Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha Read Online Free PDF Page A

complicated; we just weren’t. Your daddy will tell you.
    I was waiting for him. He came in the back door.
    -Look.
    World War Three Looms Near.
    He read it.
    —World War Three looms near, he said.—Looms, no less.
    He didn’t seem fussed.
    —Have you your gun ready, Patrick? he said.
    —Ma said there won’t be a war, I said.
    —She’s right.
    —Why?
    He sometimes liked these questions, and sometimes he didn’t. When he did he folded his legs if he was sitting down and leaned a bit to the side into his chair. That was what he did now, leaned nearer to me. I couldn’t hear him for the first bit because it had been what I’d hoped he’d do—fold his legs and lean over - and it had happened the way I’d wanted it to.
    between the Israelis and the Arabs, I heard.
    —Why?
    —They don’t like one another, he said,—basically. The same old story, I’m afraid.
    —Why does the paper say about World War Three? I asked him.
    —To sell papers, first, he said.—A headline like that sells papers. But as well, the Americans are backing the Jews and the Russians are backing the Arabs.
    —The Jews are the Israelis.
    —Yeah, that’s it.
    —Who are the Arabs?
    —Everyone else. All their neighbours. Jordan, Syria—
    —Egypt.
    —Good man, you know your stuff.
    —The Holy Family went to Egypt when Herod was after them.
    —That’s right. There’s always work for carpenters.
    I didn’t get it, fully, what he’d said, but it was the kind of thing that Ma didn’t like him saying. She wasn’t there though, so I laughed.
    —And the Jews are winning, said my da.—Against all the odds. Good luck to them.
    —Jews go to mass on Saturdays, I told my da.
    —That’s right, he said.—In synagogues.
    —They don’t believe in Jesus.
    —That’s right.
    —Why don’t they?
    —Ah now.
    I waited.
    —People believe different things.
    I wanted more than that.
    —Some believe in God, others don’t.
    —Communists don’t, I said.
    —That’s right, he said.—Who told you that?
    —Mister Hennessey.
    —Good man, Mister Hennessey, he said.
    I knew by the way he said the next thing that it was a part of a poem; he did that sometimes.
    —And still they gazed and still their wonder grew that one small head could carry all it knew. Some people believe that Jesus was the son of God and others don’t.
    —You do, don’t you?
    —Yes, he said.—I do. Why? Was Mister Hennessey asking you?
    —No, I said.
    His face changed.
    —The Israelis are a great people, he said.—Hitler tried to exterminate them, nearly did, and look at them now. Outnumbered, out-gunned, out-everythinged and they’re still winning. Sometimes I think we should move there, to Israel. Would you like that, Patrick?
    —I don’t know. Yeah, I might.
    I knew where Israel was. It was shaped like an arrow.
    —It’s hot there, I said.
    —Ummm.
    —It snows in the winter though.
    —Yep. A nice mix. Not like here, all rain.
    —They don’t wear shoes, I said.
    —Do they not?
    —Sandals.
    —Like what’s his name, your man—
    —Terence Long.
    —That’s right. Terence Long.
    We both laughed.
    —Terence Long -
    Terence Long -
    Wears no socks—
    What a pong.
    —Poor oul’ Terence, said my da.—Up the Israelis, anyway.
    —What was World War Two like? I asked him.
    —Long, he said.
    I knew the dates.
    —I was a kid when it started, he said.—And I was nearly finished with school when it ended.
    —Six years.
    —Yep. Long ones.
    —Mister Hennessey said he never saw a banana till he was eighteen.
    —I’d believe him.
    —Luke Cassidy got into trouble. He asked him what the monkeys ate during the war.
    —What happened to him? said Da when he’d stopped laughing.
    —He hit him.
    He said nothing.
    -Six.
    -Rough.
    —Luke didn’t even think it up for himself. Kevin Conroy told him to say it.
    —Serves him right then.
    —He was crying.
    —All because of bananas.
    —Kevin’s brother’s joining the F.C.A., I said.
    —Is that right?