No Country: A Novel by Kalyan Ray Read Free Book Online

crowd of people already in long, snaking lines. They stoodabout laughing, chatting, smoking clay pipes, and even a jostle did not bring out ill humour.
    They were all for the meeting at Clontarf which, they told me, was a stone’s throw from Dublin harbour. Soon we were being turned away, for the ships were full. The only sour note that struck me was when I heard the angry tones of an old man with his grandson trying to board the ship. “Ye are charging thrice what ye charge for this day’s ferry, and all of us going to our meeting on Boru’s battleground. Are ye not that ashamed, turning a gombeen’s profit on Ireland’s great day itself?” I did not stay to hear the answer, but it was like a drop of ink in a clear bowl of water, its snaky coils invading the surge and joy of the day. We decided instead to walk south to Dublin, and our stream of folks did grow at every village. “Aye, aye,” we would sing out, “we’re for Clontarf and O’Connell!”
    A tall man from Armagh, his green cap at a rakish tilt, shouted, “When the Catholic Emancipation Act was passed, King George was forced to sign it, weeping and raging. His royal blue nose did dribble, his baggy eyes did so drip, he needed brandy with the warm milk.” Hahaha, went our crowd, and the walking grew easier, for the mirth was contagious. “The right honourable Peel had to dry off royal tears with his own kerchief, and such was the quantity, he had to have two of his footmen wring out and hang it on the dozy Queen’s head—which Wellington mistook for garden topiary.” Hahahaha. At the end of the day’s walk, we lay down on the meadows outside Newbridge. We cooked our potatoes in communal fires, sharing willingly with those that had none, and all was joy and cheer under the coming stars.
    I slept fitfully, exultant and troubled, and had a snatch of a dream: I was about to jump off the cliff-face of some high Ben, and a great wind came and swept me off, but taking me in a differentdirection from where I had meant to fly. I stretched out my arms in desperation and found that I was sailing on that contrary blast—whirling away over a vast sea in a direction opposite and away from a red setting sun.
    So vivid was the dream that when I woke with a jolt, I was astonished to find myself on the ground, beaded with dew. I covered my head, curled up, tired and uncomprehending, and fell asleep again and did not wake till dawn.
    •  •  •
    I T SEEMED THAT all the world was descending on Dublin. People streamed in to join us from the harbour at Howth. From the north and from the west, people from Fingal and Maynooth joined our column of walkers, waving festoons. As the groups met, we embraced and threw our caps in the air. Some came with their wives and old ones, and a good number had brought children. On a cart, one family even had a goat which the mother milked; her two small boys dipped their victuals, their faces all shiny with milky streaks.
    People were coming from the south, with great huzzahs, from Kildare, Glendalough, all the way up from Wexford and Waterford, and hardy folks from Wicklow highlands. I could hear a shrill piping somewhere. I had not known what a heady feeling it was to be Irish—no, not in this way, ever before. I felt that a hundred, two hundred years, from today, the Irish across the world would remember this day. They would paint pictures, imagining this scene. And here it was, before me. Soon we were at the edge of Dublin.
    Then we stopped dead.
    A wall of red-coated English soldiers stood between us and Dublin, a sanguine wall. An officer came forward on his horse, and after a moment’s rearing and pawing of the hooves, the beast stood still. The rider cleared his voice to announce that the meeting had been banned, so there would be none at all, not now, not another day. Far down the right and to the left, more red-coat soldiers came forward. We laughed defiantly. And then, the news broke like thunderbolt: our Dan