Of Irish Blood (65 page)

The old woman is nodding as Maura speaks.

“I wonder, does she mean phosphorescence?” I say.

“Perhaps,” Maura says, “but the fishermen see the light as a kind of miracle and tonight the bay glows with that
mearbhall
.”

A
mearbhall
. Maura said you can enter the otherworld through a well, a lake, or a sudden insight. Now as I stand here on the strand, the waves swirling around my feet, tugging me into the bay and then receding, leaving bubbles bursting into scarlet light, some deep part of myself opens up connecting me to this place, these people, this history. I thought my family had left the pain behind. We’d survived. The undertow of the past can’t pull us down. We’d escaped from the Pykes and the Sergeant Simmonses of this place. But had we really? Irish Americans, Chicago Irish—we’d gained much but we’d lost a part of ourselves. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his soul?

My soul, I’d managed to ignore my soul during my time with Tim McShane. Not flooded with guilt until that day in Notre-Dame. But Father Kevin had absolved me, practically given me Peter in lieu of saying three Hail Marys. A decent woman again though dead to my family and to Chicago. No time to worry about my soul during the war—move, act, serve, survive. But standing here I know my soul’s not under the jurisdiction of the Church or the nuns, or even my own to control. Does it belong here? Does my innermost self speak this old woman’s language? In losing the words, did I lose a part of me?

Mearbhall,
an idea I can’t put English on. The light inside me that I can’t explain even to myself.

The sun slides down below the western horizon. The red and amber sky goes dark. The moon rises. My feet and ankles are numb with cold. I step back, stamp my feet on the sand, bend down, rub my right foot, and then the old woman’s there, kneading and rubbing my left one.

“It hurts,” I say to Maura.

“Life coming back,” she says. “Blood circulating.”

My Irish blood.

26

When we return to the hotel, Mr. Jenson and the other committee members still sit in the library, leaning back in the armchairs that face the fire. Wood, not turf, and I’ve been in Galway long enough to know that those big logs in a country of so few trees cost big money. Maura pointed out the Barna Woods as we walked back on the high road to Galway.

“Belongs to the Lynch estate,” she told me. “The tenants can’t even pick up fallen branches. Landlords own the trees. ‘Ireland thrice clad and thrice bare,’” she quoted. “Words from Geoffrey Keating’s
History of Ireland
. We were once called ‘the Isle of Woods Covered with Forests.’ Each wave of invaders cut down the trees, the Vikings for their raiding ships, the Normans for their castles, and then the English for their navy vessels. ‘Heart of oaks’ but they were our oaks. Very few trees left in Ireland except on the estates of the rich.”

So tenants can’t have wood fires but the Great Southern Hotel affords them no problem.

Cyril hurries up to us. “And where have you been? The train’s leaving in half an hour!”

“But you said the Donegal train doesn’t go until nine o’clock and it’s only eight,” I say.

Mr. Jenson speaks up.

“You’re not going to Donegal, Miss Kelly. You’re returning to Dublin and taking the boat to France. I can’t afford another incident like today’s.”

“So you’re firing me?” I say.

“We purposely did not include Irish Americans in the survey group so our report would not be clouded by racial bias,” he says.

“What? Racial bias? You saw the destruction. You were there this morning when…”

“After you left, Miss Kelly, Captain Pyke returned. He’d learned that you did consort with a known criminal. You used this committee for personal reasons. You put us all at risk. We must be seen to be objective for our own protection and so our recommendations will be taken seriously.”

Now, I’m not about to apologize for meeting Peter Keeley. And as far as objectivity, what is there to be objective about? England’s had its foot on Ireland’s neck for eight hundred years. We’re throwing it off. The Sassenach are fighting to retain control. A ruthless, dirty war waged on ordinary people.

“You think if we’re polite to the British, they will treat the Irish people better?” I ask Mr. Jenson. “Come on, Cyril,” I say. “Maud particularly wanted me to record the atrocities in Donegal. That’s where she first understood the injustice of the oppression, the…”

“Listen to yourself, Miss Kelly,” Mr. Jenson says. “That kind of emotion works against our purposes.”

“All right,” I say. “Then if I’m fired, I’m just going to stay here.”

“Not a good idea, Nora,” Cyril says. “Pyke will arrest you.”

“Good, headlines in the papers and…”

“Hold on there, Nora,” he says. “You’d be playing right into the Sassenach’s hands. Discredit the whole shebang and draw attention to a friend who,” he raises his voice, “wants none.”

And then I think, my picture in the paper? What if someone in Chicago saw it? Nora Kelly is not dead. She’s a jailbird.

“We don’t have time for this argument,” Mr. Jenson says. “Go back to Paris. We’ll send you your fee.”

I remember how happy Peter was that I’d be the one documenting the evidence. “We need photographs,” he said. “The English are so good at convincing the world that they’re the honest broker, not criminals.”

“Don’t fire me please,” I say. “The photographs are important. Where will you get another photographer? And I promised Maud and John Quinn.”

“You know John Quinn?” Mr. Smith says.

“I do. He recommended me.”

Smith’s listening to me.

“I actually know many of the members of the National Council and lots of fellows on the state committees,” I say. “Why, Patrick Nash of Chicago is a close family friend.”

“Nash,” Mr. Smith says. “I’ve met Pat Nash. He contributed quite generously to underwrite the expenses of this trip.”

“I know Cardinal Mundelein and even went to school with Paul Drymalski’s daughter and…” I say.

“All right, all right,” Cyril says.

He turns to Mr. Jenson. “Would you be willing to let Nora have another go at being an impartial observer who keeps her trap shut and takes photographs as she’s being paid to do?”

Mr. Jenson doesn’t reply.

Maura speaks up. “Nora has a feel for the place, the landscape and the people. Surely you want the photographs to touch hearts don’t you? Isn’t the point to raise money? Perhaps a bit of passion is needed,” she says.

“Very quiet passion,” I say. “I promise, I’ll be absolutely understated. Please. God’s given me this opportunity to use my skills for a good purpose. Don’t deny me the chance.”

These are Quakers after all, I think. Mr. Smith says something about Grace in earthen vessels. They huddle and I’m rehired.

So.

We make ninety-five stops in the next three weeks, travel from Gortahork in northwest Donegal to Timoleague on the extreme southern coast, and cover the Midlands. We prove what the British government has denied. That ninety percent of the damage being inflicted by British forces is on civilian property to the tune of twenty million dollars lost, a fortune. One hundred and fifty towns have been destroyed, which Mr. Jenson says would translate into five thousand in the United States.

One hundred thousand people are starving, which would equal three million Americans.

We see hundreds of burned-out creameries. The centerpiece of the Irish rural economy destroyed. A pretty emotional Mr. Jenson by the end of our tour. It’s me who arranges for them to meet Maud and members of the Irish White Cross when we come back to Dublin.

Delighted with me is Maud. Thank God I don’t have to tell her I was almost fired.

“I’m hopeful that the committee’s findings will pressure the British government into agreeing to withdraw their troops,” she tells me when we assemble at her house on our last evening in Dublin.

“Charlotte Despard’s heard the king himself is disgusted with the Black and Tans,” she says.

I tell Maud I bring her greetings from every crossroads in Donegal. And say that I visited Father Kevin’s grave in a lovely cemetery at the foot of a cliff in Glencolmcille and discovered that Kevin’s favorite saint defined Donegal.

“At every stop, we were taken to one of the holy wells dedicated to him,” I tell Maud. And I give her white clay from St. Colmcille’s birthplace, Gartan. Only a woman of the O’Friel clan could give out the clay, and Cyril took a half a day finding Ann O’Friel. Now Maud rolls the white balls between her fingers.

“Gives protection from fire,” she says. “We need it. Another raid last week.”

Maud serves us one of Josephine’s dinners in her own dining room and she invites Alice Stopford Green and Mary Spring Rice, two of my money-smuggling clients. Both on the board of the White Cross.

“I’m still wearing Madame Simone’s lovely creation,” Alice says to me, and winks.

Maud charms the men. In the candlelight, she looks very like the young woman who became Yeats’s muse. Although I’m not sure these gentlemen could quote any lines about Maud’s yellow hair. Let alone her pilgrim soul.

Barry is cutting slices of Josephine’s tarte tatin when Maud leans forward and says, to Mr. Jenson, “You must influence your government. Convince your president to speak to Lloyd George.”

Jenson shakes his head. “Madame, I think you misunderstand our mission. We are here for humanitarian purposes. No politics.”

“But you can’t separate them,” I say. “As long as Ireland is ruled by a government that sees its people as savages, scum—Captain Pyke’s words.”

“Very well said, miss.” The words come from a tall, broad-shouldered man who walks into the dining room. Dark hair and very blue eyes, handsome, smiling. Dressed in a khaki uniform with a Sam Browne belt and wearing a slouch hat.

Maud rushes over to him.

“Mick. Thank you for coming. But really, should you have taken the chance?”

She goes to the window and looks out. Mick, Michael. Could it be?

“I wasn’t followed, Maud,” he says. “I came through your back garden. Some of our fellows are watching.”

“You’re Michael Collins,” I say.

He takes off his hat and half bows to me.

“I am,” he says.

“General Michael Collins, commandant of the Irish Republican Army,” Maud says.

Mr. Jenson stands up. But Michael Collins speaks to me. “And who are you?” he says, taking my hand.

“I’m Nora Kelly, from Chicago.”

“Ah, Chicago. My brother lives there, Patrick Collins. Do you know him?” He laughs. “I forgot Chicago’s a big place. Not like Ireland, where everyone knows everyone.”

“Chicago’s not that much different,” I say. “Is your brother a police captain by any chance?”

“He is.”

“I’ve met him. A friend of my cousin’s.”

“Well now, isn’t that a lovely coincidence? Pat had a job lined up for me in a Chicago a few years back. I was working in London. Lonesome. Almost went but the…” He shrugs. “And you’re a member of this august committee?”

“Not really, I’m the photographer,” I say.

“Ah,” he says. “An artist, too.”

He turns to Maud. “How splendid our Irish women are. I am grateful to all of you,” he says, smiling at Alice and Mary.

Our Irish women, including me! I’m one of them, approved by the commandant himself.

“And, of course,” Collins goes on, “I thank you, gentlemen, our American friends, and I mean that in both senses. I understand you are Quakers, a group that has served Ireland in so many ways over the generations. Your aid during the Great Starvation is still remembered.”

“Thank you, sir,” Mr. Jenson says, “but as members of the Society of Friends, we are opposed to any kind of violence. It’s good of you to come here. But really, our mission cannot be seen to have any connection to your, well, army.”

“Our, well, army?”

Michael Collins laughs.

“I’d say we’re the least militaristic bunch you could imagine. Believe me, we’d be happy enough to lay down our arms if the British would withdraw their troops and put the Black and Tans back in the prisons they left. But we can’t leave our people defenseless. We have thirty-five hundred fighters. There are fifty-seven thousand British forces here, gentlemen. They outnumber us, are better armed, but we’ve shown them they can’t murder the innocent without retaliation.”

“Violence begets violence,” Mr. Smith says, “and the violent are carried away.”

Collins nods. “Probably true. But then Jesus himself drove the money changers out of the temple, and I’d say King David gave as good as he got. The Brits have never faced an armed and unified Ireland. I think most of them do want out.”

“I don’t know, Mick,” Maud says. “There’s Churchill and Henry Wilson and too many in the army pledged to keeping Ireland at all cost.”

“True enough,” Collins says.

“Thrust into hell Satan and all those who roam the world seeking the ruin of souls,” I say.

Mr. Jenson and the other Quakers look at each other completely befuddled and even the converted super-Catholic Maud Gonne MacBride has no idea of what I’m saying.

But Michael Collins laughs. “I wouldn’t say my fighters are exactly the Heavenly Host but I do believe we are on the side of the angels and that we will prevail.”

Cyril steps into the room. “Better go, Mick,” he says. Collins turns to the committee, touches Maud’s shoulder.

“Slán
a bhaile,”
Collins says. “Safe Journey back to America.

“Wait,” I say. “Peter Keeley. Do you know Peter Keeley?”

“I do,” he says.

“Tell him … tell him I’ll be back.”

“I believe you will be,” Collins says.

Maud follows him out. Mr. Jenson sits down.

“Well,” he says. “Well, well.”

I can’t go, I think. I can’t leave Ireland. I am ready to enlist in the struggle. Any army led by Michael Collins with Peter Keeley in the ranks has me. I imagine myself photographing battle scenes, carrying messages. “A Nation Once Again” and me in the center. How proud my uncle Patrick would be.

I go after Maud and Michael Collins. They’re standing together in her study.