A MINORITY Denis Halligan noticed Willy Stein for the first time one Sunday when the other fellows were at Mass. As Denis was a Protestant, he didn’t go to Mass. Instead, he sat on the steps outside the chapel with Willy. Willy was a thin, seedy little chap with long, wild hair. It was an autumn morning; there was mist on the trees, and you could scarcely see the great ring of mountains that cut them off there in the middle of Ireland, miles from anywhere. ‘Why did they send you here if you’re a Proddy?’ asked Willy. ‘I don’t know,’ said Denis, who felt his background was so queer that he didn’t want to explain it to anybody. ‘I suppose because it was cheap.’ ‘Is your old fellow a Catholic?’ asked Willy. ‘No,’ replied Denis. ‘Is yours?’ ‘No,’ Willy said contemptuously. ‘He was a Proddy, My old one was a Proddy, too.’ “Where do they live?’ asked Denis. ‘They’re dead,’ Willy said, making the motion of spitting. ‘The bloody Germans killed them.’ ‘Oh, cripes!’ Denis said regretfully. Denis had a great admiration for everything German, particularly tank generals, and when he grew up he wanted to be a tank general himself, but it seemed a pity that they had to kill Willy’s father and mother. Bad as it was to have your parents separated, as his own were, it was worse having them dead. ‘Was it a bomb?’ he asked. ‘No,’ Willy replied without undue emotion. ‘They were killed in a camp. They sent me over to the Cumminses in Dublin or I’d have been killed, too. The Cumminses are Catholics. That’s why I was sent here.’ ‘Do you like it here?’ asked Denis. ‘I do not,’ Willy said scornfully in his slummy Dublin accent, and then took out a slingshot and fitted a stone in it. ‘I’d sooner Vienna. Vienna was gas. When I grow up I’m going to get out of this blooming place.’ ‘But what will you do?’ ‘Aw, go to sea, or something. I don’t care.’ Denis was interested in Willy. Apart from the fact that they were the only Proddies in the school, Willy struck him as being really tough, and Denis admired toughness. He was always trying to be tough himself, but there was a soft streak in him that kept breaking out. It was breaking out now, and he knew it. Though he saw that Willy didn’t give a rap about his parents, Denis couldn’t help being sorry for him, alone in the middle of Ireland with his father and mother dead half a world away. He said as much to his friend Nigel Healy, from Cork, that afternoon, but Nigel only gave a superior sniff. ‘But that fellow is mad,’ he said, in his reasonable way. ‘How is he mad?’ asked Denis. ‘He’s not even left go home on holidays,’ explained Nigel. ‘He has to stay here all during the summer. Those people were nice to him, and what does he do? Breaks every window in the place. They had the police to the house twice. He’s mad on slingshots.’ ‘He had one this morning,’ said Denis. ‘Last time he was caught with one he got flogged,’ said Nigel. ‘You see, the fellow has no sense. I even saw him putting sugar on his meat.’ ‘But why did he do that?’ asked Denis. ‘Said he liked it,’ replied Nigel with a smile and a shrug. ‘He’s bound to get expelled one of these days. You’d want to mind yourself with him.’ But for some reason that only made Denis more interested in Willy Stein, and he looked forward to meeting him again by himself the following Sunday. He was curious to know why the Germans would want to kill Stein’s father and mother. That seemed to him a funny thing to do—unless, of course, they were spies for the English. Again they sat on the steps, but this morning the sun was warm and bright, and the mountains all round them were a brilliant blue. If Stein’s parents were really spies, the idea of it did not seem to have occurred to him. According to him, his father had been a lawyer and his mother something on a newspaper, and he didn’t seem to remember much about them except that they were both ‘gas’. Everything with Stein was ‘gas’. His mother was gentle and timid, and let him have everything he wanted, so she was ‘great gas’. His father was sure she was ruining him, and was always on to him to study and be better than other kids, and when his father got like that he used to weep and shout and wave his hands, but that was only now and then. He was gas, too, though not, Denis gathered, great gas. Willy suddenly waved his hands and shouted something in a foreign language. ‘What’s that?’ asked Denis with the deepest admiration. ‘German,’ Stein replied, in his graceless way. “What does it mean?’ asked Denis. ‘I dunno,’ Stein said lightly. Denis was disappointed. For a fellow like himself, who was interested in tanks, a spatter of German might one day be useful. He had the impression that Stein was only letting on to remember parents he had lost before he was really old enough to remember them. Their talk was interrupted by Father Houlihan, a tall, morose-looking priest. He had a bad belly and a worse temper, but Denis knew Father Houlihan liked him, and he admired Father Houlihan. He was violent, but he wasn’t a stinker. ‘Hah?’ he said, in his mocking way. ‘And what do you two cock sparrows think you’re doing out here?’ “We’re excused, Father,’ Denis said brightly, leaping to his feet ‘No one is excused anything in this place till I excuse him,’ snarled Father Houlihan cheerfully, ‘and I don’t excuse much. Run into Mass now, ye pair of heathens!’ ‘But we’re Protestants, Father!’ Stein cried, and Denis was half afraid of seeing the red flush on Father Houlihan’s forehead that showed he was out for blood. ‘Aha, what fine Protestants we have in ye!’ he snorted good-humouredly. ‘I suppose you have a Protestant slingshot in your pocket at this very minute, you scoundrel, you!’ ‘I have not!’ Stein shouted. ‘You know Murphy took it off me.’ ‘Mr Murphy to you, Willy Stein,’ said the priest, pinching his ear playfully and pushing him towards the chapel. ‘And next time I catch you with a slingshot I’ll give you a Catholic cane on your fat Protestant backside.’ The two boys went into chapel and sat together on a bench at the back. Willy was muttering indignantly to himself, but he waited until everyone was kneeling with bowed head. Then, to Denis’ horror, he took out a slingshot and a bit of paper, which he chewed up into a wet ball. There was nothing hasty or spontaneous about this. Stein went about it with a concentration that was almost pious. As the bell rang for the Consecration, there was a ping, and a seminarist kneeling at the side of the chapel put his hand to his ear and looked angrily round. But by this time Stein had thrown himself on his knees, and his eyes were shut in a look of rapt devotion. It gave Denis quite a turn. Even if he wasn’t a Catholic, he had been brought up to respect every form of religion. The business: of going to Mass and feeling out of it made Denis Halligan completely fed up with being a Proddy. He had never liked it anyway, even at home, as a kid. He was gregarious, and a born gang leader, a promoter of organization, and it cut him to the heart to feel that at any moment he might be deserted by his gang because, through no fault of his own, he was not a Catholic and might accidentally say or do the wrong thing. He even resented the quiet persuasion that the school authorities exercised on him. A senior called Hanley, whom Nigel described sarcastically as ‘Halligan’s angel’, was attached to Denis—not to proselytize, but to give him an intelligent understanding of the religious life of the group. Hanley had previously been attached to Stein, but that had proved hopeless, because Stein seemed to take Hanley’s company as a guarantee of immunity from punishment, so he merely involved Hanley in every form of forbidden activity, from smoking to stealing. One day when Stein stole a gold tie-pin from a master’s room, Hanley had to report him. On Hanley’s account, he was not flogged, but told to put the tie-pin back in the place from which he had taken it. Stein did so, and seized the opportunity to pinch five shillings instead, and this theft was discovered only when someone saw Stein fast asleep in bed with his mouth open and the two half-crowns in his jaw. As Hanley, a sweet and saintly boy, said to Denis, it wasn’t Stein’s fault. He was just unbalanced. In any other circumstances Denis would have enjoyed Hanley’s attention, but it made him mad to be singled out like this and looked after like some kid who couldn’t undo his own buttons. ‘Listen, Hanley,’ he said angrily one day when he and Nigel were discussing football and Hanley had slipped a little homily into the conversation. ‘It’s no good preaching at me. It’s not my fault that I’m a Proddy.’ “Well, you don’t have to be a Proddy if you don’t want to be,’ Hanley said with a smile. ‘Do you?’ ‘How can I help it?’ asked Denis. ‘Well, who’d stop you?’ ‘My mother would, for one.’ ‘Did you try?’ ‘What do you mean, Hanley?’ ‘I mean, why don’t you ask her?’ Hanley went on, in the same bland way. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure she wants you to be a Proddy.’ ‘How could I ask her?’ ‘You could write. Or phone,’ Hanley added hastily, seeing the look on Denis’ face at the notion of writing an extra letter. ‘Father Houlihan would let you use the telephone, if you asked him. Or I’ll ask him, if you like.’ ‘Do if you want to,’ said Denis. ‘I don’t care.’ He didn’t really believe his mother would agree to something he wanted, just like that, but he had no objection to a free telephone call that would enable him to hear her voice again. To his astonishment, she made no difficulty about it. ‘Why, of course, darling,’ she said sweetly. ‘If that’s how you feel and Father Houlihan has no objection, I don’t mind. You know I only want you to be happy at school.’ It was a colossal relief. Overnight, his whole position in the school changed. He had ceased to be an outsider. He was one of the gang. He might even be Chief Gang Leader in the course of time. He was a warm-hearted boy, and he had the feeling that by a simple gesture he had conferred an immense benefit on everybody. The only person who didn’t seem too enthusiastic was Father Houlihan, but then he was not much of an enthusiast anyway. ‘My bold young convert,’ he said, pulling Denis’ ear, ‘I suppose any day now you’ll start paying attention to your lessons.’ Yet the moment he had made his decision, he began to feel guilty about young Stein. As has been said, he was not only gregarious, but he was also a born gang leader, and had the feeling that someone might think he had deserted an ally to secure his own advantage, He was suddenly filled with a wild desire to convert Willy as well, so that the pair of them could be received as a group. He saw it as even more of a duty of Willy’s than of his own. Willy had been saved from his parents’ fate by a good kind Catholic family, and it was the least they could expect that Willy should show his gratitude to them, to the school, and to Ireland. But Willy seemed to have a deplorable head for theology. All the time they talked Denis had the impression that Willy was only planning some fresh mischief. ‘Ah, come on, Willy,’ he said authoritatively, ‘you don’t want to be a blooming old Proddy.’ ‘I don’t want to be a Cat either,’ said Willy with a shrug. ‘Don’t you want to be like the other fellows in the school?’ ‘Why don’t they want to be like me?’ asked Stein. ‘Because there’s only two of us, and there’s hundreds of them. And they’re right.’ ‘And if there were hundreds of us and two of them, we’d be right, I suppose?’ Stein said with a sneer. ‘You want to be like the rest of them. All right, be like the rest of them, but let me alone.’ ‘I’m only speaking for your own good,’ Denis said, getting mad. What really made him mad was the feeling that somehow Stein wasn’t speaking to him at all; that inside, he was as lonely and lost as Denis would have been in similar circumstances, and he wouldn’t admit to it, wouldn’t break down as Denis would have done. What he really wanted to do was to give Stein a sock in the gob, but he knew that even this was no good. Stein was always being beaten, and he always yelled bloody murder, and next day he came back and did the same thing again. Everyone was thinking exclusively of Stein’s good, and it always ended up by their beating him, and it never did him any good at all. Denis confided his difficulties to Hanley, who was also full of concern for Stein’s good, but Hanley only smiled sadly and shook his head. ‘I know more about that than you do, Denis,’ he said, in his fatherly way. ‘I’ll tell you if you promise not to repeat it to a living soul.’ “What is it?” asked Denis eagerly. ‘Promise! Mind, this is serious!’ ‘Oh, I promise.’ ‘The fact is that Stein isn’t a Proddy at all,’ Hanley said sadly. ‘But what is he?’ ‘Stein is a Jew,’ Hanley said in a low voice. ‘That’s why his father and mother were killed. Nobody knows that, though.’ ‘But does Stein know he’s a Jew?’ Denis asked excitedly. ‘No. And mind, we’re not supposed to know it, either. Nobody knows it, except the priests and ourselves.’ ‘But why doesn’t somebody tell him?’ ‘Because if they did, he might blab about it—you know, he’s not very smart—and then all the fellows would he jeering at him. Remember, Denis, if you ever mentioned it, Father Houlihan would skin you alive. He says Stein is after suffering enough. He’s sorry for Stein. Mind, I’m only warning you.’ ‘But won’t it be awful for him when he finds out?’ ‘When he’s older and has a job, he won’t mind it so much,’ said Hanley. But Denis wasn’t sure. Somehow, he had an idea that Stein wanted to stay a Proddy simply because that was what his father and mother had been and it was now the only link he had with them, and if someone would just tell him. he wouldn’t care so much and would probably become a Catholic, like Denis. Afterwards, when he did find out that every thing he had done was mistaken, it might be too late. And this—and the fact that Father Houlihan, whom Denis admired, was also sorry for Willy Stein—increased his feeling of guilt, and he almost wished he hadn’t been in such a hurry himself about being converted. Denis wasn’t a bright student, but he was a born officer and he would never have deserted his men. The excitement of his own reception into the Church almost banished the thought of Stein from his mind. On the Sunday he was received he was allowed to sleep late, and Murphy, the seminarist, even brought him comics to read in bed. This was real style! Then he dressed in his best suit and went down to meet his mother, who arrived, with his sister, Martha, in a hired car. For once, Martha was deferential. She was impressed, and the sight of the chapel impressed her even more. In front of the High Altar there was an isolated prie-dieu for Denis himself, and behind him a special pew was reserved for her and his mother. Denis knew afterwards that he hadn’t made a single false move. Only once was his exaltation disturbed, and that was when he heard the _ping_ of a slingshot and realized that Stein, sitting by himself in the back row, was whiling away the time by getting into fresh mischief. The rage rose up in Denis, in spite of all his holy thoughts, and for a moment he resolved that when it was all over he would find Willy Stein and beat him to a jelly. Instead, when it was over he suddenly felt weary. Martha had ceased to be impressed by him. Now she was just a sister a bare year younger who was mad with him for having stolen the attention of everybody. She knew only too well what a figure she would have cut as a convert, and was crazy with jealousy. ‘I won’t stand it,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be a Catholic, too.’ ‘Well, who’s stopping you?’ Denis asked. ‘Nobody’s going to stop me,’ said Martha. ‘Just because Daddy is fond of you doesn’t mean that I can’t be a Catholic.’ ‘What has Daddy to do with it?’ asked Denis with a feeling of alarm. ‘Because now that you’re a Catholic, the courts wouldn’t let him have you,’ Martha said excitedly. ‘Because Daddy is an atheist, or something, and he wanted to get hold of you. He tried to get you away from Mummy. I don’t care about Daddy. I’m going to be converted, too.’ ‘Go on!’ growled Denis, feeling sadly how his mood of exaltation was fading. ‘You’re only an old copycat.’ ‘I am not a copycat, Denis Halligan,’ she said bitterly. ‘It’s only that you always sucked up to Daddy and I didn’t, and he doesn’t care about me. I don’t care about him, either, so there!’ Denis felt a sudden pang of terror at her words. In a dim sort of way he realized that what he had done might have consequences he had never contemplated. He had no wish to live with his father, but his father came to the school to see him sometimes, and he had always had the feeling that if he ever got fed up with living at home with his mother and Martha, his father would always have him. Nobody had told him that by becoming a Catholic he had made it impossible for his father to have him. He glanced round and saw Stein, thin and pale and furtive, slouching away from the chapel with his hand in his pocket clutching his slingshot. He gave Denis a grin in which there was no malice, but Denis scowled and looked away. ‘Who’s that?’ asked Martha inquisitively. ‘Oh, him!’ Denis said contemptuously. ‘That’s only a dirty Jew-boy.’ Yet even as he spoke the words he knew they were false. What he really felt towards Willy Stein was an aching envy. Nobody had told him that by changing his faith he might be unfaithful to his father, but nobody had told Stein, either, and, alone and despairing, he still clung to a faith that was not his own for the sake of a father and mother he had already almost forgotten, who had been murdered half a world away and whom he would never see again. For a single moment Denis saw the dirty little delinquent whom everyone pitied and despised transfigured by a glory that he himself would never know. (1957) Source: _Masculine Protest and other stories_, 1972, pp. 12-22