“What does that mean, Mama?” Ana asks, and Sara admits she doesn’t know, her English isn’t good enough. . but her imitation of the squawking parrot has them in stitches.
(Was it your grandfather, Milo, who finally told you about pieces of eight? Helping you think it through. Why do we call a quarter two bits, my boy? Because British pounds were divided into eight pieces or bits. .)
When she comes to kiss him good night, Sara runs her fingers through Milo’s hair. Her own children’s hair, like the little that remains of Jan’s, is thin and blond; hers is light brown but Milo’s is thick wavy brown with auburn glints in it. What beautiful hair you have, Milo!
It had never occurred to the boy that something about him could be beautiful.
SWING SWIFTLY THROUGH the cycle of a year.
Autumn: little Ana teaching him the rudiments of reading as she learns them at school.
Winter: the skating rink. Milo inherits Ana’s pink-and-white skates from the year before and is relieved when no one teases him for wearing pink. By afternoon’s end, cheeks red, eyes flashing in silent pride, he skates around the rink all by himself and the Manders family applauds him. At the drink stand where Jan buys them hot chocolate afterward, they get jostled by a noisy group of preteens yelling at one another in French. Though he can’t quite understand the language, it stirs memories in his brain (transient images of neon lights and white-clad arms) that make him want to die.
Spring: Norbert shows him that if you cut an earthworm in two, both halves of it will wiggle on miserably for a while. On the front porch, Jan takes Milo in his arms and points up to the sky — hugely white and alive, vibrating, screaming, with the return of the Canadian geese.
Summer: a barbecue in the backyard. The five of them gobble down spareribs, fingers and lips scarlet with sauce. Point at one another and laugh. Tell jokes. Play pranks. Ana pours a glass of water down her father’s back, provoking a roar. When night falls, they go out hunting for fireflies in the grass.
And then. . at some point during the second fall. . a strange young woman in the kitchen, making dinner. Jan standing by the closed door to his and Sara’s bedroom, talking to a doctor. Another day, a glimpse into that room — Jan emerging from it in tears — reveals a motionless mound barely visible among the bedclothes.
A hearse parked in front of the house. Taking his little sister in his arms to comfort her, Norbert himself bursts into sobs. Jan helps Milo pack. Hugs him long and hard. Stacks his luggage in the trunk of a strange car. Sitting up straight and stiff in the backseat, Milo doesn’t respond when the Manderses, gathered in the driveway, wave him good-bye.
He’s furious with Sara for dying. But it’s taught him an important lesson — people can’t belong to each other. Never again will he wholly entrust himself to anyone.
CLOSETS. BROOMS. BELTS. Blows raining down on the child’s head. Shouts. Voices calling his name, “Milo. . Milo. . Milo. . Where is that boy? Milo. . Milo. . Milo. . Where are you? I’ll teach you to hide when it’s time to go to school!” Women’s legs banging up around him. Women’s arms thrashing out at him. He’s rolled up in a ball, not crying, not sobbing. His body limp and passive, his mind a blank.
Sometimes, from the dark and secret heart of the blackout, images well up (perhaps use animation here?). A cat without a smile. . a smile without a cat. . Tinker Bell touching something with her magic wand and turning it into something else. . John, Michael and Wendy Darling soaring through the air. . I can fly, I can fly, I can fly!. . Canadian geese screaming as they cross the sky. . Legs without bodies, bodies without legs. . Captain Hook screaming as the crocodile bites off his leg. . Long John Silver also losing a leg. . both pirates limping about on wooden legs. . wooden arms, wooden noses. . Pinocchio’s nose lengthening with every lie. . Alice growing so tall she fills the whole room, her head scrunched up against the ceiling. . then shrinking swiftly until she can drown in a bottle of ink. . We dive into the ink bottle with her.
BLACKOUT.
• • • • •
Neil, 1916
A BUCOLIC SHOT: the front steps of the Kerrigan house in Dublin’s genteel suburbs, early on a lovely April morning. Briefcase in hand, Neil plants a perfunctory kiss on his mother’s cheek. The way they embrace indicates that the balance of power in the household has shifted over the past two years. Mrs. Kerrigan now clearly respects her son, admires him, even. And he, having matured, can contemplate her fears and foibles with something approaching benevolence. As he turns to go, she protests mildly.
“I can’t understand what work there is to be done on a holiday! Surely none of your colleagues will be in the office today.”
“I’ve told you before, Mother. A lawyer’s work, like a woman’s, is never done. I always have numerous cases to prepare, and since I’m the youngest partner in the firm I need to be sure that every file is watertight. What happened on Easter Monday, anyway? Was Jesus so exhausted by the Resurrection that he needed a day off?”
“Neil!”
“Joking, Mother. Joking.”
CUT to Neil meeting up with his cousin Thom (also carrying a briefcase) on the docks at Victoria Quay. Fast camera work translates their excitement. Ducking into an abandoned warehouse next to Saint James’s Gate Brewery, they swiftly exchange their suits and ties for Volunteer garb. Thom assembles a rifle, Neil pockets a revolver and they join other young Sinn Féiners converging in combat gear on the Sackville Street General Post Office. Among them are a surprising number of women. Close-up on beautiful Countess Constance Markiewicz, her arms crossed, her features calm and determined.
Padraic Pearse and James Connolly begin to harangue the rebels.
“Again our boys are dying in droves,” Pearse thunders. “Right at the present moment, a quarter of a million Irishmen are risking their lives for the sake of the Union Jack. And why do they sign up? We all know the answer: because they’re hungry!”
“The submarine Aud was due to land at Tralee on Good Friday,” Connolly goes on, “bringing us arms and ammunition from Europe. Well, the Brits scuttled it! All our precious weapons are at the bottom of the sea! Men, the time is ripe, we must seize the day! Wrench our city of Dublin and our land of Eire back from the hands of the enemy!”
Thom is ready. Proud. Bursting with impatience to prove himself. As for Neil, he’s scared. Never has he known hunger, misery, or loss; he hasn’t the body for courageous revolt. Gradually, the voice in his head effaces the loud voices of the rebel leaders.
Though the rhetoric repels me, though I regret that we should need to appeal to the masses through their guts instead of their brains, though I wish we could kick the Brits out without clinging like Padraic Pearse to ridiculous propaganda about the Celts, or like John MacBride to reactionary Catholicism, or like James Connolly to dogmatic Marxist theory — I’m willing to do battle on the rebels’ side. But in my briefcase, in that briefcase now stashed away in the abandoned brewery, is a weapon far more powerful than the gun in my pocket: the manuscript of my first book of poems. Well, prose poems, actually. A revolutionary form — a joyous mixture of English and Gaelic which, by its accurate reflection of our mongrel history, will shock all. The new Ireland will need new writers, and I shall be first among them. As soon as I find a publisher, my words will set fire to my countrymen’s hearts.