“Nor do I, Gooseen.” He unpins my hat and lifts it off, the better to kiss my neck and unbutton me from my clothes.
Onward
Trieste
OCTOBER 20, 1904
JIM SCRIBBLES ALL THE WAY TO TRIESTE ON THE TRAIN—HIS story set in Dublin about a man called Stephen Dedalus—and I look out at the scenery that’s better even than a moving picture. The mountains are steeper than those in Connemara and blacker, and the lakes are so flat and glassy it’s like you could walk across them. I keep calling out to Jim to look at this wooden house and that snowy peak, but once he’s into the writing, he goes off to another place and can barely hear me.
Once more, on landing in the town of Trieste, Jim escorts me through an echoing train station to a park. We have only our suitcase now—Herr Döblin at the Hoffnung in Zürich agreed to mind our trunk.
“Why must I wait in a park again, Jim?” I whine.
“It’s best if I go to the Berlitz school alone.” He jiggles his hands in his pockets. “Who would have guessed when we left Dublin that we’d end up in Austria, Nora?” he says, his tone light.
I turn my head from him in a sulk. “Are you embarrassed to be seen with me, Jim Joyce?”
He sits beside me. “You know that’s nonsense, Nora. It’s just that the school is not expecting a married man, so I have to ease the way, that’s all.”
“Well, you have no wife, Jim, do you?” I want to rile him.
“You know exactly what I mean, Gooseen.”
“I suppose,” I say. “At least go and buy me a bit of bread before you disappear, to stop my stomach eating itself.”
Jim does as I ask, then goes off to the school. I gobble the bread and sit on my bench. A sailor walks by and stares at me and I pull my glance from his. Back he comes and points at his chin.
“What?” I say harshly, hoping my tone will get rid of him. He points again at his face then at mine.
“Pane,” he says. “Bröt.”
What is he saying? I shake my head vigorously to dismiss him but once more his finger jolts forward; it mustn’t be rude to point at a stranger where he comes from. I swipe at my chin with one glove and a large crumb of bread comes away on it; I flick it to the ground. The sailor smiles and I nod my thanks, but I don’t return his smile for he may think I want to encourage him. He frightens me a little, his eyes are needy and sharp. I turn my head away and am glad when he walks off. I watch him go and shift myself on the hard bench for my legs and behind are getting numb.
The hours tick by and no Jim. I watch the shadows of the trees slither and change. No Jim. I observe birds hurry from branch to branch and hear their trills and calls that are like conversations and I long to open my own beak and join in, though my song would be a lonely lament. Still no Jim. I say a Hail Mary, muttering the Latin words the way Granny did, and the nuns in the convent, too: “Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum.” I repeat the prayer three times in a row, thinking I can make a charm of it and that, on the third go, Jim’ll walk through the gate. But, no, there’s no Jim.
The air grows cool and dusk descends. I want to cry, but the tears won’t get past my fear of this strange place and the bigger fear that Jim won’t return to me at all. I’m a woman alone in a strange land and anything might happen to me. Men come to the park to stroll and smoke and talk; some gawk at me like nosy children and I keep my face forward, trying to look as if I’ve just arrived to the park and mean to leave shortly. I’m so busy ignoring the men that I don’t see Jim when he finally dashes up beside the bench, making me jump like a scalded rat.
“Mother of God,” I yelp, but I throw myself into his arms. “Where in heaven’s name were you, Jim? Don’t leave me like this again.” And then I notice the sorry state of him, he’s wretched. “You look terrible, Jim, where were you all those hours?”
“Oh, Nora, you’d scarcely believe where I was if I told you.” His eyes hop wildly in his head. “I was arrested, Nora,” he says.
I snort. “Ah now, don’t be codding me.”
“I swear on my mother May Murray’s grave,” he says. “I saw three English sailors falling drunk around the Piazza Grande and a carabiniere was shouting at them and they couldn’t understand. So, obligingly, I stepped in to mediate for the sailors. The policeman—clever shite—asked me to go with him and the Englishmen to the station to interpret for them and that, Nora, is where Aughrim was lost.”
“He threw you in a cell!”
“Sì, Nora. Esattemente!”
“Oh Jim.”
He pushes his hand through his hair. “They summoned the British consul at my request and he was a typical specimen of that breed: accused me of being a criminal. ‘I am a Bachelor of Arts of the University of Ireland,’ I said to him. ‘I am a teacher of English at the Berlitz school!’ Eventually he saw sense but the little slieveen was snotty as bedamned. They’re a cold race, the English, Nora, no mistake.”
“Such a scrape, my love.” I take his fingers in mine and ask what I most want to know. “And what news of your job, Jim? Are we set up with a room?”
He rubs my hands and sighs. “There’s no work in Trieste, either, Nora. I’ve been duped again, curse the lot of them.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” The bread I ate goes to clots in my stomach; I bless myself. Oh, what will happen to us now?
“Stouten your heart, Gooseen. A man named Artifoni who works at the school means to help us. He’s a decent fellow, he felt sorry for me, I think, and took me aside to talk and I confessed we were two and that we’re unwed. Artifoni says we must say we’re married, everywhere we go, to avoid upset.”
“We will so, Jim, if that’s what needs to be done.” I twist the wedding band on my finger and feel a small push of hope. Perhaps the lie will take root and we’ll soon be properly wed.
“Artifoni says he’ll send me to Pola; he guarantees me a Berlitz job there, though the spokespersons for that school are slippery as eels, as we’ve seen. Artifoni told me of a boardinghouse we can go to tonight.”
“And where’s Pola, Jim?”
“Seventy or so miles beyond here, my darling.”
My gut bubbles. “It seems we’ll never find our settle-spot.” I look at him and realize all I can do is trust him, for what choice do I have? I’m at his mercy. “Well, Jim, what’s seventy-odd miles when we’ve come so far?” I say cheerfully, though my insides are curdled.
Jim stands and offers me his arm; he hikes up the suitcase with his free hand. “Good girl. We won’t worry, Nora. We’ll be right in no time, I promise you.”
Arrival
Pola
OCTOBER 1904
WE ARRIVE TO POLA ON A BOAT, THE SUITCASE GAPING AND bulging with dirty clothes for it has to hold Jim’s things as well as my own—not that we have much; we’re missing the trunk left behind in Zürich—Jim for his notes and papers about the Dublin book that he’s writing, me for a change of clothes. Sure, even if we had the trunk, we’d have had to break the lock, for Stannie has not yet sent on the key that Jim so cleverly left behind in his pappie’s house. Is it any wonder I sometimes style him Simpleminded Jim?