Of Irish Blood (68 page)

“Here comes the Irish woman Gertrude told you about,” Alice says to the woman sitting at the kitchen table. She’s about my age with the round face and deep-set eyes I knew from my Bridgeport neighbors, the map of Ireland on her face.

She smiles at me. “What county?”

Oh, well, here we go.

“I’m Irish American,” I say. “From Chicago.”

“Oh,” she says. “I thought you were really Irish.”

“Well, my friend May here’s from Tyrone. And I’ve just discovered my people are from Bearna in County Galway.”

“Bearna,” she says, all delighted. “I know Bearna. I’ve an aunt married to a fellow from there.”

“Was he a Keeley or a Kelly?”

“He wasn’t,” she says.

“Ah, well,” I say. I’ve become so used to every Irish person I meet being somehow connected to every other that I see myself in that web, and am disappointed. She senses that.

“I suppose if we went back far enough, I’d have Kellys or Keeleys somewhere. Barnacle’s my name. Nora Barnacle.”

“I’m Nora, too,” I say. “Well, Honora, originally.”

“Me too,” she said, “but it seems such an old-fashioned name. So culchie.”

“Culchie?”

“Country—what the Dublin jackeens call us. But the real Ireland’s in the West, as I keep reminding Jim.”

“Your husband?”

“James Joyce. For God’s sake, you must have heard of him. The greatest writer in the world or will be.”

Alice intervenes. “Now, Nora. I wouldn’t make claims like that. Lots of competitors for that title.”

“Best of luck to them,” Nora says. “None of them beat Jim for sheer hard work, writing away until his eyes gave out.” She turns to May. “But you’re really Irish?”

“I am,” May says. “County Tyrone.”

“May’s got a job waiting for her teaching at a convent,” I say.

“I was at Presentation Convent in Galway for years,” Nora says.

“You were a nun?”

And Nora laughs. A wonderful burst of sound through her nose, her mouth. Her shoulders shake. I didn’t believe someone could really laugh until they cry but Nora does.

She is doubled over when a fellow I guess is her husband comes into the kitchen. Tall, very thin, thick glasses, dark hair, wears a tweed suit. “Nora, let’s get out of here. I can’t take the shite any longer.”

Then he really looks at her. “What is this?” And then to us, “Is she having some kind of a fit?”

Nora straightens up. “I’m laughing, Jim.”

He doesn’t like it. “She’s not telling you one of her stories, is she? With me as the punch line?”

“Not about you at all,” she says. “Nora here has the same name as me. She wondered if I’d been a nun. As you well know, it’s far from being a nun I was reared and you should thank your lucky stars or you’d never have met the chambermaid from Finn’s Hotel who took you walking across Stephen’s Green and you never would have been able to—what did you say? Oh, I remember, free yourself from the nets of false piety and guilt.” She starts to laugh again. “How’s that for a fancy name for courting, ladies,” Nora says.

“So you are laughing at me,” he says, offended.

“Ah, Jim. Get over yourself. It’s myself I’m laughing at and having a bit of fun with these two. And don’t start looking around for empty glasses. I’ve barely a drop taken though I’d see you’ve done the honors for both of us.”

Joyce seems completely sober but I suppose a wife knows when her husband’s had a few too many. How innocent that sounds. And yet next door is a room full of men well on their way to being drunk, relying on their women to get them home.

“Mr. Joyce,” I say, “I really enjoyed your book,
The Portrait of an Artist—
”

“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,”
he corrects me.

“Oh, sorry. But I did read it.”

He staggers just the slightest bit and leans on Nora’s shoulder.

“Would you ever give me a hand, girls?” Nora says. “To get this boyo out the door and into a taxi.”

Well, one thing I learned nursing is how to get a fellow unsteady on his feet moving in the right direction. Joyce bids good-bye to the rest of the party as we walk him through the crowd and to the front door.

Gertrude comes to see us out.

“You Irish,” she says as if everyone else in the room weren’t drunk. A squarish fellow with a loud voice stands in a corner lecturing a group of men and a very young woman, all the while pointing his finger.

“That fellow doesn’t look Irish and he’s about to put a finger through your Picasso,” I say.

She looks. “That’s Hemingway. But he’s a genius.”

“And what’s my husband?” Nora says.

“Now I hardly would compare…” Gertrude starts, but I interrupt.

“All those geniuses,” I said, “and every one of them pissed to the eyebrows.”

Joyce straightens up. “Is that an Americanism?” he says, and starts fumbling in his pockets. “I’ll write it down.”

“We’ll do it at home, Jim,” Nora says. “Good night, Miss Stein. Jim’s, well…”

But Gertrude cuts her off, laughing. “All in good fun. At least your wife stays sober, Mr. Joyce. Look at Zelda.”

She points at a very pretty dark-haired girl dancing to some unheard music, while an audience of six men stand around her clapping in time.

“That’s the Charleston,” May says.

Gertrude Stein sniffs. “Not much art to it.”

Now Joyce begins to do a stiff-legged imitation.

“That’s it,” Nora says. “Let’s go.”

“The Fitzgeralds are only visiting,” Gertrude says. “He’s had success in New York, returning there I’d say.” She sounds disappointed. “But he’ll come back. That whole lost generation are coming to Paris,” she said. “They need the inspiration and camaraderie, the…”

“… cheap living,” I put in.

James Joyce is tottering but we manage to move him out onto the street. We help him into a taxi. He leans his head back and closes his eyes.

“Will you be able to get him into the house?” I ask Nora.

“Oh, a sleep in the taxi and he’ll be fine. My sister’s here visiting, at home with Lucia and Giorgio, she’ll help.”

“You have children?” I say.

“I do. Doesn’t everybody?” She laughs again and then says, “Oh, you don’t?” I shake my head. So does May. “Well, Jim says some of the women here in Paris live together as if they were married to each other. Fair play to them, I say, but you two don’t seem the type.”

“We’re not a couple,” I say.

Joyce opens his eyes. Oh God, I think, more questions from him, too? Are May and I the only single women in Paris without partners of one sex or the other?

“St. Fiacre,” he says, “an Irish monk, gave his name to these conveyances; patron of the drivers.”

Hadn’t one of the Alices told me that?

“Very nice, Jim,” Nora says. “Now, go back to sleep.” And the taxi leaves.

May and I start laughing. “I don’t know, Nora. I think the Jazz Age will have to do without me,” May says.

“Me too,” I agree.

*   *   *

Hot for the start of July, and Madame Collard has decorated the window of L’Impasse with red, white, and blue bunting for Bastille Day, July 14th, when I come in for lunch with Nora Barnacle.

“Jim told me women didn’t go to lunch without a male escort,” she says as we settle in. Nora wears a navy blue dress with a white collar.

“Maybe in most restaurants but not at L’Impasse,” I say.

She’s interested in my work with Madame Simone. My photography.

We walk to the Irish College after lunch. Nora has never been there and tells me Jim wants her to investigate the library. “He’s feuding with the church and doesn’t want to be seen in the college,” she says.

The place is in an uproar when we arrive. Priests and students milling around in the courtyard, everybody talking at once. I see May Quinlivan. She waves at us to come over.

“Isn’t it wonderful!”

“What?”

“The truce! It’s over. The British have surrendered.”

Not quite, but a cease-fire’s been agreed and negotiations for a treaty will begin soon. So no more killings. May tells us that Michael Collins said to the British after they signed the truce, “Are you mad? We were out of ammunition. Couldn’t have lasted another week.”

“I must tell Jim,” Nora says. “Come with me. We live quite close.”

I follow her up the rue Mouffetard into rue du Cardinal-Lemoine. A workaday
quartier
. Narrow buildings. Little shops. Busy. She points across the street.

“Valery told us Hemingway lived there,” Nora says. “Looks like a pokey place. Ours is nicer.”

She turns up a small lane onto a kind of green, set in front of three buildings.

Some young fellows are playing soccer. One kicks a ball toward us. Nora raises her foot, stops the ball. Kicks it back.

“That’s my Giorgio,” she says. “Sixteen this month. My daughter’s fourteen.”

She leads me into the center building. Newish.

“This
is
nice,” I say as we climb up the stairs to the third floor.

“Belongs to Valery Larbaud, a writer, lent it to us because Jim’s good at borrowing and says he’s giving them a chance to support his genius like that McCormick one from Chicago used to send money every month.” Nora stops. “You’re from Chicago,” she says.

“But I’m not rich. Barely making ends meet.”

She laughs. “I know how that is.”

The flat’s spread out. Reminds me of Maud’s place on rue de l’Annunciation. Big windows.

“Jim,” Nora calls out. “Jim. Good news. There’s a truce.”

“In the study,” we hear.

The genius is hunched over a desk. Piles of paper cover the surface. He’s not alone. I’m surprised to see Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier with him.

“Sylvia,” I say, “Adrienne.”

“You know Miss Beach?” Joyce says, “Ah, Americans, of course.”

Always take my clients to Sylvia’s bookstore. Gives them a chance to feel Bohemian and speak English.

“That fool of an Englishman from the embassy refused to let his wife finish typing my ‘Cyclops’ chapter,” Joyce says to Nora. “Said the language was obscene. How does he think men in pubs talk?”

“We’re publishing Mr. Joyce’s book,” Sylvia tells me. “But having a hard time getting the manuscript ready for the printer.”

I can see lines of tiny letters covering the sheets on Joyce’s desk. Reminds me a bit of the Kelly fragment and Father Kevin’s pages. Another Irishman in his scriptorium.

“I can hunt and peck now, Sylvia,” I say. “Can I help?”

“Would that be all right, Mr. Joyce?” she asks.

Joyce cocks his head. Looks at me sideways. “You’re the pissed-to-the-eyebrows woman,” he says.

“I am.”

We laugh.

“This would be a good chapter for you to type,” he says.

“Because it’s set in a bar?” I say.

On my high horse a bit.

“Because there are great Dublin phrases in it,” he says.

“But do you have a typewriter?” Sylvia asks me.

“I can get the use of one,” I say, thinking of the rector’s machine. “Belongs to the Irish College. I could work in their library.”

“When can you finish? The printer must have the manuscript soon if we’re to have copies by February 2, 1922.”

“My fortieth birthday,” Joyce says.

Younger than me, I think.

Doesn’t look it.

“I celebrated mine by bobbing my hair,” I say.

He doesn’t answer. He’s turned to Nora, who’s said nothing. “What were you shouting about, Nora?” he asks her.

“A truce, Jim, in Ireland. The fighting’s over,” she says.

“A day for the history books,” I say.

“History,” Joyce says. “History is a nightmare from which I’m trying to awake,” he says.

“But…” I start.

Nora interrupts me. “Come on, ladies, I’ll make us some tea. Let Jim get back to work.”

She shoos us out. Shuts the study door.

“Don’t get him going on politics,” Nora says to me. “He’s still angry about Parnell.”

Nora goes into the kitchen. Sylvia and Adrienne walk into the drawing room, knowing the way.

“Hello, Lucia,” Sylvia says to the young girl sitting in a chair by the empty fireplace staring at a sketchbook on her lap. She holds a drawing pencil and doesn’t respond. Looks very like Nora and I think of Iseult. Here’s another young woman who’s a blurred copy of her powerful mother. Not easy.

Nora comes in carrying a tray. “Don’t sit there mooning, Lucia,” she says. “Help me.”

“How?” Lucia says.

“Never mind.”

Nora sets down the tray, hands out cups, pours the tea, all the while glancing at Lucia.

“A dreamer like her father,” Nora says to me. “Living in her head.”

“Have you spent much time in Ireland, Lucia?” I ask her.

“Some,” she says. “Have you?”

“A little,” I say. “But I plan to go now that the fighting’s over.”

“I wouldn’t be in any rush,” Nora says. “Lots of ways to make a bollocks of the truce.”

“You can’t go now, Nora,” Sylvia says. “You promised to type for us.”

Which I do. No problem with getting the loan of the rector’s typewriter and the library from four to six in the afternoon. Only difficulty is to keep myself from laughing out loud at the Dublin characters jumping out at me from Joyce’s manuscript. I can picture Cyril up at the bar muttering away. Sometimes I have to ask Joyce to decipher bits. Always very formal with me except when he reads the dialogue. Then he takes on different accents, and cadences. Hilarious. Peter made ancient Ireland live for me and now this fellow’s taking me into Barney McKiernan’s Pub twenty years ago. Reminds me of McKenna’s in Bridgeport on a Saturday night.

I’m working away in the first week in September when the French-Irish duchess finds me.

*   *   *

“What exactly is the Irish Race Convention?” I ask the duchess. She and the countess are at Mass at the Irish College on this September Sunday. Haven’t seen them since the St. Patrick’s Day celebration at Our Lady of Victory.

Now here they are. It seems Sheila and Antoinette have returned to Ireland and the women need two new aides-de-camp, they say. May and I are it.

“The convention will be a gathering of those of Irish blood from all over the world,” the countess says, “under the patronage of the Duke of Tetuan—the O’Donnell, descendant of one of the Wild Geese who went to Spain.” It’s to take place the last week of January.