Of Irish Blood (43 page)

We are at the Irish College. Father Kevin thinks Peter’s safe enough. The Paris police too busy to concern themselves with him. I’ve brought bolts of material from Madame Simone. Peter, Father Kevin, and I are wrapping books and manuscripts and setting them into wooden crates.

“Madame Simone says the Germans are only a few days’ march away,” I say.

“Surely they won’t want to destroy Paris,” Father Kevin says. “It’s their prize after all. The newspapers are saying the government will declare Paris an Open City. Not defend it against the Germans.”

I pull the green velvet tight, trying not to damage the edges of the manuscript, but flakes of vellum fall into my lap.

“It’s disintegrating,” I say to Peter.

“Almost a thousand years old,” he says.

He looks over to Father Kevin. “The Germans decided to burn the Louvain library. Calculation, a demonstration. Why not do the same thing to Paris?”

“Joan of Arc will never let the Germans destroy Paris,” I say.

Peter smiles at me. On the way from my room I made him stop at the statue of Joan facing the Louvre. We weren’t the only ones gathered there to ask for her help. A crowd—women mostly, some on their knees, but a good few men and a scattering of soldiers.

“Never wise to rule out miracles,” Father Kevin says.

We’re waiting for Myron Herrick to arrive. He’s supposed to come at noon. The American ambassador to France, from Ohio, a Republican politician but a friend of John Quinn who has agreed to take some of the books and manuscripts to the American embassy for safekeeping. Almost three o’clock when he arrives. “A busy day,” he says. “Never been here before.” He’s looking at the half-empty shelves. “Quite a place.”

“Ours for over three hundred years,” Father Kevin says. “Endured many wars and occupations.”

“None like this war, I’m afraid,” Herrick says. “I was standing outside the embassy and an airplane dropped a bomb only a few feet from me. Airplanes—that’s new. And the German artillery. They have a howitzer can send a mortar shell through concrete. Big Bertha, the troops have started calling it. The gun can hit a target eight miles away. Destroyed the Belgian forts. It’s headed our way, I’m afraid,” he says.

“A gun that can shoot eight miles? Horrible,” I say.

“Think that’s bad?” Herrick says. “Krupp’s developing a gun that can hit targets eighty miles away. Modern warfare. Imagine what a gun that can destroy concrete does to the human body. The French government thinks the Germans could be here by the end of the week. Poincaré is moving the whole administration to Bordeaux.”

“Abandoning us? That’s awful,” I say.

Herrick shrugs. “I told them I’d fly the American flag over the Louvre and Notre-Dame, and put the museums under the protection of the United States,” he says.

“We’re very grateful to you for taking these, Ambassador,” Father Kevin says. “They’re priceless.”

“So John Quinn says.” He points at the crates. “I can’t take them all,” he says, “or guarantee their safety. I’m hoping the Germans respect our neutrality, but I just got a note from the German foreign minister objecting to us treating wounded French soldiers in the American hospital at Neuilly.”

“Surely caring for the sick isn’t an act of war,” Father Kevin says.

“Well, the Germans maintain that because the French government gave us a building to use as an annex to our hospital, we are collaborating with the enemy. Collaborating! We’re not even opened for business yet. Dr. Gros got the place started. Been here so long he knows most of the Americans in Paris. Many out there cleaning, getting ready.” He looks at me. “You’re American, aren’t you?”

“I am,” I say.

“Don’t believe we’ve ever met. You don’t attend embassy events?” he asks.

I shake my head. Always a bit worried I might run into someone from Chicago. Awful to have them say, “Nora Kelly? But you’re dead!” Of course, now that the world is falling apart, my so-called death doesn’t seem as important.

“I’m from Chicago,” I say. I mumble my first name, then add Kelly.

“A Democrat, I suppose,” he says. “Well, no divisions these days. We need workers. Get out to Neuilly. Report to Mrs. Vanderbilt. She’s in charge of cleaning and outfitting the place. Any supplies we don’t have, she goes out and buys.”

Peter, Father Kevin, and I carry the crates to Herrick’s car.

“Thank you,” Father Kevin says. We watch him drive away.

“What about this?” I point to a large manuscript still on the table.

“That’s a fourteenth-century copy of a section from
The Book of the Dun Cow
which Peter will take,” Father Kevin says.

“Take where?” I say.

“Home,” Peter says, “to Ireland.”

“No,” I say. “You can’t try to get through the lines again. Armies all over the place. He was almost killed last week,” I say to Father Kevin.

“He can go south,” Father Kevin says. “Get a ship from Marseilles.”

“I’ll have help,” Peter says.

“You can’t go, Peter. Not after…”

“Nora,” Peter says. “There is important work waiting for me in Ireland.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, there are more important things than saving manuscripts. Your life, for one.”

“Remember how I told you the O’Donnell chieftains would carry the Cathach—St. Columcille’s psalmbook—into battle as a kind of standard?” Peter says.

“I remember. So what? My uncle Patrick led troops with Grellan’s Crozier. You’re going up against Big Bertha with
The Book of the Dun Cow
?” I say.

“Listen, Nora. England has always turned to Ireland for her soldiers. Ten thousand of our fellows have already enlisted in the British army and are fighting at the front. They think they’re saving poor Catholic Belgium. Proving we deserve Home Rule. And now, after Louvain, the recruiters will be appealing to the Irish sense of justice. Tempting them to take the king’s shilling, telling them the war will be over by Christmas. I have to stop them enlisting.”

“Wait. I don’t understand. How can you and the manuscript keep young Irishmen from joining the British army?”

Peter takes my hand. “Nora, in every town and village in Ireland there are groups of young people learning the Irish language, playing ancient music, doing the traditional dances. Athletes are competing in the Old Gaelic games. They’re determined to revive our culture to become Gaels again. These groups are the core of our movement.”

Peter lifts up the manuscript. Hands it to me.

“When you hold this, Nora, you’re touching our ancestors. The kings and queens, saints and scholars who are the real Ireland. A history you can hold. Imagine one of these groups passing this manuscript from hand to hand. What chance would the British recruiter have? What young man who sees himself as the heir to Finn or Red Hugh O’Neill or the O’Kellys could enlist in the Sassenach army? What young woman would allow it?”

I remember my uncle Patrick talking about how he toured the logging camps in the North Woods bringing Grellan’s Crozier to the fellows. They’d clutch it and swear the Fenian oath, promising to fight for Ireland.

Peter had Uncle Patrick’s firm resolve, and there was no way I could stop him. “But I may not see you ever again.” I say.

I turn to Father Kevin. “He’s leaving the way those French boys whose weddings you’ve been performing did. You said St. Valentine was martyred for marrying those Roman soldiers to their sweethearts. So, it’s only fair.”

Father Kevin and Peter look at each other.

“What are you going on about, Nora?” Father Kevin asks.

“Marry us,” I say. “Now.”

Peter shakes his head, “Impossible,” he says.

“You have to. Only honorable,” I say.

“It would be dangerous for you to be my wife,” he says. “What if I am arrested? They’ll come looking for you.”

“Who has to know?” I say. “Come on, Father Kevin. What about all those Brehon laws? I’ve done a lot for the Cause. Marry me, Peter. It’s the least you can do.”

“Nora, please,” Peter says, but Father Kevin puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Shall we go to the chapel?” he says. What can Peter do?

So, Peter and I stand together while Father Kevin blesses us in Irish, Latin, and English. “Three times the charm,” he says.

“And we’re married?” I say.

“Marriage is one sacrament the participants give to each other. As the priest, I’m merely the witness,” Father Kevin says. “It’s up to yourselves.”

“So,” I say, and kiss Peter. He kisses me back, thank God.

One other person at our wedding. A man who steps in at the end just in time to see the kiss. A fellow whose name I’m not told but who is from Ireland.

Of course, I want to say to Peter, “Don’t go. Stay.” But I don’t. Tens of thousands of women are watching their husbands leave, or worse, getting letters telling them the men will never return. Hundreds of thousands more to come.

“Well, now,” Father Kevin says after Peter and his comrade leave. “If he does die, he won’t feel he has missed out on loving altogether.”

“Is it that dangerous?”

“Peter’s about to put his head in the lion’s mouth, and I’m afraid he’s the type that will pull its tail,” Father Kevin says.

So. I leave the college and go to Madame Simone’s studio. She’s been expecting the Germans to march into Paris for thirty years. At least she’ll be prepared.

I find her sitting at her desk, a sword in her lap.

“You going to take on the Boche single-handed?” I say.

She’s drinking champagne, an open bottle next to her and five magnums lined up on her desk.

“You need a glass,” she says. “Georgette,” she calls. Georgette comes from the back carrying two crystal flutes. I know Madame Simone keeps a supply of champagne for her clients. I guess she’s emptying the cellar.

“The Boche may loot Paris, but they’ll get nothing from me,” she says.

I see that the studio is bare. No bolts of material on the shelves, no spools of ribbon, cards of buttons on the counters. The dressmaker dummies are gone. Even the four sewing machines have disappeared.

“We divided everything up,” Georgette says. “All the girls took a share. Monique’s brother loaded the sewing machines onto his cart. He lives in the country. He’ll keep them there. Safe.”

Georgette pours a glass of champagne for me and one for herself. “Drink quickly,” she says. “We have to finish these. Madame didn’t want the girls to be corrupted by wine.”

“We have fooled the Boche,” Madame Simone says. “When they pound on the door demanding my gowns, they will find nothing.”

I can’t imagine that the German soldiers I saw in Strasbourg wearing those spiked helmets will be interested in couture. I say as much to Madame Simone.

“I am world-famous,” she says. “These brutes have wives, mistresses. They will try to steal from me. And then…”

She lifts the sword, whirls it in the air.

“Be careful,” I say. Here is the kind of élan the French army could have used.

Now she stands up, grasps a champagne bottle, and slices at it with a sword. Too much élan. But …

“Voilà,”
she says.

And doesn’t the cork pop out of the bottle and rocket across the room.

“Big Bertha, Paris style,” I say.

“Drink,” she says, and fills my glass.

I look at the bubbles jumping around in the clear gold liquid and think, Why not tell her?

“I want to propose a toast. To Mrs. Peter Keeley—me.”

Of course, they have no idea what I’m talking about. Hard to explain my marriage in French or in English, but I do get across that a ceremony has occurred and the groom is gone. I tell them nothing will really change including my name. I’ll still be Nora Kelly to the world but Honora Keeley, secretly, Granny’s family name.

Madame Simone had met Peter when he was acting as a guide on my tours.
“Pas mal,”
she’d said. Not bad.

Neither woman seems especially surprised. They’re drunk. I’m married. The Boche are coming.

Of course, less than an hour before I’d assured Father Kevin and Peter that I’d tell no one about the wedding. A secret. But the champagne demands some good news.

So we drink to Peter and me through the rest of that September afternoon.

“I should go,” I say. “Get home before dark.”

The setting sun fills the studio with a lovely pink light. I wish I had my Seneca. Take a photo of Madame Simone. Didn’t even think to shoot a picture of Peter. Some chronicler I’ll be. Don’t want to photograph the German troops marching up the Champs-Élysées. What if that general from Strasbourg is leading them? Dear God, don’t let the Boche win. Joan, where are you?

“Why don’t I walk you home?” I say to Madame Simone.

“No. I stay here,” Madame Simone says, and swings the sword again.

“Won’t you be safer in your apartment? No fighting around Notre-Dame surely.”

“No fighting anywhere,” Georgette says. “Our army has deserted us. Cowards.”

So.

I’m almost at the door when we hear footsteps coming up the staircase.

Madame Simone stands up and extends the sword as if she were a fencer.

“En garde,”
I say in spite of myself.

The knock seems gentle for a Boche soldier, and the man is speaking French. That voice. Louis!

I open the door. Louis DuBois rushes in.

“Good. You are here. I tried your apartment,” he says.

He turns back into the hallway, picks up his tripod and camera, brings them into Madame’s studio.

“Hold on to my equipment for me. And here’s the key to my place. You know how to use the darkroom. Try to keep the business going until I get back.”

Madame Simone and Georgette stare at him. One more mad moment in a crazy day.

“Oh, Louis. The only tourists there’ll be in Paris are German soldiers.”

“You don’t know the news. Ladies, the German army has turned away from Paris,” he says.

“What? Why?”

“I suppose the Boche generals plan to surround our army. Destroy it completely and then march to Paris without opposition. Think we’re already beaten. But they have given us a chance. We are to fight them on the Marne. I am going to the front now with my Paris unit and…” He pauses, throws his hands up in one of those French gestures I can never imitate. “We are traveling the thirty miles to the front by taxi.”