“How’d he do dat?”
“Well. . as the son of Judge Kerrigan, you see, I’d normally have sided with the Empire. So the rebels had decided to use me to infiltrate the enemy ranks and find out what the Brits were planning. I was wearing a British uniform. Can you believe, my boy, that in April 1916, while the First World War was raging across the Channel and all their military strength was needed to fight the Germans, the British deployed forty thousand troops in the city of Dublin?”
“So, uh. . was Thom a spy, too?” asks Milo.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you. He was dead by then.”
“What?”
“Yes, a frightful event. The Brits shot him point-blank before my very eyes. But I don’t want to bore you with my veteran’s tales. Suffice it to say that having been denounced by John MacBride, I was arrested, handcuffed, dragged off to Dublin Castle and held in custody there for two long weeks. Had my father not intervened, I should have met with the same sorry fate as the other heroes of the day. Yeats’s famous poem would have been called ‘Seventeen Men’ instead of ‘Sixteen Men.’ A different rhythm indeed!”
“What? Dey put you in jail for two weeks and you almost got shot by a firing squad and you never told me about dis before?”
“I thought I should wait until you’d reached manhood, Milo. Now that you’ve been behind bars yourself, I think you can understand.”
“Den I can tell you what I did when dey let me out last week,” Milo grins.
“What did you do?”
“Well. . when I first got locked up, I tought we were denounced by de blond kid, Augustin his name was, who used to bully Timide and always had it in for me. But my friend Edit’, she come to visit and tell me it was Timide himself who call de cops from a phone boot’, one day when my back was turned! Dat explains why he went straight back to school when we got busted, and I got locked up. So. . first ting I do when dey let me out, I give Edit’ a call. . She borrow her mom’s Volkswagen and drive me all the way to de school. When we get dere, I crawl in de back of de car and crouch down on de floor to wait. .”
(We can do this scene in flashback, with you telling your grandfather the story in voice-over. Of course you neglected to mention what you and Edith had done to Timide in the woodshed on the way down to Montreal. .)
“Finally Timide, he come out to smoke on de front steps with Augustin and a coupla oder guys. I’m de one taught him to smoke!. . I can see he’s de big school hero now, moved way up tanks to his week’s adventure running away wit me. Edit’ call out to him. Hey, Timide, baby! Wanna go for a spin? He hesitate. He still shy, but he want to show off in front of de oder guys. In that jalopy? he say, stalling. Tought you might like a change from lookin’ at priest bums! Edit’ say. So Timide say okay. He come over, get into de passenger seat, Edit’ step on de gas and de car leap away from the kerb. I got my arm round Timide’s troat fore he know what happening. His mout’ pop open and I stuff my handkerchief inside. We drive out to de reservoir. I got a baseball bat in de trunk. We drag Timide out of de Volkswagen and I smash up bot’ his knees.”
“Y-you did?” gasps Neil, swallowing. “The-then what did you do?”
“We drop him at de hospital.”
Milo and Edith shove the broken boy out of the car onto the sidewalk, near a sign that reads HôPITAL SAINTE-MARIE.
“Well. . that’s fine, then,” says Neil, clearing his throat. “Long as you dropped him off someplace he could be taken care of. . You’re right, traitors deserve to be punished, as Polonius tells his son Laertes when he goes off to university. You remember that soliloquy from Hamlet, don’t you? Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.”
Milo takes over.
Dose friends dou hast, and deir adoption tried,
Grapple dem to dy soul wit hoops o’ steel
But do not dull dy palm wit entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t dat de opposed may beware of dee
“Impeccable!” Neil says, enchanted with his scion. “But my most important advice to you, Milo, comes still and always from Yeats.
How can they know
Truth flourishes where the student’s lamp has shone,
And there alone, that have no solitude?
“. . Never fear solitude, Milo. In this time of political turmoil, beware of Loud Speakers. Remain ever a student.”
CUT.
Ripping him out of his reverie, the guard suddenly comes and clangs on the bars with his billy club:
“Telegram.”
Milo’s eyes focus. “Yeah?”
“It’s not mail day but we decided ta do you a favor.”
“I don’t need your favors.”
“Okay, you can go to hell.”
“Give it to me.”
“Oh, so you want it now? Say please. .”
At lightning speed both Milo’s hands are through the bars and around the man’s throat.
“Hand it over or you’re dead.”
“Bloody savage,” says the man, handing him the telegram. .
(Yes, okay, Milo. The telegram can only be from Marie-Thérèse’s daughter, your cousin Marie-Gabrielle. Though she was closer to you in age, only four years older, she didn’t play as important a role in your life as your male cousins, so I figured we could save a few thousand dollars by leaving her out of the story. But you’re right — no one else in the family could have sent you this message, so we’ll have to go back and put Marie-Gabrielle in everywhere. .)
GRANDPA NEIL DIED IN HIS SLEEP ON WEDNESDAY. HIS FUNERAL TOOK PLACE YESTERDAY, IN THE SAME CHURCH WHERE HE MARRIED OUR GRANDMA FIFTY YEARS AGO. THE CHURCH WAS ALMOST EMPTY, NOBODY KNEW HIM ANYMORE. IT WAS SUCH A PITY NOT EVEN YOU WERE THERE, MILO. WHEN WILL YOU BE GETTING OUT THIS TIME? YOUR LOVING COUSIN, GABRIELLE
The prison gives Milo a day’s leave. We see him heading home through the forest at nightfall. His nose catches a scent. He tenses, then breaks into an animal run. Ta, ta-da DA, ta, ta-da DA. . Sound track: no panting, only his steps thudding softly on the forest floor, like the soft beating of a drum. In the distance he sees white smoke billowing above black trees. Not the house. Behind the house. He goes around. A towering bonfire. Ta, ta-da DA, ta, ta-da DA. . Jean-Joseph is tossing armloads of books and papers out the window of Neil’s study on the second floor. François-Joseph is deftly catching them and adding them to the high, hissing flames. Both are singing, laughing, roaring drunk.
Milo turns on his heel and vanishes.
In the morning, after walking past the smoldering, smoking, stinking mound of ashes that was once his grandfather’s library, he bursts into the kitchen where his aunt is making hotcakes. As usual, her first reaction is to yell at him.
“Where have you been, Milo? The boys saw you arrive last night. You sneak up on us like that, you don’t say a word to anyone and then you vanish. We looked for you everywhere!”
She catches sight of his face and her tone changes. There are now large amounts of air between her words.
“What. . what’s wrong with y. .”
Milo goes over to the drawer and takes out the sharpest knife.
“Milo. . you’re upset about the fire, is that it?”
He approaches, wielding the knife, expressionless.
“It was just books, Milo!”
He advances on her.
“It was just books! Milo! What was I supposed to do with them? And besides, they were all in English!”