Talk to them, the ambassador had said, they are a friendly people. Well, the hell they are. An occasional creature of great poetry and beauty; the others, suspicious, crafty, greedy, stubborn, incurious, stupid, devious, violent, and cruel. And, of course, that is what the history of the country is. Point, set, and match, as the American professor’s wife said, at dinner, at the Waltons’, on the night I concluded that I had to leave the country. On the night I drove and drove, and became ever more certain that I had missed my turnoff, in which case I was bound, not for Dublin at all, but for Tuam and for Shannon; or perhaps worse, lost entirely. So that I would drive, through this alternating sleet and mauve and breathless clarity till daylight, calling attention to myself at daylight, when what I needed was to catch the first flight of the morning out of Dublin. A flight on which I had no reservation, but on which I had been told, in response to an anonymous call the night before, there were still seats. Then, when I had stopped and turned around, there were those headlights coming toward me, the first car I had seen in more than twenty minutes; and I thought, Could the police have alerted one another, in every little town along the way, ever since I set out from the castle, dropping my key in the intense dark at Cihrbradàn, and could this be another of their agents, sent to follow me out of the station at Castlebar? Not so paranoid a thought as that, for many reasons; not least, because the police in this country must be accustomed to following nightriders of all descriptions, Protestants, Catholics, gunrunners, suppliers, enemies, members, betrayers of the IRA. And then, of course, I was following my teamster. But what grounds to trust him, after all? In extenuation; but why raise so defensively this matter of extenuation, since, so far, I have done nothing; I have only come this far.
“My dear,” the English publisher said, “we were in their dining room, looking out on their balcony, and the skyline of Beirut. With each course, the talk became more gruesome. ‘Tell them, Mina,’ the brother would say, ‘in what condition they left your fiancé, that night, on your doorstep. And about the note they enclosed, in the small box, with his hand.’ ‘Ah, but I will tell also,’ the girl would answer, ‘in what manner, and how quickly, we exacted our revenge,’ Mind you, we were eating. I looked at them, and I thought, This is la crème. La crème de la crème de la Phalange.”
The airport, I notice, is absolutely silent. A carnival silence, of crooks, muggers, embezzlers, terrorists, thugs, burglars, traitors, swindlers, rapists, but here I am on shaky ground. This is the age of crime, but it is not yet at this moment that I begin to be in the shade or the shadow of the wrong. I pick up my bags. The frail dark-haired man, key in hand, and carrying an umbrella, accompanies me out into the rain, and across the parking lot, to a small yellow car, with a slightly dented door. It is true that he is talking amiably, about the weather, about the route, but I am still carrying my bags. Finally, he opens the car door for me, says, Safe journey then, and walks away. Well, the car’s radio doesn’t work, nor does the heater; and I misunderstand, it turns out, the windshield wiper, which flaps (as I drive, I count) only once every thirteen seconds. Bidden or unbidden; that is, whether the switch is on or off. The road signs, virtually indistinguishable in this weather from the color of the sky, often do not mention even the largest towns. Galway, for instance, is sometimes mentioned, sometimes not. The car-rental man, like Paddy, said to follow the signs for Westport. But there are no signs for Westport. I do not look at the map of Ireland, which lies folded on the seat beside me, because, in the intervals between those desultory, spastic, and somehow each time startling flaps of the windshield wiper, the windows are completely misted over. For some reason, I am also disinclined to stop. The car-rental man also said that the distance from Shannon to Cihrbradàn was about thirty miles, but I’ve already driven more than sixty. I begin to persuade myself that what the car registers is kilometers. I have heard and read so much, through the years, about Galway, however. I know there will be, there is sooner or later bound to be a large, clear sign for Galway. Finally, I pull over to a large gas station, and wait beside the fuel pumps. Nobody stirs. I walk through the rain toward the office. A pudgy young man, with sandy hair and freckled lips, is standing just inside the door. I say, Could you tell me, please, am I still on the right road, and how far is it, to Galway? He stares off into the distance. I stand there in the rain. Then, looking me straight in the eyes, he says, with unmistakable satisfaction: I’ve no idea. He watches as I get back in my car, and set off, on the same road, in the same direction. I try the radio and the heater again. Nothing. A silence and a chill. Of the three forward speeds on the floorshift, I now notice, one is only intermittent; on even the smallest hills it does not always hold. I wish I had thought to ask him which was the nearest town. I have just about decided that I am in fact off course, so far off, and so long ago, that the man had looked, not sullenly pleased, but just bewildered, never having heard perhaps of Galway. Within half a mile of that gas station, there is a large sign: Galway 6. Well, maybe he didn’t like me, or understand my accent. Maybe he’s never traveled as far as six miles from where we stood, and the sign is so familiar to him he forgot. Maybe he has a mother, or an older sister, who likes to look at him blankly and say, in that tone of voice: I’ve no idea. Whatever it is, the rain stops, and the road is right. Still bemused, but taking heart, I drive.
I enter a small town; and, as I round a curve, on the cobbled road, I hear and slightly feel a sort of crack, or smack, on my side of the car. I think I’ve grazed a truck, a very large truck, parked half on the sidewalk, half in the road, along that curve. I get out and, to my great relief, I find that I have only hit his bumper. Or rather, his front bumper, being high off the curb, has hooked under my left front fender, just above the hubcap, tearing that fender in a straight line, from the rim behind the tire to the door hinge, a distance of about a foot. The fender, oddly, is not bent, only cut in that straight, tidy line. The edge of the truck’s bumper, on the other hand, heavy steel covered in thick rubber, is bent very slightly forward. That is all. A young man walks across the street. I say, I’ve hit your truck. He says, I guess you have. When he sees what has happened, he is at first as relieved as I am. He says, Fortunately, there’s no harm, fortunately; and starts to bend his bumper back. Then he sees the rental agency’s sticker on the rear window of my car. His eyes narrow, and he says, Is that a rental car? I say it is. He says, very slowly, Rental cars have insurance, and asks to see my insurance form. I say I haven’t one, just the rental agreement, and start to look for it in my purse. Still trusting, I say, I guess I ought to see your driver’s license then, we ought to exchange them. He says, There’s no need. It’s nothing. Fortunately there’s no harm, fortunately. He looks at my car, says, I just don’t want them coming after me. I find the rental agreement. He takes it, says, I’ll just be a minute, show this to the agent, for his advice. Then, he walks rapidly away.