NO ONE AT the table knew that ten days earlier, Francis Xavier Dempsey had been an inmate in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, where meals were strictly a one-spoon affair. Convicted of trafficking in books banned under the Censorship of Publications Act as well as in other luxuries proscribed by the tariff-hungry, priest-fearing politicians of the fledgling Republic of Ireland, he had been halfway through a three-year sentence. At the same time, his brother Michael, not yet eighteen, had been an inmate of a different sort, locked up in the seminary and preparing for life as a missionary in some steamy, godforsaken corner of the globe. And their father? Ten days ago he was still alive, no doubt muddling through another lesson instructing the sons and daughters of farmers on the proper conjugation of the Latin verb amare.
Now their father was in the ground and his death had made possible a new life for his sons. One moment, Francis and Michael were kneeling in prayer at his funeral, each expecting to return to his own place of confinement. The next, a map was pressed into their hands, they fled in a stolen car, a house was blown to bits, three men lay dead, money rained from the sky, and Michael was broken but still breathing. Somehow, through the workings of God or luck or the unrecognized genius of Francis himself, he rose from that cock-up of death and wreckage and seized the day. Wouldn’t his father have told him to do exactly that? Carpe diem. Well, he had carpe’d the diem and squeezed it for all it was worth.
Pursued by the massed forces of the church and the state—not to mention the Irish Republican Army, whose safe house–cum–bomb factory Francis had played some role in demolishing—he devised a way to spirit Michael and himself out of Ireland. They would travel first class, dress first class, and act as first class as Francis could manage. It sounded mad, but the First-Class Plan, as he christened it, landed the Dempsey brothers in a stateroom on the Britannic, with the crew and passengers convinced they were a pair of young Scottish lords. Francis hoped that his peerish pretensions would keep lower-born passengers at bay, and that his affected Scottishness would scramble the senses of better-born Englishmen. He had no plans to socialize with the other passengers, and, before tonight, had relied on room service for his meals. He was, after all, a fugitive, and after ten days on the run, he needed to rest.
As for Michael, he needed more than rest; he needed restoration. The blast had left him badly damaged. He came in and out of consciousness, and when awake, he was prone to fits. Two days earlier, as they prepared to board the ship at Cobh, the sun had punched through the clouds for the first time in weeks. Francis took a moment to admire the way the harbor came alive under the sun’s influence, gray flannel transformed into a field of diamonds. He had an arm around Michael, supporting his unsteady steps, and as Michael lifted his face and the warmth of the sun touched him, he seemed to smile. But then his lids fluttered open and it was as if someone had stabbed an ember in his eye. His hands went to his face, his legs buckled, and he emitted a gurgling cry. When he tumbled, two of the pursers double-timed it over to the brothers and between them lifted Michael off the quay and carried him up the gangplank. That had been the first test of the FC Plan, and the quick attention of the pursers, each of whom Francis rewarded with a pound note, was proof positive that the plan was working.
Now the FC Plan had passed another test. He had navigated a first-class dinner, steered conversation away from that pesky royal visit, and perhaps impressed an American or two with his—dare he say?—nobility. He had even chosen the proper spoon, a sure sign of good things to come.
MICHAEL—YES, THAT was his name. He knew that now, though he had been grasping at it for what seemed like weeks, so long that he had begun to wonder if he even had a name, or if his mind had become so porous that names could find no purchase. But now he knew. He was Michael. He was Michael and he was in a bed with a red and gold cover, in a small room with round windows on one wall. Next to the bed was a table with a glass of water and a lamp that cast a pale glow, beyond which lay another bed just like his. On the other side of his bed was a leather chair and in the chair sat an old man with a sharp, beakish nose and a spray of white hair above his lean face. The man wore spectacles—round, black, and heavy—and a creamy white suit and waistcoat. A black cravat, like some leafy night-blooming flower, ran riot from his shirt collar. Michael nodded to the old man and the old man nodded in reply. He’d never spoken to the old man but he knew the man had been there—in that chair, in this room—for… for… for as long as Michael could remember. Was that a day? A week? More? It could not be his whole life because out on the fringes of his memory, in that spot where his own name had hovered just out of reach, there were other, brighter moments, and he could only hope that they would return to him like the wreckage of a ship pushed, ebb after ebb, to the shore.
“I’m Michael,” he said to the man, who raised his shaggy eyebrows as if appraising this bit of information. The man nodded again and crossed one knee over the other, letting his left foot bob above the carpet. He did not seem to be in any hurry to answer. He looked like a man who had resigned himself to waiting for a train that was still many hours from the station. Michael shrugged and reached for the glass of water on the nightstand, but his grip was feeble, and he watched as the glass hit the table, splashed water across the polished wood, and toppled to the floor. All of this transpired without a sound. Michael sat back against his pillow and clapped his hands: all was silence. He shouted, Hallooooooooo, felt the strain in his throat, but where was the sound?
“Why can’t I hear—” he began to say to the old man, and startled at the sound of his voice. He lurched forward. “Why can I only hear myself when I’m talking to you?”
The old man looked at Michael over the rims of his spectacles as if he were noticing him—really taking note of him—for the first time. Then he tilted his chin up and peered at Michael through the lower half of his lenses. During his inspection of Michael he became distracted by something on his trousers, and with great care he plucked a tuft of dust from his knee and flicked it to the floor. Slowly his tongue wet the corners of his lips. All of this seemed preliminary to speaking, but he said nothing. Was this man a doctor? Michael wondered. Was that the reason for his excessively white wardrobe? He considered the possibilities: hospital, infirmary, sanatorium, insane asylum.