Cathedral (40 page)

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Hickey shook the hand of the last man, a big flakjacketed ESD man with a shotgun. "God be with you tonight, lad. I hope our next meeting is under happier circumstances."

Langley said impatiently, "Can we go now?"

Hickey said, "Lead on, Inspector." He fell into step with Langley and Spiegel. The three ID men followed. Hickey said, "You should have introduced those men to me. You ignored them-ignored their humanity. How can you get people to follow you if you treat them like jackstraws?"

Langley wasn't quite sure what a jackstraw was, and in any case chose not to answer.

Hickey went on. "In ancient days combatants would salute each other before battle. And a man about to be executed would shake his executioner's hand or even bless him to show mutual respect and compassion. It's time we put war and death on a personal basis again."

Langley stopped at a modern wooden door. "Right." He looked at Hickey.

"This is the press room."

Hickey said, "Never been on television before. Do I need makeup?"

Langley motioned to the three ID men, then said to Hickey, "Before I take you in there, I have to ask you if you're armed."

"No. Are you?~'

Langley nodded to one of the men who produced a metal detector and waved the wand over Hickey's body.

Hickey said, "You may find that British bullet I've been carrying in my hip since '21."

The metal detector didn't sound, and Langley reached out and pushed open the door. Hickey entered the room, and the sounds of- conversation died abruptly. The press conference area below the sacristy was a long, light-paneled room with an acoustical tile ceiling. Several card tables were grouped around a long central conference table. Camera and light connections hung from trapdoors in the ceiling. Hickey looked slowly around the room and examined the faces of the people looking at him.

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A reporter, David Roth, who had been elected the spokesman, rose and introduced himself. He indicated a chair at the head of the long table.

Hickey sat.

Roth said, "Are you Brian Flynn, the man who calls himself Finn MacCumail?"

Hickey leaned back and made himself comfortable. "No, I'm John Hickey, the man who calls himself John Hickey. You've heard of me, of course, and before I'm through you'll know me well enough." He looked around the table. "Please introduce yourselves in turn."

Roth looked a bit surprised, then introduced himself again and pointed to a reporter. Each man and woman in the press room, including, at Hickey's request, the technicians, gave his name.

Hickey nodded pleasantly to each one. He said, "I'm sorry I kept you all waiting. I hope my delay didn't cause the representatives of the governments involved to leave."

Roth said, "They won't be present."

Hickey feigned an expression of hurt and disappointment. "Oh, I see. .

. . Well, I suppose they don't want to be seen in public with a man like me." He smiled brightly. "Actually, I don't want to be associated with them either." He laughed, then produced his pipe and lit it. "Well, let's get on with it, then."

Roth motioned to a technician, and the lights went on. Another technician took a light reading near Hickey's face while a woman approached him with makeup. Hickey pushed her away gently, and she moved off quickly.

Roth said, "Is there any particular format you'd like us to follow?"

"Yes. I talk and you listen. If you listen without nodding off or picking your noses, I'll answer questions afterward."

A few reporters laughed.

The technicians finished the adjustments in their equipment, and one of them yelled, "Mr. Hickey, can you say something so we can get a voice reading?"

"Voice reading? All right, I'll sing you a verse from 340

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'Men Behind the Wire,' and when I'm through, I want the cameras on. I'm a busy man tonight." He began to sing in a low, croaky voice.

"Through the little streets of Belfast

In the dark of early morn,

British soldiers came marauding

Wrecking little homes with scorn.

Heedless of the crying children,

Dragging fathers from their beds,

Beating sons while helpless mothers

Watch the blood flow from their heads---"

"Thank you, Mr. Hickey----~'

Hickey sang the chorus

"Armored cars, and tanks and guns

Came to take away our sons

But every man will stand behind

The men behind the wii-rel"

"Thank you, sir."

The camera light came on. Someone yelled, "On the air!"

Roth looked into the camera and spoke. "Good evening. This is David-"

Hickey's singing came from off camera:

"Not for them a judge or jury,

Or indeed a crime at all.

Being Irish means they're guilty,

So we're guilty one and a-III-"

Roth looked to his right. "Thank you-2'

"Round the world the truth will echo,

Cromwell's men are here again.

England's name again is sullied

In the eyes of honest me-nnn-"

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Roth glanced sideways at Hickey, who seemed to have finished. Roth looked back at the camera. "Good evening, I'm David Roth, and we're broadcasting live . . . as you can see . . . from the press room of Saint Patrick's Cathedral. Not too far from where we now sit, an undisclosed number of IRA gunmen-"

"Fenians!" yelled Hickey.

"Yes . . . Fenians . . . have seized the Cathedral and hold four hostages: Cardinal-"

"They know all that!" shouted Hickey.

Roth looked upset. "Yes . . . and with us tonight is Mr. John Hickey, one of the . . . Fenians . . . ...

"Put the camera on me, Jerry," said Hickey. "Over here-that's right."

Hickey smiled into the camera and began, "Good evening and Happy Saint Patrick's Day. I am John Hickey, poet, scholar, soldier, and patriot."

He settled back into his chair. "I was bom in 1905 or thereabouts to Thomas and Mary Hickey in a small stone cottage outside of Clonakily in County Cork. In 1916, when I was a wee lad, I served my country as a messenger in the Irish Republican Army. Easter Monday, 1916, found me in the beseiged General Post Office in Dublin with the poet Padraic Pearse, the labor leader James Connolly, and their men, including my sainted father, Thomas. Surrounding us were the Irish Fusiliers and the Irish Rifles, lackeys of the British Army."

Hickey relit his pipe, taking his time, then went on. "Padraic Pearse read a proclamation from the steps of the Post Office, and his words ring in my ears to this day." He cleared his throat and adopted a stentorian tone as he quoted: " 'Irishmen and Irishwomen-in the name of God and the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for freedom.' "

Hickey went on, weaving a narrative blend of history and fancy, facts and personal prejudices, interjecting himself into some of the more famous events of the decades following the Easter Monday rebellion.

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Most of the reporters leaned forward in interest; some looked impatient or puzzled.

Hickey was serenely unaware of them or of the cameras and lights. From time to time he would mention the Cathedral to keep everyone's interest piqued, then would swing into a long polemic against the British and American governments or the governments of the divided Ireland, always careful to exclude the people of these lands from his wrath.

He spoke of his sufferings, his wounds, his martyred father, his dead friends, a lost love, recalling each person by name. He beamed as he spoke of his revolutionary triumphs and frowned as he spoke darkly of the future of an Ireland divided. Finally he yawned and asked for a glass of water.

Roth took the opportunity to ask, "Can you tell us exactly how you seized the Cathedral? What are your demands? Would you kill the hostages and destroy the Cathedral if-"

Hickey held up his hand. "I'm not up to that part yet, lad. Where was I?

Oh, yes. Nineteen hundred and fifty-six. In that year the IRA, operating from the south, began a campaign against the British-occupied six counties of the North. I was leading a platoon of men and women near the Doon Forest, and we were ambushed by a whole regiment of British paratroopers backed by the murderous Royal Ulster Constabulary." Hickey went on.

Langley watched him from the corner, then looked around at the news people. They seemed unhappy, but he suspected that John Hickey was doing better with the public than with the media. Hickey had a hard-driving narrative style . . . a simplicity and almost crudenesssweating, smoking, and scratching-not seen on television in a long time.

John Hickey-sitting now in fifty million American living rooms-was becoming a folk hero. Langley would not have been surprised if someone told him that outside on Madison Avenue vendors were hawking John Hickey Tshirts.

343

Brian Flynn stood near the altar and watched the television that had been placed on the altar.

Maureen, Father Murphy, and Baxter sat in the clergy pews, watching and listening silently. The Cardinal sat nearly immobile, staring down at the television from his throne, his fingertips pressed together.

Flynn stood in silence for a long while, then spoke to no one in particular. "Long-winded old man, isn't he?"

Maureen looked at him, then asked, "Why didn't you go yourself, Brian?"

Flynn stared at her but said nothing.

She leaned toward Father Murphy and said, "Actually, Hickey seems an effective speaker." She paused thoughtfully. "I wish there were a way to get this kind of public platform without doing what they've done."

Murphy added as he watched the screen, "He's at least venting the frustrations of so many Irishmen, isn't he?"

Baxter glanced at them sharply. "He's not venting anyone's frustrations-he's inflaming some long-cooled passions. And I think he's embellishing and distorting it a bit, don't you?" No one answered, and he went on. "For instance-if he'd been ambushed by a regiment of British paras, he wouldn't be here to talk about it-"

Maureen said, "That's not the point-"

Flynn overheard the exchange and looked at Baxter. "Harry, your chauvinism is showing. Hail Britannia! Britannia rules the Irish.

Ireland-first outpost of Empire and destined to be the last."

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Baxter said to Flynn, "The man's a bloody demagogue and charlatan."

Flynn laughed. "No, he's Irish. Among ourselves we sometimes tolerate a poetic rearrangement of facts mutually understood. But listen to the man, Harry-you might learn a thing or two."

Baxter looked at the people around him-Maureen, Murphy, Flynn, the Fenians

. . . even the Cardinal. For the first time he understood how little he understood.

Megan Fitzgerald walked up to the sanctuary and stared at the television screen.

Hickey, in the tradition of the ancient seanachies, interrupted his narrative to break into song:

"Then, here's to the brave men of Ireland. At home or in exile away; And, here's to the hopes of our sire land, That never will rust or decay. To every brave down-trodden nation, Here's liberty, glorious and bright. But, Oh! Let our country's salvation, Be toasted the warmest, to-niiight!"

Megan said, "Bloody old fool. He's making a laughingstock of us ranting like that." She turned to Flynn. "Why the hell did you send him?"

Flynn looked at her and said softly, "Let the old man have his day, Megan.

He deserves this after nearly seventy years of war. He may be the world's oldest continuously fighting soldier." He smiled in a conciliatory manner.

"He's got a lot to tell."

Megan's voice was impatient. "He's supposed to tell them that the British are the only obstacle to a negotiated settlement here. I've a brother rotting in Long Kesh, and I want him free in Dublin come morning."

Maureen looked up at her. "And I thought you were here only because of Brian."

Megan wheeled around. "Shut'your damned mouth!"

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Maureen stood, but Father Murphy pulled her quickly into the pew.

Flynn said nothing, and Megan turned and strode off.

Hickey's voice blared from the television. The Cardinal sat motionless staring at some point in space. Baxter looked away from everyone and tried to filter out Hickey's voice, concentrating on the escape plan. Father Murphy and Maureen watched the screen intently. Flynn watched also, but his thoughts, like Baxter's, were elsewhere.

John Hickey took out a flask and poured a dark liquid into his water glass, then looked up at the camera. "Excuse me.

Heart medicine." He drained off the glass and let out a sigh. "That's better. Now, where was I? Right-1973-"

He waved his arms. "Oh, enough of this. Listen to me, all of you! We don't want to hurt anyone in this Cathedral.

We don't want to harm a Prince of the Roman Church-a holy man-a good man-or his priest, Father Murphy a lovely man. . . ." He leaned forward and clasped his hands together.."We don't want to harm one single altar or statue in this beautiful house of God that New York ers-Americans-love so dearly. We're not barbarians or pagans, you know."

He held his hands out in an imploring gesture. "Now listen to me. . . ."

His voice became choked, and tears formed in his eyes. "All we want is another chance for the young lives being wasted in British concentration camps. We're not asking for the impossible-we're not making any irresponsible demands. No, we're only asking-beggingbegging in the name of God and humanity for the release of Ireland's sons ano daughters from the darkness and degradation of these unspeakable dungeons."

He took a drink of water and stared into the camera. "And who is it who have hardened their hearts against us?" He thumped the table. "Who is it who'll not let our people go?" Thumpl "Who is it that by their unyielding policy endangers the lives of the people in this great Cathedral?" He pounded the table with both fists. "The bloody fucking British-thaes who!"