Of Irish Blood (42 page)

“Peter,” I say, “Peter, it’s all right. You’re here. You’re safe. It’s all right.”

He opens his eyes, looks at me.

“I am here, aren’t I?” He steps back. “Strange, all the time at Louvain, on the road, when the soldiers beat me, I imagined myself here with you, and now, I am.” He touches my shoulder. “Oh, Nora, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m glad you came.”

But he’s pointing down and I see that his blood has smeared the front of my shift. I take his hand. He starts for the chair, but I steer him to the bed, where he collapses.

“I haven’t slept for days,” he says. He tries to sit up. “I don’t want to bleed on your bed,” he says.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” I say, “let me see.”

I unbutton the shirt. A gauze bandage is wrapped around his chest, but blood is seeping through it.

“We’ll replace this,” I say, astounding myself. What do I know about wounds? I unwrap the bloody bandage.

“The blade didn’t pierce my chest,” he says. “The sword slashed me. The cuts were healing I think until…”

“Whist,” I say to him.

Soap and water never hurt anything, Mam would say. I remember her doctoring my brothers when their gang the Hickory boys mixed it up with fellows from Canaryville. So I bring my rose glycerin soap, hot water, and a cloth, and dab at the cuts on his chest. Peter relaxes, takes my hand.

I want nothing more than to put it against my heart. But he lets go, closes his eyes.

“I should get dressed,” I say.

And in a few minutes, I’m back corseted, gowned, and wrapping his chest with strips torn from a tablecloth. “You should sleep,” I say.

He nods. “Could I have a cup of tea first?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Sorry.” Of course he wants a cup of tea and food too probably. “Are you hungry?”

He smiles and says, “It has been a few days.”

Thank God I have half a baguette, a lump of cheese, and a few apples. I make tea for Peter, coffee for myself, and bring the tray to the bed. Peter’s eyes are closed, asleep already. But no, he sits up, takes the tea and sips.

“Milk and one sugar,” I say, “as you like it.”

He smiles. “I pictured this, you and me, having a meal here. You remember that Christmas Eve when I walked you home?”

“I do.”

“I stood below waiting, looking for the light to go on so I’d know which windows were yours, wishing I had the courage to come up to you. Afraid you’d be shocked, offended. A respectable woman.”

“If only you knew,” I say. But he doesn’t seem to hear. Away with the fairies, as Granny Honora would say.

“Eat, Peter,” I say, and hand him a chunk of bread with some cheese, which he eats.

“The shops will be open soon, I’ll go out and get us some real food,” I say.

“Don’t, don’t leave. I’m afraid that when I sleep I’ll see it all again. The flames…” He stops.

“Do you want to tell me?” I say. “You don’t have to.”

“Please,” he says, takes my hand again. I sit down on the edge of the bed.

As Peter talks, I see he’s trying to put sense on what he saw to make himself believe that it had really happened.

“At first, the priests at the college and I thought the Germans would just pass through Louvain,” he says. “No question Paris was their goal. We watched them march through the streets, with those pointed helmets, moving at a good clip. The wagons following them had signs on the sides.
‘Nach Paris’
—‘Next stop Paris.’

“The Belgian army had retreated but some snipers stayed behind to harass the Germans, and a few students in Louvain, armed with hunting rifles, joined them. Good shots, those fellows. The Germans had left a small force to secure the city. The day after they marched in, an officer came to call on us at the college. A captain, I think, uber-something. Very pleasant and polite. He told us that they were in the city to keep order.

‘Life will go on as before,’ he said. ‘You might find we’re much more efficient than the Belgians—too much
‘Froschfresser’
in them.’

“That’s what the Germans call the French—frog eater,” Peter says.

“The captain went on about how the Gallic temperament just isn’t suited to government and that the preening French had forced this war, along with the brutal Cossacks and the brutish Slavs. The money-grabbing Jews behind it all, drawing the British in when King George, the kaiser’s cousin, wanted a German-British alliance.

“‘Europe will thank us,’ he said. ‘The Bolsheviks and their Jew partners want to destroy everything. We are the builders.’

“And then, he asked for a tour of the library. The uber-captain told me he had studied the classics at Tubingen University, and was especially interested in medieval manuscripts, especially any copies of Plato’s work. And then, he went through a whole meander about how the platonic ideals need the manly Aryan virtues to become a reality. He’d written a paper on how the French had debased Plato by using the term ‘Republic’ for a government run by a violent rabble. Talking on as we strolled along the shelves.

“I said that we did have a manuscript copy of the
Republic
created by Irish monks.

“I told him that we’d saved the classics when the Teutonic tribes had employed their manly virtues to sack Rome and destroy learning.

“But he only laughed.

“‘My dear professor, you’re not going to go on about all that nonsense about the Dark Ages, are you? Haven’t you read your own scientists, Darwin, Spencer? Nature is engaged in a battle for the survival of the fittest. Societies, too. Rome was weak and corrupt. My ancestors cleansed it. The blood sacrifice was necessary. The strong culling the herd, eliminating the weak. You English with your Anglo-Saxon common sense, know that. That’s why we should be allies, not enemies.’

“And then I lost the run of myself, told him I was not English but Irish. And one million of my people were murdered by fellows culling the herd during the Great Starvation.

“‘Do you mean the potato famine?’ he said. ‘But Professor, that makes my point. Nature doing its job. Famine, pestilence, war … all needed from time to time to rid us of the undesirables who weigh humanity down, keep us from reaching the heights.’”

“What did you say?” I ask Peter.

“Bollocks,” he says.

“And the uber-captain wasn’t pleased. But then, he made a great joke out of my response and of me, too. And I realized I was just one of the weak to him. And I thought again of those German scholars who’d come to Ireland because they valued our literature. And hadn’t we just done a deal with the merchant in Hamburg to buy those rifles?

“But this man, so confident, so arrogant and so full of casual hate, shook me. The way he looked at me. I’d seen that same expression on the face of the agent who’d demand the rent from my father. The landlord and his friends would race their horses through our village not even seeing the children trying to dodge those death-dealing hooves. This captain had that same disdain for me and the priests.

“And I’d thought, We’re going to have to tug the forelock until these bullyboys move on.”

Peter stopped.

“Thinking subservience would save us.”

He went quiet.

“Leave it, Peter. That’s all right.”

But he had to talk.

“Then, some of the Belgians had the audacity to defend themselves. Those fellows with rifles,
franc-tireurs,
the people called them, took on the Germans. Really very limited. A few shots from apartment windows, rooftops. But the German soldiers went mad. How dare this scum resist? Next thing I know, the captain’s at our door, orders us all out. Brings in barrels of gasoline, the soldiers ready with torches in their hands. They douse the interior of the library with the fuel. The rector stepped forward to speak to the captain.

“‘Shoot him,’ the captain said and the soldier did. Through the heart. Couldn’t believe it. ‘Stop this!’ I said to the captain. ‘You are not a monster.’ He laughed. He ordered two of the soldiers to hold me while the third, the one who’d shot the rector, picks up his bayonet and slashes my chest.”

I reach out and touch the space above Peter’s bandage very gently.

“I felt so helpless,” he says. “Then another priest tried to help. The captain shot him, called him a pimp for the whore of Babylon, the Pope. Not fond of Catholic priests are stout German soldiers. The other priests ran, thank God. The captain tied me to the wheel of one of the carts so I had to watch them burn the library.

“Something strange about the fire, Nora,” he says. “The colors. Maybe because of the leather covers of the books, the age of the paper, the ink. Some of the inks were made from jewels, lapis lazuli for blue—anyway the flames turned the most beautiful colors … shades of indigo, purple, then crimson, vivid orange. The captain commented on it. ‘Magnificent,’ he said. They let me go finally. I longed to tell him that I’d sent away some of the most valuable volumes already.”

“I hope you kept your mouth shut,” I say to Peter.

“I did,” he says. “Started walking out of town and soon I had plenty of company. The Germans expelled the whole population of Louvain. Ten thousand people on the roads, automobiles with twenty or thirty people inside, trucks, farm carts, whole families walking, even the children carrying bundles. And I joined them. A Red Cross truck was parked at a roadside and a nurse dressed my wound. Antwerp was still held by theBelgian army so most were headed there. But I took a turn toward Paris.

“And then, I thought I had great luck. I found a French army unit but I almost got shot again. They weren’t sure whether I was a deserting German or a spy. I kept saying
‘irlandais’
until someone understood. They decided to send me across to a British unit only a half mile away. I never thought I’d be glad to meet an English officer.

“‘I’m Irish,’ I said to him and started to tell him about Louvain. But, would you believe it, Nora? He went mental, started shouting about the Micks and Paddys disloyal to king and country. And that we were no better than the Huns.

“Had a soldier pull the bandage off and then whacked me across the chest with his swagger stick.

“He told me that they hanged spies on the spot and that was what was going to happen to me. But thank God another officer came walking by.

“‘Here’s one of your own,’ the first officer said to him. ‘Weren’t you born in Dublin?’ And the man said, ‘Yes but like Wellington said, being born in a stable doesn’t make me a horse.’

“But I named some Trinity professors. Even, God help me, talked about Lord Lucan, my landlord.

“‘He’s only a fool,’ the officer from Dublin told the other one, ‘a type they breed in Ireland. Not a threat.’”

“Did you want to slap him?” I said.

“I did. But I said ‘thank you’ and they let me go,” says Peter.

“Showed some sense,” I say.

“Not proud of myself, Nora.”

“Go to sleep, Peter. I’ll tell Father Kevin you’re here and be back with food. Don’t leave.”

But he’s already asleep.

I go to the Irish College.

“You can’t come in, Nora,” Father Kevin whispers to me as we stand on the porter’s hall. “The French police are here. The British have them thinking we’re a den of German spies and they somehow found out that Peter was at Louvain, and some idiot of a priest told the authorities that Peter Keeley had been very friendly with the Germans, showed them around the library and then Father Rector was shot. So Peter’s some kind of German collaborator because he’s Irish.”

I tell him that Peter was battered by the Germans, French, and British.

“Leave it to the Irish to be at odds with the whole shebang,” Father Kevin says.

“So, you’ll be here with me for a while,” I say to Peter when I come back to my room. “Father Kevin thinks he can get you sorted. He’s not without influence with the French police. But for now…”

I’d bought a razor, underwear, and a shirt and overalls like the fellows in the market wear. He takes the lot, washes himself and dresses. The clothes suit him. Peter has the build of a workingman, muscles in his arms and shoulders.

Over a dinner of ham and cheese, I tell him what Father Kevin said. Peter’s silent. I wonder if he takes in my words. I tell him I couldn’t get much food. The shops are empty, the streets quiet. The Parisians are preparing for a siege, staying home. The French army’s in retreat. The Boche are closing in. Again, no reaction from Peter.

“Strange to be here alone with you like this,” he says. “I’ve not had much experience with women. There was a girl in Carna. We courted, some kisses, but…” He stops.

“But what?”

He’s not saying.

“She left?” I say. “Went to America? Happened a lot, Peter. No reflection on you or your kisses.”

“She died,” he says, “when we were eighteen. The next year I got the chance to go to university. Our parish priest organized it. Sure I had a vocation, but I knew I could never be a priest.”

He smiles.

“Those were powerful kisses, there’s been no one else.”

“Why?” I ask. He lists all the things Father Kevin mentioned—no home, no money. “I love my work, but it doesn’t pay enough for a man to support a wife and children. And now, well, I thought I was past it, glad really. Until you came into the Panthéon dripping with rain. I was glad when I was sent to Louvain. I planned to stay there forever. But now…”

“You’re trying to tell me something Peter. Say it.”

He doesn’t. But he leans over the table and kisses me. Powerful indeed.

So, lovely how one thing can lead to another. At first I wonder if I will even remember how to make love. But I suppose once you get the knack of it, you don’t forget. And Peter’s very willing. I even forgive Tim McShane a little, understanding now the joy of unlocking someone, seeing Peter experience pleasure, connection. And neither of us are worrying about mortal sin or anything else. During the three days we spend in my room above the place des Vosges, we hear the sound of big guns coming closer. But we’re alive. Surely God wants us to be happy. I know Father Kevin does.

SEPTEMBER 2, 1914

“The Germans burned the library in Louvain to terrorize the world,” Peter says. “Show that resistance accomplishes nothing.”