resting on a banister.
“The swallow,” he told her as if beginning a bedtime story, “takes off when it’s young and flies all around the world. For up to four years it never lands, sailing over South America, Africa, Australia—thousands of miles, the circumference of the earth several times.”
“Does it mate in the air?”
“No, after sowing wild oats in Tierra del Fuego, the swallow settles down to raise a family. Buys a station wagon and gets fat.”
“Thanks,” said Estrin.
While no longer rolled up by dark as it once was, central Belfast was deserted after the pubs closed; their heels rang down the walk.
“Another parable,” said the American, whose voice, cowed by quiet, had gone soft. “A few years ago back in Philadelphia I decided I was sick of my ratty underwear—it was stained, the elastic shot. So I treated myself to, like, the best—in one store, silk, maroon, black lace; as my stack piled down the rack, other customers began to stare at me sidelong. I bought thirty pairs. When I got home I spread them out and not only felt insane, I felt deprived. All I could think about was going out and buying more.”
“You’re obsessive.”
“Not so simple. It’s greed. The same thing happens when I’m not halfway through a meal and I start thinking about a second helping. Or a cassette’s not nearly over and I decide to play it again. It’s a hunger like C. S. Lewis’s magic Turkish delight: the more you eat, the more you want, because you didn’t taste what you had before. When I decide in the middle to play a song again, I stop hearing it the first time. I have a problem with wanting what I’ve already got.
“Anyway, that’s what happens with me and maps,” she explained. “I spread them on the floor like underwear. I no sooner get my butt to Belfast than I start frantic plans to fly to the Soviet Union.”
“Still have the silk drawers?” He raised his eyebrows.
“Nope. After the shopping binge I stopped wearing underwear altogether.”
She couldn’t match his stride, and kept trying different rhythmic combinations, 3:2, 5:3, like solving an equation, and now tangibly hung back. “Listen,” she fumbled. “I don’t do this sort of thing much anymore.”
He stopped and kissed her hair. “Now, what sort of thing might that be?”
“I guess that’s my question.”
“Always in such a rush. Don’t we need something to discuss before we can discuss it?”
“Sorry. You make me nervous. I don’t know why.”
He liked her for the confession. He took her hand, swinging it a little, feeling … content. A mysterious sensation.
Estrin was pleased he led her to Whitewells, old Belfast, one of the last monuments downtown to an era largely expunged in the last twenty years blast by blast. At the corner of Royal Avenue and York Street, its Edwardian opulence put the rest of the town center to shame. The “Belfast Is Buzzing” campaign proudly celebrated a commercial reincarnation not unlike having been born a prince and coming back a sow. The lines of shoe stores and garish plastic marquees may have made locals proud, but they made Estrin feel temporary, trivial; she might have preferred the atmosphere had the shops remained bombed out. Yet only a few chipped stones on the hotel suggested nearby explosions; more than its architecture, what impressed Estrin most as they walked in was that Whitewells was still here.
Not that they got far. Two steps in, they were met by a security façade more imposing than at most airports. While the doorman respectfully recognized “Mr. O’Phelan,” even Farrell laid his jacket on the X-ray belt, walked through the metal detector, and raised his arms to be searched. For the first time in this Province, Estrin’s adorable round cheeks didn’t roll her past the guards. They impounded her can of Mace, and a far more than perfunctory frisk recovered a Phillips screwdriver Estrin had rummaged for all week. They took that, too.
“Jesus,” Estrin exclaimed when they were through. “I’d hate to see what they do to suitcases.”
“Something between homogenization and genetic engineering. If Watson hadn’t discovered DNA, Whitewells would have found it at the door. Best security in all of Europe.” He clapped her delightedly on the shoulder and left for the key.
Estrin sank across the carpet. Security curtained away, only formidable Old World appointments presented themselves. Whitewells was a bulwark of a building, with that airless quiet of a bomb shelter or a bank vault. Even the decor was safe, with conservative furniture, all dark, woody, and green. While oceans crushed the rocks of this island, the fountain here purled coyly: surely water would only wash your face. In Whitewells every element was contained: the fire would never pop beyond its grate, and whatever the powers of earth in this place, they were marshaled entirely for your protection. Estrin was reminded of the feeling of the world when she was a small child, when everything seemed oversized, looming, more real than you. The tables were long and steady, the chairs sturdy and stable, with fat, affectionate arms. Upholstery skirted their formidable square chassés to the floor, like RUC Land Rovers. Wainscoting was so thick you could run into it; the ceilings were corniced, the paintings mostly framed. Grandfather clocks, above ordinary time, were stopped at twelve.
Grazing the lobby, Estrin’s eyes struck Farrell by accident: a few deft strokes from a distance, more sketch than sculpture. And she’d never seen a man whose apparent age could shift so. Joking with the receptionist, he could have been her brother; turning, her father. Both versions were striking, though Farrell had that quality rare in men of not seeming to know how attractive he was.
Joining him in the lift, she could tell they were watched by the way the staff deliberately looked elsewhere.
Later she would notice the lovely room, with no smeary seascapes or little broken coffee machines; for now Estrin could attend only to the bed, rising at her with its big white spread. Despite her nervousness, she felt simple. Hanging her coat, she didn’t mind having nothing to say. She sat on the edge of the bed and took off her boots; allowing her hair to drape on either side of her face, she looked up and smiled.
Farrell slipped off his shoes and stretched on the bed to its foot. He did not reach for her, but closed his eyes and rubbed his face. Estrin massaged his temples. He rested his arms and didn’t touch.
“You know, if you’d like to just sleep, that would be all right,” Estrin offered.
Farrell kept his eyes closed as her fingers moved into his scalp. “Don’t think the old man has it in him?”
“I think you’re tired.”
“Yes,” he said, pulling her closer. “I am shattered.” He was an angular man, but the kiss was acquiescent; he was shaking.
For all her avaricious crackling of maps, at last Estrin Lancaster paused in her gorging of whole foreign countries to remain in a single room, really a small room, in one odd city with one difficult character, but as a result something
