Peter crouched behind a dumpster, peering across the darkened street at the white Honda Civic idling beneath a street lamp. Davila was right on time. Scanning for traffic, Peter sprinted toward the car, slowing to cantor as he neared. It was old and rusty, late 1990s probably. Davila sat alone behind the wheel. He opened the creaky front passenger door and slipped in beside her. The car's interior looked even worse.
"It took you ten hours to get this?"
"At least it's clean," said Davila.
"It smells like rotten fish to me."
"That's not what I meant."
"Should I ask how you got it?"
"Don't."
From a duffel bag in the back seat, Davila took an old GPS navigation device and mounted it to the windshield. As they drove out from London, she outlined her plan. They would take the M40 west to the Welsh Port of Fishguard then drive onto the 2:40 a.m. ferry bound for Rosslare, Ireland. Once in Ireland, they would continue west to the coastal village of Smerwick, where the Barshman brothers ostensibly still lived. A hasty internet search for the Barshmans of Ireland had produced nothing.
"Don't we need ID to get on the ferry?" asked Peter.
"That's what took me so long. There's a Canadian passport in the duffel bag. Memorize it and come up with plausible stories for each of the visa stamps. If anyone asks, you're staying at my flat in London's Shoreditch neighborhood. After that, let me do the talking."
As they drove through the night, Peter made light conversation to help Davila stay alert, furtively gathering bits and pieces of her story. By the time they neared the Port of Fishguard, he had assembled a rough picture of the Israeli sitting to his right.
She was actually born in Spain, her mother's homeland. Her father, an Israeli Jew, had been a career officer in the Israel Defense Forces, the IDF. She too had been an IDF soldier, and based on her skill with weapons, it had been more than just compulsory service. Later, she studied archaeology at Tel Aviv University. It was this unique skillset that landed her a job with the Robberies Prevention Unit, a law enforcement arm of the Israel Antiquities Authority based out of Jerusalem.
Once on board the ferry, Davila retreated to the small private berth she had purchased. She refused to join Peter on deck, lest she catch sight of the open sea. It was a minor phobia, she said, a benign side effect of a youth spent in the mountains of northern Spain. Peter left her alone and found himself joining the scattered band of insomniacs wandering the ship's many lounges and decks.
They arrived in Rosslare a little after six in the morning. Refreshed by her three-hour slumber, Davila again took the wheel. Peter slept in the passenger seat, now and then opening his eyes to a blur of silver sky and fields of green.
A pothole jostled him awake. The windshield wipers slapped at a light rain. They were on a narrow country road hemmed in by dense shrubs. Peter lowered his window and took a breath of the damp salt air. It was neither cold nor warm. He squinted through the windshield at an approaching sign. "What language is that?"
"Irish Gaelic. The English language signs ended a few clicks back."
The hedges fell away, and before them spread a quilt of variegated green, stitched together by low stone walls, dotted here and there with sheep and cows.
The road crested a rise then dropped down to a hidden bay rimmed with white sand, the sea ruffled and gray. They traced a clockwise arc along its shore then veered left as the road climbed toward a sudden horizon. Beyond lay the open Atlantic.
The GPS directed them to a cluster of houses, barns, and outbuildings that comprised the village of Smerwick. But the old stone house from the photo was nowhere to be seen.
They parked in front of a modern two-story home fringed with a well-tended garden. Getting out, they hurried through the drizzle and knocked on the front door. When no one answered, they went around back to an open-air shed.
They were greeted by the sour smell of manure and the diminutive form of a stooped old man wearing greasy coveralls and a threadbare wool cap. As he sized them up, he gnawed on an unlit tobacco pipe.
"Are ye lost?" he said. The pipe made his thick brogue even harder to understand.
Davila stepped forward. "We're looking for the village of Smerwick."
"Ye found it. Now, come ye out of the weather." He led them beneath shed's corrugated metal roof.
"We're sorry to trespass like this," she said.
"Ah, it'll be grand. How can I help ye?"
Peter wiped a lick of wet hair from his forehead. "We're trying to find the Barshman residence. Do you know where it is?"
The old man's gnawing ceased abruptly, and his dark eyes studied Peter's face. "Are ye kin?"
"I am. My name's Peter Barshman. I'm from the U.S. And this is Neâ"
"Nechama," she said with that harsh back-of-the-throat sound peculiar to Hebrew.
The old man doffed his cap and gave her a little bow. "Me name's Eamon, Eamon Sartorius, and this is me farm ye're wandering about."
"We're truly sorry," said Peter.
Again, old Eamon studied Peter's face. Then pulling the pipe from his mouth, he wagged the stem by his ear. "Aye. I knew I was after seeing you."
"Wait, what?"
He jabbed the stem at Peter's chest. "You. You and your father, the both of ye."
"I don't think so. I've never even been to Ireland before."
A pained expression clouded Eamon's face. "Ach. That was years ago, it was. My apologies." He donned his cap and inserted the pipe back into his mouth. "Now, what can I do for ye?"
Peter showed Eamon the photo he had rescued from William Fitzimmin's office. "We're looking for the Barshman brothers, this house."
Eamon nodded. "We've been expecting kin to arrive."
"What do you mean?"
"Come. I should be showing ye the way." He grabbed an oilskin jacket hanging on a nearby hook and led them out into the bright, feathery drizzleâa glorious soft day he called it. They walked a dirt road that traversed the steeply rising land. As Eamon stumbled over the uneven ground, Peter and Davila reached out to help him. But each time they tried, he would shoo them away with a muttered curse.
At last, Eamon came to a stop and pointed the stem of his pipe at a patch of scorched heath. Nearing it, they could see blackened stones and the remnants of a wall. Nothing else remained.
"What happened? Where's the house?" said Peter.
Eamon gathered his breath. "I thought ye knew. It was a frightful burn. Six months ago, it was."
Davila picked up a baseball-sized chunk of stone that had rolled clear of the ruins. One side was rusty red, as if it had been fired in a kiln. "Did the Barshman brothers live here?"
"That's the tragedy. They lived in Cork, what with yer man's medical condition. But they came on holidays, mostly in summer. They were just a day or two after arriving when the place burned to the ground."
"They were inside? What happened to them?" asked Peter.
Eamon frowned. "Didn't you come to claim the land? They perished in the flames, God have mercy on their souls."
___________________________
Author's note:
Thank you for reading Chapter 24!
Dedicated to @SallyMason1 who traveled all the way to Ireland to gather intelligence for this chapter (well, actually, she was already there.) Still, the lovely pictures and the advice on local mannerisms and speech really helped. Thanks!
If you're fortunate enough to visit Ireland, don't miss the southwest coast (esp. county Kerry). The people are lovely, and the land and its history captivating.
-Frode
Image: Smerwick Cliffs. Courtesy of Martin Schlobach
https://www.flickr.com/photos/105028725@N06/