The Brightest Day, The Darkest Night. Brendan Graham

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СКАЧАТЬ room she saw Foots O’Reilly in conversation with Mary. Then she watched Mary bend, her arms encircling the man’s back, lifting him into a sitting position. He was from Cavan ‘and a mighty dancer,’ he had told Ellen, ‘could trip over the water of Lough Sheelin without dampening me toes.’ Hence, the nickname ‘Foots’. Then a Southern shell had ripped one dancing leg from under him.

      ‘That won’t hold Foots O’Reilly back none,’ he swore. Tomorrow he would undergo the surgeon’s saw to save the second leg, gangrened to the knee.

      ‘I could dance with the one, ma’am, but I can’t dance with the none. Now I’ll lose me name as well as me pegs. “Foots” with no foot at all to put under me.’ He had cried in her arms then.

      Ellen watched Mary hoist the one-legged dancer, so that he half stood, half leaned against her, arms clasped to her, head draped over her shoulders. She dragged him out to the dancing square. The others witnessing it stopped, even the fiddle boy. Then Mary whispered into his ear, ‘Come on now, Mr O’Reilly. Dance with me … you show them!’

      And she manoeuvred him slowly around in the silence, his gangrenous leg trailing behind them. Then again and again they turned, in grotesque pirouette, she in her white nun’s ballgown, he the mighty dancer, until Mary could support his dead weight no longer.

      ‘Thank you, Mr O’Reilly … Foots,’ Mary said to him. ‘I shall always remember this dance …’ and she sat him gently down again.

      Then, all those who could were once more ‘footin’ it’: the wounded and the wasted, the stumped and the stunted. All flailed and flopped and picked themselves up again as the fiddler played his relentless reel. Then, suddenly, he changed into waltz-time.

      ‘I thought he’d kill the lot of them …’ Ellen said to Mary who had come beside her, ‘… but isn’t it wonderful to see?’

      Mary smiled back at her.

      As the young Tennessean, bow astride his fiddle, led them into the waltz, they watched Hercules O’Brien prop up Alabarmy in front of him, placing the Southerner’s shelled-out sleeve over his shoulder. Twins from Arkansas – a crutch apiece – hobbled around in a kind of teetering dance, Ellen ready to catch whichever one of them, who any minute must fall.

      Then, someone bowing to Ellen … a deep bow. It was Herr Heidelberg, the Dutchman, as the men called the German soldier from the town of the same name. Like all who had come newly to America, Germans as well as the Irish, Poles and a host of other nations had joined in the fray to fight for their ‘new country’ – the North in Herr Heidelberg’s case.

      ‘I better likes dance mit de Frauen den de Herren,’ he said shyly.

      What Ellen could see of Herr Heidelberg’s face was pink with both excitement and embarrassment. The German was the object of much ridicule from the rest of the men due to his manner of speaking, and now could risk further ridicule.

      Ellen curtseyed to him.

      ‘Delighted, Herr Heidelberg!’ she replied.

      It was the only name by which she knew him … and though denied his real name, the association with his hometown had always seemed to please him.

      Herr Heidelberg swept her around like a Viennese princess, her dress spattered with the earlier work of the day, flouncing about her. The men made space for them, Ellen and her waltz king with half a face, clapping them on to twirl upon twirl, him counting to her under his breath.

      ‘Ein, zwei, drei, ein, zwei, drei.’ His bulk making her move like a turntable doll, just to keep pace with him. And all the while the young fiddler discoursing sweet music from his violin.

      When they had finished, the others all clapped and cheered – and cheered again, more loudly; those who could not clap, clanking their crutches. He turned to her, flushed with delight.

      ‘Danke schön! Danke schön … I have not so very good time before in America,’ and she saw the tears form and spill down his bandaged cheek.

      ‘Thank you, Herr Heidelberg. You’re a brave dancer.’

      He beamed at her and self-consciously retired away from her to the rear of the ward.

      Finding herself beside the young fiddler Ellen enquired of him the tune. ‘It has no name … I picked it up from folk in the foothills.’ He smiled at her. ‘I could call it “The North and South Waltz”.’

      ‘More like “The Cripples’ Waltz”, ma’am, beggin’ your pardon,’ Hercules O’Brien chipped in, ‘’cos that’s what it was!’

      ‘If you was a gentleman, Sergeant O’Brien,’ the fiddler remonstrated, ‘you’d name it for the lady …“Mrs Lavelle’s”, or, with permission, ma’am, “Ellen’s Waltz”.’

      ‘Waltzes can be trouble …’ she said, remembering Stephen Joyce, and something about ‘the carnal pleasures of the waltz’.

      ‘I am honoured but perhaps there is a young lady in East Tennessee who more greatly deserves the honour,’ she said … and he struck up another waltz as if in answer.

      All of a foam after her own decidedly non-carnal waltz with Herr Heidelberg, Ellen went to the open doorway for some cooling air. She stood there watching the sky, listening to the music, thinking of those whom she most dearly missed. The sky, the everlasting sky. Lavelle out there under it. Dead or alive. Maybe watching that same sky, thinking of her. An old poem-prayer – pagan or Christian, she didn’t know – formed on her lips. She had learned it at her father’s knee. All those nights of wonder long ago, under the sheltering stars. High on the Maamtrasna hill, above the Mask and Lough Nafooey. Above Finny’s singing river. Above the world.

      ‘I am the sky above Maamtrasna,

      I am the deep pool of Lough Nafooey;

      I am the song of the Finny river,

      I am the silent Mask.

      I am the low sound of cattle

      And the bleating snipe;

      I am the deer’s cry

      And the cricket’s dance.

      In the lover’s eye, am I;

      In the beating heart;

      I am the unlatched door;

      I am the comforting breath.

      Now and before, after and evermore,

      I am the waiting shore.’

      ‘The waiting shore,’ she repeated, the great sky listening. ‘I am the waiting shore.’

      Music, dancing, always seemed to start her thinking. Too much of it was bad. Thinking led to feelings. High, lonesome feelings like the fiddle-sound behind her. Still, these days she didn’t much give into herself. Just kept working with a kind of blind faith. That one day she’d find them, or they’d find her. Looking back on life was as bad as looking back on Ireland. She was done with all that, was now facing the new day – whatever that might bring … to wherever it might lead her. Like here … a pale ‘St Patrick’s night’ СКАЧАТЬ