“I’ll just get some secondhand clothes,” I insisted. “I won’t be here by the time they finish making me a wardrobe.”
She snorted at that, much to my annoyance.
The Community Hall was a magnificent oak building with a large double-door entrance similar to the others. On it were larger-than-life carvings of people gathered together, arms and shoulders touching and hands holding while their hair and clothes flapped in a breeze trapped in the walls of wood. Helena pushed open the twelve-foot-tall doors and the crowd parted for us.
A stage stood at the top of the forty-foot-long hall; all around it on three sides were rows of solid oak chairs and the same above on a second gallery level. A red velvet curtain parted and was held back on both sides by a thick golden rope. On the entire length of the back wall on the stage was a canvas covered in handprints created by hands dipped in black paint. They were all of different sizes, representing different ages from babies to the elderly as they lined up in a row of at least one hundred across and one hundred down. Above it were two words written in many languages, but reading the English I saw that they meant strength and hope. It was so familiar to me.
“They are the handprints of each person that lives and has lived here over the past three years. Each village has the same in its community hall. I suppose it’s our emblem now for here.”
“I recognize it,” I said, thinking aloud.
“Oh no, you couldn’t.” Helena shook her head. “The Community Hall is the only place you’ll see this in the village.”
“No, I recognize it from home. There is a national monument just like it on the grounds of Kilkenny Castle. Each hand was cast from the actual hand of a relative of a missing person. Beside it is a stone with an inscription of the words,” I said, and closed my eyes and recited the inscription I had run my finger over so many times: “This sculpture and area of reflection is dedicated to all missing persons. May all relatives and friends who visit find continuing strength and hope. The cast of your mother’s hand is there.”
Helena looked as though she was holding her breath as she searched my face, waiting for me to somehow announce that I was joking. I didn’t and she exhaled slowly.
“Well, I don’t know what to say.” Her voice shook and she turned to look at it. “Joseph thought it would be a nice idea for everyone to do that.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Wait until he hears what you’ve told me.”
“Wow,” I said, looking around the rest of the building. It was more like a theater than a community hall.
“This seats twenty-five hundred people,” Helena explained, moving on from what I had told her though understandably seeming somewhat distracted. “The chairs are taken out if we need to hold more but it’s very rare that the entire community will attend anything. It’s used for lots of different things such as a ballot hall, a discussion forum between the elected council and the community, art galleries, debates, even a theater on the rare occasions that plays are staged. The list goes on.”
“Who is on the elected council?”
“A representative from each nation in the village. We have over one hundred nations in this village alone and every village has its own council. There are dozens of villages.”
“So what happens at these council meetings?” I asked with amusement.
“The same as everywhere else in the world; everything that needs discussion and decision is discussed and decided.”
“What are the crime levels here?”
“Minimal.”
“How is it kept that way? I don’t recall seeing the long hand of the law patroling the streets on our way here. How is everyone kept on the straight and narrow?”
“There has been a judicial system in place for hundreds of years. We have a courthouse, a rehabilitation institute, and a security council, but getting every nation to abide by the same rules isn’t always easy. The council at least encourages talk and debate.”
“So this is the sounding house? Do they actually have any power?”
“The power that we have vested in them. Everybody gets one of these in their information pack when they arrive.” Helena took a pamphlet from a display on the wall. “You should have got one too, if you bothered to look through your folder. There are voting guidelines.”
I flicked through the pamphlet, reading aloud: “Vote for those with the ability to listen and to make decisions on behalf of the people in a manner reflecting consensus and serving the well-being of all.” I laughed. “What else is preached, two legs good, four legs bad?”
“They are the basics of good leadership.”
“Well, does this pamphlet for how to elect a leader work?” I smirked.
“I should think so.” She made her way over to Joan, who was on the far side of the room. “Seeing as Joseph is on the council.”
My mouth dropped as I watched her cross the room. “Joseph?”
“You seem surprised.”
“Yes, well, I am surprised. He seems so…” I searched for the correct way to explain without offending her. “He’s a carpenter,” I eventually settled on.
“Those on the council are ordinary people with their own day jobs. He’s merely called on to voice decisions when decisions need voicing.”
I couldn’t stop smiling. “I just get the feeling that everybody here is playing ‘House,’ you know? It’s hard to take seriously.” I laughed. “Come on, I mean we’re in the middle of nowhere and you have councils and courthouses and who knows what else?”
“You think it’s funny?”
“Yes!” I smiled. “Everywhere I look everyone’s playing dress-up in other people’s clothes. How can this place, wherever this place is, have any kind of order or rules at all? It exists completely without logic; it lacks all sense of practicality.”
Helena seemed offended at first but then became sympathetic, which I hated. “This is life, Sandy, real life. Sooner or later you’ll discover that nobody’s playing any games here. We’re all just getting on with life and doing what we can to make it as normal as possible, just like everybody else, in every other country, in every other world.” She approached Joan. “How did you get on with Sandy’s list?” she asked, ending our conversation.
Joan looked up in surprise. “Oh, hello, I didn’t hear you both coming. You look”-she gave my eighties outfit the once-over-“different.”
“Did you get in touch with everyone on the list?” I asked, ignoring her disapproving gaze.
“No, not all of them,” she said, glancing down at her page.
“Let me see.” I grabbed her notepad, my body surged with a sudden rush of adrenalin. My eyes scanned through the list of thirty names I had provided her with: fewer than half of them had ticks beside them. Joan continued talking as I read through the names so quickly I was barely able to take them in. My heart beat wildly and skipped a beat each time my eyes registered a name and I realized that person was alive and well and that soon we would be meeting.
“As I was saying,” Joan spoke, angry I had jumped ahead of her story, “Terence at the registry was no help because he couldn’t give out any information unless someone from the council requested it for official reasons.” She eyed Helena warily. “So I had to just ask around the village, but you’ll be pleased to know, Sandy, the Irish community here is so small that everyone knows everyone anyway.”
“Go on,” Helena urged.
“Well, I got in contact with quite a lot of people, twelve in total,” she continued. “Eight are interested in auditioning, the other four said they’d take part in the production in some way but definitely not on stage. But I didn’t get the likes of, let me see…” She put her glasses on and lifted the page.
“Jenny-May Butler.” I finished the sentence for her, my heart plunging into the depths of my stomach.
Helena looked at me, obviously recognizing the name from the time of my collapse.