The Heart's Invisible Furies

by John Boyne

“We’ll go to our lodgings and then for a bite to eat. I’ve had nothing but a sandwich all day and I could devour a small Protestant if someone was to pour a little gravy over his head.”

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“I was denounced from the pulpit,” said my mother. “The parish priest called me a whore.” “Those fellas have no more sense than a wooden spoon,” said Mrs. Hennessy. “I’ve never known cruelty like the cruelty of the priests. This country…” She closed her eyes and shook her head, and my mother said that it looked like she wanted to scream.

“That’s a terrible story,” said my mother eventually. “I suppose the baby’s daddy didn’t offer to marry you?” Mrs. Hennessy gave a bitter laugh. “He wouldn’t have been able anyway,” she said. “He was already married.” “Did his wife find out?” Mrs. Hennessy stared at her and when she spoke her voice was low and mixed with shame and loathing. “She knew well enough,” she said. “Didn’t I tell you that she cut the cord?” My mother said nothing for a moment and when she finally realized what Mrs. Hennessy meant she put a hand to her mouth and felt that she might be sick.

“There is simply nothing more disgusting than the naked body of a man. All that hair and such terrible smells, because men don’t know how to wash themselves properly unless they’ve been in the army. And their secretions, which seep forth from their appendages when aroused, are repellent. You’re lucky that you will never have to endure the indignity of relations with the male member. The vagina is a much purer instrument. I feel an admiration for the vagina that I simply have never felt toward the penis.” If I recall correctly, I was around five years old when she passed this piece of wisdom on to me.

“You write novels, don’t you?” he asked then. “That’s right,” she said. “How did you know that?” “My father told me. He said he hasn’t read any himself because you mostly write about women.” “I do,” she admitted. “Might I ask why?” “Because the male writers never do. They don’t have the talent, you see. Or the wisdom.”

It’s true, we’re not the ideal couple but I loved her once and she loved me and somewhere inside us both lingers the shadow of two twenty-something sexual beings drinking Veuve Clicquot in the Gresham, laughing our backsides off and wondering whether we could ask the receptionist for a bedroom key or whether the police or the Archbishop of Dublin might be called if we did.”

Adam and Eve were naked, as you’ll know if you’ve read the Book of The Beginnings of It All, chapter one, verse one: And lo there was man and lo there was woman and neither of them had a stitch on and lo and lo the woman did lie down and lo, the man did do all kinds of mad stuff with the woman, who had big tits and was gagging for it.” “That’s not in the Bible,” insisted Mary-Margaret, leaning over the table, her hands clenching into fists as she prepared to rip Julian’s throat from his neck. “Well, maybe not the bit about the big tits but the rest of it is spot on, I think.”

“I will, in time,” she said carefully. “I’ve lost people before. I’ve known violence, I’ve known bigotry, I’ve known shame and I’ve known love. And somehow, I always survive.

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“And what did I do, only slip my hand inside his own and say that maybe he should hold my hand instead for a while, and I can see the look on his face even to this day. The shock and the desire. Oh, I loved the power I had over him! The power I could sense in myself! You won’t understand this but it’s something that every girl realizes at some point in her life, usually when she’s around fifteen or sixteen. Maybe it’s even younger now. That she has more power than every man in the room combined, because men are weak and governed by their desires and their desperate need for women but women are strong. I’ve always believed that if women could only collectively harness the power that they have then they’d rule the world. But they don’t. I don’t know why. And for all their weakness and stupidity, men are smart enough to know that being in charge counts for a lot. They have that over us at least.”

Maybe there were no villains in my mother’s story at all. Just men and women, trying to do their best by each other. And failing.