Irish Linen by Andrew M. Greeley

Author:Andrew M. Greeley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2011-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

15

I WENT back to the store where the woman with her big diamond had sold me a camera for my poor Dermot and meself wearing jeans and a Chicago Bears sweatshirt on this lovely spring day. I would begin by purchasing another camera, a less expensive one for Nelliecoyne’s birthday. She recognized me at once and apologized for not knowing that I was the famous singer. I dealt with that the way I usually do and gave her a couple of discs I had packed in my large shoulder bag. She gave me a big discount on the camera, which I had to accept or I would have been rude. I then showed her our picture of Des—the one with the smile.

“He speaks Arabic?” she said dubiously.

“And Eritrean and Ethiopian and a couple of other languages. We suspect he may be trying to learn Aramaic too.”

“God’s language!”

“No, actually God speaks Irish of course, but Jesus and his mother spoke Aramaic.”

We laughed and laughed at that.

“We think so.”

“Why would he go to Iraq, especially at this time?”

“We think he had already planned to go to study languages, perhaps around Mosul or Kirkut, and decided that he wouldn’t let the war discourage him.”

“Well there are many languages there. If he really liked diversity, he could have had a good time, if there wasn’t a war and so many people didn’t hate one another.”

“Whom do the Assyrians hate?”

“Everyone of course, perhaps the Kurds less than others because we are their allies against the Iraqis. It is so much better in this country, you just make mean jokes about them, instead of hating them.”

That morning Mike Casey had called us.

“Well, Nuala Anne, he flew from Chicago to Ankara on Turkish Air and then on to a place called Kars way out on the east end of the country near Russia and Iran. The people there are mostly Kurdish.”

“Suppose our friend wanted to get into Kurdistan inside Iraq,” I asked the Assyrian woman, whose name, I had learned, was Mary. “Could he do it by flying to Kars?”

“Yes, though it would be a long ride through the mountains and he would have to speak a little Farsi, which is a dialect of what the Iranians speak. Could he do that?”

“He might have learned some of it when he was in school.”

“It would be very dangerous.”

“You’ve been to college in this country?”

“Oh yes, I have attended Loyola and in another year or so will graduate. Our parents studied with the Jesuits in Baghdad before they were thrown out of the country. We had to learn to speak English before we came here.”

Her husband came into the store, a giant of a man with a book bag over his shoulder. They kissed the way your typical Yanks don’t in public, creepy Prots that they are.

She introduced me to Joseph, her husband. He bowed respectfully.

“We are honored that we have become your regular camera shop.”

“He’s studying to be a lawyer.”

“Dangerous business,” says I.

“Not as dangerous as in Iraq,” he said with a big smile.

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