Green Shadows, White Whales. Ray Bradbury

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СКАЧАТЬ old man blinked. “Is that an American voice I hear?”

      “Yes. May I be of assistance …?”

      The old man showed his empty bottle.

      “Well, there’s assistance and assistance. It came over me as I pumped up the hill, me and the damned vehicle”—here he kicked the bike gently—“is both seventy years old.”

      “Congratulations.”

      “For what? Breathing? That’s a habit, not a virtue. Why, may I ask, are you staring at me like that?”

      I pulled back. “Well … do you have a relative in customs down at the docks?”

      “Which of us hasn’t?” Gasping, he reached for his bike. “Ah, well, a moment’s rest, and me and the brute will be on our way. We don’t know where we’re going, Sally and me—that’s the damn bike’s name, ya see—but we pick a road each day and give it a try.”

      I tried a small joke.

      “Does your mother know you’re out?”

      The old man seemed stunned.

      “Strange you say that! She does! Ninety-five she is, back there in the cot! Mother, I said, I’ll be gone the day; leave the whiskey alone. I never married, you know.”

      “I’m sorry.

      “First you congratulate me for being old, and now you’re sorry I’ve no wife. It’s sure you don’t know Ireland. Being old and having no wives is one of our principal industries! You see, a man can’t marry without property. You bide your time till your mother and father are called Beyond. Then, when their property’s yours, you look for a wife. It’s a waiting game. I’ll marry yet.”

      “At seventy!”

      The old man stiffened.

      “I’d get twenty good years of marriage out of a fine woman even this late—do you doubt it?!” He glared.

      “I do not.”

      The old man relaxed.

      “Well, then. What are you up to in Ireland?”

      I was suddenly all flame and fire.

      “I’ve been advised at customs to look sharp at this poverty-stricken, priest-ridden, rain-filled, sleet-worn country, this—”

      “Good God,” the old man interjected. “You’re a writer!”

      “How did you guess?”

      The old man snorted, gesturing.

      “The country’s overrun. There’s writers turning over rocks in Cork and writers trudging through bogs at Killashandra. The day will come, mark me, when there will be five writers for every human being in the world!”

      “Well, writer I am. I’ve been here only a few hours now and it feels like a thousand years of no sun, only rain, cold, and getting lost on roads. My director will be waiting for me somewhere if I can find the place, but my legs are dead.”

      The old man leaned at me.

      “Have you begun to dislike your visit? Look down on?”

      “Well …”

      The old man patted the air.

      “Why not? Every man needs to look down on someone. You look down on the Irish, the Irish look down on the English, and the English look down on everyone else in the world. It all comes right in the end. Do you think I’m bothered by the look on your face, you’ve come to weigh our breath and find it sour, measure our shadows and find us short? No! In fact, I’ll help you solve this dreadful place. Come along where you can witness an awful event. A dread scene. A meeting of Fates, that’s it. The true birth-place of the Irish … Ah, God, how you’ll hate it! And yet …”

      “Yet?”

      “Before you leave us, you’ll love us all. We’re irresistible. And we know it, More’s the pity. For knowing it makes us all the more deplorable, which means we must work harder to become irresistible again. So we chase our own behinds about the country, never winning and never quite losing. There! Do you see that parade of unemployed men marching on the road in holes and tatters?”

      “Yes!”

      “That’s the First Ring of Hell! Do you see them young fellows on bikes with flat tires and no spokes, pumping barefoot in the rain?”

      “Yes!”

      “That’s the Second Ring of Hell!”

      The old man stopped. “And here … can you read? The Third Ring!”

      I read the sign. “ ‘Heeber Finn’s’ … why, it’s a pub.”

      The old man pretended surprise. “By God, now, I think you’re right. Come meet my … family!”

      “Family? You said you weren’t married!”

      “I’m not. But—in we go!”

      The old man gave a great knock on the backside of the door. And there was the bar, all bright spigots and alarmed faces as the dozen or so customers whirled.

      “It’s me, boys!” the old man cried.

      “Mike! Ya gave us a start!” said one.

      “We thought it was—a crisis!” said another.

      “Well, maybe it is … for him anyway.” He jabbed my elbow. “What’ll ya have, lad?”

      I scanned the lot, tried to say wine, but quit.

      “A whiskey, please,” I said.

      “Make mine a Guinness,” said Mike. “Now, introductions all around. That there is Heeber Finn, who owns the pub.”

      Finn handed over the whiskey. “The third and fourth mortgage, that is.”

      Mike moved on, pointing.

      “This is O’Gavin, who has the finest bogs in all Kilcock and cuts peat turf out of it to stoke the hearths of Ireland. Also a fine hunter and fisher, in or out of season!”

      O’Gavin nodded. “I poach game and steal fish.”

      “You’re an honest man, Mr. O’Gavin,” I said.

      “No. As soon as I find a job,” said O’Gavin, “I’ll deny the whole thing.”

      Mike led me along. “This next is Casey, who will fix the hoof of your horse.”

      “Blacksmith,” said Casey.

      “The spokes of your bike.”

      “Velocipede СКАЧАТЬ