Free City of Hope by Kate Kerrigan Page A

went on, and on, and on. Most I recognized, some I did not. Every one of them stopped and spoke to us in turn. “John was a wonderful neighbor,” “I fought with him in the GPO—a hero,” “How shall you live without him?,” “We’ll miss him.”
    I shut down. I did not have room to absorb all their grief, when I could not even accommodate my own. Maidy was strengthened by their friendship, their goodwill. I could see her all but swell with gratitude at their kind words. I felt diminished by them. As the line went on, I felt such an exhaustion wash over me that I thought I might fall asleep in the hard chair. The room was hot, and by the time the last mourners came, it was all I could do to hold out my limp hand and nod politely.
    The crowd moved on to the church, but there were enough besides to line the streets four deep as Maidy and I, the most meager funeral party Kilmoy had ever seen, walked behind the coffin up the road. Padraig Phelan and five other uniformed men from John’s old IRA unit carried it. They were all big men, but had grunted as they lifted the ornate mahogany box from its stand up onto their wide shoulders. John was in there. John was in the box. I swallowed hard. How much longer would this take? An hour, two? I thought of my black shoes pinching the corners of my feet, of the gravel on the road beneath their thin leather soles, of the fresh air, breathing in deeply—at last!—and each breath glued my spirit together, tightening the screws on my dignity and decorum, girding me against the pity and the curiosity of the crowd. All eyes were on us.
    â€œNo children,” I heard somebody say.
    â€œA double tragedy.”
    The men struggled up the steep hill toward the church. People, more people. I had become used to them now. Talk rustled through them gently, like wind through foliage. They were as inescapable as the hedgerows that lined our fields keeping the cattle in, delineating what belonged to whom. John belonged to Maidy and me alone, they were meaningless to me. I gripped Maidy’s arm and felt her weight against me as she struggled up the hill. The crowds outside the church moved aside for us, and inside it was packed to capacity. One empty pew at the front was clear, for “the family,” our privileged sanctuary from the jostling elbows of the shuffling, coughing congregation, an empty stage on which to display our howling grief or maintain our stoic dignity. How could I do anything other than act, with so many people watching me? How could I believe that this drama and pomp were really happening—that John was really dead?
    The service was short. Padraig spoke briefly about John’s great bravery during the war, and Maidy and I followed the coffin again out of the church to the graveyard. Maidy sobbed and I held her firmly, as I had after Paud’s funeral. I imagined that it was Paud in the box and that John was walking solemnly behind us.
    The crowds receded again as we stood by the grave and said the Sorrowful Mysteries, Hail Marys rising up from the crowd toward heaven as the men balanced the coffin on its rope hoist. I looked into the hole beneath it. Dry earth. Mud.
    Liam, the smallest, youngest man among them, struggled to hold the rope steady. There were beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. He had called me out to the scene of John’s shooting when he was no more than a boy. With a flash of clarity, it hit me. It was John in the box. He was locked in the coffin and they were going to bury him in the ground. John was alive! I had seen him breathing! As they lowered the box, I let out an almighty howl.
    â€œAshes to ashes, dust to dust.” The priest threw a handful of earth down on the coffin. With its dull thump, I threw myself forward and shouted, “No, no—you can’t do this! He’s alive—John’s still alive!”
    I ran to the very edge of the grave and would have climbed