Luchóg sat down beside me. “After awhile, everyone forgets. I cannot paint you a picture of my dear youth. The old memories are not real—just figures in a fairytale. My mammy could walk right up to me this very minute and say, ‘Sonny-boy,’ and I would have to say, ‘Sorry, I don’t know you, lady.’ My father may as well be a myth. So, you see, in a way, you have no father or mother, or if you did, you wouldn’t know them any longer, nor they you, more’s the pity.”
“But the fellow falling asleep in the armchair? If I try hard, I can recall my father’s face.”
“Might as well be anyone. Or no one at all.”
“And the baby?”
“They’re all one to me. A bother with no teeth but all the time hungry. Can’t walk, can’t talk, can’t share a smoke. You can have them. Some say a changeling’s best bet is a baby—there’s less to learn—but that’s moving backward across time. You should be going forward. And heaven help us if we ever had a baby to look after for a whole century.”
“I do not want to steal any child. I just wonder whose baby that is. What happened to my father? Where is my mother?”
To make it through the cold season, we nicked ten blankets and a half-dozen children’s coats from the Salvation Army store, and we ate small meals, subsisting mainly on weak teas brewed from bark and twigs. In the dull light of January and February, we often did not stir at all, but sat alone or in clumps of two or three, dripping wet or stone cold, waiting for the sun and the resumption of our lives. Chavisory grew stronger by and by, and when the wild onions and first daffodils appeared, she could take a few steps with bracing assistance. Each day, Speck pushed her one painful pace forward. When she was well enough for us to move, we fled that miserable dungheap of memories. Despite the risks, we found a more suitable hidden home near water, a mile or so north of the new houses. On windy nights, the noises from the families carried as far as our new camp, and while not as secluded, it afforded us adequate protection. As we dug in that first day, restlessness swept over me. Smaolach sat down beside me and draped an arm across my shoulders. The sun was falling from the sky.
“Ní mar a síltear a bítear,” he said.
“Smaolach, if I live to be a thousand years, I’ll never understand your old language. Speak English to me.”
“Are you thinking of our friends, late and lamented? They’re better off where they are and not suffering this eternal waiting. Or is there something else on your mind, little treasure?”
“Have you ever been in love, Smaolach?”
“Once and only once, thank goodness. We were close, like every mother and son.”
“Luchóg said my mother and father are gone.”
“I don’t remember much of her. The smell of wool, maybe, and a harsh soap. Mint on the breath. A huge bosom upon which I laid my . . . No, that’s not right. She was a rake of a woman, all skin and bones. I don’t recall.”
“Every place we leave, part of me disappears.”
“Now . . . my father, there was a strapping fellow with a big black moustache curled up at the ends, or maybe it was my grandfather, come to think of it. Was a long time ago, and I’m not really sure where it was or when.”
The darkness was complete.
“That’s the way of life. All things go out and give way to one another. ’Tisn’t wise to be too attached to any world or its people.”
Mystified by Smaolach’s philosophy, I tottered off to my new bed, turned over the facts, and looked at what crawled beneath. I tried to picture my mother and father, and could not recall their faces or their voices. Remembered life seemed as false to me as my name. These shadows are visible: the sleeping man, the beautiful woman, and the crying, laughing child. But just as much of real life, not merely read about in books, remains unknown to me. A mother croons a lullaby to a sleepy child. A man shuffles a deck of cards and deals a hand of solitaire. A pair of lovers unbutton one another and tumble into bed. Unreal as a dream.
I did not confess to Smaolach the reason for my agitation. Speck had all but abandoned our friendship, withdrawing into some hard and lonesome core. Even after we made the move, she devoted herself to making our new camp feel like home, and she spent the sunlit hours teaching Chavisory to walk again. Exhausted by her efforts, Speck fell into a deep sleep early each night. She stayed in her burrow on cold and wet March days, tracing out an intricate design on a rolled parchment, and when I asked her about her drawing, she stayed quiet and aloof. Early mornings, I’d see her at the western edge of camp, clad in her warmest coat, sturdy shoes on her feet, pondering the horizon. I remember approaching her from behind and placing my hand on her shoulder. For the first time ever, she flinched at my touch, and when she turned to face me, she trembled as if shaking off the urge to cry.
“What’s the matter, Speck? Are you okay?”