It was the summer of 1974.
I looked down at Belfast from a window of the much-bombed Europa Hotel -- the "most bombed hotel in the world" -- and watched a nightmare: hijacked buses burning; gunfire echoing along the streets; sirens blaring. Somewhere down there, I had ++ an appointment. Men who were thinking about killing me were looking for me.
The night before, in the upstairs room of a pub that belonged to one of the paramilitary groups, they had argued loudly about whether I was a spy for "the other side." After a lot of shouting, they decided I was free to go. But I was told to return the next evening for more questioning.
Absolutely, I said. No problem. Just name the time.
I skipped my appointment that night -- no use letting them change their minds -- and left Belfast the next morning. I didn't return until January 1995, more than 20 years later. When I did return, I found a Northern Ireland that, on the surface, is much more placid. But it remains just as divided.
Today, Northern Ireland is quiet but not at peace. It's a cold war now, a political battle of words and strategies in a clamped-down place. Peace is said to be in a process. War is a process, too.
Twenty years ago, people thought it wouldn't last long. Another big push against the British or another big show of Unionist opposition to the Roman Catholic dream of a united Ireland and it would be over. It has turned out harder than that. Cease-fires and peace initiatives have come along so many times that the population is jaded, reluctant to get its hopes up, even with London and Dublin pushing for a settlement. The "long war," as the Irish Republican Army has called it, has become part of everyday life, a low-grade conflict of stealth and cunning between combatants who have spent lifetimes in complicated maneuvers.
The war has been "contained," in official parlance, largely restricted to poor, working-class areas. But that is an illusion. Northern Ireland is a country of shatter-resistant windows, bomb-proofed police stations, heavy security and daily anxiety. Even after five months of cease-fire, a generation of war has conditioned people to expect the worst.
"The peace genie is out of the bottle," an optimistic police official told me. "The longer peace lasts, the more people will want it to stay."
It says a lot about Northern Ireland that peace is thought of as a magical figure bottled up in an ancient lamp. Peace almost seems beyond human ability to produce. In 1974, Northern Ireland was still in the first stage of the fighting that began with sectarian riots in 1969 and broke into guerrilla war in 1971. It was a time of anarchy, barricades and running, Wild West gun battles. Almost 300 people were killed in 1974, the third worst annual toll in the war (1972, with 472 deaths, remains the bloodiest year).
The 1994 body count was light by comparison, with only 60 deaths. But it would be a mistake to think the war has ended. It is only -- as the notice across the sniper sign in Crossmaglen suggests -- "On Hold." There is no basic agreement on what kind of society Northern Ireland should be.
Many Loyalist politicians have close contacts with Protestant paramilitaries. Some Catholic leaders of Sinn Fein are assumed to be among the ruling figures of the IRA. The police, who have 800 undercover agents -- an undercover force almost as large as the entire Minneapolis Police Department -- are tapped surreptitiously into almost every facet of life. The war has gone deep and it has gone, for the moment, dormant. As the peace effort continues to lurch along, it is a time of high anxiety.
The IRA and other paramilitaries are keeping ready for war. "I hope it's over, but I don't think it is," a Catholic man told me one day. "Hopefully, someone on our side is planning for civil war."
The army and police, too, while reducing their visible presence, are ready in case the peace process goes up in smoke. No one wants more war, but everyone has a "Plan B," a contingency plan for the big "what if?" And if war comes again, the people of Northern Ireland expect it to hit hard.
In 1974, many of the Europa's windows were covered with plywood, shattered by frequent explosions. Today, the Europa is a gleaming and busy, Northern Ireland's symbol of perseverance and continuing danger.
If the plywood windows return, the peace genie will have fooled Northern Ireland again.
Nick Coleman is a reporter for the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press. This article was distributed by Knight-Ridder News Service.