Slieve Gullion

On the way to the gas station Joe passed Sergey on the opposite side of the road. He was walking in the rain, his long, dark blond fringe hanging over his eyes. Joe swung the car around and pulled up next to him. Rolling down the window he asked Sergey if he wanted a ride. Reluctantly, the teen got in and slouched against the door.

“Congratulations on getting your license,” Sergey said.

“Yeah, thanks. Where’re you going?” Joe asked.

Sergey vaguely gestured ahead, in the direction of the cemetery.

“You know… just trying to get out.”

“Want me to drop you off at the grave?”

 Sergey shrugged.

Joe pulled back into traffic and said: “You want to be alone then, right?”

“I don’t care. Whatever.”

The only noise came from the windshield wipers scraping against the glass, followed by the sound of the blinker as Joe turned into Fairlawn Cemetery. He stopped a few yards from Sergey’s father and little brother’s grave and turned off the engine. Sergey grabbed the door handle and for a moment the two sat in silence, then Sergey opened the door.

“Look man, I want us to be friends, like we used to since kindergarten …” Joe said.

Sergey got out and placed both hands flat on the roof, sticking his hardened face between his arms. “You’re the one turning all crazy and shit. I can’t, like, relate to you since you came back from that retreat. You have plenty of reasons to believe. Me, I have shit.”

“I’m not turning religious on you, man, I just had a good time, that’s all. I want you to be cool, too.”

“I’m cool, don’t worry about me. Thanks for the ride.” Sergey tapped the roof and closed the door. As he walked away, Joe got out and yelled after him.

“Hey, my mother wants to know if you want to come to Ireland with us!”

They arrived in Dublin on Friday morning and took a bus to Dundalk. Mom, Joe, his twin sister, Ellanie and Sergey were more than welcome to stay with the parents of friends and excitedly gathered in the kitchen for tea. Tomorrow they would climb the highest peak in County Armagh, surprisingly only a little more than 570 meters high.

The day started off with rain, but by 9 o’clock the sun came out. After breakfast they packed lunch and were just about to leave when Hannah ran out with an armful of windbreakers.

“You will need them.”

Mom laughed. “It’s a hill, we’ll be back before noon. I feel funny enough wearing my husband’s woolen Army socks in August.  Five hundred meters, that’s a speed bump in the Alps.”

But Joe took the jackets out of Hannah’s arms. “We can keep them in the car; at least we’ll have them.”

The Hollywoods graciously lent them the old Volvo which sat unused in their driveway. Mom knew how to drive a stick shift from growing up in Germany, but had to adjust to the ‘wrong’ side of the road. Slieve Gullion was only fifteen minutes away and a narrow road wound its way up to the volcano’s parking lot. A herd of sheep greeted them in the middle of the road as they rounded a corner. They stared at them, then bolted, some running up the hill on the right, some running down on the left.

The whole ground was covered in peat and purple heather. The path consisted of loose rocks and as soon as they climbed over the fence’s stile it began to drizzle. Mom gave them a lecture about pacing and matching the ascent to their heart rate, and to stay together on the path. Then she blasted ahead. They followed the path until they reached a dugout, enforced with slabs of rock, and big enough to stand under. They waited until it stopped raining. The view was breathtaking. Mom took pictures of the three teens silhouetted against the green patchwork panorama in the background. All of Ireland, it seemed, lay stretched out at their feet. The path zigzagged uphill and whenever they thought they had reached the top, another wall rose before them.

“Mom, can we be done? We’re high enough,” Ellanie shouted.

“We’re almost there, there’s a cairn on top, it’s ancient,” Mom shouted back and disappeared from view.

So much for staying together. They came to a fork.

“Um, Mom?”

A rainwater rill had formed beside one of the paths and Joe suggested taking the path following it. Finally, after an almost vertical climb through the clouds they saw the summit of Slieve Gullion rise out of the mist. Mom stood on top of a stone pile and waved.

“We found it!”

They staggered around the huge cairn, searching for the entrance. Three quarters around and half way up was a hole. They had to crawl in on their knees but the inside was big enough for all. It was damp and cold, and rain trickled in through the skylight above. Mom unpacked the knapsack and handed out the sandwiches and granola bars, plus an apple for herself. They sat on wet rocks and ate, looking around the ancient burial place.

“How old is this?” asked Sergey.

“Since before Jesus walked the earth,” Mom answered.

“Jesus,” he said in awe and they laughed.

 “I’m so glad we have these jackets,” Mom admitted. “It’s freezing.”

“I thought you’re an expert on mountain climbing,” Joe said. “You’re the least prepared of us.”

 “Yeah, and stay together and don’t walk uphill too fast, what happened to that, Mom?” Ellanie had to rub it in.

“I think we can go, it stopped raining,” Mom said.

They crawled out of the rock pile into a gray sky with zero visibility. There were no signs or markers. Suddenly two sheep stuck their heads round the corner and looked at them.

“Baa,” said Joe and they ran away.

The path had become slippery and covered with puddles. They jumped and slipped and climbed over brush, unable to see a thing.

“Mom, we’re not going downhill,” Ellanie said.

“What do you mean? Where else are we going?”

“It was a lot steeper when we came up.”

“Don’t say that, keep going. It has to go down.”

Half an hour later Ellanie looked to her left and said: “Oh wow, a lake.”

“Shit,” Mom hissed.

“What?”

“There was no lake when we came up.” She looked around frantically.

At that moment the clouds opened to an unbelievable sight. The shore of a blue lake with gentle ripples appeared out of nowhere. They had found the crater.

“Don’t you want to take a picture?”

“No time, let’s figure out where we are before the fog comes back.”

 “Mom, are we lost on a mountain?” Ellanie asked.

“No, not yet, but we’re working on it,” Mom said to herself. She would tell them later, when they were safely home, that it was called the ‘Lake of Sorrows’.

“We have to go back to the cairn and start over, hurry, the fog is rolling in again. Sorry, guys.”

A cold wind had started to blow. Ellanie’s usually perfectly styled blond mane stuck to her face, her makeup had already washed off.

“Here Mom, take my jacket,” Joe yelled against the gale and took off his raincoat.

Mom’s stiff fingers tried to pull down the zipper of her thin windbreaker and she had a hard time peeling out of it but she gladly exchanged it for Joe’s lined one with a hood. It wasn’t January and people knew where they were, and this was Slieve Gullion, not Nanga Parbat, but panic rose in her anyway. What had she done? She put her children in danger, not to mention a boy who had never been away from his mother and who was all that poor woman had left.

The twins walked around the cairn, trying to see which way they had come up. Sergey stood transfixed, like a statue, arms outstretched and facing the rain. He seemed to enjoy Mother Nature beating down on him. Then Mom saw his lips move.

Joe leaned over a rock trying to see through the pea soup like thickness of the fog. Mom started to pray, too.

Almost immediately the curtain of invisibility lifted and revealed the green stage of Ireland. The August sun bathed the fields in gold and warmed the soft bog which covered the mountain. The peat’s earthy aroma rose with the steam around them. And then they saw it: The road from town to the parking lot, where their rocky path picked up. Most of the trail was overgrown with heath and heather but some of the larger rocks glistened in the late morning’s light. It was their stairway to heaven and back. Ireland bowed one last time and the curtain fell. Mom knew there wouldn’t be an encore.

“Let’s go,” she urged, “before we lose the trail again.”

They held onto roots and shrubs during the steep descent. Mom explained how to test your footing by holding on to a plant and carefully stepping on the ground before putting your full weight on your foot, and pointed out some holes.

The rain turned into a downpour, changing the trail into a waterfall which cascaded over the now useless path. Suddenly Ellanie started running, slipped and tumbled a few feet down the mountain. Joe was beside her in a flash.

“Are you alright, El? Are you okay?” he screamed.

Mom was frozen in horror. She was relieved when Ellanie started laughing, stretching all four limbs into the air like a giant beetle on his back. Sergey pulled her to her feet.

“Why did you run?” Joe asked incredulous.

“I tripped and couldn’t stop.”

Joe ordered her to stay between him and Sergey and mom lead the troops. She turned around one last time, bidding farewell to Slieve Gullion. A sheep stuck its head over a ledge, barely visible in the haze, looking down on them. It was a comical sight. What idiots, it must be thinking.

But wait. Another, smaller head appeared next to it. The first one was a mama sheep, giving them her blessing.

Every now and then Joe grabbed Ellanie’s hand to pull her over an especially treacherous riffle. Sergey also needed help and Ellanie stretched out her hand to him. One time Joe went back to guide Sergey over a patch of brush and loose rock. Their shoes kept getting stuck in the mire and they had to carefully navigate around it.

Sergey looked pale.

“How is your asthma?” Joe asked.

“Can we take a break, Joe? Sorry, I can hardly breathe.”

“Mom, slow down, we need a break!” Joe yelled.

They were close to the dugout and huddled under it. Despite her guilt Mom was pleased. Joe, dark haired and tall, had his arm around Sergey who looked fragile next to him. He leaned against Joe’s broad shoulder while using his inhaler and when his breathing fell into a steady rhythm Sergey turned his head and burrowed into his friend. Mom could see that Joe was floored by this gesture and discreetly looked away. They had been drifting apart since Sergey’s dad and brother’s accident but now it must feel like old times, friends through thick and thin.

They finished the rest of the way in minutes.

Hannah opened the door and busted out laughing. Owen shuffled down the hall to see what was so funny. His wife was in hysterics.

“Owen, bring me the camera, quick,” she gasped.

Of course it had rained only on the mountain so the sight was unexpected. Their jeans were soaked up to their knees, their sneakers covered with twigs. The white stripes of Ellanie’s sweat shirt were dark brown and the windbreakers stuck to their bodies. Rivulets of water ran from their hair into their faces but they were beaming.

“So you made it all right, then,” Hannah concluded.

“Yeah,” Sergey said and winked at Joe. “Once we sacrificed that ram.”