I promise. I promise.
Ursula hoped for a letter from Lewis but none arrived. Days turned into weeks, weeks became months. She wanted to write Fliss and ask about him but her pride would not allow it.
Finbar was now kissing her when he left her at her door. Kissing her softly on the lips with his mouth closed. She would allow him to embrace her, but she always stepped back as soon as the kiss ended.
He thought she was afraid. He was afraid himself, and dare not try to go any farther.
Ursula never alluded to the incident in the Park. If Finbar did, she changed the subject. Yet sometimes he caught her looking at him in a strangely speculative way. Her smoky blue-gray gaze drifted over his face. His body. Those eyes mesmerized him. They held him pinned like a moth skewered to a cork.
An evening with Ursula left Finbar shaken. He tried to rein in his imagination where she was concerned; sometimes he swore to forget her. Then he would find himself walking up to the weather-beaten blue door again and know he was doomed.
26 September 1932
EAMON DE VALERA GIVES INAUGURAL SPEECH
Irish Leader Becomes Chairman of the Assembly of the League of Nations
22 October 1932
PIONEERING FLIGHT FROM BALDONNEL TO BERLIN VIA LONDON
Businessmen Hope to Establish Regular Air Service
16 November 1932
PRINCE OF WALES OPENS STORMONT
New Home for the Northern Ireland Parliament
Chapter Twenty-three
Ned Halloran propped his rifle against a tree and slumped down beside it. He tried to recall a time when he had not felt weary, weary to the marrow of his bones.
New Year’s Day, 1933. Soon the Americans would swear in a new president, Franklin Roosevelt. But the same old problems endured in Ireland. Between Northern Ireland and the Free State was an unpoliceable border of some 320 miles, meandering through woodlands and farmlands, cutting right through houses in some cases, the major destabilizing force on the island. Men like Ned roamed both sides of the border fighting an undeclared war.
A few hours earlier there had been gunfire from the direction of Crossmaglen, a County Armagh border village. “Hold your position here, Halloran,” the O/C had ordered as the other men moved out in that direction, “in case we need you to cover our retreat.”
Ned resented being left behind though he understood the reason. Sometimes, as now, a headache would leave him half-blind with pain. His hands shook so badly he could not hold his weapon steady. “You ought to go home for a while, lad,” the O/C had advised just this morning.
That, thought Ned, was part of the problem. He was not a lad anymore. He no longer awoke clear-headed and full of energy. Waking had become a painful, incremental process. Sounds would gradually intrude into his dreams, letting reality flood in. When he could avoid it no longer he would pry open his eyelids and wait for his vision to clear. Then he must force his reluctant body to move.
After a night spent sleeping on damp ground under a hedge, the rats of arthritis gnawed at his joints. Old man, he called himself privately. Old man, though he was not quite forty.
He felt sixty.
But there was work to be done in the north and no one else to do it. Only the IRA. The real army. Simultaneously trying to protect the northern Catholics and find some way to win back the amputated Six Counties.
South of the border some of the IRA were running far too wild, getting their own back against the treatyites who had persecuted them. Former government officials were assaulted.1 Garda stations were attacked when the police tried to intervene. Law and order was breaking down. There was a rumor among the Volunteers—there were always rumors—that the military tribunals that de Valera had disbanded might be reestablished.
“If this is an army,” Ned muttered to himself, “we should act like one. That includes you, Halloran. On your feet. Stand at attention.” He hauled himself up and waited.
More gunfire. Closer. The imperative crack of sound that focuses the mind and freezes the heart.
Four men came running up. Four from a squad of five. “Where’s Patsy?” Ned wanted to know.
The O/C shook his head. “He’s facedown in a ditch back there. We ran into a whole company of B-Specials. They don’t give a donkey’s arse what happened to the village, but they were damned glad to get us in their sights. We’d best split up and make a run for it before they catch up with us.”
Ned reached for his rifle. “I’m not willing to leave Patsy! We can make a stand right here, fight them off and then go back for his body. We can—”
“We can’t. It’s a whole company of the bastards, I’m telling you, and they mean business. Use your head, Halloran. If you stay here and die you won’t be any good to the cause except as another martyr, and Christ knows we’ve plenty of them already.”
When Ned still hesitated the exasperated officer reached for his rifle. “If you’re determined to die, I’ll take this. We’re short enough of them as it is.”
Ned’s fingers tightened on the weapon. He would not disobey orders, but he could not give up the gun.
On January thirtieth, at the age of forty-three, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany’s Weimar Republic—the youngest man ever to hold the office. He was appointed by the elderly president of the republic, Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg. The new chancellor inherited an economy in which one out of every two workers was unemployed, but Hitler refused to be discouraged. He saw Germany’s abject position on the world stage as his opportunity. “Everything I have done or will do,” Hitler announced, “has only one aim: to restore the nation to greatness.”
Propelled by young leaders with radical ideas, Europe was rebuilding itself in new patterns. Meanwhile Ireland was increasingly narrow and inward-looking. The departure of so many of their British colleagues had meant new opportunities for educated Irish Catholics. Doctors, lawyers, and senior civil servants were finding their way into the upper levels of society, joining those businessmen and large farmers who had survived the revolutionary years. Fearing the very winds of change that had once blown so gloriously through the souls of Ireland’s revolutionaries, they resisted anything that might upset their new and fragile sense of self.
The result was a deepening of the national conservatism. Eamon de Valera, who claimed to know the heart of the Irish people, responded with increasingly conservative policies of his own.
“This country is going backward while the rest of the world is rushing forward,” Ursula complained in a letter to Henry Mooney. “It is a pity that Germany was prevented from helping us during the Rising. One has to admire the way the Germans are struggling to overcome their difficulties. We could benefit from their example now.”
Henry replied, “In 1916 the Germans did not care about helping Ireland. They simply wanted to encourage Irish rebellion in order to distract England from the war in Europe. Never make the mistake of thinking that a small, poor country like Ireland means anything to the great powers, Ursula—except as a pawn. Whatever Ireland accomplishes she will have to do for herself.”
In Munich, Heidi Neckermann received a letter from Ursula seeking information about Adolf Hitler. She replied,
Several weeks ago I attended one of Herr Hitler’s rallies. Physically he is an unprepossessing Bavarian with a ridiculous moustache. His voice, though sonorous, turns shrill when he is excited. But he has great dynamism and a gift for oratory that can hold an audience spellbound.
Hitler espouses the fascist concept of a corporate state: a unified nation with a strong man at its head who is empowered to make all the decisions. He is more than a politician, however. Perhaps he is not a politician at all, but a new type of leader who has emerged when he is most needed. History has a way of throwing these up from time to time.
His rallies have a strong military element. They feature breathtaking displays of precision marching by thousands of Sturmabteilung,* many of them veterans of the Great War. Within the stormtroopers is an elite c
adre called the Schutzstaffel† that serves as Hitler’s personal bodyguard. The atmosphere is one of invincibility and, I must say, inevitability.
In his speeches Hitler tells his audiences they owe a debt to the Fatherland and exhorts them to patriotism with language that sets the soul afire. He says the majority of Germans belong to a white race called the Aryan, which is naturally superior by blood and heritage. I myself am Austrian, as you know, but Hitler is Austrian too. We are both members of the wonderful Aryan race. It is a breathtaking discovery. One leaves a Hitler rally walking ten feet off the ground.
Ursula tried to envision this new Germany and its new leader. To an Irish woman there was something sinister about huge military displays combined with fervent speeches about racial superiority.
“The only foreign newspapers in Dublin are English,” she wrote to Heidi. “Can you please send some German papers?” When she came home from work to find a thick package waiting, she hastily tore it open and spread the contents on her bed. What she read presented a disturbing picture.
Supported mainly by the middle class, the National Socialist Party was obsessed with images of order. Hitler hated the people the middle classes hated, Communists and Jews, and blamed them for Germany’s troubles. When they were brought under control all would be well.
Some, though not all, of the German people agreed. The voices of those who disagreed were silenced.
Hitler spoke in grandiose visions. His underlings tried to translate his sweeping oratory into concrete plans, but the reality sometimes fell short of the dream. Beneath a veneer of strict discipline was the potential for chaos.
Under Hitler the Germans were regaining self-respect, however, and for this they adored him. In his public pronouncements Hitler frequently referred to the Holy Grail, invoking the aura of the Knights of the Round Table to ennoble his followers. Using great public spectacles, he introduced rituals that subsumed heroic Teutonic myth into modern Nazi symbols. He was restoring pride, pageantry, and mysticism to the lives of people exhausted by defeat and inflation.
After the Great War the Allies had demanded total German disarmament. France in particular had insisted that her enemy be humiliated. Now, in open defiance of the Versailles Treaty, Hitler was building a new army. Germany would never be humiliated again.
Chapter Twenty-four
The Athlone broadcasting station enjoyed an official opening in February of 1933. Ursula went down on the train for the event. As she ate the cheese and pickle sandwiches she had brought, she gazed out the windows of the railway carriage at men and women laboring together in the fields. They waved cheerfully at the train speeding past.
From Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin, de Valera had inherited the dream of a self-sufficient nation. The plain people of Ireland were attempting to make that dream a reality. The Fianna Fáil government was rewarding them with a shower of benefits including improved health services and free milk for schoolchildren.
Mothers blessed de Valera in their prayers.
Athlone was roughly halfway to Ennis, so Ursula had asked if she might take a couple of extra days and pay a visit to the farm. It would be a pleasant surprise for the Hallorans and a chance to spend time with Saoirse, who was beginning to show his age.
And perhaps, just perhaps, Ned might be there. She pictured Ned and Frank in the barn, putting together a crystal set so they could listen to Athlone on the wireless.
Ursula was not expected; there was no one to meet her at the station. She did not mind walking. The day was cold and overcast but dry, and she had wisely packed her clothing into a soft bag that could be slung across her shoulder. As she set off along the road, familiar fields spread their gracious laps on either side. Familiar trees waved to her from the hedgerows. Her imagination ran ahead to summer, when ribbon grass and cocksfoot and meadow foxtail would infuse the air with an ever-deepening fragrance.
Here, if anywhere, was home; the place where something deep and sweet settled into Ursula’s soul and nestled there.
In a farmyard beside the road a man was preparing to sharpen a plowshare. Glancing up, he nodded to the young woman walking past. “No rain ’til night, please God,” he said.
She smiled. “Please God.” And walked on, ears waiting for a familiar sound.
At first the iron blade rang harshly against the grindstone. The farmer persevered until the screech smoothed into one musical note, then began to purr as though stone and iron were perfectly suited.
The plow was sharp.
Ursula paused to greet a magpie perched atop a stone wall in his dazzling black-and-white livery. It was bad luck not to speak to a lone magpie. Do I ever see magpies in Dublin? Can’t remember. But I know I never hear the cuckoo.
The clouds grew thicker; the air was textured with damp. Ursula drew a breath that filled her lungs to the very bottom. This is what home smells like.
Almost before she knew it, she reached the foot of the farm lane. She had once commented to Norah Daly on the length of that lane. Norah had replied, “Sure and if it was any shorter it wouldn’t reach the house!” Remembering, Ursula smiled. She was still smiling when the farmhouse came in sight around the last bend. The smile froze on her face.
On the front door was a large black wreath.
Ursula dropped her bag in the lane and began to run.
Norah. It must be Aunt Norah. She’s old and she hasn’t been well…surely it’s Norah!
For once Ursula entered by the front door. A death in the family demanded dignity. The farmhouse was eerily quiet. The clock in the hallway was stopped and the mirror over the side table was draped in a sheet. Ursula stared at the closed parlor door. Reached out to open it; drew back her hand. Ran down the passage to the kitchen.
Lucy, blank-faced, sat at an empty table. She stared at Ursula without recognition.
“It’s me, Lucy. What’s happened?”
The older woman gave herself a shake. “Ursula? How did you hear about it so soon? We tried to reach you, but…” Her voice faded away.
“I did not know until I saw the wreath on the door. Was it easy? Did she suffer?”
“She?” Lucy looked baffled. “She who?”
Not Norah. Oh, God. Take me away from here. Put me back on the train, put me back in Dublin, let this not be happening. Ursula clutched her thumbs. “How did it happen?”
“No one really knows. He was digging rocks out of the upper field yesterday afternoon and just collapsed. We didn’t go looking for him until dark, and then it was too late.”
It was Ursula’s turn to be baffled. “Digging rocks? Why ever would Papa do that?”
“Ned? I’m talking about Frank.”
Ursula was swept with contradictory emotions: joy and grief so painfully intertwined she could not tell them apart. “Where’s Aunt Norah?”
“One of the neighbors took us into town earlier to get a wreath and make the arrangements. She’s upstairs resting now.”
“Should I not go up to her?”
Lucy shook her head. “Leave her be. She probably heard you come in, she’ll be down soon.”
Norah appeared a few minutes later; a tiny old lady as fragile as a cobweb. When she saw Ursula she collapsed into her arms. “Thanks be to God you’re here, girleen. Can you contact your father and tell him about Frank?”
“The only address I have for Papa is this one, that’s why I send letters through you. I doubt if more than three or four people in Ireland know where he is at any given time.” And one of them would be his commanding officer, but he never told me who that is. For my safety, he said. “If you put notices in the newspapers, Aunt Norah, perhaps he’ll see them. And…is there a telephone in the post office in Clarecastle now?”
The old woman nodded.
“I’ll take Saoirse,” Ursula said.
The aging gray whinnied an eager welcome when he saw her coming toward his field. Soon she was on his back and they were galloping toward the nearby village.
A telephone call
to the broadcasting station in Athlone went through in minutes. By the time Ursula returned to the farm an announcement was being broadcast. “Will Edward Joseph Halloran of County Clare please contact his family immediately for an urgent message?”
Ned arrived the next day. The death of his brother stunned him. “All he ever knew was the farm,” Ned said to Ursula. “It wasn’t what he wanted, it was just what came to him.”
“Are we so helpless we must accept whatever comes?” she challenged. “Could Frank not have made another life for himself if he really wanted one?”
Ned considered the question. “I don’t think he dared to really want anything. He was of that generation.”
“So are you, Papa. But you know what it is to want something and fight with all your heart and soul for it.”
“Much good it’s done me, all that fighting. Much good it’s done any of us. Síle dead, me in bits, hundreds of good men killed, and the poor sods in the north are still being hounded from cradle to grave. Now Dev is distancing himself from the IRA. Doesn’t want us given weapons, doesn’t want us acknowledged at all. Political expedience,” he added sourly. “If I knew how to stop wanting the Republic, I swear to God I would.”
But he did not mean it. She knew he did not mean it.
Scores of people crowded into the house for the wake. Eileen came, though without her husband. They were living at Newmarket-on-Fergus and had two children now, with another on the way. Eileen entered the house as if expecting a rebuff. Lucy and Norah ignored her but did not ask her to leave. Ned briefly touched her hand in passing.
Ursula spoke to her. “I’m sorry for your trouble,” she said in the time-honored way.
“Which one?” Eileen asked. Her hair was turning gray and her breath smelt sour.
Dressed in the same dark suit he had worn to Mass for twenty years, Frank was laid out in the parlor. In death his cheeks and mouth had sunken. His false teeth protruded slightly. Norah and Lucy had washed him as best they could, but dirt was still ground into the fingers that held his rosary. He would be buried with the soil of Clare on his hands.
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