Ch. 01: Full Text — Angela s Ashes

Angela's Ashes A Memoir FRANK MCCOURT

A N G E L A ' S A S H E S A Memoir • F r a n k M c C o u r t s c r i b n e r

SCRIBNER 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 1996 by Frank McCourt All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Scribner and design are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc. Designed by Brooke Zimmer Text set in Adobe Bembo Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McCourt, Frank. Angela's ashes: a memoir/Frank McCourt. p. cm. 1. Irish Americans—Biography. 2. Irish Americans—Ireland— Limerick (Limerick)—Biography. 3. McCourt family. 4. McCourt, Frank—Family. 5. Limerick (Limerick, Ireland)— Biography. I.Title. E184.I6.M117 1996 929'.2'0899162073—dc20 96–5335 CIPM ISBN 0-684-86483-5

This book is dedicated to my brothers, Malachy, Michael,Alphonsus. I learn from you, I admire you and I love you.

Acknowledgments This is a small hymn to an exaltation of women. R'lene Dahlberg fanned the embers. Lisa Schwarzbaum read early pages and encouraged me. Mary Breasted Smyth, elegant novelist herself, read the ﬁrst third and passed it on to Molly Friedrich, who became my agent and thought that Nan Graham, Editor-in-Chief at Scribner, would be just the right person to put the book on the road. And Molly was right. My daughter, Maggie, has shown me how life can be a grand adventure, while exquisite moments with my granddaughter, Chiara, have helped me recall a small child's wonder. My wife, Ellen, listened while I read and cheered me to the ﬁnal page. I am blessed among men.

A N G E L A ' S A S H E S

I My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ire- land when I was four,my brother,Malachy,three,the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone. When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. People everywhere brag and whimper about the woes of their early years, but nothing can compare with the Irish version: the poverty; the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father; the pious defeated mother moaning by the ﬁre; pompous priests; bullying schoolmasters; the English and the terrible things they did to us for eight hundred long Above all—we were wet. Out in the Atlantic Ocean great sheets of rain gathered to drift slowly up the River Shannon and settle forever in Limerick.The rain dampened the city from the Feast of the Circumcision to New Year's Eve. It created a cacophony of hacking coughs, bronchial rattles, asth- matic wheezes, consumptive croaks. It turned noses into fountains, 11

lungs into bacterial sponges.It provoked cures galore;to ease the catarrh you boiled onions in milk blackened with pepper; for the congested passages you made a paste of boiled ﬂour and nettles, wrapped it in a rag, and slapped it, sizzling, on the chest. From October to April the walls of Limerick glistened with the damp. Clothes never dried: tweed and woolen coats housed living things, sometimes sprouted mysterious vegetations. In pubs, steam rose from damp bodies and garments to be inhaled with cigarette and pipe smoke laced with the stale fumes of spilled stout and whiskey and tinged with the odor of piss wafting in from the outdoor jakes where many a man puked up his week's wages. The rain drove us into the church—our refuge, our strength, our only dry place. At Mass, Benediction, novenas, we huddled in great damp clumps,dozing through priest drone,while steam rose again from our clothes to mingle with the sweetness of incense, ﬂowers and candles. Limerick gained a reputation for piety,but we knew it was only the rain. My father, Malachy McCourt, was born on a farm in Toome, County Antrim. Like his father before, he grew up wild, in trouble with the English,or the Irish,or both.He fought with the Old IRA and for some desperate act he wound up a fugitive with a price on his head. When I was a child I would look at my father,the thinning hair,the collapsing teeth,and wonder why anyone would give money for a head like that.When I was thirteen my father's mother told me a secret: as a wee lad your poor father was dropped on his head. It was an accident, he was never the same after, and you must remember that people dropped on their heads can be a bit peculiar. Because of the price on the head he had been dropped on, he had to be spirited out of Ireland via cargo ship from Galway. In New York, with Prohibition in full swing,he thought he had died and gone to hell for his sins.Then he discovered speakeasies and he rejoiced. After wandering and drinking in America and England he yearned for peace in his declining years. He returned to Belfast, which erupted all around him. He said,A pox on all their houses, and chatted with the ladies of Andersontown. They tempted him with delicacies but he waved them away and drank his tea. He no longer smoked or touched 12

alcohol,so what was the use? It was time to go and he died in the Royal Victoria Hospital. My mother, the former Angela Sheehan, grew up in a Limerick slum with her mother, two brothers,Thomas and Patrick, and a sister, Agnes. She never saw her father, who had run off to Australia weeks before her birth. After a night of drinking porter in the pubs of Limerick he staggers down the lane singing his favorite song, Who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder? Nobody spoke so he said it all the louder It's a dirty Irish trick and I can lick the Mick Who threw the overalls in Murphy's chowder. He's in great form altogether and he thinks he'll play a while with little Patrick, one year old. Lovely little fella. Loves his daddy. Laughs when Daddy throws him up in the air. Upsy daisy, little Paddy, upsy daisy, up in the air in the dark, so dark, oh, Jasus, you miss the child on the way down and poor little Patrick lands on his head, gurgles a bit, whimpers,goes quiet.Grandma heaves herself from the bed,heavy with the child in her belly, my mother. She's barely able to lift little Patrick from the ﬂoor. She moans a long moan over the child and turns on Grandpa. Get out of it. Out. If you stay here a minute longer I'll take the hatchet to you, you drunken lunatic. By Jesus, I'll swing at the end of a rope for you. Get out. Grandpa stands his ground like a man. I have a right, he says, to stay in me own house. She runs at him and he melts before this whirling dervish with a damaged child in her arms and a healthy one stirring inside. He stum- bles from the house, up the lane, and doesn't stop till he reaches Mel- bourne in Australia. Little Pat, my uncle, was never the same after. He grew up soft in the head with a left leg that went one way, his body the other. He never learned to read or write but God blessed him in another way. When he started to sell newspapers at the age of eight he could count money better than the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself. No one knew why he was called Ab Sheehan, The Abbot, but all Limerick loved him. My mother's troubles began the night she was born.There is my 13

grandmother in the bed heaving and gasping with the labor pains,pray- ing to St. Gerard Majella, patron saint of expectant mothers.There is Nurse O'Halloran, the midwife, all dressed up in her ﬁnery. It's New Year's Eve and Mrs. O'Halloran is anxious for this child to be born so that she can rush off to the parties and celebrations.She tells my grand- mother:Will you push, will you, push. Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph, if you don't hurry with this child it won't be born till the New Year and what good is that to me with me new dress? Never mind St. Gerard Majella.What can a man do for a woman at a time like this even if he is a saint? St. Gerard Majella my arse. My grandmother switches her prayers to St.Ann,patron saint of dif- ﬁcult labor. But the child won't come. Nurse O'Halloran tells my grandmother, Pray to St. Jude, patron saint of desperate cases. St. Jude, patron of desperate cases, help me. I'm desperate. She grunts and pushes and the infant's head appears, only the head, my mother, and it's the stroke of midnight, the New Year. Limerick City erupts with whistles, horns, sirens, brass bands, people calling and singing, Happy New Year. Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and church bells all over ring out the Angelus and Nurse O'Halloran weeps for the waste of a dress, that child still in there and me in me ﬁnery.Will you come out, child, will you? Grandma gives a great push and the child is in the world, a lovely girl with black curly hair and sad blue eyes. Ah,Lord above,says Nurse O'Halloran,this child is a time straddler, born with her head in the New Year and her arse in the Old or was it her head in the Old Year and her arse in the New. You'll have to write to the Pope, missus, to ﬁnd out what year this child was born in and I'll save this dress for next year. And the child was named Angela for the Angelus which rang the midnight hour, the New Year, the minute of her coming and because she was a little angel anyway. Love her as in childhood Though feeble, old and grey. For you'll never miss a mother's love Till she's buried beneath the clay. At the St.Vincent de Paul School, Angela learned to read, write, and calculate and by her ninth year her schooling was done. She tried 14

her hand at being a charwoman, a skivvy, a maid with a little white hat opening doors, but she could not manage the little curtsy that is re- quired and her mother said,You don't have the knack of it.You're pure useless.Why don't you go to America where there's room for all sorts of uselessness? I'll give you the fare. She arrived in New York just in time for the ﬁrst Thanksgiving Day of the Great Depression. She met Malachy at a party given by Dan MacAdorey and his wife, Minnie, on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn. Malachy liked Angela and she liked him.He had a hangdog look,which came from the three months he had just spent in jail for hijacking a truck. He and his friend John McErlaine believed what they were told in the speakeasy, that the truck was packed to the roof with cases of canned pork and beans. Neither knew how to drive and when the police saw the truck lurch and jerk along Myrtle Avenue they pulled it over.The police searched the truck and wondered why anyone would hijack a truck containing, not pork and beans, but cases of buttons. With Angela drawn to the hangdog look and Malachy lonely after three months in jail, there was bound to be a knee-trembler. A knee-trembler is the act itself done up against a wall, man and woman up on their toes, straining so hard their knees tremble with the excitement that's in it. That knee-trembler put Angela in an interesting condition and, of course,there was talk.Angela had cousins,the MacNamara sisters,Delia and Philomena, married, respectively, to Jimmy Fortune of County Mayo, and Tommy Flynn, of Brooklyn itself. Delia and Philomena were large women, great-breasted and ﬁerce. When they sailed along the sidewalks of Brooklyn lesser creatures stepped aside, respect was shown.The sisters knew what was right and they knew what was wrong and any doubts could be resolved by the One, Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church.They knew that Angela, unmarried, had no right to be in an interesting condition and they would take steps. Steps they took.With Jimmy and Tommy in tow they marched to the speakeasy on Atlantic Avenue where Malachy could be found on Friday, payday when he had a job.The man in the speak, Joey Caccia- mani, did not want to admit the sisters but Philomena told him that if he wanted to keep the nose on his face and that door on its hinges he'd better open up for they were there on God's business. Joey said, Awright, awright, you Irish. Jeezoz! Trouble, trouble. 15

Malachy, at the far end of the bar, turned pale, gave the great- breasted ones a sickly smile, offered them a drink. They resisted the smile and spurned the offer. Delia said,We don't know what class of a tribe you come from in the North of Ireland. Philomena said,There is a suspicion you might have Presbyterians in your family, which would explain what you did to our cousin. Jimmy said,Ah, now, ah, now. 'Tisn't his fault if there's Presbyteri- ans in his family. Delia said,You shuddup. Tommy had to join in.What you did to that poor unfortunate girl is a disgrace to the Irish race and you should be ashamed of yourself. Och, I am, said Malachy. I am. Nobody asked you to talk, said Philomena.You done enough dam- age with your blather, so shut your yap. And while your yap is shut, said Delia, we're here to see you do the right thing by our poor cousin,Angela Sheehan. Malachy said,Och,indeed,indeed.The right thing is the right thing and I'd be glad to buy you all a drink while we have this little talk. Take the drink, said Tommy, and shove it up your ass. Philomena said, Our little cousin no sooner gets off the boat than you are at her.We have morals in Limerick,you know,morals.We're not like jackrabbits from Antrim, a place crawling with Presbyterians. Jimmy said, He don't look like a Presbyterian. You shuddup, said Delia. Another thing we noticed, said Philomena.You have a very odd manner. Malachy smiled. I do? You do, says Delia. I think 'tis one of the ﬁrst things we noticed about you, that odd manner, and it gives us a very uneasy feeling. 'Tis that sneaky little Presbyterian smile, said Philomena. Och, said Malachy, it's just the trouble I have with my teeth. Teeth or no teeth, odd manner or no odd manner, you're gonna marry that girl, said Tommy. Up the middle aisle you're going. Och, said Malachy, I wasn't planning to get married, you know. There's no work and I wouldn't be able to support . . . Married is what you're going to be, said Delia. Up the middle aisle, said Jimmy. You shuddup, said Delia. 16

Malachy watched them leave. I'm in a desperate pickle, he told Joey Cacciamani. Bet your ass, said Joey. I see them babes comin' at me I jump inna Hudson River. Malachy considered the pickle he was in. He had a few dollars in his pocket from the last job and he had an uncle in San Francisco or one of the other California Sans.Wouldn't he be better off in California, far from the great-breasted MacNamara sisters and their grim husbands? He would, indeed, and he'd have a drop of the Irish to celebrate his decision and departure. Joey poured and the drink nearly took the lin- ing off Malachy's gullet. Irish, indeed! He told Joey it was a Prohibition concoction from the devil's own still.Joey shrugged.I don't know noth- ing. I only pour. Still, it was better than nothing and Malachy would have another and one for yourself, Joey, and ask them two decent Ital- ians what they'd like and what are you talking about, of course, I have the money to pay for it. He awoke on a bench in the Long Island Railroad Station, a cop rapping on his boots with a nightstick,his escape money gone,the Mac- Namara sisters ready to eat him alive in Brooklyn. On the feast of St. Joseph, a bitter day in March, four months after the knee-trembler, Malachy married Angela and in August the child was born.In November Malachy got drunk and decided it was time to reg- ister the child's birth. He thought he might name the child Malachy, after himself, but his North of Ireland accent and the alcoholic mum- ble confused the clerk so much he simply entered the name Male on the certiﬁcate. Not until late December did they take Male to St.Paul's Church to be baptized and named Francis after his father's father and the lovely saint of Assisi.Angela wanted to give him a middle name,Munchin,after the patron saint of Limerick but Malachy said over his dead body. No son of his would have a Limerick name.It's hard enough going through life with one name. Sticking on middle names was an atrocious Amer- ican habit and there was no need for a second name when you're chris- tened after the man from Assisi. 17

There was a delay the day of the baptism when the chosen god- father, John McErlaine, got drunk at the speakeasy and forgot his responsibilities. Philomena told her husband,Tommy, he'd have to be godfather. Child's soul is in danger, she said.Tommy put his head down and grumbled. All right. I'll be godfather but I'm not goin' to be responsible if he grows up like his father causin' trouble and goin' through life with the odd manner for if he does he can go to John McErlaine at the speakeasy.The priest said,True for you,Tom, decent man that you are, ﬁne man that never set foot inside a speakeasy. Malachy, fresh from the speakeasy himself, felt insulted and wanted to argue with the priest, one sacrilege on top of another. Take off that collar and we'll see who's the man. He had to be held back by the great-breasted ones and their husbands grim.Angela, new mother, agi- tated, forgot she was holding the child and let him slip into the bap- tismal font, a total immersion of the Protestant type. The altar boy assisting the priest plucked the infant from the font and restored him to Angela, who sobbed and clutched him, dripping, to her bosom.The priest laughed, said he had never seen the likes, that the child was a regular little Baptist now and hardly needed a priest. This maddened Malachy again and he wanted to jump at the priest for calling the child some class of a Protestant.The priest said, Quiet, man, you're in God's house, and when Malachy said, God's house, my arse, he was thrown out on Court Street because you can't say arse in God's house. After baptism Philomena said she had tea and ham and cakes in her house around the corner. Malachy said,Tea? and she said,Yes, tea, or is it whiskey you want? He said tea was grand but ﬁrst he'd have to go and deal with John McErlaine, who didn't have the decency to carry out his duties as godfather.Angela said,You're only looking for an excuse to run to the speakeasy, and he said,As God is my witness, the drink is the last thing on my mind.Angela started to cry.Your son's christening day and you have to go drinking. Delia told him he was a disgusting specimen but what could you expect from the North of Ireland. Malachy looked from one to the other, shifted on his feet, pulled his cap down over his eyes, shoved his hands deep in his trouser pock- ets, said, Och, aye, the way they do in the far reaches of County Antrim, turned, hurried up Court Street to the speakeasy on Atlantic Avenue where he was sure they'd ply him with free drink in honor of his son's baptism. 18

At Philomena's house the sisters and their husbands ate and drank while Angela sat in a corner nursing the baby and crying. Philomena stuffed her mouth with bread and ham and rumbled at Angela,That's what you get for being such a fool. Hardly off the boat and you fall for that lunatic.You shoulda stayed single,put the child up for adoption,and you'd be a free woman today.Angela cried harder and Delia took up the attack, Oh, stop it,Angela, stop it.You have nobody to blame but your- self for gettin' into trouble with a drunkard from the North, a man that doesn't even look like a Catholic, him with his odd manner. I'd say that . . . that . . . Malachy has a streak of the Presbyterian in him right enough.You shuddup, Jimmy. If I was you,said Philomena,I'd make sure there's no more children. He don't have a job,so he don't,an'never will the way he drinks.So . . . no more children,Angela.Are you listenin' to me? I am, Philomena. A year later another child was born.Angela called him Malachy after his father and gave him a middle name, Gerard, after his father's brother. The MacNamara sisters said Angela was nothing but a rabbit and they wanted nothing to do with her till she came to her senses. Their husbands agreed. I'm in a playground on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn with my brother, Malachy. He's two, I'm three.We're on the seesaw. Up, down, up, down. Malachy goes up. I get off. Malachy goes down. Seesaw hits the ground. He screams. His hand is on his mouth and there's blood. Oh, God. Blood is bad. My mother will kill me. And here she is, trying to run across the playground. Her big belly slows her. She says,What did you do? What did you do to the child? I don't know what to say. I don't know what I did. She pulls my ear. Go home. Go to bed. Bed? In the middle of the day? 19

She pushes me toward the playground gate. Go. She picks up Malachy and waddles off. My father's friend, Mr. MacAdorey, is outside our building. He's stand- ing at the edge of the sidewalk with his wife, Minnie, looking at a dog lying in the gutter.There is blood all around the dog's head.It's the color of the blood from Malachy's mouth. Malachy has dog blood and the dog has Malachy blood. I pull Mr. MacAdorey's hand. I tell him Malachy has blood like the dog. Oh, he does, indeed, Francis. Cats have it, too.And Eskimos.All the same blood. Minnie says,Stop that,Dan.Stop confusing the wee fellow.She tells me the poor wee dog was hit by a car and he crawled all the way from the middle of the street before he died.Wanted to come home,the poor wee creature. Mr. MacAdorey says,You'd better go home, Francis. I don't know what you did to your wee brother, but your mother took him off to the hos- pital. Go home, child. Will Malachy die like the dog, Mr. MacAdorey? Minnie says, He bit his tongue. He won't die. Why did the dog die? It was his time, Francis. The apartment is empty and I wander between the two rooms,the bed- room and the kitchen.My father is out looking for a job and my mother is at the hospital with Malachy.I wish I had something to eat but there's nothing in the icebox but cabbage leaves ﬂoating in the melted ice. My father said never eat anything ﬂoating in water for the rot that might be in it. I fall asleep on my parents' bed and when my mother shakes me it's nearly dark.Your little brother is going to sleep a while. Nearly bit his tongue off. Stitches galore. Go into the other room. My father is in the kitchen sipping black tea from his big white enamel mug. He lifts me to his lap. 20

Dad, will you tell me the story about Coo Coo? Cuchulain.Say it after me,Coo-hoo-lin.I'll tell you the story when you say the name right. Coo-hoo-lin. I say it right and he tells me the story of Cuchulain, who had a dif- ferent name when he was a boy, Setanta. He grew up in Ireland where Dad lived when he was a boy in County Antrim.Setanta had a stick and ball and one day he hit the ball and it went into the mouth of a big dog that belonged to Culain and choked him. Oh, Culain was angry and he said,What am I to do now without my big dog to guard my house and my wife and my ten small children as well as numerous pigs, hens, sheep? Setanta said, I'm sorry. I'll guard your house with my stick and ball and I'll change my name to Cuchulain, the Hound of Culain. He did. He guarded the house and regions beyond and became a great hero,the Hound of Ulster itself. Dad said he was a greater hero than Hercules or Achilles that the Greeks were always bragging about and he could take on King Arthur and all his knights in a fair ﬁght which, of course, you could never get with an Englishman anyway. That's my story. Dad can't tell that story to Malachy or any other children down the hall. He ﬁnishes the story and lets me sip his tea.It's bitter,but I'm happy there on his lap. For days Malachy's tongue is swollen and he can hardly make a sound never mind talk. But even if he could no one is paying any attention to him because we have two new babies who were brought by an angel in the middle of the night.The neighbors say,Ooh,Ah,they're lovely boys, look at those big eyes. Malachy stands in the middle of the room, looking up at everyone, pointing to his tongue and saying, Uck, uck.When the neighbors say, Can't you see we're looking at your little brothers? he cries,till Dad pats him on the head. Put in your tongue, son, and go out and play with Frankie. Go on. In the playground I tell Malachy about the dog who died in the street because someone drove a ball into his mouth. Malachy shakes his head.No uck ball.Car uck kill dog.He cries because his tongue hurts and he can hardly talk and it's terrible when you can't talk. He won't let me 21

push him on the swing.He says,You uck kill me uck on seesaw.He gets Freddie Leibowitz to push him and he's happy,laughing when he swings to the sky. Freddie is big, he's seven, and I ask him to push me. He says, No, you tried to kill your brother. I try to get the swing going myself but all I can do is move it back and forth and I'm angry because Freddie and Malachy are laughing at the way I can't swing.They're great pals now, Freddie, seven, Malachy, two.They laugh every day and Malachy's tongue gets better with all the laughing. When he laughs you can see how white and small and pretty his teeth are and you can see his eyes shine. He has blue eyes like my mother. He has golden hair and pink cheeks. I have brown eyes like Dad. I have black hair and my cheeks are white in the mirror. My mother tells Mrs. Leibowitz down the hall that Malachy is the happiest child in the world. She tells Mrs. Leibowitz down the hall, Frankie has the odd manner like his father. I wonder what the odd manner is but I can't ask because I'm not supposed to be listening. I wish I could swing up into the sky,up into the clouds.I might be able to ﬂy around the whole world and not hear my brothers, Oliver and Eugene,cry in the middle of the night anymore.My mother says they're always hungry. She cries in the middle of the night, too. She says she's worn out nursing and feeding and changing and four boys is too much for her. She wishes she had one little girl all for herself. She'd give any- thing for one little girl. I'm in the playground with Malachy.I'm four,he's three.He lets me push him on the swing because he's no good at swinging himself and Freddie Leibowitz is in school. We have to stay in the playground because the twins are sleeping and my mother says she's worn out. Go out and play, she says, and give me some rest. Dad is out looking for a job again and sometimes he comes home with the smell of whiskey, singing all the songs about suffering Ireland. Mam gets angry and says Ireland can kiss her arse. He says that's nice language to be using in front of the children and she says never mind the language, food on the table is what she wants, not suffering Ireland. She says it was a sad day Prohibition ended because Dad gets the drink going around to saloons offering to sweep out the bars and lift barrels for a whiskey 22

or a beer. Sometimes he brings home bits of the free lunch, rye bread, corned beef, pickles. He puts the food on the table and drinks tea him- self. He says food is a shock to the system and he doesn't know where we get our appetites.Mam says,They get their appetites because they're starving half the time. When Dad gets a job Mam is cheerful and she sings, It had to be and the reason is this Could it be true, someone like you Could love me, love me? When Dad brings home the ﬁrst week's wages Mam is delighted she can pay the lovely Italian man in the grocery shop and she can hold her head up again because there's nothing worse in the world than to owe and be beholden to anyone. She cleans the kitchen, washes the mugs and plates, brushes crumbs and bits of food from the table, cleans out the icebox and orders a fresh block of ice from another Italian. She buys toilet paper that we can take down the hall to the lavatory and that, she says, is better than having the headlines from the Daily News black- ening your arse.She boils water on the stove and spends a day at a great tin tub washing our shirts and socks, diapers for the twins, our two sheets, our three towels. She hangs everything out on the clotheslines behind the apartment house and we can watch the clothes dance in wind and sun.She says you wouldn't want the neighbors to know what you have in the way of a wash but there's nothing like the sweetness of clothes dried by the sun. When Dad brings home the ﬁrst week's wages on a Friday night we know the weekend will be wonderful.On Saturday night Mam will boil water on the stove and wash us in the great tin tub and Dad will dry us. Malachy will turn around and show his behind. Dad will pretend to be shocked and we'll all laugh.Mam will make hot cocoa and we'll be able to stay up while Dad tells us a story out of his head.All we have to do is say a name,Mr.MacAdorey or Mr.Leibowitz down the hall,and Dad will have the two of them rowing up a river in Brazil chased by Indians with green noses and puce shoulders. On nights like that we can drift 23

off to sleep knowing there will be a breakfast of eggs, fried tomatoes and fried bread, tea with lashings of sugar and milk and, later in the day, a big dinner of mashed potatoes, peas and ham, and a triﬂe Mam makes, layers of fruit and warm delicious custard on a cake soaked in sherry. When Dad brings home the ﬁrst week's wages and the weather is ﬁne Mam takes us to the playground. She sits on a bench and talks to Minnie MacAdorey.She tells Minnie stories about characters in Limer- ick and Minnie tells her about characters in Belfast and they laugh because there are funny people in Ireland, North and South.Then they teach each other sad songs and Malachy and I leave the swings and see- saws to sit with them on the bench and sing, A group of young soldiers one night in a camp Were talking of sweethearts they had. All seemed so merry except one young lad, And he was downhearted and sad. Come and join us, said one of the boys, Surely there's someone for you. But Ned shook his head and proudly he said I am in love with two, Each like a mother to me, From neither of them shall I part. For one is my mother, God bless her and love her, The other is my sweetheart. Malachy and I sing that song and Mam and Minnie laugh till they cry at the way Malachy takes a deep bow and holds his arms out to Mam at the end. Dan MacAdorey comes along on his way home from work and says Rudy Vallee better start worrying about the competition. When we go home Mam makes tea and bread and jam or mashed potatoes with butter and salt.Dad drinks the tea and eats nothing.Mam says, God above, How can you work all day and not eat? He says,The tea is enough. She says,You'll ruin your health, and he tells her again that food is a shock to the system. He drinks his tea and tells us stories and shows us letters and words in the Daily News or he smokes a ciga- rette, stares at the wall, runs his tongue over his lips. When Dad's job goes into the third week he does not bring home the wages. On Friday night we wait for him and Mam gives us bread 24

and tea.The darkness comes down and the lights come on along Clas- son Avenue.Other men with jobs are home already and having eggs for dinner because you can't have meat on a Friday.You can hear the fam- ilies talking upstairs and downstairs and down the hall and Bing Crosby is singing on the radio, Brother, can you spare a dime? Malachy and I play with the twins.We know Mam won't sing Any- one can see why I wanted your kiss. She sits at the kitchen table talking to herself,What am I going to do? till it's late and Dad rolls up the stairs singing Roddy McCorley.He pushes in the door and calls for us,Where are my troops? Where are my four warriors? Mam says, Leave those boys alone.They're gone to bed half hungry because you have to ﬁll your belly with whiskey. He comes to the bedroom door. Up, boys, up.A nickel for every- one who promises to die for Ireland. Deep in Canadian woods we met From one bright island ﬂown. Great is the land we tread, but yet Our hearts are with our own. Up, boys, up. Francis, Malachy, Oliver, Eugene. The Red Branch Knights, the Fenian Men, the IRA. Up, up. Mam is at the kitchen table, shaking, her hair hanging damp, her face wet. Can't you leave them alone? she says. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, isn't it enough that you come home without a penny in your pocket without making fools of the children on top of it? She comes to us. Go back to bed, she says. I want them up, he says. I want them ready for the day Ireland will be free from the center to the sea. Don't cross me, she says, for if you do it'll be a sorry day in your mother's house. He pulls his cap down over his face and cries, My poor mother. Poor Ireland. Och, what are we going to do? Mam says,You're pure stone mad,and she tells us again to go to bed. On the morning of the fourth Friday of Dad's job Mam asks him if he'll be home tonight with his wages or will he drink everything again? He looks at us and shakes his head at Mam as if to say, Och, you shouldn't talk like that in front of the children. 25

Mam keeps at him. I'm asking you,Are you coming home so that we can have a bit of supper or will it be midnight with no money in your pocket and you singing Kevin Barry and the rest of the sad songs? He puts on his cap, shoves his hands into his trouser pockets, sighs and looks up at the ceiling. I told you before I'll be home, he says. Later in the day Mam dresses us. She puts the twins into the pram and off we go through the long streets of Brooklyn. Sometimes she lets Malachy sit in the pram when he's tired of trotting along beside her.She tells me I'm too big for the pram.I could tell her I have pains in my legs from trying to keep up with her but she's not singing and I know this is not the day to be talking about my pains. We come to a big gate where there's a man standing in a box with windows all around.Mam talks to the man.She wants to know if she can go inside to where the men are paid and maybe they'd give her some of Dad's wages so he wouldn't spend it in the bars.The man shakes his head. I'm sorry, lady, but if we did that we'd have half the wives in Brooklyn storming the place. Lotta men have the drinking problem but there's nothing we can do long as they show up sober and do their work. We wait across the street. Mam lets me sit on the sidewalk with my back against the wall.She gives the twins their bottles of water and sugar but Malachy and I have to wait till she gets money from Dad and we can go to the Italian for tea and bread and eggs. When the whistle blows at half ﬁve men in caps and overalls swarm through the gate, their faces and hands black from the work. Mam tells us watch carefully for Dad because she can hardly see across the street herself, her eyes are that bad.There are dozens of men, then a few, then none. Mam is crying,Why couldn't ye see him? Are ye blind or what? She goes back to the man in the box.Are you sure there wouldn't be one man left inside? No, lady, he says.They're out. I don't know how he got past you. We go back through the long streets of Brooklyn.The twins hold up their bottles and cry for more water and sugar. Malachy says he's hungry and Mam tells him wait a little, we'll get money from Dad and we'll all have a nice supper.We'll go to the Italian and get eggs and make toast with the ﬂames on the stove and we'll have jam on it.Oh,we will, and we'll all be nice and warm. It's dark on Atlantic Avenue and all the bars around the Long Island Railroad Station are bright and noisy.We go from bar to bar looking for Dad.Mam leaves us outside with the pram while she goes in or she sends 26

me.There are crowds of noisy men and stale smells that remind me of Dad when he comes home with the smell of the whiskey on him. The man behind the bar says,Yeah,sonny,whaddya want? You're not supposeta be in here, y'know. I'm looking for my father. Is my father here? Naw, sonny, how'd I know dat? Who's your fawdah? His name is Malachy and he sings Kevin Barry. Malarkey? No, Malachy. Malachy? And he sings Kevin Barry? He calls out to the men in the bar,Youse guys, youse know guy Malachy what sings Kevin Barry? Men shake their heads.One says he knew a guy Michael sang Kevin Barry but he died of the drink which he had because of his war wounds. The barman says, Jeez, Pete, I didn't ax ya to tell me history o' da woild, did I? Naw, kid.We don't let people sing in here. Causes trouble. Specially the Irish.Let 'em sing,next the ﬁsts are ﬂying.Besides,I never hoid a name like dat Malachy. Naw, kid, no Malachy here. The man called Pete holds his glass toward me.Here,kid,have a sip, but the barman says,Whaddya doin',Pete? Tryina get the kid drunk? Do that again, Pete, an' I'll come out an' break y'ass. Mam tries all the bars around the station before she gives up. She leans against a wall and cries. Jesus, we still have to walk all the way to Classon Avenue and I have four starving children. She sends me back into the bar where Pete offered me the sip to see if the barman would ﬁll the twins' bottles with water and maybe a little sugar in each.The men in the bar think it's very funny that the barman should be ﬁlling baby bottles but he's big and he tells them shut their lip. He tells me babies should be drinking milk not water and when I tell him Mam doesn't have the money he empties the baby bottles and ﬁlls them with milk. He says,Tell ya mom they need that for the teeth an' bones.Ya drink water an' sugar an' all ya get is rickets.Tell ya Mom. Mam is happy with the milk.She says she knows all about teeth and bones and rickets but beggars can't be choosers. When we reach Classon Avenue she goes straight to the Italian gro- cery shop. She tells the man her husband is late tonight, that he's prob- ably working overtime,and would it be at all possible to get a few things and she'll be sure to see him tomorrow? 27

The Italian says,Missus,you always pay your bill sooner or later and you can have anything you like in this store. Oh, she says, I don't want much. Anything you like,missus,because I know you're an honest woman and you got a bunch o' nice kids there. We have eggs and toast and jam though we're so weary walking the long streets of Brooklyn we can barely move our jaws to chew.The twins fall asleep after eating and Mam lays them on the bed to change their dia- pers.She sends me down the hall to rinse the dirty diapers in the lavatory so that they can be hung up to dry and used the next day. Malachy helps her wash the twins' bottoms though he's ready to fall asleep himself. I crawl into bed with Malachy and the twins. I look out at Mam at the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette, drinking tea, and crying. I want to get up and tell her I'll be a man soon and I'll get a job in the place with the big gate and I'll come home every Friday night with money for eggs and toast and jam and she can sing again Anyone can see why I wanted your kiss. The next week Dad loses the job.He comes home that Friday night, throws his wages on the table and says to Mam, Are you happy now? You hang around the gate complaining and accusing and they sack me. They were looking for an excuse and you gave it to them. He takes a few dollars from his wages and goes out.He comes home late roaring and singing.The twins cry and Mam shushes them and cries a long time herself. We spend hours in the playground when the twins are sleeping, when Mam is tired, and when Dad comes home with the whiskey smell on him, roaring about Kevin Barry getting hanged on a Monday morning or the Roddy McCorley song, Up the narrow street he stepped Smiling and proud and young About the hemp-rope on his neck The golden ringlets clung, There's never a tear in the blue eyes Both glad and bright are they, As Roddy McCorley goes to die On the bridge of Toome today. 28

When he sings he marches around the table, Mam cries and the twins howl with her. She says, Go out, Frankie, go out, Malachy.You shouldn't see your father like this. Stay in the playground. We don't mind going to the playground.We can play with the leaves piling up on the ground and we can push each other on the swings but then winter comes to Classon Avenue and the swings are frozen and won't even move. Minnie MacAdorey says, God help these poor wee boys. They don't have a glove between them. That makes me laugh because I know Malachy and I have four hands between us and one glove would be silly. Malachy doesn't know what I'm laughing at: He won't know anything till he's four going on ﬁve. Minnie brings us in and gives us tea and porridge with jam in it. Mr. MacAdorey sits in an armchair with their new baby, Maisie. He holds her bottle and sings, Clap hands, clap hands, Till Daddy comes home, With buns in his pocket For Maisie alone. Clap hands, clap hands, Till Daddy comes home, For Daddy has money And Mammy has none. Malachy tries to sing that song but I tell him stop, it's Maisie's song. He starts to cry and Minnie says,There, there.You can sing the song. That's a song for all the children. Mr. MacAdorey smiles at Malachy and I wonder what kind of world is it where anyone can sing anyone else's song. Minnie says,Don't frown,Frankie.It makes your face dark and God knows it's dark enough. Some day you'll have a little sister and you can sing that song to her. Och, aye.You'll have a little sister, surely. Minnie is right and Mam gets her wish.There's a new baby soon, a lit- tle girl, and they call her Margaret.We all love Margaret. She has black curly hair and blue eyes like Mam and she waves her little hands and chirps like any little bird in the trees along Classon Avenue. Minnie says there was a holiday in heaven the day this child was made. Mrs. 29

Leibowitz says the world never saw such eyes, such a smile, such happi- ness. She makes me dance, says Mrs. Leibowitz. When Dad comes home from looking for a job he holds Margaret and sings to her: In a shady nook one moonlit night A leprechaun I spied. With scarlet cap and coat of green A cruiskeen by his side. 'Twas tick tock tick his hammer went Upon a tiny shoe. Oh, I laugh to think he was caught at last, But the fairy was laughing, too. He walks around the kitchen with her and talks to her. He tells her how lovely she is with her curly black hair and the blue eyes of her mother. He tells her he'll take her to Ireland and they'll walk the Glens of Antrim and swim in Lough Neagh. He'll get a job soon, so he will, and she'll have dresses of silk and shoes with silver buckles. The more Dad sings to Margaret the less she cries and as the days pass she even begins to laugh. Mam says, Look at him trying to dance with that child in his arms, him with his two left feet. She laughs and we all laugh. The twins cried when they were small and Dad and Mam would say Whisht and Hush and feed them and they'd go back to sleep. But when Margaret cries there's a high lonely feeling in the air and Dad is out of bed in a second, holding her to him, doing a slow dance around the table, singing to her, making sounds like a mother.When he passes the window where the streetlight shines in you can see tears on his cheeks and that's strange because he never cries for anyone unless he has the drink taken and he sings the Kevin Barry song and the Roddy McCorley song. Now he cries over Margaret and he has no smell of drink on him. Mam tells Minnie MacAdorey, He's in heaven over that child. He hasn't touched a drop since she was born. I should've had a little girl a long time ago. Och, they're lovely, aren't they? says Minnie. The little boys are grand, too, but you need a little girl for yourself. 30

My mother laughs, For myself? Lord above, if I didn't nurse her I wouldn't be able to get near her the way he wants to be holding her day and night. Minnie says it's lovely, all the same, to see a man so charmed with his little girl for isn't everyone charmed with her? Everyone. The twins are able to stand and walk and they have accidents all the time.Their bottoms are sore because they're always wet and shitty.They put dirty things in their mouths, bits of paper, feathers, shoelaces, and they get sick.Mam says we're all driving her crazy.She dresses the twins, puts them in the pram,and Malachy and I take them to the playground. The cold weather is gone and the trees have green leaves up and down Classon Avenue. We race the pram around the playground and the twins laugh and make goo-goo sounds till they get hungry and start to cry.There are two bottles in the pram ﬁlled with water and sugar and that keeps them quiet for awhile till they're hungry again and they cry so hard I don't know what to do because they're so small and I wish I could give them all kinds of food so that they'd laugh and make the baby sounds.They love the mushy food Mam makes in a pot,bread mashed up in milk and water and sugar. Mam calls it bread and goody. If I take the twins home now Mam will yell at me for giving her no rest or for waking Margaret.We are to stay in the playground till she sticks her head out the window and calls for us. I make funny faces for the twins to stop their crying.I put a piece of paper on my head and let it fall and they laugh and laugh. I push the pram over to Malachy play- ing on the swings with Freddie Leibowitz. Malachy is trying to tell Freddie all about the way Setanta became Cuchulain. I tell him stop telling that story, it's my story. He won't stop. I push him and he cries, Waah,waah,I'll tell Mam.Freddie pushes me and everything turns dark in my head and I run at him with ﬁsts and knees and feet till he yells, Hey, stop, stop, and I won't because I can't, I don't know how, and if I stop Malachy will go on taking my story from me. Freddie pushes me away and runs off, yelling, Frankie tried to kill me. Frankie tried to kill me.I don't know what to do because I never tried to kill anyone before and now Malachy, on the swing, cries, Don't kill me, Frankie, and he 31

looks so helpless I put my arms around him and help him off the swing. He hugs me. I won't tell your story anymore. I won't tell Freddie about Coo, Coo. I want to laugh but I can't because the twins are crying in the pram and it's dark in the playground and what's the use of trying to make funny faces and letting things fall off your head when they can't see you in the dark? The Italian grocery shop is across the street and I see bananas, apples, oranges. I know the twins can eat bananas. Malachy loves bananas and I like them myself. But you need money, Italians are not known for giving away bananas especially to the McCourts who owe them money already for groceries. My mother tells me all the time,Never,never leave that playground except to come home.But what am I to do with the twins bawling with the hunger in the pram? I tell Malachy I'll be back in a minute. I make sure no one is looking, grab a bunch of bananas outside the Italian gro- cery shop and run down Myrtle Avenue, away from the playground, around the block and back to the other end where there's a hole in the fence. We push the pram to a dark corner and peel the bananas for the twins.There are ﬁve bananas in the bunch and we feast on them in the dark corner.The twins slobber and chew and spread banana over their faces, their hair, their clothes. I realize then that questions will be asked.Mam will want to know why the twins are smothered in bananas, where did you get them? I can't tell her about the Italian shop on the corner. I will have to say, A man. That's what I'll say.A man. Then the strange thing happens.There's a man at the gate of the playground. He's calling me. Oh, God, it's the Italian. Hey, sonny, come 'ere. Hey, talkin' to ya. Come 'ere. I go to him. You the kid wid the little bruddas, right? Twins? Yes, sir. Heah. Gotta bag o' fruit. I don' give it to you I trow id out. Right? So, heah, take the bag.Ya got apples, oranges, bananas.Ya like bananas, right? I think ya like bananas, eh? Ha, ha. I know ya like the bananas. Heah,take the bag.Ya gotta nice mother there.Ya father? Well,ya know, he's got the problem, the Irish thing. Give them twins a banana. Shud 'em up. I hear 'em all the way cross the street. Thank you, sir. 32

Jeez. Polite kid, eh? Where ja loin dat? My father told me to say thanks, sir. Your father? Oh, well. Dad sits at the table reading the paper.He says that President Roosevelt is a good man and everyone in America will soon have a job. Mam is on the other side of the table feeding Margaret with a bottle. She has the hard look that frightens me. Where did you get that fruit? The man. What man? The Italian man gave it to me. Did you steal that fruit? Malachy says,The man.The man gave Frankie the bag. And what did you do to Freddie Leibowitz? His mother was here. Lovely woman. I don't know what we'd do without her and Minnie MacAdorey.And you had to attack poor Freddie. Malachy jumps up and down. He din't. He din't. Din't try to kill Freddie. Din't try to kill me. Dad says,Whisht, Malachy, whisht. Come over here. And he takes Malachy on his lap. My mother says, Go down the hall and tell Freddie you're sorry. But Dad says, Do you want to tell Freddie you're sorry? I don't. My parents look at one another.Dad says,Freddie is a good boy.He was only pushing your little brother on the swing. Isn't that right? He was trying to steal my Cuchulain story. Och, now. Freddie doesn't care about the Cuchulain story. He has his own story. Hundreds of stories. He's Jewish. What's Jewish? Dad laughs. Jewish is, Jewish is people with their own stories.They don't need Cuchulain.They have Moses.They have Samson. What's Samson? If you go down and talk to Freddie I'll tell you about Samson later. You can tell Freddie you're sorry and you'll never do it again and you can even ask him about Samson.Anything you like as long as you talk to Freddie.Will you? 33

The baby gives a little cry in my mother's arms and Dad jumps up, dropping Malachy to the ﬂoor. Is she all right? My mother says, Of course she's all right. She's feeding. God above, you're a bundle of nerves. They're talking about Margaret now and I'm forgotten.I don't care.I'm going down the hall to ask Freddie about Samson,to see if Samson is as good as Cuchulain,to see if Freddie has his own story or if he still wants to steal Cuchulain. Malachy wants to go with me now that my father is standing and doesn't have a lap anymore. Mrs. Leibowitz says, Oh, Frankie, Frankie, come in, come in. And little Malachy.And tell me, Frankie, what did you do to Freddie? Tried to kill him? Freddie is a good boy,Frankie.Reads his book.Listens to radio with his papa.He swinks you brother on swink.And you try to kill him. Oh, Frankie, Frankie.And you poor mother and her sick baby. She's not sick, Mrs. Leibowitz. Sick she is. Zat is one sick baby. I know from sick babies. I work in hoztipal. Don't tell me, Frankie. Come in, come in. Freddie, Freddie, Frankie is here. Come out. Frankie won't kill you no more.You and lit- tle Malachy. Nice Chewish name, have piece cake, eh? Why they give you a Chewish name, eh? So, glass milk, piece cake.You boys so thin, Irish don't eat. We sit at the table with Freddie,eating cake,drinking milk.Mr.Lei- bowitz sits in an armchair reading the paper, listening to the radio. Sometimes he speaks to Mrs.Leibowitz and I don't understand because strange sounds come from his mouth. Freddie understands.When Mr. Leibowitz makes the strange sounds Freddie gets up and takes him a piece of cake. Mr. Leibowitz smiles at Freddie and pats his head and Freddie smiles back and makes the strange sounds. Mrs.Leibowitz shakes her head at Malachy and me.Oy,so thin.She says Oy so much Malachy laughs and says Oy and the Leibowitzes laugh and Mr. Leibowitz says words we can understand,When Irish oyes are smiling. Mrs. Leibowitz laughs so hard her body shakes and she holds her stomach and Malachy says Oy again because he knows that makes everyone laugh. I say Oy but no one laughs and I know Oy belongs to Malachy the way Cuchulain belongs to me and Malachy can have his Oy. Mrs. Leibowitz, my father said Freddie has a favorite story. 34

Malachy says, Sam, Sam, Oy. Everyone laughs again but I don't because I can't remember what comes after Sam. Freddie mumbles through his cake, Samson, and Mrs. Leibowitz tells him, Don't talk wiz you mouse full, and I laugh because she's grown-up and she says mouse instead of mouth. Malachy laughs because I laugh and the Leibowitzes look at each other and smile. Freddie says, Not Samson. My favorite story is David and the giant, Goliath. David killed him dead with a slingshot, a stone in his head. His brains was on the ground. Were on the ground, says Mr. Leibowitz. Yes, Papa. Papa.That's what Freddie calls his father and Dad is what I call my father. My mother's whisper wakes me.What's up with the child? It's still early and there isn't much morning in the room but you can see Dad over by the window with Margaret in his arms. He's rocking her and sigh- ing, Och. Mam says, Is she, is she sick? Och, she's very quiet and she's a wee bit cold. My mother is out of the bed, taking the child. Go for the doctor. Go for God's sake,and my father is pulling on his trousers over his shirt, no jacket, shoes, no socks on this bitter day. We wait in the room, the twins asleep at the bottom of the bed, Malachy stirring beside me.Frankie,I want a drink of water.Mam rocks in her bed with the baby in her arms. Oh, Margaret, Margaret, my own little love. Open your lovely blue eyes, my little leanv. I ﬁll a cup of water for Malachy and me and my mother wails,Water for you and your brother.Oh,indeed,Water,is it? And nothing for your sister.Your poor little sister.Did you ask if she had a mouth in her head? Did you ask if she'd like a drop of water? Oh,no.Go on and drink your water, you and your brother, as if nothing happened.A regular day for the two of you, isn't it? And the twins sleeping away as if they didn't have a care and their poor little sister sick here in my arms. Sick in my arms. Oh, sweet Jesus in heaven. Why is she talking like this? She's not talking like my mother today. I want my father.Where is my father? I get back into bed and start to cry.Malachy says,Why you cry? Why you cry? till Mam is at me again.Your sister is sick in my arms and you're 35

there whining and whinging.If I go over to that bed I'll give you some- thing to whinge about. Dad is back with the doctor. Dad has the whiskey smell.The doc- tor examines the baby, prods her, raises her eyelids, feels her neck, arms, legs.He straightens up and shakes his head.She's gone.Mam reaches for the baby, hugs her, turns to the wall.The doctor wants to know,Was there any kind of accident? Did anyone drop the baby? Did the boys play too hard with her? Anything? My father shakes his head. Doctor says he'll have to take her to examine her and Dad signs a paper. My mother begs for another few minutes with her baby but the doctor says he doesn't have all day. When Dad reaches for Margaret my mother pulls away against the wall. She has the wild look, her black curly hair is damp on her forehead and there is sweat all over her face, her eyes are wide open and her face is shiny with tears, she keeps shaking her head and moaning, Ah, no, ah, no, till Dad eases the baby from her arms. The doctor wraps Margaret completely in a blanket and my mother cries, Oh, Jesus, you'll smother her. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, help me. The doctor leaves. My mother turns to the wall and doesn't make a move or sound. The twins are awake, crying with the hunger, but Dad stands in the middle of the room, staring at the ceiling. His face is white and he beats on his thighs with his ﬁsts. He comes to the bed, puts his hand on my head. His hand is shaking. Francis, I'm going out for cigarettes. Mam stays in the bed all day, hardly moving. Malachy and I ﬁll the twins' bottles with water and sugar. In the kitchen we ﬁnd a half loaf of stale bread and two cold sausages.We can't have tea because the milk is sour in the icebox where the ice is melted again and everyone knows you can't drink tea without milk unless your father gives it to you out of his mug while he's telling you about Cuchulain. The twins are hungry again but I know I can't give them water and sugar all day and night. I boil sour milk in a pot, mash in some of the stale bread, and try to feed them from a cup, bread and goody. They make faces and run to Mam's bed,crying.She keeps her face to the wall and they run back to me, still crying. They won't eat the bread and goody till I kill the taste of the sour milk with sugar. Now they eat and smile and rub the goody over their faces.Malachy wants some and if he can eat it, so can I.We all sit on the ﬂoor eating the goody and chew- 36

ing on the cold sausage and drinking water my mother keeps in a milk bottle in the icebox. After we eat and drink we have to go to the lavatory down the hall but we can't get in because Mrs. Leibowitz is inside, humming and singing. She says,Wait, chiltren, wait, darlinks.Won't be two seconds. Malachy claps his hands and dances around,singing,Wait,chiltren,wait, darlinks. Mrs. Leibowitz opens the lavatory door. Look at him. Little actor awready. So, chiltren, how's you mother? She's in bed, Mrs. Leibowitz. The doctor took Margaret and my father went for cigarettes. Oh, Frankie, Frankie. I said that was one sick child. Malachy is clutching himself. Have to pee. Have to pee. So, pee awready.You boys pee and we see you mother. After we pee Mrs.Leibowitz comes to see Mam.Oh,Mrs.McCourt. Oy vey, darlink. Look at this. Look at these twins. Naked. Mrs. McCourt, what is mazzer, eh? The baby she is sick? So talk to me. Poor woman. Here turn around, missus.Talk to me. Oy, this is one mess.Talk to me, Mrs. McCourt. She helps my mother sit up against the wall. Mam seems smaller. Mrs. Leibowitz says she'll bring some soup and tells me get some water to wash my mother's face. I dip a towel in cold water and pat her forehead. She presses my hand against her cheeks. Oh, Jesus, Frankie. Oh, Jesus. She won't let my hand go and I'm frightened because I've never seen her like this before. She's saying Frankie only because it's my hand she's holding and it's Margaret she's thinking about, not me. Your lovely little sister is dead, Frankie. Dead. And where is your father? She lets my hand drop. I said where is your father? Drinking. That's where he is.There isn't a penny in the house. He can't get a job but he ﬁnds money for the drink, money for the drink, money for the drink, money for the drink. She rears back, knocks her head on the wall and screams,Where is she? Where is she? Where is my little girl? Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, help me this night. I'll go mad, so I will, I'll go pure mad. Mrs. Leibowitz rushes in. Missus, missus, what is it? The little girl. Where is she? My mother screams again, Dead, Mrs. Leibowitz. Dead. Her head drops and she rocks back and forth.Middle of the night,Mrs.Leibowitz. In her pram. I should have been watching her. Seven weeks she had in 37

this world and died in the middle of the night, alone, Mrs. Leibowitz, all alone in that pram. Mrs. Leibowitz holds my mother in her arms. Shush, now, shush. Babies go like that. It happens, missus. God takes them. In the pram, Mrs. Leibowitz. Near my bed. I could have picked her up and she didn't have to die, did she? God doesn't want little babies. What is God going to do with little babies? I don't know, missus. I don't know from God. Have soup. Good soup. Make you strong.You boys. Get bowls. I give you soup. What's bowls, Mrs. Leibowitz? Oh, Frankie.You don't know bowl? For the soup, darlink.You don' have a bowl? So get cups for the soup. I mix pea soup and lentil soup. No ham.Irish like the ham.No ham,Frankie.Drink,missus.Drink you soup. She spoons the soup into my mother's mouth, wipes the dribble from her chin. Malachy and I sit on the ﬂoor drinking from mugs.We spoon the soup into the twins' mouths. It is lovely and hot and tasty. My mother never makes soup like this and I wonder if there's any chance Mrs. Leibowitz could ever be my mother. Freddie could be me and have my mother and my father,too,and he could have Malachy and the twins for brothers. He can't have Margaret anymore because she's like the dog in the street that was taken away.I don't know why she was taken away. My mother said she died in her pram and that must be like getting hit by a car because they take you away. I wish little Margaret could be here for the soup. I could give it to her with a spoon the way Mrs. Leibowitz is giving it to my mother and she'd gurgle and laugh the way she did with Dad.She wouldn't cry any- more and my mother wouldn't be in the bed day and night and Dad would be telling me Cuchulain stories and I wouldn't want Mrs. Lei- bowitz to be my mother anymore. Mrs. Leibowitz is nice but I'd rather have my father telling me Cuchulain stories and Margaret chirping and Mam laughing when Dad dances with two left feet. Minnie MacAdorey comes in to help. Mother o' God, Mrs. Leibowitz, these twins smell to the high heavens. I don't know about Mother o' God, Minnie, but these twins need a wash.They need clean diapers. Frankie, where are the clean diapers? 38

Minnie says,They're just wearing rags for diapers. I'll get some of Maisie's. Frankie, you take off those rags and throw them out. Malachy removes Oliver's rag and I struggle with Eugene. The safety pin is stuck and when he wriggles it comes loose, sticks him in the hip, and starts him screaming for Mam. But Minnie is back with a towel and soap and hot water. I help her wash away the caked shit and she lets me shake talcum powder on the twins' raw sore skin. She says they're good little boys and she has a big surprise for them. She goes down the hall and brings back a pot of mashed potatoes for all of us. There is plenty of salt and butter in the potatoes and I wonder if there's any chance Minnie could be my mother so that I could eat like this all the time. If I could have Mrs. Leibowitz and Minnie for mothers at the same time I'd have no end of soup and mashed potatoes. Minnie and Mrs.Leibowitz sit at the table.Mrs.Leibowitz says some- thing has to be done.These children are running wild and where is the father? I hear Minnie whisper he's out for the drink.Mrs.Leibowitz says terrible, terrible, the way the Irish drink. Minnie says her Dan doesn't drink.Never touches the stuff and Dan told her that when the baby died that poor man, Malachy McCourt, went mad all over Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, that he was thrown out of all the bars around the Long Island Railroad Station, that the cops would have thrown him in jail if it was anything else but the death of that lovely little baby. Here he has four lovely little boys, says Minnie, but it's no comfort to him. That little girl brought out something in him.You know he didn't even drink after she was born and that was a miracle. Mrs. Leibowitz wants to know where Mam's cousins are, the big women with the quiet husbands. Minnie will ﬁnd them and tell them the children are neglected, running wild, sore arses and everything. Two days later Dad returns from his cigarette hunt.It's the middle of the night but he gets Malachy and me out of the bed. He has the smell of the drink on him. He has us stand at attention in the kitchen.We are soldiers. He tells us we must promise to die for Ireland. We will, Dad, we will. All together we sing Kevin Barry, 39

On Mountjoy one Monday morning, High upon the gallows tree, Kevin Barry gave his young life For the cause of liberty. Just a lad of eighteen summers Sure there's no one can deny As he marched to death that morning How he held his head on high. There's a knock at the door, Mr. MacAdorey. Och, Malachy, for God's sake, it's three in the morning.You have the whole house woke with the singing. Och, Dan, I'm only teaching the boys to die for Ireland. You can teach them to die for Ireland in the daytime, Malachy. 'Tis urgent, Dan, 'tis urgent. I know, Malachy, but they're only children. Babies.You go to bed now like a dacent man. Bed, Dan! What am I to do in bed? Her little face is there day and night, her curly black hair and her lovely blue eyes. Oh, Jesus, Dan, what will I do? Was it the hunger that killed her, Dan? Of course not.Your missus was nursing her. God took her. He has his reasons. One more song, Dan, before we go to bed. Good night, Malachy. Come on, boys. Sing. Because he loved the motherland, Because he loved the green He goes to meet a martyr's fate With proud and joyous mien; True to the last, oh! true to the last He treads the upward way; Young Roddy McCorley goes to die On the bridge at Toome today. You'll die for Ireland, won't you, boys? We will, Dad. And we'll all meet your little sister in heaven, won't we, boys? We will, Dad. 40

My brother is standing with his face pressed against a leg of the table and he's asleep.Dad lifts him,staggers across the room,places him in the bed by my mother. I climb into bed and my father, still in his clothes, lies beside me. I'm hoping he'll put his arms around me but he goes on singing about Roddy McCorley and talking to Margaret, Oh, my little curly-haired, blue-eyed love, I would dress you in silks and take you to Lough Neagh, till day is at the window and I fall asleep. That night Cuchulain comes to me.There's a big green bird on his shoulder that keeps singing about Kevin Barry and Roddy McCorley and I don't like that bird because there's blood dripping from his mouth when he sings. In one hand Cuchulain carries the gae bolga, the spear that is so mighty only he can throw it. In the other hand he carries a banana,which he keeps offering to the bird,who just squawks and spits blood at him.You'd wonder why Cuchulain puts up with a bird like that. If the twins ever spat blood at me when I offered them a banana I think I'd hit them on the head with it. In the morning my father is at the kitchen table and I tell him my dream. He says there were no bananas in Ireland in the old times and even if there were Cuchulain would never offer one to that bird because that was the one that came over from England for the summer and perched on his shoulder when he was dying and propped up against a stone and when the men of Erin which is Ireland wanted to kill him they were afraid till they saw the bird drinking Cuchu- lain's blood and then they knew it was safe to attack him, the dirty bloody cowards. So you have to be wary of birds, Francis, birds and Englishmen. Most of the day Mam lies in bed with her face to the wall. If she drinks tea or eats anything she throws up in the bucket under the bed and I have to empty it and rinse it in the lavatory down the hall. Mrs. Lei- bowitz brings her soup and funny bread that is twisted. Mam tries to slice it but Mrs. Leibowitz laughs and tells her just pull. Malachy calls it pull bread but Mrs. Leibowitz says, No, it's challah, and teaches us how to say it.She shakes her head.Oy,you Irish.You'll live forever but you'll never say challah like a Chew. Minnie MacAdorey brings potatoes and cabbage and sometimes a piece of meat. Och, times are hard, Angela, but that lovely man, Mr. Roosevelt, will ﬁnd a job for everyone and your husband will have 41

work.Poor man,it's not his fault there's a Depression.He looks for work day and night. My Dan is lucky, four years with the city and he don't drink. He grew up in Toome with your husband. Some drink. Some don't. Curse of the Irish. Now eat,Angela. Build yourself up after your loss. Mr. MacAdorey tells Dad there's work with the WPA and when he gets the work there's money for food and Mam leaves the bed to clean the twins and to feed us.When Dad comes home with the drink smell there's no money and Mam screams at him till the twins cry, and Malachy and I run out to the playground. On those nights Mam crawls back into bed and Dad sings the sad songs about Ireland.Why doesn't he hold her and help her sleep the way he did with my little sister who died? Why doesn't he sing a Margaret song or a song that will dry Mam's tears? He still gets Malachy and me out of bed to stand in our shirts promising to die for Ireland. One night he wanted to make the twins promise to die for Ireland but they can't even talk and Mam screamed at him,You mad oul' bastard, can't you leave the children alone? He'll give us a nickel for ice cream if we promise to die for Ireland and we promise but we never get the nickel. We get soup from Mrs. Leibowitz and mashed potatoes from Minnie MacAdorey and they show us how to take care of the twins, how to wash their bottoms and how to wash diaper rags after they get them all shitty. Mrs. Leibowitz calls them diapers and Minnie calls them nappies but it doesn't matter what they call them because the twins get them shitty anyway. If Mam stays in the bed and Dad goes out looking for a job we can do what we like all day.We can put the twins in the small swings in the park and swing them till they get hungry and cry.The Ital- ian man calls to me from across the street, Hey, Frankie, c'mere.Watch out crossing da street. Dem twins hungry again? He gives us bits of cheese and ham and bananas but I can't eat bananas anymore after the way the bird spat blood at Cuchulain. The man says his name is Mr. Dimino and that's his wife,Angela, behind the counter. I tell him that's my mother's name. No kiddin', kid.Your mother is Angela? I didn't know the Irish had any Angelas. Hey, Angela, his mother's name is Angela. She smiles. She says,Thatsa nice. 42

Mr. Dimino asks me about Mam and Dad and who cooks for us. I tell him we get food from Mrs.Leibowitz and Minnie MacAdorey.I tell him all about the diapers and the nappies and how they get shitty any- way and he laughs.Angela, you listenin' to this? Thank God you're Ital- ian,Angela. He says, Kid, I gotta talk to Mrs. Leibowitz.Ya gotta have relations can take care of you.Ya see Minnie MacAdorey, tell her come in see me.You kids runnin' wild. Two big women are at the door.They say,Who are you? I'm Frank. Frank! How old are you? I'm four going on ﬁve. You're not very big for your age, are you? Is your mother here? She's in the bed. What is she doing in the bed on a ﬁne day in the middle of the day? She's sleeping. Well, we'll come in.We have to talk to your mother. They brush past me into the room.Jesus,Mary and Joseph,the smell of this place.And who are these children? Malachy runs smiling to the big women.When he smiles you can see how white and straight and pretty his teeth are and you can see the shiny blue of his eyes, the pink of his cheeks. All that makes the big women smile and I wonder why they didn't smile when they talked Malachy says, I'm Malachy and this is Oliver and this is Eugene, they're twins, and that's Frankie over there. The big woman with the brown hair says,Well, you're not a bit shy, are you? I'm your mother's cousin,Philomena,and this is your mother's cousin,Delia.I'm Mrs.Flynn and she's Mrs.Fortune and that's what you call us. Good God, says Philomena.Those twins are naked. Don't you have clothes for them? Malachy says,They're all shitty. Delia barks. See.That's what happens.A mouth like a sewer, and no wonder with a father from the North.Don't use that word.That's a bad word, a curse word.You could go to hell using a word like that. 43

What's hell? says Malachy.You'll know soon enough, says Delia. The big women sit at the table with Mrs. Leibowitz and Minnie MacAdorey. Philomena says it's terrible what happened to Angela's lit- tle baby.They heard all about it and you'd wonder, wouldn't you, what they did with the little body.You might wonder and I might wonder but Tommy Flynn didn't wonder.Tommy said that Malachy from the North got money for that baby. Money? says Mrs. Leibowitz.That's right, says Philomena. Money.They take bodies any age and do experiments on them and there's not much left to give back nor would you want back bits of baby when they can't be buried in consecrated ground in that condition. That's terrible,says Mrs.Leibowitz.A father or mother would never give the baby for something like that. They would, says Delia, when they have the craving for the drink. They'd give their own mothers when they have the craving so what's a baby that's dead and gone in the ﬁrst place? Mrs. Leibowitz shakes her head and rocks in her chair. Oy, she says, oy, oy, oy.The poor baby.The poor mother. I thank God my husband don'have no what you call it? Craving? Right,craving.It's the Irish have the craving. Not my husband, says Philomena. I'd break his face if he came home with the craving.Of course,Delia's Jimmy has the craving.Every Friday night you see him slipping into the saloon. You needn't start insulting my Jimmy, says Delia. He works. He brings home his wages. You'd want to keep an eye on him, says Philomena. The craving could get the better of him and you'd have another Malachy from the North on your hands. Mind your own bloody business, says Delia.At least Jimmy is Irish, not born in Brooklyn like your Tommy. And Philomena has no answer for that. Minnie is holding her baby and the big women say she's a lovely baby, clean, not like this pack of Angela's running around this place. Philomena says she doesn't know where Angela got her dirty habits because Angela's mother was spotless, so clean you could eat your din- ner off her ﬂoor. I wonder why you'd want to eat your dinner off the ﬂoor when you had a table and a chair. Delia says something has to be done about Angela and these chil- 44

dren for they are a disgrace, so they are, enough to make you ashamed to be related.A letter has to be written to Angela's mother. Philomena will write it because a teacher in Limerick told her once she had a ﬁne ﬁst. Delia has to tell Mrs. Leibowitz that a ﬁne ﬁst means good handwriting. Mrs. Leibowitz goes down the hall to borrow her husband's foun- tain pen, paper and an envelope.The four women sit at the table and make up a letter to send to my mother's mother: Dear Aunt Margaret, I take pen in hand to write you this letter and hope this ﬁnds you as it leaves us in the best of health. My husband Tommy is in ﬁne form working away and Delia's husband Jimmy is in ﬁne form working away and we hope this ﬁnds you in ﬁne form. I am very sorry to tell you that Angela is not in ﬁne form as the baby died, the little girl that was called Margaret after yourself, and Angela has not been the same since lying in the bed with her face to the wall.To make matters worser we think she's expecting again and that's too much altogether. The minute she losses one child there is another one on the way.We don't know how she does it. She's married four years, ﬁve children and another on the way.That shows you what can happen when you marry someone from the North for they have no control over themselves up there a bunch of Protestands that they are. He goes out for work every day but we know he spends all his time in the saloons and gets a few dollars for sweeping ﬂoors and lifting barrels and spends the money right back on the drink. It's terrible,Aunt Margaret, and we all think Angela and the children would be better off in her native land.We don't have the money to buy the tickets ourselves for times is hard but you might be able to see your way. Hopping this ﬁnds you in ﬁne form as it leaves us thank God and His Blessed Mother. I remain your loving neice Philomena Flynn (what was MacNamara) and last but not least your neice Delia Fortune (what was MacNamara, too, ha ha ha) 45

Grandma Sheehan sent money to Philomena and Delia.They bought the tickets, found a steamer trunk at the St.Vincent de Paul Society, hired a van to take us to the pier in Manhattan, put us on the ship, said Good-bye and good riddance, and went away. The ship pulled away from the dock.Mam said,That's the Statue of Liberty and that's Ellis Island where all the immigrants came in.Then she leaned over the side and vomited and the wind from the Atlantic blew it all over us and other happy people admiring the view. Passen- gers cursed and ran, seagulls came from all over the harbor and Mam hung limp and pale on the ship's rail.home the money from the Labour Exchange and you don't have to be running around to pubs to ﬁnd them. 46

II In a week we arrived at Moville, County Donegal, where we took a bus to Belfast and from there another bus to Toome in County Antrim. We left the trunk in a shop and set out to walk the two miles up the road to Grandpa McCourt's house. It was dark on the road, the dawn barely stirring on the hills beyond. Dad carried the twins in his arms and they took turns crying with the hunger.Mam stopped every few minutes to sit and rest on the stone wall along the road.We sat with her and watched the sky turn red and then blue. Birds started to chirp and sing in the trees and as the dawn came up we saw strange creatures in the ﬁelds, standing, looking at us. Malachy said,What are they, Dad? Cows, son. What are cows, Dad? Cows are cows, son. We walked farther along the brightening road and there were other creatures in the ﬁelds, white furry creatures. Malachy said,What are they, Dad? Sheep, son. What are sheep, Dad? My father barked at him,Is there any end to your questions? Sheep are sheep, cows are cows, and that over there is a goat.A goat is a goat. 47

The goat gives milk, the sheep gives wool, the cow gives everything. What else in God's name do you want to know? And Malachy yelped with fright because Dad never talked like that, never spoke sharply to us.He might get us up in the middle of the night and make us promise to die for Ireland but he never barked like this. Malachy ran to Mam and she said, There, there, love, don't cry.Your father is just worn out carrying the twins and 'tis hard answering all those questions when you're carting twins through the world. Dad set the twins on the road and held out his arms to Malachy. Now the twins started to cry and Malachy clung to Mam,sobbing.The cows mooed, the sheep maaed, the goat ehehed, the birds twittered in the trees, and the beep beep of a motor car cut through everything.A man called from the motor car, Good Lord, what are you people doing on this road at this hour of an Easter Sunday morning? Dad said, Good morning, Father. Father? I said. Dad, is that your father? Mam said, Don't ask him any questions. Dad said, No, no, this is a priest. Malachy said,What's a—? but Mam put her hand over his mouth. The priest had white hair and a white collar.He said,Where are you going? Dad said, Up the road to McCourts of Moneyglass, and the priest took us in his motor car. He said he knew the McCourts, a ﬁne family, good Catholics,some daily communicants,and he hoped he'd see us all at Mass,especially the little Yankees who didn't know what a priest was, At the house my mother reaches for the gate latch. Dad says, No, no, not that way. Not the front gate.They use the front door only for visits from the priest or funerals. We make our way around the house to the kitchen door. Dad pushes in the door and there's Grandpa McCourt drinking tea from a big mug and Grandma McCourt frying something. Och, says Grandpa, you're here. Och, we are, says Dad. He points to my mother.This is Angela, he says. Grandpa says, Och, you must be worn out,Angela. Grandma says nothing,she turns back to the frying pan.Grandpa leads us through the kitchen to a large room with a long table and chairs. He says, Sit down and have some tea.Would you like boxty? 48

Malachy says,What's boxty? Dad laughs. Pancakes, son. Pancakes made with potatoes. Grandpa says,We have eggs. It's Easter Sunday and you can have all the eggs you can hold. We have tea and boxty and boiled eggs and we all fall asleep.I wake up in a bed with Malachy and the twins. My parents are in another bed over by the window.Where am I? It's getting dark.This is not the ship. Mam snores hink,Dad snores honk.I get up and poke at Dad.I have to pee. He says, Use the chamber pot. Under the bed, son.The chamber pot. It has roses on it and maid- ens cavorting in the glen. Pee in that, son. I want to ask him what he's talking about for even if I'm bursting I feel strange peeing into a pot with roses and maidens cavorting, what- ever they are.We had nothing like this in Classon Avenue where Mrs. Leibowitz sang in the lavatory while we clutched ourselves in the hall. Now Malachy has to use the chamber pot but he wants to sit on it. Dad says, No, you can't do that, son.You have to go outside.When he says that I have to go,too,to sit.He leads us downstairs and through the big room where Grandpa is sitting reading by the ﬁre and Grandma is dozing in her chair.It's dark outside,though the moon is bright enough for us to see where we're going. Dad opens the door of a little house that has a seat with a hole in it. He shows Malachy and me how to sit on the hole and how to wipe ourselves with squares of newspaper stuck on a nail.Then he tells us wait while he goes inside,closes the door and grunts.The moon is so bright I can look down the ﬁeld and see the things called cows and sheep and I wonder why they don't go home. In the house there are other people in the room with my grand- parents. Dad says,These are your aunts: Emily, Nora, Maggie,Vera.Your aunt Eva is in Ballymena with children like you. My aunts are not like Mrs. Leibowitz and Minnie MacAdorey, they nod their heads but they don't hug us or smile. Mam comes into the room with the twins and when Dad tells his sisters,This is Angela and these are the twins, they just nod again. Grandma goes to the kitchen and soon we have bread and sausages and tea.The only one who speaks at the table is Malachy. He points his spoon at the aunts and asks their names again.When Mam tells him eat his sausage and be quiet his eyes ﬁll with tears and Aunt Nora reaches 49

over to comfort him. She says,There, there, and I wonder why every- one says there there when Malachy cries. I wonder what there there means. It's quiet at the table till Dad says,Things are terrible in America. Grandma says, Och, aye. I read it in the paper. But they say Mr. Roo- sevelt is a good man and if you stayed you might have work by now. Dad shakes his head and Grandma says, I don't know what you're going to do, Malachy.Things are worse here than they are in America. No work here and, God knows, we don't have room in this house for six more people. Dad says, I thought I might get work on some of the farms. We could get a small place. Where would you stay in the meantime? says Grandma.And how would you support yourself and your family? Och, I could go on the dole, I suppose. You can't get off a ship from America and go on the dole, says Grandpa.They make you wait a while and what would you do while you're waiting? Dad says nothing and Mam looks straight ahead at the wall. You'd be better off in the Free State, says Grandma. Dublin is big and surely there's work there or in the farms around. You're entitled to money from the IRA, too, says Grandpa.You did your bit and they've been handing out money to men all over the Free State.You could go to Dublin and ask for help.We can loan you the bus fare to Dublin.The twins can sit on your lap and you won't have to pay for them. Dad says,Och,aye,and Mam stares at the wall with tears in her eyes. After we ate we went back to bed and next morning,all the grown-ups sat around looking sad. Soon a man came in a motor car and took us back down the road to the shop which had our trunk.They lifted the trunk up on the roof of a bus and we got into the bus.Dad said we were going to Dublin. Malachy said,What's Dublin? but no one answered him.Dad held Eugene on his lap and Mam held Oliver.Dad looked out at the ﬁelds and told me this is where Cuchulain liked to go for a walk. I asked him where Cuchulain hit the ball into the dog's mouth and he said a few miles away. 50

Malachy said,Look,look,and we looked.It was a great silvery sheet of water and Dad said it was Lough Neagh, the largest lake in Ireland, the lake where Cuchulain used to swim after his great battles. Cuchu- lain would get so hot that when he jumped into Lough Neagh it boiled over and warmed the surrounding countryside for days.Some day we'd all come back and go swimming like Cuchulain himself.We'd ﬁsh for eels and fry them in a pan not like Cuchulain, who would pluck them from the lough and swallow them, wriggling, because there's great power in an eel. Is that right, Dad? Mam didn't look out the window at Lough Neagh. Her cheek rested on top of Oliver's head and she stared at the ﬂoor of the bus. Soon the bus is rolling into a place where there are big houses, motor cars, horses pulling carts, people on bicycles and hundreds walking. Malachy is excited.Dad,Dad,where's the playground,the swings? I want to see Freddie Leibowitz. Och, son, you're in Dublin now, far from Classon Avenue.You're in Ireland, a long way from New York. When the bus stops the trunk is lifted down and set on the ﬂoor of the bus station. Dad tells Mam she can sit on a bench in the station while he goes to see the IRA man in a place called Terenure. He says there are lavatories in the station for the boys, he won't be long, he'll have money when he returns and we'll all have food. He tells me go with him and Mam says, No, I need him to help. But when Dad says, I'll need help carrying all that money, she laughs and says,All right, go with your Pop. Your Pop.That means she's in a good mood. If she says your father it means she's in a bad mood. Dad holds my hand as I trot along beside him.He's a fast walker,it's a long way to Terenure and I'm hoping he'll stop and carry me the way he did with the twins in Toome. But he lopes along and says nothing except to ask people where Terenure is. In awhile he says we're in Terenure and now we have to ﬁnd Mr. Charles Heggarty of the IRA. A man with a pink patch on his eye tells us we're on the right street, Charlie Heggarty lives at number fourteen, God blast him. The man 51

tells Dad,I can see you're a man that did his bit.Dad says,Och,I did my bit, and the man says, I did me bit, too, and what did it get me but one eye less and a pension that wouldn't feed a canary. But Ireland is free, says Dad, and that's a grand thing. Free, my arse, the man says. I think we were better off under the English. Good luck to you anyway, mister, for I think I know what you're here for. A woman opens the door at number fourteen. I'm afraid, she says, that Mr. Heggarty is busy. Dad tells her he just walked all the way from the middle of Dublin with his small son,that he left wife and three chil- dren waiting for him at the bus place, and if Mr. Heggarty is that busy then we'll wait for him on the doorstep. The woman is back in a minute to say Mr.Heggarty has a little time to spare and would you come this way. Mr. Heggarty is sitting at a desk near a glowing ﬁre. He says,What can I do for you? Dad stands before the desk and says,I have just returned from America with wife and four children.We have nothing. I fought with a Flying Column during the Troubles and I'm hoping you can help me now in the time of need. Mr. Heggarty takes Dad's name and turns the pages of a big book on his desk. He shakes his head, No, no record of your service here. Dad makes a long speech. He tells Mr. Heggarty how he fought, where, when, how he had to be smuggled out of Ireland because of the price on his head, how he was raising his sons to love Ireland. Mr. Heggarty says he's sorry but he can't be handing out money to every man who wanders in claiming he did his bit. Dad says to me, Remember this, Francis. This is the new Ireland. Little men in little chairs with little bits of paper.This is the Ireland men died for. Mr.Heggarty says he'll look into Dad's claim and he'll be sure to let him know what turns up. He'll let us have money to take the bus back into the city.Dad looks at the coins in Mr.Heggarty's hand and says,You could add to that and make the price of a pint. Oh, it's the drink you want, is it? One pint is hardly drink. You'd walk the miles back and make the boy walk because you want a pint, wouldn't you? Walking never killed anyone. I want you to leave this house,says Mr.Heggarty,or I'll call a guard, and you can be sure you'll never hear from me again.We're not hand- ing out money to support the Guinness family. 52

Night falls along the streets of Dublin. Children laugh and play under streetlights, mothers call from doorways, smells of cooking come at us all the way, through windows we see people around tables, eating. I'm tired and hungry and I want Dad to carry me but I know there's no use asking him now the way his face is tight and set. I let him hold my hand and I run to keep up with him till we reach the bus place where Mam is waiting with my brothers. They're all asleep on the bench, my mother and three brothers. When Dad tells Mam there's no money she shakes her head and sobs, Oh, Jesus, what are we going to do? A man in a blue uniform comes over and asks her,What's up, missus? Dad tells him we're stranded there at the bus station, we have no money and no place to stay and the chil- dren are hungry.The man says he's going off duty now, he'll take us to the police barracks where he has to report anyway, and they'll see what can be done. The man in uniform tells us we can call him guard.That's what you call policemen in Ireland.He asks us what you call policemen in Amer- ica and Malachy says,cop.The guard pats him on the head and tells him he's a clever little Yankee. At the police barracks the sergeant tells us we can spend the night. He's sorry but all he can offer is the ﬂoor. It's Thursday and the cells are ﬁlled with men who drank their dole money and wouldn't leave the pubs. The guards give us hot sweet tea and thick slices of bread slathered with butter and jam and we're so happy we run around the barracks, playing.The guards say we're a great bunch of little Yanks and they'd like to take us home but I say, No, Malachy says, No, the twins say, No, No, and all the guards laugh. Men in cells reach out and pat our heads, they smell like Dad when he comes home singing about Kevin Barry and Roddy McCorley going to die. The men say, Jasus, will ye listen to them.They sound like bloody ﬁllum stars. Did yez fall outa the sky or what? Women in cells at the other end tell Malachy he's gorgeous and the twins are dotes. One woman talks to me. C'mere, love, would you like a sweet? I nod, and she says,All right, put your hand out. She takes something sticky from her mouth and puts it on my hand.There you are now, she says, a nice bit of butterscotch. Put that in your mouth. I don't want to put it in my mouth because it's sticky and wet from her mouth but I don't know what you're supposed to do when a woman in a cell offers you sticky butterscotch and I'm about to put it in my mouth when a guard comes, takes the butterscotch and throws it back at the 53

woman.You drunken hoor, he says, leave the child alone, and all the women laugh. The sergeant gives my mother a blanket and she sleeps stretched out on a bench.The rest of us lie on the ﬂoor. Dad sits with his back to the wall, his eyes open under the peak of his cap, and he smokes when the guards give him cigarettes.The guard who threw the butterscotch at the woman says he's from Ballymena in the north and he talks with Dad about people they know there and in other places like Cushendall and Toome.The guard says he'll have a pension some day and he'll live on the shores of Lough Neagh and ﬁsh his days away. Eels, he says, eels galore.Jasus,I love a fried eel.I ask Dad,Is this Cuchulain? and the guard laughs till his face turns red.Ah, Mother o' God, did yez hear this? The lad wants to know if I'm Cuchulain.A little Yank and he knows all about Cuchulain. Dad says, No, he's not Cuchulain but he's a ﬁne man who will live on the shores of Lough Neagh and ﬁsh his days away. Dad is shaking me. Up, Francis, up. It is noisy in the barracks. A boy mopping the ﬂoor is singing, It had to be and the reason is this, Could it be true, someone like you Could love me, love me? I tell him that's my mother's song and he's to stop singing it but he just puffs on his cigarette and walks away and I wonder why people have to sing other people's songs. Men and women coming out of the cells are yawning and grunting. The woman who offered me the butter- scotch stops and says, I had a drop taken, child. I'm sorry I made a fool of you,but the guard from Ballymena tells her,Move on,you oul'hoor, before I lock you up again. Oh, lock me up, she says. In, out.What does it matter, you blue- arsed bastard. Mam is sitting up on the bench, the blanket wrapped around her.A woman with gray hair brings her a mug of tea and tells her, Sure, I'm the sergeant's wife and he said you might need help.Would you like a nice soft-boiled egg, missus? 54

Mam shakes her head, no. Ah,now,missus,surely you should have a nice egg in your condition. But Mam shakes her head and I wonder how she can say no to a soft-boiled egg when there's nothing in the world like it. All right, ma'am, says the sergeant's wife, a bit of toast, then, and something for the children and your poor husband. She goes back to another room and soon there's tea and bread.Dad drinks his tea but gives us his bread and Mam says,Will you eat your bread, for God's sake.You won't be much use to us falling down with the hunger. He shakes his head and asks the sergeant's wife is there any chance of a cigarette. She brings him the cigarette and tells Mam the guards in the barracks have taken up a collection to pay our train fares to Limerick.There will be a motor car to pick up our trunk and leave us at Kingsbridge Railway Station and,You'll be in Limerick in three or four hours. Mam puts up her arms and hugs the sergeant's wife. God bless you and your husband and all the guards,Mam says.I don't know what we'd do without you.God knows 'tis a lovely thing to be back among our own. 'Tis the least we could do, says the sergeant's wife.These are lovely children you have and I'm from Cork meself and I know what 'tis to be in Dublin without two pennies to rub together. Dad sits at the other end of the bench,smoking his cigarette,drink- ing his tea.He stays that way till the motor car comes to take us through the streets of Dublin. Dad asks the driver if he'd mind going by way of the G.P.O. and the driver says, Is it a stamp you want or what? No, says Dad. I hear they put up a new statue of Cuchulain to honor the men who died in 1916 and I'd like to show it to my son here who has a great admiration for Cuchulain. The driver says he has no notion of who this Cuchulain was but he wouldn't mind stopping one bit. He might come in himself and see what the commotion is all about for he hasn't been in the G.P.O. since he was a boy and the English nearly wrecked it with their big guns ﬁr- ing up from the Liffey River. He says you'll see the bullet holes all over the front and they should be left there to remind the Irish of English perﬁdy. I ask the man what's perﬁdy and he says ask your father and I would but we're stopping outside a big building with columns and that's the G.P.O. Mam stays in the motor car while we follow the driver into the G.P.O.There he is, he says, there's your man Cuchulain. 55

And I feel tears coming because I'm looking at him at last, Cuchu- lain,there on his pedestal in the G.P.O.He's golden and he has long hair, his head is hanging and there's a big bird perched on his shoulder. The driver says, Now what in God's name is this all about? What's this fellow doin' with the long hair and the bird on his shoulder? And will you kindly tell me, mister, what this has to do with the men of 1916? Dad says,Cuchulain fought to the end like the men of Easter Week. His enemies were afraid to go near him till they were sure he was dead and when the bird landed on him and drank his blood they knew. Well, says the driver, 'tis a sad day for the men of Ireland when they need a bird to tell them a man is dead.I think we better go now or we'll be missing that train to Limerick. The sergeant's wife said she'd send a telegram to Grandma to meet us in Limerick and there she was on the platform, Grandma, with white hair, sour eyes, a black shawl, and no smile for my mother or any of us, even my brother, Malachy, who had the big smile and the sweet white teeth. Mam pointed to Dad. This is Malachy, she said, and Grandma nodded and looked away. She called two boys who were hanging around the railway station and paid them to carry the trunk.The boys had shaved heads, snotty noses, and no shoes and we followed them through the streets of Limerick.I asked Mam why they had no hair and she said their heads were shaved so that the lice would have no place to hide. Malachy said,What's a lice? and Mam said, Not lice. One of them is a louse. Grandma said,Will ye stop it! What kind o' talk is this? The boys whistled and laughed and trotted along as if they had shoes and Grandma told them, Stop that laughin' or 'tis droppin' an' breakin' that trunk ye'll be. They stopped the whistling and laughing and we fol- lowed them into a park with a tall pillar and a statue in the middle and grass so green it dazzled you. Dad carried the twins, Mam carried a bag in one hand and held Malachy's hand with the other.When she stopped every few minutes to catch her breath, Grandma said,Are you still smokin' them fags? Them fags will be the death of you.There's enough consumption in Limerick without people smokin'fags on top of it an''tis a rich man's foolishness. Along the path through the park there were hundreds of ﬂowers of different colors that excited the twins.They pointed and made squeaky 56

noises and we laughed, everyone except Grandma, who pulled her shawl over her head. Dad stopped and put the twins down so that they could be closer to the ﬂowers. He said, Flowers, and they ran back and forth, pointing, trying to say Flowers. One of the boys with the trunk said,God,are they Americans? and Mam said,They are.They were born in New York.All the boys were born in New York.The boy said to the other boy,God,they're Americans.They put the trunk down and stared at us and we stared back at them till Grandma said,Are ye goin'to stand here all day lookin' at ﬂowers an' gawkin' at each other? And we all moved on again, out of the park, down a narrow lane and into another lane to Grandma's house. There is a row of small houses on each side of the lane and Grandma lives in one of the small houses. Her kitchen has a shiny polished black iron range with a ﬁre glowing in the grate.There is a table along the wall under the window and a press opposite with cups and saucers and vases. This press is always locked and she keeps the key in her purse because you're not supposed to use anything in there unless someone dies or returns from foreign parts or there's a visit by a priest. There is a picture on the wall by the range of a man with long brown hair and sad eyes.He is pointing to his chest where there is a big heart with ﬂames coming out of it.Mam tells us,That's the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and I want to know why the man's heart is on ﬁre and why doesn't He throw water on it? Grandma says,Don't these children know anything about their religion? and Mam tells her it's different in Amer- ica.Grandma says the Sacred Heart is everywhere and there's no excuse for that kind of ignorance. Under the picture of the man with the burning heart there is a shelf with a red glass holding a ﬂickering candle and next to it a small statue. Mam tells us,That's the Baby Jesus, the Infant of Prague, and if ye ever need anything pray to Him. Malachy says,Mam,could I tell Him I'm hungry,and Mam puts her ﬁnger to her lips. Grandma grumbles around the kitchen making tea and telling Mam to cut the loaf of bread and don't make the cuts too thick. Mam sits by the table with her breath coming hard and says she'll cut the bread in a minute. Dad takes the knife and starts slicing the bread and you can see Grandma doesn't like that. She frowns at him but says nothing even though he makes thick slices. There aren't enough chairs for everyone so I sit on the stairs with 57

my brothers to have bread and tea. Dad and Mam sit at the table and Grandma sits under the Sacred Heart with her mug of tea. She says, I don't know under God what I'm goin' to do with ye.There is no room in this house.There isn't room for even one of ye. Malachy says,Ye,ye,and starts to giggle and I say,Ye,ye,and the twins say,Ye, ye, and we're laughing so hard we can hardly eat our bread. Grandma glares at us. What are ye laughin' at? There's nothin' to laugh at in this house.Ye better behave yeerselves before I go over to ye. She won't stop saying Ye, and now Malachy is helpless with laugh- ter, spewing out his bread and tea, his face turning red. Dad says,Malachy and the rest of you,stop it.But Malachy can't,he goes on laughing till Dad says, Come over here. He rolls up Malachy's sleeve and raises his hand to slap his arm. Are you going to behave yourself? Malachy's eyes ﬁll with tears and he nods, I will, because Dad never raised his hand like that before. Dad says, Be a good boy and go sit with your brothers, and he pulls down the sleeve and pats Malachy on the head. That night Mam's sister, Aunt Aggie, came home from her job in the clothing factory. She was big like the MacNamara sisters, and she had ﬂaming red hair. She wheeled a large bicycle into the little room behind the kitchen and came out to her supper. She was living in Grandma's because she had a ﬁght with her husband, Pa Keating, who told her, when he had drink taken, You're a great fat cow, go home to your mother. That's what Grandma told Mam and that's why there was no room for us in Grandma's house. She had herself, Aunt Aggie, and her son Pat, who was my uncle and who was out sell- ing newspapers. Aunt Aggie complained when Grandma told her Mam would have to sleep with her that night. Grandma said, Oh, will you shut your gob. 'Tis only for one night an'that won't kill you an'if you don't like it you can go back to your husband where you belong anyway instead of run- nin' home to me. Jesus, Mary an' Holy St. Joseph, look at this house— you an' Pat an' Angela and her clatther of Americans.Will I have any peace in the latter end of my life? She spread coats and rags on the ﬂoor of the little back room and 58

we slept there with the bicycle. Dad stayed on a chair in the kitchen, took us to the lavatory in the backyard when we needed it, and in the night hushed the twins when they cried from the cold. In the morning,Aunt Aggie came for her bicycle telling us,Will ye mind yeerselves, will ye? Will ye get out of my way? When she left, Malachy kept saying,Will ye mind yeerselves, will ye? Will ye get out of the way, will ye? and I could hear Dad laughing out in the kitchen till Grandma came down the stairs and he had to tell Malachy be quiet. That day Grandma and Mam went out and found a furnished room on Windmill Street where Aunt Aggie had a ﬂat with her husband, Pa Keating. Grandma paid the rent, ten shillings for two weeks. She gave Mam money for food, loaned us a kettle, a pot, a frying pan, knives and spoons,jam jars to be used for mugs,a blanket and a pillow.She said that was all she could afford anymore, that Dad would have to get up off his arse, get a job, go on the dole, go for the charity at the St.Vincent de Paul Society or go on the relief. The room had a ﬁreplace where we could boil water for our tea or an egg in case we ever came into money.We had a table and three chairs and a bed, which Mam said was the biggest she had ever seen.We were glad of the bed that night,worn out after nights on ﬂoors in Dublin and in Grandma's. It didn't matter that there were six of us in the bed, we were together, away from grandmothers and guards, Malachy could say ye ye ye and we could laugh as much as we liked. Dad and Mam lay at the head of the bed, Malachy and I at the bot- tom, the twins wherever they could ﬁnd comfort. Malachy made us laugh again.Ye, ye, ye, he said, and oy oy oy, and then fell asleep. Mam made the little hink hink snore sound that told us she was sleeping. In the moonlight I could look up the length of the bed and see Dad still awake and when Oliver cried in his sleep Dad reached for him and held him.Whisht, he said.Whisht. Then Eugene sat up,screaming,tearing at himself.Ah,ah,Mommy, Mommy.Dad sat up.What? What's up,son? Eugene went on crying and when Dad leaped from the bed and turned on the gaslight we saw the ﬂeas, leaping, jumping, fastened to our ﬂesh.We slapped at them and slapped but they hopped from body to body,hopping,biting.We tore at the bites till they bled.We jumped from the bed,the twins crying,Mam moaning,Oh,Jesus,will we have no rest! Dad poured water and salt into 59

a jam jar and dabbed at our bites.The salt burned but he said we'd feel better soon. Mam sat by the ﬁreplace with the twins on her lap. Dad pulled on his trousers and dragged the mattress off the bed and out to the street. He ﬁlled the kettle and the pot with water, stood the mattress against the wall, pounded it with a shoe, told me to keep pouring water on the ground to drown the ﬂeas dropping there.The Limerick moon was so bright I could see bits of it shimmering in the water and I wanted to scoop up moon bits but how could I with the ﬂeas leaping on my legs. Dad kept pounding with the shoe and I had to run back through the house to the backyard tap for more water in the kettle and the pot. Mam said, Look at you.Your shoes are drenched and you'll catch your death and your father will surely get the pneumonia without a shoe to his foot. A man on a bicycle stopped and wanted to know why Dad was beating that mattress. Mother o' God, he said, I never heard such a cure for ﬂeas. Do you know that if a man could jump like a ﬂea one lep would take him halfway to the moon? The thing to do is this,when you go back inside with that mattress stick it on the bed upside down and that will confuse the little buggers.They won't know where they are and they'll be biting the mattress or each other, which is the best cure of all.After they bite the human being they have the frenzy, you know, for there are other ﬂeas around them that also bit the human being and the smell of the blood is too much for them and they go out of their minds.They're a right bloody torment an' I should know for didn't I grow up in Limerick,down in the Irishtown,an'the ﬂeas there were so plentiful an' forward they'd sit on the toe of your boot an' discuss Ire- land's woeful history with you. It is said there were no ﬂeas in ancient Ireland, that they were brought in be the English to drive us out of our wits entirely,an'I wouldn't put it past the English.An'isn't it a very curi- ous thing that St.Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland an'the English brought in the ﬂeas. For centuries Ireland was a lovely peaceful place, snakes gone,not a ﬂea to be found.You could stroll the four green ﬁelds of Ireland without fear of snakes an' have a good night's sleep with no ﬂeas to bother you.Them snakes were doin' no harm, they wouldn't bother you unless you cornered them an' they lived off other creatures that move under bushes an'such places,whereas the ﬂea sucks the blood from you mornin' noon an' night for that's his nature an' he can't help 60

himself.I hear for a fact that places that have snakes galore have no ﬂeas. Arizona,for instance.You're forever hearing about the snakes of Arizona but when did you ever hear of ﬂeas in Arizona? Good luck to you. I have to be careful standin' here for if one of them gets on my clothes I might as well invite his whole family home.They multiply faster than Hindus. Dad said,You wouldn't by any chance have a cigarette, would you? A cigarette? Oh, sure, of course. Here you are. Aren't I nearly destroyed from the fags myself.The oul' hacking cough, you know. So powerful it nearly knocks me off the bicycle. I can feel that cough stir- ring in me solar plexus an' workin' its way up through me entrails till the next thing it takes off the top o' me head. He struck a match on a box, lit a cigarette for himself and held out the match for Dad. Of course, he said, you're bound to have the cough when you live in Limerick because this is the capital city of the weak chest and the weak chest leads to the consumption.If all the people that has consumption in Limerick were to die this would be a ghost town, though I don't have consumption meself. No, this cough was a present from the Germans. He paused, puffed on his cigarette, and struggled with a cough. Bejesus,excuse the language,but the fags'll get me in the end.Well, I'll leave you now to the mattress an' remember what I told you, confuse the little buggers. He wobbled away on his bicycle, the cigarette dangling from his mouth, the cough racking his body. Dad said, Limerickmen talk too much. Come on, we'll put this mattress back and see if there's any sleep in this night. Mam sat by the ﬁreplace with the twins asleep on her lap, and Malachy lay curled up on the ﬂoor by her feet. She said,Who was that you were talking to? It sounded very like Pa Keating, Aggie's husband. I could tell by the cough.He got that cough in France in the war when he swallowed the gas. We slept the rest of that night, and in the morning we saw where the ﬂeas had feasted, our ﬂesh pink with ﬂea welts and bright with the blood of our scratches. Mam made tea and fried bread, and once more Dad dabbed at our bites with the salty water. He hauled the mattress outside again to the backyard. On a cold day like this the ﬂeas would surely freeze to death and we'd all have a good night's sleep. 61

A few days later when we're settled into the room Dad is shaking me out of my dreams.Up,Francis,up.Put on your clothes and run over for your aunt Aggie.Your mother needs her. Hurry. Mam is moaning in the bed, her face pure white. Dad has Malachy and the twins out of the bed and sitting on the ﬂoor by the dead ﬁre. I run across the street and knock on Aunt Aggie's door till Uncle Pat Keating comes coughing and grumbling,What's up? What's up? My mother is moaning in the bed. I think she's sick. Now Aunt Aggie comes grumbling.Ye are nothing but trouble since ye came from America. Leave him alone,Aggie,he's only a child that's doing what he's told. She tells Uncle Pa go back to bed, that he has to go to work in the morning not like some from the North that she won't mention. He says, No, no, I'm coming.There's something wrong with Angela. Dad tells me sit over there with my brothers. I don't know what's up with Mam because everyone is whispering and I can barely hear Aunt Aggie telling Uncle Pa the child is lost run for the ambulance and Uncle Pa is out the door,Aunt Aggie telling Mam you can say what you like about Limerick but the ambulance is fast. She doesn't talk to my father, never looks at him. Malachy says, Dad, is Mammy sick? Och, she'll be all right, son. She has to see the doctor. I wonder what child is lost because we're all here, one two three four of us, not a lost child anywhere and why can't they tell me what's wrong with my mother. Uncle Pa comes back and the ambulance is right behind him.A man comes in with a stretcher and after they carry Mam away there are blood spots on the ﬂoor by the bed. Malachy bit his tongue and there was blood and the dog on the street had blood and he died. I want to ask Dad to tell me if Mam will be gone forever like my sister Margaret but he's going with Mam and there's no use asking Aunt Aggie anything for fear she'd bite your head off. She wipes away the blood spots and tells us get back into bed and stay there till Dad comes home. It's the middle of the night and the four of us are warm in the bed and we fall asleep till Dad comes home and tells us Mam is nice and comfortable in the hospital and she'll be home in no time. 62

Later, Dad goes to the Labour Exchange for the dole.There is no hope of a laboring man with a North of Ireland accent getting a job in Limerick. When he returns, he tells Mam we'll be getting nineteen shillings a week. She says that's just enough for all of us to starve on. Nineteen shillings for six of us? That's less than four dollars in American money and how are we supposed to live on that? What are we to do when we have to pay rent in a fortnight? If the rent for this room is ﬁve shillings a week we'll have fourteen shillings for food and clothes and coal to boil the water for the tea. Dad shakes his head, sips his tea from a jam jar, stares out the win- dow and whistles "The Boys of Wexford." Malachy and Oliver clap their hands and dance around the room and Dad doesn't know whether to whistle or smile because you can't do both and he can't help himself. He has to stop and smile and pat Oliver's head and then go back to the whistling. Mam smiles, too, but it's a very quick smile and when she looks into the ashes you can see the worry where the corners of her mouth turn down. Next day she tells Dad to mind the twins and takes Malachy and me with her to the St.Vincent de Paul Society.We stand in a queue with women wearing black shawls. They ask our names and smile when we talk.They say, Lord above, would you listen to the little Yankees, and they wonder why Mam in her American coat would be looking for charity since there's hardly enough for the poor people of Lim- erick without Yanks coming over and taking the bread out of their mouths. Mam tells them a cousin gave her that coat in Brooklyn, that her husband has no work, that she has other children at home, twin boys. The women sniff and pull their shawls about them,they have their own troubles.Mam tells them she had to leave America because she couldn't stand it after her baby girl died. The women sniff again but now it's because Mam is crying. Some say they lost little ones, too, and there's nothing worse in the world,you could live as long as Methuselem's wife but you never get over it. No man can ever know what it is to be a mother that has lost a child, not if the man lived longer than two Methuselems. They all have a good cry till a red-haired woman passes a little box around.The women pick something from the box between their ﬁn- 63

gers and stuff it up their noses. A young woman sneezes and the red- haired woman laughs. Ah, sure, Biddy, you're not able for that snuff. Come here, little Yankee boys, have a pinch. She plants the brown stuff in our nostrils and we sneeze so hard the women stop crying and laugh till they have to wipe their eyes with their shawls. Mam tells us,That's good for ye, 'twill clear yeer heads. The young woman, Biddy, tells Mam we're two lovely boys. She points at Malachy.That little fella with the goldy ringlet, isn't he gor- geous? He could be a ﬁlm star with Shirley Temple.And Malachy smiles and warms up the queue. The woman with the snuff says to Mam, Missus, I don't want to be forward but I think you should be sitting down for we heard about your loss. Another woman worries,Ah, no, they don't like that. Who don't like what? Ah, sure, Nora Molloy, the Society don't like us sittin' on the steps. They want us to be standin' respectful against the wall. They can kiss my arse, says Nora, the red-haired woman. Sit down there, missus, on that step an' I'll sit next to you an' if there's one word out of the St.Vincent de Paul Society I'll take the face off 'em,so I will. Do you smoke, missus? I do, says Mam, but I don't have them. Nora takes a cigarette from a pocket in her apron, breaks it, and offers half to Mam. The worried woman says,They don't like that either.They say every fag you smoke is taking food from the mouth of your child. Mr. Quin- livan inside is dead against it.He says if you have money for the fags you have money for food. Quinlivan can kiss my arse, too, the grinny oul' bastard. Is he going to begrudge us a puff of a fag, the only comfort we have in the world? A door opens at the end of the hall and a man appears.Are any of ye waiting for children's boots? Women raise their hands, I am. I am. Well, the boots are all gone.Ye'll have to come back next month. But my Mikey needs boots for school. They're all gone, I told you. But 'tis freezin' abroad, Mr. Quinlivan. The boots are all gone. Nothing I can do. What's this? Who's smoking? 64

Nora waves her cigarette.I am,she says,and enjoying it down to the last ash. Every puff you take, he starts. I know, she says, I'm taking food out of the mouths of my children. You're insolent, woman.You'll get no charity here. Is that a fact? Well,Mr.Quinlivan,if I don't get it here I know where I will. What are you talking about? I'll go to the Quakers.They'll give me the charity. Mr.Quinlivan steps toward Nora and points a ﬁnger.Do you know what we have here? We have a souper in our midst.We had the soupers in the Famine.The Protestants went round telling good Catholics that if they gave up their faith and turned Protestant they'd get more soup than their bellies could hold and,God help us,some Catholics took the soup,and were ever after known as soupers and lost their immortal souls doomed to the deepest part of hell.And you, woman, if you go to the Quakers you'll lose your immortal soul and the souls of your children. Then, Mr. Quinlivan, you'll have to save us, won't you? He stares at her and she stares back at him. His eyes wander to the other women. One puts her hand to her mouth to smother a laugh. What are you tittering about? he barks. Oh, nothing, Mr. Quinlivan. Honest to God. I'm telling ye once more, no boots. And he slams the door behind him. One by one the women are called into the room. When Nora comes out she's smiling and waving a piece of paper. Boots, she says. Three pairs I'm gettin'for my children.Threaten the men in there with the Quakers and they'll give you the drawers off their arses. When Mam is called she brings Malachy and me in with her.We stand before a table where three men are sitting asking questions. Mr. Quinlivan starts to say something but the man in the middle says, Enough out of you,Quinlivan.If we left it up to you we'd have the poor people of Limerick jumping into the arms of the Protestants. He turns to Mam, he wants to know where she got that ﬁne red coat. She tells him what she told the women outside and when she comes to the death of Margaret she shakes and sobs. She tells the men she's very sorry for crying like that but it was only a few months ago and she's not over it yet, not even knowing where her baby was buried if she was buried at all, not knowing even if she was baptized itself 65

because she was so weak from having the four boys she didn't have the energy to be going to the church for the baptism and it's a heart scald to think Margaret might be in Limbo forever with no hope of her ever seeing the rest of us whether we're in heaven, hell, or Purgatory itself. Mr. Quinlivan brings her his chair. Ah, now, missus. Ah, now. Sit down, will you. Ah, now. The other men look at the table, the ceiling.The man in the mid- dle says he's giving Mam a docket to get a week's groceries at McGrath's shop on Parnell Street.There will be tea, sugar, ﬂour, milk, butter and a separate docket for a bag of coal from Sutton's coal yard on the Dock Road. The third man says,Of course you won't be getting this every week, missus.We will be visiting your house to see if there's a real need.We have to do that, missus, so we can review your claim. Mam wipes her face on the back of her sleeve and takes the docket. She tells the men, God bless you for your kindness.They nod and look at the table, the ceiling, the walls and tell her send in the next woman. The women outside tell Mam,When you go to McGrath's,keep an eye on the oul' bitch for she'll cheat you on the weight. She'll put stuff on a paper on the scale with the paper hanging down on her side behind the counter where she thinks you can't see it.She'll pull on that paper so that you're lucky if you get half of what you're supposed to get. And she has pictures of the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus all over the shop, and she's forever on her knees abroad in St. Joseph's chapel clackin' her rosary beads an' breathing like a virgin martyr, the oul' bitch. Nora says, I'll go with you, missus. I'm on to the same Mrs. McGrath and I'll know if she's cheating you. She leads the way to the shop in Parnell Street.The woman behind the counter is pleasant to Mam in her American coat till Mam shows the St.Vincent de Paul docket. The woman says, I don't know what you're doing here at this hour of the day. I never serve the charity cases before six in the evening. But this is your ﬁrst time and I'll make an exception. She says to Nora, Do you have a docket, too? No. I'm a friend helping this poor family with their ﬁrst docket from the St.Vincent de Paul. The woman lays a sheet of newspaper on the scale and pours on 66

ﬂour from a large bag.When she ﬁnishes pouring, she says,There's a pound of ﬂour. I don't think so, says Nora.That's a very small pound of ﬂour. The woman ﬂushes and glares,Are you accusin' me? Ah, no, Mrs. McGrath, says Nora. I think there was a little accident there the way your hip was pressed against that paper and you didn't even know the paper was pulled down a bit. Oh, God, no. A woman like you that's forever on her knees before the Virgin Mary is an inspi- ration to us all and is that your money I see on the ﬂoor there? Mrs.McGrath steps back quickly and the needle on the scale jumps and quivers.What money? she says, till she looks at Nora, and knows. Nora smiles. Must be a trick of the shadows, she says, and smiles at the scale. There was a mistake right enough for that shows barely half a pound of ﬂour. That scale gives me more trouble, says Mrs. McGrath. I'm sure it does, says Nora. But my conscience is clear before God, says Mrs. McGrath. I'm sure it is,says Nora,and you're admired by one and all at the St. Vincent de Paul Society and the Legion of Mary. I try to be a good Catholic. Try? God knows 'tis little trying you'd have for you're well known for having a kind heart and I was wondering if you could spare a cou- ple of sweets for the little boys here. Well, now, I'm not a millionaire, but here . . . God bless you,Mrs.McGrath,and I know it's asking a lot but could you possibly lend me a couple of cigarettes? Well, now, they're not on the docket. I'm not here to supply luxuries. If you could see your way,missus,I'd be sure to mention your kind- ness to the St.Vincent de Paul. All right, all right, says Mrs. McGrath. Here. One time for the cig- arettes and one time only. God bless you, says Nora, and I'm sorry you had so much trouble with that scale. On the way home we stopped in the People's Park and sat on a bench while Malachy and I sucked on our sweets and Mam and Nora smoked 67

their cigarettes. The smoking brought on Nora's cough and she told Mam the fags would kill her in the end, that there was a touch of con- sumption in her family and no one lived to a ripe old age, though who would want to in Limerick, a place where you could look around and the ﬁrst thing you noticed was a scarcity of gray hairs, all the gray hairs either in the graveyard or across the Atlantic working on railroads or sauntering around in police uniforms. You're lucky, missus, that you saw a bit of the world. Oh, God, I'd give anything to see New York,people dancing up and down Broadway without a care. No, I had to go and fall for a boozer with the charm, Peter Molloy, a champion pint drinker that had me up the pole and up the aisle when I was barely seventeen. I was ignorant, missus.We grew up ignorant in Limerick, so we did, knowing feck all about anything and signs on, we're mothers before we're women.And there's nothing here but rain and oul' biddies saying the rosary. I'd give me teeth to get out, go to America or even England itself.The champion pint drinker is always on the dole and sometimes he even drinks that and drives me so demented I wind up in the lunatic asylum. She drew on her cigarette and gagged, coughing till her body rocked back and forth, and in between the coughs she whimpered, Jesus,Jesus.When the cough died away she said she had to go home and take her medicine.She said,I'll see you next week,missus,at the St.Vin- cent de Paul. If you're stuck for anything send a message to me at Vize's Field.Ask anyone for the wife of Peter Molloy, champion pint drinker. Eugene is sleeping under a coat on the bed. Dad sits by the ﬁreplace with Oliver on his lap. I wonder why Dad is telling Oliver a Cuchulain story. He knows the Cuchulain stories are mine, but when I look at Oliver I don't mind.His cheeks are bright red,he's staring into the dead ﬁre, and you can see he has no interest in Cuchulain. Mam puts her hand on his forehead. I think he has a fever, she says. I wish I had an onion and I'd boil it in milk and pepper. That's good for the fever. But even if I had what would I boil the milk on? We need coal for that ﬁre. She gives Dad the docket for the coal down the Dock Road. He takes me with him but it's dark and all the coal yards are closed. What are we going to do now, Dad? 68

I don't know, son. Ahead of us women in shawls and small children are picking up coal along the road. There, Dad, there's coal. Och, no, son.We won't pick coal off the road.We're not beggars. He tells Mam the coal yards are closed and we'll have to drink milk and eat bread tonight,but when I tell her about the women on the road she passes Eugene to him. If you're too grand to pick coal off the road I'll put on my coat and go down the Dock Road. She gets a bag and takes Malachy and me with her. Beyond the Dock Road there is something wide and dark with lights glinting in it. Mam says that's the River Shannon.She says that's what she missed most of all in America, the River Shannon.The Hudson was lovely but the Shannon sings.I can't hear the song but my mother does and that makes her happy.The other women are gone from the Dock Road and we search for the bits of coal that drop from lorries. Mam tells us gather anything that burns, coal, wood, cardboard, paper. She says,There are them that burn the horse droppings but we're not gone that low yet. When her bag is nearly full she says, Now we have to ﬁnd an onion for Oliver. Malachy says he'll ﬁnd one but she tells him, No, you don't ﬁnd onions on the road, you get them in shops. The minute he sees a shop he cries out,There's a shop, and runs in. Oonyen, he says. Oonyen for Oliver. Mam runs into the shop and tells the women behind the counter, I'm sorry.The woman says,Lord,he's a dote.Is he an American or what? Mam says he is.The woman smiles and shows two teeth, one on each side of her upper gum.A dote,she says,and look at them gorgeous goldy curls.And what is it he wants now? A sweet? Ah, no, says Mam.An onion. The woman laughs, An onion? I never heard a child wanting an onion before. Is that what they like in America? Mam says, I just mentioned I wanted to get an onion for my other child that's sick. Boil the onion in milk, you know. True for you, missus.You can't beat the onion boiled in milk.And look,little boy,here's a sweet for yourself and one for the other little boy, the brother, I suppose. Mam says,Ah, sure, you shouldn't. Say thank you, boys. 69

The woman says, Here's a nice onion for the sick child, missus. Mam says, Oh, I can't buy the onion now, missus. I don't have a penny on me. I'm giving you the onion, missus. Let it never be said a child went sick in Limerick for want of an onion.And don't forget to sprinkle in a little pepper. Do you have pepper, missus? Ah, no, I don't but I should be getting it any day now. Well, here, missus. Pepper and a little salt. Do the child all the good in the world. Mam says, God bless you, ma'am, and her eyes are watery. Dad is walking back and forth with Oliver in his arms and Eugene is playing on the ﬂoor with a pot and a spoon. Dad says, Did you get the onion? I did, says Mam, and more. I got coal and the way of lighting it. I knew you would.I said a prayer to St.Jude.He's my favorite saint, patron of desperate cases. I got the coal. I got the onion, no help from St. Jude. Dad says,You shouldn't be picking up coal off the road like a com- mon beggar. It isn't right. Bad example for the boys. Then you should have sent St. Jude down the Dock Road. Malachy says, I'm hungry, and I'm hungry, too, but Mam says,Ye'll wait till Oliver has his onion boiled in milk. She gets the ﬁre going, cuts the onion in half, drops it in the boil- ing milk with a little butter and sprinkles the milk with pepper. She takes Oliver on her lap and tries to feed him but he turns away and looks into the ﬁre. Ah,come on,love,she says.Good for you.Make you big and strong. He tightens his mouth against the spoon. She puts the pot down, rocks him till he's asleep, lays him on the bed and tells the rest of us be quiet or she'll demolish us. She slices the other half of the onion and fries it in butter with slices of bread. She lets us sit on the ﬂoor around the ﬁre where we eat the fried bread and sip at the scalding sweet tea in jam jars. She says,That ﬁre is good and bright so we can turn off that gaslight till we get money for the meter. The ﬁre makes the room warm and with the ﬂames dancing in the coal you can see faces and mountains and valleys and animals leaping. Eugene falls asleep on the ﬂoor and Dad lifts him to the bed beside Oliver. Mam puts the boiled onion pot up on the mantelpiece for fear a mouse or rat might be at it. She says she's tired out from the day, the 70

Vincent de Paul Society,Mrs.McGrath's shop,the search for coal down the Dock Road, the worry over Oliver not wanting the boiled onion, and if he's like this tomorrow she's taking him to the doctor, and now she's going to bed. Soon we're all in bed and if there's the odd ﬂea I don't mind because it's warm in the bed with the six of us and I love the glow of the ﬁre the way it dances on the walls and ceiling and makes the room go red and black, red and black, till it dims to white and black and all you can hear is a little cry from Oliver turning in my mother's arms. In the morning Dad is lighting the ﬁre, making tea, cutting the bread. He's already dressed and he's telling Mam hurry up and get dressed. He says to me, Francis, your little brother Oliver is sick and we're taking him to the hospital.You are to be a good boy and take care of your two brothers.We'll be back soon. Mam says, When we're out go easy with that sugar. We're not millionaires. When Mam picks up Oliver and wraps him in a coat Eugene stands on the bed. I want Ollie, he says. Ollie play. Ollie will be back soon, she says, and you can play with him. Now you can play with Malachy and Frank. Ollie, Ollie, I want Ollie. He follows Oliver with his eyes and when they're gone he sits on the bed looking out the window. Malachy says, Genie, Genie, we have bread, we have tea. Sugar on your bread, Genie. He shakes his head and pushes away the bread Malachy is offering. He crawls to the place where Oliver slept with Mam, puts his head down and stares out the Grandma is at the door. I heard your father and mother were run- ning down Henry Street with the child in their arms. Now where are they gone to? Oliver is sick, I said. He wouldn't eat the boiled onion in milk. What are you blatherin' about? Wouldn't eat the boiled onion and got sick. And who's minding ye? And what's up with the child in the bed? What's his name? That's Eugene. He misses Oliver.They're twins. 71

I know they're twins.That child looks starved.Have ye any porridge here? What's porridge? says Malachy. Jesus, Mary and Holy St. Joseph! What's porridge! Porridge is por- ridge.That's what porridge is.Ye are the most ignorant bunch o' Yanks I ever seen. Come on, put on yeer clothes and we'll go across the street to your aunt Aggie. She's there with the husband, Pa Keating, and she'll give ye some porridge. She picks up Eugene,wraps him in her shawl and we cross the street to Aunt Aggie's. She's living with Uncle Pa again because he said she wasn't a fat cow after all. Do you have any porridge? Grandma says to Aunt Aggie. Porridge? Am I supposed to be feeding porridge to a crowd of Yanks? Pity about you, says Grandma. It won't kill you to give them a lit- tle porridge. And I suppose they'll be wanting sugar and milk on top of every- thing or they might be banging on my door looking for an egg if you don't mind. I don't know why we have to pay for Angela's mistakes. Jesus, says Grandma, 'tis a good thing you didn't own that stable in Bethlehem or the Holy Family would still be wanderin' the world crumblin' with the hunger. Grandma pushes her way past Aunt Aggie, puts Eugene on a chair near the ﬁre and makes the porridge. A man comes in from another room. He has black curly hair and his skin is black and I like his eyes because they're very blue and ready to smile.He's Aunt Aggie's husband, the man who stopped the night we were attacking the ﬂeas and told us all about ﬂeas and snakes, the man with the cough he got from swal- lowing gas in the war. Malachy says,Why are you all black? and Uncle Pa Keating laughs and coughs so hard he has to ease himself with a cigarette. Oh, the lit- tle Yanks, he says.They're not a bit shy. I'm black because I work at the Limerick Gas Works shoveling coal and coke into the furnaces. Gassed in France and back to Limerick to work in the gas works.When you grow up you'll laugh. Malachy and I have to leave the table so the big people can sit and have tea.They have their tea but Uncle Pa Keating, who is my uncle because he's married to my aunt Aggie, picks up Eugene and takes him 72

on his lap. He says,This is a sad little fella, and makes funny faces and silly sounds. Malachy and I laugh but Eugene only reaches up to touch the blackness of Pa Keating's skin,and then when Pa pretends to bite his little hand, Eugene laughs and everyone in the room laughs. Malachy goes to Eugene and tries to make him laugh even more but Eugene turns away and hides his face in Pa Keating's shirt. I think he likes me, says Pa, and that's when Aunt Aggie puts down her teacup and starts to bawl,Waah, waah, waah, big teardrops tumbling down her fat red face. Aw, Jesus, says Grandma, there she is again.What's up with you this time? And Aunt Aggie blubbers,To see Pa there with a child on his lap an' me with no hope of having my own. Grandma barks at her, Stop talkin' like that in front of the children. Have you no shame? When God is good and ready He'll send you your family. Aunt Aggie sobs,Angela with ﬁve born an' one just gone an' her so useless she couldn't scrub a ﬂoor an' me with none an' I can scrub an' clean with the best and make any class of a stew or a fry. Pa Keating laughs, I think I'll keep this little fella. Malachy runs to him. No, no, no.That's my brother, that's Eugene. And I say, No, no, no, that's our brother. Aunt Aggie pats the tears on her cheeks. She says, I don't want nothing of Angela's. I don't want nothing that's half Limerick and half North of Ireland, so I don't, so ye can take him home. I'll have me own someday if I have to do a hundred novenas to the Virgin Mary and her mother, St.Ann, or if I have to crawl from here to Lourdes on me two bended knees. Grandma says, That's enough.Ye have had yeer porridge and 'tis time to go home and see if yeer father and mother are back from the hospital. She puts on her shawl and goes to pick up Eugene but he clutches so hard at Pa Keating's shirt she has to pull him away though he keeps looking back at Pa till we're out the door. We followed Grandma back to our room. She put Eugene in the bed and gave him a drink of water. She told him to be a good boy and go 73

to sleep for his little brother,Oliver,would be home soon and they'd be playing again there on the ﬂoor. But he kept looking out the window. She told Malachy and me we could sit on the ﬂoor and play but to be quiet because she was going to say her prayers. Malachy went to the bed and sat by Eugene and I sat on a chair at the table making out words on the newspaper that was our tablecloth. All you could hear in the room was Malachy whispering to make Eugene happy and Grandma mumbling to the click of her rosary beads.It was so quiet I put my head on the table and fell asleep. Dad is touching my shoulder. Come on, Francis, you have to take care of your little brothers. Mam is slumped on the edge of the bed, making small crying sounds like a bird. Grandma is pulling on her shawl. She says, I'll go down to Thompson the undertaker about the cofﬁn and the carriage. The St.Vincent de Paul Society will surely pay for that, God knows. She goes out the door.Dad stands facing the wall over the ﬁre,beat- ing on his thighs with his ﬁsts, sighing, Och, och, och. Dad frightens me with his och, och, och, and Mam frightens me with her small bird sounds and I don't know what to do though I won- der if anyone will light the ﬁre in the grate so that we can have tea and bread because it's a long time since we had the porridge. If Dad would move away from the ﬁreplace I could light the ﬁre myself.All you need is paper, a few bits of coal or turf, and a match. He won't move so I try to go around his legs while he's beating on his thighs but he notices me and wants to know why I'm trying to light the ﬁre. I tell him we're all hungry and he lets out a crazy laugh. Hungry? he says. Och, Francis, your wee brother Oliver is dead.Your wee sister is dead and your wee brother is dead. He picks me up and hugs me so hard I cry out.Then Malachy cries, my mother cries,Dad cries,I cry,but Eugene stays quiet.Then Dad snif- ﬂes,We'll have a feast. Come on, Francis. He tells my mother we'll be back in awhile but she has Malachy and Eugene on her lap in the bed and she doesn't look up. He carries me through the streets of Limerick and we go from shop to shop with him asking for food or anything they can give to a family that has two chil- 74

dren dead in a year, one in America, one in Limerick, and in danger of losing three more for the want of food and drink. Most shopkeepers shake their heads. Sorry for your troubles but you could go to the St. Vincent de Paul Society or get the public assistance. Dad says he's glad to see the spirit of Christ alive in Limerick and they tell him they don't need the likes of him with his northern accent to be telling them about Christ and he should be ashamed of himself dragging a child around like that like a common beggar, a tinker, a knacker. A few shopkeepers give bread, potatoes, tins of beans and Dad says, We'll go home now and you boys can eat something, but we meet Uncle Pa Keating and he tells Dad he's very sorry for his troubles and would Dad like to have a pint in this pub here? There are men sitting in this pub with great glasses of black stuff before them. Uncle Pa Keating and Dad have the black stuff, too.They lift their glasses carefully and slowly drink.There is creamy white stuff on their lips, which they lick with little sighs. Uncle Pa gets me a bot- tle of lemonade and Dad gives me a piece of bread and I don't feel hun- gry anymore. Still, I wonder how long we'll sit here with Malachy and Eugene hungry at home,hours from the porridge,which Eugene didn't eat anyway. Dad and Uncle Pa drink their glass of black stuff and have another. Uncle Pa says, Frankie, this is the pint.This is the staff of life.This is the best thing for nursing mothers and for those who are long weaned. He laughs and Dad smiles and I laugh because I think that's what you're supposed to do when Uncle Pa says something.He doesn't laugh when he tells the other men about Oliver dying.The other men tip their hats to Dad. Sorry for your troubles, mister, and surely you'll have a pint. Dad says yes to the pints and soon he's singing Roddy McCorley and Kevin Barry and song after song I never heard before and crying over his lovely little girl, Margaret, that died in America and his little boy,Oliver,dead beyond in the City Home Hospital.It frightens me the way he yells and cries and sings and I wish I could be at home with my three brothers, no, my two brothers, and my mother. The man behind the bar says to Dad,I think now,mister,you've had enough.We're sorry for your troubles but you have to take that child home to his mother that must be heartbroken by the ﬁre. 75

Dad says, One, one more pint, just one, eh? and the man says no. Dad shakes his ﬁst. I did me bit for Ireland, and when the man comes out and takes Dad's arm, Dad tries to push him away. Uncle Pa says, Come on now, Malachy, stop the blaguarding.You have to go home to Angela.You have a funeral tomorrow and the lovely children waiting for you. But Dad struggles till a few men push him out into the darkness. Uncle Pa stumbles out with the bag of food.Come on,he says.We'll go back to your room. Dad wants to go to another place for a pint but Uncle Pa says he has no more money. Dad says he'll tell everyone his sorrows and they'll give him pints. Uncle Pa says that's a disgraceful thing to do and Dad cries on his shoulder.You're a good friend, he tells Uncle Pa. He cries again till Uncle Pa pats him on the back.It's terrible,terrible,says Uncle Pa, but you'll get over this in time. Dad straightens up and looks at him. Never, he says. Never. Next day we rode to the hospital in a carriage with a horse.They put Oliver in a white box that came with us in the carriage and we took him to the graveyard.They put the white box into a hole in the ground and covered it with earth. My mother and Aunt Aggie cried, Grandma looked angry, Dad, Uncle Pa Keating, and Uncle Pat Sheehan looked sad but did not cry and I thought that if you're a man you can cry only when you have the black stuff that is called the pint. I did not like the jackdaws that perched on trees and gravestones and I did not want to leave Oliver with them. I threw a rock at a jack- daw that waddled over toward Oliver's grave. Dad said I shouldn't throw rocks at jackdaws, they might be somebody's soul. I didn't know what a soul was but I didn't ask him because I didn't care. Oliver was dead and I hated jackdaws. I'd be a man someday and I'd come back with a bag of rocks and I'd leave the graveyard littered with dead jackdaws. The morning after Oliver's burial Dad went to the Labour Exchange to sign and collect the week's dole,nineteen shillings and sixpence.He said he'd be home by noon,that he'd get coal and make a ﬁre,that we'd have 76

rashers and eggs and tea in honor of Oliver, that we might even have a sweet or two. He wasn't home by noon,or one,or two,and we boiled and ate the few potatoes the shopkeepers had given the day before.He wasn't home anytime before the sun went down that day in May.There was no sign of him till we heard him,long after the pubs closed,rolling along Wind- mill Street, singing, When all around a vigil keep, The West's asleep, the West's asleep— Alas, and well may Erin weep When Connacht lies in slumber deep. There lake and plain smile fair and free, 'Mid rocks their guardian chivalry. Sing, Oh, let man learn liberty From crashing wind and lashing sea. He stumbled into the room, hanging on to the wall.A snot oozed from his nose and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. He tried to speak. Zeeze shildren should be in bed. Lishen to me. Shildren go to bed. Mam faced him. These children are hungry. Where's the dole money? We'll get ﬁsh and chips so they'll have something in their bel- lies when they go to sleep. She tried to stick her hands into his pockets but he pushed her away. Have respheck, he said. Reshpeck in front of shildren. She struggled to get at his pockets.Where's the money? The chil- dren are hungry.You mad oul' bastard, did you drink all the money again? Just what you did in Brooklyn. He blubbered,Och,poor Angela.And poor wee Margaret and poor wee Oliver. He staggered to me and hugged me and I smelled the drink I used to smell in America. My face was wet from his tears and his spit and his snot and I was hungry and I didn't know what to say when he cried all over my head. Then he let me go and hugged Malachy, still going on about the wee sister and the wee brother cold in the ground,and how we all have to pray and be good, how we have to be obedient and do what our 77

mother tells us. He said we have our troubles but it's time for Malachy and me to start school because there's nothing like an education, it will stand to you in the end, and you have to get ready to do your bit for Ireland. Mam says she can't spend another minute in that room on Windmill Street. She can't sleep with the memory of Oliver in that room, Oliver in the bed,Oliver playing on the ﬂoor,Oliver sitting on Dad's lap by the ﬁre.She says it's not good for Eugene to be in that place,that a twin will suffer more over the loss of his brother than even a mother can under- stand.There's a room going on Hartstonge Street with two beds instead of the one we have here for the six of us, no, the ﬁve of us.We're get- ting that room and to make sure she's going to the Labour Exchange on Thursday to stand in the queue to take the dole money the minute it's handed to Dad. He says she can't do that, he'd be disgraced with the other men.The Labour Exchange is a place for men not for women tak- ing the money from under their noses. She says, Pity about you. If you didn't squander the money in the pubs I wouldn't have to follow you the way I did in Brooklyn. He tells her he'll be shamed forever. She says she doesn't care. She wants that room on Hartstonge Street, a nice warm comfortable room with a lavatory down the hall like the one in Brooklyn, a room with- out ﬂeas and the dampness that kills. She wants that room because it's on the same street as Leamy's National School and Malachy and I can come home at the dinner hour, which is noon, for a cup of tea and a cut of fried bread. On Thursday Mam follows Dad to the Labour Exchange. She marches in behind him and when the man pushes the money toward Dad she takes it.The other men on the dole nudge each other and grin and Dad is disgraced because a woman is never supposed to interfere with a man's dole money. He might want to put sixpence on a horse or have a pint and if all the women start acting like Mam the horses will stop running and Guinness will go broke. But she has the money now and we move to Hartstonge Street.Then she carries Eugene in her arms and we go up the street to Leamy's National School.The headmaster, Mr.Scallan,says we are to return on Monday with a composition book, a pencil, and a pen with a good nib on it.We are not to come to school with ringworm or lice and our noses are to be blown at all times, not 78

on the ﬂoor, that spreads the consumption, or on our sleeves, but in a handkerchief or a clean rag. He asks us if we are good boys and when we say we are, he says, Good Lord, what's this? Are they Yanks or what? Mam tells him about Margaret and Oliver and he says, Lord above, Lord above, there's great suffering in the world.Anyway, we'll put the little fellow, Malachy, in the infants' class and his brother in ﬁrst class. They're in the same room with one master. Monday morning, then, nine o'clock prompt. The boys in Leamy's want to know why we talk like that. Are ye Yanks or what? And when we tell them we came from America they want to know,Are ye gangsters or cowboys? A big boy sticks his face up to mine. I'm asking ye a question, he says.Are ye gangsters or cowboys? I tell him I don't know and when he pokes his ﬁnger into my chest Malachy says, I'm a gangster, Frank's a cowboy.The big boy says,Your little brother is smart and you're a stupid Yank. The boys around him are excited. Fight, they yell, ﬁght, and he pushes me so hard I fall. I want to cry but the blackness comes over me the way it did with Freddie Leibowitz and I rush at him, kicking and punching. I knock him down and try to grab his hair to bang his head on the ground but there's a sharp sting across the backs of my legs and I'm pulled away from him. Mr. Benson, the master, has me by the ear and he's whacking me across the legs.You little hooligan, he says. Is that the kind of behavior you brought from America? Well,by God,you'll behave yourself before I'm done with you. He tells me hold out one hand and then the other and hits me with his stick once on each hand. Go home now, he says, and tell your mother what a bad boy you were.You're a bad Yank. Say after me, I'm a bad boy. I'm a bad boy. Now say, I'm a bad Yank. I'm a bad Yank. Malachy says, He's not a bad boy. It's that big boy. He said we were cowboys and gangsters. Is that what you did, Heffernan? I was only jokin', sir. No more joking, Heffernan. It's not their fault that they're Yanks. 79

'Tisn't, sir. And you, Heffernan, should get down on your two knees every night and thank God you're not a Yank for if you were,Heffernan,you'd be the greatest gangster on two sides of the Atlantic.Al Capone would be coming to you for lessons.You're not to be bothering these two Yanks anymore, Heffernan. I won't, sir. And if you do, Heffernan, I'll hang your pelt on the wall. Now go home, all of ye. There are seven masters in Leamy's National School and they all have leather straps, canes, blackthorn sticks.They hit you with the sticks on the shoulders, the back, the legs, and, especially, the hands. If they hit you on the hands it's called a slap.They hit you if you're late, if you have a leaky nib on your pen, if you laugh, if you talk, and if you don't know things. They hit you if you don't know why God made the world, if you don't know the patron saint of Limerick, if you can't recite the Apos- tles'Creed,if you can't add nineteen to forty-seven,if you can't subtract nineteen from forty-seven,if you don't know the chief towns and prod- ucts of the thirty-two counties of Ireland, if you can't ﬁnd Bulgaria on the wall map of the world that's blotted with spit, snot, and blobs of ink thrown by angry pupils expelled forever. They hit you if you can't say your name in Irish,if you can't say the Hail Mary in Irish, if you can't ask for the lavatory pass in Irish. It helps to listen to the big boys ahead of you.They can tell you about the master you have now, what he likes and what he hates. One master will hit you if you don't know that Eamon De Valera is the greatest man that ever lived.Another master will hit you if you don't know that Michael Collins was the greatest man that ever lived. Mr. Benson hates America and you have to remember to hate America or he'll hit you. Mr. O'Dea hates England and you have to remember to hate England or he'll hit you. If you ever say anything good about Oliver Cromwell they'll all hit you. 80

Even if they slap you six times on each hand with the ash plant or the blackthorn with the knobs you must not cry.You'll be a sissy.There are boys who might jeer at you and mock you on the street but even they have to be careful because the day will come when the master hits and slaps them and they have to keep the tears behind their eyes or be disgraced forever. Some boys say it is better to cry because that pleases the masters. If you don't cry the masters hate you because you've made them look weak before the class and they promise themselves the next time they have you up they'll draw tears or blood or both. Big boys in ﬁfth class tell us Mr. O'Dea likes to get you in front of the class so that he can stand behind you, pinch your sideburns, which are called cossicks, pull up on them. Up, up, he says, till you're on tiptoe and the tears are ﬁlling your eyes.You don't want the boys in the class to see you cry but pulling on the cossicks makes the tears come whether you like it or not and the master likes that. Mr. O'Dea is the one mas- ter who can always bring the tears and the shame. It is better not to cry because you have to stick with the boys in the school and you never want to give the masters any satisfaction. If the master hits you there's no use complaining to your father or mother.They always say,You deserve it. Don't be a baby. I know Oliver is dead and Malachy knows Oliver is dead but Eugene is too small to know anything.When he wakes in the morning he says, Ollie, Ollie, and toddles around the room looking under the beds or he climbs up on the bed by the window and points to children on the street,especially children with fair hair like him and Oliver.Ollie,Ollie, he says, and Mam picks him up, sobs, hugs him. He struggles to get down because he doesn't want to be picked up and hugged. He wants to ﬁnd Oliver. Dad and Mam tell him Oliver is in heaven playing with angels and we'll all see him again someday but he doesn't understand because he's only two and doesn't have the words and that's the worst thing in the whole world. Malachy and I play with him. We try to make him laugh. We make funny faces.We put pots on our heads and pretend to let them fall off.We run across the room and pretend to fall down.We take him to the People's Park to see the lovely ﬂowers, play with dogs, roll in the grass. 81

He sees small children with fair hair like Oliver.He doesn't say Ollie anymore. He only points. Dad says Eugene is lucky to have brothers like Malachy and me because we help him forget and soon, with God's help, he'll have no memory of Oliver at all. He died anyway. Six months after Oliver went, we woke on a mean November morning and there was Eugene,cold in the bed beside us.Dr.Troy came and said that child died of pneumonia and why wasn't he in the hospi- tal long ago? Dad said he didn't know and Mam said she didn't know and Dr.Troy said that's why children die. People don't know. He said if Malachy or I showed the slightest sign of a cough or the faintest rattle in the throat we were to be brought to him no matter what time of day or night.We were to be kept dry at all times because there seemed to be a bit of a weakness in the chest in this family. He told Mam he was very sorry for her troubles and he'd give her a prescription for some- thing to ease the pain of the days to come. He said God was asking too much, too damn much. Grandma came over to our room with Aunt Aggie. She washed Eugene, and Aunt Aggie went to a shop for a little white gown and a set of rosary beads.They dressed him in a white gown and laid him on the bed by the window where he used to look out for Oliver.They placed his hands on his chest, one hand on top of the other, bound in the little white rosary beads. Grandma brushed the hair back from his eyes and forehead and she said, Doesn't he have lovely soft silky hair? Mam went to the bed and pulled a blanket over his legs to keep him warm.Grandma and Aunt Aggie looked at each other and said nothing. Dad stood at the end of the bed beating his ﬁsts against his thighs, talk- ing to Eugene, telling him, Och, it was the River Shannon that harmed you, the dampness from that river that came and took you and Oliver. Grandma said, Will you stop that? You're making the whole house nervous. She took Dr. Troy's prescription and told me run over to O'Connor the chemist for the pills, that there would be no charge due to the kindness of Dr.Troy. Dad said he'd come with me, that we'd go to the Jesuit church and say a prayer for Margaret and Oliver and Eugene, all happy in heaven.The chemist gave us the pills, we stopped 82

to say the prayers, and when we returned to the room, Grandma gave Dad money to bring a few bottles of stout from the pub.Mam said,No, no, but Grandma said, He doesn't have the pills to ease him, God help us, and a bottle of stout will be some small comfort.Then she told him he'd have to go to the undertaker tomorrow to bring the cofﬁn back in a carriage. She told me to go with my father and make sure he didn't stay in the pub all night and drink all the money.Dad said,Och,Frankie shouldn't be in pubs, and she said,Then don't stay there. He put on his cap and we went to South's pub and he told me at the door I could go home now, that he'd be home after one pint. I said, No, and he said, Don't be disobedient.Go home to your poor mother.I said,No,and he said I was a bad boy and God would be displeased. I said I wasn't going home without him and he said, Och, what is the world coming to? He had one quick pint of porter in the pub and we went home with the bottles of stout. Pa Keating was in our room with a small bottle of whiskey and bottles of stout and Uncle Pat Sheehan brought two bot- tles of stout for himself.Uncle Pat sat on the ﬂoor with his arms around his bottles and he kept saying,They're mine,they're mine,for fear they'd be taken from him. People who were dropped on their heads always worry someone will steal their stout. Grandma said,All right, Pat, drink your stout yourself.No one will bother you.She and Aunt Aggie sat on the bed by Eugene.Pa Keating sat at the kitchen table drinking his stout and offering everyone a sip of his whiskey. Mam took her pills and sat by the ﬁre with Malachy on her lap. She kept saying Malachy had hair like Eugene and Aunt Aggie said no he did not till Grandma drove her elbow into Aunt Aggie's chest and told her shut up. Dad stood against the wall drinking his stout between the ﬁreplace and the bed with Eugene.Pa Keating told stories and the big people laughed even though they didn't want to laugh or they weren't supposed to laugh in the pres- ence of a dead child.He said when he was in the English army in France the Germans sent gas over which made him so sick they had to take him to the hospital.They kept him in the hospital a while and then sent him back to the trenches. English soldiers were sent home but they didn't give a ﬁddler's fart about the Irish soldiers, whether they lived or died. Instead of dying Pa made a vast fortune. He said he solved one of the great problems of trench warfare. In the trenches it was so wet and muddy they had no way of boiling the water for the tea.He said to him- self,Jasus,I have all this gas in my system and 'tis a great pity to waste it. 83

So he shoved a pipe up his arse, lit a match to it, and there in a second he had a ﬁne ﬂame ready to boil water in any billycan.Tommies came running from trenches all around when they heard the news and they gave him any amount of money if he'd let them boil water.He made so much money he was able to bribe the generals to let him out of the army and off he went to Paris where he had a ﬁne time drinking wine with artists and models. He had such a high time of it he spent all his money and when he came back to Limerick the only job he could get was in the gas works shoveling coal into the furnaces.He said there was so much gas in his system now he could supply light to a small town for a year. Aunt Aggie sniffed and said that was not a proper story to be telling in the presence of a dead child and Grandma said it was better to have a story like that than to be sitting around with the long face. Uncle Pat Sheehan,sitting on the ﬂoor with his stout,said he was going to sing a song. More power to you, said Pa Keating, and Uncle Pat sang "The Road to Rasheen." He kept saying, Rasheen, Rasheen, mavourneen mean, and the song made no sense because his father dropped him on his head long ago and every time he sang that song he had different words. Grandma said that was a ﬁne song and Pa Keating said Caruso better look over his shoulder. Dad went over to the bed in the corner where he slept with Mam. He sat on the edge, put his bot- tle on the ﬂoor, covered his face with his hands and cried. He said, Frank, Frank, come here, and I had to go to him so that he could hug me the way Mam was hugging Malachy. Grandma said,We better go now and sleep a bit before the funeral tomorrow.They each knelt by the bed and said a prayer and kissed Eugene's forehead. Dad put me down, stood up and nodded to them as they left.When they were gone he lifted each of the stout bottles to his mouth and drained it. He ran his ﬁnger inside the whiskey bottle and licked it. He turned down the ﬂame in the parafﬁn oil lamp on the table and said it was time for Malachy and me to be in bed.We'd have to sleep with him and Mam that night as little Eugene would be needing the bed for himself. It was dark in the room now except for the sliver of streetlight that fell on Eugene's lovely soft silky hair. Dad lights the ﬁre in the morning,makes the tea,toasts the bread in the ﬁre. He brings Mam's toast and tea but she waves it away and turns to the wall. He brings Malachy and me to Eugene to kneel and say a 84

prayer.He says the prayers of one child like us are worth more in heaven than the prayers of ten cardinals and forty bishops. He shows us how to bless ourselves, In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.Amen, and he says, Dear God, this is what you want, isn't it? You want my son, Eugene.You took his brother, Oliver,You took his sister, Margaret. I'm not supposed to question that, am I? Dear God above, I don't know why children have to die but that is Your will.You told the river to kill and the Shannon killed. Could You at last be merciful? Could You leave us the children we have? That is all we ask.Amen. He helps Malachy and me wash our heads and feet so that we'll be clean for Eugene's funeral.We have to be very quiet even when he hurts us cleaning our ears with the corner of the towel we brought from America.We have to be quiet because Eugene is there with his eyes closed and we don't want him to be waking up and looking out the window for Oliver. Grandma comes and tells Mam she has to get up.There are children dead, she says, but there are children alive and they need their mother. She brings Mam a little tea in a mug to wash down the pills that ease the pain.Dad tells Grandma it's Thursday and he has to go to the Labour Exchange for the dole and then down to the undertaker to bring the mourning carriage and the cofﬁn. Grandma tells him to take me with him but he says it's better for me to stay with Malachy so that I can pray for my little brother dead in the bed.Grandma says,Is it coddin'me you are? Pray for a little child that's barely two and already playing with his little brother in heaven? You'll take your son with you and he'll remind you this is no day for the pubs.She looks at him and he looks at her and he puts on his cap. At the Labour Exchange we stand at the end of the queue till a man comes from behind the counter and tells Dad he's very sorry for his troubles and he should go ahead of everyone else on this sorrowful day. Men touch their caps and say they're sorry for his troubles and some pat my head and give me pennies, twenty-four pennies, two shillings. Dad tells me I'm rich now and I should buy myself a sweet while he goes into this place for a minute. I know this place is a pub and I know he wants to get the black stuff that is called a pint but I don't say anything because I want to go to the shop next door for a piece of toffee. I chew my toffee till it melts and leaves my mouth all sweet and sticky. Dad is still in the pub and I wonder if I should get another piece of toffee as 85

long as he's in there with the pint. I'm about to give the money to the woman in the shop when my hand is slapped down and there's Aunt Aggie, raging. Is this what you do, she says, on the day of your brother's funeral? Gorgin' yourself on sweets.And where's that father of yours? He's, he's, in the pub. Of course he's in the pub.You out here stufﬁn' yourself with sweets and him in there gettin'himself into a staggerin'condition the day your poor little brother goes to the graveyard. She tells the shop woman, Just like his father, the same odd manner, the same oul' northern jaw. She tells me get into that pub and tell my father to stop the drink- ing and get the cofﬁn and the carriage. She will not set foot inside the pub for the drink is the curse of this poor godforsaken country. Dad is sitting at the back of the pub with a man who has a dirty face and hair growing out of his nose.They're not talking but staring straight ahead and their black pints are resting on a small white cofﬁn on the seat between them. I know that's Eugene's cofﬁn because Oliver had one like it and I want to cry when I see the black pints on top of it.I'm sorry now I ever ate that toffee and I wish I could take it out of my stomach and give it back to the woman in the shop because it's not right to be eating toffee when Eugene is dead in the bed and I'm frightened by the two black pints on his white cofﬁn.The man with Dad is saying, No, mister, you can't leave a child's cofﬁn in a carriage no more. I did that once,went in for a pint and they robbed that little cofﬁn out of the bloody carriage.Can you credit that? It was empty,thank God,but there you are. Desperate times we live in, desperate.The man with Dad lifts his pint and takes a long swallow and when he puts his glass down there's a hollow sound in the cofﬁn. Dad nods at me.We'll be going in a minute, son, but when he goes to put his glass on the cofﬁn after the long swallow I push it away. That's Eugene's cofﬁn. I'll tell Mam you put your glass on Eugene's cofﬁn. Now, son. Now, son. Dad, that's Eugene's cofﬁn. The other man says,Will we have another pint, mister? Dad says to me,Wait outside another few minutes, Francis. Don't be a bad boy. 86

The other man says, By Jesus, if that was my son I'd kick his arse from here to the County Kerry. He have no right to be talkin' to his father in that manner on a sorrowful day. If a man can't have a pint the day of a funeral what's the use of livin' at all, at all. Dad says,All right.We'll go. They ﬁnish their pints and wipe the wet brown stains off the cofﬁn with their sleeves.The man climbs up to the driver's seat of the carriage and Dad and I ride inside. He has the cofﬁn on his lap and he presses it against his chest. At home our room is ﬁlled with big people, Mam, Grandma, Aunt Aggie, her husband, Pa Keating, Uncle Pat Sheehan, Uncle Tom Sheehan,who is Mam's oldest brother and who never came near us before because he hates people from the North of Ireland. Uncle Tom has his wife, Jane, with him. She's from Galway and people say she has the look of a Spaniard and that's why no one in the family talks to her. The man takes the cofﬁn from Dad and when he brings it into the room Mam moans, Oh, no, oh, God, no.The man tells Grandma he'll be back in awhile to take us to the graveyard. Grandma tells him he'd better not come back to this house in a drunken state because this child that's going to the graveyard suffered greatly and deserves a bit of dig- nity and she won't put up with a driver that's drunk and ready to fall out of the high seat. The man says, Missus, I drove dozens o' children to the graveyard an' never once fell out of any seat, high or low. The men are drinking stout from bottles again and the women are sip- ping sherry from jam jars. Uncle Pat Sheehan tells everyone,This is my stout, this is my stout, and Grandma says, 'Tis all right, Pat. No one will take your stout.Then he says he wants to sing "The Road to Rasheen" till Pa Keating says, No, Pat, you can't sing on the day of a funeral.You can sing the night before. But Uncle Pat keeps saying,This is my stout and I want to sing "The Road to Rasheen," and everyone knows he talks like that because he was dropped on his head. He starts to sing his song but stops when Grandma takes the lid off the cofﬁn and Mam sobs, Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus, will it ever stop? Will I be left with one child? Mam is sitting on a chair at the head of the bed. She's stroking Eugene's hair and face and hands. She tells him that of all the children 87

in the world he was the sweetest and the most delicate and loving. She tells him 'tis a terrible thing to lose him but isn't he in heaven now with his brother and his sister and isn't that a comfort to us, knowing Oliver is no longer lonesome for his twin. Still, she puts her head down next to Eugene and cries so hard all the women in the room cry with her. She cries till Pa Keating tells her we have to go before the darkness falls, that we can't be in graveyards in the dark. Grandma whispers to Aunt Aggie,Who'll put the child in the cof- ﬁn? and Aunt Aggie whispers, I won't.That's the job for the mother. Uncle Pat hears them. I'll put the child in the cofﬁn, he says. He limps to the bed and places his arms around Mam's shoulders.She looks up at him and her face is drenched.He says,I'll put the child in the cof- ﬁn,Angela. Oh, Pat, she says. Pat. I can do it, he says. Sure he's only a small child an' I never lifted a small child before in my life. I never had a small child in me arms. I won't drop him,Angela. I won't. Honest to God, I won't. I know you won't, Pat. I know you won't. I'll lift him an' I won't be singin'"The Road to Rasheen." I know you won't, Pat, Mam says. Pat pulls down the blanket Mam put there to keep Eugene warm. Eugene's feet are white and bright with little blue veins.Pat bends over, picks up Eugene and holds him against his chest. He kisses Eugene's forehead and then everyone in the room kisses Eugene. He places Eugene in the cofﬁn and steps back.We are all gathered around look- ing at Eugene for the last time. Uncle Pat says, See, I didn't drop him, Angela, and she touches his face. Aunt Aggie goes to the pub for the driver. He puts the lid on the cofﬁn and screws it down. He says,Who's comin' in the carriage? and takes the cofﬁn to the carriage.There's room only for Mam and Dad, Malachy and me. Grandma says,Ye go ahead to the graveyard and we'll wait here. I don't know why we can't keep Eugene. I don't know why they have to send him away with that man who puts his pint on the white cofﬁn.I don't know why they had to send Margaret away and Oliver.It is a bad thing to put my sister and my brothers in a box and I wish I could say something to someone. 88

The horse clop-clopped through the streets of Limerick. Malachy said, Are we going to see Oliver? and Dad said, No, Oliver is in heaven and don't ask me what heaven is because I don't know. Mam said, Heaven is a place where Oliver and Eugene and Mar- garet are happy and warm and we'll see them there some day. Malachy said,The horse did his doodoo on the street and there was a smell, and Mam and Dad had to smile. At the graveyard the driver climbs down and opens the door of the car- riage. Gimme that cofﬁn, he says, an' I'll carry it up to the grave. He yanks at the cofﬁn and stumbles.Mam says,You're not carrying my child in the condition you're in. She turns to Dad.You carry him, she says. Do what you like,says the driver.Do what you bloody well like,and he climbs up to his seat. It's getting dark now and the cofﬁn seems whiter than ever in Dad's arms.Mam takes our hands and we follow Dad through the graves.The jackdaws are quiet in the trees because their day is nearly over and they have to rest so that they can get up early in the morning and feed their babies. Two men with shovels are waiting by a small open grave. One man says,Ye are very late. Good thing this is a small job or we'd be gone. He climbs into the grave. Hand it to me, he says, and Dad hands him the cofﬁn. The man sprinkles some straw and grass on the cofﬁn and as he climbs out the other man shovels in the earth. Mam lets out a long cry, Oh,Jesus,Jesus,and a jackdaw croaks in a tree.I wish I had a rock to hit that jackdaw. When the men ﬁnish shoveling in the earth they wipe their foreheads and wait. One says,Ah, well, now, there's usually a little something for the thirst that's in it. Dad says, Oh, yes, yes, and gives them money.They say, Sorry for your troubles, and they leave. We make our way back to the carriage at the graveyard gate but the carriage is gone. Dad looks around in the darkness and comes back shaking his head. Mam says, That driver is nothing but a dirty old drunkard, God forgive me. 89

It's a long walk from the graveyard to our room. Mam tells Dad, These children need some nourishment and you have money left from the dole this morning. If you're thinking of going to the pubs tonight you can forget it.We're taking them to Naughton's and they can have ﬁsh and chips and lemonade for 'tisn't every day they bury a brother. The ﬁsh and chips are delicious with vinegar and salt and the lemonade is tart in our throats. When we get home the room is empty.There are empty stout bot- tles on the table and the ﬁre is out. Dad lights the parafﬁn oil lamp and you can see the hollow left in the pillow by Eugene's head.You expect to hear him and see him toddling across the room, climbing up on the bed to look out the window for Oliver. Dad tells Mam he's going out for a walk. She says no. She knows what he's up to, that he can't wait to spend his last few shillings in the pubs.All right, he says. He lights the ﬁre and Mam makes tea and soon we're in bed. Malachy and I are back in the bed where Eugene died. I hope he's not cold in that white cofﬁn in the graveyard though I know he's not there anymore because angels come to the graveyard and open the cof- ﬁn and he's far from the Shannon dampness that kills, up in the sky in heaven with Oliver and Margaret where they have plenty of ﬁsh and chips and toffee and no aunts to bother you, where all the fathers bring home the money from the Labour Exchange and you don't have to be running around to pubs to ﬁnd them. 90

III Mam says she can't spend another minute in that room on Hart- stonge Street. She sees Eugene morning, noon and night. She sees him climbing the bed to look out at the street for Oliver and sometimes she sees Oliver outside and Eugene inside, the two of them chatting away. She's happy they're chatting like that but she doesn't want to be seeing and hearing them the rest of her life. It's a shame to move when we're so near Leamy's National School but if she doesn't move soon she'll go out of her mind and wind up in the lunatic asylum. We move to Roden Lane on top of a place called Barrack Hill. There are six houses on one side of the lane, one on the opposite side. The houses are called two up,two down,two rooms on top,two on the bottom. Our house is at the end of the lane, the last of the six. Next to our door is a small shed, a lavatory, and next to that a stable. Mam goes to the St.Vincent de Paul Society to see if there's any chance of getting furniture.The man says he'll give us a docket for a table, two chairs, and two beds. He says we'll have to go to a second- hand furniture shop down in the Irishtown and haul the furniture home ourselves. Mam says we can use the pram she had for the twins and when she says that she cries. She wipes her eyes on her sleeves and asks the man if the beds we're getting are secondhand.He says of course they are, and she says she's very worried about sleeping in beds some- 91

one might have died in, especially if they had the consumption.The man says, I'm very sorry, but beggars can't be choosers. It takes us all day to haul the furniture on the pram from one end of Limerick to the other.There are four wheels on the pram but one is bockety, it wants to go in a different direction.We have two beds, one sideboard with a mirror, a table and two chairs.We're happy with the house.We can walk from room to room and up and down the stairs.You feel very rich when you can go up and down the stairs all day as much as you please. Dad lights the ﬁre and Mam makes the tea. He sits at the table on one chair, she sits on the other and Malachy and I sit on the trunk we brought from America.While we're drinking our tea an old man passes our door with a bucket in his hand. He empties the bucket into the lavatory and ﬂushes and there's a powerful stink in our kitchen. Mam goes to the door and says,Why are you emptying your bucket in our lavatory? He raises his cap to her.Your lavatory, missus? Ah, no. You're making a bit of a mistake there, ha, ha.This is not your lavatory. Sure, isn't this the lavatory for the whole lane.You'll see passing your door here the buckets of eleven families and I can tell you it gets very powerful here in the warm weather, very powerful altogether. 'Tis December now, thank God, with a chill in the air and Christmas around the corner and the lavatory isn't that bad,but the day will come when you'll be calling for a gas mask.So,good night to you,missus,and I hope you'll be happy in your house. Mam says, Wait a minute, sir. Could you tell me who cleans this lavatory? Cleans? Ah, Jasus,that's a good one.Cleans,she says.Is it joking you are? These houses were built in the time of Queen Victoria herself and if this lavatory was ever cleaned it must have been done by someone in the middle of the night when no one was lookin'. And he shufﬂes up the lane laughing away to himself. Mam comes back to her chair and her tea.We can't stay here, she says.That lavatory will kill us with all diseases. Dad says,We can't move again.Where will we get a house for six shillings a week? We'll keep the lavatory clean ourselves. We'll boil buckets of water and throw them in there. Oh, will we? says Mam, and where will we get the coal or turf or blocks to be boiling water? Dad says nothing. He ﬁnishes his tea and looks for a nail to hang our one picture.The man in the picture has a thin face. He wears a yel- 92

low skullcap and a black robe with a cross on his chest. Dad says he was a Pope,Leo the Thirteenth,a great friend of the workingman.He brought this picture all the way from America where he found it thrown out by someone who had no time for the workingman. Mam says he's talking a lot of bloody nonsense and he says she shouldn't say bloody in front of the children. Dad ﬁnds a nail but wonders how he's going to get it into the wall without a hammer. Mam says he could go borrow one from the people next door but he says you don't go around borrowing from people you don't know. He leans the picture against the wall and drives the nail with the bottom of a jam jar.The jam jar breaks and cuts his hand and a blob of blood falls on the Pope's head.He wraps his hand in the dish rag and tells Mam,Quick,quick,wipe the blood off the Pope before it dries. She tries to wipe the blood away with her sleeve but it's wool and spreads the blood till the whole side of the Pope's face is smeared. Dad says, Lord above, Angela, you've destroyed the Pope entirely,and she says,Arrah,stop your whining,we'll get some paint and go over his face some day, and Dad says, He's the only Pope that was ever a friend to the workingman and what are we to say if someone from the St.Vincent de Paul Society comes in and sees blood all over him? Mam says, I don't know. It's your blood and 'tis a sad thing when a man can't even drive a nail straight. It just goes to show how useless you are.You'd be better off digging ﬁelds and anyway I don't care.I have pain in my back and I'm going to bed. Och, what am I going to do? Dad says. Take down the Pope and hide him in the coal hole under the stairs where he won't be seen and he'll be out of harm's way. I can't, says Dad. It would be bad luck. Coal hole is no place for a Pope.When the Pope is up, he's up. Suit yourself, says Mam. I will, says Dad. This is our ﬁrst Christmas in Limerick and the girls are out in the lane, skipping rope and singing, Christmas is coming And the goose is getting fat, Please put a penny In the old man's hat. 93

If you haven't a penny A ha'penny will do And if you haven't a ha'penny God bless you. Boys tease the girls and call out, May your mother have an accident Abroad in the loo. Mam says she'd like to have a nice Christmas dinner but what can you do when the Labour Exchange reduces the dole to sixteen shillings after Oliver and Eugene died? You pay the rent of six shillings,you have ten shillings left, and what use is that to four people? Dad can't get any work. He gets up early on weekdays, lights the ﬁre, boils water for the tea and his shaving mug. He puts on a shirt and attaches a collar with studs. He puts on his tie and his cap and goes to the Labour Exchange to sign for the dole.He will never leave the house without collar and tie.A man without collar and tie is a man with no respect for himself. You never know when the clerk at the Labour Exchange might tell you there's a job going at Rank's Flour Mills or the Limerick Cement Company, and even if it's a laboring job what will they think if you appear without collar and tie? Bosses and foremen always show him respect and say they're ready to hire him, but when he opens his mouth and they hear the North of Ireland accent, they take a Limerickman instead. That's what he tells Mam by the ﬁre and when she says,Why don't you dress like a proper workingman? he says he'll never give an inch,never let them know,and when she says,Why can't you try to talk like a Limerickman? he says he'll never sink that low and the greatest sorrow of his life is that his sons are now afﬂicted with the Limerick accent.She says,Sorry for your troubles and I hope that's all you'll ever have, and he says that some day, with God's help, we'll get out of Limerick and far from the Shannon that kills. I ask Dad what afﬂicted means and he says,Sickness,son,and things that don't ﬁt. When he's not looking for work Dad goes for long walks,miles into the country. He asks farmers if they need any help, that he grew up on 94

a farm and can do anything.If they hire him he goes to work right away with his cap on and his collar and tie. He works so hard and long the farmers have to tell him to stop.They wonder how a man can work through a long hot day with no thought of food or drink. Dad smiles. He never brings home the money he earns on farms.That money seems to be different from the dole, which is supposed to be brought home. He takes the farm money to the pub and drinks it. If he's not home when the Angelus rings at six o'clock Mam knows he had a day of work. She hopes he might think of his family and pass the pub even once, but he never does. She hopes he might bring home something from the farm, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, carrots, but he'll never bring home anything because he'd never stoop so low as to ask a farmer for anything. Mam says 'tis all right for her to be begging at the St.Vincent de Paul Society for a docket for food but he can't stick a few spuds in his pocket. He says it's different for a man.You have to keep the dignity. Wear your collar and tie,keep up the appearance,and never ask for any- thing. Mam says, I hope it keeps ﬁne for you. When the farm money is gone he rolls home singing and crying over Ireland and his dead children, mostly about Ireland. If he sings Roddy McCorley,it means he had only the price of a pint or two.If he sings Kevin Barry, it means he had a good day, that he is now falling down drunk and ready to get us out of bed, line us up and make us promise to die for Ireland, unless Mam tells him leave us alone or she'll brain him with the poker. You wouldn't do that,Angela. I would and more.You better stop the nonsense and go to bed. Bed,bed,bed.What's the use of going to bed? If I go to bed I'll only have to get up again and I can't sleep in a place where there's a river sending poison to us in mist and fog. He goes to bed, pounds the wall with his ﬁst, sings a woeful song, falls asleep. He's up at daylight because no one should sleep beyond the dawn. He wakes Malachy and me and we're tired from being kept up the night before with his talking and singing.We complain and say we're sick,we're tired,but he pulls back the overcoats that cover us and forces us out on the ﬂoor. It's December and it's freezing and we can see our breath.We pee into the bucket by the bedroom door and run down stairs for the warmth of the ﬁre Dad has already started.We wash our faces and hands in a basin that sits under the water tap by the door.The 95

pipe that leads to the tap has to be held to the wall by a piece of twine looped around a nail. Everything around the tap is damp, the ﬂoor, the wall, the chair the basin sits on.The water from the tap is icy and our ﬁngers turn numb. Dad says this is good for us, it will make men of us. He throws the icy water on his face and neck and chest to show there's nothing to fear.We hold our hands to the ﬁre for the heat that's in it but we can't stay there long because we have to drink our tea and eat our bread and go to school. Dad makes us say grace before meals and grace after meals and he tells us be good boys at school because God is watch- ing every move and the slightest disobedience will send us straight to hell where we'll never have to worry about the cold again. And he smiles. Two weeks before Christmas Malachy and I come home from school in a heavy rain and when we push in the door we ﬁnd the kitchen empty.The table and chairs and trunk are gone and the ﬁre is dead in the grate. The Pope is still there and that means we haven't moved again. Dad would never move without the Pope.The kitchen ﬂoor is wet, little pools of water all around, and the walls are twinkling with the damp.There's a noise upstairs and when we go up we ﬁnd Dad and Mam and the missing furniture.It's nice and warm there with a ﬁre blazing in the grate, Mam sitting in the bed, and Dad reading The Irish Press and smoking a cigarette by the ﬁre. Mam tells us there was a ter- rible ﬂood, that the rain came down the lane and poured in under our door.They tried to stop it with rags but they only turned sopping wet and let the rain in. People emptying their buckets made it worse and there was a sickening stink in the kitchen. She thinks we should stay upstairs as long as there is rain. We'll be warm through the winter months and then we can go downstairs in the springtime if there is any sign of a dryness in the walls or the ﬂoor. Dad says it's like going away on our holidays to a warm foreign place like Italy.That's what we'll call the upstairs from now on,Italy.Malachy says the Pope is still on the wall downstairs and he's going to be all cold and couldn't we bring him up? but Mam says, No, he's going to stay where he is because I don't want him on the wall glaring at me in the bed.Isn't it enough that we dragged him all the way from Brooklyn to Belfast to Dublin to Limerick? All I want now is a little peace, ease and comfort. 96

Mam takes Malachy and me to the St.Vincent de Paul Society to stand in the queue and see if there's any chance of getting something for the Christmas dinner—a goose or a ham, but the man says everyone in Limerick is desperate this Christmas.He gives her a docket for groceries at McGrath's shop and another one for the butcher. No goose, says the butcher, no ham. No fancy items when you bring the docket from the St.Vincent de Paul.What you can have now, missus, is black pudding and tripe or a sheep's head or a nice pig's head. No harm in a pig's head, missus, plenty of meat and children love it, slice that cheek, slather it with mustard and you're in heaven, though I suppose they wouldn't have the likes of that in America where they're mad for the steak and all classes of poultry, ﬂying, walking or swim- ming itself. He tells Mam,no,she can't have boiled bacon or sausages and if she has any sense she'll take the pig's head before they're all gone the way the poor people of Limerick are clamoring for them. Mam says the pig's head isn't right for Christmas and he says 'tis more than the Holy Family had in that cold stable in Bethlehem long ago.You wouldn't ﬁnd them complaining if someone offered them a nice fat pig's head. No, they wouldn't complain, says Mam, but they'd never eat the pig's head.They were Jewish. And what does that have to do with it? A pig's head is a pig's head. And a Jew is a Jew and 'tis against their religion and I don't blame them. The butcher says,Are you a bit of an expert,missus,on the Jews and the pig. I am not,says Mam,but there was a Jewish woman,Mrs.Leibowitz, in New York,and I don't know what we would have done without her. The butcher takes the pig's head off a shelf and when Malachy says, Ooh, look at the dead dog, the butcher and Mam burst out laughing. He wraps the head in newspaper, hands it to Mam and says, Happy Christmas.Then he wraps up some sausages and tells her,Take these sausages for your breakfast on Christmas Day. Mam says, Oh, I can't afford sausages, and he says, Am I asking you for money? Am I? Take these sausages. They might help make up for the lack of a goose or a ham. Sure, you don't have to do that, says Mam. 97

I know that, missus. If I had to do it, I wouldn't. Mam says she has a pain in her back, that I'll have to carry the pig's head. I hold it against my chest but it's damp and when the newspaper begins to fall away everyone can see the head. Mam says, I'm ashamed of me life that the world should know we're having pig's head for Christmas. Boys from Leamy's National School see me and they point and laugh.Aw,Gawd,look at Frankie McCourt an'his pig's snout.Is that what the Yanks ate for Christmas dinner, Frankie? One calls to another, Hey, Christy, do you know how to ate a pig's head? No, I don't, Paddy. Grab him by the ears an' chew the face offa him. And Christy says, Hey, Paddy, do you know the only part of the pig the McCourts don't ate? No, I don't, Christy. The only part they don't ate is the oink. After a few streets the newspaper is gone altogether and everyone can see the pig's head. His nose is ﬂat against my chest and pointing up at my chin and I feel sorry for him because he's dead and the world is laughing at him. My sister and two brothers are dead, too, but if anyone laughed at them I'd hit them with a rock. I wish Dad would come and help us because Mam has to stop every few steps and lean against a wall. She's holding her back and telling us she'll never be able to climb Barrack Hill. Even if Dad came he wouldn't be much use because he never carries anything, parcels, bags, packages. If you carry such things you lose your dignity.That's what he says. He carried the twins when they were tired and he carried the Pope, but that was not the same as carrying ordinary things like a pig's head. He tells Malachy and me that when you grow up you have to wear a collar and tie and never let people see you carry things. He's upstairs sitting by the ﬁre,smoking a cigarette,reading The Irish Press, which he loves because it's De Valera's paper and he thinks De Valera is the greatest man in the world. He looks at me and the pig's head and tells Mam it's a disgraceful thing to let a boy carry an object like that through the streets of Limerick.She takes off her coat and eases herself into the bed and tells him that next Christmas he can go out and ﬁnd the dinner. She's worn out and gasping for a cup of tea so would he drop his grand airs, boil the water for the tea and fry some bread before his two small sons starve to death. 98

On Christmas morning he lights the ﬁre early so that we can have sausages and bread and tea.Mam sends me to Grandma to see if we can borrow a pot for the pig's head. Grandma says,What are ye having for yeer dinner? Pig's head! Jesus, Mary an' Joseph, that's goin' beyond the beyonds.Couldn't your father get out and ﬁnd a ham or a goose at least? What kind of man is he at all, at all? Mam puts the head in the pot, just covered with water, and while the pig is boiling away Dad takes Malachy and me to Mass at the Redemptorist church. It's warm in the church and sweet with ﬂowers and incense and candles. He takes us to see the Baby Jesus in the crib. He's a big fat baby with fair curls like Malachy. Dad tells us that's Jesus' mother there, Mary, in the blue dress, and his father, St. Joseph, the old man with the beard. He says they're sad because they know Jesus will grow up and be killed so that we can all go to heaven. I ask why the Baby Jesus has to die and Dad says you can't ask questions like that. Malachy says,Why? and Dad tells him be quiet. Mam is in a terrible state at home.There isn't enough coal to cook the dinner, the water isn't boiling anymore and she says she's demented with worry.We'll have to go down the Dock Road again to see if there's any coal or turf lying around from the lorries. Surely we'll ﬁnd some- thing on the road this day of all days.Even the poorest of the poor don't go out on Christmas Day picking coal off the road.There's no use ask- ing Dad to go because he will never stoop that low and even if he did he won't carry things through the streets. It's a rule he has. Mam can't go because of the pain in her back. She says,You'll have to go, Frank, and take Malachy with you. It's a long way to the Dock Road but we don't mind because our bellies are ﬁlled with sausages and bread and it's not raining.We carry a canvas bag Mam borrowed from Mrs. Hannon next door and Mam is right,there is no one on the Dock Road.The poor are all at home hav- ing pig's head or maybe a goose and we have the Dock Road to our- selves.We ﬁnd bits of coal and turf stuck in cracks on the road and in the walls of the coal yards.We ﬁnd bits of paper and cardboard that will be useful in starting the ﬁre again.We're wandering around trying to ﬁll the bag when Pa Keating comes along. He must have washed himself for Christmas because he's not as black as he was when Eugene died. He wants to know what we're doing with that bag and when Malachy tells him he says, Jesus, Mary and Holy St. Joseph! Christmas Day and ye don't have a ﬁre for yeer pig's head.That's a bloody disgrace. 99

He takes us to South's pub, which is not supposed to be open, but he's a regular customer and there's a back door for men who want their pint to celebrate the birthday of the Baby Jesus above in the crib. He orders his pint and lemonade for us and asks the man if there's any chance of getting a few lumps of coal.The man says he's been serving drink for twenty-seven years and nobody ever asked him for coal before. Pa says it would be a favor and the man says if Pa asked for the moon he'd ﬂy up and bring it back.The man leads us to the coal hole under the stairs and tells us take what we can carry. It's real coal and not bits from the Dock Road and if we can't carry it we can drag it along the ground. It takes us a long time to go from South's pub to Barrack Hill because of a hole in the bag.I pull the bag and it's Malachy's job to pick up the lumps that fall through the hole and put them back again.Then it starts to rain and we can't stand in a doorway till it passes because we have that coal and it's leaving a black trail along the pavement and Malachy is turning black from picking up the lumps,pushing them into the bag and wiping the rain from his face with his wet black hands. I tell him he's black,he tells me I'm black,and a woman in a shop tells us get away from that door, 'tis Christmas Day and she doesn't want to be looking at Africa. We have to keep dragging the bag or we'll never have our Christ- mas dinner.It will take ages to get a ﬁre going and ages more to get our dinner because the water has to be boiling when Mam puts in the head of cabbage and the potatoes to keep the pig company in the pot.We drag the bag up O'Connell Avenue and we see people in their houses sitting around tables with all kinds of decorations and bright lights.At one house they push up the window and the children point and laugh and call to us, Look at the Zulus.Where are yeer spears? Malachy makes faces at them and wants to throw coal at them but I tell him if he throws coal there's less for the pig and we'll never get our dinner. The downstairs in our house is a lake again from the rain pouring under the door but it doesn't matter because we're drenched anyway and we can wade through the water. Dad comes down and drags the bag upstairs to Italy. He says we're good boys for getting so much coal, that the Dock Road must have been covered with it.When Mam sees us she starts to laugh, and then she cries. She's laughing because 100

we're so black and crying because we're sopping wet. She tells us take off all our clothes and she washes the coal off our hands and faces. She tells Dad the pig's head can wait a while so that we can have a jam jar of hot tea. It's raining outside and there's a lake downstairs in our kitchen but up here in Italy the ﬁre is going again and the room is so dry and warm that,after our tea,Malachy and I doze off in the bed and we don't wake till Dad tells us the dinner is ready. Our clothes are still wet, so Malachy sits on the trunk at the table wrapped in Mam's red American overcoat and I'm wrapped in an old coat that Mam's father left behind when he went to Australia. There are delicious smells in the room, cabbage, potatoes, and the pig's head, but when Dad lifts the head from the pot to a plate Malachy says, Oh, the poor pig. I don't want to eat the poor pig. Mam says, If you were hungry you'd eat it. Now stop the nonsense and eat your dinner. Dad says,Wait a minute. He takes slices from the two cheeks, places them on our plates and smears them with mustard. He takes the plate that holds the pig's head and puts it on the ﬂoor under the table. Now, he says to Malachy, that's ham, and Malachy eats it because he's not looking at what it came from and it isn't pig's head anymore.The cab- bage is soft and hot and there are plenty of potatoes with butter and salt. Mam peels our potatoes but Dad eats his skin and all. He says all the nourishment of a potato is in the skin and Mam says it's a good thing he's not eating eggs, he'd be chewing the shells and all. He says he would, and it's a disgrace that the Irish throw out mil- lions of potato skins every day and that's why thousands are dying of consumption and surely there's nourishment in the shell of an egg since waste is the eighth deadly sin. If he had his way, and Mam says, Never mind your way. Eat your dinner. He eats half a potato with its skin on and puts the other half back in the pot. He eats a small slice of the pig's cheek and a leaf of cabbage and leaves the rest on his plate for Malachy and me.He makes more tea and we have that with bread and jam so that no one can say we didn't have a sweet on Christmas Day. It's dark now and still raining outside and the coal is glowing in the grate where Mam and Dad sit and smoke their cigarettes.There's noth- ing to do when your clothes are wet but get back into bed where it's 101

cozy and your father can tell you a story about how Cuchulain became a Catholic and you fall asleep and dream about the pig standing in the crib at the Redemptorist church crying because he and the Baby Jesus and Cuchulain all have to grow up and die. The angel that brought Margaret and the twins comes again and brings us another brother,Michael.Dad says he found Michael on the seventh step of the stairs to Italy.He says that's what you have to watch for when you ask for a new baby, the Angel on the Seventh Step. Malachy wants to know how you can get a new brother from the Angel on the Seventh Step if you don't have any stairs in your house and Dad tells him that asking too many questions is an afﬂiction. Malachy wants to know what an afﬂiction is. Afﬂiction. I'd like to know what that word means. Afﬂiction, but Dad says, Och, child, the world is an afﬂiction and everything in it, puts on his cap and goes to the Bedford Row Hospital to see Mam and Michael. She's in the hospital with the pain in her back and she has the baby with her to make sure he was healthy when he was left on the sev- enth step. I don't understand this because I'm sure angels would never leave a sick baby on the seventh step.There's no use asking Dad or Mam about this. They say,You're getting as bad as your brother for asking questions. Go play. I know that big people don't like questions from children.They can ask all the questions they like, How's school? Are you a good boy? Did you say your prayers? but if you ask them did they say their prayers you might be hit on the head. Dad brings Mam home with the new baby and she has to stay in bed for a few days with the pain in her back. She says this baby is the spitting image of our sister who died,with his wavy black hair,his lovely blue eyes, and the gorgeous eyebrows.That's what Mam says. I want to know if the baby will be spitting. I also want to know which is the seventh step because there are nine steps on the stairs and I'd like to know if you count from the bottom or the top. Dad doesn't mind answering this question.Angels come down from above, he says, and not up from kitchens like ours which are lakes from October till April. So I ﬁnd the seventh step by counting from the top. 102

The baby Michael has a cold. His head is stuffed and he can barely breathe. Mam worries because it's Sunday and the Dispensary for the poor is closed. If you go to the doctor's house and the maid sees you're from the lower classes she tells you go to the Dispensary where you belong.If you tell her the child is dying in your arms she'll say the doc- tor is in the country riding his horse. Mam cries because the baby is struggling to get air through his mouth. She tries to clear his nostrils with a bit of rolled-up paper but she's afraid to push it too far up.Dad says,There's no need for that.You're not supposed to be pushing things inside a child's head.It looks like he's going to kiss the baby. Instead, he has his mouth on the little nose and he's sucking sucking the bad stuff out of Michael's head.He spits it into the ﬁre, Michael gives out a loud cry and you can see him drawing the air into his head and kicking his legs and laughing. Mam looks at Dad as if he just came down from heaven and Dad says,That's what we did in Antrim long before there were doctors riding their horses. Michael entitles us to a few extra shillings on the dole but Mam says it isn't enough and now she has to go to the St.Vincent de Paul Society for food. One night there is a knock on the door and Mam sends me down to see who it is.There are two men from the St.Vincent de Paul and they want to see my mother and father. I tell them my parents are upstairs in Italy and they say,What? Upstairs where 'tis dry. I'll tell them. They want to know what that little shed is beside our front door. I tell them it's the lavatory.They want to know why it isn't in the back of the house and I tell them it's the lavatory for the whole lane and it's a good thing it's not in the back of our house or we'd have people traips- ing through our kitchen with buckets that would make you sick. They say, Are you sure there's one lavatory for the whole lane? They say, Mother of God. Mam calls down from Italy.Who's down there? The men. What men? From the St.Vincent de Paul. They're careful the way they step into the lake in the kitchen and they make tsk tsk and tut tut noises and they tell one another, Isn't this 103

a disgrace? till they get upstairs to Italy.They tell Mam and Dad they're sorry to disturb them but the Society has to be sure they're helping deserving cases.Mam offers them a cup of tea but they look around and say, No, thank you.They want to know why we're living upstairs.They want to know about the lavatory.They ask questions because big peo- ple can ask all the questions they like and write in notebooks,especially when they're wearing collars and ties and suits. They ask how old Michael is, how much Dad gets at the Labour Exchange, when did he last have a job, why doesn't he have a job now and what class of an accent is that he has? Dad tells them the lavatory could kill us with every class of disease, that the kitchen ﬂoods in the winter and we have to move upstairs to stay dry. He says the River Shannon is responsible for all the dampness in the world and killing us one by one. Malachy tells them we're living in Italy and they smile. Mam asks if there's any chance of getting boots for Malachy and me and they say she'll have to come down to Ozanam House and apply.She says she hasn't been feeling well since the baby came and she wouldn't be able to stand long in a queue,but they say everyone has to be treated the same, even a woman down in the Irishtown that had triplets and, thank you, we'll make our report to the Society. When they're leaving Malachy wants to show them where the angel left Michael on the seventh step but Dad tells him, Not now, not now. Malachy cries and one of the men gives him a piece of toffee from his pocket and I wish I had something to cry about so that I'd get a piece, too. I have to go downstairs again and show the men where to step to keep their feet dry. They keep shaking their heads and saying, God Almighty and Mother of God, this is desperate. That's not Italy they have upstairs, that's Calcutta. Dad is telling Mam up in Italy she should never beg like that. What do you mean, beg? Don't you have any pride, begging for boots like that? And what would you do, Mr. Grand Manner? Would you let them go barefoot? I'd rather ﬁx the shoes they have. The shoes they have are falling to pieces. I can ﬁx them, he says. 104

You can't ﬁx anything.You're useless, she says. He comes home the next day with an old bicycle tire.He sends me to Mr. Hannon next door for the loan of a last and a hammer. He takes Mam's sharp knife and he hacks at the tire till he has pieces to ﬁt on the soles and heels of our shoes. Mam tells him he's going to destroy the shoes altogether but he pounds away with the hammer,driving the nails through the rubber pieces and into the shoes. Mam says, God above, if you left the shoes alone they'd last till Easter, at least, and we might get the boots from the St.Vincent de Paul. But he won't stop till the soles and heels are covered with squares of rubber tire which stick out on each side of the shoe and ﬂop before and behind. He makes us put on the shoes and tells us our feet will be good and warm but we don't want to wear them anymore because the tire pieces are so lumpy we stumble when we walk around Italy.He sends me back to Mr.Hannon with the last and hammer and Mrs.Hannon says,God above,what's up with your shoes? She laughs and Mr. Hannon shakes his head and I feel ashamed. I don't want to go to school next day and I pretend to be sick but Dad gets us up and gives us our fried bread and tea and tells us we should be grateful we have any shoes at all,that there are boys in Leamy's National School who go to school barefoot on bitter days.On our way to school Leamy's boys laugh at us because the tire pieces are so thick they add a few inches to our height and the boys say,How's the air up there? There are six or seven barefoot boys in my class and they don't say anything and I wonder if it's better to have shoes with rubber tires that make you trip and stumble or to go barefoot.If you have no shoes at all you'll have all the barefoot boys on your side.If you have rubber tires on your shoes you're all alone with your brother and you have to ﬁght your own bat- tles. I sit on a bench in the schoolyard shed and take off my shoes and stockings but when I go into the class the master wants to know where my shoes are.He knows I'm not one of the barefoot boys and he makes me go back to the yard, bring in the shoes and put them on.Then he says to the class,There is sneering here.There is jeering at the misfor- tunes of others. Is there anyone in this class that thinks he's perfect? Raise your hands. There are no hands. Is there anyone in this class that comes from a rich family with money galore to spend on shoes? Raise your hands. There are no hands. 105

He says,There are boys here who have to mend their shoes whatever way they can.There are boys in this class with no shoes at all.It's not their fault and it's no shame.Our Lord had no shoes.He died shoeless.Do you see Him hanging on the cross sporting shoes? Do you, boys? No, sir. What is it you don't see Our Lord doing? Hanging on the cross and sporting shoes, sir. Now if I hear of one boy in this class jeering and sneering at McCourt or his brother over their shoes the stick will come out.What will come out, boys? The stick, sir. The stick will sting,boys.The ash plant will whistle through the air, it will land on the backside of the boy that jeers, the boy that sneers. Where will it land, boys? On the boy that jeers, sir. The boy that sneers, sir. The boys bother us no more and we wear our shoes with the rub- ber tires the few weeks to Easter when the St.Vincent de Paul Society gives us the gift of boots. If I have to get up in the middle of the night to pee in the bucket I go to the top of the stairs and look down to see if the angel might be on the seventh step. Sometimes I'm sure there's a light there and if everyone's asleep I sit on the step in case the angel might be bringing another baby or just coming for a visit.I ask Mam if the angel just brings the babies and then forgets about them. She says, Of course not.The angel never forgets the babies and comes back to make sure the baby is happy. I could ask the angel all kinds of questions and I'm sure he'd answer, unless it's a girl angel.But I'm sure a girl angel would answer questions, too. I never heard anyone say they didn't. I sit on the seventh step a long time and I'm sure the angel is there. I tell him all the things you can't tell your mother or father for fear of being hit on the head or told go out and play.I tell him all about school and how I'm afraid of the master and his stick when he roars at us in Irish and I still don't know what he's talking about because I came from America and the other boys were learning Irish a year before me. 106

I stay on the seventh step till it gets too cold or Dad gets up and tells me go back to bed. He's the one who told me the angel comes to the seventh step in the ﬁrst place and you'd think he'd know why I'm sit- ting there. I told him one night that I was waiting for the angel, and he said, Och, now, Francis, you're a bit of a dreamer. I get back into bed but I can hear him whisper to my mother.The poor wee lad was sitting on the stairs talking away to an angel. He laughs and my mother laughs and I think, Isn't it curious the way big people laugh over the angel who brought them a new child. Before Easter we move back downstairs to Ireland. Easter is better than Christmas because the air is warmer, the walls are not dripping with the damp, and the kitchen isn't a lake anymore, and if we're up early we might catch the sun slanting for a minute through the kitchen In ﬁne weather men sit outside smoking their cigarettes if they have them, looking at the world and watching us play.Women stand with their arms folded, chatting.They don't sit because all they do is stay at home, take care of the children, clean the house and cook a bit and the men need the chairs.The men sit because they're worn out from walk- ing to the Labour Exchange every morning to sign for the dole, discussing the world's problems and wondering what to do with the rest of the day. Some stop at the bookie to study the form and place a shilling or two on a sure thing. Some spend hours in the Carnegie Library reading English and Irish newspapers.A man on the dole needs to keep up with things because all the other men on the dole are experts on what's going on in the world.A man on the dole must be ready in case another man on the dole brings up Hitler or Mussolini or the ter- rible state of the Chinese millions.A man on the dole goes home after a day with the bookie or the newspaper and his wife will not begrudge him a few minutes with the ease and peace of his cigarette and his tea and time to sit in his chair and think of the world. Easter is better than Christmas because Dad takes us to the Redemptorist church where all the priests wear white and sing.They're happy because Our Lord is in heaven. I ask Dad if the baby in the crib is dead and he says, No, He was thirty-three when He died and there He is, hanging on the cross. I don't understand how He grew up so fast that He's hanging there with a hat made of thorns and blood every- 107

where, dripping from His head, His hands, His feet, and a big hole near His belly. Dad says I'll understand when I grow up. He tells me that all the time now and I want to be big like him so that I can understand every- thing. It must be lovely to wake up in the morning and understand everything.I wish I could be like all the big people in the church,stand- ing and kneeling and praying and understanding everything. At the Mass people go up to the altar and the priest puts something into their mouths.They come back to their seats with their heads down, their mouths moving.Malachy says he's hungry and he wants some,too. Dad says, Shush, that's Holy Communion, the body and blood of Our Lord. But, Dad. Shush, it's a mystery. There's no use asking more questions.If you ask a question they tell you it's a mystery, you'll understand when you grow up, be a good boy, ask your mother,ask your father,for the love o'Jesus leave me alone,go out and play. Dad gets his ﬁrst job in Limerick at the cement factory and Mam is happy. She won't have to stand in the queue at the St.Vincent de Paul Society asking for clothes and boots for Malachy and me. She says it's not begging, it's charity, but Dad says it's begging and shameful. Mam says she can now pay off the few pounds she owes at Kath- leen O'Connell's shop and she can pay back what she owes her own mother. She hates to be under obligation to anyone, especially her own The cement factory is miles outside Limerick and that means Dad has to be out of the house by six in the morning. He doesn't mind because he's used to the long walks.The night before Mam makes him a ﬂask of tea, a sandwich, a hard-boiled egg. She feels sorry for him the way he has to walk three miles out and three miles back.A bicycle would be handy but you'd have to be working a year for the price of it. Friday is payday and Mam is out of the bed early,cleaning the house and singing. 108

It had to be and the reason is this . . . There isn't much to clean in the house.She sweeps the kitchen ﬂoor and the ﬂoor of Italy upstairs. She washes the four jam jars we use for mugs. She says if Dad's job lasts we'll get proper cups and maybe saucers and some day, with the help of God and His Blessed Mother, we'll have sheets on the bed and if we save a long time a blanket or two instead of those old coats which people must have left behind during the Great Famine. She boils water and washes the rags that keep Michael from shitting all over the pram and the house itself. Oh, she says, we'll have a lovely tea when your Pop brings home the wages tonight. Pop. She's in a good mood. Sirens and whistles go off all over the city when the men ﬁnish work at half-past ﬁve. Malachy and I are excited because we know that when your father works and brings home the wages you get the Friday Penny.We know this from other boys whose fathers work and we know that after your tea you can go to Kathleen O'Connell's shop and buy sweets. If your mother is in a good mood she might even give you tup- pence to go to the Lyric Cinema the next day to see a ﬁlm with James Cagney. The men who work in factories and shops in the city are coming into the lanes to have their supper, wash themselves and go to the pub. The women go to the ﬁlms at the Coliseum or the Lyric Cinema.They buy sweets and Wild Woodbine cigarettes and if their husbands are working a long time they treat themselves to boxes of Black Magic chocolates.They love the romance ﬁlms and they have a great time cry- ing their eyes out when there's an unhappy ending or a handsome lover goes away to be shot by Hindus and other non-Catholics. We have to wait a long time for Dad to walk the miles from the cement factory.We can't have our tea till he's home and that's very hard because you smell the cooking of other families in the lane. Mam says it's a good thing payday is Friday when you can't eat meat because the smell of bacon or sausages in other houses would drive her out of her mind.We can still have bread and cheese and a nice jam jar of tea with lashings of milk and sugar and what more do you want? The women are gone to the cinemas, the men are in the pubs, and 109

still Dad isn't home. Mam says it's a long way to the cement factory even if he's a fast walker. She says that but her eyes are watery and she's not singing anymore. She's sitting by the ﬁre smoking a Wild Woodbine she got on credit from Kathleen O'Connell.The fag is the only luxury she has and she'll never forget Kathleen for her goodness. She doesn't know how long she can keep the water boiling in this ket- tle.There's no use making the tea till Dad gets home because it will be stewed, coddled, boiled and unﬁt to drink. Malachy says he's hungry and she gives him a piece of bread and cheese to keep him going. She says,This job could be the saving of us. 'Tis hard enough for him to get a job with his northern accent and if he loses this one I don't know what we're going to do. The darkness is in the lane and we have to light a candle. She has to give us our tea and bread and cheese because we're so hungry we can't wait another minute. She sits at the table, eats a bit of bread and cheese, smokes her Wild Woodbine. She goes to the door to see if Dad is com- ing down the lane and she talks about the paydays when we searched for him all over Brooklyn. She says, Some day we'll all go back to America and we'll have a nice warm place to live and a lavatory down the hall like the one in Classon Avenue and not this ﬁlthy thing outside our door. The women are coming home from the cinemas, laughing, and the men, singing, from the pubs. Mam says there's no use waiting up any longer. If Dad stays in the pubs till closing time there will be nothing left from his wages and we might as well go to bed. She lies in her bed with Michael in her arms. It's quiet in the lane and I can hear her cry- ing even though she pulls an old coat over her face and I can hear in the distance, my father. I know it's my father because he's the only one in Limerick who sings that song from the North, Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today. He comes round the corner at the top of the lane and starts Kevin Barry. He sings a verse, stops, holds on to a wall, cries over Kevin Barry.People stick their heads out windows and doors and tell him, For Jasus' sake, put a sock in it. Some of us have to get up in the morn- ing for work. Go home and sing your feckin' patriotic songs. He stands in the middle of the lane and tells the world to step out- side, he's ready to ﬁght, ready to ﬁght and die for Ireland, which is more than he can say for the men of Limerick, who are known the 110

length and breadth of the world for collaborating with the perﬁdious Saxons. He's pushing in our door and singing, And if, when all a vigil keep, The West's asleep, the West's asleep! Alas! and well my Erin weep, That Connacht lies in slumber deep, But hark! a voice like thunder spake 'The West's awake! the West's awake! Sing, Oh, hurrah, let England quake, We'll watch till death for Erin's sake!' He calls from the bottom of the stairs, Angela, Angela, is there a drop of tea in this house? She doesn't answer and he calls again,Francis,Malachy,come down here, boys. I have the Friday Penny for you. I want to go down and get the Friday Penny but Mam is sobbing with the coat over her mouth and Malachy says, I don't want his old Friday Penny. He can keep it. Dad is stumbling up the stairs, making a speech about how we all have to die for Ireland. He lights a match and touches it to the candle by Mam's bed. He holds the candle over his head and marches around the room, singing, See who comes over the red-blossomed heather, Their green banners kissing the pure mountain air, Heads erect, eyes to front, stepping proudly together, Sure freedom sits throned on each proud spirit there. Michael wakes and lets out a loud cry, the Hannons are banging on the wall next door, Mam is telling Dad he's a disgrace and why doesn't he get out of the house altogether. He stands in the middle of the ﬂoor with the candle over his head. He pulls a penny from his pocket and waves it to Malachy and me.Your Friday Penny, boys, he says. I want you to jump out of that bed and line up here like two soldiers and promise to die for Ireland and I'll give the two of you the Friday Penny. 111

Malachy sits up in the bed. I don't want it, he says. And I tell him I don't want it, either. Dad stands for a minute, swaying, and puts the penny back in his pocket. He turns toward Mam and she says,You're not sleeping in this bed tonight. He makes his way downstairs with the candle, sleeps on a chair, misses work in the morning, loses the job at the cement factory, and we're back on the dole again. 112

IV The master says it's time to prepare for First Confession and First Communion, to know and remember all the questions and answers in the catechism, to become good Catholics, to know the difference between right and wrong, to die for the Faith if called on. The master says it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith and Dad says it's a glorious thing to die for Ireland and I wonder if there's any- one in the world who would like us to live. My brothers are dead and my sister is dead and I wonder if they died for Ireland or the Faith.Dad says they were too young to die for anything. Mam says it was disease and starvation and him never having a job. Dad says, Och,Angela, puts on his cap and goes for a long walk. The master says we're each to bring threepence for the First Com- munion catechism with the green cover. The catechism has all the questions and answers we have to know by heart before we can receive First Communion. Older boys in the ﬁfth class have the thick Conﬁrmation catechism with the red cover and that costs sixpence. I'd love to be big and important and parade around with the red Conﬁr- mation catechism but I don't think I'll live that long the way I'm expected to die for this or that.I want to ask why there are so many big people who haven't died for Ireland or the Faith but I know if you ask a question like that you get you the thump on the head or you're told go out and play. 113

It's very handy to have Mikey Molloy living around the corner from me. He's eleven, he has ﬁts and behind his back we call him Molloy the Fit. People in the lane say the ﬁt is an afﬂiction and now I know what afﬂic- tion means.Mikey knows everything because he has visions in his ﬁts and he reads books. He's the expert in the lane on Girls' Bodies and Dirty Things in General and he promises,I'll tell you everything,Frankie,when you're eleven like me and you're not so thick and ignorant. It's a good thing he says Frankie so I'll know he's talking to me because he has crossed eyes and you never know who he's looking at.If he's talking to Malachy and I think he's talking to me he might go into a rage and have a ﬁt that will carry him off. He says it's a gift to have crossed eyes because you're like a god looking two ways at once and if you had crossed eyes in the ancient Roman times you had no problem getting a good job. If you look at pictures of Roman emperors you'll see there's always a great hint of crossed eyes.When he's not having the ﬁt he sits on the ground at the top of the lane reading the books his father brings home from the Carnegie Library. His mother says books books books, he's ruining his eyes with the reading, he needs an opera- tion to straighten them but who'll pay for it. She tells him if he keeps on straining his eyes they'll ﬂoat together till he has one eye in the mid- dle of his head.Ever after his father calls him Cyclops,who is in a Greek story. Nora Molloy knows my mother from the queues at the St.Vincent de Paul Society. She tells Mam that Mikey has more sense than twelve men drinking pints in a pub.He knows the names of all the Popes from St.Peter to Pius the Eleventh.He's only eleven but he's a man,oh,a man indeed. Many a week he saves the family from pure starvation. He bor- rows a handcart from Aidan Farrell and knocks on doors all over Lim- erick to see if there are people who want coal or turf delivered, and down the Dock Road he'll go to haul back great bags a hundredweight or more. He'll run messages for old people who can't walk and if they don't have a penny to give him a prayer will do. If he earns a little money he hands it over to his mother, who loves her Mikey. He is her world, her heart's blood, her pulse, and if anything ever happened to him they might as well stick her in the lunatic asylum and throw away the key. 114

Mikey's father, Peter, is a great champion. He wins bets in the pubs by drinking more pints than anyone.All he has to do is go out to the jakes, stick his ﬁnger down his throat and bring it all up so that he can start another round. Peter is such a champion he can stand in the jakes and throw up without using his ﬁnger.He's such a champion they could chop off his ﬁngers and he'd carry on regardless.He wins all that money but doesn't bring it home.Sometimes he's like my father and drinks the dole itself and that's why Nora Molloy is often carted off to the lunatic asylum demented with worry over her hungry famishing family. She knows as long as you're in the asylum you're safe from the world and its torments, there's nothing you can do, you're protected, and what's the use of worrying. It's well known that all the lunatics in the asylum have to be dragged in but she's the only one that has to be dragged out, back to her ﬁve children and the champion of all pint drinkers. You can tell when Nora Molloy is ready for the asylum when you see her children running around white with ﬂour from poll to toe.That happens when Peter drinks the dole money and leaves her desperate and she knows the men will come to take her away.You know she's inside frantic with the baking. She wants to make sure the children won't starve while she's gone and she roams Limerick begging for ﬂour. She goes to priests,nuns,Protestants,Quakers.She goes to Rank's Flour Mills and begs for the sweepings from the ﬂoor. She bakes day and night. Peter begs her to stop but she screams, This is what comes of drinking the dole. He tells her the bread will only go stale.There's no use talking to her. Bake bake bake. If she had the money she'd bake all the ﬂour in Limerick and regions beyond. If the men didn't come from the lunatic asylum to take her away she'd bake till she fell to the ﬂoor. The children stuff themselves with so much bread people in the lane say they're looking like loaves. Still the bread goes stale and Mikey is so bothered by the waste he talks to a rich woman with a cookbook and she tells him make bread pudding.He boils the hard bread in water and sour milk and throws in a cup of sugar and his brother loves it even if that's all they have the fortnight their mother is in the lunatic asylum. My father says, Do they take her away because she's gone mad bak- ing bread or does she go mad baking bread because they're taking her away? Nora comes home calm as if she had been at the seaside.She always says,Where's Mikey? Is he alive? She worries over Mikey because he's 115

not a proper Catholic and if he had a ﬁt and died who knows where he might wind up in the next life. He's not a proper Catholic because he could never receive his First Communion for fear of getting anything on his tongue that might cause a ﬁt and choke him.The master tried over and over with bits of the Limerick Leader but Mikey kept spitting them out till the master got into a state and sent him to the priest, who wrote to the bishop, who said, Don't bother me, handle it yourself.The master sent a note home saying Mikey was to practice receiving Com- munion with his father or mother but even they couldn't get him to swallow a piece of the Limerick Leader in the shape of a wafer.They even tried a piece of bread shaped like the wafer with bread and jam and it was no use.The priest tells Mrs. Molloy not to worry. God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform and surely He has a special purpose for Mikey,ﬁts and all.She says,Isn't it remarkable he can swally all kinds of sweets and buns but if he has to swally the body of Our Lord he goes into a ﬁt? Isn't that remarkable? She worries Mikey might have the ﬁt and die and go to hell if he has any class of a sin on his soul though everyone knows he's an angel out of heaven. Mikey tells her God is not going to afﬂict you with the ﬁt and then boot you into hell on top of it.What kind of a God would do a thing like that? Are you sure, Mikey? I am. I read it in a book. He sits under the lamppost at the top of the lane and laughs over his First Communion day, which was all a cod. He couldn't swallow the wafer but did that stop his mother from parading him around Limerick in his little black suit for The Collection? She said to Mikey,Well, I'm not lying so I'm not. I'm only saying to the neighbors, Here's Mikey in his First Communion suit.That's all I'm saying,mind you.Here's Mikey. If they think you swallied your First Communion who am I to contra- dict them and disappoint them? Mikey's father said, Don't worry, Cyclops.You have loads of time. Jesus didn't become a proper Catholic till he took the bread and wine at the Last Supper and He was thirty- three years of age.Nora Molloy said,Will you stop calling him Cyclops? He has two eyes in his head and he's not a Greek. But Mikey's father, champion of all pint drinkers, is like my uncle Pa Keating, he doesn't give a ﬁddler's fart what the world says and that's the way I'd like to be myself. Mikey tells me the best thing about First Communion is The Col- 116

lection.Your mother has to get you a new suit somehow so she can show you off to the neighbors and relations and they give you sweets and money and you can go to the Lyric Cinema to see Charlie Chaplin. What about James Cagney? Never mind James Cagney. Lots of blather. Charlie Chaplin is your only man.But you have to be with your mother on The Collection.The grown-up people of Limerick are not going to be handing out money to every little Tom Dick and Mick with a First Communion suit that doesn't have his mother with him. Mikey got over ﬁve shillings on his First Communion day and ate so many sweets and buns he threw up in the Lyric Cinema and Frank Goggin, the ticket man, kicked him out. He says he didn't care because he had money left over and went to the Savoy Cinema the same day for a pirate ﬁlm and ate Cadbury chocolate and drank lemonade till his stomach stuck out a mile. He can't wait for Conﬁrmation day because you're older, there's another collection and that brings more money than First Communion. He'll go to the cinema the rest of his life, sit next to girls from lanes and do dirty things like an expert. He loves his mother but he'll never get married for fear he might have a wife in and out of the lunatic asylum.What's the use of getting married when you can sit in cinemas and do dirty things with girls from lanes who don't care what they do because they already did it with their brothers.If you don't get married you won't have any children at home bawling for tea and bread and gasping with the ﬁt and looking in every direction with their eyes.When he's older he'll go to the pub like his father,drink pints galore, stick the ﬁnger down the throat to bring it all up, drink more pints, win the bets and bring the money home to his mother to keep her from going demented. He says he's not a proper Catholic which means he's doomed so he can do anything he bloody well likes. He says, I'll tell you more when you grow up, Frankie.You're too young now and you don't know your arse from your elbow. The master, Mr. Benson, is very old. He roars and spits all over us every day.The boys in the front row hope he has no diseases for it's the spit that carries all the diseases and he might be spreading consumption right and left. He tells us we have to know the catechism backwards, forwards and sideways.We have to know the Ten Commandments, the 117

Seven Virtues, Divine and Moral, the Seven Sacraments, the Seven Deadly Sins.We have to know by heart all the prayers, the Hail Mary, the Our Father, the Conﬁteor, the Apostles' Creed, the Act of Contri- tion, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.We have to know them in Irish and English and if we forget an Irish word and use English he goes into a rage and goes at us with the stick.If he had his way we'd be learn- ing our religion in Latin, the language of the saints who communed intimately with God and His Holy Mother, the language of the early Christians,who huddled in the catacombs and went forth to die on rack and sword, who expired in the foaming jaws of the ravenous lion. Irish is ﬁne for patriots, English for traitors and informers, but it's the Latin that gains us entrance to heaven itself. It's the Latin the martyrs prayed in when the barbarians pulled out their nails and cut their skin off inch by inch. He tells us we're a disgrace to Ireland and her long sad history, that we'd be better off in Africa praying to bush or tree.He tells us we're hopeless, the worst class he ever had for First Communion but as sure as God made little apples he'll make Catholics of us, he'll beat the idler out of us and the Sanctifying Grace into us. Brendan Quigley raises his hand. We call him Question Quigley because he's always asking questions. He can't help himself. Sir, he says, what's Sanctifying Grace? The master rolls his eyes to heaven. He's going to kill Quigley. Instead he barks at him,Never mind what's Sanctifying Grace,Quigley. That's none of your business.You're here to learn the catechism and do what you're told.You're not here to be asking questions.There are too many people wandering the world asking questions and that's what has us in the state we're in and if I ﬁnd any boy in this class asking questions I won't be responsible for what happens. Do you hear me, Quigley? I do what? He goes on with his speech,There are boys in this class who will never know the Sanctifying Grace. And why? Because of the greed. I have heard them abroad in the schoolyard talking about First Commu- nion day, the happiest day of your life.Are they talking about receiving the body and blood of Our Lord? Oh, no.Those greedy little blaguards are talking about the money they'll get,The Collection.They'll go from 118

house to house in their little suits like beggars for The Collection.And will they take any of that money and send it to the little black babies in Africa? Will they think of those little pagans doomed forever for lack of baptism and knowledge of the True Faith? Little black babies denied knowledge of the Mystical Body of Christ? Limbo is packed with little black babies ﬂying around and crying for their mothers because they'll never be admitted to the ineffable presence of Our Lord and the glorious company of saints, martyrs, virgins. Oh, no. It's off to the cinemas, our First Communion boys run to wallow in the ﬁlth spewed across the world by the devil's henchmen in Hollywood. Isn't that right, McCourt? 'Tis, sir. Question Quigley raises his hand again.There are looks around the room and we wonder if it's suicide he's after. What's henchmen, sir? The master's face goes white, then red. His mouth tightens and opens and spit ﬂies everywhere. He walks to Question and drags him from his seat. He snorts and stutters and his spit ﬂies around the room. He ﬂogs Question across the shoulders, the bottom, the legs. He grabs him by the collar and drags him to the front of the room. Look at this specimen, he roars. Question is shaking and crying. I'm sorry, sir. The master mocks him. I'm sorry, sir.What are you sorry for? I'm sorry I asked the question. I'll never ask a question again, sir. The day you do, Quigley, will be the day you wish God would take you to His bosom.What will you wish, Quigley? That God will take me to His bosom, sir. Go back to your seat,you omadhaun,you poltroon,you thing from the far dark corner of a bog. He sits down with the stick before him on the desk. He tells Ques- tion to stop the whimpering and be a man. If he hears a single boy in this class asking foolish questions or talking about The Collection again he'll ﬂog that boy till the blood spurts. What will I do, boys? Flog the boy, sir. Till? Till the blood spurts, sir. Now, Clohessy, what is the Sixth Commandment? 119

Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not commit adultery what? Thou shalt not commit adultery, sir. And what is adultery, Clohessy? Impure thoughts, impure words, impure deeds, sir. Good,Clohessy.You're a good boy.You may be slow and forgetful in the sir department and you may not have a shoe to your foot but you're powerful with the Sixth Commandment and that will keep you pure. Paddy Clohessy has no shoe to his foot, his mother shaves his head to keep the lice away, his eyes are red, his nose always snotty.The sores on his kneecaps never heal because he picks at the scabs and puts them in his mouth. His clothes are rags he has to share with his six brothers and a sister and when he comes to school with a bloody nose or a black eye you know he had a ﬁght over the clothes that morning. He hates school.He's seven going on eight,the biggest and oldest boy in the class, and he can't wait to grow up and be fourteen so that he can run away and pass for seventeen and join the English army and go to India where it's nice and warm and he'll live in a tent with a dark girl with the red dot on her forehead and he'll be lying there eating ﬁgs, that's what they eat in India, ﬁgs, and she'll cook the curry day and night and plonk on a ukulele and when he has enough money he'll send for the whole fam- ily and they'll all live in the tent especially his poor father who's at home coughing up great gobs of blood because of the consumption.When my mother sees Paddy on the street she says,Wisha, look at that poor child.He's a skeleton with rags and if they were making a ﬁlm about the famine he'd surely be put in the middle of it. I think Paddy likes me because of the raisin and I feel a bit guilty because I wasn't that generous in the ﬁrst place.The master, Mr. Ben- son, said the government was going to give us the free lunch so we wouldn't have to be going home in the freezing weather. He led us down to a cold room in the dungeons of Leamy's School where the charwoman, Nellie Ahearn, was handing out the half pint of milk and the raisin bun.The milk was frozen in the bottles and we had to melt it between our thighs.The boys joked and said the bottles would freeze our things off and the master roared,Any more of that talk and I'll warm the bottles on the backs of yeer heads.We all searched our raisin buns for a raisin but Nellie said they must have forgotten to put them in and 120

she'd inquire from the man who delivered.We searched again every day till at last I found a raisin in my bun and held it up.The boys started grousing and said they wanted a raisin and Nellie said it wasn't her fault. She'd ask the man again. Now the boys were begging me for the raisin and offering me everything,a slug of their milk,a pencil,a comic book. Toby Mackey said I could have his sister and Mr.Benson heard him and took him out to the hallway and knocked him around till he howled. I wanted the raisin for myself but I saw Paddy Clohessy standing in the corner with no shoes and the room was freezing and he was shivering like a dog that had been kicked and I always felt sad over kicked dogs so I walked over and gave Paddy the raisin because I didn't know what else to do and all the boys yelled that I was a fool and a feckin' eejit and I'd regret the day and after I handed the raisin to Paddy I longed for it but it was too late now because he pushed it right into his mouth and gulped it and looked at me and said nothing and I said in my head what kind of an eejit are you to be giving away your raisin. Mr. Benson gave me a look and said nothing and Nellie Ahearn said,You're a great oul'Yankee, Frankie. The priest will come soon to examine us on the catechism and every- thing else. The master himself has to show us how to receive Holy Communion. He tells us gather round him. He ﬁlls his hat with the Limerick Leader torn into little bits. He gives Paddy Clohessy the hat, kneels on the ﬂoor, tells Paddy to take one bit of paper and place it on his tongue. He shows us how to stick out the tongue, receive the bit of paper, hold it a moment, draw in the tongue, fold your hands in prayer, look toward heaven, close your eyes in adoration, wait for the paper to melt in your mouth, swallow it, and thank God for the gift, the Sancti- fying Grace wafting in on the odor of sanctity.When he sticks out his tongue we have to hold in the laugh because we never saw a big pur- ple tongue before.He opens his eyes to catch the boys who are giggling but he can't say anything because he still has God on his tongue and it's a holy moment.He gets off his knees and tells us kneel around the class- room for the Holy Communion practice. He goes around the room placing bits of paper on our tongues and mumbling in Latin.Some boys giggle and he roars at them that if the giggling doesn't stop it's not Holy Communion they'll be getting but the Last Rites and what is that sacra- ment called, McCourt? 121

Extreme Unction, sir. That's right, McCourt. Not bad for a Yank from the sinful shores of Amerikay. He tells us we have to be careful to stick out our tongues far enough so that the Communion wafer won't fall to the ﬂoor.He says,That's the worst thing that can happen to a priest. If the wafer slides off your tongue that poor priest has to get down on his two knees, pick it up with his own tongue and lick the ﬂoor around it in case it bounced from one spot to another.The priest could get a splinter that would make his tongue swell to the size of a turnip and that's enough to choke you and kill you entirely. He tells us that next to a relic of the True Cross the Communion wafer is the holiest thing in the world and our First Communion is the holiest moment in our lives.Talking about First Communion makes the master all excited.He paces back and forth,waves his stick,tells us we must never forget that the moment the Holy Communion is placed on our tongues we become members of that most glorious congrega- tion,the One,Holy,Roman,Catholic and Apostolic Church,that for two thousand years men, women and children have died for the Faith, that the Irish have nothing to be ashamed of in the martyr department. Haven't we provided martyrs galore? Haven't we bared our necks to the Protestant ax? Haven't we mounted the scaffold, singing, as if embark- ing on a picnic, haven't we, boys? We have, sir. What have we done, boys? Bared our necks to the Protestant ax, sir. Mounted the scaffold singing, sir. As if ? Embarking on a picnic, sir. He says that, perhaps, in this class there is a future priest or a martyr for the Faith,though he doubts it very much for we are the laziest gang of ignoramuses it has ever been his misfortune to teach. But it takes all kinds, he says, and surely God had some purpose when He sent the likes of ye to infest this earth. Surely God had a pur- pose when among us He sent Clohessy with no shoes,Quigley with his damnable questions and McCourt heavy with sin from America. And remember this, boys, God did not send His only begotten Son to hang 122

on the cross so that ye can go around on yeer First Communion day with the paws clutching for The Collection. Our Lord died so that ye might be redeemed. It is enough to receive the gift of Faith.Are ye lis- tening to me? We are, sir. And what's enough? The gift of Faith, sir. Good. Go home. At night three of us sit under the light pole at the top of the lane read- ing, Mikey, Malachy and I. The Molloys are like us with their father drinking the dole money or the wages and leaving no money for can- dles or parafﬁn oil for the lamp. Mikey reads books and the rest of us read comic books. His father, Peter, brings books from the Carnegie Library so that he'll have something to do when he's not drinking pints or when he's looking after the family anytime Mrs. Molloy is in the lunatic asylum.He lets Mikey read any book he likes and now Mikey is reading this book about Cuchulain and talking as if he knows every- thing about him. I want to tell him I knew all about Cuchulain when I was three going on four, that I saw Cuchulain in Dublin, that Cuchu- lain thinks nothing of dropping into my dreams. I want to tell him stop talking about Cuchulain, he's mine, he was mine years ago when I was young, but I can't because Mikey reads us a story I never heard of before, a dirty story about Cuchulain which I can never tell my father or mother, the story of how Emer became Cuchulain's wife. Cuchulain was getting to be an old man of twenty-one. He was lonely and wanted to get married, which made him weak, says Mikey, and got him killed in the end.All the women in Ireland were mad about Cuchulain and they wanted to marry him.He said that would be grand, he wouldn't mind marrying all the women of Ireland. If he could ﬁght all the men of Ireland why couldn't he marry all the women? But the King, Conor MacNessa, said,That's all very well for you, Cu, but the men of Ireland don't want to be lonely in the far reaches of the night. The King decided there would have to be a contest to see who would marry Cuchulain and it would be a pissing contest.All the women of Ireland assembled on the plains of Muirthemne to see who could piss the longest and it was Emer. She was the champion woman pisser of 123

Ireland and married Cuchulain and that's why to this day she is called Great Bladdered Emer. Mikey and Malachy laugh over this story though I don't think Malachy understands it. He's young and far from his First Communion and he's only laughing over the piss word. Then Mikey tells me I've committed a sin by listening to a story that has that word in it and when I go to my First Confession I'll have to tell the priest. Malachy says, That's right. Piss is a bad word and you have to tell the priest because 'tis a sin word. I don't know what to do. How can I go to the priest and tell him this terrible thing in my First Confession? All the boys know what sins they're going to tell so that they'll get the First Communion and make The Collection and go to see James Cagney and eat sweets and cakes at the Lyric Cinema.The master helped us with our sins and everyone has the same sins. I hit my brother. I told a lie. I stole a penny from my mother's purse. I disobeyed my parents, I ate a sausage on Friday. But now I have a sin no one else has and the priest is going to be shocked and drag me out of the confession box into the aisle and out into the street where everyone will know I listened to a story about Cuchulain's wife being the champion woman pisser in all Ireland. I'll never be able to make my First Communion and mothers will hold their small children up and point at me and say, Look at him. He's like Mikey Molloy,never made his First Communion,wandering around in a state of sin, never made The Collection, never saw James Cagney. I'm sorry I ever heard of First Communion and The Collection.I'm sick and I don't want any tea or bread or anything. Mam tells Dad it's a strange thing when a child won't have his bread and tea and Dad says, Och, he's just nervous over the First Communion. I want to go over to him and sit on his lap and tell him what Mikey Molloy did to me but I'm too big to be sitting on laps and if I did Malachy would go out in the lane and tell everyone I was a big baby.I'd like to tell my troubles to the Angel on the Seventh Step but he's busy bringing babies to moth- ers all over the world. Still, I'll ask Dad. Dad, does the Angel on the Seventh Step have other jobs besides bringing babies? He does. Would the Angel on the Seventh Step tell you what to do if you didn't know what to do? 124

Och, he would, son, he would.That's the job of an angel, even the one on the seventh step. Dad goes for a long walk, Mam takes Michael and goes to see Grandma, Malachy plays in the lane, and I have the house to myself so that I can sit on the seventh step and talk to the angel.I know he's there because the seventh step feels warmer than the other steps and there's a light in my head.I tell him my troubles and I hear a voice.Fear not,says the voice. He's talking backward and I tell him I don't know what he's talking about. Do not fear, says the voice.Tell the priest your sin and you'll be forgiven. Next morning I'm up early and drinking tea with Dad and telling him about the Angel on the Seventh Step. He places his hand on my forehead to see if I'm feeling all right. He asks if I'm sure I had a light in my head and heard a voice and what did the voice say? I tell him the voice said Fear not and that means Do not fear. Dad tells me the angel is right, I shouldn't be afraid, and I tell him what Mikey Molloy did to me. I tell him all about Great Bladdered Emer and I even use the piss word because the angel said,Fear not.Dad puts down his jam jar of tea and pats the back of my hand. Och, och, och, he says, and I wonder if he's going demented like Mrs. Molloy, in and out of the lunatic asylum, but he says, Is that what you were wor- ried about last night? I tell him it is and he says it's not a sin and I don't have to tell the priest. But the Angel on the Seventh Step said I should. All right.Tell the priest if you like but the Angel on the Seventh Step said that only because you didn't tell me ﬁrst. Isn't it better to be able to tell your father your troubles rather than an angel who is a light and a voice in your head? 'Tis, Dad. The day before First Communion the master leads us to St. Joseph's Church for First Confession.We march in pairs and if we so much as move a lip on the streets of Limerick he'll kill us on the spot and send us to hell bloated with sin.That doesn't stop the bragging about the big 125

sins.Willie Harold is whispering about his big sin, that he looked at his sister's naked body. Paddy Hartigan says he stole ten shillings from his aunt's purse and made himself sick with ice cream and chips. Question Quigley says he ran away from home and spent half the night in a ditch with four goats. I try to tell them about Cuchulain and Emer but the master catches me talking and gives me a thump on the head. We kneel in the pews by the confession box and I wonder if my Emer sin is as bad as looking at your sister's naked body because I know now that some things in the world are worse than others.That's why they have different sins,the sacrilege,the mortal sin,the venial sin.Then the masters and grown-up people in general talk about the unforgiv- able sin, which is a great mystery. No one knows what it is and you wonder how you can know if you've committed it if you don't know what it is. If I tell a priest about Great Bladdered Emer and the pissing contest he might say that's the unforgivable sin and kick me out of the confession box and I'll be disgraced all over Limerick and doomed to hell tormented forever by devils who have nothing else to do but stab me with hot pitchforks till I'm worn out. I try to listen to Willie's confession when he goes in but all I can hear is a hissing from the priest and when Willie comes out he's crying. It's my turn. The confession box is dark and there's a big cruciﬁx hanging over my head. I can hear a boy mumbling his confession on the other side. I wonder if there's any use trying to talk to the Angel on the Seventh Step.I know he's not supposed to be hanging around confession boxes but I feel the light in my head and the voice is telling me,Fear not. The panel slides back before my face and the priest says,Yes, my child? Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.This is my First Confession. Yes, my child, and what sins have you committed? I told a lie.I hit my brother.I took a penny from my mother's purse. I said a curse. Yes, my child.Anything else? I, I listened to a story about Cuchulain and Emer. Surely that's not a sin, my child.After all we are assured by certain writers that Cuchulain turned Catholic in his last moments as did his King, Conor MacNessa. 'Tis about Emer, Father, and how she married him. How was that, my child? She won him in a pissing contest. 126

There is heavy breathing.The priest has his hand over his mouth and he's making choking sounds and talking to himself, Mother o' God. Who, who told you that story, my child? Mikey Molloy, Father. And where did he hear it? He read it in a book, Father. Ah, a book. Books can be dangerous for children, my child.Turn your mind from those silly stories and think of the lives of the saints. Think of St. Joseph, the Little Flower, the sweet and gentle St. Francis of Assisi, who loved the birds of the air and the beasts of the ﬁeld.Will you do that, my child? I will, Father. Are there any other sins, my child? No, Father. For your penance say three Hail Marys, three Our Fathers, and say a special prayer for me. I will. Father, was that the worst sin? What do you mean? Am I the worst of all the boys, Father? No, my child, you have a long way to go. Now say an Act of Con- trition and remember Our Lord watches you every minute. God bless you, my child. First Communion day is the happiest day of your life because of The Collection and James Cagney at the Lyric Cinema.The night before I was so excited I couldn't sleep till dawn.I'd still be sleeping if my grand- mother hadn't come banging at the door. Get up! Get up! Get that child outa the bed.Happiest day of his life an' him snorin' above in the bed. I ran to the kitchen.Take off that shirt, she said. I took off the shirt and she pushed me into a tin tub of icy cold water.My mother scrubbed me, my grandmother scrubbed me. I was raw, I was red. They dried me.They dressed me in my black velvet First Commu- nion suit with the white frilly shirt,the short pants,the white stockings, the black patent leather shoes.Around my arm they tied a white satin bow and on my lapel they pinned the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a picture of the Sacred Heart, with blood dripping from it, ﬂames erupting all around it and on top a nasty-looking crown of thorns. 127

Come here till I comb your hair, said Grandma. Look at that mop, it won't lie down.You didn't get that hair from my side of the family. That's that North of Ireland hair you got from your father.That's the kind of hair you see on Presbyterians. If your mother had married a proper decent Limerickman you wouldn't have this standing up, North of Ireland, Presbyterian hair. She spat twice on my head. Grandma, will you please stop spitting on my head. If you have anything to say, shut up. A little spit won't kill you. Come on, we'll be late for the Mass. We ran to the church. My mother panted along behind with Michael in her arms.We arrived at the church just in time to see the last of the boys leaving the altar rail where the priest stood with the chalice and the host,glaring at me.Then he placed on my tongue the wafer,the body and blood of Jesus.At last, at last. It's on my tongue. I draw it back. It stuck. I had God glued to the roof of my mouth. I could hear the master's voice, Don't let that host touch your teeth for if you bite God in two you'll roast in hell for eternity. I tried to get God down with my tongue but the priest hissed at me, Stop that clucking and get back to your seat. God was good. He melted and I swallowed Him and now, at last, I was a member of the True Church, an ofﬁcial sinner. When the Mass ended there they were at the door of the church, my mother with Michael in her arms, my grandmother. They each hugged me to their bosoms.They each told me it was the happiest day of my life.They each cried all over my head and after my grandmother's contribution that morning my head was a swamp. Mam, can I go now and make The Collection? She said,After you have a little breakfast. No, said Grandma.You're not making no collection till you've had a proper First Communion breakfast at my house. Come on. We followed her. She banged pots and rattled pans and complained that the whole world expected her to be at their beck and call.I ate the egg,I ate the sausage,and when I reached for more sugar for my tea she slapped my hand away. Go aisy with that sugar.Is it a millionaire you think I am? An Amer- 128

ican? Is it bedecked in glitterin' jewelry you think I am? Smothered in fancy furs? The food churned in my stomach. I gagged. I ran to her backyard and threw it all up. Out she came. Look at what he did. Thrun up his First Communion breakfast. Thrun up the body and blood of Jesus. I have God in me backyard. What am I goin' to do? I'll take him to the Jesuits for they know the sins of the Pope himself. She dragged me through the streets of Limerick. She told the neighbors and passing strangers about God in her backyard.She pushed me into the confession box. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It's a day since my last confession. A day? And what sins have you committed in a day, my child? I overslept.I nearly missed my First Communion.My grandmother said I have standing up, North of Ireland, Presbyterian hair. I threw up my First Communion breakfast.Now Grandma says she has God in her backyard and what should she do. The priest is like the First Confession priest. He has the heavy breathing and the choking sounds. Ah . . . ah . . . tell your grandmother to wash God away with a lit- tle water and for your penance say one Hail Mary and one Our Father. Say a prayer for me and God bless you, my child. Grandma and Mam were waiting close to the confession box. Grandma said,Were you telling jokes to that priest in the confession box? If 'tis a thing I ever ﬁnd out you were telling jokes to Jesuits I'll tear the bloody kidneys outa you. Now what did he say about God in me backyard? He said wash Him away with a little water, Grandma. Holy water or ordinary water? He didn't say, Grandma. Well, go back and ask him. But, Grandma . . . She pushed me back into the confessional. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's a minute since my last confession. A minute! Are you the boy that was just here? I am, Father. 129

What is it now? My grandma says, Holy water or ordinary water? Ordinary water,and tell your grandmother not to be bothering me again. I told her, Ordinary water, Grandma, and he said don't be bother- ing him again. Don't be bothering him again.That bloody ignorant bogtrotter. I asked Mam, Can I go now and make The Collection? I want to see James Cagney. Grandma said, You can forget about The Collection and James Cagney because you're not a proper Catholic the way you left God on the ground. Come on, go home. Mam said,Wait a minute.That's my son.That's my son on his First Communion day. He's going to see James Cagney. No he's not. Yes he is. Grandma said,Take him then to James Cagney and see if that will save his Presbyterian North of Ireland American soul. Go ahead. She pulled her shawl around her and walked away. Mam said, God, it's getting very late for The Collection and you'll never see James Cagney.We'll go to the Lyric Cinema and see if they'll let you in anyway in your First Communion suit. We met Mikey Molloy on Barrington Street. He asked if I was going to the Lyric and I said I was trying.Trying? he said.You don't have money? I was ashamed to say no but I had to and he said,That's all right. I'll get you in. I'll create a diversion. What's a diversion? I have the money to go and when I get in I'll pretend to have the ﬁt and the ticket man will be out of his mind and you can slip in when I let out the big scream. I'll be watching the door and when I see you in I'll have a miraculous recovery.That's a diversion.That's what I do to get my brothers in all the time. Mam said, Oh, I don't know about that, Mikey.Wouldn't that be a sin and surely you wouldn't want Frank to commit a sin on his First Communion day. Mikey said if there was a sin it would be on his soul and he wasn't a proper Catholic anyway so it didn't matter. He let out his scream and 130

I slipped in and sat next to Question Quigley and the ticket man,Frank Goggin, was so worried over Mikey he never noticed. It was a thrilling ﬁlm but sad in the end because James Cagney was a public enemy and when they shot him they wrapped him in bandages and threw him in the door, shocking his poor old Irish mother, and that was the end of my First Communion day. 131

V Grandma won't talk to Mam anymore because of what I did with God in her backyard.Mam doesn't talk to her sister,Aunt Aggie,or her brother Uncle Tom. Dad doesn't talk to anyone in Mam's family and they don't talk to him because he's from the North and he has the odd manner. No one talks to Uncle Tom's wife, Jane, because she's from Galway and she has the look of a Spaniard. Everyone talks to Mam's brother Uncle Pat,because he was dropped on his head,he's simple,and he sells newspapers. Everyone calls him The Abbot or Ab Sheehan and no one knows why.Everyone talks to Uncle Pa Keating because he was gassed in the war and married Aunt Aggie and if they didn't talk to him he wouldn't give a ﬁddler's fart anyway and that's why the men in South's pub call him a gas man. That's the way I'd like to be in the world, a gas man, not giving a ﬁddler's fart, and that's what I tell the Angel on the Seventh Step till I remember you're not supposed to say fart in the presence of an angel. Uncle Tom and Galway Jane have children but we're not supposed to talk to them because our parents are not talking.They have a son and daughter, Gerry and Peggy, and Mam will yell at us for talking to them but we don't know how not to talk to our cousins. People in families in the lanes of Limerick have their ways of not 132

talking to each other and it takes years of practice.There are people who don't talk to each other because their fathers were on opposite sides in the Civil War in 1922. If a man goes off and joins the English army his family might as well move to another part of Limerick where there are families with men in the English army.If anyone in your family was the least way friendly to the English in the last eight hundred years it will be brought up and thrown in your face and you might as well move to Dublin where no one cares.There are families that are ashamed of themselves because their forefathers gave up their religion for the sake of a bowl of Protestant soup during the Famine and those families are known ever after as soupers. It's a terrible thing to be a souper because you're doomed forever to the souper part of hell.It's even worse to be an informer.The master at school said that everytime the Irish were about to demolish the English in a fair ﬁght a ﬁlthy informer betrayed them.A man who's discovered to be an informer deserves to be hanged or,even worse,to have no one talk to him for if no one talks to you you're better off hanging at the end of a rope. In every lane there's always someone not talking to someone or everyone not talking to someone or someone not talking to everyone. You can always tell when people are not talking by the way they pass each other.The women hoist their noses, tighten their mouths and turn their faces away. If the woman is wearing a shawl she takes a corner and ﬂings it over her shoulder as if to say,One word or look from you,you ma-faced bitch, and I'll tear the countenance from the front of your head. It's bad when Grandma won't talk to us because we can't run to her when we need to borrow sugar or tea or milk.There's no use going to Aunt Aggie. She'll only bite your head off. Go home, she'll say, and tell your father to get off his northern arse and get a job like the decent men of Limerick. They say she's always angry because she has red hair or she has red hair because she's always angry. Mam is friendly with Bridey Hannon, who lives next door with her mother and father. Mam and Bridey talk all the time. When my father goes for his long walk Bridey comes in and she and Mam sit by the ﬁre drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. If Mam has nothing in the house Bridey brings tea, sugar and milk. Sometimes they use the same tea leaves over and over and Mam says the tea is stewed, coddled and boiled. 133

Mam and Bridey sit so close to the ﬁre their shins turn red and purple and blue.They talk for hours and they whisper and laugh over secret things. We're not supposed to hear the secret things so we're told go out and play. I often sit on the seventh step listening and they have no notion I'm there. It might be lashing rain out but Mam says, Rain or no, out you go, and she'll tell us, If you see your father coming, run in and tell me. Mam says to Bridey, Did you ever hear that poem that someone must have made up about me and him? What poem,Angela? 'Tis called "The Man from the North." I got this poem from Min- nie MacAdorey in America. I never heard that poem. Say it for me. Mam says the poem but she laughs all through it and I don't know why, He came from the North so his words were few But his voice was kind and his heart was true. And I knew by his eyes that no guile had he, So I married my man from the North Country. Oh, Garryowen may be more gay Than this quiet man from beside Lough Neagh And I know that the sun shines softly down On the river that runs through my native town. But there's not—and I say it with joy and with pride A better man in all Munster wide And Limerick town has no happier hearth Than mine has been with my man from the North. I wish that in Limerick they only knew The kind kind neighbors I came unto. Small hate or scorn would there ever be Between the South and the North Country. She always repeats the third verse and laughs so hard she's crying and I don't know why. She goes into hysterics when she says, 134

And Limerick town has no happier hearth Than mine has been with my man from the North. If he comes back early and sees Bridey in the kitchen the man from the North says, Gossip, gossip, gossip, and stands there with his cap on till she leaves. Bridey's mother and other people in our lane and lanes beyond will come to the door to ask Dad if he'll write a letter to the government or a relation in a distant place. He sits at the table with his pen and bot- tle of ink and when the people tell him what to write he says, Och, no, that's not what you want to say, and he writes what he feels like writ- ing.The people tell him that's what they wanted to say in the ﬁrst place, that he has a lovely way with the English language and a ﬁne ﬁst for the writing.They offer him sixpence for his trouble but he waves it away and they hand it to Mam because he's too grand to be taking sixpence. When the people leave he takes the sixpence and sends me to Kathleen O'Connell's shop for cigarettes. Grandma sleeps in a big bed upstairs with a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus over her head and a statue of the Sacred Heart on the mantel- piece. She wants to switch from gaslight to electric light someday so that she'll have a little red light under the statue forever. Her devotion to the Sacred Heart is known up and down the lane and in lanes beyond. Uncle Pat sleeps in a small bed in a corner of the same room where Grandma can make sure he comes in at a proper hour and kneels by the bed to say his prayers. He might have been dropped on his head, he may not know how to read and write, he may drink one pint too many, but there's no excuse for not saying his prayers before he goes to sleep. Uncle Pat tells Grandma he met a man who is looking for a place to stay that will let him wash himself morning and night and give him two meals a day, dinner and tea. His name is Bill Galvin and he has a good job down at the lime kiln. He's covered all the time with white lime dust but surely that's better than coal dust. Grandma will have to give up her bed and move into the small room.She'll take the Sacred Heart picture and leave the statue to watch 135

over the two men. Besides, she has no place for a statue in her little room. Bill Galvin comes after work to see the place. He's small, all white, and he snufﬂes like a dog. He asks Grandma if she'd mind taking down that statue because he's a Protestant and he wouldn't be able to sleep. Grandma barks at Uncle Pat for not telling her he was dragging a Protestant into the house. Jesus, she says, there will be gossip up and down the lane and beyond. Uncle Pat says he didn't know Bill Galvin was a Protestant.You could never tell by looking at him especially the way he's covered with lime. He looks like an ordinary Catholic and you'd never imagine a Protestant would be shoveling lime. Bill Galvin says his poor wife that just died was a Catholic and she had the walls covered with pictures of the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary showing their hearts. He's not against the Sacred Heart himself, it's just that seeing the statue will remind him of his poor wife and give him the heartache. Grandma says,Ah, God help us, why didn't you tell me that in the ﬁrst place? Sure I can put the statue on the windowsill in my room and your heart won't be tormented at the sight of it. Every morning Grandma cooks Bill's dinner and takes it to him at the lime kiln.Mam wonders why he can't take it with him in the morn- ing and Grandma says, Do you expect me to get up at dawn and boil cabbage and pig's toes for his lordship to take in his dinner can? Mam tells her, In another week school will be over and if you give Frank sixpence a week he'll surely be glad to take Bill Galvin his dinner. I don't want to go to Grandma's every day. I don't want to take Bill Galvin his dinner all the way down the Dock Road, but Mam says that's sixpence we could use and if I don't do it I'm going nowhere else. You're staying in the house,she says.You're not playing with your pals. Grandma warns me to take the dinner can directly and not be meandering, looking this way and that, kicking canisters and ruining the toes of my shoes.This dinner is hot and that's the way Bill Galvin wants it. There's a lovely smell from the dinner can, boiled bacon and cab- bage and two big ﬂoury white potatoes. Surely he won't notice if I try 136

half a potato. He won't complain to Grandma because he hardly ever talks outside of a snufﬂe or two. It's better if I eat the other half potato so that he won't be asking why he got a half. I might as well try the bacon and cabbage too and if I eat the other potato he'll surely think she didn't send one at all. The second potato melts in my mouth and I'll have to try another bit of cabbage, another morsel of bacon.There isn't much left now and he'll be very suspicious so I might as well ﬁnish off the rest. What am I going to do now? Grandma will destroy me, Mam will keep me in for a year.Bill Galvin will bury me in lime.I'll tell him I was attacked by a dog on the Dock Road and he ate the whole dinner and I'm lucky I escaped without being eaten myself. Oh,is that so? says Bill Galvin.And what's that bit of cabbage hang- ing on your gansey? Did the dog lick you wit his cabbagey gob? Go home and tell your grandmother you ate me whole dinner and I'm falling down with the hunger here in this lime kiln. She'll kill me. Tell her don't kill you till she sends me some class of a dinner and if you don't go to her now and get me a dinner I'll kill you and throw your body into the lime there and there won't be much left for your mother to moan over. Grandma says,What are you doin' back with that can? He could bring that back by himself. He wants more dinner. What do you mean more dinner? Jesus above, is it a hole he has in his leg? He's falling down with the hunger below in the lime kiln. Is it coddin' me you are? He says send him any class of a dinner. I will not. I sent him his dinner. He didn't get it. He didn't? Why not? I ate it. I was hungry and I tasted it and I couldn't stop. Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph. She gives me a clout on the head that brings tears to my eyes. She screams at me like a banshee and jumps around the kitchen and threat- 137

ens to drag me to the priest, the bishop, the Pope himself if he lived around the corner.She cuts bread and waves the knife at me and makes sandwiches of brawn and cold potatoes. Take these sandwiches to Bill Galvin and if you even look cross- eyed at them I'll skin your hide. Of course she runs to Mam and they agree the only way I can make up for my terrible sin is to deliver Bill Galvin's dinner for a fortnight without pay. I'm to bring back the can every day and that means I have to sit watching him stuff the food into his gob and he's not one that would ever ask you if you had a mouth in your head. Every day I take the can back Grandma makes me kneel to the statue of the Sacred Heart and tell Him I'm sorry and all this over Bill Galvin, a Protestant. Mam says, I'm a martyr for the fags and so is your father. There may be a lack of tea or bread in the house but Mam and Dad always manage to get the fags, the Wild Woodbines.They have to have the Woodbines in the morning and anytime they drink tea.They tell us every day we should never smoke, it's bad for your lungs, it's bad for your chest, it stunts your growth, and they sit by the ﬁre pufﬁng away. Mam says, If 'tis a thing I ever see you with a fag in your gob I'll break your face. They tell us the cigarettes rot your teeth and you can see they're not lying.The teeth turn brown and black in their heads and fall out one by one.Dad says he has holes in his teeth big enough for a spar- row to raise a family. He has a few left but he gets them pulled at the clinic and applies for a false set.When he comes home with the new teeth he shows his big new white smile that makes him look like an American and whenever he tells us a ghost story by the ﬁre he pushes the lower teeth up beyond his lip to his nose and frightens the life out of us. Mam's teeth are so bad she has to go to Barrington's Hospital to have them all pulled at the same time and when she comes home she's holding at her mouth a rag bright with blood.She has to sit up all night by the ﬁre because you can't lie down when your gums are pumping blood or you'll choke in your sleep. She says she'll give up smoking entirely when this bleeding stops but she needs one puff of a fag this minute for the comfort that's in it. She tells Malachy go to Kathleen O'Connell's shop and ask her would she ever let her have ﬁve Wood- bines till Dad collects the dole on Thursday. If anyone can get the fags 138

out of Kathleen, Malachy can. Mam says he has the charm, and she tells me,There's no use sending you with your long puss and your father's odd manner. When the bleeding stops and Mam's gums heal she goes to the clinic for her false teeth. She says she'll give up the smoking when her new teeth are in but she never does.The new teeth rub on her gums and make them sore and the smoke of the Woodbines eases them. She and Dad sit by the ﬁre when we have one and smoke their ciga- rettes and when they talk their teeth clack.They try to stop the clack- ing by moving their jaws back and forth but that only makes it worse and they curse the dentists and the people above in Dublin who made the teeth and while they curse they clack. Dad claims these teeth were made for rich people in Dublin and didn't ﬁt so they were passed on to the poor of Limerick who don't care because you don't have much to chew when you're poor anyway and you're grateful you have any class of a tooth in your head.If they talk too long their gums get sore and the teeth have to come out.Then they sit talking by the ﬁre with their faces collapsed. Every night they leave the teeth in the kitchen in jam jars ﬁlled with water. Malachy wants to know why and Dad tells him it cleans them. Mam says, No, you can't have teeth in your head while you're sleeping for they'll slip and choke you to death entirely. The teeth are the cause of Malachy going to Barrington's Hospital and me having an operation. Malachy whispers to me in the middle of the night, Do you want to go downstairs and see if we can wear the teeth? The teeth are so big we have trouble getting them into our mouths but Malachy won't give up.He forces Dad's upper teeth into his mouth and can't get them out again.His lips are drawn back and the teeth make a big grin. He looks like a monster in a ﬁlm and it makes me laugh but he pulls at them and grunts, Uck, uck, and tears come to his eyes.The more he goes Uck, uck, the harder I laugh till Dad calls from upstairs, What are you boys doing? Malachy runs from me,up the stairs,and now I hear Dad and Mam laughing till they see he can choke on the teeth. They both stick their ﬁngers in to pull out the teeth but Malachy gets frightened and makes desperate uck uck sounds. Mam says,We'll have to take him to the hospital, and Dad says he'll take him. He makes me go in case the doctor has questions because I'm older than Malachy and that means I must have started all the trouble. Dad rushes through the streets with Malachy in his arms and I try to keep up. I feel sorry for 139

Malachy up there on Dad's shoulder, looking back at me, tears on his cheeks and Dad's teeth bulging in his mouth.The doctor at Barring- ton's Hospital says, No bother. He pours oil into Malachy's mouth and has the teeth out in a minute.Then he looks at me and says to Dad,Why is that child standing there with his mouth hanging open? Dad says,That's a habit he has, standing with his mouth open. The doctor says, Come here to me. He looks up my nose, in my ears, down my throat, and feels my neck. The tonsils, he says. The adenoids. They have to come out. The sooner the better or he'll look like an idiot when he grows up with that gob wide as a boot. Next day Malachy gets a big piece of toffee as a reward for sticking in teeth he can't get out and I have to go to the hospital to have an oper- ation that will close my mouth. On a Saturday morning Mam ﬁnishes her tea and says,You're going to dance. Dance? Why? You're seven years old, you made your First Communion, and now 'tis time for the dancing. I'm taking you down to Catherine Street to Mrs. O'Connor's Irish dancing classes.You'll go there every Saturday morning and that'll keep you off the streets.That'll keep you from wan- dering around Limerick with hooligans. She tells me wash my face not forgetting ears and neck, comb my hair, blow my nose, take the look off my face, what look? never mind, just take it off, put on my stockings and my First Communion shoes which, she says, are destroyed because I can't pass a canister or a rock without kicking it. She's worn out standing in the queue at the St.Vin- cent de Paul Society begging for boots for me and Malachy so that we can wear out the toes with the kicking.Your father says it's never too early to learn the songs and dances of your ancestors. What's ancestors? Never mind, she says, you're going to dance. I wonder how I can die for Ireland if I have to sing and dance for Ireland, too. I wonder why they never say,You can eat sweets and stay home from school and go swimming for Ireland. Mam says, Don't get smart or I'll warm your ear. 140

Cyril Benson dances. He has medals hanging from his shoulders to his kneecaps.He wins contests all over Ireland and he looks lovely in his saffron kilt.He's a credit to his mother and he gets his name in the paper all the time and you can be sure he brings home the odd few pounds. You don't see him roaming the streets kicking everything in sight till the toes hang out of his boots, oh, no, he's a good boy, dancing for his poor mother. Mam wets an old towel and scrubs my face till it stings, she wraps the towel around her ﬁnger and sticks it in my ears and claims there's enough wax there to grow potatoes, she wets my hair to make it lie down, she tells me shut up and stop the whinging, that these dancing lessons will cost her sixpence every Saturday,which I could have earned bringing Bill Galvin his dinner and God knows she can barely afford it. I try to tell her,Ah, Mam, sure you don't have to send me to dancing school when you could be smoking a nice Woodbine and having a cup of tea,but she says,Oh,aren't you clever.You're going to dance if I have to give up the fags forever. If my pals see my mother dragging me through the streets to an Irish dancing class I'll be disgraced entirely.They think it's all right to dance and pretend you're Fred Astaire because you can jump all over the screen with Ginger Rogers. There is no Ginger Rogers in Irish dancing and you can't jump all over.You stand straight up and down and keep your arms against yourself and kick your legs up and around and never smile. My uncle Pa Keating said Irish dancers look like they have steel rods up their arses,but I can't say that to Mam,she'd kill me. There's a gramophone in Mrs. O'Connor's playing an Irish jig or a reel and boys and girls are dancing around kicking their legs out and keeping their hands to their sides. Mrs. O'Connor is a great fat woman and when she stops the record to show the steps all the fat from her chin to her ankles jiggles and I wonder how she can teach the dancing. She comes over to my mother and says, So, this is little Frankie? I think we have the makings of a dancer here. Boys and girls, do we have the mak- ings of a dancer here? We do, Mrs. O'Connor. Mam says, I have the sixpence, Mrs. O'Connor. Ah, yes, Mrs. McCourt, hold on a minute. She waddles to a table and brings back the head of a black boy with 141

kinky hair, big eyes, huge red lips and an open mouth. She tells me put the sixpence in the mouth and take my hand out before the black boy bites me.All the boys and girls watch and they have little smiles. I drop in the sixpence and pull my hand back before the mouth snaps shut. Everyone laughs and I know they wanted to see my hand caught in the mouth. Mrs. O'Connor gasps and laughs and says to my mother, Isn't that a howl, now? Mam says it's a howl. She tells me behave myself and come home dancing. I don't want to stay in this place where Mrs. O'Connor can't take the sixpence herself instead of letting me nearly lose my hand in the black boy's mouth. I don't want to stay in this place where you have to stand in line with boys and girls, straighten your back, hands by your sides, look ahead, don't look down, move your feet, move your feet, look at Cyril, look at Cyril, and there goes Cyril, all dressed up in his saffron kilt and the medals jingling, medals for this and medals for that and the girls love Cyril and Mrs. O'Connor loves Cyril for didn't he bring her fame and didn't she teach him every step he knows, oh, dance, Cyril, dance, oh, Jesus, he ﬂoats around the room, he's an angel out of heaven and stop the frowning, Frankie McCourt, or you'll have a puss on you like a pound of tripe, dance, Frankie, dance, pick up your feet for the love o' Jesus, onetwothreefourﬁvesixseven onetwothree and a onetwothree, Maura, will you help that Frankie McCourt before he ties his two feet around his poll entirely, help him, Maura. Maura is a big girl about ten. She dances up to me with her white teeth and her dancer's dress with all the gold and yellow and green ﬁg- ures that are supposed to come from olden times and she says, Give me your hand, little boy, and she wheels me around the room till I'm dizzy and making a pure eejit of myself and blushing and foolish till I want to cry but I'm saved when the record stops and the gramophone goes hoosh hoosh. Mrs. O'Connor says, Oh, thank you, Maura, and next week, Cyril, you can show Frankie a few of the steps that made you famous.Next week, boys and girls, and don't forget the sixpence for the little black boy. Boys and girls leave together. I make my own way down the stairs and out the door hoping my pals won't see me with boys who wear kilts and girls with white teeth and fancy dresses from olden times. Mam is having tea with Bridey Hannon,her friend from next door. Mam says, What did you learn? and makes me dance around the 142

kitchen, onetwothreefourﬁvesixseven onetwothree and a onetwothree. She has a good laugh with Bridey.That's not too bad for your ﬁrst time. In a month you'll be like a regular Cyril Benson. I don't want to be Cyril Benson. I want to be Fred Astaire. They turn hysterical, laughing and squirting tea out of their mouths, Jesus love him, says Bridey. Doesn't he have a great notion of himself. Fred Astaire how are you. Mam says Fred Astaire went to his lessons every Saturday and didn't go around kicking the toes out of his boots and if I wanted to be like him I'd have to go to Mrs. O'Connor's every week. The fourth Saturday morning Billy Campbell knocks at our door. Mrs. McCourt, can Frankie come out and play? Mam tells him, No, Billy. Frankie is going to his dancing lesson. He waits for me at the bottom of Barrack Hill. He wants to know why I'm dancing, that everyone knows dancing is a sissy thing and I'll wind up like Cyril Benson wearing a kilt and medals and dancing all over with girls. He says next thing I'll be sitting in the kitchen knitting socks. He says dancing will destroy me and I won't be ﬁt to play any kind of football,soccer,rugby or Gaelic football itself because the danc- ing teaches you to run like a sissy and everyone will laugh. I tell him I'm ﬁnished with the dancing, that I have sixpence in my pocket for Mrs. O'Connor that's supposed to go into the black boy's mouth, that I'm going to the Lyric Cinema instead. Sixpence will get the two of us in with tuppence left over for two squares of Cleeves'tof- fee, and we have a great time looking at Riders of the Purple Sage. Dad is sitting by the ﬁre with Mam and they want to know what steps I learned today and what they're called. I already did "The Siege of Ennis" and "The Walls of Limerick," which are real dances. Now I have to make up names and dances. Mam says she never heard of a dance called "The Siege of Dingle"but if that's what I learned go ahead, dance it, and I dance around the kitchen with my hands down by my sides making my own music, diddley eye di eye di eye diddley eye do you do you, Dad and Mam clapping in time with my feet. Dad says, Och, that's a ﬁne dance and you'll be a powerful Irish dancer and a credit to the men who died for their country. Mam says,That wasn't much for a sixpence. Next week it's a George Raft ﬁlm and the week after that a cow- boy ﬁlm with George O'Brien.Then it's James Cagney and I can't take 143

Billy because I want to get a bar of chocolate to go with my Cleeves' toffee and I'm having a great time till there's a terrible pain in my jaw and it's a tooth out of my gum stuck in my toffee and the pain is killing me. Still, I can't waste the toffee so I pull out the tooth and put it in my pocket and chew the toffee on the other side of my mouth blood and all. There's pain on one side and delicious toffee on the other and I remember what my uncle Pa Keating would say,There are times when you wouldn't know whether to shit or go blind. I have to go home now and worry because you can't go through the world short a tooth without your mother knowing. Mothers know everything and she's always looking into our mouths to see if there's any class of disease. She's there by the ﬁre and Dad is there and they're ask- ing me the same old questions, the dance and the name of the dance. I tell them I learned "The Walls of Cork" and I dance around the kitchen trying to hum a made-up tune and dying with the pain of my tooth. Mam says, "Walls o' Cork," my eye, there's no such dance, and Dad says, Come over here. Stand there before me.Tell us the truth, Did you go to your dancing classes today? I can't tell a lie anymore because my gum is killing me and there's blood in my mouth. Besides, I know they know everything and that's what they're telling me now. Some snake of a boy from the dancing school saw me going to the Lyric Cinema and told and Mrs. O'Con- nor sent a note to say she hadn't seen me in ages and was I all right because I had great promise and could follow in the footsteps of the great Cyril Benson. Dad doesn't care about my tooth or anything. He says I'm going to confession and drags me over to the Redemptorist church because it's Saturday and confessions go on all day. He tells me I'm a bad boy, he's ashamed of me that I went to the pictures instead of learning Ireland's national dances, the jig, the reel, the dances that men and women fought and died for down those sad centuries. He says there's many a young man that was hanged and now moldering in a lime pit that would be glad to rise up and dance the Irish dance. The priest is old and I have to yell my sins at him and he tells me I'm a hooligan for going to the pictures instead of my dancing lessons although he thinks himself that dancing is a dangerous thing almost as bad as the ﬁlms, that it stirs up thoughts sinful in themselves, but even if dancing is an abomination I sinned by taking my mother's sixpence 144

and lying and there's a hot place in hell for the likes of me, say a decade of the rosary and ask God's forgiveness for you're dancing at the gates of hell itself, child. I'm seven,eight,nine going on ten and still Dad has no work.He drinks his tea in the morning, signs for the dole at the Labour Exchange, reads the papers at the Carnegie Library, goes for his long walks far into the country. If he gets a job at the Limerick Cement Company or Rank's Flour Mills he loses it in the third week. He loses it because he goes to the pubs on the third Friday of the job, drinks all his wages and misses the half day of work on Saturday morning. Mam says,Why can't he be like the other men from the lanes of Limerick? They're home before the Angelus rings at six o'clock, they hand over their wages, change their shirts, have their tea, get a few shillings from the wife and they're off to the pub for a pint or two. Mam tells Bridey Hannon that Dad can't be like that and won't be like that. She says he's a right bloody fool the way he goes to pubs and stands pints to other men while his own children are home with their bellies stuck to their backbones for the want of a decent dinner. He'll brag to the world he did his bit for Ireland when it was neither popu- lar nor proﬁtable, that he'll gladly die for Ireland when the call comes, that he regrets he has only one life to give for his poor misfortunate country and if anyone disagrees they're invited to step outside and set- tle this for once and for all. Oh, no, says Mam, they won't disagree and they won't step outside, that bunch of tinkers and knackers and begrudgers that hang around the pubs.They tell him he's a grand man, even if he's from the North, and 'twould be an honor to accept a pint from such a patriot. Mam tells Bridey, I don't know under God what I'm going to do. The dole is nineteen shillings and sixpence a week, the rent is six and six, and that leaves thirteen shillings to feed and clothe ﬁve people and keep us warm in the winter. Bridey drags on her Woodbine,drinks her tea and declares that God is good. Mam says she's sure God is good for someone somewhere but He hasn't been seen lately in the lanes of Limerick. Bridey laughs. Oh,Angela, you could go to hell for that, and Mam says,Aren't I there already, Bridey? 145

And they laugh and drink their tea and smoke their Woodbines and tell one another the fag is the only comfort they have. Question Quigley tells me I have to go to the Redemptorist church on Friday and join the boys' division of the Arch Confraternity. You have to join.You can't say no. All the boys in the lanes and back streets that have fathers on the dole or working in laboring jobs have to join. Question says,Your father is a foreigner from the North and he don't matter but you still have to join. Everyone knows Limerick is the holiest city in Ireland because it has the Arch Confraternity of the Holy Family, the biggest sodality in the world. Any city can have a Confraternity, only Limerick has the Arch. Our Confraternity ﬁlls the Redemptorist church ﬁve nights a week, three for the men, one for the women, one for the boys.There is Benediction and hymn singing in English,Irish and Latin and best of all the big powerful sermon Redemptorist priests are famous for. It's the sermon that saves millions of Chinese and other heathens from wind- ing up in hell with the Protestants. The Question says you have to join the Confraternity so that your mother can tell the St.Vincent de Paul Society and they'll know you're a good Catholic. He says his father is a loyal member and that's how he got a good pensionable job cleaning lavatories at the railway station and when he grows up himself he'll get a good job too unless he runs away and joins the Royal Canadian Mounted Police so that he can sing "I'll Be Calling You Ooo Ooo Ooo,"like Nelson Eddy singing to Jeanette MacDonald expiring with consumption there on the sofa. If he brings me to the Confraternity the man in the ofﬁce will write his name in a big book and some day he might be promoted to prefect of a section, which is all he wants in life next to wearing the Mountie uniform. The prefect is head of a section which is thirty boys from the same lanes and streets. Every section has the name of a saint whose picture is painted on a shield stuck on top of a pole by the prefect's seat.The pre- fect and his assistant take the attendance and keep an eye on us so that they can give us a thump on the head in case we laugh during Bene- 146

diction or commit any other sacrileges. If you miss one night the man in the ofﬁce wants to know why, wants to know if you're slipping away from the Confraternity or he might say to the other man in the ofﬁce, I think our little friend here has taken the soup.That's the worst thing you can say to any Catholic in Limerick or Ireland itself because of what happened in the Great Famine. If you're absent twice the man in the ofﬁce sends you a yellow summons to appear and explain yourself and if you're absent three times he sends The Posse, which is ﬁve or six big boys from your section who search the streets to make sure you're not out enjoying yourself when you should be on your knees at the Confraternity praying for the Chinese and other lost souls. The Posse will go to your house and tell your mother your immortal soul is in danger. Some mothers worry but others will say, Get away from my door or I'll come out and give every one o' ye a good fong in the hole of yeer arse.These are not good Confraternity mothers and the direc- tor will say we should pray for them that they'll see the error of their ways. The worst thing of all is a visit from the director of the Confrater- nity himself, Father Gorey. He'll stand at the top of the lane and roar in the voice that converted the Chinese millions,Where is the house of Frank McCourt? He roars even though he has your address in his pocket and knows very well where you live. He roars because he wants the world to know you're slipping away from the Confraternity and putting your immortal soul in danger.The mothers are terriﬁed and the fathers will whisper, I'm not here, I'm not here, and they'll make sure you go to the Confraternity from this on out so they won't be dis- graced and shamed entirely with the neighbors muttering behind their hands. The Question takes me to the section St. Finbar's, and the prefect tells me sit over there and shut up. His name is Declan Collopy, he's fourteen and he has lumps on his forehead that look like horns. He has thick ginger eyebrows that meet in the middle and hang over his eyes and his arms hang down to his kneecaps. He tells me he's making this the best section in the Confraternity and if I'm ever absent he'll break my arse and send the bits to my mother.There's no excuse for absence because there was a boy in another section that was dying and still they brought him in on a stretcher. He says, If you're ever absent it bet- ter be a death, not a death in the family but your own death. Do you hear me? 147

I do, Declan. Boys in my section tell me that prefects get rewards if there is per- fect attendance.Declan wants to get out of school as soon as he can and get a job selling linoleum at Cannock's big shop on Patrick Street. His uncle, Foncey, sold linoleum there for years and made enough money to start his own shop in Dublin, where he has his three sons selling linoleum.Father Gorey,the director,can easily get Declan the reward of a job at Cannock's if he's a good prefect and has perfect attendance in his section and that's why Declan will destroy us if we're absent.He tells us, No one will stand between me and the linoleum. Declan likes Question Quigley and lets him miss an occasional Fri- day night because the Question said, Declan, when I grow up and get married I'm going to cover my house in linoleum and I'll buy it all from you. Other boys in the section try this trick with Declan but he says, Bugger off, ye'll be lucky enough to have a pot to piss in never mind yards of linoleum. Dad says when he was my age in Toome he served Mass for years and it's time for me to be an altar boy. Mam says,What's the use? The child doesn't have proper clothes for school never mind the altar.Dad says the altar boy robes will cover the clothes and she says we don't have the money for robes and the wash they need every week. He says God will provide and makes me kneel on the kitchen ﬂoor. He takes the part of the priest for he has the whole Mass in his head and I have to know the responses. He says, Introibo ad altare Dei, and I have to say, Ad Deum qui laetiﬁcat juventutem meam. Every evening after tea I kneel for the Latin and he won't let me move till I'm perfect. Mam says he could at least let me sit but he says Latin is sacred and it is to be learned and recited on the knees.You won't ﬁnd the Pope sitting around drinking tea while he speaks the Latin. The Latin is hard and my knees are sore and scabby and I'd like to be out in the lane playing though still I'd like to be an altar boy helping the priest vest in the sacristy, up there on the altar all decked out in my red and white robes like my pal Jimmy Clark, answering the priest in Latin,moving the big book from one side of the tabernacle to the other, pouring water and wine into the chalice,pouring water over the priest's hands,ringing the bell at Consecration,kneeling,bowing,swinging the 148

censer at Benediction,sitting off to the side with the palms of my hands on my knees all serious while he gives his sermon, everyone in St. Joseph's looking at me and admiring my ways. In a fortnight I have the Mass in my head and it's time to go to St. Joseph's to see the sacristan, Stephen Carey, who is in charge of altar boys. Dad polishes my boots. Mam darns my socks and throws an extra coal on the ﬁre to heat up the iron to press my shirt. She boils water to scrub my head, neck, hands and knees and any inch of skin that shows. She scrubs till my skin burns and tells Dad she wouldn't give it to the world to say her son went on the altar dirty. She wishes I didn't have scabby knees from running around kicking canisters and falling down pretending I was the greatest footballer in the world.She wishes we had a drop of hair oil in the house but water and spit will keep my hair from sticking up like black straw in a mattress. She warns me speak up when I go to St.Joseph's and don't be mumbling in English or Latin.She says, 'Tis a great pity you grew out of your First Communion suit but you have nothing to be ashamed of,you come from good blood,McCourts, Sheehans, or my mother's family the Guilfoyles that owned acre after acre in County Limerick before the English took it away and gave it to footpads from London. Dad holds my hand going through the streets and people look at us because of the way we're saying Latin back and forth. He knocks at the sacristy door and tells Stephen Carey,This is my son,Frank,who knows the Latin and is ready to be an altar boy. Stephen Carey looks at him, then me. He says,We don't have room for him, and closes the door. Dad is still holding my hand and squeezes till it hurts and I want to cry out. He says nothing on the way home. He takes off his cap, sits by the ﬁre and lights a Woodbine.Mam is smoking,too.Well,she says,is he going to be an altar boy? There's no room for him. Oh. She puffs on her Woodbine. I'll tell you what it is, she says. 'Tis class distinction. They don't want boys from lanes on the altar. They don't want the ones with scabby knees and hair sticking up.Oh,no,they want the nice boys with hair oil and new shoes that have fathers with suits and ties and steady jobs.That's what it is and 'tis hard to hold on to the Faith with the snobbery that's in it. Och, aye. Oh, och aye my arse.That's all you ever say.You could go to the 149

priest and tell him you have a son that has a head stuffed with Latin and why can't he be an altar boy and what is he going to do with all that Latin? Och, he might grow up to be a priest. I ask him if I can go out and play.Yes, he says, go out and play. Mam says,You might as well. 150

VI Mr. O'Neill is the master in the fourth class at school.We call him Dotty because he's small like a dot. He teaches in the one classroom with a platform so that he can stand above us and threaten us with his ash plant and peel his apple for all to see.The ﬁrst day of school in September he writes on the blackboard three words which are to stay there the rest of the year, Euclid, geometry, idiot. He says if he catches any boy interfering with these words that boy will go through the rest of his life with one hand. He says anyone who doesn't understand the theorems of Euclid is an idiot. Now, repeat after me, Anyone who doesn't understand the theorems of Euclid is an idiot. Of course we all know what an idiot is because that's what the masters keep telling us we are. Brendan Quigley raises his hand. Sir, what's a theorem and what's a Euclid? We expect Dotty to lash at Brendan the way all the masters do when you ask them a question but he looks at Brendan with a little smile. Ah, now, here's a boy with not one but two questions.What is your name, boy? Brendan Quigley, sir. This is a boy who will go far.Where will he go, boys? Far, sir. Indeed and he will.The boy who wants to know something about 151

the grace, elegance and beauty of Euclid can go nowhere but up. In what direction and no other can this boy go, boys? Up, sir. Without Euclid, boys, mathematics would be a poor doddering thing.Without Euclid we wouldn't be able to go from here to there. Without Euclid the bicycle would have no wheel.Without Euclid St. Joseph could not have been a carpenter for carpentry is geometry and geometry is carpentry. Without Euclid this very school could never have been built. Paddy Clohessy mutters behind me, Feckin' Euclid. Dotty barks at him.You, boy, what is your name? Clohessy, sir. Ah, the boy ﬂies on one wing.What is your Christian name? Paddy. Paddy what? Paddy, sir. And what, Paddy, were you saying to McCourt? I said we should get down on our two knees and thank God for Euclid. I'm sure you did,Clohessy.I see the lie festering in your teeth.What do I see, boys? The lie, sir. And what is the lie doing, boys? Festering, sir. Where, boys, where? In his teeth, sir. Euclid, boys, was a Greek.What, Clohessy, is a Greek? Some class of a foreigner, sir. Clohessy, you are a half-wit. Now, Brendan, surely you know what a Greek is? Yes, sir. Euclid was a Greek. Dotty gives him the little smile. He tells Clohessy he should model himself on Quigley, who knows what a Greek is. He draws two lines side by side and tells us these are parallel lines and the magical and mys- terious thing is that they never meet,not if they were to be extended to inﬁnity, not if they were extended to God's shoulders and that, boys, is a long way though there is a German Jew who is upsetting the whole world with his ideas on parallel lines. We listen to Dotty and wonder what all this has to do with the state 152

of the world with the Germans marching everywhere and bombing everything that stands.We can't ask him ourselves but we can get Bren- dan Quigley to do it. Anyone can see Brendan is the master's pet and that means he can ask any question he likes.After school we tell Bren- dan he has to ask the question tomorrow,What use is Euclid and all those lines that go on forever when the Germans are bombing every- thing? Brendan says he doesn't want to be the master's pet,he didn't ask for it, and he doesn't want to ask the question. He's afraid if he asks that question Dotty will attack him.We tell him if he doesn't ask the ques- tion we'll attack him. Next day Brendan raises his hand. Dotty gives him the little smile. Sir,what use is Euclid and all the lines when the Germans are bombing everything that stands? The little smile is gone. Ah, Brendan. Ah, Quigley. Oh, boys, oh, boys. He lays his stick on the desk and stands on the platform with his eyes closed. What use is Euclid? he says. Use? Without Euclid the Messerschmitt could never have taken to the sky.Without Euclid the Spitﬁre could not dart from cloud to cloud. Euclid brings us grace and beauty and elegance.What does he bring us, boys? Grace, sir. Beauty, sir. Elegance, sir. Euclid is complete in himself and divine in application. Do you understand that, boys? We do, sir. I doubt it,boys,I doubt it.To love Euclid is to be alone in this world. He opens his eyes and sighs and you can see the eyes are a little watery. Paddy Clohessy is leaving the school that day and he's stopped by Mr. O'Dea, who teaches the ﬁfth class. Mr. O'Dea says,You, what's your name? Clohessy, sir. What class are you in? Fourth class, sir. 153

Now tell me, Clohessy, is that master of yours talking to you about Euclid? He is, sir. And what is he saying? He's saying he's a Greek. Of course he is, you diddering omadhaun.What else is he saying? He's saying there would be no school without Euclid. Ah. Now is he drawing anything on the board? He's drawing lines side by side that will never meet even if they land on God's shoulders. Mother o' God. No, sir. God's shoulders. I know, you idiot. Go home. The next day there's a great noise at our classroom door and Mr. O'Dea is yelling,Come out,O'Neill,you chancer,you poltroon.We can hear everything he's saying because of the broken glass over the door. The new headmaster, Mr. O'Halloran, is saying, Now, now, Mr. O'Dea. Control yourself. No quarreling in front of our pupils. Well, then, Mr. O'Halloran, tell him stop teaching the geometry. The geometry is for the ﬁfth form and not the fourth.The geometry is mine.Tell him to teach the long division and leave Euclid to me. Long division will stretch his intellect such as it is, God help us. I don't want the minds of these boys destroyed by that chancer up there on the plat- form, him handing out apple skins and causing diarrhea right and left. Tell him Euclid is mine, Mr. O'Halloran, or I'll put a stop to his gallop. Mr. O'Halloran tells Mr. O'Dea to return to his classroom and asks Mr. O'Neill to step into the hall. Mr. O'Halloran says, Now, Mr. O'Neill, I have asked you before to stay away from Euclid. You have,Mr.O'Halloran,but you might as well ask me to stop eat- ing my daily apple. I'll have to insist, Mr. O'Neill. No more Euclid. Mr. O'Neill comes back to the room and his eyes are watery again. He says little has changed since the time of the Greeks for the barbar- ians are within the gates and their names are legion.What has changed since the time of the Greeks, boys? It is torture to watch Mr. O'Neill peel the apple every day, to see the length of it, red or green, and if you're up near him to catch the fresh- 154

ness of it in your nose. If you're the good boy for that day and you answer the questions he gives it to you and lets you eat it there at your desk so that you can eat it in peace with no one to bother you the way they would if you took it into the yard. Then they'd torment you, Gimme a piece, gimme a piece, and you'd be lucky to have an inch left for yourself. There are days when the questions are too hard and he torments us by dropping the apple peel into the wastebasket.Then he borrows a boy from another class to take the wastebasket down to the furnace to burn papers and apple peel or he'll leave it for the charwoman, Nellie Ahearn, to take it all away in her big canvas sack.We'd like to ask Nel- lie to keep the peel for us before the rats get it but she's weary from cleaning the whole school by herself and she snaps at us, I have other things to be doin' with me life besides watchin' a scabby bunch rootin' around for the skin of an apple. Go 'way. He peels the apple slowly. He looks around the room with the lit- tle smile. He teases us, Do you think, boys, I should give this to the pigeons on the windowsill? We say, No, sir, pigeons don't eat apples. Paddy Clohessy calls out, 'Twill give them the runs, sir, and we'll have it on our heads abroad in the yard. Clohessy,you are an omadhaun.Do you know what an omadhaun is? I don't, sir. It's the Irish, Clohessy, your native tongue, Clohessy. An omadhaun is a fool, Clohessy.You are an omadhaun.What is he, boys? An omadhaun, sir. Clohessy says, That's what Mr. O'Dea called me, sir, a diddering omadhaun. He pauses in his peeling to ask us questions about everything in the world and the boy with the best answers wins. Hands up, he says, who is the President of the United States of America? Every hand in the class goes up and we're all disgusted when he asks a question that any omadhaun would know.We call out, Roosevelt. Then he says,You,Mulcahy,who stood at the foot of the cross when Our Lord was cruciﬁed? Mulcahy is slow.The Twelve Apostles, sir. Mulcahy, what is the Irish word for fool? Omadhaun, sir. And what are you, Mulcahy? An omadhaun, sir. 155

Fintan Slattery raises his hand. I know who stood at the foot of the cross, sir. Of course Fintan knows who stood at the foot of the cross.Why wouldn't he? He's always running off to Mass with his mother, who is known for her holiness. She's so holy her husband ran off to Canada to cut down trees, glad to be gone and never to be heard from again. She and Fintan say the rosary every night on their knees in the kitchen and read all kinds of religious magazines: The Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart,The Lantern,The Far East, as well as every little book printed by the Catholic Truth Society.They go to Mass and Communion rain or shine and every Saturday they confess to the Jesuits who are known for their interest in intelligent sins not the usual sins you hear from people in lanes who are known for getting drunk and sometimes eating meat on Fridays before it goes bad and cursing on top of it. Fintan and his mother live on Catherine Street and Mrs. Slattery's neighbors call her Mrs. Offer-It-Up because no matter what happens, a broken leg, a spilled cup of tea, a disappeared husband, she says,Well, now, I'll offer that up and I'll have no end of Indulgences to get me into heaven. Fin- tan is just as bad. If you push him in the schoolyard or call him names he'll smile and tell you he'll pray for you and he'll offer it up for his soul and yours.The boys in Leamy's don't want Fintan praying for them and they threaten to give him a good fong in the arse if they catch him pray- ing for them. He says he wants to be a saint when he grows up, which is ridiculous because you can't be a saint till you're dead. He says our grandchildren will be praying to his picture. One big boy says, My grandchildren will piss on your picture, and Fintan just smiles. His sis- ter ran away to England when she was seventeen and everyone knows he wears her blouse at home and curls his hair with hot iron tongs every Saturday night so that he'll look gorgeous at Mass on Sunday. If he meets you going to Mass he'll say, Isn't my hair gorgeous, Frankie? He loves that word, gorgeous, and no other boy will ever use it. Of course he knows who stood at the foot of the cross. He proba- bly knows what they were wearing and what they had for breakfast and now he's telling Dotty O'Neill it was the three Marys. Dotty says, Come up here, Fintan, and take your reward. He takes his time going to the platform and we can't believe our eyes when he takes out a pocketknife to cut the apple peel into little bits so that he can eat them one by one and not be stufﬁng the whole thing 156

into his mouth like the rest of us when we win. He raises his hand, Sir, I'd like to give some of my apple away. The apple, Fintan? No, indeed.You do not have the apple, Fintan. You have the peel,the mere skin.You have not nor will you ever achieve heights so dizzy you'll be feasting on the apple itself.Not my apple,Fin- tan. Now did I hear you say you want to give away your reward? You did, sir. I'd like to give three pieces, to Quigley, Clohessy and McCourt. Why, Fintan? They're my friends, sir. The boys around the room are sneering and nudging each other and I feel ashamed because they'll say I curl my hair and I'll be tor- mented in the schoolyard and why does he think I'm his friend? If they say I wear my sister's blouse there's no use telling them I don't have a sister because they'll say,You'd wear it if you had a sister.There's no use saying anything in the schoolyard because there's always someone with an answer and there's nothing you can do but punch them in the nose and if you were to punch everyone who has an answer you'd be punch- ing morning noon and night. Quigley takes the bit of peel from Fintan.Thanks, Fintan. The whole class is looking at Clohessy because he's the biggest and the toughest and if he says thanks I'll say thanks. He says,Thanks very much,Fintan,and blushes and I say,Thanks very much,Fintan,and I try to stop myself from blushing but I can't and all the boys sneer again and I'd like to hit them. After school the boys call to Fintan,Hoi,Fintan,are you goin'home to curl your gorgeous hair? Fintan smiles and climbs the steps of the schoolyard.A big boy from seventh class says to Paddy Clohessy,I suppose you'd be curlin'your hair too if you wasn't a baldy with a shaved head. Paddy says, Shurrup, and the boy says, Oh, an' who's goin' to make me? Paddy tries a punch but the big boy hits his nose and knocks him down and there's blood. I try to hit the big boy but he grabs me by the throat and bangs my head against the wall till I see lights and black dots. Paddy walks away holding his nose and crying and the big boy pushes me after him. Fintan is outside on the street and he says, Oh, Francis, Francis,oh,Patrick,Patrick,what's up? Why are you crying,Patrick? and Paddy says, I'm hungry. I can't ﬁght nobody because I'm starving with the hunger an' fallin' down an' I'm ashamed of meself. 157

Fintan says, Come with me, Patrick. My mother will give us some- thing, and Paddy says,Ah, no, me nose is bleedin'. Don't worry.She'll put something on your nose or a key on the back of your neck. Francis, you must come, too.You always look hungry. Ah, no, Fintan. Ah, do, Francis. All right, Fintan. Fintan's ﬂat is like a chapel.There are two pictures,the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Jesus is showing His heart with the crown of thorns, the ﬁre, the blood. His head is tilted to the left to show His great sorrow.The Virgin Mary is showing her heart and it would be a pleasant heart if it didn't have that crown of thorns. Her head is tilted to the right to show her sorrow because she knows her Son will come to a sad end. There's a picture on another wall of a man with a brown robe and birds sitting all over him. Fintan says, Do you know who that is, Fran- cis? No? That's your patron,St.Francis of Assisi,and do you know what today is? The fourth of October. That's right and it's his feast day and special for you because you can ask St. Francis for anything and he'll surely give it to you.That's why I wanted you to come here today. Sit down, Patrick, sit down, Francis. Mrs. Slattery comes in with her rosary beads in her hand. She's happy to meet Fintan's new friends and would we like a cheese sand- wich? And look at your poor nose, Patrick. She touches his nose with the cross on her rosary beads and says a little prayer. She tells us these rosary beads were blessed by the Pope himself and would stop the ﬂow of a river if requested never mind Patrick's poor nose. Fintan says he won't have a sandwich because he's fasting and pray- ing for the boy who hit Paddy and me.Mrs.Slattery gives him a kiss on the head and tells him he's a saint out of heaven and asks if we'd like mustard on our sandwiches and I tell her I never heard of mustard on cheese and I'd love it. Paddy says, I dunno. I never had a sangwidge in me life,and we all laugh and I wonder how you could live ten years like Paddy and never have a sandwich. Paddy laughs, too, and you can see his teeth are white and black and green. We eat the sandwich and drink tea and Paddy wants to know where the lavatory is. Fintan takes him through the bedroom to the backyard 158

and when they come back Paddy says,I have to go home.Me mother'll kill me. I'll wait for you outside, Frankie. Now I have to go to the lavatory and Fintan leads me to the back- yard. He says, I have to go, too, and when I unbutton my ﬂy I can't pee because he's looking at me and he says,You were fooling.You don't have to go at all. I like to look at you, Francis.That's all. I wouldn't want to commit any class of a sin with our Conﬁrmation coming next year. Paddy and I leave together.I'm bursting and run behind a garage to pee.Paddy is waiting for me and as we walk along Hartstonge Street he says,That was a powerful sangwidge, Frankie, an' him an' his mother is very holy but I wouldn't want to go to Fintan's ﬂat anymore because he's very odd, isn't he, Frankie? He is, Paddy. The way he looks at it when you take it out, that's odd, isn't it, 'Tis, Paddy. A few days later Paddy whispers,Fintan Slattery said we could come to his ﬂat at lunchtime. His mother won't be there and she leaves his lunch for him. He might give us some too and he has lovely milk.Will we go? Fintan sits two rows from us.He knows what Paddy is saying to me and he moves his eyebrows up and down as if to say,Will you come? I whisper yes to Paddy and he nods to Fintan and the master barks at us to stop waggling our eyebrows and our lips or the ash plant will sing across our backsides. Boys in the schoolyard see the three of us walk out and they pass remarks. Oh, Gawd, look at Fintan and his ingles. Paddy says, Fintan, what's an ingle? and Fintan says it's just a boy from olden times who sits in a corner,that's all.He tells us sit at the table in his kitchen and we can read his comic books if we like, Film Fun, the Beano, the Dandy, or the religious magazines or his mother's romance magazines, the Miracle and the Oracle, which always have stories about factory girls who are poor but beautiful in love with sons of earls and vice versa and the factory girl ends up throwing herself into the Thames with the hopelessness only to be rescued by a passing carpenter who is poor but honest and will love the factory girl for her own humble self though it turns out the passing carpenter is really the son of a duke, which is much higher than an earl, so that now the poor factory girl is a duchess and can look 159

down her nose at the earl who spurned her because she's happy tend- ing her roses on her twelve-thousand-acre estate in Shropshire and being kind to her poor old mother,who refuses to leave her humble lit- tle cottage for all the money in the world. Paddy says, I don't want to read nothing, it's all a cod, all them sto- ries. Fintan removes the cloth covering his sandwich and glass of milk. The milk looks creamy and cool and delicious and the sandwich bread is almost as white. Paddy says, Is that a ham sangwidge? and Fintan says, 'Tis. Paddy says,That's a lovely looking sangwidge and is there mustard on it? Fintan nods and slices the sandwich in two. Mustard seeps out. He licks it off his ﬁngers and takes a nice mouthful of milk.He cuts the sandwich again into quarters, eighths, sixteenths, takes The Little Mes- senger of the Sacred Heart from the pile of magazines and reads while he eats his sandwich bits and drinks his milk and Paddy and I look at him and I know Paddy is wondering what we're doing here at all, at all, because that's what I'm wondering myself hoping Fintan will pass over the plate to us but he doesn't, he ﬁnishes the milk, leaves bits of sand- wich on the plate,covers it with the cloth and wipes his lips in his dainty way,lowers his head,blesses himself and says grace after meals and,God, we'll be late for school, and blesses himself again on the way out with holy water from the little china font hanging by the door with the lit- tle image of the Virgin Mary showing her heart and pointing at it with two ﬁngers as if we couldn't make it out for ourselves. It's too late for Paddy and me to run and get the bun and milk from Nellie Ahearn and I don't know how I'm going to last from now till I can run home after school and get a piece of bread. Paddy stops at the school gate. He says, I can't go in there starving with the hunger. I'd fall asleep and Dotty'd kill me. Fintan is anxious.Come on,come on,we'll be late.Come on,Fran- cis, hurry up. I'm not going in, Fintan.You had your lunch.We had nothing. Paddy explodes.You're a feckin'chancer,Fintan.That's what you are an'a feckin'begrudger too with your feckin'sangwidge an'your feckin' Sacred Heart of Jesus on the wall an' your feckin' holy water.You can kiss my arse, Fintan. Oh, Patrick. Oh, Patrick my feckin' arse, Fintan. Come on, Frankie. Fintan runs into school and Paddy and I make our way to an orchard in Ballinacurra.We climb a wall and a ﬁerce dog comes at us till 160

Paddy talks to him and tells him he's a good dog and we're hungry and go home to your mother.The dog licks Paddy's face and trots away wav- ing his tail and Paddy is delighted with himself.We stuff apples into our shirts till we can barely get back over the wall to run into a long ﬁeld and sit under a hedge eating the apples till we can't swallow another bit and we stick our faces into a stream for the lovely cool water.Then we run to opposite ends of a ditch to shit and wipe ourselves with grass and thick leaves. Paddy is squatting and saying,There's nothing in the world like a good feed of apples, a drink of water and a good shit, better than any sangwidge of cheese and mustard and Dotty O'Neill can shove his apple up his arse. There are three cows in a ﬁeld with their heads over a stone wall and they say moo to us. Paddy says, Bejasus, 'tis milkin' time, and he's over the wall, stretched on his back under a cow with her big udder hanging into his face.He pulls on a teat and squirts milk into his mouth. He stops squirting and says, Come on, Frankie, fresh milk. 'Tis lovely. Get that other cow, they're all ready for the milkin'. I get under the cow and pull on a teat but she kicks and moves and I'm sure she's going to kill me.Paddy comes over and shows me how to do it, pull hard and straight and the milk comes out in a powerful stream.The two of us lie under the one cow and we're having a great time ﬁlling ourselves with milk when there's a roar and there's a man with a stick charging across the ﬁeld.We're over the wall in a minute and he can't follow us because of his rubber boots.He stands at the wall and shakes his stick and shouts that if he ever catches us we'll have the length of his boot up our arses and we laugh because we're out of harm's way and I'm wondering why anyone should be hungry in a world full of milk and apples. It's all right for Paddy to say Dotty can shove the apple up his arse but I don't want to rob orchards and milk cows forever and I'll always try to win Dotty's apple peel so that I can go home and tell Dad how I answered the hard questions. We're walking back through Ballinacurra.There's rain and lightning and we run but it's hard for me with the sole of my shoe ﬂapping and threatening to trip me. Paddy can run all he wants in his long bare feet and you hear them slapping on the pavement. My shoes and stockings are soaked and they make their own sound,squish,squish.Paddy notices that and we make a song from our two sounds, slap slap, squish, squish, slap squish, squish slap.We laugh so hard over our song we have to hold 161

on to one another.The rain gets heavier and we know we can't stand under a tree or we'll be fried entirely so we stand by a door which is opened in a minute by a big fat maid in a little white hat and a black dress with a little white apron who tells us get away from this door we're a disgrace.We run from the door and Paddy calls back,Mullingar heifer, beef to the heels, and he laughs till he chokes and has to lean against a wall with the weakness.There's no sense in standing in from the rain anymore, we're soaked to the skin, so we take our time down O'Con- nell Avenue. Paddy says he learned that Mullingar heifer thing from his uncle Peter,the one that was in India in the English army and they have a photo of him standing with a group of soldiers with their helmets and guns and bandoliers around their chests and there are dark men in uni- form who are Indians and loyal to the King. Uncle Peter had a great time for himself in a place called Kashmir, which is lovelier than Killar- ney that they're always bragging about and singing.Paddy goes on again about running away and winding up in India in a silken tent with the girl with the red dot and the curry and the ﬁgs and he's making me hungry even if I'm stuffed with apples and milk. The rain is clearing and there are birds honking over our heads.Paddy says they're ducks or geese or something on their way to Africa where it's nice and warm.The birds have more sense than the Irish.They come to the Shannon for their holidays and then they go back to the warm places, maybe even India.He says he'll write me a letter when he's over there and I can come to India and have my own girl with a red dot. What's that dot for, Paddy? It shows they're high class, the quality. But, Paddy, would the quality in India talk to you if they knew you were from a lane in Limerick and had no shoes? Course they would, but the English quality wouldn't.The English quality wouldn't give you the steam of their piss. Steam of their piss? God, Paddy, did you think of that yourself ? Naw, naw, that's what my father says below in the bed when he's coughin' up the gobs and blamin' the English for everything. And I think, Steam of their piss. I'll keep that for myself. I'll go around Limerick saying it, Steam of their piss, Steam of their piss, and when I go to America some day I'll be the only one who knows it. Question Quigley is wobbling toward us on a big woman's bicycle and calls to me,Hoi,Frankie McCourt,you're going to be killed.Dotty O'Neill sent a note to your house and said you didn't come back to 162

school after lunch, that you went on the mooch with Paddy Clohessy. Your mother is going to kill you. Your father is out looking for you and he's going to kill you, too. Oh,God,I feel cold and empty and I wish I could be in India where it's nice and warm and there's no school and my father could never ﬁnd me to kill me.Paddy tells the Question,He didn't go on the mooch and I didn't either. Fintan Slattery starved us to death and we were too late for the bun and the milk. Then Paddy says to me, Don't mind 'em, Frankie, 'tis all a cod.They're always sendin' notes to our house and we wipe our arses with them. My mother and father would never wipe their arses with a note from the master and I'm afraid now to go home.The Question rides off on the bicycle, laughing, and I don't know why because he once ran away from home and slept in a ditch with four goats and that's worse than mooching from school half a day anytime. I could turn up the Barrack Road now and go home and tell my parents I'm sorry I went on the mooch and I did it because of the hunger but Paddy says, Come on, we'll go down the Dock Road and throw rocks in the Shannon. We throw rocks in the river and we swing on the iron chains along the bank. It's getting dark and I don't know where I'm going to sleep. I might have to stay there by the Shannon or ﬁnd a door or I might have to go back out the country and ﬁnd a ditch like Brendan Quigley with four goats. Paddy says I can go home with him, I can sleep on the ﬂoor and I'll dry out. Paddy lives in one of the tall houses on Arthur's Quay looking at the river. Everyone in Limerick knows these houses are old and might fall down at any minute. Mam often says, I don't want any of ye going down to Arthur's Quay and if I ﬁnd ye there I'll break yeer faces.The people down there are wild and ye could get robbed and killed. It's raining again and small children are playing in the hallway and up the stairs. Paddy says, Mind yourself, because some of the steps are missing and there is shit on the ones that are still there. He says that's because there's only one privy and it's in the backyard and children don't get down the stairs in time to put their little arses on the bowl, There's a woman with a shawl sitting on the fourth ﬂight smoking a cigarette. She says, Is that you, Paddy? 'Tis, Mammy. 163

I'm fagged out, Paddy. Them steps is killin' me. Did you have your tea? I didn't. Well, I don't know if there's any bread left. Go up an' see. Paddy's family live in one big room with a high ceiling and a small ﬁreplace.There are two tall windows and you can see out to the Shan- non. His father is in a bed in the corner, groaning and spitting into a bucket.Paddy's brothers and sisters are on mattresses on the ﬂoor,sleep- ing,talking,looking at the ceiling.There's a baby with no clothes crawl- ing over to Paddy's father's bucket and Paddy pulls him away.His mother comes in, gasping, from the stairs. Jesus, I'm dead, she says. She ﬁnds some bread and makes weak tea for Paddy and me.I don't know what I'm supposed to do.They don't say anything.They don't say what are you doing here or go home or anything till Mr.Clohessy says, Who's that? and Paddy tells him, 'Tis Frankie McCourt. Mr. Clohessy says, McCourt? What class of a name is that? My father is from the North, Mr. Clohessy. And what's your mother's name? Angela, Mr. Clohessy. Ah, Jaysus, 'twouldn't be Angela Sheehan, would it? 'Twould, Mr. Clohessy. Ah, Jaysus, he says, and he has a coughing ﬁt which brings up all kinds of stuff from his insides and has him hanging over the bucket. When the cough passes he falls back on the pillow. Ah, Frankie, I knew your mother well.Danced with her,Mother o'Christ,I'm dying inside, danced with her I did below in the Wembley Hall and a champion dancer she was too. He hangs over the bucket again. He gasps for air and reaches his arms out to get it. He suffers but he won't stop talking. Champion dancer she was, Frankie. Not skinny mind you but a feather in my arms and there was many a sorry man when she left Lim- erick. Can you dance, Frankie? Ah, no, Mr. Clohessy. Paddy says, He can, Dada. He had the lessons from Mrs. O'Connor and Cyril Benson. Well, dance, Frankie. Round the house an' mind the dresser, Frankie. Lift the foot, lad. I can't, Mr. Clohessy. I'm no good. 164

No good? Angela's Sheehan's son? Dance, Frankie, or I'll get outa this bed an' wheel you round the house. My shoe is broken, Mr. Clohessy. Frankie, Frankie, you're bringin' the cough on me.Will you dance for the love o' Jesus so I can remember me youth with your mother in the Wembley Hall.Take off the feckin' shoe, Frankie, an' dance. I have to make up dances and tunes to go with them the way I did a long time ago when I was young. I dance around the room with one shoe because I forgot to take it off. I try to make up words, Oh,The Walls of Limerick are falling down, falling down, falling down, The Walls of Limerick falling down and the River Shannon kills us. Mr. Clohessy is laughing in the bed. Oh, Jaysus, I never heard likes o' that on land or sea.That's a great leg for the dancing you have there, Frankie.Oh,Jaysus.He coughs and brings up ropes of green and yellow stuff. It makes me sick to look at it and I wonder if I should go home from all this sickness and this bucket and let my parents kill me if they want to. Paddy lies down on a mattress by the window and I lie beside him. I keep my clothes on like everybody else and I even forget to take off my other shoe, which is wet and squishy and stinks. Paddy falls asleep right away and I look at his mother sitting by the bit of a ﬁre smoking another cigarette. Paddy's father groans and coughs and spits into the bucket. He says, Feckin' blood, and she says,You'll have to go into the sanatorium sooner or later. I will not.The day they put you in there is the end of you. You could be givin'the consumption to the children.I could get the guards to take you away you're that much of a danger to the children. If they were to get it they'd have it be now. The ﬁre dies and Mrs. Clohessy climbs over him into the bed. In a minute she's snoring even if he's still coughing and laughing about the days of his youth when he danced with Angela Sheehan light as a feather in the Wembley Hall. It's cold in the room and I'm shivering in my wet clothes. Paddy is shivering too but he's asleep and he doesn't know he's cold.I don't know if I should stay here or get up and go home but who wants to be wan- dering the streets when a guard might ask you what you're doing out. It's my ﬁrst time away from my family and I know I'd rather be in my own house with the smelly lavatory and stable next door. It's bad when 165

our kitchen is a lake and we have to go up to Italy but it's worse in the Clohessys' when you have to go down four ﬂights to the lavatory and slip on shit all the way down. I'd be better off with four goats in a ditch. I drift in and out of sleep but I have to wake up for good when Mrs. Clohessy goes around pulling at her family to get them up. They all went to bed with their clothes on so they don't have to get dressed and there's no ﬁghting.They grumble and run out the door to get down- stairs to the backyard lavatory. I have to go too and I run down with Paddy but his sister Peggy is on the bowl and we have to piss against a wall. She says, I'll tell Ma what ye did, and Paddy says, Shurrup or I'll push you down into that feckin' lavatory. She jumps off the lavatory, pulls her drawers up and runs up the stairs crying, I'll tell, I'll tell, and when we get back to the room Mrs.Clohessy gives Paddy a belt on the head for what he did to his poor little sister.Paddy says nothing because Mrs. Clohessy is spooning porridge into mugs and jam jars and one bowl and telling us to eat up and go to school. She sits at the table eat- ing her porridge. Her hair is gray black and dirty. It dangles in the bowl and picks up bits of porridge and drops of milk.The children slurp the porridge and complain they didn't get enough, they're starving with the hunger. They have snotty noses and sore eyes and scabby knees. Mr. Clohessy coughs and squirms on the bed and brings up the great gobs of blood and I run out of the room and puke on the stairs where there's a step missing and there's a shower of porridge and bits of apple to the ﬂoor below where people go back and forth to the lavatory in the yard.Paddy comes down and says,Sure that's all right.Everywan gets sick an' shits on them stairs an' the whole feckin' place is falling down anyway. I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. If I go back to school I'll be killed and why should I go back to school or go home to get killed when I can go out the road and live on milk and apples the rest of my life till I go to America. Paddy says, Come on. School is all a cod anyway an' the masters is all madmen. There's a knock at the Clohessys'door and it's Mam holding my lit- tle brother,Michael,by the hand,and Guard Dennehy,who is in charge of school attendance. Mam sees me and says,What are you doing with one shoe on? and Guard Dennehy says,Ah, now, missus, I think a more important question would be,What are you doing with one shoe off, ha, ha. 166

Michael runs to me. Mammy was crying. Mammy was crying for you, Frankie. She says,Where were you all night? I was here. You had me demented.Your father walked every street in Limerick looking for you. Mr. Clohessy says,Who's at the door? It's my mother, Mr. Clohessy. God above, is that Angela? 'Tis, Mr. Clohessy. He struggles up on his elbows.Well, for the love of God, will you come in,Angela. Don't you know me? Mam looks puzzled. It's dark in the room and she tries to make out who is in the bed. He says, 'Tis me, Dennis Clohessy,Angela. 'Tis,Angela. I know,Angela.I'm changed.The cough is killin'me.But I remem- ber the nights at the Wembley Hall.Aw, Jaysus, you were a great dancer. Nights at the Wembley Hall, Angela, and the ﬁsh and chips after. Oh, boys, oh, boys,Angela. My mother has tears running down her face. She says,You were a great dancer yourself, Dennis Clohessy. We could have won competitions,Angela. Fred and Ginger would have been lookin' over their shoulders but you had to run off to Amer- ica.Aw, Jaysus. He has another coughing ﬁt and we have to stand and watch him hang over the bucket again and bring up the bad stuff from his insides. Guard Dennehy says, I think, missus, we found the by an' I'll be going. He says to me, If you ever go on the mooch again, by, we'll have you in the jail above.Are you listenin' to me, by? I am, Guard. Don't be tormentin' your mother, by.That's wan thing the guards won't put up with, the tormentin' of mothers. I won't, Guard. I won't torment her. He leaves and Mam goes to the bed to take Mr. Clohessy's hand. His face is caved in all around his eyes and his hair is shiny black with the sweat running from the top of his head. His children stand around the bed looking at him and looking at Mam. Mrs. Clohessy sits by 167

the ﬁre rattling the poker in the grate and pushing the baby away from the ﬁre. She says, 'Tis his own bloody fault for not goin' into hos- pital, so 'tis. Mr. Clohessy gasps, I'd be all right if I could live in a dry place. Angela, is America a dry place? 'Tis, Dennis. The doctor told me go to Arizona.A funny man that doctor.Ari- zona how are you. I don't have the money to go around the corner for a pint. Mam says,You'll be all right, Dennis. I'll light a candle for you. Save your money,Angela. My dancin' days are done. I have to go now, Dennis. My son has to go to school. Before you go,Angela, will you do one thing for me? I will, Dennis, if 'tis in my power. Would you ever give us a verse of that song you sang the night before you went to America? That's a hard song, Dennis. I wouldn't have the wind for it. Ah, come on, Angela. I never hear a song anymore. There isn't a song in this house.The wife there doesn't have a note in her head an' no step in her foot. Mam says,All right. I'll try. Oh, the nights of the Kerry dancing, Oh, the ring of the piper's tune, Oh, for one of those hours of gladness, gone, alas, like our youth too soon. When the boys began to gather in the glen of a Summer night, And the Kerry piper's tuning made us long with wild delight. She stops and presses her hand to her chest, Oh, God, my wind is gone. Help me, Frank, with the song, and I sing along, Oh, to think of it, Oh, to dream of it, ﬁlls my heart with tears. Oh, the nights of the Kerry dancing, Oh, the ring of the piper's tune Oh, for one of those hours of gladness, gone, alas, like our youth too soon. Mr. Clohessy tries to sing with us, gone, alas, like our youth too soon, but it brings on the cough. He shakes his head and cries, I wouldn't doubt you,Angela. It takes me back. God bless you. God bless you, too, Dennis, and thanks, Mrs. Clohessy, for having Frankie here off the streets. 168

'Twas no trouble, Mrs. McCourt. He's quiet enough. Quiet enough, says Mr. Clohessy, but he's not the dancer his mother was. Mam says, 'Tis hard to dance with one shoe, Dennis. I know,Angela, but you'd wonder why he didn't take it off. Is he a bit strange? Ah, sometimes he has the odd manner like his father. Oh, yes. The father is from the North, Angela, and that would account for it.They'd think nothing of dancing with one shoe in the North. We walk up Patrick Street and O'Connell Street, Paddy Clohessy and Mam and Michael and myself, and Mam sobs all the way. Michael says, Don't cry, Mammy. Frankie won't run away. She lifts him up and hugs him. Oh, no, Michael, 'tisn't Frankie I'm crying about.'Tis Dennis Clohessy and the dancing nights at the Wem- bley Hall and the ﬁsh and chips after. She comes into the school with us.Mr.O'Neill looks cross and tells us sit down he'll be with us in a minute.He talks a long time at the door with my mother and when she leaves he walks between the seats and pats Paddy Clohessy on the head. I'm very sorry for the Clohessys and all their troubles but I think they saved me from getting into trouble with my mother. 169

VII There are Thursdays when Dad gets his dole money at the Labour Exchange and a man might say,Will we go for a pint,Malachy? and Dad will say, One, only one, and the man will say, Oh, God, yes, one, and before the night is over all the money is gone and Dad comes home singing and getting us out of bed to line up and promise to die for Ire- land when the call comes.He even gets Michael up and he's only three but there he is singing and promising to die for Ireland at the ﬁrst opportunity.That's what Dad calls it,the ﬁrst opportunity.I'm nine and Malachy is eight and we know all the songs.We sing all the verses of Kevin Barry and Roddy McCorley,"The West's Asleep,""O'Donnell Abu,""The Boys of Wexford." We sing and promise to die because you never know when Dad might have a penny or two left over from the drinking and if he gives it to us we can run to Kathleen O'Connell's next day for toffee. Some nights he says Michael is the best singer of all and he gives him the penny. Malachy and I wonder what's the use of being eight and nine and knowing all the songs and ready to die when Michael gets the penny so that he can go to the shop next day and stuff his gob with toffee galore.No one can ask him to die for Ireland at the age of three, not even Padraig Pearse, who was shot by the English in Dublin in 1916 and expected the whole world to die with him. Besides, Mikey Molloy's father said anyone who wants to die for Ire- 170

land is a donkey's arse.Men have been dying for Ireland since the begin- ning of time and look at the state of the country. It's bad enough that Dad loses jobs in the third week but now he drinks all the dole money once a month.Mam gets desperate and in the morning she has the bitter face and she won't talk to him. He has his tea and leaves the house early for the long walk into the country.When he returns in the evening she still won't talk to him and she won't make his tea. If the ﬁre is dead for the want of coal or turf and there's no way of boiling water for the tea, he says, Och, aye, and drinks water out of a jam jar and smacks his lips the way he would with a pint of porter. He says good water is all a man needs and Mam makes a snorting sound.When she's not talking to him the house is heavy and cold and we know we're not supposed to talk to him either for fear she'll give us the bitter look.We know Dad has done the bad thing and we know you can make anyone suffer by not talking to him. Even little Michael knows that when Dad does the bad thing you don't talk to him from Friday to Monday and when he tries to lift you to his lap you run to Mam. I'm nine years old and I have a pal,Mickey Spellacy,whose relations are dropping one by one of the galloping consumption. I envy Mickey because every time someone dies in his family he gets a week off from school and his mother stitches a black diamond patch on his sleeve so that he can wander from lane to lane and street to street and people will know he has the grief and pat his head and give him money and sweets for his sorrow. But this summer Mickey is worried. His sister, Brenda, is wasting away with the consumption and it's only August and if she dies before September he won't get his week off from school because you can't get a week off from school when there's no school. He comes to Billy Campbell and me to ask if we'll go around the corner to St. Joseph's Church and pray for Brenda to hang on till September. What's in it for us, Mickey, if we go around the corner praying? Well, if Brenda hangs on and I get me week off ye can come to the wake and have ham and cheese and cake and sherry and lemonade and everything and ye can listen to the songs and stories all night. Who could say no to that? There's nothing like a wake for having a 171

good time.We trot around to the church where they have statues of St. Joseph himself as well as the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower. I pray to the Little Flower because she died of the consumption herself and she'd understand. One of our prayers must have been powerful because Brenda stays alive and doesn't die till the second day of school.We tell Mickey we're sorry for his troubles but he's delighted with his week off and he gets the black diamond patch which will bring the money and sweets. My mouth is watering at the thought of the feast at Brenda's wake. Billy knocks on the door and there's Mickey's aunt.Well? We came to say a prayer for Brenda and Mickey said we could come to the wake. She yells, Mickey! Come here. Did you tell this gang they could come to your sister's wake? But, Mickey, you promised . . . She slams the door in our faces.We don't know what to do till Billy Campbell says, We'll go back to St. Joseph's and pray that from now on everyone in Mickey Spellacy's family will die in the middle of the summer and he'll never get a day off from school for the rest of his life. One of our prayers is surely powerful because next summer Mickey himself is carried off by the galloping consumption and he doesn't get a day off from school and that will surely teach him a lesson. Proddy Woddy ring the bell, Not for heaven but for hell. On Sunday mornings in Limerick I watch them go to church, the Protestants, and I feel sorry for them, especially the girls, who are so lovely, they have such beautiful white teeth. I feel sorry for the beauti- ful Protestant girls, they're doomed.That's what the priests tell us. Out- side the Catholic Church there is no salvation. Outside the Catholic Church there is nothing but doom.And I want to save them.Protestant girl, come with me to the True Church. You'll be saved and you won't have the doom.After Mass on Sunday I go with my friend Billy 172

Campbell to watch them play croquet on the lovely lawn beside their church on Barrington Street.Croquet is a Protestant game.They hit the ball with the mallet,pock and pock again,and laugh.I wonder how they can laugh or don't they even know they're doomed? I feel sorry for them and I say, Billy, what's the use of playing croquet when you're doomed? He says, Frankie, what's the use of not playing croquet when you're doomed? Grandma says to Mam,Your brother Pat, bad leg an' all, was selling papers all over Limerick by the time he was eight and that Frank of yours is big and ugly enough to work. But he's only nine and still in school. School. 'Tis school that has him the way he is talkin' back an' goin' around with the sour puss an' the odd manner like his father. He could get out an' help poor Pat of a Friday night when the Limerick Leader is a ton weight. He could run up the long garden paths of the quality an' save Pat's poor legs an' earn a few pennies into the bargain. He has to go to the Confraternity on Friday nights. Never mind the Confraternity. There's nothin' in the catechism about confraternities. I meet Uncle Pat at the Limerick Leader on Friday evening at ﬁve. The man handing out the papers says my arms are that skinny I'd be lucky to carry two stamps but Uncle Pat sticks eight papers under each arm.He tells me,I'll kill you if you drop 'em for 'tis raining abroad,pelt- ing out of the heavens. He tells me hug the walls going up O'Connell Street to keep the papers dry. I'm to run in where there's a deliv- ery, climb the outside steps, in the door, up the stairs, yell Paper, get the money they owe him for the week,down the stairs,give him the money and on to the next stop.Customers give him tips for his troubles and he keeps them for himself. We make our way up O'Connell Avenue, out Ballinacurra, in by the South Circular Road, down Henry Street and back to the ofﬁce for more papers. Uncle Pat wears a cap and a thing like a cowboy poncho to keep his papers dry but he complains his feet are killing him and we stop in a pub for a pint for his poor feet. Uncle Pa Keating is there all black and having a pint and he says to Uncle Pat,Ab, are you going 173

to let that boy stand there with his face hanging out for the want of a lemonade? Uncle Pat says,Wha? and Uncle Pa Keating gets impatient. Christ, he's dragging your feckin' papers all over Limerick and you can't—Oh, never mind.Timmy, give the child a lemonade. Frankie, don't you have a raincoat at home? No, Uncle Pa. You're not supposed to be out in this weather. You're drenched entirely.Who sent you out in this muck? Grandma said I had to help Uncle Pat because of his bad leg. Course she did, the oul' bitch, but don't tell them I said that. Uncle Pat is struggling off the seat and gathering up his papers. Come on, 'tis gettin' dark. He hobbles along the streets calling, Anna Lie Sweets Lie, which doesn't sound a bit like Limerick Leader and it doesn't matter because everyone knows this is Ab Sheehan that was dropped on his head. Here, Ab, give us a Leader, how's your poor leg, keep the change an' get your- self a fag for 'tis an awful feckin' night to be out sellin' the feckin' papers. Tanks,says Ab,my uncle.Tanks,tanks,tanks,and it's hard to keep up with him on the streets bad as his leg is.He says,How many Leaders have you under your oxter? One, Uncle Pat. Take that Leader in to Mr. Timoney. He owes me for a fortnight now. Get that money an' there's a tip. He's a good man for the tip an' don't be shovin' it in your pocket like your cousin Gerry. Shoved it in his pocket, the little bugger. I bang on the door with the knocker and there's a great howl from a dog so big he makes the door shake.A man's voice says,Macushla,quit the bloody racket or I'll give you a good fong in the arse for yourself. The racket stops, the door opens and the man is there, white hair, thick glasses,white sweater,a stick in his hand.He says,Who is it? Who do we have? The paper, Mr.Timoney. We don't have Ab Sheehan here, do we? I'm his nephew, sir. Is it Gerry Sheehan we have here? No, sir. I'm Frank McCourt. Another nephew? Does he make them? Is there a little nephew fac- 174

tory in the backyard? Here's the money for the fortnight and give me the paper or keep it. What's the use? I can't read anymore and Mrs. Minihan that's supposed to read to me didn't come. Legless with the sherry, that's what she is.What's your name? Frank, sir. Can you read? I can, sir. Do you want to earn a sixpence? Come here tomorrow.Your name is Francis, isn't it? Frank, sir. Your name is Francis.There was never a St. Frank.That's a name for gangsters and politicians. Come here tomorrow at eleven and read Are you sure you can read? I am, sir. You can call me Mr.Timoney. I will, Mr.Timoney. Uncle Pat is mumbling at the gate, rubbing his leg. Where's me money an'you're not supposed to be chattin'with the customers an'me here with the leg destroyed be the rain. He has to stop at the pub at Punch's Cross to have a pint for the destroyed leg.After the pint he says he can't walk another inch and we get on a bus.The conductor says, Fares, please, fares, but Uncle Pat says, Go 'way an' don't be botherin' me, can't you see the state o' me leg? Oh, all right,Ab, all right. The bus stops at the O'Connell Monument and Uncle Pat goes to the Monument Fish and Chip Café where the smells are so delicious my stomach beats with the hunger.He gets a shilling's worth of ﬁsh and chips and my mouth is watering but when we get to Grandma's door he gives me a threepenny bit, tells me meet him again next Friday and go home now to my mother. The dog Macushla is lying outside Mr. Timoney's door and when I open the little garden gate to go up the path she rushes at me and knocks me back out on the pavement and she'd eat my face if Mr.Tim- 175

oney didn't come out and ﬂail at her with his stick and yell, Come in out of it, ye hoor, ye overgrown man-eatin' bitch. Didn't you have your breakfast, you hoor? Are you all right, Francis? Come in. That dog is a right Hindu, so she is, and that's where I found her mother wandering around Bangalore. If ever you're getting a dog, Francis, make sure it's a Buddhist. Good-natured dogs, the Buddhists. Never, never get a Mahommedan.They'll eat you sleeping. Never a Catholic dog. They'll eat you every day including Fridays. Sit down and read The Limerick Leader, Mr.Timoney? No,not the bloody Limerick Leader. I wouldn't wipe the hole of my arse with the Limerick Leader. There's a book over there on the table, Gulliver's Travels. That's not what I want you to read. Look in the back for another thing, A Modest Proposal. Read that to me. It begins, It is a melancholy object to those who walk . . . Do you have that? I have the whole bloody thing in my head but I still want you to read to me. He stops me after two or three pages.You're a good reader. And what do you think of that, Francis, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, eh? Macushla would love a dinner of a nice plump Irish infant, wouldn't you, you oul' hoor? He gives me sixpence, and tells me return next Saturday. Mam is delighted I earned sixpence for reading to Mr. Timoney and what was it he wanted read, the Limerick Leader? I tell her I had to read A Modest Proposal from the back of Gulliver's Travels and she says, That's all right, 'tis only a children's book.You'd expect him to want something strange for he's a little off in the head after years in the sun in the English army in India and they say he was married to one of them Indian women and she was accidentally shot by a soldier during some class of a disturbance.That's the kind of thing that would drive you to children's books. She knows this Mrs. Minihan who lives next door to Mr. Timoney and used to clean house but couldn't stand it anymore the way he laughed at the Catholic Church and said one man's sin was another man's romp. Mrs. Minihan didn't mind the odd drop of sherry of a Saturday morning but then he tried to turn her into a Bud- dhist, which he said he was himself and the Irish would be much better off in general if they sat under a tree and watched the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins ﬂoat down the Shannon and far out to sea. 176

The next Friday Declan Collopy from the Confraternity sees me on the street delivering the papers with my uncle Pat Sheehan. Hoi, Frankie McCourt, what are you doin' with Ab Sheehan? He's my uncle. You're supposed to be at the Confraternity. I'm working, Declan. You're not supposed to be working. You're not even ten and you're destroyin'the perfect attendance in our section.If you're not there next Friday I'll give you a good thump in the gob, do you hear me? Uncle Pat says, Go 'way, go 'way, or I'll walk on you. Ah, shut up, Mr. Stupid that was dropped on your head. He pushes Uncle Pat on the shoulder and knocks him back against the wall.I drop the papers and run at him but he steps aside and punches me on the back of the neck and my forehead is rammed into the wall and it puts me in such a rage I can't see him anymore. I go at him with arms and legs and if I could tear his face off with my teeth I would but he has long arms like a gorilla and he just keeps pushing me away so that I can't touch him. He says,You mad feckin' eejit. I'll destroy you in the Con- fraternity, and he runs away. Uncle Pat says,You shouldn't be ﬁghtin' like that an' you dropped all me papers an'some o'them is wet an'how am I supposed to sell wet papers, and I wanted to jump on him too and hit him for talking about papers after I stood up to Declan Collopy. At the end of the night he gives me three chips from his bag and sixpence instead of threepence. He complains it's too much money and it's all my mother's fault for going on to Grandma about the low pay. Mam is delighted I'm getting sixpence on Fridays from Uncle Pat and sixpence on Saturdays from Mr.Timoney.A shilling a week makes a big difference and she gives me tuppence to see the Dead End Kids at the Lyric after I'm ﬁnished the reading. Next morning Mr.Timoney says,Wait till we get to Gulliver, Fran- cis.You'll know Jonathan Swift is the greatest Irish writer that ever lived, no, the greatest man to put pen to parchment.A giant of a man, Francis.He laughs all through A Modest Proposal and you'd wonder what he's laughing at when it's all about cooking Irish babies. He says,You'll laugh when you grow up, Francis. You're not supposed to talk back to grown-ups but Mr. Timo- ney is different and he doesn't mind when I say, Mr. Timoney, big people are always telling us that. Oh, you'll laugh when you grow up. 177

You'll understand when you grow up. Everything will come when you grow up. He lets out such a roar of a laugh I think he's going to collapse.Oh, Mother o' God, Francis.You're a treasure.What's up with you? Do you have a bee up your arse? Tell me what's up. Nothing, Mr.Timoney. I think you have the long puss,Francis,and I wish I could see it.Go over to the mirror on the wall, Snow White, and tell me if you have the long puss. Never mind. Just tell me what's up. Declan Collopy was at me last night and I got into a ﬁght. He makes me tell him about the Confraternity and Declan and my uncle Pat Sheehan, who was dropped on his head, and then he tells me he knows my uncle Pa Keating, who was gassed in the war and works in the gas works.He says,Pa Keating is a jewel of a man.And I'll tell you what I'll do, Francis. I'll talk to Pa Keating and we'll go to the crawthumpers at the Confraternity. I'm a Buddhist myself and I don't hold with ﬁghting but I haven't lost it.They're not going to interfere with my little reader, oh, by Jesus, no. Mr.Timoney is an old man but he talks like a friend and I can say what I feel. Dad would never talk to me like Mr.Timoney. He'd say, Och, aye, and go for a long walk. Uncle Pat Sheehan tells Grandma he doesn't want me to help with the papers anymore, he can get another boy much cheaper and he thinks I should be giving him some of my Saturday morning sixpence anyway since I'd never have the reading job without him. A woman next door to Mr.Timoney tells me I'm wasting my time knocking on the door, Macushla bit the postman, the milkman and a passing nun on the same day and Mr.Timoney couldn't stop laughing though he cried when the dog was taken away to be put down.You can bite postmen and milkmen all you like but the case of the passing nun goes all the way to the bishop and he takes steps especially if the owner of the dog is a known Buddhist and a danger to good Catholics around him. Mr.Timoney was told this and cried and laughed so hard the doctor came and said he was gone beyond recall so they carted him off to the City Home, where they keep old people who are help- less or demented. That's the end of my Saturday sixpence but I'll read to Mr.Timo- ney money or no money. I wait down the street till the woman next 178

door goes in, I climb in Mr.Timoney's window for Gulliver's Travels and walk miles to the City Home so that he won't miss his reading.The man at the gate says,What? You want to come in an' read to an oul' man? Is it coddin' me you are? Get outa here before I call the guards. Could I leave the book for someone else to read to Mr.Timoney? Leave it. Leave it for Jaysus sake an' don't be botherin' me. I'll send it up to him. And he laughs. Mam says,What's up with you? Why are you moping? And I tell her how Uncle Pat doesn't want me anymore and how they put Mr. Timoney in the City Home for laughing just because Macushla bit the postman, the milkman and a passing nun. She laughs too and I'm sure the world is gone mad.Then she says, Ah, I'm sorry and it's a pity you lost two jobs.You might as well start going to the Confra- ternity again to keep The Posse away and, worse, the director, Father Gorey. Declan tells me sit in front of him and if there's any blaguarding he'll break my feckin' neck for he'll be watching me as long as he's prefect and no little shit like me is going to keep him from a life in linoleum. Mam says she has trouble climbing the stairs and she's moving her bed to the kitchen. She laughs, I'll come back up to Sorrento when the walls are damp and the rain runs under the door. School is over and she can stay in bed in the kitchen as long as she likes because she doesn't have to get up for us. Dad lights the ﬁre, makes the tea, cuts the bread, makes sure we wash our faces and tells us go out and play. He lets us stay in bed if we like but you never want to stay in bed when there's no school.We're ready to run out and play in the lane the minute we wake. Then one day in July he says we can't go downstairs.We have to stay up here and play. Why, Dad? Never mind. Play here with Malachy and Michael and you can go down later when I tell you. He stands at the door in case we might get a notion to wander down the stairs.We push our blanket up in the air with our feet and pre- 179

tend we're in a tent, Robin Hood and his Merry Men.We hunt ﬂeas and squash them between our thumbnails. Then there's a baby's cry and Malachy says,Dad,did Mam get a new baby? Och, aye, son. I'm older so I tell Malachy the bed is in the kitchen so that the angel can ﬂy down and leave the baby on the seventh step but Malachy doesn't understand because he's only eight going on nine and I'll be ten next month. Mam is in the bed with the new baby. He has a big fat face and he's red all over.There's a woman in the kitchen in a nurse's uniform and we know she's there to wash new babies who are always dirty from the long journey with the angel.We want to tickle the baby but she says,No,no, ye can look at him but don't lay a ﬁnger. Don't lay a ﬁnger.That's the way nurses talk. We sit at the table with our tea and bread looking at our new brother but he won't even open his eyes to look back at us so we go out and play. In a few days Mam is out of the bed holding the baby on her lap by the ﬁre.His eyes are open and when we tickle him he makes a gurgling sound, his belly shakes and that makes us laugh. Dad tickles him and sings a Scottish song, Oh, oh, stop your ticklin', Jock, Stop your ticklin', Jock. Stop your ticklin', Ickle ickle icklin Stop your ticklin', Jock. Dad has a job so Bridey Hannon is able to visit Mam and the baby any time she likes and for once Mam doesn't tell us go out and play so they can talk about secret things.They sit by the ﬁre smoking and talking about names. Mam says she likes the names Kevin and Sean but Bridey says, Ah, no, there's too many of them in Limerick. Jesus, Angela, if you stuck your head out the door and called, Kevin or Sean,come in for your tea,you'd have half o'Limerick running to your door. Bridey says if she had a son which please God she will some day 180

she'll call him Ronald because she's mad about Ronald Colman that you see in the Coliseum Cinema. Or Errol, now that's another lovely name, Errol Flynn. Mam says,Will you go way outa that, Bridey. I'd never be able to stick my head out the door and say, Errol, Errol, come in for your tea. Sure the poor child would be a laughingstock. Ronald, says Bridey, Ronald. He's gorgeous. No, says Mam, it has to be Irish. Isn't that what we fought for all these years? What's the use of ﬁghting the English for centuries if we're going to call our children Ronald? Jesus,Angela, you're starting to talk like himself with his Irish this and his English that. Still an' all, Bridey, he's right. Suddenly Bridey is gasping, Jesus,Angela, there's something wrong with that child. Mam is out of the chair, hugging the child, moaning. Oh, Jesus, Bridey, he's choking. Bridey says, I'll run for my mother, and she's back in a minute with Mrs. Hannon. Castor oil, says Mrs. Hannon. Do you have it? Any oil. Cod liver oil? That'll do. She pours the oil into the baby's mouth, turns him over, presses on his back, turns him back over, sticks a spoon down his throat and brings up a white ball.That's it now, she says.The milk. It collects and gets hard in their little throats so you have to ease it with any class of an oil. Mam is crying, Jesus, I nearly lost him. Oh, I'd die so I would. She's clutching the baby and crying and trying to thank Mrs. Hannon. Yerra,don't mention it,missus.Take the child and get back into that bed for the two o' ye had a great shock. While Bridey and Mrs. Hannon are helping Mam to the bed I notice spots of blood on her chair. Is my mother bleeding to death? Is it all right to say, Look, there's blood on Mam's chair? No, you can't say anything because they always have secrets. I know if you say anything the grown-up people will tell you,Never mind,you're always gawking, none of your business, go out and play. I have to keep it inside or I can talk to the angel. Mrs. Hannon and Bridey leave and I sit on the seventh step. I try to tell the angel Mam is 181

bleeding to death. I want him to tell me, Fear not, but the step is cold and there's no light, no voice. I'm sure he's gone forever and I wonder if that happens when you go from nine to ten. Mam doesn't bleed to death. She's out of the bed next day getting the baby ready for baptism, telling Bridey she could never forgive her- self if the baby died and went to Limbo, a place for unbaptized babies, where it may be nice and warm but, still, dark forever and no hope of escape even on the Judgment Day. Grandma is there to help and she says, That's right, no hope in heaven for the infant that's not baptized. Bridey says it would be a hard God that would do the likes of that. He has to be hard, says Grandma, otherwise you'd have all kinds of babies clamorin' to get into heaven, Protestants an' everything, an' why should they get in after what they did to us for eight hundred years? The babies didn't do it, says Bridey.They're too small. They would if they got the chance, says Grandma.They're trained for it. They dress the baby in the Limerick lace dress we were all baptized in. Mam says we can all go to St. Joseph's and we're excited because there will be lemonade and buns after. Malachy says, Mam, what's the baby's name? Alphonsus Joseph. The words ﬂy out of my mouth,That's a stupid name. It's not even Irish. Grandma glares at me with her old red eyes. She says, That fella needs a good clitther on the gob. Mam slaps me across the face and sends me ﬂying across the kitchen. My heart is pounding and I want to cry but I can't because my father isn't there and I'm the man of the fam- ily.Mam says,You go upstairs with your big mouth and don't move from that room. I stop at the seventh step but it's still cold, no light, no voice. The house is quiet with everyone gone to the chapel. I sit and wait upstairs, knocking the ﬂeas off my arms and legs, wishing I had Dad here, thinking of my little brother and his foreign name,Alphonsus, an afﬂiction of a name. In awhile there are voices downstairs and there is talk of tea, sherry, lemonade, buns, and isn't that child the loveliest little fella in the world, little Alphie, foreign name but still an' all still an' all not a sound 182

outa him the whole time he's that good-natured God bless him sure he'll live forever with the sweetness that's in him the little dote spittin' image of his mother his father his grandma his little brothers dead an' gone. Mam calls from the bottom of the stairs, Frank, come down and have lemonade and a bun. I don't want it.You can keep it. I said come down this minute for if I have to climb these stairs I'll warm your behind and you'll rue the day. Rue? What's rue? Never mind what's rue. Come down here at once. Her voice is sharp and rue sounds dangerous. I'll go down. In the kitchen Grandma says, Look at the long puss on him.You'd think he'd be happy for his little brother except that a boy that's going from nine to ten is always a right pain in the arse an' I know for didn't I have two of 'em. The lemonade and bun are delicious and Alphie the new baby is chirping away enjoying his baptism day too innocent to know his name is an afﬂiction. Grandpa in the North sends a telegram money order for ﬁve pounds for the baby Alphie.Mam wants to cash it but she can't go far from the bed. Dad says he'll cash it at the post ofﬁce. She tells Malachy and me to go with him.He cashes it and tells us,All right,boys,go home and tell your mother I'll be home in a few minutes. Malachy says, Dad, you're not to go to the pub. Mam said you're to bring home the money.You're not to drink the pint. Now, now, son. Go home to your mother. Dad, give us the money.That money is for the baby. Now, Francis, don't be a bad boy. Do what your father tells you. He walks away from us and into South's pub. Mam is sitting by the ﬁreplace with Alphie in her arms. She shakes her head. He went to the pub, didn't he? He did. I want ye to go back down to that pub and read him out of it.I want ye to stand in the middle of the pub and tell every man your father is drinking the money for the baby.Ye are to tell the world there isn't a 183

scrap of food in this house,not a lump of coal to start the ﬁre,not a drop of milk for the baby's bottle. We walk through the streets and Malachy practices his speech at the top of his voice, Dad, Dad, that ﬁve pounds is for the new baby.That's not for the drink.The child is above in the bed bawling and roaring for his milk and you're drinking the pint. He's gone from South's pub. Malachy still wants to stand and make his speech but I tell him we have to hurry and look in other pubs before Dad drinks the whole ﬁve pounds. We can't ﬁnd him in other pubs either. He knows Mam would come for him or send us and there are so many pubs at this end of Limerick and beyond we could be looking for a month.We have to tell Mam there's no sign of him and she tells us we're pure useless. Oh, Jesus, I wish I had my strength and I'd search every pub in Limerick. I'd tear the mouth out of his head, so I would. Go on, go back down and try all the pubs around the railway station and try Naughton's ﬁsh and chip shop. I have to go by myself because Malachy has the runs and can't stray far from the bucket. I search all the pubs on Parnell Street and around. I look into the snugs where the women drink and in all the men's lava- tories. I'm hungry but I'm afraid to go home till I ﬁnd my father. He's not in Naughton's ﬁsh and chip shop but there's a drunken man asleep at a table in the corner and his ﬁsh and chips are on the ﬂoor in their Limerick Leader wrapping and if I don't get them the cat will so I shove them under my jersey and I'm out the door and up the street to sit on the steps at the railway station eat my ﬁsh and chips watch the drunken soldiers pass by with the girls that giggle thank the drunken man in my mind for drowning the ﬁsh and chips in vinegar and smothering them in salt and then remember that if I die tonight I'm in a state of sin for stealing and I could go straight to hell stuffed with ﬁsh and chips but it's Saturday and if the priests are still in the confession boxes I can clear my soul after my feed. The Dominican church is just up Glentworth Street. Bless me,Father,for I have sinned,it's a fortnight since my last con- fession. I tell him the usual sins and then, I stole ﬁsh and chips from a drunken man. Why, my child? I was hungry, Father. And why were you hungry? There was nothing in my belly, Father. 184

He says nothing and even though it's dark I know he's shaking his head. My dear child, why can't you go home and ask your mother for something? Because she sent me out looking for my father in the pubs, Father, and I couldn't ﬁnd him and she hasn't a scrap in the house because he's drinking the ﬁve pounds Grandpa sent from the North for the new baby and she's raging by the ﬁre because I can't ﬁnd my father. I wonder if this priest is asleep because he's very quiet till he says, My child, I sit here. I hear the sins of the poor. I assign the penance. I bestow absolution. I should be on my knees washing their feet. Do you understand me, my child? I tell him I do but I don't. Go home, child. Pray for me. No penance, Father? No, my child. I stole the ﬁsh and chips. I'm doomed. You're forgiven. Go. Pray for me. He blesses me in Latin, talks to himself in English and I wonder what I did to him. I wish I could ﬁnd my father so I could say to Mam,Here he is and he has three pounds left in his pocket. I'm not hungry now so I can go up one side of O'Connell Street and down the other and search pubs on the side streets and there he is in Gleeson's, how could I miss him with his singing, 'Tis alone my concern if the grandest surprise Would be shining at me out of somebody's eyes. 'Tis my private affair what my feelings would be While the Green Glens of Antrim were welcoming me. My heart is banging away in my chest and I don't know what to do because I know I'm raging inside like my mother by the ﬁre and all I can think of doing is running in and giving him a good kick in the leg and running out again but I don't because we have the mornings by the ﬁre when he tells me about Cuchulain and De Valera and Roosevelt and if he's there drunk and buying pints with the baby's money he has that look in his eyes Eugene had when he searched for Oliver and I might as well go home and tell my mother a lie that I never saw him couldn't ﬁnd him. 185

She's in the bed with the baby. Malachy and Michael are up in Italy asleep. I know I don't have to tell Mam anything, that soon when the pubs close he'll be home singing and offering us a penny to die for Ire- land and it will be different now because it's bad enough to drink the dole or the wages but a man that drinks the money for a new baby is gone beyond the beyonds as my mother would say. 186

VIII I'm ten years old and ready to go to St. Joseph's Church for my Con- ﬁrmation. In school the master, Mr. O'Dea, prepares us. We have to know all about Sanctifying Grace, a pearl of great price, bought for us by Jesus in His dying.Mr.O'Dea's eyes roll in his head when he tells us that with Conﬁrmation we will become part of Divinity.We will have the Gifts of the Holy Ghost:Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Forti- tude, Knowledge, Piety, the Fear of the Lord. Priests and masters tell us Conﬁrmation means you're a true soldier of the Church and that enti- tles you to die and be a martyr in case we're invaded by Protestants or Mahommedans or any other class of a heathen. More dying. I want to tell them I won't be able to die for the Faith because I'm already booked to die for Ireland. Mikey Molloy says, Is it jokin' you are? That thing about dying for the Faith is all a cod. 'Tis only a saying they made up to frighten you. Ireland too. No one dies for anything anymore.All the dying is done. I wouldn't die for Ireland or the Faith. I might die for my mother but that's all. Mikey knows everything. He's going on fourteen. He gets the ﬁts. He has visions. The grown-ups tell us it's a glorious thing to die for the Faith,only we're not ready for that yet because Conﬁrmation day is like First 187

Communion day,you make the rounds of lanes and back streets and you get cakes and sweets and money,The Collection. That's where poor Peter Dooley comes in.We call him Quasimodo because he has a hump on his back like the one on the hunchback of Notre Dame, whose real name we know is Charles Laughton. Quasimodo has nine sisters and it is said his mother never wanted him but that was what the angel brought her and it's a sin to question what's sent. Quasimodo is old, he's ﬁfteen. His red hair sticks up in all directions. He has green eyes and one rolls around in his head so much he's constantly tapping his temple to keep it where it's supposed to be. His right leg is short and twisted and when he walks he does a little twirly dance and you never know when he'll fall.That's when you're surprised.He curses his leg,he curses the world,but he curses in a lovely English accent which he got from the radio, the BBC. Before he leaves his house he always sticks his head out the door and tells the lane,Here's me head, me arse is coming.When he was twelve Quasimodo decided that with the way he looked and the way the world looked at him the best thing would be to prepare for a job where he could be heard and not seen and what better than sitting behind a microphone at the BBC in London reading the news? But you can't get to London without money and that's why he hobbles up to us that Friday, the day before Conﬁrmation. He has an idea for Billy and me. He knows the next day we'll be getting Conﬁr- mation money and if we promise to pay him a shilling each he'll let us climb up the rainspout behind his house this very night to look in the window and see his sisters' naked bodies when they take their weekly wash. I sign right away. Billy says, I have my own sister.Why should I pay to see your naked sisters? Quasimodo says that looking at your own sister's naked body is the worst sin of all and he's not sure if there's a priest in the world can for- give you,that you might have to go to the bishop,who everyone knows is a holy terror. Billy signs. Friday night we climb the wall of Quasimodo's backyard. It's a lovely night with the June moon ﬂoating high over Limerick and you can feel a warm breeze off the Shannon River. Quasimodo is about to let Billy up the spout and who comes clambering over the wall but Mikey Molloy the Fit himself hissing at Quasimodo, Here's a shilling, 188

Quasimodo. Let me up the spout. Mikey is fourteen now, bigger than any of us and strong from his job delivering coal. He's black from the coal like Uncle Pa Keating and all you can see are the whites of his eyes and the white froth on his lower lip, which means he could have the ﬁt anytime. Quasimodo says,Wait,Mikey.They're ﬁrst.Wait,my arse,says Mikey, and he's away up the spout. Billy complains but Quasimodo shakes his head,I can't help it.He comes every week with the shilling.I have to let him up the spout or he'll beat me up and tell my mother and the next thing she locks me in the coal hole all day with the rats.The Fit is up hanging on to the spout with one hand.The other hand is in his pocket moving,moving and when the spout itself starts to move and creak Qua- simodo hisses, Molloy, there's to be no whankin' up the spout. He hops around the yard cackling.His BBC accent is gone and he's pure Limer- ick. Jaysus, Molloy, come down off that spout or I'll tell me mother. Mikey's hand goes faster in his pocket,so fast the spout gives a lurch and collapses and Mikey is rolling on the ground yelping, I'm dead. I'm destroyed. Oh, God.You can see the froth on his lips and the blood that comes from biting his tongue. Quasimodo's mother comes screaming through the door,What in the name of Jesus! and the kitchen light ﬁlls the yard.The sisters are squawking from the window above. Billy tries to escape and she drags him off the wall.She tells him run to O'Connor the chemist around the corner to ring up an ambulance or a doctor or something for Mikey. She screams at us to get into the kitchen.She kicks Quasimodo into the hall. He's on his hands and knees and she drags him to the coal hole under the stairs and locks him in. Stay there till you come to your senses. He's crying and calling to her in a pure Limerick accent. Ah, Mamma, Mamma, let me out.The rats is here. I only want to go to the BBC, Mamma. Aw, Jasus, Mamma, Jasus. I'll never let anyone up the spout again. I'll send money from London, Mamma. Mamma! Mikey is still on his back, jerking and twisting around the yard.The ambulance takes him off to the hospital with a broken shoulder and his tongue in ribbons. Our mothers are there in no time. Mrs. Dooley says, I'm disgraced, so I am,disgraced.My daughters can't wash theirselves of a Friday night without the whole world gawking in the window and them boys there 189

are in a state of sin and should be taken to the priest for confession before their Conﬁrmation tomorrow. But Mam says, I don't know about the rest of the world but I saved a whole year for Frank's Conﬁrmation suit and I'm not going to the priest to have him tell me my son is not ﬁt for Conﬁrmation so that I'll have to wait another year when he grows out of this suit and all because he climbed a spout for an innocent gawk at the scrawny arse of Mona Dooley. She drags me home by the ear and makes me kneel before the Pope. Swear, she says, swear to that Pope that you didn't look at Mona Doo- ley in her pelt. If you're lying you won't be in a state of grace for Conﬁrmation tomorrow and that's the worst kind of sacrilege. Only the bishop himself could forgive a sacrilege like that. All right. Go to bed and from this day out stay far away from that misfortunate Quasimodo Dooley. We are all conﬁrmed the next day.The bishop asks me a catechism question,What is the Fourth Commandment? and I tell him,Honor thy father and thy mother. He pats my cheek and that makes me a soldier of the True Church.I kneel in the pew and think of Quasimodo locked in the coal hole under the stairs and I wonder, Should I give him the shilling anyway for his career at the BBC? But I forget all about Quasimodo because my nose starts bleeding and I feel dizzy. Conﬁrmation boys and girls are outside St. Joseph's with their parents and there is hugging and kissing in the bright sun and I don't care. My father is working and I don't care. My mother kisses me and I don't care.The boys talk about The Collection and I don't care. My nose won't stop and Mam is worried I'll ruin my suit.She runs into the church to see if Stephen Carey, the sacristan, would spare her a rag and he gives her some kind of canvas cloth that makes my nose sore.She says, Do you want to make your collection? and I tell her I don't care. Malachy says, Do, do, Frankie, and he's sad because I promised I'd take him to the Lyric Cinema to see the ﬁlm and stuff ourselves with sweets. I want to lie down. I could lie down there on the steps of St. Joseph's 190

and sleep forever. Mam says, Grandma is making a nice breakfast, and the mention of food makes me so sick I run to the edge of the pave- ment to throw up and the whole world is looking at me and I don't care. Mam says she'd better take me home and put me to bed and my pals look surprised that anyone can go to bed when there's a collection to be made. She helps me take off my Conﬁrmation suit and puts me to bed. She wets a rag and places it under my neck and after awhile the bleed- ing stops. She brings tea but the look of it makes me sick and I have to throw up in the bucket. Mrs. Hannon comes in from next door and I can hear her say that's a very sick child and he should have a doctor. Mam says it's Saturday, the Dispensary is closed and where would you get a doctor? Dad comes home from his job at Rank's Flour Mills and tells Mam I'm going through a stage, growing pains. Grandma comes up and says the same thing. She says when boys go from the one number year, which is nine, to the two number year, which is ten, they're changing and prone to the nosebleed. She says I might have too much blood in me anyway and a good cleaning out wouldn't do me one bit of harm. The day passes and I'm in and out of sleep. Malachy and Michael come into the bed at night and I can hear Malachy say, Frankie is very hot. Michael says, He's bleeding on my leg. Mam puts the wet rag on my nose and a key on my neck but it won't stop the bleeding.On Sun- day morning there's blood on my chest and all around me. Mam tells Dad I'm bleeding through my bottom and he says I might have a case of the runs, which is common with the growing pains. Dr.Troy is our doctor but he's away on holiday and the man that comes to see me on Monday has a smell of whiskey on him. He exam- ines me and tells my mother I have a bad cold and keep me in bed.Days pass and I sleep and bleed.Mam makes tea and beef tea and I don't want it. She even brings ice cream and the look of it makes me sick. Mrs. Hannon comes in again and says that doctor doesn't know what he's talking about, see if Dr.Troy is back. Mam comes with Dr.Troy. He feels my forehead, rolls up my eye- lids, turns me over to see my back, picks me up and runs to his motor car. Mam runs after him and he tells her I have typhoid fever. Mam cries,Oh,God,oh,God,am I to lose the whole family? Will it ever end? She gets into the car, holds me in her lap and moans all the way to the Fever Hospital at the City Home. 191

The bed has cool white sheets.The nurses have clean white uni- forms and the nun, Sister Rita, is all in white. Dr. Humphrey and Dr. Campbell have white coats and things hanging from their necks which they stick against my chest and all over. I sleep and sleep but I'm awake when they bring in jars of bright red stuff that hang from tall poles above my bed and they stick tubes into my ankles and the back of my right hand.Sister Rita says,You're getting blood,Francis.Soldier's blood from the Sarsﬁeld Barracks. Mam is sitting by the bed and the nurse is saying,You know,missus, this is very unusual. No one is ever allowed into the Fever Hospital for fear they'd catch something but they made an exception for you with his crisis coming. If he gets over this he'll surely recover. I fall asleep.Mam is gone when I wake but there's movement in the room and it's the priest, Father Gorey, from the Confraternity saying Mass at a table in the corner. I drift off again and now they're waking me and pulling down the bedclothes.Father Gorey is touching me with oil and praying in Latin. I know it's Extreme Unction and that means I'm going to die and I don't care.They wake me again to receive Com- munion. I don't want it, I'm afraid I might get sick. I keep the wafer on my tongue and fall asleep and when I wake up again it's gone. It's dark and Dr. Campbell is sitting by my bed. He's holding my wrist and looking at his watch.He has red hair and glasses and he always smiles when he talks to me. He sits now and hums and looks out the window. His eyes close and he snores a little. He tilts over on the chair and farts and smiles to himself and I know now I'm going to get better because a doctor would never fart in the presence of a dying boy. Sister Rita's white habit is bright in the sun that comes in the win- dow.She's holding my wrist,looking at her watch,smiling.Oh,she says, we're awake, are we? Well, Francis, I think we've come through the worst.Our prayers are answered and all the prayers of those hundreds of little boys at the Confraternity.Can you imagine that? Hundreds of boys saying the rosary for you and offering up their communion. My ankles and the back of my hand are throbbing from the tubes bringing in the blood and I don't care about boys praying for me. I can hear the swish of Sister Rita's habit and the click of her rosary beads when she leaves the room. I fall asleep and when I wake it's dark and Dad is sitting by the bed with his hand on mine. Son, are you awake? I try to talk but I'm dry, nothing will come out and I point to my 192

mouth. He holds a glass of water to my lips and it's sweet and cool. He presses my hand and says I'm a great old soldier and why wouldn't I? Don't I have the soldier's blood in me? The tubes are not in me anymore and the glass jars are gone. Sister Rita comes in and tells Dad he has to go. I don't want him to go because he looks sad. He's like Paddy Clohessy the day I gave him the raisin.When he looks sad it's the worst thing in the world and I start crying. Now what's this? says Sister Rita. Crying with all that soldier blood in you? There's a big surprise for you tomorrow, Francis.You'll never guess.Well, I'll tell you, we're bringing you a nice biscuit with your tea in the morning. Isn't that a treat? And your father will be back in a day or two, won't you, Mr. McCourt? Dad nods and puts his hand on mine again. He looks at me, steps away, stops, comes back, kisses me on the forehead for the ﬁrst time in my life and I'm so happy I feel like ﬂoating out of the bed. The other two beds in my room are empty.The nurse says I'm the only typhoid patient and I'm a miracle for getting over the crisis. The room next to me is empty till one morning a girl's voice says, Yoo hoo, who's there? I'm not sure if she's talking to me or someone in the room beyond. Yoo hoo, boy with the typhoid, are you awake? Are you better? Well, why are you here? I don't know. I'm still in the bed.They stick needles in me and give me medicine. What do you look like? I wonder,What kind of a question is that? I don't know what to tell her. Yoo hoo, are you there, typhoid boy? What's your name? Frank. That's a good name. My name is Patricia Madigan. How old are you? Ten. Oh. She sounds disappointed. But I'll be eleven in August, next month. 193

Well, that's better than ten. I'll be fourteen in September. Do you want to know why I'm in the Fever Hospital? I have diphtheria and something else. What's something else? They don't know.They think I have a disease from foreign parts because my father used to be in Africa. I nearly died.Are you going to tell me what you look like? I have black hair. You and millions. I have brown eyes with bits of green that's called hazel. You and thousands. I have stitches on the back of my right hand and my two feet where they put in the soldier's blood. Oh, God, did they? They did. You won't be able to stop marching and saluting. There's a swish of habit and click of beads and then Sister Rita's voice. Now, now, what's this? There's to be no talking between two rooms especially when it's a boy and a girl. Do you hear me, Patricia? I do, Sister. Do you hear me, Francis? I do, Sister. You could be giving thanks for your two remarkable recoveries.You could be saying the rosary.You could be reading The Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart that's beside your beds.Don't let me come back and ﬁnd you talking. She comes into my room and wags her ﬁnger at me.Especially you, Francis, after thousands of boys prayed for you at the Confraternity. Give thanks, Francis, give thanks. She leaves and there's silence for awhile. Then Patricia whispers, Give thanks, Francis, give thanks, and say your rosary, Francis, and I laugh so hard a nurse runs in to see if I'm all right. She's a very stern nurse from the County Kerry and she frightens me.What's this, Fran- cis? Laughing? What is there to laugh about? Are you and that Madigan girl talking? I'll report you to Sister Rita.There's to be no laughing for you could be doing serious damage to your internal apparatus. She plods out and Patricia whispers again in a heavy Kerry accent, No laughing, Francis, you could be doin' serious damage to your inter- 194

nal apparatus. Say your rosary, Francis, and pray for your internal apparatus. Mam visits me on Thursdays. I'd like to see my father, too, but I'm out of danger, crisis time is over, and I'm allowed only one visi- tor. Besides, she says, he's back at work at Rank's Flour Mills and please God this job will last a while with the war on and the English desperate for ﬂour. She brings me a chocolate bar and that proves Dad is working. She could never afford it on the dole. He sends me notes. He tells me my brothers are all praying for me, that I should be a good boy, obey the doctors, the nuns, the nurses, and don't for- get to say my prayers. He's sure St. Jude pulled me through the crisis because he's the patron saint of desperate cases and I was indeed a des- perate case. Patricia says she has two books by her bed. One is a poetry book and that's the one she loves.The other is a short history of England and do I want it? She gives it to Seamus,the man who mops the ﬂoors every day, and he brings it to me. He says, I'm not supposed to be bringing anything from a dipteria room to a typhoid room with all the germs ﬂy- ing around and hiding between the pages and if you ever catch dipte- ria on top of the typhoid they'll know and I'll lose my good job and be out on the street singing patriotic songs with a tin cup in my hand, which I could easily do because there isn't a song ever written about Ireland's sufferings I don't know and a few songs about the joy of whiskey too. Oh, yes, he knows Roddy McCorley. He'll sing it for me right enough but he's barely into the ﬁrst verse when the Kerry nurse rushes in.What's this, Seamus? Singing? Of all the people in this hospital you should know the rules against singing.I have a good mind to report you to Sister Rita. Ah, God, don't do that, nurse. Very well, Seamus. I'll let it go this one time.You know the singing could lead to a relapse in these patients. When she leaves he whispers he'll teach me a few songs because singing is good for passing the time when you're by yourself in a typhoid room. He says Patricia is a lovely girl the way she often gives him sweets from the parcel her mother sends every fortnight. He stops mopping the ﬂoor and calls to Patricia in the next room, I was telling Frankie you're a lovely girl, Patricia, and she says,You're a lovely man, Seamus. He smiles because he's an old man of forty and he never had 195

children but the ones he can talk to here in the Fever Hospital.He says, Here's the book, Frankie. Isn't it a great pity you have to be reading all about England after all they did to us, that there isn't a history of Ire- land to be had in this hospital. The book tells me all about King Alfred and William the Con- queror and all the kings and queens down to Edward, who had to wait forever for his mother,Victoria, to die before he could be king. The book has the ﬁrst bit of Shakespeare I ever read. I do believe, induced by potent circumstances That thou art mine enemy. The history writer says this is what Catherine, who is a wife of Henry the Eighth, says to Cardinal Wolsey, who is trying to have her head cut off. I don't know what it means and I don't care because it's Shakespeare and it's like having jewels in my mouth when I say the words. If I had a whole book of Shakespeare they could keep me in the hospital for a year. Patricia says she doesn't know what induced means or potent cir- cumstances and she doesn't care about Shakespeare, she has her poetry book and she reads to me from beyond the wall a poem about an owl and a pussycat that went to sea in a green boat with honey and money and it makes no sense and when I say that Patricia gets huffy and says that's the last poem she'll ever read to me. She says I'm always reciting the lines from Shakespeare and they make no sense either.Seamus stops mopping again and tells us we shouldn't be ﬁghting over poetry because we'll have enough to ﬁght about when we grow up and get married. Patricia says she's sorry and I'm sorry too so she reads me part of another poem which I have to remember so I can say it back to her early in the morning or late at night when there are no nuns or nurses about, The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding Riding riding The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door. 196

He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin, A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin, They ﬁtted with never a wrinkle, his boots were up to the thigh. And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, His pistol butts a-twinkle, His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky. Every day I can't wait for the doctors and nurses to leave me alone so I can learn a new verse from Patricia and ﬁnd out what's happen- ing to the highwayman and the landlord's red-lipped daughter. I love the poem because it's exciting and almost as good as my two lines of Shakespeare.The redcoats are after the highwayman because they know he told her, I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way. I'd love to do that myself, come by moonlight for Patricia in the next room not giving a ﬁddler's fart though hell should bar the way. She's ready to read the last few verses when in comes the nurse from Kerry shouting at her,shouting at me,I told ye there was to be no talk- ing between rooms. Dipthteria is never allowed to talk to typhoid and visa versa.I warned ye.And she calls out,Seamus,take this one.Take the by. Sister Rita said one more word out of him and upstairs with him. We gave ye a warning to stop the blathering but ye wouldn't.Take the by, Seamus, take him. Ah, now, nurse, sure isn't he harmless. 'Tis only a bit o' poetry. Take that by, Seamus, take him at once. He bends over me and whispers,Ah,God,I'm sorry,Frankie.Here's your English history book. He slips the book under my shirt and lifts me from the bed. He whispers that I'm a feather. I try to see Patricia when we pass through her room but all I can make out is a blur of dark head on a pillow. Sister Rita stops us in the hall to tell me I'm a great disappointment to her,that she expected me to be a good boy after what God had done for me, after all the prayers said by hundreds of boys at the Confrater- nity, after all the care from the nuns and nurses of the Fever Hospital, after the way they let my mother and father in to see me, a thing rarely allowed, and this is how I repaid them lying in the bed reciting silly poetry back and forth with Patricia Madigan knowing very well there was a ban on all talk between typhoid and diphtheria. She says I'll have 197

plenty of time to reﬂect on my sins in the big ward upstairs and I should beg God's forgiveness for my disobedience reciting a pagan English poem about a thief on a horse and a maiden with red lips who commits a terrible sin when I could have been praying or reading the life of a saint. She made it her business to read that poem so she did and I'd be well advised to tell the priest in confession. The Kerry nurse follows us upstairs gasping and holding on to the banister.She tells me I better not get the notion she'll be running up to this part of the world every time I have a little pain or a twinge. There are twenty beds in the ward, all white, all empty.The nurse tells Seamus put me at the far end of the ward against the wall to make sure I don't talk to anyone who might be passing the door,which is very unlikely since there isn't another soul on this whole ﬂoor. She tells Seamus this was the fever ward during the Great Famine long ago and only God knows how many died here brought in too late for anything but a wash before they were buried and there are stories of cries and moans in the far reaches of the night. She says 'twould break your heart to think of what the English did to us, that if they didn't put the blight on the potato they didn't do much to take it off. No pity. No feeling at all for the people that died in this very ward, children suffering and dying here while the English feasted on roast beef and guzzled the best of wine in their big houses, little children with their mouths all green from trying to eat the grass in the ﬁelds beyond, God bless us and save us and guard us from future famines. Seamus says 'twas a terrible thing indeed and he wouldn't want to be walking these halls in the dark with all the little green mouths gap- ing at him.The nurse takes my temperature, 'Tis up a bit, have a good sleep for yourself now that you're away from the chatter with Patricia Madigan below who will never know a gray hair. She shakes her head at Seamus and he gives her a sad shake back. Nurses and nuns never think you know what they're talking about. If you're ten going on eleven you're supposed to be simple like my uncle Pat Sheehan who was dropped on his head.You can't ask questions.You can't show you understand what the nurse said about Patricia Madigan, that she's going to die, and you can't show you want to cry over this girl who taught you a lovely poem which the nun says is bad. The nurse tells Seamus she has to go and he's to sweep the lint from under my bed and mop up a bit around the ward. Seamus tells me she's a right oul' bitch for running to Sister Rita and complaining about the 198

poem going between the two rooms,that you can't catch a disease from a poem unless it's love ha ha and that's not bloody likely when you're what? ten going on eleven? He never heard the likes of it, a little fella shifted upstairs for saying a poem and he has a good mind to go to the Limerick Leader and tell them print the whole thing except he has this job and he'd lose it if ever Sister Rita found out.Anyway,Frankie,you'll be outa here one of these ﬁne days and you can read all the poetry you want though I don't know about Patricia below, I don't know about Patricia, God help us. He knows about Patricia in two days because she got out of the bed to go to the lavatory when she was supposed to use a bedpan and col- lapsed and died in the lavatory. Seamus is mopping the ﬂoor and there are tears on his cheeks and he's saying,'Tis a dirty rotten thing to die in a lavatory when you're lovely in yourself.She told me she was sorry she had you reciting that poem and getting you shifted from the room, Frankie. She said 'twas all her fault. It wasn't, Seamus. I know and didn't I tell her that. Patricia is gone and I'll never know what happened to the high- wayman and Bess, the landlord's daughter. I ask Seamus but he doesn't know any poetry at all especially English poetry. He knew an Irish poem once but it was about fairies and had no sign of a highwayman in it. Still he'll ask the men in his local pub where there's always someone reciting something and he'll bring it back to me.Won't I be busy mean- while reading my short history of England and ﬁnding out all about their perﬁdy.That's what Seamus says, perﬁdy, and I don't know what it means and he doesn't know what it means but if it's something the English do it must be terrible. He comes three times a week to mop the ﬂoor and the nurse is there every morning to take my temperature and pulse.The doctor listens to my chest with the thing hanging from his neck.They all say, And how's our little soldier today? A girl with a blue dress brings meals three times a day and never talks to me. Seamus says she's not right in the head so don't say a word to her. The July days are long and I fear the dark.There are only two ceil- ing lights in the ward and they're switched off when the tea tray is taken away and the nurse gives me pills.The nurse tells me go to sleep but I can't because I see people in the nineteen beds in the ward all dying and green around their mouths where they tried to eat grass and moaning 199

for soup Protestant soup any soup and I cover my face with the pillow hoping they won't come and stand around the bed clawing at me and howling for bits of the chocolate bar my mother brought last week. No,she didn't bring it.She had to send it in because I can't have any more visitors. Sister Rita tells me a visit to the Fever Hospital is a priv- ilege and after my bad behavior with Patricia Madigan and that poem I can't have the privilege anymore. She says I'll be going home in a few weeks and my job is to concentrate on getting better and learn to walk again after being in bed for six weeks and I can get out of bed tomor- row after breakfast. I don't know why she says I have to learn how to walk when I've been walking since I was a baby but when the nurse stands me by the side of the bed I fall to the ﬂoor and the nurse laughs, See, you're a baby again. I practice walking from bed to bed back and forth back and forth. I don't want to be a baby. I don't want to be in this empty ward with no Patricia and no highwayman and no red-lipped landlord's daughter. I don't want the ghosts of children with green mouths pointing bony ﬁngers at me and clamoring for bits of my chocolate bar. Seamus says a man in his pub knew all the verses of the highway- man poem and it has a very sad end.Would I like him to say it because he never learned how to read and he had to carry the poem in his head? He stands in the middle of the ward leaning on his mop and recites, Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot in the echoing night! Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light! Her eyes grew wide for a moment, she drew one last deep breath, Then her ﬁnger moved in the moonlight, Her musket shattered the moonlight, Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death. He hears the shot and escapes but when he learns at dawn how Bess died he goes into a rage and returns for revenge only to be shot down by the redcoats. Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat, When they shot him down on the highway, Down like a dog on the highway, And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat. 200

Seamus wipes his sleeve across his face and snifﬂes. He says,There was no call at all to shift you up here away from Patricia when you didn't even know what happened to the highwayman and Bess. 'Tis a very sad story and when I said it to my wife she wouldn't stop crying the whole night till we went to bed.She said there was no call for them redcoats to shoot that highwayman, they are responsible for half the troubles of the world and they never had any pity on the Irish, either. Now if you want to know any more poems,Frankie,tell me and I'll get them from the pub and bring 'em back in my head. The girl with the blue dress who's not right in the head suddenly says one day,Would you like a book for to read? and she brings me The Amazing Quest of Mr.Ernest Bliss by E.Phillips Oppenheim,which is all about an Englishman who is fed up and doesn't know what to do with himself every day even though he's so rich he can't count his money. His manservant brings him the morning paper the tea the egg the toast and marmalade and he says,Take it away, life is empty. He can't read his paper, he can't eat his egg, and he pines away. His doctor tells him go and live among the poor in the East End of London and he'll learn to love life,which he does and falls in love with a girl who is poor but hon- est and very intelligent and they get married and move into his house in the West End which is the rich part because it's easier to help the poor and not be fed up when you're nice and comfortable. Seamus likes me to tell him what I'm reading. He says that story about Mr. Ernest Bliss is a made-up story because no one in his right mind would have to go to a doctor over having too much money and not eating his egg though you never know. It might be like that in En- gland.You'd never ﬁnd the likes of that in Ireland. If you didn't eat your egg here you'd be carted off to the lunatic asylum or reported to the bishop. I can't wait to go home and tell Malachy about this man who won't eat his egg. Malachy will fall down on the ﬂoor laughing because such a thing could never happen. He'll say I'm making it up but when I tell him this story is about an Englishman he'll understand. I can't tell the girl in the blue dress that this story was silly because she might have a ﬁt. She says if you're ﬁnished with that book I'll bring you another one because there's a whole box of books left behind by patients from the old days. She brings me a book called Tom Brown's School-Days, which is hard to read, and no end of books by P. G.Wode- 201

house, who makes me laugh over Ukridge and Bertie Wooster and Jeeves and all the Mulliners. Bertie Wooster is rich but he eats his egg every morning for fear of what Jeeves might say. I wish I could talk to the girl in the blue dress or anyone about the books but I'm afraid the Kerry nurse or Sister Rita might ﬁnd out and they'd move me to a big- ger ward upstairs with ﬁfty empty beds and Famine ghosts galore with green mouths and bony ﬁngers pointing.At night I lie in bed thinking about Tom Brown and his adventures at Rugby School and all the char- acters in P. G.Wodehouse. I can dream about the red-lipped landlord's daughter and the highwayman,and the nurses and nuns can do nothing about it. It's lovely to know the world can't interfere with the inside of your head. It's August and I'm eleven.I've been in this hospital for two months and I wonder if they'll let me out for Christmas.The Kerry nurse tells me I should get down on my two knees and thank God I'm alive at all at all and not be complaining. I'm not complaining, nurse, I'm only wondering if I'll be home for Christmas. She won't answer me. She tells me behave myself or she'll send Sis- ter Rita up to me and then I'll behave myself. Mam comes to the hospital on my birthday and sends up a package with two chocolate bars and a note with names of people in the lane telling me get better and come home and you're a great soldier,Frankie. The nurse lets me talk to her through the window and it's hard because the windows are high and I have to stand on Seamus's shoulders. I tell Mam I want to go home but she says I'm a bit too weak and surely I'll be out in no time. Seamus says, 'Tis a grand thing to be eleven because any day now you'll be a man shaving and all and ready to get out and get a job and drink your pint good as any man. After fourteen weeks Sister Rita tells me I can go home and aren't I a lucky boy that the day will be the feast of St. Francis of Assisi. She tells me I was a very good patient, except for that little problem with the poem and Patricia Madigan, God rest her, and I'm invited to come back and have a big Christmas dinner in the hospital. Mam comes for me and with my weak legs it takes us a long time to walk to the bus at Union Cross.She says,Take your time.After three and a half months we can spare an hour. People are at their doors on Barrack Road and Roden Lane telling me it's grand to see me back, that I'm a great soldier, a credit to my 202

father and mother. Malachy and Michael run up to me in the lane and say, God, you're walking very slow. Can't you run anymore? It's a bright day and I'm happy till I see Dad sitting in the kitchen with Alphie on his lap and there's an empty feeling in my heart because I know he's out of work again.All along I was sure he had a job, Mam told me he did, and I thought there would be no shortage of food and shoes. He smiles at me and tells Alphie, Och, there's your big brother home from the hospital. Mam tells him what the doctor said, that I'm to have plenty of nourishing food and rest.The doctor said beef would be the right thing for building me up again. Dad nods. Mam makes beef tea from a cube and Malachy and Mike watch me drink it.They say they'd like some too but Mam says go away, ye didn't have the typhoid. She says the doctor wants me to go to bed early. She tried to get rid of the ﬂeas but they're worse than ever with the warm weather we're having. Besides, she says, they won't get much out of you all bones and little skin. I lie in bed and think of the hospital where the white sheets were changed every day and there wasn't a sign of a ﬂea.There was a lavatory where you could sit and read your book till someone asked if you were dead.There was a bath where you could sit in hot water as long as you liked and say, I do believe, Induced by potent circumstances That thou art mine enemy, And saying that helps me fall asleep. When Malachy and Michael get up for school in the morning Mam tells me I can stay in bed. Malachy is in ﬁfth class now with Mr. O'Dea and he likes to tell everyone he's learning the big red catechism for Con- ﬁrmation and Mr. O'Dea is telling them all about state of grace and Euclid and how the English tormented the Irish for eight hundred long I don't want to stay in bed anymore.The October days are lovely and I want to sit outside looking up the lane at the way the sun slants along the wall opposite our house. Mikey Moloney brings me P. G. Wodehouse books his father gets from the library and I have great days with Ukridge and Bertie Wooster and all the Mulliners. Dad lets me 203

read his favorite book, John Mitchel's Jail Journal, which is all about a great Irish rebel the English condemned to exile in Van Diemen's land in Australia.The English tell John Mitchel he's free to come and go as he pleases all over Van Diemen's land if he gives his word of honor as a gentleman he won't try to escape.He gives his word till a ship comes to help him escape and he goes to the ofﬁce of the English magistrate and says, I'm escaping, jumps on his horse and winds up in New York. Dad says he doesn't mind if I read silly English books by P. G.Wodehouse as long as I don't forget the men who did their bit and gave their lives for Ireland. I can't stay at home forever and Mam takes me back to Leamy's School in November.The new headmaster, Mr. O'Halloran, says he's sorry, I've missed over two months of school and I have to be put back in ﬁfth class.Mam says surely I'm ready for sixth class.After all,she says, he's missed only a few weeks. Mr. O'Halloran says he's sorry, take the boy next door to Mr. O'Dea. We walk along the hallway and I tell Mam I don't want to be in ﬁfth class. Malachy is in that class and I don't want to be in a class with my brother who is a year younger. I made my Conﬁrmation last year. He didn't. I'm older. I'm not bigger anymore because of the typhoid but I'm older. Mam says, It won't kill you. She doesn't care and I'm put into that class with Malachy and I know all his friends are there sneering at me because I was put back. Mr. O'Dea makes me sit in the front and tells me get that sour look off my puss or I'll feel the end of his ash plant. Then a miracle happens and it's all because of St. Francis of Assisi, my favorite saint,and Our Lord Himself.I ﬁnd a penny in the street that ﬁrst day back at school and I want to run to Kathleen O'Connell's for a big square of Cleeves' toffee but I can't run because my legs are still weak from the typhoid and sometimes I have to hold on to a wall. I'm desperate for the Cleeves'toffee but I'm also desperate to get out of ﬁfth class. I know I have to go to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi. He's the only one who will listen but he's at the other end of Limerick and it takes me an hour to walk there, sitting on steps, holding on to walls. It's a penny to light a candle and I wonder if I should just light the candle and keep the penny. No, St. Francis would know. He loves the bird in 204

the air and the ﬁsh in the stream but he's not a fool. I light the candle, I kneel at his statue and beg him to get me out of ﬁfth class where I'm stuck with my brother, who is probably going around the lane now bragging that his big brother was kept back. St. Francis doesn't say a word but I know he's listening and I know he'll get me out of that class. It's the least he could do after all my trouble coming to his statue, sit- ting on steps,holding on to walls,when I could have gone to St.Joseph's Church and lit a candle to the Little Flower or the Sacred Heart of Jesus Himself.What's the use of being named after him if he's going to desert me in my hour of need? I have to sit in Mr. O'Dea's class listening to the catechism and all the other stuff he taught last year. I'd like to raise my hand and give the answers but he says, Be quiet, let your brother answer. He gives them tests in arithmetic and makes me sit there and correct them.He dictates to them in Irish and makes me correct what they've written.Then he gives me special compositions to write and makes me read them to the class because of all I learned from him last year. He tells the class, Frank McCourt is going to show you how well he learned to write in this class last year. He's going to write a composition on Our Lord, aren't you, McCourt? He's going to tell us what it would be like if Our Lord had grown up in Limerick which has the Arch Confraternity of the Holy Family and is the holiest city in Ireland.We know that if Our Lord had grown up in Limerick He would never have been cruciﬁed because the people of Limerick were always good Catholics and not given to cru- ciﬁxion. So, McCourt, you are to go home and write that composition and bring it in tomorrow. Dad says Mr. O'Dea has a great imagination but didn't Our Lord suffer enough on the cross without sticking Him in Limerick on top of it with the damp from the River Shannon.He puts on his cap and goes for a long walk and I have to think about Our Lord by myself and won- der what I'm going to write tomorrow. The next day Mr. O'Dea says,All right, McCourt, read your com- position to the class. The name of my composition is— The title, McCourt, the title. The title of my composition is,"Jesus and the Weather." "Jesus and the Weather." 205

All right, read it. This is my composition.I don't think Jesus Who is Our Lord would have liked the weather in Limerick because it's always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers.When you look at pictures of Jesus He's always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. It never rains there and you never hear of anyone coughing or getting con- sumption or anything like that and no one has a job there because all they do is stand around and eat manna and shake their ﬁsts and go to cruciﬁxions. Anytime Jesus got hungry all He had to do was walk up the road to a ﬁg tree or an orange tree and have His ﬁll. If He wanted a pint He could wave His hand over a big glass and there was the pint. Or He could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister,Martha,and they'd give Him His dinner no questions asked and He'd get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdalene's hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I don't think is fair.Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sis- ter sits out there chatting away with Our Lord? It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldn't be any Catholic Church and there wouldn't be any Commu- nion or Conﬁrmation and we wouldn't have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him.The End. Mr. O'Dea is quiet and gives me a strange look and I'm worried because when he's quiet like that it means someone is going to suffer. He says, McCourt, who wrote that composition? I did, sir. Did your father write that composition? He didn't, sir. Come here, McCourt. I follow him out the door, along the hall to the headmaster's room. Mr. O'Dea shows him my composition and Mr. O'Halloran gives me the strange look, too. Did you write this composition? I did, sir. I'm taken out of the ﬁfth class and put into Mr. O'Halloran's sixth class with all the boys I know, Paddy Clohessy, Fintan Slattery, The Question Quigley, and when school is over that day I have to go back down to the statue of St. Francis of Assisi to thank him even if my legs 206

are still weak from the typhoid and I have to sit on steps and hold on to walls and I wonder was it something good I said in that composition or something bad. Mr.Thomas L. O'Halloran teaches three classes in one room, sixth, seventh, eighth. He has a head like President Roosevelt and he wears gold glasses. He wears suits, navy blue or gray, and there's a gold watch chain that hangs across his belly from pocket to pocket in his waistcoat. We call him Hoppy because he has a short leg and hops when he walks. He knows what we call him and he says,Yes,I'm Hoppy and I'll hop on you. He carries a long stick, a pointer, and if you don't pay attention or give a stupid answer he gives you three slaps on each hand or whacks you across the backs of your legs. He makes you learn everything by heart, everything, and that makes him the hardest master in the school. He loves America and makes us know all the American states in alpha- betical order. He makes charts of Irish grammar, Irish history and alge- bra at home, hangs them on an easel and we have to chant our way through the cases, conjugations and declensions of Irish, famous names and battles, proportions, ratios, equations. We have to know all the important dates in Irish history. He tells us what is important and why. No master ever told us why before. If you asked why you'd be hit on the head. Hoppy doesn't call us idiots and if you ask a question he doesn't go into a rage. He's the only master who stops and says, Do ye understand what I'm talking about? Do ye want to ask a question? It's a shock to everyone when he says, the Battle of Kinsale in six- teen nought one was the saddest moment in Irish history, a close battle with cruelty and atrocities on both sides. Cruelty on both sides? The Irish side? How could that be? All the other masters told us the Irish always fought nobly, they always fought the fair ﬁght. He recites and makes us remember, They went forth to battle, but they always fell, Their eyes were ﬁxed above the sullen shields. Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well, And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell. If they lost it was because of traitors and informers. But I want to know about these Irish atrocities. Sir, did the Irish commit atrocities at the Battle of Kinsale? 207

They did, indeed. It is recorded that they killed prisoners but they were no better nor worse than the English. Mr. O'Halloran can't lie. He's the headmaster. All these years we were told the Irish were always noble and they made brave speeches before the English hanged them. Now Hoppy O'Halloran is saying the Irish did bad things. Next thing he'll be saying the English did good things. He says,You have to study and learn so that you can make up your own mind about history and everything else but you can't make up an empty mind. Stock your mind, stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it.If you won the Irish Sweepstakes and bought a house that needed furniture would you ﬁll it with bits and pieces of rubbish? Your mind is your house and if you ﬁll it with rubbish from the cinemas it will rot in your head.You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace. He calls us one by one to the front of the room and looks at our shoes. He wants to know why they're broken or why we have no shoes at all. He tells us this is a disgrace and he's going to have a rafﬂe to raise money so that we can have strong warm boots for the winter. He gives us books of tickets and we swarm all over Limerick for Leamy's School boot fund, ﬁrst prize ﬁve pounds, ﬁve prizes of a pound each. Eleven boys with no boots get new boots.Malachy and I don't get any because we have shoes on our feet even if the soles are worn away and we won- der why we ran all over Limerick selling tickets so that other boys could get boots.Fintan Slattery says we gain plenary Indulgences for works of charity and Paddy Clohessy says, Fintan, would you ever go and have a good shit for yourself. I know when Dad does the bad thing. I know when he drinks the dole money and Mam is desperate and has to beg at the St.Vincent de Paul Society and ask for credit at Kathleen O'Connell's shop but I don't want to back away from him and run to Mam. How can I do that when I'm up with him early every morning with the whole world asleep? He lights the ﬁre and makes the tea and sings to himself or reads the paper to me in a whisper that won't wake up the rest of the family. Mikey Molloy stole Cuchulain, the Angel on the Seventh Step is gone some- place else, but my father in the morning is still mine. He gets the Irish Press early and tells me about the world, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco. He 208

says this war is none of our business because the English are up to their tricks again. He tells me about the great Roosevelt in Washington and the great De Valera in Dublin. In the morning we have the world to ourselves and he never tells me I should die for Ireland. He tells me about the old days in Ireland when the English wouldn't let the Catholics have schools because they wanted to keep the people igno- rant, that the Catholic children met in hedge schools in the depths of the country and learned English, Irish, Latin and Greek. The people loved learning.They loved stories and poetry even if none of this was any good for getting a job. Men, women and children would gather in ditches to hear those great masters and everyone wondered at how much a man could carry in his head.The masters risked their lives going from ditch to ditch and hedge to hedge because if the English caught them teaching they might be transported to foreign parts or worse. He tells me school is easy now,you don't have to sit in a ditch learning your sums or the glorious history of Ireland. I should be good in school and some day I'll go back to America and get an inside job where I'll be sit- ting at a desk with two fountain pens in my pocket, one red and one blue, making decisions. I'll be in out of the rain and I'll have a suit and shoes and a warm place to live and what more could a man want? He says you can do anything in America, it's the land of opportunity.You can be a ﬁsherman in Maine or a farmer in California.America is not like Limerick, a gray place with a river that kills. When you have your father to yourself by the ﬁre in the morning you don't need Cuchulain or the Angel on the Seventh Step or anything. At night he helps us with our exercises.Mam says they call it home- work in America but here it's exercises, the sums, the English, the Irish, the history.He can't help us with Irish because he's from the North and lacking in the native tongue. Malachy offers to teach him all the Irish words he knows but Dad says it's too late, you can't teach an old dog a new bark. Before bed we sit around the ﬁre and if we say, Dad, tell us a story, he makes up one about someone in the lane and the story will take us all over the world, up in the air, under the sea and back to the lane. Everyone in the story is a different color and everything is upside down and backward. Motor cars and planes go under water and sub- marines ﬂy through the air. Sharks sit in trees and giant salmon sport with kangaroos on the moon.Polar bears wrestle with elephants in Aus- tralia and penguins teach Zulus how to play bagpipes.After the story he 209

takes us upstairs and kneels with us while we say our prayers.We say the Our Father,three Hail Marys,God bless the Pope.God bless Mam,God bless our dead sister and brothers, God bless Ireland, God bless De Valera,and God bless anyone who gives Dad a job.He says,Go to sleep, boys, because holy God is watching you and He always knows if you're not good. I think my father is like the Holy Trinity with three people in him, the one in the morning with the paper, the one at night with the sto- ries and the prayers, and then the one who does the bad thing and comes home with the smell of whiskey and wants us to die for Ireland. I feel sad over the bad thing but I can't back away from him because the one in the morning is my real father and if I were in America I could say, I love you, Dad, the way they do in the ﬁlms, but you can't say that in Limerick for fear you might be laughed at.You're allowed to say you love God and babies and horses that win but anything else is a softness in the head. Day and night we're tormented in that kitchen with people emptying their buckets. Mam says it's not the River Shannon that will kill us but the stink from that lavatory outside our door. It's bad enough in the winter when everything ﬂows over and seeps under our door but worse in the warm weather when there are ﬂies and bluebottles and rats. There is a stable next to the lavatory where they keep the big horse from Gabbett's coal yard. His name is Finn the Horse and we all love him but the stable man from the coal yard doesn't take proper care of the stable and the stink travels to our house.The stink from the lavatory and the stable attracts rats and we have to chase them with our new dog, Lucky.He loves to corner the rats and then we smash them to bits with rocks or sticks or stab them with the hay fork in the stable.The horse himself is frightened by the rats and we have to be careful when he rears up.He knows we're not rats because we bring him apples when we rob an orchard out the country. Sometimes the rats escape and run into our house and into the coal hole under the stairs where it's pitch dark and you can't see them. Even when we bring in a candle we can't ﬁnd them because they dig holes everywhere and we don't know where to look.If we have a ﬁre we can boil water and pour it slowly in from the kettle spot and that will drive them out of the hole between our legs and out the door again unless 210

Lucky is there to catch them in his teeth and shake the life out of them. We expect him to eat the rats but he'll leave them in the lane with their guts hanging out and run to my father for a piece of bread dipped in tea. People in the lane say that's a peculiar way for a dog to behave but then what would you expect from a dog of the McCourts. The minute there's a sign of a rat or a mention of one Mam is out the door and up the lane. She'd rather walk the streets of Limerick for- ever than stay one minute in a house that has a rat in it and she can never rest because she knows that with the stable and the lavatory there's always a rat nearby with his family waiting for their dinner. We ﬁght the rats and we ﬁght the stink from that lavatory.We'd like to keep our door open in the warm weather but you can't when peo- ple are trotting down the lane to empty their brimming buckets. Some families are worse than others and Dad hates all of them even though Mam tells him it's not their fault if the builders a hundred years ago put up houses with no lavatories but this one outside our door.Dad says the people should empty their buckets in the middle of the night when we are asleep so that we won't be disturbed by the stink. The ﬂies are nearly as bad as the rats. On warm days they swarm to the stable and when a bucket is emptied they swarm to the lavatory. If Mam cooks anything they swarm into the kitchen and Dad says it's dis- gusting to think the ﬂy sitting there on the sugar bowl was on the toi- let bowl,or what's left of it,a minute ago.If you have an open sore they ﬁnd it and torment you. By day you have the ﬂies, by night you have the ﬂeas.Mam says there's one good thing about ﬂeas,they're clean,but ﬂies are ﬁlthy, you never know where they came from and they carry diseases galore. We can chase the rats and kill them.We can slap at the ﬂies and the ﬂeas and kill them but there's nothing we can do about the neighbors and their buckets. If we're out in the lane playing and we see someone with a bucket we call to our own house,Bucket coming,close the door, close the door,and whoever is inside runs to the door.In warm weather we run to close the door all day because we know which families have the worst buckets.There are families whose fathers have jobs and if they get into the habit of cooking with curry we know their buckets will stink to the heavens and make us sick. Now with the war on and men sending money from England more and more families are cooking with curry and our house is ﬁlled with the stink day and night.We know the families with the curry, we know the ones with the cabbage. Mam is 211

sick all the time, Dad takes longer and longer walks into the country, and we play outside as much as we can and far from the lavatory. Dad doesn't complain about the River Shannon anymore. He knows now the lavatory is worse and he takes me with him to the Town Hall to complain.The man there says,Mister,all I can tell you is you can move. Dad says we can't afford to move and the man says there's nothing he can do. Dad says,This is not India.This is a Christian country.The lane needs more lavatories.The man says, Do you expect Limerick to start building lavatories in houses that are falling down anyway, that will be demolished after the war? Dad says that lavatory could kill us all.The man says we live in dangerous times. Mam says it's hard enough keeping a ﬁre going to cook the Christmas dinner but if I'm going to Christmas dinner at the hospital I'll have to wash myself from top to bottom. She wouldn't give it to Sister Rita to say I was neglected or ripe for another disease. She boils a pot of water early in the morning before Mass and nearly scalds the scalp off me.She scours my ears and scrubs my skin so hard it tingles.She can afford tup- pence for the bus out to the hospital but I'll have to walk back and that will be good for me because I'll be stuffed with food and now she has to get the ﬁre going again for the pig's head and cabbage and ﬂoury white potatoes which she got once again through the kindness of the St.Vincent de Paul Society and she's determined this will be the last time we celebrate the birth of Our Lord with pig's head.Next year we'll have a goose or a nice ham and why wouldn't we,isn't Limerick famous the world over for the ham? Sister Rita says,Now would you look at this,our little soldier look- ing so healthy. No meat on the bones but still. Now tell me, did you go to Mass this morning? I did, Sister. And did you receive? I did, Sister. She takes me into an empty ward and tells me sit there on that chair it won't be long now till I get my dinner. She leaves and I won- der if I'll be eating with nuns and nurses or will I be in a ward with chil- dren having their Christmas dinner. In awhile my dinner is brought in by the girl in the blue dress who brought me the books. She places the tray on the side of a bed and I pull up a chair. She frowns at me and 212

screws up her face.You, she says, that's your dinner an' I'm not bringin' you any books. The dinner is delicious,turkey,mashed potatoes,peas,jelly and cus- tard, and a pot of tea.The jelly and custard dish looks delicious and I can't resist it so I'll have it ﬁrst there's no one there to notice but when I'm eating it the girl in the blue dress comes in with bread and says, What are you doin'? Nothing. Yes, you are. You're atin' the sweet before the dinner, and she runs out calling, Sister Rita, Sister Rita, come in quick, and the nun rushes in, Francis, are you all right? I am, Sister. He's not all right,Sister.He do be atin'his jelly an custard before his dinner.That's a sin, Sister. Ah, now, dear, you run along and I'll talk to Francis about that. Do, Sister, talk to him or all the childer in the hospital will be atin' their sweet before their dinner an' then where will we be? Indeed, indeed, where will we be? Run along now. The girl leaves and Sister Rita smiles at me. God love her, she doesn't miss a thing even in her confusion.We have to be patient with her, Francis, the way she's touched. She leaves and it's quiet in that empty ward and when I'm ﬁnished I don't know what to do because you're not supposed to do anything till they tell you.Hospitals and schools always tell you what to do.I wait a long time till the girl in the blue dress comes in for the tray.Are you ﬁnished? she says. Well, that's all you're gettin' an' now you can go home. Surely girls who are not right in the head can't tell you go home and I wonder if I should wait for Sister Rita.A nurse in the hallway tells me Sister Rita is having her dinner and is not to be bothered. It's a long walk from Union Cross to Barrack Hill and when I get home my family are up in Italy and well into their pig's head and cab- bage and ﬂoury white potatoes.I tell them about my Christmas dinner. Mam wants to know if I had it with the nurses and nuns and she gets a bit angry when I tell her I ate alone in a ward and that's no way to treat a child. She tells me sit down and have some pig's head and I force it into my mouth and I'm so stuffed I have to lie on the bed with my belly sticking out a mile. 213

It's early in the morning and there's a motor car outside our door, the ﬁrst one we've ever seen in the lane.There are men in suits looking in the door of the stable of Finn the Horse and there must be something wrong because you never see men with suits in the lane. It's Finn the Horse. He's lying on the ﬂoor of the stable looking up the lane and there's white stuff like milk around his mouth.The stable man who takes care of Finn the Horse says he found him like that this morning and it's strange because he's always up and ready for his feed. The men are shaking their heads.My brother Michael says to one of the men, Mister, what's up with Finn? Sick horse, son. Go home. The stable man who takes care of Finn has the whiskey smell on him. He says to Michael,That horse is a goner.We have to shoot him. Michael pulls at my hand. Frank, they're not to shoot him. Tell them.You're big. The stable man says, Go home, boy. Go home. Michael attacks him, kicks him, scrawbs the back of his hand, and the man sends Michael ﬂying. Hould that brother of yours, he tells me, hould him. One of the other men takes something yellow and brown from a bag,goes to Finn,puts it to his head and there's a sharp crack.Finn shiv- ers. Michael screams at the man and attacks him too but the man says, The horse was sick, son. He's better off. The men in suits drive away and the stable man says he has to wait for the lorry to take Finn away, he can't leave him alone or the rats will be at him.He wants to know if we'd keep an eye on the horse with our dog Lucky while he goes to the pub, he's blue mouldy for a pint. No rat has a chance to get near Finn the Horse the way Michael is there with a stick small as he is.The man comes back smelling of porter and then there's the big lorry to take the horse away, a big lorry with three men and two great planks that slope from the back of the lorry to Finn's head.The three men and the stable man tie ropes around Finn and pull him up the planks and the people in the lane yell at the men because of the nails and broken wood in the planks that catch at Finn and tear out bits of his hide and streak the planks with bright pink horse blood. Ye are destroyin' that horse. 214

Can't ye have respect for the dead? Go easy with that poor horse. The stable man says, For the love o' Jaysus what are ye squawkin' about? 'Tis only a dead horse, and Michael runs at him again with his head down and his small ﬁsts ﬂying till the stable man gives him a shove that sends him on his back and Mam goes at the stable man in such a rage he runs up the planks and over Finn's body to escape. He comes back drunk in the evening to sleep it off and after he leaves there's a smoldering in the hay and the stable burns down the rats running up the lane with every boy and dog chasing them till they escape into the streets of respectable people. 215

IX Mam says, Alphie is enough. I'm worn out.That's the end of it. No more children. Dad says, The good Catholic woman must perform her wifely duties and submit to her husband or face eternal damnation. Mam says, As long as there are no more children eternal damnation sounds attractive enough to me. What is Dad to do? There's a war on. English agents are recruiting Irishmen to work in their munitions factories,the pay is good,there are no jobs in Ireland,and if the wife turns her back to you there's no short- age of women in England where the able men are off ﬁghting Hitler and Mussolini and you can do anything you like as long as you remember you're Irish and lower class and don't try to rise above your station. Families up and down the lane are getting telegram money orders from their fathers in England.They rush to the post ofﬁce to cash the money orders so they can shop and show the world their good fortune on Saturday night and Sunday morning.The boys get their hair cut on Saturdays, the women curl their hair with iron tongs hot from the ﬁre. They're very grand now the way they pay sixpence or even a shilling for seats at the Savoy Cinema where you'll meet a better class of peo- ple than the lower classes who ﬁll the tuppenny seats in the gods at the Lyric Cinema and are never done shouting at the screen,the kind of peo- ple if you don't mind who are liable to cheer on the Africans when they 216

throw spears at Tarzan or the Indians when they're scalping the United States Cavalry.The new rich people go home after Mass on Sundays all airs and stuff themselves with meat and potatoes, sweets and cakes galore, and they think nothing of drinking their tea from delicate little cups which stand in saucers to catch the tea that overﬂows and when they lift the cups they stick out their little ﬁngers to show how reﬁned they are. Some stop going to ﬁsh and chip shops altogether because you see nothing in those places but drunken soldiers and night girls and men that drank their dole and their wives screeching at them to come home.The brave new rich will be seen at the Savoy Restaurant or the Stella drink- ing tea, eating little buns, patting their lips with serviettes if you don't mind,coming home on the bus and complaining the service is not what it used to be.They have electricity now so they can see things they never saw before and when darkness falls they turn on the new wireless to hear how the war is going.They thank God for Hitler because if he hadn't marched all over Europe the men of Ireland would still be at home scratching their arses on the queue at the Labour Exchange. Some families sing, Yip aye aidy aye ay aye oh Yip aye aidy aye ay, We don't care about England or France, All we want is the German advance. If there's a chill in the air they'll turn on the electric ﬁre for the comfort that's in it and sit in their kitchens listening to the news declar- ing how sorry they are for the English women and children dying under the German bombs but look what England did to us for eight hundred years. The families with fathers in England are able to lord it over the families that don't. At dinnertime and teatime the new rich mothers stand at their doors and call to their children, Mikey, Kathleen, Paddy, come in for yeer dinner.Come in for the lovely leg o'lamb and the gor- geous green peas and the ﬂoury white potatoes. Sean, Josie, Peggy, come in for yeer tea, come in at wanst for the fresh bread and butter and the gorgeous blue duck egg what no one else in the lane have. Brendan,Annie, Patsy, come in for the fried black puddin', the siz- zlin' sausages and the lovely triﬂe soaked in the best of Spanish sherry. 217

At times like this Mam tells us to stay inside.We have nothing but bread and tea and she doesn't want the tormenting neighbors to see us with our tongues hanging out, suffering over the lovely smells ﬂoating up and down the lane. She says 'tis easy to see they're not used to hav- ing anything the way they brag about everything. 'Tis a real low-class mind that will call out the door and tell the world what they're having for the supper. She says 'tis their way of getting a rise out of us because Dad is a foreigner from the North and he won't have anything to do with any of them.Dad says all that food comes from English money and no luck will come to those who took it but what could you expect from Limerick anyway,people who proﬁt from Hitler's war,people who will work and ﬁght for the English. He says he'll never go over there and help England win a war. Mam says, No, you'll stay here where there's no work and hardly a lump of coal to boil water for the tea. No, you'll stay here and drink the dole when the humor is on you.You'll watch your sons going around with broken shoes and their arses hanging out of their trousers.Every house in the lane has electricity and we're lucky if we have a candle. God above, if I had the fare I'd be off to England myself for I'm sure they need women in the factories. Dad says a factory is no place for a woman. Mam says, Sitting on your arse by the ﬁre is no place for a man. I say to him,Why can't you go to England, Dad, so we can have electricity and a wireless and Mam can stand at the door and tell the world what we're having at dinnertime? He says, Don't you want to have your father here at home with you? I do but you can come back at the end of the war and we can all go to America. He sighs, Och, aye, och, aye. All right he'll go to England after Christmas because America is in the war now and the cause must be just.He'd never go if the Americans hadn't gone in.He tells me I'll have to be the man of the house, and he signs up with an agent to work in a factory in Coventry which, everyone says, is the most bombed city in England.The agent says,There's plenty of work for willing men.You can work overtime till you drop and if you save it up,mate,you'll be Rock- efeller at the end of the war. We're up early to see Dad off at the railway station. Kathleen O'Connell at the shop knows Dad is off to England and money will be 218

ﬂowing back so she's happy to let Mam have credit for tea, milk, sugar, bread, butter and an egg. An egg. Mam says,This egg is for your father.He needs the nourishment for the long journey before him. It's a hard-boiled egg and Dad peels off the shell. He slices the egg ﬁve ways and gives each of us a bit to put on our bread.Mam says,Don't be such a fool. Dad says,What would a man be doing with a whole egg to himself? Mam has tears on her eyelashes. She pulls her chair over to the ﬁreplace.We all eat our bread and egg and watch her cry till she says, What are ye gawkin' at? and turns away to look into the ashes. Her bread and egg are still on the table and I wonder if she has any plans for them.They look delicious and I'm still hungry but Dad gets up and brings them to her with the tea.She shakes her head but he presses them on her and she eats and drinks,snufﬂing and crying.He sits opposite her a while,silent,till she looks up at the clock and says,'Tis time to go.He puts on his cap and picks up his bag. Mam wraps Alphie in an old blan- ket and we set off through the streets of Limerick. There are other families in the streets.The going-away fathers walk ahead, the mothers carry babies or push prams.A mother with a pram will say to other mothers, God above, missus, you must be fagged out carrying that child. Sure, why don't you stick him into the pram here and rest your poor arms. Prams might be packed with four or ﬁve babies squalling away because the prams are old and the wheels bockety and the babies are rocked till they get sick and throw up their goody. The men call to each other. Grand day, Mick. Lovely day for the journey, Joe. 'Tis, indeed, Mick. Arrah, we might as well have a pint before we go,Joe.We might as well,Mick.Might as well be drunk as the way we are, Joe. They laugh and the women behind them are teary-eyed and red-nosed. In the pubs around the railway station the men are packed in drink- ing the money the agents gave them for travel food.They're having the last pint, the last drop of whiskey on Irish soil, For God knows it might be the last we'll ever have, Mick, the way the Jerries are bombing the bejesus outa England and not a minute too soon after what they did to us and isn't it a tragic thing entirely the way we have to go over there and save the arse of the ancient foe. 219

The women stay outside the pubs talking. Mam tells Mrs. Meehan, The ﬁrst telegram money order I get I'll be in the shop buying a big breakfast so that we can all have our own egg of a Sunday morning. I look at my brother Malachy. Did you hear that? Our own egg of a Sunday morning. Oh, God, I already had plans for my egg. Tap it around the top, gently crack the shell, lift with a spoon, a dab of butter down into the yolk, salt, take my time, a dip of the spoon, scoop, more salt, more butter, into the mouth, oh, God above, if heaven has a taste it must be an egg with butter and salt, and after the egg is there anything in the world lovelier than fresh warm bread and a mug of sweet golden tea? Some men are already too drunk to walk and the English agents are paying sober men to drag them out of the pubs and throw them on a great horse-drawn ﬂoat to be hauled to the station and dumped into the train.The agents are desperate to get everyone out of the pubs. Come on, men. Miss this train and you'll miss a good job. Come on, men, we have the Guinness in England.We have the Jameson. Now, men, please, men.You're drinking your food money and you'll get no more. The men tell the agents to kiss their Irish arses, that the agents are lucky they're alive,lucky they're not hanging from the nearest lamppost after what they did to Ireland. And the men sing, On Mountjoy one Monday morning High upon the gallows tree, Kevin Barry gave his young life For the cause of liberty. The train wails in the station and the agents beg the women to get their men out of the pubs and the men stumble out singing and crying and hugging their wives and children and promising to send so much money Limerick will be turned into another New York.The men climb the station steps and the women and children call after them, Kevin, love, mind yourself and don't be wearing damp shirts. Dry your socks, Michael, or the bunions will destroy you entirely. Paddy, go easy on the drink, are you listenin', Paddy? Dad, Dad, don't go, Dad. Tommy, don't forget to send the money.The children are skin and bones. 220

Peter, don't forget to be takin' the medicine for your weak chest, Larry, mind them bloody bombs. Christy, don't be talkin' to them Englishwomen.They're full of diseases. Jackie,come back.Sure we'll manage somehow.Don't go, Jack-e-e, Jack-e-e, oh, Jesus, don't go. Dad pats our heads. He tells us remember our religious duties but, above all, obey our mother. He stands before her. She has the baby Alphie in her arms. She says, Mind yourself. He drops the bag and puts his arms around her.They stay that way a moment till the baby yelps between them.He nods,picks up his bag,climbs the steps to the station, turns to wave and he's gone. Back at home Mam says, I don't care. I know it sounds extravagant but I'm going to light the ﬁre and make more tea for it isn't every day your father goes to England. We sit around the ﬁre and drink our tea and cry because we have no father, till Mam says, Don't cry, don't cry. Now that your father is gone to England surely our troubles will be over. Surely. Mam and Bridey Hannon sit by the ﬁre upstairs in Italy smoking Woodbines, drinking tea, and I sit on the stairs listening. We have a father in England so that we can get all we want from Kathleen O'Con- nell's shop and pay when he starts sending the money in a fortnight. Mam tells Bridey she can't wait to get out of this bloody lane to a place with a decent lavatory that we don't have to share with half the world. We'll all have new boots and coats to keep off the rain so we won't be coming home from school famished. We'll have eggs and rashers on Sunday for breakfast and ham and cabbage and potatoes for dinner. We'll have electric light and why shouldn't we? Weren't Frank and Malachy born to it in America where everyone has it? All we have to do now is wait for two weeks till the telegram boy knocks at the door. Dad will have to settle into his job in England, buy work clothes and get a place to stay, so the ﬁrst money order won't be big,three pounds or three pounds ten,but soon we'll be like other fam- ilies in the lane, ﬁve pounds a week, paying off debts, buying new 221

clothes, putting something in the savings against the time we'll pack up and move to England entirely and save there to go to America. Mam herself could get a job in an English factory making bombs or some- thing and God knows we wouldn't know ourselves with the money pouring in. She wouldn't be happy if we grew up with English accents but better an English accent than an empty belly. Bridey says it doesn't matter what class of an accent an Irishman has for he'll never forget what the English did to us for eight hundred long We know what Saturdays are in the lane.We know some families like the Downeses across from us get their telegram early because Mr. Downes is a steady man who knows how to have a pint or two on a Friday and go home to his bed.We know men like him run to the post ofﬁce the minute they're paid so their families won't know a minute of waiting or worry. Men like Mr. Downes send their sons RAF wings to wear on their coats.That's what we want and that's what we told Dad before he left, Don't forget the RAF badges, Dad. We see the telegram boys on their bicycles swing into the lane. They're happy telegram boys because the tips they get in the lanes are bigger than anything they get in the grand streets and avenues where rich people will begrudge you the steam of their piss. The families that get the early telegrams have that contented look. They'll have all day Saturday to enjoy the money.They'll shop, they'll eat, they'll have all day to think about what they'll do that night and that's almost as good as the thing itself because Saturday night when you have a few shillings in your pocket is the most delicious night of the week. There are families don't get the telegram every week and you know them by the anxious look. Mrs. Meagher has waited at her door every Saturday for two months. My mother says she'd be ashamed of her life to wait at the door like that.All the children play in the lane and keep an eye out for the telegram boy. Hoi, telegram boy, do you have any- thing for Meagher? and when he says no they say, Are you sure? and he'll say, Course I'm sure. I know what I have in my feckin' pouch. Everyone knows the telegram boys stop coming when the Angelus rings at six and darkness brings desperation to the women and children. Telegram boy, will you look in your pouch again? Please.Aw, God. I did. I have nothing for ye. 222

Aw, God, please look. Our name is Meagher.Will you look? I know bloody well yeer name is Meagher and I looked. The children claw at him up on his bicycle and he kicks at them, Jesus, will ye get away from me. Once the Angelus rings at six in the evening the day is over.The ones with the telegrams are having their supper with the electric light blazing away and the ones that didn't get the telegrams have to light candles and see if Kathleen O'Connell might let them have tea and bread till this time next week when surely with the help of God and His Blessed Mother the telegram will come. Mr. Meehan at the top of the lane went to England with Dad and when the telegram boy stops at Meehan's we know we'll be next.Mam has her coat ready to go to the post ofﬁce but she won't leave the chair by the ﬁre in Italy till she has the telegram in her hand.The telegram boy rides down the lane and swings over to Downeses'.He hands them their telegram, takes the tip and turns his bicycle around to head back up the lane. Malachy calls, Telegram boy, do you have something for McCourt? Ours is coming today.The telegram boy shakes his head and rides away. Mam puffs on her Woodbine.Well, we have all day though I'd like to do a bit of shopping early before the best hams are gone at Barry the butcher. She can't leave the ﬁre and we can't leave the lane for fear the telegram boy might come and ﬁnd no one at home.Then we'd have to wait till Monday to cash the money order and that would destroy the weekend entirely.We'd have to watch the Meehans and everyone else parading around in their new clothes and staggering home with eggs and potatoes and sausages for Sunday and sailing off to the ﬁlms on Sat- urday night. No, we can't move an inch till that telegram boy comes. Mam says don't be too worried between noon and two because so many telegram boys go for their dinner and there will surely be a big rush between two and the Angelus. We don't have a thing to worry about till six. We stop every telegram boy. We tell them our name is McCourt, that this is our ﬁrst telegram, it should be three pounds or more, they might have forgotten to put our name on it or our address, is he sure? is he sure? One boy tells us he'll inquire at the post ofﬁce. He says he knows what 'tis like to wait for the telegram because his own father is a drunken oul' shit over in England that never sent a penny. Mam hears him inside and tells us you should never talk about your father like that. The same telegram boy comes back just before the 223

Angelus at six and tells us he asked Mrs. O'Connell at the post ofﬁce if they had anything for McCourt all day and they didn't. Mam turns toward the dead ashes in the ﬁre and sucks at the last bit of goodness in the Woodbine butt caught between the brown thumb and the burnt middle ﬁnger. Michael who is only ﬁve and won't understand anything till he's eleven like me wants to know if we're having ﬁsh and chips tonight because he's hungry. Mam says, Next week, love, and he goes back out to play in the lane. You don't know what to do with yourself when the ﬁrst telegram doesn't come.You can't stay out in the lane playing with your brothers all night because everyone else is gone in and you'd be ashamed to stay out in the lane to be tormented with smells of sausages and rashers and fried bread.You don't want to look at electric light coming through the windows after dark and you don't want to hear the news from the BBC or Radio Eireann from other people's wirelesses.Mrs.Meagher and her children are gone in and there's only the dim light of a candle from their kitchen.They're ashamed too.They stay inside on Saturday nights and they don't even go to Mass on Sunday mornings. Bridey Hannon told Mam that Mrs. Meagher is in a constant state of shame over the rags they wear and so desperate she goes down to the Dispensary for the public assistance. Mam says that's the worst thing that could happen to any family. It's worse than going on the dole, it's worse than going to the St.Vincent de Paul Society, it's worse than begging on the streets with the tinkers and the knackers. It's the last thing you'd do to keep yourself out of the poor house and the children from the orphanage. There's a sore at the top of my nose between my eyebrows,gray and red and itching. Grandma says, Don't touch that sore and don't put water near it or it'll spread. If you broke your arm she'd say don't touch that with water it'll spread.The sore spreads into my eyes anyway and now they're red and yellow from the stuff that oozes and makes them stick in the morning.They stick so hard I have to force my eyelids open with my ﬁngers and Mam has to scrub off that yellow stuff with a damp rag and boric powder.The eyelashes fall off and every bit of dust in Limer- ick blows into my eyes on windy days. Grandma tells me I have naked eyes and she says it's my own fault, all that eye trouble comes from sit- ting up there at the top of the lane under the light pole in all kinds of weather with my nose stuck in books and the same thing will happen 224

to Malachy if he doesn't give over with the reading.You can see little Michael is getting just as bad sticking his nose in books when he should be out playing like a healthy child. Books, books, books, says Grandma, ye will ruin yeer eyes entirely. She's having tea with Mam and I hear her whisper,The thing to do is give him St.Anthony's spit. What's that? says Mam. Your fasting spit in the morning. Go to him before he wakes and spit on his eyes for the spit of a fasting mother has powerful cures in it. But I'm always awake before Mam. I force my eyes open long before she stirs.I can hear her coming across the ﬂoor and when she stands over me for the spit I open my eyes. God, she says, your eyes are open. I think they're getting better. That's good, and she goes back to bed. The eyes don't heal and she takes me to the Dispensary where the poor people see doctors and get their medicines. It's the place to apply for public assistance when a father is dead or disappeared and there's no dole money, no wages. There are benches along the walls by the doctors' ofﬁces. The benches are always packed with people talking about their ailments. Old men and women sit and groan and babies scream and mothers say hush, love, hush.There's a high platform in the middle of the Dispen- sary with a counter circling it chest-high. When you want anything you stand in a queue before that platform to see Mr. Coffey or Mr. Kane.The women in the queue are like the women at the St.Vincent de Paul Society. They wear shawls and they're respectful to Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane because if they're not they might be told go away and come back next week when it's this minute you need the public assis- tance or a docket to see the doctor. Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane love to have a good laugh with the women.They'll decide if you're desperate enough for the public assistance or if you're sick enough to see a doc- tor.You have to tell them in front of everyone what's wrong with you and they often have a good laugh with that.They'll say,And what is it you want, Mrs. O'Shea? A docket for the doctor, is it? And what is your trouble, Mrs. O'Shea? A pain, is it? A touch of the wind, maybe. Or maybe too much cabbage. Oh, the cabbage will do it right enough. They laugh and Mrs. O'Shea laughs and all the women laugh and say Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane are funny men, they'd give Laurel and Hardy a run for their money. 225

Mr. Coffey says, Now, woman, what's your name? Angela McCourt, sir. And what's up with you? 'Tis my son, sir. He has two bad eyes. Oh, by God, he does, woman.They're desperate-looking eyes alto- gether.They look like two rising suns.The Japs could use him on their ﬂag, ha ha ha. Did he pour acid on his face or what? 'Tis some class of infection, sir. He had the typhoid last year and then this came. All right, all right, we don't need the life story. Here's your docket to Dr.Troy. Two long benches are ﬁlled with patients for Dr.Troy.Mam sits next to a woman who has a big sore on her nose that won't go away. I tried everything,missus,every known cure on God's lovely earth.I'm eighty- three years of age and I'd like to go to my grave healthy. Is it too much to ask that I meet my Redeemer with a healthy nose? And what's up with yourself, missus? My son.The eyes. Ah, God bless us and save us, look at them eyes.They're the sorest two eyes I ever seen in me life. I never seen that color red before. 'Tis an infection, missus. Sure there's a cure for that.You need the caul. What's that now? Babies are born with this thing on their heads,a class of a hood,rare and magical.Get a caul and put that on his head any day that has a three in it, make him hold his breath for three minutes even if you have to clap your hand over his face, sprinkle him with holy water three times head to toenail and his two eyes will shine in the dawn. And where would I get a caul? Don't all the midwives have cauls, missus.What's a midwife with- out a caul? It cures all classes of disease and keeps off more. Mam says she'll talk to Nurse O'Halloran and see if she has a spare caul. Dr.Troy looks at my eyes. Into the hospital with this boy at once. Take him to the eye ward at the City Home. Here's the docket to get him in. What does he have, Doctor? The worst case of conjunctivitis I've ever seen in my life and some- thing else in there I can't make out. He needs the eye man. 226

How long will he be in, Doctor? Only God knows that. I should have seen this child weeks ago. There are twenty beds in the ward and there are men and boys with bandages around their heads, black patches on their eyes, thick glasses. Some walk around tapping at beds with sticks.A man cries all the time that he'll never see again, he's too young, his children are babies, he'll never see them again. Jesus Christ, oh, Jesus Christ, and the nuns are shocked at the way he takes the name of the Lord in vain. Stop that, Maurice, stop the blasphemy.You have your health.You're alive.We all have our problems. Offer it up and think of the sufferings of Our Lord on the cross, the crown of thorns, the nails in His poor hands and feet, the wound in His side.Maurice says,Oh,Jesus,look down and have pity on me. Sister Bernadette warns him if he doesn't mind his language they'll put him in a ward alone and he says,Heavenly God,and that isn't as bad as Jesus Christ so she's satisﬁed. In the morning I have to go downstairs for drops.The nurse says, Sit in this high chair and here's a nice sweet.The doctor has a bottle with brown stuff in it. He tells me put my head back, that's right, now open up, open your eyes and he pours the stuff into my right eye and it's a ﬂame going through my skull.The nurse says, Open the other eye, come on be a good boy, and she has to force the eyelids open so the doctor can set ﬁre to the other side of my skull. She wipes my cheeks and tells me run along upstairs but I can barely see and I want to stick my face into an icy stream.The doctor says, Run along, be a man, be a good trooper. The whole world is brown and blurry on the stairs. The other patients are sitting by their beds with dinner trays and mine is there too but I don't want it with the way my skull is raging. I sit by my bed and a boy across the way says, Hoi, don't you want your dinner? I'll take it, and he comes for it. I try to lie on the bed but a nurse says, Now, now, no lying on the bed in the middle of the day.Your case isn't that serious. I have to sit with my eyes closed and everything going brown and black, black and brown and I'm sure I must be having a dream because Lord God above, is that the little fella with the typhoid, little Frankie, the moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, is that your- self, Frankie, for wasn't I promoted out of the Fever Hospital, thank God, where there's every class of disease and you never know what germs you might be bringing home to the wife in your clothes and 227

what's up with you, Frankie, and the two eyes in your head all gone brown? I have an infection, Seamus. Yerra, you'll be over that before you're married, Frankie.The eyes need exercise.The blink is great value for the eyes. I had an uncle with bad eyes and the blink saved him. He sat an hour ever day and blinked and it stood to him in the end. Wound up with powerful eyes, so he did. I want to ask him more about the blink and the powerful eyes but he says, Now do you remember the poem, Frankie, the lovely poem of Patricia? He stands in the aisle between the beds with his mop and his bucket and says the highwayman poem and all the patients stop their moaning and the nuns and nurses stand and listen and on and on goes Seamus till he comes to the end and everyone goes mad clapping and cheering him and he tells the world he loves that poem he'll have it in his head forever no matter where he goes and if it wasn't for Frankie McCourt and his typhoid there and poor Patricia Madigan with the dipteria that's gone God rest her he'd never know the poem and there I am famous in the eye ward of the City Home Hospital and all because of Seamus. Mam can't come to visit every day, it's a long way out, she doesn't always have the money for the bus and the walk is hard on her corns. She thinks my eyes look better though you can't tell with all that brown stuff, which looks and smells like iodine and if it's anything like iodine it must burn. Still, they say the bitterer the medicine the quicker the cure. She gets permission to take me for a walk around the grounds when the weather clears and there's a strange sight,Mr.Timoney stand- ing against the wall where the old people are with his eyes raised to the sky. I want to talk to him and I have to ask Mam because you never know what's right or wrong in a hospital. Mr.Timoney. Who is it? Who do we have? Frank McCourt, sir. Francis, ah, Francis. Mam says, I'm his mother, Mr.Timoney. Well,then,the two of ye are blessed.I have neither kith nor kin nor Macushla my dog.And what are you doing in this place, Francis? I have an infection in my eyes. 228

Ah, Jesus, Francis, not the eyes, not the eyes. Mother of Christ, you're too young for that. Mr.Timoney, would you like me to read to you? With them eyes, Francis? Ah, no, son, Save the eyes. I'm beyond reading.In my head I have everything I need.I was smart enough to put things in my head in my youth and now I have a library in my head. The English shot my wife. The Irish put down my poor innocent Macushla. Isn't it a joke of a world? Mam says,Terrible world but God is good. Indeed, missus. God made the world, it's a terrible world, but God is good. Good-bye, Francis. Rest your eyes and then read till they fall out of your head.We had good times with old Jonathan Swift,didn't we, Francis? We did, Mr.Timoney. Mam takes me back to the eye ward. She tells me, Don't be crying over Mr.Timoney, he's not even your father. Besides you'll be ruining your eyes. Seamus comes to the ward three times a week and brings new poems in his head. He says,You made Patricia sad, Frankie, when you didn't like the one about the owl and the pussycat. I'm sorry, Seamus. I have it in my head, Frankie, and I'll say it for you if you don't say 'tis foolish. I won't, Seamus. He says the poem and everyone in the ward loves it.They want the words and he says it three more times till the whole ward is saying, The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea-green boat. They took some honey, and plenty of money Wrapped up in a ﬁve-pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are. What a beautiful Pussy you are. 229

They say it along with Seamus now and when it's ﬁnished they cheer and clap and Seamus laughs, delighted with himself.When he's gone with his mop and bucket you can hear them at all hours of the day and night O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are. What a beautiful Pussy you are. Then Seamus comes with no mop and no bucket and I'm afraid he's sacked over the poetry but he's smiling and telling me he's off to En- gland to work in a factory and earn decent wages for a change. He'll work for two months and bring the wife over and God might be pleased to send them children for he has to do something with all the poems in his head and what better than saying them to small ones in memory of that sweet Patricia Madigan dead of the dipteria. Good-bye, Francis. If I had the right ﬁst I'd write to you but I'll get the wife to write when she comes over. I might even learn to read and write myself so that the child that comes won't have a fool for a father. I want to cry but you can't cry in the eye ward with brown stuff in your eyes and nurses saying,What's this what's this be a man, and nuns going on, Offer it up, think of the sufferings of Our Lord on the cross, the crown of thorns,the lance in the side,the hands and feet torn to bits with nails. I'm a month in the hospital and the doctor says I can go home even if there's still a bit of infection but if I keep the eyes clean with soap and clean towels and build up my health with nourishing food plenty of beef and eggs I'll have a pair of sparkling eyes in no time ha ha. Mr. Downes across the way comes back from England for his mother's funeral.He tells Mrs.Downes about my father.She tells Bridey Hannon and Bridey tells my mother.Mr.Downes says that Malachy McCourt is gone pure mad with the drink, that he squanders his wages in pubs all over Coventry, that he sings Irish rebel songs which the English don't mind because they're used to the way the Irish carry on about the hundreds of years of suffering, but they won't put up with any man 230

that stands up in a pub and insults the King and Queen of England,their two lovely daughters and the Queen Mother herself. Insulting the Queen Mother is going beyond the beyonds.What did she ever do to anyone,that poor old lady? Time after time Malachy drinks away his rent money and winds up sleeping in parks when the landlord throws him out. He's a regular disgrace, so he is, and Mr. Downes is glad McCourt is not a Limerickman bringing shame to this ancient city.The magistrates in Coventry are losing their patience and if Malachy McCourt doesn't stop the bloody nonsense he'll be kicked out of the country entirely. Mam tells Bridey she doesn't know what she's going to do with these stories from England, she never felt so desperate in her life. She can see Kathleen O'Connell doesn't want to give any more credit at the shop and her own mother barks at her if she asks for the loan of a shilling and the St.Vincent de Paul Society want to know when she'll stop asking for charity especially with a husband in England. She's ashamed of the way we look with the dirty old torn shirts, raggedy ganseys, broken shoes, holes in our stockings. She lies awake at night thinking the most merciful thing of all would be to put the four boys in an orphanage so that she could go to England herself and ﬁnd some type of work where she could bring us all over in a year for the better life. There might be bombs but she'd prefer bombs anytime to the shame of begging from this one and that one. No, no matter what she can't bear the thought of putting us in the orphanage.That might be all right if you had the likes of Boys' Town in America with a nice priest like Spencer Tracy but you could never trust the Christian Brothers out in Glin who get their exercise beating boys and starving the life out of them. Mam says there's nothing left but the Dispensary and the public assistance, the relief, and she's ashamed of her life to go and ask for it. It means you're at the end of your rope and maybe one level above tin- kers, knackers and street beggars in general. It means you have to crawl before Mr.Coffey and Mr.Kane and thank God the Dispensary is at the other end of Limerick so that people in our lane won't know we're get- ting the relief. She knows from other women it's wise to be there early in the morning when Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane might be in a good mood. If you go late in the morning they're liable to be cranky after seeing hun- dreds of men women and children sick and asking for help.She will take us with her to prove she has four children to feed. She gets us up early 231

and tells us for once in our lives don't wash our faces, don't comb our hair, dress in any old rag. She tells me give my sore eyes a good rub and make them as red as I can for the worse you look at the Dispensary the more pity you get and the better your chances of getting the public assistance. She complains that Malachy Michael and Alphie look too healthy and you'd wonder why on this day of days they couldn't have their usual scabby knees or the odd cut bruise or black eye. If we meet anyone in the lane or the streets of Limerick we are not to tell them where we're going. She feels ashamed enough without telling the whole world and wait till her own mother hears. There is a queue already outside the Dispensary.There are women like Mam with children in their arms, babies like Alphie, and children playing on the pavement.The women comfort the babies against the cold and scream at the ones playing in case they run into the street and get hit by a motor car or a bicycle.There are old men and women hud- dled against the wall talking to themselves or not talking at all. Mam warns us not to wander from her and we wait half an hour for the big door to open.A man tells us move inside in proper order and queue up before the platform, that Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane will be there in a minute when they ﬁnish their tea in the room beyond.A woman com- plains her children are freezing with the cold and couldn't Coffey and Kane bloody well hurry up with their tea.The man says she's a trou- blemaker but he won't take her name this time with the cold that's in the morning but if there's another word she'll be a sorry woman. Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane get up on the platform and pay no atten- tion to the people. Mr. Kane puts on his glasses, takes them off, polishes them,puts them on,looks at the ceiling.Mr.Coffey reads papers,writes something,passes papers to Mr.Kane.They whisper to each other.They take their time.They don't look at us. Then Mr. Kane calls the ﬁrst old man to the platform.What's your name? Timothy Creagh, sir. Creagh, hah? A ﬁne old Limerick name you have there. I do, sir. Indeed I do. And what do you want, Creagh? Ah, sure, I do be havin' them pains in me stomach again an' I'd like to see Dr. Feeley. Well, now, Creagh, are you sure it's not the pints of porter that are going against your stomach. 232

Ah,no,indeed,sir.Sure I hardly touch the pint at all with the pains. My wife is home in the bed and I have to take care of her too. There's great laziness in the world, Creagh. And Mr. Kane says to the people on the queue, Did ye hear that, ladies? Great laziness, isn't there? And the women say, Oh, there is, indeed, Mr. Kane, great laziness. Mr. Creagh gets his docket to see the doctor, the queue moves ahead and Mr. Kane is ready for Mam. The public assistance, is that what you want, woman, the relief? 'Tis, Mr. Kane. And where's your husband? Oh, he's in England, but— England, is it? And where is the weekly telegram, the big ﬁve pounds? He didn't send us a penny in months, Mr. Kane. Is that a fact? Well,we know why,don't we? We know what the men of Ireland are up to in England.We know there's the occasional Limer- ickman seen trotting around with a Piccadilly tart, don't we? He looks out at the people on the queue and they know they're supposed to say,We do, Mr. Kane, and they know they're supposed to smile and laugh or things will go hard with them when they reach the platform.They know he might turn them over to Mr. Coffey and he's notorious for saying no to everything. Mam tells Mr.Kane that Dad is in Coventry and nowhere near Pic- cadilly and Mr. Kane takes off his glasses and stares at her.What's this? Are we having a little contradiction here? Oh, no, Mr. Kane, God no. I want you to know, woman, that it is the policy here to give no relief to women with husbands in England. I want you to know you're taking the bread from the mouths of more deserving people who stayed in this country to do their bit. Oh, yes, Mr. Kane. And what's your name? McCourt, sir. That's not a Limerick name.Where did you get a name like that? My husband, sir. He's from the North. He's from the North and he leaves you here to get the relief from the Irish Free State. Is this what we fought for, is it? I don't know, sir. 233

Why don't you go up to Belfast and see what the Orangemen will do for you, ah? I don't know, sir. You don't know.Of course you don't know.There's great ignorance in the world. He looks out at the people, I said there's great ignorance in the world, and the people nod their heads and agree there's great igno- rance in the world. He whispers to Mr. Coffey and they look at Mam, they look at us. He tells Mam at last that she can have the public assistance but if she gets a single penny from her husband she's to drop all claims and give the money back to the Dispensary. She promises she will and we leave. We follow her to Kathleen O'Connell's shop to get tea and bread and a few sods of turf for the ﬁre.We climb the stairs to Italy and get the ﬁre going and it's cozy when we have our tea.We're all very quiet, even the baby Alphie, because we know what Mr. Kane did to our 234

X It's cold and wet down in Ireland but we're up in Italy. Mam says we should bring the poor Pope up to hang on the wall opposite the win- dow.After all he's a friend of the workingman, he's Italian, and they're a warm weather people. Mam sits by the ﬁre, shivering, and we know something is wrong when she makes no move for a cigarette. She says she feels a cold coming and she'd love to have a tarty drink, a lemon- ade.But there's no money in the house,not even for bread in the morn- ing. She drinks tea and goes to bed. The bed creaks all night with her twistings and turnings and she keeps us awake with her moaning for water. In the morning, she stays in bed, still shivering, and we keep quiet. If she sleeps long enough Malachy and I will be too late for school.Hours pass and still she makes no move and when I know it's well past school time I start the ﬁre for the kettle. She stirs and calls for lemonade but I give her a jam jar of water. I ask her if she'd like some tea and she acts like a woman gone deaf.She looks ﬂushed and it's odd she doesn't even mention cigarettes. We sit quietly by the ﬁre, Malachy, Michael, Alphie, myself. We drink our tea while Alphie chews the last bit of bread covered with sugar. He makes us laugh the way he smears the sugar all over his face and grins at us with his fat sticky cheeks. But we can't laugh too much or Mam will jump out of the bed and order Malachy and me off to school where we'll be killed for being late.We don't laugh long,there is 235

no more bread and we're hungry, the four of us.We can get no more credit at O'Connell's shop.We can't go near Grandma, either. She yells at us all the time because Dad is from the North and he never sends money home from England where he is working in a munitions factory. Grandma says we could starve to death for all he cares.That would teach Mam a lesson for marrying a man from the North with sallow skin, an odd manner and a look of the Presbyterian about him. Still, I'll have to try Kathleen O'Connell once more. I'll tell her my mother is sick above in the bed, my brothers are starving and we'll all be dead for the want of bread. I put on my shoes and run quickly through the streets of Limerick to keep myself warm against the February frost.You can look in peo- ple's windows and see how cozy it is in their kitchens with ﬁres glow- ing or ranges black and hot everything bright in the electric light cups and saucers on the tables with plates of sliced bread pounds of butter jars of jam smells of fried eggs and rashers coming through the windows enough to make the water run in your mouth and families sitting there digging in all smiling the mother crisp and clean in her apron everyone washed and the Sacred Heart of Jesus looking down on them from the wall suffering and sad but still happy with all that food and light and good Catholics at their breakfast. I try to ﬁnd music in my own head but all I can ﬁnd is my mother moaning for lemonade. Lemonade. There's a van pulling away from South's pub leaving crates of beer and lemonade outside and there isn't a soul on the street. In a second I have two bottles of lemonade up under my jersey and I saunter away trying to look innocent. There's a bread van outside Kathleen O'Connell's shop.The back door is open on shelves of steaming newly baked bread.The van driver is inside the shop having tea and a bun with Kathleen and it's no trou- ble for me to help myself to a loaf of bread. It's wrong to steal from Kathleen with the way she's always good to us but if I go in and ask her for bread she'll be annoyed and tell me I'm ruining her morning cup of tea, which she'd like to have in peace ease and comfort thank you. It's easier to stick the bread up under my jersey with the lemonade and promise to tell everything in confession. My brothers are back in bed playing games under the overcoats but they jump when they see the bread.We tear at the loaf because we're too hungry to slice it and we make tea from this morning's leaves.When 236

my mother stirs Malachy holds the lemonade bottle to her lips and she gasps till she ﬁnishes it. If she likes it that much I'll have to ﬁnd more lemonade. We put the last of the coal on the ﬁre and sit around telling stories which we make up the way Dad did.I tell my brothers about my adven- tures with the lemonade and bread and I make up stories about how I was chased by pub owners and shopkeepers and how I ran into St. Joseph's Church where no one can follow you if you're a criminal, not even if you killed your own mother.Malachy and Michael look shocked over the way I got the bread and lemonade but then Malachy says it was only what Robin Hood would have done, rob the rich and give to the poor. Michael says I'm an outlaw and if they catch me they'll hang me from the highest tree in the People's Park the way outlaws are hanged in ﬁlms at the Lyric Cinema. Malachy says I should make sure I'm in a state of grace because it might be hard to ﬁnd a priest to come to my hanging. I tell him a priest would have to come to the hanging.That's what priests are for. Roddy McCorley had a priest and so did Kevin Barry. Malachy says there were no priests at the hanging of Roddy McCorley and Kevin Barry because they're not mentioned in the songs and he starts singing the songs to prove it till my mother groans in the bed and says shut up. Alphie the baby is asleep on the ﬂoor by the ﬁre.We put him into the bed with Mam so that he'll be warm though we don't want him to catch her disease and die.If she wakes up and ﬁnds him dead in the bed beside her there will be no end to the lamentations and she'll blame me on top of it. The three of us get back into our own bed, huddling under the overcoats and trying not to roll into the hole in the mattress. It's pleas- ant there till Michael starts to worry over Alphie getting Mam's disease and me getting hanged for an outlaw. He says it isn't fair because that would leave him with only one brother and everyone in the world has brothers galore. He falls asleep from the worry and soon Malachy drifts off and I lie there thinking of jam.Wouldn't it be lovely to have another loaf of bread and a jar of strawberry jam or any kind of jam. I can't remember ever seeing a jam van making a delivery and I wouldn't want to be like Jesse James blasting my way into a shop demanding jam.That would surely lead to a hanging. There's a cold sun coming through the window and I'm sure it must be warmer outside and wouldn't my brothers be surprised if they 237

woke and found me there with more bread and jam. They'd gobble everything and then go on about my sins and the hanging. Mam is still asleep though her face is red and there's a strangling sound when she snores. I have to be careful going through the street because it's a school day and if Guard Dennehy sees me he'll drag me off to school and Mr. O'Halloran will knock me all over the classroom.The guard is in charge of school attendance and he loves chasing you on his bicycle and drag- ging you off to school by the ear. There's a box sitting outside the door of one of the big houses on Barrington Street. I pretend to knock on the door so that I can see what's in the box,a bottle of milk,a loaf of bread,cheese,tomatoes and, oh, God, a jar of marmalade. I can't shove all that under my jersey. Oh, God. Should I take the whole box? The people passing by pay me no attention.I might as well take the whole box.My mother would say you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.I lift the box and try to look like a messenger boy making a delivery and no one says a word. Malachy and Michael are beside themselves when they see what's in the box and they're soon gobbling thick cuts of bread slathered with golden marmalade.Alphie has the marmalade all over his face and hair and a good bit on his legs and belly.We wash down the food with cold tea because we have no ﬁre to heat it. Mam mumbles again for lemonade and I give her half the second bottle to keep her quiet. She calls for more and I mix it with water to stretch it because I can't be spending my life running around lifting lemonade from pubs.We're having a ﬁne time of it till Mam begins to rave in the bed about her lovely little daughter taken from her and her twin boys gone before they were three and why couldn't God take the rich for a change and is there any lemonade in the house? Michael wants to know if Mam will die and Malachy tells him you can't die till a priest comes.Then Michael wonders if we'll ever have a ﬁre and hot tea again because he's freezing in the bed even with the overcoats left over from olden times.Malachy says we should go from house to house asking for turf and coal and wood and we could use Alphie's pram to carry the load.We should take Alphie with us because he's small and he smiles and people will see him and feel sorry for him and us.We try to wash all the dirt and lint and feathers and sticky marmalade but when we touch him with water he howls. Michael says he'll only get dirty 238

again in the pram so what's the use of washing him.Michael is small but he's always saying remarkable things like that. We push the pram out to the rich avenues and roads but when we knock on the doors the maids tell us go away or they'll call the proper authorities and it's a disgrace to be dragging a baby around in a wreck of a pram that smells to the heavens a ﬁlthy contraption that you wouldn't use to haul a pig to the slaughterhouse and this is a Catholic country where babies should be cherished and kept alive to hand down the faith from generation to generation. Malachy tells one maid to kiss his arse and she gives him such a clout the tears leap to his eyes and he says he'll never in his life ask the rich for anything again. He says there's no use asking anymore, that we should go around the backs of the houses and climb over the walls and take what we want. Michael can ring the front doorbells to keep the maids busy and Malachy and I can throw coal and turf over the walls and ﬁll the pram all around Alphie. We collect that way from three houses but then Malachy throws a piece of coal over a wall and hits Alphie and he starts screaming and we have to run forgetting Michael,still ringing doorbells and getting abuse from maids. Malachy says we should take the pram home ﬁrst and then go back for Michael.We can't stop now with Alphie bawling and peo- ple giving us dirty looks and telling us we're a disgrace to our mother and Ireland in general. When we're back home it takes a while to dig Alphie out from under the load of coal and turf and he won't stop screaming till I give him bread and marmalade. I'm afraid Mam will leap from her bed but she only mumbles on about Dad and drink and babies dead. Malachy is back with Michael, with stories of his adventures ring- ing doorbells. One rich woman answered the door herself and invited him into the kitchen for cake and milk and bread and jam. She asked him all about his family and he told her his father had a big job in England but his mother is in the bed with a desperate disease and calling for lemonade morning noon and night. The rich woman wanted to know who was taking care of us and Michael bragged we were taking care of ourselves, that there was no shortage of bread and marmalade. The rich woman wrote down Michael's name and address and told him be a good boy and go home to his brothers and his mother in the bed. Malachy barks at Michael for being such a fool as to tell a rich woman 239

anything.She'll go now and tell on us and before we know it we'll have the priests of the world banging on the door and disturbing us. There's the banging on the door already. But it isn't a priest, it's Guard Dennehy. He calls up, Hello, hello, is anybody home? Are you there, Mrs. McCourt? Michael knocks on the window and waves at the guard. I give him a good kick for himself and Malachy thumps him on the head and he yells, I'll tell the guard. I'll tell the guard. They're killing me, guard. They're thumping and kicking. He won't shut up and Guard Dennehy shouts at us to open the door. I call out the window and tell him I can't open the door because my mother is in bed with a terrible disease. Where's your father? He's in England. Well, I'm coming in to talk to your mother. You can't.You can't. She has the disease.We all have the disease. It might be the typhoid. It might be the galloping consumption. We're getting spots already.The baby has a lump. It could kill. He pushes in the door and climbs the stairs to Italy just as Alphie crawls out from under the bed covered with marmalade and dirt. He looks at him and my mother and us, takes off his cap and scratches his head. He says, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, this is a desperate situation. How did your mother get sick like that? I tell him he shouldn't go near her and when Malachy says we might not be able to go to school for ages the guard says we'll go to school no matter what, that we're on the earth to go to school the way he's on the earth to make sure we go to school.He wants to know if we have any relations and he sends me off to tell Grandma and Aunt Aggie to come to our house. They scream at me and tell me I'm ﬁlthy.I try to explain that Mam has the disease and I'm worn out trying to make ends meet, keeping the home ﬁres burning, getting lemonade for Mam and bread for my brothers.There's no use telling them about the marmalade for they'll only scream again.There's no use telling them about the nastiness of rich people and their maids. They push me all the way back to the lane, barking at me and dis- gracing me on the streets of Limerick. Guard Dennehy is still scratch- ing his poll. He says, Look at this, a disgrace.You wouldn't see the likes of this in Bombay or the Bowery of New York itself. 240

Grandma is wailing at my mother, Mother o' God, Angela, what's up with you in the bed? What did they do to you? My mother runs her tongue over her dry lips and gasps for more lemonade. She wants lemonade, says Michael, and we got it for her and bread and marmalade and we're all outlaws now. Frankie was the ﬁrst outlaw till we went raiding for coal all over Limerick. Guard Dennehy looks interested and takes Michael downstairs by the hand and in a few minutes we hear him laughing.Aunt Aggie says that's a disgraceful way to behave with my mother sick in the bed.The guard comes back and tells her go for a doctor. He keeps covering his face with his cap whenever he looks at me or my brothers.Desperadoes, he says, desperadoes. The doctor comes with Aunt Aggie in his motor car and he has to rush my mother to the hospital with her pneumonia.We'd all like to go riding in the doctor's car but Aunt Aggie says, No, ye are all coming to my house till yeer mother comes home from the hospital. I tell her not to bother. I'm eleven and I can easily look after my brothers. I'd be glad to stay at home from school and make sure every- one is fed and washed. But Grandma screams I will do no such a thing and Aunt Aggie gives me a thump for myself. Guard Dennehy says I'm too young yet to be an outlaw and a father but I have a promising future in both departments. Get your clothes, says Aunt Aggie, ye are coming to my house till yeer mother is out of the hospital. Jesus above, that baby is a disgrace. She ﬁnds a rag and ties it around Alphie's bottom for fear he might shit all over the pram.Then she looks at us and wants to know why we're standing there with our faces hanging out after she told us get our clothes. I'm afraid she'll hit me or yell at me when I tell her it's all right, we have our clothes, they're on us. She stares at me and shakes her head. Here, she says, put some sugar and water in the child's bottle. She tells me I have to push Alphie through the streets, she can't manage the pram with that bockety wheel that makes it rock back and forth and besides 'tis a disgraceful-looking object she'd be ashamed to put a mangy dog in. She takes the three old coats from our bed and piles them on the pram till you can hardly see Alphie at all. Grandma comes with us and barks at me all the way from Roden Lane to Aunt Aggie's ﬂat in Windmill Street. Can't you push that pram properly? Jesus, you're going to kill that child. Stop goin' from side to 241

side or I'll give you a good clitther on the gob. She won't come into Aunt Aggie's ﬂat. She can't stand the sight of us one more minute. She's fed up with the whole McCourt clan from the days when she had to send six fares to bring us all back from America, dishing out more money for funerals for dead children, giving us food every time our father drank the dole or the wages, helping Angela carry on while that blaguard from the North drinks his wages all over England. Oh, she's fed up, so she is, and off she goes across Henry Street with her black shawl pulled up around her white head, limping along in her black high-laced boots. When you're eleven and your brothers are ten, ﬁve and one, you don't know what to do when you go to someone's house even if she's your mother's sister.You're told to leave the pram in the hall and bring the baby into the kitchen but if it's not your house you don't know what to do once you get into the kitchen for fear the aunt will yell at you or hit you on the skull. She takes off her coat and takes it to the bedroom and you stand with the baby in your arms waiting to be told.If you take one step forward or one step to the side she might come out and say where are you going and you don't know what to answer because you don't know yourself. If you say anything to your brothers she might say who do you think you're talking to in my kitchen? We have to stand and be quiet and that's hard when there's a tinkling sound from the bed- room and we know she's on the chamber pot peeing away. I don't want to look at Malachy. If I do I'll smile and he'll smile and Michael will smile and there's danger we'll start laughing and if we do we won't be able to stop for days at the picture in our heads of Aunt Aggie's big white bum perched on a ﬂowery little chamber pot.I'm able to control myself. I won't laugh. Malachy and Michael won't laugh and it's easy to see we're all proud of ourselves for not laughing and getting into trou- ble with Aunt Aggie till Alphie in my arms smiles and says Goo goo and that sets us off.The three of us burst out laughing and Alphie grins with his dirty face and says Goo goo again till we're helpless and Aunt Aggie roars out of the room pulling her dress down and gives me a thump on the head that sends me against the wall baby and all. She hits Malachy too and she tries to hit Michael but he runs to the other side of her round table and she can't get at him. Come over here, she says, and I'll wipe that grin off your puss, but Michael keeps running around the table and she's too fat to catch him. I'll get you later, she says, I'll warm your arse, and you, Lord Muck, she says to me, put that child down on 242

the ﬂoor over there by the range. She puts the old coats from the pram on the ﬂoor and Alphie lies there with his sugary water and says Goo goo and smiles. She tells us take off every scrap of our clothes, get out to the tap in the backyard and scrub every inch of our bodies.We are not to come back into this house till we're spotless.I want to tell her it's the middle of February,it's freezing outside,we could all die,but I know if I open my mouth I might die right here on the kitchen ﬂoor. We're out in the yard naked dousing ourselves with icy water from the tap. She opens the kitchen window and throws out a scrub brush and a big bar of brown soap like the one they used on Finn the Horse. She orders us to scrub each other's backs and don't stop till she tells us. Michael says his hands and feet are falling off with the cold but she doesn't care. She keeps telling us we're still dirty and if she has to come out to scrub us we'll rue the day.Another rue.I scrub myself harder.We all scrub till we're pink and our jaws chatter. It's not enough for Aunt Aggie. She comes out with a bucket and sloshes cold water all over us. Now, she says, get inside and dry yeerselves.We stand in the little shed next to her kitchen drying ourselves with one towel. We stand and shiver and wait because you can't go marching into her kitchen till she tells you.We hear her inside starting the ﬁre, rattling the poker in the range, then yelling at us,Are ye goin' to stand in there all day? Come in here and put on yeer clothes. She gives us mugs of tea and cuts of fried bread and we sit at the table eating quietly because you're not supposed to say a word unless she tells you. Michael asks her for a second cut of fried bread and we expect her to knock him off the chair for his cheek but she just grum- bles, 'Tis far from two cuts of fried bread ye were brought up, and gives each of us another cut. She tries to feed Alphie bread soaked in tea but he won't eat it till she sprinkles it with sugar and when he's ﬁnished he smiles and pees all over her lap and we're delighted. She runs out to the shed to dab at herself with a towel and we're able to grin at each other at the table and tell Alphie he's the champion baby in the world. Uncle Pa Keating comes in the door all black from his job at the gas works. Oh, bejay, he says, what's this? Michael says, My mother is in the hospital, Uncle Pa. Is that so? What's up with her? Pneumonia, says Malachy. Well, now, that's better than oldmonia. We don't know what he's laughing at and Aunt Aggie comes in 243

from the shed and tells him how Mam is in the hospital and we're to stay with them till she gets out. He says, Grand, grand, and goes to the shed to wash himself though when he comes back you'd never know he touched himself with water at all he's that black. He sits at the table and Aunt Aggie gives him his supper, which is fried bread and ham and sliced tomatoes. She tells us get away from the table and stop gawking at him having his tea and tells him to stop giv- ing us bits of ham and tomato. He says,Arrah, for Jaysus sake,Aggie, the children are hungry,and she says,'Tis none of your business.They're not yours. She tells us go out and play and be home for bed by half-past eight. We know it's freezing outside and we'd like to stay in by that warm range but it's easier to be in the streets playing than inside with Aunt Aggie and her nagging. She calls me in later and sends me upstairs to borrow a rubber sheet from a woman who had a child that died.The woman says tell your aunt I'd like that rubber sheet back for the next child.Aunt Aggie says, Twelve years ago that child died and she still keeps the rubber sheet. Forty-ﬁve she is now and if there's another child we'll have to look for a star in the East. Malachy says,What's that? and she tells him mind his own business, he's too young. Aunt Aggie places the rubber sheet on her bed and puts Alphie on it between herself and Uncle Pa. She sleeps inside against the wall and Uncle Pa outside because he has to get up in the morning for work.We are to sleep on the ﬂoor against the opposite wall with one coat under us and two over. She says if she hears a word out of us during the night she'll warm our arses and we're to be up early in the morning because it's Ash Wednesday and it wouldn't do us any harm to go to Mass and pray for our poor mother and her pneumonia. The alarm clock shocks us out of our sleep.Aunt Aggie calls from her bed,The three of ye are to get up and go to Mass. Do ye hear me? Up.Wash yeer faces and go to the Jesuits. Her backyard is all frost and ice and our hands sting from the tap water.We throw a little on our faces and dry with the towel that's still damp from yesterday. Malachy whispers our wash was a lick and a promise, that's what Mam would say. The streets are frosty and icy, too, but the Jesuit church is warm. It must be grand to be a Jesuit, sleeping in a bed with sheets blankets pil- lows and getting up to a nice warm house and a warm church with nothing to do but say Mass hear confessions and yell at people for their 244

sins have your meals served up to you and read your Latin ofﬁce before you go to sleep. I'd like to be a Jesuit some day but there's no hope of that when you grow up in a lane. Jesuits are very particular.They don't like poor people.They like people with motor cars who stick out their little ﬁngers when they pick up their teacups. The church is crowded with people at seven o'clock Mass getting the ashes on their foreheads. Malachy whispers that Michael shouldn't get the ashes because he won't be making his First Communion till May and it would be a sin. Michael starts to cry, I want the ashes, I want the ashes. An old woman behind us says,What are ye doin' to that lovely child? Malachy explains the lovely child never made his First Commu- nion and he's not in a state of grace. Malachy is getting ready for Con- ﬁrmation himself, always showing off his knowledge of the catechism, always going on about state of grace. He won't admit I knew all about the state of grace a year ago, so long ago I'm starting to forget it.The old woman says you don't have to be in a state of grace to get a few ashes on your forehead and tells Malachy stop tormenting his poor lit- tle brother.She pats Michael on the head and tells him he's a lovely child and go up there and get your ashes. He runs to the altar and when he comes back the woman gives him a penny to go with his ashes. Aunt Aggie is still in the bed with Alphie. She tells Malachy to ﬁll Alphie's bottle with milk and bring it to him. She tells me to start the ﬁre in the range, that there's paper and wood in a box and coal in the coal scuttle. If the ﬁre won't start sprinkle it with a little parafﬁn oil. The ﬁre is slow and smoky and I sprinkle it with the parafﬁn oil,it ﬂares up, whoosh, and nearly takes my eyebrows off.There is smoke every- where and Aunt Aggie rushes into the kitchen. She shoves me away from the range. Jesus above, can't you do anything right? You're sup- posed to open the damper, you eejit. I don't know anything about dampers.In our house we have a ﬁre- place in Ireland downstairs and a ﬁreplace in Italy upstairs and no sign of a damper.Then you go to your aunt's house and you're supposed to know all about dampers.There's no use telling her this is the ﬁrst time you ever lit a ﬁre in a range. She'll just give you another thump on the skull and send you ﬂying. It's hard to know why grown people get so angry over little things like dampers.When I'm a man I won't go around thumping small children over dampers or anything else. Now she yells at me, Look at Lord Muck standing there. Would you ever think of opening the window and letting out the smoke? Of course you wouldn't. 245

You have a puss on you like your father from the North. Do you think now you can boil the water for the tea without burning the house down? She cuts three slices from a loaf, smears them with margarine for us and goes back to bed.We have the tea and bread and it's one morning we're glad to go to school where it's warm and there are no yelling aunts. After school she tells me sit at the table and write my father a letter about Mam in the hospital and how we're all at Aunt Aggie's till Mam comes home. I'm to tell him we're all happy and in the best of health, send money, food is very dear, growing boys eat a lot, ha ha,Alphie the baby needs clothes and nappies. I don't know why she's always angry. Her ﬂat is warm and dry. She has electric light in the house and her own lavatory in the backyard. Uncle Pa has a steady job and he brings home his wages every Friday. He drinks his pints at South's pub but never comes home singing songs of Ireland's long woeful history. He says,A pox on all their houses, and he says the funniest thing in the world is that we all have arses that have to be wiped and no man escapes that.The minute a politician or a Pope starts his blather Uncle Pa thinks of him wiping his arse. Hitler and Roosevelt and Churchill all wipe their arses. De Valera, too. He says the only people you can trust in that department are the Mahommedans for they eat with one hand and wipe with the other.The human hand itself is a sneaky bugger and you never know what it's been up to. There are good times with Uncle Pa when Aunt Aggie goes to the Mechanics' Institute to play cards, forty-ﬁve. He says,To hell with the begrudgers. He gets himself two bottles of stout from South's, six buns and a half pound of ham from the shop on the corner.He makes tea and we sit by the range drinking it,eating our ham sandwiches and buns and laughing over Uncle Pa and the way he goes on about the world. He says, I swallowed the gas, I drink the pint, I don't give a ﬁddler's fart about the world and its cousin. If little Alphie gets tired and cranky and cries Uncle Pa pulls his shirt back from his chest and tells him, Here, have a suck of diddy momma.The sight of that ﬂat chest and the nip- ple shocks Alphie and makes him good again. Before Aunt Aggie comes home we have to wash the mugs and clean up so she won't know we were stufﬁng ourselves with buns and ham sandwiches. She'd nag Uncle Pa for a month if she ever found out and that's what I don't understand.Why does he let her nag him like that? He went to the Great War, he was gassed, he's big, he has a job, he 246

makes the world laugh. It's a mystery.That's what the priests and the masters tell you, everything is a mystery and you have to believe what you're told. I could easily have Uncle Pa for a father.We'd have great times sit- ting by the ﬁre in the range drinking tea and laughing over the way he farts and says, Light a match.That's a present from the Germans. Aunt Aggie torments me all the time. She calls me scabby eyes. She says I'm the spitting image of my father, I have the odd manner, I have the sneaky air of a northern Presbyterian,I'll probably grow up and build an altar to Oliver Cromwell himself, I'll run off and marry an English tart and cover my house with pictures of the royal family. I want to get away from her and I can think of only one way, to make myself sick and go to the hospital. I get up in the middle of the night and go to her backyard. I can pretend I'm going to the lavatory. I stand out in the open in the freezing weather and hope I'll catch pneu- monia or the galloping consumption so that I'll go to the hospital with the nice clean sheets and the meals in the bed and books brought by the girl in the blue dress. I might meet another Patricia Madigan and learn a long poem. I stand in the backyard for ages in my shirt and bare feet looking up at the moon which is a ghostly galleon riding upon cloudy seas and go back to bed shivering hoping I'll wake up in the morning with a terrible cough and ﬂushed cheeks. But I don't. I feel fresh and lively and I'd be in great form if I could be at home with my mother and brothers. There are days when Aunt Aggie tells us she can't stand the sight of us another minute, Get away from me. Here, scabby eyes, take Alphie out in his pram,take your brothers,go to the park and play,do anything ye like and don't come back till teatime when the Angelus is ringing, not a minute later, do ye hear me, not a minute later. It's cold but we don't care.We push the pram up O'Connell Avenue out to Ballinacurra or the Rosbrien Road.We let Alphie crawl around in ﬁelds to look at cows and sheep and we laugh when the cows nuzzle him. I get under the cows and squirt the milk into Alphie's mouth till he's full and throws it up. Farmers chase us till they see how small Michael and Alphie are. Malachy laughs at the farmers. He says, Hit me now with the child in me arms.Then he has a great notion,Why can't we go to our own house and play a while? We ﬁnd twigs and bits of wood in the ﬁelds and rush to Roden Lane.There are matches by the ﬁreplace in Italy and we have a good ﬁre going in no time.Alphie falls asleep and soon the rest of us 247

drift off till the Angelus booms out of the Redemptorist church and we know we're in trouble with Aunt Aggie for being late. We don't care. She can yell at us all she wants but we had a grand time out the country with the cows and the sheep and then the lovely ﬁre above in Italy. You can tell she never has grand times like that. Electric light and a lavatory but no grand times. Grandma comes for her on Thursdays and Sundays and they take the bus to the hospital to see Mam.We can't go because children are not allowed and if we say, How's Mam? they look cranky and tell us she's all right, she'll live.We'd like to know when she's getting out of hospital so that we can all go back home but we're afraid to open our mouths. Malachy tells Aunt Aggie one day he's hungry and could he have a piece of bread.She hits him with a rolled-up Little Messenger of the Sacred Heart and there are tears on his eyelashes. He doesn't come home from school the next day and he's still gone at bedtime.Aunt Aggie says,Well, I suppose he ran away. Good riddance. If he was hungry he'd be here. Let him ﬁnd comfort in a ditch. Next day Michael runs in from the street, Dad's here, Dad's here, and runs back out and there's Dad sitting on the hall ﬂoor hugging Michael, crying,Your poor mother, your poor mother, and there's a smell of drink on him.Aunt Aggie is smiling, Oh, you're here, and she makes tea and eggs and sausages. She sends me out for a bottle of stout for Dad and I wonder why she's so pleasant and generous all of a sud- den. Michael says, Are we going to our own house, Dad? We are, son. Alphie is back in the pram with the three old coats and coal and wood for the ﬁre. Aunt Aggie stands at her door and tells us be good boys, come back for tea anytime, and there's a bad word for her in my head, Oul' bitch. It's in my head and I can't help it and I'll have to tell the priest in confession. Malachy isn't in a ditch,he's there in our own house eating ﬁsh and chips a drunken soldier dropped at the gate of the Sarsﬁeld Barracks. Mam comes home in two days. She's weak and white and walks slowly. She says,The doctor told me keep warm, have plenty of rest and nourishing food, meat and eggs three times a week. God help us, those poor doctors don't have a notion of not having.Dad makes tea and toasts bread for her on the ﬁre. He fries bread for the rest of us and we have a lovely night up in Italy where it's warm. He says he can't stay forever, he 248

has to go back to work in Coventry. Mam wonders how he'll get to Coventry without a penny in his pocket. He's up early on Holy Satur- day and I have tea with him by the ﬁre. He fries four cuts of bread and wraps them in pages of the Limerick Chronicle, two cuts in each coat pocket. Mam is still in bed and he calls to her from the bottom of the stairs,I'm going now.She says,All right.Write when you land.My father is going to England and she won't even get out of the bed. I ask if I can go with him to the railway station. No, he's not going there. He's going to the Dublin road to see if he can get a lift. He pats my head, tells me take care of my mother and brothers and goes out the door.I watch him go up the lane till he turns the corner. I run up the lane to see him go down Barrack Hill and down St.Joseph's Street.I run down the hill and follow him as far as I can. He must know I'm following him because he turns and calls to me, Go home, Francis. Go home to your mother. In a week there's a letter to say he arrived safely, that we are to be good boys,attend to our religious duties and above all obey our mother. In another week there's a telegram money order for three pounds and we're in heaven.We'll be rich,there will be ﬁsh and chips,jelly and cus- tard, ﬁlms every Saturday at the Lyric, the Coliseum, the Carlton, the Atheneum,the Central and the fanciest of all,the Savoy.We might even wind up having tea and cakes at the Savoy Café with the nobs and toffs of Limerick.We'll be sure to hold our teacups with our little ﬁngers sticking out. The next Saturday there's no telegram nor the Saturday after nor any Saturday forever.Mam begs again at the St.Vincent de Paul Society and smiles at the Dispensary when Mr. Coffey and Mr. Kane have their bit of a joke about Dad having a tart in Piccadilly. Michael wants to know what a tart is and she tells him it's something you have with tea. She spends most of the day by the ﬁre with Bridey Hannon pufﬁng on her Woodlbines, drinking weak tea.The bread crumbs from the morn- ing are always on the table when we come home from school.She never washes the jam jars or mugs and there are ﬂies in the sugar and wher- ever there is sweetness. She says Malachy and I have to take turns looking after Alphie, taking him out in the pram for a bit of fresh air.The child can't be kept in Italy from October to April. If we tell her we want to play with our pals she might let ﬂy with a right cross to the head that stings the ears. We play games with Alphie and the pram. I stand at the top of Bar- rack Hill and Malachy is at the bottom.When I give the pram a push 249

down the hill Malachy is supposed to stop it but he's looking at a pal on roller skates and it speeds by him across the street and through the doors of Leniston's pub where men are having a peaceful pint and not expect- ing a pram with a dirty-faced child saying Goo goo goo goo.The bar- man shouts this is a disgrace, there must be a law against this class of behavior, babies roaring through the door in bockety prams, he'll call the guards on us, and Alphie waves at him and smiles and he says, all right, all right, the child can have a sweet and a lemonade, the brothers can have lemonade too, that raggedy pair, and God above, 'tis a hard world, the minute you think you're getting ahead a pram comes crash- ing through the door and you're dishing out sweets and lemonade right and left, the two of ye take that child and go home to yeer mother. Malachy has another powerful idea, that we could go around Lim- erick like tinkers pushing Alphie in his pram into pubs for the sweets and lemonade, but I don't want Mam ﬁnding out and hitting me with her right cross. Malachy says I'm not a sport and runs off. I push the pram over to Henry Street and up by the Redemptorist church. It's a gray day, the church is gray and the small crowd of people outside the door of the priests' house is gray.They're waiting to beg for any food left over from the priests' dinner. There in the middle of the crowd in her dirty gray coat is my This is my own mother,begging.This is worse than the dole,the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Dispensary. It's the worst kind of shame, almost as bad as begging on the streets where the tinkers hold up their scabby children, Give us a penny for the poor child, mister, the poor child is hungry, missus. My mother is a beggar now and if anyone from the lane or my school sees her the family will be disgraced entirely. My pals will make up new names and torment me in the schoolyard and I know what they'll say, Frankie McCourt beggar woman's boy scabby-eyed dancing blubber-gob Jap 250

The door of the priests' house swings open and the people rush with their hands out. I can hear them, Brother, brother, here, brother, ah,for the love o'God,brother.Five children at home,brother.I can see my own mother pushed along. I can see the tightness of her mouth when she snatches at a bag and turns from the door and I push the pram up the street before she can see me. I don't want to go home anymore. I push the pram down to the Dock Road, out to Corkanree where all the dust and garbage of Lim- erick is dumped and burned.I stand a while and look at boys chase rats. I don't know why they have to torture rats that are not in their houses. I'd keep going on into the country forever if I didn't have Alphie bawl- ing with the hunger, kicking his chubby legs, waving his empty bottle. Mam has the ﬁre going and something boiling in a pot. Malachy smiles and says she brought home corned beef and a few spuds from Kathleen O'Connell's shop.He wouldn't be so happy if he knew he was the son of a beggar. She calls us in from the lane and when we sit at the table it's hard for me to look at my mother the beggar. She lifts the pot to the table,spoons out the potatoes one each and uses a fork to lift out the corned beef. It isn't corned beef at all. It's a great lump of quivering gray fat and the only sign of corned beef is a little nipple of red meat on top.We stare at that bit of meat and wonder who will get it. Mam says,That's for Alphie.He's a baby,he's growing fast,he needs it.She puts it on a saucer in front of him.He pushes it away with his ﬁnger,then pulls it back.He lifts it to his mouth, looks around the kitchen, sees Lucky the dog and throws it to him. There's no use saying anything.The meat is gone.We eat our pota- toes with plenty of salt and I eat my fat and pretend it's that nipple of red meat. 251

XI Mam warns us,Ye are to keep yeer paws out of that trunk for there's nothing in there that's of the slightest interest or any of yeer business. All she has in that trunk is a lot of papers, certiﬁcates of birth and baptism, her Irish passport, Dad's English passport from Belfast, our American passports and her bright red ﬂapper dress with spangles and black frills she brought all the way from America. She wants to keep that dress forever to remind herself she was young and dancing. I don't care what she has in the trunk till I start a football team with Billy Campbell and Malachy. We can't afford uniforms or boots and Billy says, How will the world know who we are? We don't even have a name. I remember the red dress and a name comes to me,The Red Hearts of Limerick.Mam never opens the trunk so what does it matter if I cut off a piece of the dress to make seven red hearts we can stick on our chests? What you don't know won't bother you,she always says herself. The dress is buried under the papers. I look at my passport picture when I was small and I can see why they call me Jap.There's a paper that says Marriage Certiﬁcate, that Malachy McCourt and Angela Sheehan were joined in Holy Matrimony on the twenty-eighth of March, 1930. How could that be? I was born on the nineteenth of August and Billy Campbell told me the father and mother have to be 252

married nine months before there's a sign of a child. Here I am born into the world in half the time.That means I must be a miracle and I might grow up to be a saint with people celebrating the feast of St. Francis of Limerick. I'll have to ask Mikey Molloy, still the expert on Girls' Bodies and Dirty Things in General. Billy says if we're to be great soccer players we have to practice and we're to meet over in the park.The boys complain when I hand out the hearts and I tell them if they don't like it they can go home and cut up their own mother's dresses and blouses. We have no money for a proper ball so one of the boys brings a sheep's bladder stuffed with rags.We kick the bladder up and down the meadow till there are holes and rags start falling out and we get fed up kicking a bladder that's hardly there anymore. Billy says we're to meet tomorrow morning which is Saturday and go out Ballinacurra to see if we can challenge rich Crescent College boys to a proper game, seven a side. He says we're to pin our red hearts to our shirts even if they're red rags. Malachy is going home for tea but I can't go because I have to see Mikey Molloy and ﬁnd out why I was born in half the time. Mikey is coming out of his house with his father, Peter. It's Mikey's sixteenth birthday and his father is taking him to Bowles's pub for his ﬁrst pint. Nora Molloy is inside screeching after Peter that if they go they can stay gone, she's done baking bread, she's never going to the lunatic asylum again, if he brings that child home drunk she'll go to Scotland and dis- appear from the face of the earth. Peter tells Mikey, Pay no attention to her, Cyclops.The mothers of Ireland are always enemies of the ﬁrst pint.My own mother tried to kill my father with a frying pan when he took me for the ﬁrst pint. Mikey asks Peter if I can come with them and have a lemonade. Peter tells everyone in the pub that Mikey is there for his ﬁrst pint and when all the men want to stand Mikey a pint Peter says, Ah, no, 'twould be a terrible thing if he had too much and turned against it entirely. The pints are drawn and we sit against the wall, the Molloys with their pints and I with my lemonade.The men wish Mikey all the best in the life to come and wasn't it a gift from God that he fell off that spout years ago and never had the ﬁt since and wasn't it a great pity 253

about that poor little bugger, Quasimodo Dooley, carried off with the consumption after all his trouble talking for years like an Englishman so he could be on the BBC which is no ﬁt place for an Irishman anyway. Peter is talking to the men and Mikey, sipping his ﬁrst pint, whis- pers to me, I don't think I like it, but don't tell my father.Then he tells me how he practices the English accent in secret so that he can be a BBC announcer, Quasimodo's dream. He tells me I can have Cuchu- lain back, that he's no use to you when you're reading the news on the BBC. Now that he's sixteen he wants to go to England and if ever I get a wireless that will be him on the BBC Home Service. I tell him about the marriage certiﬁcate,how Billy Campbell said it has to be nine months but I was born in half the time and would he know if I was some class of a miracle. Naw, he says, naw.You're a bastard.You're doomed. You don't have to be cursing me, Mikey. I'm not. That's what they call people who aren't born inside the nine months of the marriage, people conceived beyond the blanket. What's that? What's what? Conceived. That's when the sperm hits the egg and it grows and there you are nine months later. I don't know what you're talking about. He whispers,The thing between your legs is the excitement.I don't like the other names, the dong, the prick, the dick, the langer. So your father shoves his excitement into your mother and there's a spurt and these little germs go up into your mother where there's an egg and that grows into you. I'm not an egg. You are an egg. Everyone was an egg once. Why am I doomed? 'Tisn't my fault I'm a bastard. All bastards are doomed.They're like babies that weren't baptized. They're sent to Limbo for eternity and there's no way out and it's not their fault. It makes you wonder about God up there on His throne with no mercy for the little unbaptized babies.That's why I don't go near the chapel anymore. Anyway, you're doomed. Your father and mother had the excitement and they weren't married so you're not in a state of grace. What am I going to do? 254

Nothing.You're doomed. Can't I light a candle or something. You could try the Blessed Virgin. She's in charge of the doom. But I don't have a penny for the candle. All right,all right,here's a penny.You can give it back when you get a job a million years from now. 'Tis costing me a fortune to be the expert on Girls' Bodies and Dirty Things in General. The barman is doing a crossword puzzle and he says to Peter,What's the opposite of advance? Retreat, says Peter. That's it, says the barman. Everything has an opposite. Mother o' God, says Peter. What's up with you, Peter? says the barman. What was that you said before,Tommy? Everything has an opposite. Mother o' God. Are you all right, Peter? Is the pint all right? The pint is grand, Tommy, and I'm the champion of all pint drinkers, amn't I? Begod an' you are, Peter. No denyin' that to you. That means I could be the champion in the opposite department. What are you talking about, Peter? I could be the champion of no pints at all. Ah, now, Peter, I think you're going a bit far. Is the wife all right at home? Tommy, take this pint away from me. I'm the champion of no pints at all. Peter turns and takes the glass from Mikey.We're going home to your mother, Mikey. You didn't call me Cyclops, Dad. You're Mikey.You're Michael. We're going to England. No more pints for me, no pints for you, no more bread baking for your mother. Come on. We're leaving the pub and Tommy the barman calls after us,You know what 'tis, Peter. 'Tis all them bloody books you're reading.They have your head destroyed. Peter and Mikey turn to go home. I have to go to St. Joseph's to light the candle that will save me from the doom but I look in the win- dow of Counihan's shop and there in the middle is a great slab of 255

Cleeves' toffee and a sign, two pieces for a penny. I know I'm doomed but the water is running along the sides of my tongue and when I put my penny on the counter for Miss Counihan I promise the Virgin Mary the next penny I get I'll be lighting a candle and would she please talk to her Son and delay the doom for awhile. A penn'orth of Cleeves' toffee doesn't last forever and when it's gone I have to think of going home to a mother who let my father push his excitement into her so that I could be born in half the time and grow up to be a bastard. If she ever says a word about the red dress or anything I'll tell her I know all about the excitement and she'll be shocked. Saturday morning I meet The Red Hearts of Limerick and we wan- der out the road looking for a football challenge. The boys are still grousing that the bits of red dress don't look like hearts till Billy tells them if they don't want to play football go home and play with their sisters' dolls. There are boys playing football in a ﬁeld in Ballinacurra and Billy challenges them.They have eight players and we have only seven but we don't mind because one of them has one eye and Billy tells us stay on his blind side.Besides,he says,Frankie McCourt is nearly blind with his two bad eyes and that's worse.They're all togged out in blue and white jerseys and white shorts and proper football boots.One of them says we look like something the cat brought in and Malachy has to be held back from ﬁghting them.We agree to play half an hour because the Balli- nacurra boys say they have to go to lunch. Lunch.The whole world has dinner in the middle of the day but they have lunch.If no one scores in half an hour it's a draw.We play back and forth till Billy gets the ball and goes speeding and dancing up the sideline so fast no one can catch him and in goes the ball for a goal.The half hour is nearly up but the Balli- nacurra boys want another half hour and they manage to score well into the second half hour.Then the ball goes over the line for touch. It's our ball. Billy stands on the touch line with the ball over his head. He pre- tends to look at Malachy but throws the ball to me. It comes to me as if it's the only thing that exists in the whole world. It comes straight to my foot and all I have to do is swivel to the left and swing that ball straight into the goal.There's a whiteness in my head and I feel like a boy in heaven. I'm ﬂoating over the whole ﬁeld till The Red Hearts of Limerick clap me on the back and tell me that was a great goal,Frankie, you too, Billy. 256

We walk back along O'Connell Avenue and I keep thinking of the way the ball came to my foot and surely it was sent by God or the Blessed Virgin Mary who would never send such a blessing to one doomed for being born in half the time and I know as long as I live I'll never forget that ball coming from Billy Campbell, that goal. Mam meets Bridey Hannon and her mother going up the lane and they tell her about Mr. Hannon's poor legs. Poor John, it's a trial for him to cycle home every night after delivering coal and turf all day on the great ﬂoat for the coal merchants on the Dock Road.He's paid from eight in the morning till half ﬁve in the evening though he has to get the horse ready well before eight and settle him for the night well after half ﬁve. He's up and down on that ﬂoat all day hoisting bags of coal and turf, desperate to keep the bandages in place on his legs so the dirt won't get into the open sores.The bandages are forever sticking and have to be ripped away and when he comes home she washes the sores with warm water and soap, covers them with ointment and wraps them in clean bandages.They can't afford new bandages every day so she keeps wash- ing the old ones over and over till they're gray. Mam says Mr. Hannon should see the doctor and Mrs. Hannon says, Sure, he seen the doctor a dozen times and the doctor says he has to stay off them legs.That's all. Stay off them legs. Sure how can he stay off them legs? He has to work. What would we live on if he didn't work? Mam says maybe Bridey could get some kind of a job herself and Bridey is offended.Don't you know I have a weak chest, Angela? Don't you know I had rheumatic fever an' I could go at any time? I have to be careful. Mam often talks about Bridey and her rheumatic fever and weak chest. She says,That one is able to sit here by the hour and complain about her ailments but it doesn't stop her from pufﬁng away on the Woodbines. Mam tells Bridey she's very sorry over the weak chest and it's ter- rible the way her father suffers. Mrs. Hannon tells my mother that John is getting worse every day,And what would you think, Mrs. McCourt, if your boy Frankie went on the ﬂoat with him a few hours a week and helped him with the bags? We can barely afford it but Frankie could earn a shilling or two and John could rest his poor legs. 257

Mam says, I don't know, he's only eleven and he had that typhoid and the coal dust wouldn't be good for his eyes. Bridey says, He'd be out in the air and there's nothing like fresh air for someone with bad eyes or getting over the typhoid, isn't that right, 'Tis, Bridey. I'm dying to go around with Mr. Hannon on the great ﬂoat like a real workingman.If I'm good at it they might let me stay at home from school forever but Mam says, He can do it as long as it doesn't interfere with school and he can start on a Saturday morning. I'm a man now so I light the ﬁre early on Saturday morning and make my own tea and fried bread. I wait next door for Mr. Hannon to come out with his bicycle and there's a lovely smell of rashers and eggs coming through the window. Mam says Mr. Hannon gets the best of food because Mrs. Hannon is as mad about him as she was the day she married him.They're like two lovers out of an American ﬁlm the way they go on.Here he is pushing the bicycle and pufﬁng away on the pipe in his mouth.He tells me climb up on the bar of his bike and off we go to my ﬁrst job as a man.His head is over mine on the bike and the smell of the pipe is lovely.There's a coal smell on his clothes and that makes me sneeze. Men are walking or cycling toward the coal yards and Rank's Flour Mills and the Limerick Steamship Company on the Dock Road. Mr. Hannon takes his pipe from his mouth and tells me this is the best morning of all, Saturday, half day.We'll start at eight and be ﬁnished by the time the Angelus rings at twelve. First we get the horse ready, give him a bit of a rub, ﬁll the wooden tub with oats and the bucket with water. Mr. Hannon shows me how to put on the harness and lets me back the horse into the shafts of the ﬂoat. He says, Jaysus, Frankie, you have the knack of it. That makes me so happy I want to jump up and down and drive a ﬂoat the rest of my life. There are two men ﬁlling bags with coal and turf and weighing them on the great iron scale, a hundredweight in each bag. It's their job to stack the bags on the ﬂoat while Mr. Hannon goes to the ofﬁce for the delivery dockets. The bag men are fast and we're ready for our rounds. Mr. Hannon sits up on the left side of the ﬂoat and ﬂicks the whip to show where I'm to sit on the right side. It's hard to climb up the way the ﬂoat is so high and packed with bags and I try to get up by 258

climbing the wheel.Mr.Hannon says I should never do the likes of that again. Never put your leg or hand near a wheel when the horse is har- nessed in the shafts. A horse might take a notion to go for a walk for himself and there you are with the leg or the arm caught in the wheel and twisted off your body and you looking at it. He says to the horse, G'up ower that,and the horse shakes his head and rattles the harness and Mr.Hannon laughs.That fool of a horse loves to work,he says.He won't be rattling his harness in a few hours. When the rain starts we cover ourselves with old coal bags and Mr. Hannon turns his pipe upside down in his mouth to keep the tobacco dry. He says the rain makes everything heavier but what's the use of complaining.You might as well complain about the sun in Africa. We cross the Sarsﬁeld Bridge for deliveries to the Ennis Road and the North Circular Road.Rich people,says Mr.Hannon,and very slow to put their hands in their pockets for a tip. We have sixteen bags to deliver.Mr.Hannon says we're lucky today because some houses get more than one and he doesn't have to be climbing on and off that ﬂoat destroying his legs.When we stop he gets down and I pull the bag to the edge and lay it on his shoulders. Some houses have areas outside where you pull up a trap door and tip the bag till it empties and that's easy.There are other houses with long backyards and you can see Mr. Hannon suffering with his legs when he has to carry the bags from the ﬂoat to the sheds near the back doors.Ah, Jay- sus, Frankie, ah, Jaysus, is the only complaint out of him and he asks me to give him a hand to climb back on the ﬂoat.He says if he had a hand- cart he could wheel the bags from ﬂoat to house and that would be a blessing but a handcart would cost two weeks' wages and who could afford that? The bags are delivered and the sun is out,the ﬂoat is empty,and the horse knows his workday is over. It's lovely to sit on the ﬂoat looking along the length of the horse from his tail to his head rocking along the Ennis Road over the Shannon and up the Dock Road.Mr.Hannon says the man who delivered sixteen hundredweights of coal and turf deserves a pint and the boy who helped him deserves a lemonade. He tells me I should go to school and not be like him working away with the two legs rotting under him. Go to school, Frankie, and get out of Limerick and Ireland itself.This war will be over some day and you can go to America or Australia or any big open country where you can look up and see no end to the land.The world is wide and you can have great 259

adventures. If I didn't have these two legs I'd be over in England mak- ing a fortune in the factories like the rest of the Irishmen, like your father. No, not like your father. I hear he left you high and dry, eh? I don't know how a man in his right mind can go off and leave a wife and family to starve and shiver in a Limerick winter. School, Frankie, school.The books, the books, the books. Get out of Limerick before your legs rot and your mind collapses entirely. The horse clops along and when we get to the coal yard we feed and water him and give him a rubdown. Mr. Hannon talks to him all the time and calls him Me oul' segosha, and the horse snufﬂes and pushes his nose against Mr. Hannon's chest. I'd love to bring this horse home and let him stay downstairs when we're up in Italy but even if I could get him in the door my mother would yell at me that the last thing we need in this house is a horse. The streets going up from the Dock Road are too hilly for Mr. Hannon to ride the bicycle and carry me, so we walk. His legs are sore from the day and it takes a long time to get up to Henry Street.He leans on the bicycle or sits on the steps outside houses,grinding down on the pipe in his mouth. I'm wondering when I'll get the money for the day's work because Mam might let me go to the Lyric Cinema if I get home in time with my shilling or whatever Mr. Hannon gives me. Now we're at the door of South's pub and he tells me come in, didn't he promise me a lemonade? Uncle Pa Keating is sitting in the pub.He's all black as usual and he's sitting next to Bill Galvin, all white as usual, snufﬂing and taking great slugs out of his black pint. Mr. Hannon says, How're you? and sits on the other side of Bill Galvin and everyone in the pub laughs.Jaysus,says the barman, look at that, two lumps of coal and a snowball. Men come in from other parts of the pub to see the two coal-black men with the lime-white man in the middle and they want to send down to the Lim- erick Leader for a man with a camera. Uncle Pa says,What are you doing all black yourself, Frankie? Did you fall down a coal mine? I was helping Mr. Hannon on the ﬂoat. Your eyes look atrocious, Frankie. Piss holes in the snow. 'Tis the coal dust, Uncle Pa. Wash them when you go home. 260

Mr. Hannon buys me a lemonade, gives me the shilling for my morning's work and tells me I can go home now, I'm a great worker and I can help him again next week after school. On the way home I see myself in the glass of a shop window all black from the coal, and I feel like a man, a man with a shilling in his pocket, a man who had a lemonade in a pub with two coal men and a lime man. I'm not a child anymore and I could easily leave Leamy's School forever.I could work with Mr.Hannon every day and when his legs got too bad I could take over the ﬂoat and deliver coal to the rich people the rest of my life and my mother wouldn't have to be a beggar at the Redemptorist priests' house. People on the streets and lanes give me curious looks.Boys and girls laugh and call out, Here's the chimney sweep. How much do you want for cleaning our chimney? Did you fall into a coal hole? Were you burned by the darkness? They're ignorant.They don't know I spent the day delivering hun- dredweights of coal and turf.They don't know I'm a man. Mam is sleeping up in Italy with Alphie and there's a coat over the window to keep the room dark.I tell her I earned a shilling and she says I can go to the Lyric, I deserve it.Take tuppence and leave the rest of the shilling on the mantelpiece downstairs so that she can send out for a loaf of bread for the tea.The coat suddenly drops from the window and the room is bright.Mam looks at me,God above,look at your eyes. Go downstairs and I'll be down in a minute to wash them. She heats water in the kettle and dabs at my eyes with boric acid powder and tells me I can't go to the Lyric Cinema today or any day till my eyes clear up though God knows when that will be. She says,You can't be delivering coal with the state of your eyes.The dust will surely destroy them. I want the job. I want to bring home the shilling. I want to be a man. You can be a man without bringing home a shilling. Go upstairs and lie down and rest your two eyes or it's a blind man you'll be. I want that job.I wash my eyes three times a day with the boric acid powder. I remember Seamus in the hospital and how his uncle's eyes were cured with the blink exercise and I make sure to sit and blink for an hour every day.You can't beat the blink for the strong eye, he said. 261

And now I blink and blink till Malachy runs to my mother, talking out in the lane with Mrs.Hannon,Mam,something is up with Frankie,he's upstairs blinking and blinking. She comes running up.What's wrong with you? I'm making my eyes strong with the exercise. What exercise? The blinking. Blinking is not exercise. Seamus in the hospital says you can't beat the blink for the strong eye. His uncle had powerful eyes from the blinking. She says I'm getting odd and goes back to the lane and her chat with Mrs. Hannon and I blink and bathe my eyes with the boric acid powder in warm water. I can hear Mrs. Hannon through the window, Your little Frankie is a godsend to John for 'tis the climbing up and down on that ﬂoat that was ruining his legs entirely. Mam doesn't say anything and that means she feels so sorry for Mr. Hannon she'll let me help him again on his heavy delivery day,Thurs- day. I wash my eyes three times a day and I blink till I get a pain in my eyebrows. I blink in school when the master isn't looking and all the boys in my class are calling me Blinky and adding that to the list of names. Blinky McCourt beggar woman's son scabby-eyed blubber gob dancing Jap. I don't care what they call me anymore as long as my eyes are clear- ing up and I have a regular job lifting hundredweights of coal on a ﬂoat. I wish they could see me on Thursday after school when I'm on the ﬂoat and Mr. Hannon hands me the reins so that he can smoke his pipe in comfort. Here you are, Frankie, nice and gentle for this is a good horse and he doesn't need to be pulled at. He hands me the whip too but you never need the whip with this horse. It's all for show and I just ﬂick it at the air like Mr. Hannon or I might knock a ﬂy off the horse's great golden rump swinging between the shafts. 262

Surely the world is looking at me and admiring the way I rock with the ﬂoat, the cool way I have with the reins and the whip. I wish I had a pipe like Mr. Hannon and a tweed cap. I wish I could be a real coal man with black skin like Mr. Hannon and Uncle Pa Keating so that people would say, There goes Frankie McCourt that delivers all the coal in Limerick and drinks his pint in South's pub. I'd never wash my face.I'd be black every day of the year even Christmas when you're sup- posed to give yourself a good wash for the coming of the Infant Jesus. I know He wouldn't mind because I saw the Three Wise Men in the Christmas crib at the Redemptorist church and one of them was blacker than Uncle Pa Keating, the blackest man in Limerick, and if a Wise Man is black it means that everywhere you go in the world some- one is delivering coal. The horse lifts his tail and great lumps of steaming yellow shit drop from his behind.I start to pull on the reins so that he can stop and have a bit of comfort for himself but Mr. Hannon says, No, Frankie, let him trot.They always shit on the trot.That's one of the blessings horses have, they shit on the trot, and they're not dirty and stinking like the human race, not at all, Frankie.The worst thing in the world is to go into a lavatory after a man that had a feed of pig's feet and a night of pints. The stink from that could twist the nostrils of a strong man. Horses are different.All they have is oats and hay and what they drop is clean and natural. I work with Mr. Hannon after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the half day on Saturday morning and that means three shillings for my mother though she worries all the time over my eyes.The minute I get home she washes them and makes me rest them for half an hour. Mr. Hannon says he'll wait near Leamy's School for me on Thurs- days after his deliveries on Barrington Street.Now the boys will see me. Now they'll know I'm a workingman and more than a scabby-eyed blubber gob dancing Jap. Mr. Hannon says, Up you get, and I climb up on the ﬂoat like any workingman. I look at the boys gawking at me. Gawking. I tell Mr. Hannon if he wants to smoke his pipe in comfort I'll take the reins and when he hands them over I'm sure I hear the boys gasping. I tell the horse, G'up ower that, like Mr. Hannon.We trot away and I know dozens of Leamy's boys are committing the deadly sin of envy. I tell the horse again, G'up ower that, to make sure everyone heard, to make sure they know I'm driving that ﬂoat and no one else, to make sure they'll never forget it was me they saw on that ﬂoat with 263

the reins and the whip. It's the best day of my life, better than my First Communion day, which Grandma ruined, better than my Conﬁrma- tion day when I had the typhoid. They don't call me names anymore.They don't laugh at my scabby eyes.They want to know how I got such a good job at eleven years of age and what I'm paid and if I'll have that job forever.They want to know if there are any other good jobs going in the coal yards and would I put in a good word for them. Then there are big boys of thirteen who stick their faces in mine and say they should have that job because they're bigger and I'm nothing but a scrawny little runt with no shoulders.They can talk as much as they like. I have the job and Mr. Hannon tells me I'm powerful. There are days his legs are so bad he can hardly walk at all and you can see Mrs. Hannon worries. She gives me a mug of tea and I watch her roll up his trouser legs and peel away the dirty bandages.The sores are red and yellow and clogged with coal dust. She washes them with soapy water and smears them with a yellow ointment.She props the legs up on a chair and that's where he stays the rest of the night reading the paper or a book from the shelf above his head. The legs are getting so bad he has to get up an hour earlier in the morning to get the stiffness out,to put on another dressing.It's still dark one Saturday morning when Mrs.Hannon knocks at our door and asks me if I'd go to a neighbor and borrow their handcart to take on the ﬂoat for Mr. Hannon will never be able to carry the bags today and maybe I'd just roll them on the handcart for him.He won't be able to carry me on his bicycle so I can meet him at the yard with the handcart. The neighbor says,Anything for Mr. Hannon, God bless him. I wait at the gate of the coal yard and watch him cycle toward me, slower than ever. He's so stiff he can hardly get off the bike and he says, You're a great man, Frankie. He lets me get the horse ready though I still have trouble getting on the harness.He lets me handle the ﬂoat out of the yard and into the frosty streets and I wish I could drive forever and never go home. Mr. Hannon shows me how to pull the bags to the edge of the ﬂoat and drop them on the ground so that I can pull them on to the handcart and push them to the houses.He tells me how to lift and push the bags without straining myself and we have the sixteen bags delivered by noon. I wish the boys at Leamy's could see me now, the way I drive the horse and handle the bags, the way I do everything while Mr. Hannon 264

rests his legs. I wish they could see me pushing the handcart to South's pub and having my lemonade with Mr. Hannon and Uncle Pa and me all black and Bill Galvin all white.I'd like to show the world the tips Mr. Hannon lets me keep,four shillings,and the shilling he gives me for the morning's work, ﬁve shillings altogether. Mam is sitting by the ﬁre and when I hand her the money she looks at me, drops it in her lap and cries. I'm puzzled because money is sup- posed to make you happy. Look at your eyes, she says. Go to that glass and look at your eyes. My face is black and the eyes are worse than ever.The whites and the eyelids are red, and the yellow stuff oozes to the corners and out over the lower lids.If the ooze sits a while it forms a crust that has to be picked off or washed away. Mam says that's the end of it.No more Mr.Hannon.I try to explain that Mr. Hannon needs me. He can barely walk anymore. I had to do everything this morning, drive the ﬂoat, wheel the handcart with the bags,sit in the pub,drink lemonade,listen to the men discussing who is the best, Rommel or Montgomery. She says she's sorry for Mr. Hannon's troubles but we have troubles of our own and the last thing she needs now is a blind son stumbling through the streets of Limerick.Bad enough you nearly died of typhoid, now you want to go blind on top of it. And I can't stop crying now because this was my one chance to be a man and bring home the money the telegram boy never brought from my father. I can't stop crying because I don't know what Mr. Hannon is going to do on Monday morning when he has no one to help him pull the bags to the edge of the ﬂoat, to push the bags into the houses. I can't stop crying because of the way he is with that horse he calls sweet because he's so gentle himself and what will the horse do if Mr. Han- non isn't there to take him out, if I'm not there to take him out? Will that horse fall down hungry for the want of oats and hay and the odd apple? Mam says I shouldn't be crying, it's bad for the eyes. She says,We'll see.That's all I can tell you now.We'll see. She washes my eyes and gives me sixpence to take Malachy to the Lyric to see Boris Karloff in The Man They Could Not Hang and have two pieces of Cleeves' toffee. It's hard to see the screen with the yellow stuff oozing from my eyes and Malachy has to tell me what's happen- ing. People around us tell him shut up, they'd like to hear what Boris 265

Karloff is saying, and when Malachy talks back to them and tells them he's only helping his blind brother they call the man in charge, Frank Goggin,and he says if he hears another word out of Malachy he'll throw the two of us out. I don't mind.I have a way of squeezing the stuff out of one eye and clearing it so that I can see the screen while the other eye ﬁlls up and I go back and forth, squeeze, look, squeeze, look, and everything I see is yellow. Monday morning Mrs.Hannon is knocking on our door again.She asks Mam if Frank would ever go down to the coal yard and tell the man in the ofﬁce that Mr. Hannon can't come in today, that he has to see a doctor about his legs, that he'll surely be in tomorrow and what he can't deliver today he will tomorrow. Mrs. Hannon always calls me Frank now. Anyone that delivers hundredweights of coal is not a Frankie. The man in the ofﬁce says,Humph.I think we're very tolerant with Hannon.You, what's your name? McCourt, sir. Tell Hannon we'll need a note from the doctor.Do you understand that? The doctor tells Mr. Hannon he has to go to the hospital or it's a case of gangrene he'll have and the doctor won't be responsible.The ambulance takes Mr. Hannon away and my big job is gone. Now I'll be white like everyone else in Leamy's, no ﬂoat, no horse, no shillings to bring home to my mother. In a few days Bridey Hannon comes to our door. She says her mother would like me to come and see her, have a cup of tea with her. Mrs.Hannon is sitting by the ﬁre with her hand on the seat of Mr.Han- non's chair.Sit down,Frank,she says,and when I go to sit on one of the ordinary kitchen chairs she says, No, sit here. Sit here on the chair of himself. Do you know how old he is, Frank? Oh, he must be very old, Mrs. Hannon. He must be thirty-ﬁve. She smiles. She has lovely teeth. He's forty-nine, Frank, and a man that age shouldn't have legs like that. He shouldn't, Mrs. Hannon. Did you know you were a joy to him going around on that ﬂoat? I didn't, Mrs. Hannon. You were.We had two daughters, Bridey that you know, and Kath- 266

leen, the nurse above in Dublin. But no son and he said you gave him the feeling of a son. I feel my eyes burning and I don't want her to see me crying especially when I don't know why I'm crying.That's all I do lately. Is it the job? Is it Mr. Hannon? My mother says, Oh, your bladder is near your eye. I think I'm crying because of the quiet way Mrs. Hannon is talking and she's talking like that because of Mr. Hannon. Like a son, she says, and I'm glad he had that feeling. His working days are over, you know. He has to stay at home from this out.There might be a cure and if there is sure he might be able to get a job as a watchman where he doesn't have to be lifting and hauling. I won't have a job anymore, Mrs. Hannon. You have a job, Frank. School.That's your job. That's not a job, Mrs. Hannon. You'll never have another job like it, Frank. It breaks Mr. Hannon's heart to think of you dragging bags of coal off a ﬂoat and it breaks your mother's heart and 'twill destroy your eyes. God knows I'm sorry I ever got you into this for it had your poor mother caught between your eyes and Mr. Hannon's legs. Can I go to the hospital to see Mr. Hannon? They might not let you in but surely you can come here to see him. God knows he won't be doing much but reading and looking out the Mam tells me at home,You shouldn't cry but then again tears are salty and they'll wash the bad stuff from your eyes. 267

XII There's a letter from Dad. He's coming home two days before Christ- mas. He says everything will be different, he's a new man, he hopes we're good boys,obeying our mother,attending to our religious duties, and he's bringing us all something for Christmas. Mam takes me to the railway station to meet him.The station is always exciting with all the coming and going,people leaning from car- riages, crying, smiling, waving good-bye, the train hooting and calling, chugging away in clouds of steam,people snifﬂing on the platform,the railway tracks silvering into the distance, on to Dublin and the world beyond. Now it's near midnight and cold on the empty platform.A man in a railway cap asks us if we'd like to wait in a warm place. Mam says, Thank you very much, and laughs when he leads us to the end of the platform where we have to climb a ladder to the signal tower. It takes her a while because she's heavy and she keeps saying, Oh, God, oh, God. We're above the world and it's dark in the signal tower except for the lights that blink red and green and yellow when the man bends over the board. He says, I'm just having a bit of supper and you're welcome. Mam says,Ah, no, thanks, we couldn't take your supper from you. He says,The wife always makes too much for me and if I was up in 268

this tower for a week I wouldn't be able to eat it.Sure it's not hard work looking at lights and pulling on the odd lever. He takes the top off a ﬂask and pours cocoa into a mug. Here, he says to me, put yourself outside that cocoa. He hands Mam half a sandwich.Ah, no, she says, surely you could take that home to your children. I have two sons,missus,and they're off there ﬁghting in the forces of His Majesty, the King of England. One did his bit with Montgomery in Africa and the other is over in Burma or some other bloody place, excuse the language.We get our freedom from England and then we ﬁght her wars. So here, missus, take the bit of sandwich. Lights on the board are clicking and the man says,Your train is com- ing, missus. Thank you very much and Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas to yourself, missus, and a Happy New Year, too. Mind yourself on that ladder, young fella. Help your mother. Thank you very much, sir. We wait again on the platform while the train rumbles into the station. Carriage doors open and a few men with suitcases step to the platform and hurry toward the gate.There is a clanking of milk cans dropped to the platform.A man and two boys are unloading newspa- pers and magazines. There is no sign of my father. Mam says he might be asleep in one of the carriages but we know he hardly sleeps even in his own bed. She says the boat from Holyhead might have been late and that would make him miss the train.The Irish Sea is desperate at this time of the year. He's not coming, Mam. He doesn't care about us. He's just drunk over there in England. Don't talk about your father like that. I say no more to her. I don't tell her I wish I had a father like the man in the signal tower who gives you sandwiches and cocoa. Next day Dad walks in the door. His top teeth are missing and there's a bruise under his left eye. He says the Irish Sea was rough and when he leaned over the side his teeth dropped out. Mam says, It wouldn't be the drink, would it? It wouldn't be a ﬁght? Och, no,Angela. Michael says,You said you'd have something for us, Dad. Oh, I do. He takes a box of chocolates from his suitcase and hands it to Mam. 269

She opens the box and shows us the inside where half the chocolates are gone. Could you spare it? she says. She shuts the box and puts it on the mantelpiece.We'll have choco- lates after our Christmas dinner tomorrow. Mam asks him if he brought any money. He tells her times are hard,jobs are scarce,and she says,Is it coddin'me you are? There's a war on and there's nothing but jobs in England. You drank the money, didn't you? We're shouting so loud Alphie begins to cry. Dad says, Och, boys, now boys. Respect for your father. He puts on his cap.He has to see a man.Mam says,Go see your man but don't come drunk to this house tonight singing Roddy McCorley or anything else. He comes home drunk but he's quiet and passes out on the ﬂoor next to Mam's bed. We have a Christmas dinner next day because of the food voucher Mam got from the St.Vincent de Paul Society.We have sheep's head, cabbage,ﬂoury white potatoes,and a bottle of cider because it's Christ- mas. Dad says he's not hungry, he'll have tea, borrows a cigarette from Mam. She says, Eat something. It's Christmas. He tells her again he's not hungry but if no one else wants them he'll eat the sheep's eyes. He says there's great nourishment in the eye and we all make sounds of disgust. He washes them down with his tea and smokes the rest of his Woodbine. He puts on his cap and goes upstairs for his suitcase. Mam says,Where are you going? London. On this day of Our Lord? Christmas Day? It's the best day for travel. People in motor cars will always give the workingman a lift to Dublin.They think of the hard times of the Holy Family. And how will you get on the boat to Holyhead without a penny in your pocket? The way I came.There's always a time when they're not looking. He kisses each of us on the forehead, tells us be good boys, obey 270

Mam, say our prayers. He tells Mam he'll write and she says, Oh, yes, the way you always did. He stands before her with his suitcase. She gets up, takes down the box of chocolates and hands them around. She puts a chocolate in her mouth and takes it out again because it's too hard and she can't chew it.I have a soft one and I offer it for the hard one,which will last longer. It's creamy and rich and there's a nut in the middle. Malachy and Michael complain they didn't get a nut and why is it Frank always gets the nut? Mam says,What do you mean, always? This is the ﬁrst time we ever had a box of chocolates. Malachy says,He got the raisin in the bun at school and all the boys said he gave it to Paddy Clohessy, so why couldn't he give us the nut? Mam says, Because 'tis Christmas and he has sore eyes and the nut is good for the sore eyes. Michael says,Will the nut make his eyes better? 'Twill. Will it make one eye better or will it make two eyes better? The two eyes, I think. Malachy says, If I had another nut I'd give it to him for his eyes. Mam says, I know you would. Dad watches us a moment eating our chocolates. He lifts the latch, goes out the door and pulls it shut. Mam tells Bridey Hannon, Days are bad but nights are worse and will this rain ever stop? She tries to ease the bad days by staying in bed and letting Malachy and me light the ﬁre in the morning while she sits up in the bed passing Alphie bits of bread and holding the mug to his mouth for the tea that's in it.We have to go downstairs to Ireland to wash our faces in the basin under the tap and try to dry ourselves in the old damp shirt that hangs over the back of a chair. She makes us stand by the bed to see if we left rings of dirt around our necks and if we did it's back down to the tap and the damp shirt.When there's a hole in a pair of pants she sits up and patches it with any rag she can ﬁnd.We wear short pants till we're thirteen or fourteen and our long stockings always have holes to be darned. If she has no wool for the darning and the stockings are dark we can blacken our ankles with shoe polish for the respectability that's in it.It's a terrible thing to walk the world with skin showing through the holes of our stockings.When we wear them week after week the holes grow so big we have to pull the stocking forward 271

under the toes so that the hole in the back is hidden in the shoe. On rainy days the stockings are soggy and we have to hang them before the ﬁre at night and hope they'll dry by morning.Then they're hard with dirt cake and we're afraid to pull them on our feet for fear they'll fall on the ﬂoor in bits before our eyes.We might be lucky enough to get our stockings on but then we have to block the holes in our shoes and I ﬁght with my brother, Malachy, over any scrap of cardboard or paper in the house. Michael is only six and he has to wait for anything left over unless Mam threatens us from the bed that we're to help our small brother.She says,If ye don't ﬁx yeer brother's shoes an'I have to get out of this bed there will be wigs on the green.You'd have to feel sorry for Michael because he's too old to play with Alphie and too young to play with us and he can't ﬁght with anyone for the same reasons. The rest of the dressing is easy, the shirt I wore to bed is the shirt I wear to school. I wear it day in day out. It's the shirt for football, for climbing walls,for robbings orchards.I go to Mass and the Confraternity in that shirt and people sniff the air and move away.If Mam gets a docket for a new one at the St.Vincent de Paul the old shirt is promoted to towel and hangs damp on the chair for months or Mam might use bits of it to patch other shirts.She might even cut it up and let Alphie wear it a while before it winds up on the ﬂoor pushed against the bottom of the door to block the rain from the lane. We go to school through lanes and back streets so that we won't meet the respectable boys who go to the Christian Brothers'School or the rich ones who go to the Jesuit school,Crescent College.The Christian Broth- ers' boys wear tweed jackets, warm woolen sweaters, shirts, ties and shiny new boots.We know they're the ones who will get jobs in the civil ser- vice and help the people who run the world.The Crescent College boys wear blazers and school scarves tossed around their necks and over their shoulders to show they're cock o' the walk.They have long hair which falls across their foreheads and over their eyes so that they can toss their quiffs like Englishmen.We know they're the ones who will go to univer- sity, take over the family business, run the government, run the world. We'll be the messenger boys on bicycles who deliver their groceries or we'll go to England to work on the building sites. Our sisters will mind their children and scrub their ﬂoors unless they go off to England,too.We know that.We're ashamed of the way we look and if boys from the rich schools pass remarks we'll get into a ﬁght and wind up with bloody noses or torn clothes.Our masters will have no patience with us and our ﬁghts 272

because their sons go to the rich schools and,Ye have no right to raise your hands to a better class of people so ye don't. You never know when you might come home and ﬁnd Mam sitting by the ﬁre chatting with a woman and a child, strangers. Always a woman and child. Mam ﬁnds them wandering the streets and if they ask, Could you spare a few pennies, miss? her heart breaks. She never has money so she invites them home for tea and a bit of fried bread and if it's a bad night she'll let them sleep by the ﬁre on a pile of rags in the corner.The bread she gives them always means less for us and if we complain she says there are always people worse off and we can surely spare a little from what we have. Michael is just as bad. He brings home stray dogs and old men.You never know when you'll ﬁnd a dog in the bed with him.There are dogs with sores, dogs with no ears, no tails. There's a blind greyhound he found in the park tormented by children. Michael fought off the chil- dren, picked up the greyhound that was bigger than himself and told Mam the dog could have his supper. Mam says, What supper? We're lucky if there's a cut of bread in the house.Michael tells her the dog can have his bread. Mam says that dog has to go tomorrow and Michael cries all night and cries worse in the morning when he ﬁnds the dog dead in the bed beside him. He won't go to school because he has to dig a grave outside where the stable was and he wants all of us to dig with him and say the rosary. Malachy says it's useless saying prayers for a dog, how do you know he was even a Catholic? Michael says, Of course he was a Catholic dog. Didn't I have him in my arms? He cries so hard over the dog Mam lets us all stay at home from school.We're so delighted we don't mind helping Michael with the grave and we say three Hail Marys.We're not going to stand there wasting a good day off from school saying the rosary for a dead greyhound. Michael is only six but when he brings old men home he manages to get the ﬁre going and give them tea. Mam says it's driving her crazy to come home and ﬁnd these old men drinking out of her favorite mug and mumbling and scratching by the ﬁre. She tells Bridey Hannon that Michael has a habit of bringing home old men all a bit gone in the head and if he doesn't have a bit of bread for them he knocks on neighbors' doors and has no shame begging for it. In the end she tells Michael, No more old men. One of them left us with lice and we're plagued. 273

The lice are disgusting, worse than rats.They're in our heads and ears and they sit in the hollows of our collarbones.They dig into our skin.They get into the seams of our clothes and they're everywhere in the coats we use as blankets.We have to search every inch of Alphie's body because he's a baby and helpless. The lice are worse than the ﬂeas. Lice squat and suck and we can see our blood through their skins.Fleas jump and bite and they're clean and we prefer them.Things that jump are cleaner than things that squat. We all agree there will be no more stray women and children, dogs and old men.We don't want any more diseases and infections. Michael cries. Grandma's next-door neighbor,Mrs.Purcell,has the only wireless in her lane.The government gave it to her because she's old and blind. I want a radio. My grandmother is old but she's not blind and what's the use of having a grandmother who won't go blind and get a government radio? Sunday nights I sit outside on the pavement under Mrs. Purcell's window listening to plays on the BBC and Radio Eireann,the Irish sta- tion.You can hear plays by O'Casey, Shaw, Ibsen and Shakespeare him- self, the best of all, even if he is English. Shakespeare is like mashed potatoes, you can never get enough of him.And you can hear strange plays about Greeks plucking out their eyes because they married their mothers by mistake. One night I'm sitting under Mrs.Purcell's window listening to Mac- beth. Her daughter, Kathleen, sticks her head out the door. Come in, Frankie. My mother says you'll catch the consumption sitting on the ground in this weather. Ah, no, Kathleen. It's all right. No. Come in. They give me tea and a grand cut of bread slathered with black- berry jam. Mrs. Purcell says, Do you like the Shakespeare, Frankie? I love the Shakespeare, Mrs. Purcell. Oh, he's music, Frankie, and he has the best stories in the world. I don't know what I'd do with meself of a Sunday night if I didn't have the Shakespeare. When the play ﬁnishes she lets me ﬁddle with the knob on the radio and I roam the dial for distant sounds on the shortwave band, strange whispering and hissing, the whoosh of the ocean coming and 274

going and the Morse Code dit dit dit dot. I hear mandolins, guitars, Spanish bagpipes, the drums of Africa, boatmen wailing on the Nile. I see sailors on watch sipping mugs of hot cocoa. I see cathedrals, sky- scrapers, cottages. I see Bedouins in the Sahara and the French Foreign Legion,cowboys on the American prairie.I see goats skipping along the rocky coast of Greece where the shepherds are blind because they mar- ried their mothers by mistake. I see people chatting in cafés, sipping wine, strolling on boulevards and avenues. I see night women in door- ways, monks chanting vespers, and here is the great boom of Big Ben, This is the BBC Overseas Service and here is the news. Mrs. Purcell says, Leave that on, Frankie, so we'll know the state of the world. After the news there is the American Armed Forces Network and it's lovely to hear the American voices easy and cool and here is the music,oh,man,the music of Duke Ellington himself telling me take the A train to where Billie Holiday sings only to me, I can't give you anything but love, baby. That's the only thing I've plenty of, baby. Oh, Billie, Billie, I want to be in America with you and all that music, where no one has bad teeth, people leave food on their plates, every family has a lavatory, and everyone lives happily ever after. And Mrs. Purcell says, Do you know what, Frankie? What, Mrs. Purcell? That Shakespeare is that good he must have been an Irishman. The rent man is losing his patience. He tells Mam, Four weeks behind you are, missus.That's one pound two shillings.This has to stop for I have to go back to the ofﬁce and report to Sir Vincent Nash that the McCourts are a month behind.Where am I then, missus? Out on my arse jobless and a mother to support that's ninety-two and a daily com- municant in the Franciscan church.The rent man collects the rents,mis- sus, or he loses the job. I'll be back next week and if you don't have the money, one pound eight shillings and sixpence total, 'tis out on the pavement you'll be with the skies dripping on your furniture. Mam comes back up to Italy and sits by the ﬁre wondering where in God's name she'll get the money for a week's rent never mind the arrears. 275

She'd love a cup of tea but there's no way of boiling the water till Malachy pulls a loose board off the wall between the two upstairs rooms.Mam says, Well,'tis off now and we might as well chop it up for the ﬁre.We boil the water and use the rest of the wood for the morning tea but what about tonight and tomorrow and ever after? Mam says, One more board from that wall, one more and not another one. She says that for two weeks till there's nothing left but the beam frame.She warns us we are not to touch the beams for they hold up the ceiling and the house itself. Oh, we'd never touch the beams. She goes to see Grandma and it's so cold in the house I take the hatchet to one of the beams. Malachy cheers me on and Michael claps his hands with excitement. I pull on the beam, the ceiling groans and down on Mam's bed there's a shower of plaster,slates,rain.Malachy says, Oh,God,we'll all be killed,and Michael dances around singing,Frankie broke the house, Frankie broke the house. We run through the rain to tell Mam the news. She looks puzzled with Michael chanting, Frankie broke the house, till I explain there's a hole in the house and it's falling down.She says,Jesus,and runs through the streets with Grandma trying to keep up. Mam sees her bed buried under plaster and slates and pulls at her hair,What'll we do at all, at all? and screams at me for interfering with the beams. Grandma says, I'll go to the landlord's ofﬁce and tell them ﬁx this before ye are all drowned entirely. She's back in no time with the rent man. He says, Great God in heaven, where's the other room? Grandma says,What room? I rented ye two rooms up here and one is gone.Where is that room? Mam says,What room? There were two rooms up here and now there's one.And what hap- pened to the wall? There was a wall. Now there's no wall. I distinctly remember a wall because I distinctly remember a room. Now where is that wall? Where is that room? Grandma says, I don't remember a wall and if I don't remember a wall how can I remember a room? Ye don't remember? Well,I remember.Forty years a landlord's agent and I never seen the likes of this. By God, 'tis a desperate situation alto- gether when you can't turn your back but tenants are not paying their rent and making walls and rooms disappear on top of it.I want to know where that wall is and what ye did with the room, so I do. 276

Mam turns to us. Do any of ye remember a wall? Michael pulls at her hand. Is that the wall we burned in the ﬁre? The rent man says,Dear God in heaven,this beats Banagher,this takes the bloody biscuit, this is goin' beyond the beyonds. No rent and what am I to tell Sir Vincent below in the ofﬁce? Out, missus, I'm puttin' ye out.One week from today I'll knock on this door and I want to ﬁnd nobody at home, everybody out never to return. Do you have me, missus? Mam's face is tight. 'Tis a pity you weren't alive in the times when the English were evicting us and leaving us on the side of the road. No lip, missus, or I'll send the men to put ye out tomorrow. He goes out the door and leaves it open to show what he thinks of us. Mam says, I don't know in God's name what I'm going to do. Grandma says,Well, I don't have room for ye but your cousin, Gerard Grifﬁn, is living out the Rosbrien Road in that little house of his mother's and he'd surely be able to take ye in till better times come.'Tis all hours of the night but I'll go up and see what he says and Frank can come with me. She tells me put on a coat but I don't have one and she says, I sup- pose there's no use in asking if ye have an umbrella either. Come on. She pulls the shawl over her head and I follow her out the door, up the lane,through the rain to Rosbrien Road nearly two miles away.She knocks on the door of a little cottage in a long row of little cottages.Are you there, Laman? I know you're in there. Open the door. Grandma, why are you calling him Laman? Isn't his name Gerard? How would I know? Do I know why the world calls your uncle Pat Ab? Everyone calls this fella Laman. Open the door. We'll go in. He might be working overtime. She pushes the door. It's dark and there's a damp sweet smell in the room.This room looks like the kitchen and there's a smaller room next to it.There's a little loft above the bedroom with a skylight where the rain is beating.There are boxes everywhere, newspapers, magazines, bits of food, mugs, empty tins.We can see two beds taking up all the space in the bedroom, a great acre of a bed and a smaller one near the win- dow. Grandma pokes at a lump in the big bed. Laman, is that you? Get up, will you, get up. What? What? What? What? There's trouble. Angela is gettin' evicted with the children an' 'tis delvin'out of the heavens.They need a bit of shelter till they get on their feet an'I have no room for them.You can put them up in the loft if you 277

like but that wouldn't do because the small ones wouldn't be able to climb and they'd fall down an'get killed so you go up there an'they can move in here. All right, all right, all right, all right. He hoists himself from the bed and there's a whiskey smell.He goes to the kitchen and pulls the table to the wall for his climb to the loft. Grandma says,That's ﬁne now. Ye can move up here tonight an' ye won't have the eviction men coming after ye. Grandma tells Mam she's going home.She's tired and drenched and she's not twenty-ﬁve anymore. She says there's no need to be taking beds or furniture with all the stuff that's up in Laman Grifﬁn's.We put Alphie in the pram and pile around him the pot, the pan, the kettle, the jam jars and mugs, the Pope, two bolsters and the coats from the beds. We drape the coats over our heads and push the pram through the streets. Mam tells us be quiet going up the lane or the neighbors will know we got the eviction and there will be shame. The pram has a bockety wheel which tilts it and makes it go in different directions.We try to keep it straight and we're having a great time because it must be after midnight and surely Mam won't make us go to school tomorrow. We're moving so far from Leamy's School now maybe we'll never have to go again. Once we get away from the lane Alphie bangs on the pot with the spoon and Michael sings a song he heard in a ﬁlm with Al Jol- son,Swanee,how I love ya,how I love ya,my dear ol'Swanee.He makes us laugh the way he tries to sing in a deep voice like Al Jolson. Mam says she's glad it's late and there's no one on the streets to see our shame. Once we get to the house we take Alphie and everything else from the pram so that Malachy and I can run back down to Roden Lane for the trunk. Mam says she'd die if she lost that trunk and everything in it. Malachy and I sleep at opposite ends of the small bed.Mam takes the big bed with Alphie beside her and Michael at the bottom. Everything is damp and musty and Laman Grifﬁn snores over our heads.There are no stairs in this house and that means no angel ever on the seventh step. But I'm twelve going on thirteen and I might be too old for angels. It's still dark when the alarm goes off in the morning and Laman Grif- ﬁn snorts and blows his nose and hawks the stuff from his chest. 278

The ﬂoor creaks under him and when he pisses for ages into the cham- ber pot we have to stuff our mouths with coats to stop the laughing and Mam hisses at us to be quiet.He grumbles away above us before he climbs down to get his bicycle and bang his way out the door.Mam whis- pers,The coast is clear, go back to sleep.Ye can stay at home today. We can't sleep.We're in a new house, we have to pee and we want to explore.The lavatory is outside, about ten steps from the back door, our own lavatory, with a door you can close and a proper seat where you can sit and read squares of the Limerick Leader Laman Grifﬁn left behind for wiping himself.There is a long backyard, a garden with tall grass and weeds, an old bicycle that must have belonged to a giant, tin cans galore, old papers and magazines rotting into the earth, a rusted sewing machine,a dead cat with a rope around his neck that somebody must have thrown over the fence. Michael gets a notion in his head that this is Africa and keeps ask- ing,Where's Tarzan? Where's Tarzan? He runs up and down the back- yard with no pants on trying to imitate Tarzan yodeling from tree to tree. Malachy looks over the fences into the other yards and tells us, They have gardens.They're growing things.We can grow things.We can have our own spuds and everything. Mam calls from the back door, See if ye can ﬁnd anything to start the ﬁre in here. There's a wooden shed built against the back of the house. It's col- lapsing and surely we could use some of the wood for the ﬁre. Mam is disgusted with the wood we bring in. She says it's rotten and full of white maggots but beggars can't be choosers.The wood sizzles above the burning paper and we watch the white maggots try to escape. Michael says he feels sorry for the white maggots but we know he's sorry for everything in the world. Mam tells us this house used to be a shop, that Laman Grifﬁn's mother sold groceries through the little window and that's how she was able to send Laman away to Rockwell College so that he could wind up as an ofﬁcer in the Royal Navy.Oh,he was,indeed.An ofﬁcer in the Royal Navy, and here's a picture of him with other ofﬁcers all having dinner with a famous American ﬁlm star Jean Harlow.He was never the same after he met Jean Harlow.He fell madly in love with her but what was the use? She was Jean Harlow and he was nothing but an ofﬁcer in the Royal Navy and it drove him to drink and they threw him out of the Navy. Now look at him, a common laborer for the Electricity Sup- 279

ply Board and a house that's a disgrace.You'd look at this house and never know there was a human being living in it.You can see Laman never moved a thing since his mother died and now we have to clean up so that we can live in this place. There are boxes packed with bottles of purple hair oil.While Mam is out in the lavatory we open a bottle and smear it on our heads. Malachy says the smell is gorgeous but when Mam comes back she says,What's that horrible stink? and wants to know why our heads are suddenly greasy.She makes us stick our heads under the tap outside and dry ourselves with an old towel pulled out from under a pile of magazines called The Illustrated London News so old they have pictures of Queen Victoria and Prince Edward waving.There are bars of Pear's soap and a thick book called Pear's Encyclopedia,which keeps me up day and night because it tells you every- thing about everything and that's all I want to know. There are bottles of Sloan's Liniment, which Mam says will come in handy when we get cramps and pains from the damp.The bottles say, Here's the pain, Where's the Sloan's? There are boxes of safety pins and bags packed with women's hats that crumble when you touch them. There are bags with corsets, garters, women's high button shoes and different laxatives that promise glowing cheeks, bright eyes and a curl in your hair. There are letters from General Eoin O'Duffy to Gerard Grifﬁn, Esq., saying welcome to the ranks of the National Front, the Irish Blueshirts, that it is a privilege to know a man like Gerard Grifﬁn is interested in the movement with his excellent education, his Royal Navy training, his reputation as a great rugby player on the Young Munster team that won the national champi- onship, the Bateman Cup. General O'Duffy is forming an Irish Brigade that will soon sail off to Spain to ﬁght with that great Catholic Generalissimo Franco himself, and Mr. Grifﬁn would be a powerful addition to the Brigade. Mam says Laman's mother wouldn't let him go.She didn't spend all those years slaving away in a little shop to send him to college so that he could go gallivanting off to Spain for Franco so he stayed at home and got that job digging holes for the poles of the Electricity Supply Board along country roads and his mother was happy to have him home to herself every night but Friday when he drank his pint and moaned over Jean Harlow. Mam is happy we'll have loads of paper for lighting the ﬁre though 280

the wood we burn from that collapsing shed leaves a sickening smell and she worries the white maggots will escape and breed. We work all day moving boxes and bags to the shed outside. Mam opens all the windows to air the house and let out the smell of the hair oil and the years of no air. She says it's a relief to be able to see the ﬂoor again and now we can sit down and have a nice cup of tea in peace,ease and comfort,and won't it be lovely when the warm weather comes and we might be able to have a garden and sit outside with our tea the way the English do. Laman Grifﬁn comes home at six every night but Friday, has his tea and goes to bed till next morning. Saturdays he goes to bed at one in the afternoon and stays there till Monday morning. He pulls the kitchen table over to the wall under the loft, climbs up on a chair, pulls the chair up to the table, climbs up on the chair again, catches a leg of the bed,pulls himself up.If he's too drunk on Fridays he makes me climb up for his pillow and blankets and sleeps on the kitchen ﬂoor by the ﬁre or falls into bed with me and my brothers and snores and farts all night. When we ﬁrst moved in he complained over how he gave up his room downstairs for the loft and he's worn out climbing up and down to go to the lavatory in the backyard.He calls down,Bring the table,the chair,I'm coming down, and we have to clear off the table and pull it to the wall. He's fed up,he's ﬁnished with the climbing,he's going to use his mother's lovely chamber pot.He lies in bed all day reading books from the library, smoking Gold Flake cigarettes and throwing Mam a few shillings to send one of us to the shop so that he can have scones with his tea or a nice bit of ham and sliced tomato.Then he calls to Mam,Angela, this chamber pot is full,and she drags chair and table to climb for the chamber pot,empty it in the lavatory outside,rinse it and climb back to the loft.Her face gets tight and she says,Is there anything else your lordship would like this day? and he laughs,Woman's work,Angela, woman's work and free rent. Laman throws down his library card from the loft and tells me get him two books, one on angling, one on gardening. He writes a note to the librarian to say his legs are killing him from digging holes for the Electricity Supply Board and from now on Frank McCourt will be getting his books. He knows the boy is only thirteen going on four- teen and he knows the rules are strict about allowing children into the adult part of the library but the boy will wash his hands and behave himself and do what he's told, thank you. 281

The librarian reads the note and says 'tis an awful pity about Mr. Grifﬁn, he's a true gentleman and a man of great learning, you wouldn't believe the books he reads, sometimes four a week, that one day he took home a book in French, French, if you don't mind, on the history of the rudder,the rudder,if you don't mind, she'd give anything for a look inside his head for it must be packed with all sorts of learn- ing, packed, if you don't mind. She picks out a gorgeous book with colored pictures about English gardens. She says, I know what he likes in the ﬁshing department, and chooses a book called In Search of the Irish Salmon by Brigadier General Hugh Colton. Oh, says the librarian, he reads hundreds of books about English ofﬁcers ﬁshing in Ireland. I've read some myself out of pure curiosity and you can see why those ofﬁcers are glad to be in Ireland after all they put up with in India and Africa and other desperate places. At least the people here are polite.We're known for that, the politeness, not running around throwing spears at people. Laman lies in the bed, reads his books, talks down from the loft about the day his legs will heal and he'll be out there in the back plant- ing a garden which will be famous far and wide for color and beauty and when he's not gardening he'll be roaming the rivers around Lim- erick and bringing home salmon that will make your mouth water.His mother left a recipe for salmon that's a family secret and if he had the time and his legs weren't killing him he'd ﬁnd it someplace in this house. He says now that I'm reliable I can get a book for myself every week but don't be bringing home ﬁlth. I want to know what the ﬁlth is but he won't tell me so I'll have to ﬁnd out for myself. Mam says she wants to join the library too but it's a long walk from Laman's house, two miles, and would I mind getting her a book every week, a romance by Charlotte M. Brame or any other nice writer. She doesn't want any books about English ofﬁcers looking for salmon or books about people shooting each other.There's enough trouble in the world without reading about people bothering ﬁsh and each other. Grandma caught a chill the night we had the trouble in the house in Roden Lane and the chill turned into pneumonia.They shifted her to the City Home Hospital and now she's dead. Her oldest son,my uncle Tom,thought he'd go to England to work 282

like other men in the lanes of Limerick but his consumption got worse and he came back to Limerick and now he's dead. His wife, Galway Jane, followed him, and four of their six children had to be put into orphanages. The oldest boy, Gerry, ran away and joined the Irish army,deserted and crossed to the English army.The old- est girl, Peggy, went to Aunt Aggie and lives in misery. The Irish army is looking for boys who are musical and would like to train in the Army School of Music.They accept my brother,Malachy, and he goes off to Dublin to be a soldier and play the trumpet. Now I have only two brothers at home and Mam says her family is disappearing before her very eyes. 283

XIII Boys from my class at Leamy's School are going on a weekend cycling trip to Killaloe. They tell me I should borrow a bicycle and come.All I need is a blanket, a few spoons of tea and sugar and a few cuts of bread to keep me going. I'll learn to cycle on Laman Grifﬁn's bicycle every night after he goes to bed and he'll surely let me borrow it for the two days in Killaloe. The best time to ask him for anything is Friday night when he's in a good mood after his night of drinking and his dinner. He brings home the same dinner in his overcoat pockets, a big steak dripping blood, four potatoes, an onion, a bottle of stout. Mam boils the pota- toes and fries the steak with sliced onion.He keeps his overcoat on,sits at the table and eats the steak out of his hands.The grease and blood roll down his chin and on to the overcoat where he wipes his hands. He drinks his stout and laughs that there's nothing like a great bloody steak of a Friday night and if that's the worst sin he ever commits he'll ﬂoat to heaven body and soul, ha ha ha. Of course you can have my bike, he says. Boy should be able to get out and see the countryside. Of course. But you have to earn it.You can't be getting something for nothing, isn't that right? And I have a job for you.You don't mind doing a bit of a job, do you? 284

I don't. And you'd like to help your mother? I would. Well, now, that very chamber pot is full since this morning. I want you to climb up and get it and take it to the lavatory and rinse it under the tap abroad and climb back up with it. I don't want to empty his chamber pot but I dream of cycling miles on the road to Killaloe, ﬁelds and sky far from this house, a swim in the Shannon,a night sleeping in a barn.I pull the table and chair to the wall. I climb up and under the bed there's the plain white chamber pot streaked brown and yellow, brimming with piss and shit. I lay it gently at the edge of the loft so that it won't spill, climb down to the chair, reach for the chamber pot, bring it down, turn my face away, hold it while I step down to the table, place it on the chair, step to the ﬂoor, take the chamber pot to the lavatory, empty it, and get sick behind the lavatory till I get used to this job. Laman says I'm a good boy and the bike is mine anytime I want it as long as the chamber pot is empty and I'm there to run to the shop for his cigarettes, go to the library for books and do whatever else he wants.He says,You have a great way with a chamber pot.He laughs and Mam stares into the dead ashes in the ﬁreplace. It's raining so hard one day,Miss O'Riordan the librarian says,Don't go out in that or you'll ruin the books you're carrying.Sit down over there and behave yourself. You can read all about the saints while you're waiting. There are four big books, Butler's Lives of the Saints. I don't want to spend my life reading about saints but when I start I wish the rain would last forever.Whenever you see pictures of saints,men or women,they're always looking up to heaven where there are clouds ﬁlled with little fat angels carrying ﬂowers or harps giving praise. Uncle Pa Keating says he can't think of a single saint in heaven he'd want to sit down and have a pint with.The saints in these books are different.There are stories about virgins, martyrs, virgin martyrs and they're worse than any horror ﬁlm at the Lyric Cinema. I have to look in the dictionary to ﬁnd out what a virgin is. I know the Mother of God is the Virgin Mary and they call her that because she didn't have a proper husband, only poor old St. Joseph. In the Lives of 285

the Saints the virgins are always getting into trouble and I don't know why.The dictionary says,Virgin, woman (usually a young woman) who is and remains in a state of inviolate chastity. Now I have to look up inviolate and chastity and all I can ﬁnd here is that inviolate means not violated and chastity means chaste and that means pure from unlawful sexual intercourse. Now I have to look up intercourse and that leads to intromission, which leads to intromittent, the copulatory organ of any male animal. Copulatory leads to copula- tion, the union of the sexes in the art of generation and I don't know what that means and I'm too weary going from one word to another in this heavy dictionary which leads me on a wild goose chase from this word to that word and all because the people who wrote the dictionary don't want the likes of me to know anything. All I want to know is where I came from but if you ask anyone they tell you ask someone else or send you from word to word. All these virgin martyrs are told by Roman judges they have to give up their faith and accept the Roman gods but they say, Nay, and the judges have them tortured and killed. My favorite is St. Christina the Astonishing who takes ages to die.The judge says, Cut off her breast, and when they do she throws it at him and he goes deaf dumb and blind. Another judge is brought on the case and he says, Cut off the other breast, and the same thing happens. They try to kill her with arrows but they just bounce off her and kill the soldiers who shot them. They try to boil her in oil but she rocks in the vat and takes a nap for herself.Then the judges get fed up and have her head cut off and that does the job.The feast of St. Christina the Astonishing is the twenty- fourth of July and I think I'll keep that for myself along with the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on the fourth of October. The librarian says,You have to go home now,the rain is stopped,and when I'm going out the door she calls me back.She wants to write a note to my mother and she doesn't mind one bit if I read it.The note says,Dear Mrs.McCourt,Just when you think Ireland is gone to the dogs altogether you ﬁnd a boy sitting in the library so absorbed in the Lives of the Saints he doesn't realize the rain has stopped and you have to drag him away from the aforesaid Lives. I think, Mrs. McCourt, you might have a future priest on your hands and I will light a candle in hopes it comes true. I remain,Yours truly, Catherine O'Riordan,Asst. Librarian. 286

Hoppy O'Halloran is the only master in Leamy's National School who ever sits.That's because he's the headmaster or because he has to rest himself from the twisting walk that comes from the short leg.The other masters walk back and forth in the front of the room or up and down the aisles and you never know when you'll get a whack of a cane or a slap of a strap for giving the wrong answer or writing something sloppy. If Hoppy wants to do anything to you he calls you to the front of the room to punish you before three classes. There are good days when he sits at the desk and talks about Amer- ica. He says, My boys, from the frozen wastes of North Dakota to the fragrant orange groves of Florida,Americans enjoy all climates.He talks about American history, If the American farmer, with ﬂintlock and musket, could wrest from the English a continent, surely we, warriors ever, can recover our island. If we don't want him tormenting us with algebra or Irish grammar all we have to do is ask him a question about America and that gets him so excited he might go on for the whole day. He sits at his desk and recites the tribes and chiefs he loves.Arapaho, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Sioux,Apache, Iroquois. Poetry, my boys, poetry. And listen to the chiefs, Kicking Bear, Rain-in-the-Face, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the genius, Geronimo. In seventh class he hands out a small book, a poem that goes on for pages and pages, The Deserted Village, by Oliver Goldsmith. He says that this seems to be a poem about England but it is a lament for the poet's native land, our own native land, Ireland.We are to get this poem by heart, twenty lines a night to be recited every morning. Six boys are called to the front of the room for reciting and if you miss a line you are slapped twice on each hand. He tells us put the books under the desks and the whole class chants the passage on the schoolmaster in the village. Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, With blossomed furze unproﬁtably gay, There, in his noisy mansion, skilled to rule The village master taught his little school. A man severe he was and stern to view, I knew him well, and every truant knew. Full well the boding tremblers learned to trace The day's disaster in his morning face. 287

Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee At all his jokes for many a joke had he. Full well the busy whisper circling round Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. He always closes his eyes and smiles when we reach the last lines of the passage, Yet he was kind, or, if severe in aught, The love he bore to learning was in fault. The village all declared how much he knew. 'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too. Lands he could measure, terms and tides presage, And even the story ran that he could gauge. In arguing, too, the parson owned his skill, For, even though vanquished, he could argue still, While words of learned length and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around. And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, That one small head could carry all he knew. We know he loves these lines because they're about a schoolmaster, about him,and he's right because we wonder how one small head could carry all he knows and we will remember him in these lines. He says, Ah, boys, boys,You can make up your own minds but ﬁrst stock them. Are you listening to me? Stock your minds and you can move through the world resplendent. Clarke, deﬁne resplendent. I think it's shining, sir. Pithy,Clarke,but adequate.McCourt,give us a sentence with pithy. Clarke is pithy but adequate, sir. Adroit, McCourt.You have a mind for the priesthood, my boy, or politics.Think of that. Tell your mother come and see me. Mam says, No, I could never go near Mr. O'Halloran. I don't have a decent dress or a proper coat.What does he want to see me for? Well, ask him. 288

I can't.He'll kill me.If he says bring your mother you have to bring your mother or out comes the stick. She comes to see him and he talks to her in the hallway.He tells her that her son Frank must continue school.He must not fall into the mes- senger boy trap. That leads nowhere. Take him up to the Christian Brothers, tell them I sent you, tell them he is a bright boy and ought to be going to secondary school and beyond that, university. He tells her he did not become headmaster of Leamy's National School to preside over an academy of messenger boys. Mam says,Thank you, Mr. O'Halloran. I wish Mr. O'Halloran would mind his own business. I don't want to go to the Christian Brothers. I want to quit school forever and get a job, get my wages every Friday, go to the pictures on Saturday nights like everyone. A few days later Mam tells me give my face and hands a good wash, we're going to the Christian Brothers. I tell her I don't want to go, I want to work, I want to be a man. She tells me stop the whining, I'm going to secondary school and we'll all manage somehow. I'm going to school if she has to scrub ﬂoors and she'll practice on my face. She knocks on the door at the Christian Brothers and says she wants to see the superior, Brother Murray. He comes to the door, looks at my mother and me and says,What? Mam says,This is my son,Frank.Mr.O'Halloran at Leamy's says he's bright and would there be any chance of getting him in here for sec- ondary school? We don't have room for him, says Brother Murray and closes the door in our faces. Mam turns away from the door and it's a long silent walk home.She takes off her coat, makes tea, sits by the ﬁre. Listen to me, she says.Are you listening? That's the second time a door was slammed in your face by the Church. Is it? I don't remember. Stephen Carey told you and your father you couldn't be an altar boy and closed the door in your face. Do you remember that? And now Brother Murray slams the door in your face. I don't mind. I want to get a job. 289

Her face tightens and she's angry.You are never to let anybody slam the door in your face again. Do you hear me? She starts to cry by the ﬁre, Oh, God, I didn't bring ye into the world to be a family of messenger boys. I don't know what to do or say, I'm so relieved I don't have to stay in school for ﬁve or six more years. I'm free. I'm thirteen going on fourteen and it's June, the last month of school forever.Mam takes me to see the priest,Dr.Cowpar,about getting a job as telegram boy.The supervisor in the post ofﬁce, Mrs. O'Connell, says, Do you know how to cycle, and I lie that I do. She says I can't start till I'm fourteen so come back in August. Mr.O'Halloran tells the class it's a disgrace that boys like McCourt, Clarke,Kennedy,have to hew wood and draw water.He is disgusted by this free and independent Ireland that keeps a class system foisted on us by the English, that we are throwing our talented children on the dungheap. You must get out of this country, boys. Go to America, McCourt. Do you hear me? Priests come to the school to recruit us for the foreign missions, Redemptorists, Franciscans, Holy Ghost Fathers, all converting the dis- tant heathen.I ignore them.I'm going to America till one priest catches my attention. He says he comes from the order of the White Fathers, missionaries to the nomadic Bedouin tribes and chaplains to the French Foreign Legion. I ask for the application. I will need a letter from the parish priest and a physical examination by my family doctor.The parish priest writes the letter on the spot. He would have been glad to see me go last year.The doctor says,What's this? That's an application to join the White Fathers, missionaries to the nomadic tribes of the Sahara and chaplains to the French Foreign Legion. Oh, yeh? French Foreign Legion, is it? Do you know the preferred form of transportation in the Sahara Desert? 290

Trains? No. It's the camel. Do you know what a camel is? It has a hump. It has more than a hump. It has a nasty, mean disposition and its teeth are green with gangrene and it bites.Do you know where it bites? In the Sahara? No, you omadhaun. It bites your shoulder, rips it right off. Leaves you standing there tilted in the Sahara. How would you like that, eh? And what class of a spectacle you'd be strolling down the street,lopsided in Limerick. What girl in her right mind will look at an ex-White Father with one miserable scrawny shoulder? And look at your eyes. They're bad enough here in Limerick. In the Sahara they'll fester and rot and fall out of your head. How old are you? Thirteen. Go home to your mother. It's not our house and we don't feel free in it the way we did in Roden Lane, up in Italy or down in Ireland. When Laman comes home he wants to read in his bed or sleep and we have to be quiet.We stay in the streets till after dark and when we come inside there's nothing to do but go to bed and read a book if we have a candle or parafﬁn oil for the lamp. Mam tells us go to bed, she'll be after us in a minute as soon as she climbs to the loft with Laman's last mug of tea. We often fall asleep before she goes up but there are nights we hear them talking, grunting, moaning.There are nights when she never comes down and Michael and Alphie have the big bed to themselves. Malachy says she stays up there because it's too hard for her to climb down in the dark. He's only twelve and he doesn't understand. I'm thirteen and I think they're at the excitement up there. I know about the excitement and I know it's a sin but how can it be a sin if it comes to me in a dream where American girls pose in swim- ming suits on the screen at the Lyric Cinema and I wake up pushing and pumping? It's a sin when you're wide awake and going at yourself the way the boys talked about it in Leamy's schoolyard after Mr. O'Dea roared the Sixth Commandment at us,Thou Shalt Not Commit Adul- 291

tery, which means impure thoughts, impure words, impure deeds, and that's what adultery is, Dirty Things in General. One Redemptorist priest barks at us all the time about the Sixth Commandment. He says impurity is so grave a sin the Virgin Mary turns her face away and weeps. And why does she weep, boys? She weeps because of you and what you are doing to her Beloved Son.She weeps when she looks down the long dreary vista of time and beholds in horror the spectacle of Limer- ick boys deﬁling themselves, polluting themselves, interfering with themselves, abusing themselves, soiling their young bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Ghost. Our Lady weeps over these abom- inations knowing that every time you interfere with yourself you nail to the cross her Beloved Son, that once more you hammer into His dear head the crown of thorns, that you reopen those ghastly wounds. In an agony of thirst He hangs on the cross and what is He offered by those perﬁdious Romans? A lavatory sponge plunged into vinegar and gall and thrust into His poor mouth, a mouth that moves rarely except to pray,to pray even for you,boys,even for you who nailed Him to that cross. Consider Our Lord's suffering. Consider the crown of thorns. Consider a small pin driven into your skull, the agony of the piercing. Consider then twenty thorns driven into your head. Reﬂect, meditate on the nails tearing His hands, His feet. Could you endure a fraction of that agony? Take that pin again, that mere pin. Force it into your side. Enlarge that sensation a hundredfold and you are penetrated by that awful lance. Oh, boys, the devil wants your souls. He wants you with him in hell and know this,that every time you interfere with your- self, every time you succumb to the vile sin of self-abuse you not only nail Christ to the cross you take another step closer to hell itself.Retreat from the abyss, boys. Resist the devil and keep your hands to yourself. I can't stop interfering with myself. I pray to the Virgin Mary and tell her I'm sorry I put her Son back on the cross and I'll never do it again but I can't help myself and swear I'll go to confession and after that, surely after that, I'll never never do it again. I don't want to go to hell with devils chasing me for eternity jabbing me with hot pitchforks. The priests of Limerick have no patience with the likes of me. I go to confession and they hiss that I'm not in a proper spirit of repentance, that if I were I'd give up this hideous sin. I go from church to church looking for an easy priest till Paddy Clohessy tells me there's one in the Dominican church who's ninety years old and deaf as a turnip. Every 292

few weeks the old priest hears my confession and mumbles that I should pray for him. Sometimes he falls asleep and I don't have the heart to wake him up so I go to Communion the next day without penance or absolution. It's not my fault if priests fall asleep on me and surely I'm in a state of grace just for going to confession.Then one day the little panel in the confession box slides back and it's not my man at all, it's a young priest with a big ear like a seashell. He'll surely hear everything. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, it's a fortnight since my last confession. And what have you done since then, my child? I hit my brother, I went on the mooch from school, I lied to my Yes, my child, and what else? I— I— I did dirty things, Father. Ah, my child, was that with yourself or with another or with some class of beast? Some class of beast. I never heard of a sin like that before.This priest must be from the country and if he is he's opening up new worlds to me. The night before I'm to go to Killaloe Laman Grifﬁn comes home drunk and eats a great bag of ﬁsh and chips at the table. He tells Mam boil water for tea and when she says she has no coal or turf he yells at her and calls her a great lump living free under his roof with her pack of brats.He throws money at me to go to the shop for a few sods of turf and wood for kindling.I don't want to go.I want to hit him for the way he treats my mother but if I say anything he won't let me have the bicy- cle tomorrow after I've waited three weeks. When Mam gets the ﬁre going and boils the water I remind him of his promise to loan me the bike. Did you empty the chamber pot today? Oh, I forgot. I'll do it this minute. He shouts,You didn't empty my damn chamber pot. I promise you the bike.I give you tuppence a week to run messages for me and empty the chamber pot and you stand there with your thick gob hanging out and tell me you didn't do it. I'm sorry. I forgot. I'll do it now. You will, will you? And how do you think you'll get up to the loft? Are you going to pull the table out from under my ﬁsh and chips? 293

Mam says, Sure, he was at school all day and he had to go to the doctor for his eyes. Well, you can bloody well forget about the bicycle.You didn't live up to the bargain. But he couldn't do it, says Mam. He tells her shut up and mind her own business and she goes quiet by the ﬁre. He goes back to his ﬁsh and chips but I tell him again,You promised me. I emptied that chamber pot and did your messages for three weeks. Shut up and go to bed. You can't tell me go to bed.You're not my father, and you prom- ised me. I'm telling you, as sure as God made little apples, that if I get up from this table you'll be calling for your patron saint. You promised me. He pushes the chair back from the table. He stumbles toward me and sticks his ﬁnger between my eyes. I'm telling you shut your gob, scabby eyes. I won't.You promised me. He punches my shoulders and when I won't stop moves to my head. My mother jumps up, crying, and tries to pull him away. He punches and kicks me into the bedroom but I keep saying, You promised me. He knocks me to my mother's bed and punches till I cover my face and head with my arms. I'll kill you, you little shit. Mam is screaming and pulling at him till he falls backward into the kitchen. She says, Come on, oh, come on. Eat your ﬁsh and chips. He's only a child. He'll get over it. I hear him go back to his chair and pull it to the table. I hear him snufﬂe and slurp when he eats and drinks. Hand me the matches, he says. By Jesus, I need a fag after that.There's a put-put sound when he puffs on the cigarette and a whimper from my mother. He says, I'm going to bed, and with the drink in him it takes him a while to climb the chair to the table,pull up the chair,climb to the loft. The bed squeaks under him and he grunts when he pulls off his boots and drops them to the ﬂoor. I can hear Mam crying when she blows into the globe of the paraf- ﬁn oil lamp and everything goes dark.After what happened she'll surely 294

want to get into her own bed and I'm ready to go to the small one against the wall. Instead, there's the sound of her climbing the chair, the table, the chair, crying up into the loft and telling Laman Grifﬁn, He's only a boy, tormented with his eyes, and when Laman says, He's a little shit and I want him out of the house,she cries and begs till there's whis- pering and grunting and moaning and nothing. In awhile they're snoring in the loft and my brothers are asleep around me. I can't stay in this house for if Laman Grifﬁn comes at me again I'll take a knife to his neck. I don't know what to do or where to go. I leave the house and follow the streets from the Sarsﬁeld Barracks to the Monument Café. I dream of how I'll get back at Laman some day. I'll go to America and see Joe Louis. I'll tell him my troubles and he'll understand because he comes from a poor family. He'll show me how to build up my muscles, how to hold my hands and use my feet. He'll show me how to dig my chin into my shoulder the way he does and how to let go with a right uppercut that will send Laman ﬂying.I'll drag Laman to the graveyard at Mungret where his family and Mam's family are buried and I'll cover him with earth all the way to his chin so that he won't be able to move and he'll beg for his life and I'll say, End of the road,Laman,you're going to meet your Maker,and he'll beg and beg while I trickle dirt on his face till it's covered completely and he's gasping and asking God for forgiveness for not giving me the bike and punching me all over the house and doing the excitement with my mother and I'll be laughing away because he's not in a state of grace after the excitement and he's going to hell as sure as God made little apples as he used to say himself. The streets are dark and I have to keep an eye out in case I might be lucky like Malachy long ago and ﬁnd ﬁsh and chips dropped by drunken soldiers.There's nothing on the ground. If I ﬁnd my uncle, Ab Sheehan, he might give me some of his Friday night ﬁsh and chips, but they tell me in the café he came and went already.I'm thirteen now so I don't call him Uncle Pat anymore. I call him Ab or The Abbot like everybody else. Surely if I go to Grandma's house he'll give me a piece of bread or something and maybe he'll let me stay the night. I can tell him I'll be working in a few weeks delivering telegrams and getting big tips at the post ofﬁce and ready to pay my own way. He's sitting up in bed ﬁnishing his ﬁsh and chips, dropping to the 295

ﬂoor the Limerick Leader they were wrapped in, wiping his mouth and hands with the blanket. He looks at me,That face is all swole. Did you fall on that face? I tell him I did because there's no use telling him anything else. He wouldn't understand. He says,You can stay in me mother's bed tonight. You can't walk the streets with that face and them two red eyes in your head. He says there's no food in the house,not a scrap of bread,and when he falls asleep I take the greasy newspaper from the ﬂoor.I lick the front page, which is all advertisements for ﬁlms and dances in the city. I lick the headlines. I lick the great attacks of Patton and Montgomery in France and Germany. I lick the war in the Paciﬁc. I lick the obituaries and the sad memorial poems,the sports pages,the market prices of eggs butter and bacon. I suck the paper till there isn't a smidgen of grease. I wonder what I'll do tomorrow. 296

XIV In the morning The Abbot gives me the money to go to Kathleen O'Connell's for bread,margarine,tea,milk.He boils water on the gas ring and tells me I can have a mug of tea and,Go aisy with the sugar,I'm not a millionaire.You can have a cut o' bread but don't make it too thick. It's July and school is over forever. In a few weeks I'll be delivering telegrams at the post ofﬁce, working like a man. In the weeks I'm idle I can do anything I like, get up in the morning, stay in bed, take long walks out the country like my father,wander around Limerick.If I had the money I'd go over to the Lyric Cinema, eat sweets, see Errol Flynn conquering everyone in sight. I can read the English and Irish papers The Abbot brings home or I can use the library cards of Laman Grif- ﬁn and my mother till I'm found out. Mam sends Michael with a milk bottle of warm tea, a few cuts of bread smeared with dripping, a note to say Laman Grifﬁn isn't angry anymore and I can come back. Michael says, Are you coming home, Ah, do, Frankie. Come on. I live here now. I'm never going back. But Malachy is gone to the army and you're here and I have no big brother.All the boys have big brothers and I only have Alphie. He's not even four and can't talk right. 297

I can't go back. I'm never going back.You can come here any time you like. His eyes glint with tears and that gives me such a pain in my heart I want to say,All right, I'll come with you. I'm only saying that. I know I'll never be able to face Laman Grifﬁn again and I don't know if I can look at my mother. I watch Michael go up the lane with the sole of his shoe broken and clacking along the pavement.When I start that job at the post ofﬁce I'll buy him shoes so I will. I'll give him an egg and take him to the Lyric Cinema for the ﬁlm and the sweets and then we'll go to Naughton's and eat ﬁsh and chips till our bellies are sticking out a mile.I'll get money some day for a house or a ﬂat with electric light and a lavatory and beds with sheets blankets pillows like the rest of the world.We'll have breakfast in a bright kitchen with ﬂowers dancing in a garden beyond,delicate cups and saucers,eggcups,eggs soft in the yolk and ready to melt the rich creamery butter, a teapot with a cozy on it, toast with butter and marmalade galore.We'll take our time and listen to music from the BBC or the American Armed Forces Network. I'll buy proper clothes for the whole family so our arses won't be hanging out of our pants and we won't have the shame. The thought of the shame brings a pain in my heart and starts me snifﬂing.The Abbot says, What's up with you? Didn't you have your bread? Didn't you have your tay? What more do you want? 'Tis an egg you'll be lookin' for next. There's no use talking to someone who was dropped on his head and sells papers for a living. He complains he can't be feeding me forever and I'll have to get my own bread and tea. He doesn't want to come home and ﬁnd me read- ing in the kitchen with the electric lightbulb blazing away. He can read numbers so he can and when he goes out to sell papers he reads the electric meter so he'll know how much I used and if I don't stop turn- ing on that light he'll take the fuse out and carry it in his pocket and if I put another fuse in he'll have the electricity pulled out altogether and go back to gas, which was good enough for his poor dead mother and will surely suit him for all he does is sit up in the bed to eat his ﬁsh and chips and count his money before he goes to sleep. I get up early like Dad and go on long walks into the country.I walk around the graveyard in the old abbey at Mungret where my mother's relations are buried and I go up the boreen to the Norman castle at Carrigogunnell where Dad brought me twice. I climb to the top and Ireland is spread out before me, the Shannon shining its way to the 298

Atlantic. Dad told me this castle was built hundreds of years ago and if you wait for the larks to stop their singing over there you can hear the Normans below hammering and talking and getting ready for battle. Once he brought me here in the dark so that we could hear Norman and Irish voices down through the centuries and I heard them. I did. Sometimes I'm up there alone on the heights of Carrigogunnell and there are voices of Norman girls from olden times laughing and singing in French and when I see them in my mind I'm tempted and I climb to the very top of the castle where once there was a tower and there in full view of Ireland I interfere with myself and spurt all over Carrigogunnell and ﬁelds beyond. That's a sin I could never tell a priest.Climbing to great heights and going at yourself before all of Ireland is surely worse than doing it in a private place with yourself or with another or with some class of a beast. Somewhere down there in the ﬁelds or along the banks of the Shannon a boy or a milkmaid might have looked up and seen me in my sin and if they did I'm doomed because the priests are always saying that any- one who exposes a child to sin will have a millstone tied around his neck and be cast into the sea. Still, the thought of someone watching me brings on the excite- ment again.I wouldn't want a small boy to be watching me.No,no,that would surely lead to the millstone,but if there was a milkmaid gawking up she'd surely get excited and go at herself though I don't know if girls can go at themselves when they don't have anything to go at.No equip- ment, as Mikey Molloy used to say. I wish that old deaf Dominican priest would come back so that I could tell him my troubles with the excitement but he's dead now and I'll have to face a priest who'll go on about the millstone and the doom. Doom.That's the favorite word of every priest in Limerick. I walk back along O'Connell Avenue and Ballinacurra where peo- ple have their bread and milk delivered early to their doorsteps and surely there's no harm if I borrow a loaf or a bottle with every inten- tion of giving it back when I get my job at the post ofﬁce.I'm not steal- ing, I'm borrowing, and that's not a mortal sin. Besides, I stood on top of a castle this morning and committed a sin far worse than stealing bread and milk and if you commit one sin you might as well commit a few more because you get the same sentence in hell. One sin, eternity. A dozen sins, eternity. Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, as my mother would 299

say. I drink the odd pint of milk and leave the bottle so that the milk- man won't be blamed for not delivering.I like milkmen because one of them gave me two broken eggs which I swallowed raw with bits of shells and all.He said I'd grow up powerful if I had nothing else but two eggs in a pint of porter every day.Everything you need is in the egg and everything you want is in the pint. Some houses get better bread than others. It costs more and that's what I take.I feel sorry for the rich people who will get up in the morn- ing and go to the door and ﬁnd their bread missing but I can't let myself starve to death.If I starve I'll never have the strength for my telegram boy job at the post ofﬁce, which means I'll have no money to put back all that bread and milk and no way of saving to go to America and if I can't go to America I might as well jump into the River Shannon. It's only a few weeks till I get my ﬁrst wages in the post ofﬁce and surely these rich people won't collapse with the hunger till then.They can always send the maid out for more.That's the difference between the poor and the rich. The poor can't send out for more because there's no money to send out for more and if there was they wouldn't have a maid to send. It's the maids I have to worry about.I have to be careful when I borrow the milk and the bread and they're at the front doors polishing knobs, knockers and letter boxes. If they see me they'll be running to the woman of the house, Oh, madam, madam, there's an urchin beyant that's makin' off with all the milk and bread. Beyant. Maids talk like that because they're all from the country, Mullingar heifers, says Paddy Clohessy's uncle, beef to the heels, and they wouldn't give you the steam of their piss. I bring home the bread and even if The Abbot is surprised he doesn't say,Where did you get it? because he was dropped on his head and that knocks the curiosity out of you. He just looks at me with his big eyes that are blue in the middle and yellow all around and slurps his tea from the great cracked mug his mother left behind.He tells me,That's me mug and don't be drinkin' your tay oush of ish. Oush of ish.That's the Limerick slum talk that always worried Dad. He said, I don't want my sons growing up in a Limerick lane saying, Oush of ish. It's common and low-class. Say out of it properly. And Mam said, I hope it keeps ﬁne for you but you're not doing much to get us oush of ish. 300

Out beyond Ballinacurra I climb orchard walls for apples. If there's a dog I move on because I don't have Paddy Clohessy's way of talking to them.Farmers come at me but they're always slow in their rubber boots and even if they jump on a bicycle to chase me I jump over walls where they can't take a bike. The Abbot knows where I got the apples. If you grow up in the lanes of Limerick you're bound to rob the odd orchard sooner or later. Even if you hate apples you have to rob orchards or your pals will say you're a sissy. I always offer The Abbot an apple but he won't eat it because of the scarcity of teeth in his head. He has ﬁve left and he won't risk leaving them in an apple.If I cut the apple into slices he still won't eat it because that's not the proper way to eat an apple.That's what he says and if I say, You slice bread before you eat it, don't you? he says, Apples is apples and bread is bread. That's how you talk when you're dropped on your head. Michael comes again with warm tea in a milk bottle and two cuts of fried bread. I tell him I don't need it anymore.Tell Mam I'm taking care of myself and I don't need her tea and fried bread, thank you very much. Michael is delighted when I give him an apple and I tell him come every second day and he can have more.That stops him from ask- ing me to go back to Laman Grifﬁn's and I'm glad it stops his tears. There's a market down in Irishtown where the farmers come on Saturdays with their vegetables, hens, eggs, butter. If I'm there early they'll give me a few pennies for helping unload their carts or motor cars.At the end of the day they'll give me vegetables they can't sell, any- thing crushed, bruised or rotten in parts. One farmer's wife always gives me cracked eggs and tells me,Fry them eggs tomorrow when you come back from Mass in a state of grace for if you ate them eggs with a sin on your sowl they'll stick in your gullet, so they will. She's a farmer's wife and that's how they talk. I'm not much better than a beggar now myself the way I stand at the doors of ﬁsh and chip shops when they're closing in hopes they might have burnt chips left over or bits of ﬁsh ﬂoating around in the grease. If they're in a hurry the shop owners will give me the chips and a sheet of paper for wrapping. The paper I like is the News of the World. It's banned in Ireland but people sneak it in from England for the shocking pictures of girls in swimming suits that are almost not there.Then there are stories of peo- 301

ple committing all kinds of sins you wouldn't ﬁnd in Limerick, getting divorces, committing adultery. Adultery. I still have to ﬁnd out what that word means, look it up in the library. I'm sure it's worse than what the masters taught us, bad thoughts, bad words, bad deeds. I take my chips home and get into bed like The Abbot. If he has a few pints taken he sits up eating his chips from the Limerick Leader and singing "The Road to Rasheen." I eat my chips. I lick the News of the World. I lick the stories about people doing shocking things. I lick the girls in their bathing suits and when there's nothing left to lick I look at the girls till The Abbot blows out the light and I'm committing a mor- tal sin under the blanket. I can go to the library any time with Mam's card or Laman Grif- ﬁn's.I'll never be caught because Laman is too lazy to get out of bed on a Saturday and Mam will never go near a library with the shame of her clothes. Miss O'Riordan smiles.The Lives of the Saints are waiting for you, Frank.Volumes and volumes.Butler,O'Hanlon,Baring-Gould.I've told the head librarian all about you and she's so pleased she's ready to give you your own grown-up card. Isn't that wonderful? Thanks, Miss O'Riordan. I'm reading all about St. Brigid, virgin, February ﬁrst. She was so beau- tiful that men from all over Ireland panted to marry her and her father wanted her to marry someone important. She didn't want to marry anyone so she prayed to God for help and He caused her eye to melt in her head so that it dribbled down her cheek and left such a great welt the men of Ireland lost interest. Then there's St. Wilgefortis, virgin martyr, July twentieth. Her mother had nine children, all at the same time, four sets of twins and Wilgefortis the odd one, all winding up martyrs for the faith.Wilgefor- tis was beautiful and her father wanted to marry her off to the King of Sicily.Wilgefortis was desperate and God helped her by allowing a beard and a mustache to grow on her face, which made the King of Sicily think twice but sent her father into such a rage he had her cruciﬁed beard and all. St.Wilgefortis is the one you pray to if you're an Englishwoman with a troublesome husband. 302

The priests never tell us about virgin martyrs like St.Agatha, Feb- ruary ﬁfth. February is a powerful month for virgin martyrs. Sicilian pagans ordered Agatha to give up her faith in Jesus and like all the vir- gin martyrs she said, Nay.They tortured her, stretched her on the rack, tore her sides with iron hooks,burned her with blazing torches,and she said, Nay, I will not deny Our Lord.They crushed her breasts and cut them off but when they rolled her over hot coals it was more than she could bear so she expired, giving praise. Virgin martyrs always died singing hymns and giving praise not minding one bit if lions tore big chunks from their sides and gobbled them on the spot. How is it the priests never told us about St. Ursula and her eleven thousand maiden martyrs,October twenty-ﬁrst? Her father wanted her to marry a pagan king but she said, I'll go away for awhile, three years, and think about it. So off she goes with her thousand noble ladies- in-waiting and their companions, ten thousand.They sailed around for awhile and traipsed through various countries till they stopped in Cologne where the chief of the Huns asked Ursula to marry him. Nay, she said, and the Huns killed her and the maidens with her. Why couldn't she say yes and save the lives of eleven thousand virgins? Why did virgin martyrs have to be so stubborn? I like St. Moling, an Irish bishop. He didn't live in a palace like the bishop of Limerick.He lived in a tree and when other saints visited him for dinner they would sit around on branches like birds having a grand time with their water and dry bread.He was walking along one day and a leper said, Hoy, St. Moling, where are you going? I'm going to Mass, says St. Moling.Well, I'd like to go to Mass too, so why don't you hoist me up on your back and carry me? St.Moling did but he no sooner had the leper up on his back than the leper started to complain.Your hair shirt,he said,is hard on my sores,take it off.St.Moling took off the shirt and off they went again.Then the leper says, I need to blow my nose. St. Moling says, I don't have any class of a handkerchief, use your hand. The leper says, I can't hold on to you and blow my nose at the same time.All right, says St. Moling, you can blow into my hand.That won't do, says the leper, I barely have a hand left with the leprosy and I can't hold on and blow into your hand.If you were a proper saint you'd twist around here and suck the stuff out of my head. St. Moling didn't want to suck the leper's snot but he did and offered it up and praised God for the privilege. 303

I could understand my father sucking the bad stuff out of Michael's head when he was a baby and desperate but I don't understand why God wanted St. Moling to go around sucking the snot out of lepers' heads.I don't understand God at all and even if I'd like to be a saint and have everyone adore me I'd never suck the snot of a leper. I'd like to be a saint but if that's what you have to do I think I'll stay the way I am. Still, I'm ready to spend my life in this library reading about virgins and virgin martyrs till I get into trouble with Miss O'Riordan over a book someone left on the table.The author is Lin Yütang.Anyone can tell this is a Chinese name and I'm curious to know what the Chinese talk about. It's a book of essays about love and the body and one of his words sends me to the dictionary.Turgid. He says,The male organ of copulation becomes turgid and is inserted into the receptive female oriﬁce. Turgid.The dictionary says swollen and that's what I am, standing there looking at the dictionary because I know now what Mikey Mol- loy was talking about all along,that we're no different from the dogs that get stuck in each other in the streets and it's shocking to think of all the mothers and fathers doing the likes of this. My father lied to me for years about the Angel on the Seventh Step. Miss O'Riordan wants to know what word I'm looking for. She always looks worried when I'm at the dictionary so I tell her I'm look- ing for canonize or beatiﬁc or any class of a religious word. And what's this? she says.This is not the Lives of the Saints. She picks up Lin Yütang and starts reading the page where I left the book face down on the table. Mother o' God. Is this what you were reading? I saw this in your hand. Well, I—I—only wanted to see if the Chinese, if the Chinese, ah, had any saints. Oh, indeed, you did.This is disgraceful. Filth. No wonder the Chi- nese are the way they are.But what could you expect of slanty eyes and yellow skin and you, now that I look at you, have a bit of the slanty eye yourself.You are to leave this library at once. But I'm reading the Lives of the Saints. Out or I'll call the head librarian and she'll have the guards on you. Out.You should be running to the priest and confessing your sins.Out, and before you go hand me the library cards of your poor mother and Mr. Grifﬁn. I have a good mind to write to your poor mother and I 304

would if I thought it wouldn't destroy her entirely. Lin Yütang, indeed. Out. There's no use trying to talk to librarians when they're in that state. You could stand there for an hour telling them all you've read about Brigid and Wilgefortis and Agatha and Ursula and the maiden martyrs but all they think about is one word on one page of Lin Yütang. The People's Park is behind the library. It's a sunny day, the grass is dry, and I'm worn out begging for chips and putting up with librarians who get into a state over turgid and I'm looking at the clouds drifting above the monument and drifting off myself all turgid till I'm having a dream about virgin martyrs in bathing suits in the News of the World pelt- ing Chinese writers with sheeps' bladders and I wake up in a state of excitement with something hot and sticky pumping out of me oh God my male organ of copulation sticking out a mile people in the park giv- ing me curious looks and mothers telling their children come over here love come away from that fella someone should call the guards on him. The day before my fourteenth birthday I see myself in the glass in Grandma's sideboard.The way I look how can I ever start my job at the post ofﬁce. Everything is torn, shirt, gansey, short pants, stockings, and my shoes are ready to fall off my feet entirely.Relics of oul'decency,my mother would call them. If my clothes are bad I'm worse. No matter how I drench my hair under the tap it sticks out in all directions.The best cure for standing up hair is spit, only it's hard to spit on your own head.You have to let go with a good one up in the air and duck to catch it on your poll. My eyes are red and oozing yellow, there are matching red and yellow pimples all over my face and my front teeth are so black with rot I'll never be able to smile in my life. I have no shoulders and I know the whole world admires shoulders. When a man dies in Limerick the women always say, Grand man he was,shoulders that big and wide he wouldn't come in the door for you, had to come in sideways.When I die they'll say, Poor little divil, died without a sign of a shoulder.I wish I had some sign of a shoulder so that people would know I was at least fourteen years of age.All the boys in Leamy's had shoulders except for Fintan Slattery and I don't want to be like him with no shoulders and knees worn away from prayer. If I had any money left I'd light a candle to St.Francis and ask him if there's any chance God could be persuaded to perform a miracle on my shoulders. 305

Or if I had a stamp I could write to Joe Louis and say, Dear Joe, Is there any chance you could tell me where you got your powerful shoulders even though you were poor? I have to look decent for my job so I take off all my clothes and stand naked in the backyard washing them under the tap with a bar of carbolic soap.I hang them on Grandma's clothesline,shirt,gansey,pants, stockings, and pray to God it won't rain, pray they'll be dry for tomor- row, which is the start of my life. I can't go anywhere in my pelt so I stay in bed all day reading old newspapers, getting excited with the girls in the News of the World and thanking God for the drying sun.The Abbot comes home at ﬁve and makes tea downstairs and even though I'm hungry I know he'll grum- ble if I ask him for anything. He knows the one thing that worries me is he might go to Aunt Aggie and complain I'm staying in Grandma's house and sleeping in her bed and if Aunt Aggie hears that she'll come over and throw me into the street. He hides the bread when he's ﬁnished and I can never ﬁnd it.You would think that one who was never dropped on his head would be able to ﬁnd the hidden bread of one who was dropped on his head. Then I realize if the bread is not in the house he must take it with him in the pocket of the overcoat he wears winter and summer.The minute I hear him clumping from the kitchen to the backyard lavatory I run downstairs, pull the loaf from the pocket, cut off a thick slice, back into the pocket, up the stairs and into bed. He can never say a word, never accuse me.You'd have to be a thief of the worst class to steal one slice of bread and no one would ever believe him, not even Aunt Aggie. Besides, she'd bark at him and say,What are you doing anyway going around with a loaf of bread in your pocket? That's no place for a loaf of bread. I chew the bread slowly. One mouthful every ﬁfteen minutes will make it last and if I wash it down with water the bread will swell in my belly and give me the full feeling. I look out the back window to make sure the evening sun is drying my clothes. Other backyards have lines with clothes that are bright and colorful and dance in the wind.Mine hang from the line like dead dogs. The sun is bright but it's cold and damp in the house and I wish I had something to wear in the bed.I have no other clothes and if I touch anything of The Abbot's he'll surely run to Aunt Aggie.All I can ﬁnd 306

in the wardrobe is Grandma's old black woolen dress.You're not sup- posed to wear your Grandmother's old dress when she's dead and you're a boy but what does it matter if it keeps you warm and you're in bed under the blankets where no one will ever know. The dress has the smell of old dead grandmother and I worry she might rise from the grave and curse me before the whole family and all assembled.I pray to St.Francis,ask him to keep her in the grave where she belongs,promise him a candle when I start my job, remind him the robe he wore him- self wasn't too far from a dress and no one ever tormented him over it and fall asleep with the image of his face in my dream. The worst thing in the world is to be sleeping in your dead grand- mother's bed wearing her black dress when your uncle The Abbot falls on his arse outside South's pub after a night of drinking pints and peo- ple who can't mind their own business rush to Aunt Aggie's house to tell her so that she gets Uncle Pa Keating to help her carry The Abbot home and upstairs to where you're sleeping and she barks at you,What are you doin'in this house,in that bed? Get up and put on the kettle for tea for your poor uncle Pat that fell down, and when you don't move she pulls the blankets and falls backward like one seeing a ghost and yelling Mother o' God what are you doin' in me dead mother's dress? That's the worst thing of all because it's hard to explain that you're getting ready for the big job in your life, that you washed your clothes, they're drying abroad on the line, and it was so cold you had to wear the only thing you could ﬁnd in the house, and it's even harder to talk to Aunt Aggie when The Abbot is groaning in the bed, Me feet is like a ﬁre,put water on me feet,and Uncle Pa Keating is covering his mouth with his hand and collapsing against the wall laughing and telling you that you look gorgeous and black suits you and would you ever straighten your hem.You don't know what to do when Aunt Aggie tells you, Get out of that bed and put the kettle on downstairs for tea for your poor uncle. Should you take off the dress and put on a blanket or should you go as you are? One minute she's screaming,What are you doin' in me poor mother's dress? the next she's telling you put on that bloody kettle. I tell her I washed my clothes for the big job. What big job? Telegram boy at the post ofﬁce. She says if the post ofﬁce is hiring the likes of you they must be in a desperate way altogether, go down and put on that kettle. The next worse thing is to be out in the backyard ﬁlling the kettle 307

from the tap with the moon beaming away and Kathleen Purcell from next door perched up on the wall looking for her cat. God, Frankie McCourt, what are you doin' in your grandmother's dress? and you have to stand there in the dress with the kettle in your hand and explain how you washed your clothes which are hanging there on the line for all to see and you were so cold in the bed you put on your grand- mother's dress and your uncle Pat, The Abbot, fell down and was brought home by Aunt Aggie and her husband, Pa Keating, and she drove you into the backyard to ﬁll this kettle and you'll take off this dress as soon as ever your clothes are dry because you never had any desire to go through life in your dead grandmother's dress. Now Kathleen Purcell lets out a scream,falls off the wall,forgets the cat, and you can hear her giggling into her blind mother, Mammy, Mammy,wait till I tell you about Frankie McCourt abroad in the back- yard in his dead grandmother's dress.You know that once Kathleen Pur- cell gets a bit of scandal the whole lane will know it before morning and you might as well stick your head out the window and make a gen- eral announcement about yourself and the dress problem. By the time the kettle boils The Abbot is asleep from the drink and Aunt Aggie says she and Uncle Pa will have a drop of tea themselves and she doesn't mind if I have a drop myself. Uncle Pa says on second thought the black dress could be the cassock of a Dominican priest and he goes down on his knees and says, Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.Aunt Aggie says,Get up,you oul'eejit,and stop makin'a feck of religion.Then she says,And you what are you doin' in this house? I can't tell her about Mam and Laman Grifﬁn and the excitement in the loft. I tell her I was thinking of staying here a while because of the great distance from Laman Grifﬁn's house to the post ofﬁce and as soon as I get on my feet we'll surely ﬁnd a decent place and we'll all move on, my mother and brothers and all. Well, she says, that's more than your father would do. 308

XV It's hard to sleep when you know the next day you're fourteen and starting your ﬁrst job as a man.The Abbot wakes at dawn moaning. Would I ever make him some tay and if I do I can have a big cut of bread from the half loaf in his pocket which he was keeping there out of the way of the odd rat and if I look in Grandma's gramophone where she used to keep the records I'll ﬁnd a jar of jam. He can't read, he can't write, but he knows where to hide the jam. I bring The Abbot his tea and bread and make some for myself. I put on my damp clothes and get into the bed hoping that if I stay there the clothes will dry from my own heat before I go to work. Mam always says it's the damp clothes that give you the consumption and an early grave.The Abbot is sitting up telling me he has a terrible pain in his head from a dream where I was wearing his poor mother's black dress and she ﬂying around screaming, Sin, sin, 'tis a sin. He ﬁnishes his tea and falls into a snore sleep and I wait for his clock to say half-past eight,time to get up and be at the post ofﬁce at nine even if the clothes are still damp on my skin. On my way out I wonder why Aunt Aggie is coming down the lane. She must be coming to see if The Abbot is dead or needing a doctor. She says,What time do you have to be at that job? Nine. All right. 309

She turns and walks with me to the post ofﬁce on Henry Street. She doesn't say a word and I wonder if she's going to the post ofﬁce to denounce me for sleeping in my grandmother's bed and wearing her black dress. She says, Go up and tell them your aunt is down here wait- ing for you and you'll be an hour late. If they want to argue I'll go up and argue. Why do I have to be an hour late? Do what you're bloody well told. There are telegram boys sitting on a bench along a wall.There are two women at a desk, one fat, one thin.The thin one says,Yes? My name is Frank McCourt, miss, and I'm here to start work. What kind of work would that be now? Telegram boy, miss. The thin one cackles, Oh, God, I thought you were here to clean the lavatories. No, miss. My mother brought a note from the priest, Dr. Cowpar, and there's supposed to be a job. Oh, there is, is there? And do you know what day this is? I do, miss. 'Tis my birthday. I'm fourteen. Isn't that grand, says the fat woman. Today is Thursday, says the thin woman.Your job starts on Monday. Go away and wash yourself and come back then. The telegram boys along the wall are laughing. I don't know why but I feel my face turning hot. I tell the women,Thank you, and on the way out I hear the thin one, Jesus above, Maureen, who dragged in that specimen? and they laugh along with the telegram boys. Aunt Aggie says,Well? and I tell her I don't start till Monday. She says my clothes are a disgrace and what did I wash them in. Carbolic soap. They smell like dead pigeons and you're making a laughingstock of the whole family. She takes me to Roche's Stores and buys me a shirt, a gansey, a pair of short pants, two pairs of stockings and a pair of summer shoes on sale. She gives me two shillings to have tea and a bun for my birth- day. She gets on the bus to go back up O'Connell Street too fat and lazy to walk. Fat and lazy, no son of her own, and still she buys me the clothes for my new job. I turn toward Arthur's Quay with the package of new clothes under 310

my arm and I have to stand at the edge of the River Shannon so that the whole world won't see the tears of a man the day he's fourteen. Monday morning I'm up early to wash my face and ﬂatten my hair with water and spit.The Abbot sees me in my new clothes. Jaysus, he says, is it gettin' married you are? and goes back to sleep. Mrs.O'Connell,the fat woman,says,Well,well,aren't we the height of fashion,and the thin one,Miss Barry,says,Did you rob a bank on the weekend? and there's a great laugh from the telegram boys sitting on the bench along the wall. I'm told to sit at the end of the bench and wait for my turn to go out with telegrams.Some telegram boys in uniforms are the permanent ones who took the exam.They can stay in the post ofﬁce forever if they like,take the next exam for postman and then the one for clerk that lets them work inside selling stamps and money orders behind the counter downstairs.The post ofﬁce gives permanent boys big waterproof capes for the bad weather and they get two weeks holiday every year. Every- one says these are good jobs,steady and pensionable and respectable,and if you get a job like this you never have to worry again in your whole life, so you don't. Temporary telegram boys are not allowed to stay in the job beyond the age of sixteen.There are no uniforms, no holidays, the pay is less, and if you stay out sick a day you can be ﬁred.No excuses.There are no waterproof capes. Bring your own raincoat or dodge the raindrops. Mrs.O'Connell calls me to her desk to give me a black leather belt and pouch. She says there's a great shortage of bicycles so I'll have to walk my ﬁrst batch of telegrams. I'm to go to the farthest address ﬁrst, work my way back,and don't take all day.She's long enough in the post ofﬁce to know how long it takes to deliver six telegrams even by foot.I'm not to be stopping in pubs or bookies or even home for a cup of tea and if I do I'll be found out. I'm not to be stopping in chapels to say a prayer. If I have to pray do it on the hoof or on the bicycle. If it rains pay no attention. Deliver the telegrams and don't be a sissy. One telegram is addressed to Mrs. Clohessy of Arthur's Quay and that couldn't be anyone but Paddy's mother. 311

Is that you, Frankie McCourt? she says. God, I wouldn't know you you're that big. Come in, will you. She's wearing a bright frock with ﬂowers all over and shiny new shoes.There are two children on the ﬂoor playing with a toy train. On the table there is a teapot, cups with saucers, a bottle of milk, a loaf of bread, butter, jam.There are two beds over by the window where there were none before.The big bed in the corner is empty and she must know what I'm wondering.He's gone,she says,but he's not dead.Gone t' England with Paddy. Have a cup o' tay an' a bit o' bread.You need it, God help us.You look like one left over from the Famine itself.Ate that bread an' jam an' build yourself up. Paddy always talked about you and Dennis, my poor husband that was in the bed, never got over the day your mother came an'sang the song about the Kerry dancing.He's over in England now making sandwiches in a canteen and sending me a few bob every week.You'd wonder what the English are thinking about when they take a man that has the consumption and give him a job making sandwiches. Paddy has a grand job in a pub in Cricklewood, which is in England. Dennis would still be here if it wasn't for Paddy climbin' the wall for the tongue. Tongue? Dennis had the craving, so he did, for a nice sheep's head with a bit of cabbage and a spud so up with me to Barry the butcher with the last few shillings I had. I boiled that head an' sick an' all as he was Dennis couldn't wait for it to be done. He was a demon there in the bed callin' for the head an' when I gave it to him on the plate he was delighted with himself suckin' the marrow outa every inch of that head.Then he ﬁnishes an' he says, Mary, where is the tongue? What tongue? says I. The tongue of this sheep. Every sheep is born with a tongue that lets him go ba ba ba and there's a great lack of tongue in this head. Go up to Barry the butcher and demand it. So up with me to Barry the butcher and he said,That bloody sheep came in here bleatin'an'cryin'so much we cut the tongue from her and thrun it to the dog who gobbled it up and ever since ba bas like a sheep and if he doesn't quit I'll cut his tongue and throw it to the cat. Back I go to Dennis and he gets frantic in the bed. I want that tongue, he says.All the nourishment is in the tongue.And what do you think happens next but my Paddy,that was your friend,goes up to Barry 312

the butcher after dark,climbs the wall,cuts the tongue of a sheep's head that's on a hook on the wall and brings it back to his poor father in the bed. Of course I have to boil that tongue with salt galore and Dennis, God love him, ates it, lies back in the bed a minute, throws back the blanket and stands out on his two feet announcing to the world that consumption or no consumption, he's not going to die in that bed, if he's going to die at all it might as well be under a German bomb with him making a few pounds for his family instead of whining in the bed there beyond. She shows me a letter from Paddy. He's working in his uncle Anthony's pub twelve hours a day, twenty-ﬁve shillings a week and every day soup and a sandwich. He's delighted when the Germans come over with the bombs so that he can sleep while the pub is closed. At night he sleeps on the ﬂoor of the hallway upstairs. He will send his mother two pounds every month and he's saving the rest to bring her and the family to England where they'll be much better off in one room in Cricklewood than ten rooms in Arthur's Quay. She'll be able to get a job no bother.You'd have to be a sad case not to be able to get a job in a country that's at war especially with Yanks pouring in and spend- ing money right and left. Paddy himself is planning to get a job in the middle of London where Yanks leave tips big enough to feed an Irish family of six for a week. Mrs. Clohessy says,We have enough money for food and shoes at last, thanks be to God and His Blessed Mother.You'll never guess who Paddy met over there in England fourteen years of age an' workin' like a man. Brendan Kiely, the one ye used to call Question.Workin' he is an' savin' so he can go an' join the Mounties an' ride all over Canada like Nelson Eddy singin' I'll be callin' you ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh. If it wasn't for Hitler we'd all be dead an'isn't that a terrible thing to say. And how's your poor mother, Frankie? She's grand, Mrs. Clohessy. No, she's not. I seen her in the Dispensary and she looks worse than my Dennis did in the bed. You have to mind your poor mother.You look desperate too, Frankie, with them two red eyes starin' outa your head. Here's a little tip for you.Thruppence. Buy yourself a sweet.MM I will, Mrs. Clohessy. Do. 313

At the end of the week Mrs.O'Connell hands me the ﬁrst wages of my life, a pound, my ﬁrst pound. I run down the stairs and up to O'Con- nell Street,the main street,where the lights are on and people are going home from work, people like me with wages in their pockets. I want them to know I'm like them, I'm a man, I have a pound. I walk up one side of O'Connell Street and down the other and hope they'll notice me.They don't. I want to wave my pound note at the world so they'll say,There he goes, Frankie McCourt the workingman, with a pound in his pocket. It's Friday night and I can do anything I like. I can have ﬁsh and chips and go to the Lyric Cinema. No, no more Lyric. I don't have to sit up in the gods anymore with people all around me cheering on the Indians killing General Custer and the Africans chasing Tarzan all over the jungle. I can go to the Savoy Cinema now, pay sixpence for a seat down front where there's a better class of people eating boxes of choco- lates and covering their mouths when they laugh.After the ﬁlm I can have tea and buns in the restaurant upstairs. Michael is across the street calling me. He's hungry and wonders if there's any chance he could go to The Abbot's for a bit of bread and stay there for the night instead of going all the way to Laman Grifﬁn's. I tell him he doesn't have to worry about a bit of bread.We'll go to the Coliseum Café and have ﬁsh and chips, all he wants, lemonade galore, and then we'll go to see Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney and eat two big bars of chocolate.After the ﬁlm we have tea and buns and we sing and dance like Cagney all the way to The Abbot's. Michael says it must be great to be in America where people have nothing else to do but sing and dance. He's half asleep but he says he's going there some day to sing and dance and would I help him go and when he's asleep I start thinking about America and how I have to save money for my fare instead of squandering it on ﬁsh and chips and tea and buns. I'll have to save a few shillings from my pound because if I don't I'll be in Limerick forever. I'm fourteen now and if I save something every week surely I should be able to go to America by the time I'm twenty. There are telegrams for ofﬁces, shops, factories where there's no hope of a tip.Clerks take the telegrams without a look at you or a thank you.There are telegrams for the respectable people with maids along 314

the Ennis Road and the North Circular Road where there's no hope of a tip. Maids are like clerks, they don't look at you or say thank you. There are telegrams for the houses of priests and nuns and they have maids, too, even if they say poverty is noble. If you waited for tips from priests or nuns you'd die on their doorstep.There are telegrams for peo- ple miles outside the city, farmers with muddy yards and dogs who want to eat your legs.There are telegrams for rich people in big houses with gate lodges and miles of land surrounded by walls.The gatekeeper waves you in and you have to cycle for miles up long drives past lawns, ﬂower beds,fountains to reach the big house.If the weather is ﬁne peo- ple are playing croquet,the Protestant game,or strolling around,talking and laughing, all decked out in ﬂowery dresses and blazers with crests and golden buttons and you'd never know there was a war on.There are Bentleys and Rolls-Royces parked outside the great front door where a maid tells you go around to the servants'entrance don't you know any better. People in the big houses have English accents and they don't tip telegram boys. The best people for tips are widows,Protestant ministers'wives and the poor in general.Widows know when the telegram money order is due from the English government and they wait by the window.You have to be careful if they ask you in for a cup of tea because one of the temporary boys, Scrawby Luby, said an old widow of thirty-ﬁve had him in for tea and tried to take down his pants and he had to run out of the house though he was really tempted and had to go to confession the next Saturday.He said it was very awkward hopping up on the bike with his thing sticking out but if you cycle very fast and think of the sufferings of the Virgin Mary you'll go soft in no time. Protestant ministers' wives would never carry on like Scrawby Luby's old widow unless they're widows themselves. Christy Wallace, who is a permanent telegram boy and ready to be a postman any day, says Protestants don't care what they do even if they're ministers' wives. They're doomed anyway, so what does it matter if they have a bit of a romp with a telegram boy.All the telegram boys like Protestant minis- ters' wives.They might have maids but they answer doors themselves and say, One moment, please, and give you sixpence. I'd like to talk to them and ask them how it feels to be doomed but they might get offended and take back the sixpence. The Irishmen working in England send their telegram money 315

orders on Friday nights and all day Saturday and that's when we get the good tips.The minute we deliver one batch we're out with another. The worst lanes are in the Irishtown, off High Street or Mungret Street, worse than Roden Lane or O'Keeffe's Lane or any lane I lived in.There are lanes with channels running down the middle. Mothers stand at doors and yell gardyloo when they empty their slop buckets. Children make paper boats or ﬂoat matchboxes with little sails on the greasy water. When you ride into a lane the children call out,Here's the telegram boy, here's the telegram boy.They run to you and the women wait at the door.If you give a small child a telegram for his mother he's the hero of the family. Little girls know they're supposed to wait till the boys get their chance though they can get the telegram if they have no brothers. Women at the door will call to you that they have no money now but if you're in this lane tomorrow knock on the door for your tip, God bless you an' all belongin' to you. Mrs. O'Connell and Miss Barry at the post ofﬁce tell us every day our job is to deliver telegrams and nothing else.We are not to be doing things for people, going to the shop for groceries or any other kind of message.They don't care if people are dying in the bed.They don't care if people are legless, lunatic or crawling on the ﬂoor.We are to deliver the telegram and that's all. Mrs. O'Connell says, I know everything ye do, everything, for the people of Limerick have their eye on ye and there are reports which I have here in my drawers. A ﬁne place to keep reports, says Toby Mackey under his breath. But Mrs. O'Connell and Miss Barry don't know what it's like in the lane when you knock on a door and someone says come in and you go in and there's no light and there's a pile of rags on a bed in a corner the pile saying who is it and you say telegram and the pile of rags tells you would you ever go to the shop for me I'm starving with the hunger and I'd give me two eyes for a cup of tea and what are you going to do say I'm busy and ride off on your bike and leave the pile of rags there with a telegram money order that's pure useless because the pile of rags is helpless to get out of the bed to go to the post ofﬁce to cash the bloody money order. What are you supposed to do? 316

You're told never never go to the post ofﬁce to cash one of those money orders for anyone or you'll lose your job forever. But what are you supposed to do when an old man that was in the Boer War hun- dreds of years ago says his legs are gone and he'd be forever grateful if you'd go to Paddy Considine in the post ofﬁce and tell him the situa- tion and Paddy will surely cash the money order and keep two shillings for yourself grand boy that you are.Paddy Considine says no bother but don't tell anyone or I'd be out on my arse and so would you, son.The old man from the Boer War says he knows you have telegrams to deliver now but would you ever come back tonight and maybe go to the shop for him for he doesn't have a thing in the house and he's freezing on top of it. He sits in an old armchair in the corner covered with bits of blan- kets and a bucket behind the chair that stinks enough to make you sick and when you look at that old man in the dark corner you want to get a hose with hot water and strip him and wash him down and give him a big feed of rashers and eggs and mashed potatoes with loads of butter salt and onions. I want to take the man from the Boer War and the pile of rags in the bed and put them in a big sunny house in the country with birds chirping away outside the window and a stream gurgling. Mrs. Spillane in Pump Lane off Carey's Road has two crippled twin children with big blond heads, small bodies, and bits of legs that dangle over the edges of the chairs. They look into the ﬁre all day and say, Where's Daddy? They speak English like everybody else but they babble away to one another in a language they made up,Hung sup tea tea sup hung. Mrs. Spillane says that means,When are we get- ting our supper? She tells me she's lucky if her husband sends four pounds a month and she's beside herself with the abuse she gets from the Dispensary over him being in England.The children are only four and they're very bright even if they can't walk or take care of themselves. If they could walk, if they were any way normal, she'd pack up and move to England out of this godforsaken country that fought so long for free- dom and look at the state of us, De Valera in his mansion above in Dublin the dirty oul' bastard and the rest of the politicians that can all go to hell, God forgive me.The priests can go to hell too and I won't ask God to forgive me for saying the likes of that.There they are, the priests and the nuns telling us Jesus was poor and 'tis no shame, lorries driving up to their houses with crates and barrels of whiskey and wine, 317

eggs galore and legs of ham and they telling us what we should give up for Lent. Lent, my arse.What are we to give up when we have Lent all year long? I want to take Mrs. Spillane and her two blond crippled children and put them in that house in the country with the pile of rags and the man from the Boer War and wash everyone and let them all sit in the sun with the birds singing and the streams gurgling. I can't leave the pile of rags alone with a useless money order because the pile is an old woman, Mrs. Gertrude Daly, all twisted with every class of disease you can get in a Limerick lane, arthritis, rheuma- tism, falling hair, a nostril half gone from her jabbing at it with her ﬁn- ger, and you wonder what kind of a world is it when this old woman sits up from the rags and smiles at you with teeth that gleam white in the dark, her own teeth and perfect. That's right, she says, me own teeth, and when I rot in the grave they'll ﬁnd me teeth a hundred years from now all white an' shiny an' I'll be declared a saint. The telegram money order, three pounds, is from her son. It has a message, Happy Birthday, Mammy,Your fond son, Teddy. She says, A wonder he can spare it, the little shit, trottin' around with every tart in Piccadilly. She asks if I'd ever do her a favor and cash the money order and get her a little Baby Powers whiskey at the pub, a loaf of bread, a pound of lard, seven potatoes, one for each day of the week.Would I boil a potato for her, mash it up with a lump of lard, give her a cut of bread, bring her a drop of water to go with the whiskey? Would I go to O'Connor the chemist for ointment for her sores and while I'm at it bring some soap so she can give her body a good scrub and she'll be forever grateful and say a prayer for me and here's a couple of shillings for all my troubles. Ah, no thanks, ma'am. Take the money. Little tip.You did me great favors. I couldn't, ma'am, the way you are. Take the money or I'll tell the post ofﬁce you're not to deliver my telegram anymore. Oh, all right, ma'am.Thanks very much. Good night, son. Be good to your mother. Good night, Mrs. Daly. 318

School starts in September and some days Michael stops at The Abbot's before the walk home to Laman Grifﬁn's.On rainy days he says,Can I stay here tonight? and soon he doesn't want to go back to Laman Grifﬁn's at all. He's worn out and hungry with two miles out and two miles back. When Mam comes looking for him I don't know what to say to her.I don't know how to look at her and I keep my eyes off to one side. She says,How's the job? as if nothing ever happened in Laman Grifﬁn's and I say, Grand, as if nothing ever happened in Laman Grifﬁn's. If the rain is too heavy for her to go home she stays in the small room upstairs with Alphie. She goes back to Laman's the next day but Michael stays and soon she's moving in herself bit by bit till she stops going to Laman's altogether. The Abbot pays the rent every week. Mam gets the relief and the food dockets till someone informs on her and she's cut off from the Dispensary. She's told that if her son is bringing in a pound a week that's more than some families get on the dole and she should be grateful he has a job. Now I have to hand over my wages. Mam says,A pound? Is that all you get for riding around in all kinds of weather? This would be four dollars in America. Four dollars.And you couldn't feed a cat for four dollars in New York. If you were delivering telegrams for Western Union in New York you'd be earning twenty-ﬁve dollars a week and living in luxury.She always translates Irish money into Amer- ican so that she won't forget and tries to convince everyone times were better over there. Some weeks she lets me keep two shillings but if I go to a ﬁlm or buy a secondhand book there's nothing left, I won't be able to save for my fare, and I'll be stuck in Limerick till I'm an old man of twenty-ﬁve. Malachy writes from Dublin to say he's fed up and doesn't want to spend the rest of his life blowing a trumpet in the army band. He's home in a week and complains when he has to share the big bed with Michael,Alphie and me. He had his own army cot up there in Dublin with sheets and blankets and a pillow. Now he's back to overcoats and a bolster that sends up a cloud of feathers when you touch it. Mam says, Pity about you. I'm sorry for your troubles. The Abbot has his own bed, and my mother has the small room.We're all together again, no Laman tormenting us. We make tea and fried bread and sit on the kitchen ﬂoor. The Abbot says you're not supposed to be sitting on 319

kitchen ﬂoors, what are tables and chairs for? He tells Mam that Frankie is not right in the head and Mam says we'll all catch our death from the damp of the ﬂoor.We sit on the ﬂoor and sing and Mam and The Abbot sit on chairs. She sings "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" and the Abbot sings "The Road to Rasheen" and we still don't know what his song is about. We sit on the ﬂoor and tell stories about things that happened, things that never happened and things that will happen when we all go to America. There are slow days at the post ofﬁce and we sit on the bench and talk. We can talk but we are not to laugh.Miss Barry says we should be grate- ful we're getting paid to sit there,bunch of idlers and streetboys that we are,and that there is to be no laughing.Getting paid for sitting and chat- ting is no laughing matter and the ﬁrst titter out of any of us and out we go till we come to our senses and if the tittering continues we'll be reported to the proper authorities. The boys talk about her under their breath.Toby Mackey says,What that oul' bitch needs is a good rub o' the relic, a good rub o' the brush. Her mother was a streetwalking ﬂaghopper and her father escaped from a lunatic asylum with bunions on his balls and warts on his wank. There is laughing along the bench and Miss Barry calls to us, I warned ye against the laughing.Mackey,what is it you're prattling about over there? I said we'd all be better off out in the fresh air on this ﬁne day deliv- ering telegrams, Miss Barry. I'm sure you did,Mackey.Your mouth is a lavatory.Did you hear me? I did, Miss Barry. You have been heard on the stairs, Mackey. Yes, Miss Barry. Shut up, Mackey. I will, Miss Barry. Not another word, Mackey. No, Miss Barry. I said shut up, Mackey. All right, Miss Barry. That's the end of it, Mackey. Don't try me. I won't, Miss Barry. Mother o' God give me patience. 320

Yes, Miss Barry. Take the last word, Mackey.Take it, take it, take it. I will, Miss Barry. Toby Mackey is a temporary telegram boy like me. He saw a ﬁlm called The Front Page and now he wants to go to America some day and be a tough newspaper reporter with a hat and a cigarette. He keeps a notebook in his pocket because a good reporter has to write down what happens. Facts. He has to write down facts not a lot of bloody poetry, which is all you hear in Limerick with men in pubs going on about our great sufferings under the English. Facts, Frankie. He writes down the number of telegrams he delivers and how far he travels.We sit on the bench making sure we don't laugh and he tells me that if we deliver forty telegrams a day that's two hundred a week and that's ten thousand a year and twenty thousand in our two years at the job. If we cycle one hundred and twenty-ﬁve miles in a week that's thirteen thousand miles in two years and that's halfway around the world, Frankie, and no won- der there isn't a scrap of ﬂesh on our arses. Toby says nobody knows Limerick like the telegram boy.We know every avenue, road, street, terrace, mews, place, close, lane. Jasus, says Toby, there isn't a door in Limerick we don't know.We knock on all kinds of doors, iron, oak, plywood.Twenty thousand doors, Frankie.We rap, kick, push.We ring and buzz bells.We shout and whistle,Telegram boy, telegram boy.We drop telegrams in letter boxes, shove them under doors, throw them over the transom.We climb in windows where peo- ple are bedridden.We ﬁght off every dog who wants to turn us into din- ner.You never know what's going to happen when you hand people their telegrams.They laugh and sing and dance and cry and scream and fall down in a weakness and you wonder if they'll wake up at all and give you the tip.It's not a bit like delivering telegrams in America where Mickey Rooney rides around in a ﬁlm called The Human Comedy and people are pleasant and falling over themselves to give you a tip, invit- ing you in, giving you a cup of tea and a bun. Toby Mackey says he has facts galore in his notebook and he doesn't give a ﬁddler's fart about anything and that's the way I'd like to be myself. Mrs. O'Connell knows I like the country telegrams and if a day is sunny she gives me a batch of ten that will keep me away all morning and I don't have to return till after the dinner hour at noon.There are ﬁne autumn days when the Shannon sparkles and the ﬁelds are green 321

and glinting with silver morning dew. Smoke blows across ﬁelds and there's the sweet smell of turf ﬁres. Cows and sheep graze in the ﬁelds and I wonder if these are the beasts the priest was talking about. I wouldn't be surprised because there's no end to the bulls climbing on cows, rams on sheep, stallions on mares, and they all have such big things it makes me break out in a sweat to look at them and I feel sorry for all the female creatures in the world who have to suffer like that though I wouldn't mind being a bull myself because they can do what they like and it's never a sin for an animal. I wouldn't mind going at myself here but you never know when a farmer might come along the road driving cows and sheep to a fair or to another ﬁeld raising his stick and bidding you, Good day, young fella, grand morning, thank God and His Blessed Mother. A farmer that religious might be offended if he saw you breaking the Sixth Commandment forninst his ﬁeld. Horses like to stick their heads over fences and hedges to see what's passing by and I stop and talk to them because they have big eyes and long noses that show how intelligent they are. Sometimes two birds will be singing to each other across a ﬁeld and I have to stop and listen to them and if I stay long enough more birds will join till every tree and bush is alive with birdsong. If there's a stream gurgling under a bridge on the road, birds singing and cows mooing and lambs baaing, that's better than any band in a ﬁlm. The smell of dinner bacon and cabbage wafting from a farmhouse makes me so weak with the hunger I climb into a ﬁeld and stuff myself with blackberries for half an hour. I stick my face into the stream and drink icy water that's better than the lemonade in any ﬁsh and chip shop. When I'm ﬁnished delivering the telegrams there's enough time to go to the ancient monastery graveyard where my mother's relations are buried, the Guilfoyles and the Sheehans, where my mother wants to be buried.I can see from here the high ruins of Carrigogunnell Castle and there's plenty of time to cycle there, sit up on the highest wall, look at the Shannon ﬂowing out to the Atlantic on its way to America and dream of the day I'll be sailing off myself. The boys at the post ofﬁce tell me I'm lucky to get the Carmody family telegram,a shilling tip,one of the biggest tips you'll ever get in Limerick. So why am I getting it? I'm the junior boy.They say,Well, sometimes 322

Theresa Carmody answers the door.She has the consumption and they're afraid of catching it from her. She's seventeen, in and out of the sanato- rium, and she'll never see eighteen.The boys at the post ofﬁce say sick people like Theresa know there's little time left and that makes them mad for love and romance and everything. Everything.That's what the con- sumption does to you, say the boys at the post ofﬁce. I cycle through wet November streets thinking of that shilling tip, and as I turn into the Carmody street the bicycle slides out from under me and I skid along the ground scraping my face and tearing open the back of my hand.Theresa Carmody opens the door. She has red hair. She had green eyes like the ﬁelds beyond Limerick. Her cheeks are bright pink and her skin is a ﬁerce white. She says, Oh, you're all wet and bleeding. I skidded on my bike. Come in and I'll put something on your cuts. I wonder,Should I go in? I might get the consumption and that will be the end of me. I want to be alive when I'm ﬁfteen and I want the shilling tip. Come in.You'll perish standing there. She puts on the kettle for the tea.Then she dabs iodine on my cuts and I try to be a man and not whimper. She says, Oh, you're a great bit of a man.Go into the parlor and dry yourself before the ﬁre.Look,why don't you take off your pants and dry them on the screen of the ﬁre? Ah, do. I will. I drape my pants over the screen. I sit there watching the steam rise and I watch myself rise and I worry she might come in and see me in my excitement. There she is with a plate of bread and jam and two cups of tea.Lord, she says, you might be a scrawny bit of a fellow but that's a ﬁne boyo you have there. She puts the plate and the cups on a table by the ﬁre and there they stay.With her thumb and foreﬁnger she takes the tip of my excitement and leads me across the room to a green sofa against the wall and all the time my head is ﬁlled with sin and iodine and fear of consumption and the shilling tip and her green eyes and she's on the sofa don't stop or I'll die and she's crying and I'm crying for I don't know what's happening 323

to me if I'm killing myself catching consumption from her mouth I'm riding to heaven I'm falling off a cliff and if this is a sin I don't give a ﬁddler's fart. We take our ease on the sofa a while till she says, Don't you have more telegrams to deliver? and when we sit up she gives a little cry,Oh, I'm bleeding. What's up with you? I think it's because it's the ﬁrst time. I tell her,Wait a minute. I bring the bottle from the kitchen and splash the iodine on her injury. She leaps from the sofa, dances around the parlor like a wild one and runs into the kitchen to douse herself with water.After she dries herself she says, Lord, you're very innocent. You're not supposed to be pouring iodine on girls like that. I thought you were cut. For weeks after that I deliver the telegram. Sometimes we have the excitement on the sofa but there are other days she has the cough and you can see the weakness on her. She never tells me she has the weak- ness. She never tells me she has the consumption.The boys at the post ofﬁce say I must have been having a great time with the shilling tip and Theresa Carmody. I never tell them I stopped taking the shilling tip. I never tell them about the green sofa and the excitement. I never tell them of the pain that comes when she opens the door and I can see the weakness on her and all I want to do then is make tea for her and sit with my arms around her on the green sofa. One Saturday I'm told to deliver the telegram to Theresa's mother at her job in Woolworth's. I try to be casual. Mrs. Carmody, I always deliver the telegram to your, I think your daughter,Theresa? Yes, she's in the hospital. Is she in the sanatorium? I said she's in the hospital. She's like everyone else in Limerick, ashamed of the TB, and she doesn't give me a shilling or any kind of tip. I cycle out to the sanato- rium to see Theresa.They say you have to be a relation and you have to be adult. I tell them I'm her cousin and I'll be ﬁfteen in August.They tell me go away. I cycle to the Franciscan church to pray for Theresa. St. Francis, would you please talk to God.Tell Him it wasn't Theresa's fault. I could have refused that telegram Saturday after Saturday.Tell God Theresa was not responsible for the excitement on the sofa because 324

that's what the consumption does to you. It doesn't matter anyway, St. Francis, because I love Theresa. I love her as much as you love any bird or beast or ﬁsh and will you tell God take the consumption away and I promise I'll never go near her again. The next Saturday they give me the Carmody telegram. From halfway up the street I can see the blinds are drawn. I can see the black crepe wreath on the door. I can see the white purple-lined mourning card. I can see beyond the door and walls where Theresa and I tumbled naked and wild on the green sofa and I know now she is in hell and all because of me. I slip the telegram under the door and cycle back down to the Franciscan church to beg for the repose of Theresa's soul. I pray to every statue,to the stained glass windows,the Stations of the Cross.I swear I'll lead a life of faith,hope and charity,poverty,chastity and obedience. Next day,Sunday,I go to four Masses.I do the Stations of the Cross three times.I say rosaries all day.I go without food and drink and wher- ever I ﬁnd a quiet place I cry and beg God and the Virgin Mary to have mercy on the soul of Theresa Carmody. On Monday I follow the funeral to the graveyard on my post ofﬁce bicycle. I stand behind a tree a distance from the grave. Mrs. Carmody weeps and moans. Mr. Carmody snufﬂes and looks puzzled.The priest recites the Latin prayers and sprinkles the cofﬁn with holy water. I want to go to the priest, to Mr. and Mrs. Carmody. I want to tell them how I'm the one who sent Theresa to hell.They can do whatever they like with me.Abuse me. Revile me.Throw grave dirt at me. But I stay behind the tree till the mourners leave and the grave diggers ﬁll in the grave. Frost is already whitening the fresh earth on the grave and I think of Theresa cold in the cofﬁn,the red hair,the green eyes.I can't under- stand the feelings going through me but I know that with all the peo- ple who died in my family and all the people who died in the lanes around me and all the people who left I never had a pain like this in my heart and I hope I never will again. It's getting dark. I walk my bicycle out of the graveyard. I have telegrams to deliver. 325

XVI Mrs. O'Connell gives me telegrams to deliver to Mr. Harrington, the Englishman with the dead wife that was born and bred in Limer- ick.The boys at the post ofﬁce say sympathy telegrams are a waste of time. People just cry and moan with the grief and they think they're excused from the tip.They'll ask you if you'd like to come in for a look at the departed and a prayer by the bed.That wouldn't be so bad if they offered you a drop of sherry and a ham sandwich.Oh,no,they're happy to get your prayer but you're only a telegram boy and you're lucky if you get a dry biscuit. Older boys at the post ofﬁce say you have to play your cards right to get the grief tip.If you're asked in to say a prayer you have to kneel by the corpse, give a powerful sigh, bless yourself, drop your forehead to the bedclothes so they won't see your face, let your shoulders shake like one collapsing with sorrow, hold on to the bed with your two hands as if they're going to have to tear you away to deliver the rest of your telegrams, make sure your cheeks are glinting with tears or the spit you dabbed on, and if you don't get a tip after all that push the next batch of telegrams under the door or ﬁre them over the transom and leave them to their grief. This isn't my ﬁrst time delivering telegrams to the Harrington house. Mr. Harrington is always away on business for the insurance company 326

and Mrs. Harrington is generous with the tip. But she's gone and Mr. Harrington answers the doorbell. His eyes are red and he snifﬂes. He says,Are you Irish? Irish? What else would I be standing there on his doorstep in Lim- erick with a batch of telegrams in my hand? I am,sir.He says,Come in. Put the telegrams on the hall stand.He shuts the hall door,locks it,puts the key in his pocket and I think,Aren't Englishmen very peculiar. You'll want to see her, of course.You'll want to see what you peo- ple have done to her with your damn tuberculosis.Race of ghouls.Fol- low me. He leads me ﬁrst to the kitchen where he picks up a plate of ham sandwiches and two bottles, and then upstairs. Mrs. Harrington looks lovely in the bed, blond, pink, peaceful. This is my wife.She may be Irish but she doesn't look it,thank God. Like you. Irish.You'll need a drink, of course.You Irish quaff at every turn. Barely weaned before you clamor for the whiskey bottle, the pint of stout.You'll have what, whiskey, sherry? Ah, a lemonade will be lovely. I am mourning my wife not celebrating the bloody citrus.You'll have a sherry. Swill from bloody Catholic fascist Spain. I gulp the sherry. He reﬁlls my glass and goes to reﬁll his own with whiskey.Damn.Whiskey all gone.Stay here.Do you hear me? I'm going to the pub for another bottle of whiskey. Stay till I come back. Don't move. I'm confused, dizzy from the sherry. I don't know what you're sup- posed to do with grieving Englishmen. Mrs. Harrington, you look lovely in the bed. But you're a Protestant, already doomed, in hell, like Theresa. Priest said, Outside the Church there is no salvation.Wait, I might be able to save your soul.Baptize you Catholic.Make up for what I did to Theresa. I'll get some water. Oh, God, the door is locked.Why? Maybe you're not dead at all? Watching me. Are you dead, Mrs. Har- rington? I'm not afraid.Your face is icy. Oh, you're dead all right. I'll baptize you with sherry from bloody Catholic fascist Spain. I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, the— What the bloody hell are you doing? Get off my wife,you wretched Papist twit.What primitive Paddy ritual is this? Did you touch her? Did you? I'll wring your scrawny neck. I— I,— Oi, Oi, speak English, you scrap. 327

I was just, a little sherry to get her into heaven. Heaven? We had heaven, Ann, I, our daughter, Emily.You'll never lay your pink piggy eyes on her. Oh, Christ, I can't stand it. Here, more sherry. Ah, no, thanks. Ah, no thanks.That puny Celtic whine.You people love your alco- hol. Helps you crawl and whine better. Of course you want food.You have the collapsed look of a starving Paddy. Here. Ham. Eat. Ah, no thanks. Ah, no thanks. Say that again and I'll ram the ham up your arse. He waves a ham sandwich at me, with the heel of his hand pushes it into my mouth. He collapses into a chair.Oh,God,God,what am I to do? Must rest a moment. My stomach heaves. I rush to the window, stick my head out and throw up. He leaps from the chair and charges me. You,you,God blast you to hell,you vomited on my wife's rosebush. He lunges at me, misses, falls to the ﬂoor. I climb out the window, hang on to the ledge.He's at the window,grabbing at my hands.I let go, drop to the rosebush,into the ham sandwich and sherry I've just thrown up. I'm pricked by rose thorns, stung, my ankle is twisted. He's at the window,barking,Come back here,you Irish runt.He'll report me to the post ofﬁce. He hits me in the back with the whiskey bottle, pleads,Will you not watch one hour with me? He pelts me with sherry glasses,whiskey glasses,assorted ham sand- wiches, items from his wife's dressing table, powders, creams, brushes. I climb on my bike and wobble through the streets of Limerick,dizzy with sherry and pain. Mrs. O'Connell attacks me, Seven telegrams, one address, and you're gone all day. I was, I was, You was.You was. Drunk is what you was. Drunk is what you are. Reeking. Oh, we heard. That nice man rang, Mr. Harrington, lovely Englishman that sounds like James Mason. Lets you in to say a prayer for his poor wife and next thing you're out the window with the sherry and the ham.Your poor mother.What she brought into the world. He made me eat the ham, drink the sherry. Made you? Jesus, that's a good one. Made you. Mr. Harrington is a reﬁned Englishman and there is no reason for him to lie and we don't 328

want your kind in this post ofﬁce,people that can't keep their hands off the ham and sherry, so hand in your telegram pouch and bicycle for your days are done in this post ofﬁce. But I need the job. I have to save and go to America. America. Sad day when America lets in the likes of you. I hobble through the streets of Limerick. I'd like to go back and throw a brick through Mr. Harrington's window. No. Respect for the dead. I'll go across the Sarsﬁeld Bridge and out the riverbank where I can lie down somewhere in the bushes. I don't know how I can go home and tell my mother I lost my job. Have to go home. Have to tell her. Can't stay out the riverbank all night. She'd be frantic. Mam begs the post ofﬁce to take me back.They say no.They never heard the likes. Telegram boy mauling corpse. Telegram boy ﬂeeing scene with ham and sherry. He will never set foot in the post ofﬁce again. No. She gets a letter from the parish priest.Take the boy back, says the parish priest. Oh, yes, Father, indeed, says the post ofﬁce. They'll let me stay till my sixteenth birthday, not a minute longer. Besides, says Mrs. O'Connell, when you think of what the English did to us for eight hundred years that man had no right to complain over a little ham and sherry. Compare a little ham and sherry to the Great Famine and where are you? If my poor husband was alive and I told him what you did he'd say you struck a blow, Frank McCourt, struck a blow. Every Saturday morning I swear I'll go to confession and tell the priest of my impure acts at home, on lonely boreens around Limerick with cows and sheep gawking, on the heights of Carrigogunnell with the world looking up. I'll tell him about Theresa Carmody and how I sent her to hell,and that will be the end of me, driven from the Church. Theresa is a torment to me. Every time I deliver a telegram to her street, every time I pass the graveyard I feel the sin growing in me like an abscess and if I don't go to confession soon I'll be nothing but an abscess riding around on a bicycle with people pointing and telling each other,There he is, there's Frankie McCourt, the dirty thing that sent Theresa Carmody to hell. I look at people going to Communion on Sundays, everyone in a 329

state of grace, returning to their seats with God in their mouths, peace- ful, easy, ready to die at any moment and go straight to heaven or go home to their rashers and eggs without a worry in the world. I'm worn out from being the worst sinner in Limerick. I want to get rid of this sin and have rashers and eggs and no guilt, no torment. I want to be ordinary. The priests tell us all the time that God's mercy is inﬁnite but how can any priest give absolution to someone like me who delivers telegrams and winds up in a state of excitement on a green sofa with a girl dying of the galloping consumption. I cycle all around Limerick with telegrams and stop at every church. I ride from Redemptorists to Jesuits to Augustinians to Dominicans to Franciscans.I kneel before the statue of St.Francis of Assisi and beg him to help me but I think he's too disgusted with me. I kneel with people in the pews next to confessionals but when my turn comes I can't breathe,my heart pounds,my forehead turns cold and clammy and I run from the church. I swear I'll go to confession at Christmas. I can't. Easter. I can't. Weeks and months pass and it's a year since Theresa died. I'll go on her anniversary but I can't. I'm ﬁfteen now and I pass churches without stopping. I'll have to wait till I go to America where there are priests like Bing Crosby in Going My Way who won't kick me out of the con- fessional like Limerick priests. I still have the sin in me, the abscess, and I hope it doesn't kill me entirely before I see the American priest. There's a telegram for an old woman, Mrs. Brigid Finucane. She says, How old are you, by? Fifteen and a half, Mrs. Finucane. Young enough to make a fool of yourself and ould enough to know better.Are you shmart, by? Are you anyway intelligent? I can read and write, Mrs. Finucane. Arrah, there are people above in the lunatic asylum can read and write. Can you write a letter? I can. She wants me to write letters to her customers.If you need a suit or dress for your child you can go to her. She gives you a ticket to a shop and they give you the clothes. She gets a discount and charges you the 330

full price and interest on top.You pay her back weekly.Some of her cus- tomers fall behind in their payments and they need threatening letters. She says, I'll give you threepence for every letter you write and another threepence if it brings a payment. If you want the job come here on Thursday and Friday nights,and bring your own paper and envelopes. I'm desperate for that job. I want to go to America. But I have no money for paper and envelopes. Next day I'm delivering a telegram to Woolworth's and there is the answer,a whole section packed with paper and envelopes.I have no money so I have to help myself.But how? Two dogs save the day for me, two dogs at the door of Woolworth's stuck together after the excitement.They yelp and run in circles. Customers and sales clerks giggle and pretend to be looking someplace else and while they're busy pretending I slip paper and envelopes under my sweater, out the door and off on my bike far from stuck dogs. Mrs. Finucane looks suspicious. That's very fancy stationery you have there, by. Is that your mother's? You'll give that back when you get the money, won't you, by? Oh, I will. From now on I'm never to come to her front door.There's a lane behind her house and I'm to come in the back door for fear someone might see me. In a large ledger she gives me the names and addresses of six cus- tomers behind in their payments.Threaten 'em,by.Frighten the life out of 'em. My ﬁrst letter, Dear Mrs. O'Brien, Inasmuch as you have not seen ﬁt to pay me what you owe me I may be forced to resort to legal action.There's your son, Michael, parading around the world in his new suit which I paid for while I myself have barely a crust to keep body and soul together. I am sure you don't want to languish in the dungeons of Limerick jail far from friends and family. I remain, yours in litigious anticipation, Mrs. Brigid Finucane She tells me,That's a powerful letter, by, better than anything you'd read in the Limerick Leader. That word, inasmuch, that's a holy terror of a word.What does it mean? 331

I think it means this is your last chance. I write ﬁve more letters and she gives me money for stamps.On my way to the post ofﬁce I think,Why should I squander money on stamps when I have two legs to deliver the letters myself in the dead of night? When you're poor a threatening letter is a threatening letter no matter how it comes in the door. I run through the lanes of Limerick shoving letters under doors, praying no one will see me. The next week Mrs. Finucane is squealing with joy. Four of 'em paid. Oh, sit down now and write more, by. Put the fear of God in 'em. Week after week my threatening letters grow sharper and sharper. I begin to throw in words I hardly understand myself. Dear Mrs. O'Brien, Inasmuch as you have not succumbed to the imminence of litigation in our previous epistle be advised that we are in consultation with our barrister above in Dublin. Next week Mrs. O'Brien pays. She came in tremblin' with tears in her eyes, by, and she promised she'd never miss another payment. On Friday nights Mrs. Finucane sends me to a pub for a bottle of sherry.You're too young for sherry,by.You can make yourself a nice cup of tea but you have to use the tea leaves left over from this morning.No, you can't have a piece of bread with the prices they're charging. Bread is it? Next thing you'll be asking for an egg. She rocks by the ﬁre,sipping her sherry,counting the money in the purse on her lap, entering payments in her ledger before she locks everything in the trunk under her bed upstairs.After a few sherries she tells me what a lovely thing it is to have a little money so you can leave it to the Church for Masses to be said for the repose of your soul. It makes her so happy to think of priests saying Masses for her years and years after she's dead and buried. Sometimes she falls asleep and if the purse drops to the ﬂoor I help myself to an extra few shillings for the overtime and the use of all the big new words.There will be less money for the priests and their Masses but how many Masses does a soul need and surely I'm entitled to a few pounds after the way the Church slammed doors in my face? They wouldn't let me be an altar boy, a secondary school pupil, a missionary with the White Fathers.I don't care.I have a post ofﬁce savings account 332

and if I keep writing successful threatening letters,helping myself to the odd few shillings from her purse and keeping the stamp money,I'll have my escape money to America. If my whole family dropped from the hunger I wouldn't touch this money in the post ofﬁce. Often I have to write threatening letters to neighbors and friends of my mother and I worry they might discover me.They complain to Mam,That oul' bitch, Finucane, below in Irishtown, sent me a threat- ening letter.What kind of a demon outa hell would torment her own kind with a class of a letter that I can't make head nor tail of anyway with words never heard on land or sea.The person that would write that letter is worse than Judas or any informer for the English. My mother says anyone that writes such letters should be boiled in oil and have his ﬁngernails pulled out by blind people. I'm sorry for their troubles but there's no other way for me to save the money for America. I know that someday I'll be a rich Yank and send home hundreds of dollars and my family will never have to worry about threatening letters again. Some of the temporary telegram boys are taking the permanent exam in August.Mrs.O'Connell says,You should take that exam,Frank McCourt. You have a bit of a brain in your head and you'd pass it no bother.You'd be a postman in no time and a great help to your poor mother. Mam says I should take it, too, become a postman, save up, go to America and be a postman over there and wouldn't that be a lovely life. I'm delivering a telegram to South's pub on a Saturday and Uncle Pa Keating is sitting there, all black as usual. He says, Have a lemonade there, Frankie, or is it a pint you want now that you're near sixteen? Lemonade, Uncle Pa, thanks. You'll want your ﬁrst pint the day you're sixteen, won't you? I will but my father won't be here to get it for me. Don't worry about that. I know 'tis not the same without your father but I'll get you the ﬁrst pint.'Tis what I'd do if I had a son.Come here the night before you're sixteen. I hear you're taking that exam for the post ofﬁce? Why would you do a thing like that? 'Tis a good job and I'd be a postman in no time and it has the pension. 333

Ah,pension my arse.Sixteen years of age an'talking about the pen- sion. Is it coddin' me you are? Do you hear what I said, Frankie? Pen- sion my arse. If you pass the exam you'll stay in the post ofﬁce nice and secure the rest of your life.You'll marry a Brigid and have ﬁve little Catholics and grow little roses in your garden.You'll be dead in your head before you're thirty and dried in your ballocks the year before. Make up your own bloody mind and to hell with the safeshots and the begrudgers. Do you hear me, Frankie McCourt? I do, Uncle Pa.That's what Mr. O'Halloran said. What did he say? Make up your own mind. True for Mr. O'Halloran. 'Tis your life, make your own decisions and to hell with the begrudgers, Frankie. In the heel o' the hunt you'll be going to America anyway, won't you? The day of the exam I'm excused from work.There's a sign in an ofﬁce window on O'Connell Street, smart boy wanted, neat hand- writing, good at sums, apply here to manager, mr. mccaffrey, easons ltd. I stand outside the place of the exam, the house of the Limerick Protestant Young Men's Association.There are boys from all over Lim- erick climbing the steps to take the exam and a man at the door is hand- ing them sheets of paper and pencils and barking at them to hurry up, hurry up.I look at the man at the door,I think of Uncle Pa Keating and what he said, I think of the sign in Easons' ofﬁce, SMART BOY WANTED. I don't want to go in that door and pass that exam for if I do I'll be a permanent telegram boy with a uniform, then a postman, then a clerk selling stamps for the rest of my life. I'll be in Limerick forever, grow- ing roses with my head dead and my ballocks all dried up. The man at the door says,You, are you coming in here or are you goin' to stand there with your face hanging out? I want to say to the man, Kiss my arse, but I still have a few weeks left in the post ofﬁce and he might report me.I shake my head and walk up the street where a smart boy is wanted. The manager,Mr.McCaffrey,says,I would like to see a specimen of your handwriting, to see, in short, if you have a decent ﬁst. Sit down there at that table.Write your name and address and write me a paragraph ex- 334

plaining why you came here for this job and how you propose to rise in the ranks of Eason and Son, Ltd., by dint of perseverance and assiduity where there is great opportunity in this company for a boy that will keep his eye on the guidon ahead and guard his ﬂanks from the siren call of sin. I write, Frank McCourt, 4, Little Barrington Street, Limerick City, County Limerick, Ireland I am applying for this job so that I can rise to the highest ranks of Easons Ltd., by dint of perseverance and assadooty knowing that if I keep my eyes ahead and protect my ﬂanks I'll be safe from all temptation and a credit to Easons and Ire- land in general. What's this? says Mr. McCaffrey. Do we have here a twisting of the truth? I don't know, Mr. McCaffrey. Little Barrington Street.That's a lane.Why are you calling it a street? You live in a lane, not a street. They call it a street, Mr. McCaffrey. Don't be getting above yourself, boy. Oh, I wouldn't, Mr. McCaffrey. You live in a lane and that means you have nowhere to go but up. Do you understand that, McCourt? You have to work your way out of the lane, McCourt. You have the cut and jib of a lane boy, McCourt. Yes, Mr. McCaffrey. You have the look of the lane all over you.All over you from poll to toe cap. Don't try to fool the populace, McCourt.You'd have to rise early in the morning to fool the likes of me. Oh, I wouldn't, Mr. McCaffrey. Then there's the eyes.Very sore eyes you have there. Can you see? 335

I can, Mr. McCaffrey. You can read and write but can you do addition and subtraction? I can, Mr. McCaffrey. Well, I don't know what the policy is on sore eyes. I would have to ring Dublin and see where they stand on sore eyes. But your writing is clear, McCourt.A good ﬁst.We'll take you on pending the decision on the sore eyes. Monday morning. Half six at the railway station. In the morning? In the morning.We don't give out the bloody morning papers at night, do we? No, Mr. McCaffrey. Another thing.We distribute The Irish Times,a Protestant paper,run by the freemasons in Dublin.We pick it up at the railway station.We count it.We take it to the newsagents.But we don't read it.I don't want to see you reading it.You could lose the Faith and by the look of those eyes you could lose your sight. Do you hear me, McCourt? No Irish Times,and when you come in next week I'll tell you about all the English ﬁlth you're not to read in this ofﬁce. Do you hear me? Mrs.O'Connell has the tight mouth and she won't look at me.She says to Miss Barry, I hear a certain upstart from the lanes walked away from the post ofﬁce exam.Too good for it, I suppose. True for you, says Miss Barry. Too good for us, I suppose. True for you. Do you think he'd ever tell us why he didn't take the exam? Oh, he might, says Miss Barry, if we went down on our two knees. I tell her, I want to go to America, Mrs. O'Connell. Did you hear that, Miss Barry? I did, indeed, Mrs. O'Connell. He spoke. He did, indeed. He will rue the day, Miss Barry. Rue he will, Mrs. O'Connell. Mrs. O'Connell talks past me to the boys waiting on the bench for 336

their telegrams,This is Frankie McCourt who thinks he's too good for the post ofﬁce. I don't think that, Mrs. O'Connell. And who asked you to open your gob, Mr. High and Mighty? Too grand for us, isn't he, boys? He is, Mrs. O'Connell. And after all we did for him, giving him the telegrams with the good tips, sending him to the country on ﬁne days, taking him back after his disgraceful behavior with Mr.Harrington,the Englishman,dis- respecting the body of poor Mrs.Harrington,stufﬁng himself with ham sandwiches, getting ﬂuthered drunk on sherry, jumping out the win- dow and destroying every rosebush in sight,coming in here three sheets to the wind, and who knows what else he did delivering telegrams for two years, who knows indeed, though we have a good idea, don't we, Miss Barry? We do, Mrs. O'Connell, though 'twouldn't be a ﬁt subject to be talking about. She whispers to Miss Barry and they look at me and shake their heads. A disgrace he is to Ireland and his poor mother. I hope she never ﬁnds out. But what would you expect of one born in America and his father from the North.We put up with all that and still took him back. She keeps talking past me again to the boys on the bench. Going to work for Easons he is, working for that pack of freema- sons and Protestants above in Dublin.Too good for the post ofﬁce but ready and willing to deliver all kinds of ﬁlthy English magazines all over Limerick.Every magazine he touches will be a mortal sin.But he's leav- ing now, so he is, and a sorry day it is for his poor mother that prayed for a son with a pension to take care of her in her latter days. So here, take your wages and go from the sight of us. Miss Barry says, He's a bad boy, isn't he, boys? He is, Miss Barry. I don't know what to say. I don't know what I did wrong. Should I say I'm sorry? Good-bye? I lay my belt and pouch on Mrs.O'Connell's desk.She glares at me, Go on. Go to your job at Easons. Go from us. Next boy, come up for your telegrams. They're back at work and I'm down the stairs to the next part of my life. 337

XVII I don't know why Mrs.O'Connell had to shame me before the whole world,and I don't think I'm too good for the post ofﬁce or anything else. How could I with my hair sticking up,pimples dotting my face,my eyes red and oozing yellow, my teeth crumbling with the rot, no shoulders, no ﬂesh on my arse after cycling thirteen thousand miles to deliver twenty thousand telegrams to every door in Limerick and regions beyond? Mrs. O'Connell said a long time ago she knew everything about every telegram boy.She must know about the times I went at myself on top of Carrigogunnell, milkmaids gawking, little boys looking up. She must know about Theresa Carmody and the green sofa, how I got her into a state of sin and sent her to hell, the worst sin of all, worse than Carrigogunnell a thousand times. She must know I never went to confession after Theresa, that I'm doomed to hell myself. A person that commits a sin like that is never too good for the post ofﬁce or anything else. The barman at South's remembers me from the time I sat with Mr. Hannon, Bill Galvin, Uncle Pa Keating, black white black. He remembers my father, how he spent his wages and his dole while singing patriotic songs and making speeches from the dock like a con- demned rebel. And what is it you'd like? says the barman. I'm here to meet Uncle Pa Keating and have my ﬁrst pint. 338

Oh, begod, is that a fact? He'll be here in a minute and sure there's no reason why I shouldn't draw his pint and maybe draw your ﬁrst pint, is there now? There isn't, sir. Uncle Pa comes in and tells me sit next to him against the wall.The barman brings the pints, Uncle Pa pays, lifts his glass, tells the men in the pub,This is my nephew, Frankie McCourt, son of Angela Sheehan, the sister of my wife,having his ﬁrst pint,here's to your health and long life, Frankie, may you live to enjoy the pint but not too much. The men lift their pints, nod, drink, and there are creamy lines on their lips and mustaches. I take a great gulp of my pint and Uncle Pa tells me, Slow down for the love o' Jasus, don't drink it all, there's more where that came from as long as the Guinness family stays strong and healthy. I tell him I want to stand him a pint with my last wages from the post ofﬁce but he says, No, take the money home to your mother and you can stand me a pint when you come home from America ﬂushed with success and the heat from a blonde hanging on your arm. The men in the pub are talking about the terrible state of the world and how in God's name Hermann Goering escaped the hangman an hour before the hanging. The Yanks are over there in Nuremberg declaring they don't know how the Nazi bastard hid that pill.Was it in his ear? Up his nostril? Up his arse? Surely the Yanks looked in every hole and cranny of every Nazi they captured and still Hermann wiped their eye.There you are.It shows you can sail across the Atlantic,land in Normandy,bomb Germany off the face of the earth,but when all's said and done they can't ﬁnd a little pill planted in the far reaches of Goer- ing's fat arse. Uncle Pa buys me another pint. It's harder to drink because it ﬁlls me and makes my belly bulge.The men are talking about concentra- tion camps and the poor Jews that never harmed a soul, men, women, children crammed into ovens, children, mind you, what harm could they do, little shoes scattered everywhere, crammed in, and the pub is misty and the voices fading in and out. Uncle Pa says, Are you all right? You're as white as a sheet. He takes me to the lavatory and the two of us have a good long piss against the wall which keeps moving back and forth. I can't go into the pub again, cigarette smoke, stale Guinness, Goering's fat arse, small shoes scattered, can't go in again, good night, Uncle Pa, thanks, and he tells me go straight home to my 339

mother, straight home, oh, he doesn't know about the excitement in the loft or the excitement on the green sofa or me in such a state of doom that if I died now I'd be in hell in a wink. Uncle Pa goes back to his pint. I'm out on O'Connell Street and why shouldn't I take the few steps to the Jesuits and tell all my sins this last night I'll be ﬁfteen.I ring the bell at the priests'house and a big man answers,Yes? I tell him, I want to go to confession, Father. He says, I'm not a priest. Don't call me father. I'm a brother. All right, Brother. I want to go to confession before I'm sixteen tomorrow. State o' grace on my birthday. He says,Go away.You're drunk.Child like you drunk as a lord ring- ing for a priest at this hour. Go away or I'll call the guards. Ah, don't.Ah, don't. I only want to go to confession. I'm doomed. You're drunk and you're not in a proper spirit of repentance. He closes the door in my face.Another door closed in the face, but I'm sixteen tomorrow and I ring again.The brother opens the door, swings me around,kicks my arse and sends me tripping down the steps. He says, Ring this bell again and I'll break your hand. Jesuit brothers are not supposed to talk like that.They're supposed to be like Our Lord, not walking the world threatening people's hands. I'm dizzy. I'll go home to bed. I hold on to railings along Barring- ton Street and keep to the wall going down the lane.Mam is by the ﬁre smoking a Woodbine, my brothers upstairs in the bed. She says,That's a nice state to come home in. It's hard to talk but I tell her I had my ﬁrst pint with Uncle Pa. No father to get me the ﬁrst pint. Your Uncle Pa should know better. I stagger to a chair and she says, Just like your father. I try to control the way my tongue moves in my mouth. I'd rather be, I'd rather, rather be like my father than Laman Grifﬁn. She turns away from me and looks into the ashes in the range but I won't leave her alone because I had my pint, two pints, and I'm sixteen tomorrow, a man. Did you hear me? I'd rather be like my father than Laman Grifﬁn. She stands up and faces me. Mind your tongue, she says. Mind your own bloody tongue. Don't talk to me like that. I'm your mother. I'll talk to you any bloody way I like. You have a mouth like a messenger boy. 340

Do I? Do I? Well, I'd rather be a messenger boy than the likes of Laman Grifﬁn oul' drunkard with the snotty nose and his loft and peo- ple climbing up there with him. She walks away from me and I follow her upstairs to the small room. She turns, Leave me alone, leave me alone, and I keep barking at her, Laman Grifﬁn, Laman Grifﬁn, till she pushes me, Get out of this room, and I slap her on the cheek so that tears jump in her eyes and there's a small whimpering sound from her,You'll never have the chance to do that again, and I back away from her because there's another sin on my long list and I'm ashamed of myself. I fall into my bed, clothes and all, and wake up in the middle of the night puking on my pillow, my brothers complaining of the stink, telling me clean up, I'm a disgrace. I hear my mother crying and I want to tell her I'm sorry but why should I after what she did with Laman Grifﬁn. In the morning my small brothers are gone to school, Malachy is out looking for a job, Mam is at the ﬁre drinking tea. I place my wages on the table by her elbow and turn to go. She says, Do you want a cup of tea? 'Tis your birthday. I don't care. She calls up the lane after me,You should have something in your stomach, but I give her my back and turn the corner without answer- ing. I still want to tell her I'm sorry but if I do I'll want to tell her she's the cause of it all,that she should not have climbed to the loft that night and I don't give a ﬁddler's fart anyway because I'm still writing threat- ening letters for Mrs. Finucane and saving to go to America. I have the whole day before I go to Mrs. Finucane to write the threatening letters and I wander down Henry Street till the rain drives me into the Franciscan church where St. Francis stands with his birds and lambs. I look at him and wonder why I ever prayed to him. No, I didn't pray, I begged. I begged him to intercede for Theresa Carmody but he never did a thing, stood up there on his pedestal with the little smile, the birds, the lambs, and didn't give a ﬁddler's fart about Theresa or me. I'm ﬁnished with you,St.Francis.Moving on.Francis.I don't know why they ever gave me that name. I'd be better off if they called me Malachy, one a king, the other a great saint. Why didn't you heal 341

Theresa? Why did you let her go to hell? You let my mother climb to the loft.You let me get into a state of doom. Little children's shoes scat- tered in concentration camps. I have the abscess again. It's in my chest and I'm hungry. St.Francis is no help,he won't stop the tears bursting out of my two eyes, the snifﬂing and choking and the God oh Gods that have me on my knees with my head on the back of the pew before me and I'm so weak with the hunger and the crying I could fall on the ﬂoor and would you please help me God or St.Francis because I'm sixteen today and I hit my mother and sent Theresa to hell and wanked all over Lim- erick and the county beyond and I dread the millstone around my neck. There is an arm around my shoulders, a brown robe, click of black rosary beads, a Franciscan priest. My child, my child, my child. I'm a child and I lean against him, little Frankie on his father's lap, tell me all about Cuchulain, Dad, my story that Malachy can't have or Freddie Leibowitz on the swings. My child, sit here with me.Tell me what troubles you. Only if you want to. I am Father Gregory. I'm sixteen today, Father. Oh, lovely, lovely, and why should that be a trouble to you? I drank my ﬁrst pint last night. Yes? I hit my mother. God help us, my child. But He will forgive you. Is there anything else? I can't tell you, Father. Would you like to go to confession? I can't, Father. I did terrible things. God forgives all who repent. He sent His only Beloved Son to die for us. I can't tell, Father. I can't. But you could tell St. Francis, couldn't you? He doesn't help me anymore. But you love him, don't you? I do. My name is Francis. Then tell him.We'll sit here and you'll tell him the things that trou- ble you. If I sit and listen it will only be a pair of ears for St. Francis and Our Lord.Won't that help? 342

I talk to St.Francis and tell him about Margaret,Oliver,Eugene,my father singing Roddy McCorley and bringing home no money, my father sending no money from England, Theresa and the green sofa, my terrible sins on Carrigogunnell, why couldn't they hang Hermann Goering for what he did to the little children with shoes scattered around concentration camps, the Christian Brother who closed the door in my face,the time they wouldn't let me be an altar boy,my small brother Michael walking up the lane with the broken shoe clacking,my bad eyes that I'm ashamed of,the Jesuit brother who closed the door in my face, the tears in Mam's eyes when I slapped her. Father Gregory says, Would you like to sit and be silent, perhaps pray a few minutes? His brown robe is rough against my cheek and there's a smell of soap. He looks at St. Francis and the tabernacle and nods and I suppose he's talking to God.Then he tells me kneel, gives me absolution, tells me say three Hail Marys, three Our Fathers, three Glory Bes. He tells me God forgives me and I must forgive myself, that God loves me and I must love myself for only when you love God in yourself can you love all God's creatures. But I want to know about Theresa Carmody in hell, Father. No, my child. She is surely in heaven. She suffered like the martyrs in olden times and God knows that's penance enough.You can be sure the sisters in the hospital didn't let her die without a priest. Are you sure, Father? I am, my child. He blesses me again, asks me to pray for him, and I'm happy trot- ting through the rainy streets of Limerick knowing Theresa is in heaven with the cough gone. Monday morning and it's dawn in the railway station. Newspapers and magazines are piled in bundles along the platform wall. Mr. McCaffrey is there with another boy,Willie Harold, cutting the twine on the bun- dles, counting, entering the count in a ledger. English newspapers and The Irish Times have to be delivered early, magazines later in the morn- ing. We count out the papers and label them for delivery to shops around the city. Mr.McCaffrey drives the van and stays at the wheel while Willie and I run into shops with bundles and take orders for the next day,add or drop 343

in the ledger.After the papers are delivered we unload the magazines at the ofﬁce and go home to breakfast for ﬁfty minutes. When I return to the ofﬁce there are two other boys, Eamon and Peter, already sorting magazines, counting and stufﬁng them into news- agents'boxes along the wall.Small orders are delivered by Gerry Halvey on his messenger bicycle, big orders in the van. Mr. McCaffrey tells me stay in the ofﬁce so that I can learn to count magazines and enter them in the ledger.The minute Mr. McCaffrey leaves Eamon and Peter pull out a drawer where they hide cigarette butts and light up. They can't believe I don't smoke. They want to know if there's something wrong with me, the bad eyes or the consumption maybe. How can you go out with a girl if you don't smoke? Peter says, Wouldn't you be a right eejit if you were going out the road with the girl and she asked you for a fag and you said you didn't smoke, wouldn't you be a right eejit then? How would you ever get her into a ﬁeld for a bit of a feel? Eamon says, 'Tis what my father says about men who don't drink, they're not to be trusted. Peter says if you ﬁnd a man that won't drink or smoke that's a man that's not even interested in girls and you'd want to keep your hand over the hole of your arse, that's what you'd want to be doing. They laugh and that brings on the cough and the more they laugh the more they cough till they're holding on to one another banging one another between the shoulder blades and wiping tears from their cheeks.When the ﬁt passes we pick out English and American maga- zines and look at the advertisements for women's underwear, brassieres and panties and long nylon stockings.Eamon is looking at an American magazine called See with pictures of Japanese girls who keep the sol- diers happy so far away from home and Eamon says he has to go to the lavatory and when he does Peter gives me a wink,You know what he's up to in there,don't you? and sometimes Mr.McCaffrey gets into a state when boys linger in the lavatory interfering with themselves and wast- ing the valuable time for which Easons is paying them and on top of it putting their immortal souls in danger.Mr.McCaffrey won't come right out and say, Stop that wanking, because you can't accuse someone of a mortal sin unless you have proof. Sometimes he goes snooping in the lavatory when a boy comes out.He comes back himself with the threat- ening look and tells the boys,Ye are not to be looking at those dirty magazines from foreign parts.Ye are to count them and put them in the boxes and that's all. 344

Eamon comes back from the lavatory and Peter goes in with an American magazine, Collier's, that has pictures of girls in a beauty con- test.Eamon says,Do you know what he's doing in there? At himself.Five times a day he goes in. Every time a new American magazine comes in with the women's underwear he goes in. Never done going at himself. Borrows magazines to take home unbeknownst to Mr. McCaffrey and God knows what he does with himself and the magazines all night.If he fell dead in there the jaws of hell would open wide. I'd like to get into the lavatory myself when Peter comes out but I don't want them saying,There he goes, new boy, ﬁrst day on the job, already at himself.Won't light up a fag oh no but wanks away like an oul' billygoat. Mr. McCaffrey returns from van delivery and wants to know why all the magazines aren't counted out,bundled and ready to go.Peter tells him,We were busy teaching the new boy, McCourt. God help us, he was a bit slow with the bad eyes you know but we kept at him and now he's getting faster. Gerry Halvey, the messenger boy, won't be in for a week because he's entitled to his holidays and he wants to spend the time with his girlfriend, Rose, who's coming back from England. I'm the new boy and I have to be messenger boy while he's gone, cycling around Lim- erick on the bicycle with the big metal basket in front. He shows me how to balance papers and magazines so that the bicycle won't tip over with me in the saddle and a lorry passing by that will run over me and leave me like a piece of salmon in the road. He saw a soldier once that was run over by an army lorry and that's what he looked like, salmon. Gerry is making a last delivery at Easons kiosk at the railway station at noon on Saturday and that's handy because I can meet him there to get the bicycle and he can meet Rose off the train.We stand at the gate waiting and he tells me he hasn't seen Rose in a year. She's over there working in a pub in Bristol and he doesn't like that one bit because the English are forever pawing the Irish girls, hands up under the skirts and worse,and the Irish girls are afraid to say anything for fear of losing their jobs. Everyone knows Irish girls keep themselves pure especially Lim- erick girls known the world over for their purity who have a man to come back to like Gerry Halvey himself. He'll be able to tell if she was true to him by her walk. If a girl comes back after a year with a certain class of a walk that's different from the one she went away with then you 345

know she was up to no good with the Englishmen dirty horny bastards that they are. The train hoots into the station and Gerry waves and points to Rose coming toward us from the far end of the train,Rose smiling away with her white teeth and lovely in a green dress.Gerry stops waving and mutters under his breath, Look at the walk on her, bitch, hoor, street- walker, ﬂaghopper, trollop, and runs from the station. Rose walks up to me,Was that Gerry Halvey you were standing with? 'Twas. Where is he? Oh, he went out. I know he went out.Where did he go? I don't know. He didn't tell me. He just ran out. Didn't say anything? I didn't hear him say anything. Do you work with him? I do. I'm taking over the bike. What bike? The messenger bike. Is he on a messenger bike? He is. He told me he worked in Easons ofﬁce, clerk, inside job? I feel desperate. I don't want to make a liar of Gerry Halvey, to get him into trouble with the lovely Rose. Oh, we all take turns on the messenger bike.An hour in the ofﬁce, an hour on the bike.The man- ager says 'tis good to get out in the fresh air. Well, I'll just go home and put my suitcase down and go to his house. I thought he'd carry this for me. I have the bike here and you can stick the case in the basket and I'll walk you home. We walk up to her house in Carey's Road and she tells me she's so excited about Gerry. She saved her money in England and now she wants to go back with him and get married even if he's only nineteen and she's only seventeen.What matter when you're in love. I lived like a nun in England and dreamt of him every night and thank you very much for carrying my case. I turn away to jump on the bike and cycle back to Easons when Gerry comes at me from behind. His face is red and he's snorting like a bull. What were you doing with my girl, you little shite? Eh? 346

What? If 'tis a thing I ever ﬁnd out you did anything with my girl I'll kill you. I didn't do anything. Carried her case because 'twas heavy. Don't look at her again or you're dead. I won't, Gerry. I don't want to look at her. Oh, is that a fact? Is she ugly or what? No, no, Gerry, she's yours and she loves you. How do you know? She told me. She did? She did, honest to God. Jasus. He bangs on her door, Rose, Rose, are you there? and she comes out,Of course,I'm here,and I ride away on the messenger bicycle with the sign on the basket that says Easons wondering about the way he's kissing her now and the terrible things he said about her in the station and wondering how Peter in the ofﬁce could tell Mr. McCaffrey a barefaced lie about me and my eyes when all the time he and Eamon were looking at girls in their underwear and then going at themselves in the lavatory. Mr. McCaffrey is in a terrible state in the ofﬁce.Where were you? Great God above in heaven, does it take you all day to cycle from the railway station? We have an emergency here and we should have Halvey but he's gone off on his friggin' holidays, God forgive the language, and you'll have to cycle around as fast as you can, good thing you were a telegram boy that knows every inch of Limerick,and go to every bloody shop that's a customer and walk right in grab whatever copies you see of John O'London's Weekly tear out page sixteen and if anyone bothers you tell them 'tis government orders and they're not to interfere in government business and if they lay a ﬁnger on you they're liable to arrest, imprisonment and a large ﬁne now go for God's sake and bring back every page sixteen you tear out so that we can burn them here in the ﬁre. Every shop, Mr. McCaffrey? I'll do the big ones,you do the small ones all the way to Ballinacurra and out the Ennis Road and beyond, God help us. Go on, go. I'm jumping on the bike and Eamon runs down the steps. Hey, McCourt, wait. Listen. Don't give him all the page sixteens when you come back. 347

Why? We can sell 'em, me an' Peter. Why? 'Tis all about birth control and that's banned in Ireland. What's birth control? Aw, Christ above, don't you know anything? 'Tis condoms, you know, rubbers, French letters, things like that to stop the girls from get- ting up the pole. Up the pole? Pregnant. Sixteen years of age an' you're pure ignorant. Hurry up an' get the pages before everybody starts runnin' to the shop for John O'London's Weekly. I'm about to push away on the bike when Mr. McCaffrey runs down the steps. Hold on, McCourt, we'll go in the van. Eamon, you come with us. What about Peter? Leave him. He'll wind up with a magazine in the lavatory anyway. Mr.McCaffrey talks to himself in the van.Nice bloody how do you do ringing down here from Dublin on a ﬁne Saturday to send us tear- ing around Limerick ripping pages out of an English magazine when I could be at home with a cup of tea and a nice bun and a read of The Irish Press with my feet up on a box under the picture of the Sacred Heart nice bloody how do you do entirely. Mr. McCaffrey runs into every shop with us behind him. He grabs the magazines, hands each of us a pile and tells us start tearing. Shop owners scream at him, What are ye doing? Jesus, Mary and Holy St. Joseph, is it pure mad ye are? Put back them magazines or I'll call the guards. Mr.McCaffrey tells them,Government orders,ma'am.There is ﬁlth in John O'London this week that's not ﬁt for any Irish eyes and we are here to do God's work. What ﬁlth? What ﬁlth? Show me the ﬁlth before ye go mutilatin' the magazines. I won't pay Easons for these magazines, so I won't. Ma'am,we don't care at Easons.We'd rather lose large amounts than have the people of Limerick and Ireland corrupted by this ﬁlth. What ﬁlth? Can't tell you. Come on, boys. We throw the pages on the ﬂoor of the van and when Mr. McCaf- frey is in a shop arguing we stuff some into our shirts.There are old 348

magazines in the van and we tear and scatter them so that Mr. McCaf- frey will think they're all page sixteen from John O'London. The biggest customer for the magazine, Mr. Hutchinson, tells Mr. McCaffrey get to hell out of his shop or he'll brain him, get away from them magazines, and when Mr. McCaffrey keeps on tearing out pages Mr. Hutchinson throws him into the street, Mr. McCaffrey yelling that this is a Catholic country and just because Hutchinson is a Protestant that doesn't give him the right to sell ﬁlth in the holiest city in Ireland. Mr. Hutchinson says, Ah, kiss my arse, and Mr. McCaffrey says, See, boys? See what happens when you're not a member of the True Church? Some shops says they've already sold all their copies of John O'Lon- don and Mr.McCaffrey says,Oh,Mother o'God,what's going to become of us all? Who did ye sell them to? He demands the names and address of the customers who are in danger of losing their immortal souls from reading articles on birth con- trol.He will go to their houses and rip out that ﬁlthy page but the shop- keepers say, 'Tis Saturday night, McCaffrey, and getting dark and would you ever take a good running jump for yourself. On the way back to the ofﬁce Eamon whispers to me in the back of the van, I have twenty-one pages. How many do you have? I tell him fourteen but I have over forty and I'm not telling him because you never have to tell the truth to people who lie about your bad eyes. Mr. McCaffrey tells us bring in the pages from the van.We scoop up everything on the ﬂoor and he's happy sitting at his desk at the other end of the ofﬁce ringing Dublin to tell them how he stormed through shops like God's avenger and saved Limerick from the horrors of birth control while he watches a dancing ﬁre of pages that have nothing to do with John O'London's Weekly. Monday morning I cycle through the streets delivering magazines and people see the Easons sign on the bike and stop me to see if there's any chance they could get their hands on a copy of John O'London's Weekly.They're all rich-looking people, some in motor cars, men with hats, collars and ties, and two fountain pens in their pockets, women with hats and little bits of fur dangling from their shoulders,people who have tea at the Savoy or the Stella and stick out their little ﬁngers to show how well bred they are and now want to read this page about birth control. Eamon told me early in the day, Don't sell the bloody page for less 349

than ﬁve shillings. I asked him if he was joking. No, he wasn't. Every- one in Limerick is talking about this page and they're dying to get their hands on it. Five shillings or nothing, Frankie. If they're rich charge more but that's what I'm charging so don't be going around on your bicycle and puttin'me out of business with low prices.We have to give Peter some- thing or he'll be running to McCaffrey and spilling the beans. Some people are willing to pay seven shillings and sixpence and I'm rich in two days with over ten pounds in my pocket minus one for Peter the snake,who would betray us to McCaffrey.I put eight pounds in the post ofﬁce for my fare to America and that night we have a big supper of ham, tomatoes, bread, butter, jam. Mam wants to know if I won the sweepstakes and I tell her people give me tips. She's not happy I'm a messenger boy because that's the lowest you can drop in Limerick but if it brings in ham like this we should light a candle in gratitude. She doesn't know the money for my fare is growing in the post ofﬁce and she'd die if she knew what I was earning from writing threatening letters. Malachy has a new job in the stockroom of a garage handing out parts to mechanics and Mam herself is taking care of an old man, Mr. Sliney, out in the South Circular Road while his two daughters go off to work every day. She tells me if I'm delivering papers out there to come to the house for tea and a sandwich.The daughters will never know and the old man won't mind because he's only half conscious most of the time worn out from all his years in the English army in India. She looks peaceful in the kitchen of this house in her spotless apron, everything clean and polished around her, ﬂowers bobbing in the gar- den beyond, birds chirping away, music from Radio Eireann on the wireless. She sits at the table with a pot of tea, cups and saucers, plenty of bread, butter, cold meats of all kinds. I can have any class of a sand- wich but all I know is ham and brawn. She doesn't have any brawn because that's the kind of thing you'd ﬁnd people eating in lanes not in a house on the South Circular Road. She says the rich won't eat brawn because it's what they scoop off ﬂoors and counters in bacon factories and you never know what you're getting.The rich are very particular about what they stick between two slices of bread. Over in America brawn is called head cheese and she doesn't know why. 350

She gives me a ham sandwich with juicy slices of tomato and tea in a cup with little pink angels ﬂying around shooting arrows at other lit- tle ﬂying angels who are blue and I wonder why they can't make teacups and chamber pots without all kinds of angels and maidens cavorting in the glen.Mam says that's the way the rich are,they love the bit of decoration and wouldn't we if we had the money. She'd give her two eyes to have a house like this with ﬂowers and birds abroad in the garden and the wireless playing that lovely Warsaw Concerto or the Dream of Olwyn and no end of cups and saucers with angels shooting arrows. She says she has to look in on Mr. Sliney he's so old and feeble he forgets to call for the chamber pot. Chamber pot? You have to empty his chamber pot? Of course I do. There's a silence here because I think we're remembering the cause of all our troubles, Laman Grifﬁn's chamber pot. But that was a long time ago and now it's Mr. Sliney's chamber pot, which is no harm because she's paid for this and he's harmless. When she comes back she tells me Mr. Sliney would like to see me, so come in while he's awake. He's lying in a bed in the front parlor, the window blocked with a black sheet, no sign of light. He tells my mother, Lift me up a bit, mis- sus,and pull back that bloody thing off the window so I can see the boy. He has long white hair down to his shoulders. Mam whispers he won't let anyone cut it. He says, I have me own teeth, son.Would you credit that? Do you have your own teeth, son? I do, Mr. Sliney. Ah. I was in India you know. Me and Timoney up the road. Bunch of Limerick men in India. Do you know Timoney, son? I did, Mr. Sliney. He's dead, you know. Poor bugger went blind. I have me sight. I have me teeth. Keep your teeth, son. I will, Mr. Sliney. I'm getting tired, son, but there's one thing I want to tell you.Are you listening to me? I am, Mr. Sliney. Is he listening to me, missus? Oh, he is, Mr. Sliney. 351

Good. Now here's what I want to tell you. Lean over here so I can whisper in your ear.What I want to tell you is, Never smoke another man's pipe. Halvey goes off to England with Rose and I have to stay on the mes- senger bike all through the winter. It's a bitter winter, ice everywhere, and I never know when the bike will go out from under me and send me ﬂying into the street or onto the pavement, magazines and papers scattered.Shops complain to Mr.McCaffrey that The Irish Times is com- ing in decorated with bits of ice and dog shit and he mutters to us that's the way that paper should be delivered, Protestant rag that it is. Every day after my deliveries I take The Irish Times home and read it to see where the danger is. Mam says it's a good thing Dad isn't here. He'd say, Is this what the men of Ireland fought and died for that my own son is sitting there at the kitchen table reading the freemason paper? There are letters to the editor from people all over Ireland claiming they heard the ﬁrst cuckoo of the year and you can read between the lines that people are calling each other liars. There are reports about Protestant weddings and pictures and the women always look lovelier than the ones we know in the lanes.You can see Protestant women have perfect teeth although Halvey's Rose had lovely teeth. I keep reading The Irish Times and wondering if it's an occasion of sin though I don't care. As long as Theresa Carmody is in heaven not coughing I don't go to confession anymore. I read The Irish Times and The Times of London because that tells me what the King is up to every day and what Elizabeth and Margaret are doing. I read English women's magazines for all the food articles and the answers to women's questions.Peter and Eamon put on English accents and pretend they're reading from English women's magazines. Peter says, Dear Miss Hope, I'm going out with a fellow from Ire- land named McCaffrey and he has his hands all over me and his thing pushing against my belly button and I'm demented not knowing what to do. I remain, yours anxiously, Miss Lulu Smith,Yorkshire. Eamon says, Dear Lulu, If this McCaffrey is that tall that he's push- ing his yoke against your belly button I suggest you ﬁnd a smaller man who will slip it between your thighs.Surely you can ﬁnd a decent short man in Yorkshire. 352

Dear Miss Hope, I am thirteen years old with black hair and some- thing terrible is happening and I can't tell anyone not even my mother. I'm bleeding every few weeks you know where and I'm afraid I'll be found out. Miss Agnes Tripple, Little Biddle-on-the-Twiddle, Devon. Dear Agnes,You are to be congratulated.You are now a woman and you can get your hair permed because you are having your monthlies. Do not fear your monthlies for all Englishwomen have them.They are a gift of God to purify us so that we can have stronger children for the empire, soldiers to keep the Irish in their place. In some parts of the world a woman with a monthly is unclean but we British cherish our women with the monthlies, oh we do indeed. In the springtime there's a new messenger boy and I'm back in the ofﬁce. Peter and Eamon drift off to England. Peter is fed up with Lim- erick,no girls,and you're driven to yourself,wank wank wank,that's all we ever do in Limerick.There are new boys.I'm senior boy and the job is easier because I'm fast and when Mr.McCaffrey is out in the van and my work is done I read the English, Irish, American magazines and papers. Day and night I dream of America. Malachy goes to England to work in a rich Catholic boys'boarding school and he walks around cheerful and smiling as if he's the equal of any boy in the school and everyone knows when you work in an Eng- lish boarding school you're supposed to hang your head and shufﬂe like a proper Irish servant.They ﬁre him for his ways and Malachy tells them they can kiss his royal Irish arse and they say that's the kind of foul lan- guage and behavior you'd expect. He gets a job in the gas works in Coventry shoveling coal into the furnaces like Uncle Pa Keating, shov- eling coal and waiting for the day he can go to America after me. 353

XVIII I'm seventeen, eighteen, going on nineteen, working away at Easons, writing threatening letters for Mrs. Finucane, who says she's not long for this world and the more Masses said for her soul the better she'll feel.She puts money in envelopes and sends me to churches around the city to knock on priests' doors, hand in the envelopes with the request for Masses. She wants prayers from all the priests but the Jesuits. She says,They're useless,all head and no heart.That's what they should have over their door in Latin and I won't give them a penny because every penny you give a Jesuit goes to a fancy book or a bottle of wine. She sends the money, she hopes the Masses are said, but she's never sure and if she's not sure why should I be handing out all that money to priests when I need the money to go to America and if I keep back a few pounds for myself and put it in the post ofﬁce who will ever know the difference and if I say a prayer for Mrs. Finucane and light candles for her soul when she dies won't God listen even if I'm a sin- ner long past my last confession. I'll be nineteen in a month.All I need is a few pounds to make up the fare and a few pounds in my pocket when I land in America. The Friday night before my nineteenth birthday Mrs. Finucane sends me for the sherry.When I return she is dead in the chair,her eyes wide open, and her purse on the ﬂoor wide open. I can't look at her but I help myself to a roll of money. Seventeen pounds. I take the key 354

to the trunk upstairs. I take forty of the hundred pounds in the trunk and the ledger. I'll add this to what I have in the post ofﬁce and I have enough to go to America. On my way out I take the sherry bottle to save it from being wasted. I sit by the River Shannon near the dry docks sipping Mrs. Finu- cane's sherry.Aunt Aggie's name is in the ledger. She owes nine pounds. It might have been the money she spent on my clothes a long time ago but now she'll never have to pay it because I heave the ledger into the river. I'm sorry I'll never be able to tell Aunt Aggie I saved her nine pounds. I'm sorry I wrote threatening letters to the poor people in the lanes of Limerick, my own people, but the ledger is gone, no one will ever know what they owe and they won't have to pay their balances. I wish I could tell them, I'm your Robin Hood. Another sip of the sherry. I'll spare a pound or two for a Mass for Mrs. Finucane's soul. Her ledger is well on its way down the Shannon and out to the Atlantic and I know I'll follow it someday soon. The man at O'Riordan's Travel Agency says he can't get me to Amer- ica by air unless I travel to London ﬁrst, which would cost a fortune. He can put me on a ship called the Irish Oak, which will be leaving Cork in a few weeks. He says, Nine days at sea, September October, best time of the year, your own cabin, thirteen passengers, best of food, bit of a holiday for yourself and that will cost ﬁfty-ﬁve pounds, do you have it? I tell Mam I'm going in a few weeks and she cries. Michael says,Will we all go some day? We will. Alphie says,Will you send me a cowboy hat and a thing you throw that comes back to you? Michael tells him that's a boomerang and you'd have to go all the way to Australia to get the likes of that, you can't get it in America. Alphie says you can get it in America yes you can and they argue about America and Australia and boomerangs till Mam says,For the love o'Jesus,yeer brother is leaving us and the two of ye are there squabbling over boomerangs.Will ye give over? 355

Mam says we'll have to have a bit of party the night before I go. They used to have parties in the old days when anyone would go to America,which was so far away the parties were called American wakes because the family never expected to see the departing one again in this life.She says 'tis a great pity Malachy can't come back from England but we'll be together in America someday with the help of God and His Blessed Mother. On my days off from work I walk around Limerick and look at all the places we lived, the Windmill Street, Hartstonge Street, Roden Lane, Rosbrien Road, Little Barrington Street, which is really a lane. I stand looking at Theresa Carmody's house till her mother comes out and says,What do you want? I sit at the graves of Oliver and Eugene in the old St. Patrick's Burying Ground and cross the road to St. Lawrence's Cemetery where Theresa is buried.Wherever I go I hear voices of the dead and I wonder if they can follow you across the Atlantic Ocean. I want to get pictures of Limerick stuck in my head in case I never come back. I sit in St. Joseph's Church and the Redemptorist church and tell myself take a good look because I might never see this again. I walk down Henry Street to say good-bye to St.Francis though I'm sure I'll be able to talk to him in America. Now there are days I don't want to go to America. I'd like to go to O'Riordan's Travel Agency and get back my ﬁfty-ﬁve pounds. I could wait till I'm twenty-one and Malachy can go with me so that I'll know at least one person in New York. I have strange feelings and sometimes when I'm sitting by the ﬁre with Mam and my brothers I feel tears coming and I'm ashamed of myself for being weak.At ﬁrst Mam laughs and tells me,Your bladder must be near your eye,but then Michael says, We'll all go to America, Dad will be there, Malachy will be there and we'll all be together, and she gets the tears herself and we sit there, the four of us, like weeping eejits. Mam says this is the ﬁrst time we ever had a party and isn't it a sad thing altogether that you have it when your children are slipping away one by one, Malachy to England, Frank to America. She saves a few shillings from her wages taking care of Mr. Sliney to buy bread, ham, brawn, cheese, lemonade and a few bottles of stout. Uncle Pa Keating brings stout, whiskey and a little sherry for Aunt Aggie's delicate stom- 356

ach and she brings a cake loaded with currants and raisins she baked herself.The Abbot brings six bottles of stout and says,That's all right, Frankie,ye can all drink it as long as I have a bottle or two for meself to help me sing me song. He sings "The Road to Rasheen." He holds his stout, closes his eyes, and song comes out in a high whine.The words make no sense and every- one wonders why tears are seeping from his shut eyes.Alphie whispers to me,Why is he crying over a song that makes no sense? The Abbot ends his song, opens his eyes, wipes his cheeks and tells us that was a sad song about an Irish boy that went to America and got shot by gangsters and died before a priest could reach his side and he tells me don't be gettin' shot if you're not near a priest. Uncle Pa says that's the saddest song he ever heard and is there any chance we could have something lively. He calls on Mam and she says, Ah, no, Pa, sure I don't have the wind. Come on, Angela, come on. One voice now, one voice and one voice only. All right. I'll try. We all join in the chorus of her sad song, A mother's love is a blessing No matter where you roam. Keep her while you have her, You'll miss her when she's gone. Uncle Pa says one song is worse than the one before and are we turning this night into a wake altogether, is there any chance someone would sing a song to liven up the proceedings or will he be driven to drink with the sadness. Oh, God, says Aunt Aggie, I forgot.The moon is having an eclipse abroad this minute. We stand out in the lane watching the moon disappear behind a round black shadow.Uncle Pa says,That's a very good sign for you going to America, Frankie. No,says Aunt Aggie,'tis a bad sign.I read in the paper that the moon is practicing for the end of the world. Oh, end of the world my arse, says Uncle Pa. 'Tis the beginning for 357

Frankie McCourt. He'll come back in a few years with a new suit and fat on his bones like any Yank and a lovely girl with white teeth hangin' from his arm. Mam says,Ah, no, Pa, ah, no, and they take her inside and comfort her with a drop of sherry from Spain. It's late in the day when the Irish Oak sails from Cork, past Kinsale and Cape Clear, and dark when lights twinkle on Mizen Head, the last of Ireland I'll see for God knows how long. Surely I should have stayed, taken the post ofﬁce examination, climbed in the world. I could have brought in enough money for Michael and Alphie to go to school with proper shoes and bellies well ﬁlled.We could have moved from the lane to a street or even an avenue where houses have gardens. I should have taken that examination and Mam would never again have to empty the chamber pots of Mr. Sliney or anyone else. It's too late now. I'm on the ship and there goes Ireland into the night and it's foolish to be standing on this deck looking back and thinking of my family and Limerick and Malachy and my father in England and even more foolish that songs are going through my head Roddy McCorley goes to die and Mam gasping Oh the days of the Kerry dancing with poor Mr. Clohessy hacking away in the bed and now I want Ireland back at least I had Mam and my brothers and Aunt Aggie bad as she was and Uncle Pa, standing me my ﬁrst pint, and my bladder is near my eye and here's a priest standing by me on the deck and you can see he's curious. He's a Limerickman but he has an American accent from his years in Los Angeles. He knows how it is to leave Ireland, did it himself and never got over it.You live in Los Angeles with sun and palm trees day in day out and you ask God if there's any chance He could give you one soft rainy Limerick day. The priest sits beside me at the table of the First Ofﬁcer, who tells us ship's orders have been changed and instead of sailing to New York we're bound for Montreal. Three days out and orders are changed again.We are going to New York after all. Three American passengers complain,Goddam Irish.Can't they get it straight? 358

The day before we sail into New York orders are changed again.We are going to a place up the Hudson River called Albany. The Americans say,Albany? Goddam Albany? Why the hell did we have to sail on a goddam Irish tub? Goddam. The priest tells me pay no attention.All Americans are not like that. I'm on deck the dawn we sail into New York.I'm sure I'm in a ﬁlm, that it will end and lights will come up in the Lyric Cinema.The priest wants to point out things but he doesn't have to. I can pick out the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Brooklyn Bridge. There are thousands of cars speeding along the roads and the sun turns everything to gold. Rich Americans in top hats white ties and tails must be going home to bed with the gor- geous women with white teeth.The rest are going to work in warm comfortable ofﬁces and no one has a care in the world. The Americans are arguing with the captain and a man who climbed aboard from a tugboat.Why can't we get off here? Why do we have to sail all the goddam way to goddam Albany? The man says, Because you're passengers on the vessel and the cap- tain is the captain and we have no procedures for taking you ashore. Oh, yeah.Well, this is a free country and we're American citizens. Is that a fact? Well, you're on an Irish ship with an Irish captain and you'll do what he goddam tells you or swim ashore. He climbs down the ladder, tugboat chugs away, and we sail up the Hudson past Manhattan, under the George Washington Bridge, past hundreds of Liberty ships that did their bit in the war,moored now and ready to rot. The captain announces the tide will force us to drop anchor over- night opposite a place called, the priest spells it for me, Poughkeepsie. The priest says that's an Indian name and the Americans say goddam Poughkeepsie. After dark a small boat put-puts to the ship and an Irish voice calls up, Hello, there. Bejasus, I saw the Irish ﬂag, so I did. Couldn't believe me two eyes. Hello, there. He invites the First Ofﬁcer to go ashore for a drink and bring a friend and,You, too, Father. Bring a friend. The priest invites me and we climb down a ladder to the small boat with the First Ofﬁcer and the Wireless Ofﬁcer.The man in the boat says his name is Tim Boyle from Mayo God help us and we docked there at the right time because there's a bit of a party and we're all invited. He 359

takes us to a house with a lawn, a fountain and three pink birds stand- ing on one leg.There are ﬁve women in a room called a living room. The women have stiff hair, spotless frocks. They have glasses in their hands and they're friendly and smile with perfect teeth.One says,Come right in. Just in time for the pawty. Pawty.That's the way they talk and I suppose I'll be talking like that in a few years. Tim Boyle tells us the girls are having a bit of a time while their husbands are away overnight hunting deer, and one woman, Betty, says, Yeah. Buddies from the war.That war is over nearly ﬁve years and they can't get over it so they shoot animals every weekend and drink Rhein- gold till they can't see. Goddam war, excuse the language, Fawder. The priest whispers to me,These are bad women.We won't stay here long. The bad women say, Whatcha like to drink? We got everything. What's your name, honey? Frank McCourt. Nice name.So you take a little drink.All the Irish take a little drink. You like a beer? Yes, please. Gee,so polite.I like the Irish.My grandmother was half Irish so that makes me half, quarter? I dunno. My name is Frieda. So here's your beer, honey. The priest sits at the end of a sofa which they call a couch and two women talk to him. Betty asks the First Ofﬁcer if he'd like to see the house and he says, Oh, I would, because we don't have houses like this in Ireland.Another woman tells the Wireless Ofﬁcer he should see what they have growing in the garden, you wouldn't believe the ﬂowers. Frieda asks me if I'm okay and I tell her yes but would she mind telling me where the lavatory is. The what? Lavatory. Oh, you mean the bathroom. Right this way, honey, down the hall. Thanks. She pushes in the door, turns on the light, kisses my cheek and whispers she'll be right outside if I need anything. I stand at the toilet bowl ﬁring away and wonder what I'd need at a time like this and if this is a common thing in America, women wait- ing outside while you take a splash. 360

I ﬁnish, ﬂush and go outside. She takes my hand and leads me into a bedroom,puts down her glass,locks the door,pushes me down on the bed. She's fumbling at my ﬂy. Damn buttons. Don't you have zippers in Ireland? She pulls out my excitement climbs up on me slides up and down up and down Jesus I'm in heaven and there's a knock on the door the priest Frank are you in there Frieda putting her ﬁnger to her lips and her eyes rolling to heaven Frank are you in there Father would you ever take a good running jump for yourself and oh God oh Theresa do you see what's happening to me at long last I don't give a ﬁddler's fart if the Pope himself knocked on this door and the College of Cardinals gathered gawking at the windows oh God the whole inside of me is gone into her and she collapses on me and tells me I'm wonderful and would I ever consider settling in Poughkeepsie. Frieda tells the priest I had a bit of a dizziness after going to the bathroom, that's what happens when you travel and you're drinking a strange beer like Rheingold, which she believes they don't have in Ire- land.I can see the priest doesn't believe her and I can't stop the way the heat is coming and going in my face. He already wrote down my mother's name and address and now I'm afraid he'll write and say your ﬁne son spent his ﬁrst night in America in a bedroom in Poughkeepsie romping with a woman whose husband was away shooting deer for a bit of relaxation after doing his bit for America in the war and isn't this a ﬁne way to treat the men who fought for their country. The First Ofﬁcer and the Wireless Ofﬁcer return from their tours of the house and the garden and they don't look at the priest. The women tell us we must be starving and they go into the kitchen.We sit in the living room saying nothing to each other and listening to the women whispering and laughing in the kitchen.The priest whispers to me again, Bad women, bad women, occasion of sin, and I don't know what to say to him. The bad women bring out sandwiches and pour more beer and when we ﬁnish eating they put on Frank Sinatra records and ask if any- one would like to dance. No one says yes because you'd never get up and dance with bad women in the presence of a priest, so the women dance with each other and laugh as if they all had little secrets. Tim Boyle drinks whiskey and falls asleep in a corner till Frieda wakes him and tells him take us back to the ship.When we're leaving Frieda leans toward me as if she might kiss my cheek but the priest says good night in a very sharp way and no one shakes hands. As we walk down the 361

street to the river we hear the women laughing, tinkling and bright in the night air. We climb the ladder and Tim calls to us from his little boat, Mind yourselves going up that ladder. Oh, boys, oh, boys, wasn't that a grand night? Good night, boys, and good night, Father. We watch his little boat till it disappears into the dark of the Pough- keepsie riverbank.The priest says good night and goes below and the First Ofﬁcer follows him. I stand on the deck with the Wireless Ofﬁcer looking at the lights of America twinkling. He says, My God, that was a lovely night, Frank. Isn't this a great country altogether? 362

XIX 363

安琪拉的灰烬 [美]弗兰克·迈考特布鲁克林.1 我的父亲和母亲本该待在纽约，他们在那里相遇，在那里成婚，我也在那里出生。然而，我四岁的时候，他们却返回了爱尔兰。那时，我的弟弟小马拉奇三岁，双胞胎奥里弗和尤金只有一岁，妹妹玛格丽特已经夭亡。当我回首童年，我总奇怪自己竟然活了下来。当然，那是一个悲惨的童年，幸福的童年是不值得在这儿浪费口水的。比一般的悲惨童年更不幸的，是爱尔兰人的悲惨童年；比爱尔兰人的悲惨童年更不幸的，是爱尔兰天主教徒的童年。人们总爱吹嘘或抱怨他们早年所遭受的苦难，但那根本没法和爱尔兰人的苦难相提并论：家庭贫困潦倒；父亲一无所长、醉话连篇；母亲虔诚而沮丧，坐在火炉旁哀叹个不停；牧师自以为是；教师恃强凌弱；还有那些英国人，和他们八百年来对我们所造的孽。尤其糟糕的是———我们那儿总是湿漉漉的。在遥远的大西洋上空，大片聚结的雨云缓缓流向香农河，然后永远停留在利默里克①。从割礼节②到除夕，

雨水一直浇灌着这座城市。它造就了刺耳的干咳声，支气管炎的"呼噜"声，哮喘病的"咻咻"喘气声，还有肺病那"吭吭"的咳嗽声。它把人们的鼻子变成喷泉，把人们的肺变成细菌的温床。于是，它又引出了大量的治疗土方：为了治疗黏膜炎，得吃用加了胡椒粉的牛奶煮过的洋葱；为了使呼吸道畅通，得把面粉和荨麻熬成糊糊，裹在布里，然后把这滚烫的东西拍在胸膛上，烫得人"嘶嘶"地倒抽凉气。从十月到次年四月，利默里克的墙壁上一直闪烁着湿漉漉的光。衣服从来没干过，花呢衣服和羊毛外套成了许多生灵的乐园，有时还会钻出一些神秘的植物。在小酒馆里，水汽从潮湿的身体和衣服上蒸发出来，又随着烟卷和烟斗被吸进去，伴着溅洒出的黑啤酒和威士忌散发出霉味，还稍微混合着从户外厕所飘进来的尿臊味，许多人就是在那里将他们一周的收入呕吐得一干二净的。雨水把我们赶进了教堂———那是我们的避难所，我们力量的源泉，我们惟一干燥的地方。在做弥撒、祈祷和九日祷时，我们湿淋淋的挤作一大堆，在牧师单调沉闷的布道声中恹恹欲睡，而水汽又混合着焚香、鲜花和蜡烛的味道，从我们的衣服上蒸发出来。

利默里克一向以虔诚闻名，但我们仅仅熟悉它的雨水。我的父亲马拉奇。迈考特出生在安特里姆郡图姆镇的一个农场。跟他父亲年轻时一样，他生性粗野，爱找英国人或爱尔兰人的麻烦，有时还同时找这两伙人的麻烦。他曾为爱尔兰共和军作战，最终在一次亡命行动中成了被悬赏的逃兵。我小时候常常盯着父亲看，他那日益变稀的头发、东倒西歪的牙齿让我感到纳闷，为什么有人愿意出钱买这样一个脑袋呢？在我十三岁的时候，祖母告诉我一个秘密：还是婴儿的时候，你那可怜的父亲摔过倒栽葱。那是个意外，此后他就跟原来不一样了。你一定要牢记，摔过倒栽葱的人可能会有点不大正常。因为他那个被摔过的脑袋有了价码，他只好从戈尔韦港乘货船偷偷逃离爱尔兰。到了纽约，正赶上大禁酒，他简直认为自己掉进了地狱。但他随即发现了地下酒吧，又眉开眼笑了。在美国和英国游荡和痛饮过后，江河日下的光景令他开始渴望安宁。他回到了贝尔法斯特市，因为他的出现，那里炸开了锅，他却说：让他们统统给我倒霉去吧。他常和安德森镇的女士们闲聊，她们用美色诱惑他，可他却把她们打发了，继续喝自己的茶。他已经

烟酒不沾，美色又有什么用？不久，他死在皇家维多利亚医院。我的母亲叫安琪拉。西恩，是和她的母亲、两个哥哥托马斯和帕特里克，以及一个姐姐阿格尼斯在利默里克的贫民窟长大的。她从来没有见过自己的父亲，原因是在她出生几周前，他就溜到了澳大利亚。在利默里克的小酒馆喝了一夜的黑啤酒后，外公摇摇晃晃地走在小路上，一路哼唱着他最喜欢的那首歌：谁把罩衫扔进了墨菲太太的炖菜汤？无人搭理他只好一直高声嚷：定是爱尔兰脏鬼的恶作剧，看我不好好痛揍他一场，竟敢把罩衫扔进墨菲太太的炖菜汤。他的心情出奇地好，于是想和一岁的小帕特里克逗乐。可爱的小家伙深爱着他的父亲。父亲把他扔到半空中，他便大笑个不停。没事的，别怕，小帕特，没事的，别怕，飞到黑黑的天上去喽，好黑好黑的天呀。噢，耶稣啊，他没能接住这个落下来的孩子，可怜的小帕特里克头先着地，发出"格"的一声，接着又呜咽了几下，便没了声息。外婆从床上吃力地抬起身子（她正怀着孩子，那就是我的母亲），好不容易把小帕特里

克从地上弄起来，冲这孩子长叹一声，然后转向外公：滚出去！滚！你再多待一分钟，我就找斧子劈你，你这个酒疯子！耶稣作证，我会用绳子绞死你。滚出去！外公立在原地一动不动，像个男子汉一样。我有权待在自己家里，他说。她抱着这个受伤的孩子，肚子里还有另一个健康的孩子折腾着，她向他冲过去，疯狂地逼向他，他顿时软下来，跌跌撞撞地逃出屋子，奔上小路，一口气跑到澳大利亚的墨尔本才停下来。我的舅舅小帕特再也没能恢复原样。他的大脑变得迟钝，走起路来左腿和身子朝相反的方向扭着。他没有读过书，但上帝却在用另一种方式保佑他。八岁开始卖报纸的时候，他比财政大臣还会算账。没人知道人们为什么叫他"西恩修道院长"，不过全利默里克的人都喜欢他。我母亲的麻烦从她出生之际就开始了。外婆躺在床上，一边因为阵痛气喘吁吁，一边向孕妇的保护神圣哲拉。马则祷告个不停。接生护士欧哈罗兰穿着一身华丽的服装站在旁边。正赶上除夕，欧哈罗兰焦急地盼着这个孩子快快出生，她好及时赶赴聚会，参加庆典。她对我的外婆说：请你用力，求

你啦，用力。耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟啊，要是你们不让这个孩子快点的话，新年到了他也不会出生的，那我这身新衣又有什么用处？甭管什么圣哲拉。马则了，在这种时候，男人能有什么用？就算他是圣人又怎么样？圣哲拉。马则屁用不顶！外婆又向难产保护神圣安妮祷告，可是这孩子仍不肯出来。欧哈罗兰护士便让外婆向圣犹大祷告———他可是人们处于绝望境地时的保护神。圣犹大，危急关头的保护神啊，快救救我，我不行了。她嘟囔着，用着力，婴儿的头露出来了，只有一个头，那就是我的母亲。这时候，夜半的钟声响了，新年到了。口哨、喇叭、警笛、铜管乐队，同时在利默里克城喧嚣起来，人们喊着，唱着"新年快乐"。别了，老相识。教堂的祈祷钟声全部敲响了，欧哈罗兰护士为她那身没派上用场的新衣流下了泪水，那孩子仍然原样停在那里，她也仍然穿着这身新衣待在原地。请你出来吧，孩子，好吗？外婆猛一用力，孩子出世了，一个可爱的小女孩，长着乌黑的鬈发和一双充满哀怨的蓝眼睛。啊，老天在上，欧哈罗兰护士说，这孩子跨了两个年度，头生在新年，屁股生在旧年，或者说头生在旧年，

屁股生在新年。你得给教皇写信，太太，搞清这孩子到底算哪年生的，而我要把这身衣服留到明年穿了。孩子取名叫安琪拉，因为她降临人世的那一刻，晚祷钟声（Angelus）正好在新年的午夜时分响起，还因为她的确是个小天使。像童年时那样爱她吧，哪怕她虚弱，衰老，发色灰白。因为你永远不会失去母爱，直到她有一天在地下长睡。在圣文森特保罗学校，安琪拉学会了读书、写字和算术，到第九个年头，她的教育就结束了。她开始尝试做一个小时工，一个仆人，一个戴着小白帽随时为人开门的女佣，但她又学不会屈膝礼。她的母亲说，你没有这样的能力，你一点用都没有。为什么你不去美国？各种各样的废物在那儿都能找到位置。我给你盘缠。到达纽约时，她正赶上大萧条时期的第一个感恩节。在布鲁克林克拉森大街的丹。麦克阿多利和他妻子敏妮举办的聚会上，她邂逅了马拉奇。马拉奇很喜欢安琪拉，她同样很喜欢他。他有一种狡黠而又怯懦的神情，那是因为抢劫刚蹲了三个月班房的缘故。在地下

酒吧里，他和朋友约翰。迈克艾兰听说那辆卡车上装着满满的猪肉和豌豆罐头，于是铤而走险，但他们不会开车，卡车在默特尔大街上东倒西歪。警察盘查了这辆车，结果令他们大惑不解，竟然有人愿意劫持一辆没有装着猪肉和豌豆罐头，却只装着几箱纽扣的卡车。安琪拉被这狡黠而又怯懦的神情所吸引，马拉奇蹲了三个月班房后也备感孤单，所以这次邂逅必然产生那种"双膝打战"的情景。所谓"双膝打战"，就是指一男一女踮着脚尖，顶着墙壁，竭力控制那因兴奋而抖个不停的膝盖，却又兴奋不已的那副样子。 "双膝打战"将安琪拉置于有趣的境地，自然这也招来议论。安琪拉有两个表姐，麦克纳马拉姐妹——— 德莉娅和菲洛米娜，她们分别嫁给了梅奥县的吉米。福图恩和布鲁克林当地的汤米。弗林。德莉娅和菲洛米娜块头都很大，胸部发达，性情凶悍。当她们走在布鲁克林的人行道上，小人物们纷纷避让，以示尊重。这对姐妹晓得什么是对什么是错，认为任何疑惑都可以由一种东西来解决，那就是神圣的天主教和使徒教会。她们知道，安琪拉尚未婚嫁，不该让

人说三道四，她们不能对此袖手旁观。她们采取了行动，带着吉米和汤米向大西洋大街上那家地下酒吧进发。每个星期五，马拉奇都会在那里出现，那是他有工作以后发薪水的日子。店铺里的伙计乔伊。卡西马尼不想放这姐妹俩进来，但菲洛米娜警告他，要是他不想让自己的鼻子从脸上搬家，不想让那扇门散架，那最好给她们开门，因为她们是带着上帝的使命来的。乔伊说：好吧，好吧，你们这些爱尔兰人。天哪！要有麻烦了，要有麻烦了。马拉奇远远地待在酒吧的另一头，脸色发白，冲两个胸部发达的女人献上一丝苦笑，递给她们一杯酒。她们不为所动，德莉娅说：我们不知道你来自北爱尔兰的哪一个阶层。菲洛米娜说：我们怀疑你家里有长老会教徒，这样可以解释你对我们表妹干下的那些事。吉米说：啊，那么，啊，那么，就算他家里有长老会教徒，也不是他的错呀。德莉娅说：你给我闭嘴。汤米插进来：你对那个可怜姑娘干下的事情，对爱尔兰民族来说，是极不光彩的，你应该为自己的行为感到羞耻。

啊，我是为自己的行为感到羞耻，马拉奇说，我是为自己的行为感到羞耻。没有人要你说话，菲洛米娜说，你的蠢话造成的伤害够多的了，还是赶快闭上你的臭嘴吧。在你闭上臭嘴后，德莉娅说，我们来谈谈你和我们那可怜的表妹安琪拉。西恩的正事。马拉奇说：啊，的确，的确，正事归正事，我很高兴趁此机会，请你们每人喝上一杯。收起你的酒，汤米说，倒在你屁股上吧。菲洛米娜说：我们的小表妹一下船，你就盯上了她。在利默里克我们是讲道德的，你知道，道德。我们不像安特里姆郡的野兔子，那地方爬满了长老会教徒。吉米说：他长得不像长老会教徒。你给我闭嘴，德莉娅说。我们还注意到另一件事，菲洛米娜说，你的行为很古怪。马拉奇笑了：我是这个样子吗？是的，德莉娅说，这是你一开始就引起我们注意的原因之一，你那古怪的行为给我们一种很不舒服的感觉。就是长老会教徒那种鬼鬼祟祟的微笑，菲洛米娜说。

啊，马拉奇说，那只是因为我的牙齿有毛病。不管它牙齿不牙齿、举止古怪不古怪的，你要娶那姑娘，汤米说，你要上教堂举行婚礼。啊，马拉奇说，我可没打算结婚，你们知道，没有工作，我没法养家糊口... 结婚就是你要做的事，德莉娅说。上教堂举行婚礼吧，吉米说。你给我闭嘴，德莉娅说。马拉奇目送她们离去。我现在是进退两难，他对乔伊。卡西马尼说。骗你不是人，乔伊说，看见那两个小妞向我走过来，我简直想去跳哈得逊河。马拉奇开始考虑自己的困境。他的口袋里还有上次工作赚得的几美元，他有个叔叔在旧金山或是加利福尼亚的其他什么山。去加利福尼亚，远离这对胸部发达的麦克纳马拉姐妹和她们那可恨的丈夫，岂不更好？他确实应该离开，他要畅饮爱尔兰人酿的酒，庆祝自己的决定。乔伊为他倒酒，那酒差点烧破他的喉管。爱尔兰酒，一点没错！他对乔伊说，这是禁酒时期出自魔鬼之手的产物。乔伊耸耸肩：我什么也不知道，我只管倒酒。再说，这总比没酒喝要强。马拉奇还想

再要一杯，乔伊，你也来一杯，也问问那两个体面的意大利人想喝什么，你说什么？当然，我有钱付账！他在长岛火车站的长凳上醒来时，看见一个警察正用警棍敲打着他的靴子。他的逃命钱不见了，这回麦克纳马拉姐妹该活吞掉他了。圣约瑟节，三月里一个寒冷的日子，也就是"双膝打战"后的四个月，马拉奇娶了安琪拉。八月，他们的孩子出世了。十一月的一天，马拉奇喝醉了，决定去为孩子办理出生登记。他想以自己的名字为孩子命名，但是，他的北爱尔兰口音和酒后的语无伦次，弄得那位登记员稀里糊涂，结果在证明上登记的仅仅是麦尔这个名字。直到十二月底，他们才带麦尔去圣保罗教堂受洗，并按照他祖父和阿西西圣人的名字弗兰西斯给孩子命名。安琪拉还想根据利默里克保护神的名字，给孩子取一个中间名"门沁"，可马拉奇坚持说，他的儿子不能起一个利默里克人的名字，加一个中间名是残暴的美国人的习惯，既然按照阿西西圣人的名字受洗了，第二个名字就没有必要了。受洗的那天耽搁了一点时间，因为选定的教父约翰。迈克艾兰在地下酒吧喝多了，早把自己的职责忘到九

霄云外。菲洛米娜告诉丈夫汤米，他必须当教父。孩子的灵魂是危险的，她说。汤米低下了头，咕哝道：好吧，我当教父，但是要是他长大后像他父亲那样爱惹麻烦，举止古里古怪的话，我可不负责任，那样他可以到地下酒吧去找约翰。迈克艾兰。牧师说：你说得对，汤姆，你是一个正派人，好人从不跨进地下酒吧半步。马拉奇刚从那里出来，觉得自己受到了侮辱，想同牧师理论，再好好亵渎一下神灵：拿下你那副领子，我们来看看谁是个正派人。胸部发达的姐妹俩和她们的丈夫赶紧把他拦回来。刚做妈妈的安琪拉一时着急，竟忘了自己正抱着孩子，把他丢进了洗礼盆，来了个新教式的全身浸礼。辅祭协助牧师把婴儿从洗礼盆里捞出来，交给安琪拉。安琪拉呜咽着抱住孩子，水弄得她满胸脯都是。牧师哈哈大笑，说他从没见过这样的景象，这孩子现在是个标准的小浸信会①教徒了，不再需要牧师了。这话又一次激怒了马拉奇，他想向牧师扑过去，因为这牧师竟敢把他的孩子和新教徒视为一类。牧师说：安静，这位，你是在上帝的屋子里。马拉奇说：什么上帝的屋子，狗屁！结果，他被扔到法庭街上，因为你是不能在上帝的屋子里说粗话的。

受洗后，菲洛米娜说她家就在街角，家里有茶和火腿，还有蛋糕。马拉奇问：茶？她说，是的，茶，你是想要威士忌吧？他说茶就很不错，但他得先去找约翰。迈克艾兰那家伙算账，那家伙很失礼，没有履行他的教父职责。安琪拉说：你不过是想找个借口跑到地下酒吧去。他说：上帝作证，我现在根本就没想到酒。安琪拉开始掉眼泪：在你儿子的受洗日，你还非要去喝酒不可。德莉娅当面说他是个讨厌胚，可你又能指望北爱尔兰人怎么样呢？马拉奇看看这个，又看看那个，不停地倒腾着双脚，把帽子拉低遮住眼睛，两手往裤袋里一插，嘴里嗯啊着，标准的安特里姆郡偏远地区那帮人的作风，然后他转过身，快步走上法庭街，直奔大西洋大街的那家地下酒吧。他确信，他们会看在他儿子受洗日的分上，免费招待他一次。在菲洛米娜的家里，姐妹俩和她们的丈夫又吃又喝，而安琪拉却坐在角落，抹着眼泪照顾孩子。菲洛米娜的嘴里塞满了面包和火腿，呼呼隆隆地对安琪拉说：这就是你犯傻的后果，还没等下船，你就被那个疯子迷住了魂。你应该单身，要是把这孩

子送人领养，你现在就自由了。安琪拉哭得更厉害了。德莉娅发起了进攻：噢，别哭了，安琪拉，别哭了。不能怪罪别人，只能怪你自己，是你自己跟一个北爱尔兰酒鬼找上麻烦，那家伙看上去甚至不像个天主教徒，行为还怪怪的。我想说...说马拉奇身上绝对有长老会教徒的味道。你给我闭嘴，吉米。我要是你，菲洛米娜说，我一定不再要孩子了。他没有工作，所以没有钱，而且像那样酗酒，永远也不会有钱，所以...别再要孩子了，安琪拉，你听明白我说的了吗？是的，菲洛米娜。一年后，又一个孩子降生了。安琪拉按照他父亲的名字，叫他马拉奇，并给他取了一个中间名哲拉，那是他叔叔的名字。麦克纳马拉姐妹说，安琪拉是一只光会下崽的兔子，她们不想再跟她有任何关系了，除非她有一天觉悟。她们的丈夫欣然同意。在布鲁克林的克拉森大街的广场，我和弟弟小马拉奇一起玩耍。他两岁，我三岁。我们坐在跷跷板上。一上一下，一上一下。小马拉奇升上去。

我跳下来。小马拉奇跟着落下来，跷跷板砸在地上，他尖叫着，用手捂着嘴，那里流血了。啊，上帝，流血可不是件好事，妈妈会杀了我的。妈妈正从广场对面走过来，她的大肚子让她步履艰难。她问：你干了什么？你对这孩子干了什么？我不知道说什么好，我不知道我都干了什么。她揪住我的耳朵：回家，睡觉去。睡觉？大中午的天？她推着我朝广场的大门走：快走。她抱起小马拉奇，步履蹒跚地走了。我父亲的朋友麦克阿多利正站在我们那栋楼的外面，他和妻子敏妮站在人行道边，看着一条躺在阴沟里的狗。那狗的脑袋上全是血，跟小马拉奇嘴里流出的血的颜色一模一样。小马拉奇身上有狗那样的血，狗身上有小马拉奇那样的血。我拽住麦克阿多利先生的手，告诉他，小马拉奇也有狗身上那样的血。噢，他是有，没错，弗兰西斯。猫也有，爱斯基摩人也有，都是这样的血。

敏妮说：得了吧，丹，别吓唬这小家伙了。她告诉我，这条可怜的小狗被车轧了。临死前，它从街上一直爬到这儿。它是想回家，这个可怜的小东西。麦克阿多利先生说：你最好也回家去，弗兰西斯，我不知道你把小弟弟怎么了，你妈妈领他去医院了。回家吧，孩子。小马拉奇会像这条狗一样死去吗，麦克阿多利先生？他只是咬破了自己的舌头，他不会死的。敏妮说。那为什么这条狗死了？它到死的时候了，弗兰西斯。公寓里空荡荡的，我在卧室和厨房里徘徊，爸爸出去找工作了，妈妈和小马拉奇在医院里。我希望弄点吃的，但冰箱里除了几片漂在冰水上的卷心菜叶子，什么都没有。爸爸说过，不要吃任何漂浮在水上的东西，因为它们可能开始腐烂了。我倒在爸爸妈妈的床上睡着了，妈妈把我摇醒时，天快黑了。你小弟弟要睡一会儿，他差点把舌头咬掉，缝了好多针哪。你到那间屋睡去。爸爸正在厨房里，用他的大白瓷缸喝红茶，他把我抱到腿上。爸爸，给我讲库———库的故事好吗？

是库胡林，跟着我念，库———胡———林。要是你念对了，我就给你讲故事。库———胡———林。我念对了，他就给我讲起库胡林的故事。库胡林小时候有一个别名，叫赛坦塔。他在爱尔兰长大，爸爸小时候就住在那里的安特里姆郡。赛坦塔有一根棍子和一个球，一天，他击球时，球打进了库林那条大狗的嘴巴里，噎死了它。啊，库林非常生气，就说：没有我的大狗保护我的房子，我的妻子和我那十个小孩，还有一大堆猪啊，母鸡啊，绵羊啊，我该怎么办？赛坦塔说：对不起，我用我的棍子和球来保护你的房子，我改名叫库胡林吧，就是库林的猎犬的意思。他果真这样做了。他保卫着那幢房子和周围地区，结果成了一个大英雄，是整个北爱尔兰的猎犬。爸爸说他是一个英雄，比希腊人吹嘘个没完的赫拉克勒斯和阿喀琉斯还要了不起，要是公平的话，他可以向亚瑟王和他所有的骑士们挑战，问题是，英国佬从来就不可能给你这样的公平。这是我的故事，爸爸，不能把它讲给小马拉奇或者邻居家的孩子听。他讲完了故事，给我喝他的茶，那茶好苦，但坐在他的腿上，我很快活。

这几天里，小马拉奇的舌头肿了起来，他几乎发不出声，更别提说话了。不过就算他能说话，也没人会理睬他，因为天使半夜里又给我们家带来两个小宝宝。邻居们都说：哟，啊，多可爱的一对男孩呀，瞧瞧这大眼睛。小马拉奇站在屋子中间，仰头看着大家，指着自己的舌头，呜呜地哼着。这时邻居们却说：你没见我们正瞧你的小弟弟吗？他哭了，爸爸走过来拍了拍他的头，说：缩回你的舌头，儿子，出去跟弗兰基①一起玩吧。去吧。在广场上，我对小马拉奇讲了那条死在街道上的狗的事，说是因为有人把一个球扔进它的嘴巴里。小马拉奇直摇头：不是... 呜...球，是汽车...呜...轧死了它。他叫嚷着，舌头上有伤，他几乎没法正常说话，不能说话的滋味真可怕。他不让我推他荡秋千。他说：你...呜... 在跷跷板上...呜...没杀了我。他叫弗雷迪。莱博威茨推他，当秋千荡向天空时，他快活地大笑着。弗雷迪七岁，长得挺高大，我让他推我，他说：不干，你竟然要杀你弟弟。我设法自己让秋千荡起来，费了半天劲，只能让它来

回打转。见我荡不起来，弗雷迪和小马拉奇哈哈大笑，我很生气。他们现在是铁哥们儿，弗雷迪七岁，小马拉奇两岁。他们天天在大笑，随着不停的大笑，小马拉奇的舌头渐渐痊愈了。当他大笑时，你可以看见他的牙齿是多么的洁白、细密而美丽，你还可以看见他的眼睛晶莹闪烁。他有一对像妈妈那样的蓝眼睛，头发金黄，小脸粉红。我的眼睛是褐色的，像爸爸。我的头发是黑色的，镜子里的我，脸颊有些苍白。妈妈对邻居莱博威茨太太说：小马拉奇是世界上最幸福的孩子。她告诉莱博威茨太太，弗兰基举止有些古怪，像他的爸爸。我想知道我古怪在哪里，但并没有发问，因为我不该偷听大人说我希望自己能荡到空中去，荡进云彩里，可以环绕全世界飞翔，再也听不到弟弟奥里弗和尤金半夜里的哭声。妈妈说他们总是吃不饱，她自己也在半夜里哭泣。她说成天的护理、喂奶、换洗尿布，累得她受不了，四个男孩太多了。她真希望给自己生个小女孩，要是能有个小女孩的话，她愿意付出任何代价。我和小马拉奇一起在广场上玩耍。我四岁，他三岁。他让我推他荡秋千，因为他自己荡不好，而弗雷迪。

莱博威茨正在上学。我俩只好待在广场上，因为双胞胎在睡觉，妈妈说她也累极了。出去玩吧，她吩咐说，让我休息一会儿。爸爸又出去找工作了，时常带着一身威士忌酒气回来，还哼着小曲，内容全是悲惨的爱尔兰。妈妈气不打一处来，说爱尔兰只配亲她的屁股。他说当着孩子们的面要使用优美的语言，她说她才不管什么语言，她想要的就是餐桌上的食物，而不是什么悲惨的爱尔兰。她说禁酒结束了，这可真是个不幸的日子，爸爸在酒吧里打扫打扫卫生，抬抬酒桶，就可以换得一杯威士忌或啤酒。有时他还会带回家一点免费的午餐，像黑麦面包、腌牛肉、泡菜什么的。他把这些吃的放在桌上，然后开始一个人喝茶。他说食物对身体有害，不知道我们哪来这么好的胃口。妈妈说，我们的胃口好，是因为我们几乎一直在挨饿。爸爸找到工作时，妈妈十分开心，她唱起歌来：非要不可，这就是原因，如果非要不可，你这样的人，可会爱上我，可会爱上我？爸爸把第一周的薪水带回家时，妈妈心花怒放，她可以付清杂货店那个可爱的意大利老板的赊账了，她又

可以高昂起头，在这个世界上，没有比欠人家钱和情更糟糕的事了。她开始清洁厨房，洗刷杯盘，扫去桌上的残渣，清理冰箱，从另一个意大利人那里订购了一块鲜冰。她买来可以拿到公寓厕所大方使用的卫生纸，对我们说，这可比总让标题弄黑屁股的《每日新闻报》要强多了。她在炉子上烧水，用一整天的时间在一个大铁桶里洗我们的衬衫、袜子、双胞胎的尿布，还有我们家那两条床单和三条毛巾。她把每样东西都挂在公寓后的那条晾衣绳上，我们望着它们在阳光下翩翩起舞。她说，我并不想让邻居们看见我洗衣服，那样他们就知道咱家都有些什么，但阳光晒干的衣服再清香不过了。星期五晚上，当爸爸把第一周的薪水带回家时，我们就知道这个周末一定是非常快乐的。星期六晚上，妈妈会在炉子上烧水，把我们扔进那个大铁桶里好好清洗一番，让爸爸把我们擦干。小马拉奇会转过身去，向我们展示一下他的屁股。爸爸会装做很吃惊的样子，逗得我们哈哈大笑。妈妈会弄热可可给我们喝，而爸爸讲他杜撰的故事时，我们可以彻夜不睡。我们只要说出一个名字，比如这个公寓的麦克阿多利先生或莱博威茨先生，爸爸接着就会把他们打发到巴西的一条

河上奋力划桨，后面有一群有绿鼻子和紫褐色肩膀的印第安人穷追不舍。我们在这样的夜晚沉入梦乡，都惦记着那顿有鸡蛋、油煎西红柿、面包和不少白糖、牛奶的早餐，以及傍晚那顿有土豆泥、豌豆、火腿和妈妈做的蛋糕的丰盛晚餐。那蛋糕浸过雪利酒，还夹着层层水果和美味的蛋奶沙司。爸爸把第一周的薪水带回家后，天气晴朗，妈妈把我们带到广场上。她坐在长凳上和敏妮。麦克阿多利聊天，给敏妮讲利默里克人的故事，敏妮给她讲贝尔法斯特人的故事。她们放声大笑，原来爱尔兰有好多可笑的人。随后，她们互相教对方一些悲伤的歌曲。我和小马拉奇这时也丢下秋千和跷跷板，坐到她们身边，跟着她们一起唱：一群年轻的士兵在夜晚露营，他们谈论着各自的心上人。除了一个小伙儿人人都开心，那小伙儿显得悲伤又郁闷。一个男孩说，快到我们这里来，你一定也有自己的什么人。奈德摇着脑袋，说起话来自豪得很：我爱着两个人，个个对我像母亲，

不管离开哪个我都不忍心。一个是我妈，愿上帝保佑她，另一个就是我的心上人。我和小马拉奇唱着这首歌，唱得妈妈和敏妮都哈哈大笑，唱到最后，小马拉奇鞠了一个深深的躬，向妈妈张开怀抱，妈妈和敏妮顿时止住笑声，大叫起来。丹。麦克阿多利下班回到家，说鲁迪。瓦利①该担心有人来抢他的饭碗了。我们回到家，妈妈沏茶，烤面包，做火腿，要不就是用黄油和盐做土豆泥。爸爸什么也不吃，只管喝茶。妈妈说：老天在上，你怎么能干了一天的活儿，却什么也不吃呢？他说：有茶就足够了。她说：你会毁了身子的。他还是那句话：食物对身体有害。他一边喝茶，一边给我们讲故事，还教我们念《每日新闻报》上的字母和单词。有时，他就抽着一支雪茄，瞪着墙壁，舌头在嘴唇上舔来舔去。爸爸工作到第三周，他没把薪水带回家。星期五晚上，我们等待着他的归来，妈妈让我们吃了点面包，喝了点茶水。夜幕降临，克拉森大街华灯初上，别的上班的人都已经回家，吃着晚餐里的鸡蛋（星期五不能吃荤），可以听见公寓里楼上楼下的人家说话的声音，平。

克罗斯贝①在收音机里唱着———"兄弟，你能匀给我一毛钱吗？" 我和小马拉奇逗双胞胎玩，都清楚妈妈不会再唱"谁都明白我为何想要你的吻"了。她坐在厨房的餐桌旁，自言自语：我该怎么办呢？直到深夜，爸爸才哼着罗迪。迈克考雷②之歌爬上楼。他推开房门，招呼我们：我的部队哪儿去了？我的四个战士在哪儿呢？妈妈说：别骚扰那些孩子啦，因为你要用威士忌灌满你的肚子，他们就只好挨着饿睡觉了。他来到卧室门口：起来，男孩们，起来。谁答应为爱尔兰去死，我就给他五分钱。从一座阳光明媚的岛屿起飞，我们在加拿大的丛林深处相会。虽然踏上了伟大的国土，我们的心却仍与祖国紧紧相随。起来，男孩们，起来。弗兰西斯，马拉奇，奥里弗，尤金。红骑士分队、芬尼亚勇士团、爱尔兰共和军，起来，起来！妈妈坐在餐桌旁，不停地摇头，她的头发湿淋淋地披散着，面颊也是水淋淋的。你就不能放过他们吗？她说，耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟啊，难道你身无分文地回

家还嫌不够，非要再把这些孩子愚弄个够不可吗？她走到我们跟前，说：都回到床上，睡觉去。我要让他们起来，他说，我要让他们为爱尔兰独立自由的那一天做好准备。别跟我作对，她说，不然的话，那一天在你的老家将会成为令人遗憾的一天。他拉低帽子，遮住自己的脸，哭喊道：我可怜的妈妈哟，可怜的爱尔兰哟！啊，我们该怎么办啊？妈妈说：你真是个没救的疯子。说着，又催我们上床睡觉去。爸爸工作到第四周，在星期五早上，妈妈问他今晚是拿着薪水回家，还是继续把它喝个一干二净？他看着我们，冲妈妈摇摇头，好像是说：唉，你不该当着孩子们的面说这种话。妈妈逼着他：我问你，你是回来能让我们充充饥，还是要等到深更半夜身无分文才回家，还哼唱着凯文。巴里①之歌或者什么悲伤小曲？他戴上帽子，双手插进裤兜，叹了口气，望着天花板，说：我已经告诉过你，我会回家的。这天晚些时候，妈妈给我们穿上衣服，把双胞胎放进婴儿车。我们沿着布鲁克林长长的街道向前走去。小

马拉奇不愿在她身边一路小跑，她就让他坐进婴儿车里。她对我说，你太大了，坐不成婴儿车。我告诉她我腿疼，跟不上她。她没有唱歌，我明白这不是谈腿疼的时候。我们来到一扇大门前，有个男人站在四面有窗的亭子里。妈妈上前跟他说话，问能不能让她进去，找到发薪水的地方。这样，他们就可以把爸爸的一部分薪水给她，免得他又全部花在酒吧里。那个男人摇了摇头：对不起，女士，要是我们开了例，会有一半的布鲁克林已婚妇女闯进这个地方。很多男人都有酗酒的毛病，但只要他们能清醒地来上班，我们也拿他们没办法。我们只好在街对面等着。妈妈让我靠着墙坐在人行道上。她给了双胞胎糖水瓶，可我和小马拉奇只能等她找爸爸要到钱，然后去意大利老板那里买些茶、面包和鸡蛋才能充饥。汽笛在五点半拉响，戴着帽子、穿着工作服的男人们从大门里蜂拥而出，他们的脸和手在干活儿时弄得乌黑。妈妈让我们仔细地盯着爸爸，因为她的视力不大好，看不清街对面。先是几十个人，然后是几个人，最后一个人也没有了。妈妈哭了：你们怎么没看见他？你们是瞎了还是怎么了？

她又去找亭子里的那个男人：你确定里面一个人都没有了吗？没了，女士，他说，都走了，我不知道他是怎么从你眼皮底下溜掉的。我们只好沿着布鲁克林长长的街道返回。双胞胎抱着他们的瓶子，哭喊着还要糖水。小马拉奇说他也饿了，妈妈让他再等一会儿，说我们会从爸爸那儿拿到钱的，然后我们会吃一顿香喷喷的晚餐。我们要去意大利老板那里买鸡蛋，在炉子上烤面包片，还在上面抹上果酱。啊，我们会的，我们都会吃饱穿暖的。大西洋大街上已是漆黑一片，而长岛火车站附近所有的酒吧都灯火通明，人声鼎沸。我们一个又一个酒吧去找爸爸。妈妈进去找时，让我们留在外面，看着婴儿车。有时她让我进去找。那一大群吵闹的男人和发霉的气味，使我想起爸爸回家时身上那股威士忌的味道。吧台后面的伙计说：呀，孩子，你想干什么？你不该到这儿来，你要知道。我在找我父亲，我父亲在这儿吗？噢，孩子，我哪知道这个，你父亲是谁？他叫马拉奇，他老是唱凯文。巴里之歌。

马拉基？不是，是马拉奇。马拉奇？他老是唱凯文。巴里之歌？他冲酒吧里的人喊：你们这帮家伙，知道马拉奇这个家伙吗，他老是唱凯文。巴里之歌？人们都摇了摇头。一个人说，他认识一个老是唱凯文。巴里的家伙，叫迈克尔，但因为战争受过伤，喝酒喝死了。那个酒吧伙计说：天哪，皮特，我没让你讲世界历史，对吧？喂，小鬼，我们不让人在这里唱歌，这会惹麻烦的，特别是爱尔兰人。要是让他们唱，紧接着就会满天飞拳头。再说了，我从来没听说过马拉奇这个名字。好吧，小鬼，这里没有马拉奇。叫皮特的那个人把酒杯伸向我：来，小鬼，喝一口。但酒吧伙计喊道：你干吗，皮特？想把那小鬼灌醉吗？你敢这么干，皮特，我就打烂你的屁股。差不多找遍车站附近的酒吧，妈妈才算作罢，她靠在一堵墙上哭了起来：耶稣啊，我们还得走回克拉森大街，可我有四个饿着肚子的孩子哪。她让我回到刚才那个酒吧，看看酒吧伙计肯不肯给双胞胎的瓶子添点水，说不定还会给点糖。酒吧里的人都觉得很可笑，

竟然叫酒保替婴儿奶瓶倒水。但这个块头很大的酒保命令他们闭上嘴，告诉我婴儿应该喝的是奶，而不是水。我告诉他妈妈没有钱，他倒掉瓶子里的水，换上了牛奶。他说：告诉你妈妈，他们的牙齿和骨骼需要牛奶。你们要是喝糖水的话，都会得佝偻病的。告诉你妈妈。见到牛奶，妈妈很高兴。她说她完全知道牙齿、骨骼和佝偻病的事，可乞丐是不能挑肥拣瘦的。我们到达克拉森大街时，她径直去了意大利人的杂货店，对老板说，丈夫今晚回来晚了，大概是在加班，可不可以先在他这里赊点东西，明天她肯定会付钱。那个意大利人说：太太，您从不赖账的，只是早还晚还而已。这个店里有的，您想要什么尽管拿吧。啊，她说，我要的不多。您想要什么尽管拿吧，太太，我知道您是个诚实的人，您这儿还有一帮好孩子。我们已经在布鲁克林那条长长的街上走得疲惫不堪，连动下巴都有些困难，但还是吃掉了鸡蛋、吐司和火腿。双胞胎吃完就睡了，妈妈把他们放到床上，给他们换尿布。她让我去公寓厕所漂洗这些脏兮兮的尿布，好尽快晾干，明天接着用。小马拉奇都快睡着了，还

得帮着妈妈擦洗双胞胎的屁股。我和小马拉奇、双胞胎都钻进了被窝。我望着坐在外面厨房餐桌旁的妈妈，她正在抽烟、喝茶、淌眼泪。我真想爬起来，告诉她，我很快就会长成大人，会到那个有一扇大门的地方工作，每个星期五的晚上，我都把买鸡蛋、吐司和果酱的钱带回家，她也会再次唱起那首"谁都明白我为何想要你的吻"的歌。接下来的一周，爸爸丢掉了工作。这个星期五的晚上，他回到家里，把薪水往桌子上一扔，冲妈妈说：现在你高兴了吧？你在大门口晃来晃去，又是抱怨又是指责，结果他们解雇了我。他们一直想找借口解雇我，你正好给他们一个借口。他从桌子上的薪水里抽出几美元，走了出去。很晚的时候，他高声嚎唱着回到家里。双胞胎被吓哭了，妈妈一边哄着他们，一边跟着哭泣了很长时间。我们在广场上成小时地打发着时间，这时候双胞胎在睡觉，妈妈疲惫不堪，而爸爸则带着一身的威士忌酒味回到家，高唱着凯文。巴里或者是罗迪。迈克考雷 "星期一早晨要被绞死"的歌：

布鲁克林.2

他踏上窄窄的街道，面带微笑，年轻又骄傲，绞索套在他的脖子上，被他金黄的发卷贴得牢。罗迪。迈克考雷即将赴死，今天走过那座图姆桥，蓝色的眼睛里不见一滴泪，反倒有兴奋的光芒在闪耀。他唱着歌，绕着餐桌踏步走，妈妈哭了起来，双胞胎也跟着她号啕起来。她喊：出去，弗兰基，出去，小马拉奇，不要看你爸爸这副德性，到广场上待着吧！我们不介意去广场，我们可以在地上堆树叶玩，可以互相推着荡秋千，可是不久，冬天就到了克拉森大街，秋千被冻得一动不动。敏妮。麦克阿多利说：上帝啊，帮帮这两个可怜的小男孩吧，他们连一只手套都没有。这句话让我笑了起来，我和小马拉奇两个人有四只手，所以"一只手套"的想法是愚蠢的。小马拉奇不明白我为什么笑，不到四五岁，他什么也不会懂的。敏妮把我们两个领回家，给我们喝茶，让我们吃加了果酱的麦片粥。麦克阿多利先生抱着他们刚出生的小宝宝麦茜坐在躺椅上，他拿着她的奶瓶，哼着歌：

拍拍手，拍拍手，拍到爹地回家来，带着满口袋的小面包，只给麦茜一个人。拍拍手，拍拍手，拍到爹地回家来，爹地有钞票，妈咪却无分文。小马拉奇想跟着唱，被我制止了，因为这是麦茜的歌。他开始哭闹。敏妮说：看你，看你，你可以唱这首歌，这是所有孩子的歌。麦克阿多利先生朝小马拉奇笑笑。我不明白这是什么世界啊，人人竟然都可以唱别人的歌？敏妮说：不要皱眉头，弗兰基，那会让你脸色发暗，天知道，你的脸色已经够暗了。有一天，你也会有一个小妹妹，你可以唱这首歌给她听。啊，是的，你会有一个小妹妹的，一定会的。敏妮说对了，妈妈的愿望实现了。不久，我们家有了一个新宝宝，一个小女孩，他们叫她玛格丽特。我们都喜爱玛格丽特。她像妈妈一样，生着黑黑的鬈发和蓝蓝的眼睛。她挥舞着小手，咿咿呀呀地叫着，就像

克拉森大街两旁树上的小鸟。敏妮说上帝造这孩子的那天，天堂一定是个假日。莱博威茨太太说，这样的眼睛，这样的微笑，这样的快乐，真是世间少有。她简直让我手舞足蹈。爸爸找工作后一回到家，他就抱着玛格丽特，唱歌给她听：一个月夜，在隐蔽的角落，我发现了一个矮矮的小妖魔。猩红的帽子和绿色的外套，身旁还有个小坛锅。劈里啪啦，那是他的锤子在丁点大的鞋子上戳。啊，我幸灾乐祸以为他要被活捉，可这个小仙竟然也一样幸灾乐祸。他抱着她在厨房里走来走去，对她说着话，说她那跟妈妈一样乌黑鬈曲的头发和蓝蓝的眼睛是多么可爱；说他要带她去爱尔兰，他们将在安特里姆郡的峡谷里散步，在内伊湖里游泳；说他很快就会找到新工作，所以，他和她都会穿上丝绸的衣服和饰着银扣袢的鞋爸爸为玛格丽特唱得越多，她就哭得越少，一天天过

去，她甚至开始笑了。妈妈说：瞧他还想抱那孩子跳舞呢，连脚都站不稳。说着，她笑了起来，我们也都跟着笑了。双胞胎小的时候，一哭闹，爸爸和妈妈就会"嘘、嘘" 地哄他们，喂他们吃的，然后让他们睡觉。但玛格丽特哭闹时，空气中却弥漫着一种分外孤寂的感觉，爸爸会立即跳下床，抱起她，围着桌子缓缓走动，唱着歌，发出母亲一样的声音。当他走过窗前，借着街灯的微光，可以看见他面颊上的泪水。这很奇怪，他从来没有为谁哭泣过，除非是他喝过酒，哼唱着凯文。巴里之歌和罗迪。迈克考雷之歌的时候。而此刻，他在为玛格丽特哭泣，身上却没有一丁点酒味。妈妈对敏妮。麦克阿多利说：那孩子让他好上了天，自从她出世，他一滴酒也没沾过。我早该生这个小女孩的。啊，他们也很可爱，不是吗？敏妮说，这些小男孩也相当不错，只是你自己想要个小女孩罢了。妈妈笑了：我自己想要？老天在上，我只有在喂奶的时候才能接近她，他恨不得成天成夜地抱着她。敏妮说：一个男人这么迷恋他的小女儿，也真是可爱，大家不都为她着迷吗？

每个人都这么迷恋她。双胞胎能站起来走路了，但一天到晚地磕磕绊绊。他们的屁股发了炎，因为那上面总是沾着屎尿。抓到像纸屑、羽毛、鞋带这样的脏东西，他们就往嘴里塞，然后又吐出来。妈妈说我们都快把她逼疯了。她给双胞胎穿上衣服，把他们放进婴儿车里，让我和小马拉奇把他们推到广场上。寒冷的天气退去了，克拉森大街两旁的树都长出了绿色的叶子。我们推着婴儿车在广场上一圈一圈地跑，双胞胎呵呵地笑着，还不时发出"格格"的声音，笑到肚子饿了，他们开始哭闹。婴儿车里有两瓶糖水，可以让他们安静一会儿，后来他们又饿了，哭得更凶。我不知道该怎么办才好，他们这么弱小，我真希望能给他们各种吃的，好让他们继续笑，继续发出婴儿那种"格格" 的声音。他们喜欢吃糊状的东西，妈妈便把面包放在茶壶里捣碎，加上牛奶、水和糖，她把这叫做面包精。要是我现在就带双胞胎回家，妈妈肯定会冲我大嚷，因为我没有让她休息好，或是吵醒了玛格丽特。我们得待在广场，直到她把脑袋伸出窗外招呼我们再回家。我给双胞胎扮鬼脸，叫他们别哭。我把一张纸放在自己的头上，再让它飘落下去，他们看了一笑再笑。我

把婴儿车推到小马拉奇那里，他正和弗雷迪。莱博威茨一起荡秋千。小马拉奇正想把赛坦塔变成库胡林的故事一字不落地讲给弗雷迪听。我命令他不要讲，那是我的故事。他不听，我推了他一下，他哭了：哇— ——哇———我要告诉妈妈。弗雷迪也推了我一下，我的大脑顿时一片漆黑。我冲向他，一阵拳打脚踢，他大喊：喂，住手，住手。可我住不了手，因为我不能住手，我不知道怎么住手，一旦我住了手，小马拉奇就会继续拿走我的故事。弗雷迪推开我，一溜烟似的跑了，他大声叫嚷着：弗兰基要杀我，弗兰基要杀我。我一时不知所措，我从来没想过要杀人。小马拉奇仍在秋千上，他哭喊着：别杀我，弗兰基，他显得那样无助。我搂住他，把他从秋千上抱下来，他也抱住我，说：我再也不讲你的故事了，我不把库、库的故事告诉弗雷迪了。我想笑，可我没法笑，因为双胞胎正在婴儿车里大哭，而天已经黑了，他们什么都看不见，就算你扮鬼脸或是让东西从头上掉下来，又有什么用呢？意大利人的杂货店就在街对面，我看见了香蕉、苹果和橘子。我知道双胞胎能吃香蕉，小马拉奇喜欢吃香蕉，我也很喜欢。可是得有钱才行，没听说意大利人

给谁施舍过香蕉，更何况迈考特一家还欠着他们的账。妈妈一直叮嘱我，除非回家，否则，永远，永远不要离开广场。可双胞胎在婴儿车里饿得大吵大闹，我又该怎么办呢？我对小马拉奇说，我去去就来。确信没人看见，我迅速抓起杂货店外面的一串香蕉，向远离广场的默特尔大街逃去。我绕过街区，穿过另一头有洞的篱笆，回到广场。我们把婴儿车推到一个阴暗的角落，开始给双胞胎剥香蕉吃。这一串有五根香蕉，我们在阴暗的角落里美餐了一顿。双胞胎吃得口水直流，弄得脸上、头发上、衣服上都是香蕉。这时，我意识到有问题了，妈妈会问双胞胎浑身上下怎么都是香蕉？你从哪里弄来的香蕉？我不能告诉她是从街角那家意大利人的商店里，我只能说是从一个男人那里。这就是我要说的，一个男人！接下来，奇怪的事情发生了，有个男人站在广场的大门口招呼我。天啊，正是那个意大利人。哎，孩子，过来，哎，跟你说话呢，过来。我走了过去。你是那两个小孩子的小哥哥，对吧？那对双胞胎？

嗨，我这有袋水果，不是给你的，是我扔掉的，明白吗？所以，嗨，就拿去吧，有苹果、橘子和香蕉。你们喜欢吃香蕉，对吧？我认为你们喜欢吃香蕉，嗯？哈哈，我知道你们喜欢吃香蕉。嗨，把袋子接过去。你们有个好母亲，你们的父亲呢？啊，你们知道，他有问题，是爱尔兰人的问题。给双胞胎一个香蕉吃吧，让他们安静一会儿，我在街对面听见他们一直在哭喊。谢谢您，先生。天啊，真是个有礼貌的孩子，嗯？你是从哪儿学来的？我父亲教给我的，先生。你父亲？啊，好吧。爸爸坐在桌旁看报纸。他说罗斯福总统是个好人，在美国的每个人很快都会有工作的。妈妈坐在桌子的另一旁，用奶瓶喂玛格丽特，她目光冷酷，让我感到害怕。你从哪儿弄来的水果？那个男人。哪个男人？那个意大利男人给我的。是你偷的吧？小马拉奇说：是那个男人，是那个男人给弗兰基的。

还有，你对弗雷迪。莱博威茨都干了什么？他母亲上这儿来了。她是一个可爱的女人，我不知道没有她和敏妮。麦克阿多利的话，我们该怎么办？你却非要打可怜的弗雷迪。小马拉奇蹦了起来：他没有，他没有。他不想杀弗雷迪，不想杀我。爸爸说：嘘，小马拉奇，嘘，过来。他把小马拉奇抱到自己的腿上。我的母亲说：下楼去向弗雷迪道歉。我不去。爸爸妈妈互相看了一眼。爸爸说：弗雷迪是个好孩子，他只是在推你的小弟弟荡秋千，这难道有什么不对他想把我那个库胡林的故事偷去。噢，是这样。弗雷迪不稀罕你的那个库胡林的故事，他有自己的故事，有好几百个呢。他是犹太人。犹太人是怎么回事？爸爸笑了：犹太人是...犹太人是有自己的故事的人，他们不需要库胡林。他们有摩西，他们有参孙。参孙是怎么回事？要是你去向弗雷迪赔礼道歉，我就告诉你参孙是怎么

回事。你可以对弗雷迪说对不起，说你再也不那样干了，你甚至可以问问他参孙是怎么回事。只要你向他赔礼道歉，你想怎么样都行。你愿意吗？宝宝在母亲的怀里轻轻哭了一声，爸爸立刻跳起来，把小马拉奇丢到了地板上，她没事吧？母亲说：她当然没事，她在吃奶呢。老天在上，你可真够神经过敏他们此刻谈论着玛格丽特，把我忘了。我并不在乎，准备下楼去问弗雷迪参孙的事，看看参孙是不是和库胡林一样棒，看看弗雷迪是不是有他自己的故事，或者他是不是还想偷库胡林的故事。小马拉奇想跟我一起去，爸爸正站着，没有大腿给他坐。莱博威茨太太说：啊，弗兰基，弗兰基，进来，进来，还有小马拉奇。告诉我，弗兰基，你把弗雷迪怎么了？想杀了他？弗雷迪是个好男孩，弗兰基。他爱学习，和他的大大一起听收音机，还推你的弟弟荡秋千，而你竟想杀了他。哦，弗兰基，弗兰基，你那可怜的母亲和她有病的宝宝啊。她没有病，莱博威茨太太。她病了，那是一个有病的宝宝。我了解有病的宝宝，我在医院上班。别说了，弗兰基。进来，进来。弗雷

迪，弗雷迪，弗兰基来了。出来，弗兰基不杀你了，你和小马拉奇，多好的犹太名字，吃块点心吧，嗯？他们为什么给你取个犹太名字，嗯？来，喝杯牛奶，吃块点心。你们两个这么瘦，爱尔兰人总不吃东西。我们和弗雷迪一起坐在桌子旁，吃着点心，喝着牛奶。莱博威茨先生坐在躺椅里看报纸，听收音机。有时，他会和莱博威茨太太说上几句，他发出的声音有些怪异，我听不懂，弗雷迪能听懂，每当莱博威茨先生发出那种怪异的声音时，弗雷迪就起身，给他一块点心。莱博威茨先生便冲弗雷迪笑笑，拍拍他的头。弗雷迪也冲他笑笑，并发出同样怪异的声音。莱博威茨太太冲我和小马拉奇直摇头。哎哟，这么瘦。她说了那么多"哎哟"，弄得小马拉奇笑了，也说起"哎哟"。结果，莱博威茨一家人都笑了。莱博威茨先生说了一些我们听得懂的话，说爱尔兰语的"哎哟"就是笑的意思。莱博威茨太太笑得格外厉害，她全身抖动，抱住肚子。小马拉奇又说了一次"哎哟"，因为他知道这会把每个人都逗笑。我也说了一下"哎哟"，但是没有人笑。我明白了，"哎哟"是属于小马拉奇的，就像库胡林是属于我的一样，小马拉奇也可以有他的"哎哟"。

莱博威茨太太，我父亲说，弗雷迪有一个特别好听的故事。小马拉奇说：参、参，哎哟。人们又笑了，可我没笑，因为我记不起叫参什么来了。弗雷迪嚼着点心，嘟囔着说：参孙。莱博威茨太太训斥他：满嘴都是东西时不要说话。我笑了，她是大人，也把嘴巴说成老鼠①。见我笑，小马拉奇也跟着笑了。莱博威茨一家人彼此看着，同样是笑呵呵的。弗雷迪说：不是参孙，我最好听的故事是大卫和巨人歌利亚的故事。大卫用弹弓杀死了他，用一块石头射中他的脑袋，脑浆滴了一地。是流了一地。是的，大大。大大，弗雷迪是这样叫父亲的，而我叫父亲"爸爸"。母亲的低语弄醒了我：这孩子怎么啦？天还早，虽然屋里没有多少晨光，但仍能看到爸爸抱着玛格丽特站在窗前。他轻轻地摇晃着她，叹息着，唉。妈妈问：她是...是病了吗？唉，她很安静，就是有一点点发凉。母亲跳下床，抱过孩子。快找医生去，看在上帝的分上，快去。父亲提上裤子，套在衬衫上，这么冷的天，他没穿夹克和鞋子，也没穿袜子。

我们在屋里等，双胞胎正在床尾沉睡，小马拉奇在我旁边闹腾：弗兰基，我要喝水。妈妈坐在床上，轻摇着她的小宝宝：啊，玛格丽特，玛格丽特，我的小宝贝，快睁开你那可爱的蓝眼睛吧，我的小可怜。我给小马拉奇和自己各倒了杯水，母亲悲叹道：你跟你弟弟有水喝，啊，的确，有水喝，是吧？可你的妹妹什么都没有。你那可怜的小妹妹。你问过她有没有长嘴吗？你问过她是不是想喝一滴水吗？哼，没有，你跟你弟弟，像没事人似的，只管喝自己的水。对你们两个来说，每天都一样，不是吗？那对双胞胎睡死了，一样什么也不关心。他们可怜的小妹妹正在我怀里病着呢，正在我怀里病着呢。啊，老天爷呀。她怎么这样说话？这不像我母亲的口气了。我想要父亲，我的父亲去哪儿了？我回到床上，开始哭泣。小马拉奇问：你为什么哭？你为什么哭？直问到妈妈又冲我来了：你妹妹正在我的怀里病着，你却在那里哭哭啼啼。要是让我到那张床上去，看我让你鬼哭狼嚎。爸爸带着医生回来了，身上有股威士忌的气味。医生给宝宝做了检查，他拨开她的眼皮，抚摸着她的脖子、胳膊和腿，试探着她的反应。他直起身，摇了摇头说，

她已经不行了。妈妈上前抱起宝宝，搂住她，转向墙壁。医生想知道出了什么事故，有人摔了这孩子？这些男孩跟她玩得太过分了？还是别的什么原因？父亲摇着头。医生说必须把她带走，进行检验，爸爸在一张纸上签了字。母亲乞求再跟她的宝宝多待几分钟，可医生说他没那么多时间。爸爸上前去抱玛格丽特，母亲靠在墙上不肯放手。她的脸上有一种蛮横的表情，乌黑鬈曲的头发湿湿地贴在前额上，满脸都是汗水，眼睛大大地睁着，脸上闪着泪光。她一直摇着头，连声哀叹：啊，不，啊，不...爸爸从她的怀里轻轻抱过宝宝。医生把玛格丽特严严实实地裹在一块毯子里，母亲喊道：啊，耶稣，你要闷死她的。耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟呀，救救我吧。医生走了，母亲转向墙壁，一动不动，一声不吭。双胞胎醒了，饿得嗷嗷直哭，爸爸站在屋子中间，望着天花板发呆。他脸色煞白，用拳头捶打着自己的大腿。他走到床边，把手放到我的头上，他的手在哆嗦：弗兰西斯，我要出去找几支香烟。妈妈整天待在床上，几乎动也不动。我和小马拉奇给双胞胎的奶瓶里灌上糖水。在厨房，我们找到半块发霉的面包和两根冰凉的香肠。我们不能喝茶，冰箱的

冰又化了，放在那儿的牛奶变酸了，谁都知道，喝茶一定得加奶，除非是父亲给你讲库胡林的故事时，把他缸子里的茶给你喝。双胞胎又饿了，可我知道不能一天到晚给他们喝糖水。我把酸牛奶倒进壶里煮，放进一些捣碎的霉面包，然后用茶杯喂他们吃面包精。他们做着鬼脸，跑到妈妈的床边，哭了。她的脸一直冲着墙壁，他们只好又回到我这里继续哭。等我用糖除去了酸牛奶的味道，他们才开始吃面包精。现在，他们吃着，笑着，面包精抹得满脸都是。小马拉奇也想要一些，要是他可以吃，那我也可以吃。我们都坐在地板上吃起了面包精，嚼着冰冷的香肠，喝着母亲搁在冰箱的奶瓶中的水。吃完，喝完，我们想去公寓过道的厕所。可是，我们没法进去，因为莱博威茨太太正在里面，她又哼又唱地说：等等，孩子们，等等，亲爱的，很快就完了。小马拉奇拍着手，舞了几圈，唱着：等等，孩子们，等等，亲爱的。莱博威茨太太打开厕所的门：瞧他，已经是个小演员了。哎，孩子们，你们的母亲怎么样？她在床上，莱博威茨太太。医生带走了玛格丽特，我父亲找香烟去了。啊，弗兰基，弗兰基，我说过那孩子有病。

小马拉奇抱着自己的肚子：要尿了，要尿了。好，那就尿吧。你们尿完后，咱们一起去看你们的母亲。我们撒完尿，莱博威茨太太来看妈妈：啊，迈考特太太，哎哟喂，亲爱的，看看这个，看看这双胞胎，什么也没穿。迈考特太太，出了什么事，嗯？宝宝病了？跟我说话呀，可怜的女人。转过头来，太太，跟我说话。哎哟，这里一团糟，跟我说话呀，迈考特太太。她扶着母亲坐起来，靠在墙上。妈妈好像变小了。莱博威茨太太说她要去带些汤过来，吩咐我弄点水给母亲洗洗脸。我用浸了冷水的毛巾拍拍她的额头。她把我的手按在脸颊上：啊，天呀，弗兰基。啊，天呀。她不肯放开我的手，我很害怕，因为我从没见过她像这个样子。她说弗兰基，仅仅是因为她握的是我的手，而她心里想的是玛格丽特，不是我。你可爱的小妹妹死了，弗兰基，死了。你父亲哪儿去了？她放下了我的手。我说你父亲哪儿去了？喝酒去了，他就会去那种地方。家里一分钱也没有，他找不到工作，可他能找到钱喝酒，找到钱喝酒！找到钱喝酒！找到钱喝酒！她转过身，朝墙上猛撞自己的头，尖叫着：她在哪儿？她在哪儿？我的小女孩在哪儿？啊，耶稣、玛利亚和

圣约瑟呀，今晚救救我吧。我要疯了，我要疯了，我要彻底疯了！莱博威茨太太冲了进来：太太，太太，怎么回事？那个小女孩，她在哪里？母亲又尖叫起来：死了，莱博威茨太太，死了。她的头耷拉下来，身子来回晃着：半夜的时候，莱博威茨太太，在她的婴儿车里。我本该看着她的，她来到世上才七周，半夜的时候死了，孤零零的，莱博威茨太太，就她一个人在那辆婴儿车里。莱博威茨太太把母亲搂在怀里：嘘，好了，嘘，婴儿常会这样死去的。这样的事经常发生，太太，是上帝带走了他们。就在这辆婴儿车里，莱博威茨太太，紧挨着我的床。我本可以把她抱起来，那她就不一定会死了，是吗？上帝不想要小宝宝，上帝要小宝宝干什么呢？我也不知道，太太，我不了解上帝。喝点汤吧，亲爱的，很好喝的汤，能使你的身子好起来。你们这几个男孩子，拿碗去，我给你们盛汤。碗是什么，莱博威茨太太？啊，弗兰基，你连碗都不知道？盛汤用的，亲爱的。你们家没有碗吗？我把豌豆和扁豆混在一起烧的汤，

没搁火腿，爱尔兰人喜欢吃火腿。这儿没有火腿，弗兰基。喝吧，太太，把你这碗汤喝掉。她一勺一勺地舀给母亲喝，替她擦去从嘴角流下来的汤渍。我和小马拉奇坐在地板上，喝盛在杯子里的汤，用勺子喂双胞胎喝汤。汤太好喝了，又鲜又热又香，我的母亲从来没有烧过这样的汤，我真想知道，莱博威茨太太能不能做我的母亲？弗雷迪能不能成为我，也拥有我的母亲和父亲，还有小马拉奇和双胞胎做弟弟？他不可能拥有玛格丽特做妹妹了，因为她像街道上的那条狗一样被带走了。我不知道她为什么要被带走。母亲说她在婴儿车里死了，那一定像被汽车撞了一样，因为它们要把你带走。我真希望小玛格丽特也能在这里喝汤，我可以像莱博威茨太太喂我母亲那样喂她，她也会像跟爸爸在一起时那样，冲我发出格格格的笑声。她不会再哭，母亲也不会一天到晚待在床上了，爸爸还会给我讲库胡林的故事，我也不再想让莱博威茨太太做我的母亲。莱博威茨太太虽然不错，但我更愿意有一个给我讲库胡林故事的父亲———一个跳起舞来连脚都站不稳，逗得玛格丽特和妈妈格格直乐的父亲。敏妮。麦克阿多利来帮忙了：圣母啊，莱博威茨太太，

这对双胞胎臭气熏天。我不知道什么圣母，敏妮，可这对双胞胎确实该洗个澡了。他们需要干净的尿布。弗兰基，干净的尿布在哪儿？我不知道。敏妮说：他们正包着破布当尿布呢，我去拿一些麦茜的尿布。弗兰基，你把这些破布解下来扔出去。小马拉奇拿掉了奥里弗的尿布，我拿尤金的尿布时却费了一顿劲。别针卡住了，尤金动来动去，别针一松，扎到了他的屁股，他号啕着要妈妈。敏妮正好拿着毛巾、香皂和热水回来了，我帮她洗掉干结在尿布上的屎，把爽身粉撒在双胞胎那发炎流血的皮肤上。她说他们是些挺棒的小男孩，她要给他们一个惊喜，她下楼带回一锅土豆泥给我们吃，土豆泥里放了好多盐和黄油。我真想知道敏妮能不能做我的母亲？这样我就可以一直吃这种东西了。要是能同时有莱博威茨太太和敏妮做妈妈的话，我就有吃喝不完的汤和土豆泥了。敏妮和莱博威茨太太坐在桌子旁。莱博威茨太太说：得做点什么了，这些孩子正在变野，可他们的父亲跑到哪儿去了？我听见敏妮小声说他出去喝酒了。莱博威茨太太说：真可怕，真可怕，爱尔兰人就是这么喝

酒的。敏妮说她的丹不喝酒，从不碰这种东西，而且丹告诉她，那个宝宝死的时候，这个可怜的马拉奇。迈考特简直疯了，在弗莱特布什大街和大西洋大街上到处乱窜，长岛火车站附近所有的酒吧都把他扔了出来。要不是看在死去的可爱宝宝的分上，警察早把他扔进监狱了。他还有四个可爱的小男孩，敏妮说，可对他起不到安慰的作用。那个小女孩带走了他身上的什么东西。你知道，自打她出生后，他甚至不再喝酒了，这真是个奇迹。莱博威茨太太想知道妈妈的表姐———那两个丈夫都挺斯文的大块头女人住在哪里，敏妮打算找到她们，告诉她们这些孩子得不到关心，正在变野，屁股发炎以及其他的事情。两天后，爸爸找香烟回来了。已经是半夜，可他仍然把我和小马拉奇从床上叫了起来。他浑身散发着酒味，让我们在厨房里立正。我们是两个士兵，他要我们保证为爱尔兰去死。我们会的，爸爸，我们会的。我们一起唱起了凯文。巴里之歌：星期一的早晨在蒙特乔，

树上的绞索挂得老高，凯文。巴里为了解放，就此把他年轻的生命抛。小伙儿年仅十八岁，然而谁也不能不承认，他的头颅昂得有多么高。有人在敲门，是麦克阿多利先生：哎呀，马拉奇，看在上帝的分上，现在是凌晨三点，你把全楼的人都给吵醒了。哎呀，丹，我只是在教育孩子们要为爱尔兰去死。你可以在白天教育他们为爱尔兰去死呀，马拉奇。情况紧急，丹，情况紧急。我知道，马拉奇，可他们不过是些孩子，是些婴儿。你现在上床睡觉去吧，像个正经人那样。上床睡觉？丹！我要上床睡觉干什么？她的小脸时时刻刻都在那里，那乌黑的鬈发，那动人的蓝眼睛。啊，耶稣呀，丹，我该怎么办？她是不是被饿死的，丹？当然不是，你太太一直在喂她。是上帝带走了她，他有他的理由。丹，上床睡觉之前，我们再唱一首歌。晚安，马拉奇。

继续，男孩们，唱：因为他热爱自己的祖国，因为他热爱那绿色，他主动迎接了殉道者的命运，神采骄傲又快乐，至死无悔，啊！至死无悔。他勇往直前锐不可挫，今天，年轻的罗迪。迈克考雷在图姆镇的桥上告别生活。你们会为爱尔兰去死，是不是，男孩们？我们会的，爸爸。那么，我们都会在天堂见到你们的小妹妹，是不是，男孩们？我们都会的，爸爸。弟弟站在那里，脸贴在一条桌腿上睡着了。爸爸托起他，磕磕绊绊地穿过房间，把他放在母亲的床上，让他睡在她的旁边。我也爬上床，父亲躺到我的旁边，仍然穿着衣服。我希望他能搂着我，但他继续唱着罗迪。迈克考雷，还和玛格丽特说着话：噢，我的鬈头发、蓝眼睛的小亲亲啊，我要给你穿上丝绸衣服，带你去内伊湖...就这样，一直闹腾到窗户上现出曙光，

我睡着为止。这天夜里，库胡林来到我的身边。一只绿色的大鸟站在他的肩膀上，不停地唱着凯文。巴里和罗迪。迈克考雷的歌。我不喜欢那只鸟，它唱歌时嘴里总是淌着血。库胡林一手拿着长矛，那长矛是那样巨大，只有他才能掷得动它，另一手拿着香蕉，不时地喂那只鸟，那只鸟却一味尖厉地叫着，朝他吐着血。我很奇怪，为什么库胡林这么容忍那只鸟。要是我喂双胞胎吃香蕉时，他们朝我身上吐血，我会用香蕉打他们的脑袋。早上，父亲坐在厨房的餐桌旁，我把我的梦告诉了他。他说过去爱尔兰没有香蕉，就算有的话，库胡林也绝不会给那只鸟吃，因为那是一只从英国来度夏的鸟。当库胡林靠着一块石头快要死掉的时候，它落到他的肩膀上。爱尔兰人想杀掉他，可又害怕他。等看见那只鸟在喝库胡林的血时，他们知道现在可以下手了。这些肮脏无比的懦夫！所以，弗兰西斯，你一定要小心鸟和英国人。大多数的日子，妈妈都是躺在床上，面朝墙壁。要是她吃喝了什么，就吐在床下的马桶里，我得去楼下的厕所里把它倒掉，然后冲洗干净。莱博威茨太太给她送来汤和卷得可笑的面包，妈妈想把它切成薄片，莱

博威茨太太笑了，告诉她只管抓着吃就是。小马拉奇把它叫做手抓面包，莱博威茨太太说：不是，这是"哈勒"，还教我们怎么说它。她摇了摇头：唉，你们这些爱尔兰人呀！活得再长，也不会像一个犹太人那样说 "哈勒"。敏妮。麦克阿多利拿来西红柿和卷心菜，有时还有一块肉。哎呀，虽然年景艰难，不过，安琪拉，那位可爱的罗斯福先生会给每个人都找到工作的，你丈夫会有工作的。可怜的人，大萧条并不是他的错，他白天黑夜地找着工作。我的丹很幸运，在城里待了四年，却没喝过酒。他是在图姆镇和你丈夫一起长大的，有的人喝酒，有的人不喝。该诅咒的爱尔兰人。快吃吧，安琪拉，你亏了身子，需要补养一下。麦克阿多利先生告诉爸爸，市政工程部门有事干。当他在那里找到工作，我们就有了吃饭的钱，妈妈就下床，把双胞胎清理干净，开始给我们做饭。当爸爸酒气熏天却身无分文地回到家里，妈妈就开始冲他狂叫，一直叫到双胞胎哭喊起来，我和小马拉奇只好跑到广场去。那些夜晚，妈妈总是步履沉重地回到床上，爸爸总是哼唱着爱尔兰的悲伤小曲。为什么他不搂着她，哄她入睡呢？就像对我那死去的小妹妹那样。为什么

他不唱一首给玛格丽特唱过的歌，或者一首能让妈妈不再流泪的歌？他依然把我和小马拉奇叫下床，穿着衬衫立正，保证要为爱尔兰去死。一天晚上，他想让双胞胎也保证为爱尔兰去死，可他们还不会说话，妈妈朝他尖叫：你这个发疯的老杂种，就不能放过他们要是我们答应为爱尔兰去死，他就说会给我们五分钱买冰激凌，我们答应了，但从没见过那五分钱。我们从莱博威茨太太那里得到汤，从敏妮。麦克阿多利那里得到土豆泥，她们还教我们怎么照看双胞胎，怎么洗他们的屁股和脏得一塌糊涂的破尿布。莱博威茨太太说的尿布，被敏妮叫做尿片，不过她们叫什么都没关系，反正是被双胞胎糟蹋得一塌糊涂了。要是妈妈待在床上，爸爸出去找工作，我们就可以整天做自己想做的事。我们可以把双胞胎放在公园的小秋千上荡他们，直到他们饿了，开始哭闹。那个意大利人在街对面招呼我：嗨，弗兰基，过来。过街时小心点，双胞胎又饿了吧？他给了我们一点奶酪、火腿和香蕉。可是，自从做了那个鸟朝库胡林吐血的梦后，我就再也不吃香蕉了。

那个意大利人说他叫迪米诺，还说柜台后的那个人是他妻子，叫安琪拉。我告诉他安琪拉是我母亲的名字。别开玩笑了，孩子，你母亲叫安琪拉？我不知道爱尔兰人也有叫安琪拉的。嗨，安琪拉，他的母亲也叫安琪拉。她微微一笑，说：那不错嘛。迪米诺先生问我妈妈和爸爸的情况，还问谁给我们做饭。我告诉他，是莱博威茨太太和敏妮。麦克阿多利给我们吃的。我还告诉他关于尿布、尿片以及它们脏得一塌糊涂的事。他笑了：安琪拉，你听见了吗？感谢上帝，你是意大利人，安琪拉。他说：孩子，我要跟莱博威茨太太谈谈，应该让亲戚照顾你们。你见到敏妮。麦克阿多利的话，让她来见我。你们这些孩子要变成没人管的野孩子了。两个大块头女人站在门前。她们问：你是谁？我是弗兰克。弗兰克？！你几岁了？我快五岁了。你长得可没有五岁的孩子那么大，是吧？我不知道。你妈妈在吗？她在床上。

这么好的大中午天，她在床上干什么？她在睡觉。噢，我们进去，我们必须和你母亲谈谈。她们从我身边闪过，走进房间。耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟啊，闻闻这地方的味道。这些孩子都是谁？小马拉奇跑过来，朝这两个大块头女人微笑着。他一笑就露出那洁白整齐的牙齿，还有那蓝得发亮的眼睛和粉粉嫩嫩的面颊，这让两个大块头女人的脸上也有了微笑，我很纳闷，她们和我说话时，为什么没有微笑。小马拉奇说：我是马拉奇，这是奥里弗，这是尤金，他们是双胞胎，站在那里的是弗兰基。褐色头发的那个大块头女人说：好，你一点也不怕羞，是吗？我是你母亲的表姐菲洛米娜，这是你母亲的表姐德莉娅。我是弗林太太，她是福图恩太太，你们就这样称呼我们吧。仁慈的上帝呀，菲洛米娜说，双胞胎竟然光着屁股，你们家里有他们穿的衣服吗？小马拉奇说：他们身上都是臭屎。德莉娅大吼：瞧瞧，都发生了什么？嘴巴就像是臭水沟，跟着一个北佬父亲，也难怪他们变成这样。不要

用那个词，那是个不好的词，是个骂人的词，用那样的词你会下地狱的。地狱是什么东西？小马拉奇问。你马上就会知道的，德莉娅说。两个大块头女人同莱博威茨太太、敏妮。麦克阿多利一起坐在桌子旁，菲洛米娜说，安琪拉的小宝宝发生这样的事情，真是太可怕了，她们全听说了，你一定想知道他们拿这个小婴儿的尸体干了什么？难道不是吗？大家都在猜，可汤米。弗林一清二楚。汤米说，北佬马拉奇拿那个婴儿换了钱。钱？莱博威茨太太问。是的，菲洛米娜答道，钱。他们要各种年纪的尸体做实验，等他们还给你时，尸体已经所剩无几了。那零零碎碎的小身子还要它干吗呢？那样的尸体是不能埋在圣地里的。这太可怕了，莱博威茨太太说，做父母的绝不会拿自己的婴儿干这种事情。他们会的，德莉娅说，酒瘾上来的时候，他们连自己的妈都会卖，更何况一个死去的婴儿？莱博威茨太太摇摇头，在椅子里晃悠着。唉，她说，唉，唉，唉，不幸的婴儿呀，不幸的妈妈呀。感谢上帝，我丈夫没有你说的这种什么...？酒瘾？对，酒

瘾。爱尔兰人才有这种酒瘾。我丈夫也没有，菲洛米娜说，要是他过了酒瘾回到家来，看我不打烂他的脸。当然，德莉娅的丈夫吉米有酒瘾，每个星期五的晚上都能看见他溜进酒吧。不要侮辱我的吉米，德莉娅说，他老老实实上班，还把薪水带回家来。你要盯着他点，菲洛米娜说，酒瘾会毁了他，到时候你身边也会出现一个北佬马拉奇的。他妈的别管闲事，德莉娅说，至少吉米是个地道的爱尔兰人，不像你的汤米，出生在美国布鲁克林。菲洛米娜无言以对。敏妮抱着她的婴儿，那两个大块头女人说那是个可爱的宝宝，很干净，不像安琪拉这帮在屋里到处乱窜的小子。菲洛米娜说，她不知道安琪拉是从哪儿染上这种邋遢习惯的，安琪拉的母亲可是纤尘不染，干净到你可以在她家地板上吃饭的。我很不解：有桌椅的时候，为什么偏要在地板上吃饭呢？德莉娅说，安琪拉和这些孩子的事情必须要解决了，因为他们很丢人，让亲戚都感到耻辱。必须得给安琪拉的母亲写封信。菲洛米娜要写这封信，因为利默里

克的一位老师曾经说她"很有一手"。德莉娅对莱博威茨太太解释说，"很有一手"的意思就是字写得好。莱博威茨太太下楼，找她的丈夫借来自来水笔、信纸和信封，这四个女人坐在桌旁，开始炮制一封给我母亲的母亲的信：亲爱的玛格丽特姨妈：我提笔给你写信，希望你身体健康。我丈夫汤米工作顺利，德莉娅的丈夫也工作顺利，我们都希望你也一切顺利。我很遗憾地告知你，安琪拉心情不好，她的宝宝，那个跟你一样叫玛格丽特的小女孩死了。安琪拉从此面朝墙壁躺在床上，整个人都变了。更糟糕的是，我们认为她又怀孕了，这可实在太过分了，刚刚失去一个孩子，另一个孩子就要来了。我们不知道她会怎么处理这个孩子。她结婚四年，有五个孩子，另一个正怀在肚子里。这些可以让你看到，和一个北佬结婚会有什么下场。他们缺乏自制力，简直是一帮新教徒。他每天都出去工作，但我们知道他把所有的时间都泡在酒吧里了。他靠给酒吧扫地、抬酒桶赚得几个美元，然后又把这些钱还给酒吧。太可怕了，玛格丽特姨妈，我们一致认为安琪拉和她的孩子最好是回老家。因为年景艰难，我们没钱给他们

买船票。不过，你也许能想想办法。祝您一切顺利，并感谢上帝和圣母。依然爱你的外甥女菲洛米娜。弗林（过去叫麦克纳马拉来着）最后但并不是最小的外甥女德莉娅。福图恩（过去也叫麦克纳马拉来着，哈哈哈）敬上外婆西恩给菲洛米娜和德莉娅汇了钱，她们在圣文森特保罗协会①找到一个大行李箱，买了船票，雇了一辆货车把我们送到曼哈顿码头。她们打发我们上了船，说声再见和欢送后，就急忙离去了。汽船驶离了码头。妈妈说：那是自由女神像，那是埃利斯岛，是所有移民的必经之地。说完，她就靠在一边，呕吐起来。从大西洋吹来的风将她的呕吐物弄了我们一身，也弄了那些兴致勃勃地赞美眼前景致的人们一身。乘客们骂骂咧咧地跑开了，整个港口的海鸥都飞了过来。妈妈无力地靠在船栏杆上，面色惨白。

安琪拉的灰烬(3) 利默里克.1 一周后，我们到达多尼格尔郡的莫维尔港口，在那里

乘上一辆开往贝尔法斯特的大巴，再从贝尔法斯特换乘另一辆大巴，去安特里姆郡的图姆镇。我们把行李寄存在一家商店，步行去两英里以外迈考特爷爷的家。路上很黑，只有远方的山峦勉强可以看到破晓的晨光。爸爸抱着双胞胎，他们饿得轮番哭泣。妈妈每隔几分钟就停下来，靠在路边的石头墙上休息一会儿。我们坐在她身边，看着天空由红变蓝。鸟儿开始唧喳，在林间不停地鸣唱。随着曙光的出现，我们看见一些奇怪的生灵正站在田野里，望着我们。小马拉奇问：它们是什么东西，爸爸？母牛，儿子。母牛是什么，爸爸？母牛就是母牛，儿子。我们跟着父亲，沿着明亮的道路前行，田野里又出现了另一种毛茸茸的白色生灵。小马拉奇问：它们是什么东西，爸爸？绵羊，儿子。绵羊是什么，爸爸？父亲朝他大吼：你的问题有完没完？绵羊就是绵羊，母牛就是母牛，站在那个地方的是一只山羊。山羊就是山羊。山羊产奶，绵羊产羊毛，母牛什么都产。看

在上帝的分上，你还想知道什么？小马拉奇吓得叫唤起来，因为爸爸从不这样说话，从不粗声粗气地对我们讲话。他可能会半夜把我们叫起来，让我们保证为爱尔兰去死，可是他从没这样咆哮过。小马拉奇跑到妈妈跟前，她说：好啦，好啦，亲爱的，别哭。你父亲抱着双胞胎，只是觉得累了，况且，在你抱着双胞胎走路的时候，要回答那些问题是很不容易的。爸爸把双胞胎放到路上，朝小马拉奇伸出胳膊。这时，双胞胎开始哭闹，小马拉奇缠着妈妈，呜咽不已。母牛、绵羊、山羊以及林间的鸟儿，都开始叫起来，一阵汽车的轰鸣声搅碎了这一切。车里的人喊：仁慈的主啊，复活节一大早的，你们这些人在路上干什么呢？爸爸说：早上好，父亲。父亲？我说，爸爸，这是你父亲？妈妈说：不要问他。爸爸说：不，不，这是神父①。小马拉奇问：什么是...？但妈妈捂住了他的嘴。神父一头白发，戴着白领子。他问：你们要去哪儿？爸爸答道：去麻尼格拉斯的迈考特家。神父让我们坐上他的汽车，他说他认识迈考特一家人，不错的一家

人，是虔诚的天主教徒，是每天都到会的教友。他希望能在做弥撒时看到我们全家人，特别是这些不知神父是什么的小美国佬，愿上帝保佑我们。到了那幢房子前，母亲去摸门闩。爸爸说：不，不，不是这样，不是这扇正门。这扇正门只留给牧师或参加葬礼的人用。我们绕到厨房门前，爸爸推门进去，迈考特爷爷正在用一个大缸子喝茶，迈考特奶奶正在煎着什么东西。哟，你们来了，爷爷说。啊，我们来了，爸爸说。他指着我的母亲，介绍：这是安琪拉。爷爷说：啊，你一定是累坏了，安琪拉。奶奶什么也没说，转身看煎锅去了。爷爷领着我们穿过厨房，来到一个放着一条长桌和几把椅子的大房间里。他说：坐吧，喝点茶，你们想吃土豆面包吗？小马拉奇问：土豆面包是什么东西？爸爸笑了：就是烤饼，儿子，用土豆做的烤饼。爷爷说：我们有鸡蛋，今天是复活节，你们可以放开肚子，吃掉所有的鸡蛋。我们喝了茶，吃了土豆面包和煮鸡蛋，接着就睡了。一觉醒来，我发现小马拉奇和双胞胎跟我睡在一张床上，父母睡在靠窗的另一张床上。我在哪里？天已经

黑了下来，这不是在船上。妈妈和爸爸此起彼伏地打着呼噜。我下床，捅捅爸爸：我要撒尿。他说：用夜壶。就在床下，儿子。夜壶，上面有玫瑰花，还有在峡谷里跳舞的女孩。尿在那里面吧，儿子。我想知道他说的到底是什么，虽然我快要憋炸了，不管它是什么，往一个有玫瑰花和跳舞女孩的壶里撒尿，总有些奇怪。在克拉森大街我们可没有这种东西，在那里，莱博威茨太太在厕所里哼歌时，我们只好在过道里搂着自己的肚子。这时，小马拉奇也要用夜壶了，但他想坐在上面大便。爸爸说：不行，你不能那样干，儿子，你得到外面去。正说着，我也想去大便了。他领我们下了楼，穿过那个大房间，爷爷正坐在火炉边看书，奶奶在椅子里打盹。外面很黑，但月光完全可以让我们看清方向。爸爸打开一间小房子的门，那里面有一个坐位，坐位上面有个洞，他给我和小马拉奇演示怎么坐在那个洞上，怎么用钉子上的方块报纸擦屁股。然后，他要我们等一会儿，他自己先蹲进去了，关上房门，发出大便时的嗯嗯声。月光那么明亮，我可以看见田野，看见叫

做母牛和绵羊的东西，我很纳闷，它们为什么不回家。房间里多了几个人，爸爸说：这些是你们的姑妈，艾米莉，诺拉，麦琪，薇拉。你们的艾娃姑妈住在巴利米纳镇，她的孩子跟你们差不多大。我的姑妈们不像莱博威茨太太和敏妮。麦克阿多利，她们不苟言笑，只是点头，并不拥抱我们。妈妈带着双胞胎走了进来，爸爸向他的姐妹们介绍：这是安琪拉，这两个是双胞胎。她们仍然只是点头。奶奶进了厨房，不久我们就吃起了面包、香肠，喝起了茶。餐桌上只有一个人在说话，那就是小马拉奇。他用勺子指着姑妈们，问她们的名字。妈妈叫他吃他的香肠，不要说话，他的眼睛里顿时充满泪水。诺拉姑妈上前安慰他：好啦，好啦。我不明白，为什么小马拉奇哭时，每个人都说"好啦，好啦"。我想知道"好啦，好啦"究竟是什么意思。餐桌上很安静，最后爸爸打破了沉默：美国的情况太糟了。奶奶说：啊，是呀，我在报上都看到了。不过，他们说罗斯福先生是个好人，要是你待下去，现在会找到工作的。爸爸摇了摇头，奶奶又说：我不明白你到底想干什么，马拉奇，这里的情况比美国还糟。这里找不到工作，而且天知道，我们这幢房子里没有能住下六个人的房

间。爸爸说：我想我可以在农场找到活儿干，我们可以找一个小地方住。这段时间你们住在哪里呢？奶奶问，你怎么养活你自己和你的家人？啊，我想，我可以去领失业救济金。你不能刚从美国回来，就去领失业救济金，爷爷说，他们得让你等上一段时间，这段时间你干什么呢？爸爸什么也没说，妈妈则直勾勾地盯着前面的墙壁。你们最好去爱尔兰自由邦，奶奶说，都柏林很大，那里或附近的农场一定有工作。你也有权从爱尔兰共和军那里得到钱，爷爷说，你为他们效过力，而且他们一直给自由邦的男人发钱。你可以去都柏林寻求帮助。我们可以借给你钱，买去都柏林的车票，双胞胎可以坐在你的腿上，他们不必买票。爸爸说：啊，是的。妈妈瞪着墙壁，泪光闪烁。吃完饭，我们回到床上。第二天早上，大人们在一旁坐着，神情悲哀。不一会儿，一个人开着汽车来了，把我们带回寄存行李的那家商店。他们把行李箱抬到大巴顶上，我们钻进了车厢。爸爸说我们要去都柏林。

小马拉奇问：都柏林是什么东西？没有人理睬他。爸爸抱着尤金，妈妈抱着奥里弗。爸爸望着车窗外的田野，告诉我这是库胡林喜欢散步的地方。我问他库胡林是在哪儿把球打进狗嘴巴的，他回答说在几英里外的地方。小马拉奇说：快看，快看。我们都向外看去，那是好大一片银色的水面。爸爸说那就是内伊湖，爱尔兰最大的湖泊，库胡林进行伟大的战斗后，常常到这里来游泳。打仗后，库胡林的身体总会特别热，当他跳进内伊湖，湖水就会沸腾起来，让周围的乡村暖上好几天。总有一天我们会回到这儿，像库胡林那样游泳。我们还会来钓鳗鱼，用平底锅煎鱼吃，这可不像库胡林，他总是从湖里捉鳗鱼，趁它们还活蹦乱跳就生吞掉，因为生鳗是大补的东西。真的吗，爸爸？真的。妈妈没有看车窗外的内伊湖，她的脸紧贴在奥里弗的头上，眼睛盯着车厢里的地板。大巴很快驶到一个到处是大房子、汽车和马车的地方，那里有人骑着自行车，但更多的人步行着。小马拉奇非常激动：爸爸，爸爸，广场在哪儿？秋千呢？我想

见弗雷迪。莱博威茨。啊，儿子，你现在是在都柏林，离克拉森大街远着呢。你是在爱尔兰，到纽约有很长的路哪。大巴进了站，行李箱被抬了下来，扔在汽车站的地上。爸爸让妈妈坐在车站的长凳上，他要去一个叫泰伦纽尔的地方，见见爱尔兰共和军的人。他说车站里有厕所，可以让孩子们去，他要不了多久就回来，等他回来就有钱了，我们也就有吃的了。他要我和他一块去。妈妈说：不行，我需要他帮忙。但爸爸说：我需要有人帮我拿那些钱。她听了大笑起来，说：好吧，跟你的老爸去吧。 "你的老爸"，这意味着她心情不错，要是她说"你的父亲"，那就意味着她心情不佳。爸爸拽着我的手，我一路小跑着跟在他旁边。他走路很快，到泰伦纽尔的路又很远，我盼着他能停下来，抱起我，就像他在图姆镇抱着双胞胎那样。可是，他大步地走着，除了问问路，一言不发。过了一段时间，他说已经到了泰伦纽尔，现在得去找爱尔兰共和军的查尔斯。海加蒂先生。一个戴着粉色眼罩的人告诉我们，我们走对了，查尔斯。海加蒂就住在这条街道上的十四号，这个该死的。那个人对爸爸说：我看得出，

你是为他效过力的人。爸爸说：啊，我是出过力的。那个人又说：我也出过力，但除了丢掉一只眼睛，得到一笔连一只金丝雀都喂不饱的抚恤金外，我又得到了什么呢？但爱尔兰自由了，爸爸说，这可是件最伟大的事情。自由？狗屁，那个人说，还不如让英国人统治呢。但不管怎样，祝你好运吧，先生，我知道你到这儿来的目的。一个女人打开了十四号的房门。她说，恐怕海加蒂先生很忙。爸爸告诉她，他可是和年幼的儿子从都柏林中部一路走过来的，他的妻子和三个孩子还在车站等着他哩，假如海加蒂先生真这么忙的话，那我们就在门口等他。那个女人马上就回来了，说海加蒂先生腾出了一点时间，你们这边请。海加蒂先生坐在一张写字台边，身旁的炉火烧得正旺。他问：你来找我干什么？爸爸站在写字台前，说：我带着妻子和四个孩子刚从美国回来，我们一无所有。战乱期间我为飞行纵队打过仗，希望你能在我最需要帮助的时候，帮我一把。海加蒂先生翻着写字台上的一个大本子，查找爸爸的名字。他摇了摇头：没有，这里没有你的服役记录。

爸爸开始长篇大论。他告诉海加蒂先生他是怎么打的仗，在什么地点，什么时间，由于脑袋遭到悬赏，他又是怎么被迫偷偷溜出爱尔兰，以及他是如何培养儿子们的爱国心的。海加蒂先生说他很抱歉，但他不能给每个声称为爱尔兰共和军效过力的人都发钱。爸爸对我说：记住，弗兰西斯，这就是新爱尔兰，小人当道。这就是人们为之去死的爱尔兰。海加蒂先生说，他将调查爸爸的请求，确保让他知道调查的结果。他将给我们路费，让我们坐上返城的汽车。爸爸看着海加蒂先生手里的硬币，说：你可以再加一点，让它够买一杯啤酒吗？噢，你想要的是酒，对吗？一杯啤酒算不上酒。就因为想喝一杯啤酒，你要步行好几英里回去，也让这个男孩跟着走回去，不是吗？走路死不了人。滚！海加蒂先生说，不然，我就叫警卫了，而且你可以确信，你再也不会从我这里得到什么消息了。我们不供养喝黑啤酒的人。夜幕笼罩了都柏林的街道。孩子在街灯下嬉笑玩耍，

母亲站在门口呼唤着他们。一路上，饭菜的香味向我们袭来，透过窗户，我们看见人们围坐在桌旁，美美地吃着。我又累又饿，想让爸爸抱抱我，但我知道，在他绷着脸的时候，求他是没有用的。我让他拽着我的手，小跑着跟上他的脚步，一直跑到汽车站，妈妈和弟弟们正在那里等着我们。妈妈和三个弟弟都已经在长凳上睡着了。当爸爸告诉她没要到钱时，她摇着头哭了起来：啊，天呀，我们该怎么办呢？一个穿蓝制服的男人走了过来，问她：怎么回事，太太？爸爸告诉他，我们被困在汽车站了，我们没有钱，也没有地方可去，孩子们都饿了。那个男人说他现在就要下班了，可以带我们去警局，反正他也得去那里报到，可以看看他们能为我们做点什么。穿蓝制服的男人告诉我们，我们可以叫他警卫，这就是爱尔兰人对警察的称呼。他问我们在美国怎么称呼警察，小马拉奇回答说，条子。那个警卫拍拍他的头，说他是个机灵的小美国佬。在警局，一个警官对我们说，我们可以在那里过夜，但他很抱歉，只能让我们睡地板。那天是星期四，单人囚室里住满了喝光救济金还不愿离开酒吧的男人。那个警卫给我们端来热腾腾的甜茶和涂着好多黄油果

酱的厚面包片。我们高兴极了，在警局里跑来跑去地嬉闹着。那个警卫说我们是一大帮小美国佬，他们要送我们回家。但我说不，小马拉奇说不，双胞胎也说不、不，所有的警卫都笑了。囚室里的男人们伸出手来，拍着我们的头，他们身上的那股味道，跟爸爸唱着"凯文。巴里和罗迪。迈克考雷从容赴死"回家时身上的味道一模一样。那些男人说：天啊，听听他们说话，那声音就像大牌电影明星，你们是从天上还是从什么地方来的？囚室另一头的女人们对小马拉奇说，他很招人喜欢，说双胞胎很让人怜爱。一个女人对我说：过来，亲爱的，你想吃糖吗？我点点头。她说：好吧，把手伸出来。她从嘴里掏出一个黏糊糊的东西，放到我的手上。拿去吧，她说，一块好吃的黄油硬糖，搁进嘴里。我不想放进嘴里，因为她的嘴巴把它弄得又黏又湿。可是我不知道，当囚室里的女人给你黏糊糊的黄油硬糖时，你该怎么做。我正想把它放进嘴里，一个警卫走了过来，抢下那块黄油硬糖，扔给那个女人：你这个醉醺醺的婊子，别招惹这孩子。所有的女人都笑了。警官给母亲一条毯子，她躺在一条长凳上睡了。爸爸背靠墙坐着，在帽檐下睁着眼睛，抽着警卫们递给他

的香烟。把黄油硬糖扔给那个女人的警卫说自己是北方巴利米纳镇人，他同爸爸谈起了那个地方，谈起他们认识的一些人，还有其他像卡申达尔镇和图姆镇这些地方的人。那个警官说等将来拿到退休金，他就去内伊湖居住，每天钓鱼打发日子。鳗鱼，他说，鳗鱼多得是。耶稣，我就喜欢吃油煎的鳗鱼。我问爸爸：这是库胡林吗？那个警卫笑得脸都涨红了：啊，圣母，你听说过这个？这个小家伙想知道我是不是库胡林，一个小美国佬竟然知道库胡林的底细。爸爸说：不是，他不是库胡林，可他是个要在内伊湖边钓鱼打发日子的好人。爸爸晃醒我：起来，弗兰西斯，起来。警局里一片嘈杂，一个男孩一边拖着地，一边唱着歌：非要不可，这就是原因，如果非要不可，你这样的人，可会爱上我，可会爱上我？我告诉他那是我母亲的歌，他不准再唱了。但他只是抽了口烟，走开了。我很纳闷，为什么有人要唱别人的歌呢？走出囚室的男人和女人们叫嚷着，抱怨着。给我黄油硬糖的那个女人停了下来，说：我喝了点酒，

孩子。对不起，我愚弄了你。但是，那个从巴利米纳镇来的警卫命令她：快走，趁我还没重新把你关进去，你这个婊子赶快出去。啊，关吧，她说，进来，出去，有什么关系？你这个欠揍的杂种。妈妈坐在长凳上，身上裹着毯子。一个头发灰白的女人递给她一缸茶，对她说：没错，我就是那个警官的妻子，他说你可能需要帮助。你想吃一个柔软可口的煮鸡蛋吗，太太？妈妈摇了摇头：不要。啊，太太，像你现在这样虚弱，一定得吃个煮得恰到好处的鸡蛋。妈妈还是摇头。我真奇怪，她怎么能对一个柔软可口的煮鸡蛋说"不"，这样的好东西上哪儿找啊？好吧，女士，那个警官的妻子说，那就来块烤面包吧，再让孩子们和你那可怜的丈夫吃些东西。她去了另一间屋子，很快就拿来茶和面包。爸爸只喝茶，把他的面包给了我们。妈妈说：把你的面包吃了吧，看在上帝的分上，你饿倒了对我们没什么好处。他摇摇头，问那个警官的妻子有没有香烟，她给他拿来香烟，告诉妈妈，警局里的警卫们凑钱给我们买了

去利默里克的火车票，还会有一辆汽车来运我们的行李箱，把我们送到国王桥火车站。三四个小时后，我们就会到达利默里克。妈妈举起双手，拥抱了那个警官的妻子。上帝赐福你和你的丈夫，还有所有的警卫，妈妈说，没有你们，我们真不知道该怎么办。天晓得，回到自己的亲人那里去，是一件多么美好的事情啊。这是我们力所能及的，警官的妻子说，这些孩子是多么可爱啊。我是从科克来的，知道要是身上没有俩钱的话，在都柏林会是怎样的滋味。爸爸坐在长凳的另一头，抽烟，喝茶。他就那么待着，直到汽车来了，载上我们穿过都柏林的街道。爸爸问司机，可不可以从邮政总局那条路走。司机问，你是想买邮票还是别的什么东西？不是，爸爸说，我听说他们新立了一座库胡林的雕像，纪念在一九一六年死去的人们①，我想让我这个特别崇拜库胡林的儿子看一眼。司机说他不知道这个库胡林是谁，不过他不介意在那儿停一会儿，他也可以进去看看那场骚乱的状况。他小时候，英国人从利菲河开炮，几乎把邮政总局毁掉了，打那以后他就再没去过那儿。他说，你们可以看

见大楼的正面到处都是弹孔，应该留着它们，提醒爱尔兰人别忘了英国佬的背信弃义。我问这个人什么是背信弃义，他说问你父亲吧。我正想问父亲时，我们停在了一座有圆柱子的大楼前，这就是邮政总局。妈妈留在车里，我们跟着司机进了邮政总局。他在那儿，他说，那就是你们的库胡林。我感觉泪水夺眶而出，我终于见到了他———库胡林，他就矗立在邮政总局里。一身金色，长长的头发，低垂着头，一只大鸟栖息在他的肩上。司机说：看在上帝的分上，这都是怎么回事啊？那个长头发的小伙子在干什么？那只鸟在他的肩上干什么？行行好，告诉我，先生，这跟一九一六年死去的人们有什么关系？爸爸说：库胡林战斗到了最后，像复活节周的男人们一样。敌人不敢靠近他，直到他们确定他已经死了。是这只鸟落到他的肩上，开始喝他的血，他们才知道噢，司机说，对爱尔兰人来说，这真是一个悲惨的日子，需要一只鸟来告诉他们一个人死了。我想最好现在就走，不然就赶不上那班去利默里克的火车了。那个警官的妻子说她会给外婆发去一封电报，要她在

利默里克接我们。她现在就在站台上，头发灰白，眼神尖刻，围着黑色的披肩，见到母亲和我们时，连一丝微笑也没有。甚至见到弟弟———一脸灿烂微笑和一口可爱洁白牙齿的小马拉奇时，她也一丝笑容都没有。妈妈指着爸爸说，这是马拉奇。外婆点点头，就朝一边看去。她叫了两个正在火车站逛来逛去的男孩，给他们钱，让他们搬运行李箱。那两个男孩剃着光头，鼻涕邋遢，没有穿鞋。我们跟着他们穿过利默里克的街道，我问妈妈他们为什么没有头发，她回答说剃光头是为了让虱群没地方躲藏。小马拉奇问： "一个虱群" 是什么东西？妈妈说：不是"一个"虱群，单个的叫虱子。外婆喝道：恁们别说了！这像什么话？那两个男孩吹了一声口哨，笑起来。他们一路小跑着，好像穿了鞋似的。外婆提醒他们：不要笑，不然恁们会把箱子摔坏的。他们不再吹口哨，也不笑了，我们跟着他们走进一个公园，公园的中心耸立着一根高高的柱子和一座塑像，那草地绿得让人目眩。爸爸抱着双胞胎，妈妈一只手拎着包，一只手牵着小马拉奇，她每隔几分钟就停下来喘气，外婆说：你还在抽烟吗？烟会要了你的命的。在利默里克，没人抽烟肺病就已经够多的了，那是有钱人才干的蠢事。

公园的小径两旁开满了五颜六色的花，这让双胞胎很激动，他们指指点点，发出吱吱的尖叫声。除了外婆，我们都笑了，外婆扯起披肩蒙上头。爸爸停下来，放下双胞胎，让他们离花更近一些。他说：花。他们跑来跑去，指指点点着，试着说"花"。一个提箱子的男孩说：上帝呀，他们是美国人吗？妈妈说：他们是美国人，他们在纽约出生，这些男孩子都在纽约出生。那个男孩对另一个说：上帝呀，他们是美国人。他们放下箱子，开始瞪着我们，我们也瞪着他们看。外婆说：恁们想一整天都站在这儿看花，大眼瞪小眼吗？我们又继续赶路，走出公园，来到一条狭窄的小路，再踏进另一条通往外婆家的小巷。小路两边各有一排小房子，外婆就住在其中的一幢房子里。她的厨房里有一副擦得锃亮的黑铁炉灶，炉栅里火光闪闪。窗下靠墙的地方有一张桌子，对面是一个壁橱，里面放着茶杯、托盘和花瓶。壁橱总是锁着，钥匙在她的钱包里。只在有丧事、异乡来客或者牧师来访时，你才能用里面的东西。炉灶边的墙上有一张画像，画中是一个有褐色长发和悲伤眼神的男人。他正指着自己的胸膛，那里有一颗放射出火焰的大心脏。妈妈告诉我们，那是耶稣的圣

心。我想知道这个男人的心脏为什么要着火，他为什么不往上面洒水？外婆问：难道这些孩子一点也不知道他们的宗教吗？妈妈告诉她，在美国情况不大一样。外婆说：圣心无所不在，这种无知没有借口。这张心脏燃烧着的男人的画像下面，有一个架子，上面放着一个红色的玻璃杯，杯里盛着火光摇曳的蜡烛，旁边是一个小塑像。妈妈告诉我们，那是耶稣圣婴，是布拉格圣婴像，要是你们需要什么，就向他祷告吧。小马拉奇说：妈妈，那我能告诉他我饿了吗？妈妈把手指竖在她的唇前。外婆在厨房里嘟嘟囔囔地烧茶，她吩咐妈妈切面包，不要切得太厚。妈妈坐在桌边，呼吸有些困难，她说过一会儿就切面包。爸爸拿起刀子，切起了面包。外婆并不喜欢这样，她皱起眉头，但什么也没说，连他切得太厚也没说。椅子不够坐，我和弟弟们只好坐在台阶上吃面包，喝茶。爸爸和妈妈坐在桌边，外婆拿着茶缸坐在圣心的下面。她说：上帝呀，我真不知道拿恁们怎么办，这个家里没有房间了，再多住一个人都不行了。小马拉奇跟着说：恁们，恁们，他格格格地笑起来，我也跟着说：恁们，恁们，双胞胎也跟着说：恁们，

恁们。我们笑得那么厉害，几乎都吃不下面包了。外婆瞪着我们：恁们笑什么？这个家里没什么好笑的。恁们最好规矩些，别等着我去收拾恁们。她并没有停止说"恁们"，小马拉奇笑得止不住了，满脸通红，把面包和茶全吐了出来，爸爸说：小马拉奇，还有你们几个，不许笑了。可是，小马拉奇停不下来，还是继续笑，爸爸说：到这儿来。他撸起小马拉奇的袖子，抬手抽了他的胳膊几下。规矩不规矩？小马拉奇含着满眼泪水，点点头：规矩。爸爸以前从没像这样抬手打人。爸爸说：做个好孩子，坐到你的兄弟们那儿去吧。他放下小马拉奇的袖子，拍了拍他的头。这天夜晚，妈妈的妹妹阿吉姨妈从制衣厂下班回来。她跟麦克纳马拉姐妹一样，人高马大，长着一头火焰般的红发。她推着一辆加重型自行车进了厨房后面的小房间，然后出来吃晚饭。她住在外婆家，是因为和丈夫帕。基廷吵架了，他喝醉酒后，对她说：你这头大肥母牛！回家找你妈去吧。这是外婆告诉妈妈的，这就是外婆家没地方给我们住的原因。除了自己和阿吉姨妈，她还有个儿子帕特，也就是我的舅舅，他在

外面卖报纸。外婆告诉阿吉姨妈，她得和妈妈睡一张床，她发了几句牢骚。外婆说：喂，给我闭嘴。就一夜，死不了你。要是你不愿意，可以回到你丈夫那儿去，反正你是属于那儿的，别跑回家上我这儿来。耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟啊，看看这个家吧———你、帕特、安琪拉，还有她那帮美国活宝，我的晚年还能消停吗？她把外套和破布铺在后面那个小房间的地板上，我们在那里和自行车睡在一起。爸爸待在厨房的椅子上，我们要上厕所，他就领我们去后院；夜里双胞胎被冻哭时，他就哄他们入睡。早晨，阿吉姨妈过来推她的自行车，对我们说：恁们当心点，好吗？恁们让开，好吗？她走后，小马拉奇不停地说"恁们当心点，好吗？恁们让开，好吗？"我听见爸爸在厨房里大笑，外婆下了楼，他才警告小马拉奇安静些。这天，外婆和妈妈在风车街找到一间有家具的屋子，阿吉姨妈和她丈夫帕。基廷在这条街道上有一套公寓。外婆付了房租，两星期十先令。她给妈妈一些买食品的钱，又借给我们一个水壶、一个盆、一个平底煎锅，还有刀子、勺子和当茶缸用的果酱瓶，以及一条毯子、

一个枕头。她说这是她能给我们的全部家当了，爸爸得抬起屁股去找工作了，要么去领失业救济金，要么去找圣文森特保罗协会的慈善机构，或者去领赈济品。屋子里有一个壁炉，一旦我们有了钱，就可以在那里烧茶水、煮鸡蛋。我们还有一张桌子和三把椅子、一张床，妈妈说那是她见过的最大的床。我们在都柏林和外婆家的地板上受累了好几个夜晚，那天晚上，那张床真让我们兴奋极了。我们六个人睡在一张床上，这没关系，我们离开警卫和外婆后，终于单独待在一起了。小马拉奇可以说"恁们，恁们，恁们"了，我们也可以尽情地开怀大笑了。爸爸和妈妈睡在床头，我和小马拉奇睡在床尾，双胞胎觉得哪里舒服，就睡在哪里。小马拉奇又开始惹我们大笑了，恁们，恁们，恁们，他说，哎哟，哎哟，哎哟，然后便睡着了。妈妈那呼哧呼哧的轻微鼾声，告诉我们她已经睡去了。月光下，我能把整张床看得清清楚楚，我看见爸爸还没有睡，奥里弗在睡梦中嚷嚷的时候，他过去搂住他，"嘘、嘘"地哄着他。尤金坐了起来，尖叫着，在自己身上抓来抓去：啊，啊，妈咪，妈咪。爸爸坐了起来：什么？怎么回事，儿子？尤金继续哭嚷，爸爸从床上跳起，点亮了煤气

灯。我们看见了跳蚤，蹦蹦跳跳的，牢牢地抓着我们的皮肤。我们抽打着，可它们在我们的身上蹿来蹿去，咬来咬去。我们挠着被咬过的地方，都挠出了血。我们从床上跳起来，双胞胎哭喊着。妈妈哀叹道：啊，天呀，我们都不能休息一下。爸爸在果酱瓶里放上水和盐，轻轻抹在我们的被咬处。盐水烧得我们难受，可爸爸说一会儿就好了。妈妈坐在壁炉边，双胞胎坐在她的大腿上。爸爸穿上裤子，把床垫抽下来，拿到外面的街道上。他在壶里和盆里都盛满水，把床垫靠在墙上，用一只鞋子使劲抽打它。他要我们不停地往地上浇水，好淹死掉在地上的跳蚤。利默里克的月亮好亮，我可以看见片片月光在水中闪烁。我真想从水中舀起几片月光，可我该拿正在腿上跳跃的跳蚤怎么办？爸爸继续用鞋子抽打床垫，我只好又穿过房屋跑回后院，用壶和盆接更多的水。妈妈说：看看你，鞋子都湿透了，你想找死啊。你爸爸光着一只脚，早晚会得肺炎的。一个骑自行车的男人停了下来，想知道爸爸为什么打床垫。圣母啊，他说，我还从没听说过这样治跳蚤的。你知道吗？要是一个人能像跳蚤那样跳的话，一下子就可以从半空跳到月亮上。你要做的是，把那个床垫

拿回屋里，反过来，铺在床上，这样就会把这些"小该死的"弄糊涂了。它们不知道自己到了哪里，就该咬床垫或者互相咬了。这才是治跳蚤的好方法。你要知道，它们咬过人后就会发疯，因为它们周围都是咬过人的跳蚤，浓烈的血腥味把它们熏糊涂了。它们真是一种可怕的折磨，我清楚，谁让我是在爱尔兰的利默里克长大的呢？这里的跳蚤又多又性急，它们会坐在你的靴尖上和你讨论爱尔兰的苦难史。据说，古代的爱尔兰没有跳蚤，是英国人把它们带过来的，为的是让我们全都发疯，我相信英国人干得出这种丑陋的勾当。说起来真奇妙，圣帕特里克把蛇赶出了爱尔兰，而英国人却把跳蚤带进了爱尔兰。几个世纪以来，爱尔兰都是一个美丽和平的地方，蛇不见了，一个跳蚤也没有。你尽可以在绿色田野间漫步，不必担心有蛇；而且可以睡一夜的好觉，没有跳蚤来骚扰。其实蛇是无害的，除非你把它惹急了，它不会找你的麻烦；而且它住的离其他生物远远的，只在灌木丛那样的地方出没；可跳蚤却从早到晚都吸你的血，这是它的本性，它也无计可施。我听说蛇大量出没的地方就不会有跳蚤，比如亚利桑纳州。你总会听说亚利桑纳州的蛇，可你听说过亚利

桑纳州的跳蚤吗？祝你好运，站在这儿，我得多加小心，若有一个跳蚤跑到我的衣服上，我就等于把它全家都请来了。它们繁殖得比印度人还快。爸爸问：你不会有烟吧？烟？啊，当然有，给。我差点没被烟给毁掉，你知道，就是多年不停的干咳，咳得那么厉害，几乎把我从自行车上震下来。我能感觉到那咳嗽在我的腹腔里翻腾，径直穿过我的肠道，最后要把我的天灵盖掀掉。他划着一根火柴，自己先把烟点着，然后把火柴递给爸爸。当然啦，他说，住在利默里克，你一定会咳嗽的，因为这是肺不好的第一大城市，肺不好会导致肺炎。要是利默里克所有得肺炎的人都死掉的话，它就要变成一个鬼城了，不过我自己并没有肺炎。对啦，这种咳嗽是德国人送来的礼物。他打住，喷出一口烟，挣扎着咳了起来。天啊，原谅我刚才的话吧，不过这烟终究会要我的命的。好啦，我现在得走了，你接着打你的床垫吧，记住我告诉你的方法，让那些"小该死的"犯糊涂。他骑上自行车摇摇晃晃地走了，嘴里叼着香烟，干咳继续折磨他的身体。爸爸说：利默里克人的话太多了，走吧，我们把这个床垫放回去，看看今天夜里还能不

能睡着。妈妈仍在壁炉边坐着，双胞胎已经在她的腿上睡着了。小马拉奇蜷缩着，睡在她脚旁的地板上。她问：你在跟谁说话？听起来很像是阿吉的丈夫帕。基廷，我能从那咳嗽声听得出来。战争期间，他在法国中了毒气，从此得上了那种咳嗽。接下来，我们睡着了。第二天早上，我们查看跳蚤们美餐过的地方，那里除了被咬红的皮肤，还有抓破的发亮的血痂。妈妈烧了茶，煎了面包，爸爸又给我们被咬过的地方涂抹了一次盐水。他再次把床垫拖到后院，这么冷的天里，跳蚤们一定会被冻死，夜里我们就可以睡上一个好觉了。住进这个房间几天后，一个夜里，爸爸把我从梦中摇醒：起来，弗兰西斯，起来。穿上衣服，快去找你阿吉姨妈，你妈妈需要她，快点。妈妈正在床上呻吟，脸色煞白。爸爸让小马拉奇和双胞胎下床，坐在火已熄灭的壁炉边。我奔跑着穿过街道，敲响阿吉姨妈家的门。帕。基廷咳嗽着出来了，嘟囔着：什么事？什么事？我妈妈正在床上呻吟，我想她是病了。

这时，阿吉姨妈嘟囔着出来了：自打恁们从美国回来，除了添乱什么都不会。别怪他，阿吉，他只是个孩子，在做大人让他做的事。她让帕姨父睡觉去，他早晨还得去上班，不像某些她不愿意提的北佬，整天无所事事。他说：不，不，我就来，安琪拉一定是出了什么事。爸爸让我和弟弟们坐在那儿，我不知道妈妈怎么啦，每个人都在小声说话，我只能勉强听清阿吉姨妈告诉帕姨父，孩子丢了，快跑，去叫救护车。姨父出了门，阿吉姨妈对妈妈说，你可以说利默里克有多不好，但这儿的救护车是挺快的。她不理爸爸，也从不正眼瞧他。小马拉奇问：爸爸，妈妈病了吗？啊，她没事，儿子。她得看一下病。我很纳闷，孩子丢了是怎么回事，因为我们四个都在这里呀，没有一个丢掉，妈妈出了什么事？他们为什么不告诉我们？姨父回来了，救护车就在他身后。一个男人拿着一副担架走了进来。他们把妈妈抬走后，我们看见床边地板上的血迹。小马拉奇咬伤了他的舌头，流出了血，那条躺在街上的狗身上也流出了血，结果它死掉了。

我想问问爸爸，是不是妈妈要像妹妹玛格丽特那样永远地离去，但他和妈妈一块走了。而问阿吉姨妈是没有用的，她会把我的头咬掉。她擦去血，叫我们上床等爸爸。已经是半夜了，我们四个在床上暖洋洋地睡着了。爸爸回来后，把我们叫醒，告诉我们妈妈很好，在医院里待得很舒服，用不了多久就回家了。后来，爸爸去了职业介绍所领取失业救济金。一个操着北爱尔兰口音的劳动力，是没指望找到工作的。回到家里，他告诉妈妈以后我们每星期会得到十九先令。她说，那我们继续挨饿吧，六个人就十九先令？换成美元还不到四块，我们该怎么活下去啊？等过两个星期必须交房租时，我们又该怎么办呢？要是一星期交五先令的房租，我们就得靠那十四先令买食品、衣服和烧茶水用的煤炭了。爸爸摇着头，从果酱瓶里呷着茶，凝视着窗外，吹起了口哨《韦克斯福德的男孩》。小马拉奇和奥里弗拍着小手，绕着房间跳起舞来。爸爸忍不住想笑，又要吹口哨，又想笑，弄得他一时不知如何是好。他只好先停下来，笑一笑，拍拍奥里弗的头，再继续吹口哨。妈妈也笑了，但那笑只是一闪而过。她凝望着灰烬，

她的嘴角因忧虑而下垂。第二天，她吩咐爸爸照看双胞胎，带上我和小马拉奇去了圣文森特保罗协会。我们和披着黑披肩的女人们站成一排。她们问我们的名字，我们开口说话时，她们的脸上都露出了微笑。她们说：老天在上，你们听听这两个小美国佬的腔调。她们不理解，为什么身穿美国外套的妈妈要求助于慈善机构，就算美国佬不来抢面包，慈善机构也已经应付不了利默里克的贫民了。妈妈对她们说，是布鲁克林的一个表姐给了她这件外套，她的丈夫没有工作，家里还有两个双胞胎男孩。这些女人抽抽鼻子，紧紧自己的披肩，她们也各有一本难念的经。妈妈告诉她们，她不得不离开美国，因为宝贝女儿死后，她就再也受不了了。这些女人又抽抽鼻子，不过这次是有感于妈妈的眼泪。有些人说她们也失去过小孩，没什么比这更糟了，你可以活得跟玛士撒拉①的妻子一样长，但你无法忘记这种丧子之痛。没有男人能了解母亲失去孩子的感觉，就算他能活得比玛士撒拉长一倍也没用。她们都痛痛快快地哭了起来，一个红头发女人递过一个小盒子，这些女人用手指夹起盒子里的东西，塞进鼻子里。一个年轻女人打起喷嚏，那个红头发女人大

笑道：噢，当然啦，蓓蒂，你用不了这种鼻烟。过来，小美国佬，来一撮。她把那褐色的鼻烟塞进我们的鼻孔里，我们猛烈地打起喷嚏，惹得这些女人破涕为笑，笑到用披肩擦眼泪。妈妈对我们说：这对恁们有好处，可以使恁们的头脑清爽一下。那个年轻女人蓓蒂对妈妈说，我们是两个可爱的男孩。她指着小马拉奇：这个长着金色鬈发的小家伙不是很招人喜欢吗？他可能会成为一个秀兰。邓波儿那样的电影明星哩。小马拉奇的脸上笑容灿烂，使整个队列有了一股暖意。带着鼻烟的那个女人对妈妈说：太太，恕我冒昧，但我想你该坐着，我们听说你流产了。另一个女人有些担心：啊，不行，他们不喜欢这样。谁不喜欢什么？啊，当然，诺拉。莫雷，协会的人不喜欢我们坐在台阶上，他们想让我们靠墙站着。他们只配亲我的屁股，红头发女人诺拉说，坐在这儿，太太，坐在这个台阶上，我挨着你坐。要是圣文森特保罗协会的人敢吭一声，我就撕下他们的脸皮，我会这么做的。你抽烟吗，太太？抽的，妈妈说，可我没有烟。

诺拉从围裙口袋里掏出一支香烟，折断，给了妈妈半支。那个有些担心的女人说：他们也不喜欢这样，他们说你抽的每一支烟，都是从孩子嘴里抢下的食物。里面的昆利文先生就坚决反对这个。他说你有钱抽烟就有钱买食物。昆利文也只配亲我的屁股，这个一笑就呲牙的老杂种，他嫉妒我们吞云吐雾的样子！这可是我们在这个世界上的惟一安慰呀。过道尽头的门开了，一个男人走了出来：恁们谁在等着要童靴？这些女人纷纷举起手来：我要，我要。好吧，靴子全没了，恁们只好等到下个月再来。可是我的米奇需要靴子去上学。都没啦，我已经告诉你了。可是外面很冻人的，昆利文先生。靴子全没啦，我也没办法。这是什么？谁在抽烟？诺拉晃了晃烟卷。是我，她说，我要抽到一根烟丝都不剩。你抽一口就是抢一口，他说。我知道，她说，我正在从孩子的嘴里抢食物。

你真放肆，女人，你拿不到这里的救济品。真的吗？好吧，昆利文先生，要是这里拿不到，我知道哪里可以拿得到。你在说什么？我去找贵格会①，他们会发给我救济品。昆利文先生向诺拉走过去，指着她：你知道我们这里有什么吗？我们中间有一个"汤民"。大饥荒时期我们才有汤民，新教徒到处对虔诚的天主教徒说，要是他们放弃自己的信仰，成为新教徒，就可以喝到很多的汤，让他们的肚子都盛不下。上帝保佑，一些天主教徒领到了汤，从此就成了"汤民"，丧失了他们那不死的灵魂，注定要沦落到地狱的最底层。你，女人，假如你到贵格会教徒那里去，你就会丧失不死的灵魂，还有你的孩子们的灵魂。那么，昆利文先生，你只好拯救我们了，不是吗？他瞪着她，她同样怒目相对。他的目光滑到别的女人身上去了。一个女人用手捂着嘴，憋着笑。你在偷笑什么？他怒吼着。噢，没什么，昆利文先生，我向上帝保证。我再告诉恁们一次，没有靴子。说完，他转身"砰"

地一声摔上了门。女人们一个接一个地被叫了进去。当诺拉出来的时候，她面带微笑，挥舞着一张纸。靴子，她说，三双，我要给我的孩子们带回去。在这儿，要是用贵格会吓唬这帮男人，他们连内裤都会从屁股上扒下来送给你。叫到了妈妈，她带上我和小马拉奇。我们站在一张桌子前，桌子那边是三个提问的男人。昆利文先生开始说着什么，但坐在中间的那个人说：昆利文，你的要求够多了，要是我们将这事交给你办，利默里克的贫民就会投入新教徒的怀抱。他转向妈妈，想知道她那件不错的红色外套是从哪儿弄到的。她把在外面跟那些女人讲的，又跟他讲了一遍。讲到玛格丽特的死，她摇着头抽泣起来。她对这些男人说，很抱歉在他们面前流泪，但这件事刚刚过去几个月，她还没能从中走出来，她不知道自己的宝宝葬在了哪里，甚至不知道她是否受洗，因为她被四个男孩子累垮了，根本没精力为受洗的事去教堂。一想到小玛格丽特可能永不超生，不管是在天堂、地狱或者炼狱，可能再没指望见到我们一家人，她就心痛万分。昆利文先生把他的椅子让给了她：啊，好啦，太太，

啊，好啦。坐下，请你坐下。啊，好啦。另外两个人看看桌子，看看天花板。坐在中间的那个人说他会给妈妈一张票券，她可以去帕奈尔街的迈克格拉斯商店领取一周的日用品，有茶、糖、面粉、牛奶、黄油；还有一张单独的票券，可以去码头路的萨顿煤场领取一袋煤。第三个人说：当然不能每周都来拿这张票券，我们要到你的家里去查访，看看你们是否真的有需要。我们必须这样做，这样才能接着考虑你的申请。妈妈用袖口揩去脸上的泪痕，接过那张票券，对那几个男人说：愿上帝为你们的仁慈保佑你们。他们看着桌子、天花板和墙壁，点点头，告诉她通知下一个女人进来。外面的女人告诉妈妈，去迈克格拉斯商店，千万要防着那个老刁婆，她总是缺斤短两。她把东西放在秤盘里的一张纸上，纸的另一头耷拉在柜台后面，她以为你看不见。她会拉那张纸，你损失一半的分量就算幸运了。商店里到处张贴着贞女玛利亚和耶稣圣心的画像，她常去圣约瑟礼拜堂虔诚地跪着，劈里啪啦地拨弄着玫瑰经念珠，像个贞洁烈女似的喘着气，这个老刁婆！

诺拉说：我陪你去，太太。我也到这个迈克格拉斯太太那里去，我知道她有没有骗你。她带路去帕奈尔街的这家商店。柜台后面的那个女人起先对穿着美国外套的妈妈挺友好，妈妈出示了圣文森特保罗协会的票券，那个女人才说：我不知道这个钟点你来干什么，晚上六点钟前，我从不接待领取救济品的人。不过你这是第一次，我就破例吧。她又问诺拉：你也有票券吗？没有，我是作为朋友，帮帮这个贫穷的家庭，她是第一次得到圣文森特保罗协会的票券。那个女人在秤盘上放了一张报纸，从一个大袋子里往外倒面粉。倒完后，她说：这是一磅。我不信，诺拉说，这一磅面粉也太少了吧。那个女人顿时满脸通红，瞪着眼说：你在怀疑我吗？啊，没有，迈克格拉斯太太，诺拉说，我认为这里有点小问题，你的屁股压在这张纸上，你不知道这张纸被往下拉了一点。啊，上帝，没有。一个像你这样整天跪在贞女玛利亚面前的女人，是我们的典范。我看见地上有个东西，那是你的钱吗？迈克格拉斯太太立刻转过身去，秤上的指针晃动起来。什么钱？她问。看了一眼诺拉，她什么都明白了。诺

拉笑了，一定是那阴影让我看花了眼，她对秤盘微笑着，错得可够多的，勉强有半磅面粉。这个秤给我惹了不少麻烦。迈克格拉斯太太说。可不是。诺拉说。但我的良心在上帝面前是清白的。迈克格拉斯太太说。可不是，诺拉说，圣文森特保罗协会和圣母军团的每一位成员都赞美你哪。我一直努力成为一名忠心耿耿的天主教徒。努力？上帝知道，你不需要怎么努力，人人都知道你有一颗仁慈的心。我在想，你能不能给这两个小男孩几块糖果？啊，可是，我不是个百万富翁啊，不过这里... 上帝保佑你，迈克格拉斯太太，我知道这个要求有点过分，可是，你能不能借给我几支香烟抽抽？啊，可是，票券里没有香烟这一项呀，我这儿不供应奢侈品。要是你能行个方便，太太，我一定会在圣文森特保罗协会那里夸奖你的仁慈的。那好吧，那好吧，迈克格拉斯太太说，来，给你香烟，只这一次。上帝赐福你，诺拉说，我很遗憾你的秤给你惹出这么

多麻烦。回家的路上，我们在人民公园停了一下。我们坐在长凳上，我和小马拉奇吸吮着糖果，妈妈和诺拉抽着香烟。诺拉抽得直咳嗽，她对妈妈说，烟早晚会要了她的命，她的家人都有轻微的肺炎，没有哪个能长寿。但住在利默里克很难长寿，在这里，你极少能见到头发灰白的人，这样的人要么进了坟墓，要么横渡大西洋去修铁路了，再不就是穿着警察制服在四处闲逛。你是幸运的，太太，你见过一些世面。啊，上帝，能看一眼纽约，看看百老汇随心所欲地舞蹈的人们，我可以什么都不要了。可现在，我却不得不跟着那个迷人的酒鬼皮特。莫雷。他是个啤酒冠军，在我刚刚十七岁的时候，他灌醉我，让我跟他入了洞房。我真无知，太太，在利默里克我们就是在无知中长大的。我们就是这样，只知道吃喝和领取救济品，还没变成女人，就做了母亲。这里除了雨水和诵玫瑰经的老刁婆子外，什么都没有。我愿意不惜一切代价出去，去美国，英国也行。那个啤酒冠军总是靠失业救济金过日子，他有时甚至把这个也喝掉。他都快把我逼疯了，我最终要到疯人院过下半辈子。她抽着抽着就干呕起来，身体咳得前后摇晃。咳嗽的

间隙，她呜咽着：天啊，天啊。等咳嗽平息下来，她说她得回家吃药了。她说：下星期圣文森特保罗协会再见，太太，要是你有什么难题，就到维兹农场给我送个口信，找人打听一下啤酒冠军皮特。莫雷的老婆就行了。尤金盖着外套在床上睡着了，爸爸坐在壁炉边，腿上坐着奥里弗。我不知道爸爸为什么要给奥里弗讲库胡林的故事，他应该清楚那是我的故事。但等我看了奥里弗一眼，我不担心了。他面颊鲜红，正盯着已经熄灭的炉火，可以看出他对库胡林根本没兴趣。妈妈把手放到他的额头上，我想他是发烧了，她说，我要是有洋葱就好了，可以放进牛奶里加胡椒粉一起煮，这对发烧很有效。可就算我有洋葱，又用什么来煮牛奶呢？我们需要煤来烧火。

利默里克.2 她把那张去码头路领煤的票券给爸爸，他叫上我一块去了。可是，天已经黑了，所有的煤场都关门了。我们现在该怎么办，爸爸？我也不知道，儿子。我们前面有一些围着披肩的女人和小孩子，正在路边

捡煤渣。那儿，爸爸，那里有煤。噢，不要，儿子。咱们不在路上捡煤渣，咱们不是乞丐。他告诉妈妈煤场关门了，今天晚上我们只能喝牛奶吃面包了。可当我告诉她有人在路边捡煤渣时，她把尤金递给他。要是你太尊贵，不能到路上去捡煤渣，那我就穿上外套去码头路。她拿起一个袋子，领上我和小马拉奇去码头路。码头路的远处有种宽宽的、黑黑的东西，灯光在那里闪烁。妈妈说那是香农河，是她在美国最最想念的东西，香农河。哈得逊河虽然也很可爱，但它不会像香农河那样唱歌。我听不到它的歌声，可我的母亲能听得见，她很快乐。那些女人已经离开码头路，我们开始寻找从卡车上掉下来的煤渣。妈妈要我们别放过任何可以烧火的东西，煤炭、木头、硬纸板和纸片都行。她说：有些人要烧马粪呢，我们还没到那个份上。袋子装满了，她说：现在我们得为奥里弗找一个洋葱了。小马拉奇说他去找一个，她说：不行，你在路上是找不到洋葱的，得到商店去找。

他一看到商店就喊了起来：商店，一头冲了进去。洋洋东，他说，奥里弗要洋洋东。妈妈跑进商店，对柜台里面的那个女人说：对不起。那个女人说：主啊，他长得真叫人心疼，他是不是美国人呀？妈妈说他是美国人。那个女人笑了，露出两颗门牙。长得真叫人心疼，她说，瞧那一头漂亮的金色鬈发。他现在想要什么？糖果吗？啊，不是，妈妈说，是洋葱。那个女人笑了：洋葱？我从没听说哪个孩子想要洋葱。他们在美国喜欢这东西？妈妈说：我只是提了一下，想要一个洋葱，给我的另一个孩子治病。你知道，用牛奶煮洋葱。你做得没错，太太，找不到比牛奶煮洋葱更好的东西了。看，小男孩，这是给你的一块糖，另一块给那个小男孩，是哥哥吧，我猜。妈妈说：啊，没错，但你不该这样。说声谢谢，孩子们。那个女人说：这是一个好洋葱，给那孩子治病的，太太。妈妈说：啊，我现在买不了，太太，我身上一分钱也

没带。我是送给你的，太太，别让人说，在利默里克一个孩子因为没洋葱吃生病了。还有，别忘了撒一点胡椒粉。你有胡椒粉吗，太太？啊，没有，我没有，不过哪天我会买的。那么，看这儿，太太，胡椒粉和一点盐。世上没什么比这些更有效了。妈妈说：上帝保佑你，女士。说着，她的眼睛湿润了。爸爸正抱着奥里弗走来走去，尤金拿着盆和勺子在地上玩耍。爸爸问：你弄到洋葱了吗？弄到了，妈妈说，还不止这个呢，我也弄到了煤和生火的东西。我就知道你行，我向圣犹大祈祷了，他是我最喜欢的圣人，是危急关头的保护神。是我弄到的煤，是我弄到的洋葱，我没有靠圣犹大的帮助。爸爸说：你不该像个职业乞丐似的到马路上去捡煤，那不对，给孩子们树了坏榜样。那你应该把你的圣犹大派到码头路去。小马拉奇说：我饿了。我也饿了。可是妈妈说：你们得等到奥里弗吃上他的牛奶煮洋葱才行。

她生着火，把洋葱切成两半，把一半丢进正在煮的牛奶里，在牛奶里搁了一点黄油，又撒了胡椒粉。她把奥里弗抱在腿上，开始喂他，但他把头扭向一边，盯着壁炉里的火。啊，来吧，亲爱的，她说，对你有好处，能让你又高又壮。他紧闭着嘴巴，抵挡着勺子。她放下小盆，晃悠着他，等他睡着了，把他放到床上，警告我们几个不要吵，否则就揍扁我们。她把另一半洋葱切成薄片，加黄油和面包片一起煎了。我们围着炉火坐在地上，吃油煎面包，用果酱瓶喝滚烫的香茶。妈妈说：这炉火旺得很，等有钱了去买个煤气表。炉火温暖了房间，火焰在煤上摇曳，可以看见它跳跃变幻出的脸谱、群山、峡谷和各种动物。尤金在地上睡着了，爸爸把他抱到床上，挨着奥里弗。妈妈把盛着煮洋葱的小盆搁到壁炉架子上面，不让老鼠够着它。她说今天一天累坏了，圣文森特保罗协会，迈克格拉斯太太的商店，到码头路找煤，又为奥里弗不想吃煮洋葱上火。假如明天他还这样，就带他去看病，现在她得上床睡觉了。不一会儿，我们都上了床。这时要是有个把跳蚤，我

也不介意了，因为六个人睡在这张床上很暖和。我喜欢那壁炉里的火光，它在墙上和天花板上舞动着，整个房间变得时红时黑，时红时黑，然后它渐渐黯淡下去，变得苍白，最后是一团漆黑。这时能听见的，只有奥里弗在母亲怀里翻身时的轻微呓语声。早晨，爸爸开始生火，烧茶，切面包。他已经穿好衣服，催促妈妈也赶快穿好衣服。他对我说：弗兰西斯，你小弟弟奥里弗病了，我们送他上医院。你要做个好孩子，照顾好你两个弟弟，我们马上就回来。妈妈说：我们不在家，要省着点用糖，咱们可不是百万富翁。妈妈抱起奥里弗，给他裹上外套。这时，站在床上的尤金闹着说：我要奥里...奥里玩。奥里很快就回来，她说，到时候你就能和他玩了。现在你可以和小马拉奇，还有弗兰克一起玩。奥里，奥里，我要奥里。他的眼睛追随着奥里弗，他们都走出去了，他还坐在床上一直朝窗外张望。小马拉奇说：吉尼①，吉尼，我们吃面包，我们喝茶。把糖抹在你的面包上，吉尼。他摇着头，把马拉奇递过来的面包推到一边，爬到奥里弗和妈妈睡在一起的地方，低下头，凝视窗外。

外婆来到门口：我听说你们的父亲和母亲抱着孩子在亨利街上跑，现在他们去哪儿了？奥里弗生病了，我说，他不吃牛奶煮洋葱。你胡说八道什么？不愿吃煮洋葱，结果就生病了嘛。那谁来照顾恁们呢？我。床上那个孩子怎么啦？他叫什么？那是尤金，他想奥里弗。他们是双胞胎。我知道他们是双胞胎，那孩子看上去饿了，恁们这里有粥没有？粥是什么东西？小马拉奇问。耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟呀！粥是什么东西？！粥就是粥，就是被叫做粥的东西。恁们是我见过的最无知的一帮美国佬。快点，穿上恁们的衣服，我们上街对面你阿吉姨妈家去。她和她丈夫帕。基廷住在那里，让她给恁们一些粥喝。她抱起尤金，给他裹上她的披肩。我们穿过街道，来到阿吉姨妈家。她又和帕姨父住到一起了，因为他最后承认她不是一头肥母牛了。你家里有粥吗？外婆问阿吉姨妈。

粥？你要我给一群美国佬喂粥？行行好吧，外婆说，给他们喝一点粥又死不了你。我猜他们紧接着还会要糖和牛奶的，要是你不介意的话，他们可能还会"砰砰砰"敲我的房门来要鸡蛋的。我不知道为什么非得为安琪拉的错误付出代价。天啊，外婆说，幸亏你没拥有伯利恒①的马厩，否则，圣家就该一直四处流浪，最后在饥饿中完蛋啦。外婆推开阿吉姨妈走进屋里，把尤金放在炉火边的椅子上，开始做粥。一个男人从另一个房间走出来，他有一头乌黑的鬈发，皮肤黝黑。我喜欢他的眼睛，那双眼睛很蓝，带着笑意。他就是阿吉姨妈的丈夫，那个在战争期间中了毒气而落下咳嗽的人，那天晚上我们抽打跳蚤时，停下来跟我们谈论跳蚤和蛇的那个人就是他。小马拉奇问：为什么你全身都这么黑？帕。基廷姨父大笑起来，接着是一阵剧烈的咳嗽。他只好用一支香烟让自己平息下来。噢，这些小美国佬，他说，他们一点也不怕人。我黑是因为我在利默里克煤气厂工作，要成天往火炉里铲煤和焦炭。在法国被煤气熏倒，回到利默里克又在煤气厂工作，等你长大了，就不会觉得好笑的。

我和小马拉奇离开桌子，让这个大块头坐下来喝茶。他们都在喝茶，但是帕。基廷姨父———我叫他姨父是因为他跟我的阿吉姨妈结了婚———却把尤金抱到腿上。他说：这是一个悲伤的小家伙，然后他开始做各种滑稽的鬼脸，发出各种傻里傻气的声音。我和小马拉奇都笑了，尤金只是伸手去摸帕。基廷皮肤上的那层黑色。帕假装要咬他的小手，尤金却笑了，屋里的每个人都笑了。小马拉奇走到尤金跟前，想逗他笑得更厉害，尤金却转过头，把脸藏进了帕。基廷的衬衫里。我想他喜欢我，帕说。这时，阿吉姨妈放下茶杯，开始"哇哇哇"地大叫，大颗的泪珠滚落到她又红又胖的脸上。唉，天呀，外婆说，又来了，这次你是怎么啦？阿吉姨妈号啕大哭：眼巴巴看着帕抱着这个孩子，我却没有自己的孩子。外婆朝她大吼：不要在孩子们面前说这个，你不知道羞啊？等上帝心情好了，准备好了，他会把你的孩子送来的。阿吉姨妈呜咽着：安琪拉这么没用，连地板都不能擦，却有五个孩子，一个还刚刚丢掉；我能把地板擦得干

干净净，还会煎炒烹炸各种菜肴，却一个孩子也没有。帕。基廷大笑着说：我想抚养这个小家伙。小马拉奇跑到他跟前：不行，不行，不行，这是我弟弟，是尤金。我也说：不行，不行，不行，那是我们的弟弟。阿吉姨妈擦去脸颊上的泪水，她说：我不要安琪拉的东西，我不要这半利默里克半北爱尔兰的东西，我可不要。恁们只管把他带回家吧。等到我向玛利亚和她的母亲圣安妮做一百个九日祷，或者从这里跪拜到露德①去的那一天，我就会有自己的孩子的。外婆说：够了，恁们已经喝完粥，该回家了，看看恁们的父亲和母亲是不是从医院回来了。她围上披肩，走过去抱尤金，可他死死抓住帕。基廷的衬衫。她只好用力地把他拉开，他仍然回头望着帕，直到我们跨出门槛。我们跟外婆回到自己的房间，她把尤金放到床上，给他喝了一点水，叫他做个好孩子，闭眼睡觉，他的小兄弟奥里弗不久就要回家了，他们又可以到地上玩了。可是，他仍然望着窗外。她告诉我和小马拉奇，我们可以坐在地板上玩，但要安静，因为她打算祷告了。小马拉奇走到床边，坐在

尤金身旁。我坐在桌边的椅子上，在我们用来做桌布的报纸上认字。房间里只能听见小马拉奇逗尤金的低语，以及外婆拨着玫瑰经念珠的诵经声。屋里这么安静，我把头贴在桌上睡着了。爸爸抚摸着我的肩膀：醒醒，弗兰西斯，你得照顾小弟弟们。妈妈瘫坐在床沿，声音小得像鸟儿似的在哭泣。外婆正在系披肩，她说：我要去棺材商汤普森那里，问问棺材和马车的事。圣文森特保罗协会应该会出钱的，天晓得。她出门了。爸爸面朝壁炉站着，用拳头捶打自己的大腿，叹息着：唉，唉，唉。爸爸的"唉唉"声让我害怕，妈妈那小鸟一样的哭声也让我害怕，可我不知道该怎么办，我想知道有没有人生炉栅里的火，让我们吃上茶和面包。我们喝过粥已经有很长的时间了。要是爸爸从壁炉前走开，我自己可以去生火，只要几张纸，一些煤和泥炭，还有一根火柴就好了。但他不走开，我只好绕到他的腿前。他在捶打自己的大腿，可还是注意到了我。他问我为什么要生炉子，我告诉他我们都饿了。他爆发出一阵疯狂的大笑。饿了？他说，噢，弗兰西斯，你的小弟

弟奥里弗死了！你的小妹妹死了，你的小弟弟又死了。他抱起我，搂得那么紧，我哭喊起来。小马拉奇也跟着哭了，母亲哭了，爸爸哭了，我哭了，只有尤金静静地待着。爸爸擤擤鼻子，说：我们好好吃一顿，走，弗兰西斯。他告诉妈妈我们一会儿就回来，可她头也没抬，就那么在床上搂着腿上的小马拉奇和尤金。他领着我穿过利默里克的街道，一家店铺一家店铺地问，能不能给一家人一点吃的或者别的东西，这家人一年死了两个孩子，一个死在美国，一个死在利默里克，而且因为缺吃少喝，还可能死掉更多的孩子。大多数店主只是摇头：我对你的遭遇深表同情，但是你可以去圣文森特保罗协会，或者向公共机构求助。爸爸说他很高兴看见基督精神活在利默里克，他们告诉他，他们不需要他的喜欢，不需要他操着北方口音跟他们讲基督精神。他应该为自己的行为感到羞耻，拖着一个孩子这样乱窜，就像一个职业乞丐，一个叫花子，一个捡破烂的。几个店主给了面包、土豆和豌豆罐头。爸爸说：我们现在回家，你们这些孩子有东西吃了。可是，我们遇见了帕。基廷姨父，他对爸爸说，对他的遭遇很是同

情，问爸爸想不想到这里的酒吧喝杯啤酒。男人们坐在酒吧里，面前放着大杯黑色的东西。帕。基廷姨父和爸爸也要了这种黑东西。他们小心翼翼地举起杯子，慢慢品味。他们的嘴唇上粘着奶油样的白色东西，他们一边叹息一边舐嘴。帕姨父给我一瓶柠檬水，爸爸给我一块面包，我不饿了。可是，我想知道还要在这儿坐多久，小马拉奇和尤金还在家里饿着呢，喝粥后，他们好长时间都没吃东西了，尤金根本没吃过什么。爸爸和帕姨父喝完杯里的黑东西，又要了一杯。帕姨父说：弗兰基，这是啤酒，是生命的支柱。对奶妈和那些断了奶的人来说，这是最好的东西啦。他大笑起来，爸爸只是微微一笑，我也大笑起来，我认为帕姨父说话时我应该作出这样的反应。告诉其他人奥里弗的死讯时，他没有笑。其他人脱帽向爸爸致意：我们对你的遭遇深表同情，先生，你当然要喝我们一杯酒。爸爸没有拒绝，不久，他便唱起了罗迪。迈克考雷和凯文。巴里，还有一首首我以前没听过的歌。接着，他又哭他那可爱的小女儿玛格丽特，她死在美国，还有他的小儿子，奥里弗，死在前面的城市之家医院里。

他又是嚷又是哭又是唱，让我很害怕，我真希望我要是跟三个弟弟，不，是跟两个弟弟和母亲待在家里就好了。吧台后面的那个人对爸爸说：现在我想，先生，你已经喝够了。我们对你的不幸表示同情，但你应该带这个孩子回家，找他母亲去，她一定也在炉子边伤心得死去活来哪。爸爸说：一杯，再来一杯啤酒，就一杯，嗯？那个人说不行。爸爸晃了晃他的拳头：我为爱尔兰效过力。那个男人走出来，抓住爸爸的胳膊，爸爸想把他推开。帕姨父说：现在走吧，马拉奇，不要胡闹了。你得回家去看看安琪拉，你明天还有葬礼要操办呢，那些可爱的孩子们也等着你哩。爸爸还在纠缠，几个男人把他推搡到黑咕隆咚的外面。帕姨父拿着一包吃的，跌跌撞撞地跟了出来。走吧，他说，咱们回你家去。爸爸想再换个地方找酒喝，但帕姨父说他没有多少钱了。爸爸说他要向每个人诉说一下他的悲痛，他们会给他酒喝的。帕姨父说这样做太丢人，爸爸趴在他的肩膀上哭了。你是个好朋友，他对帕姨父说。说完，他又哭了，帕姨父拍了拍他的后背，止住他的眼泪。

真是可怕，真是可怕，帕姨父说，到时候你就会挺过来了。爸爸直起身，看着他。永远不会，他说，永远不会。第二天，我们坐着马车去医院。他们把奥里弗装进一个白色的箱子里，然后放上马车，由我们送到墓场。他们把那个白箱子放进地里的一个洞，盖上泥土。母亲和阿吉姨妈都哭了，外婆看上去很愤怒，爸爸、帕姨父和帕特。西恩舅舅看上去很悲哀，但没有流泪。我认为，要是你是一个男人的话，只有喝那种叫做啤酒的黑东西时，才可以流泪。我不喜欢栖息在树上和墓碑上的乌鸦，我不想把奥里弗留给它们。我朝那只落在奥里弗坟头上的乌鸦扔了一块石头。爸爸说我不应该朝乌鸦扔石头，它们可能是某些人的灵魂。我不知道灵魂是什么，也没有问他，因为我并不在乎。奥里弗死了，我恨乌鸦。等我长大的那一天，我要带上一兜石头回来，我要让墓场上到处都是死去的乌鸦。葬完奥里弗的第二天早上，爸爸去职业介绍所签名，领取一周的失业救济金十九先令六便士。他说中午之前回家，到时候把煤捎回来，生着炉子，我们吃咸肉片、鸡蛋和茶来纪念奥里弗，甚至可能会吃一两块糖

果。到了中午，他没有回来。下午一两点了，他还是没有回来。我们煮了前一天店主们给的土豆吃了。五月的那一天，直到太阳落山，家里也没见到他的人影。酒吧打烊很久后，没有任何预兆地，我们突然听到他的歌声，沿着风车街轰隆隆地传来：正当所有的人都在守夜不眠，西部人却在沉睡，西部人却在沉睡——— 哎，当康诺特省也在这样沉睡，爱尔兰也许正在流泪。湖泊和平原笑得爽朗又自在，张扬着卫兵骑士般的雄威。唱吧，啊，让人们从摧枯拉朽的大风大海中懂得自由是多么的可贵。他跌跌撞撞地走进屋子，上身靠在墙上，流着鼻涕，他用乌黑的手一擦，吃力地开口说：天...天哪，孩...子们应该睡觉了。听我说，孩...子们应该上床睡觉去了。妈妈直视着他：这些孩子饿了，救济金去哪儿了？我们要买点鱼和薯条，好让他们睡觉时肚子里有点东西。她想掏他的口袋，但他把她推开了。像样点，他说，

在孩子们面前像样点。她挣扎着把手伸向他的衣兜：钱呢？孩子们都饿着呢。你这个发疯的老杂种，你又把钱都喝光了吗？就像你在布鲁克林干的那样。他忽然号啕大哭：哎呀，可怜的安琪拉，可怜的小玛格丽特和可怜的小奥里弗啊。他踉跄着向我走过来，抱住我，我又闻到了在美国时常闻到的酒味。他的泪水、口水和鼻涕将我的脸弄湿了，我很饿，可他抱着我的头哭泣，我不知道该说什么才好。过了一会儿，他放开我，又抱住小马拉奇，继续唠叨着躺在冰冷地下的小妹妹和小弟弟，唠叨着我们都该祷告，做个好孩子，唠叨着我们都该听话，听妈妈的话。他说虽然有困难，但我和小马拉奇应该上学，没有什么比受教育更重要了，它是人最终的依靠。而且，我们也该准备为爱尔兰尽一份力了。妈妈说她再也不能在风车街的屋子里多待一分钟了，关于奥里弗的记忆让她无法入睡：奥里弗在床上，奥里弗在地上玩耍，奥里弗在炉子旁坐在爸爸的腿上。她说住在这儿对尤金也不好，双胞胎中的一个去了，另一个会很痛苦，这种痛苦连母亲也想像不到。哈特

斯汤吉街有一个房间，里面有两张床，不像我们这儿六个人———不，五个人才有一张床，我们要租下这间屋子。星期四她务必得去职业介绍所排队，等失业救济金一交到爸爸手上，她就拿走。他说她不能那么做，这会让他在别的男人面前丢脸，职业介绍所是男人而不是女人拿钱的地方。她说：行行好吧，要是你不把钱糟蹋在酒吧里，我也不会像在布鲁克林那样跟在你屁股后头的。他说那样他会一辈子抬不起头来。她说她才不管呢，她就想租哈特斯汤吉街的那间屋子，那里温暖舒适，公寓过道还有一个厕所，就像布鲁克林的那个屋子一样，没有跳蚤和要命的潮湿。它跟利米国立学校在一条街道上，我和小马拉奇可以回家吃午饭，喝杯茶，吃块煎面包。星期四，妈妈跟着爸爸去职业介绍所。她走在他后面，那里的人刚把钱推到他面前，她就一把拿走。其他领救济金的男人见了，你推推我，我戳戳你，咧嘴笑了。爸爸很没面子，因为女人不该插手男人的救济金，他本可以花它六便士赌赌赛马或者来杯啤酒，要是所有的女人都像妈妈这样，那马就跑不了了，吉尼斯黑啤酒公司也会破产的。但不管怎

样，她现在拿到了钱，我们搬到了哈特斯汤吉街。然后，她抱上尤金，我们去了这条街道上的利米国立学校。校长史格伦先生让我们带上作文本、铅笔和一支笔尖良好的钢笔，星期一来上学；我们不能带着癣或虱子到学校，随时都得擤鼻涕，但不能擤在地上，以免传播肺炎，也不能把鼻涕擤在衣袖上，只能擤在手绢或干净的布上。他问我们是不是好孩子，当我们说是时，他说：仁慈的主啊，这是什么？他们是不是美国佬？妈妈跟他讲了玛格丽特和奥里弗的事情，他说：我主在上，我主在上，这个世界的痛苦太深重了。但不管怎样，我们要把这个小家伙，小马拉奇放入学前班，让他的哥哥上一年级。他们在同一个教室，由一个老师教。那么，星期一早上，九点整。利米国立学校的男孩们想知道我们为什么要那样说话：恁们是不是美国佬？我们告诉他们，我们是从美国来的。他们又想知道：恁们是土匪还是牛仔？一个大个子男孩几乎把脸贴在我的脸上。我在问恁一个问题，他说，恁们是土匪还是牛仔？我说不知道，他用手指戳着我的胸膛，这时小马拉奇说：我是土匪，弗兰基是牛仔。那个大个子男孩说：

你的小弟弟很精明，你是一个笨蛋美国佬。他身边的男孩们激动起来。打，他们嚷着，打。他使劲推了我一把，我跌倒在地。我想哭，但是一片漆黑忽然笼罩了我，正像那次弗雷迪。莱博威茨推我一样，我向他冲过去，一阵拳打脚踢。我把他打倒在地，想抓住他的头发，把他的头往地上撞，可是，一阵尖利的刺痛从我的腿后面传来，紧接着，我被拽到了一边。本森老师揪着我的耳朵，使劲抽我的腿。你这个小恶棍，他说，你从美国带回来的就是这种行为吗？啊，看在上帝的分上，我没有收拾你，你得给我规矩些。他要我伸出一只手，再伸出另一只手，用棍子在我的手上轮番抽打。现在回家去吧，他说，告诉你母亲你是一个多么坏的孩子。你是一个坏美国佬，跟我说— ——我是个坏孩子。我是个坏孩子。再说———我是个坏美国佬。我是个坏美国佬。小马拉奇说：他不是个坏孩子，那个大个子男孩才是，他说我们是牛仔和土匪。你是这么说的吗，赫夫曼？我只是开玩笑，先生。

不许再开这样的玩笑，赫夫曼，他们是美国佬，那不是他们的过错。你，赫夫曼，应当每天夜里跪下来，感谢上帝你不是一个美国佬，如果你是，赫夫曼，你会变成大西洋两岸最坏的土匪，黑手党头子都会来向你讨教的。你不要再招惹这两个美国佬了，赫夫曼。好的，先生。你要是再招惹他们的话，我就扒了你的皮挂在墙上。现在，恁们都回家去。利米国立学校共有七名老师，他们都有皮带、藤鞭和黑刺李棍子。他们用棍子打你的肩膀、后背、双腿，尤其是双手。要是他们打你的手，那叫做抽。要是你迟到了，要是你的钢笔尖漏墨水，要是你笑出声，要是你讲话了，要是你回答不上问题，他们就会打你。要是你不知道上帝为什么创造这个世界，要是你不知道利默里克的保护神，要是你不会背《使徒信经》，要是你不知道十九加四十七等于多少，要是你不知道四十七减十九等于多少，要是你不知道爱尔兰三十二个省份的主要城市和物产，要是你不能在墙上的那张世界地图（那张地图已经让那些被开除的学生愤怒地用

唾沫、鼻涕和墨水弄得乌七八糟了）上找到保加利亚，他们就会打你。要是你不能用爱尔兰语说自己的名字，要是你不能用爱尔兰语诵读《圣母颂》，要是你不能用爱尔兰语请求去厕所，他们就会打你。听高年级男孩的话很有帮助，他们可以告诉你，现在这位老师喜欢什么，憎恨什么。要是你不知道埃蒙。德。瓦勒拉①是有史以来最伟大的人物，一个老师会打你。要是你不知道迈克尔。柯林斯②是有史以来最伟大的人物，另一个老师会打你。本森先生憎恨美国，所以你得憎恨美国，否则，他会打你。奥狄先生憎恨英国，所以你得憎恨英国，否则，他会打你。要是你敢说半句奥里弗。克伦威尔③的好话，他们全会打你。就算他们用白腊树枝，或是带瘤的黑刺李棍子往你的每只手上连抽六下，你也不能哭，不然，你就是个窝囊废。有些男孩会在街道上讥笑你嘲讽你，但他们也得小心，因为他们早晚也有被打的那一天，那时他们也得强忍泪水，不然，就会丢尽脸面。一些男孩说还

是哭好，这样可以让老师高兴。要是你不哭，老师会恨你，你让他们在全班面前显得很无能，而且他们会暗自发誓，下次碰到你，就让你要么流泪要么流血，要么两样一起流。五年级的大孩子告诉我们，奥狄先生喜欢让你站在全班同学面前，他站在你后头，掐住你的两鬓，就是被叫做鬓角的地方，往上拽它们。起，起，他说，直到你踮高脚尖，泪水充满双眼。谁都不想让班里的男孩们看到自己哭，但是不管你愿意不愿意，被拽疼的鬓角会让你哭出来。而且，老师也喜欢看见这样。奥狄先生是总能让人流泪和丢丑的老师。最好不要哭，因为你得和学校里的男孩站在一边，而且你也不想让老师得意。要是老师打了你，向父母诉苦是没用的，他们总是说：你活该，别像个小宝宝似的！我知道奥里弗死了，小马拉奇也知道奥里弗死了，可是尤金太小，还不懂事。早上一醒，他就会说：奥里，奥里，他蹒跚着到床下寻找奥里，或者爬到靠窗的床边，指着街道上的那些孩子。看见跟他和奥里弗一样长着金黄头发的孩子，他就说：奥里，奥里。妈妈抱起他，哭了，把他紧紧搂在怀里。他挣扎着要下去，

他不想让人搂在怀里，他想去找奥里弗。爸爸和妈妈告诉他，奥里弗正在天堂和天使们一起玩耍，有一天我们都会见到他的。但是，他不明白，他只有两岁，又说不出什么，这真是再糟糕不过了。我和小马拉奇跟他玩，我们想逗他笑，朝他做鬼脸，把小盆放到头上，假装让它掉下来；我们在房间里来回奔跑，又假装跌倒；我们带他去人民公园，看那些可爱的鲜花，逗小狗玩，在草地上打滚。他仍然盯着和奥里弗一样长着金黄头发的孩子，但他不再说奥里了，他只是用手指着他们。爸爸说，有我和小马拉奇这样的哥哥，尤金很幸运，因为我们在帮助他忘掉奥里弗。不久，在上帝的保佑下，他再也不会想起奥里弗了。他最终还是死了。奥里弗离去的六个月后，十一月一个平常的早晨，我们一觉醒来，发现躺在身边的尤金已经全身冰凉。特洛伊医生来了，说这孩子死于肺结核，还问为什么不早点把他送进医院。爸爸说他不知道，妈妈说她也不知道。特洛伊医生说这就是孩子病死的原因———没有人知道他病了。他说我和小马拉奇一旦出现最轻微的咳嗽，或是喉管里有一点点异样的声音，不管是白

天还是夜里，都要把我们送到他那里去。我们要时刻保持干爽，因为这家人的肺部似乎都有点虚弱。他对妈妈说，他对她的不幸非常同情，要给她开些药，以缓解她近日的痛苦。他说上帝要得太多了，实在是他妈的太多了。外婆带着阿吉姨妈来到我们家，她为尤金洗了身，阿吉姨妈去商店买了一件白色的小长袍和一串念珠。她们给他穿上白色的小长袍，把他放在靠窗的床边，他过去常常在那儿朝外张望，寻找奥里弗。他们给他戴上白色的小念珠，把他的双手交叠着放在胸前。外婆撩起遮住他眼睛和前额的头发，说：他的头发多么柔软，光滑，可爱啊！妈妈上床，抽出一条毯子盖在他的腿上，想让他暖和些。外婆和阿吉姨妈互相看看，什么也没说。爸爸站在床尾，用拳头捶打着自己的大腿，对尤金说着话：唉，都是香农河害了你，河水带来的潮气夺走了你和奥里弗。外婆说：你能不能住嘴？你让整个屋里的人都紧张。她接过特洛伊医生的药方，要我去药剂师奥康纳那里拿药，因为特洛伊医生的仁慈，这些药不会收费的。爸爸说他和我一块去，我们还要去耶稣会教堂为玛格丽特、奥里弗和尤金祷告，祈求他们在天堂全都幸福。药剂师把药给了我们，我

们在教堂停下来做祷告。我们回到家，外婆给了爸爸一些钱，叫他去酒吧买几瓶黑啤酒。妈妈说：不要，不要。但外婆说：他没有可以缓解痛苦的药丸，上帝保佑，一瓶黑啤酒可以起些安慰的作用。然后她嘱咐他明天务必去棺材商那里，用马车把棺材拉回来。他要我和父亲一块去，以免他整夜都待在酒吧，花光所有的钱。爸爸说：啊，弗兰基不该到酒吧去。她说：那就不要在那里多待。他戴上帽子，我们去了南方酒吧。到了酒吧门口，他要我回家去，说他喝完一杯啤酒就回去。我说：不。他说：听话，回家找你可怜的母亲去。我说：不。他说我是个坏孩子，上帝会生气的。我说没有他我不回家，他说：唉，这世道都变成什么样了？他在酒吧里匆匆喝了一杯黑啤酒，然后带了几瓶啤酒回家。帕。基廷来我们家里，带来一小瓶威士忌和几瓶黑啤酒。帕特。西恩舅舅也带来两瓶黑啤酒，那是给他自己的。帕特舅舅坐在地板上，搂着他的酒瓶子，不停地说：这些是我的，这些是我的。他害怕别人把它们拿走。摔过倒栽葱的人总是担心有人偷他们的酒。外婆说：好吧，帕特，喝你自己的酒吧，没有人会抢你的。她和阿吉姨妈挨着尤金坐在床上，帕。基廷坐在厨房的餐桌旁，喝着他的黑啤酒，

让每人喝一口他的威士忌。妈妈服了药，坐在炉火旁，腿上坐着小马拉奇。她不停地说小马拉奇的头发跟尤金的很像。阿吉姨妈说不像，他的头发不像，外婆用胳膊肘捣捣阿吉姨妈的胸脯，让她闭嘴。爸爸在壁炉和尤金躺着的那张床之间靠墙站着，喝着他的黑啤酒。帕。基廷讲着故事，大人们都笑了，尽管他们并不想笑，尽管在一个死去的孩子面前，他们不应该笑。他说他作为英国兵在法国打仗的时候，德国兵放毒气，他被熏得很厉害，被送到医院。他们让他在医院待了一段时间，又把他送回战壕。英国士兵都被送回国了，可不管爱尔兰士兵是死是活，他们连一个臭屁都不放。帕没有死，反而挣了一大笔钱。他说他解决了战壕里的一个大问题，战壕里那么潮湿，那么泥泞，他们没办法烧茶水。他自言自语：耶稣，我肚子里有这么多煤气，浪费掉太可惜了。于是，他在自己的屁股里插了一根管子，用火柴点着，不到一秒钟就冒出很旺的火苗，随便用什么罐子烧水都行。英国兵闻讯纷纷从战壕四处跑过来，只要能让他们烧一下开水，收多少钱都行。他挣了很多钱，就贿赂上级让他离开部队。后来他去了巴黎，在那儿与艺术家和模特们共饮葡萄美酒，度过了一段相当美好的时光。这段时光里他大

手大脚，花光了所有的钱。当他返回利默里克，只能在煤气厂往火炉里铲煤了。他说他的体内现在还有许多煤气，足以供给一个小城一年的照明。阿吉姨妈抽抽鼻子，说不适合在死去的孩子面前讲这个故事，而外婆说像这样讲个故事，总比拉长脸坐在这里要好。帕特。西恩舅舅坐在地板上，拿着他的黑啤酒，说他想唱首歌。你更坚强，帕。基廷说。帕特舅舅唱起了 "拉什恩之路"，他不断地唱道：拉什恩，拉什恩，亲爱的...歌曲没有什么内容，自从很久以前他父亲把他摔过倒栽葱后，每次唱这首歌，他总是用不一样的词。外婆说这首歌不错，帕。基廷说歌王卡鲁索只能望其项背。爸爸走向角落那张床，那是他和妈妈的床。他在床沿坐下，把酒瓶放到地上，双手捂着脸哭了。他说：弗兰克，弗兰克，过来。我只好走到他跟前，让他像妈妈抱小马拉奇那样，紧紧抱住我。外婆说：我们最好现在回家，趁明天出殡前睡上一会儿。他们跪在床边祷告了几句，吻了尤金的额头。他们走的时候，爸爸放下我，站起身向他们点了点头。等他们都走后，他捡起每个酒瓶，对着嘴喝得一滴不剩，用一个手指在威士忌酒瓶里蘸蘸，再搁进嘴里舔舔，他捻灭桌上煤油灯的火苗，说我和小马拉奇该睡觉了。这

天夜里，我们只好跟爸爸妈妈睡在一起，小尤金要自己睡在那张床上。此刻，房间里暗了下来，只有街灯银色的光芒照在尤金柔软光滑的头发上。早上，爸爸生了火，烧了茶，烤了面包。他把烤面包和茶送到妈妈面前，但她摆了摆手，身子扭向墙壁。他把我和小马拉奇叫到尤金跟前，让我们跪下来，做了祷告。他说像我们这样的孩子的祷告，远远胜过十个红衣主教和四十个主教的祷告。他教我们怎样祈祷：以圣父、圣子和圣灵的名义，阿门。他又说：亲爱的上帝，这是你想要的，不是吗？你想要我的儿子尤金，你带走他的兄弟奥里弗，你带走他的妹妹玛格丽特。我不该问这个，是吗？上帝呀，我不知道为什么孩子必须得死，但这是你的意愿。你命令河流害人，香农河就害人。你能不能变得仁慈一点？你能不能把剩下的孩子留给我们？这就是我们所有的请求。阿门。他帮助我和小马拉奇洗头洗脚，让我们能干干净净地参加尤金的葬礼。他用那条美国毛巾的边角洗疼了我们的耳朵，我们也得一声不吭。我们只能一声不吭，因为尤金正闭着眼睛躺在那儿，我们不想把他吵醒，不然，他又要扒着窗户找奥里弗了。

外婆来了，对妈妈说她得起床。一个孩子死了，她说，可还有几个孩子活着，他们需要母亲。她给妈妈拿来了一小缸茶水，让她服用那些缓解痛苦的药丸。爸爸告诉外婆今天是星期四，他要先去职业介绍所领救济金，再去棺材商那里要出殡的马车和棺材。外婆让他带上我，他说我最好和小马拉奇待在一起，好为死在床上的小弟弟祷告。外婆说：你不是在捉弄我吧？为一个刚刚两岁，已经在天堂和他的小兄弟一块玩耍的小孩子祷告？带上你的儿子，他会提醒你今天不是进酒吧的日子。她看着他，他看着她，最后，他戴上帽在职业介绍所，我们排在最后。这时，一个男人从柜台后面走了过来，说对爸爸的遭遇深表同情，在这样一个悲伤的日子里，他应当排在其他人前面。男人们都碰碰帽子，对他的不幸表示同情，有些人还拍拍我的头，给了我一些便士，共有二十四便士，等于两先令。爸爸对我说，我现在成了富翁，可以为自己买块糖吃，而他要去那个地方待一会儿。我知道那个地方是酒吧，知道他想喝那种叫做啤酒的黑东西。但我一句话也没有说，因为我想去隔壁的商店买一块太妃糖。我嚼着太妃糖，它化了，留下满嘴的香甜和黏腻。爸

爸还在酒吧，我想是不是该再来它一块太妃糖？我正要把钱递给商店的老板娘，有人在我的手上猛抽一巴掌。阿吉姨妈正怒气冲冲地站在我面前。在你弟弟出殡的日子，你这是在干什么？她质问，在大吃糖块？你那个父亲哪儿去啦？他在...他在...在酒吧。他当然在酒吧。在你可怜的小弟弟出殡的日子，你跑到这儿往自己的肚子里塞糖块，他在那儿把自己灌得东倒西歪。她对老板娘说：真像他父亲，一样的古里古怪，一样的北方佬下巴。她让我去酒吧，告诉父亲不要喝了，去把棺材和马车弄回来。她可绝不踏进酒吧半步，因为喝酒是对这个悲惨国家所下的毒咒。爸爸跟一个灰头土脸、鼻毛外露的男人一起坐在酒吧里。他们没有谈话，直直地盯着前方，黑啤酒放在他们坐位之间的一口白色小棺材上。我知道那是尤金的棺材，奥里弗的那个跟这个一模一样。看到黑啤酒放在上面，我想哭。我很后悔吃了那块太妃糖，真希望能从肚子里把它拿出来，还给那个老板娘。在尤金死了躺在床上的时候，我吃太妃糖是不对的。而且，我也被白色棺材上的那两杯黑啤酒吓住了。跟爸爸坐在

一起的那个人说：不，先生，不能把孩子的棺材留在马车上了。我这样干过一次，进去喝了一杯啤酒，结果他们把那个小棺材从该死的马车上抢走了。你能相信吗？感谢上帝，它是空的，不过你的在这里。我们生活在一个危机四伏的年代，危机四伏。那个人举起酒杯，长长地喝了一口。他放下酒杯的时候，棺材发出"冬"的一声。爸爸朝我点点头：我们马上就走，儿子。可是，他长长地喝了一口，还要把酒杯往棺材上放时，我把它推到一边。这是尤金的棺材，我要告诉妈妈，你把酒杯放在尤金的棺材上。好啦，儿子。好啦，儿子。爸爸，这是尤金的棺材。那个人问：我们再喝一杯吗，先生？爸爸对我说：到外面去等几分钟，弗兰西斯。做个好孩子。那个人说：看在上帝的分上，要是这是我儿子，我就一脚踹在他的屁股上，把他踹到克立郡去。在这样一个悲伤的日子，他无权用这种态度和他的父亲说话。

要是一个男人在出殡的日子不能喝上一杯的话，那活着到底还有什么意义？到底还有什么意义？爸爸说：好吧，我们走。他们喝完酒，用袖子揩去棺材上的褐色酒渍。那个人爬到马车的驾驶座上，我和爸爸坐在里面，他把棺材放在自己的腿上，用胸抵着。回到家，屋里挤满了大人：妈妈，外婆，阿吉姨妈和她的丈夫帕。基廷，帕特。西恩舅舅，汤姆。西恩舅舅———他是妈妈的大哥，以前从不跟我们有什么瓜葛，因为他憎恶北爱尔兰人。汤姆舅舅的妻子简同他一起来了，她是戈尔韦人，人们说她长得像西班牙人，所以这个家里没人理睬她。那个人从爸爸手里接过棺材，他拿到屋里时，妈妈哀叹着：啊，不，啊，上帝呀，不。那个人告诉外婆，他一会儿就回来送我们去墓场。外婆告诉他，喝醉的时候，他最好不要回到这幢房子，这个要被送往墓场的孩子受过很多罪，应该得到一点尊重。再说，她也受不了一个醉醺醺的、随时可能从高高的驾驶座上摔下来的赶车人。那个人说：太太，我送过好多孩子去墓场，不管驾驶座是高还是低，从来没有摔过。

男人们正用瓶子喝黑啤酒，女人们在用果酱瓶喝雪利酒。帕特。西恩舅舅对每个人说：这是我的啤酒，这是我的啤酒。外婆说：好的，帕特，没人要抢你的啤酒。接着，他说他想唱"拉什恩之路"，帕。基廷接过话说：不要，帕特，举行葬礼的日子你不能唱歌，昨晚你可以唱歌。但是，帕特舅舅坚持说：这是我的啤酒，我想唱"拉什恩之路"。谁都知道他这样说话，是因为他的头被摔过。他开始唱歌，但外婆掀开棺材盖时，他停了下来。这时，妈妈呜咽起来：啊，天呀，啊，天呀，这样的事就没完了吗？我一个孩子都不能剩下吗？妈妈坐在靠近床头的一把椅子上，抚摸着尤金的头发、脸蛋和双手，对他说，这个世界上所有的孩子中，他是最漂亮、最娇嫩和最可爱的。她对他说，失去他是一件可怕的事情，但他现在可以和兄弟、妹妹一起待在天堂了，奥里弗不再记挂他的双胞胎兄弟，这对我们也是个安慰。但她还是把头俯在尤金的身旁，恸哭起来，引得屋里所有的女人都跟着她哭。她一直哭，直到帕。基廷告诉她必须在天黑之前动身，不然到墓场时天就黑了，她才止住哭声。外婆小声问阿吉姨妈：谁把这孩子往棺材里放？阿吉

姨妈小声说：我可不愿意，这是当妈妈的事。帕特舅舅听见她们的话，说：我来把这孩子放进棺材里。他一瘸一拐地走到床头，搂住妈妈的肩膀。她抬起头看着他，满脸泪水。他说：我来把这孩子放进棺材里，安琪拉。啊，帕特，她说，帕特。我行的，他说，他只不过是个小孩子。以前我从来没抱过小孩子，我从来就没抱过小孩子。我不会摔着他的，安琪拉。我不会的，向上帝保证，我不会的。我知道你不会的，帕特，我知道你不会的。我来抱他，我不唱"拉什恩之路"了。我知道你不会的，帕特。妈妈说。帕特拿掉妈妈盖在那儿让尤金暖和的毯子，尤金的脚洁白晶莹，现出蓝色的小血管。帕特弯下腰，抱起尤金，把他搂进怀里。他吻了吻尤金的额头，随后屋里的每个人都吻了吻尤金。他把尤金放进棺材，退后几步。大家都聚拢在一起，最后一次望着尤金。帕特舅舅说：瞧，我没有摔着他，安琪拉。她摸了摸他的脸。阿吉姨妈去酒吧找来那个赶车人，他把棺材盖上，拧紧。他问：谁跟马车去？然后把棺材放上马车。车厢

里只能坐下妈妈和爸爸、我和小马拉奇。外婆说：恁们先去墓地吧，我们在这里等着。我不知道我们为什么不能留下尤金；我不知道为什么要和那个把啤酒放在白棺材上的男人一起把他送走；我不知道他们为什么非要送走玛格丽特和奥里弗。把我的妹妹和弟弟放进那个箱子里是一件不好的事情，我真希望我能跟什么人说说。那匹马"嗒嗒嗒"地穿过利默里克的街道。小马拉奇问：我们是去看奥里弗吗？爸爸说：不是，奥里弗在天堂呢，不要再问我天堂是什么东西，因为我也不知道。妈妈说：天堂是一个地方，奥里弗、尤金和玛格丽特在那里，又幸福又暖和，将来有一天我们都要在那里见到他们的。小马拉奇说：马在街道上拉了，好臭。妈妈和爸爸都忍不住笑了笑。到了墓场，赶车人爬下车，打开车门。把棺材给我，他说，我把它拿到墓穴去。他猛地一拉棺材，踉跄了一下。妈妈说：你这个样子，不能送我的孩子。她转向爸爸，说：你送他去。你们想怎么做就怎么做吧，赶车人说，做你们他妈的

最想做的吧。说着，他爬上自己的驾驶座。这时天黑了，棺材在爸爸的怀里看上去更白了。妈妈牵着我们的手，我们一起跟着爸爸穿过墓场。树上的乌鸦很安静，因为它们的白天差不多结束了，要开始休息，要早起喂它们的宝宝。在一个挖好的小墓穴旁，两个拿着铁锹的男人正等候着，其中一个男人说：恁们来得太晚了，好在活儿不多，要不我们已经走了。他跳进墓穴。把它递给我，他说。爸爸把棺材递给他。这个男人往棺材上撒了一些稻草和青草，等他爬上来，另一个男人开始往里面铲土。妈妈发出一声长长的哭号：啊，耶稣呀，耶稣呀。一只乌鸦也跟着在树上呱呱叫了起来。我真想用石头扔那只乌鸦。那两个男人铲完土，擦擦额头，等在那里。一个说：啊，那么，现在...通常都有一点东西，因为干活儿口渴。爸爸说：噢，是的，是的，把钱付给了他们。他们说：对你们的不幸深表同情。然后离去了。我们向停在墓场大门口的马车走去，可是它已经走了。爸爸在黑夜里四处望望，摇着头走了回来。妈妈说：上帝原谅我，这个赶车人真是个肮脏的老酒鬼。从墓场到我们家是一段很长的路。妈妈对爸爸说：这

些孩子需要营养，今天上午领回来的救济金还剩下一些，你最好打消今晚去酒吧的念头，我们带他们去诺顿饭店，让他们吃一顿煎鱼和薯条，喝点柠檬水。埋葬弟弟的事情并不是每天都有的。加了醋和盐的煎鱼和薯条特别好吃，柠檬水流过我们的喉咙，酸辣辣的。我们回到家，屋子里已经没有人了。桌上放着一些空酒瓶，炉火也灭了。爸爸点亮了煤油灯，可以看见尤金的脑袋在枕头上留下的凹痕。我们盼着听到他的声音，看到他蹒跚着穿过房间，爬上床，朝窗外张望着寻找奥里弗的样子。爸爸对妈妈说他要出去散散步，她说不行。她知道他要干什么去，他迫不及待地想到酒吧花掉那所剩无几的先令。好吧，他说。他生了炉火，妈妈烧了茶水，不久，我们就上床了。我和小马拉奇回到尤金死去的床上，我希望他在墓场的那个白色棺材里不会感到寒冷，但是我知道他已经不在那里了，因为天使来到墓地，打开棺材，让他远离害死他的香农河的潮气，飞升到天堂去，和奥里弗、玛格丽特团聚在一起了。在那里他们有很多煎鱼、薯

条和太妃糖吃，也不会有姨妈来烦他们。在那里，所有的父亲都把从职业介绍所领到的钱带回家，用不着在各个酒吧跑来跑去寻找他们。

罗登巷的"意大利" 妈妈说她再也不能在哈特斯汤吉街的房间里多待一分钟了，从早到晚，她无时无刻不看见尤金。她有时看见他爬上床头，朝窗外张望着寻找奥里弗，有时又看见奥里弗在外面，尤金在屋里，他们两个说着话。她很高兴他们能那样谈话，但她不想总是看见他们的身影，听见他们的谈话。我们离利米国立学校这么近，搬走确实挺遗憾的，可要是不快点搬走，她会精神失常，最终会住进疯人院的。我们搬到巴拉克山顶上的罗登巷，那条路的两边各有六幢房子，这些房子叫做上两层和下两层，上面有两间房，下面有两间房。我们家的房子在巷尾，是六幢房子中的最后一幢。门边有一个小棚子，是厕所，挨着厕所有一个马厩。妈妈去了圣文森特保罗协会，看看能不能领到家具。那个男人说给我们一张票券，能领一张桌子，两把椅子和两张床。他说我们得去爱尔兰镇的一个二手家具

店，自己把这些家具拖回家。妈妈说我们可以用双胞胎的婴儿车，说到这个，她哭了。她用衣袖擦了擦眼睛，问那个男人，那两张床是不是二手的。他说当然是啦。她说睡在可能死过人的床上，她很担心，没准死者可能患有肺病呢。那个男人说：我很抱歉，但乞丐是不能挑肥拣瘦的。用婴儿车把家具从利默里克的一端运到另一端，花去了我们一整天的时间。婴儿车有四个轮子，但有一个轮子不好使，总会往不同的方向转。我们有了两张床，一个带镜子的碗柜、一张桌子和两把椅子。我们很满意这座房子，我们可以一个房间一个房间、楼上楼下地走来走去。当你可以整天随心所欲地在家里上下楼时，你会觉得自己很富有。爸爸生了炉子，妈妈烧了茶水。他坐在桌旁的一把椅子里，她坐在另一把椅子里，我和小马拉奇坐在从美国带回来的箱子上。就在我们喝茶的时候，一个老头拎着一个桶，从我们门前走过。他把桶里的东西倒进厕所，然后用水冲掉，一股刺鼻的臭味立刻充满了我们家的厨房。妈妈走进厕所，问：你为什么往我们家的厕所里倒马桶啊？他朝她举了举帽子：你们家的厕所？太太，啊，不，在这个问题上你有点误会，哈哈。这不是你们家的厕所，

这是这条巷子里所有人家的厕所。你会看到，十一户人家的马桶都要从你们家门前经过，我可以告诉你，天暖的时候，这里的味道可够受的，实在是够受的。现在是十二月份，感谢上帝，天气还很寒冷，圣诞节临近了，厕所还不算糟，可到时候你就需要戴防毒面具了。就这样吧，晚安，太太，希望你在这里住得开心。妈妈说：等一等，先生，你能告诉我谁负责打扫这个厕所吗？打扫？啊，老天，这可是个好事，她说打扫。你是在开玩笑吧？这些房子都是维多利亚女王那个时代建的，要是说有人打扫过厕所的话，那一定是谁深更半夜趁没人时干的。说完，他拖着步子，独自大笑着走了。妈妈回到椅子上，拿起她的茶。我们不能在这里待了，她说，这个厕所里什么病都有，会害死我们的。爸爸说：我们不能再搬家了，上哪儿去找一星期六个先令的房子？我们自己来打扫厕所，烧几桶开水倒进啊，我们来打扫？妈妈说，上哪儿去弄煤、泥炭和木块来烧水呀？

爸爸没有说话，他喝完茶，开始找钉子，要把一幅画钉到墙上。画中的那个男人有一张瘦瘦的脸，戴着一顶黄色的无檐帽，穿着一件黑色的长袍，胸前挂着一个十字架。爸爸说他是教皇利奥十三世，是劳动者的伟大朋友。这幅画是他在美国捡到带回来的，一个不关心劳动者的家伙扔掉了它。妈妈说他净说该死的废话，他说她不应该在孩子们面前说"该死的"这种字眼。爸爸找到一颗钉子，但没有锤子，他不知道该怎么往墙上钉。妈妈说他可以到邻居家去借一把，他说不要向陌生人借东西。他把画铺在墙上，用果酱瓶底楔钉子。果酱瓶碎了，划破了他的手，一滴血滴到教皇头上。他用擦盘子的抹布把手包起来，催促妈妈：快，快，趁血还没干，把它从教皇头上擦掉。她用衣袖擦血，可袖子是羊毛的，血滴反而扩大了，弄得教皇半边脸上全是血污。爸爸说：我主在上，安琪拉，你完全毁了教皇。她说：哎呀，别啰唆，哪天我们弄些颜料把他的脸修修就是啦。爸爸说：他是惟一一个曾跟劳动者做朋友的教皇，要是圣文森特保罗协会的人来，看见他浑身是血，我们该怎么说啊？妈妈说：我不知道，那是你的血。一个男人连钉子都钉不好，真是悲哀！它可以让别人看看你多没用。你干脆下田

种地去吧，反正我也不在乎。我的后背有些痛，要去睡了。啊，那我怎么办？爸爸问。把教皇拿下来，藏在楼梯下的煤坑里，在那儿人们看不到他，他也受不到什么伤害。我不干，爸爸说，这样会倒霉的。煤坑不是教皇待的地方。教皇高高在上，他就该高高在上。随你的便，妈妈说。没错，爸爸说。这是我们在利默里克过的第一个圣诞节，女孩子们都跑到路上，一边跳绳一边唱着：圣诞就要来临，鹅儿长得肥肥，请放一个便士，在老人的帽里。没有一个便士，半便士也还行，半便士也没有，愿上帝赐福你。男孩子们拿这些女孩子们取笑，大声叫道：让你妈妈倒个霉，

出恭出在茅坑外。妈妈说圣诞节她想好好吃上一顿，可是奥里弗和尤金死后，职业介绍所就把救济金减到十六先令，这点钱又能干什么呢？付掉六先令的房租，还剩下十先令，这对四个人来说有什么用呢？爸爸找不到任何工作。从周一到周五他通常起得很早，生着炉子，烧上开水沏茶和刮胡子。他穿上衬衫，扣好领子，系好领带，戴上帽子，去职业介绍所签领救济金。不戴好衬领和领带，他从不出门。一个不戴衬领和领带出门的男人是不自重的。职业介绍所的办事员说不定什么时候就会告诉你，兰克面粉厂或利默里克水泥公司有活儿干，就算是个体力活儿，如果你不戴衬领和领带就出现在他们面前，他们会怎么想呢？老板和工头总是很看重他，说准备雇用他。但是，他一开口，听到他那北爱尔兰的口音，他们便改雇一个利默里克人，这就是他在炉火旁对妈妈的交代。妈妈问：你为什么不能穿得像个正儿八经的工人呢？他说他永远寸步不让，永远不让他们知道他是个工人。她问：你为什么不试着像一个利默里克人那样说话呢？他回答他永远不会那样低声下气，他一生中最大的悲痛，就是他的儿子们现在正遭受着利默里克口音的摧

残。她说：对你的痛苦我表示遗憾，希望这就是你的全部痛苦了。他说将来有一天，在上帝的保佑下，我们将告别利默里克，远离那害人的香农河。我问爸爸"摧残"是什么意思，他回答说：病痛，儿子，还有不舒服的事情。爸爸不出去找工作时，他就长途散步，走上好几英里到乡村去，问农民们需不需要帮忙，他是在农场长大的，什么农活儿都会干。一旦他们雇用他，他就戴着帽子、衬领和领带立即开始干活儿。他干活儿极其卖力，一干就是很长的时间，最后农民们不得不让他停下来。他们很奇怪，这样的大热天，一个人怎么能不吃不喝地干那么长时间的活儿。爸爸只是笑笑。他从不把在农场挣的钱带回家，这些钱似乎和救济金不一样，救济金是应该带回家的，而在农场挣的钱都被他送进酒吧喝掉了。要是晚祷钟敲响六点，他还没有回家，妈妈就知道他这一整天都在干活儿。她希望他能想到自己的家人，抵制住酒吧的诱惑，哪怕一次也好。她希望他能从农场带些东西回来，像土豆、卷心菜、萝卜、胡萝卜之类的东西。可是，他从不往家带任何东西，因为他不能向一个农民卑躬屈膝地讨要东西。妈妈说她去圣文森特保罗协会乞求食品票券就没事，

让他往口袋里塞几个土豆却不行。他说男人不一样，必须得保持尊严，应当戴好衬领和领带，维护自己的体面，永远别开口讨东西。妈妈说：但愿这样能让你保持高贵。花完在农场挣的钱，他就一路哭唱着爱尔兰和他死去的孩子们———更多的是爱尔兰，摇摇晃晃地回家。要是他唱的是罗迪。迈克考雷之歌，那意味着他今天仅仅挣到喝一两杯的钱。要是他唱的是凯文。巴里之歌，那意味着今天的收获不错，现在他已酩酊大醉，准备把我们叫下床，排好队，发誓为爱尔兰去死，除非妈妈警告他别骚扰我们，不然就用火钳捅他的脑袋。你不能这样做，安琪拉。我还不止这么做呢。你最好废话少说，给我睡觉去。睡觉、睡觉、睡觉，睡觉有什么用呢？就算我去睡觉，我还是得再起来，我没法在一个河水放着毒气的地方睡觉。他上了床，用拳头擂打着墙壁，唱起一首悲歌，睡着了。天一亮，他就起床，因为不应该睡到日上三竿。他叫醒我和小马拉奇，我们都很疲倦，夜里他又是说又是唱的，弄得我们都没睡好觉。我们抱怨说头晕，说困，但他一把掀去盖在我们身上的外套，强迫我们

起床。正是十二月，天气冷得要命，都能看见自己呼出的白气。我们往卧室门边的马桶里撒完尿，跑下楼，到炉火旁取暖，爸爸这时已经生了炉子。我们在门边水龙头下的盆里洗脸洗手。水管用麻绳圈和钉子吊在墙上，周围的地板、墙壁、搁脸盆的椅子全是潮湿的，水龙头流出的水是冰冷的，冻得手指都麻木了。爸爸说这对我们有好处，可以让我们变成男子汉。他把冰冷的水泼在自己脸上、脖子上和胸脯上，让我们看没什么好怕的。我们在炉子上暖手，可不能耽搁太久，还得喝茶、吃面包，再去上学。饭前饭后，爸爸都要我们做感恩祷告。他嘱咐我们在学校要做个好孩子，因为上帝在看着我们的一举一动，稍有不听话的地方，我们就会被送进地狱，在那里可用不着担心寒冷了。说完，他笑了。圣诞节前两周，放学后，我和小马拉奇冒着大雨回家。我们推门进屋，发现厨房已变得空空如也。桌椅和箱子都不翼而飞，炉栅里的火也熄了。教皇还留在原处，这说明我们没再次搬家，爸爸搬家是永远不会丢下教皇的。厨房的地面湿了，到处是小水洼，墙壁上闪着湿漉漉的光。楼上传来嘈杂的声音，我们跑上楼，发现了爸爸妈妈和不翼而飞的家具。这儿的炉栅火光熊

熊，又舒服又暖和，妈妈在床上坐着，爸爸在炉火旁看《爱尔兰新闻》，嘴上还叼着香烟。妈妈告诉我们发了可怕的大水，雨水顺着房前的过道涌进门。他们想用破布挡水，但是破布免不了湿透，雨水还是流了进来。加上大家倾倒马桶，那水可够糟的，厨房里弥漫着令人头晕的臭味。她认为只要下雨，我们就应当待在楼上。我们可以暖暖和和地度过冬天，等春天到来，墙上或地上干了点，我们再下楼去。爸爸说这就好比出国度假，到像意大利那样温暖的地方旅行。从此，我们就把楼上叫做"意大利"。小马拉奇说教皇还在楼下的墙上，他会被冻透的，我们不能把他带上来吗？可是妈妈说：不，他要待在原来的地方，我不想让他在墙上盯着我睡觉。我们一路上拖着他，从布鲁克林到贝尔法斯特，再从都柏林到利默里克，难道还不够吗？我现在只想要点安宁、清闲和舒适。妈妈带我和小马拉奇去圣文森特保罗协会排队，看看能不能弄到做圣诞大餐的东西———一只鹅或者一块火腿。但是协会的人说，今年这个圣诞节，每个利默里克人都要在绝望中度过，他给了她一张迈克格拉斯商店的票券，还有一张肉铺的票券。没有鹅，肉铺老板说，也没有火腿。你带着圣文森特

保罗协会的票券来，别指望会拿什么太好的东西。你现在能换的，就是黑布丁、牛肚或者羊头，猪头也不错，太太。猪头好得很啊，肉很多，孩子们爱吃。把猪脸上的肉切成薄片，抹上厚厚的芥末酱，简直就像上了天堂。虽然我猜美国人不爱吃这东西，他们喜欢牛排和各种天上飞的、地上走的或是水里游的禽类。他告诉妈妈，不可能的，她不可能吃上炖猪肉和香肠。如果她聪明点的话，就该趁猪头被领光前先拿一个回去，利默里克的穷人们抢得正欢哩。妈妈说圣诞节不该吃猪头，他说这可比很久以前住在伯利恒寒冷马房里的圣家强多了。如果有人送给他们一个肥肥的猪头，他们才不会抱怨。是的，他们不会有怨言的，妈妈说，可他们从来就不吃猪头，他们是犹太人。这和猪头有什么相干？猪头就是猪头而已。可犹太人就是犹太人，这违背他们的宗教信仰，我理解他们。肉铺老板说：在犹太人和猪这方面，你算是个行家。我不是，妈妈说，不过在纽约的时候，我们倒有一个叫莱博威茨的犹太女朋友。要是没有她的话，我不知

道我们今天会怎么样。肉铺老板把猪头从架子上拿下来，小马拉奇说：噢，瞧这个死狗。老板和妈妈顿时爆发出一阵大笑。他用报纸把猪头包上，递给妈妈，说：圣诞节快乐。随后他又包了一些香肠，对她说：拿这些香肠去，当你们的圣诞节早餐吧。妈妈说：啊，我买不起的。他问：我要你付钱了吗？要你付钱了吗？拿去吧，也许可以弥补一下没有鹅和火腿的遗憾。哎呀，你不必这么做。妈妈说。我知道，太太，真要我这样，我还不肯呢。妈妈说她腰疼，我得拿猪头，我把它放在胸前抱着。但它是湿的，弄得报纸开始脱落，谁都能看见猪头了。妈妈说：我真感到羞耻，人家都知道我们在圣诞节吃猪头。利米国立学校的男孩们看见了我，他们指点着，嬉笑着，啊，上帝，瞧瞧弗兰克。迈考特和他的猪嘴。美国佬圣诞节就吃这种东西吗，弗兰基？一个男孩对另一个喊道：嗨，克里斯特，你知道怎么吃猪头吗？不，我不知道，帕迪。揪住它的耳朵，往下咬它的脸。克里斯特说：嗨，帕迪，你知道只有猪的什么地方，

迈考特家不吃吗？哦，我不知道，克里斯特。只有猪的呼噜声他们不吃。过了几个街道，报纸完全掉了下来，每个人都可以看见猪头了。它的鼻子是扁平的，贴在我的胸前，冲着我的下颏。我觉得很对不起它，它已经死了，人家还在嘲笑它。我的妹妹和弟弟也死了，但要是有人敢嘲笑他们，我会用石块砸他的。我希望爸爸能来帮我们一下，妈妈每走几步，就得停下来靠墙休息一会儿。她把后背靠在墙上，对我们说，她爬不上巴拉克山了。其实，就算爸爸来了，也没有多大用处，因为他从来不拿任何东西，包裹、书包和行李一样也不拿。拿这样的东西有失尊严，这就是他说的。双胞胎累的时候，他可以抱双胞胎，他也可以抱教皇，但这和抱猪头这种平庸货色可不是一码事。他嘱咐我和小马拉奇，长大后，你们必须戴衬领和领带，永远不要让人看见你们抱着东西。他坐在楼上的炉火旁，抽着香烟，看着《爱尔兰新闻》。他喜欢看它，是因为它是德。瓦勒拉办的报纸。他认为德。瓦勒拉是世界上最伟大的人。他瞧着我和猪头，对妈妈说，让一个孩子抱着这样的东西在利默里克招

摇过市，是件丢脸的事。她脱下外套，往床上一躺，对爸爸说，明年的圣诞节他可以出去找吃的，她已经精疲力竭，喝一杯茶也要气喘吁吁，因此，他可不可以放下臭架子，在他的两个小儿子饿死前去烧些茶水，煎些面包。圣诞节的早上，他早早地生了炉子，好让我们吃上香肠、面包，喝上茶。妈妈让我去外婆家看看，能不能借一个炖猪头的锅。外婆问：恁们晚饭吃什么？猪头？！耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟呀，这离谱得不能再离谱了。你们的父亲就不能出去弄块火腿或一只鹅吗？他究竟是什么人？什么人？妈妈把猪头放进锅里，倒进去的水刚好能盖住猪头。炖猪头的工夫，爸爸带我和小马拉奇去至圣救主会教堂做弥撒。教堂里很暖和，弥漫着鲜花、焚香和蜡烛的香味。他领我们去看马槽里的圣婴，那是一个大胖娃娃，长着跟小马拉奇一样的金色鬈发。爸爸告诉我们，那个穿蓝衣服的是耶稣的母亲玛利亚，那个留胡子的老头是耶稣的父亲约瑟。他说他们很悲伤，因为他们知道耶稣长大后就会被杀死，为的是我们都能进天堂。我问为什么圣婴非死不可，爸爸说不能提这样的问题。小马拉奇问：那为什么？爸爸让他别吵。

家里的情况一团糟，煤不够，水烧不开，妈妈说她急得快疯了。我们得再去码头路，看看卡车驶过的地方是不是有煤渣或泥炭。当然，这天一定会有收获的，再穷的人也不会在圣诞节这天去路上捡煤渣。央求爸爸一起去是没用的，他永远不可能屈尊，哪怕去了，他也不会拿着东西走过街道，这是他的原则。妈妈不能去，因为她的背一直在疼。她说：你得去，弗兰克，带上小马拉奇跟你一起去。码头路很远，但是我们不在乎，我们的肚子里填满了香肠和面包，而且老天也没有下雨。我们提着妈妈向隔壁汉农太太借来的帆布包出发了。妈妈是对的，码头路上没人，穷人们都待在家里吃猪头肉呢，也没准是吃烧鹅，码头路变成了我们的。我们在地缝里和煤场的墙上找到了一些煤渣和泥炭，还捡到一些纸片和硬纸板，这可以用来引火。我们四处逛悠着，想把帆布包装满。这时，帕。基廷走了过来。他一定是因为过节洗了澡，不像尤金死时那么黑了。他问我们提着那个包在干什么，小马拉奇告诉了他。他说：耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟啊！圣诞节恁们竟然没有煤炖恁们的猪头，这可真够丢人啦。他拉上我们去了南方酒吧，这家酒吧本不该开门，但

他是个常客，知道有个后门为那些男人留着，好让他们喝酒庆祝马厩里的圣婴的生日。他要了啤酒，又为我们俩要了柠檬水。他问那个伙计能不能弄到一些煤块。那个伙计说他服侍人们喝酒已经有二十七个年头了，还从来没有人向他要过煤块。帕说行个好吧，那人说要是帕想要月亮，他也会飞上天给他摘下来的。那人领着我们来到楼梯下的煤坑前，告诉我们能拿多少就拿多少。那是真正的煤，不是码头路上的煤渣。要是我们拿不动，那就在地上拖着走。从南方酒吧回到巴拉克山花了很长时间，因为帆布包上有个洞，我拖着帆布包，小马拉奇不停地捡从破洞里漏出来的煤块，把它们放回去。这时开始下雨了，可我们不能到人家门廊去躲雨，因为我们拖着煤，它会在路上留下一道黑印子。小马拉奇一边捡起煤块往包里塞，一边用湿乎乎的黑手擦脸上的雨水，把自己的脸弄得一团黑。我说他的脸黑了，他说我的脸也黑了，一个商店的老板娘叫我们离她的门口远着点，今天是圣诞节，她不想看见非洲。我们得继续拖着煤包走，否则就吃不上圣诞晚餐了。生着火需要很长的时间，做晚餐需要更长的时间，妈妈把卷心菜、土豆放进锅里和猪头一起炖时，水得烧

开呀。我们拖着煤包上了奥康纳大街，看见人们围坐在餐桌旁，屋里灯火通明，摆放着各式各样的装饰品。我们走到一家房前，他们推开窗子，小孩子们朝我们指指点点的，大笑着喊着：瞧那两个祖鲁人①，恁们的长矛在哪儿呢？小马拉奇冲他们做鬼脸，还想用煤块砸他们。我告诉他，要是他扔一块煤，我们炖猪头就会少一块煤，就别想吃上晚饭了。门缝里涌进来的雨水把我们家的楼下又变成了湖泊，但是没什么要紧的，反正我们已经湿透了，可以从水中?过去。爸爸走下楼，把煤包拖到楼上的意大利。他说我们是好孩子，弄到这么多的煤，八成码头路上铺满了煤。妈妈见到我们，先是大笑，然后哭了。她笑是因为我们把自己弄得这么黑，哭是因为我们全身都淋透了。她要我们脱掉衣服，帮我们洗去手上和脸上的煤灰。她对爸爸说等一会儿再炖猪头，我们得先喝一果酱瓶热茶。外面仍在下雨，我们家楼下的厨房是一片湖水，楼上意大利的炉火重新燃烧起来，房间里干爽温暖。喝完茶，我和小马拉奇倒在床上打瞌睡，爸爸等晚饭好了才叫醒我们。我们的衣服还是湿的，小马拉奇裹着妈

妈的那件红色美国外套，坐在桌旁的箱子上，我裹着外祖父去澳大利亚后扔下的一件旧外套。房间里，卷心菜、土豆和猪头的菜香十分诱人，爸爸把猪头捞到盘子里，小马拉奇说：噢，可怜的猪，我不想吃这头可怜的猪。妈妈说：你饿了就想吃了。废话少说，吃你的饭。爸爸说：等等。他从猪的脸颊上切下几片肉，放进我们的盘子里，蘸上芥末酱，又把盛猪头的盘子放到桌下的地板上。好啦，他对小马拉奇说，这是火腿。小马拉奇吃了它，因为他看不见猪头了，而且它也不再是猪头了。卷心菜又软又烫，蘸着黄油和盐的土豆特别多。妈妈替我们剥掉土豆皮，可爸爸连皮都吃了。他说土豆的全部营养都在皮里。妈妈说幸亏他不是在吃鸡蛋，要不，他就得连鸡蛋壳也一起嚼了。他说他会的，爱尔兰人每天扔掉数不清的土豆皮，这是一种羞耻，也是成千上万人死于肺病的原因。鸡蛋壳当然有营养，浪费是第八条弥天大罪，要是让他想办法的话...妈妈打断了他：别想办法了，还是吃你的饭吧。他连皮吃了半个土豆，把另半个放回锅里，又吃了一小片猪头肉和一片卷心菜，把剩下的留在盘子里给我

和小马拉奇吃。他烧了些茶水，我们一边喝着茶，一边吃着面包和果酱，所以，不能说我们这个圣诞节吃得不好。现在天黑了下来，外面仍在下雨，煤块在炉栅里放着光芒，妈妈和爸爸坐在炉火旁抽着香烟。在衣服还湿着的时候，除了回到床上无事可做。床上是舒适的，父亲可以给你讲一个库胡林变成天主教徒的故事，然后你会在睡梦中见到那头猪站在至圣救主会教堂的马槽里哭泣，因为它和圣婴、库胡林长大后都得被处死。带来玛格丽特和双胞胎的那个天使又来了，为我们带来了另一个弟弟迈克尔。爸爸说，他是在通往楼上意大利的第七级楼梯上发现迈克尔的。他说你若想要一个新宝宝，就该注意这里，天使就在第七级楼梯上。小马拉奇想知道，要是家里没有楼梯的话，怎么能从第七级楼梯的天使那里得到一个新宝宝。爸爸对他说，问太多的问题是一种折磨。小马拉奇又想知道，折磨是怎么一回事。折磨，我也想知道这个词的意思，折磨。但是爸爸说：啊，孩子，这个世界就是一种折磨，这个世界上的万事万物都是一种折磨。他戴上帽子去贝德福德街医院，看望住在那里的妈妈和迈克尔。

她因为背疼住进医院，而且带上宝宝，确保他身体健康。我不明白，我相信天使不会把一个有病的孩子留在第七级楼梯上。问爸爸或者妈妈这个是没用的，他们会说：你变得跟弟弟一样糟糕了，老爱问问题，一边玩去。我知道这些大人不喜欢孩子问问题，但他们可以随意问自己想问的问题：在学校里怎么样？是个好孩子吗？做祷告了吗？可是，如果你问他们做了祷告没有，脑袋可能就会挨敲。爸爸把妈妈和那个新宝宝接回家，因为背疼，她得在床上躺几天。她说这个宝宝简直就是我们死去的妹妹的化身，也有波浪卷的黑发，可爱的蓝眼睛，还有动人的眉毛，妈妈就是这么说的。我想知道这个宝宝是不是会一直和妹妹相像，我也想知道哪一个阶梯是第七级楼梯，因为楼梯上一共有九级楼梯，我想知道是从下往上数，还是从上往下数。爸爸倒不介意回答这个问题。他说：天使是从天上下来的，而不是从下面那个从十月到来年四月一直泡在水里的厨房里上来的。我从上往下数，找到了第七级楼梯。宝宝迈克尔感冒了，他的鼻孔堵塞了，呼吸相当困难。

妈妈非常着急，因为今天是星期天，专为穷人开设的诊所不上班。要是你去医生的家里，女佣见你是下层贫民，就会让你去贫民诊所。要是你对她说怀里的孩子快要死了，她就说医生正在乡下骑马呢。妈妈哭了，宝宝正挣扎着用嘴巴呼吸。她试着用纸卷清理他的鼻孔，又害怕捅得太深。爸爸说：不要这样，你不该往孩子的鼻子里捅东西。看上去他像要亲吻宝宝，可是没有，他只是用嘴对着宝宝的小鼻孔，一次又一次地把脏东西从迈克尔的鼻子里吸出来，再吐到炉子里，迈克尔顿时一声大哭，他的呼吸通畅了，蹬着小腿笑了起来。妈妈望着爸爸，好像他刚从天上下凡。爸爸却说：很久以前，在安特里姆郡，一逢医生们骑马，我们就这么做。迈克尔使我们有权多得几个先令的救济金，但是妈妈说还不够，现在她必须去圣文森特保罗协会讨要食品。一天晚上，有人敲门，妈妈让我下楼看看是谁。是两个圣文森特保罗协会的男人，他们想见见我的母亲和父亲。我告诉他们，我的父母在楼上的意大利。他们问：什么？楼上干爽的地方，我来告诉他们一声。他们问我们，正门旁那间小棚子是干什么用的，我说

是厕所。他们问为什么它不在房屋后面，我说这是这条巷子所有住户的厕所，幸亏它不在我们家后头，不然的话，人们就要提着马桶穿过我们家厨房啦，那还不把人恶心死？他们问：你肯定这条巷子就一个厕所吗？我肯定。他们说：圣母啊。妈妈在意大利喊：谁在那儿？有两个人。什么人？圣文森特保罗协会来的。他们小心翼翼地走过厨房的湖水，"啧啧"地咂着嘴，互相说：这岂不是太寒碜了？他们一直这么说着，来到楼上的意大利，对妈妈和爸爸说，很抱歉打扰他们，但协会必须确认他们是否属于应当救助的人。妈妈给他们递上茶水，他们四处看着，说：不用，谢谢你。他们想知道我们为什么住在楼上，想知道厕所的事，问了一个又一个问题，因为大人可以想问什么就问什么，并在本子上记下来，特别是他们西装革履、戴着衬领和领带的时候，更可以这样啦。他们问，迈克尔多大了？爸爸从职业介绍所能领到多少钱？他上一次

工作是在什么时候？为什么他现在不工作了？他那种口音属于什么地方？爸爸告诉他们，厕所里的病会害死我们的，冬天厨房里发大水，我们只好搬到楼上干爽的地方待着。他说香农河要对世界上的一切潮湿负责，它把我们一个接一个害死了。小马拉奇对他们说，我们住在意大利，他们笑了。妈妈问能不能为我和小马拉奇弄到靴子，他们说她得去奥扎纳姆之家①申请。她说自打有了宝宝，身子就一直不舒服，不能长时间站着排队。可他们说对每个人都得一视同仁，就算是爱尔兰镇一个有三胞胎的妇女也是一样。他们说谢谢你，我们将向协会汇报所了解到的情况。他们要走时，小马拉奇想指给他们看看天使留下迈克尔的第七级楼梯。可爸爸说：现在不是时候，现在不是时候。小马拉奇哭了，其中一个人从口袋里掏出一块太妃糖给了他。我真希望我也有理由哭一下，也得到一块太妃糖。我再次下楼，告诉他们怎么走才能不弄湿脚。他们不停地摇着头说：万能的上帝啊，这真是不可救药。他们楼上哪里是意大利，分明是加尔各答。

在楼上的意大利，爸爸对妈妈说，她不该像那样乞讨。你什么意思？乞讨？难道你就没有一点自尊吗？乞讨靴子这样的东西？那你会怎么做？大派头先生，你会让他们光着脚走路我宁愿把他们的鞋修一修。他们的鞋都已经散架了。我可以修好它们，他说。你什么也修不好，你是个废物！她说。第二天，他拿着一个旧自行车轮胎回家，打发我去隔壁的汉农先生那儿，借来一个鞋楦子和一把锤子。他用妈妈那把锋利的刀子在轮胎上乱割一气，割出几块跟鞋底和鞋跟一样大小的胶皮。妈妈说他会毁了我们的鞋子，他还是用锤子不停地敲打起来，把胶皮钉在鞋子上。妈妈说：主啊，要是你不动这些鞋子的话，它们至少还可以穿到复活节，没准儿那时候我们就能从圣文森特保罗协会领到靴子了。可是他不住手，直到鞋底和鞋跟被几块胶皮包上才算完。鞋子的两边都多出一些胶皮，前后也耷拉着一些。他让我们穿上鞋子，还说我们的脚会又舒服又暖和。可我们都不想再穿鞋子了，因为轮胎胶皮凹凸不平，在意大利走路时

总是磕磕绊绊的。他又打发我把鞋楦子和锤子还给汉农先生，汉农太太见了，说：主啊，你的鞋子怎么啦？她大笑起来，汉农先生则摇摇头，让我觉得好不羞辱。第二天，我不想去上学了，我假装生病，可爸爸把我们叫了起来，给我们吃了煎面包，喝了茶，说我们应该庆幸自己竟然还有鞋子穿，在利米国立学校，有的孩子大冷天还光着脚去上学呢。上学路上，学校的男孩们都讥笑我们，因为轮胎胶皮那么厚，让我们长高了好几英寸。那些男孩子问：上边的空气怎么样呀？班里有六七个光脚的孩子，他们什么也不说。我真不知道，是穿钉着轮胎胶皮，让你跌跌撞撞的鞋子好，还是光着脚走路好。要是你压根没有鞋子，会有光脚的孩子跟你站在一边；要是你有钉着轮胎胶皮的鞋子，那只有自己的弟弟跟你站在一起，只能孤军奋战。我在操场小棚子的长凳上坐下来，脱掉鞋子和袜子，走进班里，老师问我的鞋子哪儿去了，他知道我不属于班里的光脚族，让我去操场把鞋子拿回来重新穿上。随后，他冲全班的人说：这里有人嘲笑别人，有人讥笑别人的不幸。这个班里有谁自认为完美无缺吗？举起手来。没有人举手。

这个班里有谁出身富家，把大把的钞票都花在鞋子上吗？举起手来。没有人举手。他说：班上有些孩子不得不想方设法修补鞋子，有些孩子根本就没有鞋子可穿，这不是他们的过错，也不是耻辱。我们的主就没有鞋子，他死的时候没穿鞋子。你们可曾看见被吊在十字架上的他穿着运动鞋吗？你们见过吗，男孩们？没有，先生。你们没有看见我们的主怎么样？被吊在十字架上，还穿着运动鞋，先生。那么，要是我听说这个班里有人嘲笑迈考特或者他弟弟的鞋子，棍子就会找上门来。什么会找上门来，男孩们？棍子，先生。棍子会蛰人的，男孩们。白腊树枝会在空中嗖嗖作响，会落在那些讥讽者的屁股上，落在那些嘲笑者的屁股上。它会落在什么地方，男孩们？落在讥讽者的屁股上，先生。还有呢？嘲笑者的屁股上，先生。

那些男孩子不再招惹我们了，几个星期里，我们穿着钉着轮胎胶皮的鞋子，直到复活节。这时，圣文森特保罗协会把靴子送给我们了。每当我半夜起床往马桶里撒尿，就走到楼梯上朝下看，看看天使是不是在第七级楼梯上。有时我的确看见那里有光亮。要是家里人都睡着了，我就坐在楼梯上，说不定天使又会送来一个宝宝，或者单单是一次来访。我问妈妈，是不是天使送来一个宝宝后，便会把他们忘了。她说：当然不会，天使从来不会忘记这些宝宝，而且还要回来看看，确保这些宝宝是幸福的。我可以问天使各种问题，我相信他会回答的，除非那是一个女天使。不过，我相信一个女天使也会回答问题的。我从没听说过她们不回答问题。我在第七级楼梯上坐了很长时间，相信天使就在这里。我把所有不能告诉妈妈或爸爸的事情（害怕敲脑袋或是叫你出去一边玩去）都告诉他。我告诉他学校里发生的所有事情，老师用爱尔兰话冲我们发火时，我是多么惧怕他和他的棍子，我仍然不知道他在说什么，因为我是从美国来的，其他的男孩子都是比我早一年开始学习爱尔兰语的。我就这么待在第七级楼梯上，一直待到冷得受不了，

或者爸爸起床叫我回去睡觉的时候。他是第一个告诉我天使和第七级楼梯的人，所以他应该知道我坐在这里的原因。可一天夜里，我告诉他我在这里等天使，他却说：啊，那么，弗兰西斯，你是一个梦想家喽。我回到床上，听见他跟妈妈小声说：那个可怜的小家伙正坐在楼梯上，和天使喋喋不休呢。他笑了起来，妈妈也笑了起来。大人竟然笑话给他们送来新宝宝的天使，这真是不可思议。复活节前夕，我们搬回楼下的爱尔兰。复活节要比圣诞节好，因为天气很暖和，墙壁也不湿漉漉的滴着水了，厨房里也不再是一片湖泊了。要是早点起床的话，我们还可以晒一会儿从厨房窗户照进来的阳光。晴朗的天气里，男人们坐在外面抽着香烟（要是他们有香烟的话），看着这个世界，看着我们玩。女人们抱着膀子站着聊天，她们不坐，她们要做的不过是照顾孩子，打扫卫生和做饭。男人们才需要椅子，他们每天早上要走去职业介绍所签领救济金，还要讨论世界问题，考虑一天其余的时间该怎么打发，这些弄得他们很疲倦。有些人到赌马场仔细研究，用一两个先令押上可靠的一宝。有些人则在卡内基图书馆看英国和爱尔兰的报纸。靠救济金过日子的人要紧跟时事，因

为其他领救济金的男人都是时事专家，万一他们提到希特勒、墨索里尼或千百万中国人的可怕状况，你得作好应答的准备才行。一天结束后，领救济金的男人拿着马票或者报纸回家，优哉游哉地抽点烟，喝点茶，坐在椅子里考虑一下世界形势，他的老婆是不该有什么怨言的。复活节要比圣诞节好，因为爸爸领我们去至圣救主会教堂，那里所有的牧师都穿着白袍，唱着歌。他们很高兴，因为我们的主在天堂。我问爸爸马槽里那个圣婴是不是死了，他说：没有，他死的时候是三十三岁。他在那儿呢，吊在十字架上。我不明白他怎么长得这么快，他被吊在那儿，戴着一顶荆棘编成的帽子，浑身是血。血从他的头上、手上、脚上和肚子上方的一个大洞里滴下来。爸爸说等我长大就会明白了，他一直这么对我说，我也盼着长成像他那样的大人，好变得什么都明白了。早晨一觉醒来，忽然什么都明白了，那一定很有意思。我希望自己能像教堂里所有的大人那样，该站就站，该跪就跪，该祷告就祷告，什么都能明白。做弥撒时，人们走到圣坛前，牧师把什么东西放进他们的嘴里。他们低着头，回到自己的坐位上，嘴巴动

弹着。小马拉奇说他饿了，也想吃一些。爸爸说：嘘，这是圣餐，我们主身上的血和肉。可是...爸爸。嘘，这是个秘密。再问下去是没有用的，要是你发问，他们就告诉你这是个秘密，等你长大就明白了，做个好孩子，问你母亲去，问你父亲去，看在耶稣的分上，让我安静一会儿，出去玩吧。爸爸在利默里克的水泥厂找到他的第一份工作，妈妈非常开心。她用不着再去圣文森特保罗协会排队，为我和小马拉奇讨要衣服和靴子了。她说这不是乞讨，这是救济，爸爸却偏说这是乞讨，很丢人。妈妈说现在可以付清欠凯瑟琳。奥康纳小店的几英镑了，也可以偿还欠外婆的钱了。她对欠债深恶痛绝，尤其是欠自己母亲的债。水泥厂在利默里克郊外好几英里的地方，也就是说，爸爸每天早晨六点钟就得出门。他毫不在乎，他过去经常徒步远行。上班的前一天晚上，妈妈为他准备了一瓶茶、一份三明治和一个煮鸡蛋。她觉得有些对不住他，让他上班走三英里，下班又走三英里。有一辆自行车就方便多了，但是得工作一年才能买得起自行

车。星期五是发薪水的日子，妈妈早早地起了床，打扫着屋里的卫生，哼唱着歌曲：非要不可，这就是原因... 屋里没有多少需要打扫的。她清扫了厨房和楼上意大利的地板，洗了洗当茶杯用的果酱瓶。她说要是爸爸工作久一些的话，我们就可以买些像样的杯子了，也许还能买托盘呢。托上帝和圣母的福，说不定哪天我们就会有床单。再多攒些日子的钱，我们就可以有一两条毯子，淘汰那些大饥荒①期间留下的破旧外套了。她烧了开水，把防止迈克尔在婴儿车和屋里乱拉的破布片洗了一遍。啊，她说，等你们的老爸今晚把薪水带回家，我们就能喝上可口的茶水了。 "老爸"，这说明她心情不错。五点半，男人们干完一天的工作，汽笛声和哨子声响彻全城。我和小马拉奇都很激动，当父亲下班把薪水带回家，我们就可以得到"星期五便士"了。这是从那些父亲有工作的孩子那里知道这回事的，我们知道，喝完茶，就可以去凯瑟琳。奥康纳小店买糖果了。要是母亲心情不错，甚至可能会给你两便士，让你第二

天去利瑞克电影院看一场由詹姆斯。卡格尼主演的电影。在城里的工厂和商店工作的男人们，此时正回家吃晚饭，然后洗个澡，去酒吧。女人们去大广场或利瑞克电影院看电影。她们买糖果吃，买"忍冬"牌香烟抽。如果她们丈夫的工作能干得久一些的话，她们还可以买一盒"黑色魔力"牌巧克力款待自己。她们爱看有浪漫情调的电影，当结局是悲剧，或者一个英俊的情人被印度人或其他非天主教徒用枪打死时，她们会哭得稀里哗啦。我们得等很长时间，爸爸从水泥厂回来要走挺远的路。等他回来，我们才能喝上茶。这很不容易，因为你得闻着邻家的饭菜香。妈妈说幸亏不能吃肉的星期五是发薪日，因为邻家炖猪肉和香肠的香味会馋得她发疯。不过，我们还能吃上面包、奶酪，喝上一果酱瓶加了好多牛奶和糖的可口茶水，还有什么不满足的呢？女人们都去了电影院，男人们都进了酒吧，只有爸爸还没有回家。妈妈说就算他是个飞毛腿，水泥厂也离家太远了。她虽是这么说，眼睛里却开始泪汪汪的，也不再唱歌了。她在炉子旁坐着，抽着她从凯瑟琳。奥康纳小店赊来的"忍冬"。烟是她惟一的奢侈品，她

永远忘不了凯瑟琳的仁慈。她不知道壶里的开水还得沸腾多久，但在爸爸回家前是不能沏茶的，那样茶叶会煮熟、泡烂，茶水会发苦，喝起来很不是味道。小马拉奇说他饿了，妈妈给了他一块面包和一些奶酪，让他先垫垫肚子。她说：这个工作可是我们的救星，他一口北方腔，能得到这份工作够不容易的，要是他丢掉这份工作，我真不知道该怎么办。巷子里已经黑了，我们只好点起蜡烛。她只好让我们喝茶、吃面包和奶酪，我们已经饿得一分钟也不能等了。她坐在桌子旁，吃了点面包和奶酪，又抽着她的 "忍冬"，走到门口，看看爸爸是不是快到家了。她说起在布鲁克林我们在发薪日满街寻找爸爸的事情。她说：总有一天，我们会回到美国，会有一个舒适温暖的地方居住，公寓过道里会有厕所，就像克拉森大街那个住处一样，而不是门外的这个脏东西。女人们从电影院回来了，格格地笑着，男人们也唱着歌从酒吧回来了。妈妈说再等下去也没用，要是爸爸在酒吧一直待到关门，那他的薪水也剩不下什么了，我们不如现在睡觉去。她躺在床上，怀里搂着迈克尔。屋前的路上一片静谧，尽管她用一件旧外套蒙住脸，我也能听见她在哭泣。我还听见远处传来父亲的声音。

我知道那是我的父亲，因为他是利默里克惟一唱"罗迪。迈克考雷在图姆桥上赴死"这首北爱尔兰歌曲的人。他走到巷子尽头的拐角处，开始唱起凯文。巴里之歌。他唱一句就停下来，在墙上靠一会儿，为凯文。巴里痛哭。人们都把头探出窗户和门外，冲他说：看在耶稣的面上，别叫唤了。我们有些人还得早起上班呢，回家唱他妈的爱国歌曲去吧。他在巷子中间站着，叫全世界的人都出来，他已经作好了战斗的准备，准备为爱尔兰战斗到死，不过，这些话可不能对利默里克人说，全世界都知道他们和背信弃义的萨克逊人狼狈为奸。他推开门，嘴里依然唱着：怎么，正当所有的人都在守夜不眠，西部人却在沉睡，西部人却在沉睡！哎，当康诺特省也在这样沉睡，爱尔兰也许正在流泪。但是，听啊！一个声音雷鸣般响起：西部人醒来！西部人醒来！唱吧，啊，欢呼吧，让英格兰崩溃，为了守候爱尔兰我们至死无悔！他在楼下喊：安琪拉，安琪拉，家里一滴茶水也没有

她没有理睬他，他又喊：弗兰西斯，小马拉奇，快下来，孩子们，我有"星期五便士"给你们。我想下楼去拿那"星期五便士"，但妈妈正用外套蒙着嘴巴呜咽。小马拉奇说：我不想要他的破"星期五便士"，他自个儿留着吧。爸爸跌跌撞撞地上了楼，开始发表演讲，要我们必须为爱尔兰去死。他划着一根火柴，点燃妈妈床边的蜡烛，把蜡烛举过头顶，在屋里雄赳赳地走着，唱着：看，是谁在怒放的红杜鹃花丛中走去？他们那绿色的旗帜吻着山上纯净的空气。昂首挺胸，目视前方，骄傲地走在一起，自由的信念珍藏在每个人不屈的精神里。迈克尔醒了，可着嗓子哭了一声。隔壁汉农家敲了敲墙，妈妈对爸爸说他真丢死人了，为什么他就不能彻底滚出这个家呢？他站在地板中央，把蜡烛高举过头顶。他从口袋里掏出一个便士，朝我和小马拉奇扬了扬。你们的"星期五便士"，孩子们，他说，我想让你们跳下床，像两名士兵那样排好队，发誓为爱尔兰死，我将把"星期五便士"给你们。

小马拉奇坐在床上，我不想要，他说。我告诉他，我也不想要。爸爸呆立了片刻，摇晃着身子，把便士放回自己的口袋。他转向妈妈，她说：今晚你不要睡在这张床上。他拿着蜡烛下楼去了，在椅子上睡了一夜，早晨误了上班，丢掉了水泥厂的工作。我们又指望起失业救济金。

第七级楼梯老师说，是为首次忏悔①和首次圣餐做准备的时候了，该熟记《教理问答》中所有的问题和答案了，我们要成为忠心耿耿的天主教徒，知道是与非的区别，准备随时为信仰的召唤献出生命。老师说为信仰而死是件光荣的事情，而爸爸说为爱尔兰而死是件光荣的事情，我想知道这个世界上还有没有人想让我们活。我的弟弟死了，妹妹死了，我想知道他们是为爱尔兰而死的，还是为信仰而死的。爸爸说他们太小，不是为了什么而死的。妈妈说他们是因为疾病、饥饿以及他的永远失业而死的。爸爸说：唉呀，安琪拉。随后，他戴上帽子，出去长途散步了。

老师说，我们要交三便士买绿封皮的《教理问答》。在我们领首次圣餐前，《教理问答》中所有的问题和答案都要背诵下来。五年级的大孩子们发的是厚厚的红封皮的《坚信礼教理问答》，那得掏六个便士。我很想长成大人，变得很重要，拿着红封皮的《坚信礼教理问答》四处炫耀，可我认为我不会活到那么大，因为大人们总是盼着我们为这个死，为那个死。我想问问，为什么这么多大人都没有为爱尔兰或信仰而死，但我知道，如果问这样的问题，脑袋又得挨敲，或挨一句 "出去玩去"。米奇。莫雷住在我们巷子的拐角处，这真是很方便。他十一岁，有癫痫病，我们背后都叫他"抽筋的米奇"。这条巷子的人说癫痫病可是一种折磨，现在我明白折磨的意思了。米奇什么事情都知道，因为他犯病时，眼前会出现幻象，而且他博览群书。在这条巷子里，他是"女孩身体和龌龊事"方面的专家。他答应我说：我会告诉你一切的，弗兰基，等你像我一样长到十一岁的时候，你就不会这么糊涂和无知了。好在他说了"弗兰基"，所以我知道他是在同我说话。他是对眼，你永远不知道他在看谁。要是他在跟小马拉奇说话，而我以为他在跟我说话，他可能就会勃然

大怒，引发癫痫病，被人抬走。他说对眼是一种天赋，就像上帝一样，可以同时朝两个方向看。在古罗马时代，要是你有一双对眼，找一份好工作绝对不成问题。看一下罗马皇帝们的画像，你总能看到不少对眼。他不犯病的时候，就坐在巷子尽头，看他父亲从卡内基图书馆借来的书。他妈妈说，书书书！他要把眼睛看坏的，他需要做手术矫正眼睛，但是谁出得起钱呢？她告诉他，要是他继续劳累眼睛，它们早晚会凑到一块，最后他脸上就只有一只眼睛了。打那以后，他父亲就管他叫"库克罗普斯"，那是古希腊神话里的一个独眼巨人。诺拉。莫雷是在圣文森特保罗协会认识我母亲的，她告诉妈妈，酒吧里一打喝酒的家伙也赶不上她的米奇有头脑。从圣彼得到庇护十一世，他知道所有教皇的名字。他只有十一岁，但已经是个大人了，啊，地地道道的一个大人。好多个星期，家人都是靠他才免于挨饿的。他从艾丹。法瑞尔那里借来一辆手推车，在利默里克挨家挨户敲门，看有没有人要煤或泥炭，然后到码头把一百磅或更重的大煤包拉回来给他们。他还为上了年纪、行动不便的人跑腿，要是他们拿不出一个便士，替他祷告一次也行。

要是他挣到一点钱，就如数交给他母亲。她爱她的米奇，他是她的整个世界，是她的心肝，她的脉搏，要是他出了什么事，那干脆把她关进疯人院里，然后把钥匙扔掉，让她永远待在里边算了。米奇的父亲皮特是个超级冠军，他靠在酒吧里和人比赛喝酒、打赌赚钱。他只要到外面的茅房用手指抠喉咙，把喝下去的东西全吐出来，就可以开始下一轮打赌。不用手指，他照样可以站在茅房里把喝下去的东西吐出来。他就是这样一个冠军，就算他们砍掉他的手指，他也照样赌酒。所有的钱都被他赢了去，但他从不把钱带回家。有时他跟我父亲一样，连救济金都喝掉。这也就是诺拉。莫雷发疯的原因，她经常为挨饿的家人焦虑得发疯，最后被强行送进疯人院。她知道，只要进了疯人院，就安全地远离了这个世界和它的折磨，你无事可做，受到保护，何必再焦虑呢。向来，疯人院里的疯子都是被硬拖进去的，可她却是惟一一个被硬拖出来的，被拖回到她的五个孩子和喝酒冠军身边。当你看到诺拉。莫雷的孩子们从头到脚都是白面粉，就知道她又该进疯人院了。这就表明，皮特又喝掉了他的救济金，把她推向了绝望的境地，她明白又要有

人来把她带走了。她心里一发狂就要烤面包，想确保在离开的这段时间里，她的孩子们不至于挨饿。于是，她在利默里克全城跑来跑去，到处讨要面粉。她去找牧师、修女、新教徒、贵格会教徒，她去找兰克面粉厂，讨要人家从地上扫起来的面粉。她夜以继日地烤面包，皮特求她住手，但她尖叫：这就是喝掉救济金的结果。他告诉她面包会发霉的。可说这些没用，她还是马不停蹄地烤啊，烤啊，烤啊！要是她有钱，就会把利默里克城里城外所有的面粉都烤成面包；要是疯人院的人不来带走她，她会继续烤下去，直到倒在地上为止。她的孩子们的肚子里塞了那么多面包，巷子里的人都说他们看上去像是面包。面包还是发霉了，这种浪费让米奇特别心疼。他跟一个有烹饪图书的富家女人说起这件事，她告诉他可以把面包做成面包布丁。他便把那些硬面包放进水里，兑上发酸的牛奶，再丢进一杯白糖一起煮。这是母亲待在疯人院的两个星期里，他们惟一可吃的东西，但他的弟弟们还是非常喜欢。我的父亲问：到底是因为她发疯地烤面包，人家才把她带走呢？还是因为人家要把她带走，她才发疯地烤面包呢？

回到家里的诺拉很平静，似乎是去了一趟海滨。她总是问：米奇在哪儿？他还活着吗？她操心米奇，是由于他不是一个正规的天主教徒。一旦他犯病死掉，谁知道他来生会怎样呢？他不是一个正规的天主教徒，是因为他从来没领过首次圣餐，他害怕舌头一挨上什么东西，会导致癫痫病发作而窒息。老师用几张《利默里克导报》一遍又一遍地给他做试验，但他总把它们吐出来，老师不耐烦了，把他送到牧师那里。牧师写信给主教，主教说：别烦我，你自己全权处理吧。老师写了一张便条送到米奇家里，便条上写着：应当由父亲或母亲训练米奇领圣餐。但是，就算是他们，也无法让他吞下一张叠成圣饼形状的《利默里克导报》。他们甚至把抹上果酱的面包做成圣饼的形状，还是行不通。牧师告诉莫雷太太不必担心，上帝会以一种神秘的方式显圣的。癫痫病也好，别的什么也好，对于米奇，上帝一定有他自己的打算。她说：他什么糖果、面包都能吞，吞我主的血肉就犯病，这不是很奇怪吗？这不是很奇怪吗？她担心要是米奇的灵魂有什么罪过，他犯病死了就可能下地狱，虽然人人都知道他是天使下凡。米奇告诉她，上帝不会用癫痫病折磨你，然后

再加一脚将你踢进地狱。什么样的上帝会这样干？你敢肯定吗，米奇？肯定，我在书里看到过。他在巷子尽头的路灯下坐下，对他的首次圣餐大笑不止，那完全是一场骗局。吞不下圣饼，是不是就能妨碍他母亲在利默里克满大街夸耀他那身黑色小礼服，以便收点贺礼、敛点小钱呢？她对米奇说：好吧，我不撒谎，我不。我只是对邻居们说，这是米奇首次领圣餐时穿的礼服，这就是我要说的，你记着，这是米奇。要是他们以为你吞下了首次圣餐，那我何必泼冷水，让他们失望呢？米奇的父亲说：用不着担心，库克罗普斯，你有的是时间。耶稣不是在最后的晚餐上吃了面包喝了葡萄酒后，才成为正规的天主教徒的吗？那时候他已经三十三岁了。诺拉。莫雷说：你不要叫他"库克罗普斯"好不好？他的头上长着两只眼睛呢，再说他也不是希腊人。但是米奇的父亲，这个喝酒冠军，像我的姨父帕。基廷一样，无论别人说什么，他都不放一个臭屁。我自己也想这样。米奇告诉我，首次领圣餐最美的事就是"收钱"了。母亲得想方设法给你弄一身新礼服，好在邻居和亲戚们面前炫耀一下，而他们会给你糖果和钱，你可以去

利瑞克电影院看一场查理。卓别林主演的电影。詹姆斯。卡格尼怎么样？甭管詹姆斯。卡格尼了，废话连篇。查理。卓别林才是惟一的偶像。不过，你必须跟妈妈一起出现在"收钱"的场合。对那些穿着首次圣餐礼服，而没有妈妈陪着的张三李四家的小孩们，利默里克的大人们是不会给钱的。米奇在首次圣餐日得到五个先令，吃了许多糖果和小面包，结果在利瑞克电影院吐了起来。售票员弗兰克。高金把他踢了出去。他说他不在乎，因为他还有钱，可以当天去萨瓦电影院看海盗片，吃"吉百利"牌巧克力，喝柠檬水，直到撑破肚子。他无法等到坚信礼 ①那天，因为那得等到长大，才能等来又一个收钱日，得到比首次圣餐日更多的钱。以后，他要常逛电影院，坐在巷子里的那些姑娘们旁边，像个专家似的干那些龌龊事。他爱他的母亲，但他永远不结婚，他害怕自己会有一个出入疯人院的老婆。你能坐在电影院里跟巷子里的姑娘们干那些龌龊事，又何必结婚呢？她们不在乎跟你干那样的事，因为她们已经跟兄弟们干过了。要是你不结婚，就不会有孩子在家吱哇乱叫，要喝茶，要吃面包，也不会喘气抽筋，眼睛到处乱看。

等他长大了，他要去酒吧，像他的父亲那样拼命喝酒，用手指抠喉咙，把酒全吐出来，接着再喝，赢得赌注，把钱带回家交给他母亲，省得她发疯。他说他不是一个正规的天主教徒，这意味着他注定要下地狱，所以他可以想干什么就干什么。他说：等你长大了，我要告诉你更多的事情，弗兰基。你现在太小了，还屁事不懂呢。本森老师很老了，他每天冲我们咆哮，吐口水。坐在前排的男孩子们希望他没有传染病，口水能传染各种疾病，他可能在到处传播肺病。他命令我们必须把《教理问答》倒背如流；我们必须知道《十诫》、《七德》、《神圣与道德》、《七圣事》和《七宗罪》；我们必须熟记所有的祈祷词，如《圣母颂》、《天主经》、《悔罪经》、《使徒信经》、《痛悔经》、《圣母祷文》等；我们必须知道这些祈祷词的爱尔兰文和英文版本，一旦我们忘了爱尔兰文而使用英文，他就会勃然大怒，拿起棍子走向我们。要是完全照他的意思，我们应该用拉丁文学习教规，这是圣徒用来同上帝和圣母交流思想的语言，这是那些早期基督徒的语言，他们挤在地下墓室里，葬身于刑具和利剑，以及饿狮的血盆大口之下。爱尔兰语是爱国者的优美语言，英语是叛徒和告密者

的语言，而拉丁语是进入天堂的语言。在被野蛮人拔去指甲、一寸寸剥皮的时候，殉道者就是用拉丁语祷告的。他说对于爱尔兰和她漫长悲哀的历史，我们是耻辱的，我们最好到非洲去向灌木或树林祷告。他说我们是毫无希望的，是他见过的在首次圣餐式上表现最差的班级，可是，他还是说一不二地要把我们打造成天主教徒，要将懒惰打出我们的身体，将"神恩" 打进我们心里。布兰登。奎格雷举起手，我们都叫他"问题奎格雷"，他老是情不自禁地问问题，先生，他问，"神恩"是什么意思？老师朝天翻了翻白眼，他简直想杀了奎格雷，但只是冲他怒吼：别管"神恩"是什么意思，奎格雷，这不关你的事。你到这儿来是学习《教理问答》，做老师要你做的事情的，你不是到这儿来问问题的。世界上问问题的人太多了，这才把我们害成这样。要是我再发现这个班上有人问问题，出了什么事情我可不负责。你听清我说的话了吗，奎格雷？我听清了。我听清了，就完啦？

我听清了，先生。他继续他的演讲：这个班上，有些人将永远不会知道 "神恩"的意思，为什么？因为贪欲。我听见他们在外面的操场上谈论首次圣餐日，你们一生中最幸福的一天。他们是在谈论领受我主的血和肉吗？啊，不是的。这些贪婪的小骗子在谈论他们即将得到的金钱， "收钱"。他们穿着自己的小礼服，像个乞丐似的走街串巷去"收钱"。他们会拿出一些钱送给非洲的小黑婴吗？他们会想到那些小异教徒吗？那些孩子没有洗礼，不知道"真正信仰"，注定要永远受煎熬。他们会想到不承认"基督灵体"的小黑婴吗？地狱的边缘挤满了小黑婴，他们四处飞跑着，哭喊着寻找妈妈，因为他们永远接近不了神圣的我主和他的追随者——— 圣徒、殉道者和贞女。啊，不，他们想到的只是上电影院，首次圣餐式上的男孩们会迫不及待地跑开，去沉溺于好莱坞魔鬼的走狗们满世界吐出的污秽里。我说得不对吗，迈考特？说得对，先生。 "问题奎格雷"再次举起手。大家面面相觑，心想他是不是想找死。走狗是什么意思，先生？

老师的脸变得煞白，又变得通红。他的嘴巴一开一合，口沫横飞，向"问题"走过去，把他从坐位上拽起来。老师哼着鼻子，结结巴巴地说着，口水星子满教室都是，他使劲抽打"问题"的肩膀、屁股和双腿。最后，他揪住"问题"的衣领，把他拖到教室前面。看看这个怪物，他咆哮着。 "问题"摇晃着身子，泪流满面地说：对不起，先生。老师戏谑着：对不起，先生，你对不起什么？对不起我问了问题，我再也不问问题了，先生。奎格雷，你不问问题的那一天，就是你蒙主恩召的那一天。你希望什么，奎格雷？蒙主恩召，先生。回到你的坐位上去，你这个蠢蛋、胆小鬼，从沼泽深处的黑暗角落里爬出来的东西！老师坐了下来，把手杖放在他面前的课桌上。他警告 "问题"不要哭哭啼啼了，要做个男子汉。要是他再听到这个班上有某个男孩问愚蠢的问题，或是谈论"收钱"的事，就把他抽得鲜血淋漓。我将怎么做，男孩们？抽打他，先生。抽打得...？

抽打得鲜血淋漓，先生。那么，克劳海西，第六诫是什么？不可通奸。不可通奸，就完啦？不可通奸，先生。什么是通奸，克劳海西？不纯洁的思想，不纯洁的语言，不纯洁的行为，先生。很好，克劳海西。你是个好孩子，虽然你对老师的提问可能反应有些慢，记性不大好，脚上也许没鞋穿，但你仍拥有"第六诫"的力量，记住第六诫，这将会保持住你的纯洁。帕迪。克劳海西没鞋穿，他的母亲给他剃了光头，免得生虱子。他的眼睛红红的，一年四季总是鼻涕邋遢。他膝盖上的伤口从来没有好过，因为刚一结痂，他就揭下来吃掉。他的衣衫褴褛不堪，还得和他的六个兄弟、一个妹妹轮着穿。每当他带着流血的鼻子或是黑眼圈来到学校，你就知道这天早上他为了抢衣服和兄弟们厮打过。他恨透了学校。他快八岁了，是班里个头最大，年龄最大的孩子。他迫不及待地想长大，长到十四岁好逃跑，让人家把他当成十七岁，参加英国军奔赴印度。那地方温暖宜人，他会和一个额头上点

着朱砂痣的黑皮肤姑娘同住在帐篷里。他要躺在那儿吃无花果，印度人都吃这东西。那姑娘从早到晚给他烧咖喱菜，拨拉四弦琴。等他有钱了，他就派人把全家接来，都住在帐篷里，特别是他家里那个患着肺病、常咳出大血块的可怜父亲。一次，我的母亲在街上看见了帕迪，她说：啊呀，瞧这可怜的孩子，简直就是个破布片包着的骷髅，要是拍反映大饥荒时期的电影，他绝对适合被拍进去。我认为，帕迪因为葡萄干的事情有些喜欢我，不过我觉得有点惭愧，因为起初我并不是那么慷慨的。本森老师说政府要给我们提供免费午餐，这样，大冷天的我们就可以不必回家吃饭了。他把我们领到利米国立学校一间冰冷的地窖里，清洁女工奈莉。哈恩给我们每人发点牛奶和葡萄干面包。牛奶冻在瓶子里，我们只好把它夹在大腿间，让它融化。男孩们开玩笑说瓶子会把我们"那个东西"冻掉的，老师咆哮起来：再这么说，我就把奶瓶子放在恁们的后脑勺上化掉。我们都在自己的面包上寻找葡萄干，可奈莉说他们一定是忘了放葡萄干，她到时候问问那个送面包的人。我们每天都要在面包上寻找一番葡萄干，我终于找到一粒葡萄干，举了起来。其他的孩子们开始抱怨，说他

们也想要一粒葡萄干。奈莉说这不是她的错，她要再问问那个送面包的人。这时，男孩们都乞求我把葡萄干给他们，他们愿意把所有的东西都给我———一口牛奶、一支铅笔、一本连环画。托比。麦基说我可以搞他的妹妹，本森先生听见了，把他带到过道上打了个鬼哭狼嚎。我正想自己享受这粒葡萄干，可我忽然看见帕迪。克劳海西正光着脚站在角落里。屋里寒气逼人，他像条被踹的狗似的浑身打着哆嗦。对被踹的狗，我总是充满同情，所以，我走过去，给了帕迪那粒葡萄干，不知道除此之外还能为他做点什么。男孩们都叫了起来，说我是个傻瓜，一个他妈的小受气包，说我会为今天后悔的。我把葡萄干递给帕迪后，又非常想要回来。可是已经太迟了，他马上丢进嘴里，吞了下去。他看着我，一言不发。我却在心里说：你是一个怎样的小糊涂虫啊，竟把到手的葡萄干给了别人。本森先生看了我一眼，什么也没说。奈莉。哈恩说：你是个了不起的小美国佬，弗兰基。牧师很快要来测验我们的《教理问答》以及其他课程了。老师只好亲自给我们示范如何领圣餐。他在帽子里塞满了撕成碎片的《利默里克导报》，把帽子交给帕迪。克劳海西，然后跪在地板上，告诉帕迪拿出一张

小纸片，放在他舌头上。他向我们演示如何伸出舌头，接住那张小纸片，等一会儿，再把舌头缩回去，然后双手合十祷告，仰望天空，带着膜拜的心情闭上眼睛，等待纸片在嘴里融化，吞下去，接着要感激上帝的礼物———这飘荡着神圣气息的神恩。他伸出舌头的时候，我们拼命憋住笑，因为我们从没见过这样又大又紫的舌头。他睁开眼睛，想抓住那些正在格格窃笑的男孩，但是他没说什么，因为上帝还在他的舌头上，这是一个神圣的时刻。他站起来，让我们围着教室跪下，练习领圣餐。他绕着教室把纸片放在我们的舌头上，并用拉丁语嘟囔着。有些男孩在傻笑，他冲他们咆哮，要是不停止傻笑的话，他们将要领的就不是圣餐，而是临终圣礼。这个圣礼叫什么，迈考特？终敷①，先生。正确，迈考特，对于一个来自罪孽深重的美洲的美国佬来说，这很不坏。他交代我们务必要小心，要把舌头伸得足够长，防止圣饼掉在地上。他说：对牧师来说，这可是一件最坏的事情。要是圣饼从你的舌头上掉下来，可怜的牧师只能双膝跪下，用他的舌头把它弄起来。他还得把地

板周围都舔干净，怕圣饼可能挨到那些地方。牧师也许会舔到什么碎片，那会让他的舌头肿得有胡萝卜那么大，足以把他憋死。他告诉我们，除圣十字架以外，圣饼是世上最神圣的东西了。我们的首次圣餐是一生中最神圣的时刻。说起首次圣餐，我们的老师兴奋得不得了。他走来走去，挥舞着棍子，告诫我们永远不要忘记圣餐放在舌头上的那一刻，我们从此就成为惟一的、神圣的、罗马天主教的、使徒派的、最光荣的教友。两千年来，男女老少为这一信仰而死。看见一个个殉道者离去，爱尔兰人没有什么可羞愧的，我们不是也贡献了许多殉道者吗？我们不是也在异教徒的斧头下坦然裸露脖子吗？我们不是也高唱着歌曲，犹如去野餐似的登上绞刑架吗？是不是？男孩们？是什么，男孩们？在异教徒的斧头下坦然裸露我们的脖子，先生。还有呢？高唱着歌曲登上绞刑架，先生。犹如...？去野餐似的，先生。

他说这个班上也许会有未来的牧师和殉道者，尽管他对此极其怀疑，因为我们是他不幸教过的最懒惰的一帮笨蛋。但是什么情形都有理由，他说，上帝把像恁们这样的人送到地上来捣乱，肯定有他的目的。上帝把没鞋穿的克劳海西、总有该死的问题的奎格雷、来自罪孽深重的美国的迈考特送到我们中间，肯定有他的目的。记住啦，男孩们，上帝把他仅有的一个儿子送上十字架，不是为了让恁们能在首次圣餐日到处伸爪子去"收钱"，我们的主死去是为了让恁们得救。接受信仰这一礼物已经足够了。恁们在听我说吗？我们在听，先生。那么，什么已经足够了？信仰这一礼物。好的，回家去吧。晚上，米奇、小马拉奇和我坐在巷子尽头的路灯下看书。莫雷家跟我们家一样，父亲会把救济金或薪水喝掉，家里没钱买蜡烛或买煤油点灯。米奇看大书，我们两个看连环画。他的父亲皮特从卡内基图书馆借书，是为了在不喝酒的时候，或是莫雷太太住进疯人院的时候，让自己有点事干。他让米奇看任何他喜欢看的

书，现在米奇看的是一本关于库胡林的书。他谈论着库胡林，好像知道一切似的。我想告诉他，在我不到四岁的时候，就已经知道库胡林所有的事了，我还在都柏林见过库胡林，他毫不犹豫地就来到了我的梦里。我想叫他别再谈库胡林了，他是我的，多年前他就是我的了，那时我还很小。可是，我又不能制止他，因为以前我从没听说过米奇给我们读的这段故事。这是一段关于库胡林的"不干净"的故事，我永远没法跟我的父母讲，它说的是艾莫儿如何成为库胡林的妻子。库胡林就要长成二十一岁的大人了，他很孤单，想结婚。结婚使他虚弱，米奇说，结果他被杀死了。所有的爱尔兰女人都被库胡林迷得发疯，都想嫁给他。他说太棒了，他不介意和所有的爱尔兰女人结婚。要是他能打败爱尔兰所有的男人，那为什么不和所有的爱尔兰女人结婚呢？但是，国王考纳。麦克奈萨说：这对你来说当然很好，库，可是爱尔兰的男人们可不想在深夜独守空房啊。国王决定搞个比赛，看看谁可以嫁给库胡林，比赛撒尿。所有的爱尔兰女人集中在缪尔塞姆平原，比比看谁尿得最远，结果艾莫儿获胜。她成了爱尔兰的女子撒尿冠军，嫁给了库胡林。这也就是她至今被叫做"大尿泡艾莫儿"的原因。

我认为，小马拉奇理解不了这个故事，但他和米奇都在大笑。他还小，离他的首次圣餐日远着呢，他只是在笑"撒尿"这个字眼罢了。这时，米奇对我说，我听有这种字眼的故事，犯下了罪过，等我参加自己的首次忏悔时，必须要把这事告诉牧师。小马拉奇说：没错，撒尿是一个不好的词，你必须告诉牧师，因为这是一个有罪的词。我不知道该怎么办，我怎么能在首次忏悔仪式上跟牧师讲这件可怕的事情呢？男孩们都知道他们到时候要忏悔什么，好参加首次圣餐，到处"收钱"，再去利瑞克电影院看詹姆斯。卡格尼的电影，吃糖果和蛋糕。老师帮我们想罪过，结果每个人都有同样的罪过：我打了弟弟，我撒了谎，我从妈妈钱包里偷了一便士，我没有听父母的话，星期五我吃了香肠。但是现在，我有了一个别人都没有的罪过，牧师会感到震惊，会把我拖出忏悔室，拖出过道，然后扔在大街上。人们都会知道我听了这样一个故事：库胡林的老婆是全爱尔兰的女子撒尿冠军。我再也不能参加我的首次圣餐了，母亲们会抱着她们的小孩，指着我，说：瞧瞧他，他跟米奇。莫雷一样，永远也不能参加首次圣餐，一直在罪过里游荡，永远

也不能"收钱"，永远也看不到詹姆斯。卡格尼。我为首次圣餐和"收钱"难过不已。我病了，茶饭不思。妈妈对爸爸说，这孩子不吃面包又不喝茶，真是奇怪。爸爸则说：噢，他不过是被首次圣餐弄得有些紧张了。我想走到他跟前，坐在他腿上，告诉他米奇。莫雷给我读的故事。但是，我太大了，不该坐在爸爸的腿上了。要是我这样做的话，小马拉奇会跑到路上告诉每一个人，说我是个大宝宝。我想把我的麻烦告诉第七级楼梯上的天使，但他一直忙着给全世界的母亲们送宝宝。我还是问了爸爸。爸爸，第七级楼梯上的天使除了送宝宝，还有别的工作吗？有的。那要是你不知道该怎么办的话，第七级楼梯上的天使会告诉你吗？噢，他会的，儿子。这是天使的工作，第七级楼梯上的天使也不例外。爸爸又出门做长途散步去了，妈妈带上迈克尔去外婆家了，小马拉奇在路上玩。我把自己关在屋里，好坐在第七级楼梯上同天使说说话。我知道他在那里，因为第七级楼梯比其他的阶梯温暖。而且，在我的脑海

里有一道光亮。我对他说出了我的麻烦，接着我听见了一个声音。害怕不必，那个声音说。他在倒着讲话，我告诉他，我听不懂他在说什么。不必害怕，那个声音说，告诉牧师你的罪过，你会得到原谅的。第二天早上，我起得很早。和爸爸一起喝茶时，我告诉了他第七级楼梯上的天使的事情。他把手放在我的额头上，想弄清我的感觉是不是正常。他问我，是不是肯定有一道光亮在我的脑海里，而且听见一个声音，那个声音说了什么？我告诉他那个声音说害怕不必，意思就是不必害怕。爸爸说天使是对的，我不应该害怕。我告诉他米奇给我读的故事。我把"大尿泡艾莫儿"的故事对他说了，甚至还用了"撒尿"这个字眼。因为天使已经说了：害怕不必。爸爸放下了盛着茶的果酱瓶，拍了拍我的手背。唉呀，唉呀，唉呀，他这样说着，我怀疑他是不是要像疯人院的常客莫雷太太那样发疯了，但他却说：这就是你昨天晚上担心的事情吗？我说是的，他说这不是罪过，我不必去跟牧师说。可第七级楼梯上的天使说，我应该说。好吧，要是你愿意，就跟牧师说吧。不过，第七级楼

梯上的天使这么说，是因为你没有把这件事第一个告诉我。把你的麻烦告诉父亲，而不是你脑海里那又是光亮又是声音的天使，岂不更好？好的，爸爸。首次圣餐的前一天，老师将我们领到圣约瑟教堂进行首次忏悔。我们两人一排行进着，要是我们敢在利默里克的大街上动一下嘴唇，他就会当场打死我们，把我们送进恶贯满盈的地狱。不过，这并没能制止我们对大罪的吹嘘。威利。哈罗德低声说起了他的大罪，他看过姐姐的裸体。帕迪。哈蒂根说他从姨妈的钱包里偷了十先令，吃了一顿冰激凌和薯条，都吃得恶心了。"问题奎格雷"说他从家里跑出来，和四只山羊在一条沟里睡了半夜。我想告诉他们库胡林和艾莫儿的事，但是老师抓住我在说话，朝我的头上狠狠捣了一拳。我们跪在忏悔室旁边的长椅上，我想知道关于艾莫儿的罪过是不是跟偷看姐姐的裸体一样严重，因为现在我知道了，这个世界上有些事情要比其他事情恶劣一些，这就是有不同罪过，如渎圣罪、不可饶恕罪、可饶恕罪等的原因。然而老师和大人们谈论的大多是不可饶恕罪，这是一个天大的谜。没有人知道不可饶恕

罪是什么样的罪，这很让人纳闷，要是压根不知道这是什么样的罪，你又怎能知道自己是不是犯了这种罪？要是我告诉牧师"大尿泡艾莫儿"和撒尿比赛的事，他也许会说这是不可饶恕的罪过，随即把我踹出忏悔室，让我在利默里克全城丢尽脸面。我注定要下地狱，饱受魔鬼的折磨。那些魔鬼会一直用滚烫的干草叉刺我，刺到我精疲力竭。威利进去后，我想听听他的忏悔。但是，我能听见的仅仅是牧师发出的嘘嘘声。威利出来的时候，正抹着眼泪。轮到我了。忏悔室里很暗，一个大十字架悬在我的头顶。我听见一个男孩在另一边咕咕哝哝地做忏悔。我想知道现在跟第七级楼梯上的天使谈谈有没有用。我知道他不该在忏悔室这种地方闲逛，但我的确感觉到脑海里的那道光亮，而且那个声音在对我说：害怕不必。那块木板在我的面前拉开了，牧师说：来吧，我的孩子？保佑我，神父，我有罪。这是我的首次忏悔。好的，我的孩子，你犯了什么罪？我说了谎，我打了弟弟，我从妈妈的钱包里拿了一便

士，我骂了人。好的，我的孩子。还有呢？我...我听了一个关于库胡林和艾莫儿的故事。这当然不是罪过，我的孩子。毕竟，某些作家让我们知道库胡林在最后时刻变成了天主教徒，他的国王考纳。麦克奈萨也是。是关于艾莫儿的，神父，关于她如何嫁给库胡林的。这是怎么回事，我的孩子？她在一场撒尿比赛中赢得了他。一阵沉重的喘息声，牧师用手捂住嘴，发出噎住的声响。他自言自语：圣母啊。谁...谁给你讲的这个故事，我的孩子？米奇。莫雷，神父。他是从哪儿听到的？他在一本书里看到的，神父。啊，书。书对于儿童是危险的，我的孩子。把你的心从那些愚蠢的故事中收回来吧，想想圣徒们的生活，想想圣约瑟、"小花"①、和蔼可亲的圣弗兰西斯，他们爱天空中的鸟儿和田间的牲畜。你会这样做吗，我的孩子？我会的，神父。

还有其他的罪过吗，我的孩子？没有啦，神父。为了表示你的悔过，说三遍《圣母颂》、三遍《天主经》，还要为我进行一次特别祷告。我会的。神父，这是最严重的罪过吗？什么意思？我是所有男孩里最坏的吗，神父？不是，我的孩子，你有很漫长的路要走。现在说一遍《痛悔经》，然后记住我们的主时时刻刻看着你。上帝保佑你，我的孩子。因为能"收钱"和到利瑞克电影院看詹姆斯。卡格尼，所以首次圣餐日是一生中最幸福的一天。前一天夜里，我激动得难以入眠，直到黎明时分才睡着。要不是外婆来敲门，我还在呼呼大睡呢。起来！起来！叫那孩子起床，这是他一生中最幸福的一天，他却在床上打呼噜。我跑进厨房。脱掉那件衬衫，她说。我脱掉它，她把我按进一盆冰冷的水里。母亲给我擦洗，她也给我擦洗。我被擦得浑身通红，皮几乎被擦掉。她们把我擦干，给我穿上黑丝绒礼服，搭配上带有褶边的白衬衣、短裤，白袜子和黑漆皮鞋。她们在我的

胳膊上系了一条白色的缎带，礼服翻领上别着耶稣的圣心画像，圣心滴着血，周围喷射着火苗，顶上是一个丑陋的荆棘冠。过来，让我给你梳梳头，外婆说，瞧这乱蓬蓬的头发，一点也不服帖。你这头发可不是从我们家遗传的，这是从你父亲那里遗传的北爱尔兰人的头发，长老派教徒的头发。要是你妈妈嫁给一个规矩体面的利默里克人，你就不会长出这样支棱着的、北爱尔兰长老会教徒的头发了。她朝我的头上吐了两口。外婆，请你不要朝我的头上吐口水。闭嘴，一点口水淹不死你。快走吧，我们做弥撒要迟到了。我们向教堂奔去，母亲在后面抱着迈克尔，一路上气喘吁吁。我们赶到教堂，正好碰上最后一个男孩离开圣坛的围栏。牧师站在那里，手里拿着圣杯和圣饼，瞪着我。随后，他把圣饼———这耶稣的血和肉—— —放到我的舌头上。好了，好了。它在我的舌头上了，我缩回了舌头。它黏住了！上帝黏在了我的上颚。我听见老师的声音：不要让圣

饼碰到你的牙齿，一旦把上帝咬成了两截，你就要永生永世在地狱里煎熬。我想用舌头把上帝弄下来，但牧师冲我"嘘"了一声：不要弄出声响，回到坐位上去吧。上帝真好，他融化了，被我吞了下去。现在，我终于成了真理教堂的一员，一个正式的罪人。弥撒结束时，外婆和抱着迈克尔的母亲都来到教堂的门口。她们分别把我搂进怀里，告诉我这是我一生中最幸福的一天。她们哭了，在我的头上到处洒眼泪。这天早上，经过外婆的一番贡献，我的头已经变成了沼泽。妈妈，我现在可以去"收钱"吗？她说：先吃一点早饭再说吧。不行，外婆说，你必须在我家吃上一顿正规的首次圣餐日早饭，再提你的收钱不收钱。走吧。我们跟外婆去了。她把锅碗瓢盆弄得乒乓直响，抱怨全世界的人都指望她跑前跑后。我吃着鸡蛋、香肠，我想往茶里再放些糖，她一巴掌把我的手打开。悠着点放糖，你以为我是百万富翁吗？是美国人吗？你以为我穿金戴银，身上裹着昂贵的毛皮大衣吗？吃下去的食物开始在我的肚子里翻涌，让我作呕，我

跑到后院，全吐了出来。她也跟了出来。瞧瞧他干的好事，吐掉了他首次圣餐日的早饭，吐掉了耶稣的血和肉，把上帝丢在了我的后院里。我该怎么办？我要把他送到耶稣会去，他们知道，这是教皇自己的罪过。她拖着我穿过利默里克的街道，告诉左邻右舍和过路的陌生人，我把上帝丢在了她的后院里。她把我推进了忏悔室。以圣父、圣子和圣灵的名义，保佑我，神父，我犯了罪。这离我的上次忏悔才只有一天。一天？一天里你又犯了什么罪过，我的孩子？我睡过头了，差点误了我的首次圣餐；我外婆说我的头发直立着，是北爱尔兰长老会教徒的头发；我吐掉了首次圣餐日的早饭，现在外婆说上帝在她的后院里了，她应该怎么办？这个牧师像首次忏悔时的那个牧师一样，发出一阵沉重的喘息，和噎住的声音。啊...啊...告诉你外婆用点水把上帝洗掉。为了表示你的悔过，说一遍《圣母颂》和《天主经》，再为我祷告一次。上帝保佑你，我的孩子。外婆和妈妈正紧挨着忏悔室等着。外婆说：你是在忏

悔室给牧师讲笑话吗？要是我知道你给耶稣会讲笑话，我就把你的腰子血淋淋地扒出来。说，他对我后院里的上帝都说了什么？说用点水洗掉他。外婆。圣水还是普通的水？他没说，外婆。啊？回去问问他。可是，外婆... 她又把我推进了忏悔室。保佑我，神父，我犯了罪，这离我上次忏悔才只有一分钟。一分钟？！你是刚才的那个孩子吗？是的，神父。这是怎么回事？我外婆问，是用圣水还是普通的水？普通的水，去告诉你外婆，不要再烦我了。我告诉她：普通的水，外婆，他说不要再烦他了。不要再烦他了？这个不知好歹的乡巴佬。我问妈妈：我现在能去"收钱"了吗？我想看詹姆斯。卡格尼。外婆说：忘了"收钱"和詹姆斯。卡格尼吧，你把上

帝丢在了我的后院，不算一个正规的天主教徒。走吧，回家去吧。妈妈说：等等，这是我的儿子，这是我儿子的首次圣餐日，应该让他去看詹姆斯。卡格尼。不行，他不能去。行，他能去。外婆说：那就带他去看詹姆斯。卡格尼，看看那个会不会拯救他那北爱尔兰长老会和美国佬的灵魂。去啊！她围上披肩，走了。妈妈说：上帝呀，已经很晚了，去"收钱"的话，你就看不成詹姆斯。卡格尼了。我们先去利瑞克电影院，看看他们能不能看在这身首次圣餐礼服的分上，让你进去。我们在巴灵顿街碰见米奇。莫雷，他问我是不是去利瑞克电影院，我说去试试。试试？他问，你没钱？说没钱，我很难为情，又不得不说。他说：那好吧，我带你进去，我来玩一个声东击西。什么是"声东击西"？我有钱，可以进去，等我进去，我就装做癫痫病犯了，那个售票员会六神无主。我一尖声大叫，你就趁机溜进去。我一直留心着门，见你进去了，我便奇迹般地

没事了。这就叫"声东击西"，我一直是这样让我的兄弟进去的。妈妈说：啊，我不知道有这回事，米奇，这不是罪过吗？你不是让弗兰克在他的首次圣餐日就犯下罪过吧？米奇说，要是有罪过的话，就算在他的灵魂上好了，反正他又不是一个正规的天主教徒，没什么关系。于是，他发出一声尖叫，我就趁机溜了进去，坐到"问题奎格雷"的旁边。而售票员弗兰克。高金正在为米奇急得不可开交，根本就没有注意到我。那是一个恐怖片，但是结局很悲惨，因为詹姆斯。卡格尼扮演的是一个公敌。人们把他击毙后，给他缠上绷带，扔在他家门口，吓煞了他那可怜的爱尔兰老母亲。这也是我首次圣餐日的结局。

舞蹈，电影，拉丁文因为我把上帝丢在了她的后院，外婆不再跟妈妈说话了。妈妈也不跟妹妹阿吉姨妈和哥哥汤姆舅舅说话了。爸爸不跟妈妈家的任何人说话，他们也不跟他说话，因为他是北方佬，而且行为古怪。没有人跟汤姆舅舅的妻子简说话，因为她是戈尔韦人，而且有一副西班

牙人的相貌。每个人都跟妈妈的弟弟帕特舅舅说话，因为他的脑袋被摔过，人很单纯，而且会卖报纸。每个人都叫他"修道院长"或"修道院长西恩"，没人知道这是为什么。每个人都跟帕。基廷姨父说话，因为他在战争期间中过毒气，而且娶了阿吉姨妈。假如他们不跟他说话，他连臭屁都懒得给他们放一个，所以南方酒吧里的人都叫他"毒气人"。这也是我想成为的那种人，一个毒气人，连臭屁都懒得给他们放一个。我把这事跟第七级楼梯上的天使讲了，他要我记住，不许当着天使的面说"屁"这个字。汤姆舅舅和简有孩子，他们有一个儿子和一个女儿，分别叫杰瑞和佩吉。但我们不能跟他们说话，因为我们的父母之间不说话。我们一跟他俩说话，妈妈就要吵我们，我们不明白，为什么不能跟自己的表兄妹说利默里克巷子的住户有彼此不说话的习惯，而且已有多年的历史。有些人彼此不说话，是因为他们的父辈在一九二二年的内战期间，分别处于敌对双方。要是男人加入英国部队，他的家属最好搬到利默里克的另一个地区，那里居住的都是在英国部队服役的男人的

家属。要是在过去的八百年里，你家有人对英国人表示了一点点友好，也会被人们揪出来，让你颜面扫尽。你最好搬到都柏林去，那里没有人会在乎。有些人家自己都觉得不好意思，因为在大饥荒期间，他们的祖先为了新教徒的一碗汤，就背弃了自己的信仰。这些人家迄今以"汤民"而闻名。成为汤民是件可怕的事情，注定要永远同地狱中的汤民为伍。比"汤民"更坏的，就属告密者了。学校老师说，在公平的战争中，每次爱尔兰人快要打败英国人的时候，都有一个卑劣的告密者背叛他们。如果一个人被发现是告密者，就理当绞死他。更糟糕的是，没有人跟他说话，而一旦没有人跟你说话，你最好就上吊吧。每条巷子里，总有一些人不跟另一些人说话，或是谁都不跟一些人说话，或有一些人跟谁都不说话。当人们相互照面而一言不发时，你是能分辨出来的。女人们高翘着鼻子，紧闭着嘴巴，把脸扭向一边。要是她披着披肩，就会抓住披肩的一角，把它甩到肩上，似乎在说：你这个不要脸的婊子，敢吭一声或看我一眼，我就撕下你的脸皮。外婆不跟我们说话，会很不妙，因为我们需要借醋、糖、茶和牛奶时，就没法再去她那儿了。找阿吉姨妈

根本没用，她只会咬掉你的脑袋。回家去，她会说，告诉你爸爸抬起他那北佬的屁股，像一个体面的利默里克男人那样找份工作吧。他们说她总是气鼓鼓的，因为她长着红头发，或者是因为她总是气鼓鼓的，所以她长着红头发。在我们隔壁，布瑞迪。汉农同父母住在一起，妈妈同她关系很好。父亲出去做长途散步时，布瑞迪便来我家，和妈妈坐在炉火旁喝茶，抽烟。要是家中什么都没有了，布瑞迪就会带些茶、糖和牛奶来。有时候，她们将茶叶泡了一遍又一遍。妈妈说这茶叶已经煮熟、泡烂，没有味道了。妈妈和布瑞迪坐得离炉子特别近，她们的皮肤时而发红，时而发紫，时而发蓝。她们一聊就是几个小时，聊到神秘的事情，便传来低语和笑声。她们不允许我们听那些神秘的事情，所以让我们出去玩。我常常坐在第七级楼梯上听她们聊天，她们不会注意到我在那儿。就算外面在下瓢泼大雨，妈妈还是说：下不下雨，你们都给我出去。又说：要是你们见爸爸回来了，跑回来告诉我一声。妈妈问布瑞迪：你听说过那首诗吗？作者写的一定是我和他。什么诗，安琪拉？

叫做《北方人》，我从美国的敏妮。麦克阿多利那里知道这首诗的。我从没听说过，给我说说。妈妈开始朗诵那首诗，可她一直在笑，我不明白是为什么：他来自北方所以沉默寡言，然而他话语温和心灵诚实。凭目光我知道他生性坦荡，因此我嫁给了这个北国郎。啊，比起这个内伊湖畔来的内向人，加里欧文可能要更快乐，我知道阳光温柔地照耀着流经我家乡的那条河。可是整个芒斯特呀，没有一个小伙儿比他还棒——— 我可以快乐又自豪地这么讲。利默里克谁家也比不上我们强。我希望利默里克的人都知道，我投奔的邻里无不好。从此在南方和北方间，仇恨与轻蔑日益减少。

她不断重复着第三段，她笑得很厉害，眼泪都出来了。我不明白这是为什么。当朗诵到"利默里克谁家也比不上我们强"时，她有些歇斯底里了。要是爸爸早点回家，就能在厨房里看见布瑞迪。这个北方人便会说：闲扯、闲扯、闲扯，他戴着帽子站在那里等她走。布瑞迪的母亲和这条巷子里的、以及更远地方的人，都会上门，问爸爸是否能给政府或远方的亲戚写封信，他便拿出钢笔和墨水瓶坐在桌子旁。人家告诉他要写什么，他就说：唉呀，不，这不是你想说的话，接着便写下他认为应该说的话。人家说这正是他们一开始想说的话，说他的英文真好，真有一手。他们给他六便士，作为麻烦他的酬劳，但他摆手不要，他太尊贵了，不能接受这区区六便士，他们便交给妈妈。等人家都走了，他就拿起那六便士，要我去凯瑟琳。奥康纳小店给他买几支香烟。外婆睡楼上的大床，她的头顶贴着耶稣圣心的画像，炉灶上放着一个圣心的塑像。她想有一天能把煤气灯换成电灯，这样这个塑像下就可以永远有一盏小红灯了。她对圣心的虔诚是远近闻名的。帕特舅舅睡在外婆房间角落的一张小床上，外婆要监

督他按时回家，跪在床边做祷告。他可以摔过脑袋，可以不识字，可以酗酒，但就是不可以睡前不做祷告。帕特舅舅告诉外婆，他遇到的一个人在找地方住，能早晚洗个澡，一天管三顿饭就行。他叫比尔。盖文，在石灰窑有一份不错的工作。他浑身上下全是白石灰，可这比黑煤灰好多了。外婆只好腾出她的床，搬进那间小屋。她要拿走那张圣心画像，把圣心塑像留下来，监视着这两个男人。再说，她的小屋里也没地方搁这个塑像。比尔。盖文下班后来看房子。他个子矮小，一身白，像狗似的喜欢抽鼻子。他问外婆可不可以把那个塑像拿下来，因为他是个新教徒，那个塑像让他睡不着觉。外婆怒斥了帕特舅舅，他竟没有告诉她，他拖进家的是一个新教徒。天啊，她说，这回远近的人都该说闲话了。帕特舅舅说他也不知道比尔。盖文是个新教徒，不可能从相貌上看出他是个新教徒，更何况他浑身上下还蒙着石灰粉呢。他看起来就像一个普通的天主教徒，谁能想到一个新教徒会铲石灰。比尔。盖文说他刚刚死去的可怜妻子是一个天主教徒，她在墙上贴满了圣心和圣母显圣心的画像。他本人并

不反对圣心，只是看见圣心的塑像会让他想起可怜的妻子，令他心痛。外婆说：啊，上帝保佑，你为什么不早说？我当然可以把塑像放到我屋里的窗台上啦，免得你见了心痛。外婆每天早上都要为比尔做饭，然后给他送到石灰窑。妈妈纳闷，为什么早上他不能自己把饭带走，外婆说：你难道想让我天不亮就起床，给这个大老爷们炖卷心菜和猪蹄，盛在饭盒里让他带走吗？妈妈对她说：下个星期学校就要放假了，要是你肯给弗兰克六便士，他保准愿意给比尔。盖文送饭的。我不想每天去外婆家，也不想一直走到码头路去给比尔。盖文送饭。可是，妈妈说这六便士对我们有用，要是我不干，那我就哪儿也别想去。你给我老实待在家里，她说，不许跟你的伙伴玩。外婆警告我直接把饭送去，不要东张西望，看着路，踢盒盒罐罐的会损坏鞋头。饭还热着，比尔。盖文想要的就是热饭。饭盒里飘出诱人的香味，是炖猪肉和卷心菜，还有两个粉白的大土豆。要是我吃掉半个土豆，他肯定不会注意到。他不会向外婆抱怨的，因为他鼻塞，很少说

我最好把另半个土豆也吃掉，这样的话，他就不会问为什么只有一个半土豆。我不妨也尝尝猪肉和卷心菜，要是再吃掉另一个土豆，他肯定以为她根本就没做土豆。于是，第二个土豆在我的嘴里融化了，我忍不住再尝一小片卷心菜，再尝一小块猪肉。现在已经所剩无几了，这一定会引起他的怀疑，所以，我不妨全吃掉吧。现在我该怎么办？外婆会打死我的，妈妈得把我在家里关一年。比尔。盖文会把我埋在石灰里。我就说一条狗在码头路上袭击了我，它吃掉了所有的午饭，我逃得快，没被它吃掉算我幸运。噢，是这样吗？比尔。盖文问，那为什么有一小片卷心菜沾在你的嘴角？那条狗用它吃过卷心菜的嘴舔你啦？回家告诉你外婆，你吃光了我的饭菜，我要饿倒在石灰窑里了。她会杀了我的。告诉她先给我送来一些午饭，再杀你。要是你不马上去把午饭给我拿来，我就杀了你，把你的尸体扔进石灰里，让你妈妈哭你都见不着尸体。外婆问：你干吗又把饭盒拿回来了？他可以自己带回

他想再要些饭菜。再要些饭菜是什么意思？耶稣在上，他难道不能自己来？他要饿倒在石灰窑里了。你是在跟我开玩笑吧？他说再给他随便送些午饭。我不干，我已经给他送了午饭。他没吃到。他没吃到？为什么没吃到？我吃掉了。我饿了，尝了几口，没忍住。耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟啊。她朝我的头上打了一巴掌，打得我流出了眼泪。她像女鬼似的尖声冲我号叫，在厨房里乱蹦乱跳，威胁要把我拖到牧师、主教那儿去，要是教皇住在街角的话，她就把我拖到他本人那儿去。她切着面包，开始做夹猪肉冻和凉土豆的三明治，还不停向我比画手里的刀。把这些三明治拿给比尔。盖文，要是你敢再多瞧它们一眼，我就扒了你的皮。当然喽，她不会不去跟妈妈讲的。她们达成一致，我

弥补这可怕罪过的惟一办法，就是无偿为比尔。盖文送两星期的饭。我每天要把饭盒带回来，这就意味着我要坐在那里，眼巴巴地看着他把好吃的塞进嘴里，他又是个不会问我脑袋上有没有长嘴的人。每天我把饭盒带回来，外婆就让我跪在圣心塑像前，向耶稣道歉，而这一切，都是因为比尔。盖文这个新教徒。妈妈说：我是香烟的受害者，你们的爸爸也是。家里可能会缺茶和面包，但妈妈和爸爸总是能设法弄到香烟———"忍冬"。他们在早上和喝茶的时间必须抽烟。他们每天都告诫我们永远不应该抽烟，抽烟对肺有害，对胸部有害，不利于成长。然而，他们却坐在炉火旁抽个没完没了。妈妈说：要是让我看到你的嘴巴叼着香烟，我就打烂你的脸。他们告诉我们，香烟会腐蚀牙齿，他们不是说谎，他们嘴里的牙齿已经变黄、变黑，一个接一个脱落。爸爸说他的牙齿有一个大洞，足够住一窝麻雀了。他没剩几颗牙了，只好去诊所拔牙，申请镶一套假牙。戴着新镶的牙回家时，他故作微笑，露出那又大又白的新牙，俨然一副美国佬的派头。每当在炉火旁给我们讲鬼故事，他就把下排牙齿推到上嘴唇，都挨到了鼻子，简直把

我们的魂儿吓飞了。妈妈的牙齿也糟透了，她只好去巴灵顿医院将它们一次统统拔掉。回到家，她的嘴里塞着一块布，布上鲜血淋漓。她不得不通宵坐在炉火旁，因为牙龈充血时是不能躺下的，否则会让你在睡梦中窒息。她说等牙不出血了，她就要彻底戒烟。不过，这会儿她得抽一口，止止痛。她要小马拉奇去凯瑟琳。奥康纳小店，问老板娘能不能赊给她五支香烟，等星期四爸爸领来救济金就还她。要是有人能从凯瑟琳那里弄到香烟的话，那就是小马拉奇，妈妈说他有迷人的魅力。她对我说：派你去是没用的，瞧瞧你那张长脸，还有跟你爸爸一模一样的那种古怪举止。等血止住，牙龈痊愈了，妈妈去诊所镶了假牙。她说戴上新牙就不抽烟了，但她的话从来没算数过。新牙磨损她的牙龈，很疼，抽两口"忍冬"会好受些。等我们弄来香烟，她就和爸爸坐在炉子旁抽烟。他们一说话，牙齿就啪嗒啪嗒直响。他们来回动弹下巴，想止住这种声音，但这只能让情况更糟。他们咒骂牙医和都柏林那些做假牙的人，骂人的时候，牙齿又开始啪嗒啪嗒地响。爸爸说这些假牙是给都柏林的有钱人做的，因为戴着不合适，便赐给了利默里克的穷人。这些人是不会在乎的，反正你是个穷人，也没什么可

嚼的。而且，管它怎样，你嘴里能镶上牙，就该千恩万谢了。要是他们说话时间太久，牙龈就会疼痛，他们只好把假牙拿出来，然后凹陷着面孔坐在火旁继续说话。每天晚上临睡前，他们都要把假牙放在厨房的果酱瓶里，用水泡着。小马拉奇想知道为什么要这样，爸爸告诉他是为了清洁，而妈妈说：不是，不能戴着假牙睡觉，一旦假牙滑脱，会把你憋死的。正是这假牙让小马拉奇进了巴灵顿医院，也让我跟着做了一次手术。半夜的时候，小马拉奇小声问我：你想下楼去看看咱们能不能戴上假牙吗？假牙太大，我们很难把它放进嘴里。可是，小马拉奇不死心。他强行把爸爸的上排假牙塞进嘴里，却怎么也弄不出来了。他的嘴唇往后缩着，假牙弄得嘴巴大大地咧着，看上去就像电影里的怪物，惹得我哈哈大笑。往外拔假牙的时候，他嘴里发出"呃...呃..." 的呼噜声，眼泪都涌了出来。他越是"呃...呃..." 地呼噜，我就笑得越厉害，爸爸在楼上喊了起来：你们在干什么？小马拉奇向楼上跑去，我听见了爸爸和妈妈的笑声。看到假牙可能会憋死小马拉奇，他们立即停止大笑，双双用手指往外拽假牙。小马拉奇吓坏了，发出绝望的"呃...呃..."声。妈妈说：我们

得送他去医院。爸爸说他去送。他叫我跟去，医生可能会问什么问题。因为我比小马拉奇大，意思就是麻烦一定是我惹的。爸爸抱着小马拉奇在街道上狂奔，我尽力跟上他。满脸泪水的小马拉奇趴在爸爸的肩膀上，看着后面的我，爸爸的假牙在他的嘴里凸着，我心里充满了歉意。巴灵顿医院的医生说：不用担心。他往小马拉奇的嘴里喷了点油，就把假牙拿出来了。然后，他看了看我，问爸爸：这个孩子干吗老张着嘴？爸爸说：那是他的习惯，站着的时候就张着嘴。医生说：到我这儿来。他检查了一下我的鼻子、耳朵和咽喉，又摸了摸我的脖子。是扁桃体，他说，扁桃体增生，得拿出来，越快越好。不然的话，等他长大后，嘴巴就会张得跟靴子口似的，活像个白痴。第二天，小马拉奇因为被假牙卡住，得到一大块太妃糖作为犒劳，我却得去医院做手术，好让嘴巴能闭紧。星期六早上，妈妈喝完茶，说：你要去学跳舞。跳舞？为什么？你七岁了，举行完你的首次圣餐仪式，现在该是学跳舞的时候了。我要带你去凯瑟琳街奥康纳太太的爱尔兰舞蹈班。你每个星期六都得去，免得你在大街上闲

逛，也免得你和一帮小痞子在利默里克四处乱窜。她让我去洗脸，不要忘了洗洗耳朵和脖子，梳梳头发，擤擤鼻子，去掉我脸上的那种表情。什么表情？甭管它，去掉就是了，穿上袜子和首次圣餐日穿的皮鞋。她说这双鞋让我给毁了，因为我见到盒盒罐罐和石子什么的，从来不放过。她站在圣文森特保罗协会的门前，排队为我和小马拉奇讨靴子，好像就是为了让我们把靴子踢破。你爸爸说学习祖先的歌舞永远不嫌早。祖先是什么？甭管它，她说，去跳你的舞吧。如果我得为爱尔兰唱歌和跳舞，那还怎么为爱尔兰而死呢？我奇怪他们为什么从来不说你要为爱尔兰吃糖果，为爱尔兰待在家里不去上学，为爱尔兰去游泳。妈妈说：不要耍小聪明，不然，我揪你的耳朵。西瑞尔。本森也学跳舞。他赢遍全爱尔兰的比赛，各种奖章从肩头一直垂到膝盖。他穿着藏红色的小褶裙，动人极了。他是他妈妈的光荣，名字时常出现在报头。你可以断定，他能往家里带回不少英镑。你看不见他在街头漫步，见到什么就踢，直踢得脚趾都钻出靴子。啊，他可不会这么干，他是个好孩子，一直为他可怜的妈妈跳舞。

妈妈把破旧的毛巾浸湿，擦洗我的脸，擦得我的脸生疼。她把毛巾缠在手指上，插进我的耳朵，说里面有太多的耳垢，都可以种土豆了。她弄湿我的头发，让它服帖，叫我闭嘴，不要鬼叫，这些舞蹈课每个星期六要花去她六便士，这些钱我本可以给比尔。盖文送饭挣来的。天晓得，她几乎承担不起这些钱。我试着劝说她：啊，妈妈，你不必送我去舞蹈学校，这样你就可以抽上不错的"忍冬"，喝上一杯茶啦。可她说：哈，你挺聪明是不是？就算我得戒烟，你也要给我去跳舞。要是让伙伴们看到母亲拖着我穿过街道，去爱尔兰舞蹈班，那我可丢尽脸面了。他们以为跳舞不错，认为你就是弗雷德。阿斯泰尔，因为你可以和琴吉。罗杰斯满银幕地跳舞。其实爱尔兰舞蹈里没有琴吉。罗杰斯，你不可能到处去跳。你得笔直着身子站起、蹲下，两臂紧贴着身体，上下左右踢腿，而且始终板着脸。帕。基廷姨父说，爱尔兰舞蹈看起来就像在屁眼里插根钢棍似的，可我不敢对妈妈这么说，她会打死我的。奥康纳太太那里有个留声机，播放着爱尔兰吉格舞曲或是里尔舞曲。男孩和女孩跟着转圈跳，踢着腿，两臂紧贴着身体两侧。奥康纳太太是个高大肥胖的女人，

她停下唱片给我们示范舞步时，从下颏到脚踝的肥肉都起伏颤动着。我真奇怪，她怎么能教舞蹈呢？她走到母亲跟前，说：那么，这就是小弗兰基啦？我想我们这儿又有一个未来的舞蹈家了。孩子们，我们这儿有未来的舞蹈家吗？有，奥康纳太太。妈妈说：我带了六便士，奥康纳太太。噢，好的，迈考特太太，先拿一会儿。她一跩一跩地走到桌子那里，拿来一个小黑孩的头，它有鬈曲的头发，大大的眼睛，通红的厚嘴唇，嘴巴张着。她要我把那六便士放进这张嘴里，然后趁小黑孩咬我之前，赶快把手缩回来。所有的男孩和女孩看着我，脸上带着窃笑。我把六便士丢了进去，在那张嘴"啪"地闭上之前，赶快抽回手。奥康纳太太喘着粗气，笑着对母亲说：这东西很好玩，不是吗？妈妈说是很好玩。她吩咐我要遵守纪律，回家后好好练习。我可不想留在这个地方，在这儿，奥康纳太太自己不接那六便士，让我差点把手丢进那个小黑孩的嘴里；我可不想留在这个地方，在这儿，你得和男孩女孩站成一排，昂首挺胸，两手紧贴身体两侧，目光直视前方，不能低头；抬起你的脚，抬起你的脚，看着西瑞

尔，看着西瑞尔。西瑞尔就在那里，一身藏红色的小褶裙，上面的奖章丁当直响，有这种奖章，有那种奖章；女孩们都爱西瑞尔，奥康纳太太也爱西瑞尔，不正是他给她带来了声誉吗？不正是她教给他每一个舞步的吗？啊，跳吧，西瑞尔，跳吧，啊，耶稣。他的身影浮满了整个房间，他就是天使下凡。不要皱眉头，弗兰基。迈考特，不然，你的脸就成了一磅牛肚；跳啊，弗兰基，跳啊，看在耶稣的分上，抬高你的脚，一二三四五六七，一二三呀一二三，玛拉，你能帮帮弗兰基。迈考特吗？让他的脚完全跟上节奏。帮他一下，玛拉。玛拉是个大约十岁的高个子女孩。她露出雪白的牙齿，朝我跳过来，舞蹈服是黄黄绿绿的图案，想必是很久以前的货色。她说：把手给我，小男孩。她带着我绕房间转起来，直转得我头晕眼花，成了十足的木偶。我羞愧难当，傻里傻气，眼看就要淌眼泪了。这时唱片停了下来，只剩下留声机呼哧呼哧的声音，我总算得救了。奥康纳太太说：啊，谢谢你，玛拉，下个星期，西瑞尔，你可以给弗兰基示范一些让你出名的舞步。下个星期，孩子们，不要忘了给那个小黑孩的六便士。

男孩女孩们一起离开了。我走下楼，出了门，希望伙伴们不会看见我跟穿着小褶裙的男孩和牙齿雪白、穿着过时服装的女孩走在一起。妈妈正在和布瑞迪。汉农———她隔壁的朋友一起喝茶。妈妈问：你学会了什么？她让我绕着厨房跳起来，一二三四五六七，一二三呀一二三。她和布瑞迪痛快地笑起来。对于初学的你来说，这不算太差，一个月后，你就会像一个标准的西瑞尔。本森了。妈妈说。我不想成为西瑞尔。本森，我想成为弗雷德。阿斯泰尔。她们突然变得歇斯底里，笑得连嘴里的茶水都喷了出来。耶稣爱他，布瑞迪说，他难道还算不上野心勃勃吗？你多像弗雷德。阿斯泰尔哟。妈妈说弗雷德。阿斯泰尔每个星期六都去上课，从不把靴子踢得露出脚趾来。要是我想像他那样，就必须每个星期六去奥康纳太太那里。第四个星期六的早上，比利。坎贝尔跑来敲我家的门：迈考特太太，弗兰基能出来玩吗？妈妈告诉他：不行，比利，弗兰基要去上舞蹈课。他在巴拉克山下等着我，想知道我为什么要去跳舞，谁都知道跳舞是件娘娘腔的事，最终我要像西瑞尔。

本森那样，穿着小褶裙，佩戴着奖章，在女孩堆里跳来跳去的。他说下次我就该坐在厨房里织袜子了，他说跳舞会毁了我，我再也不适合玩足球、英式橄榄球和爱尔兰式足球等运动，因为跳舞会让人像个娘们儿似的跑步，人人见了都要耻笑的。我告诉他，我要跟跳舞玩完，我口袋里有给奥康纳太太的六便士，她要我把它搁进小黑孩的嘴巴里，现在我要去利瑞克电影院。六便士可以让我们俩看场电影，还能剩下两便士，买两块"克利夫"牌太妃糖。看着《荒野情天》，我们度过了一段相当舒心的时光。爸爸和妈妈在炉子旁坐着，他们问我今天都学了什么舞步，叫什么名字。我已经跳过《围困恩尼斯》和《利默里克的围墙》，这是我真正学过的舞蹈。现在，我只好临时瞎编了。妈妈说她从没有听说过名叫《围困丁沟》的舞蹈，但既然是我学的，那就开始吧，跳吧。于是，我绕着厨房跳了起来，双手紧贴两侧，并自己编着音乐："嘀嘀哩———啊咿———嘀———啊，咿 ———嘀———啊，咿———嘀，嘀哩———啊，咿 ———嘟———呦———嘟———呦..."爸爸妈妈随着我的脚步适时地打着拍子。爸爸说：哎呀，真是

个不错的舞蹈，你将会成为爱尔兰有分量的舞蹈家，成为为国捐躯者的光荣。妈妈却说：这不值六便士。下个星期看的是乔治。拉夫特主演的电影，再下个星期看的是乔治。奥布瑞恩主演的牛仔片。这一次是詹姆斯。卡格尼的电影，我不能再带比利去了，因为除了"克利夫"太妃糖，我还想再买一块巧克力。我正享受着这无比舒心的时光，一件可怕的事情发生了，一颗牙齿被太妃糖粘了下来，我几乎要疼死了。可我不想浪费这块太妃糖，还是取出牙齿，放进口袋，用另一边牙齿继续嚼着，一边是剧痛的牙齿，另一边是太妃糖的香甜，这让我记起了帕。基廷姨父说过的一句话：有些时候，你真不知道是该说脏字，还是装瞎我得回家了，但是有些担心，缺了一颗牙，妈妈不可能看不见。母亲什么都知道，她总是检查我的嘴巴，看看是不是有什么疾病。她就坐在炉子旁，爸爸也坐在那里，他们问起了老问题：学的什么舞？叫什么名字？我告诉他们今天学的是《科克的围墙》，说完便绕着厨房跳了起来，还哼着瞎编的曲子，我的牙疼死了。母亲说：《科克的围墙》，我的"啊咿"，没有这样的舞蹈。爸爸说：到这儿来，站到我面前来。说实话，你

今天去上舞蹈课了吗？我没法再撒谎了，我的牙疼死了，满嘴是血。再说，我也知道他们什么都明白了，现在他们正把一切告诉我呢。舞蹈学校的一个男孩尾随我，看见我去了利瑞克电影院，就向奥康纳太太报告了。奥康纳给家里送来一张便条，说她有年头没看见我了，我还好吗？说我前途无量，完全可以踏着西瑞尔。本森的足迹前进。爸爸不关心我的牙齿怎么啦，他说我需要忏悔，拖着我去了至圣救主会教堂。今天是星期六，全天都可以忏悔。他说我是个坏孩子，他为我感到羞耻，我不去学吉格、里尔这些爱尔兰民族舞蹈，却跑去看电影。不幸的几百年里，男女老少可是为了这些舞蹈在前赴后继啊。他说有许多年轻人被绞死了，现在正在石灰坑里发霉，他们巴不得能起来跳爱尔兰舞蹈呢。那位牧师很老了，我不得不大声对他讲述我的罪过。他说我没有去上舞蹈课，却去了电影院，所以是个坏蛋。他个人认为，跳舞和看电影差不多一样坏，一样会激起罪恶的念头。但就算跳舞是件可憎的事情，我还是有罪，我拿了母亲的六便士，还撒谎，火热的炼狱正等着像我这样的人呢。他告诉我，要念十次玫瑰经，祈求上帝的原谅，因为你正在地狱的门槛上跳舞

哩，孩子。我过了七岁、八岁、九岁，快十岁了，可爸爸依然没有工作。他继续在早上喝茶，去职业介绍所签领失业救济金，到卡内基图书馆看报纸，去乡村做他的长途散步。要是他在利默里克水泥厂或者兰克面粉厂找到工作，不出三周就会丢掉它。他丢掉工作，是由于第三周的星期五，他去酒吧喝光了薪水，星期六耽误了半天的班。妈妈说：他为什么就不能像利默里克巷子里的其他男人那样呢？他们在晚祷钟敲响六点前就回家，如数交出自己的薪水，然后换上干净的衬衫，喝茶，再从妻子那里要上几个先令，去酒吧喝上一两杯。妈妈对布瑞迪。汉农说，爸爸是不可能那样的，他不会那样的。她说他那个样子真是蠢透了，他去酒吧同别的男人较劲喝，在家里，他的孩子却吃不上一顿像样的饭，饿得肚皮贴着脊梁骨。他向全世界吹嘘他为爱尔兰卖过力，不为名也不为利；一旦祖国召唤他，他愿意为爱尔兰而死，他抱憾自己只有一次生命可以献给他不幸的国家；要是有人不以为然，他就让他们站出来，好好解决一下这个问题。啊，不，妈妈说，他们不会不以为然，他们不会站出

来，这是一帮在酒吧里游手好闲的叫花子、收破烂的和白眼狼。他们说他是高贵的人，尽管他是个北佬，能从他这样一位爱国者手里接受一杯酒，还是不胜荣幸。妈妈对布瑞迪。汉农说：上帝作证，我不知道该怎么办。失业救济金一周有十九先令六便士，房租是六先令六便士，剩下的十三先令要供五个人的吃穿，到冬天还有取暖的费用。布瑞迪一边抽着她的"忍冬"，一边喝着茶，她说上帝是仁慈的。妈妈说，她相信上帝对某些地方的某些人是仁慈的，但在利默里克的巷子里，近来却看不见他的影子。布瑞迪笑了：啊，安琪拉，说这种话你要下地狱的。妈妈说：我不已经是在地狱里了吗，布瑞迪？她们都笑了，继续一边喝茶，一边抽她们的"忍冬"，说香烟是她们惟一的慰藉。的确是的。 "问题奎格雷"告诉我，星期五我必须去至圣救主会教堂参加"总兄弟会"的男童部。他说你必须去，不能说不，街头巷尾那些父亲领取救济金或干体力活儿的男孩都得去。

"问题"说：你父亲是从北爱尔兰来的外国人，他无所谓，但你还是得参加。谁都知道，利默里克是爱尔兰最神圣的城市，因为它有"圣家"的"总兄弟会"，这是世上最大的宗教团体。任何一座城市都可能有兄弟会，但只有利默里克有"总兄弟会"。一星期里有五个晚上，我们这个兄弟会的人挤满至圣救主会教堂，其中三次是男人，一次是女人，一次是男孩。会上有祝祷式，用英语、爱尔兰语和拉丁语唱赞美诗；有著名的至圣救主会牧师所做的最有力度的布道。这是拯救成千上万的异教徒免于下地狱的布道。 "问题"说，你必须得参加兄弟会，好让你母亲能告诉圣文森特保罗协会的人，你是一个虔诚的天主教徒。他说他父亲就是一个忠实的会员，所以得到了一个有退休金的好工作，负责打扫火车站的厕所。等他长大了，他也会得到一个好工作，除非他出逃，去加入加拿大皇家骑警队。那样的话，他就可以唱着"我要一直呼唤你哦哦哦"，像身患肺病的尼尔森。艾迪对珍妮特。麦克唐纳唱的那样，在沙发上死去。要是他带我去兄弟会，办公室的人会把他的名字记在一个大本子上，将来有一天，他可能被提拔到一个分部的最高位

置上，这是除了骑警服之外，他一生中最想要的了。

"最高位置"就是一个小组的头儿，这个小组由一条巷子里的三十名男孩组成，每个小组用一位圣徒的名字命名，圣徒的画像被画在一个盾形的牌子上，牌子粘在最高位置坐席旁的木杆顶上。"最高位置"和他的助手负责考勤，监视我们，万一我们在祝祷式上发笑，或者犯下其他渎神的罪过，他们好狠敲我们的脑袋。要是有一晚你没来，办公室的人就想知道是什么原因，想知道你是不是在脱离兄弟会。也许他会对办公室的另一个人说：我想我们的小朋友喝了汤。对利默里克或所有爱尔兰天主教徒来说，这是最大的罪名，这种事只发生在大饥荒年代。要是你缺席两次，办公室的人就会给你送去一张黄色的传票，要求你当面解释原因。要是你缺席三次，他就会派出一支由你那一组的五六个大男孩组成的小分队，让他们在大街上搜查，确保在兄弟会跪下为迷失的灵魂祷告的时候，你没有跑出去享乐。小分队会到你家去，告诉你母亲，你那不死的灵魂很危险。有的母亲很着急，可有的母亲会说：给我滚开，要不我就出去在恁们屁股上一顿好揍。这些都属于兄弟会中的不良母亲，兄弟会的头儿会说，

我们应该为她们祈祷，她们将会看到自己的错误。最不妙的事情是兄弟会的头儿高瑞神父本人的造访。他会站在巷子的入口，用他那改变了成千上万异教徒信仰的声音咆哮：哪个是弗兰克。迈考特的家？就算他的口袋里装着你家的地址，你住在哪儿他也很清楚，他也要可着嗓门咆哮。他咆哮是想让全世界都知道你在脱离兄弟会，你那不死的灵魂处在危险中。母亲们都很害怕，父亲们会小声说：我不在，我不在。他们要确保你从此按时去兄弟会，这样你才不至于在邻居背后的指指点点中丢尽脸面。 "问题"带我去了圣芬巴尔小组，"最高位置"告诉我坐在那儿，不要出声。他叫德克兰。科洛比，十四岁，前额上长了一个包，看上去像是角。他那粗粗的淡黄色眉毛连在一块，悬在眼上方，他的胳膊悬到膝盖那里。他告诉我，他正在将这个小组打造成兄弟会里最好的小组，要是我缺席，他就要打烂我的屁股，把屁股碎片送给我的母亲。没有缺席的理由，因为另一个小组里有个男孩都快死了，还被用担架抬过去。他说：要是你缺席，那最好就是因为死，不是你家里的人死了，而是你本人死了。你听清我说的了吗？我听清了，德克兰。

这个小组的男孩告诉我，要是没有人缺席， "最高位置" 就会得到奖励。德克兰想尽快离开学校，在帕特里克街的坎诺克大商店卖油毡纸。他的叔叔方赛已经卖了好多年油毡纸了，挣到的钱足够在都柏林开一家自己的商店了，他的三个儿子在那儿卖油毡纸。要是德克兰的"最高位置"坐得很好，小组没有人缺席的话，高瑞神父可以轻而易举地给他一个工作作为奖励。所以我们一旦缺席，德克兰就要毁掉我们。他说：没人能阻挡我去卖油毡纸。德克兰喜欢"问题奎格雷"，允许他星期五晚上偶尔不来，因为"问题"说过，德克兰，等我长大结婚，我要用油毡纸盖房子，全部从你那里进货。小组里别的男孩也想和德克兰耍这个把戏，但是他说：走开，恁们能有一个尿壶撒尿就够运气的了，甭想有什么油毡纸了。爸爸说他在我这个年纪，已经为弥撒仪式服务好几年了。对我来说，现在是当辅祭①的时候了。妈妈说：有什么用？这孩子连上学穿的衣服都没有，更别提上圣坛了。爸爸说辅祭的袍子会把衣服罩住，她说我们没钱买袍子，也没钱每个星期洗它们。他说上帝会给的，他让我跪在厨房的地板上。他扮演

牧师，因为他脑子里有全套的弥撒祷文，他说一句我答一句。他用拉丁语说上句，"我将进入天主的圣坛前"，我就得接上下文，"到使我青春欢乐的天主前"。每天晚上喝完茶后，我就跪着学拉丁语，他不让我动弹，直到学得没一点错误为止。妈妈说他至少可以让我坐下，他却说拉丁语是神圣的，需要跪着学习和背诵。你见过教皇一边讲拉丁语，一边坐着喝茶吗？拉丁语很难，我的膝盖又疼又痒，真想到巷子里玩一会儿，尽管我仍然想当辅祭，帮助牧师在圣器室穿上祭袍，像我的伙伴吉米。克拉克那样，身披红白相间的耀眼袍子走上圣坛；用拉丁语应答牧师，把那本大书从圣体龛的一边移到另一边；往圣杯里倒水和葡萄酒，往牧师的手上倒水；献祭礼时打铃，祝祷式上跪下、鞠躬、上香；牧师布道时，正儿八经地坐在一边，掌心放在膝上。在圣约瑟教堂里，人人看着我，仰慕我。两个星期来，我已经把弥撒仪式都记在脑子里了，是该到圣约瑟教堂去找司事的时候了，斯蒂芬。凯里是辅祭的负责人。妈妈给我补袜子，还往炉子里多加了些煤，用来加热熨斗，给我熨衬衫。她烧了热水，把我的头、脖子、手、膝盖，和每一寸露在外面的皮肤

都擦洗了一遍，弄得我的皮肤火辣辣地疼。她对爸爸说，不想让人家说她的儿子脏兮兮地登上了圣坛。她真希望我的膝盖上没有那些伤疤，那是我乱跑乱踢盒盒罐罐，佯装自己是世上最牛的足球运动员时跌倒弄的。她真希望我们家能有一点头油，别只用水和口水制服我那像草席上的黑麦秆一样支棱着的头发。她警告我去圣约瑟教堂时，说话要大声一些，不要用英语或拉丁语咕咕哝哝的。她说：非常遗憾，你的首次圣餐礼服穿不上了，不过你不用害羞，你出身于迈考特和西恩家族这样良好的血统。我母亲的娘家盖佛尔家族，在利默里克曾经拥有数不清的土地，后来被英国人抢走了，给了伦敦的强盗。爸爸拉着我的手，穿过几条街道，人们都看着我们，因为我们在反复说着拉丁语。他敲了敲圣器室的门，对斯蒂芬。凯里说：这是我儿子弗兰克，懂得拉丁语，想当辅祭。斯蒂芬。凯里看看他，又看看我。他说：现在没空缺。说完便关上了门。爸爸仍然拉着我的手，把我的手攥得生疼，我都要喊出声来了。回家的路上，他一言不发。他摘掉帽子，坐到炉子旁，点着一支"忍冬"。妈妈也在抽烟。怎么，

她说，他能当上辅祭吗？没空缺。噢，她继续抽着她的"忍冬"，我告诉你这是怎么一回事吧，她说，这是阶级歧视。他们不想让穷巷子里的男孩上圣坛，他们不想要满膝疤痕、头发支棱着的孩子。啊，不行。他们想要的是抹着头油、穿着新鞋，而且父亲西装革履、打着领带、工作稳定的漂亮男孩。就是这么回事，这种势利的信仰实在很难坚持。唉呀，没错。咳，唉呀没错个屁，都是你说的，你可以去找牧师，告诉他，你有一个满脑子都是拉丁语的儿子，他为什么当不上辅祭？他要那些拉丁语有什么用？唉呀，他长大也许会当上一名牧师的。我问他，我是不是可以出去玩玩，当然，他说，出去玩吧。妈妈说：你出去玩更省事！

妈妈的歌唱奥尼尔先生是学校四年级的老师，我们都叫他"小不点"，因为他个头很小，像个小数点。他在惟一一间带有讲台的教室里讲课，这样他可以站得比我们高一些，

用他的白腊树枝威胁我们，让所有的人看着他削苹果皮。九月开学的第一天，他在黑板上写了三个打算一直留到年底的单词：欧几里得、几何学、白痴。他说要是他抓到哪个男孩动了这几个单词，那个男孩就将靠一只手度过余生。他说任何一个不懂欧几里得定理的人都是白痴，现在，跟着我说，任何一个不懂欧几里得定理的人都是白痴。当然，我们都知道什么是白痴，因为老师们一直告诉我们，我们就是白痴。布兰登。奎格雷举起了手：先生，什么是定理？还有什么是欧几里得？我们期待着小不点向布兰登抡起棍子，就像别的老师在被提问时所做的那样。但是，他却带着微笑望着布兰登：噢，好吧，这儿有个男孩有不少的问题。你叫什么名字，孩子？布兰登。奎格雷，先生。这将是个前程远大的孩子，他的前程会怎么样，孩子们？远大，先生。确实，他将会前程远大。想认识欧几里得的好处、优雅和美妙的孩子，只能走"上进"这条路。这孩子只

能走哪一条路，孩子们？上进，先生。没有欧几里得，孩子们，数学就是站不住脚的可怜虫；没有欧几里得，我们就无法远游；没有欧几里得，自行车就不会有轮子；没有欧几里得，圣约瑟就不能成为一个木匠，因为木工活儿就是几何学，几何学就是木工活儿；没有欧几里得，咱们这所学校就没法盖起帕迪。克劳海西在我身后咕哝：去他妈的欧几里得。小不点冲他大吼：你，男孩，叫什么名字？克劳海西，先生。啊，这孩子竟然用一只翅膀飞翔，你的另一半教名呢？帕迪。帕迪就完啦？帕迪，先生。那么，帕迪，你在跟迈考特说什么呢？我说我们应该跪下，感谢上帝给了我们欧几里得。说得好，克劳海西，我看见谎言正在你的牙缝里溃烂。我看见了什么？孩子们？谎言，先生。谎言正在怎么样，孩子们？

溃烂，先生。在哪儿？孩子们，在哪儿？在牙缝里。孩子们，欧几里得是一个希腊人。克劳海西，希腊人指的是什么？某一种外国人，先生。克劳海西，你真是个呆瓜。那么，布兰登，你肯定知道希腊人指的是什么？是的，先生，欧几里得是希腊人。小不点冲他微微一笑，他对克劳海西说，他应该以奎格雷为榜样，奎格雷知道希腊人指的是什么。他并排画了两条线，告诉我们这是平行线，既神秘又有魔力的是，它们永远不会相交；就算被延长到无限远，被延长到上帝的肩膀上，它们也不会相交。孩子们，这是一条很长的路，虽然有个德国犹太人正在用他对平行线的见解打翻整个世界。我们听着小不点的讲话，纳闷这些跟德国人到处进军、到处轰炸的世界形势有什么关系。我们不能亲自问他，但可以让布兰登。奎格雷去问。谁都看得出布兰登是老师的宠儿，这说明他可以问任何问题。放学后，我们告诉布兰登明天他必须问个问题：在德国人到处狂

轰滥炸的时候，欧几里得和那些可以永远延长的线有什么用处？布兰登说他不想当老师的宠儿，他不需要这个，他不想问。他害怕要是问了这个问题，小不点会揍他。我们说，要是他不问这个问题，我们就会揍他。第二天，布兰登举起了手。小不点冲他微微一笑。先生，在德国人到处狂轰滥炸的时候，欧几里得和那些可以永远延长的线有什么用处？微笑不见了。啊，布兰登，啊，奎格雷，啊，男孩们，啊，男孩们。他把棍子放到课桌上，站到讲台上，双眼紧闭。欧几里得有什么用处？他说，用处？没有欧几里得，梅塞斯密特战斗机就永远不可能上天；没有欧几里得，喷火式战斗机就不可能在云朵间穿梭。欧几里得给我们带来了好处、美妙和优雅。他给我们带来了什么，孩子们？好处，先生。还有？美妙，先生。还有？优雅，先生。

欧几里得自身是圆满的，用起来也是极灵光的。你们明白了吗，孩子们？我们明白了，先生。我有些怀疑，孩子们，我有些怀疑，孩子们。热爱欧几里得的人就要在这个世界上忍受孤独了。他睁开了眼，叹了口气，你可以看到，他的眼睛里隐隐有一滴泪光。这天，帕迪。克劳海西正要离开学校，却被教五年级的奥狄先生拦住了。奥狄先生问：你，你叫什么名字？克劳海西，先生。你在哪个年级？四年级，先生。那么告诉我，克劳海西，你们老师给你们讲欧几里得了吗？他讲了，先生。他讲的什么？他讲他是希腊人。他当然是希腊人，你这个不可救药的"阿麻蛋"。他还讲了什么？他讲没有欧几里得就没有学校。噢，那他在黑板上画了什么吗？

他并排画了两条"就算落到上帝的肩膀上，也永远不会相交"的线。圣母啊。不是圣母，先生，是上帝的肩膀。我知道，你这个白痴，回家去吧。第二天，我们的教室门口一阵喧哗，奥狄先生在嚷嚷：出来，奥尼尔，你这个投机分子，你这个懦夫。我们都听得清清楚楚，因为门上的玻璃窗碎了。新校长奥哈洛伦先生正在说话：好了，好了，奥狄先生，冷静一下，不要在我们的学生面前争吵嘛。好吧，可是，奥哈洛伦先生，告诉他不要再教几何学了。几何学是五年级的课，不是四年级的课。几何学是我的，告诉他去教长除法，把欧几里得留给我。他的智商只有长除法那个水平。上帝保佑，我不想让这个投机分子毁掉这些孩子的心灵，他站在讲台上乱分苹果皮，搞得学生吃了拉肚子。告诉他欧几里得是我的，奥哈洛伦先生，不然我就给他个下马威。奥哈洛伦先生让奥狄先生先回教室，然后让奥尼尔先生来到过道。奥哈洛伦先生说：怎么样，奥尼尔先生，以前我就要求你离欧几里得远点嘛。你是要求过，奥哈洛伦先生，你不如干脆叫我别吃苹

果了。我得重申，奥尼尔先生，不要再沾欧几里得的边了。奥尼尔先生回到屋里，他的眼睛又泪汪汪的了。他说自从野蛮人入侵的古希腊时代以来，情况没有什么改变，那些野蛮人的名字叫古罗马士兵。自从古希腊时代以来，情况有什么改变，男孩们？每天看着奥尼尔先生削苹果，看着长长的、有红有绿的苹果皮，特别是离他很近，闻到苹果的清香时，那真是一种折磨。要是你那天表现良好，回答出他的问题，他就让你在坐位上吃苹果皮，你就可以大胆地吃，没人来烦你；不像你拿到操场上，他们都会来烦你，给一片，给一片...最后剩给自己的，能有一寸就算很幸运了。有些日子，问题特别难，他就把苹果皮扔进垃圾筐里，折磨我们。他从另一个班借来一个男孩，把垃圾筐里的废纸和苹果皮倒进炉子里烧掉。要不他就留给清洁女工奈莉。哈恩，让她装进帆布袋里全拿走。我们想请求奈莉给我们留着苹果皮，别让老鼠吃了，但她一个人打扫整个学校，已经疲惫不堪了。她冲我们大骂：除了看一帮赖得找苹果皮的烂小子，我这辈子还要干别的呢！走开。

他慢慢地削着苹果皮，环顾四周，脸上带着淡淡的微笑。他拿我们取乐，问：孩子们，你们说我该把这个给窗台上的鸽子吃吗？我们回答：不，先生，鸽子不吃苹果皮。帕迪。克劳海西则大声喊：那会让它们拉稀的，先生，等我们出去，头上该都是它们的稀屎了。克劳海西，你是一个"阿麻蛋"。你知道"阿麻蛋"是什么吗？这是爱尔兰语，克劳海西，你的母语，克劳海西。"阿麻蛋"就是傻瓜，克劳海西。你就是一个"阿麻蛋"。他是什么，孩子们？一个"阿麻蛋"，先生。克劳海西说：奥狄先生就是这样说我的，先生，说我是一个不可救药的"阿麻蛋"。他不再削苹果皮了，开始提问世界上的各种事情，回答最好的孩子获胜。举手，他说，谁是美利坚合众国的总统？全班举起了手，他问了这样一个连"阿麻蛋"都知道的问题，真让我们倒胃口。我们喊：罗斯福。他又说：你，穆尔凯，当我们的主被钉在十字架上，谁站在十字架的下面？

穆尔凯反映很慢：十二使徒，先生。穆尔凯，爱尔兰语里的傻瓜是哪个词来着？ "阿麻蛋"，先生。那你是什么，穆尔凯？ "阿麻蛋"，先生。芬坦。斯莱特瑞举起手：我知道谁站在十字架的下面，先生。芬坦当然知道谁站在十字架的下面，他怎么可能不知道？他总是跟他妈妈跑去做弥撒，他妈妈的虔诚是出名的。她太虔诚了，所以她丈夫只好跑到加拿大伐木去了，乐得一去不返，再也没有音讯。她和芬坦每天晚上跪在厨房念玫瑰经，看各种宗教杂志，如《圣心小信使》、《明灯》、《远东》，还有天主教真理学会印制的每本小册子。他们去做弥撒，领圣餐，风雨无阻；每个星期六他们去耶稣会忏悔，人人都知道，耶稣会感兴趣的是灵修方面的罪过，而不是巷子常听说的那种普通罪过，什么喝醉酒啦，怕肉坏了就在星期五吃掉啦，骂人啦等等。芬坦和他妈妈住在凯瑟琳街，斯莱特瑞太太的邻居都叫她"奉献太太"，因为不管发生了什么事，腿摔断了，茶杯翻了，丈夫不见了，她都说：好吧，现在，我做了奉献，最后无需求得赦罪就

可进入天堂了。芬坦也一样糟糕，要是你在操场上推了他一把或者骂了他，他就会笑笑，对你说他将为你祈祷，将为他的和你的灵魂做奉献。利米国立学校的男孩们不想让芬坦为他们祈祷，威胁说要是发现他在给他们祈祷，就要把他的屁股一顿好揍。他说等他长大了，想当一名圣徒。这真是荒唐，你只有等到死后，才可能成为一名圣徒。他说我们的子孙将会对着他的画像祈祷。一个高个子男孩说：我的子孙会往你的画像上撒尿。芬坦仍是笑笑。他姐姐十七岁跑到英国，人人知道他在家里穿她的罩衫，每个星期六的晚上，他用烧热的铁夹子烫头发，好让自己在星期天的弥撒仪式上更迷人。要是碰见你去做弥撒，他就会说：我的头发难道不迷人吗，弗兰基？他喜欢用"迷人"这个词，别的男孩子不用这个词。他当然知道谁站在十字架的下面，他甚至可能知道他们穿的是什么衣服，吃的是什么早餐呢。此刻，他正告诉奥尼尔先生，是三个玛利亚。小不点说：过来，芬坦，来拿你的奖品。他磨磨蹭蹭地走向讲台，我们简直不敢相信自己的眼睛，他竟拿出一把袖珍小刀，把苹果皮切成小片，一小片一小片地吃，而不是像其他人

那样，一下子整个塞进嘴里。他又举起手：先生，我想把我的苹果分出去一些。苹果，芬坦？不，根本不是。你没有苹果，芬坦，你有的只是苹果皮，只是外皮而已。你的表现还没好到、将来也不会好到能吃整个苹果。别想吃我的苹果，芬坦。刚才我听你说，想把奖品分一些？是的，先生，我想分三片给奎格雷、克劳海西和迈考特。为什么，芬坦？他们是我的朋友，先生。教室里的孩子们讥笑着，你捅捅我，我捅捅你。我觉得好难为情，他们也会说我烫头发，到了操场我会饱受折磨的。他为什么认为我是他的朋友？要是他们说我也穿我姐姐的罩衫，我告诉他们"我没有姐姐"是没用的，他们会说，假如你有姐姐，你就会穿她的罩衫的。在操场那种地方，说什么都是没有用的，总有人有话堵你的嘴。除了照他们的鼻子一拳，你无计可施。可一旦你先打了那个用话堵你的人，那么，这一天到晚都有拳头等着你。奎格雷从芬坦手里接过一小片苹果皮：谢谢，芬坦。全班看着克劳海西，因为他是班上最高最壮的孩子。

要是他说谢谢，那我也说谢谢。结果他说：非常感谢，芬坦。说着，他脸红了。我也说：非常感谢，芬坦。我不想脸红，但控制不住。所有的孩子又讥笑起来，我真想揍他们一顿。放学后，男孩子们冲芬坦喊道：嗨，芬坦，你要回家烫你那迷人的头发吗？芬坦笑笑，爬上操场的台阶。一个大个子男孩在第七个台阶上对帕迪。克劳海西说：要是你没把头剃光的话，我猜你也会烫头发的。帕迪说：闭嘴。那个男孩说：啊，还想命令我？帕迪正想给他一拳，却被那个男孩打到鼻子，他倒在地上，血流了出来。我想打那个大个男孩，可他掐住我的喉咙，把我的头往墙上猛撞，撞得我眼前直冒金星。帕迪捂着鼻子哭着走了，大个子男孩把我推向他。芬坦在校外的大街上，他说：啊，弗兰西斯，弗兰西斯，啊，帕特里克，帕特里克，怎么回事？你哭什么，帕特里克？帕迪说：我饿了，因为我饿晕了，所以谁也打不过，我真丢人。芬坦说：跟我走，帕特里克，我妈妈会给我们吃的东西。帕迪说：啊，不，我的鼻子还在流血呢。不用担心，她会往你的鼻子里放些东西，或者在你脖子后面放把钥匙。弗兰西斯，你也得来，你看上去总

是很饿的样子。啊，不，芬坦。啊，行，弗兰西斯。好吧，芬坦。芬坦家的公寓像座礼拜堂，一面墙上有两张画：《耶稣的圣心》和《玛利亚纯洁的心》。耶稣正在展露他的心，那颗心被荆棘冠、火和血包围着。他的头向左歪着，脸上是深深的悲哀。贞女玛利亚也在展露着她的心，要是那颗心上没有荆棘冠的话，看起来倒是赏心悦目的。她的头向右歪着，面露哀痛，因为她知道自己的儿子将有一个悲惨的结局。另一面墙上也有一张画，画的是一个身穿棕色长袍的男人，许多鸟儿栖息在他的左右。芬坦问：你知道这是谁吗，弗兰西斯？不知道？这可是你的保护神啊，是阿西西的圣弗兰西斯。你知道今天是什么日子吗？十月四号。没错，今天是他的节日，对你来说很特别，你可以向圣弗兰西斯要任何东西，他都会给你。所以今天我让你来。坐吧，帕特里克，坐吧，弗兰西斯。斯莱特瑞太太拿着玫瑰经念珠进来了。见到芬坦的新朋友，她很高兴，问我们，想吃奶酪三明治吗？看看

你可怜的鼻子，帕特里克。她用玫瑰经念珠上的十字架碰了碰他的鼻子，祷告了几句。她告诉我们，这些玫瑰经念珠被教皇本人赐福过，要是需要，都可以让河水断流，更别提帕特里克那可怜的鼻子了。芬坦说他不想吃三明治，因为他正在斋戒，要为那个殴打帕迪和我的孩子祈祷。斯莱特瑞太太在他的头上吻了一下，说他是一名来自天堂的圣徒。她问我们想不想往三明治上抹点芥末，我说我从没听说往奶酪面包上抹芥末的，不过愿意尝尝。帕迪说：我不要，我长这么大还没吃过三明治呢。我们都笑了起来。我奇怪一个人怎么可能像帕迪那样，活到十岁还从没吃过三明治。帕迪也笑了起来，露出又白又黑又绿的牙齿。我们一边吃三明治，一边喝茶，帕迪问厕所在哪儿。芬坦带着他穿过卧室，去了后院。他们回来后，帕迪说：我得回家了，我妈妈要打死我的。我在外面等你，弗兰基。现在我也需要上厕所了，芬坦领我来到后院。他说：我也得上厕所。我解开扣子，却怎么也尿不出来，因为他正在看着我。他说：你在愚弄人，你根本不需要上厕所。我喜欢看你，弗兰西斯，不过仅此而已。我不想犯下任何罪过，我们的坚信礼明年就该到了。

我和帕迪一起离开。我快要憋不住了，跑到一间车库的后面尿了起来。帕迪在等我，我们走到哈特斯汤吉街时，他说：这三明治很棒，弗兰基，他和他妈妈都很虔诚。不过，我不想再去芬坦家了，因为他很奇怪，是不是，弗兰基？是的，帕迪。你解开裤子时，他看着你的样子挺古怪，不是吗，弗兰基？是的，帕迪。几天后，帕迪小声说：芬坦。斯莱特瑞说我们可以去他家吃午餐，他妈妈不在家，她给他做好了午餐。他可以让我们也吃一些，他还有味道不错的牛奶。我们去吗？芬坦的坐位和我们隔两排，他知道帕迪在跟我说什么。他上下挑动着眉毛，好像在说：你们来吗？我小声对帕迪说去，他朝芬坦点了点头。老师呵斥我们不要挤眉弄眼、交头接耳，否则的话，白腊树枝就要在我们的脊梁上唱歌了。操场上的孩子看到我们三个走出去，便开始传话了：啊，上帝，看看芬坦和他的跟屁虫。帕迪问道：芬坦，什么是跟屁虫？芬坦回答：就是古代一个坐在角落里

的男孩，就这么回事。他要我们在厨房的餐桌旁坐下，说要是我们喜欢，可以看他的连环画《电影娱乐》、《开心豆》、《花花公子》，也可以看宗教杂志或他妈妈的传奇杂志，像《奇迹》、《神谕》等。这些杂志总是讲这样的故事：贫穷但美丽的女工爱上伯爵的公子，要么就是伯爵的公子爱上贫穷但美丽的女工，后来女工怀着失望的心情跳进泰晤士河，却被一个路过的木匠搭救；木匠贫穷却很诚实，他爱上了女工，而他其实是一个公爵的公子，地位比伯爵还要高；这样，这个贫穷的女工现在成了公爵夫人，终于可以小看曾鄙弃她的伯爵了；她在什洛普郡幸福地照看着一万两千英亩的玫瑰，对她那可怜的老母亲也很仁慈，而她母亲却拒绝离开寒碜的小农舍去享受荣华富贵。帕迪说：我什么都不想看，全是骗人的东西，这些故事都是骗人的。芬坦掀掉盖着三明治和牛奶的布，那牛奶浓浓的，凉凉的，很馋人，三明治面包几乎和牛奶一样白。帕迪问：这是火腿三明治吗？芬坦说：是的。帕迪说：这三明治看上去真好吃呀，要抹点芥末吗？芬坦点点头，把三明治切成两块，芥末酱渗了出来。他舔着流到手指上的芥末，喝了一大口牛奶，再把三明治切成四块、八块、十六块，然后从一堆杂志

里抽出一本《圣心小信使》，一边吃小块三明治，喝着牛奶，一边看杂志。我和帕迪眼巴巴地看着他吃，我知道帕迪正在纳闷，我们坐在这里到底是为了什么？到底是为了什么？我自己也在纳闷，希望芬坦会把盘子递给我们，但是他并没有。他喝完牛奶，盘子里还剩下几块三明治，他又用那块布盖上，还用那嗲嗲的姿势擦嘴唇。然后，他低下头，为自己祝福，说着饭后的感恩词。上帝呀，我们上学要迟到了。临出门，他又用悬在门上的陶瓷洗礼盆里的圣水为自己祝福了一遍，门上还贴着玛利亚的一张小像，她展露着自己的心，并且用两根手指指着，好像我们看不见似的。我和帕迪跑去奈莉。哈恩那里取面包和牛奶已经来不及了。要一直等到放学回家后才能吃上面包，我不知道我该如何熬过这段时间。帕迪在学校门口停下来，他说：我不能饿着肚子进去，那样我要睡觉的，小不点会打死我。芬坦很焦急：快点，快点，我们要迟到了。快点，弗兰西斯，赶紧吧。我不进去了，芬坦，你吃了午餐，可我们什么都没吃。帕迪发火了：你他妈的是个骗子，芬坦，他妈的小气鬼，有什么他妈的三明治，他妈的耶稣圣心和他妈的

圣水。你只配亲我的屁股。啊，帕特里克。 "啊，帕特里克"，他妈个屁，芬坦。走，弗兰基。芬坦跑进学校，而我和帕迪去了巴里纳库拉的苹果园。我们爬上一堵墙，一条凶猛的狗朝我们扑来，帕迪急忙和它说话，称它是一条好狗，说我们都饿了，回家去找你妈妈吧。那条狗舔了舔帕迪的脸，摇着尾巴一溜烟地跑远了。帕迪非常得意。我们把苹果往衬衫里塞，塞得几乎翻不过墙了。我们跑进一片长长的田野，坐在树篱下吃苹果，直到再也吃不下了，就把头俯在一条小溪里，享受那清凉宜人的溪水，随后跑到水沟的另一头大便，用青草和厚树叶擦屁股。帕迪蹲在那里，说：这世上什么也比不上痛吃一顿苹果，痛饮一番溪水，痛拉一泡屎，任何奶酪三明治和芥末都比不上，就让小不点奥尼尔往自己的屁眼里塞苹果吧。田野里有三头母牛，它们把脑袋伸过一堵石头墙，朝我们"哞哞"地叫着。帕迪说：老天啊，现在正是挤奶的时间。他翻过石头墙，躺在一头母牛下面，母牛的大乳房垂到他的脸上。他在一个乳头上挤了一下，牛奶就喷进他的嘴里。他停了一下，说：过来，弗兰基，新鲜的牛奶，好喝极了，找一头牛，它们都等着

挤奶呢。我来到母牛下面，在一个乳头上挤了起来，可它又踢又跑，我觉得它想弄死我。帕迪走过来教我怎么挤：笔直地用力一拉，就会猛地喷出一股牛奶。我们两个躺在母牛下面，正大喝特喝牛奶的时候，突然传来一声怒吼，一个男人手持棍棒从田野里向我们冲过来。我们立即跳过墙，他穿着胶靴，撵不上我们，就站在墙边挥舞着手中的木棍，叫喊说要是抓住我们，就要用靴子踹我们的屁股。我们大笑起来，因为他伤不着我们。我很奇怪，在这个满是牛奶和苹果的世界里，为什么竟然还有人挨饿。对帕迪来说，说"让小不点往自己屁眼里塞苹果"，这没什么，可我不想再去偷苹果和牛奶了。我总想赢得小不点的苹果皮，这样就可以回家告诉爸爸，我是怎么回答出那些难题的了。我们穿过苹果园往回走，这时开始下雨打闪。我们快跑，但我跑得很吃力，我的鞋底开线了，随时都可能绊倒。帕迪光着脚，想跑多快都行，能听见那双脚拍打在人行道上的声音。我的鞋袜都湿透了，它们发出呱唧呱唧的声音。帕迪发现了，我们根据两人的脚步声编成了一首歌：啪嗒———啪嗒———呱叽———

呱叽，啪嗒———呱叽，呱叽———啪嗒...我们笑翻了，只好互相撑着对方。雨越下越大，我们知道不能站在树下躲雨，不然会被雷电烧焦的，所以就站在一户住家门口。一个头戴小白帽，身穿黑衣服，围着小白围裙的大胖子女仆立刻把门打开，命令我们走开，说我们太丢人。我们从门口跑开了，帕迪回头喊：爱尔兰的小母牛，浑身都是肉。说着，他笑了起来，笑得都岔气了，无力地靠在墙上。我们的身上全湿透了，再躲雨也没用了，就不慌不忙地走上奥康纳大街。帕迪说他是从他叔叔皮特那里知道爱尔兰小母牛这回事的，他的那位叔叔在印度的英军部队服役。他们家有一张他的照片，他和一群士兵站在一起，身上披挂着头盔、枪械和子弹带。其中有些穿着制服的黑皮肤男人，那是效忠于英王的印度人。在一个名叫克什米尔的地方，皮特叔叔度过了一段非常逍遥的时光，那地方比他们吹嘘和歌颂的基拉尼①可爱多了。帕迪又一次讲起他出逃的打算，他要跟一个头上点着红点点的姑娘在印度的丝制帐篷里度过一生，还有咖喱肉和无花果。虽然肚子里填了不少苹果和牛奶，我还是被他说饿了。雨渐渐停了，鸟儿开始在我们的头顶鸣叫。帕迪说那

是鸭子或鹅一类的东西，它们正在飞往非洲的路上，那地方温暖宜人。连鸟儿都比爱尔兰人有头脑，它们来香农河度假，随后回到温暖的地方，甚至是像印度那样的地方过冬。他说等他到了那里，他会给我写封信，让我来印度，也会有一个头上点着红点点的姑娘。那个点点是干什么用的，帕迪？显示她们是上等阶级的，是贵人。可是帕迪，要是她们知道你是从利默里克的小巷来的，连鞋都穿不上，这些贵人还会理睬你吗？她们当然会啦，不过英国的贵人不会。英国的贵人根本不尿你。尿你？天啊，你自己想出来的？不，不，这是我父亲咳着浓痰乱骂英国人的时候，趴在床沿上说的。尿你，我要把这话留着，我要在利默里克到处说：尿你，尿你。等到有一天去美国，我将是惟一知道这种话的人。 "问题"奎格雷骑着一辆大号的女式单车，摇摇晃晃地向我们走来，他朝我们喊：喂，弗兰基。迈考特，你死定了。小不点奥尼尔给你家里送去一张便条，说你午饭后没去上学，和帕迪。克劳海西一起瞎逛了。

你妈妈要杀了你，你爸爸在外面到处找你，他也要杀了你。啊，上帝，我觉得又寒冷又空虚。我真希望我是在温暖宜人、又没有学校的印度，那样父亲就永远不会找到我，把我杀掉了。帕迪告诉"问题"，他没有瞎逛，我也没有瞎逛。芬坦。斯莱特瑞快把我们饿死了，我们吃学校发的面包和牛奶已经来不及了。帕迪又对我说：甭管他们，弗兰基，全是吓唬人的。他们总是往我们家送便条，我们都拿它擦屁股。我父母从来不用老师的便条擦屁股，现在我害怕回家。 "问题"哈哈大笑着，骑着自行车走远了。我不明白这是为什么，因为他曾从家里跑出去，在壕沟里和四只山羊睡了一夜，这比旷半天的课去瞎逛要严重多了。现在，我可以拐上巴拉克路回家，告诉父母我去瞎逛了，很抱歉，我当时那么做，是因为肚子饿了。但是帕迪说：走吧，咱们去码头路，到香农河打水漂儿玩我们往河里扔石子，在沿岸的铁链子上晃悠。天渐渐黑了，我不知道该到哪儿睡觉，也许只能在香农河边待着，或者找个人家门口，不然就只能返回乡村，找一个壕沟，像布兰登。奎格雷那样和四只山羊一起睡

觉。帕迪说我可以跟他一道回家，我可以睡在地板上，把湿衣服弄干。帕迪家住在亚瑟码头的一幢高房子里，正对着香农河。利默里克的人都知道，这些房子很旧了，随时可能倒掉。妈妈常说：我不想让恁们任何一个去亚瑟码头，要是我发现恁们在那里，我就打烂恁们的脸。那儿的人都很野蛮，恁们会被抢被杀的。又下雨了，小孩子们正在过道和楼梯上玩耍。帕迪说：你当心点，有些地方没有楼梯了，有些楼梯上有屎。他说在后院里只有一处茅坑，孩子们经常来不及下楼梯把小屁股对准茅坑。一个围着披肩的女人正坐在第四级楼梯上抽烟，她问：是你吗，帕迪？是我，妈咪。我累坏了，帕迪，这些楼梯简直要了我的命。你吃过茶点了吗？没有。啊，我不知道还剩没剩下一点面包，上来看看吧。帕迪的家是一个大房间，天花板很高，有一个小壁炉。两扇窗子很宽，可以看到香农河。他父亲躺在角落里的床上，呻吟着往马桶里吐痰。帕迪的兄弟姐妹在地

上的床垫上睡觉、说话或望着天花板。有个小宝宝没穿衣服，爬向帕迪父亲的马桶。帕迪把他拉到一边。他的母亲喘着粗气从楼梯上走了进来，天啊，我要死了，她说。她给帕迪和我找了些面包，烧了味道很淡的茶。我有些不知所措，他们什么也不说，不说你干什么来啦，不说你回家去吧，什么都不说。这时，克劳海西先生开口了：这是谁？帕迪告诉他：这是弗兰基。迈考特。克劳海西先生说：迈考特？这是哪里的姓啊？我父亲是北爱尔兰人，克劳海西先生。你母亲叫什么名字？安琪拉，克劳海西先生。啊，老天，他说，不会是安琪拉。西恩吧？就是的，克劳海西先生。啊，老天，他说着，一阵咳嗽，吐出乱七八糟的东西，只好趴到马桶上。咳嗽完，他靠在枕头上。啊，弗兰基，我跟你的母亲很熟悉，和她跳过舞。圣母啊，我的内脏要完蛋了。我和她在温布里剧院跳过舞，她是个舞蹈冠军。他又趴在马桶上，一阵急喘，朝空中伸着胳膊帮忙。他痛苦不堪，却不肯住口。

她是个舞蹈冠军，弗兰基，在我的怀里，她就像一根羽毛那样轻盈，并不是因为瘦的关系。她离开利默里克的时候，好多男人都很惋惜。你跳舞吗，弗兰基？啊，不跳，克劳海西先生。帕迪道：他跳，大大，他在奥康纳太太和西瑞尔。本森那里学。噢，跳个舞吧，弗兰基，绕着这屋跳吧，注意点碗柜，弗兰基。抬脚呀，小伙子。我不会跳，克劳海西先生，我跳得不好。跳得不好？安琪拉。西恩的儿子？跳吧，弗兰基，要不，我就跳下床拖着你跳了。我的鞋子坏了，克劳海西先生。弗兰基，弗兰基，你还想让我咳嗽啊。请你看在耶稣的分上跳吧，这样我就能想起年轻时和你妈妈在温布里剧院里跳舞的情景了。脱掉他妈的那只鞋，弗兰基，跳起来。我只好开始编舞，并配上曲子，像小时候那样，我绕着房间跳起来，穿着一只鞋，忘了把它脱掉。我编了些词，什么"啊，利默里克的围墙在坍塌，在坍塌，在坍塌；利默里克的围墙在坍塌，香农河要了我们的命。"

克劳海西先生躺在床上哈哈大笑：啊，老天，我跑遍天下，还从来没听过这样的歌。不过这倒和你跳的舞非常相配，弗兰基。啊，耶稣。他又咳嗽起来，吐出一串串黄黄绿绿的东西。看见这些东西，我很恶心。我想是不是应该回家，逃离这种恶心，逃离这个马桶。要是父母愿意，就把我杀掉好啦。帕迪在窗户旁的一张床垫上躺下了，我躺在他的旁边。我和他们一样，没有脱衣服，甚至还忘了脱鞋。鞋子湿乎乎的，呱唧呱唧地响着，味道很难闻。帕迪立刻睡着了，我看见他母亲坐在微弱的炉火前抽烟。帕迪的父亲一边呻吟一边咳嗽，不时地往马桶里吐痰。他说：他妈的吐血了，她说：你迟早得进疗养院。我不去，他们把你丢进疗养院的那一天，就是你的末日。你在把肺病传给孩子们，我可以让警察来把你带走，你对孩子们太危险。要是他们会得肺病的话，现在已经得上了。炉火灭了，克劳海西太太爬上他那张床。她很快打起了呼噜，他依然在咳嗽，依然在对年轻时的那段日子发笑，那时，他正搂着轻如羽毛的安琪拉。西恩，在温布里剧院翩翩起舞哩。

屋子里很冷，我穿着湿衣服瑟瑟发抖。帕迪也在发抖，只是他睡着了，不知道冷。我不知道是该继续在这里待下去，还是该起来回家。但谁想在外面游荡，随时会被警察盘问呢？这是我第一次离开家，我宁愿待在那旁边就是臭烘烘的厕所和马厩的家里。当我们的厨房变成湖泊，不得不搬到楼上的意大利去时，的确很糟糕。可是，在克劳海西家里，你得走下四段楼梯去上厕所，路上一旦被粪滑倒就糟了，还不如到壕沟里跟四只山羊待在一起呢。我睡得断断续续的，在克劳海西太太挨个叫人起床时，我只好跟着起来。他们睡觉都没脱衣服，起床就不必再穿衣服了，自然也没发生争抢衣服的战斗。他们抱怨着跑出屋，冲下楼梯，奔向后院的厕所。我也要上厕所，便和帕迪跑下楼梯。但是，帕迪的妹妹佩吉蹲在茅坑上，我们只好对着墙尿了。她说：我要告诉妈恁们这么干。帕迪说：闭嘴，要不我就把你推进他妈的茅坑里。她从厕所跳出来，拽上内裤，叫喊着奔向楼梯：我就要告诉，我就要告诉。我们回到屋里，克劳海西太太照帕迪的头上就是一皮带，因为他对可怜的小妹妹干的事，帕迪一声没吭。克劳海西太太用勺子往茶缸、果酱瓶和一个碗里舀粥，她催促我们吃完

就去上学。她坐在桌旁喝着自己的粥，她的头发灰白而脏乱，耷拉到碗里，沾着粥汤和奶滴。孩子们咕嘟咕嘟地把粥喝光，抱怨他们没有吃饱，还饿得慌。他们个个鼻涕邋遢，眼睛红肿，伤疤满膝。克劳海西先生又在咳嗽，咳到床上，还带出一大块血痰。我赶紧跑出屋子，在少了一级楼梯的地方呕吐起来。粥和苹果阵雨似的喷到下面的地上，那是人们去厕所的必经之路。帕迪走过来，说：没什么的，每个人恶心时都往楼梯上吐，反正他妈的这整个地方要塌了。我不知道这时该怎么办，要是去学校，我会被打死。我可以跑到路上去，以后就靠牛奶和苹果生活，直到去美国那天为止，那么，我又何必非去学校或回家找死呢？帕迪也说：来吧，反正学校全是吓唬人的，老师也都是疯子。有人敲克劳海西家的门，是妈妈，她牵着我的小弟弟迈克尔，还有负责学校考勤的门卫邓尼黑。妈妈一见我就问：你干吗穿着一只鞋呀？门卫邓尼黑说：啊，太太，我以为更重要的问题应该是，你干吗光着一只脚呀？哈哈哈。迈克尔奔向我，说：妈咪都哭了，妈咪因为你哭了，弗兰基。

她问：你一整夜在哪里？在这儿。你把我急疯了，你爸爸一直在利默里克的大街上四处找你。克劳海西先生问：谁在门口？是我母亲，克劳海西先生。天上的主啊，是安琪拉吗？是的，克劳海西先生。他挣扎着，用胳膊肘把自己撑起来：啊，看在上帝的分上，请进吧，安琪拉，你不认识我啦？妈妈疑惑地朝屋里看着，房间很暗，她吃力地辨认着床上的那个人。他说：是我呀，丹尼斯。克劳海西，安琪拉。啊，不。是我，安琪拉。啊，不。我知道，安琪拉，我的模样变了。咳嗽害了我，可我没忘记在温布里剧院的那些个夜晚。啊，老天，你是个了不起的舞蹈家。温布里剧院的那些个夜晚啊，还有煎鱼和薯条。哦，那些男孩子们啊，哦，那些男孩子们啊，安琪拉。

泪水滑过母亲的脸，她说：你才是了不起的舞蹈家呢，丹尼斯。克劳海西。我们本来可以赢得冠军的，安琪拉，弗雷德和琴吉都得当心我们，可你迫不得已去了美国。唉，老天呀。他又是一阵咳嗽，我们只好站在那里，看着他趴在马桶上，吐出可怕的东西。门卫邓尼黑说：我想，太太，既然找到了这男挨（孩），那我就可以走了。他又对我说：假如你再去瞎逛，男挨（孩），我们就把你送到监狱里去。你听见了吗，男挨（孩）？我听见了，门卫。不要折腾你母亲了，男挨（孩），门卫最不能容忍这个。我不了，门卫，我不折腾她了。他走了，妈妈来到床边，握住克劳海西先生的手。他的脸颊陷了下去，眼眶特别突出，头发沾满了汗水，显得乌黑发亮。他的孩子都在床边围着，看着他和妈妈。克劳海西太太坐在炉子前，用火钳在炉膛里捅着，把那个小宝宝从炉子旁推开。她说：不上医院，这是他自己的该死的错，就这么回事。克劳海西先生一阵急喘：要是我能住在一个干燥些的地方，就会没事的。安琪拉，美国那地方干燥吗？是的，丹尼斯。

医生劝我去亚利桑那州，那医生可真有意思。亚利桑那州，你好啊。我连去街角喝上一杯的钱都没有。妈妈说：你会好的，丹尼斯，我要为你点一支蜡烛。省下你的钱吧，安琪拉，我跳舞的日子已经结束了。现在我得走了，丹尼斯，我儿子得去上学。你走前，安琪拉，愿意为我做一件事吗？我愿意，丹尼斯，只要我办得到。你临去美国前那个晚上唱的那首歌，请你再给我们唱一次，好吗？那首歌很难唱的，丹尼斯，我唱不下来。啊，来吧，安琪拉，打那以后，我再也没有听过歌了。这个家里没有歌声，我老婆是个歌盲，也是个舞盲。妈妈说：好吧，我来试试——— 啊，凯里舞会的那些夜晚，啊，风笛声声如泣如诉，啊，那些幸福的时刻，一去不返，哎哟，像我们的青春一样仓促。当男孩们在夏夜的幽谷里会聚一堂，凯里的风笛悠扬让我们久久欣喜若狂。她停了一下，用手按住胸前：啊，上帝，我都喘不上气了。帮帮我，弗兰基，一起唱。我跟着唱了起来：啊，想到它时，啊，梦见它时，我的心儿在哭泣，

啊，凯里舞会的那些夜晚，啊，风笛声声如泣如诉。啊，那些幸福的时刻，一去不返，哎哟，像我们的青春一样仓促。克劳海西先生试着跟我们一块唱：一去不返，哎哟，像我们的青春一样仓促...但随即咳嗽起来。他摇着头，流下泪水：我不相信你唱不了的，安琪拉，它又让我回到了过去，愿上帝赐福你。愿上帝也赐福你，丹尼斯。还要谢谢你，克劳海西太太，收留弗兰基。没什么的，迈考特太太，他挺老实。挺老实，克劳海西先生说，可他不是像他母亲那样的舞蹈家。妈妈说：穿一只鞋子跳舞够难为他的了，丹尼斯。我知道，安琪拉，可你想想他为什么不把这只鞋脱掉呢？他是不是有点奇怪？噢，他有时候像他父亲，举止有些古怪。啊，怪不得，他父亲是北爱尔兰人，安琪拉，在北爱尔兰穿一只鞋跳舞也没关系。帕迪。克劳海西、妈妈、迈克尔和我，一道走上帕特里克街和奥康纳街。妈妈一路都在啜泣。迈克尔说：别哭了，妈咪，弗兰基不跑了。

她抱起他，把他紧紧搂住：噢，不，迈克尔，我不是因为弗兰基哭，我是因为丹尼斯。克劳海西和在温布里剧院跳舞的那些夜晚，还有那些煎鱼和薯条而哭。她和我们一起进了学校。奥尼尔先生看上去很生气的样子，告诉我们坐下，他马上就回来。他在门口和我母亲谈了很长时间，等她离开，他走到坐位中间，拍了拍帕迪。克劳海西的头。我很同情克劳海西一家的不幸，但是我想，正是因为他们，母亲才没跟我算账。

蒂莫尼先生星期四，爸爸去职业介绍所领失业救济金时，可能会有人说：咱们去喝一杯吧，马拉奇？爸爸就会说：一杯，只喝一杯。那人说：啊，上帝，是的，就一杯。可是一晚没过，钱就花光了。爸爸哼唱着小曲回到家，把我们叫下床，排成队，发誓在爱尔兰召唤我们的时候为她去死。他甚至连迈克尔也不放过，虽然他才只有三岁，也要唱爱国歌曲，发誓在第一时间为爱尔兰去死。爸爸就是这么说的，"第一时间"。我九岁，小马拉奇八岁，我们会所有那些歌曲。我们唱整首的凯文。巴里和罗迪。迈克考雷之歌，唱"西方在沉睡"、

"奥唐纳尔。阿布"、"韦克斯福德的男孩"等等。我们总是唱歌并发誓去死，因为说不定什么时候，爸爸喝完酒后就会剩下一两个便士，要是给了我们，第二天就可以跑到凯瑟琳。奥康纳的小店买太妃糖。有些夜里，他说迈克尔唱得最好，把便士给了他。我和小马拉奇都很纳闷，就算我们这么大的年纪，会所有的爱国歌曲，也准备去死，又有什么用呢？是迈克尔得到了便士，他可以第二天去小店痛吃一顿太妃糖了。没人要求他在三岁的时候就为爱尔兰去死，就算是帕德瑞格。皮尔斯①也不会这样，尽管一九一六年他在都柏林被英国人射杀的时候，曾期望世上所有的人跟他一道去死。再说了，米奇。莫雷的父亲说过，想为爱尔兰而死的人都是驴屁股。有史以来，人们一直为爱尔兰而死，可瞧瞧这个国家的状况吧。爸爸在第三周丢掉工作就已经够糟的了，现在他又一次喝光了一个月的救济金。妈妈彻底绝望了。早晨，她表情冷漠，对他不理不睬。他喝完茶，早早地离开家，去乡下做长途散步。等他晚上回来，她对他还是不理不睬，也不给他烧茶。没有煤和泥炭，炉子灭了，没法烧茶，他就"啊啊，唉呀"几声，喝果酱瓶里的

水，咂巴着嘴，像品黑啤酒时那样。他说好水就能满足一个男人全部的需要，而妈妈在一旁嗤之以鼻。她不跟他说话的时候，屋子里的气氛沉重阴冷，我们也明白这时候不该跟他说话，害怕她会给我们脸色看。我们知道爸爸干了坏事，可以用不跟他说话的方式让他难过。甚至小迈克尔也知道，爸爸干了坏事的时候，从星期五到下个星期一都不要跟他说话。要是他把你往大腿上抱，就往妈妈那儿跑。九岁时，我有一个叫米奇。斯派莱西的伙伴。由于急性肺病，他的亲戚们一个接一个去世了。我很嫉妒米奇，因为每次他家死人的时候，他就可以一个星期都不用上学。他母亲还在他的袖子上缝一块黑色的菱形布，他在大街小巷走来走去的时候，人们都知道他有了不幸，就会拍拍他的头，给点钱和糖果安慰安慰他。但是今年夏天米奇很焦虑，他姐姐布伦达正因肺病渐渐虚弱下去，可现在才八月份，要是她在九月份以前死掉的话，那他就不能请一个星期的假了，总不能在不上学的时候请假呀。他来找我和比利。坎贝尔，问我们能不能去拐角的那个圣约瑟教堂为布伦达祈祷一下，让她支撑到九月份再死。我们会得到什么呢，米奇，要是我们去祈祷的话？

噢，要是布伦达支撑到九月份，我能请一个星期的假，恁们可以来守灵，吃火腿、奶酪、蛋糕，喝雪利酒和柠檬水，还有别的东西。恁们也可以通宵听歌曲，听故事。谁能拒绝这样的诱惑呢？再也没有像守灵这么美好的时光了。我们一路小跑来到教堂，那儿有圣约瑟的塑像，还有耶稣的圣心、贞女马利亚和利雪的圣小德兰———"小花"的塑像。我向"小花"祈祷，因为她本人就死于肺病，她会明白的。我们当中有个人的祈祷一定很厉害，因为布伦达活到开学的第二天才死。我们告诉米奇，我们对他的不幸深表同情。可他为一个星期不用上学喜不自胜，又戴上了那块能给他带来钱和糖果的菱形黑布。一想到为布伦达守灵期间的盛宴，我就直流口水。比利敲了敲门，米奇的姨妈出来了：什么事？我们来为布伦达祈祷，米奇说我们可以来守灵。她嚷道：米奇！过来，你告诉过这两个家伙，他们可以来为你姐姐守灵？没有。

可是，米奇，你答应过... 她当着我们的面"砰"地关上了门，我们一时不知如何是好。这个时候，比利。坎贝尔说：我们要回圣约瑟教堂去，祈祷从现在起米奇。斯派莱西家的人都在仲夏的时候死，让他一辈子都没法从学校请一天的假。我们中有一个人的祈祷的确厉害，第二年的夏天，米奇就被急性肺病带走了。他再也不能从学校请假了，这一定给了他一个教训。普罗迪。沃迪把铃按响，那是下地狱不是上天堂。星期天早上，在利默里克，我看着那些新教徒去了教堂，我为他们感到遗憾，特别是为那些姑娘遗憾，她们是那么可爱，都有一口雪白的牙齿。我为那些美丽的新教徒姑娘感到遗憾，她们注定是要下地狱了。这是牧师们对我们说的，在天主教堂以外的地方，只有地狱。我想拯救她们，新教徒姑娘，跟我一起去真理教堂吧。你们将会获得拯救，不会再下地狱。做完星期天的弥撒后，在巴灵顿街教堂旁边，我和朋友比利。坎贝尔观看她们在美丽的草坪上打槌球。槌球是新教徒的游戏，她们用木槌打球，一个洞接一个洞地打，还不时大笑。我奇怪她们怎么能笑得起来？难道她们

不知道最后要下地狱吗？我为她们惋惜，说：比利，要是你最终是要下地狱的，玩槌球又有什么用呢？他说：弗兰基，要是你最终是要下地狱的，不玩槌球又有什么用呢？外婆对妈妈说：你哥哥帕特腿脚不好，还有别的毛病，但到了八岁就开始在利默里克到处卖报纸了。你的弗兰克长得又大又丑，完全可以去工作了。可他只有九岁，而且还在上学呢。上学，就是学校教得他会顶嘴，挂着张臭脸四处逛，跟他父亲一样怪里怪气。他可以星期五帮助可怜的帕特一晚上，那时的《利默里克导报》有一吨重呢。他可以跑跑上等人家那长长的花园小路，也挣点外快，让帕特可怜的腿歇歇。星期五晚上他得去兄弟会。甭管什么兄弟会，《教理问答》里根本没提兄弟会一个字。星期五晚上五点，我和帕特舅舅在《利默里克导报》报社碰头。分发报纸的那个人说我的胳膊那么细，能拿得起两枚邮票就算幸运了，可帕特舅舅在我的每只胳膊下各塞了八份报纸。他对我说：外面在下雨，"哗哗哗"的大雨，要是把它们掉在地上，我就杀了你。

他告诉我在奥康纳街上贴着墙走，以免淋湿报纸。我要在订户区跑来跑去，爬上外面的台阶，走到门口登上楼梯，喊一声报纸，拿上他们欠帕特舅舅的一个星期的钱，然后下楼把钱交给他，紧接着去下一站。订户常因他行动不便给他小费，他就把这些小费留做私房钱。我们走上奥康纳街，穿过巴里那库拉，从南环路进入亨利街，回到办公室再次取报纸。帕特舅舅戴着一顶帽子，穿着一件牛仔斗篷似的东西，保护报纸不被雨淋。他抱怨脚疼死了，于是我们在一家酒吧前停下来，为他那可怜的脚喝上一杯。帕。基廷姨父正好在那里，浑身上下一抹黑。他喝着啤酒，对帕特舅舅说：修道院长，你打算让这孩子在那里站下去吗？他的表情分明在盼着柠檬水呢。帕特舅舅说：什么？帕。基廷姨父变得不耐烦了：基督啊，他拖着你那该死的报纸满利默里克地转，你就不能———唉，没关系，蒂米，给这孩子一杯柠檬水。弗兰基，你家里没有雨衣吗？没有，帕姨父。这种天气你不该出来，你全身都湿透了，谁让你在这种鬼天气出来的？

外婆说我得帮帮帕特舅舅，因为他的腿不好。当然是她，这个老刁婆子，不过可别告诉她我说了这帕特舅舅费力地从椅子上下来，收起他的报纸：走吧，天黑了。他一瘸一拐地在街上走着，一边胡乱叫卖着，听起来一点都不像是在卖《利默里克导报》。不过没关系，人人都知道这是摔过脑袋的修道院长西恩。到这儿来，修道院长，给我一份报纸，你那可怜的腿怎么样了？不用找了，留着买支烟抽吧，这么他妈的糟糕的晚上，你还要出来卖他妈的报纸。歇歇（谢谢），我的舅舅修道院长说，歇歇，歇歇。别看他的腿不好，要跟上他还是很困难的。他问：你胳膊底下还有多少份报？一份，帕特舅舅。把它送给蒂莫尼先生去，他欠了我两星期的报钱。把钱给我取回来，还有小费。他给起小费来可不错，别像你表哥杰瑞那样，把小费塞进自己的腰包。他把小费塞进自己的腰包，这个小坏蛋。我用门环敲了敲门，一条硕大的狗发出一阵震耳欲聋的嗥叫，弄得门都颤抖起来。接着传来一个男人的声

音：马库什拉，不要瞎闹哄了，不然我就痛打你的屁股一顿。嗥叫声停下来，门开了，那个男人站在门后，一头白发，厚厚的眼镜片，一身运动衣，手里拄着一根拐杖。他问：谁？谁到我这儿来啦？报纸，蒂莫尼先生。不是修道院长西恩嘛，不是吗？我是他外甥，先生。是杰瑞。西恩？不是，先生，我是弗兰克。迈考特。又一个外甥？他造的他们？难道他家后院有个外甥工厂？这是两周的报钱，把报纸给我吧，要不你就留着。有什么用？我现在看不成报，给我读报的米妮汉太太没有来。雪利酒让她来不了了，她就是这个样子。你叫什么名字？弗兰克，先生。你识字吗？识的，先生。你想挣六便士吗？我想，先生。那就明天来吧，你叫弗兰西斯，对吧？弗兰克，先生。

你叫弗兰西斯，从来没有什么圣弗兰克，这是匪帮和政客的名字。明天十一点过来给我读报。好的，先生。你肯定能读吗？肯定，先生。你可以叫我蒂莫尼先生。好的，蒂莫尼先生。帕特舅舅在门口嘟囔着，揉搓着他的腿。我的钱呢？你不该和订户多话，让我的腿在这儿被雨摧残。他得在潘奇十字路口的一家酒吧前停下来，为他那受摧残的腿喝上一杯。喝完酒，他说他一步路也走不动了，我们就上了一辆公共汽车。售票员说：请买票，买票。帕特舅舅却说：走开，别烦我，你没看见我的腿这个样子吗？噢，好吧，修道院长，好吧。公共汽车在奥康纳纪念碑前停下来，帕特舅舅向纪念碑煎鱼薯条餐馆走去，那里的味道可真香啊，我的肚子饿得直打鼓。他要了一先令的煎鱼和薯条，我的口水流了出来。到了外婆家门口，他竟然只给了我三便士，告诉我下个星期五再跟他碰头，现在先回家去，到我母亲那儿去。

马库什拉在蒂莫尼先生的门外躺着，我打开花园的小门往里面走，它朝我冲过来，把我扑倒在门外的人行道上。要是蒂莫尼先生不及时出来，它会咬掉我的脸的。蒂莫尼先生用拐杖不停地打它，吆喝着：进去，恁这个婊子，恁这个肥头大耳的吃人的坏蛋，没吃早饭吗？恁这个婊子。你没事吧，弗兰西斯？进来，这条狗是正宗的印度狗，所以才这样。我就是在那儿发现它妈妈的，它妈妈当时正在班加罗尔附近流浪。要是你将来养狗的话，弗兰西斯，一定要保证它是个佛教徒。性情好的狗是佛教徒。千万、千万不要养一个天主教徒，它们会天天咬你，星期五也不放过。坐下给我读报吧。《利默里克导报》吗，蒂莫尼先生？不，不是该死的《利默里克导报》，我连擦屁股都不用它。那张桌子上有本书，《格列弗游记》。那也不是我要你读的，找它后面的《一个小小的建议》，读给我听。开头是这样的：这是一个让人悲伤的东西，对于那些行走在...你看到了吗？我已经把它该死的内容全部记在脑子里了，但我还想让你读给我听。读了两三页后，他让我停了下来。你读得不错，弗兰西斯，你怎么看"一个年幼健康、喂养得很好的孩子，

一岁时是最好吃、最有营养又最卫生的食品，无论是炖、烤，还是烘、煮"这句话？嗯？马库什拉会喜欢拿一个白白胖胖的爱尔兰婴儿做晚餐的，你不喜欢吗？你这个小杂种。他给了我六便士，告诉我下个星期五再来。我能为蒂莫尼先生读书挣得六便士，妈妈很高兴，她问他要我读什么，《利默里克导报》吗？我告诉她，我得读附在《格列弗游记》后面的《一个小小的建议》，她说：那好，那只是一本儿童书籍。你要料到他会想些奇怪的事情，他在印度的英军部队里被晒了好多年，现在他的大脑有点不大正常。他们说他娶了一个印度女人，在一场骚乱中，她被一个士兵不小心打死了，所以他让你为他读儿童书籍。妈妈认识那个住在蒂莫尼先生隔壁的米妮汉太太，她过去常常为他打扫房间，但是再也忍受不了他对天主教教堂的嘲笑，以及说"一个人的罪孽就是另一个人的胜利"这种做派了。米妮汉太太爱在星期六早上偶尔喝点雪利酒，可他又想把她变成一个佛教徒，他说他自己也是一个佛教徒，还说要是爱尔兰人能够坐在树下，望着《十诫》和《七宗罪》在香农河上漂流，远远地漂流向大海，他们会更好一些的。

第二个星期五，兄弟会的德克兰。科洛比看见我在大街上和帕特。西恩舅舅一起送报纸，喂，弗兰基。迈考特，你和西恩修道院长在一起干什么？他是我舅舅。你应该在兄弟会里。我在工作，德克兰。你不该工作，你还不满十岁，你在破坏我们小组的全勤记录。要是你下个星期五还不到兄弟会去，我要好好掌你的嘴，你听见了吗？帕特舅舅说：走开，走开，要不我就从你身上走过去。啊，闭嘴，摔过脑袋的笨蛋先生。他在帕特舅舅的肩上推了一把，把他推在墙上。我扔下报纸，朝他冲过去。但他躲开了，在我的脖子后面打了一拳，我的额头撞到墙上，我愤怒极了，什么都不顾了。我朝他拳打脚踢，要是能咬掉他的脸，我会毫不犹豫的。可他像大猩猩似的长着一对长臂，正好可以推开我，让我够不着他。他说：你他妈的这个蠢疯子，到了兄弟会看我不卸了你，然后逃跑了。帕特舅舅说：你不该这样打架，你把我的报纸都撂下了，有些都弄湿了，我怎么能卖湿报纸呢？我真想也朝他扑过去，揍他一顿，我刚刚跟德克兰。科洛比打

完架，他却在谈什么报纸！晚上收工的时候，他从包里掏出三块薯片给我，还给了我六便士，而不是三便士。他抱怨这钱给得太多了，都怪我妈妈跑到外婆那儿说给的钱太少。我在星期五从帕特舅舅那里挣到六便士，星期六又从蒂莫尼先生那里挣到六便士，妈妈很高兴。一星期多一先令会有很大的帮助，她给了我两便士，让我给蒂莫尼先生读完书后，去利瑞克电影院看《走投无路的孩子们》。第二天上午，蒂莫尼先生说：等我们读《格列弗游记》时，弗兰西斯，你就会知道乔纳森。斯威夫特①是爱尔兰有史以来最伟大的作家，不，是在羊皮纸上笔战的最伟大的汉子。一个巨人，弗兰西斯。《一个小小的建议》让他从头笑到尾，这本书通篇谈论的都是烹饪爱尔兰婴儿，真不知道他到底在笑什么。他说：等你长大了，你就会笑的，弗兰西斯。不该跟成年人顶嘴，但蒂莫尼先生与众不同，所以他毫不介意我说：蒂莫尼先生，大人们总是这样告诉我们，噢，等你们长大了，你们就会笑的；等你们长大了，你们就会明白的；等你们长大了，什么都会有的。他爆发出一阵刺耳的狂笑，我以为他要倒在地上了。

啊，圣母啊，弗兰西斯，你真是个活宝，怎么回事？你的屁股被蜜蜂咬了吗？告诉我是怎么回事？没什么，蒂莫尼先生。我想你一定拉着脸，弗兰西斯，真希望我看得见。到墙上的那面镜子前照照，白雪公主，告诉我你是不是拉长了脸？没关系，告诉我是怎么回事。德克兰。科洛比昨天晚上惹了我，我跟他打了一架。他让我给他讲兄弟会、德克兰和我那摔过脑袋的舅舅帕特。西恩的事情。然后，他告诉我，他认识我姨父帕。基廷，说他在战争期间中过毒气，在煤气厂上班。他说：帕。基廷是个高贵的人，我要告诉你我会怎么做，弗兰西斯。我要跟帕。基廷谈谈，我们一块去兄弟会找那帮饭桶。我本人是佛教徒，我不赞同打架，但我也不是不能打架。他们不要来妨碍我的小读书童，啊，老天，不要。蒂莫尼先生是个老人，但他说起话来像朋友，我可以对他讲心里话。爸爸从来不像蒂莫尼先生那样对我说话，他只会说"啊呀，唉呀"，然后便去长途散步了。帕特。西恩舅舅告诉外婆，他不想再让我帮他卖报纸了，他可以雇个更便宜的男孩。他认为我该把星期六上午挣的六便士分给他一份，因为没有他，我别想找

到这份朗读的活儿。住在蒂莫尼先生隔壁的一个女人告诉我，我敲门是在浪费时间，马库什拉在同一天里咬伤了邮递员、送奶工和一个路过的修女，蒂莫尼先生却忍不住哈哈大笑。当狗被带走关起来的时候，他却哭了。你咬伤邮递员和送奶工没关系，但咬伤了去见主教的修女，而且狗的主人又是个有名的佛教徒，威胁着周围虔诚的天主教徒，主教就要采取特别措施了。蒂莫尼先生知道这事后，又哭又笑，闹得厉害，把医生招来了。医生说他已经完全失去记忆，就用车把他送到了"城市之家"，那里专门收留无助和发疯的老人。我的星期六便士就这样没了，但是不管有没有钱，我都要给蒂莫尼先生朗读。我在街道上等着，一直等到隔壁的那个女人进了屋，我从蒂莫尼先生家的窗台上爬进去，拿出那本《格列弗游记》，然后步行几英里，来到"城市之家"，好让他别错过朗读时间。大门口的那个人问：什么？你想进来给一个老人读书？你在愚弄我吧？趁我还没叫警卫，赶快滚出去。我可以把这本书留给其他的人，让他读给蒂莫尼先生听吗？留吧，看在耶稣的分上，留吧，不要来烦我。我会把

书送给他的。接着，他一阵大笑。妈妈问：你是怎么回事？为什么闷闷不乐？我告诉她帕特舅舅不想要我帮忙了，还有，他们把蒂莫尼先生投进"城市之家"，仅仅因为他的马库什拉咬伤了邮递员、送奶工和一个过路修女时，他在笑。她听了竟然也笑了，我只好相信这个世界全疯了。然而，她说：啊，对不起，真遗憾，你丢掉了两份工作。你不妨继续去兄弟会吧，避免让小分队———更糟的是，负责人高瑞神父———来找咱们的麻烦。德克兰吩咐我在他面前坐下，要是有什么不恭行为，他就扭断我的脖子。只要他是"最高位置"，他就要监视我，绝不能让我这样的小垃圾断送了他的油毡纸生涯。妈妈说她爬楼梯有些困难，要把床搬到厨房来。她笑着说：等墙都湿了，雨水又流进屋，我再搬回索伦托 ①。学校放假了，只要她喜欢，就可以在厨房的床上一直躺着，不必起来为我们做饭。爸爸生着火，烧了茶，切了面包，督促我们洗脸，然后让我们出去玩。要是我们喜欢，他允许我们赖在床上，但在不上学的时候，你别想赖在床上，我们一睡醒就会跑到巷子里

去玩。然而七月的一天，他说我们不能下楼去，只能待在楼上玩。为什么，爸爸？别管，就在这儿和小马拉奇、迈克尔玩，等我通知你，你才能下楼。他站在门口，防止我们下楼。我们用脚把毯子顶到空中，假装我们是住在帐篷里的罗宾汉和他的好汉们。我们逮跳蚤，用指甲把它们挤死。这时，传来婴儿的啼哭声，小马拉奇问：爸爸，妈妈又有新宝宝了吗？啊呀，唉呀，儿子。我年龄大一些，所以我告诉小马拉奇，把床放到厨房就是为了能让天使飞下来，把宝宝留在第七级楼梯上。可是小马拉奇不明白，因为他还不足九岁，而我下个月就满十岁了。妈妈和新宝宝躺在床上，宝宝长着一张大胖脸，浑身通红。厨房里有个女人，身穿护士服。我们知道她是来给宝宝洗澡的，宝宝要跟天使走那么远的行程，总是挺脏的。我们想搔搔这个小宝宝的痒，但是她说：别，别，恁们可以看他，但别动手。

别动手，护士们总是这么说。我们在桌旁坐下，喝着茶，吃着面包，看着我们的新弟弟。可他竟然不睁眼看我们一下，我们索性出去玩了。几天后，妈妈下了床，搂着宝宝坐在炉火旁。他的眼睛睁开了，我们搔他的痒时，他便格格格地笑个不停，笑得肚子都晃起来，惹得我们也大笑起来。爸爸搔着他，唱起一首苏格兰歌曲：啊，啊，别搔我的痒，乔克，别搔我的痒，乔克，别搔我的痒，痒啊痒啊痒，别搔我的痒，乔克。爸爸有了工作，所以布瑞迪。汉农能随时来看妈妈和宝宝了。一次，妈妈没有像往常那样让我们出去玩，好让她们谈些秘密的事。她们坐在炉火旁，抽着香烟，谈论起名字的问题。妈妈说她喜欢"凯文"和"赛恩" 这样的名字，而布瑞迪说：啊，不，在利默里克，这样的名字多的是。老天，安琪拉，要是你把头伸出门外喊一声"凯文"或"赛恩"进来喝茶，就会有一半利默里克人跑到你门口。布瑞迪说要是上帝高兴，哪天让她有个儿子，她就叫

他"罗纳德"。因为她非常迷恋罗纳德。考尔曼，在大众电影院，你可以看到银幕上的他。或者就叫"埃罗尔"，现在这是另一个时髦名字———埃罗尔。弗林。妈妈说：你会出去那么喊呀，布瑞迪？我可不想把头伸出窗外，喊"埃罗尔，埃罗尔，进来喝茶"，这肯定会把可怜的孩子弄成笑柄的。罗纳德，布瑞迪说，罗纳德，他很迷人。不，妈妈说，必须得是爱尔兰人的名字，我们打了这么些年的仗，不就是为了这个吗？要是我们叫自己的孩子"罗纳德"，那跟英国人打了几个世纪还有什么意义呢？老天，安琪拉，你开始像他那样讲话了，动不动爱尔兰这个，英国那个的。不过，布瑞迪，他是对的。忽然，布瑞迪倒抽一口冷气：老天，安琪拉，这孩子不大对劲。妈妈离开椅子，抱住孩子，哀叹着：啊，老天，布瑞迪，他喘不过气来。布瑞迪说：我去找我母亲。不一会儿，她就带汉农太太来了。蓖麻油，汉农太太说，你有吗？什么油都行。鱼肝油？也行。

她把鱼肝油倒进宝宝的嘴里，把他翻过去，挤他的后背，再把他翻过来，把一把勺子插进他的喉咙，带出来一个白球。就是这东西，她说，是牛奶，结了块卡在他的小喉管里了，你要用什么油把它化开，弄出来。妈妈哭了：老天，我差点失去他，啊，要是失去他，我也去死，我也去死。她搂着宝宝，一边哭，一边感谢汉农太太。好了，别提啦，太太，带孩子回床上躺一会儿吧，恁们俩都受了不小的惊吓。在布瑞迪和汉农太太帮妈妈上床时，我注意到她坐过的椅子上留下了斑斑血迹。母亲要流血死掉了吗？说 "看，妈妈的椅子上有血"，该没事吧？不，你什么也不能说，因为她们总有自己的秘密。我知道，要是你说了什么，成年人就会对你说：不用你管，傻看什么，没你的事，出去玩吧。我只好把看见的藏在心里，要么我就去告诉天使。汉农太太和布瑞迪走了，我在第七级楼梯上坐下来。我想告诉天使，妈妈要流血死了，我想要他对我说：害怕不必。可是，楼梯上很冷，一片漆黑，一片寂静。我相信他永远不会再来了，我怀疑在你九到十岁的时候，就会发生这样的事情。

妈妈没有流血而死，第二天她就下床了，准备带宝宝去受洗。她对布瑞迪说，要是这孩子死了，去了那个专门收留未受洗死婴的地方，她永远不会原谅自己。那地方可能温暖宜人，但毕竟是永无止境的黑暗，就算在末日审判时也无望逃脱。外婆赶来帮忙，她说：没错，没受洗的婴儿是进不了天堂的。布瑞迪说，上帝做这样的事情真是冷酷。他不能不冷酷，外婆说，要不然的话，什么样的孩子都吵着闹着要进天堂了，包括新教徒什么的，八百年来，他们对我们造了那些孽之后，竟然还要进天堂？婴儿并没有干那些事情，布瑞迪说，他们还太小。要是他们有机会的话，他们一样会干的，外婆说，他们会被教唆去干的。他们给宝宝穿上利默里克花边服，我们受洗时都穿这种服装。妈妈说我们可以一起去圣约瑟教堂，我们很激动，因为受洗后会有柠檬水和面包。小马拉奇问：妈妈，宝宝叫什么名字？阿尔芬斯。约瑟。我脱口而出：这是个愚蠢的名字，甚至都不是爱尔兰人的名字。

外婆用那对昏花的红眼珠子瞪着我，说：这小子的嘴巴得教训一下。妈妈照我的脸就是一巴掌，把我从厨房这头搡到那头。我的心怦怦直跳，想哭却不能哭，因为父亲不在家，我是这个家里的大老爷们。妈妈说：带着你的大嘴上楼去，待在屋里不许动。我在第七级楼梯上停了下来，但这里仍然很冷，一片漆黑，一片寂静。房里很静，大家都去教堂了。我坐在楼上等着，拍打着胳膊和腿上的跳蚤，一边想爸爸要是在就好了。我还在想着我的小弟弟和他那个外国名字阿尔芬斯，一个让人苦恼的名字。过了一段时间，楼下有了说话声，她们在谈论着茶、雪利酒、汽水和面包，还说这不是世上最可爱的小家伙吗？小阿非，虽有个外国名，却自始至终一动不动，一声不吭，性情那么好，上帝保佑他，一定永远这么可爱。这个小可爱太像他的母亲、父亲、外婆和他死去的小哥俩了。妈妈在楼梯底下叫我：弗兰基，下来，有柠檬水和面包。我不想要，你自己留着吧。我说你马上下来，要是让我爬上楼梯的话，就狠揍你

屁股一顿，你要为今天懊丧的。懊丧？什么是懊丧？甭管什么是懊丧，快给我下来。她的声音很尖利，说起"懊丧"时杀气腾腾，我得下我进了厨房，外婆说：瞧瞧他那张长脸吧，你以为他会为他的小弟弟高兴呀，哪里，一个九到十岁的男孩总是欠揍。我知道，我不是有两个男孩嘛。柠檬水和面包的味道好极了，阿非这个新宝宝一直咿咿呀呀个不停，在为他的受洗日高兴呢。他还太无知，不知道他的名字让人苦恼。爷爷从北爱尔兰给宝宝阿非汇来五英镑，妈妈想去取，但又不能下床走远路。爸爸说他去邮局取，她吩咐我和小马拉奇跟他一起去。他取了钱，对我们说：好了，孩子们，回家去吧，告诉你们的母亲，我一会儿就回家。小马拉奇说：爸爸，你不能去酒吧，妈妈说了你要把钱带回家，你不能喝酒。好啦，好啦，儿子，回家到你妈妈那儿去吧。爸爸，把钱给我们，这钱是给宝宝的。好啦，弗兰西斯，做个好孩子，听爸爸的话。

他丢下我们，进了南方酒吧。妈妈在炉子边坐着，怀里抱着阿非。她摇了摇头：他要去酒吧，是不是？我要恁们去酒吧把他臊出来，我要恁们站在酒吧的中间，告诉每一个人，你们的父亲在拿婴儿的钱喝酒，恁们去告诉全世界的人，我们的家里没有一点吃的，没有一块生火的炭，婴儿的奶瓶里也没有一滴奶。我们穿过街道，小马拉奇高声练习着他的演讲：爸爸，爸爸，那五英镑是给刚出生的宝宝的，那不是用来喝酒的。那孩子正在床上哭着喊着要牛奶呢，你却在这里喝酒。他已经不在南方酒吧了，小马拉奇还想站在酒吧中间发表他的演讲。可我告诉他，我们得趁他还没喝光那五英镑，赶快去别的酒吧里继续找。我们在别的酒吧里也找不到他，他一定料到了妈妈会来找他，或是派我们来。利默里克这一头有那么多的酒吧，我们就是找一个月也找不完。我们不得不告诉妈妈没有他的影子，她说我们一点用都没有。啊，老天，要是我有力气，我就找遍利默里克的每一个酒吧。我要撕下他的那张嘴，我干得出来的。继续去找，回去找找火车站

附近所有的酒吧，试试诺顿煎鱼薯条店。我只好一个人去，小马拉奇拉肚子了，离不开马桶。我找了帕奈尔街和附近的所有酒吧。我看了女人喝酒的小隔间，也看了男厕所。我很饿，但找不到父亲，我不敢回家。他不在诺顿煎鱼薯条店，不过有个喝醉的人趴在角落的桌子上睡着了，他的煎鱼和薯条用《利默里克导报》包裹着扔在地上。就算我不拿走，猫也会把它们吃掉的。我把它们塞进毛衣里，走到街上。我坐在火车站的台阶上，吃着煎鱼和薯条，望着醉醺醺的大兵搂着格格笑的女郎从眼前走过。我从心里感激那个喝醉的人，他用醋浸泡过了煎鱼和薯条，还用盐腌过。随即我又想起，要是今晚我死了，就是带着偷窃罪而死的，会和一肚子的煎鱼薯条一起下地狱。不过今天是星期六，要是牧师还在忏悔室里的话，我可以吃完后洗涤一下自己的灵魂。多明我会教堂正好就在格林沃什街。保佑我吧，神父，我有罪，这距离我上一次忏悔有两星期。我告诉他一些普通的罪过，然后说我偷了一个醉汉的煎鱼和薯条。为什么，我的孩子？我饿了，神父。

你为什么饿了？肚子里没有东西了，神父。他没有说什么，尽管天很黑，我仍能知道他在摇头：我亲爱的孩子，你为什么不能回家向你妈妈要些吃的？因为她派我出来到酒吧找我父亲，神父，可我找不到他，家里什么吃的都没有，他把爷爷从北方寄给刚出生的宝宝的五英镑拿去喝酒了。她因为我找不到父亲，正在炉边生气呢。我不知道这位牧师是不是睡着了，因为他什么声息都没有。终于，他说话了：我的孩子，我在这儿坐着呢。我听到了穷人的罪过，我给他们忏悔的机会，赦免他们。我应该跪下为他们洗脚。你明白我的话吗，我的孩子？我告诉他明白，可我并不明白。回家去吧，孩子，为我祈祷。不让我忏悔吗，神父？不，我的孩子。我偷了煎鱼和薯条，我罪有应得。你得到了宽恕，去吧，为我祈祷。他用拉丁语为我赐福，又用英语自言自语，我不知道

他在对自己说些什么。我多么希望我能找到父亲，对妈妈说：他回来了，他的口袋里还剩下三英镑。我现在已经不饿了，可以去奥康纳街两边和小巷里的酒吧找父亲。他在格利森酒吧，我怎么能听不出他的歌声呢？要是有格外惊奇的目光投向我，那仅仅是我一个人的事情。安特里姆的绿谷向我敞开着怀抱，至于感想如何，那是我自己的事情。我的心都快要跳出来了，我不知该如何是好，因为我跟坐在炉子边的母亲一样，心里充满了愤怒。我想冲进去，在他的腿上一阵猛踢，然后扬长而去。但我不能，因为我们之间还有炉火旁的那些早上，他给我讲库胡林、德。瓦勒拉和罗斯福的故事。而且，要是他在那儿喝醉了，用宝宝的钱买酒时，眼睛里流露出尤金寻找奥里弗时的那种神情，我还不如回家去，向妈妈撒谎说我没看到他，无论如何也找不到他。她和宝宝在床上躺着，小马拉奇和迈克尔在楼上的意大利睡了。我知道我不必对妈妈说什么，不久酒吧就要关门，他就会唱着歌回来了，给我们一便士，让我们为爱尔兰去死。不过，这次情况不太一样，因为喝

掉救济金和薪水已经够糟的了，而喝掉给刚出生的宝宝的钱，按妈妈的说法，简直是过分得不能再过分了。

我的作文我已经十岁，准备去圣约瑟教堂举行坚信礼了。奥狄老师在学校为我们做准备，我们得知道"神恩"，这是耶稣临终时为我们换来的无价珍宝。奥狄先生的眼珠子不停地转着，他告诉我们，举行过坚信礼后，我们就成为神的一部分了。我们将拥有神灵的赋予：智慧、理解、忠告、坚毅、知识、怜悯，以及对主的畏惧。牧师和老师告诉我们，坚信礼意味着你是一个真正的教堂战士了，这赋予了你一种权利，即万一遭到新教徒、伊斯兰教徒或别的异教徒的侵犯，我们就要战死，要成为烈士。又是死，我真想对他们说，我不想为信仰而死，因为我已经预备为爱尔兰而死了。米奇。莫雷说：你是开玩笑吧？为信仰而死的事全是扯淡，这不过是他们编来吓唬你的，为爱尔兰而死也一样。没有人再为什么事情而死了，要死的人都已经死了。我不为爱尔兰而死，也不为信仰而死。我可以为我妈妈而死，仅此而已。

米奇什么都懂，他快满十四岁了。他常常抽筋，常常产生幻觉。成年人告诉我们，为信仰而死是件光荣的事情，只是我们还不准备为它而死。因为坚信礼日就像首次圣餐日一样，你可以大街小巷地到处走，接受人们的蛋糕、糖果和钱，也就是"收钱"。这时，可怜的皮特。杜雷来了。我们都管他叫"卡西莫多"，因为他的后背上长着一个大鼓包，跟巴黎圣母院中的驼背人一样。他的真名叫查尔斯。洛顿。卡西莫多有九个姐妹，据说他的母亲从来没想要他，但是天使把他送来了。你不能质问为什么要送他来，因为这是罪过。卡西莫多挺大了，有十五岁，他的红头发向四面八方支棱着，眼睛发绿，其中一只眼睛转动得特别厉害，他要不时地敲敲太阳穴，保证它在正常的地方待着。他的右腿短而弯曲，走起路来有点像舞蹈的旋转动作，他可能随时会跌倒，把人吓一跳。他咒骂自己的腿，咒骂这个世界，但他咒骂时总是操着从BBC 广播电台学来的动听的英语腔调。他出门前，总是先把脑袋伸出门外，告诉眼前的小路：这是我的头，我的屁股随后就到。在十二岁的时候，卡西莫多已经确立了人生目标，他很有自知之明，知道自己长

什么德性，也知道别人怎么看他，所以决定要找一份 "让别人看不到他，却可以听到他"的工作。那么，有什么能比坐在伦敦BBC 广播电台的麦克风后面念新闻更好的呢？但是，没有钱去不了伦敦，这正是他在那个星期五（即坚信礼的前一天）一瘸一拐地走向我们的原因。他打起我和比利的主意，他知道第二天我们会因为坚信礼得到一些钱，要是答应每人给他一先令，就让我们当晚爬上他家房后的排水口，趁他姐妹们一星期洗一次澡的机会，透过窗户看她们的裸体。我立刻同意了，比利却说：我自己有姐妹，为什么还要付钱去看你那不穿衣服的姐妹？卡西莫多说，看自己姐妹的裸体是所有罪过中最严重的，他不能断定世界上是否有牧师能够宽恕你，也许你只能去找主教，而人人都知道主教庄严得让人害怕。比利同意了。星期五晚上，我们爬上卡西莫多家的后院墙。这是一个可爱的夜晚，六月的月亮高悬在利默里克的上空，分明能感觉到从香农河吹来的阵阵和风。卡西莫多正要让比利先上排水口，这时有人爬到墙上，原来是"抽筋的米奇。莫雷"。他低声对卡西莫多说：给你一先令，

卡西莫多，让我上排水口。米奇十四岁，比我们都大，由于干送煤的活儿，他长得很强壮。他像帕。基廷姨父一样，全身都被煤染黑了，只能看到眼珠上的一点白色，还有下嘴唇上的白沫———这表明他可能随时会犯病。卡西莫多说：等等，米奇，他们先来的。等个屁，米奇说着，爬上排水口。比利抱怨着，但卡西莫多摇头说：我也没办法，他每星期都带先令来。我不能不让他上排水口，不然他会打我，向我母亲告状的。第二天，她会把我关在煤坑里，让我整天跟老鼠待在一起。 "癫痫病"一只手吊在排水口上，另一只手在裤兜里动来动去。这时，排水口也动了起来，发出"咯吱咯吱"的声音。卡西莫多小声说：莫雷，不要在排水口上胡来。他在院子里跳来跳去，不停地嘟囔。他的BBC 腔调不见了，满嘴的利默里克口音：老天，莫雷，快给我下来，不然我就告诉我妈妈去。米奇的手在裤兜里动得更快了，结果排水口一歪，掉了下来，米奇也滚落在地，他大叫着：我死了，我不行了。啊，上帝，可以看见他嘴唇上的白沫，还有咬破舌头流出来的血。卡西莫多的母亲尖叫着推门出来：看在上帝的分上，怎么啦？！厨房的灯光顿时照亮了整个院子，窗户上

方传出卡西莫多姐妹们惊慌的叫声。她朝我们厉声吆喝着，叫我们进厨房去。比利想跑，她一把把他从墙上拽了下来，让他快到拐角的药剂师奥康纳那里打电话，为米奇叫救护车或医生。她把卡西莫多踢进过道，他倒在地上，她把他拖进楼梯下的煤坑，关了起来：在里面待着吧，直到你脑子清醒为止。他哭着，用地道的利默里克口音喊她：啊，妈妈，妈妈，放我出去，这儿有老鼠。我只是想去BBC，妈妈。啊，老天，妈妈，我再也不让别人爬咱们家的排水口了。我会从伦敦寄钱给你的，妈妈，妈妈！米奇还躺在地上，在院子里抽搐着、翻滚着，他摔断了肩膀，咬坏了舌头，救护车把他拉走，送到了医院。我们的母亲很快都赶来了，杜雷太太说：我太丢人了，我是太丢人了。我女儿一在星期五的晚上洗澡，全世界的人都在窗户上傻看。这些男孩子都在犯罪，在明天举行坚信礼以前，他们应该到牧师那里去忏悔。但是我妈妈说：我不知道其他人怎么样，我可是为弗兰克的这套坚信礼服省了整整一年的钱，我可不想让牧师告诉我，我的儿子不适合参加坚信礼，结果只能再等一年，等得这套衣服穿不上了。而这一切都是因为他爬上排水口，天真地看了莫娜。杜雷那瘦骨嶙峋

的屁股。她揪着我的耳朵，把我带回家，让我在教皇的像前跪下。发誓，她说，向教皇发誓，你没看没穿衣服的莫娜。杜雷。要是你撒谎，明天的坚信礼上，你就没法进入神恩的宽恕之列，这可是一种最严重的渎神行为。只有主教能够宽恕这样的渎神行为。好吧，上床睡觉去，从今天起，离那个不幸的卡西莫多。杜雷远点。第二天，我们都举行了坚信礼。主教问了我《教理问答》中的一个问题：第四诫是什么？我回答他：荣耀圣父圣母。他拍拍我的脸颊，让我成为了真理教堂的一名战士。我在长椅上跪下，想到被锁在楼梯下煤坑里的卡西莫多。我想，不管怎样，为了他的BBC 事业，我是不是应该把那一先令给他呢？后来，我把卡西莫多忘了个一干二净，因为我的鼻子开始淌血，我有些头晕眼花。灿烂的阳光下，参加坚信礼的男孩和女孩都在圣约瑟教堂的外面和父母拥

抱，亲吻，我却毫不在乎；父亲在工作，我也毫不在乎；母亲在吻我，我也毫不在乎；男孩们谈论着"收钱"，我也毫不在乎。我的鼻子血流不止，妈妈担心我会弄脏衣服。她跑进教堂，想找司事斯蒂芬。凯里要一块破布，他只给她一些帆布，弄得我的鼻子好痛。妈妈问：你想去"收钱"吗？我说我不在乎。小马拉奇说：收、收，弗兰基。他很失望，因为我答应过要带他去利瑞克电影院看电影，再饱餐一顿糖果。我只想躺下，只想躺在圣约瑟教堂的台阶上，永远睡去。妈妈说：外婆正在做好吃的早餐呢。提到吃的，我特别恶心，跑到人行道边上呕吐起来，就是全世界的人都在看我，我也不在乎。妈妈说她最好带我回家，让我在床上躺一会儿。我的伙伴们都很惊奇，可以收钱的时候，谁会上床睡觉呀？妈妈帮我脱下坚信礼服，扶我上床。她弄湿一块破布，放在我脖子下面，过了一会儿，血就不流了。她端来茶，可我一看见它就恶心，又吐在了马桶里。汉农太太从隔壁过来，我听见她说，这孩子病得很厉害，应该找医生。妈妈说今天是星期六，给穷人看病的免费诊所不开门，我们上哪儿去找医生呢？爸爸从兰克面粉厂下班回来了，他对妈妈说，我要进

入青春期了，这只是成长的必经之痛。外婆来了，也是这么说，她说男孩子从九岁到十岁时，身体正在发生变化，容易流鼻血。她说我的体内可能有太多的血，好好流出去一些，没什么害处。这一天过去了，我断断续续地睡着。晚上的时候，小马拉奇和迈克尔来到我床边，我听见小马拉奇说：弗兰基很烫。迈克尔说：他的血流到我腿上了。妈妈把湿布放到我鼻子上，又在我的脖子上放了一把钥匙，但血还是流个不停。星期天早上，血都流到我的胸前了，弄得浑身都是。妈妈告诉爸爸，我的屁股在流血，他说我可能是拉肚子，这是青春期常见的事。特洛伊医生是负责为我们看病的医生，但他出去度假了。星期一来给我看病的这个人带着一身的威士忌酒气，他给我做了检查，告诉妈妈我患了重感冒，让我待在床上别动。几天过去了，我继续睡觉，继续流血。妈妈烧了牛肉茶，可我不想吃。她甚至买来冰激凌，我看了一眼就开始恶心。汉农太太又来了，说那个医生在胡说八道，还是去看看特洛伊医生回来了没有。妈妈带着特洛伊医生来了，他摸摸我的额头，翻翻我的眼皮，把我翻个身，检查我的后背，然后他抱起我，跑到他的车里。妈妈在后面追着，他告诉她我得了伤

寒病。妈妈哭了：啊，上帝呀，啊，上帝呀，我要失去所有的家人吗？什么时候是个头啊？她上了车，把我抱在她的腿上，一路抽泣着到了"城市之家"的发烧医院。床上铺着雪白凉爽的床单，护士们穿着雪白的干净制服，丽塔修女也是一身雪白。汉弗莱医生和坎贝尔医生都穿着雪白的大褂，用挂在脖子上的东西在我的胸部听来听去。我睡了许久又醒过来，她们拿来几瓶鲜红的东西，把红东西吊在床边的高杆子上，然后把管子插进我的脚踝和右手背。丽塔修女说：你在输血，弗兰西斯，输的是萨斯菲德营士兵的血。妈妈坐在我的床边，护士正在说：...你知道，太太，这很不寻常，我们从不允许家属进发烧医院，害怕会传染他们，可却在你儿子病危的时候给你破了例。要是他能挺过去，就一定会康复的。我又睡着了，当我醒来时，妈妈已经不在了。但是屋里有响动，是兄弟会的高瑞神父。他正在屋角的桌子旁做弥撒。我又一次迷迷糊糊地漂进梦乡，她们却把我弄醒了，脱下我的睡衣。高瑞神父在给我涂油，一边用拉丁语祈祷着，我才不在乎。她们又把我弄醒了，让我领圣餐。我不想要，我害怕会恶心。我把圣饼含

在舌头上，又睡着了。等我醒来时，圣饼已经融化了。天黑了，坎贝尔医生坐在我的床边。他握着我的手腕，一边看着手表。他满头红发，戴着眼镜，跟我说话时总是笑嘻嘻的。现在他坐在那里，嘴里哼哼着，望着窗外。他的眼睛闭上了，开始轻轻地打鼾。他歪倒在椅子上，放了个屁，自顾自地笑了一下。我知道我要好了，因为医生是从不在一个要死的孩子面前放屁的。从窗户射进来的阳光下，丽塔的修女袍闪闪发亮。她握着我的手腕，看着自己的手表，脸上露出笑容。啊，她说，我们睡醒了，是吧？好啦，弗兰西斯，我想我们已经度过了险关。我们的祷告见效了，兄弟会里几百名小男孩的祷告都见效了。你能想像得出来吗？几百个男孩在为你念玫瑰经，奉上他们的圣餐。输血的管子把我的脚踝和手背扎得特别疼，我才不在乎那些为我做祷告的男孩。丽塔修女离开房间的时候，我听见她的修女袍发出窸窸窣窣的响声，还有念珠互相碰撞的"喀哒"声。我睡着了，醒来时，天已经黑了，爸爸坐在我的床边，把他的手盖在我的手上。儿子，你醒啦？我想说话，但嘴里很干，什么也说不出来。我指了指

我的嘴。他把一杯水放到我的唇边，那水好甜好爽啊。他按了按我的手，说我是个伟大的老兵，怎么不是呢？我的体内不是流着士兵的血吗？管子已经取下了，玻璃瓶也不见了。丽塔修女走了进来，告诉爸爸他必须得走了。我不想让他走，因为他看上去很难过，那天我给帕迪。克劳海西葡萄干时，帕迪就是这个样子。爸爸难过，是世界上最糟糕的事情了。我开始哭泣。这是怎么啦？丽塔修女说，你身上有那么多士兵的血，还哭鼻子？明天有个大惊喜给你，弗兰西斯。你一定猜不到，好啦，我告诉你吧，明天早上给你送茶时，我们会给你好吃的饼干。这可是一项优待哦。而且，你父亲过一两天就会来看你的，是吧，迈考特先生？爸爸点点头，又把手放到我的手上。他看着我，走了几步，又停下，走回来亲吻我的额头。我长这么大，还是头一回得到他的吻，我无比幸福，感觉像飞离了床铺一样。病房里的另外两个床铺没有人，修女说：我是仅有的伤寒病人，能战胜病魔真是一个奇迹。隔壁的病房是空的，一天早晨，我听见一个女孩的声音：哎，喂，谁在那儿？

我不能确定她是在跟我说话，还是在跟别的病房里的人说话。哎，喂，患伤寒病的男孩，你醒着吗？我醒着。噢，你为什么到这儿来？我也不知道，我还得躺在床上，她们给我打针吃药。你长得什么样？我想，这是什么样的问题啊，我不知道该怎么回答她。哎，喂，你还在吗，伤寒病男孩？我在。你叫什么名字？弗兰克。这是个好名字，我叫派翠西亚。麦迪根。你多大啦？十岁。噢。她听上去挺失望。不过我到八月份就十一岁了，就是下个月。噢，这比十岁要好些，我九月份就十四岁了。你想知道我为什么来发烧医院吗？想。我得了白喉，还有其他的病。还有什么病？

他们不知道，他们认为我感染了一种外国病，因为我父亲过去待在非洲。我差点死了，你愿意告诉我你长得什么样吗？我的头发是黑色的。成千上万的人都是黑头发。我的眼睛是棕色的，带点绿，人们叫淡褐色。成千上万的人都有淡褐色的眼睛。我的右手背和双脚上有针眼，她们从这儿给我输了士兵的血。啊，上帝，她们这样干了？她们这样干了。那你要不停地齐步走，不停地敬礼了。传来一阵修女袍的窸窣声和念珠的"喀哒"声，紧接着是丽塔修女的声音：嗨，嗨，这是怎么一回事？两个病房里的人是不可以说话的，特别是一个男孩和一个女孩。你听见我的话了吗，派翠西亚？我听见了，修女。你听见我的话了吗，弗兰西斯？我听见了，修女。你们两个康复得这么好，应该向上帝表示感激。你们可以诵玫瑰经，可以读床头的《圣心小信使》，但不要

让我看到你们在说话。她走进我的房间，用手指点着我：尤其是你，弗兰西斯，几千个男孩在兄弟会为你祷告，表示感激吧，弗兰西斯，表示感激。她走了，静了一会儿。派翠西亚小声说：表示感激，弗兰西斯，表示感激，念玫瑰经，弗兰西斯。我大笑起来，一名护士跑来看我是怎么啦。她是一个从凯里郡来的护士，非常严厉，她吓唬我：这是怎么一回事？弗兰西斯，笑？有什么可笑的？你和麦迪根家的女孩在说话？我要报告给丽塔修女。不要笑，这样会严重损害你的内脏的。她迈着沉重的步子走了，派翠西亚又用很重的凯里口音小声说：不要笑，弗兰西斯，这样会严重损害你的内脏的。念你的玫瑰经去，弗兰西斯，为你的内脏祈祷吧。星期四，妈妈看我来了，我也想见爸爸，但我已脱离了危险，险情过去了，只允许一个人探视我。妈妈说，他回兰克面粉厂工作去了，感谢主，这个工作会因为战争持续一阵子，英国人迫切需要面粉。她给我带来一块巧克力，这证明爸爸有了工作。用救济金她是买不起巧克力的。爸爸给了我几张便条，告诉我弟弟们

都在为我祈祷，我应该做个好孩子，听医生、修女和护士的话，不要忘了祷告。他确信是圣犹大把我拖出了险境，因为圣犹大是危急关头的保护神，而当时我确实处在危急关头。派翠西亚说她的床头有两本书，一本是诗集，是她最喜欢的一本，另一本是英格兰简史，问我想不想看。她把它交给天天拖地板的西穆斯，让他转给我。他说：我不该在白喉病房和伤寒病房间传东西，细菌到处乱飞，藏在书页里。要是你再染上白喉，她们会明白是怎么回事的，那我就要丢掉工作啦，只能流落街头，拿着个小杯子，高唱爱国歌曲啦。这对我来说很容易，因为没有一首写爱尔兰之苦的歌是我不知道的，我还知道几首写威士忌之乐的歌。啊，是的，他知道罗迪。迈克考雷。他立即为我唱了起来，但刚唱到第一段，那个凯里郡的护士就冲了进来。这是怎么一回事？西穆斯？唱歌？你是这个医院的一员，应该知道不许唱歌的规定。我会把你的事向丽塔修女报告的。啊，上帝，别那样，护士。很好，西穆斯，这次我就饶了你。你知道唱歌会让这些人旧病复发的。

等她走后，他小声说他要教我几首歌，当你一个人待在伤寒病房时，唱歌是打发时间的好办法。他说派翠西亚是个可爱的女孩，她常从她妈妈每隔两星期送来的包裹里拿些糖果给他。他不再拖地板，朝隔壁的病房喊：我在告诉弗兰基，你是个可爱的女孩，派翠西亚。她说：你是个可爱的男人，西穆斯。他笑了，他已经过了四十岁，还没有孩子，只能同发烧医院的孩子们说说话。他说：给你书，弗兰基，你要读英国历史，这实在是太遗憾了，他们都对我们干了些什么呀？这家医院就没有一本关于爱尔兰历史的书吗？这本书讲述的是阿尔弗瑞德国王和征服者威廉的生平，还包括爱德华国王之前所有国王和王后的生平。这位爱德华要想成为国王，只能等待母亲维多利亚的死去。这本书引用了莎士比亚的诗句，这也是我第一次读到莎士比亚。确凿的实例促使我必须相信，你就是我的敌人。这位史书的作者说，这是亨利八世的妻子凯瑟琳对红衣主教沃尔塞所说的话，当时他正想砍掉她的头。我不大明白这句话的意思，可我才不在乎，只要这是莎士比亚写的就够了。我念叨这句话时，犹如口中含玉。

要是能拥有一本完整的莎士比亚的书，我愿意在这家医院待上一年。派翠西亚说她也不明白"促使"和"确凿的实例"是什么意思，不过她并不看重莎士比亚，她有自己的诗集。她在墙那头给我读了一首她的诗，写的是一只猫头鹰和猫咪带着蜂蜜、钞票，乘坐一条绿船驶向大海。通篇没有任何意义。当我如实说出自己的感受时，派翠西亚生气了，说这是她最后一次给我读诗。她说我老是背诵莎士比亚的诗句，它们一样没有意义。西穆斯停下拖把，说我们不该为诗争吵，等我们长大结婚了，有的是可以争吵的东西。派翠西亚说对不起，我也说对不起。于是，她又给我读起另一首诗的片段。我得记住它，好在清晨或深夜，趁修女和护士不在的时候，再读给她听：黑色波涛一般的狂风，在树丛中阵阵掠过，月亮有如鬼船，在云海里不停地颠簸，道路像紫色荒野上的一缕月光，那拦路大盗恰在此时策马飞驰而来。飞驰，飞驰，拦路大盗策马飞驰而来，冲向那破旧的栈房。法式三角帽罩着他的前额，一束带子系在下颏，

上穿深红的天鹅绒外套，下穿褐色的鹿皮马裤，全身挺括恰到好处，一双长腰的马靴套在大腿上。他飞驰起来宝石闪闪放光芒，在那缀满宝石的星空下，这光芒来自他的短枪托，这光芒来自他的利剑把。每天，我迫不及待地等着医生和护士离开，好从派翠西亚那里再学一段新诗，搞明白那个拦路大盗和店主的红唇女儿后来怎么样了。我喜欢这首诗，因为它写得激动人心，几乎同那两句莎士比亚的诗一样好。英国兵在后面追赶着拦路大盗，因为他们知道他曾对酒店老板的女儿说过：我将趁着月色来找你，纵使地狱就横在我的路上。我也想那么做，趁着月色，不顾一切地去找隔壁房间里的派翠西亚，纵使地狱就横在我的路上。她正要读最后几行诗的时候，凯里郡的那个护士恰巧走了进来，冲她和我喊：我告诉过恁们不要隔着房间讲话，从来不允许白喉病人同伤寒病人讲话，反过来也一样。我警告过恁们。她大声唤道：西穆斯，把这个家伙带走，把这个男挨（孩）带走。丽塔修女说过，他要再说一句话，就让他到楼上待着去。我们警告过恁，不要胡说，可恁不听。把这个男挨（孩）带走，西穆斯，把

他带走。啊，好吧，护士，他其实没什么不好，只是一些诗罢把那个男挨（孩）带走，西穆斯，马上把他带走。他俯下身，对我小声说：啊，上帝呀，我很抱歉，弗兰基，这是你的英国历史书。他非常麻利地把那本书塞进我的衬衫里，然后把我从床上抱起来。他低声说我轻得就像一根羽毛。当我们路过派翠西亚的房间时，我很想见见她，但我能看清的仅仅是枕头上一个模糊的头影。丽塔修女在过道里拦住我们，她说我令她非常失望，她指望我能成为一个好孩子，因为上帝为我做了那么多，几百名男孩在兄弟会里为我祈祷，发烧医院的修女和护士们也给了我那么多的照顾，还让我的父母进来看我，这是极少被允许的。可我用这样的方式报答她们，在清楚白喉病人与伤寒病人之间禁止讲话的情况下，还躺在床上同派翠西亚。麦迪根你来我往地背诵起愚蠢的诗来。她说我有足够的时间在楼上那间大病房反思罪过，我应该乞求上帝，请他原谅我违规背诵一首英国异教徒的诗歌———什么一个拦路大盗和一个犯下可怕罪过的红唇少女之间的故事。我本该把

这些时间用在祷告或者阅读圣徒传上的。她把读这首诗当成自己的分内事，因此便读了一遍，还劝告我要向牧师忏悔。凯里郡的那位护士气喘吁吁地跟上楼，一手牢牢地抓着楼梯的扶手。她告诉我，最好不要以为我一有点头疼脑热，她就会跑到这个角落来。这个病房有二十张床位，一律是白色的，一律是空的。护士告诉西穆斯，把我放在病房最靠里的地方，以确保我没法同门口路过的人说话，其实大可不必，因为这层再没有第二个人了。她告诉西穆斯，这是很久以前大饥荒时期的发烧病房，只有上帝晓得有多少人因为送来太晚而死在这里，没能在入土前洗一把身子。据说夜深的时候，这里总有哭泣和呻吟的声音。她说一想到英国人对我们做的事情，你的心都会碎的。要不是他们把害虫放到土豆上，我们也不必费力除虫。他们毫无同情之心，对死在这个病房里的人无动于衷。这些小孩子因为吞吃田里的草，嘴都吃绿了，在这里痛苦地死去；英国人却在他们宽敞的房子里痛吃烤牛肉，狂饮上等葡萄酒。上帝赐福我们，救助我们，保佑我们吧，让我们再也不会遇到饥荒了。

西穆斯说这的确是件恐怖的事情，他可不愿意在黑暗里从这些过道上走，让那么多的小绿嘴朝他大张着。这位护士给我量体温。上升了一点，现在好好睡上一觉吧，你已经不能和楼下的派翠西亚闲聊了，她将不会知道白发的滋味了。她朝西穆斯摇摇头，他也朝她悲伤地摇了摇头。护士和修女们以为你永远不知道她们在说什么，就算你快十一岁了，也会被想得像我那摔过脑袋的舅舅帕特。西恩一样头脑简单。你不能提问题，不能显示你明白那位护士在说派翠西亚就要死了；也不能表现出你想为这个女孩哭泣，她教过你一首动人的诗歌，尽管修女说它糟透了。那位护士告诉西穆斯她得走了，他也该清扫清扫我床下的那些药棉，再把病房拖拖了。西穆斯对我说，她是个爱打小报告的婊子，就是她跑去丽塔修女那里告状，说我们两个隔着病房念诗的。他说一首诗不可能让你得病，除非那是情诗，哈哈，这是绝不可能的，在你这样的年纪———十岁还是十一岁？他说他从没听过这样的事——— 一个小家伙因为读诗被转移到楼上。他有心去《利默里克导报》报社，让他们把整个事件公之于众，但要是丽塔修女知道了，他会丢掉

这份工作的。不管怎样，弗兰基，反正你没几天就要出去了，这几天的天气都不错，你想读什么诗，就可以读什么诗。但是楼下的派翠西亚我就不清楚了，我不清楚她会怎样，上帝保佑我们。没过两天，他便清楚派翠西亚会怎样了，尽管护士让她用床上的便盆，她还是下床去厕所，结果倒在厕所里，死了。西穆斯当时正在拖地板，泪水从他的脸颊滚落，他说：你本是纯洁可爱的，却死在厕所里，这真是脏得够惨。她对我说过，让你背那样的诗，结果把你弄得离开原来的房间，她很抱歉，弗兰基。她说那是她的错。不是的，西穆斯。我明白，我就是这样对她说的。派翠西亚走了，我再也不会知道拦路大盗与店主的女儿贝丝后来怎么样了。我问西穆斯，可他对诗一窍不通，尤其是对英国诗。他知道一首爱尔兰诗歌，但却是关于小仙女的，里面没有一点拦路大盗的影子。不过，他要去问问当地酒吧里的人，酒吧里总是有人背诵什么东西，他可以把听到的给我带回来。我实在很忙，一边阅读英国简史，一边弄清英国人的种种背信弃义的行径。西穆斯是这样说的：背信弃义，我不知

道这是什么意思，但只要是英国人做的，那就一定很恐怖。他一周来拖三次地板，护士每天早上来给我量体温，测脉搏，医生用挂在脖子上的东西听我的心脏。他们都这么问：我们的小士兵今天怎么样啊？一个穿蓝衣服的姑娘每天给我送三餐，可她从来不跟我说话。西穆斯说她的脑子不大对劲，所以别和她说话。七月的白天挺长，可我还是害怕黑暗。病房的天花板上只有两盏灯，护士给我服完药丸，茶盘一端走，灯就熄了。护士让我睡觉，但我睡不着，我看见那十九张床上的人都奄奄一息，嘴边发绿，想吃草，还呻吟着要喝汤，喝新教徒的汤，什么汤都可以。我用枕头把脸蒙住，希望他们不要过来，不要站在我的床边，朝我张牙舞爪地哀嚎，要母亲上个星期带给我的巧克力糖。不，并不是她亲自带来的，她只能让别人捎给我，我不能再接受任何人的探视了。丽塔修女告诉我，进入发烧医院探视属于一种特权。鉴于我和派翠西亚。麦迪根之间以及那首诗的恶劣行为，我不再享有这种特权了。她说几个星期后我就可以回家了，我要做的事就是专心康复身体，重新学习走路，毕竟我已在床上

躺了六个星期。明天早餐后，我就可以下床走动。我不明白她为什么说我必须学习走路，从婴儿时期起，我一直就在走路呀。当护士站在床边看着我时，我却跌倒在地上。护士笑了：瞧，你又成了小宝宝了。我开始在床之间来回地练习走路，我不想再变成婴儿，不想再待在这个空荡荡的病房里，这里没有派翠西亚，没有拦路大盗，没有店主的红唇千金。我才不要那些张着绿色大嘴的鬼孩子朝我伸出瘦骨嶙峋的手指，叫嚷着要我的巧克力糖。西穆斯说酒吧里的一个人知道拦路大盗那首诗的全文，结局很悲惨。我请他讲出来，他根本不识字，只能把整首诗记在脑子里。他站在病房的中央，靠在他的拖把上，背了起来： "哒哒"的马蹄声打破沉寂！ "哒哒"的马蹄声在深夜回响！他越来越近！她满面红光！她的双眸霎时张大，最后长吸一口气，纤纤玉指在月色中轻轻一扬，手中的长枪击碎一地月光，击碎了她月光下的胸膛———她在用生命通知他逃亡。

他一听见枪响就赶紧逃走了。黎明，他得知贝丝是怎么死的，他怒不可遏，又回来报仇，结果却不幸被英国兵击毙了：金色骄阳下，他的马刺一片血红；他的天鹅绒外套一片酒红，他们将他击毙在公路上，他像条狗似的躺在那里，他倒在公路的血泊里，一束带子垂在他的脖子上。西穆斯用袖子擦擦自己的脸，抽抽鼻子。他说：在你还不知道拦路大盗和贝丝的结局时，根本就没有理由把你转走，让你离开派翠西亚。这是一个很悲惨的故事，我讲给我老婆听，她整夜哭个没完。她说英国兵没有理由打死拦路大盗，他们应该对这个世界上的半数苦难负责，他们对爱尔兰人也没有丝毫的怜悯。弗兰基，要是你现在还想知道什么诗的话，就告诉我吧，我到酒吧去给你找，再用脑子把它们带回来。有一天，那个脑子不大对劲的蓝衣服姑娘突然跟我说话了：你想要本书读读吗？后来，她给我拿来一本菲利普斯。奥本海默写的《厄内斯特。布利斯先生历险记》，整本书讲的是一个每天为无事可做而发愁的英国人的故事。这个英国人非常富有，钱多得数不过来。

他的男仆给他送来早报、茶水、鸡蛋、烤面包和橘子酱，他却说：统统拿走，生活真是空虚。他读不进报纸，吃不下蛋，日渐消瘦。他的医生让他出去走走，在伦敦东郊的穷人中生活一阵子，这样他可以学会热爱生活。他真的去了，结果爱上一个诚实又聪明的穷姑娘。他们结了婚，搬进了他在西郊富人区的房子。帮助穷人其实是挺容易的，还使人顺心舒适，不会无聊厌倦。西穆斯喜欢听我讲正在读的书，他说厄内斯特。布利斯先生的那个故事是瞎编出来的，虽然你不知道是否确有其事，但没有哪个头脑正常的人会因为钱太多和不想吃蛋而去看病的。也许在英国有这种情况，但爱尔兰绝不会有。在这儿，要是你不吃鸡蛋，就会被拉到疯人院，或者是被告发给主教。我迫不及待地想回家，把这个不吃鸡蛋的人的故事讲给小马拉奇听。小马拉奇会笑翻在地板上，因为这样的事情是不可能发生的。他会说是我瞎编的，要是我告诉他，这个故事说的是英国人，他就会明白了。我不能对那个蓝衣服姑娘说这个故事是愚蠢的，因为她可能有癫痫病。她说要是你读完了这本书，我就再给你拿一本来，过去的病人们在这里留下了满满一箱

子的书。她又给我拿来一本名叫《汤姆。布朗的求学生涯》的书，这本书相当难读。后来，她又接连不断地给我拿沃德豪斯的书，他惹得我对乌克瑞奇、波蒂。沃斯特、杰维斯以及穆利纳全家人都大笑不已。波蒂。沃斯特很有钱，可他每天早上都吃鸡蛋，因为他怕杰维斯会说他。我希望可以跟那个蓝衣服姑娘，或别的什么人谈谈这些书，但我又担心凯里郡的那位护士或者丽塔修女会发现，然后把我弄到楼上五十张床一间的更大的病房里去，那里到处都是饿死鬼，它们张着绿色大嘴，伸着瘦骨嶙峋的手指。夜里，我躺在床上想着汤姆。布朗在鲁格比学校的冒险活动，还有沃德豪斯作品里的所有人物。我可以在梦中与那个店主的红唇千金和拦路大盗相会，护士和修女们对此只能无可奈何。全世界的人都无法干涉你脑海里的想法，这真是一件美事啊。到了八月份，我十一岁了，已经在医院待了两个月，我想知道她们是不是会让我出去过圣诞节。那位凯里郡的护士说，我竟然还活着，就应该跪下来感激上帝，根本不应该抱怨什么了。我不抱怨，护士，我只是想知道我能不能回家过圣诞节。

她没有回答我，她告诉我老实点，要不就让丽塔修女来，那样的话，我只能老老实实了。妈妈在我生日的这一天来到医院，给我带来一个小包，里面有两块巧克力糖和签有邻居姓名的一张便条，那上面写道：早日康复回家，你是个了不起的战士，弗兰基。护士让我隔着窗户同妈妈说话，这很困难，因为窗户很高，我得站在西穆斯的肩膀上。我告诉妈妈我想回家，可她说我还是太虚弱了点，不过很快就会出院的。西穆斯说：长到十一岁可是件大事，从此以后，你得天天像大老爷们那样刮胡子，准备出去找份工作，干所有大老爷们都干的事情，喝起酒来也得和别的男人一样出色。十四周后，丽塔修女告诉我可以回家了，她说我是个多么幸运的孩子，今天正好是阿西西的圣弗兰西斯节。她说我是一个很乖的病人，除了在那首诗和派翠西亚。麦迪根那里有点问题以外，上帝保佑她。丽塔修女还邀请我来医院玩，吃一顿圣诞节大餐。妈妈来接我，我们都双腿无力，花了很长时间才走到联合十字路口的汽车站。妈妈说：不着急，三个半月都过去了，咱们还在乎那一个小时吗？巴拉克路和罗登巷的人们在自家门口对我说，看见我

回来真是太好了，我是个了不起的战士，是我父亲和母亲的光荣。小马拉奇和迈克尔从巷子里向我跑来，他们说：上帝呀，你走得可真慢，你再也不能跑步了这天阳光明亮，我的心情很好，直到看见爸爸搂着阿非坐在厨房里，一种空落落的情绪才涌上我的心头。我知道，他又失业了。我一直确信他在上班，妈妈就是这么告诉我的，我还以为家里不会缺吃少穿呢。他冲我笑笑，对阿非说：哎呀，你大哥出院回家了。妈妈对他说了医生的嘱咐，我必须有充足的营养和休息，医生还说，牛肉最有利于恢复体格。爸爸听了直点头。妈妈切了一块牛肉，做了牛肉茶。小马拉奇和迈克尔眼巴巴地看着我喝，他们说也想喝点，但妈妈说走开，恁们没得伤寒。她说医生让我早点睡觉。她想消灭跳蚤，可由于天气暖和，它们比以往更厉害了。她说，你已瘦成了皮包骨头，它们从你身上也捞不到多少东西了。我在床上躺下来，想着医院，那里的白色床单每天一换，上面一个跳蚤也不会有。厕所里有坐便器，可以坐在上面看书，一直待到有人问你是不是死在里面了。那里还有浴池，可以泡在热水里洗澡。只要你喜欢，

也可以背诗：确凿的实例促使我必须相信，你就是我的敌人。背这首诗有助我入睡。小马拉奇和迈克尔早晨起床上学时，妈妈告诉我可以继续睡。小马拉奇现在已经上五年级了，在奥狄先生那个班。他对每个人炫耀，说他在学习为坚信礼准备的大红本《教理问答》，奥狄先生正在给他们讲感恩、欧几里得，以及八百年来英国人是如何折磨爱尔兰人我不想再在床上待着了，十月的日子是可爱的，我想到户外去坐坐，在巷子里看看太阳斜照在对面墙上的景象。米奇。莫雷给我拿来沃德豪斯的书，那是他父亲从图书馆借来的。我和乌克瑞奇、波蒂。沃斯特以及穆利纳一家人，一起度过了一段美妙的岁月。爸爸让我读读他最喜爱的一本书，约翰。米切尔的《狱中日志》，讲的是一个伟大的爱尔兰人的故事，因为反抗罪恶的英国人，他被流放到了澳大利亚的塔斯马尼亚岛。英国人对约翰。米切尔说，只要他像绅士那样，给一句不逃跑的承诺，他便可以在塔斯马尼亚岛上随意走动。他做了承诺，等到有船帮助他逃跑时，他来

到英国地方长官的办公室，说：我要逃跑了。说着便跳上马，最后逃到了纽约。爸爸说他不介意我读沃德豪斯写的那些愚蠢的英国书，只要我别忘了为爱尔兰效过力、献出生命的人们就行了。我不可能永远在家里待下去，十一月，妈妈把我送回利米国立学校。新校长奥哈洛伦说他很遗憾，我耽误了两个多月的学习，只能再回到五年级。妈妈说我一定能应付得了六年级。毕竟，她说，他只耽误了几个星期而已。奥哈洛伦先生说他很遗憾，带这孩子去隔壁奥狄先生的那个班吧。在过道里，我对妈妈说，我不想上五年级。小马拉奇在那个班，我不想和比我小一岁的弟弟在同一个班里。我去年就举行过坚信礼，而他还没有举行坚信礼呢。我年龄大，虽然因为伤寒，我的身材不比他高，可我的年龄到底还是大呀。妈妈说：重上五年级，又死不了你。她无所谓，我只好去了小马拉奇的那个班。我知道他所有的朋友都在讥笑我，因为我留了级。奥狄先生让我坐在前排，警告我不要拉着脸，不然，就要尝尝他的白腊树枝了。然而，奇迹发生了。这全归功于阿西西的圣弗兰西斯

———我最喜爱的圣徒，还有我们的主。回到学校的第一天，我在街上捡到一便士，想跑到凯瑟琳。奥康纳的小店去买一大块"克里夫"太妃糖。可是我不能跑，因为伤寒病，我的腿仍然没有力气，有时还得扶着墙走路。我非常渴望那块"克里夫"太妃糖，也非常渴望离开五年级。我知道，我只能向阿西西的圣弗兰西斯塑像求助了，他是惟一会听我祈祷的圣徒。不过，他的塑像在利默里克城的另一头，走到那里花了我一个小时的时间，路上我时而在台阶上坐坐，时而扶扶墙。点蜡烛需要花一个便士，不知道能不能只点蜡烛而不花那一便士？不，这样圣弗兰西斯会知道的。他虽然爱天空中的鸟儿和溪水里的鱼儿，但并不是一个傻瓜。我点亮蜡烛，跪在他的塑像前，乞求他让我离开五年级，我竟和自己的弟弟憋在一个班，他现在可能在巷子里到处散布我留级的消息呢。圣弗兰西斯一言不发，但我知道他在听我诉说，知道他会让我离开五年级的。毕竟，我是历经千辛万苦，又是坐在台阶上，又是扶着墙走路才来到他这里的，他至少该为我做点事吧。其实，我本可以去圣约瑟教堂，在那里为"小花"或耶稣的圣心点亮一支蜡烛的。但要是他在我最需要的时

候抛弃我，那取他的名字又有什么意义呢？我只好坐在奥狄先生的班里听《教理问答》，和他去年教过的东西。我想举手回答问题，但他说：安静，让你弟弟来回答吧。他给他们测验算术，让我坐在那儿给他们纠正。他让他们听写爱尔兰文，又让我看他们写得对不对。后来，他还吩咐我写一篇特殊的作文，读给全班的人听，因为这一切我去年统统学过了。他对全班同学说：弗兰克。迈考特将向你们显示，去年在这个班里他的作文写得多么好，他要写一篇关于我主的作文，是不是，迈考特？他要告诉我们，假如我主在拥有圣家的"总兄弟会"的利默里克，在这座爱尔兰最神圣的城市里长大的话，那将是怎样的一番情形？我们知道，假如我主是在利默里克长大的，他就绝不会被钉在十字架上，因为利默里克的人民一贯是忠心耿耿的天主教徒，不会让他遭受这样的刑罚。那么，迈考特，你回家去写这篇作文吧，明天把它带来。爸爸说奥狄先生的想像力可真够了不起的，可是，难道我主在十字架上遭的罪还不够吗？就算他没有被钉死在利默里克，也不该再受香农河的湿气这份罪。说完，他戴上帽子，开始他的长途散步。而我只好独自构思关于我主的作文，不知道明天都能写出些什么来。

第二天，奥狄先生说：好吧，迈考特，给全班同学念一下你的作文。我的作文名字是——— 题目，迈考特，题目。我的作文题目是《耶稣和天气》。《耶稣和天气》。好吧，念吧。我的作文是这样写的：我认为，我主耶稣不会喜欢利默里克的天气，因为这里老是下雨，香农河把整座城市搞得湿漉漉的。我的父亲说，香农河是一条杀人的河，它杀死了我的两个弟弟。当你看耶稣的画像时，你会发现他总是裹着一张床单在古代的以色列四处游走。那儿从来不下雨，你也从来不会听说有人咳嗽，或者是感染上肺病。那里的人都不工作，他们只要站在那里，吃神赐的甘露，然后挥舞着拳头，走上十字架。耶稣觉得饿了，只需走到一棵无花果树或是桔树下，就可以填饱肚子。要是他想喝一杯啤酒，他只要摇摇一个大杯子，酒就会满上。他也可以到抹大拉的马利亚和她妹妹马大那里去，她们当然会管他饭的。他还

可以让她们给他洗洗脚，再用马利亚的头发把脚擦干。马大在一旁洗刷碗碟，我认为这是不公平的，为什么她就得洗碗，而她的姐姐远远地坐在那儿跟我主聊天？耶稣决定做犹太人，生在那个温暖的地方，是件好事，假如他生在利默里克，他就会得肺病，在一个月内死掉，那便不会有什么天主教教堂，也不会有什么圣餐和坚信礼，我们也就不必再学《教理问答》，写关于他的作文了。完了。奥狄先生显得很平静，奇怪地看了我一眼。我有些担心，因为每当他显得很平静，便意味着有人要遭殃了。他问：迈考特，是谁写的这篇作文？是我，先生。是你父亲写的这篇作文吗？不是他，先生。过来，迈考特。我跟着他走出教室，沿着过道来到校长的房间。奥狄先生给他看了我的作文，奥哈洛伦先生也奇怪地看了我一眼：这是你写的作文？是我写的，先生。就这样，我离开五年级，被安插进奥哈洛伦先生的六年级，同我认识的帕迪。克劳海西、芬坦。斯莱特瑞

和"问题奎格雷"待在一起。那天放学后，尽管伤寒病害得我的腿依然软弱无力，我得时而在台阶上坐坐，时而扶扶墙，我还是得回到圣弗兰西斯的塑像前感谢他，我不知道自己的那篇作文究竟写得好还是不好。托马斯。奥哈洛伦先生在一间教室里带六、七、八三个年级。他长着一个罗斯福总统那样的脑袋，戴着金边眼镜，穿着海蓝色或灰色的西装，金表链从裤兜横过小腹，伸进马甲的口袋里。我们都叫他"单腿跳"，因为他一条腿短，走起路来一跳一跳的。他知道我们叫他什么，他说：没错，我是"单腿跳"，我要在你们身上跳。他手执一根长长的教鞭，一旦你上课走神或者是回答错了问题，就要在你两只手上各抽三下，要么就猛击你的腿肚子。他会让你对每件事都刻骨铭心，这使他成了学校里最严厉的老师。他喜欢美国，让我们按照字母顺序记住美国所有的州。他在家里制作爱尔兰语法、爱尔兰历史和代数图表，把它们挂在黑板架子上，我们就得一遍又一遍地吟诵这些东西，什么爱尔兰语动词的变化形式，词尾的变化形式，名人的姓名，历史上的战役，比例，比率以及各种等式等等。我们还要记住爱尔兰历史上所有重要的日期，他告诉我们什么是重要的，以及为什么重要，以前没有老师

给我们讲这些，要是你问为什么，脑袋就会挨敲。"单腿跳"不骂我们白痴，要是你提问，他也不会勃然大怒。全校只有他会暂停一下，问我们：我讲的恁们都听懂了吗？恁们有什么问题要问吗？他说，一六○一年的金赛尔之战是爱尔兰历史上最悲惨的一刻，是双方旗鼓相当的残暴战役，我们都震惊双方都很残暴？爱尔兰一方也凶恶残暴？这怎么可能？其他的老师都告诉我们，爱尔兰人始终在光明正大地战斗，他们一向进行公平的战斗。这时，他开始背诵诗句，让我们记住这些：他们纷纷走上战场，却总是一个个倒下，在阴郁盾牌的上方，他们的眼睛一眨不眨。他们战斗得高贵又勇敢，结局却是不妙，受伤的心，因为一句微妙的咒语就被击垮。要是他们输了，那是由于叛徒和告密者的出卖。但是，我想知道的是爱尔兰人的那些残暴行为。先生，爱尔兰人在金赛尔之战中做了残暴的事情吗？他们做了，的确做了。有记录为证，他们杀了战俘，但跟英国人相比，他们算不上好，也算不上坏。奥哈洛伦先生不可能撒谎，他是校长。这些年来，所

有的人都告诉我们，爱尔兰人始终是光明正大的，在被英国人绞死前，他们发表着慷慨激昂的演说。而现在，"单腿跳"奥哈洛伦先生却说爱尔兰人同样干了坏事，下次他该说英国人干了好事了。他说：你们必须得研究和学习，自我判断历史和其他东西，不过，要是大脑空空的话，你们什么事也没法作决定。把你们的大脑充实起来吧，把你们的大脑充实起来吧。大脑是你们的宝库，世界上没有人能干涉得了它。要是你赌赢爱尔兰赛马，买下一套房子，房子需要家具，你会往里面塞些乱七八糟的垃圾吗？你们的大脑就是你们的房子，要是往里面塞从电影院看到的那些垃圾，你们的头脑便会腐烂。你可能是个穷人，你的鞋子是破的，但你的大脑却是座宫殿。他把我们挨个叫到教室前面，看我们的鞋子。他想搞清我们的鞋子为什么是破的，或者为什么我们压根就没有鞋子穿。他说这是丢人的，他要用出售彩票的方式筹些钱，为我们买结实又暖和的靴子过冬。他给了我们几本票券，我们蜂拥到利默里克的每一个角落，为利米国立学校的靴子基金奔忙。一等奖五英镑，还有五个奖项，各一英镑。有十一个没有靴子穿的男孩得到了新靴子。我和小马拉奇什么也没得到，因为我

们的脚上有鞋子，虽然鞋底已经破烂不堪了。我们很纳闷，为什么我们跑遍利默里克全城兜售票券，结果只是让别的孩子得到靴子？芬坦。斯莱特瑞说我们是做慈善工作，能让罪过获得赦免。帕迪。克劳海西说：芬坦，你就好好管管自己那一屁股屎吧。爸爸做坏事时，是逃不过我的眼睛的。我知道他什么时候喝光了救济金，绝望的妈妈只好去向圣文森特保罗协会乞讨，向凯瑟琳。奥康纳的小店赊账。可是，我并不想因此冷落他，站到妈妈那一边。我怎么能这样做呢？每天一大早，全世界的人还在沉睡，我就跟他一同起床了。他生着炉子，烧好茶水，独自哼着小曲，有时小声给我读报，不吵醒家里的其他人。米奇。莫雷偷走了库胡林，第七级楼梯上的天使也去了别的地方，而我的父亲每天早晨依然属于我。他早早地拿到《爱尔兰新闻》，给我讲天下大事，什么希特勒、墨索里尼、佛朗哥等等。他说这次战争用不着我们操心，因为英国人的诡计会再次得逞。他给我讲了华盛顿伟大的罗斯福和都柏林伟大的德。瓦勒拉。早晨，全世界只有我们俩，他从不说我应该为爱尔兰去死。他给我讲爱尔兰的过去，说英国人不让天主教徒办学，想

让爱尔兰人变成无知的民族，天主教徒的孩子们就聚集在乡下偏僻的树篱学校里，在那儿学习英语、爱尔兰语、拉丁语和希腊语，哪怕这对找工作毫无益处。爱尔兰人热爱学习，喜欢故事和诗歌，男女老少都挤在沟渠里，聆听那些伟大导师们的教诲，每个人都很好奇，一个人的脑子里怎么能装下那么多的东西。那些导师冒着生命的危险，从一个沟渠到另一个沟渠，从一个树篱到另一个树篱，一旦英国人抓住他们传授知识，他们便会被放逐到异国他乡，甚至更糟。他对我说，现在上学很容易，你不必坐在沟渠里学算术题和爱尔兰的光荣历史了。他说我应该在学校好好学习，将来有一天回到美国，找一份坐办公室的工作，坐在办公桌前，口袋里插着一红一蓝两支自来水笔，用来签署意见。我可以整天西装革履的，住在温暖的地方，雨也淋不着我，一个男人还有何求呢？他说在美国你可以随心所欲，那是一个充满机遇的地方。你可以到缅因州当渔夫，也可以去加州做农民。美国不像利默里克，后者是个有条杀人河的灰蒙蒙的地方。早晨与父亲待在炉边时，你是不需要库胡林和第七级楼梯上的天使的，你什么都不需要。夜里，他帮我们做练习。妈妈说美国人把这叫做家庭

作业，这里的人却把它叫做练习，有算术题、英语、爱尔兰语、历史等。他没法帮我们学爱尔兰语，因为他是北方人，不擅长本地的语言。小马拉奇要把自己认识的所有爱尔兰语单词教给他，可爸爸说这太晚了，你没法教一条老狗换个花样叫。临睡前，我们围坐在炉子旁，要是我们说：爸爸，给我们讲一个故事吧。他就开始现编，讲的是巷子里的某个人。这个故事会带着我们满世界地转，上天入海，最后再回到巷子里。故事里的每个人都变了个样，所有的事件都是驴唇不对马嘴。汽车、飞机在水里开，潜水艇在天上飞。鲨鱼坐到树上，大马哈鱼和袋鼠在月球上一块儿嬉戏，北极熊和大象在澳大利亚摔跤，企鹅教祖鲁人吹苏格兰风笛。讲完故事，他把我们领到楼上，和我们一起跪下祷告，我们祷告着，天父，三位尊敬的玛丽，上帝请赐福主教。我们还祷告上帝保佑妈妈，保佑我们死去的妹妹和弟弟，保佑爱尔兰，保佑德。瓦勒拉，保佑给爸爸工作的人。他说：睡觉去吧，孩子们，神圣的上帝正注视着你们，要是你们表现得不好，他随时会知道。我认为父亲就像是神圣的三位一体，他身上有三个人：早晨看报纸时是一个人；夜里讲故事、做祷告时是一

个人；做了坏事，一身威士忌酒气地回到家，要我们为爱尔兰去死时，又是一个人。我对他做的坏事感到悲哀，但又不能为此疏远他，因为早晨的那个父亲是我真正的父亲。要是在美国，我可以说：我爱你，爸爸。在电影里，他们就是这么说的。可在利默里克，你不可能这么说，人们会笑话你的。你可以说你爱上帝，爱婴儿，爱获胜的马，而爱其他的东西只能说明你生性脆弱。在厨房里，我们从早到晚忍受着邻居们的马桶的折磨，妈妈说要害死我们的不是香农河，而是门外厕所的那股恶臭。冬天就已经够糟的了，厕所里乱七八糟的东西流出来，从门缝里渗进来。而天气暖和的时候，情况就更恶劣了，绿头大苍蝇和老鼠泛滥成灾。厕所的旁边是一个马厩，里面关着加贝特煤场的一匹大马。它的名字叫芬马，我们都很喜欢它，可煤场的那个马夫对马厩不上心，弄得臭气老往我们家里跑。厕所和马厩里的臭气招来老鼠，我们只好让家里新养的狗拉奇去撵它们。拉奇喜欢把老鼠撵到角落里，让我们用石块或木棍把它打得稀巴烂，再不就是用马厩里的干草叉把它扎死。那匹马很怕老鼠，当它抬起前蹄时，我们就得倍加小心。它知道我们不是老鼠，因

为我们给它吃从乡下果园里偷来的苹果。有时候老鼠会跑进我们家里，钻进楼梯下面的煤坑，那里漆黑一片，你看不见它们，就算点着蜡烛也看不见它们，因为它们到处打洞，让你无从找起。要是家里的炉子没灭，我们可以烧壶热水，慢慢地把热水浇进洞里，把老鼠从脚下的洞里赶出来，让它们逃出屋外。要是拉奇在的话，会用利齿咬住老鼠，让它一命呜呼。我们希望它能吃掉老鼠，可它把老鼠开膛破肚地丢在巷子里，再跑回来吃父亲蘸过茶水的面包。巷子里的邻居都说这条狗的行为有些古怪，可你又能指望迈考特家的狗怎么样呢？一旦有老鼠的动静，或者提到老鼠，妈妈就会逃出家门，来到巷子里。她宁愿永远在利默里克的大街上走下去，也不愿在有老鼠的家里待上一分钟。她一刻也不得安宁，她知道要是马厩和厕所还存在，她的家里就有一窝老鼠在等着用餐。我们同老鼠奋战，同厕所里的恶臭奋战。天气暖和时，我们想敞着门，可是不行，巷子里不时有人提着满满的马桶从我们门前小跑过去，有些人家会更差劲。爸爸恨这里所有的人，尽管妈妈对他说，这不是他们的过错，这些房子是一百年前盖起来的，都没有厕所，

只有我们门口那一个。可爸爸说，他们应该在半夜我们睡着的时候倒马桶，这样我们就不会遭受恶臭的骚扰了。苍蝇和老鼠一样讨厌，天气暖和的时候，它们就蜂拥到马厩里，一等有人倒马桶，它们就蜂拥进厕所。要是妈妈做点吃的，它们立刻蜂拥进厨房。爸爸说，一想到落在糖罐里的苍蝇刚刚还在粪池里待过，可能会在糖罐里留下点什么，就让人恶心。要是你有一处裸露的伤口，肯定会被它们发现，来找你的麻烦。白天有苍蝇围着你，夜晚有跳蚤陪着你。妈妈说跳蚤倒有一个好处，挺干净，苍蝇可是很脏的，你从不知道它们是从哪儿飞来的，身上带有多少病菌。我们可以撵老鼠，弄死它们，也可以把苍蝇和跳蚤打死。但对邻居和他们的马桶，我们就无计可施了。我们在巷子里玩，要是看见有人提着马桶出来，就会朝家里喊：马桶来了，快关门，快关门。不论是谁在家，都会急忙跑过去关门。天气暖和的时候，我们整天都要跑去关门，我们知道谁家的马桶最臭。有些人家的父亲有工作，要是他们习惯用咖喱做菜的话，他们家的马桶肯定会臭气熏天，叫我们犯晕。随着战争的进行，男人们不断地从英国寄钱来，越来越多的人家开

始用咖喱做菜，我们家一天到晚充满恶臭。我们知道哪家做咖喱菜，哪家只做卷心菜。妈妈一直在恶心，爸爸去乡村长途散步的时间越来越久。我们也尽可能地在外面玩，尽可能地远离那个厕所。爸爸不再抱怨香农河了，他现在明白厕所才是最可怕的。他带我上市政厅抱怨，而市政厅的人说：先生，我只能告诉你，你可以搬家。爸爸说我们搬不起家，那个人说那他也没有办法。爸爸说：这里不是印度，这里是基督徒的国家，巷子里需要多盖几个厕所。那个人说：你指望利默里克政府为早晚要倒掉的房子盖厕所吗？那些房子战后会被拆毁的。爸爸说厕所会害死我们全家的，那个人说我们目前就生活在一个危险的时代。妈妈说，很难有火煮圣诞大餐，但要是我想去医院吃圣诞大餐的话，就得从头到脚把自己洗干净，不能让丽塔修女说我没有得到好好的照顾，一不小心就会得上其他病。一大清早，做弥撒前，她烧了壶热水，几乎能烫掉我的头皮。她使劲清理我的耳朵，擦洗我的皮肤，疼得我龇牙咧嘴。她只能付得起去医院的那两便士车费，回来时我就得步行了，不过这也好，因为我会吃撑的。现在，她得再次生着炉火，准备烧猪头、卷心菜和白土豆，这些是她从好心的圣文森特保罗协

会弄来的。她下了决心，这是我们最后一次用猪头庆祝主的诞生，明年我们将会有一只鹅或一块不错的火腿，为什么不会有呢？利默里克不是以火腿闻名世界的吗？丽塔修女说：你们快看看，我们的小战士多么健康啊。虽然骨头上没有多少肉，还是挺健康的。快告诉我，你今天早晨做弥撒了吗？做了，修女。领圣餐了吗？领了，修女。她把我领到一间空病房，让我在一张椅子上坐下，说要不了多久我就可以用餐了。她走了，我不知道我是要跟修女和护士们一起，还是要跟哪个病房里的孩子们一起吃圣诞大餐。不大一会儿，那个拿书给我看的蓝衣服姑娘把晚饭给我端来了，她把托盘放到一张床边上，我拉过来一把椅子。她朝我皱皱眉，脸扭作一团。你，她说，这是你的晚饭，我再也不给你带书来晚饭非常丰盛，有火鸡、土豆泥、果冻和牛奶蛋糊，还有一壶茶。果冻和牛奶蛋糊看上去好吃极了，我实在忍不住，便趁没人注意，先尝了一口。偏偏就在这

时，蓝衣服姑娘拿着面包走进来，质问：你在干什么？没干什么。干了，你干了。你在吃正餐前，先吃了甜点。说完，她跑出去喊：丽塔修女，快来呀。修女走了进来：弗兰西斯，你没事吧？我没事，修女。他有事，修女，他在吃正餐前，先吃了果冻和牛奶蛋糊。这是罪过，修女。噢，好吧，亲爱的，你去吧，我要同弗兰西斯谈谈。谈吧，修女，跟他谈谈，要不医院里所有的孩子都要在吃正餐前先吃甜点了。那样的话，还要我们干什么？确实是的，确实是的，还要我们干什么？你先去吧。那个姑娘走了，丽塔修女冲我笑笑：上帝爱她，她脑子有点糊涂，但从没漏过一件事情。弗兰西斯，在她激动的时候，我们得对她有耐心。她走了，空空的病房顿时变得很安静。吃完饭，我不知道该干什么，在这里你不能随便乱动，要听从她们的吩咐，医院和学校总是发号施令的地方。我等了很长一段时间，那个蓝衣服姑娘才进来取托盘。你吃完了吗？她问。吃完了。

好吧，这就是你能得到的一切了，现在你可以回家了。当然，脑子不大对劲的姑娘是不能吩咐你回家的，我不知道是不是该等一下丽塔修女。可过道里的一位护士告诉我，丽塔修女正在用餐，不能打搅她。从联合十字路口到巴拉克山的路很长，等我到家时，家里的人正在意大利享用着猪头、卷心菜和白土豆。我对他们讲了我吃的圣诞节晚餐。妈妈想知道我是不是跟护士和修女们一起吃的，当得知我是一个人在病房里吃的，她有点生气，让我坐下吃些猪头，我硬着头皮把它塞进嘴里。我吃得实在太饱了，躺在床上，肚子鼓出老高。一大早，我们门口就开来一辆汽车，这个巷子里还是第一次见到这种玩意。在芬马的马厩门口，几个穿着西装的男人朝里面张望。一定是出了什么事，不然绝不会有穿西装的人在巷子里出现。是芬马。它倒在地上，抬头望着巷子，嘴边粘着奶白色的东西。照顾芬马的马夫说，他今天早上发现它这个样子，这很奇怪，因为它平时总是站着等喂食的。马夫一个劲地摇头，我的弟弟迈克尔问那些穿西装的人：先生，芬马怎么了？病了，孩子，回家去吧。

照顾芬马的马夫身上有一股威士忌的味道，他对迈克尔说：这马没救了，我们必须用枪打死它。迈克尔直拽我的手，说：弗兰克，他们不能打死它，快告诉他们，你是大孩子。马夫说：回家去，小男孩，回家去。迈克尔打他，踢他，挠他的手背。他把迈克尔推得飞了起来。抓住你弟弟，他对我说，抓住他。那伙人中有人从包里掏出一个黄褐色的东西，对准芬马的头，接着传出一阵尖锐的爆裂声。芬马开始颤抖。迈克尔冲那个人一声狂吼，对他连打带踢。但那个人只是说：这匹马病了，孩子，它不再难受了。穿西装的人们开车走了，马夫说他得等卡车来把芬马拉走，他不能把它孤零零地扔在这里，老鼠会盯上它的。他问我们，是不是可以让我们家的狗拉奇看着这匹马，他想去一趟酒吧，他心情不太好，需要喝杯酒。迈克尔拿着一根和他一样短的木棍守在旁边，老鼠根本没有机会靠近芬马。马夫带着一身的黑啤酒味回来了，接着，来了一辆大卡车，要把芬马拉走。车上拉着三个男人，还有两块大木板。他们把木板斜放在车后，一直靠到芬马的头部。那三个人和马夫用绳子捆住芬马，沿着木板把它往车上拖。巷子里的人开始朝

他们嚷嚷，因为木板上的钉子和木碴刮了芬马，把它的皮都刮破了，在木板上留下一道道鲜红的血痕。恁们在糟蹋这匹马！恁们就不能善待一下这匹死马吗？对这匹可怜的马小心一点吧！马夫说：看在耶稣的分上，恁们都吵什么呀？不就是匹死马嘛。迈克尔又一次扑向他，朝他挥舞着小拳头。马夫搡了他一把，把他搡倒在地上。妈妈不干了，怒气冲冲地向马夫走过去。他赶紧跑上木板，躲到芬马的尸体后面，溜了。晚上，他喝得醉醺醺的回来睡觉了。第二天他离开时，干草慢慢燃烧起来，烧毁了马厩，老鼠都跑到巷子里，被孩子们和狗追撵着，逃进了体面人居住的街区。

"大药房" 妈妈说：有阿非就足够了，我累得不行了，到此为止，别再要孩子了。爸爸却说：虔诚的女天主教徒必须履行做妻子的义务，服从丈夫，否则将面临永世的责罚。妈妈说：只要不再要孩子，永世的责罚对我更有吸引力。

爸爸可以做什么呢？战争正在继续，英国的工厂经纪人招募爱尔兰人去他们的军工厂干活儿，报酬不错，而在爱尔兰无事可做。而且，假如老婆不搭理你的话，英国可不缺女人，那里的猛男都打希特勒和墨索里尼去了，你可以怎么高兴怎么来，只要你记住自己是个爱尔兰人，地位卑微，别想攀高枝就行。巷子里，家家户户都收到男人们从英国电汇来的钱，她们忙不迭地去邮局取钱，去商店采购一番，好在星期六晚上和星期天早上向全世界展示她们的好运气。在星期六，男孩们剃了头，女人们用烧热的铁夹子烫头发。她们显得十分气派，花六便士甚至一个先令去萨瓦电影院买张票，在那儿能碰到上层社会的人，不像下层社会的人那样，能在利瑞克电影院花两便士买张票就谢天谢地了。那里从不会有人冲着银幕大喊大叫，当然，要是你不介意的话，在看到非洲人向人猿泰山掷长矛，或印第安人剥美国骑兵头皮的时候，他们可能会欢呼那么一下。星期天，这些新贵们做完弥撒后，装模作样地回到家，大吃一顿肉、土豆、甜点和蛋糕。她们用托盘托着精致的小杯子喝茶，什么也不用想，托盘可以接住溢出来的茶水。端茶时，她们伸出纤细的手指，以显示自己多么富有教养。有些人

不再去煎鱼薯条店了，在那些地方只能看到醉醺醺的士兵、妓女、喝光救济金的男人，还有尖叫着要他们回家的妻子。这些四处炫耀的新贵们会出现在萨瓦饭店，或是斯特拉饭店，在那儿喝茶、吃小面包，她们还会用餐巾轻擦嘴唇，然后乘车回家，一路上抱怨着服务不如从前。她们现在也用上电了，可以看许多从未看过的东西了。夜幕降临，她们打开崭新的收音机，听听战况，感谢上帝送来了希特勒，要不是他长驱直入欧洲各地，爱尔兰男人们还在职业介绍所排队挠屁股呢。一些人家唱起了这样的歌：咿啵———啊耶———哎嘀———啊耶——— 啊———啊耶———噢——— 咿啵———啊耶———哎嘀———啊耶———啊，我们不管它英格兰还是法兰西，我们只要德意志能够所向披靡。要是天气有点冷，她们就打开电炉取暖，坐在厨房听听新闻，里面声称对在德军炸弹下奄奄一息的英国妇女和儿童深表同情，不过看看那八百年，英国人又对我们做了什么啊！父亲在英国工作的家庭，是可以凌驾于别的家庭之上

的。到了吃饭和喝茶的时间，新贵的母亲们站在自家门口，高声呼唤她们的孩子：米奇，凯瑟琳，帕迪，回来吃饭了，有香喷喷的羊腿、嫩绿的豌豆和白土豆泥。西恩，乔西，佩吉，回来喝茶了，快来吃新鲜的面包、黄油和人家没有的漂亮的青皮鸭蛋。布兰登，安妮，帕茜，回来吃炸黑布丁、刚出锅的炸香肠和用西班牙上等雪利酒泡过的果酱布丁。这种时候，妈妈就让我们在屋里待着。我们只有面包和茶水，她不想让烦人的邻居看到我们被飘满巷子的诱人香味馋得难受的样子。她说，从她们那事事吹嘘的样子，很容易看出她们过去是一无所有的。跑到门外向全世界宣布晚饭吃什么，是真正的下等心态。她说，这是她们抬高身价、看低我们的方式，因为爸爸是从北方来的异乡人，而且从来不跟她们沾边。爸爸说那些吃的是用英国人的钱买的，吃的人是不会有好运的。可是话说回来，你又能对利默里克人抱什么指望呢？他们发希特勒的战争财，为英国人工作、打仗。他说他绝对不会跑过去帮英国人打仗。妈妈说：对，那你就待在这个地方吧，没有工作，连一块烧茶的煤都没有。对，你就待在这个地方，兴致一来，就拿救

济金喝酒。你会看到你的儿子穿着破烂的鞋子，屁股露在外面招摇过市。巷子里每家都有电，而我们能有根蜡烛就算走运了。老天在上，要是我有车费的话，我就去英国，我相信他们的工厂也需要女人。爸爸说：工厂不是女人待的地方。妈妈说：炉子边也不是男人的屁股待的地方。我问他：你为什么不去英国，爸爸？那样的话，我们家就会用上电，也有收音机了，妈妈也可以站在门口，向全世界宣布我们晚饭吃的是什么了。他说：你不想让父亲在家里陪着你吗？我想，但你可以等打完仗回来呀，然后我们都去美国。他叹气：啊，唉呀，啊，唉呀，好吧。圣诞节一过，他就去了英国，因为美国现在也参战了，理由一定是正义的。要是美国人不参战的话，他是绝对不会去的。他交代我要做家中的男子汉。就这样，他同一个经纪人签了去考文垂工作的协议。每个人都说，那是英国被炸得最狠的城市。经纪人说：那里有的是工作，只要你愿意干，你可以加班加点地干，直到累趴下。要是你会攒钱，老兄，仗一打完，你就成了洛克菲勒了。我们早早起来，准备到火车站为爸爸送行，商店老板

娘凯瑟琳。奥康纳明白，爸爸一去英国，钱就源源不断地往回寄了。她很高兴地让妈妈赊账买茶、牛奶、糖、黄油和一个鸡蛋。就一个鸡蛋。妈妈说：这个鸡蛋是给你们的爸爸的，旅途很长，他需要营养。是煮鸡蛋，爸爸剥去蛋壳，把蛋切成五块，分给我们夹在面包里。妈妈说：别犯傻了。爸爸说：男人家要一个鸡蛋做什么啊？泪珠挂在妈妈的睫毛上，她把椅子拉到壁炉旁。我们吃着面包和鸡蛋，望着妈妈掉泪。她说：恁们傻看什么呀？说完，她扭过脸，望着壁炉里的灰烬。她的面包和鸡蛋仍然搁在桌上，我想知道她打算怎么处理它们。它们看上去很好吃，而我还没吃饱。但是，爸爸站起身，把它们和茶一起端到她面前。她一个劲摇头，他坚持要她吃，她开始吃喝，还抽着鼻子，掉着眼泪。爸爸在妈妈对面坐了片刻，默默无语，她抬头看看钟，说：该走了。爸爸戴上帽子，提起背包。妈妈用一条旧毯子裹上阿非，我们沿着利默里克的街道出发了。街道上还有其他人家，即将远行的父亲们走在前面，母亲们抱着婴儿或推着婴儿车跟在后面。推着婴儿车

的母亲对其他的母亲说：老天在上，太太，抱着那孩子，你一定累得够呛吧。可不是，为什么不把他放进我的婴儿车里呢？让你那可怜的胳膊歇歇吧。婴儿车里可能会挤进四五个婴儿，他们可着嗓子叫喊个没完，因为那车已经破旧不堪，轮子也不好使了，颠得他们头昏脑胀，吃下去的糖果都吐出来了。男人们互相打着招呼：多好的天啊，米克。这么好的天赶路不错，乔。的确是的，米克。啊哈，临走之前，我们不妨去喝它一杯，乔。喝一杯也无妨，米克。不妨就喝它个烂醉，乔。他们大笑起来，跟在他们身后的女人泪眼婆娑，鼻子通红。到了火车站附近的酒吧，男人们拥在一块儿，用经纪人付的旅途上的饭钱喝酒。这是他们在爱尔兰的土地上喝的最后一杯酒，最后一滴威士忌。天晓得，这可能就是我们的最后一杯了，米克，德国兵现在正把英国轰炸得屁滚尿流。英国人刚刚轰炸过我们，我们却要去他们那里搭救这帮夙敌了，这真是悲剧啊。等在酒吧外面的女人在那里聊天，妈妈对米汉太太说：第一笔电汇款一到，我就去商店买一大堆早餐，让每个人星期天早上都有鸡蛋吃。

我看看弟弟小马拉奇，你听见了吗？星期天早上我们自己的鸡蛋。啊，上帝呀，我已经开始想怎么吃我的那个鸡蛋了。我要先把一头磕碎，然后把蛋壳轻轻剥去，用勺子舀点黄油抹在蛋黄上，再来点盐。我要不慌不忙，用勺子一次一次地蘸点盐、舀点黄油，往嘴里放。啊，老天在上，要是天堂里有什么美味的话，那一定是蘸了黄油和盐的鸡蛋。而除了鸡蛋，这个世界上还有什么能比新鲜的热面包和香甜可口的茶水更诱人的呢？有些男人已经醉得没法走路了，英国经纪人出钱，让那些清醒的男人把他们拖出酒吧，扔到一辆马拉的大板车上，再运到车站，把他们一股脑地倒进火车里。经纪人心急火燎地把每个醉鬼弄出酒吧，不停地催促：快点，伙计们，错过这趟火车，你们就错过了一个好工作。快点，伙计们，我们英国有吉尼斯黑啤酒，我们还有杰姆森酒。好啦，伙计们，求求你们啦，伙计们，你们在拿旅途上的饭钱喝酒，我不会再给你们钱那些伙计叫经纪人去亲爱尔兰人的屁股，说他们应该庆幸自己还活着，庆幸自己在对爱尔兰人作了那些孽后，还没被吊死在眼前那根灯柱上。然后，这些人开

始唱起来：星期一的早晨在蒙特乔，树上的绞索挂得老高，凯文。巴里为了解放，就此把他年轻的生命抛。火车哀号着进站，经纪人央求那些女人让她们的男人离开酒吧。男人们跌跌撞撞地出了酒吧，又是唱又是哭的搂着他们的老婆和孩子，发誓要将大把的钞票寄回家，利默里克将会变成另一个纽约。男人们爬上车站的台阶，女人和孩子们在后面叫着他们的名字。凯文，亲爱的，当心身体，不要穿湿衬衫。把袜子晾干再穿，迈克尔，不然拇趾囊肿会毁了你的。帕迪，悠着点喝酒，你在听我说吗，帕迪？爸爸，爸爸，别走，爸爸。汤姆，别忘了寄钱来，孩子们可是瘦得皮包骨啊。皮特，别忘了吃治肺病的药，上帝保佑我们。莱瑞，当心该死的炸弹。克瑞斯蒂，别跟英国娘们儿套近乎，她们浑身都是病。杰基，回来吧，我们肯定会想出什么办法来的。别走了，杰基，杰基———啊，耶稣，别走。爸爸拍拍我们的头，叮嘱我们要记住宗教义务，不过，

首先要听母亲的话。他在她面前站着，她的怀里抱着阿非。她说：当心身体。他放下背包，搂住她。他们那样待了一会儿，直到宝宝开始在他们中间叫唤起来。他点了点头，拾起背包，爬上车站的台阶，转身朝我们挥挥手，然后消失了。回到家里，妈妈说：我不在乎了，我知道这听起来有些浪费，但我就是要生着炉子，烧更多的茶，你们的父亲不是每天都会去英国的。我们围坐在炉火旁，喝着茶，哭了，因为我们的父亲不在了。妈妈说：别哭，既然你们的父亲去了英国，我们的苦难就一定该结束了。一定。妈妈和布瑞迪。汉农坐在楼上意大利的炉火旁，一边抽"忍冬"，一边喝茶，我坐在楼梯上听她们说话。我们的父亲到英国去啦，所以我们想要凯瑟琳。奥康纳小店里的什么东西，就只管去赊。等他两星期后开始寄钱，我们就可以还清赊账了。妈妈对布瑞迪说，她恨不得马上搬出这个该死的巷子，找一个有厕所的体面地方，让我们再也用不着和半个世界的人同上一个厕所。我们会穿上崭新的靴子和防雨的外套，放学回家时也不会觉得肚子饿了。星期天，我们可以

吃鸡蛋和咸肉片，吃火腿、卷心菜和土豆做晚餐。我们还会有电灯的，为什么我们不该有？弗兰克和小马拉奇不是出生在美国吗？那里不是家家户户都有电灯我们现在要做的，就是等两个星期后电报童来敲门。爸爸得先在英国适应一下工作，买工作服，找个地方住，所以，第一笔汇款数目不会太大，也就三英镑或三英镑十先令吧，但很快我们就会和巷子里别的人家一样，一星期会有五英镑寄来，我们可以付清欠债，购买新衣，再攒些钱收拾一下，准备举家迁往英国，然后从那儿去美国。妈妈可以在英国的工厂找到制造炸弹或别的活儿，天晓得我们该怎么处理这滚滚而来的金钱。要是我们长大后有了英国口音，妈妈不会高兴的，但英国口音总比饿肚子强呀。布瑞迪说，一个爱尔兰人有什么口音并不重要，因为他永远忘不了八百年里英国人对我们都干了些什么。我们知道星期六的巷子里是什么样子，我们知道一些人家，比如我们对面的唐尼斯一家，会比较早地收到电报，因为唐尼斯先生是一个稳重的人，知道在星期五控制酒量，及时回家睡觉。我们知道，像他这样的男人一领了薪水，会立即奔往邮局，所以他们的家人

不用等得着急。像唐尼斯先生这样的男人，会给自己的儿子寄来英国皇家空军的飞行胸章，让他们佩戴在衣服上，这也是我们想要的，是我们在爸爸临走前叮嘱过他的：别忘了英国皇家空军的徽章，爸爸。我们看见电报童骑着自行车拐进巷子，他们是幸福的，因为在巷子里得到的小费要比在有钱人居住的豪华街区得到的多，有钱人可不愿意尿你。早早收到汇款的家庭露出满意的笑容，他们用整个周末来享受这笔钱，他们去购物、吃东西，用一整天的时间来想晚上该怎么过。天下最美的事，莫过于周六晚上有几个先令放在口袋里，这真是一个星期里最甜美的夜晚。有些人家每个星期都等不到电报，从她们那焦虑的表情上就可以看出这一点。梅格太太每个星期六都在门口等，已经等了两个月了。母亲说，像这样在门口等待着过日子，她会感到耻辱的。在巷子里玩耍的孩子都留意着电报童的到来，喂，电报童，有梅格太太家的什么东西吗？当他说没有的时候，孩子们会说：你敢肯定吗？他便说：我当然敢肯定啦，我知道我他妈的邮袋里有什么。谁都知道，等晚祷钟在六点钟敲响时，电报童就不会

再来了，夜幕在女人和孩子们的脸上投下绝望的阴影。电报童，你能再看看邮袋吗？求求你了，啊，上帝呀。我看过了，我没有恁们要的东西。啊，上帝呀，请再看看嘛，我们家叫梅格，你能再看看吗？我他妈的知道恁们家的名字叫梅格，我已经看过了。孩子们抓着自行车上的他不放，他只好用脚踹他们：老天呀，请恁们离我远点。一旦晚祷钟在晚上六点敲响，一天就结束了。拿到电报的人家在明亮的电灯下吃着晚饭，而没拿到的人家只好点上蜡烛，看看凯瑟琳。奥康纳是否愿意赊给她们一些茶和面包。等到下星期的这个时候，电报肯定会在上帝和圣母的保佑下送来的。住在巷口的米汉先生和爸爸一同去了英国，当电报童在米汉家门口停下，下一个就该轮到我们了。妈妈已经穿好衣服准备去邮局了，但她要拿到电报才离开炉子旁的椅子。电报僮骑过巷子，拐到尽头的唐尼斯家，把电报交给她们，收了小费，然后掉转自行车，沿着巷子骑回去。小马拉奇问：电报童，有迈考特家的电报吗？我们家的电报今天该来了。电报童摇摇头，骑车走了。

妈妈抽着她的"忍冬"，说：好吧，虽然我想在巴里肉店的上等火腿卖光前，趁早去买一点，可我们得等一整天了。她不能离开炉子，我们也不能离开巷子，因为我们害怕电报童上门时没有人在家。那么，我们只好等到星期一去取钱，这样我们的周末就彻底糟蹋了。我们只好眼巴巴地瞧着米汉一家和其他人都穿着新衣招摇过市，在星期六提着一大筐准备在星期天享用的鸡蛋、土豆和香肠，摇摇摆摆地走回家，然后再轻轻松松地去看晚上的电影。不，在电报童到来之前，我们寸步都不能动。妈妈说在中午到下午两点间，不用太着急，因为电报童都去吃饭了，在下午两点到六点间，会有一大帮电报童来的。在下午六点前，我们没有什么可着急的。我们拦住每一个电报童，告诉他们，我们家叫迈考特，在等我们的第一封电报，应该是三英镑或多一点，他们可能忘了写上我们的名字或是地址，他能确定没搞错吗？他能确定没搞错吗？一个男孩对我们说他到邮局问问看吧。他说他知道等电报是什么滋味，因为他自己的父亲是个老酒鬼，去了英国，一个子儿都没寄来过。妈妈在屋里听见了，对我们说，你们不该这样说自己的父亲。恰好在六点的晚祷钟敲响前，这个男孩回来了，他告诉我们，他问了邮局的

奥康纳太太，今天有没有迈考特家的电报，结果是没有。妈妈转过身去，看着炉中的死灰，吸了最后一口夹在熏黄的拇指和烫伤的中指间的烟头。迈克尔还只有五岁，要长到十一岁，像我这么大时，他才会懂事。他想知道我们今晚有没有煎鱼和薯条吃，因为他饿了。妈妈说：等下个星期吧，亲爱的。于是，他回到巷子里玩去了。第一封电报迟迟不来的时候，你也不知道自己该怎么办。你不可能总待在巷子里和弟弟们一起玩，因为别的孩子都回家了，要是继续待在巷子里，忍受飘出的香肠、咸肉和炸面包的香味，你会难为情的。在夜幕降临后，你不想看见从别人家窗户透出来的电灯光，也不想听见从别人家收音机里传来的BBC 或爱尔兰电台新闻。梅格太太和她的孩子们也进屋去了，她们的厨房里只有昏暗的烛光。她们同样感到难为情。星期六的夜晚她们就待在家里，甚至连星期天早上的弥撒都不去做了。布瑞迪。汉农告诉妈妈，梅格太太一直在为她们破烂的衣着难为情，绝望中，她去了负责公共援助的"大药房"。妈妈说对于一个家庭来说，这是最糟糕的事了，这比去领失业救济金还要糟糕，比去圣文森特保罗协会还

要糟糕，比跟叫花子和收破烂的一起乞讨还要糟糕。这是能让你免于沦落到贫民窟和孤儿院的最后一招在我的鼻子上头和两眉中间，长了一个疮，颜色暗红，非常痒。外婆说：不要摸那个疮，不要让它沾水，不然它会恶化的。就算你摔断胳膊，她也会告诉你不要摸它，不要让它沾水，不然它会恶化的。那个疮最后还是扩散到我的眼睛上，眼睛开始往外流红色和黄色的东西，眼皮黏得早晨都睁不开，我只得用手指使劲把眼皮扒开。妈妈只好用湿抹布蘸上硼酸粉，把那种黄东西擦去，结果眼睫毛也被擦掉了，只要利默里克一有风，灰尘就会跑进我的眼里来。外婆说我的眼睛变得光秃秃是自找的，全是因为我不管什么天气，都坐在巷子尽头的灯柱下熬夜，把鼻子贴到书本上的缘故。要是小马拉奇不改掉这样的看书习惯，他身上也会发生同样的事情。小小的迈克尔本该像个健康的孩子一样在外面玩耍，却也染上了把鼻子贴到书本上的坏毛病。书书书，外婆说，恁们会把眼睛彻底搞坏的。她和妈妈一起喝茶，我听见她小声说：需要给他抹点圣安东尼的口水。那是什么？妈妈问。

你吃早饭前的口水，趁他还没睡醒，走到他跟前，把口水抹在他的眼睛上，母亲没吃饭时的口水最管用了。可我总是比母亲先醒，在她起身前，我老早就用力睁开眼睛了。我能听见她朝我走来，站在我跟前，准备抹口水，但我睁开了眼睛。上帝啊，她说，你的眼睛睁开了。我想它们在好转。不错，她又回到床上去了。眼睛还是没有痊愈，她带我去了专门给穷人看病开药的"大药房"，这是申请公共援助的地方，当某家的父亲死了或失踪了，没有失业救济金，没有工资的时候，可以上这里来。医生办公室门口的墙边有不少长凳，上面总是坐满了人，谈论着他们的疾病。老人和妇女坐在那里呻吟，婴儿在尖叫，母亲们不停哄着：嘘，宝贝，嘘。"大药房"的中央有个高高的台子，四周围着齐胸高的柜台。要是你有事，就站在那个台子前排队，等着见考非或凯恩先生。排队的妇女和在圣文森特保罗协会门前排队的妇女一样，她们围着披肩，对考非或凯恩先生很尊敬，要是不这样，她们就可能被撵回去，等下个星期再来，哪怕你正急需公共援助或是就医证明。考非

先生和凯恩先生很爱跟这些妇女们逗乐，他们将决定你是否山穷水尽，到了需要公共援助的地步，或是否病重得该看医生了。你必须当着众人的面，告诉他们你哪儿不舒服，他们常常对此好一阵大笑。他们会问：你想要什么呢，奥西亚太太？就医证明，是吗？你有什么问题？奥西亚太太，觉得疼，是吗？着了凉吧，也许。也可能是卷心菜吃得太多了，啊，卷心菜完全可以导致这样的症状。他们大笑起来，奥西亚太太也笑了，所有的妇女都跟着笑了，说考非先生和凯恩先生真是很有意思的男人，跟当时的搞笑名家有一拼。考非先生问：那么，女人，你叫什么名字？安琪拉。迈考特，先生。你怎么啦？是我的儿子，先生，他的眼睛不好。噢，看在上帝的分上，他是这样，女人，这两只眼睛完全是穷凶极恶的样子，看起来就像是两个冉冉升起的太阳，日本人可以把它们放在自己的国旗上啦，哈哈哈。他的脸上是不是洒过什么酸性的液体？有些感染了，先生，他去年得了伤寒，然后就得了这个。好吧，好吧，我们不要听人生履历，这是你的就医证

明，找特洛伊医生去吧。两条长凳上都坐满了找特洛伊医生看病的人，妈妈坐在一位妇女的旁边，她的鼻子上长了一个迟迟不见好的大包。我什么东西都试过了，太太，在主这个慈爱世界里，每一样能知道的药方我都试过了。我八十三岁了，想健健康康地到坟墓里去，想带着一个健康的鼻子去见救世主，这算过分的要求吗？你是怎么啦，太太？是我儿子，眼睛有问题。啊，上帝保佑我们，救救我们，看看他那两只眼睛。这是我一辈子见过的肿得最厉害的眼睛，我从没见过红成这样的眼睛。是感染的，太太。当然有法子治，你需要胎头羊膜。那是什么东西？婴儿出生的时候，头上带着这东西，有点像头巾，不好找，但很神奇。弄个胎头羊膜来，在有"三"这个数字的日子，把它放到他头上，让他憋三分钟的呼吸，不行你就捂住他的脸，再给他从头到脚洒三次圣水，到了黎明，他的两只眼睛就该放光了。可我上哪儿去弄胎头羊膜呢？

接生婆那里不是都有胎头羊膜嘛，没有胎头羊膜还算什么接生婆？它能治各种疾病，还能预防很多病呢。妈妈说，她要去跟欧哈罗兰护士说说，看看她是不是有多余的胎头羊膜。特洛伊医生看了看我的眼睛，说：立即让这个孩子住院，把他送到"城市之家"的眼科病房，这是让他住院的就医证明。他得的是什么病，医生？这是我见过的最严重的结膜炎，还有别的说不准的问题，他需要眼科大夫。他要住多长时间的院，医生？这只有上帝知道了，你本该几星期前就送他来的。病房里有二十张床，住着头上缠着绷带、眼睛上戴着黑眼罩或厚厚的眼镜的男人和男孩。有些人用棍子敲着床，走来走去。一个男人一直在喊他再也看不见了，他还太年轻，他的孩子出生还没多久，他再也看不见他们了。耶稣基督啊，哦，耶稣基督。修女们听见他说呼唤主的名字是没用的，都很生气。住口，莫瑞斯，不要再亵渎我主了。你还有健康的身体，你还活着，我们都有自己的问题，就把它当做献祭吧，想想我主在十字架上的痛苦吧，想想荆棘冠、他可怜手脚上的

钉子和身体上的伤口带给他的痛苦吧。莫瑞斯说：啊，耶稣，看看我，可怜可怜我吧。波娜黛特护士警告他，要是他不管管自己的言语，就把他转移到一个没有人的病房去。他说：上帝呀，那岂不是跟耶稣基督一样痛苦吗？她才满意。早晨，我必须下楼去滴眼药水，护士说：坐到那把高椅子上，这才是个可爱的好孩子。医生拿着一个装有褐色东西的瓶子，让我把头往后靠，这就对了，现在睁开吧，睁开你的眼睛。他把那种褐色东西倒进我的右眼，顿时，似乎有一股火焰穿过了我的头骨。护士说：睁开另一只眼睛，来吧，做个好孩子。说着，她强行弄开我的眼皮，让医生在我的另一半头骨里继续放火。她擦干我的脸颊，告诉我快到楼上去，可我几乎睁不开眼，真想一头扎进冰激凌里去。医生说：快跑，像个男子汉，像个好战士。楼梯上的世界变成了一片模糊不清的褐色，其他的病人正坐在床边吃托盘里的午饭，我的饭也搁在那儿，但我一点也不想吃，我的头骨里正在咆哮。我呆坐在床沿上，对面的一个男孩问：喂，你不想吃饭吗？那我来吃吧。说着，他走了过来。我想在床上躺一会儿，可一位护士说：不要，不要，

大中午的不要在床上躺着，你的病情不严重。我只好闭着眼睛坐着，所有的东西都在昏昏暗暗地变幻着，我确信自己一定是在做梦———我主在上，那是患了伤寒病的那个小家伙吗？小弗兰基，"月亮有如鬼船，在云海里不停地颠簸"，那是你吗？弗兰基，我不是被提拔离开了发烧医院？感谢上帝，那里什么病菌都有，不知道会把什么细菌通过衣服带到老婆身上。你这是怎么啦，弗兰基？两个眼睛全变成了褐色。感染了，西穆斯。是吗？结婚前会好的，弗兰基。眼睛需要锻炼，眨眼睛对恢复视力最管用了。我有个患眼病的叔叔，是眨眼睛救了他。他每天静坐一个小时眨眼睛，一直坚持到最后，结果眼神特别棒，他就是这样。我想再多问一些眨眼睛和眼神特别棒的事情，可他转移了话题：你现在还记得那首诗吗，弗兰基？派翠西亚那首动人的诗？他站在病床间的过道上，拿着他的拖把和水桶，背起那首拦路大盗的诗歌。所有的病人停止了呻吟，修女和护士们也都站在那里听着。西穆斯不停地往下背，一直到背完为止。每个人都疯狂地鼓掌，为他喝彩。他对在场的人说，他喜欢这首诗，不论他走到哪里，

都要把这首诗永远保留在脑子里。他说要不是得了伤寒的弗兰基。迈考特，和因白喉死去的不幸的派翠西亚。麦迪根———愿上帝赐她长眠，他就不知道这首诗。自此，我就在"城市之家"的眼科病房出了名，这都是由于西穆斯。妈妈不能每天都来看我，路途太远，她并不是常有钱坐公车，而且她又有鸡眼，走路很困难。她认为我的眼睛看起来好些了，虽然她也说不清那看着闻着都像碘酒的褐色东西到底是什么，如果是碘酒之类的东西，当然会烧得人痛，不过，人们说良药苦口利于病嘛。天气晴朗的时候，她可以领着我在这个地方散散步。我看到一个奇怪的现象，蒂莫尼先生正靠墙站着，那儿的老人们都仰头望着天空。我想跟他讲话，但我必须征求妈妈的意见，因为在医院里，你永远不知道什么是对的，什么又是错的。蒂莫尼先生。谁？谁来了？弗兰克。迈考特，先生。弗兰西斯，啊，弗兰西斯。妈妈说：我是他的母亲，蒂莫尼先生。噢，那么，上帝保佑恁们两个。我没有亲朋好友，也

失去了我的狗马库什拉。你到这个地方来干什么，弗兰西斯？我的眼睛感染了。噢，耶稣，弗兰西斯，可别是眼睛，可别是眼睛。圣母啊，你还太年轻。蒂莫尼先生，你想让我读书给你听吗？用你那两只眼，弗兰西斯？啊，不，孩子，保护好你的眼睛吧，我早不用读书了，我需要的东西都已经在脑子里了。我年轻时够聪明，把东西都放进脑子里了。现在，我的脑子里有一座图书馆呢。英国人枪杀了我的妻子，爱尔兰人放倒了我那可怜无辜的马库什拉，这世界难道不是个玩笑吗？妈妈说：这个世界真可怕，但上帝终归是仁慈的。的确，太太，上帝创造了这个世界，是个可怕的世界，但上帝终归是仁慈的。再见啦，弗兰西斯，好好休息你的眼睛，然后再去读书，直到它们从你脑袋上掉下来为止。我们曾与老乔纳森。斯威夫特度过了一段美妙无比的时光，不是吗，弗兰西斯？是的，蒂莫尼先生。妈妈把我领回眼科病房，对我说：不要为蒂莫尼先生哭鼻子，他又不是你父亲。再说，这会对你的眼睛有

害的。西穆斯每星期来三次眼科病房，每次都用脑子带来一首新诗。他说：你不喜欢那首关于猫头鹰和猫咪的诗，曾让派翠西亚很难过，弗兰基。我很抱歉，西穆斯。我把它记在脑子里了，弗兰基，要是你不再说它愚蠢，我可以背给你听。我不会啦，西穆斯。他背起那首诗，病房里的每个人都非常喜欢它。他们想记住它，他又背了三遍，整个病房里的人都跟着背了起来：猫头鹰和猫咪航海在一起，乘着一条船儿美丽又翠绿。它们带上蜂蜜和好多的钱，全是扎成一沓的五英镑纸币。猫头鹰仰望着天上的星，唱着歌儿将小吉他弹起：哦，亲爱的猫咪，哦，猫咪，我的爱，你是多么美丽的小猫咪，你是多么的美丽，你是多么的美丽。

你是多么美丽的小猫咪。他们跟着西穆斯一起往下背，背完了，他们都鼓掌喝彩。西穆斯笑了，很是得意。他提着拖把和水桶走了，你可以听见病房里的人白天黑夜都在念叨：哦，亲爱的猫咪，哦，猫咪，我的爱，你是多么美丽的小猫咪，你是多么的美丽，你是多么的美丽。你是多么美丽的小猫咪。后来，西穆斯来时，手里没有拿拖把和水桶。我担心他因为诗歌的事被解雇了，可他笑了，告诉我，他要去英国的一家工厂工作了，他想换个差事，体面地挣钱。工作两个月后，再把他的老婆带去。也许上帝会高兴地送给他们几个孩子，因为他总得让脑子里那些诗发挥作用啊，要纪念因白喉死去的派翠西亚，有什么能比背诗给小家伙们听更好呢？再见，弗兰西斯，要是我会写字，我就给你写信了。不过，等我老婆过来后，我会让她写的。我也许还能学会念书写字，这样的话，将来孩子就不会有一个傻父亲了。我想哭，但在眼科病房你不能哭，你的眼睛里有那种

褐色的东西，护士该说了：这是怎么回事？这是怎么回事？像个男子汉嘛。修女们会接着说：就把它当做献祭吧，想想十字架上的我主，想想荆棘冠、身体上的刀伤、被钉子扯成碎片的手脚带给我主的痛苦吧。我在医院里住了一个月，医生说我可以回家了，尽管眼睛还有一点感染。但只要我能用肥皂和干净的毛巾保持眼睛卫生，并多吃牛肉和鸡蛋这类营养食物强健身体，不久便会有一双闪闪发亮的眼睛了，哈哈哈。对面的唐尼斯先生从英国赶回来参加他母亲的葬礼，他对唐尼斯太太讲了我父亲的事。她把这事对布瑞迪。汉农讲了，布瑞迪又对我母亲讲了。唐尼斯先生说马拉奇。迈考特纯粹是个酒疯子，他把薪水全部挥霍在考文垂的酒吧里。他还高唱爱尔兰爱国歌曲，英国人倒不太介意，他们已经习惯了爱尔兰人痛诉那几百年苦难的方式。不过，他们无法容忍有人在酒吧里站起来辱骂英国国王、王后和他们那两个可爱的女儿，还骂老太后。辱骂太后是过分得不能再过分了，那个可怜的老太太招谁惹谁了？马拉奇一次又一次喝光自己的房租，被房东轰了出去，只能在公园里露宿。他不断地丢丑，他就是这样。唐尼斯先生很高兴迈考特不是利默里克人，不会让这座古城蒙羞。考文垂的地方

长官快要失去耐心了，要是马拉奇。迈考特不停止那些该死的废话，他将被永远赶出英国。妈妈对布瑞迪说，听到这些从英国传来的事，她也不知道该怎么办，长这么大，她还从来没有这么绝望过。她眼睁睁地看着凯瑟琳。奥康纳不肯再赊东西了，要是向自己的妈妈借一先令，她只能得到一顿训斥。而圣文森特保罗协会又想知道她什么时候停止申请救济，因为她的丈夫在英国嘛。她为我们那破旧的脏衬衫、抹布似的裤子、裂开的鞋子和露脚趾的袜子感到羞耻。她彻夜难眠，心想最最慈悲的办法莫过于先把四个孩子送进孤儿院，她好一个人去英国，找个工作，一年后把我们接过去过好日子。也可能会碰上炸弹，但她情愿随时可能被炸死，也不愿忍受四处求人的羞辱。不，不管怎样，一想到要把我们送进孤儿院，她就无法忍受。要是能有美国那样的儿童城，也许还可以，那里有像斯本塞。特蕾西这样的好牧师。而你绝不能相信格林那里的基督兄弟会，他们靠打孩子锻炼身体，存心饿死孩子们。妈妈说除了去"大药房"寻求公共援助外，已经无路可走了，她为去那里讨要救济感到羞耻，这意味着你

已经走上了穷途末路，和叫花子、收破烂的，还有街上的乞丐不相上下了，这意味着你得爬到考非先生和凯恩先生的面前。感谢上帝，"大药房"是在利默里克的另一端，巷子里的人不会知道我们去讨要救济。她从别的女人那里了解到，一大早赶到那里是明智的做法，考非先生和凯恩先生那时可能心情好，要是你去迟了，他们看过几百个生病或求助的男女老少后，很容易变得脾气暴躁。她要带上我们一起去，以证明她有四个孩子要养活。她早早起了床，告诉我们不要洗脸，不要梳头，随便找件破烂的衣服穿上。我们长这么大，她还是第一次这样要求我们。她叫我好好揉揉我的肿眼睛，让它越红越好，"大药房"的人越觉得严重，你就会获得越多的同情，也就越有机会获得公共援助。她抱怨小马拉奇、迈克尔和阿非的膝盖没像平时那样布满疮疤，也没有七零八落的划痕和乌眼青。假如在巷子或利默里克的街道上遇见什么人，我们不能告诉他们要到哪儿去。她已经觉得够丢人了，还得瞒着她自己的妈，能瞒多久算多久。 "大药房"的门口已经排起长队，有些和妈妈一样的妇女，怀里抱着阿非那般大的婴儿，孩子们则在人行

道上玩耍嬉戏。妇女们哄着挨冻的婴儿，不时地朝玩耍的孩子们叫喊，以防他们跑到街上，被汽车或自行车撞着。有些老头和妇女挤在墙根上，要么自言自语，要么默不作声。妈妈警告我们不要走远，我们等了半个小时，大门才开。一个男人告诉我们按照次序往里走，在那张台子前排好队，考非先生和凯恩先生在那边的房间里喝茶，一会儿就到。一位妇女埋怨说，她的孩子们正在挨冻，考非和凯恩就不能他妈的快点把茶喝完嘛。那个男人说她是个爱找麻烦的人，今天早上确实寒冷，这次就不记她的名字了。不过，要是再多话的话，她就要倒霉了。考非先生和凯恩先生出现在那张台子前，对周围的人们视而不见。凯恩先生戴上眼镜，又摘了下来，擦擦，再戴上，看着天花板。考非先生看看报纸，写写什么，然后把报纸递给凯恩先生。他们交头接耳，不慌不忙，根本不看我们。这时，凯恩先生招呼第一个老头到台子前来：你叫什么名字？蒂莫西。科瑞，先生。科瑞？啊哈？你有一个很好的利默里克老名字。是的，先生，的确是这样。

你有什么要求吗，科瑞？啊，当然，我的胃又开始疼了，我想找费雷医生看看。噢，那么，科瑞，你确信那不是黑啤酒在捣鬼吗？啊，不是，确实不是的，先生，胃疼前后我压根就没碰酒。我老婆在家里躺着，我还得照顾她呢。这个世界上总有条大懒虫，科瑞。凯恩先生紧接着对排队的人说：恁们听见了吗？一条大懒虫，不是吗？妇女们齐声应和：啊，是的，的确是的，凯恩先生，一条大懒虫。科瑞拿到他的就医证明，队伍向前挪了挪，凯恩先生接待了妈妈。公共援助，这就是你想要的吧？女人，你想要救济？是的，凯恩先生。你丈夫哪儿去啦？噢，他在英国，可是... 英国，是吗？每周的电汇去哪儿啦？那五英镑的大票？几个月了，他一个便士也没寄给我们，凯恩先生。这是真的吗？噢，我们知道为什么了，不是吗？我们知道爱尔兰男人上英国干什么去了，我们知道，利默里克的爷们儿有时会和皮卡迪利大街上的婊子一起溜

达，不是吗？他看了看外边排队的人们，他们知道自己应该说：是的，凯恩先生，应该微笑、大笑，否则，等他们排到台子前，事情便难办了。他们知道凯恩可能会把自己移交给考非先生，而他是臭名远扬的"铁公鸡"。妈妈告诉凯恩先生，爸爸在考文垂，离皮卡迪利大街远着呢。凯恩先生摘下眼镜，瞪着她，问：这是怎么回事？我们在这个问题上有点分歧？啊，不，凯恩先生，上帝啊，没有。我想让你知道，女人，这是这儿的政策，丈夫在英国的妇女不能给予救济。我想让你知道，你正在从更多值得救济的人嘴里抢面包，而他们一直待在这个国家里，奉献着自己的力量。啊，是的，凯恩先生。你叫什么名字？迈考特，先生。这不是利默里克人的名字，你是从哪儿弄到这么个名字的？是我丈夫的名字，先生，他是北爱尔兰人。他是北爱尔兰人，却把你留在这儿申请爱尔兰自由国的救济。我们打仗就是为了这个，是吗？

那你为什么不去贝尔法斯特，看看北爱尔兰的新教徒能为你做些什么？啊？你不知道，你当然不知道，这个世界上总有人无知得出奇。他看了看台子外面的人们，我说这个世界上总有人无知得出奇。台子外面的人们一律点头称是，说这个世界上总有人无知得出奇。他同考非先生耳语了几句，他们看看妈妈，又看看我们。最后，他告诉妈妈，她可以获得公共援助，但要是她接到丈夫的一个子儿，就得放弃所有申请，把钱退回"大药房"。她答应了，于是我们离开了。我们跟着她来到凯瑟琳。奥康纳的小店，买了茶、面包和几块用来生火的草皮泥炭。我们爬上意大利，生了火，开始喝茶，我们觉得挺舒服。我们都很安静，连宝宝阿非也很安静，因为我们明白凯恩先生是怎么对待妈妈的。

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YeQiangWeiClub v1.0 M5 乞讨楼下的爱尔兰又冷又湿，不过我们是待在意大利。妈妈说我们应该把可怜的教皇拿上来，挂到对着窗户的那面墙上。毕竟他是劳动者的朋友，又是意大利人，是习惯温暖气候的人。妈妈坐在炉火旁，打着哆嗦。她没有掏出烟，我们知道有些不对劲了。她说自己要感冒了，很想喝瓶酸饮料，像柠檬水什么的，但家里一分钱都没有，明天的早餐还不知道在哪里。她只好草草喝完茶便睡觉了。她翻来覆去，弄得床整夜咯吱直响。她不时呻吟着要水喝，吵得我们也睡不着。早晨，她继续睡在床上，还是直打哆嗦。我们都不敢出声。要是她睡得时间太长，我和小马拉奇上学就要迟到了。几个小时过去了，她仍然一动不动。我估摸着已经过了上课的钟点，便生着火烧水。她翻了个身，喊着要柠檬水，可我只能用果酱瓶装白水给她。我问她是不是想喝点茶，她竟像个聋子似的，没有反应。她的脸涨得绯红，很奇怪，她竟然不要抽烟。小马拉奇、迈克尔、阿非和我静静地坐在炉火旁。我们喝着茶，阿非嚼着最后一点抹了糖的面包。他把糖

糊得满脸都是，那胖嘟嘟、黏糊糊的小脸还冲我们咧嘴笑着，我们也被他逗笑了。但是我们不能大声笑，不然妈妈会从床上跳下来，命令我和小马拉奇去上学，我们会因为迟到被揍死的。我们也笑不长，没有面包了，我们四个都饿得发慌。我们不能再从奥康纳的小店里赊东西了，也不能去求外婆，她对我们一直没有好脸色，因为爸爸是北佬，在英国的军工厂工作，却从没往家里寄过一分钱。外婆说要是全靠他照顾的话，我们都得饿死，不过这总算给了妈妈一个教训，谁让她嫁给皮肤蜡黄、举止怪里怪气、看上去像是长老会的北佬呢？不过，我得到凯瑟琳。奥康纳那里去再试一次。我要告诉她，我母亲病了，躺在床上，我的弟弟们正饿着肚子，想面包想得要命。我穿上鞋子，飞快地跑过利默里克的街道，这样做是为了保暖，抵御那二月的冰霜。透过窗户，可以看见别人家的厨房是多么舒服，不是火苗熊熊的壁炉，就是乌黑锃亮的炉灶，在电灯的照耀下，热气腾腾的东西鲜艳明亮，桌上的杯盘里放着满满的面包片、好几磅黄油、一瓶瓶果酱；阵阵煎鸡蛋和咸肉的香味飘出窗外，让人口水直流。全家人坐在那里，个个笑容可

掬，母亲穿着笔挺洁净的围裙，每个人都已梳洗完毕。墙上的耶稣圣心俯视着他们，虽然他正承受着苦楚，但想必也为这样的食物，这样的灯光，和这些正在吃早餐的虔诚教徒而高兴。我想在自己的脑海里唤起一点音乐，可找到的却是母亲呻吟着要柠檬水的声音。柠檬水。有一辆货车正从南方酒吧开走，把一箱箱啤酒和柠檬水留在外面，街上没有一个人。我眼疾手快，把两瓶柠檬水藏到贴身衣服里，装做若无其事的样子，大摇大摆地走开了。凯瑟琳。奥康纳的小店外面停着一辆送面包的货车，后门是敞开的，可以看见几架子刚出炉的面包在冒着热气。货车司机正在商店里跟凯瑟琳一起喝茶、吃面包。看来自己动手拿一块面包没什么问题。偷凯瑟琳的东西真是不该，她对我们一向不错。但是，要是我进去找她要面包的话，她就会恼火，说我把她喝早茶的兴致全毁了。拜托，她喜欢安安静静、舒舒服服地喝早茶。把面包塞进贴身衣服里，和柠檬水放在一块儿，这要容易得多，等忏悔时把这一切如实招出就是啦。弟弟们又回到床上，盖着外套在玩游戏。可一看见面

包，他们就跳下床。我们实在是太饿了，等不及切它了，干脆用手撕着吃，又把早晨剩下的茶重新烧开。妈妈翻了一下身，小马拉奇把柠檬水递到她嘴边，她喘着粗气把它喝得一滴不剩。早知道她那么喜欢柠檬水，我就多弄些来。我们把最后一块煤放进炉子里，围坐在一起，学着爸爸那样编起故事来。我对弟弟们讲起了我弄柠檬水和面包的冒险经历，我骗他们，说我如何遭到了酒吧老板和店主们的追赶，又如何跑进了圣约瑟教堂。到了那里，就算你是一个罪犯，就算你杀了自己的母亲，也没人敢动你。知道了面包和柠檬水是怎么来的，小马拉奇和迈克尔非常吃惊，不过小马拉奇还是说，这都是罗宾汉早干过的啦，劫富济贫。迈克尔却说我是一个逃犯，要是让他们逮着了，就得在人民公园那棵最高的树上吊死，利瑞克电影院放的电影里，逃犯们都是那样被处死的。小马拉奇说我应该确保自己是在神恩的宽恕之列，因为可能很难找到一个愿意到我的绞刑架前来的牧师。我对他说，一个牧师必须得到绞刑架那里去，牧师就是干这个的，罗迪。迈克考雷被绞死时，牧师就来了，凯文。巴里也是一样。小马拉奇说罗迪。迈克考雷和凯文。巴里的绞刑架前没有牧

师，因为歌曲里没有提到。说完，他唱起这首歌来，要证明的确没有牧师在场。这时，妈妈在床上呻吟起来，要我们闭嘴。宝宝阿非偎着炉子，在地板上睡着了。我们把他抱到床上，让他跟妈妈睡在一起。我们不想让他传染上妈妈的病菌死掉，但这样会暖和一些。要是她醒了，发现阿非死在自己的身旁，她就该痛哭个没完，头一个就会骂我。我们三个回到自己的床上，盖着外套挤作一团，尽量闪开床垫上那个大洞，还挺快活的，不过，这时候迈克尔开始担心阿非会被妈妈传染了，说不定我也要被当做逃犯绞死。他说太不公平了，这样的话，他就只剩下一个哥哥了，而别人都有好多兄弟呢。他在担心中睡着了，不久，小马拉奇也迷迷糊糊地漂进了梦乡。我仍然躺在那里想着果酱。再来一块面包、一瓶草莓或别的果酱，那该多棒啊。我不记得见没见过送果酱的货车，我不想像杰西。詹姆斯那样，开枪冲进商店抢果酱，那样肯定会被绞死的。冷冷的阳光射进窗户，我想外面一定更暖和，要是弟弟们一觉醒来，发现我又弄来了面包和果酱，他们肯定会大吃一惊。他们会把所有的东西一扫而光，然后

继续谈论我的罪过和绞刑。妈妈还在睡着，她脸色绯红，打呼噜时有种鼻塞的声音。我得小心翼翼地穿过街道，因为今天是上学的日子，要是被门卫邓尼黑撞见，会把我拖回学校，让奥哈洛伦先生打得我满教室跑。邓尼黑负责学校的考勤，他喜欢蹬着自行车撵人，揪着耳朵把人拖回学校。巴灵顿街上一座大房子的门口，有一个盒子，我假装敲门的样子，看看盒子里面装的是什么，一瓶牛奶、一块面包、奶酪、西红柿，哦，上帝呀，还有一瓶橘子酱。我没法把这些东西全塞进贴身衣服里，哦，上帝呀，我该整盒拿走吗？过路的行人并没有注意我，我不妨就整盒拿走。母亲常常说，一不做二不休。我拎起盒子，尽量让自己看上去像个送货的孩子，没有人说什么。小马拉奇和迈克尔看到盒子里的东西，欣喜若狂，狼吞虎咽起来，他们吃着抹了好多金黄色橘子酱的厚面包，阿非糊得满脸都是橘子酱，头上、腿上和肚子上也都是。我们没有生火的东西了，只好喝着冰冷的茶水吞咽食物。妈妈又嘟囔着要柠檬水，我从第二瓶里倒了一半给她，

让她安静下来。她喊着还要，我就兑了些水，让它能撑得久一点，我这辈子不可能老去酒吧里偷柠檬水吧。我们正在兴头上，妈妈在床上忽然开始胡言乱语：她可爱的小女儿被带走了，她的双胞胎男孩不到三岁就死掉了，上帝为什么不到有钱人家去要孩子呢？家里还有柠檬水吗？迈克尔想知道妈妈是不是要死了，小马拉奇告诉他，牧师没来以前，人是不会死的。这时，迈克尔问我们还有没有火，再热一下茶，他虽然待在床上，还盖着老早以前留下的几件外套，还是冷得要命。小马拉奇说，我们应该挨家挨户去要些泥炭、煤和木柴，用阿非的婴儿车推回来。我们应该把阿非也带上，因为他小，又爱笑，人们会注意到他，会更同情我们的。我们想洗掉他衣服上的污垢、棉绒、羽毛和黏糊糊的橘子酱，可用水一碰他，他就大喊大叫。迈克尔说他到婴儿车里肯定又会弄脏的，给他洗干净又有什么用呢？迈克尔不大，可他总是说些这样让人注意的话。我们推着婴儿车来到富人区，可一敲门，女佣就让我们走开，说否则就把可以管我们的人叫来。她们说用那样的破烂婴儿车拖着孩子到处乱转，真是太丢人了，就是往屠宰场运猪，也不用这种满是屎尿、臭气熏天

的玩意；这是一个天主教国家，婴儿应该受到爱护，要让他们活下来，一代代地传播我们的信仰。小马拉奇气不过，对一个女佣说亲他的屁股去吧，那女佣狠狠给了他一巴掌，打得他眼泪都飞了出来。他说他再也不会向有钱人讨东西了，他说讨要没用，我们应该绕到房子后面，爬上墙头，想要什么就拿什么。迈克尔按响前门的门铃，绊住女佣，我和小马拉奇随即把煤块和泥炭从墙上扔出去，装满阿非的婴儿车。我们就这样偷了三家，可是，小马拉奇从墙上扔煤时，砸中了阿非，他尖嚎起来，我们落荒而逃，忘了迈克尔，他还在按门铃，挨女佣的骂。小马拉奇说应该先把婴儿车推回家，再回来找迈克尔。我们现在没法停下来，阿非还在大声哭叫，路人厌恶地看着我们，说我们把母亲和爱尔兰的脸都丢光了。回到家，我们好不容易把阿非从一车煤块和泥炭里扒了出来，他还是哭喊个不停，我给他面包和橘子酱，他才安静下来。我真害怕妈妈会从床上跳起来，但她只是在嘟囔着爸爸的酗酒和死去的宝宝们。小马拉奇和迈克尔一起回来了，迈克尔讲起了他按门铃的冒险故事。一个富婆亲自给他开了门，带他到厨房，吃喝了一通蛋糕、牛奶、面包和果酱。她还询问

了他的家庭情况，他告诉她，自己的父亲在英国的一家大厂子里工作，但母亲却得了绝症，躺在床上，白天黑夜地要喝柠檬水。那个富婆想知道谁在照顾我们，迈克尔吹嘘说我们自己照顾自己，有的是面包和橘子酱。富婆写下迈克尔的名字和住址，告诉他要做个好孩子，然后就让他回家去找自己的兄弟和卧病在床的母亲。小马拉奇训斥迈克尔，他竟然这么蠢，把什么都告诉那个富婆。还没等我们明白过来，她就已经去告密了。全世界的牧师马上都要来敲门，搅得我们家鸡犬不宁已经有人在敲门了，不过不是牧师，而是门卫邓尼黑。他招呼道：喂，喂，有人在家吗？你在吗，迈考特太太？迈克尔敲敲窗子，朝门卫挥了挥手。我狠狠踢了他一脚，小马拉奇在他的头上捶了一拳。他嚷着：我要告诉门卫，我要告诉门卫。他们打死我了，门卫，他们拳打脚踢的。他还不闭嘴，门卫开始冲我们叫喊起来，要我们开门。我从窗子对他说，我不能开门，因为妈妈得了一种可怕的病，在床上躺着。

你父亲哪儿去啦？他在英国。噢，那我来跟你母亲说说。不行，不行，她有病，我们都有病，可能是伤寒，也可能是肺结核。我们身上已经出了好多红斑，宝宝身上还有个瘤，这种病会要命的。他还是推门进来了，爬到楼上的意大利，正好撞见阿非从床底下爬出来，一身的橘子酱和脏东西。他看看阿非，又看看母亲和我们，摘掉帽子，挠挠头说：耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟呀，太糟了，你们的母亲怎么会病成这个样子？我叫他不要靠近她，小马拉奇说我们可能很久都上不了学了。门卫说无论如何我们都要上学，我们生下来就是为了上学，同样，他生下来就是为了保证我们上学。他问我们有没有什么亲戚，随后派我去把外婆和阿吉姨妈叫来。她们冲我大喊大叫，说我是个脏鬼。我想解释说妈妈病了，我得把日子维持下去，让家里的炉子有火，给妈妈弄柠檬水，给弟弟们搞面包，这些快把我累死了。对她们讲橘子酱根本没用，她们只会再次大喊大叫，对她们讲有钱人和女佣有多坏，也没有用。

她们一路上推搡着我走回巷子，不停地训斥着我，让我在利默里克大街上出丑。门卫邓尼黑还在挠头，他说：瞧瞧这，真丢人。就算在孟买或是纽约的鲍沃瑞 ①，你也见不到像这样的。外婆冲母亲哀号：圣母啊，安琪拉，你怎么爬不起来啦？他们把你怎么了？妈妈用舌头舔着干裂的嘴唇，喘着粗气说，还要柠檬水。她想喝柠檬水，迈克尔说，我们给她弄到了，还弄到了面包和橘子酱，我们现在都成了逃犯。弗兰基是第一个逃犯，后来我们也开始在利默里克到处偷煤了。门卫看上去挺感兴趣，他拉着迈克尔的手下了楼，几分钟后，我们便听见他爆发出的笑声。阿吉姨妈说母亲病成这样，我还这么干，真是太丢人了。门卫回来了，叫她去找医生。他一看到我和弟弟们，就拿帽子捂住自己的脸。一帮胆大妄为之徒，他说，一帮胆大妄为之徒。医生开着车和阿吉姨妈一起来了，他把母亲火速送往医院，因为她得了肺炎。我们想坐医生的车跟着去，但是阿吉姨妈说：不行，恁们都上我家去，等恁们的母亲出院再说。

我叫她不用麻烦了，我已经十一岁，照顾弟弟们不费什么劲。我很高兴待在家里不用上学，我保证让每个弟弟吃饱肚子，洗得干干净净。可是外婆尖叫着，叫我不要这样，阿吉姨妈给了我一拳。门卫邓尼黑说我太年轻了，还做不了逃犯和父亲，不过，在这两方面我倒是大有前途。去拿你们的衣服，阿吉姨妈说，恁们上我家去，等恁们的母亲出院再说。老天啊，这个婴儿真丢人。她找了块破布，系在阿非的屁股上，怕他会在婴儿车里乱拉。她看着我们，问我们为什么还拉着脸站在那里，她已经说过要我们去拿衣服。我说对呀，衣服已经在我们身上了，只有这身衣服。说这话时，我真怕她要打我或冲我嚷。但她只是瞪了我一眼，摇摇头。来，她说，往奶瓶里搁些白糖和水。她叫我推着阿非在大街上走，她对付不了那辆轮子不好使的婴儿车，推起来前摇后晃的，而且样子又那么丢人，放只癞皮狗都嫌寒碜。她从床上拿起那三件旧外套，堆进婴儿车里，几乎遮住了阿非。从罗登巷到阿吉姨妈住的风车街，外婆跟我们一起走着，一路上她不停地训斥着我们：你就不能好好地推婴儿车吗？耶稣，你要搞死那孩子的。直着走，不然

我就狠狠给你一巴掌。她不愿去阿吉姨妈的家，她无法多忍耐我们一分钟。自打被迫寄了六个人的盘缠，把我们从美国接来后，她已经对迈考特全家厌烦透顶了：为孩子的葬礼往外大把掏票子；每次父亲喝光了救济金或薪水，她还得给我们吃的；如今那个北方来的吹牛大王又在英国喝光薪水，她仍然得帮安琪拉渡过难关。啊，她烦透了，她真是烦透了。她把黑色的披肩往花白的头上一围，踩着黑色的高腰靴子，沿着亨利街踉踉跄跄地走了。当你十一岁，你的弟弟们分别是十岁、五岁和一岁时，来到别人的家里，你会感到手足无措的，就算这个人是你母亲的妹妹。她命令你把婴儿车停在过道里，把婴儿抱进厨房，但那不是你家的厨房。进了厨房以后，你不知道该怎么做，害怕姨妈又会冲你嚷，打你的脑瓜子。她脱去外套，拿到卧室里，你只能抱着婴儿站在那里，等待着她的命令。要是你向前一步，或是向旁边一步，她就可能出来问：你要上哪儿去？你不知道该怎么回答，因为自己也不知道要上哪儿去。要是你跟弟弟说了什么，她可能就会说：你以为你是谁？竟然在我的厨房里说话？我们只好站着不动，也不出声。但这不太容易，因为卧室里传出滴滴答答的声音，

我们明白她在用便盆撒尿。我不敢转头看小马拉奇，我一看他就会笑，一旦我笑了，他也要笑，迈克尔也要笑，我们都开始笑的话，就会有危险了。一旦我们笑了，几天都止不住，我们的脑海里总出现这样的画面：阿吉姨妈雪白的大屁股坐在带花的小便盆上。我能忍住，小马拉奇和迈克尔也能忍住，我们都为自己能忍住笑、没有惹到阿吉姨妈而自豪。可就在这时，我怀里的阿非笑了，嘴里还发出"咕、咕"的声音，我们三个都崩溃了，哄堂大笑起来。阿非那张脏兮兮的脸蛋又笑开了，嘴里仍然"咕、咕"叫着。我们笑得没办法，阿吉姨妈拉着裙子，怒吼着冲了进来，朝我的头上打了一拳，打得我和阿非都撞到墙上。她又打了小马拉奇，想打迈克尔时，他跑到桌子的对面，她够不着他。过来，她说，我要把你的嬉皮笑脸抹掉。迈克尔一直围着桌子跑，她太胖了，抓不着他。回头我再抓你，她说，我要暖暖你的小屁股，还有你，神气活现的家伙，把孩子放到炉灶旁的地上。她把婴儿车里那些旧外套放到地板上，阿非抱着他的糖水瓶躺在上面，嘴里还在"咕、咕"地叫着，笑个没完。她叫我们把衣服脱得一件不剩，到后院水龙头那儿去，把身上的每一块皮都洗干净。不洗得一尘不染，就甭

想进屋。我想说现在还是二月中旬，外面很冷，我们都会冻死的。但我也明白，一旦开口，可能会当场死在厨房地板上。院子里，我们光着身子，把刺骨的水浇在身上。她打开厨房的窗户，扔出一把刷子和一大块褐色的肥皂，就像以前给芬马用的东西。她命令我们相互搓背，一直到她喊停为止。迈克尔说他的手脚都要冻掉了，可她毫不在乎。她不断告诉我们还没洗干净，一旦她得动手给我们擦洗的话，我们就会后悔死了。我擦洗得更卖力了，我们都擦洗得浑身通红，牙齿"格格"直打冷战。但阿吉姨妈觉得还不够，她提着一个桶出来，把冷水"哗哗"地往我们身上浇。好啦，她说，进去吧，恁们自己把身上擦干。我们站在她家厨房旁边的小棚子里，用一条毛巾擦干身体，然后站在那里哆嗦个不停，等待着她发话，没有她的命令是不能进厨房的。我们听见她在屋里生火，用火钳在炉栅里捅来捅去。这时，她朝我们嚷：恁们要在那里站上一天吗？进来穿上恁们的衣服。她给我们几缸茶，几块煎面包，我们坐在桌边静悄悄地吃起来，除非她让你开口，你不该说一句话。迈克

尔向她要第二块煎面包，我们猜她会一巴掌把他从椅子上打下去，但她只是咕哝：把恁们养大，两块煎面包是远远不够的，说着，又给了我们一人一块。她想喂阿非吃茶水泡的面包，可他不吃。她撒了点白糖，他才肯吃。吃完，他笑了，尿了她一腿。我们看了挺高兴。她跑到小棚子里用毛巾擦身上的尿去了，这下我们可以坐在桌边互相咧嘴笑了，我们对阿非说他是世界婴儿冠军。帕。基廷姨父走进屋来，煤气厂的工作弄得一他身黑。啊，老天，他说，这是怎么回事？迈克尔说：我母亲住院了，帕姨父。是吗？她怎么啦？肺炎，小马拉奇说。噢，那么，这总比肺结核好。我们不明白他在笑什么，阿吉姨妈从小棚子回来了，告诉他我们的妈妈住院了，我们得和他们住一段时间，直到她出院为止。他说：好啊，好啊，然后去小棚子里洗脸了。回来后，根本看不出他碰过水，还是那样黑糊糊的。他在桌边坐下来，阿吉姨妈给他端饭，有煎面包、火腿和西红柿片。她叫我们一边去，不要傻看着他喝茶，让他不要给我们火腿和西红柿吃。他说：唉呀，看在

耶稣的分上，阿吉，孩子们饿了。她说：这不关你的事，他们不是你的孩子。她叫我们出去玩，晚上八点半以前回来睡觉。我们知道外面很冷，想待在暖和的炉灶旁，但是，在街上玩总比在屋里听阿吉姨妈唠叨自在多了。后来，她把我叫回去，打发我上楼，去找一个女人借橡胶垫，那女人有个孩子，死了。她说，告诉你姨妈，我还要这橡胶垫，留给下一个孩子用。阿吉姨妈说：那个孩子是十二年前死的，她一直留着这张橡胶垫。现在她已经四十五岁了，要是还能有孩子，我们就得从西边看日出了。小马拉奇问：这是怎么回事？她叫他别多管闲事，他还太小。阿吉姨妈把橡胶垫铺在她的床上，把阿非放在她和帕姨父的中间。她睡在里面，靠着墙，帕姨父睡在外面，因为他得早起上班。我们挨着对面的墙，铺着一件外套，盖着两件外套，睡在地板上。她说要是夜里听见我们说一句话，就要暴打我们的屁股，我们一大早就得起床，因为明天是"圣灰日"①，得去做弥撒，为我们可怜的母亲和她的肺炎祈祷。闹钟把我们从睡梦中吵醒，阿吉姨妈在床上喊：恁们三个起床去做弥撒，恁们听见了吗？起来，洗洗脸去

耶稣会。她的后院全是冰霜，水龙头里的水把我们的手冻得生疼。我们往脸上洒了一点点水，然后用毛巾擦擦了事，那毛巾昨天弄湿了，到现在还没有干。小马拉奇小声说，我们洗脸就是自欺欺人，应付差事，妈妈常常这么说。街道上也布满了冰霜，但耶稣会教堂是暖和的。做一个耶稣会牧师一定很不错，可以睡在床上，有床单有毯子还有枕头；起床后有温暖舒适的房屋，还有温暖的教堂；什么也不用干，就是做做弥撒，听听忏悔，朝有罪过的人们嚷几句；吃专人送来的饭菜，睡觉前念念拉丁语的祈祷文。将来我想成为一名耶稣会牧师，但这是没指望的，谁让你生长在穷街陋巷呢。耶稣会是很挑剔的，他们不喜欢穷人。他们喜欢出入乘车、翘着兰花指端茶杯的人。教堂里很拥挤，七点钟弥撒开始时，人们往自己的额头上抹圣灰。小马拉奇小声说迈克尔不该抹圣灰，他要到五月才能领圣餐，这是罪过。迈克尔开始哭喊：我要圣灰，我要圣灰。一个老太婆在我们身后问：恁们把那个可爱的孩子怎么啦？小马拉奇解释说，这个可爱的孩子从没领过圣餐，还不在神恩的宽恕之列。

小马拉奇正在为他的坚信礼做准备，总是喜欢卖弄他的《教理问答》知识，一个劲地大谈什么"神恩的宽恕之列"。他不愿承认我在一年前就知道"神恩的宽恕之列"，这么长时间了，我都开始忘记啦。那个老太婆说抹点圣灰不必非得在神恩的宽恕之列。她对小马拉奇说，不要折磨你那个可怜的小弟弟了。她拍拍迈克尔的头，说他是个可爱的孩子，到那儿抹圣灰去吧。他跑向了圣坛，当他回来时，那个老太婆给了他一便士。阿吉姨妈和阿非还在床上躺着，她叫小马拉奇给阿非的奶瓶灌上牛奶，拿给他，叫我生炉子，盒子里有纸和木柴，煤筐里有煤，要是生不着火，可以洒点煤油。火着得很慢，烟很多，我往上面洒了点煤油，火苗忽地蹿了起来，差点烧掉我的眉毛。到处都是烟，阿吉姨妈冲进厨房，把我从炉边一把推开：耶稣在上，你就不能不捅娄子吗？你应该打开节气闸，你这个笨蛋。我根本不知道什么叫节气闸，我们家楼下的爱尔兰有一个壁炉，楼上的意大利也有一个壁炉，从来没见过什么节气闸。然而到了你姨妈家里，你就该知道什么是节气闸。跟她说你头一次在炉灶上生火是没有用的，她只会往你的脑瓜上再来一拳，把你打飞。真不明白

大人为什么为节气闸这样的小事发这么大的火。等长大了，我可不愿为节气闸之类的小事到处打小孩子。这时，她冲我嚷：你这个肮脏鬼只会在那儿站着吗？你就没想到要打开窗户，让烟散出去吗？你当然想不到，你长着跟你父亲一样的北佬嘴脸。现在你总该会烧茶水，而不是把房子烧了吧？她切下三块面包，替我们抹上黄油，又去睡觉了。我们喝着茶，吃着面包，很高兴早上我们要去上学，学校是个暖和的地方，而且没有朝我们嚷嚷的姨妈。放学后，她叫我坐在桌边，给我父亲写封信，说妈妈住院了，我们都住在阿吉姨妈家，要一直住到妈妈出院。我必须告诉他，我们都很快活，身体健康，请寄钱来，因为食品很昂贵，长身体的男孩饭量很大，哈哈，宝宝阿非急需衣服和尿布。我不明白姨妈为什么老生气，她的公寓既温暖又干爽；她家里有电灯，后院里有私人的厕所；帕姨父有稳定的工作，每个星期五都把薪水带回家。他虽然也到南方酒吧喝啤酒，却从不唱着爱尔兰的悠久苦难史跌跌撞撞地回家。他喜欢说：让他们统统给我倒霉去吧。他说世上最可笑的事情就是我们都要擦屁股，谁也不

例外。政客或教皇一开始胡说八道，帕姨父就想到他也得擦屁股，希特勒、罗斯福和丘吉尔都得擦屁股，德。瓦勒拉也一样。他说这方面可信的人只有伊斯兰教徒，他们用一只手吃东西，用另一只手擦屁股。人的手是个鬼鬼祟祟的坏东西，你永远不知道它会干出什么坏事来。阿吉姨妈去技师协会玩牌时，我们和帕姨父待在一起，那很愉快。他说：让小气鬼见鬼去。他从南方酒吧给自己买来两瓶黑啤酒，又从街角的商店买来六个面包和半磅火腿。他烧了茶，我们坐在炉灶边喝茶，吃着火腿三明治和面包，帕姨父滔滔不绝地议论世界局势，逗得我们开怀大笑。他说：我吞过煤气，我喝啤酒，对这个世界和它的狐朋狗友，我连臭屁都懒得放一个。要是小阿非累了、闹了或哭了，帕姨父就把胸前的衬衫撩上去，对他说：这儿，来吸爸爸的奶。看到那平平的胸脯和奶头，阿非愣了一下，不再闹了。阿吉姨妈回家前，我们得洗掉茶缸，打扫一下，这样她就不知道我们大吃了一顿面包和火腿三明治。一旦她知道了，会对帕姨父唠叨上一个月的。我很不理解，他为什么让她唠叨个不停？他参加过世界大战，中过毒气，长得人高马大，又有工作，能逗得全世界人大

笑。这是个谜。这是牧师和老师们经常告诉你的：万事都是个谜。你不得不相信这种说法。那是一段很愉快的时光，我很容易把帕姨父当成父亲。我们坐在炉灶旁喝着茶，他一放屁，就说：划一根火柴吧，这可是德国人送的礼物，把我们逗得哈哈大笑。阿吉姨妈总爱折磨我，她叫我疤瘌眼，说我跟父亲一模一样，举止古怪，一副北方长老会教徒那种鬼鬼祟祟的外表，长大后很可能会给奥里弗。克伦威尔造一个祭坛；说我会跑去和一个英国婊子结婚，在家里挂满皇室的肖像。我想摆脱她，能想到的只有一个办法：把自己弄病，住进医院。我半夜从床上爬起来，假装要上厕所，我来到后院，在寒冷的户外站着，盼着自己染上肺炎或是急性肺病，这样我就可以住院了，那里有干净漂亮的床单，还有蓝衣女孩送到床头的饭菜和书籍，或许我还会遇到另一个派翠西亚。麦迪根，再学会一首长诗。我穿着衬衫、光着脚，在后院站了好长时间，望着鬼船一样的月亮在云海中穿行，然后哆哆嗦嗦地回到床上，盼着自己早上一觉醒来，就会咳得厉害，满脸通红。可是我没有，我感觉精神十足，要是能和母亲、弟弟们一起待在家里的话，我的精神会更好。

有些时候，阿吉姨妈对我们说，她无法多容忍我们一分钟，快走开。疤瘌眼，把阿非抱出来，放进婴儿车，带上你的弟弟们，去公园里玩吧，恁们想干什么都行，听见晚祷钟响了再回来，一分钟都不能晚，恁们听见我说的了吗？一分钟都不能晚。外面很冷，但我们才不在乎。我们推着婴儿车，上了奥康纳大街，来到巴里纳库拉或罗斯布瑞恩路。我们任阿非在田野里爬来爬去，看母牛和绵羊，看见母牛来蹭他，我们都笑了。我钻到母牛的肚皮底下，把牛奶挤到阿非的嘴里，直到他喝够了吐出来。农民见了追过来，看到迈克尔和阿非都这么小，他们便作罢。小马拉奇朝那些农民笑着说：我抱着小孩呢，来打我吧。后来他有了一个好主意，为什么不去自己家里玩一会儿呢？我们在田野里拣了些树枝和碎木块，匆匆赶往罗登巷。意大利的壁炉旁有火柴，我们很快就生着一炉旺火。阿非睡着了，不久，我们都迷迷糊糊漂进梦乡。直到至圣救主会教堂的晚祷钟轰然响起，我们才从梦中醒来。这回惨了，阿吉姨妈要因为我们的迟到找麻烦了。我们也不在乎了，她想怎么嚷就怎么嚷吧，反正我们到乡村和母牛、绵羊一起玩了个痛快，又回到楼上的意大利美美地烤了会儿火。

你可以看出，阿吉姨妈从来没有这样愉快的时光，她有电灯，有私人厕所，但就是没有愉快的时光。外婆星期四和星期天上她这里，她们一起乘公共汽车去医院看妈妈。我们不能去，因为儿童不许进医院。假如我们问一句：妈妈怎样啦？她们就会流露出暴躁的表情，对我们说她没事，还活着。我们很想知道她什么时候出院，我们好回家，可是我们不敢问。一天，小马拉奇对阿吉姨妈说他饿了，可不可以吃一片面包，她卷起《圣心小信使》打了他，他的睫毛上挂满泪珠。第二天放学后，他没有回来，到睡觉时间，仍然没有回来。阿吉姨妈说：噢，我猜他是逃跑了，跑了更好，等饿了他就会回来，让他到阴沟里找舒服去吧。第二天，迈克尔从街上跑进来，喊着：爸爸回来了，爸爸回来了，随即又往回跑。只见爸爸坐在过道的地板上，紧紧拥抱着迈克尔。他哭了：你可怜的母亲啊，你可怜的母亲啊。他的身上散发出一股酒气。阿吉姨妈脸上带着微笑：啊，你回来了。她开始烧茶，做鸡蛋、香肠。她派我出去，给爸爸买了一瓶黑啤酒，我不明白她为什么突然这么高兴、大方。迈克尔问：我们要回自己家吗，爸爸？

要回，儿子。他把阿非放回婴儿车，车里还放着三件旧外套和生火的煤、木柴。阿吉姨妈站在门口，告诉我们做个好孩子，随时过来喝茶。而我脑子里冒出一个坏词：老婊子。这个词就这么出现在我的脑子里，我拿它没有办法。等忏悔时，我得向牧师讲这件事。小马拉奇没在阴沟里，他在我们家里，正吃着一个喝醉的士兵掉在萨斯菲德兵营大门口的煎鱼和薯条。妈妈两天后回家了，她很虚弱，面色苍白，步履缓慢。她说：医生嘱咐我要注意保暖，好好休息，多吃营养食品，一星期要吃三次肉、蛋。上帝保佑我们，那些可怜的医生不会想到我们吃不起。爸爸在炉子上为她烧了茶，烤了面包。他又为我们煎了面包。我们在楼上暖暖和和的意大利度过了一个美妙的夜晚。他说他不能久留，得回考文垂工作，妈妈纳闷他兜里一分钱都没有，怎么回考文垂？快到复活节的那个星期六，他早早起床，和我一起在炉边喝茶。他煎了四块面包，用《利默里克导报》包起来，在大衣口袋里各装了两块。妈妈还在床上睡着，他在楼下冲她喊了一句：我走了。她说：好吧，到了写信来。父亲就要去英国了，而她竟然连床都不起。我问能不能陪他到火车站。不，

他说，他不去那儿，他要到通往都柏林的公路上看看，能不能搭上顺风车。他拍拍我的头，吩咐我照顾好母亲和弟弟们，就出门了。我目送他走进巷子，消失在拐弯处。我跑过巷子，看着他走下巴拉克山坡，走向圣约瑟街。我也跑下山，一路跟着他。他一定知道我在跟着他，回过头冲我喊：回家去吧，弗兰西斯，回家去陪着妈妈。一个星期后，他来信了，说他已平安到达，要我们做个好孩子，履行自己的宗教义务，最重要的是听母亲的话。又过了一个星期，他电汇来三英镑，把我们乐上天。我们有钱了，要吃煎鱼、薯条、果冻和牛奶蛋糊喽，还要每个星期六去利瑞克电影院、大广场电影院、卡尔顿电影院、雅典娜电影院、中央电影院和最有意思的萨瓦电影院。说不定，我们还会跟利默里克有头有脸的人物一起在萨瓦饭店喝茶、吃蛋糕呢，我们一定在端茶杯时伸出兰花指。下个星期六，没有电报，又一个星期六，还是不见电报，以后的星期六，再也没有电报了。妈妈又开始向圣文森特保罗协会讨东西，又开始去"大药房"，考非先生和凯恩先生开玩笑说爸爸在皮卡迪利大街养了个婊子，妈妈也只好陪着笑脸。迈克尔问婊子是什么，

她告诉他是喝茶时吃的东西。她成天和布瑞迪。汉农坐在炉子边抽"忍冬"，喝没有味道的茶。我们放学回家后，早餐时掉的面包渣还在桌上，她再也不洗果酱瓶和茶缸了，糖都招来了苍蝇，她也不管。她说我和小马拉奇得轮流照看阿非，用婴儿车推他出去呼吸呼吸新鲜空气。小孩子总不能从十月到来年四月一直关在楼上。要是我们说想跟伙伴玩，她就会扇来一个大耳刮子，打得你耳朵生疼。我们只好和坐在婴儿车里的阿非玩游戏。我站在巴拉克山坡的高处，小马拉奇站在山坡下面。我把婴儿车推下山坡，小马拉奇本该把它接住，但他光顾着看一个小伙伴溜冰了，婴儿车从他身旁飞快地冲了过去，蹿上街道，直奔莱尼斯顿酒吧。那里，人们正在悠闲地喝酒，没想到突然冲进来一辆婴儿车，里面还坐个小脸脏兮兮的孩子，嘴里"咕、咕、咕、咕"地叫着。酒吧伙计高喊这可够丢人的，居然让小孩坐在婴儿车里大叫着冲进门，该管管这种行为了，他要叫警卫。这时，阿非朝他挥起小手，面露微笑，他说：好吧，算了，给这孩子一块糖果和一瓶柠檬水，也给这对破衣烂衫的小哥俩一瓶柠檬水。老天在上，这是个艰难的世道，一不留神，一辆婴儿车就破门而入，你还得

不分青红皂白地拿出糖果和柠檬水招待他们，恁们俩带上这孩子，回家找恁们的妈妈去。小马拉奇又有了一个妙计，我们可以像叫花子那样，推着阿非在利默里克到处走，见了酒吧就进去要糖果和柠檬水。但我不想让妈妈发现，迎面扇我的耳刮子。小马拉奇说我不够哥们儿，一个人跑了。我推着婴儿车上了亨利街，到了至圣救主会教堂。灰蒙蒙的天，教堂也是灰蒙蒙的，一小群挤在牧师家门口的人也是灰蒙蒙的。他们在等着要牧师吃剩的晚餐。我看到人群中，有个穿着灰色脏外套的女人，那是我的母亲。那是我自己的母亲呀，也在乞讨。这比领失业救济金、去圣文森特保罗协会和"大药房"还不如啊。这是最惨的一种耻辱了，和沿街乞讨没什么两样，那些叫花子抱着他们满身疥疮的孩子，吆喝着：看在可怜的孩子的分上，给我们一便士吧，先生，孩子饿了，太太。我的母亲现在也成了叫花子，要是让巷子或学校里的人看见，我们家的人就把脸丢尽了。我的伙伴还会在校园里给我起新外号，挖苦我，我知道他们会这样说：弗兰基。迈考特，是个讨饭婆的儿，

长着疤瘌眼，还去学跳舞，一副哭丧脸，像个日本佬。牧师家的门打开了，人们伸着手蜂拥过去。我听见他们在说：兄弟，兄弟，这儿，兄弟，啊，看在上帝的分上，兄弟。我家里有五个孩子呢，兄弟。我看见自己的母亲往前挤，我看见她咬紧牙关，抢到一个袋子。趁她没有看见，我推着婴儿车走上另一条街道。我不想回家，推着婴儿车走向码头路，来到考坎里，利默里克全城的灰土和垃圾都倒在这里焚烧。我在那儿站了一会儿，看着孩子们追赶着老鼠。我不明白，他们为什么要折腾这些并没在他们家中捣乱的老鼠。要不是阿非饿得大叫，踢腾着圆滚滚的腿，挥舞着空空的奶瓶，我就要永远这么走下去。妈妈生了火，锅里煮着东西。小马拉奇笑了，说妈妈从凯瑟琳。奥康纳小店买来了腌牛肉和一些土豆。假如他知道自己是一个讨饭婆的儿子，他就没这么高兴了。她在巷子里喊我们回家。我们在桌旁坐下，我连看一眼这个要饭婆妈妈的勇气都没有。她把锅端到桌子上，给每个人舀了些土豆，用叉子把腌牛肉挑了出

那根本就不是什么腌牛肉，而是一大块颤巍巍的肥肉，腌牛肉的影子仅仅是上头那么一点乳头大小的红肉。我们都盯着那点肉，想知道谁会吃到它。妈妈说：这是给阿非的，他小，正长身体，应该吃这块肉。她把肉放到阿非面前的碟子里。他把碟子推开了，又把它拽了回来。他把那块肉搁到嘴边，环顾了一眼厨房，看见我们家的狗拉奇，便把肉扔给它。说什么都已经没用了，肉没有了。我们吃着搁了很多盐的土豆，我咬着我那块肥肉，全当它是那块乳头大小的红肉。

大老爷们妈妈警告我们：恁们要管住自己的爪子，别动那个箱子，里面没有恁们感兴趣的东西，也不关恁们的事。她那个箱子里的东西就是很多纸片：出生和受洗证明、她的爱尔兰护照、爸爸在贝尔法斯特办的英国护照、我们的美国护照，还有一条鲜艳的红色大摆长裙，饰有亮晶晶的金属片和黑色的荷叶边，这是她从美国一路带回来的，她想永远把它保存下去，提醒自己也有过翩

翩起舞的青春。我并不在乎她箱子里放着什么，可这时我和小马拉奇、比利。坎贝尔组成了一个足球队。我们买不起队服和运动鞋。比利问：别人怎么知道我们是谁呢？我们甚至连个名字都没有。我想起那条红色长裙，一个名字随之而来：利默里克红心。妈妈从不打开那个箱子，所以，要是我从她那条长裙上剪下一块，做成七个红心贴在我们胸前，也不会有什么关系。眼不见心不烦，她总是这么对自己说。长裙埋在那些纸片下面，我看见我护照上的照片，我还小，我明白他们为什么叫我日本佬了。有一张纸上写着：结婚证———马拉奇。迈考特和安琪拉。西恩于一九三○年三月八日结为神圣夫妻。这怎么可能？我出生在那年的八月十九日，比利。坎贝尔跟我说过，父母必须结婚九个月后，才可能有孩子。可我用了还不到一半的时间，就来到这个世界，这说明我一定是个奇迹，长大后可能会成为一名圣徒，人们要庆祝利默里克的圣弗兰西斯日。我得请教米奇。莫雷，他仍然是"女孩身体和龌龊事" 方面的专家。

比利说，要是我们想成为伟大的足球运动员，就得刻苦练习，于是我们约定在公园里碰头。当我分发红心时，男孩们抱怨起来。我告诉他们，要是他们不喜欢这个，就回家去剪他们母亲的裙子或罩衫。我们没钱买一个真正的足球，一个男孩拿来一个塞满破布的羊尿泡。我们在草坪上把羊尿泡踢来踢去，踢出一些洞，破布开始往外掉。我们不愿再踢了，这羊尿泡已经面目全非。比利说我们明天要碰头，明天是星期六，要去巴里纳库拉看看，能不能和"新月学院" 队那些有钱人家的孩子打一场正规比赛，每队七个人。他说就算那红心是块破布，我们也得把它别上。小马拉奇回家喝茶了，可我不能回去，我得见米奇。莫雷，搞清我为什么用了一半的时间就出生了。米奇跟他父亲皮特一起从家里出来，今天是米奇的十六岁生日，他父亲要带他去鲍雷斯酒吧喝人生第一杯酒。诺拉。莫雷在屋里冲着皮特大喊大叫，说要是他们去了，就不要再回来了，她已经烤好面包了，再也不进疯人院了，要是他把孩子灌醉带回家，她就去苏格兰，从世界上消失。皮特对米奇说：别理她，库克罗普斯，爱尔兰的母亲总是敌视人生第一杯酒。我父亲带我去喝人生第一杯

酒时，我母亲差点用煎锅打死他。米奇问皮特我能不能跟他们一道去，喝上一瓶柠檬水。皮特在酒吧里逢人就说，米奇来喝他人生第一杯酒了，结果大家都想请米奇喝一杯。皮特说：啊，不行，要是他喝得太多，喝伤了就不妙了，所以谢绝了所有的好意。啤酒拿来了，我们靠墙坐着，莫雷父子喝他们的啤酒，我喝自己的柠檬水。人们祝愿米奇一生好运，说自打他几年前从排水口上摔下来，就再也没有犯过病，这不是天赐的礼物吗？那个可怜的小家伙卡西莫多多么不幸啊，那么辛苦地练了好多年英国话，就为了去BBC，结果却被肺病带走了。其实，BBC 根本就不是适合爱尔兰人的地方。皮特和人们说着话，米奇在呷着他的人生第一杯酒，他小声对我说：我认为我并不喜欢它，不过不要告诉我父亲。然后他告诉我，他在秘密练习英国口音，准备当一名BBC 的播音员，实现卡西莫多的梦想。他告诉我，我可以把库胡林的故事拿回去，当你在BBC 播报新闻的时候，库胡林是派不上用场的。现在他已经十六岁了，想去英国。假如我有收音机，在收听BBC 的广播时，就会听到他的声音。

我对他讲了结婚证的问题，比利。坎贝尔说必须结婚九个月后，孩子才可能出生，而我只用一半的时间便出生了，这是不是某种奇迹。不，他说，不。你是个杂种，你注定要遭殃。你不要诅咒我，米奇。我没有，对于没到婚后九个月出生的人，他们就是这么说的，那种人是在婚前受孕的。什么意思？什么什么意思？受孕。就是精子撞到卵子，然后开始生长，九个月后就变成了你。我不明白你说的是什么。他对我耳语：你两腿夹着的那个东西叫"兴奋"，我不喜欢其他的名字，什么阴茎、生殖器等。你父亲把他的"兴奋"插进你母亲的身体里，一射，这些小虫子就跑进你母亲的身体里，那里有个蛋，你就在蛋里开始生长了。我不是蛋。你是个蛋，每个人曾经都是个蛋。为什么我要遭殃？我是杂种又不是我的错。

所有的杂种都要遭殃，他们就像没有受洗的婴儿。他们会被送到地狱的边缘，受着永久的折磨，无法解脱，这确实不是他们自己的错。这会让你怀疑，高高在上的上帝对没受洗的小婴儿是不够慈悲的，这就是我不再去教堂的原因。不管怎样，你是注定要遭殃了。你的父母干了"兴奋"的事，但他们没有结婚，所以你不在神恩的宽恕之列。那我该怎么办？没有办法，你是注定的了。我能不能点一支蜡烛或做些什么？你可以试试圣母玛利亚，她管厄运。可我没钱买蜡烛。好吧，好吧，给你一便士，等你哪辈子有了工作，再还给我好啦。成为"女孩身体和龌龊事"方面的专家，我是花了大本钱的。酒吧伙计正在玩填字游戏，他问皮特：前进的反义词是什么？后退，皮特答道。就是，酒店伙计说，任何事物都有它的反面。圣母啊，皮特说。你怎么啦，皮特？酒吧伙计问。

你刚才说的是什么，汤米？任何事物都有它的反面。圣母啊。你没事吧，皮特？这酒还好吧？这酒好极了，汤米，我是喝啤酒的冠军，不是吗？上帝作证，你是的，皮特，没有人不承认。这就是说，在不喝酒的人中，我也可以是冠军？啊，这，皮特，我想你有点离谱了。你老婆在家里没事吧？汤米，把这酒给我拿走，我是不喝啤酒的冠军。皮特转过身，拿走米奇的酒杯。我们回家找你妈妈去，米奇。你没叫我库克罗普斯，爸爸。你叫米奇，你叫迈克尔，我们要到英国去。我不再碰啤酒了，你也不要再碰那玩意了，你妈妈不再烤面包了。走吧。我们离开酒吧，酒吧伙计冲着我们喊：你知道这是怎么回事，皮特，这都怪你读的那些该死的书，它们把你的脑子毁了。皮特和米奇转身回家了，我只好去圣约瑟教堂点一根帮我免遭厄运的蜡烛，但是，我朝康妮汉商店的窗户

看了一眼，窗户中间有一块"克里夫"太妃糖的招牌，写着：一便士两块。我知道我注定遭殃，可现在口水直流。把那一便士放到康妮汉小姐的柜台上时，我向圣母玛利亚保证，再有一便士的话，我一定点蜡烛，麻烦她转告她的圣子，把我的厄运推迟一段时间。一便士的"克里夫"太妃糖撑不了一辈子，等它吃完了，我还得想到回家，去见一下那个母亲，是她让父亲把"兴奋"塞进她的身体里，使我用了一半的时间就出生了，长成了一个杂种。要是她对她那条红色长裙或者别的什么说一个字，我就把我知道的"兴奋" 事件向她抖搂出来，她准保会大吃一惊。星期六的早上，我和利默里克红心队员碰了头，然后在路上逛悠，想找个足球队比比赛。男孩们还在抱怨那块红裙布不像是红心，比利对他们说，要是他们不想踢足球，就回家去玩妹妹的娃娃去。巴里纳库拉的空地上有几个男孩子在踢足球，比利向他们发起挑战。他们有八个人，而我们只有七个人。不过我们不在乎，因为他们当中有一个是独眼龙。比利对我们说，打他看不见的那一边。还有，他说，我们的弗兰基。迈考特差不多是个瞎子，两只眼都不好，这更糟。他们都穿着蓝白相间的运动衣、白短裤和正

规的足球鞋，其中一个家伙说我们看上去像帮杂牌军，小马拉奇听了想跟他们打架，被死活拦住了。我们同意只踢半个小时，因为巴里纳库拉的这帮男孩子说他们得吃午餐。午餐？全世界的人中午吃的都是正餐，他们吃的却只是午餐。要是半个小时内双方都没得分，就算平局。我们踢来踢去，这时，比利拿到球，快速前进，在边线上左躲右闪，让人眼花缭乱，没人能追上他。结果，球进了，我们得了一分。半个小时差不多要到了，这帮男孩子想加赛半个小时，扳回一局。这时，球过了边界，该我们发球。比利站在边线上，把球举过头顶。他假装看着小马拉奇，却把球扔给我。球向我奔来，我顿时忘掉了世上的一切，眼里只剩下球了。球直奔我的脚下，我只是向左一转，飞起一脚，就直射入门。我的大脑里顿时一片空白，感觉像是上了天堂，飘飘欲仙，利默里克红心队的队员们拍着我的后背，对我说，好球，弗兰基。你也是，比利。我们沿着奥康纳大街走回去，一路上，我想着来到我脚下的那一球，那一定是上帝或圣母玛利亚送来的，他们是从不会给一个没用一半的时间就出生、注定要遭殃的人赐福的。我知道，这一生我都不会忘记比利。坎贝尔传来的那一球，那一个进球。

妈妈在巷子里碰见布瑞迪。汉农和她的母亲，她们说起汉农先生那可怜的腿。可怜的约翰啊，每天在码头路用那么大的平板车为煤商们送一天的煤和泥炭，晚上还要骑车回家，真够要命的。他要从早上八点干到晚上五点半，而早上八点前就得把马喂好，晚上五点半后又得把它安顿好。他整天车上车下地奔忙，搬运一袋袋的煤和泥炭，根本不可能固定腿上的绷带、保持伤口干净。他回到家时，绷带总是粘在腿上，只能撕下来。她用温水和肥皂为他清洗伤口，抹上药膏，再用干净的绷带包扎起来。他们没钱天天买新绷带，她只能一遍又一遍地洗旧绷带，洗得都发乌了。妈妈说汉农先生应该去看看医生，汉农太太说：当然啦，他看过不知有多少次了，医生说他得让两条腿闲着。就这么多，让两条腿闲着。他怎么能让两条腿闲着呢？他得工作，他不工作，我们吃什么呀？妈妈说也许布瑞迪可以找些活儿干，布瑞迪不高兴了：你不知道我肺不好吗，安琪拉？你不知道我有风湿热，随时都会死吗？我得多加小心才行。妈妈经常说起布瑞迪和她的风湿热、肺功能衰弱。她说：这人能整天坐在这里抱怨她的病，可这些病却没影响她没完没了地抽"忍冬"。

妈妈对布瑞迪说，她的肺不好，她很同情，但她父亲的痛苦也很可怕。汉农太太对母亲说，约翰的身体一天比一天差了，迈考特太太，要是让你的孩子弗兰基每周跟他的车，干上几个小时，帮他搬搬煤袋，你觉得怎么样？虽说我们出不起多少钱，可弗兰基还是可以挣上一两个先令的，约翰也可以歇歇那两条可怜的腿。妈妈说：我不知道，他只有十一岁，还得过伤寒病，煤灰对他的眼睛也不大好。布瑞迪说：他可以待在户外，对眼睛不好或得过伤寒的人来说，没什么比新鲜空气更好了，不对吗，弗兰基？对，布瑞迪。我巴不得跟汉农先生坐在那辆大平板车上到处走呢，就像一个真正的工人一样。要是我很在行的话，说不定他们会让我停学。可是妈妈说：他可以去干，只要不影响上学就行，就让他从星期六上午开始干吧。我现在成了一个真正的大老爷们，星期六一大早，我就生了火，为自己烧好茶，煎好面包，在门边等着隔壁的汉农先生骑自行车出来。我闻到从窗户飘出来的腌肉和煎蛋的诱人香味，妈妈说汉农先生吃的都是最

好的东西，因为汉农太太还像新婚时那样迷恋他，他们就像美国电影里的一对情人。他推着自行车走过来，嘴里叼着烟斗，叫我爬上自行车的横梁，我们向我作为大老爷们的第一份工作进发了。他骑着自行车，脑袋在我上方，那烟斗的味道很好闻。他的衣服上还有股煤味，让我直打喷嚏。男人们或步行或骑车，向码头路的煤场、兰克面粉厂和利默里克汽船公司进发。汉农先生拿掉他的烟斗，对我说，这是最好的一个上午，星期六，只干半天。我们八点开始，午祷钟敲响十二点便收工。我们先把马伺候好，给它刷刷毛，在木槽里添上燕麦，桶里盛上水。汉农先生教我怎样给马套上马具，然后让我把马赶到平板车的车辕里。他说：老天，弗兰基，你真有天分。这让我非常开心，我真想就这样爬上爬下，赶车为生有两个人往那些袋子里装满煤和泥炭，然后放到一个大铁秤上称重，每个袋子有一百磅重。汉农先生去办公室领送煤券时，他们把煤袋摞到平板车上。装袋的人干得很快，轮到我们送煤了，汉农先生坐上平板车的左侧，轻轻挥了一下鞭子，示意我去右侧坐。爬上

平板车可不容易，它实在太高了，还堆满煤袋。我想从车轮爬上去。汉农先生说我不可以那样干，一旦把马套进车辕，就千万别把手或腿靠近车轮。马可能会突然来了兴致，想散散步，那样你的腿或胳膊就会卷进车轮里，眼睁睁地看着它们和身体分家。他冲那马吆喝：驾，马晃了晃头，马具扯得嘎嘎响。汉农先生笑了。这匹傻马勤快，他说，几个小时都不会停下来扯扯马具。下雨了，我们把旧煤袋披在身上。汉农先生倒咬着烟斗，免得淋湿烟草。他说雨会让所有的东西都变沉，但抱怨又有什么用，你怎么不去抱怨一下非洲的太阳？我们穿过萨斯菲德桥，去恩尼斯路和北环路送煤。这里住的都是有钱人，但汉农先生说，他们从口袋里掏小费是很不爽快的。我们有十六袋煤要送，汉农先生说我们今天挺幸运，因为有些人家要了不止一袋，他可以不用车上车下地爬，摧残他那两条腿了。我们把车停下，他跳下车，我把煤袋拖到边上，放在他的肩膀上。有些人家门口有空地，你可以把车上的板门一拉，直接把煤袋倒空，这很方便。有一些人家有很长的后院，汉农先生只好

忍受着双腿的疼痛，把煤袋从车上扛到后门前的小棚子。啊，老天，弗兰基，啊，老天，这就是他惟一的抱怨了。他爬回车上，让我拉他一把。他说要是有辆手推车就好了，可以用它把煤袋从车上运到人家里，那可就有福了，但一辆手推车得花掉他两周的薪水，谁买得起呢？煤送完了，太阳出来了，平板车也空了，马都知道它一天的工作结束了。坐在平板车上向前看，马一颠一颠地走过恩尼斯路、香农河桥，来到码头路。汉农先生说送了十六袋一百磅重的煤和泥炭的人，应该喝上一杯啤酒，给他帮忙的小男孩也该来一瓶柠檬水。他告诉我应该去上学，不要像他那样拖着两条烂腿，没完没了地出体力。要上学，弗兰基，离开利默里克和爱尔兰。这场战争总有一天要打完的，你可以去美国、澳大利亚或随便哪个大国家，看看一望无际的景象。世界是广阔的，你可以进行一番伟大的冒险。若不是这两条腿，我就跟其他的爱尔兰人一样，跟你父亲一样，去英国的工厂赚大钱了。不，不能跟你父亲一样。我听说他把你们弄得走投无路了，嗯？我不明白一个头脑正常的人怎么会撇下妻子和孩子一走了之，让他们在利默里克的冬天饥寒交迫？上学，弗兰基，上学。

读书，读书，读书，趁你的腿还没有烂，大脑还没有完全崩溃，赶快离开利默里克。马在路上"嗒嗒"地走着，我们到了煤场，喂它吃了草喝了水，给它刷了刷毛。汉农先生一直在跟它说话，称它为"我的老草王"。这匹马打着响鼻，在汉农先生的胸前蹭来蹭去。我很想把这匹马带回家，让它待在楼下，我们住在楼上的意大利。不过，就算我能把它弄到屋里，母亲也会冲我大嚷：这个家里最最需要的不是一匹马。从码头路回来的街道太陡了，汉农先生带着我没法骑车，我们便下车走路。他的腿一直在疼，费了很长时间才到亨利街。他一会儿靠在自行车上，一会儿在人家屋外的台阶上坐坐，咬着烟斗玩。我想知道什么时候能拿到这一天工作的报酬，要是我拿着汉农先生给我的一先令，或是别的什么东西进家的话，妈妈可能会让我去利瑞克电影院看场电影。现在已经走到南方酒吧的门口，他叫我进去，说不是答应了让我来一瓶柠檬水吗。帕姨父正在酒吧里坐着，浑身上下跟平时一样黑。他旁边坐着比尔。盖文，浑身上下跟平时一样白，大口

喝着黑啤酒。汉农先生招呼说：你好吗？说着，在比尔。盖文的旁边坐下。酒吧里的人哈哈大笑起来。老天啊，酒吧伙计说，瞧瞧那儿，两个煤球跟一个雪球。酒吧里各个角落的人都拥过来，看着这两个黑炭人中间夹着一个石灰人。他们想请《利默里克导报》的人来拍张照。帕姨父问：你怎么也弄得一身黑，弗兰基？你掉进煤井里啦？我在帮汉农先生送煤。你的眼睛看上去好恐怖，弗兰基，就像在雪地上撒尿冲出来的洞。那是煤灰，帕姨父。回家时洗洗。我会的，帕姨父。汉农先生给我买了一瓶柠檬水，又给了我上午工作应得的一先令，叫我现在就回家，说我是个特棒的工人，下个星期放学后，我还可以帮他干。回家路上，在商店橱窗的玻璃上，我看到自己被煤弄得一身乌黑，感觉自己就像一个大老爷们，一个口袋里揣着一先令的大老爷们，一个在酒吧里和两个黑炭人一个石灰人一块儿喝了一瓶柠檬水的大老爷们。我

不再是孩子了，可以轻而易举地告别利米国立学校了。我可以天天和汉农先生一起工作，等他的腿伤更严重的时候，我可以接管那辆平板车，以后一辈子为有钱人送煤。我的母亲也不用再去牧师家的门口当乞丐了。街道上和巷子里的人都好奇地打量着我，男孩和女孩都在笑我，他们喊：来了个扫烟囱的，扫我们家的烟囱要多少钱？你掉进煤井里了吗？你被烧黑了吗？他们可真无知，他们不知道我花了一上午的时间，在送一百磅一袋的煤和泥炭。他们不知道我已经是个大老爷们了。妈妈和阿非正在楼上的意大利睡觉，一件外套遮在窗户上，挡住外面的亮光。我告诉她我挣了一先令，她说我可以去利瑞克电影院看电影，这是我应得的。她叫我带上两便士，其余的留下来，放在楼下的壁炉台上，她好出去买面包和茶。外套突然从窗户上掉了下来，屋里顿时变得通亮。妈妈看着我，说：老天在上，瞧瞧你的眼睛，下楼去，我马上下去给你洗洗。她在壶里烧了热水，蘸着硼酸粉给我擦拭眼睛。她告诉我今天不能去利瑞克电影院了，得等我的眼睛好转才能去。什么时候能好转，只有天晓得。她说：你的眼睛这个样子，是不能送煤的，煤灰肯定对它们有害。

我想要那个工作，我想给家里挣回那一先令，我想当一个大老爷们。你不给家里挣回那一先令，也可以当一个大老爷们。上楼去躺一会儿，歇歇你的眼睛，不然你就要变成一个瞎老爷们了。我想要那个工作。我一天三次用硼酸粉洗眼睛，我记得西穆斯在医院里说过，他叔叔的眼睛是通过锻炼眨眼治愈的。要想眼睛好，你只能靠眨眼，他曾这么说。现在，我一遍又一遍地眨眼，眨得小马拉奇跑去告诉妈妈。妈妈正在巷子里同汉农太太聊天，他说：妈妈，弗兰基的眼睛不好了，他在楼上一遍又一遍地眨眼睛。她跑上楼问：你哪儿不舒服？我在锻炼，增强我的视力。什么锻炼？眨眼。眨眼不是什么锻炼。医院里的西穆斯说，要想眼睛好，你只能靠眨眼。他叔叔由于经常眨眼，视力特别棒。她说我神经病，然后回到巷子，继续同汉农太太聊天。我眨完眼，把硼酸粉撒进温水，开始清洗眼睛。隔着窗户，我能听见汉农太太在说，约翰在平板车上爬上

爬下，把他那两条腿毁了，你的小弗兰基真是上帝赐给约翰的。妈妈没说什么，这意味着她非常同情汉农先生，会让我在他活儿最重的那天———星期四，再去帮他。我一天洗三次眼睛，不停地眨眼，直到眉毛都痛了才作罢。在学校里，老师不看我的时候，我继续眨眼，班上的孩子都叫我"眨巴眼"，给我那串外号名单上又增加了一条：眨巴眼迈考特，是个讨饭婆的儿，长着疤瘌眼，一副哭丧脸，还去学跳舞，像个日本佬。我不再在乎他们怎么叫我了，只要我的眼睛好了，我就有了固定的工作，可以用平板车搬上百磅的煤袋。我希望他们能在星期四放学的时候看到我坐在平板车上，到时候汉农先生把缰绳递给我，自己腾出手，舒舒服服地抽他的烟斗。给你，弗兰基，要温和些，这是匹好马，不用拽它。他把鞭子也递给我，但它不过是做做样子的，根本不

用抽打这匹马，我只是学着汉农先生，凌空虚晃两下，或者帮马赶赶大肥屁股上的苍蝇。当然，全世界的人都在看我，仰慕我那在平板车上摇摇晃晃的样子，和我手执缰绳和鞭子那沉着老练的样子。我要是也有一个汉农先生那样的烟斗，再有一顶花呢帽，那该多好啊。我想成为一个真正的送煤工，像汉农先生和帕姨父那样，有一身乌黑的皮肤。这样，人们便会说：那位就是弗兰基。迈考特，常去南方酒吧喝酒，全利默里克的煤都是他送的。我不洗脸，一年到头都是乌黑的，就算在圣诞节，为了迎接圣婴的生日，应该好好洗上一回，我也不洗，我知道他不会介意的，因为我曾经在至圣救主会教堂的圣诞马槽里看见过"三圣" ，其中一个比利默里克最黑的帕姨父还要黑。要是一个"圣人"都很黑，那就意味着全世界都有送煤工。马撅起尾巴，从后面拉出一大团冒着热气的黄色粪便。我开始拽缰绳，想让它停下舒服地拉一会儿。但汉农先生说：不，弗兰基，让它走。它们总是边走边拉，这是马的天赋，它们边走边拉，却不脏不臭，不像人那样，根本不，弗兰基。世界上最糟糕的事情，就是在别人方便后再用厕所，要是前一位老兄饱餐了一顿

猪蹄，又喝了一夜的啤酒，那臭气能把壮汉的鼻子熏歪。马就不一样，它们只吃燕麦，拉的是干净的东西。星期二和星期四放学以后，还有星期六上午，我都跟汉农先生一起去干活儿。这对母亲来说意味着三个先令，尽管她一直担心我的眼睛，我一回到家，她就帮我洗眼睛，让我的眼睛先休息半小时再说。汉农先生说，星期四他在巴灵顿街送完煤，在利米国立学校附近等我。这样，同学们都该看见我了。这样，他们该知道我是一个工人，而不是一个长着疤瘌眼、一副哭丧脸、还去学跳舞的日本佬啦。汉农先生说：上来吧，我便像个工人似的爬上平板车。我看见那些男孩子都呆呆地望着我，呆呆地望着。我对汉农先生说，要是他想抽袋烟轻松一下的话，我就来操缰绳。他把缰绳递给我，我听见了那些男孩们的喘息声。我学着汉农先生的样子，朝马吆喝：驾！马跑了起来，我知道利米国立学校有几十个男孩要犯嫉妒这条弥天大罪了。我又朝马吆喝一遍：驾！想让每个人都听见，让他们知道是我在赶马车，而不是别人；让他们永远不会忘记，他们看见的那个坐在平板车上，手执缰绳和鞭子的人是我。这是我生命中最辉煌的一天，比我的首次圣餐日还要辉煌，那天让外婆搞砸了；它也比

我的坚信礼日辉煌，那天让我得了伤寒。他们不再叫我的外号，也不再笑我是疤瘌眼。他们想知道我才十一岁，是怎么找到这份好差事的，能挣多少钱，会不会一直干下去。他们想知道煤场里还有没有别的好活儿，我可不可以替他们说句好话。后来，有些十三岁的大男孩把脸凑过来，说他们应该干这个活儿，因为他们年龄大，我不过是个没长肩膀、瘦骨嶙峋的小矬子。他们想怎么说就怎么说去吧，反正是我在干这个活儿，汉农先生夸我特别棒。有些天他的腿实在疼得厉害，几乎迈不动步，汉农太太很焦虑，她给我倒了一缸茶，我看着她卷起他的裤子，把脏绷带一层一层揭去。伤口又红又黄，里面嵌着煤灰。她用肥皂水清洗伤口，然后涂上黄软膏，拿把椅子撑住他的腿。夜里他就这样待着，看报纸，或从头顶上的书架找本书读。腿恶化得这么厉害，他只好提早一个小时起来，放松放松僵硬的腿，重换一次绷带。这天是星期六，早晨天还很黑，汉农太太就来敲门了，问我愿不愿意去邻居家借辆手推车带上，汉农先生今天绝对扛不了煤袋了，也许我可以替他把煤袋滚到手推车上。他也不能用自行车带我了，我只能推上手推车在煤场跟他碰头。

那位邻居说：借给汉农先生啥都行，愿上帝保佑他。我在煤场大门口等着，看见他骑着自行车向我走来，骑得比以前更慢。他的腿很僵硬，几乎没法下车。他说：你真是个了不起的男子汉，弗兰基。他让我备马，但我套马具时还是费了些劲。他让我把马车赶到煤场外面，来到寒冷的大街上。我真希望能一直赶下去，再也不回家了。汉农先生教我怎样把煤袋拖到车边，扔到地上，拖上手推车，推进人家的屋里。他告诉我怎样才能安全地搬运煤袋而不伤到自己。到了正午，我们送完了十六袋煤。这个时候，我希望利米国立学校的男孩们能看见我，看我驾驭马车、搬运煤袋的样子；看我在汉农先生休息两条腿时，包揽一切的样子。我希望他们能看见我推着手推车走进南方酒吧，跟汉农先生、帕姨父和比尔。盖文坐在一起喝柠檬水的样子，汉农先生、帕姨父和我是一身乌黑，比尔。盖文则是一身雪白。我想让全世界的人都看看汉农先生让我留下的小费，四个先令，加上他付给我的上午的工酬，一个先令，总共是五个先令。妈妈在炉子边坐着，当我把钱交给她时，她看着我，钱掉到她的腿上，她哭了。我有些莫名其妙，因为钱

应该使人快乐呀。瞧瞧你的眼睛，她说，到那面镜子前瞧瞧你的眼睛。我的脸乌黑，眼睛比以前更糟了。眼白和眼睑全红了，黄色的眼屎渗到眼角，流到下眼皮上。稍过一会儿，眼屎就变硬了，得抠或洗才弄得下来。妈妈说到此为止了，不要再跟汉农先生干了。我想说汉农先生需要我，他几乎不能走路了，我今天早上不得不把所有的活儿揽下来，我赶车，用手推车搬运煤袋，然后到酒吧里坐坐，听人们谈论隆美尔和蒙哥马利哪个更棒。她说她很同情汉农先生的不幸，但我们也有自己的不幸，她目前最怕的，就是一个在利默里克的街道上跌跌撞撞走路的瞎儿子。你险些因为伤寒丧命，这就够糟的了，现在还想再把眼睛弄瞎吗？此刻，我忍不住哭了，这是我成为一个真正的大老爷们，为家里挣钱的机会呀。爸爸不寄钱，电报童也从来不登我家的门。我忍不住哭了，因为星期一的上午，要是没人帮汉农先生把煤袋拖到车边上，再用手推车搬运进别人家里，他该怎么办呢？我忍不住哭了，因为他跟那匹马是那么亲密，管它叫亲爱的，他自己又是那么和蔼可亲。

要是汉农先生不把它牵出去遛遛，我也不能把它牵出去遛遛，那匹马该怎么办呀？没有燕麦、干草和偶尔的几个苹果，它会饿死吗？妈妈说我不该哭，这对眼睛不好。她说：以后你就知道了，现在我只能这么对你说，以后你就知道了。她为我洗了洗眼睛，给了我六便士，让我带小马拉奇去利瑞克电影院看鲍里斯。卡洛夫主演的《吊不死的人》，再买两块"克里夫"太妃糖。眼里往外渗着黄色的眼屎，看银幕很不方便，小马拉奇只好当我的解说员。周围的人叫他别出声，他们想听清鲍里斯。卡洛夫在说什么。小马拉奇回过头对他们说，他只是给他的瞎哥哥帮忙。结果，他们把负责人弗兰克。高金叫来了。他说要是再听到小马拉奇说一句话，就把我们两个都扔出去。没什么大不了的，我有办法，先把一只眼睛里的眼屎挤出来，弄干净，用它看银幕，然后再把另一只眼睛挤干净，这样来回轮换着，挤，看，挤，看，到头来，看到的东西都是黄黄的。星期一早上，汉农太太又来敲我家的门。她问妈妈，弗兰克能不能去一下煤场，告诉办公室的人汉农先生今天不能上班了，他得去医生那儿看看他的腿，明天

他一定来；今天不能送的煤，明天一起送。汉农太太现在总叫我弗兰克，是的，一个能送成百上千磅煤的人不应该再叫弗兰基了。办公室里的人说：哼，我想我们对汉农够忍让了。你，叫什么名字？迈考特，先生。告诉汉农，我们需要一张医生的便条，你明白吗？我明白，先生。医生告诉汉农先生，他必须去医院，不然会恶化成坏疽，那医生可不负责任。救护车拉走了汉农先生，我的这番大事业就此结束了。现在，我又跟利米国立学校的其他孩子一样白了，没有平板车，没有马，没有带回家交给妈妈的先令。几天后，布瑞迪。汉农来我家，说她母亲想让我去看看她，跟她一起喝杯茶。汉农太太在炉子边坐着，她的一只手搁在汉农先生的椅子上。坐吧，弗兰克，她说。我随便找张厨房的椅子坐下。她说：不，坐在这儿，坐在他的这把椅子上。你知道他有多大年纪吗，弗兰克？啊，他一定很大了，汉农太太，他一定有三十五岁了。她笑了，露出一口漂亮的牙齿。他已经四十九岁了，

弗兰克，这种年纪的人，腿不该是这个样子的。是不该，汉农太太。你知道你跟着那辆平板车，让他很高兴吗？我不知道，汉农太太。你让他很高兴。我们生了两个女儿，布瑞迪你认识，凯瑟琳在都柏林当护士。但是我们没有儿子，他说感觉你就是他的儿子。我觉得眼睛一阵灼痛，我不想让她看见我在哭鼻子，尤其是在我不明白自己为什么落泪的时候。最近我总是这个样子，是因为那个工作？是因为汉农先生？母亲说：哦，你的眼睛都快赶上尿泡了。我想，我哭鼻子，是因为汉农太太那种柔声细语跟我说话的样子，她那样说话，都是因为汉农先生。就像他的儿子，她说，我很高兴他有这种感觉。他上不了班了，你知道。从今往后，他得待在家里。他的腿也可能治好，要是真能治好，他也许可以找一个看门的差事干干，那样就不必再搬啊运啊的了。我不会再有工作了，汉农太太。你有工作，弗兰克，上学，这就是你的工作。那不是工作，汉农太太。你不会再干这样的工作了，弗兰克。想到你吃力地把

煤袋拖上车的样子，汉农先生很伤心，你母亲也很伤心，这还会损害你的眼睛。天晓得，我多么内疚把你拉进来，让你可怜的母亲夹在你的眼睛和汉农先生的腿之间，左右为难。我能去医院看看汉农先生吗？他们不会让你进的，但你肯定可以到这儿来看他。天晓得，除了读读书报，看看窗外，他干不了什么了。回家后，妈妈对我说：你不应该哭，不过眼泪是咸的，可以洗掉你眼睛里的坏东西。

莎士比亚爸爸总算来信了，说圣诞节前两天回家。他说一切都将大不一样，他已经改过自新，希望我们做个好孩子，听母亲的话，履行我们的宗教义务，他要给我们带回圣诞节需要的所有东西。妈妈带我去火车站接他。火车站总是人来人往，十分热闹，人们从车厢里探出身子，哭泣，微笑，挥手告别。火车鸣响汽笛，向人们示意，随即在滚滚蒸汽中 "呼哧呼哧"地开动了。站台上，人们抽着鼻子。铁轨银闪闪的，伸向远方，伸向都柏林，伸向更远的世界各地。

现在已经快半夜了，空荡荡的站台上寒气袭人。一个戴着铁路工作人员帽子的人问我们，想不想到一个暖和的地方去等车。妈妈说：太谢谢了。这个人领我们走到站台尽头，妈妈笑了起来———那儿有个信号塔，我们得爬梯子上去，这让她费了一些工夫，因为她很胖，她不时地说：啊，天呀，啊，天呀。我们来到世界之巅，信号塔里很黑，只有那个人俯身看着的仪表盘上，闪烁着红、绿、黄三种颜色的信号灯。他说：我正要吃点晚饭，你们也来吧。妈妈说：啊，不，谢谢，我们不能抢了你的晚饭。他说：老婆总给我做太多晚饭，就算我在这座塔上待上一个星期也吃不完。看看信号灯、拉拉操纵杆当然不是什么很难的工作。他拧开保温瓶盖，往茶缸里倒了些可可。给你，他对我说，你喝可可就自己倒吧。他递给妈妈半块三明治。啊，使不得，她说，你可以带回家给孩子们吃。我有两个儿子，太太，他们都在英王陛下的部队里打仗呢。一个在非洲为蒙哥马利效力，另一个是在缅甸或者其他什么鬼地方，请原谅我说这种话。我们从英国那里争得自由，又为它打仗。拿着，太太，就这么

点三明治，吃了吧。仪表盘上的信号灯开始闪烁，那人说：你们等的火车到了。非常感谢你，圣诞节愉快。也祝你圣诞节愉快，太太，还有新年愉快。下梯子时当心一些，小家伙，帮帮你妈妈。非常感谢你，先生。我们又开始在站台上等，火车呼啸着驶进车站。车厢门打开了，几个提着箱子的男人跳到站台上，急匆匆地走向大门口。牛奶罐子掉到站台上，发出丁当的脆响。一个男人和两个小男孩正在卸报纸和杂志。没有父亲的影子。妈妈说他可能在车厢里睡着了，但我们知道，他就算在自家床上也睡得很少。她说从霍利黑德开来的船也许晚点了，那样他就赶不上这趟火车。爱尔兰海在这个季节凶险异常。他不会回来了，妈妈。他不关心我们，他一定又在英国喝醉了。不要这样说你父亲。我不再搭理她，我没告诉她，我希望有个像信号塔上那人一样的父亲，他可以给你三明治和可可。第二天，爸爸走进家里。他的上门牙不见了，左眼下

方有一处淤血。他说爱尔兰海风浪太大，他靠在船舷上，把牙齿撞掉了。妈妈说：不是喝醉了吧？嗯？不是打架了吧？唉呀，不是，安琪拉。迈克尔说：你说你要给我们带东西，爸爸。噢，我带了。他从手提箱里掏出一盒巧克力，交给妈妈。她打开盒子，给我们看看，里面一半巧克力都没了。这你都不放过？她问。她盖上盒子，把它放到壁炉台上，说，明天圣诞晚餐后，我们再吃巧克力。妈妈问他有没有带钱回来，他对她说世道艰辛，活儿很少。她说：你骗人吧？正在打仗，英国什么都没有，就是有活儿干。你把钱喝掉了，是吗？我们叫喊得很凶，把阿非吓哭了。爸爸说：唉呀，孩子们，好啦，孩子们，要尊敬你们的父亲。他戴上帽子，说他得去见一个人。妈妈说：去见你的人吧，不过今晚不要又醉醺醺地唱着罗迪。迈克考雷

什么的回到这幢房子来。他还是醉醺醺地回来，但是一声没吭，在妈妈床边的地板上过了一夜。第二天，我们用妈妈从圣文森特保罗协会领来的食品票券，吃了一顿圣诞晚餐。我们吃的是羊头、卷心菜和白土豆泥。由于是圣诞节，我们喝了一瓶苹果酒。爸爸说他不饿，有茶就行了，他从妈妈那儿借了一支香烟。她说：吃点吧，今天是圣诞节。他又说他不饿，但要是没人想吃羊眼睛的话，他倒可以吃。他说羊眼睛很有营养，我们都发出呕吐的声音。他用茶水把羊眼睛送进肚里，接着抽他的"忍冬"。抽完烟，他戴上帽子，上楼取了手提箱。妈妈问：你要去哪儿？伦敦。在我主的这个日子？圣诞节？这个日子出门最好了，开车的人今天才愿意让工人搭车到都柏林。他们会念及圣家的艰难岁月。你口袋里一分钱没有，怎么坐船去霍利黑德呢？跟来时一样，他们总有不留意的时候，可以溜进去。他吻了吻每个人的额头，告诉我们做个好孩子，听妈妈的话，别忘了做祷告。他告诉妈妈说他会写信的，

她说：啊，是的，你总算还知道这个。他提着箱子站在她面前，她起身拿下那盒巧克力，把它们挨个分了。她把一块巧克力放进自己嘴里，又拿出来，因为太硬了，她嚼不动。我有一块软软的，和她换了那块硬的，硬的能多吃一会儿。这块巧克力奶油很多，中间包着一个果仁。小马拉奇和迈克尔抱怨他们没吃到果仁，为什么弗兰克总能吃到果仁？妈妈说：你们这是什么意思？总是？这是我们第一次吃成盒的巧克力呀。小马拉奇说：他在学校里吃面包，也吃到了葡萄干，男孩们说他把那粒葡萄干给了帕迪。克劳海西，那他为什么不把这个果仁给我们？妈妈说：因为今天是圣诞节，他的眼睛又发炎，果仁对发炎的眼睛有好处。迈克尔问：果仁能让他的眼睛好吗？能的。能让一只眼睛好，还是让两只眼睛都好？两只吧，我想。小马拉奇说：要是我也能吃到一个果仁，我就送给他治眼睛。妈妈说：我就知道你会的。爸爸看着我们吃了一会儿巧克力，然后拉开门闩，走

出去，又把门关上。妈妈对布瑞迪。汉农说：白天不好过，夜里更难受，这雨什么时候是个头啊？为了让白天好过一些，她干脆就待在床上，早上让我和小马拉奇起来生炉子，她坐在床上喂阿非面包块儿，端着茶缸给他喝茶。我们得到楼下的爱尔兰去，在水龙头下的脸盆里洗脸，用搭在椅背上的那件湿乎乎的旧衬衫凑合着把脸擦干。她让我们站在床边，检查我们的脖子上还有没有一道黑圈，要是有，就得再回到楼下的水龙头和湿乎乎的衬衫那里。我们的裤子破了，她就坐起来，随手找一块破布补上。一直到十三四岁，我们还穿短裤，袜子补了又补。要是她没有布补了，袜子又是深色的，为了体面，我们只好用鞋油抹黑脚踝，穿着露肉的袜子到处走，这真是尴尬。这些袜子穿了一个星期又一个星期，破洞越来越大了，我们只好把脚底下的袜子拽到上面来，把破洞藏在鞋子里。雨天的袜子潮乎乎的，夜里得把它们搭在炉子前晾着，指望早上会干。干了的袜子会结成一块块硬邦邦的脏东西，穿的时候我们都很担心，害怕眼睁睁地看着它们在脚下变成碎片。够运气的时候，我们也许能穿上袜子，但又得堵鞋子上的漏洞了，我和小马拉奇争抢家里的硬纸板和纸片。

迈克尔只有六岁，他只能等着用剩下的。妈妈在床上教训我们要帮助小弟弟。她说：要是恁们不把弟弟的鞋子堵好，我就下床去，那就有恁们好看的了。你们要同情迈克尔，因为跟阿非玩，他太大了，跟你们玩，又太小了，他谁都打不过。其他的穿戴就没这么费劲了，我穿着衬衫睡觉，也穿着它去上学，白天进进出出都穿着它，踢足球时是它，爬墙时是它，偷苹果时也是它。我去做弥撒和去兄弟会时，穿的都是它。我周围的人吸吸鼻子，一个个地走开了。要是妈妈能从圣文森特保罗协会得到一张新衬衫券，这件旧的就降为抹布，成月湿乎乎地搭在椅子上，或者妈妈就用它补别的衬衫；她也许会裁开它，让阿非穿上一阵子；最后，它会沦落到门底下，挡住从巷子里流进来的雨水。上学时，我们专从巷子和后街走，以免碰上那些穿着体面、去公教学校上学的男孩子，以及那些去耶稣会 "新月学院"上学的富家子弟。公教学校的男孩子穿的都是花呢夹克、暖融融的毛衣、衬衫和崭新发亮的靴子。我们清楚，这些人将来是要吃公家饭，协助那些掌管世界的人们的。"新月学院"的男孩子穿的都是校服，领巾在他们的脖子和肩膀上飘来荡去，使他们

像一个个走在路上的骄傲的小公鸡。他们留着长发，从前额上披散下来，把眼睛遮住，这样就可以像英国人那样把额发往上一甩。我们清楚，这些人将来是要上大学，接管家族生意，掌管政府，掌管世界的。而我们将来会骑着自行车给他们送货跑腿，要么就是去英国的建筑工地找活儿干。我们的姐妹将来是要照看孩子、擦地板的，除非她们也去英国。我们清楚这个，为自己这副样子感到羞耻。要是富人学校的男孩子讥讽我们，我们就要跟他们打上一架，打得鼻子流血、衣衫撕破。老师们对我们的打架行为爱搭不理，因为他们的儿子都去了富人学校。他们会说：恁们没有权利朝上等人动手，恁们没有权利这样。有时我回家时，会碰上妈妈和一个带小孩的陌生女人在炉子边聊天。妈妈看见她们在大街上逛悠，一旦她们开口问：你能给几个钱吗，太太？她的心就碎了。她从来就没有钱，只好把她们请到家里，喝口茶，吃点煎面包。要是夜里天气不好，就留她们在家里过夜，让她们挨着炉子，在角落里的一堆破布上睡觉。她把面包给了她们，这就意味着我们要少吃几口。要是我们埋怨几句，她就说总是有更穷的人，我们可以把自己的东西分给别人一点。

迈克尔也一样成问题。他总是往家里带迷路的狗和老头。有时，我回家时，会发现一条狗跟他待在床上。有些狗身上有伤，有些没有耳朵，还有些没有尾巴。在公园里，他遇到一帮孩子在折磨一条瞎了眼的猎犬，就打跑这帮孩子，抱起那条比他还大的猎犬，回家对妈妈说，这条狗可以吃他的晚饭。妈妈说：什么晚饭？家里能有一块面包就算幸运了。迈克尔说他的面包可以给狗吃。妈妈说这条狗明天必须送走，结果迈克尔哭了整整一晚上，早晨，他发现那条狗已经在他身边断气，就哭得更伤心了。他不想去上学，准备在马厩那边给狗挖个墓穴。他想让我们帮他一起挖，还要我们念玫瑰经。小马拉奇说，为一条狗祷告是没用的，你怎么能断定它是个基督徒？迈克尔说：它当然是条基督徒狗，难道我没有抱过它吗？他哭得更伤心了，妈妈让我们干脆都待在家里，不去上学了。我们实在是太高兴了，根本不介意帮迈克尔挖墓穴，我们还念了三遍《圣母颂》的祈祷词。我们可不打算一直站在那里，把不上学的大好日子都浪费在为一条死狗祈祷上。迈克尔虽然只有六岁，但他把老头们领回家时，总是自己设法生着炉子，给他们烧茶喝。妈妈说回到家看见那些老头用着自己心爱的茶缸，还在火边嘟嘟

囔囔、抓抓挠挠的，都快把她逼疯了。她告诉布瑞迪。汉农，迈克尔习惯把老头往家里领就罢了，但他也搞得太过火了，要是家里没有面包给他们吃，他就去敲邻居家的门讨要，一点都不难为情。最后，她只好命令迈克尔，不要再往家里领老头了，因为一次有人带来了虱子，咬得我们够惨的。虱子是讨厌的，比老鼠还要恶心。它们爬到我们的头发里、耳朵里，聚在锁骨窝里安家落户。它们爬到我们的皮肤上，钻进衣服接缝里，爬满了我们用来当毯子的那件外套。阿非还是个婴儿，自己没办法抓，我们只好把他浑身上下搜个遍。虱子比跳蚤要差劲，虱子是蹲在那里吸血的，甚至可以看见自己的血跑进它们身体里。跳蚤是蹦着咬人的，它们相对干净些，我们情愿被跳蚤咬。蹦蹦跳跳的东西总比那些蹲着不动的东西干净些。我们达成一致，都不再领迷路的女人、小孩、狗和老头进家了。我们不想再得传染病。迈克尔哭了。外婆隔壁的邻居珀赛尔太太有台收音机，是她们那个巷子惟一的一台。由于她又老又瞎，政府送给她这台

收音机。我很想要一台收音机。我的外婆虽老，但不瞎，有这样一个不瞎但得不到政府的收音机的外婆，有什么用呢？每个礼拜天的晚上，我都坐在珀赛尔太太家窗外的人行道上，听BBC 和爱尔兰电台播放的戏剧。你可以听到奥凯西、萧伯纳、易卜生和莎士比亚的戏剧——— 莎士比亚的戏剧最好，尽管他是个英国人，他就像是土豆泥，吃得再多都不过瘾。也可以听到一些奇怪的希腊戏剧，什么由于误娶了母亲，结果挖掉自己的眼睛。一天晚上，我正坐在珀赛尔太太家的窗外听《麦克白》，她的女儿凯瑟琳把头探出门外：进来吧，弗兰基，我妈妈说，这么冷的天坐在地上会得肺病的。啊，不用了，凯瑟琳，没事的。不，还是进来吧。她们给我倒了茶，还给了我一大块抹着厚厚的草莓果酱的面包。珀赛尔太太问我：你喜欢莎士比亚吗，弗兰基？我爱莎士比亚，珀赛尔太太。啊，他就是音乐，弗兰基，他会讲世界上最动听的故事。要是没有莎士比亚，我不知道该怎么打发礼拜天

的晚上。戏剧播放完了，她让我调弄调弄收音机上的旋钮。我在短波波段上乱调，随意接收着远方的声音，有奇怪的低语声和嘶嘶声，大海奔腾的呼啸声，以及摩尔斯电码的嘀嘀声。我还听见曼陀林、吉他、西班牙风笛、非洲鼓的乐声，还有尼罗河船夫的悲伤号子。我看见那些水手们在呷着一缸缸热可可；我看见大教堂、摩天大楼和农舍；我看见在撒哈拉沙漠上游牧的阿拉伯人和法国驻外军团，还有美洲大草原上的牛仔；我看见那沿着希腊的岩石海岸跳跃的山羊，牧羊人全是瞎子，因为他们误娶了自己的母亲；我看见人们在咖啡馆里闲聊、饮酒，在林荫大街和大街上漫步；我看见站在门口的妓女、晚祷的修士，接着便传来大本钟的轰鸣声：这里是BBC 海外广播，现在播报新闻。珀赛尔太太说：就停在这儿吧，弗兰基，好让我们了解一下国际形势。新闻过后，是美军广播网的节目，听到美国人那潇洒从容的声音，真是美妙啊。音乐随之而来，啊，哈，是埃林顿公爵的音乐，他告诉我坐上头等列车，到比莉。哈乐黛只为我歌唱的地方去：除了爱我不能给你什么，宝贝；

爱是我惟一富有的东西，宝贝。啊，比莉、比莉，我想去美国和你在一起，和所有的音乐在一起。那里人人都有好牙齿，碟子里放着吃不完的东西，家家有厕所，人人过着永世幸福的生活。这时，珀赛尔太太突然问我：你知道那什么吗，弗兰基？什么，珀赛尔太太？莎士比亚这么棒，他一定是爱尔兰人。收房租的人失去了耐性，他警告妈妈：你已经拖欠了四个星期了，太太，总共一镑两先令。不能再这样下去了，我得回办公室向文森特。纳什爵士汇报，迈考特家拖欠了一个月的房租。到时候我会怎么样，太太？拍拍屁股走人，丢掉饭碗。我还有一个九十二岁的老母亲要养活，她每天都去圣芳济教堂领圣餐。收房租的人得收到房租，太太，要不就得丢掉工作。我下个星期再来，总共一镑八先令六便士，要是你还没钱，那就和你的家具搬到马路上挨雨淋吧。妈妈回到楼上的意大利，坐在炉子边寻思上哪儿弄这一星期的房租，更别提那些拖欠的房租了。她很想喝杯茶，但是没办法烧水，最后小马拉奇从楼上的隔墙上拽下一块松动的木板。妈妈说：反正快掉下来了，

不妨就把它劈了生火吧。我们烧了开水，剩下的木块留着早上烧茶用。可是，今晚，明天，以后又该怎么办呢？妈妈说：就再从墙上拽一块吧，就这一块，以后就不拽了。两个星期以来，她一直在这么说，直到最后只剩下房梁了。她警告我们，千万不要碰房梁，因为天花板和整座房子都靠它撑着。噢，那我们绝不碰房梁。她去找外婆，屋里实在太冷，我抄起斧子瞄准一根房梁。小马拉奇为我叫好，迈克尔激动地拍手。我拽了拽那根房梁，伴随着一阵"哗啦啦"声，灰泥、石板和雨水稀里哗啦地掉到了妈妈床上。小马拉奇叫着：啊，上帝呀，我们都要死了。迈克尔又唱又跳地喊着：弗兰基把房子拆了，弗兰基把房子拆了。我们冒雨跑去向妈妈报信，迈克尔不停地哼唱着"弗兰基把房子拆了"，这让她大惑不解。最后我解释说房顶有个洞，要塌下来了。她说了一句天啊，便朝街道跑去，外婆在她后面吃力地跟着。妈妈看到埋在一片灰泥和石板下的床，气得扯起头发：我们这可怎么办啊？这可怎么办啊？然后她开始大声训我，说我不该动这些房梁。外婆说：我去房东的办公室，叫他们来人修修，趁恁们还没全被淹死。

她很快和那个收房租的一起回来了，他说：老天爷啊，另一间屋子哪儿去啦？外婆问：什么屋子？我租给恁们的是两间屋子，有一间却不见了。那间屋子哪儿去啦？妈妈说：什么屋子呀？这儿有两间屋子，现在只剩下一间了。那面墙是怎么回事？这里有一面墙，现在却没了。我清清楚楚记得这里有一面墙，因为我清清楚楚记得有一间屋子。墙上哪儿去啦？屋子上哪儿去啦？外婆说：我不记得有一面墙，要是不记得有一面墙的话，又怎么能记得有一间屋子呢？恁不记得？好吧，我记得。我干了四十年的房东代理了，还从没遇到过这样的事。上帝作证，这种状况真叫人为难，不但不缴房租，还把房子拆了，那面墙到哪儿去啦？恁们把那间屋子怎么啦？我要知道。妈妈转向我们：恁们记得有一面墙吗？迈克尔拉拉她的手，问：是我们用来生火的那面墙吗？收房租的说：老天呀，这可真够厉害的，这可真是他妈的天下第一，过分得不能再过分了。不缴房租就罢了，现在我怎么向办公室的文森特爵士交代？滚出去，

太太，我要把恁们赶出去。从今天起，我一周后再来这里，我不想见到任何人在这里，统统给我滚出去，永远别回来。你听清了吗，太太？妈妈的脸绷得很紧：真遗憾，你没赶上英国人把我们驱逐出去流落街头的时候。少废话，太太，要不我明天就派人把恁们赶出去。他走了出去，没有关门，想让我们尽早离去。妈妈说：上帝作证，我真不知道该怎么办。外婆说：哼，我可没有房间给恁们住，不过你表兄杰拉尔德。格里芬倒是住在罗斯布瑞恩路他母亲的一套小房子里，他应该能够收留恁们，直到恁们的日子好过了为止。都已经是夜里了，不过我得去看看他怎么说，弗兰克跟我一起去。她叫我穿上外套，可我没有，她便说：我想问恁们有没有雨伞，八成也是没有的，走吧。她把披肩往头上拉了拉，我跟她出了门，走过巷子，冒雨来到将近两英里外的罗斯布瑞恩路。她来到一长排小房子中的一家，敲了敲门：你在家吗，拉曼？我知道你在家，开门。外婆，你为什么叫他拉曼？他不是叫杰拉尔德吗？我怎么知道？我知道人们为什么都叫你舅舅"帕特修

道院长"吗？人人都叫这小子"拉曼"。开门，我们要进去了。他也许还在加班。她推开门，屋里很黑，有股湿乎乎、甜腻腻的味道。这间屋子看上去像是厨房，旁边有一个小房间。卧室上面是一间带天窗的小阁楼，雨滴敲打着那扇天窗。到处扔着盒子、报纸、杂志、吃剩的食品、茶缸和空罐头盒。两张床几乎占满了卧室的空间，一张特别大，一张小些，靠着窗户。外婆捅了捅大床上的一团东西：拉曼，是你吗？起来，好吗？起来。干什么？干什么？干什么？干什么？没什么，安琪拉娘儿几个被赶出来了，天又跟漏了似的。她们需要一点地方避避雨，等挺过这阵再说，我那儿没地方住。要是你愿意的话，可以把她们娘儿几个安顿在阁楼上，不过这样不行，因为小孩子不会爬楼，他们会掉下来摔死的。所以，你上去住，她们娘儿几个可以搬到这儿来。好吧，好吧，好吧，好吧。他从床上竖起来，一股威士忌的气味。他到厨房把桌子拖过来，拖到墙边，往阁楼上爬。外婆说：现在好了，恁们今晚就可以搬到这儿了，不会再让催命鬼撵恁们啦。

外婆对妈妈说她要回去了，她很累，又被雨浇了个透，她已经不再是二十五岁的大姑娘了。她说不必带上那些拉曼。格里芬家里都有的东西，像床和家具。我们把阿非放进婴儿车里，他的周围堆满了锅碗瓢盆、果酱瓶和茶缸，还有"教皇"，床上的两个靠枕以及外套。我们把外套披在头上，推着婴儿车走过街道。走进巷子时，妈妈叫我们不要说话，不然邻居们就会知道我们被赶出来了，那可丢死人啦。婴儿车有个轮子不好使，总偏离方向，推起来东摇西晃的。我们费劲地让它直着走，不过这时我们很开心，因为现在一定是后半夜了，明天妈妈肯定不让我们上学了。我们现在搬得离利米国立学校这么远，可能再也不用上学了。我们一走出巷子，阿非便拿着勺子在盆上敲起来，迈克尔唱起艾尔。乔森主演的一部电影里的一首歌：天鹅，我是多么的爱你呀，我是多么的爱你呀，我亲爱的小天鹅。他极力模仿着艾尔。乔森那低沉的声音，把我们都逗笑了。妈妈说天晚了，这让她很高兴，大街上没人看着我们丢脸。一到那里，我们立即把阿非和东西从婴儿车里弄出来，我和小马拉奇好跑回罗登巷取留在那里的箱子。妈妈

说要是丢了箱子和里面的东西，她就活不成了。我和小马拉奇睡在小床的两头，妈妈睡在大床上，旁边睡着阿非，迈克尔睡在床尾。什么东西都是湿乎乎的，一股霉味，拉曼在我们头上打着呼噜。屋子里没有楼梯，这就是说，不会有第七级楼梯上的天使了。不过，我也快十三岁了，这么大，可能不适合天使的故事了。早晨，闹钟突然响起来，天还很黑，拉曼。格里芬擤了擤鼻子，用力咳着痰。地板在他的脚下嘎吱嘎吱直响，他往便盆里没完没了地撒尿，我们只好用外套堵住嘴巴，防止笑出声。妈妈小声嘘着，叫我们安静。拉曼在上面轰轰隆隆地走着，爬下阁楼，推上自行车，砰地把门关上，出发了。妈妈小声说：没事啦，继续睡觉吧，恁们今天可以待在家里，不用上学我们睡不着，住的是一个新地方，我们想撒尿，想四处查看查看。厕所在外面，出后门走大约十步就到了，那是我们自己的厕所，有个门可以关上，还有个像样的坐便器，可以坐在上面看裁成一块一块的《利默里克导报》，那是拉曼放在后面擦屁股的。那个长长的后院里有一处花园，长满了高高的杂草；有一辆破旧的

大自行车，它的主人想必是个巨人；到处是罐头盒、烂在泥里的旧报纸和杂志；有一台锈迹斑斑的缝纫机；有一只脖子上缠着绳子的死猫，一定是别人从篱笆外扔过来的。迈克尔突发奇想，认为这就是非洲，一个劲儿地问：人猿泰山在哪里？人猿泰山在哪里？他在后院里光着屁股跑上跑下，不停地鬼叫，模仿人猿泰山在树丛中飞来荡去的样子。小马拉奇的目光越过篱笆，看着另一家的院子，对我们说：他们家有花园，种了东西。我们也可以种些东西，我们可以种些自己吃的土豆什么的。妈妈在后门那儿喊我们：恁们看看，能不能在这儿找些生火的东西。房后有一间小木棚，就要倒了，当然可以用这上面的木头生火。妈妈对我们拿进去的木头直皱眉头，她说都朽掉了，生满了白花花的蛆，不过乞丐是不能挑肥拣瘦的。木头在烧着的纸上咝咝地叫着，那些白花花的蛆都想逃生。迈克尔说，他觉得很对不起这些白花花的蛆，他同情世界上所有的东西。妈妈告诉我们，这套房子曾做过商店，拉曼的母亲通过那扇小窗口出售日杂百货，所以她可以供拉曼去洛

克威尔学院读书，让他最终当上一名皇家海军军官。啊，他是一名军官？千真万确，一名皇家海军的军官，这儿有一张照片，他正与其他军官一起陪同美国影星琼。哈洛吃饭。见过琼。哈洛，他就跟原来不一样了。他疯狂地爱上她，但能有什么结果呢？她是琼。哈洛，而他仅仅是一名皇家海军的军官而已。他因绝望而酗酒，结果被开除出海军。瞧瞧现在的他，供电局的一名普通职工，住的房子又这么丢人。看着这房子，你根本想不到里面居然还有人住。可以看得出，自打他母亲死了，拉曼就从未动过这屋子里的东西。为了能住下来，我们只好自己动手打扫了。屋里有几盒瓶装的紫色发油，妈妈出去上厕所的时候，我们打开一瓶，往自己的头上抹。小马拉奇说这味道可真香啊，但妈妈一进屋就问：什么味道这么难闻？还问我们的头怎么突然变得油乎乎的？她把我们押到屋外的水龙头下冲了冲，从一堆《伦敦新闻画报》底下拽出一条旧毛巾把我们擦干。这些杂志太古老了，上面还有维多利亚女王和爱德华王子挥手致意的照片。屋里还有几块"派尔"牌肥皂和一本厚厚的书，叫《派尔百科全书》。这本书让我读得如饥似渴，因为它什么都能告诉你，而且都是我想知道的。

有几瓶"斯隆"牌药水，妈妈说等我们抽筋或因风湿疼痛了，用起来很方便。瓶子上写着：哪里有疼痛，哪里就有"斯隆"。还有几盒安全别针，几袋不晓得放了多久的女帽，一碰就碎，几种据说会让人容光焕发、双目清亮的泻药，还有几封奥因。奥杜非将军写给杰拉尔德。格里芬先生的信，信上说欢迎加入国际阵线，加入爱尔兰海军，得知像杰拉尔德。格里芬这样受过良好教育，接受过皇家海军训练，又曾在"青年蒙斯特队"赢得全国"贝特曼"杯橄榄球赛冠军的人，对这场运动感兴趣，真是一件令人庆幸的事。奥杜非将军正在组织一支爱尔兰旅，不久将远渡西班牙，征讨天主教大军阀佛朗哥，格里芬先生的加盟将使该旅如虎添翼。妈妈说拉曼的母亲不愿意让他去，那么多年了，她在小店里辛辛苦苦，把他送进学院读书，可不是为了让他优哉游哉地去西班牙打佛朗哥的。他只好待在家里，找了一份供电局的工作，白天沿着村路埋电线杆，晚上回家陪着母亲，这让她很高兴，只是每到星期五，他就要出去喝酒，然后痛苦地呼唤琼。哈洛。我们有一堆纸可以生火，妈妈很高兴。不过那些烂木头烧起来有股恶臭，她还担心那些蛆会逃走繁殖起来。

我们一整天都往屋外搬盒盒袋袋，妈妈打开所有的窗户通风，让发油味和闷人的气味散掉。她说能重新看见地板，真让人踏实，现在可以坐下来，安安静静、舒舒服服地喝上一杯茶了。等天气暖和的时候，我们兴许还能有个花园，像英国人那样坐到屋外喝茶，那该有多美啊。拉曼每天晚上六点钟到家喝茶、睡觉，一觉睡到天亮，只有星期五例外。每个星期六，他都在下午一点钟上床睡觉，一直睡到星期一早晨。他先把厨房里的桌子拖到阁楼下，登上一把椅子，再把椅子拖到桌子上，再登上椅子，抓住一条床腿，把自己拖上去。万一他星期五喝得太多了，他就让我爬上去，给他拿枕头和毯子，睡到厨房炉子边的地板上，或者跟我们兄弟几个挤在一张床上，整夜不断地打呼噜放臭屁。我们刚搬进来的时候，他抱怨说自己放着卧室不住住阁楼，每天爬上爬下到后院上厕所，快累死了。他只要朝下一喊：把桌子搬过来，还有椅子，我要下去。我们就得拿掉桌子上的东西，把它拖到墙边。他说他受够了，这样爬要完蛋的，他要用他老娘那可爱的便盆。他整天躺在床上，看从图书馆借来的书，抽"金片"牌香烟，有时扔给妈妈几个先令，打发我们中的

一个去商店，替他买几个烤饼，或不错的火腿和西红柿片，喝茶时好当点心。然后，他开始叫妈妈：安琪拉，便盆满了。她就拽过桌子和椅子，爬上去取便盆，到外面的厕所里倒掉，用水冲冲，再爬回阁楼放好。她绷着脸问：老爷，你今天还想干什么？他笑了：这是女人该干的，安琪拉，这是女人该干的，房租免了。拉曼从阁楼上把借书卡扔下来，叫我去给他借两本书，一本关于钓鱼的，一本关于园艺的。他给图书管理员写了一张便条，说他给供电局挖坑埋电线杆，腿疼得要命，从今天起，将由弗兰克。迈考特替他借书。他清楚这个男孩子还不满十四岁，也清楚严格禁止儿童进入图书馆成人室的规定，但这个男孩子会把手洗得干干净净，而且规规矩矩地听从吩咐，谢谢您。图书管理员看了便条后，说格里芬先生真是够不幸的，他是一个真正的绅士、一个有大学问的人，他读的书让你觉得不可思议，有时一星期借四本。一天，他借回家一本法文书，你注意，是法文，是关于舵的历史，你注意，是舵。她愿意不惜一切代价，看一眼他脑子里的东西，那里面一定塞满了各种学问，你注意，是塞满。

她挑出一本漂亮的书，是关于英国园艺的，里面有漂亮的插图。她说：我知道他在钓鱼方面喜欢什么书，说完，选了一本由休。考尔顿准将写的《追寻爱尔兰鲑鱼》。啊，这位图书管理员说，他读过几百本英国军官在爱尔兰钓鱼的书。纯粹出于好奇，我也读了一些，你可以看得出来，那些军官在受够了印度、非洲和其他要命的地方后，为什么都喜欢待在爱尔兰。咱们这里的人至少是很懂礼貌的，我们因此而著名，是礼貌，而不是跑来跑去，到处朝人扔长矛。拉曼一边躺在床上看书，一边对阁楼下说话，说等他的腿痊愈了，就要在后院弄一个远近闻名、色彩繁多、美丽无比的花园。等他不种花了，就去利默里克的河边转转，带回一些让人口水直流的鲑鱼。他母亲留下一个做鲑鱼的菜谱，是祖传秘方，要是他有时间，腿也不疼了，就在这屋里找找。他说现在可以靠我了，我可以每星期去给他借书，但是不要把黄色书刊往家里带。我问他黄色书刊是什么，可他不告诉我，我只好自己搞明白。妈妈说，她也想去图书馆借书，可是路太远了，有两英里呢，她问我介不介意每星期给她借几本书，像夏洛特。布拉姆或是别的名作家写的传奇小说。她可不

想看什么"英国军官寻找鲑鱼"的书，也不想看人们你打我杀的书。不用看这些书，这个世界上的麻烦就够多的啦。我们在罗登巷的房子里捅了娄子的那天晚上，外婆着了凉，结果转成肺炎，被送到城市之家医院，现在，她已经死了。她最小的一个儿子———我的汤姆舅舅，虽然跟利默里克巷子的其他男人一样，也去了英国工作，但肺病越来越严重，结果回到利默里克，现在也死了。他的妻子，戈尔韦的简，也随他而去。他们六个孩子中，有四个只好被送进孤儿院。最大的那个男孩杰瑞跑了，参加了爱尔兰军，又开了小差，叛逃到英军那里去了。最大的那个女孩佩吉，投奔阿吉姨妈，过着凄惨的日子。爱尔兰部队正在物色有音乐天分、愿意去音乐军校学习的男孩子，他们看上了我弟弟小马拉奇，于是他去了都柏林参军，成了一名小号手。现在，我还有两个弟弟在家，妈妈说，她眼睁睁地看着一个个家人从面前消失了。

阁楼

周末，我们这个班的学生要骑自行车去基拉洛旅行，他们让我借辆自行车，另外只要带条毯子、一点茶、一点白糖和几块垫肚子的面包就行了。我可以每天晚上趁拉曼。格里芬上床睡觉时，用他的自行车学习骑车，他也一定同意把车借给我，让我去基拉洛玩两天。求他办事，最好的时机是星期五晚上，那个时候，他酒足饭饱，心情很好。回家时，他的大衣口袋里总装着那种晚餐：一大块还在滴血的牛排、四个土豆、一个洋葱、一瓶烈酒。妈妈烧了土豆，炸了牛排，放上洋葱片。他穿着大衣，就坐在桌旁用手抓着牛排吃，油和血从下巴流下来滴到大衣上，他也不管，还在大衣上擦手。他喝着烈酒，大笑着说，什么都比不上星期五晚上这一大块血淋淋的牛排，就算这是他犯下的最严重的罪过，他的肉体和灵魂也会升上天堂，哈哈哈。当然啦，你可以用我的自行车，他说，男孩子应该出去走走，见识见识乡村。当然啦，不过你得付出代价，你不能不劳而获，对不对？对。我有个活儿给你，你不介意干点活儿，是吗？我不介意。

那你愿意帮帮你母亲吗？我愿意。好吧，那么，就是那个便盆，今天早上就满了。我想让你爬上去，把它拿到厕所倒掉，再到屋外的水龙头下冲冲，然后放回原处。我不想倒他的便盆，可又盼望着能骑上自行车去几英里外的基拉洛，看看那里的田野和天空，畅游一下香农河，在谷仓过上一夜。我把桌子和椅子拖到墙边，爬上去，床下有个带着棕色和黄色条纹的白便盆，屎尿都快漫出来了。我轻轻地把它放到阁楼边上，免得洒出来；然后下到椅子上，伸手去够便盆，脸歪向一边，把它拿下来；到了桌子上，我把它放在椅子上；到了地上，我把便盆端到厕所倒掉。从厕所里出来，我直想吐，直到渐渐习惯了这个活儿才好些。拉曼说我是个好孩子，只要能倒干净便盆，在跟前为他跑腿，去商店买烟，去图书馆借书，事事听从他的调遣，我就可以随时用自行车。他说：你倒便盆很有一手，说完大笑起来，而妈妈在一旁瞪着壁炉里的死灰发呆。一天，雨下得正大，图书管理员奥瑞丹小姐说：不要这么出去，不然会把你拿的书淋湿。坐到那里，别乱

动，等雨停的工夫，你可以读读圣徒们的故事。有四本大书，是巴特勒主教写的《圣徒生平》。我可不想把一生都花在读圣徒的生平上，但是，翻开这些书时，我希望雨永远不要停。不管什么时候，只要你看到圣徒们的画像，无论男女，他们总是仰望着天空，那里有朵朵白云，到处是胖乎乎的小天使，他们或者手持鲜花，或者用竖琴弹奏着赞歌。帕。基廷姨父经常说，圣徒都怪里怪气的，他可不想坐下来和他们喝一杯。这些书里的圣徒却不大一样，那些贞女、殉道者、殉道贞女的故事比利瑞克电影院的恐怖电影还要恐怖。我只好查词典，搞明白贞女是什么意思，我知道圣母是贞女玛利亚，人们这样叫她，是因为她没有一个真正的丈夫，只有一个可怜的老圣约瑟。《圣徒生平》里的贞女老是遇到麻烦，我不明白到底是为什么。词典里写道：贞女，即未被侵犯的，仍然贞洁的女性（通常是指年轻的女性）。那么，我又得查一下"未被侵犯"和"贞洁"是什么意思，我能查到的就是："未被侵犯"指"未遭强暴、亵渎"；而"贞洁"指"纯洁，未进行非法的性交"。那么，我还得查一下"性交"，而接着又得查"插入"，

插入又引出"雄性动物的交媾器官"，交媾再引出"为传宗接代的性器结合"。我不知道这是什么意思，在这本重重的词典里查来查去，搞得我疲惫不堪，从一个词到另一个词，我简直像在追赶一只野鹅，这都是因为编词典的人不想让像我这样的人知道太多。我想知道的不过是我从哪儿来的，但不论去问谁，他们都会叫你去问别人，或者是打发你在词典里查来查罗马法官逼迫这些殉道贞女放弃她们的信仰，接受罗马的诸神。但是她们说：不！法官便把她们折磨至死。我最喜爱的一个人是"惊人的圣克里斯蒂娜"，她吃了几年的苦头才死去。法官说：割掉她的一个乳房。他们把她的乳房割下来，她把它扔向法官，结果，他变得又聋又哑又瞎。另一位法官前来审理这个案子，他说：把另一个乳房也割下来。结果，发生了跟上次相同的事情。他们想用弓箭杀死她，但箭全从她身上反弹回来，把那些射她的士兵扎死了。他们又想用油炸她，但她却在油锅里翻腾着小睡了一会儿。法官们不耐烦了，砍下她的头，草草了事。"惊人的圣克里斯蒂娜"的祭日是七月二十四日，我要把它和十月四日的 "阿西西的圣弗兰西斯日"一起记住。

图书管理员说：你现在得回家了，雨停了。我正要出门，她又把我叫回去，想写一张便条给我的母亲，要是我要看的话，她也不介意。便条上写道：亲爱的迈考特太太，当您以为爱尔兰正在走向毁灭的时候，您会发现有一个男孩坐在图书馆里，正聚精会神地阅读《圣徒生平》，他竟然连雨停了都没发现，你只好把他从刚才所说的那本"生平"里硬拉出来。我想，迈考特太太，或许一个未来的牧师就在您的身边，我将点燃一支蜡烛，希望此事成真。您永远忠实的，凯瑟琳。奥瑞丹，助理图书管理员。 "单腿跳"奥哈洛伦是利米国立学校惟一坐着上课的老师，这是由于他是校长，或是由于走路时那条短腿扭得难受，只好休息一下。其他的老师总是在教室前面走来走去，或在过道中间来来回回。要是你答错问题或字写得马虎，就会挨上一棍子或一鞭子。要是"单腿跳"想教训你，他会把你叫到教室前面，当着各年级同学的面惩罚你。也有好日子，他坐在课桌旁大谈美国。他说：我的孩子们，从北达科他州冰冻的荒原到佛罗里达芬芳的橙林，美国拥有各种类型的气候。他谈论着美国的历史，说要是美国的农民都能用燧发枪

和毛瑟枪从英国人的手里抢回一块陆地，我们这些战士当然也能收复我们的岛屿。要是不想被他的代数或爱尔兰语法折磨，我们就只管问他有关美国的问题，那会使他兴奋起来，一整天讲个没完。他坐在他那张课桌旁，背诵着他所喜爱的那些部落的名字：阿拉帕霍、夏安、齐佩瓦、苏族、阿帕契、易洛魁。充满诗意，我的孩子们，充满诗意。再听听酋长们的名字：蹦蹦熊、脸上雨、骑牛、疯马，还有天才杰罗尼莫。他发给七年级同学一本小书，是一首有好多页的诗，名叫《荒村》，作者是奥里弗。哥尔德斯密斯。他说这首诗看似写的是英国，但实际上是诗人对故土、对我们自己的故土爱尔兰的哀伤。我们要牢记这首诗，一晚上背二十行，每天早晨再背一遍。有六个男孩被叫到教室前面去背，要是漏了一行，每只手就要挨上两下。他叫我们把书放到课桌里，全班一起背诵村庄教师那一段：远处路旁那散乱的篱笆边，盛开的山豆花不知为谁艳，就在那一片喧闹的宅邸里，

村庄教师将小学校管得严。一看就知此人严厉又无情，我了解，逃课的孩子也个个吊着胆。心惊胆战地努力把预兆看，一天的灾难就取决于早晨他那张脸。他们个个假装笑得真开心，他的笑话一个又一个地讲不完。每当他把眉头稍稍皱，周围就有耳语忙着把惊慌的消息传。当我们背到这一段的最后几行，他总是闭上眼睛，面带微笑：要是说他过于严厉，其实他心地善良，他的短处是把钻研学问爱得发狂。村民全都声称他知道得真多，能写会算他当然样样在行。既能丈量土地，又能预知变迁，甚至是传言他也能算出来自何方。说起雄辩，牧师也甘拜他的下风，就算理亏，他仍能巧舌如簧，词语晦涩却又声如雷鸣，让四周的乡人惊讶得两眼放光。

他们两眼仍在放光，疑团仍在增长：一个小脑袋怎么能装下那么多思想？我们知道，他喜欢这几行，是因为这些写的是一个校长，写的是他。他是对的，我们也奇怪，他那个小脑袋怎么能装下那么多思想，我们将会通过这几行诗记住他。他说：啊，男孩们，男孩们，要立志，但是先要充实你的大脑。你们听见我说的了吗？要充实你们的大脑，这样你们就能光彩夺目地走在这个世界上。克拉克，给"光彩夺目"下个定义。我想是发光的意思，先生。太简单了些，不过意思也够了。迈考特，用"简单" 给我们造个句。克拉克太简单了些，不过意思也够了，先生。真会取巧，迈考特，你具有牧师和政客的头脑，我的孩子。考虑考虑吧。我会考虑的，先生。叫你母亲来见我。我会叫的，先生。妈妈说：不行，我不能去见奥哈洛伦先生，我连件体面的裙子和像样的外套都没有。他为什么要见我呢？我也不知道。

好，那就问问他。我不能问，他会打死我的。要是他说把你母亲带来，那你就得把母亲带来，不然就出去吃棍子。她去见了他，在过道同他谈话。他说，她的儿子弗兰克必须继续上学，不能去当电报童，这不会有什么出路的。带他去公教学校，跟他们说是我让你去的，跟他们说他是个聪明的孩子，应该上中学，以后再上大学。他对她说，他当利米国立学校的校长，可不是为了主持一所电报童学校。妈妈说：谢谢你，奥哈洛伦先生。我希望奥哈洛伦先生少管闲事，我可不想去公教学校。我想永远离开学校，找份活儿干，每个星期五拿到薪水，星期六和别人一样去看场电影。几天后，妈妈叫我好好洗洗脸和手，我们要去公教学校。我说我不想去，我想工作，我想做一个大老爷们。她叫我不要闹了，我要去上中学，我们会全力以赴。就算她得擦地板，我也要去上学，她要在我的脸上先练习练习。她敲开公教学校的门，说想见见负责人默里修士。他来到门前，看着母亲和我，问：有什么事？

妈妈说：这是我儿子弗兰克，利米国立学校的奥哈洛伦先生说他很聪明，看能不能让他到这儿来上中学？我们没地方收他，默里修士说，随即当着我们的面摔上门。妈妈转身离去，在回家的路上，她一直沉默着。她脱去外套，烧了茶，在炉子边坐下。听我说，她说，你在听吗？我在听。教堂当着你的面把门摔上，已经是第二次了。是吗？我不记得了。斯蒂芬。凯里曾经对你和你父亲说，你不能当辅祭，然后就当着你们的面摔上门。你还记得这事吗？我记起来了。现在默里修士又当着你的面摔上门。我不介意，我想找活儿干。她板起脸，生气了：以后再不能让别人当着你的面把门摔上，听见了吗？她开始在炉子旁哭泣：啊，上帝呀，我把恁们带到世上来，可不是让恁们都去当电报童的呀。我不知道该怎么办，也不知道该说些什么，不必再上五六年的学了，这让我长长地松了口气。

我自由了。我快到十四岁了，现在是六月份，是我学生时代的最后一个月。妈妈领我去见牧师科帕尔博士，想找一个送电报的活儿。邮局负责人奥康纳太太问：你会骑自行车吗？我撒谎说我会。她说我不满十四岁不行，等八月份再来吧。奥哈洛伦先生对班上的同学说，像迈考特、克拉克、肯尼迪这样优秀的学生不得不去劈柴挑水，真是件丢人的事。他十分讨厌这个独立自由的爱尔兰，它依然保留着英国人强加给我们的等级制度，我们正在把有天赋的儿童往垃圾堆里扔。你们一定要离开这个国家，男孩们。到美国去，迈考特，你听见我说的了吗？我听见了，先生。牧师们来到学校，招收我们去外国传教，有至圣救主会、圣芳济会、圣灵神父会，都是要去让远方的异教徒们皈依的。我没理他们。我想去的是美国，但这时一个牧师引起了我的注意。他说他是奉白衣神父会之命而来的，招收去贝都因游牧部落的传教士和法国驻外军团的牧师。我要了一张申请表。

我还需要教区牧师的一封推荐信和家庭医生的体检表。教区牧师当场就写了一封推荐信，要是我去年就能走，他会更高兴的。医生则问：这是什么？这是一张加入白衣神父会的申请表，申请去撒哈拉游牧部落传教或去法国驻外军团当牧师。噢，是吗？法国驻外军团，真的？你知道撒哈拉沙漠的首选交通工具是什么吗？火车？不，是骆驼，你知道骆驼吗？它长着驼峰。不只长着驼峰，它还很脏，那是它的本性。它的牙齿生着发绿的坏疽，喜欢咬人。你知道它咬什么地方吗？撒哈拉？不，你这个蠢蛋。它咬你的肩膀，把肉撕下来，让你只能歪着身子站在撒哈拉。你愿意这样吗？嗯？你这样歪着身子在利默里克街头漫步，真是奇观啊，只剩下可怜的半边肩膀的前任白衣神父，哪个神经正常的姑娘会看上你呢？再看看你的眼睛，在利默里克它们已经够糟了。到了撒哈拉，它们就会化脓腐烂，从你的脑袋上掉下来。你多大了？十三岁。

回家找你妈妈去吧！这不是我们的家，在这里没有在罗登巷的楼上意大利和楼下爱尔兰住得自在。拉曼回到家，要躺在床上看书或睡觉，我们得保持安静。我们得待在街道上，天黑了才能回来。回到屋里，没有什么可做的，只好睡觉。要是有蜡烛或煤油，我们才可以看看书。妈妈催促我们上床睡觉，然后，她就端着拉曼睡前的最后一缸茶，爬上阁楼。通常，在她爬上去前，我们就已经睡着了。但有些夜里，我们听见他们在说话、咕哝、呻吟。有些夜里，她根本就不下来，让迈克尔和阿非睡在那张大床上。小马拉奇说，她夜里待在上面，是因为摸黑爬下来太困难了。他只有十二岁，还不懂。我十三岁了，我想他们是在上面兴奋呢。我知道兴奋是怎么回事，我知道那是罪过。但是，假如它是在梦中发生的，又怎么能算是罪过呢？在梦中，利瑞克电影院银幕上的美国女郎穿着泳装、搔首弄姿，弄得我醒来时身体不停抽动。在奥狄先生冲你大吼过第六诫"不可通奸"后，你明明很清醒，却像利米国立学校的男孩说的一样自己偷偷做，那就是大罪一桩了。通奸就是不纯洁的语言、不纯洁的行为，就是"龌

龊事"。一位至圣救主会的牧师在向我们大喊大叫第六诫，他说"不纯洁"是极其严重的罪过，严重到贞女玛利亚会为此扭过脸流泪。她为什么要流泪，孩子们？她流泪是因为你们，因为你们害了她挚爱的圣子。当她俯瞰那漫长而恐怖的时间之景，她惊恐地看到利默里克的孩子们正在亵渎自己、污染自己、骚扰自己、虐待自己，弄脏自己年轻的身体，这年轻的身体可是圣灵的庙宇啊，于是她流泪了。我们的圣母为这些令人厌恶的行为流泪，她知道你们每自渎一次，就是把她挚爱的圣子再次钉上十字架，就是又一次把荆棘冠锤进他的头颅，就是重新扒开那些可怕的伤口。他被吊在十字架上，遭受着干渴的痛苦，那些背信弃义的罗马人给了他什么？用一块肮脏的海绵浸上醋和胆汁，塞进他可怜的嘴里，除了祈祷，他很少开口，但他为你们祈祷，男孩们，为把他往十字架上钉的你们而祈祷啊。想想我主的痛苦吧！想想荆棘冠吧！想想一枚小小的别针扎进你们的头颅时，那种尖锐的痛苦吧！再想想二十根刺扎进你们头颅的感觉。仔细想想，想想那钉子撕裂手脚的感觉吧。你们能受得了一点点那样的痛苦吗？再说那根

别针吧，仅仅就是那根别针，把它扎进你的肋部，把那种感觉放大一百倍，你们就等于被可怕的长矛穿透身体。啊，孩子们，魔鬼想要你们的灵魂，想让你们跟他一起待在地狱里。要知道，你们每自渎一次，每屈从于邪恶一次，都是把基督往十字架上钉，也是向地狱迈进一步。回头是岸，孩子们，抵制住魔鬼的诱惑，管住你们的双手。我没法不自渎，我向贞女玛利亚祷告，对她说我很抱歉，把她的儿子钉回了十字架，我再也不这样了。可是，我仍旧控制不住自己。我发誓要去忏悔，从那以后，当然，从那以后我永远永远不再这样了。我不想下地狱，不想让魔鬼拿着烧热的干草叉永远追杀我。利默里克的牧师对我这样的孩子没有耐心，我去忏悔，他们哼哼唧唧，说我没有真正的悔改之心，要是有的话，我就能杜绝这种可憎的罪过。我去了一个又一个教堂，想找到一个和蔼一点的牧师。帕迪。克劳海西告诉我，多明我会教堂有一个这样的牧师，已经九十岁了，聋得一点都听不见。这个老牧师每隔几星期听一次我的忏悔，然后就嘟囔着说我应该祷告。有时候他竟然睡着了，而我也无心把他叫醒，于是便不用经过悔罪和赦免，第

二天再去领圣餐。要是牧师当着我的面睡着了，那不是我的过错。我相信，忏悔后，我就可以处在神恩的宽恕之列了。然而有一天，忏悔室的小挡板被拉开了，压根就不是我的那个牧师，而是一个长着海螺一样大耳朵的年轻人。他一定听清了我说出的一切。保佑我，神父，我有罪，距离上次忏悔有两星期的时间。这两星期你都做了什么，我的孩子？我打了我的弟弟，我逃学瞎逛，我还对母亲撒了谎。是的，我的孩子，还有吗？我...我...我干了龌龊的事情，神父。噢，我的孩子，是跟你自己，还是跟别人或是什么牲畜呢？什么牲畜，我以前可从没听说过这样的罪过。这个牧师一定是从乡下来的，要是没错的话，他可真让我大开眼界。我去基拉洛的前一天晚上，拉曼。格里芬醉醺醺地回到家里，在桌子旁吃着一大袋煎鱼和薯条。他叫妈妈烧茶水，妈妈说煤和泥炭都没有了，他冲她嚷起来，叫她傻胖子，说她带着一帮捣蛋鬼在他家里白吃白住。他把钱扔给我，叫我去商店买几块泥炭和生火的木材。

我不想去，我想揍他，他竟然那样对待我的母亲，但是，一旦我说了什么，明天他就不会借给我自行车了，我已经等了三个星期啊。妈妈把炉子生着，烧上茶水，我提醒他自行车的事。你今天倒便盆了吗？噢，我忘了，我这就去。他喊了起来：你没倒他妈的便盆，我答应借给你自行车，我一周给你两便士为我跑跑腿，倒倒便盆，可你撅着厚嘴站在这儿，告诉我你没倒！对不起，我忘了，我现在就去。你现在就去，是吗？你想怎么爬到阁楼上？你要从我的煎鱼和薯条下面把桌子拖出去吗？妈妈说：他真没空，他一整天都在学校，还要去医生那儿看眼睛。好吧，你也可以他妈的忘掉自行车的事，你不配这项交易。可他也是没办法呀，妈妈说。他叫她闭嘴，少管闲事。她默默地走到炉子旁，他继续吃煎鱼和薯条，但我又对他提起自行车的事：你答应过我的，我已经倒了三个星期的便盆，为你跑了三个星期的腿。

闭嘴，睡觉去。你不能叫我睡觉去，你又不是我父亲，你答应过我的。我现在告诉你，说一不二，要是我站起来的话，你就得求神保佑了。你答应过我的。他将椅子往后一拉，跌跌撞撞地朝我扑来，手指戳着我的眉心：我在告诉你，闭上你的嘴，疤瘌眼。我不，你答应过我的。他猛击我的肩膀，我不闭嘴，他又打我的头。妈妈跳起来，哭着想把他拉开。他连打带踹，把我赶到卧室，但我还是说：你答应过我的。他抓着我朝妈妈的床上猛撞，又劈头盖脸地打我，我只好用胳膊护住脸和头。我要打死你，你这个小浑蛋。妈妈尖叫着，往后拉他，他歪歪倒倒地后退着，进了厨房。她说：好啦，啊，好啦，吃你的煎鱼和薯条吧。他不过是个孩子，马上就没事啦。我听见他又回到椅子上，把它朝桌前挪了挪。我听见他大吃大喝发出的呼呼噜噜的声音。把火柴递给我，他说，看在上帝的分上，吃喝完了我要抽支烟。他噗噗地抽烟，母亲则发出一声悲咽。他说：我要睡觉了。带着酒意，他费了一段时间才爬

上椅子和桌子，然后把椅子拖上去，再爬上阁楼。床在他身下咯吱咯吱地直响，他咕哝着脱掉靴子，扔到地板上。妈妈吹灭煤油灯，我听见她在哭泣，屋里一片黑暗。发生这样的冲突，她一定该在自己的床上睡了吧。我也准备到靠墙的那张小床上去。然而，传来她爬上椅子、桌子，再爬上椅子的声音，她哭着爬上阁楼，对拉曼。格里芬说：他不过是个孩子，眼睛又折磨得他难受。拉曼却说：他是个小杂种，我想叫他滚蛋。她哭着哀求他，然后便传来耳语声、咕哝声和呻吟声，最后什么声音都没有了。不一会儿，他们开始在阁楼上打鼾，弟弟们也在我旁边睡得正香。我不能在这里待下去了，要是拉曼。格里芬再朝我扑来，我就拿刀抹他的脖子。我不知道该怎么办，该到哪里去。我离开这幢房子，沿着萨斯菲德兵营一直走到纪念碑咖啡馆。我梦想着某一天回去找拉曼算账 .我要去美国拜见拳王乔。路易斯，向他讲述我的遭遇，他会明白的，因为他也出身于穷人家庭。他会教我怎样强健肌肉，怎样抱拳，怎样移步。他还会教我怎样像他那样，收紧下巴，用双肩保护，猛挥右拳把拉曼打飞。

我要把拉曼拖到蒙哥瑞特的坟场上，他和妈妈的家族都埋在那儿。我要把土一直埋到他的下巴那里，让他无法动弹。他会求我饶命的，我就说：死路一条了，拉曼，你要去见你的造物主啦。他还会没命地求我，我就一点一点地往他的脸上撒土，埋没他的脸，让他苟延残喘着乞求上帝原谅，他没有借给我自行车，还满屋子打我，和我母亲干那种兴奋的事。我将大笑不已，因为他干了那种兴奋的事，就不在神恩的宽恕之列了。他将下地狱，就像他自己常说的那样：说一不二。街上黑了下来，我留神看着四周，万一幸运的话，我也可能会像很久以前小马拉奇那样，捡到喝醉的士兵们丢掉的煎鱼和薯条。地上什么都没有，要是能碰上舅舅西恩修道院长，他也许会把他那份星期五晚上的煎鱼和薯条分一点给我吃。但是，咖啡馆里的人告诉我他来过，已经走了。我现在十三岁了，所以不再叫他帕特舅舅了，我像其他人那样叫他院长或修道院长。要是我去外婆家，他一定会给我一点面包或者别的什么，可能还会留我过夜。我可以告诉他，几个星期后，我就能干送电报的工作了，在邮局可以得到大笔的小费，想怎么花

就怎么花。他刚吃完煎鱼和薯条，正在床上坐着，用毯子擦着嘴和手，包裹煎鱼和薯条的《利默里克导报》掉在地上。他看着我，我的脸全肿了。你把脸摔啦？他问。我告诉他是的，因为告诉他别的也没用，他不明白。他说：你今晚可以睡在我母亲的床上，脸都那样了，两只眼睛也红红的，不能在大街上乱跑了。他说家里没吃的了，一片面包都没有。等他睡着了，我捡起地上那张油乎乎的报纸。我舔头版，那都是些城市电影和舞蹈演出的广告；我接着舔标题，舔巴顿和蒙哥马利在法国与德国的大决战；舔大西洋战争；舔讣告和伤感的纪念诗篇，舔体育版，舔鸡蛋、黄油和熏肉的市场价格。我舔着这张报纸，把油脂吸吮得一点不剩。我不知道明天该怎么过。

外婆的裙子早上，修道院长给我钱，叫我去凯瑟琳。奥康纳的小店买面包、奶油、茶和牛奶。他在煤气炉上烧了水，叫我喝一缸茶，说悠着点放糖，我可不是百万富翁，切点面包吃，但不要切得太厚。

七月，学生时代永远结束了。几星期后，我就要去邮局送电报，像个大老爷们那样开始工作了。这几个星期我无所事事，想干什么就干什么。早上醒来，我可以在床上继续待着，或者像父亲那样去乡村长途散步，在利默里克到处逛逛。要是有钱的话，我就去利瑞克电影院，吃着糖，看埃罗尔。弗林的战无不胜。我也可以看修道院长带回家的英国和爱尔兰报纸，或者用拉曼和母亲的借书卡借书看，被他们发现了再说。妈妈派迈克尔送来一牛奶瓶热茶，和几块抹着厚厚黄油的面包，还有一张便条，说拉曼。格里芬不再生气了，我可以回去了。迈克尔问：你回家吗，弗兰基？啊，回去吧，弗兰基，走吧。现在我就住在这儿，永远都不回去。可是小马拉奇参军了，你又在这里，我就没有大哥了呀。所有的孩子都有大哥，我只有阿非，他还不到四岁，连话都讲不清呢。我不能回去，我永远不会回去。你可以来这儿，随时都行。他的眼里闪烁着泪花，让我心痛极了。我真想说：好

吧，我跟你一块儿回去，我只想说这么一句话。但是我知道自己再也不能面对拉曼。格里芬了，我也不知道自己还能不能正视母亲。我望着迈克尔走出巷子，他的破鞋底一路发出啪嗒啪嗒的响声。等我到邮局上班，就给他买双鞋子，我一定买。我要给他买一个鸡蛋，带他去利瑞克电影院看电影，吃糖果，然后我们再去诺顿饭店吃煎鱼和薯条，吃到肚子撑得老高。我要挣钱，将来买幢房子，或者买套公寓，有电灯、厕所和床，床上有床单、毯子和枕头，跟别人家的一样。我们将在明亮的厨房里吃早餐，看着外面花园里的鲜花随风起舞。餐桌上摆放着精美的茶杯、托盘、蛋杯，鸡蛋柔软可口，可以蘸着油脂丰富的黄油吃，茶壶上罩着保温套，烤面包抹着厚厚的黄油和橘子酱。我们听着BBC 或美军广播网播放的音乐，不慌不忙地享用。我要为全家人买像样的衣服，再也不让我们的屁股露在外面，再也不丢人了。想到丢人，我一阵心痛，鼻子发酸。修道院长问：你怎么啦？你没吃面包吗？你没喝茶吗？你还想要什么？下次你就想要鸡蛋了。跟一个摔过脑袋、靠卖报为生的人，说什么也没用。他抱怨说他不能养我一辈子，我得自己去挣面包和茶。他不想一回家就看到我在厨房里看书，电灯泡没完没

了地亮着。他识数，他会这个，每次出去卖报前，他都要看一看电表上的数字，好知道我用了多少。要是我一直开着灯，他就把保险丝拔掉，放进口袋带着。要是我又安上保险丝，他就把电彻底断掉，回到点煤气灯的时代。他那可怜的老娘可以点一辈子煤气灯，他当然也可以，他每天只不过是坐在床上吃着煎鱼和薯条数钱，然后睡大觉而已。我像爸爸那样早早地起床，去乡村长途散步。我到蒙哥瑞特一座老修道院的坟场转了转，那里埋着母亲的亲属。我又沿着小路爬上诺曼城堡，它坐落在卡瑞戈古诺城堡里，爸爸曾带我来过这里两次。我爬上城堡顶端，爱尔兰尽收眼底，香农河波光粼粼，一如既往地流进大西洋。爸爸告诉过我，这座城堡是几百年前建造的，要是云雀停止歌唱，你就会听见诺曼人在下面敲敲打打、嘀嘀咕咕，为战斗做准备。有一次，他是天黑时带我来这儿的，好让我听下面诺曼人和爱尔兰人那穿越数百年的声音，我果真听见了。有时，我独自待在卡瑞戈古诺城堡顶上，仿佛听见古诺曼女郎嘻嘻哈哈地笑着，唱着法语歌。想像着她们的样子，我禁不住诱惑，爬上城堡的最顶端———那儿曾经有一座塔，可以俯瞰爱尔兰。我在那里"骚扰"

自己，喷向卡瑞戈古诺城堡和远处的田野。这是罪过，我绝对不能告诉牧师。爬到那么高的地方，当着整个爱尔兰的面自渎，这肯定比偷偷摸摸地做，或同别人或什么牲畜干要罪孽深重。下面的田野和香农河的岸边，没准有个男孩或挤奶女工在抬头时看见我的罪过，要是真被看到了，我就要倒霉了，因为牧师们总是说，在孩子面前暴露罪过的人，将会被在脖子上拴上磨石，扔进大海。然而，想到会被人看见，竟给我带来一阵快感。我不想让一个小男孩看见，不，不，那肯定会给我招来磨石。但要是一个挤奶女工愣愣地看着，她肯定也会兴奋，也会让自己满足一下，虽然我不知道女孩子能不能自渎，她们没有什么可以用来骚扰的东西，没有装备，就像米奇。莫雷过去常说的那样。我真希望那位又老又聋的多明我会牧师回来，我可以对他讲"兴奋"带给我的苦恼。但他已经死了，我只好面对一位大谈磨石和厄运的牧师。厄运，这是利默里克每位牧师最爱说的一个词。我沿着奥康纳大街和巴里纳库拉往回走，人们订的面包和牛奶早已摆放在他们门前了。要是我先借一块面包和一瓶牛奶，等到邮局上班了，一定记着还回去，

也不会有什么大碍的。我不是在偷，是在借，这不算道德犯罪。另外，今天上午我站在城堡顶上，犯了比偷面包和牛奶更严重的罪过。要是你已经犯了一项罪过，就不妨再犯它几项，因为反正一样会下地狱。一项罪过，是永世不得翻身；一打罪过，也是永世不得翻身。一不做二不休，像母亲常说的那样，我喝光牛奶，把瓶子留在原地，免得让送牛奶的背黑锅。我喜欢送牛奶的，因为一个送牛奶的曾给过我两个破鸡蛋，让我连壳生吞了下去。他说要是每天吃两个鸡蛋、喝瓶黑啤酒的话，我会长得很强壮。你所需要的营养，蛋和黑啤酒里都有。有些人家的面包比较高级，比较贵，我拿的就是这种。我觉得很对不起这些有钱人，他们早上起来，来到门口，会发现自己的面包不见了。但是我也不能让自己活活饿死呀，要是饿肚子，我就没力气去邮局送电报了，就没钱偿还刚借来的面包和牛奶，没法攒钱去美国喽。要是我不能去美国，那还不如跳香农河呢。几个星期后，我就可以拿到邮局的第一笔薪水了。到那时，这些有钱人肯定还不至于饿趴下，他们可以派女仆再买嘛，这就是有钱人与穷人

之间的不同。因为没钱，穷人不能出去再买，就算有钱，他们也没有女仆可派。我得当心的是女仆，借牛奶和面包的时候，我得小心，她们在前门那里擦门把、门环和信箱。要是她们发现我，就会跑回去报告女主人：啊，夫人，夫人，有个淘气鬼正在外片（面）偷牛奶和面包呢。外片，女仆们喜欢这么说，因为她们都是从乡下来的，像帕迪。克劳海西的叔叔说的那样，是爱尔兰的小母牛，浑身是肉，她们可不愿意尿你。我把面包带回家，修道院长很惊讶，但也没问"你是从哪儿弄到的"，因为他摔过脑袋，把好奇心都摔没了。他只是瞪大眼睛看我，眼睛中间蓝，周围黄。他还在用他母亲留下的那个满是裂纹的大茶缸咕嘟咕嘟地喝茶，还对我说：这是我的茶缸，不要掐（拿）一个（这个）喝茶。掐一个，这是利默里克贫民窟的人的说法，爸爸对此总是很担忧。他说过：我不想让我的儿子在利默里克的巷子里长大，说什么"掐一个"。这种说法粗俗下流，要规规矩矩地说。妈妈说：我也希望他能说得好一些，可是你并没有做什么事情，来防止我们说"掐一个"啊。

在远离巴里纳库拉的地方，我爬上苹果园的围墙偷苹果。要是有狗，我就跑，因为我不会帕迪。克劳海西跟狗说话那一套。农民们会朝我撵来，但他们穿着胶靴，总是跑得很慢。要是他们跳上自行车追赶我，我就跳过墙去，他们没法把自行车骑到墙上去。修道院长知道我是从哪儿弄的苹果，要是你是在利默里克的巷子里长大的，你迟早得去乡下的苹果园偷苹果。就算你讨厌吃苹果，也得去偷，否则伙伴们会说你是个胆小鬼。我每次给修道院长一个苹果，可他不吃，他没几颗牙齿了，他还剩下五颗牙，不敢冒险吃苹果。就算我把苹果切成片，他也不吃，因为苹果不是那样吃的，他就是这么说的，要是我说：你吃面包也是把它切成片的呀，不是吗？他就说：苹果是苹果，面包是面包。要是你摔过脑袋，你就是这么说话的。迈克尔又来了，带来一奶瓶热茶和两块煎面包。我对他说我不需要这些了，让他转告妈妈，我能照顾自己，不需要她的茶和煎面包，非常感谢。我给了迈克尔一个苹果，他很开心。我让他每隔一天就过来，可以吃到更多的苹果。他不再央求我回拉曼。格里芬的家了，我也很高兴他不再为此哭鼻子了。

爱尔兰镇有个市场，星期六，农民们都赶来卖蔬菜、母鸡、鸡蛋和黄油。要是我早一点去，他们就给我一些便士，让我帮忙从马车或汽车上卸货。天快黑的时候，他们就把卖不掉的蔬菜和压坏、受损、腐烂的东西统统送给我。一个农民的妻子总是给我碰裂的鸡蛋，对我说：明天你做完弥撒，处于神恩的宽恕之列时，再把它们煎煎吃。要是你在灵魂有罪的时候吃，它们会噎住你的，会这样的。她是个农民的妻子，他们就是这么说话的。现在我不比一个叫花子好多少，煎鱼薯条店快关门的时候，我就站在门口，指望他们能剩下煎糊的鱼，或是漂在油汤里的鱼渣。要是他们急着关门，店主就会给我一些薯条和一张用来包裹的报纸。我喜欢的报纸是《世界新闻》，在爱尔兰，它是被禁的。但是有人偷偷从英国把它带过来，那上面有惊人的泳装女郎照片，她们简直什么也没穿，还有各种在利默里克根本看不到的犯罪故事，像离婚、通奸等等。通奸，我还得搞明白这个词儿到底是什么意思，到图书馆里去查查。我肯定它比老师教我们的"坏思想、坏词语、坏行为"还要坏。我拿着薯条回到家，像修道院长那样上床。要是他喝

了些啤酒，就坐在床上一边吃《利默里克导报》包着的薯条，一边唱"拉什恩之路"。我吃自己的薯条，然后开始舔《世界新闻》。我舔那些讲述人们干出格事情的故事，舔穿着泳装的女郎。等没什么可舔了，我就盯着这些女郎看，等修道院长把灯吹灭，我就躲到毯子下，开始干坏事。我随时可以拿妈妈或拉曼。格里芬的借书卡去图书馆，绝不会被逮到，因为拉曼太懒，星期六起不了床，而妈妈衣服寒碜，绝不会走进图书馆。奥瑞丹小姐面带微笑：《圣徒生平》正等着你呢，弗兰克。好多卷呢，有巴特勒写的、奥汉隆写的、巴灵- 古德写的。我对馆长说起你，她非常高兴，准备给你办一张成人借书卡。是不是妙极了？谢谢，奥瑞丹小姐。我正在读贞女圣布瑞吉德的故事，她的祭日是二月一日。她长得漂亮极了，全爱尔兰的男人都渴望娶她，她的父亲想让她嫁给一个大人物。但她不想嫁人，于是她向上帝祈求帮助。他让她的一只眼睛化为血水，滴到脸上，眼窝留下一个好大的洞，爱尔兰的男人们顿时没了兴趣。接着是殉道贞女圣薇吉福蒂斯的故事，她的祭日是七

月四日。她母亲同时生了九个孩子，有八个双胞胎，只有薇吉福蒂斯是单个儿生下来的。他们最终全成了信仰的殉道者。薇吉福蒂斯很美，她父亲想让她嫁给西西里王。她非常绝望。上帝帮助她，让她的嘴上和脸上长出胡须，西西里王犹豫了，但她的父亲暴跳如雷，把她和胡须一起钉在十字架上。要是你是一个英国女人，又嫁给了一个坏丈夫，就可以向圣薇吉福蒂斯祷告。牧师们从不给我们讲像圣阿加莎这样的殉道贞女的事情，她的祭日是二月五日，在二月里殉道的贞女可真不少。西西里的异教徒命令阿加莎放弃对耶稣的信仰。跟所有的殉道贞女一样，她说：不！他们开始折磨她，把她的四肢绑在拷问架上，用铁钩扎她的两肋，用点燃的火把烧她。她的回答还是：不，我不会放弃我主。他们压碎她的乳房，割了下来。后来他们逼她在滚烫的煤炭上打滚，她再也承受不了，赞美着上帝死去了。殉道贞女总是唱着赞美诗死去，她们赞美上帝，一点也不怕狮子从她们身上咬下一大口，当场吃掉。牧师们怎么也从不给我们讲圣乌苏拉和她的一万一千名殉道贞女的事情呢？她的纪念日是十月二十一日。她的父亲想让她嫁给一个异教徒国王，但是她说：我

要出去一段时间，三年，考虑考虑。于是，她带着一千名侍女和一万名随从出发了。她们在海上航行了一段时间，巡游了各个国家，最后在科隆停了下来。这里的匈奴头领让乌苏拉嫁给他，她说，不，匈奴人便杀掉了她和跟随她的一万一千名少女。她为什么不说 "是"呢？那样就可以挽救一万一千名贞女的生命啊。为什么殉道贞女都这么顽固不化呢？我喜欢一个爱尔兰主教圣莫灵。他不住利默里克的主教住的那种宫殿，他住在树上。别的圣徒来拜访他，到他这里吃饭，他们就像鸟儿一样，围坐在树枝上喝水吃面包，其乐融融。一天，他正在散步，一个麻风病人说，嗨，圣莫灵，我也想去做弥撒，你们为什么不能背我去呢？圣莫灵愿意背他，可还没等他背起这个麻风病人，病人便开始抱怨，你的刚毛衬衫①太硬，碰疼了我的伤口，把它脱掉。圣莫灵照办了，他们继续朝前走。这个麻风病人又说话了：我要擤鼻子。圣莫灵说：我可没有手帕这种东西，就用你的手吧。麻风病人说，我的手正抓着你，没法再擤鼻子呀。好吧，圣莫灵说，你可以擤在我的手上。麻风病人说，那不行，麻风病让我只剩下一只手了，我没法抓着你，还能往你的手上擤鼻子。要是你是一个真正的圣徒，就

应该转过身，把我的鼻涕吸出去。圣莫灵不想这么干，但他还是干了。他把这当做对上帝的奉献，并赞美上帝给了他这一荣耀。父亲也吸过迈克尔鼻子里的脏东西，我可以理解，那时候迈克尔还是个婴儿，性命垂危。但我想不通上帝干吗要让圣莫灵吸麻风病人的鼻涕。我没法理解上帝，虽然我也想成为一名圣徒，让众人膜拜。我绝对不吸麻风病人的鼻涕。我是想成为一名圣徒，但要是非得这样做的话，那就免了。不过，我还是准备一直在这家图书馆阅读贞女和殉道贞女的故事。但是有一天，因为某个人丢在桌上的一本书，我与奥瑞丹小姐发生了不快。那本书的作者是林语堂，谁都能看出，这是一个中国人的名字，我很好奇，想知道这个中国人在说什么。这是一本关于爱和肉体的散文集，他的一个词儿让我查起词典：坚挺。他写道：男性器官变得坚挺后，插入女性的接收口。坚挺，词典里说是胀大，我就是这么回事。我傻站在那儿看着词典，我现在总算明白了米奇。莫雷一直说的事情，那跟街上的狗插在一起没什么两样啊，想到所有的母亲和父亲在干这样的事情，我感到非常震惊。父亲这么多年来一直在骗我，说什么第七级楼梯上的

天使。奥瑞丹小姐问我在查什么，每当我查词典，她总是显出忧心忡忡的样子。我告诉她，我在查"封圣"、"宣福"或者别的什么宗教词语。那这是什么？她问，这可不是《圣徒生平》啊。她拿起林语堂的书，读了我扣在桌上的那一页。圣母啊，你是在读这个吗？我刚才看见你拿着它了。噢，我...我...只是想看看中国人是不是、中国人是不是...啊，也有圣徒。噢，一点没错，你是在这么干。这叫不知羞耻、淫秽，你给我马上离开图书馆。可我在看《圣徒生平》呢。出去，要不我就叫馆长了，她会让警卫对付你的。出去，你应该跑到牧师那儿忏悔你的罪过。出去，先把你那可怜的母亲和格里芬先生的借书卡交给我再走。我真想给你那可怜的母亲写封信，要不是担心她受不了，我肯定会写的。林语堂，真是的，出去。当图书管理员发火时，跟她们说什么都没用。你可以在那儿站上一个小时，告诉她们你读了布瑞吉德、薇吉福蒂斯、阿加莎、乌苏拉和殉道贞女的故事，但她们满脑子想的只有林语堂书里的那么一个词儿。

人民公园坐落在图书馆后面，这一天阳光灿烂，草坪干燥。我先是低声下气地乞讨薯条，又因为"坚挺" 而受了大动肝火的图书管理员一顿气，我身心俱疲。望着纪念碑上空飘浮的云朵，我"坚挺"着迷迷糊糊地漂进梦乡。我梦见殉道贞女穿着《世界新闻》里的泳装，正在用羊尿泡打那位中国作家。我在兴奋中醒来，热乎乎、黏糊糊的东西喷了出来。啊，上帝，我的男性器官在大庭广众下伸出去好远，人们都向我投来好奇的目光。母亲们赶快招呼孩子，宝贝，离那小子远点，应该叫警卫来治治他。十四岁生日的前一天，我在外婆碗柜上的镜子里看了看自己。这副模样怎么能到邮局上班呢？从头到脚都是破破烂烂的，衬衫、外衣、短裤、长袜，还有鞋子 ———都快从脚上掉下去了。掉了毛的凤凰，母亲常常这样说它们。可跟衣服比起来，我本人的模样更糟，不管怎么用水冲，头发还是横七竖八。对付这种百折不挠的头发，只能用口水了，但是很难往自己头上吐口水，只能先往空中猛吐一口，赶快俯下身子，用头接住它。我的眼睛通红，冒着黄水，满脸长着红红黄黄的小脓包。门牙黑极了，都蛀坏了，这辈子我都没法微笑了。

我没有肩膀，我知道全世界的男人都羡慕宽肩膀。每当利默里克有一个男人死去，女人们总是说：他是个了不起的男人，肩膀又大又宽，都进不了你家的门，只能侧着身子进去。等我死了，她们就会说：可怜的小鬼呀，死的时候都没有一点肩膀。我希望自己有些肩膀，这样人们就会知道我至少有十四岁了。利米国立学校的男孩子都有肩膀，除了芬坦。斯莱特瑞，我不想长成像他那样没肩膀、整天祈祷、膝盖都磨坏了的家伙。要是有一丁点钱，我就为圣弗兰西斯点着一根蜡烛，请求他看看，能不能说服上帝给我的肩膀加点料。要是有一张邮票也行，我可以给乔。路易斯写封信，说：亲爱的乔，你可不可以向我透露一下，你虽然很穷，却是从哪里弄到一副有力的肩膀的呢？为了工作，我得看上去体面些。我脱去所有的衣服，光着身子站在后院的水龙头旁，用一块石炭酸皂洗衣服。洗完后，我把衬衫、外衣、短裤、长袜一一挂在外婆的晾衣绳上，祈祷上帝不要下雨，祈祷明天它们能干，明天可是我生活的开端啊。我一丝不挂，哪儿也去不了，只能整天待在床上看旧报纸，对着《世界新闻》上的女郎们兴奋。感谢上帝，太阳很好。修道院长五点钟回到家，在楼下烧茶。我

知道，就算真饿了，也不能找他要吃的，他会不满的。他明白我担心他去向阿吉姨妈告状，说我老待在外婆的房子里，睡在她的床上不走。阿吉姨妈一旦听说了这回事，就会赶过来，把我扔到大街上。吃完饭，他就把面包藏起来，让我找不到。你可能会想，没摔过脑袋的人能找到摔过脑袋的人藏的面包。后来我猜到了，要是面包不在这房子里，就一定在他那件不分冬夏都穿着的外套口袋里。我一听见他迈着沉重的脚步从厨房去后院的厕所，就赶快跑到楼下，从他的外套口袋里抽出面包，切下厚厚的一块，再放回他的口袋里，随即回到楼上的床铺。这样他不能说什么，也不能责备我偷面包。就算你被迫沦落为连一块面包都偷的最低级的贼，也没有人会相信他的话，连阿吉姨妈都不会，她还会训斥他：你口袋里揣着面包走来走去的干什么呀？那可不是放面包的地方。我慢慢地嚼着面包，每一刻钟嚼一口，这样能吃得久一些。要是再喝点水，肚子里的面包就会膨胀，给我一种吃饱的感觉。我望了望后窗外，确定夕阳晒着我的衣服才放心。别人家的后院也晾着衣服，色彩鲜艳，随风起舞，我挂在晾衣绳上的衣服却像几条死狗。

夕阳明亮，屋里却又湿又冷，我真希望床上有什么可以穿穿的。可我没有别的衣服了，要是动了修道院长的衣服，他肯定会向阿吉姨妈告状的。我只能在衣橱里找到外婆的一条旧黑羊毛裙。照理说，外婆已经死了，我是不该穿她的旧裙子的。可我只是个孩子，穿上只是为了保暖，这应该没什么关系，况且是在床上穿，又盖着毯子，不会有人知道的。裙子上有股死去的老外婆身上的味道，我很怕她会从坟墓里站起来，当着全家的面骂我。我向圣弗兰西斯祷告，求他让外婆待在她的坟墓里，我答应上班后给他点一支蜡烛；还提醒他，他身上的那件长袍也跟裙子差不了多少，可并没有谁因为这个折磨他。不知不觉，我睡着了，梦里出现他的面影。世界上最坏的事情，就是你穿着已故外婆的衣服，睡在她的床上时，舅舅修道院长喝了一夜啤酒，醉倒在南方酒吧外面，不知道哪个好管闲事的人又跑去告诉阿吉姨妈。她赶紧带上帕。基廷姨父，一块儿把修道院长弄回家送到楼上，而你正在楼上呼呼大睡呢。她向你大吼：你在这屋里干什么？还躺在床上？起来，给你可怜的舅舅烧壶茶，他摔倒了！你不动，她就来掀你的毯子，然后像见鬼似的向后跌去，喊道：圣母

啊，你穿着我那死鬼老娘的裙子干什么？这真是糟糕透顶，因为你很难解释，你在为一生的大事业做准备，洗了所有的衣服，它们正在外面的绳子上晾着呢，天又这么冷，你只好穿上这条裙子，这屋里只能找到这么一件衣服了。跟阿吉姨妈解释这些已经够烦了，这时，修道院长偏偏还在床上哀号：我的脚火烧火燎的，快给我的脚浇水。而帕。基廷姨父正捂着嘴，靠在墙上大笑，对你说看上去漂亮极了，黑色挺适合你，可以把褶边拉直。阿吉姨妈叫你滚下床，到楼下给可怜的舅舅烧壶茶，你简直不知所措：是应该脱掉裙子，披着毯子去？还是应该穿着裙子去？前一分钟她还尖叫：你穿着我那死鬼老娘的裙子干什么呀？后一分钟就叫你去烧该死的茶水。我对她说，我为了自己的大事业，把衣服洗掉了。什么大事业？到邮局送电报。她说要是邮局雇用像你这样的人，他们一定是饥不择食了，下去烧壶茶去。接下来的倒霉事，就是拿着壶到后院的水龙头接水时，月光皎洁，而隔壁的凯瑟琳。珀赛尔正趴在墙上找她的猫。上帝呀，弗兰基。迈考特，你穿你外婆的裙子

干什么啊？你只好穿着那件裙子，拎着茶壶站在那儿，解释说你的衣服洗了，正在绳子上晾着呢，谁都可以看得见；躺在床上太冷，只好穿上外婆的裙子；后来，帕特舅舅———也就是修道院长———摔倒了，阿吉姨妈和丈夫帕。基廷把他送回家，是她赶你到后院接水的；等你的衣服一干，就立刻脱掉这条裙子，因为你绝没有穿着已故外婆的裙子度过此生的欲望。凯瑟琳。珀赛尔发出一声尖叫，掉到墙下，把她的猫也忘了。只听见她格格笑个不停，跑到她的瞎眼老妈那儿，说：妈咪，妈咪，听我给你讲，弗兰基。迈考特在后院里穿着他死去的外婆的裙子。你知道这下毁了，一旦凯瑟琳。珀赛尔发现点什么，天不亮整个巷子就都知道了。你还不如把头探出窗子，把你和外婆裙子的事先公之于众。壶里的水开了，喝醉的修道院长已经睡着了。阿吉姨妈说她和帕姨父要喝杯茶，要是我想喝一杯也行。帕姨父说再一想，这条黑裙子也可以是多明我会牧师穿的长袍。他跪下来，说：保佑我，神父，我有罪。阿吉姨妈说：起来，你这个老疯子，不要亵渎宗教。她又问：你来这屋子干什么？我不能告诉她妈妈和拉曼。格里芬在阁楼上兴奋的事，

我对她说，我想在这儿住一段时间，因为从拉曼。格里芬家到邮局太远了。我一落下脚，一定找一处体面的房子，我们全搬过去，母亲和弟弟都搬过去。啊，她说，这可比你父亲像样。送电报当你明天就满十四岁了，要第一次作为大老爷们开始工作，你很难睡着。黎明，修道院长醒了，不停地呻吟着。我在想该不该给他烧些茶？他外套口袋里还藏着半块面包，藏在那儿是为防我这只大老鼠的，要是泡茶给他，我就可以找机会切一块吃；而且我可以到外婆留声机的唱片匣子里找找，还能找到一瓶果酱呢。他既不会读，也不会写，但他知道该把果酱藏在哪儿。我给修道院长端来茶和面包，也给自己弄了些。我穿上自己的湿衣服，上了床，指望这样待着，可以在上班前靠体温把衣服烘干。妈妈总说湿衣服会让你得肺炎，早早进坟墓的。修道院长坐在那里吃喝，告诉我，他醒来后头痛欲裂，在梦中，他看见我穿着他那可怜母亲的黑裙子，而她一直在周围飞来飞去，尖叫着：罪过、罪过，这是罪过。他喝完茶，又倒下睡了，打着呼噜。我等待他的钟敲响八点半，那是我起床的时间，我要在九点钟赶到邮局上班，哪怕衣服仍旧湿湿

的贴在我的皮肤上。我走出家门，奇怪阿吉姨妈怎么来巷子里了。她一定是来看看修道院长是死了还是需要医生的。她问：你几点钟上班？九点。好吧。她转身跟我一起朝亨利街的邮局走去，路上她一句话也不说，我想她是不是要去邮局揭发我睡在外婆的床上，还穿她的黑裙子。她说：上去跟他们说，你姨妈在下面等着你呢，你要过一个小时再来。要是他们不同意，我就上去和他们理论。为什么非要过一个小时？他妈的，你就照我说的去做好啦。一些电报童正在靠墙的长凳上坐着，一张办公桌旁有两个女人，一胖一瘦。瘦的问：有事吗？我叫弗兰克。迈考特，我今天来上班。那么，什么班？送电报，小姐。瘦的嗬嗬笑了起来：噢，上帝呀，我还以为你是来打扫厕所的。不是，小姐。我母亲曾带来一张牧师科帕尔博士的便

条，应该有一份工作吧？噢，是有，有吗？你知道今天是什么日子？我知道，小姐，今天是我的生日，我满十四岁了。可真了不起，那个胖女人说。今天是星期四，瘦女人说，你的工作要从星期一开始，去吧，好好洗一洗，到时候再来。墙边那些电报童正在大笑，我不明白他们为什么要笑，但脸上一阵发烧。我对这两个女人说：谢谢你们。然后走了出去。我听见那个瘦的说：耶稣在上，莫瑞恩，是谁把这个怪物塞进来的？她们和电报童们一起笑起阿吉姨妈问：好了吧？我告诉她要到星期一才开始上班。她说你的衣服真丢人，你是用什么洗的？石炭酸皂。一股死鸽子的味道，你让全家人成了笑柄。她带我来到罗切商店，给我买了一件衬衫、一件外衣、一条短裤、两双长袜和一双降价出售的凉鞋。她还给我两个先令，让我喝茶吃面包，算是给自己过个生日。她上了一辆公共汽车回她的奥康纳街去了，她太胖，懒得走路。她又胖又懒，也没有自己的儿子，但她还是为我的工作买了新衣服送给我。

我把那包衣服夹在胳膊下面，转身向亚瑟码头走去。我只好站在香农河陡峭的岸边，不让全世界的人看见一个大老爷们的眼泪，这一天，他正好十四岁。星期一的早晨，我早早起来，洗了洗脸，用水和口水把头发弄平。修道院长看见我穿着一身新衣服，就说：天啊，你要去结婚吗？说完，又回到梦乡。那个胖女人奥康纳太太说：啊，啊，我们穿的难道不是最时髦的衣服吗？那个瘦女人巴里小姐问：你周末去抢银行啦？那帮电报童坐在靠墙的长凳上，爆发出一阵大笑。我奉命坐到长凳的最末端，等着轮到我去送电报。有些电报童穿着制服，他们是通过考试的正式工。只要他们愿意，可以永远在邮局待下去，参加邮递员的考试，再参加办事员的考试。成了办事员，他们就可以在室内工作，在楼下的柜台里卖卖邮票和汇款单了。邮局会给正式工发大雨披，天气不好时用。每年他们还有两周的休假。人人都说这是个好工作，稳定、体面、有保障。一旦有了这样的工作，你这辈子就不愁了，你用不着发愁。送电报的临时工一过十六岁，就不允许再干了。他们没有制服，没有休假，报酬很低。而且一旦你病了，

一天没来，就得被解雇，根本没商量。也没有雨披，自己备吧，要不就想法躲着点。奥康纳太太把我叫到办公桌前，给了我一根黑皮绳和一个邮袋。她说自行车太少，所以我只能走路送第一批电报。我得先送最远的，回来再送其他的。她在邮局干的时间够长了，清楚送六封电报需要多久，就算是走路送也要不了一天的时间。我不能去酒吧、赌马场，甚至回家喝口水也不行。要是违反了规定，是会被发现的。我也不能去教堂祷告，要是我非祷告不可，就在走路或骑车的时候祷告吧。别在乎下雨，继续送你的电报，别像个小女孩子似的。有一封电报的地址是亚瑟码头的克劳海西太太家，这一定是帕迪的母亲。是你吗？弗兰基。迈考特，她说，上帝呀，没想到你长这么大了。进来，请进吧。她穿着一件鲜艳的长外衣，上面绣满花，脚上是一双锃亮的新鞋子。两个孩子正在地板上玩玩具火车。餐桌上摆放着茶壶、茶杯和托盘，还有牛奶、面包、黄油和果酱。窗户那边有两张床，以前那里可什么也没有。墙角的那张大床是空的，她一定明白我在想什么，就说：他走了，不过不是死了，他和帕迪一起去了英

国。喝杯茶，吃块面包吧，你需要这些。上帝保佑我们，你看上去像从大饥荒年代过来的。把面包和果酱吃了吧，补补身体。帕迪老是说起你，我那卧病在床的可怜丈夫丹尼斯，自打你妈妈那天来，唱了那首凯里舞会的歌曲后，他就再也无法忘怀了。他现在在英国的一家食堂做三明治，每周给我寄几个先令。你一定很奇怪英国人怎么想的，要一个有肺炎的人，还给他一个做三明治的工作。帕迪也在英国，在克里特伍德的一家酒吧有份不错的工作。要不是帕迪爬墙拿来那个舌头，丹尼斯这会儿还待在家里呢。舌头？那次丹尼斯很想吃个和卷心菜土豆一起炖的好羊头，所以我用家里最后几个先令去巴里肉店买了一个。我炖羊头时，他好像等不及似的，躺在床上一直叫嚷着。我把羊头盛进盘子，端给他，他高高兴兴地吃了起来，连骨髓都吸得干干净净。吃完了，他问：玛丽，舌头在哪里？什么舌头？我说。这只羊的舌头啊，每只羊生下来都有舌头，用来"咩咩咩"地叫。可这个羊头却偏偏没有舌头，快去找屠

夫巴里，找他要舌头。我又去了一趟屠夫巴里那儿，可他说：这只该死的羊来的时候，叫喊得太厉害，我们只好割掉它的舌头，喂狗吃了。那条狗吃了，从此就像羊一样"咩咩"地叫了。要是它再不改，我就割掉它的舌头扔给猫吃。我回家告诉丹尼斯，他就在床上发起狂来：我要那个舌头，全部的营养都在舌头里呢。你知道后来怎么了？我的帕迪———你的朋友，天黑后去了屠夫巴里那儿，爬上墙，割下来挂在墙上的一个羊头的舌头，带回来给他卧病在床的老爸。我把那个舌头炖熟，搁了好多盐。而丹尼斯呢，他吃完舌头，刚躺回床上，就把毯子一扔，站起来向全世界宣布，什么肺炎不肺炎的，他不打算在床上等死了，要是终有一死，还不如死在德国人的炸弹下，去为家人挣它几英镑，而不是躺在这张床上瞎叫唤。她给我看了一封帕迪的来信，他在他叔叔安东尼的酒吧工作，一天干十二个小时，每周能挣二十五先令，天天有汤和三明治。他很喜欢德国人空袭，这样他可以趁酒吧关门的时候睡上一觉。夜里他就睡在楼上过道的地板上。他每个月给母亲寄两英镑，剩下的钱都积攒起来，准备把她和家人接到英国，克里特伍德的

一间房比亚瑟码头的十间房都舒服。在那里，她不费吹灰之力就可以找到活儿干。在一个正在打仗的国家，特别是美国佬也在参战的国家，你还找不到活儿干，那就太没天理了———美国佬简直花钱如流水。帕迪正计划去伦敦中部找活儿干，那儿的美国佬给小费非常大方，足够一个爱尔兰六口之家吃上一星期。克劳海西太太说：我们终于有钱吃穿了，这多亏了上帝和圣母。你一定猜不到帕迪在英国遇见谁了，布兰登。奎格雷，恁们过去经常叫他"问题"的那个，才十四岁就像个大老爷们似的在工作了。他在工作攒钱，好去当骑警，像奈尔森。艾迪那样唱着"我要一直呼唤你哦哦哦哦哦哦"，周游整个加拿大。要不是希特勒，我们都会死掉的，说起来这不是件坏事。你可怜的母亲怎样了，弗兰基？她好极了，克劳海西太太。不，她不好。我在"大药房"见过她，她看上去比我那卧病在床的丹尼斯还糟。你一定要当心你那可怜的母亲，你看上去也不妙，弗兰基，两只眼睛红红的，直往外凸。给你点小费，两便士，自己买块糖吃吧。好的，克劳海西太太。拿着吧。

周末，奥康纳太太把这辈子的第一笔薪水发给我，有一英镑，这是我第一次挣到的英镑。我跑到楼下，来到奥康纳街。街灯已经点亮，下班的人们正走在回家的路上，他们跟我一样，口袋里也揣着薪水。我真想让他们知道，我跟他们一样，也是个大老爷们啦，我有一英镑呢。我从奥康纳街一旁走过去，又从另一旁走回来，我希望他们注意一下我，但是他们没有。我想向全世界挥舞一下我的英镑，让他们说：看，他来了，工人弗兰基。迈考特，口袋里揣着一英镑呢。这是星期五的晚上，我可以想干什么就干什么。我可以吃煎鱼和薯条，去利瑞克电影院看电影。不，不去利瑞克。看在上帝的分上，我不用再跟那帮人坐在一起，一看到印第安人屠杀卡斯特将军、非洲人在丛林中追赶人猿泰山，他们就大喊大叫个没完。我现在可以去萨瓦电影院，花它六便士买张前排的票，那里坐着上等人，他们吃着成盒的巧克力，发笑时用手捂住嘴。看完电影，我还可以到楼上的餐馆喝杯茶，吃上几块面包。迈克尔正在街对面喊我，他饿了，不想大老远地往拉曼。格里芬家赶，想去修道院长那里弄点面包吃，再住上一夜。我告诉他不用担心什么面包，我们去大广

场咖啡馆吃煎鱼和薯条，管他够，还有柠檬水随便喝。然后，我们就去看詹姆斯。卡格尼主演的《胜利之歌》，再买两大块巧克力吃。看完电影，我们再喝茶、吃面包，完了，就像卡格尼那样边唱边跳地走回修道院长的家。迈克尔说在美国生活一定非常棒，那里的人除了唱歌跳舞什么都不干。他都快睡着了，还在说有一天要去那里唱歌跳舞，问我能不能帮他去。等他睡着了，我开始细想我的美国梦。我得把钱都攒起来当路费，而不是随随便便地花在煎鱼、薯条、茶和面包上。我得从我的英镑里省下几个先令，不存钱的话，我就得永远待在利默里克。我现在十四岁，要是每星期攒些钱的话，到了二十岁，我肯定能去美国。有些电报要送到办公室、商店和工厂，这些地方别指望能拿到小费。它们的办事员接过电报，看都不看你一眼，也不说声谢谢。有些电报是给住在恩尼斯路和北环路的那些体面人，你也别指望能从那里拿到小费。他们都雇着女仆，这些女仆跟办事员一样，既不看你，也不谢你。有些电报要送到牧师和修女的住处，他们也都雇着女仆，尽管他们一再说贫穷是高贵的，要是想等着牧师和修女给小费，那你会等死在他们门口的。有些电报是给好几英里外的城外农民的，他们的院子

里到处是泥巴，那些狗恨不得咬掉你的腿。还有些电报是给住豪宅的有钱人的，他们的房子都配有门房，好几英里的土地被墙围着，看门人招手示意你进去，你得骑自行车走好几英里，路过草坪、花圃、喷泉，才能来到那幢豪宅前。要是天气晴朗，他们就在外面玩槌球—— —那种新教徒的游戏，要不就是在有说有笑地散步。他们都穿着花花绿绿的衣服，或是带有徽章和金扣的运动衣，让你绝对想不到战争还在继续。大门外停放着劳斯莱斯轿车，一名女仆在那里冲你嚷，从仆人的入口进去！你懂不懂规矩啊？豪宅里的人都带着英国腔，他们也不给电报童小费。最爱给小费的人是寡妇、新教徒牧师的妻子和一般的穷苦人家。寡妇们知道英国政府什么时候把钱汇过来，她们会站在窗前等。要是她们请你进去喝杯茶，你得多加小心，因为一个临时工"皮包骨鲁比"说，一个三十五岁的老寡妇曾邀请他进去喝茶，然后想脱他的裤子，虽然他也真动心了，但还是跑出去，不得不在下个星期六忏悔。他说他那东西挺起来了，蹬自行车时很不好受。但是，要是你骑得很快，再想着贞女玛利亚的痛苦，那个东西会马上软下来。

新教徒的妻子们从不像"皮包骨鲁比"的老寡妇那样干，除非她们自己也是寡妇。克里斯汀。华莱士是个正式工，准备哪天成为一名邮差，他说新教徒没什么可顾忌的，就算她们是牧师太太，她们反正是要下地狱的，所以，要是她们和电报童胡闹一下，又有什么关系？电报童都喜欢新教徒牧师太太，她们也可能雇有女仆，但总是自己来开门，并说：请等一会儿，给你六便士。我很想同她们攀谈几句，问问她们对将来下地狱是怎么想的，但那可能太冒昧，她们会要回那六便士的。在英国工作的爱尔兰人都在星期五晚上和星期六白天把钱电汇回来，这是我们挣小费的最佳时机，我们送完一批，紧接着再送一批。最差的巷子在爱尔兰镇，通向高街或蒙哥瑞街，比罗登巷、奥凯非巷或我住过的任何巷子都要差。这种巷子中间有一条臭水沟，母亲们站在门口倒泔水桶时，大喊着小心脏水。孩子们在这油乎乎的水上玩纸船，或插着小帆的火柴盒。你一骑进巷子，孩子们就喊开了：电报童来喽，电报童来喽。他们统统向你跑过来，女人们站在门口等着。要是你把电报交给一个小孩子，让他递到母亲手里，

他就成了家里的英雄。小女孩们往往退避一旁，等着男孩们拔头筹。但要是家里没男孩，她们也会来拿电报的。门口的女人会冲你大声说，她们现在没有钱，不过你要是明天还来这条巷子的话，可以上门讨你的小费，上帝保佑你，一切属于你。在邮局，奥康纳太太和巴里小姐每天都要提醒我们，我们的工作就是送电报，没有别的事。不许我们为别人做事，像跑腿到商店买东西，或传递什么口信之类的事情。就算有人躺在床上奄奄一息，她们也不管；有人没了腿、发了疯、在地上爬，她们也不管。我们只管送电报，这就是一切。奥康纳太太说：我清楚恁们干的每一件事情，每一件事情，因为利默里克人都盯着恁们呢，我的抽屉里就装着他们写来的报告。真是装报告的好地方啊①，托比。麦基压低声音说。但是，奥康纳太太和巴里小姐根本不清楚巷子里的情况。当你敲门，有人说进来，你走进去，黑漆漆的一片，角落里的床上是一堆破布，那堆破布里传出声音：谁呀？你说电报，那堆破布便劳驾你为她跑一趟商店，她快要饿死了，只要能弄杯茶给她，挖她的眼睛都行。你又该怎么办呢？说我很忙，然后骑上自行车，把电汇单和那堆破布扔那儿不管吗？那张单子对那堆破布

来说根本没用，她没力气从床上爬起来，去邮局支取那笔该死的汇款。你该怎么办呢？他们告诉你，绝对不能替别人去邮局支取汇款，否则别干了。但是，你遇到一个参加过几百年前的布尔战争的老兵，他的双腿都没了，他说，要是你愿意去邮局的帕迪。康斯丁那儿一趟，他将终生感激，到那儿跟他说说情况，帕迪一定会让你支取汇款的，你自己可以留下两先令，你真是个了不起的男孩。这时你又该怎么办呢？帕迪。康斯丁说没问题，不过不要告诉任何人，否则我就得滚蛋，你也一样，孩子。这位参加过布尔战争的老人说，他知道你现在还有电报要送，不过还是想劳驾你今晚来一次，帮他跑一趟商店，他家里什么都没有了，而且他还冻得要死。他坐在角落里一把破旧的扶手椅上，盖着一点毯子，椅子背后放着马桶，臭得让你想吐。看着坐在黑暗角落里的这位老人，你真想拿上一条热水管，把他扒个净光，从头到脚把他冲干净，再给他吃一顿大餐，里面有咸肉、鸡蛋，以及拌了好多黄油、食盐和洋葱的土豆泥。我想把这位参加过布尔战争的人和床上的那堆破布弄出来，让他们待在一间向阳的乡村大房子里，窗外，

鸟儿不停啁啾，溪水阵阵奔流。斯皮兰太太住在凯里路的帕普巷，她有一对残疾双胞胎，他们的大脑袋长着金发，身子小小，小小的腿悬在椅子边。他们整天盯着炉子，不停地问：爹地在哪儿？虽然他们跟别人一样能说英语，但总是用自己发明的语言彼此咿呀说个不停：航———速———梯— ——梯 ———速———航。斯皮兰太太解释说，这意思就是我们什么时候吃晚饭？她对我说，只要她丈夫每月都能寄回四英镑，自己就够走运的了，就不用受"大药房"的辱骂了，因为他在英国，他们就这样对她。孩子只有四岁，尽管没法走路，也不能照顾自己，但还是很聪明。要是他们能走路，能稍微正常点的话，她就收拾收拾迁往英国，离开这个连上帝都不闻不问的国家了。人们为自由战斗了这么久，可你看看它现在这个样子吧：德。瓦勒拉住在都柏林的高楼大厦里，这个肮脏的老杂种和别的政客都该下地狱了，上帝原谅我这么说。牧师们也该下地狱了，不过说这个我不求上帝的原谅。这些牧师和修女大言不惭地对我们说耶稣是贫穷的，这并不可耻。而一辆辆卡车装着成箱成桶的威士忌和葡萄酒，装着数不清的鸡蛋和火腿驶

进他们家里，他们还要一个劲地说应该为封斋期禁食。封斋期，狗屁！我们长年累月都在过封斋期，还禁什么食？我也想把斯皮兰太太和她的两个金发残疾儿弄出来，让他们和那堆破布、那位参加过布尔战争的人一起，待在乡村的那间大房子里，给他们每个人都洗洗澡，让他们坐在太阳底下，听着鸟儿的歌唱和溪水的阵阵奔流。我不能丢下那堆破布，让她守着一张无用的汇款单不管，那堆破布是一个老太婆，名叫格特鲁德。达利，被利默里克巷子的各种常见病———关节炎、风湿病、脱发，弄得不成样子了，一个鼻孔也快被抠掉了。最不可思议的是，这个老太婆会从破布里坐起来，冲你咧嘴微笑，一口白牙在黑暗中闪闪发亮，那是真牙，是很健康的真牙。没错，她说，这是我自己的牙，一百年以后他们会发现，我已经在坟墓里腐烂了，而我的牙齿又白又亮，我会被宣称为圣徒的。那张电汇单是她儿子寄来的，有三英镑。电报上还留有附言：生日快乐，妈咪，您的爱子泰迪。她说：他能把钱省下来，真是个奇迹，这个小浑蛋，跟皮卡迪

利大街的每一个婊子鬼混。她问我能不能帮个忙，替她去取一下钱，再到酒吧帮她买一小瓶"幼神"牌威士忌，还得买一块面包、一磅猪油、七个土豆——— 一星期每天吃一个。她又问我，能不能替她煮一个土豆，拌些猪油压成土豆泥，再给她切块面包，再弄点水，兑进威士忌里喝。后来她又问我能不能去药剂师奥康纳那里为她的伤口买药膏，再带些肥皂来，让她好好擦洗擦洗身子。她将终生感激，为我祷告，这是因为麻烦我而付给我的两个先令。啊，不要，谢谢，女士。把钱拿着，一点小费，你帮了我大忙。我不能要，女士，您都这样了。把钱拿着，不然我就告诉邮局，叫你不用再给我送电报了。噢，好吧，女士，非常感谢。晚安，孩子，好好待你的母亲。晚安，达利太太。学校九月开学，放学后，在回拉曼。格里芬家前，迈克尔有时会来修道院长这里停留一下。每逢雨天，他就问：我今晚能待在这儿吗？不久，他就再也不想回拉曼。格里芬家了。他又累又饿，受不了来回四英里

的折腾。妈妈来找他，我不知道该对她说些什么，也不知道如何面对她，只好看着一边。她问：工作怎么样？好像在拉曼。格里芬家什么事都没发生过。我说：很不错。也好像什么事都没发生过。要是雨下得太大，她没法回去，就和阿非睡在楼上的那个小房间里。第二天，她再回到拉曼那儿，迈克尔还是待在这儿不走。不久，她开始一点一点往这里搬东西，最后再也不回拉曼家修道院长每星期付房租，妈妈继续领救济品和食品供应券。直到有一天，有人检举她，"大药房"便拒绝再给她提供救助了。他们说，要是她的儿子一星期可以挣一英镑的话，那可比有些领失业救济金的家庭强多了，他有了工作，她真该谢天谢地。现在，我只好把工资如数交出了。妈妈说：就一英镑？你不管刮风下雨，骑着车到处跑，就只挣这么点吗？这在美国只相当于四美元，四美元，在纽约四美元连只猫都喂不起。要是你在纽约为西联送电报，一星期可以挣到二十五美元，可以过得花天酒地。她总是把爱尔兰货币换算成美元，这样她才不会忘记以前在美国的好光景，也能让大家相信她在美国时比现在体面。有几个星期，

她让我留下两先令，但要是看场电影或是买本二手书，就一个子儿也不剩了，没法再攒我的路费，那我就得困在利默里克，长成一个二十五岁的老男人了。小马拉奇从都柏林写信说，他已经腻味了，不想把余生耗费在军乐队里吹号了。一个星期后，他回到家里。但他得跟我、迈克尔和阿非挤一张大床，他又开始抱怨。在都柏林，他自己就有一张军用床，床单、毯子、枕头一应俱全。可现在，他又回到盖外套的时代，一碰那垫子，羽毛就漫天飞舞。妈妈说：你真可怜，我很同情你的遭遇。修道院长有他自己的床，母亲有那个小房间，我们又团聚了，再也不受拉曼的折磨了。我们坐在厨房的地板上烧茶煎面包。修道院长说，你们不该坐在厨房的地板上，那样还要桌子和椅子干什么？他对妈妈说，弗兰基的脑子不大对劲。妈妈就说，地板上的湿气会让我们丢掉小命。我们还是坐在地板上，唱着歌，妈妈和修道院长坐在椅子上，她唱"今夜你感到孤单吗？"修道院长唱"拉什恩之路"，我们还是听不出他唱的到底是什么。我们坐在地板上天南地北地闲聊，聊着那些发生过的事，那些没发生的事，和那些我们将来到美国后会发生的事。邮局也有闲的时候，那时我们就坐在长凳上聊天。我

们可以聊，但不能笑。巴里小姐说我们坐在这儿，还能拿工资，真该谢天谢地，我们是一帮二流子和街油子。这没什么好笑的，坐着聊天，还拿工资，这没啥好笑的。谁敢嬉皮笑脸，就给我出去待着，不笑了再进来，要是还敢笑，就向上级告恁们！男孩们压低嗓音谈论着她，托比。麦基说：这条老母狗该好好修理一下，该用骨头好好捣捣，用树枝好好捣捣。她母亲是个满街拉客的贱货，她父亲的睾丸上长着肿包，手淫的地方长着肉瘤，刚从疯人院跑出来。笑声沿着长凳传来，巴里小姐冲我们喊：我警告过恁们，不能笑。麦基，你在那里胡扯什么呢？我说这么好的天，空气又新鲜，最好出去送电报，巴里小姐。我清楚你说了什么，麦基，你的嘴巴和厕所一样臭，你听见我说的了吗？我听见了，巴里小姐。楼上都能听见你在吵吵，麦基。闭嘴，麦基。我闭嘴，巴里小姐。

别再来一句了，麦基。不来了，巴里小姐。我说闭嘴，麦基。好吧，巴里小姐。就此打住吧，麦基，别惹我。我不惹你，巴里小姐。圣母啊，给我点耐心吧。收回最后一句，麦基，收回去！收回去！收回去！我会的，巴里小姐。托比。麦基跟我一样，也是个临时工。他看过一部叫《头版新闻》的电影，就梦想将来有一天能去美国，当一名戴着帽子叼着烟的、很气派的报社记者。他的口袋里一直藏着个笔记本，因为一名优秀的记者必须记下所发生的一切，即事实。他记下的是事实，而不是什么狗屁诗，不是像你在利默里克酒吧里听到的— ——爷们儿讲的英国怎么欺压我们的那些，是事实，弗兰基。他记下自己所送电报的数量，以及路程的远近。我们坐在长凳上，保证自己不笑后，他告诉我，假如我们一天送四十封电报，一星期就是两百封，一年就是一万封。我们工作的这两年可以送两万封。假

如我们一星期能骑一百二十五英里，这两年的工夫就是一万三千英里，那相当于绕着地球骑了半圈，弗兰基，难怪我们的屁股上没有一点肉呢。托比说没有人像电报童这么熟悉利默里克，我们知道每一条大街和巷子、每一片街区、每一所密室、每一座寓所、每一个庭院。老天啊，托比说，利默里克没有一扇门是我们不知道的。我们敲过各式各样的门，有铁的、橡木的、三夹板的。两万扇门，弗兰基，我们敲它、踢它、推它。我们扣门环、按门铃，高声喊，吹口哨：送电报的，送电报的。我们把电报丢进信箱，塞进门缝，扔进门上的小窗，遇到卧床不起的人家，我们就从窗子爬进去。我们吓走每条想吃掉我们的狗。当你把电报递到人们手上，你一定想不到会发生什么事情，他们有的大笑，有的高唱，有的手舞足蹈，有的又哭又叫，有的无力地晕过去。你不知道他们能不能再醒过来，把小费付给你。这一点不像在美国送电报，有一部叫《人间喜剧》的电影，里面的米奇。鲁尼骑着车子送电报，人们都很喜欢他，争先恐后地给他小费，请他进屋，给他一杯茶和一块面包。托比。麦基说他的笔记本里有大量的事实，所以什么也吓不倒他，我也想和他一样。

奥康纳太太知道我喜欢送乡下的电报，要是天气晴朗，她就一次给我十封乡下的电报，让我整个上午都在外面跑，午饭前不必回来。秋季的天气有时候不错，香农河波光粼粼，田野绿油油的，晨露闪烁着银光。袅袅炊烟掠过田野，散发出炭火的芳香。母牛和绵羊在田野里吃草，我想这些是不是就是牧师所说的牲畜。如果是，我也不会吃惊，因为公牛总是没完没了地爬到母牛身上去，公羊对母羊、公马对母马也是这个样子。而且它们都有一个那么大的家伙，大得让我冒汗，让我同情起天下所有的雌性动物来，它们不得不承受那么大的家伙。不过当头公牛也不错，它们想干就干，对一头动物来说，这绝对算不上是什么罪过。我不怕在这里跟自己干，可是不晓得会不会碰上带着牛羊赶集下田的农民，他们举举棍子，冲你打招呼：你好，年轻人，多好的早上啊，感谢上帝和圣母。要是看到你在庄稼地里触犯"第六诫"，虔诚的农民可能会发火的。马喜欢把头伸出围栏和树篱，看看是谁从这里路过。我停下脚步，跟它们说话，它们长着大大的眼睛，长长的鼻子，显得很聪明。有时候，两只小鸟会隔着一片田野相互鸣唱，我停下来，想听听它们在唱什么，再过一会儿，会有更多的鸟儿加入进来，到后来所有

的树和灌木丛里都充满了鸟鸣。要是路边的桥下有小溪在奔流、有鸟儿在歌唱、有母牛在哞哞、有羊羔在咩咩，这会比哪部电影里的乐队都动听。午饭时，农舍里飘出阵阵熏肉和卷心菜的香味，我饿得受不了了，就爬进田野，猛吃半个小时草莓，又把头扎进小溪里，喝一通冰凉的水，那水比任何煎鱼薯条店里的柠檬水都好喝多了。我送完电报，还有足够的时间去一趟古代修道院墓地，我母亲的亲戚———盖佛尔家族和西恩家族就葬在这里，我母亲自己也想葬在这里。从这儿可以看到高高的卡瑞戈古诺城堡的废墟，我骑到那里，坐在最高的那堵墙上，遥望着香农河流向大西洋，奔向美国，梦想有一天，我可以扬帆远航。邮局里的男孩子们告诉我，我很幸运，能拿到卡莫迪家的电报，会得到一先令的小费呢，这是你在利默里克能得到的最大一笔小费。这样的好事怎么会轮得到我呢？我是刚来的呀。他们说：啊，有时候，特丽莎。卡莫迪会来开门，她患有肺炎，他们害怕被传染。她十七岁，经常进出疗养院，肯定活不到十八岁。邮局里的男孩子们说，像特丽莎这样的病人清楚自己没多少活头了，她会发疯地追求爱情和罗曼史，以及每样

东西。每样东西，这就是患肺炎的人要对你做的，邮局里的男孩子们说。我骑车穿过十一月湿漉漉的大街，惦记着那一先令的小费。我拐进卡莫迪家住的那个街道，自行车滑了出去，我跌倒在地，蹭伤了脸，划破了手背。特丽莎。卡莫迪来开的门，她长着红头发，绿眼睛，像利默里克郊外的田野一样绿，两腮鲜红，皮肤白得吓人。她说：啊，你都淋湿了，还流着血。我骑车滑倒了。进来，我给你抹点药。我犹豫了，该不该进去呢？我可能会染上肺炎的，那可就完了。我才十五岁，还想活，还想要那一先令的小费。进来，站这儿你会没命的。她坐上水壶烧茶，然后在我的伤口上抹了些碘酒。我竭力像个男子汉那样，一声不吭。她说：啊，你真是个了不起的小男子汉。到客厅吧，去炉子前把衣服烤干。瞧，你干吗不把裤子脱掉，在炉栅上烤烤呢？啊，不了。啊，来吧。我来吧。

我慢吞吞地把裤子挂在炉栅上，坐在那儿，望着水汽升腾起来。我望着自己那东西在挺起，担心她进来时可能会看见我在兴奋哩。她端着面包、果酱和两杯茶走进来。主啊，她说，虽然你这小伙儿是个皮包骨，却有个不错的家伙。她把碟子和茶杯放到炉边的桌上，扔在那儿不管了。她用拇指和食指捏住我的"兴奋"，领我穿过房间，来到靠墙的绿沙发上。我的脑子里一直想着的是罪过、碘酒、对肺炎的恐惧、一先令的小费和她的绿眼睛。她躺在沙发上，说不要停下来，不然她就要死了。她哭了起来，我也哭了起来，因为我不知道自己这是怎么啦，会不会从她嘴里传染上肺炎。我时而飘飘欲仙，时而坠入悬崖，要是这就是罪过的话，那就随它去吧。我们在沙发上小憩了一会儿，她问我：你还有电报要送吗？我们都坐起来，她突然惊叫：啊，我流血了。你怎么啦？我想是因为第一次吧。我对她说：等一会儿。我到厨房里把那个瓶子拿过来，把碘酒洒在她的伤口处。她立即从沙发上跳起来，像个疯子似的在客厅里转个不停，又跑进厨房用水冲洗一番。擦干后，她说：主啊，你真够傻的，你不该往

女孩子那里洒碘酒。我以为你被弄伤了。这件事情以后，我又给她家送了几个星期的电报。有时候我们在沙发上兴奋，但有些日子她咳嗽得厉害，能看出她十分虚弱。她从不告诉我她身体不好，从不告诉我她患有肺炎。邮局的男孩子们说我拿着一先令的小费，还有特丽莎。卡莫迪陪着，一定过得无比美妙。我从不跟他们讲我没拿到小费，从不跟他们讲绿沙发和兴奋的事，也从不跟他们讲每当她为我开门，看到她是那样虚弱时，我有多么痛苦。那一刻，我最想做的就是为她烧茶，坐在绿沙发上紧紧地拥抱她。一个星期六，我奉命将电报送到特丽莎母亲上班的伍尔沃斯百货公司。我尽量装做若无其事的样子，说：卡莫迪太太，我经常给您送电报，我想那是您的女儿吧？特丽莎？是的，她住院了。她住的是疗养院吧？我说的是医院。她跟其他的利默里克人一样，不好意思说"肺结核"，而且，她也没给我一先令，压根就没有任何小费。我骑车去医院看望特丽莎，他们说你得是她的亲戚，还

得是成人才行。我告诉他们，我是她表弟，八月就满十五岁了，他们却叫我走开。我骑车来到圣芳济会教堂，为特丽莎祈祷。圣弗兰西斯啊，烦请您转告上帝，告诉他，那不是特丽莎的过错，那些星期六我本可以不送她家的电报的。告诉上帝，特丽莎对沙发上的兴奋没有责任，是肺病迫使她这样做的。我爱她，就像您深爱着每一只小鸟、牲畜或鱼儿一样。求您告诉上帝，把她的肺结核弄走吧，我保证再也不碰她了。下个星期六，他们又给了我一封卡莫迪家的电报。在街上刚骑到一半，我就看见那扇百叶窗已经合上了，还看见门上有黑纱花圈，看见白色紫杠的吊唁卡。透过门和墙，我看见自己和特丽莎赤身裸体地在绿沙发上疯狂翻滚。我知道此刻她已经进了地狱，而这一切都是因为我。我从门下把电报塞进去，又骑到圣芳济会教堂，乞求特丽莎的灵魂安息。我向每一座塑像祈祷，向彩色的玻璃窗祈祷，向苦路①祈祷。我发誓这一生将追求信仰、希望、慈善、贫穷、贞洁和顺从。第二天是星期天，我去做了四次弥撒，其中向苦路做了三次，又念了一整天的玫瑰经。我不吃不喝，到处走，一到僻静的地方就大哭，乞求上帝和贞女玛利亚

能够宽恕特丽莎。卡莫迪的灵魂。星期一，我骑着邮局的自行车，跟着送葬的队伍来到墓地，站在远处一棵树的后面。卡莫迪太太在流泪哀号，卡莫迪先生抽着鼻子，一脸茫然。牧师背诵起拉丁语祈祷词，在棺材上洒了圣水。我想到牧师跟前去，到卡莫迪夫妇跟前去，我想告诉他们我是怎样把特丽莎送进地狱的。他们想怎么处置我都行，打我，骂我，用坟墓上的土砸我，随他们的便吧。但是，我还是站在树后没有动，看着送葬的人们都离去了，只剩下掘墓人在填土。霜很快染白了坟墓上的新土，我想到特丽莎在棺材里的寒冷，想到她的红头发和绿眼睛。我无法理解自己心中涌动的情感，然而我知道这种事情，我经历过家人的死，巷子里的人的死，以及活生生的离别，但是，它们都没有这一次令我心痛。我希望再也不要经历这样的事情了。天快黑了，我骑上自行车离开墓地。我还有电报要送。

考试奥康纳太太让我给哈灵顿先生送唁电，他是个英国人，但他去世的太太是个土生土长的利默里克人。邮局的

男孩子们说送唁电纯粹是浪费时间，人们只顾痛哭呻吟，认为完全有理由不付你小费。有时他们还会问你是否想进来看一眼死者，在床边为他祷告一下，要是能让你喝点雪利酒，吃点火腿三明治，那还不算糟。啊，根本别想，他们很高兴接受你的祷告，但你只是个电报童而已，能给一块干巴巴的饼干，你就算走运了。老手们说，你得找对门道，才能拿到丧家的小费。要是他们请你进去祷告一下，你就得跪在尸体旁，大大地叹口气，求上帝保佑你，然后把额头埋在床单里，让他们看不见你的脸。你要抖动肩膀，像是悲伤得不能自持；两手紧紧抓着床，好像他们得使劲拉你，你才能继续去送电报似的；脸上要闪着泪光，要不就抹点口水；要是这样还拿不到小费，下次再有这样的电报，就把它们从门底下塞进去，或是从门顶的窗户上扔进去，让他们自己哭去吧。这并不是我第一次到哈灵顿家送电报。哈灵顿先生总是为保险公司出差，哈灵顿太太给小费很大方，但她已经不在了，开门的只能是哈灵顿先生。他的眼睛红红的，抽着鼻子，问我：你是爱尔兰人吗？爱尔兰人？站在利默里克他家的门前，手里拿着一沓

电报，我还能是别的国家的人吗？是的，先生。他说：进来吧，把电报放在过道的台子上。他关上过道的门，锁上，把钥匙放在口袋里。我心想，英国人可真古怪。你想要看看她？当然啦，看看你们爱尔兰人那该死的肺结核把她怎么样了！吸血鬼，跟我来。他先领我进厨房，拿了一碟火腿三明治和两瓶酒，随后上楼。哈灵顿太太躺在床上，金发，粉面，神态安详，还是很好看。这是我妻子，她可能是爱尔兰人，但看上去不像，感谢上帝。不像你，一个爱尔兰人。你需要喝点东西，当然，你们爱尔兰人绝不放过每次狂饮的机会。还不等断奶，就吵着要威士忌瓶子，喝烈性酒。你要什么？威士忌还是雪利？啊，柠檬水更好一些。我是在哀悼我妻子，不是要用该死的柠檬水欢庆。你喝杯雪利酒吧，从他妈的天主教法西斯西班牙来的垃圾。我吞下一大口雪利酒，他又给我倒满，给自己倒了威士忌。妈的，威士忌没了。在这儿待着，你听见了吗？我去酒吧再买一瓶威士忌。等我回来，不要动。我有些糊涂了，被雪利酒弄得头晕目眩。我不知道该

怎么对待这个悲伤的英国人。哈灵顿太太，你躺在床上，看上去很美，但你是个新教徒，已经厄运临头了，下地狱了，跟特丽莎一样。牧师说过：教堂之外没有救赎。等等，也许我能拯救你的灵魂，给你施天主教的洗礼，弥补我给特丽莎造的孽。我要弄些水来。啊，上帝呀，门锁上了。为什么？可能你压根就没有死，在看着我？你死了吗，哈灵顿太太？我不怕，你的脸是凉的，啊，你是死了。我要用从他妈的天主教法西斯西班牙来的雪利酒，为你施洗，我为你施洗，以圣父、圣子、圣... 你他妈的到底在干什么？别碰我妻子，你这个无耻的天主教白痴。你这是什么爱尔兰蛮俗？你碰她了吗？碰了吗？我要拧断你的鸡脖子。我...我... 嗨，嗨，说英语，小杂碎！我只是...用一点雪利酒送她上天堂。天堂？我们曾经拥有过天堂，安、我、我们的女儿艾米莉，都有过天堂。别用你那红猪眼看她！啊，基督，我真受不了了。来，再来点雪利酒。啊，不了，谢谢。啊，不了，谢谢，哼哼唧唧的小爱尔兰人。你们都嗜

酒如命，让你爬！让你哼哼唧唧！你也想吃点东西吧？你长着一副爱尔兰饿死鬼的样子。来，火腿，吃。啊，不了，谢谢。啊，不了？谢谢？再这么说，我就把火腿塞进你的屁眼里。他朝我挥舞着火腿三明治，把它塞进我的嘴里。他瘫坐在椅子上。啊，上帝，上帝，我这是要干什么？得休息一会儿了。我的肚子里开始翻江倒海，我向窗子奔去，伸出头，吐了起来。他顿时从椅子上跳起来，高声斥责我。你，你，去死吧，你吐到我妻子的玫瑰园里了。他向我猛冲过来，我一闪，他扑空了，倒在地上。我爬出窗子，抓着窗棂吊在那里。他也来到窗前，捉住我的手。我一松手，掉在玫瑰丛上，那正好是我刚吐过雪利酒和三明治的地方。我被玫瑰刺扎得疼痛难忍，脚脖子也扭了。他在窗台上怒吼：回来，你这个爱尔兰小矬子。他说要向邮局告我的状，又用威士忌酒瓶子砸中了我的后背。他恳求我：你就不能陪我一个小时吗？他抄起雪利酒杯、威士忌酒杯、什锦火腿三明治，还有他妻子梳妆台上的香粉、雪花膏、刷子之类的东西

朝我砸来。我爬上自行车，摇摇晃晃地穿过利默里克的街道，雪利酒和疼痛弄得我头昏眼花。奥康纳太太批评我说：七封电报，都是一个地方，你就花了一整天。我是...我是... 你是，你是，你是喝醉了，你的确是喝醉了，酒气熏天。啊，我们都听说了。那个漂亮的人儿来了电话，哈灵顿先生，可爱的英国人，声音听起来就像是詹姆斯。梅森。他让你进去为他不幸的妻子祷告，而你喝完雪利酒、吃完火腿，就跳窗跑了。你那可怜的母亲呀，她带到世上来的是个什么货色啊？是他逼我吃火腿，喝雪利酒的。逼你？天啊，真不错，逼你。哈灵顿先生是一个有教养的英国人，他没有理由说谎。我们邮局不要你这种人，见到火腿和雪利酒就管不住自己的手了。交出你的电报袋和自行车，你在邮局的日子结束了。可我需要这份工作，我得攒钱去美国。美国？让你这种人去，美国就没有好日子过了。我一瘸一拐地走过利默里克的街道，我真想回去，朝哈灵顿先生家的窗户扔砖头。不行，应该尊重死者。我想到萨斯菲德桥去，可以下到河岸上，在那儿的灌

木丛里找个地方躺一躺。我丢掉了工作，我不知该怎么回家对母亲解释。但只能回家，只能告诉她。在河岸上待一夜是不可能的，会让她发疯。妈妈乞求邮局让我回去，可他们说不行。他们从没听说过这种荒唐事，电报童竟胡乱摆弄尸体，吃了火腿、喝了雪利酒，然后就逃之夭夭。他再也甭想迈进邮局了，甭想！她设法拿到教区牧师的一封信，牧师在信上说：让这个男孩回去吧。邮局方面说：啊，好的，神父，一定照办。他们决定让我干到十六岁生日那一天，多一分钟都不行。不过奥康纳太太却说：当你想到八百年来英国人对我们干下的那些事，那个家伙也就无权抱怨那么一点火腿和雪利酒了。拿那点火腿和雪利酒跟大饥荒比比，他这算什么？要是我那可怜的丈夫还在世，我把你干的事情告诉他，他一定会说你干得漂亮，弗兰克。迈考特，干得漂亮。每个星期六我都发誓要去忏悔，向牧师坦白我在家中，在利默里克僻静的小巷当着牛羊的面，在卡瑞戈古诺城堡当着全世界的面干下的那些不纯洁行为。我要告诉他特丽莎。卡莫迪的事情，告诉他我是怎么把她送进地狱的，这将是我的末日，从此我会被教堂

驱逐。特丽莎让我很痛苦，每次送电报到她生前所住的那个街道，每次路过她的墓地，我都能感觉到罪过像个脓疮似的在我身上变大。要是我不赶快去忏悔，就只能变成骑在自行车上的脓疮，让别人指指点点：那就是他，那就是弗兰基。迈考特，把特丽莎送进地狱的那个龌龊东西。我看着人们星期天去领圣餐，每个人都能得到神恩的宽恕。他们回到自己的坐位上，嘴巴里含着上帝，神情安详、平和，时刻准备去死，然后直奔天堂，或是无忧无虑地回家吃熏肉和鸡蛋。作为利默里克的头号罪人，我已经精疲力竭。我想摆脱它，想吃熏肉和鸡蛋，想没有愧疚，没有折磨，像一个普通人那样。牧师一直对我们说：上帝的仁慈是无限的，但有哪位牧师会赦免像我这样的人呢？送着电报，却和一个快要死于肺病的姑娘在绿沙发上兴奋起来。我拿着电报，骑遍利默里克城，见到教堂就停下来。我从至圣救主会骑到耶稣会，再骑到奥古斯丁修会、多明我会和圣芳济会。我在圣弗兰西斯的塑像前跪下，乞求他帮帮我。不过，我猜他已经非常讨厌我了。我

和别人一起跪在忏悔室旁的长椅上，但轮到我进去时，我又突然呼吸急促，心跳加速，额头直冒冷汗，只好溜之大吉。我发誓圣诞节去忏悔，但没有去。那就复活节吧，结果还是没有去。日子就这么成星期成月地过去，转眼特丽莎已经死了一年了。我要在她周年忌日的那天去忏悔，可是依然没有去。我已满十五岁，路过教堂再也不停下来了。那就只好等到去美国再说吧，那里的牧师个个都像电影《与我同行》中的平。克罗斯贝，不会像利默里克的牧师那样把我踢出忏悔室。但我仍然觉得自己有罪，我希望在见到美国牧师前，那个脓疮不会要了我的命。有一封电报是给一个老妇人布瑞吉德。菲奴肯太太的，她问我：你多大啦，男挨（孩）？十五岁半，布瑞吉德。菲奴肯太太。是既能干傻事又知道好歹的年纪，你机林（灵）吗，男挨（孩）？算不算聪明？我能读书写字，布瑞吉德。菲奴肯太太。唉呀呀，疯人院里的人也能读书写字，你会写信吗？我会。她想让我给她的客户写信。要是你想给孩子买一套西

装或长裙，又没有现钱，就可以来找她，她给你一张商品券，他们就把衣服给你了，她拿回扣，一点也不打折，还加收利息。你要每星期还她一次钱。有些客户没有按时还款，就需要写信威胁一下。她说：你写一封信，我给你三便士，要是要回了钱，我就再给你三便士，要是你想干这个活儿，星期四和星期五的晚上过来，自带信纸和信封。我很需要这个差事，我想到美国去，可我没钱买信纸和信封。不过明天有封电报要送到伍尔沃斯百货公司，那里没准有门路，那里有成套的信纸和信封。我没钱，就只能自力更生了。但怎么下手呢？结果那天两条狗帮了我，这两条狗正在"兴奋"，在百货公司门口黏在一起了。它们转着圈不停嚎叫，顾客和营业员都在窃笑，却装做看别的地方。趁这个工夫，我把信纸和信封迅速塞进自己的运动衫里，走出大门，骑车一路狂奔，远离那对黏在一起的狗。菲奴肯太太用怀疑的眼光打量着我，说：你带来的信纸和信封很高档嘛，男挨（孩），是你母亲的吧？等你拿到钱，会还给她的，不是吗，男挨（孩）？啊，是的。从现在起，我再也不从她家的正门走了。她家的房子

后面是一条巷子，我要从后门走，以防被人看见。她给我一个大账本，里面有六个拖欠贷款的客户的姓名和地址。吓唬吓唬他们，男挨（孩），吓丢他们的小命，她说。我的第一封信是这样写的：亲爱的奥布瑞恩太太：鉴于未能看到你偿付给我的欠款，我可能将诉诸法律。看看你那个儿子迈克尔，他穿着用我的钱买来的新西装招摇过市，而我本人却几乎已食不果腹。我坚信，你不愿意远离朋友和亲人，在利默里克监狱的地牢里长久受苦。想让您吃官司的布瑞吉德。菲奴肯太太她对我说：这是一封极有分量的信，男挨（孩），比你在《利默里克导报》上读到的任何文章都有分量。"鉴于"这个词看起来挺吓人，它是什么意思？我想就是"这是你最后的机会"这个意思吧。我又写了五封信，她给了我买邮票的钱。在去邮局的路上，我想，我长着两条腿，夜深人静的，可以自己把信送去嘛，何苦把钱浪费在邮票上？对穷人来说，恐吓信就是恐吓信而已，谁管它是怎么送去的。

我跑进利默里克的小巷，从门底下把信塞了进去，希望没有人看见我。接下来的一个星期，菲奴肯太太开心地尖叫起来，其中的四个人都还了钱。啊，现在坐下，再写，男挨（孩），让他们吓破胆。我的恐吓信一星期比一星期尖锐，甚至开始用一些连我自己都不懂的词了。亲爱的奥布瑞恩太太：鉴于您并不屈服于我们在前封书信中所建议的法律行动的压力，我们只好找都柏林的律师磋商。第二个星期，奥布瑞恩太太开始还钱了。菲奴肯太太说：她哆哆嗦嗦地走进来，眼里充满泪水，男挨（孩），她保证再也不会错过还款日期了。星期五的晚上，菲奴肯太太总打发我去酒吧买瓶雪利酒。喝雪利酒你还太年轻，男挨（孩），你可以自己动手来杯茶，不过得用今天早上剩下的茶叶。不，你不能吃面包，面包太贵了，面包？接着你就要吃鸡蛋了。她坐在炉子边的摇椅里晃来晃去，啜着雪利酒，数着钱包里的钱。她把还款都记在自己的账本里，然后把所有的钱锁进楼上床下的箱子。她喝了一些雪利酒，对我说，有点钱真好，可以把它留给教堂做弥撒，为

你灵魂的安息祷告。想到入土后，牧师会年复一年地为她做弥撒，她就感到很幸福。有时候她在摇椅上坐着就睡着了，要是钱包掉到地上，我就顺手拿几个先令，算是自己的加班费和那些新字眼的稿费。这样，留给牧师和弥撒的钱就会减少，可一个人灵魂的安息得要多少次弥撒呢？在教堂屡次当着我的面摔上门后，我还没权利给自己留下几英镑吗？他们不让我当辅祭，不让我当中学生，不让我当白衣神父，我不在乎。我有一张邮政储蓄存折，要是我继续写恐吓信，再自己动手从她的钱包里拿几个先令，再省下买邮票的钱，我就有去美国的路费了。就算全家人都要饿死了，我也不会碰邮局里的这些钱。我经常得给母亲的邻居和朋友们写恐吓信，我担心她们会发现我。她们向妈妈抱怨说：那条老母狗，住在爱尔兰镇的菲奴肯，给我写了封恐吓信。这个地狱里跑出来的老婊子，竟然用那些不知所云的信来折磨她的同胞，我长这么大从没听说过那些词。写这种信的人，比犹大和向英国人告密的叛徒还要坏。母亲说：不管谁写这样的信，都应该下油锅，被瞎子拔指甲。我十分同情她们的处境，但我要攒钱去美国，没办法

啊。我知道，有一天我会成为一个阔绰的美国佬，到时我会成百美元地往家里寄，让我的家人永远不再担心会收到恐吓信。有些送电报的临时工要参加八月份举行的转正考试，奥康纳太太说：你应该参加考试，弗兰克。迈考特。你有点小聪明，考过没问题的。很快你就会当上一名邮差，那可就帮了你可怜的母亲一个大忙。妈妈也说我应该参加考试，当上一名邮差，攒些钱去美国，到那儿继续当邮差，那将是多么美妙的生活啊。一个星期六，我有封电报要送到南方酒吧。帕。基廷姨父正好坐在那儿，一如既往地浑身漆黑。他说：来杯柠檬水吧，弗兰基，还是来杯啤酒？你快十六岁了吧？柠檬水吧，帕。基廷姨父，谢谢。到十六岁那一天，你想喝自己的第一杯啤酒吧，不想想，但是我父亲不在，不能带我来喝。别担心这个，虽然你父亲不在，但我会带你喝第一杯啤酒的。要是我有个儿子，我就会这么做。在你十六岁生日的前一天晚上，到这儿来吧。好的，帕姨父。

我听说你要参加邮局的考试？干吗要做这种事？那是个好工作，我可以很快当上邮差，那就有养老金啊，养老金个屁。十六岁的年纪，谈什么养老金呀。骗我吧？你听见我说的了吗？弗兰基，养老金个屁。要是你通过了考试，这一辈子就会舒舒服服、安安稳稳地待在邮局里。你会娶一个叫布瑞吉德的乡下妞，生下五个小天主教徒，在园子里种些小玫瑰。不到三十岁，你的心就死了，鸡巴也干瘪了。好好下下你的决心，别他妈的贪图安稳，目光短浅。你听见了吗？弗兰基。迈考特？我听见了，帕姨父，奥哈洛伦先生也这么说过。他说什么？下定你的决心。奥哈洛伦先生说得千真万确，这是你的生活，要你自己来决定，别他妈的目光短浅，弗兰基，反正你最终的目标是去美国，不是吗？是的，帕姨父。考试那天，我请了假。奥康纳街道一家办公室的窗户

上贴着一张启事：招聘书写整洁、擅长算术的伶俐男孩，可向此处经理迈考弗雷先生申请。伊森斯有限公司。我在考场外面站着，那是利默里克新教徒青年协会的房子。来自利默里克各地的男孩爬上台阶，进去参加考试。门口有一个人，给他们发纸和铅笔，厉声催促他们快点，快点。我看着门口这个人，想到帕。基廷姨父和他所说的话，还想到伊森斯办公室的启事"招聘伶俐男孩"。我不想进去参加考试了，因为一旦通过考试，我就成了一个穿着制服的正式电报童了，然后是邮差，再然后是卖一辈子邮票的办事员。那样的话，我将要永远留在利默里克，心如死灰地种着玫瑰，鸡巴也完全干瘪了。门口的那个人问我：你，是进来还是拉着脸一直在那儿站着？我真想对这个家伙说：你只配亲我的屁股，但我还要在邮局里干几个星期呢，他可能会告状的。我摇摇头，走上有"招聘伶俐男孩"启事的那条街道。经理迈考弗雷先生说：我要看看你这个家伙的字写得怎么样，得看，一句话，只要你字写得漂亮就行。在这张桌子前坐下，写下你的名字和地址，再写几句话，

说说你为什么要应聘这个工作，以及你计划怎样在伊森斯有限公司不断得到晋升。对于一个一心积极进取、洁身自好、不为罪恶所诱惑的男孩来说，只要坚忍不拔，勤奋刻苦，本公司有的是机会。我写下：弗兰克。迈考特爱尔兰利默里克郡利默里克镇小巴灵顿街四号我申请此项工作是为了能在伊森斯有限公司晋升到最高层，我深知，凭着坚忍不拔和勤奋刻苦，只要我一心向前、洁身自好，就能避免所有诱惑，为伊森斯和全爱尔兰增光。这是什么？迈考弗雷先生问，咱们这里与事实有些出入吧？我不知道，迈考弗雷先生。小巴灵顿街，哼，这明明是条巷子，你怎么把它叫做街？你家是在巷子里，不是在街道上。他们管它叫街，迈考弗雷先生。不要抬高你自己，男孩。

啊，我没有，迈考弗雷先生。你的家在巷子里，这就是说，除了往上爬你无路可走，你明白吗，迈考特？我明白，迈考弗雷先生。你得靠自己奋斗，才能走出巷子，麦考特。你身上有巷子里的男孩的那种品性，迈考特。你从头到脚看上去都有股巷子味，别想糊弄老百姓，迈考特，不用一大早起来就糊弄像我这样的人。啊，我没有，迈考弗雷先生。再瞧瞧这双眼睛，你的眼睛发炎很厉害，你看得见吗？我看得见，迈考弗雷先生。你能读会写，但是会加减乘除吗？我会，迈考弗雷先生。好吧，我不知道公司对发炎的眼睛有什么规定。我得给都柏林打电话问一下。不过你的字写得很清楚，迈考特，有一手。在作出有关发炎眼睛的决定前，我们先雇用你，星期一早晨，六点半在火车站见。早晨？早晨，我们不能在晚上送他妈的早报，不是吗？

还有一件事，我们发行的《爱尔兰时报》是新教徒的报纸，由都柏林的共济会主办。我们在火车站接货、清点，然后拿给报纸经销商。不过我们都不看，我也不想看到你在看。否则你会丢掉信仰的，看了也会瞎掉你那双眼的，你听见了吗，迈考特？我听见了，迈考弗雷先生。不要看《爱尔兰时报》，等你下星期来的时候，我再告诉你所有的英国淫秽货，那都不允许在这个办公室里看，你听见了吗？我听见了，迈考弗雷先生。奥康纳太太紧抿着嘴，不看我一眼。她对巴里小姐说：我听说某个从巷子里出来的家伙自以为是，竟然躲开了邮局的考试。参加这个考试太委屈他了，我猜是。你说得对，巴里小姐说。与我们为伍也太委屈他了，我猜是。你说得对。你猜他会告诉我们为什么不参加考试吗？啊，他可能会的，巴里小姐说，只要我们给他下跪。我对她说：我想去美国，奥康纳太太。你听见了吗，巴里小姐？

听见了，听得清清楚楚，奥康纳太太。他开口了。他开口了，的的确确。他有一天会后悔的，巴里小姐。他肯定会后悔的，奥康纳太太。奥康纳太太说着话，从我面前走过去，走向那些坐在长凳上等电报的男孩子。这就是弗兰基。迈考特，认为自己在这个邮局干，太委屈了。我没有这样认为，奥康纳太太。谁叫你张嘴了，"自高自大"先生？他在我们当中也太出类拔萃了，不是吗，男孩们？是，奥康纳太太。我们好歹为他做了那么多。给他小费高的电报，天气好的时候派他去乡村；他对那个英国人哈灵顿先生干下那么不要脸的事情，我们还是让他回来了；他对不幸的哈灵顿太太的遗体不敬，还自己塞饱火腿三明治，又喝了那么多雪利酒，东倒西歪的，最后从窗户跳出去，把玫瑰丛都毁了，回来的时候醉得一塌糊涂。谁还知道他送电报这两年都干了什么丑事？谁最清楚？尽管我们还知道一个大秘密，不是吗？巴里小姐？

是的，奥康纳太太，尽管它不适合公开讨论。她对巴里小姐耳语着，她们都看着我，不停地摇头。他是爱尔兰人和他那可怜母亲的耻辱，我希望她永远不要知道才好。但这家伙出生在美国，父亲又是北佬，你能对他有什么指望呢？我们容忍了这一切，还是让他回来了。她又从我面前走过，继续说着话，走向坐在长凳上的那帮男孩子。他要为伊森斯工作，为都柏林那帮共济会成员和新教徒工作。邮局太委屈他了，但他却情愿满利默里克城去送各种淫秽的英国杂志。他每碰一次那种杂志，就是一次道德犯罪。但他现在要离开，他是要离开了，对她那可怜的母亲来说，这是个遗憾的日子，她祈祷儿子能有养老金，能照顾她以后的日子呢。好吧，来吧，拿走你的工资，从我们眼前消失。巴里小姐说：他是个坏孩子，不是吗？男孩们？我不知道说什么好，我不知道自己做错了什么，我应该说对不起吗？应该说再见吗？我把自己的皮绳和邮袋放到奥康纳太太的桌上，她瞪着我，说：走吧，去伊森斯那儿干你的工作吧，离开

我们。下一个，来领你的电报。他们都回去工作了，我走到楼下，走向我人生的下一站。

十六岁我不明白奥康纳太太为什么要公开羞辱我，我并不认为自己在邮局干有多委屈或是别的什么。像我这样的人，头发支棱，脓包满脸，红眼睛直冒黄水，烂牙东倒西歪，没有肩膀，骑了一万三千英里，在利默里克内外送了两万封电报，累得屁股上都不长肉，又会有什么能耐呢？很久以前，奥康纳太太就说过，她清楚每一个电报童的所作所为。想必她也清楚我在卡瑞戈古诺城堡顶上，当着目瞪口呆的挤奶女工和抬头张望的小男孩，跟自己干的那些事吧。她一定清楚特丽莎。卡莫迪和绿沙发的事情，清楚我是怎样让她陷入罪恶深渊、把她送进地狱的。那是最严重的罪过，比卡瑞戈古诺城堡顶上的罪过严重一千倍。她也一定清楚特丽莎死后，我就没去忏悔，我是注定要下地狱的。一个犯下如此罪过的人，是不会觉得在邮局干有多委

屈，或别的什么的。自从那次我同汉农、比尔。盖文和帕。基廷姨父坐在一起后，南方酒吧的伙计就记住我了———黑、白、黑。他还记得我父亲，记得他把薪水和失业救济金喝个精光，还高唱爱国歌曲，在码头上像个该死的叛徒似的演讲。你想要什么？酒吧伙计问我。我是来找帕。基廷姨父，来喝我第一杯啤酒的。啊，天啊，是真的吗？他马上就来，当然，我还有什么理由不给他倒酒呢？或许也该给你倒第一杯酒，这就倒吧？不，先生。帕姨父走进来，叫我挨着他坐在靠墙的地方。伙计拿来啤酒，帕姨父付了钱，举起酒杯，对酒吧里的人说：这是我外甥弗兰基。迈考特，我小姨子安琪拉。西恩的儿子，开始喝他人生的第一杯啤酒了，在这儿祝你健康长寿，弗兰基，愿你活到老喝到老，但是不要喝多了。人们纷纷举起各自的酒杯，点头，畅饮，喝得嘴唇和胡须上都是泡沫。我吞下一大口啤酒，帕姨父告诉我，看在耶稣的分上，慢点喝，不要一口干，只要吉尼斯

家族的人都安在，酒有的是。我说想用我在邮局的最后一次工资请他喝一杯，但他说：别啦，把钱带回家给你妈妈吧，等你胳膊上挎着个金发碧眼的女人，春风得意地从美国回来时，再请我也不晚。酒吧里的人正议论着险恶的世界局势，还议论着纳粹战犯赫尔曼。戈林是怎么在临刑前服毒自尽，免受绞刑之苦的。美国佬在纽伦堡宣称，他们也不知道这个狗杂种把药藏在哪里了，他的耳朵里？鼻孔里？屁眼里？美国佬每抓获一个纳粹，肯定都检查他们的每一个洞眼儿和隐秘的地方，但赫尔曼照样蒙过了美国佬的眼睛。你瞧瞧，他们可以横渡大西洋，登陆诺曼底，把德国鬼子炸个一干二净，但等一切都搞定了，他们却发现不了戈林肥屁股里的那粒小药丸。帕姨父又给我买了一杯啤酒，但喝下去有些困难了，肚子已经涨满，鼓得老大。人们又在谈论着集中营和可怜的犹太人，他们从未伤害过无辜，却男女老少一齐被塞进炉子。孩子啊，你想想，他们能干什么坏事？小孩也被塞了进去，小鞋子扔得到处都是。酒吧里烟雾缭绕，声音此起彼伏。帕姨父说：你没事吧？你的脸跟纸一样白。他领我上厕所，我们两个冲着墙痛痛

快快地尿了很长时间。我不能再回酒吧了，那烟雾、变味的吉尼斯啤酒、戈林的肥屁股、乱扔的小鞋子，让我不想再进去了。晚安，帕姨父，谢谢。他让我直接回家，回到妈妈身边。直接回家，哈，他还不知道阁楼顶上兴奋的事呢，也不知道绿沙发上兴奋的事，我如此罪恶滔天，要是现在死了，立刻就会下地狱的。帕姨父回去继续喝酒，我走在奥康纳街上，心想何不趁十五岁的最后一夜，去耶稣教堂坦白自己的罪过呢？我按响牧师家的门铃，一个大个子男人问我：有事吗？我告诉他，我想忏悔，神父。他说：我不是牧师，别叫我神父，我是教友兄弟。好吧，兄弟，我明天就满十六岁了，想在今晚忏悔一次，好在我生日的这一天得到神恩的宽恕。他说：走开，你这个醉鬼，你这种醉得一塌糊涂的臭小子，这个时候还来找什么牧师。走开，要不我就叫警卫了。啊，不要，啊，不要，我只是想忏悔。我厄运临头了。你喝醉了，这种状态不适合忏悔。他当着我的面关上门，又一次被当面摔上门！可我明天就满十六岁了，我又按响门铃。那位兄弟开门，一巴掌打得我转了个圈儿，又在我的屁股上踹了一脚，

把我踹倒在台阶上。他说：再按门铃，我就打烂你的手。耶稣会教友是不该这样说话的，他们应该跟我主一样仁慈，而不该到处威胁要打烂人家的手。我头晕眼花，想回家睡觉。我扶着栏杆走过巴灵顿街，再扶着墙走进巷子。妈妈正在炉子边抽"忍冬"，弟弟们在楼上睡下了。她说：这个样子回来，真不错啊。尽管舌头都大了，我还是告诉她，我跟帕姨父一起喝了人生的第一杯啤酒。父亲没有领我去喝这第一杯啤酒。你帕姨父应该更在行。我磕磕绊绊地向椅子走去，她说：跟你父亲一个德性。我努力控制着舌头，说：我宁愿、我宁愿跟...我宁愿...宁愿跟我父亲一个德性，那也比拉曼。格里芬强。她扭过脸，盯着灶台里的灰烬，可我不想放过她，因为我已经正式喝过人生的第一杯啤酒，喝了两杯，而且我明天就满十六岁了，是个大老爷们了。你听见我说的了吗？我宁愿跟我父亲一个德性，那也比拉曼。格里芬强。她站起来，看着我，你说什么！

你他妈的又说什么！不要这样跟我讲话，我是你母亲。我他妈的想怎么跟你讲话，就怎么跟你讲话。你现在一副电报童的嘴脸。是吗？是吗？那好吧，我宁愿当个电报童，那也比拉曼。格里芬这号人强，一个鼻涕邋遢、住在小阁楼里的老醉鬼，竟然还有人爬上去找他。她走开了，我跟着她来到楼上的小房间。她转过身，说：别烦我，别烦我。我继续朝她吼：拉曼。格里芬、拉曼。格里芬...她开始推我，说：滚出去。我一巴掌打在她脸上，泪水涌出她的双眼。她发出一声微弱的悲咽：你再也不会有机会这样干了。我从她房里退出来，我那长长的罪名上又加了一条，我为自己感到羞耻。我倒在床上，衣服也没脱，半夜醒来吐了一枕头。弟弟们埋怨味道难闻，叫我去洗干净。我觉得真丢人。我听见妈妈在哭泣，我真想对她说对不起，可是她跟拉曼。格里芬做了那样的事，我又凭什么对她道歉呢？早上，小弟弟们都上学去了，小马拉奇出去找工作了，妈妈坐在炉边喝茶。我把工资放到她肘边的桌上，扭头便走。她问：你想喝杯茶吗？

今天是你的生日。我无所谓。她在巷子里冲我喊：你应该吃些东西。可我头也没回，一声不吭地转过墙角，走了。我还是想对她说对不起，但要是这样做的话，我就得告诉她，这一切都是她造成的，那天夜里，她真不该爬到小阁楼上去。我压根不在乎，我还在为菲奴肯太太写恐吓信，攒钱准备去美国呢。在去为菲奴肯太太写恐吓信前，我还有整个白天的时间。我在亨利街上闲逛，后来，雨把我赶进圣芳济会教堂，圣弗兰西斯在那里跟他的小鸟和羔羊站在一起。我看着他，奇怪我为什么会向他祷告，不，不是祷告，是乞求。我乞求他为特丽莎。卡莫迪说情，他什么也没做。他带着浅浅的微笑，和小鸟、羔羊一起站在基座上，对特丽莎和我，他一个臭屁也不放。我要跟你绝交，圣弗兰西斯，一边去吧，弗兰西斯。我不知道他们为什么给我取你的名字。要是他们叫我马拉奇多好，那是个国王，还是个大圣人呢。你为什么不治好特丽莎？你为什么让她进地狱？你还让我母

亲爬到小阁楼上去，让我自己厄运缠身，让小孩的鞋子在集中营里扔得到处都是。我又长出了脓疮，长在我的胸口上，我感到饥饿。圣弗兰西斯不肯帮忙，他毫不制止我夺眶而出的泪水，还有抽泣和哽咽。我哭喊着跪在地上，头俯在长椅背上，但他不理不睬。我连哭带饿，一点力气都没有了，倒在地上。请你救救我吧，上帝或圣弗兰西斯，因为我今天就满十六岁了，我打了我的母亲，把特丽莎送进了地狱，在利默里克和郊外到处手淫，我害怕套在脖子上的枷锁呀。一只胳膊搂住我的肩膀，棕色的长袍，哗哗作响的黑色念珠，是圣芳济会教堂的牧师。我的孩子，我的孩子，我的孩子。我是一个孩子，我靠在他的身上。小弗兰基坐在父亲的大腿上，给我讲库胡林所有的故事吧，爸爸，那是我的故事，小马拉奇没有，荡秋千的弗雷迪。莱博威茨也没有。我的孩子，坐在我这儿，把你的麻烦告诉我，只要你愿意。我是格利高里神父。我今天十六岁了，神父。噢，太好了，太好了，那你还会有什么麻烦呢？

我昨天晚上喝了人生的第一杯啤酒。是吗？我打了我母亲。上帝保佑我们，我的孩子。不过她会原谅你的，还有别的吗？我不能跟你说，神父。你想去忏悔室吗？我不能，我做了很可怕的事情。上帝原谅所有悔过的人，他让他惟一的爱子为我们死我不能说，神父，我不能。但你可以告诉圣弗兰西斯，不行吗？他不再帮我了。但你爱他，不是吗？我爱他，我也叫弗兰西斯。那就告诉他吧，我们坐在这儿，你告诉他那些让你不安的事情。要是我坐着听，那不过是圣弗兰西斯和我主的一双耳朵在听罢了，这样可以吗？我开始对圣弗兰西斯讲，讲玛格丽特、奥里弗、尤金；讲父亲哼唱着罗迪。迈克考雷回家，薪水、救济金被他喝得精光；讲他去了英国，一分钱也不往家里寄；

讲特丽莎、绿沙发和我在卡瑞戈古诺城堡上的罪过；讲他们为什么不绞死赫尔曼。戈林，他害死了那么多小孩子，他们的小鞋子在集中营里扔得到处都是；讲公教学校当着我的面关上门，他们不让我当辅祭；讲我的小弟弟迈克尔穿着破烂不堪的鞋子走在巷子里；讲我那双让我感到羞耻的烂眼睛；讲耶稣会的教友也当着我的面关上门；讲妈妈眼中的泪水和我抽她的那一耳光。格利高里神父问：你想坐着静一会儿吗？也许祷告几分钟？他的长袍挨在我的脸上，很粗糙，有股肥皂的味道。他看着圣弗兰西斯和神龛，不断点头，我猜他是在跟上帝说话。随后他叫我跪下，要赦免我。他叫我说三遍《圣母颂》、三遍《天主经》、三遍《荣光圣灵》。他告诉我上帝原谅我了，我一定要原谅自己，上帝是爱我的，我一定要爱惜自己，惟有先接纳心中的主，才能爱及上帝创造的万物。可我想知道，特丽莎。卡莫迪在地狱里怎么样了，神父。不，我的孩子，她肯定是在天堂。她遭受的痛苦跟古时的殉道者一样，上帝知道那足以赎罪了。你可以确

信，在她临死时，医院里的姐妹不会不为她请牧师的。你肯定吗，神父？我肯定，我的孩子。他再次为我祝福，要我为他祈祷，我兴高采烈，一路蹦蹦跳跳地走过雨中利默里克的街道。我知道特丽莎在天堂了，再也没有咳嗽折磨她了。星期一早晨，天刚亮，我就来到火车站，报纸和杂志已经沿着站台的墙边成捆地堆放起来了。迈考弗雷先生和另一个叫威利。哈洛德的男孩也在那里，正在割捆报纸的麻绳，然后清点，把数量记在账本上。在早上，英国报纸和《爱尔兰时报》必须早一些送，杂志可以晚一些送。我们清点完报纸，然后贴上标签，指明该送达全城哪个商店。迈考弗雷先生开着大篷车送货，他并不下车，由我和威利把成捆的报纸送进商店，拿回明天的订单，把增加减少的数量都记在账本上。送完报纸，我们就回办公室，把杂志卸下来，然后有五十分钟的时间回家吃早饭。当我返回办公室，那里又有两个男孩———伊蒙和皮特，他们正在挑拣杂志，进行清点，然后塞进墙上经销商们的盒子里。量小的由杰瑞。哈尔维骑自行车送，

量大的就由货车送。迈考弗雷先生叫我留在办公室，学习清点杂志，登记入账。他一离开办公室，伊蒙和皮特就打开一个藏着烟屁股的抽屉，拿出来点着。他们不相信我不抽烟，问我是不是有什么毛病，眼睛不好？有肺病？你不抽烟，那怎么和姑娘一起出去呢？皮特说，那你不就是个窝囊废吗？要是你和一个姑娘走在街上，她问你要支烟抽，你说你不抽烟，那你不就是个窝囊废吗？你怎么能让她上钩呢？伊蒙说：这是我父亲说的，不喝酒的男人不可靠。皮特说，要是一个男人不喝酒不抽烟，那他对姑娘也不会有兴趣，他只想用手捅自己的屁眼儿，你就想这么干。他们都笑了，笑得直咳嗽，笑得越厉害，咳嗽得也越厉害，只好搂在一起，在对方的肩膀上擦眼泪。狂笑完，我们开始分拣英国和美国的杂志，津津有味地看着上面刊登的女人内衣、胸罩、短裤和尼龙长袜的广告。伊蒙正在翻一本名叫《瞧》的美国杂志，里面有许多日本女郎的照片，是供远离家乡的美国大兵取乐的。伊蒙说他得去趟厕所，他去了，皮特冲我使个眼色：你知道他去那儿干什么吗？不知道吗？每当男孩们在厕所里磨磨蹭蹭地自渎时，迈考弗雷便显得焦躁不安。他们在浪费宝贵的时间，这些时间可是由伊森

斯公司付钱的，还让他们不朽的灵魂陷入危险中。迈考弗雷先生不会直接站出来说：不要手淫了，因为没有证据。有时一个男孩出来后，他会去厕所窥探，回来时，他带着恶狠狠的目光，对男孩们说：不许恁们看那些从外国来的不干净的杂志，恁们只要清点它们，放进那些盒子里就完事了。伊蒙从厕所回来，皮特又拿着一本美国杂志《矿工》进去了，那本杂志上刊有选美女郎的照片。伊蒙说：你知道他在那儿干什么吗？干他自己。他一天进去五回，每次都带一本有女人内衣广告的美国新杂志进去，没完没了地干自己，还经常背着迈考弗雷先生把杂志拿回家，天晓得他整夜跟那些杂志干些什么。要是他死在那里，地狱的门会立刻打开的。皮特出来的时候，我也想进厕所，但我不想让他们在背后说：他也去了，新来的小子，刚上班第一天，就开始干他自己了。也不点支烟，啊，还像只老公山羊那样按捺不住。迈考弗雷先生送完货回来，问我们为什么没有把杂志清点完，打成捆准备送走？皮特对他说：我们在忙着教这个新来的孩子，迈考弗雷。老天，他有点慢，他的眼睛不太好，你知道。不过我们一直在教他，他现

在越来越顺手了。跑腿的杰瑞。哈尔维要离开一个星期，他获准休假了，想陪从英国回来的女友罗斯。我是新来的，只能由我替他骑着那辆前面带金属筐的自行车，在利默里克到处跑。他教我载报纸和杂志时如何保持平衡，以免车子翻倒，让过路的卡车把我压成一条鲑鱼。他曾见过一个被军用卡车压死的士兵，那样子就像一条鲑鱼。星期六中午，在火车站的伊森斯报亭，杰瑞在送最后一家的报纸，这样方便，因为我可以在那儿接他的自行车，他也可以在那儿接下火车的罗斯。我们站在大门口等着，他告诉我，他已经有一年没见罗斯了，她在英国布里斯托的一家酒吧工作，他不大满意这个，因为英国人爱对爱尔兰姑娘动手动脚，掀她们的裙子，甚至更过分，爱尔兰姑娘也不敢说什么，怕丢掉工作。谁都知道爱尔兰姑娘洁身自好，尤其是利默里克的姑娘，一向以纯洁著称，她们要回来找杰瑞。哈尔维这样的男人。他说看她走路的样子，就能看出她是不是对他真心。要是一个姑娘一年后回来，走路的样子跟以前不一样了，你就该明白她跟英国人没干什么好事，他们可是一帮肮脏淫荡的杂种。火车呼哧呼哧地进站，杰瑞挥着手，示意火车一端的

罗斯朝我们这儿走。罗斯穿着一身动人的绿色长裙，笑容可掬，牙齿洁白。杰瑞停下手，压低声音咕哝道：瞧瞧她走路的样子，母狗、婊子、妓女、荡妇、贱货！说完扬长而去。罗斯走到我跟前，问：刚才跟你站在一起的是杰瑞。哈尔维吗？他哪儿去啦？噢，他出去啦。我知道他出去啦，他去哪儿啦？我不知道，他没有说，他只是跑出去啦。什么也没有说？我没听见他说什么。你跟他在一起工作吗？是的，我刚接过他的自行车。什么自行车？送报刊用的。他是骑车送报刊的？他跟我说他在伊森斯公司工作，是办事员，在室内工作。我觉得窘极了，我不想让杰瑞。哈尔维变成一个骗子，

让他跟可爱的罗斯之间产生麻烦。噢，我们都是轮流骑车送报刊的，一小时在办公室，一小时骑车送报刊，经理说出去呼吸呼吸新鲜空气有好处。好吧，我这就回家，把手提箱放回去，再去找他。我本以为他会帮我拎这个的。这儿有自行车，你可以把箱子放进筐里，我推着送到你家。我们走向她位于凯瑞路的家，她告诉我每当想起杰瑞，她有多么激动。她在英国攒了些钱，现在回来是想跟他结婚，尽管他只有十九岁，她只有十七岁。当你爱上一个人，还在乎什么呢？我像一个修女似的生活在英国，每个夜晚都梦见他，非常感谢你为我送箱子。我调头跳上自行车，准备骑回伊森斯。这时，杰瑞从后面走过来。他满脸通红，像头公牛似的喘着粗气。你和我的姑娘在干什么？你这个小浑蛋，嗯？在干什么？只要我发现你打我女朋友的主意，我就杀了你。我什么也没干，就是帮她拿了一下箱子，它太重了。不要再见她，否则你会没命的。我不见她，杰瑞，我也不想见她。噢，是真的吗？她长得丑还是怎么啦？不，不是的，杰瑞，她是你的，她爱你。

你怎么知道？她跟我说的。她跟你说的？她跟我说的，我对上帝发誓。老天啊。他砰砰地敲她家的门：罗斯，罗斯，你在家吗？她走了出来：当然，我在家。我骑着那辆金属筐上写有"伊森斯"字样的自行车走了，路上觉得很奇怪，他在车站上把她骂得狗血喷头，怎么现在又亲吻她。还想着皮特可能又拿我和我的眼睛当借口，向迈考弗雷先生厚颜无耻地撒谎了，其实他和伊蒙把时间全浪费在看穿内衣的女郎，然后去厕所干自己了。迈考弗雷先生气势汹汹地站在办公室里：你到哪儿去啦？主啊，从火车站骑车回来要一整天？我们这儿有紧急事件，本来哈尔维可以办的，但他休性交假去了，上帝原谅我这么说。好在你送过电报，熟悉利默里克的每一寸土地，你现在以最快的速度去，快到每一家该死的客户那里去，进去只要一看见《约翰。奥伦敦周刊》，就立即拿起来，把第十六页撕下来。要是有人找你的麻烦，就告诉他是政府的命令，不许他们干涉。要是他们敢动你一指头，就等着被捕、坐牢、罚钱吧。

看在上帝的分上，这就去吧，把你撕下来的每张第十六页都给我带回来，好让我统统烧毁。哪一家商店，迈考弗雷先生？我去大商店，你去巴里纳库拉沿路的小商店，再去恩尼斯路和前面的商店。上帝保佑我们，走吧，快。我跳上自行车，伊蒙跑下台阶：喂，迈考特，等等，听着，你回来时，别把所有的第十六页都给他。为什么？我们可以卖掉它们，我和皮特。为什么？那是关于节育的，这在爱尔兰是被禁止的。什么是节育？啊，我的老天，你怎么什么都不知道啊？就是避孕套，你知道，橡胶的，阴茎套那种东西，防止女孩大肚子大肚子？就是怀孕，都十六岁了，还这么无知。快去吧，把那些页都撕回来，不然人们就开始抢购《约翰。奥伦敦周刊》啦。我正要骑上自行车，迈考弗雷先生又跑下台阶：慢，迈考特，我们开车去。伊蒙，你跟我们一块儿去。

皮特怎么办？别管他，他反正是要拿着杂志去厕所的。迈考弗雷先生在车里自言自语：这么好的一个星期六，我本该在家翘着二郎腿喝茶吃面包的，却接到都柏林打来的电话，一声他妈的"你好"，接着就是指派我们跑遍利默里克，去撕一本英国杂志的页码。真是他妈的"你好"。迈考弗雷先生跑进商店，我们在后面跟着。他抓起杂志，撂给我们每人一堆，叫我们开始撕。店主们朝他尖叫：恁这是在干什么？耶稣、玛利亚和圣约瑟啊，恁这是疯了吧？把杂志放下，要不我就喊警卫了。迈考弗雷先生对她们说：这是政府的命令，女士，这一期《约翰。奥伦敦周刊》里有淫秽的内容，不适合爱尔兰人看，我们是来干神圣的工作的。什么淫秽的内容？什么淫秽的内容？在恁们撕毁杂志前，先给我看看淫秽的内容。这些杂志我不付伊森斯的钱，我不会付的。女士，我们不担心伊森斯，我们情愿失去大量的钱，也不愿让利默里克和爱尔兰的人被这淫秽内容腐蚀。什么淫秽的内容？不能告诉你，动手吧，男孩们。

我们把撕下的那些页扔进车厢，迈考弗雷先生在商店里理论时，我们把一些书页塞进自己的衬衣里。货车上有些旧杂志，我们从中撕下一些书页，扔了一地，好让迈考弗雷先生误以为它们都是《约翰。奥伦敦周刊》的第十六页。最大的客户哈钦森先生叫迈考弗雷先生他妈的滚出商店，要不就把他的脑浆砸出来，叫他动不了那些杂志。迈考弗雷先生继续撕，哈钦森先生把他扔到大街上。迈考弗雷先生叫嚷着，这是一个天主教国家，哈钦森是新教徒，不能让他在爱尔兰这个最神圣的城市贩卖淫秽东西。哈钦森先生说：哈，亲我的屁股去吧。迈考弗雷先生说：瞧见了吗？男孩们，当你不属于真理教堂的一员时，会干出什么事情来？有些店家说他们的《约翰。奥伦敦周刊》都已经卖光了，迈考弗雷先生便说：啊，圣母啊，我们可该怎么办呀？恁都卖给谁了？他询问那些顾客的姓名和住址，说这些人阅读了节育的文章，可能会丧失不朽的灵魂。他要到他们家里去，撕下那淫秽的一页，可是店主们说：已经到了星期六的晚上了，迈考弗雷，天渐渐黑了，你就不能让自己放松一下吗？

在返回办公室的路上，伊蒙在车厢里小声对我说：我留了二十一张，你留了多少张？我说十四张，其实我有四十多张，我不想告诉他实话，因为这家伙拿我的坏眼睛撒谎。迈考弗雷先生叫我们把撕下来的页从车厢里拿出来。我们把所有散落的页码抱了出来，迈考弗雷先生高兴地坐在办公室另一头的桌子旁，给都柏林打电话，告诉他们他是如何像上帝的复仇者那样雄赳赳地闯进商店，将利默里克人从节育的恐怖中拯救出来的，此时，他望着书页在火中起舞，但它们大都和《约翰。奥伦敦周刊》没关系。星期一的早晨，我骑车穿过街道送杂志，人们看见自行车上的伊森斯标志，都拦住我，想看看能不能弄到一本《约翰。奥伦敦周刊》。他们看上去都是有钱人，有些还坐在车里，男人戴着礼帽、衬领和领带，衣袋里插着两支自来水笔，女人也戴着帽子，肩膀上耷拉着毛皮饰物。这些人常在萨瓦饭店和斯特拉饭店喝茶，还伸着小拇指显示教养，现在他们也想看这篇节育的文章。伊蒙这天早早地告诉我，低于五先令，不要卖那该死的一页。我问他是不是在开玩笑。不，他不是在开玩笑。利默里克的每个人都在谈论这一页，他们拼命想

把这一页弄到手哩。五先令，要不拉倒，弗兰基。要是他们是有钱人，再多要点。不过我就卖这个价钱，你不要骑着自行车到处低价出售，坏我的生意。我们都得给皮特分点，不然他会跑到迈考弗雷那里告密。有些人竟愿意出七先令六便士，两天里我的口袋里就装了十多镑，变成有钱人了。我给了皮特这个阴险的家伙一英镑，不然他会向迈考弗雷出卖我们的。我到邮局存了八英镑，作为去美国的路费。这天晚上，我们好好吃了一顿，晚饭有火腿、西红柿、面包、黄油和果酱。妈妈想知道我是不是赌马中了大奖，我告诉她是人家给的小费。她不太高兴让我当个跑腿男孩，因为这在利默里克是最差的工作了，都没法往下降了。但要是它能带来这样的火腿，我们还是该点上蜡烛感谢上帝。她不知道我在邮局有笔不断增长的路费，要是她知道我还靠写恐吓信赚钱，她会背过气去的。小马拉奇在一家汽车修理厂的仓库找到一份新工作，负责给修理技工发放配件。妈妈在照看一个叫斯里尼的老人，他住在远处的南环路，两个女儿每天要出去上班。她说要是我送报纸路过那儿的话，可以进去喝杯茶，吃个三明治。他的女儿们绝不会知道的，而且

老人自己也不会在乎，因为他大多数时间都处在半清醒的状态，这是在多年驻印的英国军队里累出来的病。在这家的厨房里，妈妈系着一尘不染的围裙，看上去很安详。周围的东西洁净发亮，外面的花园里，鲜花在风中摇曳，鸟儿唧喳个不停，收音机里播放着爱尔兰电台的音乐。她坐在餐桌旁，上面放着一壶茶，有茶杯和托盘，还有好多面包、黄油和各种冷肉。这里可以吃到各种各样的三明治，但我只想吃火腿和猪肉冻。她没有猪肉冻，住在巷子里的人才吃这样的东西，住在南环路上的人家是不会吃的。她说有钱人不吃猪肉冻，因为那是用肉厂地板上和柜台上的剩肉做的，你都不知道自己到底吃了什么。有钱人对夹在面包片里的东西可挑剔啦。美国那边管猪肉冻叫头肉冻，她也不明白这是为什么。她给我一块夹着多汁的西红柿片的火腿三明治，还倒了杯茶给我，茶杯上，飞翔的粉红色小天使在向蓝色小天使射箭。我想，他们干吗不生产一些没印天使和嬉戏的少女的茶杯和便盆呢？妈妈说有钱人就是这样，他们喜爱有点装饰的东西，要是我们有钱，也会这样吧。要是给她这样一幢房子，瞎了眼她都愿意。外面的花园里鸟语花香，收音机里播放着动听的《华

沙协奏曲》和《欧文之梦》，还有数不清的画着射箭天使的茶杯和托盘。她说她得去看看斯里尼先生，他太老了，没有一点力气，经常忘了要便盆。便盆？你得给他倒便盆？当然啦。一阵沉默，我想我们都记起了那一切不快的导火索— ——拉曼。格里芬的便盆。但那是很久以前的事了，现在是斯里尼先生的便盆，这没有什么害处，因为这是有报酬的，而且他也不会伤害妈妈。回来后，她告诉我斯里尼先生想见见我，让我趁他醒着的时候进去。他躺在起居室的一张床上，窗户用一条黑色的床单遮住了，没有一点光亮。他对母亲说：把我扶起来一点，太太，把窗户上那该死的东西拉去，让我看清楚这个男孩。他有一头长长的、披到肩上的白发。妈妈小声问他是不是找人理理发，他说：我有自己的真牙，孩子，你相信吗？你也有自己的真牙吗，孩子？我有，斯里尼先生。啊，你知道，我在印度待过，和住在这条路上的蒂莫尼一起。印度有一帮子利默里克人呢，你认识蒂莫尼

先生吗，孩子？我认识，斯里尼先生。他死了，你知道。可怜的家伙瞎了。我还能看得见，我也有自己的牙齿。要保护好你的牙齿，孩子。我会的，斯里尼先生。我累了，孩子，但我还想告诉你一件事。你在听我说我在听，斯里尼先生。他在听我说吗，太太？啊，他在听，斯里尼先生。好的，那我说了，靠过来，好让我对着你的耳朵说。我想告诉你的就是，永远不要抽别人的烟斗。哈尔维跟罗斯一起去了英国，整个冬天我只好在外跑腿。这是个寒冷的冬天，到处都结了冰，自行车随时会从屁股下面滑出去，让我飞向街道或人行道，弄得杂志和报纸散落一地。店家向迈考弗雷先生抱怨，说《爱尔兰时报》送来的时候总是粘着点冰碴和狗屎，他对我们说那种报纸就该那么送，它本身就是新教徒的破烂货。每天送完货，我就带上《爱尔兰时报》回家看，看看它到底有什么危险。妈妈说爸爸不在家倒是件好事，

否则他肯定会说：爱尔兰人出生入死，难道就是为了让我儿子坐在餐桌旁看这种共济会的报纸吗？报上有些爱尔兰全国各地读者的来信，声称他们都听到了今年的第一声布谷鸟叫，从字里行间，你可以看出这些人在互相指责对方撒谎。也有些有关新教徒婚礼的报道和照片，那些新教徒女人们看上去总比巷子里的女人漂亮一些。新教徒女人的牙齿都完美无缺，当然罗斯的牙齿也很漂亮。我一直在读《爱尔兰时报》，尽管我并不在乎，还是不断怀疑这是不是一种罪过。只要特丽莎。卡莫迪在天堂不再咳嗽了，我也就不再去忏悔了。我读《爱尔兰时报》和伦敦的《时报》，它们可以告诉我国王每天在忙些什么，伊丽莎白和玛格丽特在干什么。我还读英国女性杂志上各种关于食品的文章和对一些女性问题的答复。皮特和伊蒙夸张地学着英国人的腔调，读着那些女性问题。皮特说：亲爱的霍普小姐，我要和一个名叫迈考弗雷的爱尔兰小伙子出去，他总是在我身上乱摸，他的那个东西还抵到我的肚脐上。我万分紧张，不知道如何是好。你急盼回复的，璐璐。史密斯小姐，约克郡。伊蒙说：亲爱的璐璐，假如这个迈考弗雷那么高，以

至于他的家伙都抵到了你的肚脐上，那我还是建议你找个矮些的吧，让他那个家伙能塞进你的大腿中间。相信你能在约克郡找到一个体面的小个子。亲爱的霍普小姐，我十三岁了，长着黑头发。发生了一件可怕的事情，我不能跟任何人讲，甚至也不能跟我的母亲讲。我每隔几个星期都要流血，你应该知道在哪儿，我很害怕被人发现。阿格尼斯。特丽普小姐，丹佛市。亲爱的阿格尼斯，你应该得到祝贺，你现在已经是个女人了，可以烫发了，因为你有了月经。不要怕你的月经，所有的英国女人都有。它们是上帝的礼物，让我们洗涤罪过，让我们能为帝国生下强壮的孩子，让他们成为士兵，不让爱尔兰人越雷池半步。在这个世界上的一些地方，有月经的女人被认为是不洁的，但我们英国十分珍爱有月经的女人，啊，我们真的珍爱。春季，新来了个跑腿男孩，我便回到办公室。皮特和伊蒙都要漂洋过海去英国。皮特厌倦了利默里克，没有姑娘，你只能被迫跟自己干，手淫，这就是我们曾在利默里克干过的一切。又新来了一些男孩。因为手脚麻利，我得到了提升，工作也轻便了。迈考弗雷先生开车在外面送货的时候，我的工作就干完了。工作

之余，我便读英国的、爱尔兰的和美国的杂志、报纸。我日日夜夜魂牵梦萦着美国。小马拉奇去了英国，在一家有钱人创办的天主教男童寄宿学校工作。他总是喜笑颜开地到处走，好像他跟那个学校里的男孩都平起平坐似的。谁都明白，当你在一家英国人的寄宿学校里工作时，你就应该低着脑袋，蹑手蹑脚地走，像个正儿八经的爱尔兰仆人。他们因此解雇了他。小马拉奇对他们说，他们只配亲他那爱尔兰人的高贵屁股。他们说，你的言行举止就是这么低级。后来他在考文垂的一家煤气厂找到工作，像帕。基廷姨父那样往炉子里铲煤，一边铲煤，一边等着去美国投奔我。

到美国去！我告别了十七岁、十八岁，眼看就满十九岁了，仍然在伊森斯工作着，仍然在为菲奴肯太太写恐吓信。她说她要不久于人世了，为她的灵魂做的弥撒越多，她就感到越舒服。她把钱装进一些信封，然后派我去城里各地的教堂，敲开牧师们的门，一一递上这些信封，要求他们为她做弥撒。她想让所有教堂的牧师都为她祷告，就是耶稣会教堂的牧师不行。她说：他们没有

用，光有脑袋，没有心灵，他们应该用拉丁语把这句话写在门上。我不会给他们一个便士，你给耶稣会的每一个便士，最后都跑到一本荒唐的书或一瓶葡萄酒那里去了。她把钱送出去，希望牧师们在弥撒上为她祷告，但是她从来都不晓得人家会不会照办。既然如此，在我正需要钱去美国的时候，何苦把这些钱全交给牧师呢？要是我给自己留下几镑，存进邮局的账户里，谁会知道呢？反正我是一个罪人，又好久没忏悔啦。在菲奴肯太太死后，要是我为她祷告，为她的灵魂点上一支蜡烛，上帝难道会拒绝吗？还有一个月，我就满十九岁了，我所需要的，就是为路费添上几英镑，再在口袋里留上几英镑，好在美国落脚用。在我十九岁生日前一天，星期五晚上，菲奴肯太太派我去买雪利酒。等我返回时，她已经死在椅子里，眼睛大张着，钱包也在地上大张着。我不敢看她，但我忍不住拿了一卷钱，有七英镑。我拿起楼上那个箱子的钥匙，从箱子里的一百英镑里拿走了四十英镑，还带走了账本。这些和邮局里的存款加起来，足够我去美国了。我拿上那瓶雪利酒走了出去，免得浪费。

我在香农河边的码头附近找了个干燥的地方，坐下来，呷着菲奴肯太太的雪利酒。阿吉姨妈的名字也在账本里，她欠了九英镑，这可能是她很久以前给我买衣服的那笔钱吧，但是现在，她再也不必还了，因为我把账本抛进了河里。我很遗憾，不能告诉阿吉姨妈是我替她省下那九英镑的。我很抱歉，我曾给那些住在利默里克巷子里的穷人写恐吓信，那都是自己人。不过账本已经不在了，没人知道她们欠下的账了，她们不必再还剩下的钱了。我真希望能对她们说：我是你们的罗宾汉。我又呷了一口雪利酒，决定拿出一两英镑，为菲奴肯太太的灵魂做一次弥撒。她的账本安详地在香农河上漂流着，漂向大西洋，我知道，不久之后，我也将追随它而去。奥瑞丹旅行社的人说，不可能坐飞机去美国，除非我先去伦敦，但这要花一大笔钱。但他可以把我送上一艘名为"爱尔兰橡树"的轮船，这艘船几个星期后就从科克启航。他说：要在海上航行九天，不过九月和十月是一年里最适合航行的时候，共有十三位旅客，你自己一个舱室，伙食不错，你可以好好休息几天。不过这要花费五十五英镑，你有这笔钱吗？

我有。我告诉妈妈几个星期后我就要走了，她哭了。迈克尔问：有一天我们都会去吗？我们都会去。阿非问：你能送给我一顶牛仔帽，和那种扔出去又能回来的东西吗？迈克尔告诉他，那叫回飞镖，只有去澳大利亚才能弄到那种东西，在美国是弄不到的。阿非说在美国能弄到，是的，能弄到。他们为美国、澳大利亚和回飞镖争执起来，直到妈妈说：看在老天分上，恁们的哥哥就要离开我们了，可恁们却在这里为回飞镖打嘴仗，恁们能消停一会儿吗？妈妈说在我走的前一天晚上，我们得搞个聚会。过去，有人去美国时，他们常搞这样的聚会。他们把这样的聚会叫做"美国守灵夜"，因为美国那么遥远，家人根本不指望此生能再见到离去的人。她说小马拉奇不能从英国赶回来，实在是太遗憾了，不过有上帝和圣母的保佑，我们早晚会在美国团聚的。不再去上班的那些日子，我在利默里克走了走，看了看我们曾经生活过的地方：风车街、哈特斯汤吉街、罗登巷、小哈灵顿街———它其实是一条巷子。我站

在那里看着特丽莎。卡莫迪家的房子，直到她母亲出来问：你想干什么？我去圣帕特里克墓地，在奥里弗和尤金的坟前坐了一会儿，然后来到对面的圣劳伦斯公墓，那是埋葬特丽莎的地方。不论我走到哪里，都能听见这些死去的人的声音，不知道他们能不能随我远渡大西洋。我想把利默里克的景象深深地印在脑海里，也许我永远不会再回来了。我坐在圣约瑟教堂和至圣救主会教堂里，提醒自己好好看一眼，可能再也看不到这些了。我来到亨利街向圣弗兰西斯告别，虽然我相信在美国也能和他说话。现在这几天，我又不想去美国了，我很想去奥瑞丹旅行社，把我的五十五英镑要回来。我可以等到二十一岁，跟小马拉奇一起去美国，这样在纽约我就不会孤身一人了。我有些奇怪的感觉，同妈妈和弟弟们一起坐在炉边的时候，有时我感觉泪水在涌动，这种脆弱让我很难为情。起初，妈妈还在笑，对我说：你的眼睛快赶上尿泡了。但当迈克尔说：我们都要去美国喽，爸爸也要到那儿喽，小马拉奇也要到那儿喽，我们都要到那儿团聚喽！她也开始流泪了。我们四个人坐在那里，像泪流不止的受气包。

妈妈说这是我们第一次搞聚会，但搞这样的聚会，真是让人感伤，眼看着孩子一个接一个地走了，小马拉奇去了英国，弗兰克又要去美国。她从照看斯里尼先生的薪水里省下几个先令，买了面包、火腿、猪肉冻、奶酪、柠檬水和几瓶黑啤酒。帕。基廷姨父也带来了黑啤酒、威士忌和一点阿吉姨妈喜欢的雪利酒。阿吉姨妈带来一块自己烤的蛋糕，上面嵌着葡萄干。修道院长拿来六瓶黑啤酒，他说：好吧，弗兰基，我只要有一两瓶喝着唱歌就行，剩下的恁就只管喝吧。他唱起"拉什恩之路"。他握着酒瓶，闭着眼睛，歌声犹如一阵高声的哀号。歌词毫无意义，但泪水却从他那闭着的双眼不断渗出，让人百思不解。阿非在耳旁问我：这歌什么意思也没有，怎么会让他哭出来呢？我也不知道。修道院长唱完歌，睁开眼睛，擦着脸颊告诉我们，这是一首悲伤的歌曲，讲的是一个爱尔兰男孩去了美国，中了匪帮的子弹，牧师还来不及赶到，他就死了。他告诉我，要是牧师不在你跟前的话，千万不要中子弹。帕姨父说，这是他听过的最悲伤的歌曲，我们是不是可以唱些活跃气氛的。他鼓动妈妈唱，她却推托：啊，不，帕，我没力气。

来吧，安琪拉，来吧。现在来一首，一首，就只唱一首。好吧，那我试试。我们都随着她那伤感的歌声，一同唱起来：母爱是一种赐福，无论你浪迹何方，趁她健在好好珍惜，不然将是思念的惆怅。帕姨父说一首不如一首，我们完全把今夜变成守灵夜了，应该有人唱首歌，活跃气氛，要不只能伤心地喝闷酒了。啊，上帝，阿吉姨妈说，我忘了，这个时候外面有月食。我们都站到巷子里，望着月亮渐渐消失在一团黑影后面。帕姨父说：你到美国去，这是一个好兆头，弗兰基。不，阿吉姨妈说，这是个坏兆头。我在报纸上看过，一发生月食，就表示世界末日要到了。哼，世界末日个屁，帕姨父说，这是弗兰基。迈考特的开始。几年后，他会穿着一身崭新的西装回来的，跟任何一个美国佬一样胖乎乎的，胳膊上挎着一个牙

齿洁白的漂亮妞儿。妈妈道：啊，不，帕，啊，不。他们把她扶到屋里，给她灌了一口来自西班牙的雪利酒，让她镇定下来。 "爱尔兰橡树" 从科克启航的时候，天色已晚，它经过金赛尔和克利尔海角，到达米岑海岬时，天已经黑了，灯光开始闪烁。这是我最后一眼看爱尔兰了，天晓得我得多久后才能重返故土？当然，我本该留下来，参加邮局的考试，一步步向上爬的。那样我就可以挣到足够的钱，供迈克尔和阿非吃饱穿暖去上学，我们可以从巷子里搬出来，到街上甚至更气派的街区找一幢有花园的房子住下来。我是应该参加考试的，那样妈妈就再也不必去给斯里尼先生或别的什么人倒便盆了。现在已经太迟了，我已经上路，爱尔兰在夜色中远去了。真是够蠢的，我站在甲板上，却频频回首，想着我的家人和利默里克，想着身在英国的小马拉奇和父亲。更愚蠢的是，罗迪。迈克考雷从容赴死的那首歌，以及妈妈喘着气和躺在床上干咳的克劳海西先生一起唱的那首"啊，凯里舞会的那些日子"，也开始在我的脑海回响。此刻，我真想回到爱尔兰，至少我还有妈妈和弟弟们，有阿吉姨妈，虽然她对我并不算好，有

帕姨父，是他请我喝了人生的第一杯啤酒。我的眼睛快赶上尿泡了，一位牧师正站在旁边的甲板上，好奇地看着我。他是个利默里克人，但在洛杉矶待过几年，说话带有美国口音。他知道离开爱尔兰是种什么心情，他经历过，而且永远难忘。当你住在洛杉矶，每天进进出出都有阳光和棕榈树相伴时，你却偏偏想问上帝，能不能给你一天利默里克那种细雨蒙蒙的日子。这位牧师挨着我坐在大副的桌子边，大副告诉我们航船的目的地改了，不是开往纽约，而是开往蒙特利尔。船刚刚开出去三天，目的地又改了，还是开往纽约。三位美国乘客抱怨：该死的爱尔兰人，他们就不能可靠一点吗？在即将驶进纽约港的前一天，目的地再次改变了。我们要去哈得逊河上游一个叫奥尔巴尼的地方。美国乘客们说：奥尔巴尼？该死的奥尔巴尼？我们干吗要坐爱尔兰这艘他妈的老爷船啊？牧师叫我别理会，并不是所有的美国人都是这个样子。拂晓时，我们驶进纽约港，我站在甲板上，以为自己置身于电影中，而它就要结束了，利瑞克电影院里的灯光即将亮起。牧师想指一些东西介绍给我看，但大

可不必，我可以一一辨认出哪是自由女神像，哪是爱丽丝岛，哪是帝国大厦，哪是克莱斯勒大厦，哪是布鲁克林大桥。成千上万的轿车在路上飞奔，阳光把所有的东西变得金晃晃的。有钱的美国人身穿燕尾服，戴着高高的礼帽，系着白色的领带，他们一定是要回家，和牙齿洁白的漂亮娘们儿睡觉去，其他人则去温暖舒适的办公室上班，没人关心这个世界。美国乘客正在和船长以及一名刚从拖船爬到船上的男子争吵：为什么我们不能从这儿下去？为什么我们非要走上一段该死的路，去他妈的奥尔巴尼？那名男子说：因为你们是这艘船上的乘客，而船长就是船长，未经许可，不能让你们上岸。噢，是的。啊，这是一个自由的国家，我们是美国公民。是真的吗？好吧，你这是在爱尔兰的船上，和一个爱尔兰的船长在一起，你只能服从他该死的命令，要不你们就游上岸。他爬下梯子，拖船突突突地开走了。我们驶进哈得逊河，经过曼哈顿，从乔治。华盛顿大桥下穿过，又从几百艘"自由"号舰艇旁驶过，它们曾在战争中作过贡献，如今停泊在这里，已经锈迹斑斑了。

船长宣布，因为海潮，我们要在对岸一个叫普吉普赛的地方抛锚过夜。牧师为我拼出这个名字，他说这是一个印度名字，那些美国人骂，他妈的普吉普赛。天黑后，一艘小船噗噗噗地开到我们的船边，一个爱尔兰口音喊道：喂，那儿，天呀，我看见了爱尔兰的国旗，我真看到了。我简直不敢相信自己的眼睛。喂，那儿。他邀请大副去岸上喝一杯，让他再带上一个朋友。他说：你，神父，也一样，带上一个朋友。牧师邀请了我，我们和大副、通讯官一起顺着梯子爬到小船上。小船上的这个人说他叫蒂姆。鲍伊尔，是从梅奥县来的。上帝保佑我们，我们停靠的正是时候，因为这里有个小聚会，我们都被邀请了。他领着我们来到一幢门前有草坪的房子，这里有喷泉，三只粉红色的小鸟单腿立于水池中。在一间叫起居室的房间里有五个女人，这五个女人梳着直直的头发，穿着纤尘不染的礼服，手里拿着酒杯。她们友善地微笑着，牙齿完美无缺。其中一个女人说：快进来吧，去（聚）会刚刚开始。去会，她们就是这样说话的，我猜，要不了几年我也会这样说话的。

蒂姆。鲍伊尔告诉我们，她们的丈夫夜里出去打鹿这会儿，这些姑娘正好有点时间。一个叫蓓蒂的女人说：是啦，他们都是一起打过仗的伙伴。战争结束差不多有五年了，他们还是念念不忘，所以每个周末去射杀动物，喝"莱茵黄金"酒，直到他们的眼睛看不见了才算完。该死的战争，原谅我说这种话，圣佛（神父）。牧师对我小声嘀咕：这些都是坏女人，我们不能在这儿久留。这些坏女人问我：想喝点什么？我们什么都有。你叫什么，亲爱的？弗兰克。迈考特。好名字，那么你就喝一点吧。所有的爱尔兰人都能喝一点。你喜欢啤酒吗？是的，谢谢。哎哟，这么有礼貌。我喜欢爱尔兰人，我祖母就是半个爱尔兰人，所以我也成了半个...应该是四分之一个爱尔兰人吧？我不道（不知道）。我叫弗瑞达，来，给你啤酒，亲爱的。牧师坐在沙发的一边，她们把这沙发叫做睡椅，有两个女人在跟他说话。蓓蒂问大副想不想看看这幢房子，他说：啊，我想，因为我们爱尔兰可没有这样的房子。

另一个女人告诉通讯官，他应该去看看她们花园里的花草，美得让你不敢相信。弗瑞达问我身体是不是没事，我说没事，但还是得麻烦她告诉我，厕所在哪儿。厕所。噢，你是说洗手间啊。来，就从这儿走，小甜心，在大厅里。谢谢。她推门走进去，打开灯，吻着我的脸颊，对我耳语说，要是我需要什么的话，她就在外面等着。我站在马桶前源源不断地喷射，心想，这种时候我能需要什么呢？美国都这样吗？在撒尿的时候，有女人在外面等你？撒完尿，我冲了马桶，来到外面。她拉着我的手，把我领进一间卧室，丢下酒杯，锁上门，然后把我推倒在床上，开始摸索我的下身：该死的扣子，你们爱尔兰就没有拉链吗？她拽出我那兴奋的家什，随即爬到我的身体上。天啊，我上了天堂。外面有人敲门，是牧师，"弗兰克你在里面吗？"弗瑞达把一根手指竖在唇边，她的眼睛都要翻到天上去啦。"弗兰克你在里面吗？"啊，神父，你就不能自己去转转吗？啊，上帝，

啊，特丽莎，你看我在干什么？就算教皇亲自来敲门，就算红衣主教团在窗户上围观，我也照样不尿他们。她瘫倒在我的身上，说我太棒了，问我是否考虑过在普吉普赛定居。弗瑞达告诉牧师，去了洗手间后，我有点头晕，这在旅途上是经常的事，何况我又喝了"莱茵黄金"这种没喝过的啤酒，她相信爱尔兰没有这种酒。我看出牧师并不相信她的话，我的脸止不住地发烧。他已经记下我母亲的姓名和住址，我很怕他会给她写信，说你的好儿子在普吉普赛的一间卧室里，同一个女人胡闹着度过来美国的第一夜，这个女人的丈夫曾参加过二战，现在在外面打鹿，放松自己。对那些曾为国效力的男人们来说，这可不大公平啊。大副和通讯官参观完房子和花园回来了，他们都不看牧师。这些女人说我们一定是饿了，便进了厨房。我们都在起居室里坐着，一言不发，听着那些女人在厨房里嘀嘀咕咕，哈哈大笑。牧师再次对我耳语：坏女人，坏女人，罪恶的时刻。我不知道说什么才好。这些坏女人把三明治端出来，又倒了些啤酒。等我们都吃完，她们放上了弗兰克。西纳塔的唱片，问我们有没有人想跳上一曲。没有人搭碴儿，有牧师在场，

谁敢主动起身与这些坏女人跳舞呢。于是，这几个女人一起跳起来，边跳边笑，好像她们都有个小秘密似的。蒂姆。鲍伊尔喝了威士忌，躺在角落里睡着了，弗瑞达将他喊醒，叫他送我们回船上去。在我们离开的时候，弗瑞达向我俯过身，好像要吻我的脸颊，牧师却极为严厉地说了一声晚安，结果没人再敢和她们握手。我们走上街道，向河岸走去的时候，听见那几个女人又在大笑，银铃般的笑声在夜空中显得格外清脆。

我们爬上梯子，蒂姆在他的小船上冲我们喊：小心点爬梯子啊。啊，男孩们，啊，男孩们，这难道不是个令人难忘的夜晚吗？晚安，男孩们，晚安，神父。我们目送着他的小船，直到它消失在普吉普赛岸边的一片黑暗中。牧师说了一声晚安，就到下面的舱室里去了，大副也跟着他下去了。我和通讯官一起伫立在甲板上，望着美国夜色中那闪闪烁烁的灯光。他说：我的上帝呀，真是个美丽的夜晚啊，弗兰克，这难道不是个伟大的国家吗？