Not the Same Sky (27 page)

A man became a stork-man. He decided to keep the nest maintained, and not let it get hidden by moss. He would perhaps shake the sticks a bit, perhaps they would pick up the light, or perhaps when lightning dazzled the sky, running in and out of the trees, it might illuminate the nest so that the Schwandorf storks would see it no matter where they were, and it would make them want to come home. People knew what he was doing and were grateful, because even though in time they had to forget about the birds, they did know that someone has to tend to memory, and keep both the dark and the light parts nurtured in some way, so that they’re there when needed. Although they saw his caring, they did not know he also prayed. He sent copious prayers to God. He had a favourite place—the small round chapel past the graveyard, at the entrance to the castle. It wasn’t open, unless by prior arrangement, but he took to walking that way every day, and he moved to the front of it, leaning against the metal gate, and prayed to St Johannes, for all he was worth. People didn’t notice that this new walking habit of his had begun around about a month after the time of the disappearance of the storks, but then people are unreliable, and if they briefly saw the two events as being linked, they forgot immediately. But there he is now, not just a stork-man, but a prayer as well.

And who is to say which of the two things worked. Maybe they both did. One day two storks landed back in the nest, flew straight down the brown fast-flowing river, past the flowers on the bridge, past the fishermen on the bank, the cows and horses—none of which looked up—past the beautifully kept vegetable allotments and straight to the old, and thankfully well-kept, nest. Within days it was obvious to all, except the almost blind, that one of them was not of the original pair—the male or the female, it could not be agreed upon. The little girl said she was certain it was the female that was different, but who would believe her. No matter. They soon had a baby stork, right up there in front of everyone, and the three of them looked out of their nest, over the walking people’s heads, as if they noticed but didn’t care.

The little girl grew up and learned to be a sculptor, just so she could make one thing—three storks. She would protect the town from the bereft feeling of missing their birds, she would show the storks that they mattered, but most of all, she would get her chance to put right the day they had gone missing because she would include it at the foot of the statue.

She constructed a tall mirror-like structure and placed the storks in front of it so that as well as the three that were sculpted, they also reflected three more. She could have made mirrors looking into mirrors so they were infinitely reflected, but thought, no, once was enough. When this was done she didn’t know what else she would like to make. Unfortunately, she was now known as a sculptor, and there was pressure on her to keep up this life of representation and metaphor. In the end, she too had to leave so that she could have an actual life somewhere else, unburdened by having to tell a town truths.

The florist tapped the newspaper clippings about the storks when the talk was big about Joy going. He had found them in a drawer thrown out from a neighbouring house that was being restored. They had called him in to talk flowers. Someone had been to Schwandorf, obviously. The story had touched him, this story for Joy. There wasn’t actually any mention of the sculpture, but Joy didn’t like to harp on about this. Later the florist did check and found that in that town there is a statue, but it is of three pigs. However, there is a stork’s nest. He decided not to tell Joy about his further findings. He could see the sculpture of the storks in his mind’s eye, so there didn’t seem to be any point. And he was excited about the possibility of Joy going to Australia.

‘See, that’s what memorials are for,’ he said.

‘I suppose,’ Joy replied. ‘Thanks.’

CHAPTER 33

When it came to the morning of Joy’s leaving, she and Oscar behaved as if she was travelling a short distance—Paris, Milan, New York even. There wasn’t much else they could do, there’s a limit to outwardly expressing what the inside is feeling. Tidy the bed as soon as hitting your feet on the floor. Make the bed properly as soon as you are standing. Going to Australia should not be treated like any old journey. Joy found her sunglasses in the drawer at the bottom of her summer things.

‘You could buy a new pair at the airport,’ Oscar said.

‘No, I like these,’ she said.

She wanted some of her own old things on such a long journey. Oscar made breakfast. Joy watched him doing it, as if she was already on her way to Australia and therefore different.

‘Stop looking at me like that, you’re making me nervous,’ he said.

‘Even now, it’s a big journey,’ Joy said.

In the shower she lined up the shampoos and face creams, changed the candles around. She felt the water running down her back. She made a few goodbye telephone calls, and felt better, felt gone.

Oscar drove to the airport and parked in Block C. Joy knew he would have a long walk back. But once she got into the departures area, she stopped thinking about these rooted things and felt airport protocol take over. Oscar wanted to wait until she had gone through the security gates. She said, ‘That would be nice,’ as if she didn’t know him, as if he was a perfect stranger. He held her hand as they went to the bookshop. Joy bought English as well as Irish newspapers, although the headlines meant nothing to her, as if she was already in a strange place. She had become connected to the girls in history, girls whom she had not known a thing about a year ago.

She read the Irish newspaper on the way to London. When the plane landed she left it on the seat, its news now faded in importance. She read the English newspapers after she had checked in at Heathrow. These stories too were fading in importance. When all the stories were read, she watched the vast array of people of all nationalities moving about the airport, rushing, shuffling, all in their own place, where they had come from and where they were going to. It was a feast of difference. She could have watched all day. By the time her fourteen-, sixteen-hour flight—what’s the difference?—was called, she was already tired.

There was a muteness once all the passengers were seated in the plane. The hours wrote themselves large and left little room for complacency. The passenger next to Joy, on her inside, to whom she was determined not to speak, at least for the first twelve hours, sighed loudly. An hour out, there was some sort of bustle, like birds might make if they were shaking feathers from their nest in the evening. There was a slight increase in the noise levels. Then food arrived, breaking up the hours. Her neighbour, like many others, took his tablet, put earplugs over his ears, smiled at her conspiratorially, and pulled a mask down over his eyes. She had no need to worry about him. He did not want to talk to her either.

Joy tried to sleep. But the hush, like that of a hospital ward, mesmerised her only halfway. Film over, people stretched their legs one inch, this way and that, and tried to plunge themselves into some way of passing the time, some semblance of personal rest. Many who had not taken tablets because they thought they might not need them, now searched for them in their bags and went to get water. And then hush. Occasionally a passenger plodded up and down the aisle in stockinged feet, and back, and back, their legs, she supposed, itching with the ludicrousness of it all. Her eyes opened and closed. She would think now, without distraction, about those who had gone before her. That would be something to do.

To her amazement there were six hours gone. She watched the aeroplane make progress on her television map. She could not believe they had already passed over Turkey, Iran, India. Her eyes closed again. There was one more hour gone. Oh God. She would get horse tablets for coming back. Joy became fascinated by the screen in front of her and returned to it, too often. They were on their way to Bangkok. Altitude, 390,000 feet. Distance to destination, skip. Tailwind, eleven miles per hour. Useless that one. Sometimes it was up to seventy and the plane gobbled hours, speed, five hundred and seventy-eight miles per hour, air temperature outside, minus fifty-three. She toyed with the map pictures, went close up and far away, let her fingers touch Palembamg, Ujungpangdang, Banjarmasam, Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung away ahead. It made her take the flight seriously. Would she be able to leave the screen for a while? And her eyes must have closed again, without her knowing, because next time she looked there were more hours gone. She had tried forcing herself not to check, but failed. She felt sunrise happening outside, felt them flying into it.

The last hours had minor diversions built into them. The first two of these hours had stirrings in them—more than the sound of the solitary sock walkers. The second two had tentative peering out the bottom of the blinds. Then breakfast? Dinner? The last two hours had moving, washing, awakening. And sun. Not the same sun as in Ireland.

Joy was ridiculously grateful to be getting off in Bangkok. She did not think she could have gone another inch, mile, hour, minute. But others were going to do that, were coming off to have one hour’s break. They looked different from her, not yet released. Some of them were still staggering from the effects of their tablets. One man looked high on sleepless turmoil, his face pale, eyes sunken and bewildered. She felt guilty to be walking in a straight line, outside into the fresh air. The travel agent had even organised a bus to pick her up—her and six others, or so he said. Now she would find out. The man at the desk directed her to the correct bay. But when the door opened and she stepped outside, she changed her mind. She had inadvertently gulped a mouthful of boiling air. She stepped back in, giving herself a moment to assimilate to the density of the heat before trying again. No, it was boiling air. It hissed, as a distant whistling kettle might. She went back in again and found her way to the bay, via the inside route. They would wait fifteen minutes. Only fifteen minutes. All that time in the sky, all those miles, and only fifteen minutes separated the timetable of the Thai bus driver and the Dublin travel agent.

The smokers now sauntered slowly to the ashtray. It would be unwise to rush, to unnecessarily expend energy. They did not speak much, still dazed from the flight and involved in the privacy of their smoking. Some of them had another cigarette. The bus driver revved the bus. There was an amount of switching and moving and clapping. The heat began to exasperate some of the passengers, but they tried to remain polite. And then they were on their way, speeding towards hotels. Joy was expelled into a hallway, whispering with palm plants. A marble sleeping Buddha, with lipstick on, reclined at the foot of the stairs, inviting the weary to climb up.

Joy telephoned Oscar from her room. There didn’t seem to be very much to say, just a check on the sound of their voices, consolation enough. She found the outdoor swimming pool at the top floor. She was too tired, but felt obliged to use it. How could she look the travel agent in the eye if she bumped into him accidentally in a month’s time, and bump into him she would, particularly if she did not use the pool. As she kicked her legs out she thought how well he knew. Knots ran up and down her veins like mercury, cramps undid themselves, curls straightened. She kicked some more. The sun and the heat were white. She felt as if she should be able to look at them. She turned on her back, kicked gently, and fell asleep. Her body doubled up, and she gulped mouthfuls of water as she sank. Kicking her way back to the surface, she emptied her mouth of chlorine, and thought of the travel agent.

It was time for sleep. She lay on the bed in the darkened room and it stole into every sinew of her, humming luxuriously up her body until it had reached her head, her eyes, her mouth. She tasted it before she moved into another consciousness.

A few hours later, Joy ventured outside the hotel, strolled down two-foot-wide footpaths. Every few doors had a thin table for two outside, set for eating. Men on bicycles, their compact stalls hung with dried, flattened tiny fowl, pigeons maybe, pegged to the thin rack that was neatly attached to the front of their bicycles, rang their bells, whistled, and smiled. She smiled back. They smiled again. Everyone smiled. She managed to walk and take in the sights, even though sleep kept stealing behind her eyes. Eventually she had to give up, but was glad for even this glimpse of a street she had never known, and would never see again.

In the morning she swam, kicking and breathing like a normal person. She had
foo yung
and other assorted dishes for breakfast. She had another walk down the street, and then waited outside in the warming air where the bus would pick her up. The porter was reverently placing offerings in the hotel Buddha’s glass jars. The bus pulled in, and pulled out headed for the airport. She could still see the porter cleaning the rims of the jars.

This time Joy booked on to the plane as if it was a bus. A mere hop. She thought she would count the number of people on the plane, see if there were as many as on those ships, it would give her something to do for ten minutes, maybe fifteen. She was an educated screen watcher by now, could congratulate herself on how good the tailwinds were. She was glad to see Singapore, although people had advised her that she’d be sorry to have taken the two stops. But she had needed two descents from the sky to help her with distance. Singapore puzzled her. Her hotel had no sleeping nor receiving Buddhas. From the twentieth-floor window, it looked like New York without the menace.

‘Hard to beat a good totalitarian state,’ Oscar said, when she telephoned him.

‘But it’s not totalitarian,’ she said.