Americana

He came from the North, so his words were few

But his voice was kind and his heart was true

And I knew by his eyes that no guile had he

So I lay with my man from the North Country

He repeated the verse several times, his voice a cradle-song, and then we went below. I slept in the cabin proper. Uncle settled down in the forepeak, coiled like heavy line. He talked in Gaelic in his sleep."

"Is that it?" I said.

"And in the morning we headed back in gray drizzle and far out upon the line of the ocean I watched the fog-bank building and rolling, a low brownish menace of a thing, and I waited in vain for Uncle to offer some note of reassurance. But he talked of everything but fog. He talked, yes, as if only some test, some hungry clap of danger, could blow away the mists in his soul. There were few boats out but those he saw inspired him to crisp elocutions of category and trait. Gaff-rigged. Or eating out to windward. Or beamy. Or port tack. Or watch her luff now. Or blue yawl from Darkharbor. Damned schoolmastering roundhead. We sailed all day through slow drizzle, a chill begi

And even Uncle, even Uncle then began to lose his Christian calm. For these winds were biblical, thunderheads of a wrathful God he had not met in any kirk or clapboard meetinghouse. A sailing boat hates indecision and Uncle did not know what to do."

"Sully, I don't like this story."

"And the first angel sounded the trumpet. And the winds blew and the third part of those creatures died which had life in the sea, and the third part of the ships was destroyed. And through the silver and gray smoke there appeared a light on the shore at the last limits of the sound. And a figure held the light. And it was a stranger. And Uncle saw him and spoke. Jesus needs me. Jesus needs me, he said. And the light was a lantern and the face was like unto light itself. And in those days men shall seek death, and shall not find it; and they shall desire to die, and death shall fly from them. And Uncle had come to the end of the mystery, which is: that man receives his being as did Christ, in a gentle woman's womb, beyond the massed and silent armies, beyond eroded stone arranged across the lampless past; which is: that all energy runs down, all life expires, all except the force of all in all, or light lighting light; which is: the figure holding the lantern was a child. And from this knowledge he did turn and scorn and rant against his ship. For where was Christ the tiger in that pentecostal light? And then all mysteries were to find their unendingness, and all echoes to be answered only by their own voices. We were still in the violence of the winds and I begged him to lower sail and he looked at me and bellowed. Damn your eyes, daughter. And that was the answer to the final question. Radiant mother giving herself to that blackest of Orangemen. 'So I lay with my man from the North Country.' Eugene bloody O'Neill. And that in me then as well. Drums of Ulster. And he cried again. Damn your eyes, daughter. A few twigs snapped in my mind, I think. And then the winds stopped blowing and we came about pretty as a picture and began the voyage home. I turned around once but could see no lantern, nor child, nor bird of the forest. And I knew then that the war is not between North and South, black and white, young and old, rich and poor, crusader and heathen, warhawk and pacifist, God and the devil. The war is between Uncle Malcolm and Uncle Malcolm."

I woke in the middle of the night. Sullivan was gone. The wind blew a piece of paper across the bed and I got up and lowered the window. Then I smelled cookies baking.