Rosewater and Soda Bread (23 page)

The sky was overcast, sifting pensive gray onto the surface of the inlet. There had been a pub on the road a half mile back, but there were no houses around this part of the Bay.

She drove up a narrow lane to the secluded spot, just off the main Beach road. She could clearly see the large dune Estelle had described: it resembled a small hill, covered with pebble trails and pin-tucked coves. It was a place that bore no witnesses, thought Marjan, no one to stop you from your determined mind. A determined mind, Baba Pirooz used to say, was a prerogative as well as a burden.

Most things in life were, thought Marjan.

Noticing a clearing up ahead, she turned in to it and parked the van. The communal parking spot was surrounded by clusters of more oaks, ancient specimens whose branches Druids once slept under. According to Danny Fadden, who in addition to owning the mini-mart on Main Mall was a connoisseur of Celtic lore, the oaks were not merely places for Druids to doze. In those
moments of hibernation, known to last days or even weeks, the Irish seers would command the realms of the dead, commune with the forces beyond, and ask the questions posed by the High Kings of Connaught. Waking to a shower of mistletoe, they would relate the visions they had seen, messages from the underworld and beyond.

She could use a Druid's help, thought Marjan. Someone who could reveal some clues to the girl's origins.

She locked the van, more from habit than from necessity, as the back was empty of its usual load of precious spices, and walked to the edge of the dune. Crossing over patches of stinging nettle, she stepped onto the sand. Directly behind stood Croagh Patrick, a mile away but looming as large as ever.

Marjan had never been this far out on the Bay, so she would be relying entirely on Estelle's directions to guide her forward.

“She curl like a ball beside a bush of grass,” Estelle had said. “I think to myself, My God,
una angela
, she is dead. But she was only fainted. Her breathing so small, almost like nothing.”

Marjan stared up ahead. A choir of darkening sea grass shuddered in the breeze. The bushes jutted out from one side of the dune, which sloped right into the water. All along the dune, clusters of prickly saltwort were asleep to the ardor of carder bees. She glanced back at the clearing where the van sat snug on the gravel before stepping gingerly down the slope.

Chances favored some clues, she told herself; somewhere along this dune there could be a purse or some sort of personal belonging the girl left before stepping into the water. Maybe some keys, a ring, a wallet; less than two weeks had passed since Estelle had found the girl, lying nearly blue with a piece of dark fabric up around her throat; if anything had been left beyond the reach of the waves, it could still be there.

Their only clue to date—the piece of sodden fabric—had
turned out to be a crepe dress, a simple shape with pearl clasp buttons and lilies printed on black in repeating patterns. Washed and dried, and hanging from a hanger in Estelle's living room, the dress gave no more hints than when wet. There were no tags inside to indicate a brand or place of purchase, and were it not for the tiny, regimental stitching along its bodice and hem, Mar-jan would have thought it handmade.

Marjan shivered, thinking of what Dr. Parshaw had said that first night in the hospital: “It was an act of desperation, that is my solemn opinion. The manner in which she tried to terminate indicates this, you understand.”

When Marjan had asked him to explain, the doctor had looked at her with his sad, dark eyes. “It is my opinion that she used a thin, sharp, and very unsanitary instrument. Clothes hangers or similar metal objects have been used before for such actions. Desperation would have driven it, yes?”

Marjan sighed. A clothes hanger. It seemed a horrible choice to have to make.

She looked out on the Bay again, her arms folded. According to Avicenna, there were only two options in the matter of surprise pregnancies, both involving carefully chosen recipes. A woman could either consume ingredients that would strengthen the womb, giving the growing seed the right soil to bloom; or, digesting the philosophy of less being more, she could opt to burn the bud out from its very roots.

Marjan had scoured the
Canon
early that morning, before opening the café. With a cup of bergamot tea in hand, she had gone through the section titled “The Universal Pregnancy Diet.” On the one hand, according to the Persian doctor, eating raisins, sweet quinces, pears, and pomegranates would keep the womb properly bolstered, feeding directly from the mother's intentions to the baby's growing limbs. On the other hand, a steady diet of
fried chickpeas, green beans, and capers, as in a plate of green bean
narcissus
, was bound to induce a shedding of motherly responsibilities.

The
Canons
advice set in motion Marjan's own tumbling conscience.

She had been delivering fortifying stews to the hospital and then to Estelle's cottage every day for the last two weeks, with the idea that they would strengthen the girl and her growing baby. It was the right thing to do, helping the girl toward better health. Anyone would do the same in her position.

Yet, Marjan told herself after reading through the
Canon
, she had not considered the other side of the picture: what if the girl did not want to be fed fortifying stews? What if she did not want her baby and was being forced to eat for two anyway? Marjan hadn't really stopped to think about the hand she was playing in all of this; after all, she could be contributing to a decision that wasn't really hers to make. What would Avicenna say about this situation? she wondered. What choice did she really have in the end?

She reached the other side of the inlet. The water lapped at her shoes and sped away. The dune towered overhead, creating a little cave where the tide could not reach. This was the spot Es-telle had described; this was where she had found the girl, lying facedown in the sand. Yet there was nothing unusual here, nothing left behind. Just water and more sand. Nothing to point to who the girl was, where she had come from. If only she would talk.

Marjan watched as the water foamed and frothed toward her. A girl had come here to kill a part of herself, she told herself. Alone, with no one to help her through her thoughts. Where would she and her sisters be today if there had been no one to help them along? No Gloria or Estelle, no Ballinacroagh to come
home to? Would she even have the luxury of wondering? Or would she be too busy struggling to survive? Marjan thought with a sigh. She would definitely not have the privilege of thinking about her needs, her feelings, had they stayed in Tehran. She would be too busy trying to make ends meet, trying to keep them all alive.

She sighed again, this time louder. From above, the sea grass shook in solemn response. She never wanted to forget how truly lucky they all were, Marjan told herself. To have one another, to have people to love.

THE PUB SAT DIRECTLY across a small dock, on a section of the Bay that was littered with large boulders. There was only one small blue boat tethered to the dock, bobbing in the splashing water. Marjan nosed the van beside the thatched pub and turned off the ignition. She stared at the sign swinging in the wind. The Aulde Shebeen, Inn Keeping with the Sea. It couldn't hurt to ask a few questions, she thought.

The bar seemed empty but for one customer, a man in rain gear conversing with the bartender, but as Marjan made her way up to the counter, she noticed a familiar face in a musty corner: Old Lady Lennon, coddling a large pint of gin and lemonade. A female equivalent to the Cat if ever there was one, the old woman had not been seen in Ballinacroagh since the summer season. Having fallen out with Margaret McGuire in June over the price of a packet of honey-roasted peanuts, she had been banned in all the town's pubs for an indefinite period of rehabilitation. So this was where she had been hiding out, thought Marjan, noticing that the old woman was wearing her customary
navy peacoat and green skullcap, pulled tight over her ears and graying eyebrows.

Marjan approached the bar. The bartender was in the middle of an impassioned discourse, holding a remote control and pointing up to a television on a shelf above the liquor wall.

“Here's the thing, Horse, here's the magic,” he said, turning up the volume on the screen. John Wayne had just pulled Maureen O'Hara kicking and screaming across their cottage yard by her long red hair. A classic scene from the movie
The Quiet Man
, also one of Marjan's favorites.

“Going soft, now, John? A bit of a romantic, eh?” the man at the bar said with a wry smile. “Sure, wouldn't catch you saying so in front of your Maureen, I'd bet.”

The bartender reached up and smoothed his large gingery mustache. “Wouldn't I now? How do you think we spent our wedding night, eh, Horse? That”—he pointed to the television again—“that there is the surest way to get a filly into your bed. Number one aphrodisiac next to a hit up the backside. Mind you, it was my Maureen took a swing to me and not the other way around.”

The other man laughed.

“Excuse me,” Marjan said. Both men turned slowly to face her. The bartender smoothed his mustache once again. “Well, hello there, little lady. What's tickling your palate today?”

“I was wondering if you could help me. I'm looking for someone.”

“Say it's John Neddy and you'd be making my day.” A sound of clicking heels came from behind the bar. Marjan couldn't help but notice the bartender's barrel of a chest: hairy and spangled with several gold medallions, it was held in by a half-buttoned shirt and a tight leather vest.

“I'm looking for someone who may have been a customer. Maybe in the last few weeks?” Marjan described the girl to them. The man on her right kept staring intently at her face, though Marjan only glanced at him once as she spoke.

The bartender shook his head. “Can't help you there. I don't recall any young lass like so coming in recently. Mostly locals that frequent mine. You're not from around here yourself, now?”

Marjan was about to say she was from Ballinacroagh when Neddy's face brightened with recognition.

“Now wait, aren't you that girl with that restaurant? Sure, sure, from the
Connaught
, eh?” He addressed the man drinking beside Marjan. “It's famous, she is!”

“You don't say,” replied the man, his tone tinged with sarcasm.

The bartender grinned. “Got any steak in that place of yours? I like my steak done well.”

“We have something similar. Kebabs.”

“It's not steak.”

Marjan smiled politely. “Are you sure you don't remember anyone coming in, maybe about two weeks ago? Friday, the ninth?”

Neddy caressed his mustache thoughtfully. “Not a drinking customer, that's certain. But if they'd be looking for a room, you'd have to talk to my Maureen about it. She'd be the one that does all the bookings.”

“Is she around?” Marjan gave the barroom another look, ignoring the man sitting on the stool beside her on purpose. There was something in the way he was looking at her that made her feel strangely nervous, as though she were on show for a sale.

Neddy shook his head. “Not in at the moment. She's in Dublin at the Neil Diamond concert.” He whipped out a napkin and placed it on the counter in front of her. “How about a
wet now that you're here? A gal like yourself, now, I'd say would go for shandy on ice.”

Marjan smiled politely. “Thank you, but I really have to keep going. Maybe I'll come back in a couple of days?”

“Anytime, darlin'. John Neddy's the name. Caterin' to the ladies is my game.” Neddy winked at her and puffed out his golden chest once again.

BACK OUTSIDE, Marjan stood for a moment observing the wide expanse of the Bay. Maybe it was a long shot, looking for answers here, but at the moment it was the only lead she and Estelle had. She hoped the girl would start talking soon. Until then, she didn't know what else they could do to help her.

“Are you in any way looking for a cure?”

Marjan turned around. The man from the bar, the customer who had been talking to John Neddy, was standing next to her. She hadn't even heard him come out.