Peter crouched behind a dumpster, peering across the darkened street at the white Honda Civic idling beneath the shadow of a church. Davila was right on time. Scanning left and right, he sprinted over, slowing as he neared the car. It was old, late 1990s probably. Davila sat alone behind the steering wheel.

Peter opened the rusty passenger door and slipped inside. The car's interior was in no better condition. "It took you ten hours to get this?"

"At least it's clean."

"It smells like fish to me."

"That's not what I meant."

"Should I ask how you got it?"

"Don't."

From a duffel bag in the back seat, Davila took a GPS navigation device and mounted it to the windshield. As they drove out of the city, she outlined her plan. They would take the M40 west to the Welsh Port of Fishguard and drive onto the 2:40 a.m. ferry bound for Rosslare, Ireland. Once in Ireland, they would continue west to the coastal village of Smerwick, where the Barshman brothers lived.

"Don't we need ID to get on the ferry?" asked Peter.

"That's what took me so long. There's a Canadian passport in the duffel bag. Memorize it and come up with plausible stories for each of the visa stamps. If anyone asks, you're staying at my flat in London. After that, let me do the talking."

As they drove through the night, Peter made light conversation to help Davila stay alert, surreptitiously gathering bits and pieces of her history. By the time they neared the Port of Fishguard, he had assembled a rough picture of the Israeli sitting next to him.

She was actually born in Spain, her mother's homeland. Her father, an Israeli Jew, had been a career officer in the Israel Defense Forces, the IDF. She too had been an IDF soldier, and based on her skill with weapons, it was more than just compulsory service. Later, she studied archaeology at Tel Aviv University. It was this unique skill set that landed her a job with the Robberies Prevention Unit, a law enforcement arm of the Israel Antiquities Authority based out of Jerusalem.

Once on board the ferry, Davila retreated below deck and locked herself inside their private berth. She refused to come topside, lest she catch sight of the open sea. It was a minor phobia, she said, a benign side effect of a youth spent in the mountains of northern Spain. Peter left her alone and found himself joining the scattered band of insomniacs wandering the lounges and decks.

They arrived in Rosslare a little after six in the morning. Refreshed by her three-hour slumber, Davila again took the wheel. Peter slept in the passenger seat, now and then opening his eyes to a blur of silver sky and green fields.

A pothole jostled him awake. The windshield wipers slapped at a light rain. Peter lowered his window and took a breath of the damp salt air, unsure if it was cold or warm. They were on a narrow country road hemmed in by verdant shrubs. He squinted at an approaching sign. "What language is that?"

"Irish Gaelic," she said, eyes forward. "The English signs ended a few clicks back."

Beneath a layer of low, bright clouds, the land spread like a quilt of variegated greens, stitched together by low stone walls, here dotted with sheep, there with cows. Little cottages sprouted up where two walls met. The road crested a hill then dropped toward a hidden bay rimmed with white sand, the sea all ruffled gray. They traced a clockwise arc along its shore before veering left, up a gently tilting land mass, a peninsula separating the bay from the open ocean.

The road delivered them to a cluster of houses, barns, and outbuildings that, according to the GPS, comprised the village of Smerwick. If the Barshman brothers' stone house was among them, they could not see it.

They parked in front of a modern two-story home fringed by a well-tended garden. Getting out, they hurried through the drizzle and knocked on the front door. When no one answered, they went around back to an open vehicle shed.

There, they were greeted by the aroma of manure and the diminutive figure of a frail old man in fusty coveralls and a threadbare wool cap. An unlit pipe wagged from his mouth. Except for his ruddy-pink skin, he reminded Peter of old Delbert Mackai back in Oregon.

"Hello," said Peter.

The old man removed his pipe, uncovered his bald head, and gave Davila a little bow.

"Do you speak English?" she asked.

"I have it," he replied in an outrageous brogue. "Now come yous out of the weather." He ushered them under the eaves of the shed's corrugated metal roof.

"Is this Smerwick?" she asked.

"From here to the bay."

Peter wiped a lick of wet hair from his forehead. "We're looking for the Barshman residence. Do you know where we can find it?"

The man chewed his pipe, slurring his already unintelligible brogue. "Barshman, you say?"

"We're doing genealogy research."

His frazzled eyebrows did a little dance. "Are yous kin of those Barshmans?"

"I'm a distant relative."

"Are you now?"

Peter extended his hand to shake. "I'm Peter. Peter Barshman."

The man hesitated. Then he donned his cap and took Peter's hand firmly. "The name's Eamon Sartorius, and this is me farm you're wandering about."

"We don't mean to trespass," said Davila.

He gave her a crooked smile, eyebrows vanishing up beneath the bill of his cap. "And what might you be called?"

"Oh, sorry," said Peter. "This is Ne—"

Davila stepped forward and offered him her hand. "Nechama," she said with that harsh back-of-the-throat sound.

Eamon took her hand gently. "Now that's not a name I've heard before."

"It's Hebrew."

His dark eyes got big. "Are you from the Holy Land?"

She nodded, cheeks blushing ever so slightly.

Eamon released her hand and turned to Peter, eyes narrowing again. "But you. I've met you before."

"I don't think so."

"But I was after seeing you, you and your father. Years ago it was."

"My father?"

"That's what I said, the both of yous."

"But I've never even been to Ireland before."

He scratched the top of his head through the thin wool of his cap. "Me mind's not what it used to be, I suppose."

Peter showed him the photo he had rescued from William Fitzimmin's office. "We're looking for the Barshman brothers, and this house."

Eamon nodded. "Aye. We've been expecting kin to arrive. I suppose I should be showing yous the way."

"Please."

He grabbed an oilskin jacket off a hook and led them out into the bright, feathery drizzle—a glorious soft day he called it. A pair of worn tire tracks traversed the barren heath of the peninsula. As Eamon stumbled over the uneven ground, Peter and Davila reached out to help him. But each time they tried, Eamon would shoo them away with a muttered curse.

At last, he came to a stop and pointed the stem of his pipe at a patch of scorched heath. Nearing it, they could see blackened stones and the remnants of a wall. Nothing else remained.

"What happened?" said Peter. "Where's the house?"

"I thought yous knew," said Eamon, catching his breath. "It was a frightful burn. Six months ago it was."

Davila picked up a fragment of stone that had rolled clear of the ruins. One side was rusty red, as if it had been fired in a kiln. "Did the Barshman brothers live here?"

"That's the tragedy. They lived in Cork, what with your man's medical condition. But they came on holidays, mostly in the summer. They were just a day or two after arriving when the place burned to the ground."

"They were inside? What happened to them?" asked Peter.

Eamon frowned. "Didn't you come to claim the land? They perished in the flames, God have mercy on their souls."

___________________________

Image: Smerwick Cliffs. Courtesy of Martin Schlobach

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