The Temple Bar district was built up in the 1700s as a newer development along Dublin’s docks, creating one of the greatest conclaves of warehouses, seedy sailor bars and brothels then known in the British Empire, along with all the attendant issues and businesses that arise from close proximity to same.  Now, it’s also considered to be the modern Dublin’s Left Bank, a region of artists, culture, live gigs, and general goofiness. 

So, what it really is, is noisy. 

 Clickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunk.

 Maggie’s eyes flew open and she fumbled for the clock next to her to see what time it was.  The noise from the pub below had abated, and she assumed it was her alarm that was now going off to wake her up on this, the first real morning of her rotation to the Dublin office of Hellish and Funk.  She struggled to read the glowing numbers on the digital device on the microscopic table, a task made more difficult by not having her glasses on or contacts in.  She could hardly make out the numbers, but it certainly didn’t feel like it should be time to wake up.

Clickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunk.

The sound, a staccato clacking,  had paused a moment, but was now back full swing, and now Paul, her husband, was awake too.  He grabbed his phone and held it up close to his eyes.  "Jesus, it’s only 3am! Go back to sleep."  He rolled over, and Maggie felt his frustration at being woken up radiating off him, as if it somehow outgassed with his slowing breathing, filling the room with a thin green unhappiness.

Clickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunk.

Jesus, there it was again.  What the hell was that noise?  It seemed slightly familiar, but at 3am when your body clock is still scrambled from jetlag and unfamiliar food and weird traffic directions, nothing ever seems totally clear, but it’s not totally unfamiliar either.  Burying her head in the pillow, Maggie tried to drown out the sound, which was half rattle and half klaxon, and seemed to fill the apartment in five minute intervals.  The pillow appeared to help somewhat, and the sound couldn’t penetrate the thick down comforter Maggie pulled up over the pillow.

That’s when the Pub DJ started up again, playing a weird Eurotrash mix of INXS, Abba, and, of all things, 80s pop.  Christ, thought Maggie, I hated Cyndi Lauper the first time around, and this is ridiculous.  A raucous cheer from the street, accompanied by the blurry sounds of drunken Irish accents, confirmed that even well into the Naughties decade, girls just wanna have fun at full volume.

Maggie nearly wept.  She had less than three hours until she had to be absolutely perfect for her first day on the job.  H & F had invested quite a bit of money to bring her and Paul over from New York, as they ceaselessly reminded her, and she would be expected to hit the ground running.

Over the next hour, the tunes changed from bubblegum pop to reggae, and then to thumping techno-style house loops, but did finally die away.  Maggie managed to keep her eyes closed, and sleep stole over her at last.

Until the trucks came.

No amount of down comforter could drown out the high pitched beep beep beep of their back-up signals, the echoing PSSSSHAW of their hydraulic brakes and lift gates, or the rattling clatter of the racks of bottles and cans of trash that were being lifted and dumped into their cavernous backsides.

Seriously, she thought, how many freaking garbage trucks actually service this street?

It had seemed so cool, the idea of living in the heart of Temple Bar for the month that Hellish and Funk would be putting them up in their corporate apartment.  Pubs, live music, vibrant European energy flowing all around.  The enchanted river Liffey and the Ha’Penny Bridge a stone’s throw one way, the imposing Dublin Castle a few steps the other.  But there was no way a soundtrack of Cyndi Lauper, trash cans, and drunken revelers added up to a great arrangement for living while trying to learn a new city, a new system, and a new job.

Paul shifted uneasily next to her, and Maggie willed herself to keep still.  He seemed to wake up at any noise she made, and she desperately wanted their life here to be a good experience for him.  Not that he had much to worry about: for the next fifteen months he’d be a kept man, working on his painting while she provided the income they would live on.

Maggie was in no way unhappy about this arrangement.  Over the years they had been married, Paul had often made significantly more money than she did, and there had never been an issue about the fairness of that, on either side.  She was actually ecstatic that she could provide him with a chance to pursue his passion.  She was even looking forward to sharing this novel experience with him.  He’d lived abroad before, and she never had spent more than a few vacation weeks in Europe.

Clickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunk.

PSSSSHAAAAW

Light began peeking through the curtains, and Maggie gave up.  She got out of bed quietly and stepped out into the living area of their temporary digs.  Always somewhat concerned about people peering in at her, she nevertheless opened the blinds slightly to observe the street below.

Clickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunkclickclunk.

Pedestrians, even at this early hour, paused for the signal to cross the street, complete with audible alert.

PSSSHHHAW.

Busses stopped at the light, which turned red to allow the pedestrians to cross.

Ah, that’s why all this had been familiar.  Crosswalk signals had come to take on a whole new meaning for her since coming to a city where traffic came from the opposite direction and pedestrians having the right of way was, at best, a negotiated settlement between said pedestrians and however a given bus driver was feeling that particular shift.

Maggie sighed and closed her eyes.  She was shaking a little as she contemplated what lay ahead. 

As much as she wanted, truly and deeply wanted this adventure to be just that, a real adventure, she was terrified that they had made a horrible mistake in coming to Ireland.

She knew Paul would be alright.  Paul was always alright.  You could drop him naked into a jungle in the middle of a monsoon, and shortly he’d be holed up in some local Chief’s palm frond hut drinking fermented monkey blood and telling stories about the last time he’d been dropped naked in a monsoon.  And they’d eat it up.  People liked Paul.  Hell,  even mean dogs, sulky small children and old ladies who hated everybody liked Paul.

            He’d been champing at the bit to get to Dublin, to have a Guinness, to explore the country that his ancestors had reportedly come from over a century and a half before.  Paul loved to paint scenes he imagined from Ireland, faded castles covered in ivy, fairy lights dancing in ancient, moldering graveyards, pale warrior princesses officiously ordering broad-shouldered knights into battle.  So he’d be fine.  Their budget allowed for as much paint and canvas as his heart desired, even if it meant they’d be a little stretched when it came to their shared Starbucks addiction.

            She’d have to learn to drink tea, she thought with a sigh, getting ready to start her morning of showering in lukewarm water and putting on clothes that had been squished in a suitcase for almost two weeks straight.  The relocation company had promised to help find a dry cleaner in time, but when Maggie had seen the prices, astonishing enough at face value and then shockingly high when she remembered that she was looking at Euros, not Dollars, she had decided that using the battered iron and ironing board supplied with the apartment would have to suffice.

            She glanced at the clock.  7:45. The taxi arranged by Hellish & Funk would be coming at 8:30.  She had just enough time to get ready and do her hair before it would arrive to take her into the first day of her own new adventure.

***

            Paul and Maggie had arranged to meet for lunch on her first day at a little French-style fast food place inside the iron and glass Victorian hold-over of St. Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre. They had both caught the irony: they had travelled over 6,000 miles to eat at a food court in a mall.  Compounding the irony was the realization as they sat down that they were right next to an apparently international symbol of vapid teenage followership fashion: Clare’s Boutique of Dublin was chock full of girls on their lunch break from school, overly made up and almost as underdressed as their American counterparts.  They were saved from being quite as over the top underdressed by the Irish School mandated uniforms of tartan skirt and knit jumper.

            Maggie had a croque-monsieur, Paul had a parisienne.  Hers had too much cheese and not enough bread, but Paul’s sandwich balanced the scales by having a mere suggestion of egg and tomatoes lining a huge, otherwise dry, baguette. Paul was content with his bottle of water; Maggie grimaced at her mostly warm, mostly flat Diet Coke.

            "How’s the day?"  Paul asked, once he got his first bite of sandwich swallowed.  "Are they suitably impressed by your American legal genius?"

            Maggie smiled.  Going on a rotation was supposed to mean that you were both bringing needed expertise to the host country and developing skills needed back at the Home Office.  So far it had been an endless round of "Ah well, that’s fine for you New Yorker lawyers, but here in Ireland we just can’t do that."  She couldn’t explain the intricacies to Paul, who would probably have no problem grasping them but little interest in sympathizing with her plight.  She settled on a simple answer.

            "So far, it’s just meeting the team and figuring out what I’ll be doing with whom."  She sipped her warming soda, "But the team is nice, and they’ve asked us to join them when they go out on Thursday night.  I guess it’s the night all the Associates get together."

            Paul thought about this as he chewed his next bite of sandwich.  He was glad that Maggie had already started making friends, and had been worried that her normal semi-shyness combined with very direct management style would get her branded as an aloof ugly American.  "That sounds fun," he said through the crumbs, "I’d love to meet your coworkers, and get to know the locals.  Maybe they can tell us the best pubs to go to, afterwards."

            Maggie agreed, although she worried that Paul’s enthusiasm for pubs might outstrip their savings before the rotation was over.  Even though she was paid a decent salary for Ireland, the pay scales were much lower here than in New York, and it had to stretch to cover two people.  She and Paul knew that they would need to supplement her earnings with their US savings accounts, but the fact that it was a fixed-term rotation meant that they could always use credit cards toward the end, knowing they’d be back in the land of dual incomes at some point.  It was still early days, and they would be ok, they were always ok and things tended to work out.

            "How about you," she asked, giving up on the greasy ham sandwich, "What are you doing this afternoon?" 

            Paul had been trying to line up some work, either legit or under the table, but they both knew that in a country of 25% unemployment and a surplus of eastern European labor that had come over in the boom times, it would be tricky for him to find something.  Failing that, Paul planned to cater to his reading hobby by volunteering at one of the numerous libraries in and around Dublin.

            "I’ve got an appointment over in Dundrum, at the library there.  Then I’m meeting a guy from a marketing firm around 5 to see if he can use some freelance artwork or design.  Then," he got a particular glint in his eye, "The PUB!"

            Maggie smiled again, "Which pub?" She was curious if he had already found the one he’d consider "his" place.

            "Oh, you know," Paul said with a grin, "The one over there."  He waved his hand in the general direction of everywhere.  Point your finger in the city center and there would be a dozen pubs within your line of sight.  Paul had vowed to try them all before he left, as long as the money and his liver held out.  When he was playful like this, Maggie didn’t have a care in the world, and when he kissed her cheek as they parted in front of her office down on Grafton Street, she clung to him an extra minute before going into the dark brick building

Paul set off to explore, since his appointment in the suburb of Dundrum wasn’t for a few hours yet.  He pretty much knew all the ins and outs of the narrow streets near their apartment, so he decided to wander over to the street that covered another part of town, connecting with Great Georges Street via another route entirely.  As he walked it, it felt like it should all be one street, not several.  Inspired by the sound of a hissing espresso machine, his steps turned down an alley and he found a strange little shop front where a few stools stood along a narrow bar.  A frail looking young woman was wiping down a glinting copper and zinc monstrosity of an espresso machine, the kind with big eagles on it and a myriad of mysterious hoses and valves.

            Paul sat, and pulled out his sketchbook.  As he did so, he ordered a café au lait, and something in the way the frail girl moved among the dishes and implements of the process made him experience a wave of homesickness.  He sketched the steam, the piles of cups and plates on the counter, the glass case of pastries, and the long dark hair of the barista, tied back in a multicolored scarf.  All of these images made it into his sketch book, dashed out in quick lines and smudges, vignettes for later detail or expansion as the mood took him.    

            When he paid, he noticed that the girl had a thick accent, which he couldn’t quite place.  "Where are you from?" he asked, curious about everybody all the time.

            "Lithuania," she replied, lee-too-ah-nya.

            "What brought you to Dublin?"  He sipped his coffee, and tried to hide his grimace.  So far, he hadn’t had a single decent cup of coffee.

            Disinclined to talk, the woman gave him a short answer about her husband’s work and turned away to busy herself among the dishes and the silverware she was washing.  Paul finished his coffee and his sketch of the place without any more conversation with the skinny eastern European.

            He slipped the sketch book into his bag, and made sure it was safe from the drizzle that started falling.  He wanted to check out a park that was on the way to the tram which would take him out to the suburbs, so he turned up his collar and set out up Aungier Street, turned at Camden Court, and crossed the busy intersection.  Finally arriving at Iveagh Gardens, where he found a small door set into a great stone wall and stepped through.

***

            "Look what I found," Paul enthused to Maggie that night as they sipped cans of Bulmer’s acquired from the Pakistani shopkeeper at the local Spar and watched a rerun of the Simpsons on the satellite TV in their apartment.

            "What’s that?" She peered at the tiny oblong of silver metal in his hand.

            "That, you heathen, is a Miraculous Medal, the image of the Virgin Mary."  Maggie peered closer.  She could just make out the faded silhouette on one side of the dim medal, and when Paul turned it over, what looked like an "M" with various designs around it.

            "Cool," she was sure there would be a story behind the find.  Paul was always finding stuff, bringing it to show her like a little kid bringing shells to his mother, and there was usually a story behind each object.  "Where did you find it?"

            Paul told her about the little door into the mysterious Iveagh Gardens, and about a hedge maze he’d found there, slowly treading its pathways until he’d come to the sundial in the middle of the tall herbaceous walls and a gleam had caught his eye.     "And that, my little pagan, is when I found this, somebody’s well-loved and worn holy medal lying in the dirt."

            "But what if somebody is looking for it?" Maggi imagined some young girl or old lady searching in vain for their treasured heirloom.

            "Ah," Paul said, "That’s the best part.  As I was walking through the maze, I kept saying ’alright, spirits of Ireland, show me what you want me to find,’ and then, at the end of the journey to middle of the paths, this was lying there.  So I figure I was meant to find it."

            "Hmm," said Maggie, unwilling to rain on Paul’s mysterious encounter but unable to leave her thoughts unvoiced, "I don’t know.  You might want to turn it in to the police."

            Paul’s hand snapped shut on the little icon.  "Nope, it’s mine now.  These aren’t valuable, just a couple of bucks in a church gift shop." 

            Maggie relented, "That’s pretty cool, babe."

            She wished the spirits of Ireland had seen fit to show her more than torturous EU legal briefs all day.  She had muddled through them as best she could, tripped up on more than one occasion by vocabulary that had hairline differences between UK English and American English definitions.

            Ah, no, she had been shown one thing by Irish spirits, and that was the ridiculous lengths a co-worker would go in order to explain to her why she should never call it "UK English" or "British English" while talking to an Irishman.

            "You Americans," he’s said, "Need to learn a bit more history if you’re going to come over here to tell us how things are done."  He then launched into a lengthy lecture on occupation, the exclusion laws, and something about Wild Geese.

            Paul brought her attention back to the present by asking her if she wanted another Bulmer’s.  She declined, but snuggled up next to him and closed her eyes.  It was still early by the clock, but she was drained, and it felt wonderful to fall asleep with Paul’s hand on her hair and the sound of the TV slowly fading away as she drifted off at last.

***

            On Thursday, her colleagues reminded her that they were all going out after work, and let her know that they’d be gathering at "Dicey’s, just up the way" around 7.  Maggie had asked why so late, thinking that there was project due that they would be staying after 5 to complete before heading over to the bar.

            Apparently, that was not the case.  Everybody, it seemed, was going to run home and change clothes before going out.  Maggie, used to the quick right-after-work drink with colleagues that was norm in New York, was surprised at the formality of the process here in the Dublin office.  Paul had planned on meeting her right at 5:30, by which time the staff would normally be well out the door for the evening.  They were going to walk up to Dicey’s and stay for a just a drink or two, both their budget and jet lag putting restrictions on their limits to a night out.  She’d send him a quick text explaining the time switch, and she could use the extra time to work on a couple of projects of her own, so she didn’t begrudge the wait much.

            Her phone buzzed with the return message.  "Y no just U and me? Meet them L8R?"  She sent a note back that she could use the time to get organized and that she’d see him at the bar at 7:00, when everybody else was planning on getting there.  Her phone stayed silent and she dug back into the briefs she was going over and would soon be presenting an analysis of for the New York office.  She found she was grateful for the peace and quiet, and soon lost herself in the work.

            Later, at Dicey’s, she found her colleagues tucked away in a corner.  The guys had changed out of their suits and were dressed in slacks and sweaters, while the girls had changed into some subset of current fashion, which seemed to be Brian Froud meets Fantasia, with asymmetrical tulle accents and the occasional glittery bit.  The bar, which wouldn’t be out of place in a trendy SoHo neighborhood, was all chrome and leather and shiny rails around the tables, while some kind of mashup of current hits was piping through the speakers.

            Maggie looked around for Paul before approaching her coworkers.  She spotted him already sitting with the group when one of the girls moved an overly-draped sleeve out of the way.  How had he known who they were?  She wondered at it, but really, that was just Paul, easily attaching himself to any group he felt like and having an unerring sense of people who would be welcoming to a stranger.

            He reached up and took her hand as she settled into the seat next to him.  "I was saying to your coworkers here that I’m frankly shocked at having travelled across an ocean to see people drinking that!" He pointed to the bottle one of the boys was holding in his hand.

            Bud Light.

            Maggie looked at the other bottles on the table.

            Bud Light.  Bud Light.  For variety, Coors Light.  And worse, because Maggie knew he would mock them severely for this, Corona Light. 

Oh dear.

            The man holding the offending can rose to the defense of his countrymen’s choice of drink.  "What d’ye think, we’re all sitting around like auld fellas and sucking down pints of Guinness?"

            "Well, no," said Paul, warming to the topic, "But anything other than that would seem a better choice.  You’ve got great Irish lager, and even a European brand would be better.  Heineken, Carlsberg, hell, there’s a Carlsberg brewery right here!"

            In an anomalous contradiction, the same boy said, "That’s a foreign beer, doesn’t matter where they brew it.  What d’ye think," his accent was thickening along with his alcohol intake, "We’re all a bunch of leprechauns, dancing around with funny accents and silly grins?" 

            Paul in a remarkable adept turn of phrase, said, "Not unless you start talking like that again."

            Maggie knew the night was lost when "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" began blaring over the excellent sound system.

***

            Maggie’s first week finally ended, and she was deep in a dream about Starbucks Chai Lattes and Cap’n Crunch cereal when she felt Paul gently shake her awake.

            "Hey, babe, I got everything ready, let’s go!"  She groaned, but opened her eyes reluctantly to see Paul standing over the bed, fully dressed, with her book bag over his arm and her notebooks in his hands.

            "Look, I even found that notebook you couldn’t find in the bags.  Come on, sleepy head."

            Maggie wrote poetry, when she could, and although it surprised nobody more than herself, a lot of it was really good.  Paul was always after her to write a series of short poems on some theme that he could then illustrate with a series of paintings.  Because she spent so many hours at the office in New York, and now, apparently, would be working just as hard here in Ireland, she didn’t spend enough time on her hobby as Paul thought she should in order to indulge her creative side.  So they had a deal: sometimes he would scout out great places to take her, make sure she had notebooks and pens (and the RIGHT notebook and pens…as a creature of habit and tradition Maggie was adamant in her belief that the right pen and the right paper were critical in order to write well), and he’d even put together a picnic basket of breakfast snacks; and then he’d force her to go outside and get inspired to create.

            In fairness, she thought to herself as she eyed his chipper energy with a mix of dread and fatigue, she had said that she’d like to do this kind of thing, back many years ago when she’d started at Hell & Funk and they both learned the ridiculous lifestyle expected of Associate Attorneys.  He’d kept pressing her to spend less time at the office and more on herself or with him, and she had told him that he could help motivate her by getting everything together and surprising her by dragging her into the sunlight, even if she was blinking and kicking the whole way.

            And so he had, and she loved him for it.  But today?  On her first day off after a week of getting used to a bunch of Irish accents (how could such a tiny island, with such a small population, produce so many different speaking patterns?), having to explain her own accent and vocabulary, and digging through a ludicrous amount of paperwork and documentation until her eyes burned?

            Maggie got up, knowing that Paul would be unhappy if she declined, and forced herself through an abbreviated routine of morning ablutions.  Paul fidgeted all the while, as if she was late for some unstated start time other than the one in his own head.  When they finally left, he was walking so fast she had to call out to him to slow down as she was still barely awake.

            He dropped back and took her hand, "You’re going to love this park," he enthused, "I discovered it yesterday."

            "Was it the place you found the medallion?" she asked, forcing herself to speed up a little bit to match his excited pace.

            "No, that was Monday, this one’s totally different."

            And it was.

            They ducked into a small, shadowed walkway behind the grey edifice of Dublin castle, and then followed a wall that apparently ran along a parking area for a local police station.  "GARDA" proclaimed the signs along the marked stalls, and the intertwined G and S of the Irish police were everywhere.  Maggie could hear water, and a sudden break in the wall presented itself, an iron gate closing it off from the street.  Paul pushed at it, and it swung open to reveal another shadowy walkway that they followed until it opened up onto a vast circle of grass with gardens and benches all along its perimeter.

            "I present," said Paul, waving his arms, "The original Dubh Lihn, the Black Pool, long since covered over but the first place Vikings could harbor their boats and the beginning of modern Ireland."

            Maggie didn’t know if it was true, but clearly Paul believed it. He had probably read it on a plaque in his incessant wanderings and exploring of the city, but she did feel a distinct sense of relaxation and something very soothing about the area.

            A ring of benches against low walls circled the park, and what she had originally thought was a wide circle of grass with brick pathways through it turned out to be a mosaic design of intertwined serpents, twisting back around and over themselves in the grass.  Maggie walked around the path that circled the grassy area, passing a series of early-rising Italian tourists, a still-sleeping homeless guy, and a probably not-yet-gone-to-bed American pub crawler.  She noted the fountains in three of the corners, hidden by their own little circles of masonry planters and benches, forming fractal sub-gardens in the grand design.

            The snake theme was popular, although the Special Olympics installation and bust of a murdered female journalist broke up the serpent monopoly in several places.

            Now lost in thought, she tapped her favorite pen against her teeth, aware only of the interplay of the light on the castle, the building that made up one wall of the park, and the incongruous government buildings that loomed over the other side.  Maggie mounted the ramp that led to a small viewing platform, and finally the pattern of the serpents and the grass snapped into focus and made sense.

            Or at least, it made a kind of sense.  There was none of the normally balanced Celtic knot work evident in the design, except at first glance.  More than a pattern, this was a tangle, a nest of vipers entwined around each other where tails and mouths and scales were difficult to identify as belonging to one creature, or to many.

            And the fountain, viewable to her left off in the southern corner, was more snakes.  This time, it was sunlit motif of bright tile and polished copper, water trickling from its mouth like clear venom.  It should have been ominous, but somehow it wasn’t.  No sense of evil snakes, just, well, snakes.  Snakes entwined.  Snakes immortalized.

            Without realizing that she had even opened her notebook, she jotted those words down, "Snakes Immortalized," and returned to tapping her teeth in thought about what it was she meant by that.

            From the ground, carrying the satchel which housed various pastries and coffee purchased for the morning’s adventure, Paul watched her, unmoving.  It was so hard to get her to a place like this, a place where she stopped worrying about work, about money, about what people were thinking.  As Maggie put pen to paper again, unaware of his scrutiny, Paul had to hold his breath.  He would love to paint her just like this-strong, focused, blissfully absorbed in her own creative bubble.  But she never let him do it; she was too self-conscious and concerned about what people might say if they ever saw her in a painting.  So he captured her in his mind’s eye to use in later inspirations.  This tilt of her head might become a quirk of a bright fairy sitting on a branch, that look of internal concentration could become a knight’s meditative prayer before a battle.

            Maggie wrote quickly once she got her inspiration, jotting down the lines as if they might escape the pen before she got them onto the page.  Paul knew she was finished when she sat back firmly on the bench on the overlook, and with a flourish signed her name to the page she had just filled, the moment of finality being the one time she was ever forward or exuberant about her own work.  It was in these moments, and only for brief flashes, that she was able to shut out the world, including, to Paul’s oddly delighted chagrin, Paul himself.  She was able to shut off her brain and give herself the freedom to think and write whatever came into her head at the moment.  She wouldn’t choose it for herself, but Paul always knew he had chosen well to take her out for an excursion when he saw the rapid pen strokes and the final bold actions of name and date being splashed at the bottom of the page.

            He might never see the lines on the page, but he was glad he had brought her here, to a place where she could find them in herself.

Snakes, Immortalized

They lie in lines of stone and grass

Twisting scale, Adders and Asps

Venom sings along their breath

Of sweetly easeful simple death

Yet Patrick drove them all away

No snakes in Ireland, or so they say

Yet here in open solitude and beauty prized

I find the past adored, enthroned, immortalized.

-MAGGIE