SHIVA By Ian Fisher

If Ira had known the identity of his anonymous benefactor  he might have told R.  in the happy phrase of a le Carre character  to shove it up his smoke and pipe it.

But this was an invitation not even Ira could decline.

Living with R. in Belgravia  Nessa continued to imagine and coproduce Ira’s first ever surprise party. After all  although she knew Ira abhorred parties  what was the risk? The Jesuits had blessed her thirty-eight-year marriage to Ira  father of her only child  but Ira was living alone in his native Canada. Projecting  Ira had taken to calling Nessa: My dear little runaway.

Nessa worried about Ira and prayed for him every day. He was tilting at windmills and not abiding human contact  except with his Miramichi guide. Otherwise  Ira’s shrinking cohort--with whom he interacted only by phone or laptop-comprised Nessa and son Rónin  Ira’s sister in Mon-treal  and two old far-away friends. He presented with paranoia about anti-Semitism and personal health; obsessions with sexual frequency  nostalgia  and death; compulsive viewings of The Sorrow and the Pity; and myriad other neuroses. He had no small talk.

For many years  Ira himself had feared the fate of From the Terrace’s protagonist Raymond Alfred Eaton: prematurely in retirement  friendless  and relegated to the humiliating rôle of factotum.

Ira’s social isolation had begun with the retirements of his business partner and most of his merger-and-acquisition clients  and continued in 2018 with the deaths of his parents and with Rónin’s moving away from home to pursue a PhD. When COVID came  Ira’s life hadn’t changed much at all; as if no longer successfully alive  he had severed the bond of community.

Hello  Mr Fielderer  said Dolly  welcome to Dublin.

Ira was vexed by the three-syllable mispronunciation of  and extra r in  his name: it evoked for him R.’s surname. Dolly also gave an extra syllable to the town  reprising a popular rendition of The Rocky Road to Dublin.

--Hello  he said.
--How was your crossing?
--Grand  said Ira  I’ve almost adjusted to the time zone.
--I have a crow to pluck with you  said Dolly.
--What is it? he said.
--You nevehr called! I waited by the telephone for houhrs  counting by fives.

On the table’s handmade Irish lace and linen tablecloth stood three candelabras  each with six lit maple-scented black candles  and two crystal square decanters. Behind the three seats on the top side of the table (the side to the right of the head of the table  the chair reserved for Ira) was a fireplace  blazing seasoned eucalyptus flown in from San Francisco  with antique rass instruments on both sides of the hearth.

Framed above the mantel  an oil-on-canvas painting: an overcast snowy dusk on the east side of Montreal: a goalie and four other boys--two wearing red  white  and blue Canadiens jerseys and all wearing tuques--playing street hockey  none of their faces visible; power and telephone lines from poles connecting the red-brick and wooden tenement buildings  with their outside balconies and spiral metal fire escapes  on each side of the lane; and three cars parked haphazardly on one side. For Ira  the painting evoked the alleyways of his father’s boyhood. And two of his father’s favourite aphorisms:
--Childhood is the happiest time in life.
--The best places to live are where snow falls

Behind the three seats on the other side of the table were a large upholstered peacock blue chair and adjacent sideboards laden with silver serving dishes. A waiter stood at attention in front of each sideboard.

The floor was hardwood cherry  polished with beeswax. On the emerald paisley Persian rug  behind Ira’s chair a Mandarin duck moved this way and that  of orange and green and purple and black-white  fluttering his feathers and quacking  a long way from New York’s Central Park Pond.

Ducks had been romantic avatars for Nessa and Ira: for decades  he had bought depictions of ducks for her in San Juan  Palm Beach  and Montreal  and Nessa had reciprocated from London.

Ducks of wood  silver  bronze  pewter  crystal  amethyst  porcelain  lapis lazuli. A visit to one of the homes that Ira and Nessa shared over the years was like a trip to a museum of miniature ducks  presented on mantelpieces of fireplaces in New York  Deep River  San Francisco  and Palm Desert. A green and blue duck with red and yellow beak had even adorned the foreground of a framed water-colour of two tigers in repose by a stream in Rónin’s first apartment in Goleta  California.

Ira had not eaten since room service stirabout. So  in the last ninety minutes of his 75th birth-day  he sampled the gamut of the bespoke menu: salad with chunks of iceberg lettuce  heirloom tomatoes  and pepperoncini in balsamic vinaigrette  stuffed turkey with thick giblet gravy  green bean casserole  marinated mushrooms  green pimento olives  capers  and celery  and-for dessert-a small slice of tarte au sucre and fudge-iced brownie baked according to the recipe of Nessa’s Mom. Ira’s tipple was Guinness's Extra Stout.

Not a single one of the seven other guests was as hungry or as thirsty as Ira. And that made perfect sense  of course  since the seven others at table were 3D avatars of Ira’s favourite authors from among the dead.

There came a time when Ira clinked his half-empty glass with the blunt side of his last knife. --Lady and gentlemen  Ira said  I would like to dedicate some words  which I’ve been fretting bout for some time  to someone dear to me who died.

--Get up on your hind legs  old dahrling  said Cliff  and be as impertinent as the occasion demahnds.

--Well  you know  Norm said  he should really remain seated. It’s a tradition of our mythology.

Playing pianissimo was the sombre melody to Bantry Girls Lament. Ira cleared his throat  and began reading from seven pages handwritten meticulously on loose-leaf Midori cotton paper in vintage Sheaffer fountain pen ink of peacock blue  the colour of Pinocchio’s bowtie in the 1940 animation:

He evidenced the cool of Dean Martin  the intelligence of Noam Chomsky  and the heart of Don Quijote de la Mancha. In his time  which lasted a long time  this gentle man could engage as easily with heads of state  stars of stage  and captains of commerce as he could with doormen and drivers and stevedores. He evoked urban class  from an era of cigarettes  nightclubs  and hats.

--Ahh  splendid night  said Will in a whisper to Clevie  seated to Will’s right  this is a splendid summer night. It is a night where The Dahgda in emerald cape rides Ocean over the slieves to the Unshim River in Corahnn.

--I do not share your optimistic transcendence  said Clevie  adjusting the frame of his tinted glasses  dreams you know are what you wake up from. Life is bad luck  failure  brooding  and profound depression. So  it’s not easy; things do not work out. The fact is  that time is short and the water is rising.

. . forcing us to scramble for accommodations when the hotel relinquished our rooms to the travelling entourage for The Beach Boys. After a secretary interrupted that afternoon’s negotiations with news she had been able to track down and secure a single room  I breathed a sigh.

--I discovered the bluezh  said Freddie to Norm  on Freddie’s left  listening to Nobody in Town Can Bake a Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine  which I bought for a nickel  and I played it twenty-two straight timezh. You sing the bluezh cuzh thatzh a way of understanding life.

--Well  you know  Norm said  you gotta earn the right to sing the blues  uhh? They fit in when-ever the heart is full enough and  you know  the heart is willing. It’s not really my tradition  but I love it.

. . . And because he expected the work to be perfect  he expected you to stand your ground in its defence. That is merely one of the myriad lessons he taught me and others privileged to know him well. He was self-assured  equal parts strict and fair  and he led with excellence. He had cachet; he had panache; and  underneath all that style  he 
Murray  sotto voce  complimented Norm on his famous blue raincoat and small-brim wool-felt fedora: Snazzy  what I used to call snazzy. Heh-heh. People still say snazzy?

--Thank you very much  said Norm  I think they do.

--Norm  from Norman. English  probably  or possibly German  said Murray  how’s your ancient German? Northman? Norseman? Then Old French. Some of your namesakes settled about twenty kilometres east of here in Howth.

--First we take Manhattan  said Norm  then we take Dublin.
. . and join me in this toast of words written by the enigmatic scribbler who immortalised this very House of the Dead

No sound of strife disturb his sleep!
Calmly he rests: no human pain
Or high ambition spurs him now
The peaks of glory to attain.

--Ahh  splendid  Ira  said Will  a lapidary encomium of inestimable grandeur.
Earlier  at the rising of the moon  Nessa stood seven hundred metres east away  along the Liffey in Merchant’s Quay  lighting candles at Adam and Eve’s. But her mind  too full of memories  was 1 240 kilometres and forty-six years away. ]

---This is Ira’s party  not mine  she thought  and besides  I’ve booked myself into The Gresham too.

Well past midnight  after all other guests had faded away (Ira himself had overheard at least eleven good-nights and several solicitous let’s-do-this-agains)  Norm  Ira  and Dolly lingered at table.

--You know  Ira  said Norm  I was a great fan of your Dad’s. Ever since St Patrick’s Day 1955. He was an embrocation against boredom.

--The Richard Riot  said Ira  part of Dad’s legend. He was a great fan of yours too  you know  and because of that  around the time of my bar mitzvah  I became a fan of your work as well.

--I always wanted to be paid for my work but I didn’t want to work for pay  said Norm  there are certain private obsessions that really determine what your life is. A lot of mine was concerned in turning out a certain standard of work. It was fitting that my friend Gabriel performed at your Dad’s funeral.

--Yes  Ira said  but did you hear that we asked Gabriel to sing Hallelujah and he refused: he said it was not liturgical.

--That’s unfortunate  said Norm.
--Ira  said Dolly  I have another crow to pluck with you. I didn’t much caihr for one of your guests.
--Which one? said Ira.
--The one in the wheelchair  she said  Cliff.--Why not? he said.
--The old four-eyed rogue didn’t engage with me before you arrived. And during dinner  of course  he sat at the tap end. But when he bade me good-night  he tilted his head  licked his lips from left to right  and slurred: I suppose a fuck’s out of the question?

The beginnings of a memory bubbled up in Ira’s brain: a post-midnight stroll  an improvisation  in Z-- rich in the rare auld times with Nessa  who on that night could have been the twin of Graciebird Kelly in Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW. Ira stood up and said:
--Well  it’s been marvellous. Thank you both for coming. But I have a breakfast meeting at The Gresham in a few hours with my Howth hostess and my favourite ghillie. I was led to believe this was a fishing trip; that’s how they got me here. About three decades ago  I spent a cold rainy day lake-fishing with him; five years later I fished with him again  that time on a river. He invited me to stay with him the next time I visited. And this is the next time.

--Good-night  Ira  said Norm  tight lines.

--Good-night  said Ira  I doubt that we shall meet again.

--O  do you really think so? said Norm  how little you know of spirituality. But it’s clear that it’s only catastrophe that encourages people to make a change.

--You have a lot of wisdom to share  said Ira  are you a religious man?

--I have no religious aptitude  said Norm  I don’t have that gift: I failed as a monk.
Thank G-d. -- Good-night  Dolly  said Ira.
--Beannacht libh  Ira  said Dolly.

Moments later  Ira stood in the ground floor foyer of the four-storey dim grim Georgian. From upstairs  he heard music. Gazing up  he faced the shadowed figure of Dolly  her left hand on the banister of the landing. Wistful. Winsome.

Norm was playing the old square piano in the back room and singing of love: it sounded like a lay funeral hymn. In a voice of gravel and green  Norm mourned about old ghosts meeting on a quiet street.

==Dolly  shall we? Ira interrupted the lamentation from the foot of the staircase  let’s you and I walk out in the snow along by the river and through Phoenix Park.

Dolly’s hazel-emerald eyes glittered as she descended towards Ira.

He turned away and opened the inner door to the vestibule and took several steps towards the front door. Under the entryway bench  a pair of galoshes. Ira opened the street door to the pure cold air of early morning  and waited for Dolly to step outside in front of him.

An ebony cab drawn by two Friesian stallions with black plumes and reins grasped by an old coachman in silk top hat and black uniform  flanked by two lanterns  was parked at the curb  blocking the droichead: on the carriage side  in gilt lettering  Willoughby & Son. The coachman looked down from his seat  tipped his hat  and said:--Room for just one inside  Sir.

Then  of a sudden  as Dolly crossed the threshold a snowflake touched her simulacrum and she disappeared. And Ira was alone.

Ineffably happy--from memories of Dickens’s Dr Alexandre Manette recalled to life  and from sighting the corporeal Nessa lingering under a snow-tufted lamplight in her buttoned and belted ivory wool/cashmere coat--Ira replied:--Thank you  but I’d rather walk.