Of Irish Blood (36 page)

Madame hands me an envelope. A letter—but no one knows where I am except …

“From Dolly McKee,” she says.

But Dolly shouldn’t have written. What if Tim McShane had seen the address?

I open it. A clipping from the Chicago
Tribune
falls out.

“Honora Kelly, 34. Reported Dead” reads the headline.

The letters blur.

“Bad news?” Madame asks.

I translate the headline.

“Mort?”
Madame Simone says. “But you are alive. A mistake?”

“Must be,” I say.

But the article quotes the victim’s sister, Henrietta Kelly.

“Nora has been working and traveling in Europe. She wrote to us to say she planned a trip to Australia where we have family and would be sailing on the
Volterra
. So when the ship went down with no survivors, we were concerned. We just received notice from friends of hers in Paris that Nora did sail on that ship. She’s most certainly dead. Her family and friends mourn her.” Miss Kelly is survived by brothers Michael, Martin and Edward Kelly, sisters Henrietta and Anne. She is a first cousin of South Park Commissioner Edward J. Kelly, who commented, “We all love Nonnie. She’ll be missed.”

“What? This is awful,” I say to Madame Simone. “Someone fed my family a load of lies. Sent a forged letter to them Why?”

Maud Gonne, Miss Joan of Arc. She did this. Probably used John Quinn to find my family in Chicago. Wrote and told them that I was dead. What better way to keep me tied to their plots. Easier to convince me to carry the money if I were a single woman with no family. Next they’ll have me assassinating somebody or planting a bomb or … I know, I know, this sounds crazy and far-fetched but try reading your own obituary some day, complete with a quote from your sister.

“What will you do?” Madame Simone asks me.

“I’ll have to write to my family right away, tell them I’m alive. They’ll be so happy.” And then I’ll settle things with Maud “All for Ireland” Gonne.

“But, look, there are two other letters here,” Madame Simone says.

I hadn’t noticed the folded papers. I open the first. Henrietta’s signature is at the bottom.

Dear Nora,

As you can see from the enclosed clipping you are now dead to us and to Chicago.

You don’t know or care what’s been going on here for the last two years. That gangster, Tim McShane, comes around at all hours of the night and pounds his fists on the front door and yells ‘Where’s that whore?’ Every window on Hillock opens, the neighbors eager to catch every word, and then full of false condolences the next morning. ‘Hard on you, Henrietta,’ they say. ‘The fellow is obviously mad.’

Long faces but I know they are laughing at me. Especially that Annie McFadden. She even asked me had I consulted Father Sullivan about my problem. All because I did my duty and told Father her slut of a daughter was pregnant and should be read out from the altar. And then Jack Farrell has the nerve to ask if I’d called the police. Snide. Not a bit grateful to me for making Mart press charges against his son, Johnny, after he stole those bullseyes from Mart’s candy store. That juvenile home did the boy a world of good and so what if Lucy Farrell doesn’t speak to me. The idiot, of course I’d called the police. Dozens of times. Little enough they do.

John Larney tells me unless McShane does me physical harm, they can’t arrest him. And Mart! Mart had the nerve to take McShane for a drink at McKenna’s last month. McShane was coming around every single night. I finally shouted at him ‘She’s in Paris, France.’ Figured that from those strange Christmas cards you sent.

Oh, dear God, she told him I was in Paris?

The only one with any sympathy for me was Dolly McKee. I went to her. I had to. The sinking of the Volterra was in the news. And I said to Dolly, ‘Too bad Nora wasn’t on that ship.’ And Dolly said to me maybe Nora could be.

She’s the one called the newspaper for me. But I arranged your funeral. You’ll be happy to know Father Sullivan said a lovely mass for you at St. Bridget’s. The whole family came and a good few of your friends. Mike insisted on buying you a grave at Mount Carmel. Though I said why bother when there’s nobody in it. Wouldn’t do as much for me. Probably just dump me in with Mam and Da when my time comes. But you’ve got your own headstone with some silly verse Mame came up with.

You should be grateful to me, Nora. I have restored your good name. You’ve always been selfish with no regard for me or anyone else in the family. Now show us some consideration and stay dead. No more fancy foreign cards. Believe me, Nora, the family is relieved. Poor Mike turned himself inside out trying to find you. Mame putting him up to it, no doubt. He wrote to the Embassy in Paris. And Ed went to Dunne the Governor! Now, they’ll have some peace.

Of course, the embassy didn’t have my address. Only went there recently for my passport. Probably told Mike no Nora Kelly in their records.

If I know you, you’ve got some man in your life. Another gangster, I suppose. Agnella’s having masses said for you at her convent. Don’t embarrass her, please. Forget yourself, for once, and think of your family.

I pray that God will forgive you, Nora.

Your sister,

Henrietta

The second letter from Dolly is much shorter.

Dear Nora,

When Tim’s drinking, he goes on about you to me. He insists that he’ll find you and make you pay. For what I’m not sure. Tim used to forget all about his raging the next morning but after your fool sister told him you were in Paris, he went mad. The next thing I knew, he was down at the concierge desk at the Palmer House, buying a ticket on ship to France. Charging it to my account. They called me. I stopped him this time. But I don’t know how much longer I can control him.

Tim has even threatened me. He thinks I know where you are. He knows I buy clothes from Madame Simone. If he puts two and two together you’re not safe. Nora, I think you should take this chance for a new life. I’ve been dead to my hometown and my family for years. Best for everyone.

Good-bye,

Dolly McKee

I put her letter down and just stare at the words. Had I understood? Both Henrietta and Dolly want me to erase myself? Would Mame and Rose and Ed and Agnella really be better off without me? And yet, dear God, if Tim McShane did start searching around in Paris, it wouldn’t take him long to track me down.

Madame Simone’s waiting for me to explain. She’d be in danger, too. Tim might go to the police, start them asking questions. God, they’d look more closely at me. Ask questions about the Irish women, investigate Maud too. How would I explain that money in my account? Maybe Nora Kelly should die. Maybe she’s dead already. I think of Natalie Barney. Was she alive to anyone in Dayton? Or Sylvia Beach to her family in Princeton? I doubt it. I say nothing for a few minutes, but then explain the letters to Madame Simone, who nods as she listens, and when I finish, she puts her hands over mine.

“The past is ashes,” she says. “Gone for all of us. Only regrets linger and the longing for what can’t be. My father never stopped mourning our lives in Strasbourg, hoping for
la
revanche
when France would reclaim Alsace. Perhaps now he will have his wish. But at what cost?”

“I have to think,” I say, and let the rue de Rivoli move me to the place des Vosges.

A dozen children chase each other around the wet green park. I think of Ed’s kids, Mike’s. Henrietta would condemn me to never ever seeing my nieces and nephews?

And Ag. Dear God, Agnella. She must be heartbroken. Loved me as much if not more than she loved her own mother. I imagine the nuns in her convent, so sympathetic. They’ll say, “Only thirty-four? Not very old. But not young either. Enough time to earn her eternal reward. Perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace.”

Peace. My gift to Agnella. A relief from her mother’s complaints about me. Always did try to turn Ag against me. Hated how close we were. How Henrietta must have enjoyed telling Ag about Tim’s rants. Probably played up how terrified they made her. Let Agnella say a word in my favor Henrietta would blast her no question. Well Ag won’t have to fight Henrietta anymore.

And what about Mike and Mame, or John and Rose? Dear God—they all know about me and Tim McShane. Oh. A groan comes out of me. Is all of Bridgeport talking about my disgrace? I can only imagine how Henrietta’s tormented them with her fears of McShane. Will even they think maybe it’s all for the best that Nonie’s gone? And Ed. Easier for a politician to have a dramatically drowned cousin then one connected with a living scandal. Because if I write to the family and tell them the truth the Kellys will be shamed down through the generations. “Aren’t they the family whose sister was no better than she should be and pretended to be dead only to come back alive? Probably looking for money.” Oh, yes, I’d be the one blamed. What future for me then? Tim McShane killing me might be the best I could hope for. Go back to Chicago and I’ll always be that odd old maid who disgraced her family.

I look around the square. The rain has stopped. The leaves on the linden trees are opening toward the sun that finally seems serious. Spring. Here. I’m in Paris. Living. Working. Conspiring. Maybe the Nonie Kelly who lived at 2703 South Hillock has already faded away. Gone. And before I know it, I’m singing to myself.

“Has anybody here seen Kelly?

K-E-double-L-Y

Has anybody here seen Kelly?

Have you see her smile?

Oh, her hair is red and her eyes are blue

And she’s Irish through and through

Has anybody here seen Kelly?

Kelly from the Emerald Isle!”

No. Nobody can see Kelly. She’s invisible now. She’s free. And, you know, I hum the song all the way up to my room, my own room, my home.

“I’ll do it, Maud. Take the money to Strasbourg,” I say. We’re in her apartment the next morning. She’s packing. Going to spend Easter in Florence.

“But why?” she says. “You were so sure you wouldn’t, couldn’t deliver the payment.”

“But now I’m dead,” I say, and explain.

“Not dead,” she says, “but risen. A new life. And so near Easter. Very few have the chance to be reincarnated into their next life without the bother of dying,” she says as we sit down by the fire. Barry brings us glasses of sherry.

“Harvey’s Bristol Cream,” Maud says. “Quite a story there. Harvey was the Church of Ireland bishop in Derry and…”

But I interrupt her. “Please Maud, I don’t think I can absorb any Irish history today.”

She leans forward. “Sorry, Nora. But isn’t it true if this bastard who tormented you believes you are dead, he will go away.”

“Yes,” I say.

“I wish I could solve my troubles with MacBride so neatly,” she says. “I would adore disappearing and starting again.” She sighs. “But of course, I’d have to take Iseult and Seán and Barry and Dagda, and he’s such a large dog. And then there’s Ireland.”

I start laughing. “I’m afraid you’re stuck, Maud,” I say.

We go to see Father Kevin.

“Terrible news,” he says, and I somehow think he’s talking about my so-called demise. But of course he doesn’t know about it. He has bigger worries than my deranged sister’s revenge.

“The Ulster Volunteers unloaded twenty thousand rifles at Larne,” he says. “Marching through every town and village in the North with guns on their shoulders. Singing ‘Croppies Lie Down,’ daring the British army to intervene.”

“Which they won’t,” Maud says.

“Not at all,” says Father Kevin. “I’ve heard that fifty or so British officers stationed at the Curragh have resigned their commissions, said they wouldn’t move against the Ulster Volunteers, or accept the Home Rule Bill. Carson’s setting up his own government—one for the six counties, has retired British generals training his army, and the Conservative Party leader, Bonar Law, is supporting them.”

“I didn’t believe Wilson,” Maud says. “Didn’t think soldiers would violate their oath to the king.”

“I bet Henry Wilson’s stirring them up,” I say.

“The Ulstermen are threatening to occupy Belfast City Hall,” Father Kevin says, “and then move on Dublin, take over the castle and government buildings.”

“That’s crazy,” I say.

“Who’s to stop them? You heard Wilson,” Maud says. “The Unionists are determined to bring down Asquith, put in Bonar Law—start a civil war if necessary.”

“All to keep Ireland from being Canada? I don’t understand,” I say.

But they’re not listening. “We have to make our own show of strength,” Father Kevin says. “Arm our volunteers! And here I am with ten thousand dollars and the agent in Strasbourg waiting.”

“But I’m taking the money,” I say.

I tell him the story of what Henrietta has done. He doesn’t take my death as lightly as Maud did.

“A very unhappy woman, your sister,” Father Kevin says.

He thinks I should write to my family, tell them the truth. But, you know, I’m already a different Nora. No ties. Not woven into the web of Chicago. No family to disgrace; no neighbors to judge me.

“I’m going,” I say.

They insist that I take the Orient Express—a quick run to Strasbourg in the company of other rich travelers going farther east. An overnight trip.

“Maybe I’ll stay on board and make a new life for myself in Istanbul,” I say, joking of course, but they don’t laugh.

“You wouldn’t be the first to steal from the Cause,” Maud says.

She takes me back to rue de l’Annonciation. I’ll carry her Louis Vuitton train case and wear her Paul Poiret traveling gown, she decides. I’m a wealthy American tourist seeing the sights of Europe. She insists I take a parasol. The final touch. To protect my ensemble from flying cinders from the engine as great ladies do.

“Conductors and border officials always defer to the rich and titled,” Maud says. “I called myself Lady Gonne when I smuggled papers to Russia for General Boulanger. A story I’ve told for years. Always gets a good response. A woman in danger. The best of all plots.”

APRIL 12, 1914
HOLY SATURDAY
GARE DE L’EST

“Well, here I go,” I say to myself. I expect to be watched but no one seems a bit interested in me as I get out of the taxi in front of the station. The driver saw me turning to look at the traffic behind us.