He said nothing, only rolled onto his back, the pain in his knee flaring, and gazed up at the ceiling. Rose nodded, and searched in the pockets of his jacket for his cigarettes, and lit one, and leaned over him and put it into his lips.
“Poor Quirke,” she said softly. “You’re in such trouble, aren’t you. I wish I could help.” She went and stood in front of the mirror, frowning, and combing her fingers through her hair. Behind her he sat up on the bed; she saw him in the glass, a great, pale bear. He reached for the ashtray on the bedside table. “It’s probably not a help,” she said, “but there’s one thing I can tell you. You’re wrong about Mal and that girl, the girl with the baby-I can’t remember her name.” He looked up and met her eyes in the mirror. She shook her head at him almost pityingly. “Believe me, Quirke, you got it all wrong.”
“Yes,” he said, nodding. “I know I did.”
HE WAS AT ST. MARY’S EARLY. HE ASKED TO SPEAK TO SISTER STEPHANUS. The nun with the buckteeth, wringing her hands, insisted there was no one who could see him at that hour or, her look implied, at any other hour, for that matter. He asked for Sister Anselm. Sister Anselm, the nun said, was gone away-she was in another convent now, in Canada. Quirke did not believe her. He sat down on a chair in the lobby and put his hat on his lap and said he would wait until there was someone who would talk to him. The young nun went away, and presently Father Harkins appeared, his jawline rawly aflame from the morning razor and his right eye twitching. He came forward with his smile. Quirke pushed himself to his feet on his stick. He ignored the hand the priest was offering him. He said he wanted to see the child’s grave. Harkins goggled at him.
“The grave?”
“Yes. I know she’s buried here. I want to see whose name is on the gravestone.”
The priest began to bluster but Quirke would have none of it. He hefted the heavy black stick menacingly in his hand.
“I could call the police, you know,” Harkins said.
“Oh, sure,” Quirke said with a dry laugh, “sure you could.”
The priest was growing increasingly agitated.
“Listen,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper, “Mr. Griffin is there-he’s there now, visiting, before he leaves.”
“I don’t care,” Quirke said, “if the Pope is there. I want to see that gravestone.”
The priest insisted on his coat and his galoshes. The young nun brought them. She glanced at Quirke and could not suppress a glint of renewed interest and even admiration-evidently she was unused to seeing Father Harkins made to do what he was told.
The morning was raw, with low, rolling clouds and a wet wind driving flecks of sleet before it. Quirke and the priest went around by the side of the building, through a kitchen garden patched with snow and down a graveled pathway to a low wooden gate, where the priest stopped, and turned.
“Mr. Quirke,” he said, “please, take my advice. Go from here. Go home to Ireland. Forget all this. If you walk through this gate, you’ll regret it.”
Quirke said nothing, only lifted his stick and pointed it at the gate, and the priest with a sigh undid the latch and stood back.
THE CEMETERY WAS SMALLER THAN HE EXPECTED, JUST A BIT OF FIELD, really, sloped at one corner, with a view of the city’s towers to the east, huddled in a winter mist. There were no headstones, only small wooden crosses, leaning at all angles. The size of the graves was a shock, each one no more than a couple of feet long. Quirke walked down a straggling pathway toward where a figure in overcoat and hat was crouched on one knee. All Quirke could see of the man was his bowed back, and while he was still some way off he stopped and spoke. It was Mal’s look, hunched and tense; but it was not Mal.
Even when Quirke spoke the figure did not turn, and Quirke walked forward. He could hear his uneven footsteps crunching the gravel, interspersed with the small thud of his stick on the stony path. A gust of wind threatened to take his hat and he had to put up a hand quickly to keep it from flying. He drew level with the kneeling man, who looked up at him now.
“Well, Quirke?” the Judge said, slipping a set of Rosary beads into his pocket, not before he had kissed the crucifix, and took up the handkerchief he had been kneeling on and rose with an effort. “Are you satisfied now?”
THEY WALKED THREE TIMES AROUND THE PERIMETER OF THE LITTLE graveyard, the bitter cold wind blowing in their faces, the old man’s cheeks turning blotchy and blue and Quirke’s knee keeping up a steady growl of pain. To Quirke it seemed that he had been trudging here like this all his life, that this was what all his life had been, a slow march around the realm of the dead.
“I’m going to get her out of this place,” the Judge said, “little Christine. I’m going to get her into a proper cemetery. I might even bring her home to Ireland, and bury her beside her mother.”
“Would you not have some trouble explaining her to the customs people,” Quirke said, “or could you fix that, too?”
The old man gave a sort of grin, showing his teeth.
“Her mother was a grand girl, full of fun,” he said. “That was what I noticed about her first, when I saw her at Malachy’s house, the way she could laugh at things.”
“I suppose,” Quirke said, “you’re going to tell me you couldn’t help yourself.”
Again that sideways grin, lion-fierce. “Hold off on the bitterness, Quirke. You’re not the injured party here. If I have apologies to make it’s not to you I have to make them. Yes, I’ve sinned, and God will punish me for it-has already punished me, taking Chrissie from me, and then the child, too.” He paused. “What were you being punished for, would you say, Quirke, when you lost Delia?”
Quirke would not look at him.
“I envy your view of the world, Garret,” he said. “Sin and punishment-it must be fine to have everything so simple.”
The Judge disdained to answer that. He was squinting off in the direction of the misty towers.
“What they say is true,” he said. “History repeats itself. You losing Delia, and Phoebe being sent out here, and then me with Chrissie, and Chrissie dying. As if it was all destined.”
“I was married to Delia. She wasn’t a maid in my son’s house. She wasn’t young enough to be my daughter-to be my granddaughter.”
“Ah, Quirke, you’re a young man still, you don’t know what it’s like to watch your powers failing. You look at the back of your hand, the skin turning to paper, the bones showing through, and it gives you the shivers. Then a girl like Christine comes along and you feel like you’re twenty years old again.” He walked on a few paces in silence, musing. “Your daughter is living, Quirke, while mine is dead, thanks to that murdering little bastard-what’s his name? Stafford. Aye: Stafford.”
Quirke could see Harkins lurking by the gate; what was he waiting for? He said:
“I honored you, Garret-I revered you. For me you were the one good man in a bad world.”
The Judge shrugged.
“Maybe I am,” he said, “maybe I am of some good. The Lord pours grace into the weakest vessels.”
That passionate tremor that came into the old man’s voice, that tone of the Old Testament prophet, why had he not noticed it before now? Quirke wondered.
“You’re mad,” he said, in the mildly wondering tone of one who has made a small, sudden and surprising discovery.
The Judge chuckled.
“And you’re a coldhearted bastard, Quirke. You always were. But at least you were honest about things, with certain notable exceptions. Don’t go spoiling your bad reputation now by turning into a hypocrite. Give over this I revered you business. You never gave a second thought in your life to anyone but yourself.”