Standing in loose formation around the Cardinal’s group were priests, nuns, and church benefactors. Murphy noticed at least two men who were probably undercover police. He looked up over the heads of the people in front of him toward the crowd across the Avenue. Boys and girls had climbed to the top of the pedestal of the Atlas and were passing bottles back and forth. His eyes were drawn to a familiar face: Standing in front of the pedestal, with his hands resting on a police barricade, was Patrick Burke. The man towered above the crowd around him and seemed strangely unaffected by the animated throng pressing against him on the sidewalk. Murphy realized that Burke’s presence reassured him, though he didn’t know why he felt he needed that assurance.
The Cardinal turned his head toward Harold Baxter and spoke in a voice that had that neutral tone of diplomacy so like his own. “Will you be staying with us for the entire day, Mr. Baxter?”
Baxter was no longer used to being called mister, but he didn’t think the Cardinal meant anything by it. He turned his head to meet the Cardinal’s eyes. “If I may, Your Eminence.”
“We would be delighted.”
“Thank you.” He continued to look at the Cardinal, who had now turned away. The man was old, but his eyes were bright. Baxter cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Your Eminence, but I was thinking that perhaps I should stand away from the center of things a bit.”
The Cardinal waved to well-wishers in the crowd as he spoke. “Mr. Baxter, you are the center of things today. You and Miss Malone. This little display of ours has captured the imagination of political commentators. It is, as they say, newsworthy. Everyone loves these precedents, this breaking with the past.” He turned and smiled at Baxter, a wide Irish smile. “If you move an inch, they will be pulling their hair in Belfast, Dublin, London, and Washington.” He turned back to the crowds and continued moving his arm in a blending of cheery waving and holy blessing.
“Yes, of course. I wasn’t taking into account the political aspect—only the security aspect. I wouldn’t want to be the cause of anyone being injured or—”
“God is watching over us, Mr. Baxter, and Commissioner Dwyer assures me that the Police Department is doing the same.”
“That’s reassuring on both counts. You’ve spoken to him recently? The Police Commissioner, I mean.”
The Cardinal turned and fixed Baxter with a smile that showed he understood the little joke but did not find it amusing.
Baxter stared back for a moment, then turned away. It was going to be a long day.
Patrick Burke regarded the steps. He noticed his friend Father Murphy near the Cardinal. It must be a strange life for a man, he reflected. The celibacy. The paternal and maternal concern of monsignors and mother superiors. Like being an eternal boy. His mother had wanted that for him. A priest in the family was the ultimate status for those old Irish, but he had become a cop instead, which was almost as good in the old neighborhoods, and no one was disappointed, least of all himself.
He saw that the Monsignor was smiling and talking with the ex-IRA woman. Burke focused on her. She looked pretty, even from this distance. Angelic, almost. Her blond hair moved nicely in the breeze, and she kept brushing wisps of hair from her face.
Burke thought that if he were Harold Baxter or Maureen Malone he would not be on those steps at all, and certainly not together. And if he were the Cardinal, he would have invited them for yesterday, when they could have shared the steps with indifferent pigeons, bag ladies, and winos. He didn’t know whose idea it had been to wave this red flag in the face of the Irish rebels, but if it was supposed to bring peace, someone had badly miscalculated.
He looked up and down the Avenue. Workers and high school kids, all playing hooky to get in on the big bash, mingled with street vendors, who were making out very well. Some young girls had painted green shamrocks and harps on their faces and wore Kiss Me, I’m Irish buttons, and they were being taken up on it by young men, most of whom wore plastic leprechaun bowlers. The older crowd settled for green carnations and Erin Go Bragh buttons.
Maureen Malone had never seen so many people. All along the Avenue, American and Irish flags hung from staffs jutting out of the gray masonry buildings. A group in front of the British Empire Building was hoisting a huge green banner, and Maureen read the familiar words: ENGLAND GET OUT OF IRELAND. Margaret Singer had told her that this was the only political slogan she would see, the only one sanctioned by the Grand Marshal, who had also specified that the banners be nearly made with white lettering on green background. The police had permission to seize any other banner. She hoped Baxter saw it; she didn’t see how he could miss it. She turned to Monsignor Downes. “All these people are certainly not Irish.”
Monsignor Downes smiled. “We have a saying in New York. ‘On Saint Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish!’ ”
She looked around again, as though she still didn’t believe what she was seeing. Little Ireland, poor and underpopulated, with its humble patron saint, almost unknown in the rest of the Christian world, causing all this fuss. It gave her goose bumps, and she felt a choking in her throat. Ireland’s best exports, it was said bitterly, were her sons and daughters. But there was nothing to be bitter about, she realized. They had kept the faith, although in an Americanized version.
Suddenly she heard a great noise coming from the crowd and turned her head toward the commotion. A group of men and women, about fifteen of them, had unfurled a green banner reading: VICTIMS OF BRITISH INTERNMENT AND TORTURE. She recognized a friend of her sister’s.
A police mounted unit galloped south down the Avenue, Plexiglas helmet-visors down, long batons raised above their heads. From the north side of the Cathedral on Fifty-first Street, scooter police roared past the mobile headquarters truck and onto Fifth Avenue.
A man with a bullhorn shouted, “LONG KESH! ARMAGH PRISON! CRUMLIN ROAD JAIL! CONCENTRATION CAMPS, BAXTER, YOU BASTARD! MAUREEN MALONE—TRAITOR!”
She turned and looked at Harold Baxter across the empty space left by the Cardinal and Monsignor who had been moved up the steps by the security police. He remained in a rigid position of attention, staring straight ahead. She knew there were news cameras trained on him to record his every movement, every betrayal of emotion, whether anger or fear. But they were wasting their time. The man was British.
She realized that cameras were on her as well, and she turned away from him and looked down into the street. The banner was down now, and half the demonstrators were in the hands of the police, but the other half had broken through the police barricades and were coming toward the steps, where a line of mounted police waited almost nonchalantly.
Maureen shook her head. The history of her people: forever attempting the insurmountable and, in the end, finding it indeed insurmountable.
Maureen watched, transfixed, as one of the last standing men cocked his arm and threw something toward the steps. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw it sailing through the air. It seemed to hang for a second before drifting downward slowly; the sunlight sparkled from it, making it difficult to identify. “Oh God.” She began to drop to the ground but caught a glimpse of Baxter out of the corner of her eye. He hadn’t moved a muscle and, whether it was a bomb or a carnation heading his way, he acted as if he could not care less. Reluctantly she straightened up. She heard a bottle crash on the granite steps directly behind her and waited for the sound of exploding petrol or nitro, but there was only a choked-off exclamation from the crowd, then a stillness around her. Green paint from the shattered bottle flecked the clothing of the people standing closest to where it hit. Her legs began to shake in relief, and her mouth became dry.