Of Irish Blood (48 page)

“I know your face,” she says to me. “But not your name.”

“Nora Kelly,” I say.

“Oh, Irish,” she says. And I wait for her to tell me about her beloved nanny from County Cork.

But no, instead she says, “My stepson, William, married an Irish girl. Perhaps you know her—Virginia Graham Fair?”

Now that’s a familiar name. One of my uncle Patrick’s favorite stories was about the four Irish fellows out West prospecting—no-hopers—who then struck it rich. The Silver Kings he called him. Building mansions all over the place, on top of the world. William Fair was a Tyrone man, I remember, and his daughter became a famous socialite. Pictures in all the papers. Hardly an Irish girl I would have met at dances in Chicago.

“I’ve heard of Virginia,” I say.

“And of course the Irish fishermen in Cork made such valiant efforts to rescue the
Lusitania
passengers,” she says.

“They did save more than seven hundred,” I say. “And risked their lives doing it.”

Mrs. Vanderbilt nods.

“Father Kevin is saying a special Mass for the victims tomorrow morning here at the hospital,” I say. “You’d be very welcome.”

“Thank you, my dear. But I’m afraid Catholic rituals befuddle me.”

*   *   *

“Eternal Rest grant unto the soul of Hugh Lane, Oh Lord,” Father Kevin prays at the end of Mass for the Victims of the
Lusitania
.

“And let perpetual light shine upon him,” we answer. The words seem to run through my mind continuously these days.

“He was Lady Gregory’s nephew,” Father Kevin tells us as we help him put the mass vessels into a small cupboard in the broom closet that’s become the hospital sacristy.

“A friend of Maud’s and Willie Yeats. Of John Quinn, too. A great art collector. He’s left his paintings to the Irish nation—the core of a great National Gallery,” Father Kevin says.

“When Ireland long a province becomes a nation once again?” I say.

Margaret taps her toe. Impatient with talk of Irish politics, but I feel closer to Peter when Father Kevin and I run over the old phrases. A bit like fingering rosary beads.

“It’s the American nation I’m concerned about,” Margaret says. “Sat up half the night with the other nurses in the dormitory arguing about whether the U.S. should enter the war or not,” she says.

“What do you think?” Father Kevin asks her.

“I don’t know,” she says.

“Neither do I,” I say.

“Not up to us to decide,” Margaret says. “I have patients to see. Those Algerian soldiers are so grateful. And have you noticed their teeth? Excellent condition. One fellow told me they use twigs to clean their teeth. An almost religious practice.”

“Must feel very far away from home,” I say.

NOVEMBER 1915

So. Truly a world war now. African troops, many regiments from India. Then news comes about that place John Feeney was sent. Gallipoli. A terrible defeat for the Allies.

“I told you,” Paul says when the newspapers report the failed landings. “Disaster. Criminal. A slaughter.”

And long-legged John Feeney dead on that rocky beach, Sulva.

“Better for him to have died beneath an Irish sky fighting for his country’s freedom than in such outlandishly foreign places,” Maud says when I tell her. Oh Johnny, where were your angels? “And of course the British generals send Australian troops against the Turks’ big guns. Don’t see the Ulster regiments in these truly hapless battles. No—the Colonials. And of course so many of the Australians and New Zealanders have Irish blood, too.”

Maud and I have been to Mass at the Irish College. The first Sunday of Advent.

November now. She and Iseult have returned to Paris after a hard summer’s nursing in Paris Plage with her sister Kathleen.

“Some consolation for Kathleen in caring for poor wounded boys,” Maud says. “Still can’t believe Tom’s gone.”

Not many in the Irish College chapel. The streets around the university empty. Is there a young Frenchman anywhere not at the Front? Many of the Irish fellows in the British army. Alive or dead, who knows? The young women from Ireland staying home, too. Not easy to travel back and forth to France.

We’re waiting for Father Kevin in the parlor. He’s got some important visitor and we’re drinking up his supply of Barry’s tea.

“Kathleen went to London,” Maud says. “And was denied permission to travel back here. Had to get a doctor to verify that she was required to go to Switzerland for her health. True enough. Tom’s death destroyed her. Heartbreaking to see her try to smile at the soldiers.”

“Wonder does anyone count the families of the fallen in the casualties lists,” I say. “I mourn every patient in the hospital who dies and I barely know them.”

I have a gallery of photographs of soldiers now. Stuck them up in the wall of my room. Put a candle on a table in front of the display of the living and the dead. A kind of memorial. I find myself describing the altar to Maud. She becomes very enthusiastic.

“Yes,” she says. “Some material expression is important. I’ve designed a beautiful gold cross with rays shooting out from the center to place in the church at Neuve-Chappelle as a memorial to Tom. Some comfort for Kathleen,” she says.

“Sounds very dramatic,” I say.

“It is,” she says. Nothing plain for Maud.

“You should publish your photographs,” she says to me.

“Carolyn Wilson has used a few of my portraits of the soldiers to illustrate her articles,” I say.

“And paid you, I hope,” Maud says.

“I don’t expect her to and besides I don’t want any credit, especially in the Chicago
Tribune
. Remember, I’m officially dead,” I say.

“Soldiers die all the time with barely a mention,” Maud says. “Amazing now to think you had a whole newspaper article to yourself.”

“Something to be grateful for, I guess,” I say.

Maud doesn’t laugh as Margaret would have. I’m getting used to being around Americans. A different sense of humor.

“And how is Margaret Kirk?” Maud asks.

Had she read my thoughts? Can’t underestimate Maud.

“Working hard,” I say. “The hospital’s capacity is six hundred. We have eight hundred patients. Margaret made me take a few days off,” I say. “Most of the Algerian soldiers have left. Back to their homes. Hard to think of them trying to make their way as blind men in some tiny village.”

I tell Maud about the photograph I took of the Algerian soldiers down on the floor praying.

“Facing Mecca?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Some of the Moslems among the British Indian troops joined them.”

“The colonized sacrificing themselves for the colonizer,” Maud says. “But not forever. Ireland will be the first to throw off the chains but other countries will follow,” she says. “Mark my words.”

“Let’s get this war over with first,” I say.

Father Kevin leads a tall thin man in a very fancy cassock with red piping into the parlor. The fellow could have stepped out of a Renaissance painting of an Italian bishop—that Roman nose, high forehead.

“Ladies, may I introduce Monsignor Pacelli,” Father Kevin says. “He’s visiting the prison camps for the Pope. Reporting on the conditions. Bringing some aid, too,”

The monsignor inclines his head.

“Monsignor Pacelli tells me Pope Benedict has committed the Vatican treasury and whatever personal money he has to refugee relief,” Father Kevin says. “He has kindly given me a donation for the hospital.”

Monsignor Pacelli nods at me. A twitchy fellow. Very intense. He’s been meeting with the representatives of the belligerent nations, trying to broker a truce, he tells us.

“They are all suspicious of me. Don’t believe the Vatican is neutral. Each thinks we favor the other side,” he says.

“At least the Pope is trying,” Maud says. “The only honorable thing to do now is to work for peace.”

Maud kneels in front of Monsignor Pacelli for a very formal blessing and then he’s gone.

When Father Kevin returns, he says, “Poor man. A sensitive fellow. Horrified by the conditions in the prison camps. Close to a nervous breakdown, I’d say. Off to stay with the nuns at Lake Constance. They’ll put him right.”

“Any news from Ireland?” I ask.

“Nothing directly from your friend but the Irish Volunteers are drilling, carrying the rifles you helped obtain, Nora. Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood with them.”

Father Kevin goes to a cabinet—brings out a bottle and fills our teacups with whiskey. “Medicinal,” he says.

“I’ve been having a strange dream,” Maud says after a good jolt of whiskey. I take a sip. Very warming.

“Since Samhain. A kind of waking dream, really. Haunted by an air with the rhythm of a reel. I hum it unconsciously and then this morning at Mass I could finally translate into consciousness scraps of the experience I was going through.”

I take another slug of whiskey. I may need it. Maud’s off and running.

“I remember that I’d heard the tune once before when I’d climbed Slieve Gullion,” she says.

“In Donegal,” Father Kevin tells me.

Maud nods. “The sound seemed to come out of the mountain and I associated it with an ancient smith. It reminded me of Wagner’s song of the sword.”

She’s lost me but Father Kevin‘s leaning forward taking in every word so I listen harder.

“I also heard an air like it at a Gaelic League
feis
played for an eight-hand reel,” Maud says.

OK. Reels I know.

“So incessant is this air I could hardly keep my feet from dancing,” she says.

“In the chapel?” I ask, but Maud doesn’t hear me.

In a trance almost.

“During your sermon, Father Kevin, I realized what I’ve been seeing. Masses of the spirits of those who have been killed in this war. They are being marshaled and drawn together by waves of rhythmic music. It draws them into dances of strange patterns.

“The thousands of Irish soldiers who have been killed dance with a frenzied intensity to this wild reel and they draw others in and the rhythm is so strong they have to dance. And they are all led back to the spiritual Ireland. Both those who went into this war inconsequently and those who died with a definite idea of sacrifice. All brought together through these wonderful patterns into a deep peace, the peace of the Crucified, which is above the currents of nationality, beyond hate. And I know, deeply know, that they will bring Ireland great strength.”

“Dear God, I hope so,” I say. Sometimes I wish I had Maud’s faith as, well, unusual as it is.

Maud and Father Kevin are talking away about how the hard men of the Irish Republican Brotherhood have joined with the more middle-of-the-road Irish Volunteers and what that will mean. Maud says there’ll be an uprising within the year. Father Kevin’s not so sure.

“What better time to act than when the British army’s losing to the Germans? The government will be relieved to let Ireland go,” Maud says.

“Oh Maud,” I say. “You heard that General Henry Wilson. The British will fight to keep Ireland. And then what? More killing?”

“Better have the battle now and get it over with,” she says.

“But does Ireland even have enough men to fight?” I ask.

“We have our Fenian dead, Nora,” Maud says. “And the thousands of fallen Irish soldiers who have come together to free their country.”

And now I don’t know what to say. I’m back in my conversation with Margaret about America entering the war. Stay neutral or send in the marines?

It’s Carolyn Wilson who helps me make up my mind that very next week when she brings a whole group of American women who are passing through Paris to the hospital.

Friends of Mrs. Vanderbilt, maybe. Society ladies, I assume. Rich enough to travel and not able to give up a bit of Paris shopping. Madame Simone still getting the occasional American customer in spite of the war.

But when Carolyn arrives with the four I see these women are very different from Madame Simone’s clients. They’ve come in a taxi. Carolyn helps the first woman out. Older. Sixty, I’d guess.

“Nora Kelly,” Carolyn says. “I’d like to introduce you to my teacher from Wellesley, Emily Balch. One of the leaders of the WILPF—Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.”

Miss Balch shakes my hand. I see a distinctive figure leaving the taxi. Oh, Jesus. Of all people. I recognize her. Nobody living in Chicago who couldn’t pick Jane Addams out of a crowd. Hadn’t Rose and Mame and I gone to see the Abbey Players at Hull House? Oh, yes, Jane Addams is for all the right things—votes for women, unions, fair wages, does great work in that Westside neighborhood around Hull House. Except, as Ed said to me once, if Jane Addams could bring herself to work with her alderman, she’d do more good. But a powerful woman altogether.

The last two take some time climbing out of the backseat. I move forward to help but Carolyn puts her hand on my arm.

“They can manage,” she says.

A white cane comes out first and pokes the ground and then a woman steps out. Blind. The second woman’s right behind her wearing dark glasses. The two stand still for a moment, getting their bearings, I suppose.

Wait a minute. I know that face. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It’s Helen Keller and the other woman must be Annie Sullivan. A famous pair and a great story. The blind-deaf little girl brought out of her darkness by the devoted teacher. What a group of women!

“I’m honored,” I say, and then to Carolyn, “Thanks for bringing such distinguished guests. Oh, the soldiers will get a real kick out of meeting them.”

I assume the French and British will know about Helen Keller. I mean there was a movie made about her life.

Well, it turns out all four women had been at the big women’s peace conference at The Hague. Not too much in the papers here about the meeting. Carolyn tells me over a thousand women including delegates from the countries warring against each other attended. Though the British government wouldn’t give women from their country passports so they could go.

“The Peace Conference called for an immediate truce and said when women got the vote they wouldn’t let their countries go to war,” Carolyn explains to me as we go into the hospital.

As we walk into a ward Jane Addams tells us she’s been going from capital city to capital city in Europe trying to make the governments see reason. Stop the War.