me. Then he said, “How dare you come into our Lord’s house and make these accusations. Who do you think you are? Get out!”
“I’ll tell you who I am … I’m Katherine Flanagan’s son. Her second son. You, you son-of-a-bitch, impregnated her when you raped her. Don’t look so surprised. Where’s Dillon?”
“I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Didn’t you learn that lying is a sin? Get up!”
He pulled his right hand out of the thick robe, and he gripped a .357 pistol. His hand like a claw, skin the color of bone. He said, “There’s been a rash of crime in Ireland recently. One priest was robbed here in the confessional. So, of course, police will believe you, too, were here to rob the church — a most egregious sin.” He wet his lips and smiled a crooked grin. “I do remember your mother. How do you forget a woman who enjoyed it as much as she did? Rape … hardly. She was one of my regulars. And guess what? Dillon might not be the only son I produced with her.” His eyes grew wide, cruel and hard as the marble floor.
I said, “Put the gun down. You’ve caused enough pain.”
He cocked his head, his eyes filled with loathing. “Pain? I only follow God’s will. That’s what I did when your father found out I’d sired the first son in the Flanagan family, Dillon. I followed God’s holy directive.”
“You’re sick.”
“And you don’t understand, but your brother does.”
“Where is he?”
“You’ll never be the man he is. Nor was your father. So when he brought his sinful weakness to me, threatened me … threatened God’s word, I destroyed him. And now I’ll do the same with you; the difference is, I’ll shoot you in the front of the head.”
I saw the white flash.
The gunshot echoed throughout the sanctuary. The bullet tore through my upper arm. I slammed the door closed. Then used my legs and back to turn the small confessional on its side. He opened the door, disoriented, like a rat flooded out of his nest. I kicked the gun from his hand. It slid across the marble. He ran to it. Picked it up and fired three shots at me, running in the opposite direction, toward a door in the far corner marked: stairs. He opened the door and vanished. He’d fired four times. Two rounds left.
I followed, holding my wounded shoulder with one hand. The door led to some marble steps, the stone worn down near the center of each step after more than 150 years of foot traffic. I quietly slipped my shoes off and followed Father Thomas Garvey. I climbed a dozen flights of narrow steps, stopping every few seconds to listen. I could hear him above me, climbing, running, panting.
The steps escalated in a spiral circle, like climbing steps in a lighthouse — leading me all the way up the center of the largest spire. As I ascended, came closer, I could hear his labored breathing above me. Within twenty feet, I came to a bell tower. Dozens of bells were mounted on massive wooden beams. Rope and strikers hung from each bell. A strong wind blew through the large arched openings in the belfry. I could see the town and the harbor below the cathedral.