Read Online TransAtlantic by Colum McCann - Free Book Online Page B

with him—
    —There’ll be more chances, I assure you.
    —But—
    Douglass caught eyes with O’Connell. They nodded to each other. He watched the Irishman move away. Slumping within his bright green coat. Wiping his handkerchief on his brow. His wig shifting slightly on his head. A slight sadness there. But to have that command, thought Douglass. That charm. That energy. To be able to possess the stage in such an extraordinary way. To stir justice without violence. The way the words seem to enter the very marrow of the people who still hung around the dockside, bits of refuse floating on the water.
    TWO DAYS LATER , in Conciliation Hall, O’Connell brought him on stage and he thrust Douglass’s hand in the air:
Here
, he said,
the black O’Connell!
Douglass watched the hats go up into the rafters.
    —Irishmen and Irishwomen …
    He looked out over the tip heap. All muck and adulation. Thank you, he said, for the honor of allowing me to speak with you. He held out his hands and calmed the crowd and spoke to them of slavery and commerce and hypocrisy and the necessity of abolition.
    An energy to him. A fire. He heard the ripple of his words move through the crowd.
    —If you cast one glance upon a single man, he said, you shall cast a glance upon all humanity. A wrong done to one man is a wrong done to all. No power can imprison what is good and right. Abolition shall become the natural thought of the world!
    He paced the stage. Tightened his jacket. It was a different crowd than any he had seen before. A low rumbling amongst them. He allowed a silence. Then punched up his sentences. Stretched his body towards them. Sought their eyes. Still, he could feel a distance. It troubled him. A bead of moisture lay at the base of his throat.
    A shout came up from the rear of the hall. What about England? Would he not denounce England? Wasn’t England the slave master anyway? Was there not wage slavery? Were there not the chains of financial oppression? Was there not an underground railroad that every Irishman would gladly board to get away from the tyranny of England?
    A policeman moved into the back of the crowd, the pointed helmet disappearing. The heckler was soon quieted.
    Douglass allowed a long silence: I believe in Erin’s cause, he said. A wave of nodding heads crested below him. He had to be judicious,he knew. There were newspaper reporters scribbling down every word. It would lead back to Britain and America. He paused. He lifted his hand. Turned it slightly in the air.
    —What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, he said, yet having its people in shackles? It is etched into the book of fate that freedom shall be universally delivered. The cause of humanity is one the world over.
    A relief poured through him when the crowd applauded. O’Connell walked on stage and raised his hand in the air once more.
The black O’Connell!
he said again. Douglass took a bow and glanced down to see Webb near the front row, chewing the stem of his eyeglasses.
    AT DINNER ON Dawson Street he sat alongside the Lord Mayor, but leaned his chair back so he could talk with O’Connell.
    Later that evening they strolled together in the garden of the Mansion House, moving solemnly among the pruned winter rosebushes. O’Connell hunched over slightly, with his hands clasped behind his back. He wished, he said, that he could be of more direct help to Douglass and his people. It burdened him terribly to hear that there were many Irishmen among the slave owners in the South. Cowards. Traitors. A discredit to their very heritage. He would not let their shadow fall upon him. They brought a poison with them, a shame on their nation. Their churches should be shunned. They had taken an oath of false supremacy.
    He took Douglass by the shoulders. He had killed a man once, O’Connell said. In a duel in Kildare. Over a point of Catholic pride. Shot him in the stomach. Left a widow behind, a child. It haunted him still. He would not