Hunger Read online

  To Rachel and Lorraine,

  who, one way or another,

  brought me to Ireland

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With much gratitude to Barry Furrow and Sam Charney, Laurie Garry, Alice Lamotta, Maureen Murray, Jenica Nasworthy, Jeannie Ng, Colleen O’Brien, Melinda Rahm, Carol Rendleman, Aida Ruan, Leyna Sweger, and Katharine Wiencke for comments on earlier drafts. And a giant thank-you to Trinity College Dublin for giving me a Long Room Hub Visiting Fellowship in 2012, so I could do the research foundational to this story. But most of all, a thousand thanks go to Paula Wiseman, without whom this book would never have been written and whose patience and gentle prodding helped to shape both my thinking and my words.

  BEFORE YOU BEGIN

  In August 1845, Phytophthora infestans—a fungus-like organism—attacked the potato crop in Ireland. Since potatoes are nutritious and packed with calories, and since they grow easily even in rocky soil, they were the mainstay of the diet of ordinary workers, including farmers. The potato blight led to a dramatic crop failure and widespread hunger throughout the country. Rural people in particular suffered. But no one was spared.

  This story begins the following August.

  Part 1

  Sliding into Autumn, 1846

  CHAPTER ONE

  Green

  We crested the hill and Da stopped. He slid his bulging sack on the ground, wiped his big palm down his mouth, and put his fists on his hips. The stony bunching in his cheeks that had been building up as we approached the top now melted smooth. The thumping of my heart suspended. Please please let it be good news. Da jerked his chin toward the fields below.

  Oh, thank the heavens.

  I swallowed, turned my head from Da, and dared to look down. Green. Green green green. As green as it had been this morning when we’d left here—a fond farewell—and now an even fonder welcome back in late afternoon. Lush Irish green, as Granny used to say. She said the green of forests like the one we stood in now and the green of pastures beside the long, long road going north and south—the road I’d traveled only into town, but never beyond—that green helped her not to grieve the green of the sea way past that field to the west. The green she’d grown up with, but was too far from to see once she’d come to live with us. Ireland was green everywhere. And, best of all in this moment, the field below was green.

  That field was healthy. Our spud field was still healthy!

  Each day we worried anew, and each day it had stayed green. With any kind of luck, we’d have a good harvest this year. In another month, no more growling bellies. We’d be eating our fill.

  Yes, it had been a grand Sunday after all, despite my initial disappointment. I had yearned to spend the day playing with the other children after church. But for the past two weeks, I’d had extra chores on Sunday, so it was pure stubbornness that made me allow myself to hope for a reprieve. Da was always finding new ways to earn a bit of money and lately he’d decided to pull me along. Today he’d even brought little Paddy. It was good, though, in the end it was good, because so long as the field stayed green, life would get better again. We kids would have plenty of Sundays to play.

  “Look, Paddy,” I said, pointing to the Aran Islands, which were way off in the bay near Galways. This was the only point around here where you could get such a view. The islands were flat on top, as though the sea winds had worn them down. I imagined I could hear the wind blowing across those rocks—whistling secrets, howling sorrows.

  “That’s where I lived as a boy. On the one called Inis Mór.” Da put his hand on top of little Paddy’s head. We both knew this, of course, but we nodded reverently all the same. “If you look hard, you can see the Cliffs of Moher beyond.”

  Obediently, we stared southward. I’d never caught a glimpse of the cliffs before, and today was no exception.

  “See? See that plume of spray there? That one, there? That’s the sea crashing against the cliffs.”

  I leaned forward and concentrated. Sometimes I wondered if anyone could really see the spray or even the cliffs from here. But I didn’t question Da. He was proud of the fact that he’d visited those cliffs once upon a time. Maybe his pride gave him better vision.

  I was proud too. Proud of being a daughter of this green land. I squeezed little Paddy’s hand in happiness, then dropped it and ran.

  Rocks skittered out from under my bare feet. But I was deft; I wouldn’t go tumbling with them. It was heavy today, a dead day, the air wet from held-in rain for the third day in a row. I knew the temperature was low. But in the shimmer of all that green below, the day seemed absurdly and deliciously warm. The wind born from my own running cooled me in the loveliest way. I opened my mouth wide, to gulp the world.

  “Owwww!”

  Of course. I stopped and closed my eyes for a second—it didn’t serve anyone to show my annoyance—then went back and helped little Paddy up to sitting. Blood ran from a gash in his shin. Pebbles embedded there.

  “Clean him up.” Da strode on past with a quick glance and playful tug at my hair. “Bold girl. Your ma’s going to be cross. You know your brother’s clumsy.”

  “It’s not my fault! I didn’t tell him to run.”

  “You ran,” Da said, not bothering to stop. “What did you think he would do? You’re bold, not thick. My strong, bold girl.” The sack of peat thumped on his back, but in a bouncy way, so I was sure he wasn’t cross, at least. He’d sell nearly all that peat in town—so that was good. And, most of all, no one could be cross so long as the field was green.

  I looked around. The path here was lined with the occasional milkwort. I ripped off a stem and handed it to little Paddy. “Chew on this while I go find something to clean you up with.”

  “Will it make it hurt less?”

  I didn’t know about that. New mothers used milkwort to make their milk flow better. But I didn’t think little Paddy needed to hear that. I shrugged. “It might taste good.”

  I scooted off through the brush and searched. The grasses here in this little stony meadow should have been stiff and rough this time of year. They should have scratched me raw. Instead, the few plants were soft, as though the earth was holding on to whatever wet it could. As I went farther, they got denser. A thin creek trickled along, making a whisper of a song. I hadn’t known it was there. I didn’t know these hills well. We children hardly ever wandered this far. It was only because of gathering the peat on the other side that we’d gone today. How sweet that stream made everything—not just the grasses, the air itself.

  Peppermint grew along the stream’s edge. That was good for calming nausea, at least. And here were some lavender plants. Lavender was good for fending off pesky insects, like mosquitoes. I broke off some of each and dragged them through the creek water to get them clean. Oh. Oh, glory! Blackberry brambles hung over the water on the other side of the stream. They arced like huge, tangled claws of a devil monster, and they were laden with fruit. My stomach clenched in hunger.

  I looked around. Nothing to carry them in.

  I pulled my dress off over my head. I was really too old to go without clothes, and Ma would be beyond cross when I got home. But no one was likely to see me between now and then, so what did it matter? I picked as many berries as my dress could hold and hurried back to little Paddy with the precious parcel.

  He sat on the path in the same spot, but with one hand high in the air now. He flapped it at me, nothing more than a movement of the wrist, but I recognized it as a warning. His eyes were big and he slowly turned his head to look from me to something at his other side. I stepped softly toward him, half alarmed.

  A huge blue underwing moth crawled along little Paddy’s outstretched leg. It was big as a bat. Dusk was still at least an hour off; that moth shouldn’t have been out and about yet.
I hardly breathed as I set down my parcel. I peeled open the sides and took out two blackberries. I placed them on my tongue and shut my mouth, careful not to crush them. Then I got on all fours and crept the rest of the way to little Paddy. The moth paid me no attention. I took a berry from my tongue and extended my hand, slowly, slowly, and put the berry on little Paddy’s leg, in the moth’s path. I took the other berry and put it in little Paddy’s open mouth.

  “Blasta—tasty,” he said softly.

  The moth touched the blackberry tentatively with featherlike antennae. All at once his silver-gray wings shot open, exposing the glorious lilac blue beneath. Little Paddy reached out his hand to pet it, and the moth flew. My heart fell. But the moth circled and landed back again, on little Paddy’s head. Little Paddy laughed and the moth flew again. Away now.

  “He was blue like smoke.”

  “Mmm,” I said. I plucked the blackberry from little Paddy’s leg and ate it.

  “Blackberries are so good,” said Paddy.

  “They are, aren’t they?”

  “Lorraine?”

  “What, Paddy?”

  “I’m sorry I got you in trouble.”

  “Da wasn’t really cross.”

  “He sounded cross.”

  “Watch the set of his shoulders, the way he walks—they give him away.” I filled little Paddy’s hand with blackberries. “He’s happy really.” I almost added that Da would be happy so long as the fields were green and the spuds were coming, but I caught myself in time. Who knew what little Paddy understood at his age? “Look out to the side and suck on your berries. And if it hurts a lot, sing with me.”

  Little Paddy put a berry in his mouth and dutifully stared to his side.

  “On the wings of the wind,” I sang, as I picked each pebble from his gash, “o’er the dark rolling deep, angels are coming to watch o’er thy sleep.”

  “I’m not going to sleep,” said little Paddy. “And that hurts a lot. Besides, you sing all ugly.”

  “Just sing with me, you hear?”

  “Angels are coming to watch over thee,” we sang, “so list to the wind coming over the sea.”

  I rubbed the wound clean with the wet lavender. Then the peppermint.

  “That’s not making it feel better.”

  “But it makes you smell better.” I laughed. “You’re like some English lady’s garden now, hidden on the other side of a wall, but fragrant for all.”

  “I’m cold.”

  So was I all of a sudden. The weather had been like this lately, warmer in the day, sometimes nearly hot, then shivery at night. I wished I could put my dress back on. “The sun’s going down. We can’t dodder.”

  “It’s getting fierce. Carry me.”

  “I’ve got the berries to carry.”

  “I’ll carry the berries. You carry me. Please, Lorraine.”

  I closed up the parcel and handed it to him. “Don’t squish them, you hear?”

  “I used to carry eggs all the time. When we still had hens.”

  “Berries ruin far easier than eggs.” I turned and bent my knees.

  Little Paddy climbed onto my back. Then he perched the parcel on top of my head.

  “Don’t be thick, Paddy. It’ll fall off.”

  “I’ll hold it there. Like the moth.”

  That made no sense. But lots of things little Paddy said didn’t make sense. I tramped along down the hill.

  “Let’s pretend it’s spud-planting time again, Lorraine. You know, let’s chant the rules like we did then.”

  So spuds were on his mind too. I hoped he was just remembering our spring—not really worrying. I worried enough for both of us. “Smash those seashells,” I said.

  “Smash! Smash! Smash!” Little Paddy wriggled on my back. I thought about him swinging the hammer in March. He was better at it this year. Most of the shells were reduced to grit. “Ready!” he shouted.

  “Add water to the pig manure. Three parts water, one part manure.”

  “Stir! Stir! Stir!” shouted Little Paddy. He was practically bouncing on my back, and well he should be. That manure gave the mixture exactly the nutrients spuds needed.

  “Now add the smashed shells,” I said.

  “Dump! Dump! Dump!” shouted little Paddy. “Stir! Stir! Stir!”

  “It’s time,” I said. “Mind the line.”

  “The line! The line!” he shouted.

  I marched very straight as though I was following one of the long lines Da made in the field with the spade. “Throw it!” I said.

  “There! There! There!”

  I felt his little body twist, and I knew he was pretending to throw handfuls of the crushed seashells and manure mix onto the grass on either side of the spade line. I grasped his legs tighter. “Throw it thick,” I chanted.

  “There! There! There!”

  “Turn the sod,” I chanted.

  “Turn! Turn! Turn!”

  Little Paddy hadn’t really ever helped with this part of the spud planting. But he had stood beside us this spring as Da and I did it. I remembered how my arms ached at the end of the day, how my back and neck and legs ached. Turning the sod over onto the mix of manure and shells was the hardest work ever. Harder even than digging for spuds in the autumn.

  “Now, see how that turned-over sod makes such a lovely incubator for the seed spuds? It’s grand!”

  “Grand!” shouted little Paddy.

  “You’re a good help, Paddy. The best. So you can have the best treat of all. You get to put in the seed spuds.”

  “Hurrah!” shouted little Paddy. “Shove! Shove! Shove!”

  I remembered his skinny arms pushing those little spuds into place. I remembered all our hopes as the pile of seed spuds gradually disappeared.

  I marched ever more happily now, the rest of the way down the hill and past the fields, all the way home to our stone cottage. A wiggly brother on my back, and a green, green world. What could be better?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Pointy

  I want more.”

  “Is that so, Paddy?” said Ma. “And exactly whose plate are you planning on robbing them from, you little gadaí—thief?”

  Little Paddy twisted his mouth.

  Ma was right, of course. Still, I understood little Paddy; the mound of blackberries didn’t look nearly so large divided into our four cups as it had piled up in my dress, especially since Ma had given Da double what the rest of us got. I just bet his berries would fill two hen’s eggshells with some left over. I stared at them till my eyes burned.

  “Hmm. Thinking about it now, I wonder if maybe I did make a mistake,” said Ma. “If a person had some blackberries before coming to the table, then that amount should be subtracted from his share, right?”

  Little Paddy pressed his lips together and looked down. “I didn’t.” He shook his head. “Neither did Lorraine,” he mumbled.

  That my brother could fib so easy never surprised me. What surprised me was that he did it so bad. His cheeks flamed bright in the pale light from the peat fire in the hearth. The pungent reek was so comforting, though, who could get cross?

  And Ma didn’t. She just laughed. “That’s settled, then. Lorraine, go get your da.”

  “I’m here,” came the words, as outside early-evening light seeped into the room. Da stood in the open doorway, stripped to the waist. His shirt was balled around something in his hands.

  Little Paddy jumped to his feet. “More berries?”

  “Better.” Da shut the door behind him, and the room went dim again. But we could see by the fluttering candlelight and the hearth fire and by the slight haze that filtered in through the smoke hole in our branch-and-peat roof. He put his bundle on the floor and opened it up. A spiny gray ball sat there.

  Muc lifted her head from the corner where she’d been sleeping on her side. Her big piggy snout wiggled as she sucked in the new scent. Then she flopped her head back to the earthen floor and closed her eyes again.

  Little Paddy went over to
stand half behind Da. “What is it?”

  “Wait and see.”

  But I knew. I’d seen them in the fields at dusk. Not the spud fields—the only animals I’d ever seen eat spud leaves were red deer. Not even our cow, Bo Bo, ate them. Those leaves were poisonous, after all. But in the grain fields in the evening, little fellows like that ball on the ground, just a lot larger, ran through all wobbly-like. They let out quick grunts that made me laugh.

  After a few moments the hedgehog unrolled itself. It wandered off Da’s shirt toward little Paddy’s feet. The boy took a step back.

  “Don’t be afraid,” I whispered. “He won’t hurt.”

  “He’s all pointy.”

  “But not mean. Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s a baby. Don’t you think he’s cute?”

  Little Paddy nodded. He stood very still as the hedgehog poked about his toes. Then he giggled. It must have tickled. Why was my brother so lucky with animals today? First the blue moth, now the hedgehog.

  Muc had gotten up at the commotion. The pig walked over. She thrust her snout out to touch the hedgehog.

  The hedgehog shrieked.

  Muc squealed.

  Now one was in a ball again, tighter than ever—and the other was back in the corner again, faster than ever.

  We all laughed.

  Da shook his head at Muc. “The big coward.” He smiled and slapped himself on the chest. “For a moment there I thought I was going to have to whack her hard to keep her from eating our meal.”

  “Our meal?” asked little Paddy. “Berries? Muc eats all the old rot from last year. She doesn’t need our berries.” He knelt as the hedgehog unrolled again. “But maybe our new baby needs berries. Can I feed him one? From my cup, I mean. Can I?”

  “You cannot,” said Da. “This creature is—”

  Ma put up a hand. “A silent mouth is sweet to hear.” She gave Da a hard look.

  And I got it. Little Paddy had no idea, but I understood like Ma did—I knew what Da had been about to say. My heart pounded in my ears. “The fields are green, Da. Think on that, please, Da, think on that. In just a few weeks, we can start digging up the fields. We won’t be hungry anymore.”