What the Wind Knows(10)

“It was a long time ago,” I offered.

“Yes. It was. And memory is a funny thing. It plays tricks on us.”

I nodded, relieved that she had withdrawn her assertion so easily. For a moment, she had seemed so sure, and her confidence had made mine crumble.

“They’re buried in Ballinagar. That I am sure of.”

I rushed to retrieve my little notebook and a pencil from my bag. “How do I get there?”

“Well now. It’s a pretty walk from here. Or a short drive. Maybe ten minutes or less. Go south on the main street—just there, see?” She pointed toward the front door. “It’ll take you straight out of town. Go about three kilometers. You’re going to veer right at the fork and continue for, oh . . . for half a kilometer or so. Then go left. Go a wee bit farther. Then the church—St. Mary’s—will be on your left. The cemetery is there too, behind it.”

I’d stopped writing after she said to veer right.

“Don’t these streets have names?”

“Well, they’re not streets, dear. They’re roads. And people around here just know. If you get lost, pull over and ask someone. They’ll know where the church is. And you can always pray. God always hears our prayers when we’re wantin’ a church.”





15 May 1916

The drive to Dromahair with Declan’s body wrapped and secured to the running board of the car was the longest of my life. Brigid would not speak, and the baby was inconsolable, as though he felt the black of our despair. After I dropped them at Garvagh Glebe, I took Declan to Father Darby for burial. We laid him to rest in Ballinagar, next to his father. I purchased a stone that will be laid when the engraving is done. If Anne is dead, as I fear, we will bury her beside Declan, and they will share the stone. It is what they would have wanted.

I returned to Dublin, though getting back into the city proved arduous. The British army had declared martial law, and all the roads were cordoned with armoured vehicles and soldiers. I showed my papers and my medical bag, and they eventually let me pass. The hospitals are full of injured insurgents, soldiers, and civilians. Mostly civilians. The need is great enough so they let me through when others were turned away.

I searched the deadhouses and the hospital morgues—Jervis Street, the Mater, St. Patrick Dun’s, even the women’s hospital where I’d heard the rebels had gathered on the grass after they surrendered. A temporary field hospital had been assembled at Merrion Square, and I went there as well, though nothing remained but the folks that resided in the homes nearby. They told me the wounded and dead had been taken, and they weren’t sure where. Rumours of mass graves of the unidentified dead at the Glasnevin and Deansgrange cemeteries had me begging beleaguered groundsmen for names they couldn’t provide. I was too late, they said, adding that the lists of the dead would be compiled and eventually posted in the Irish Times, though no one knew when.

I searched the streets, walking down the burned-out shell of once grand buildings on Sackville and trundling through endless ash that was still hot enough in some places to melt my shoes. On Moore Street, where I had found Declan, people moved in and out of the crumbling tenements. One, situated right in the centre, had taken a direct hit. It had collapsed in on itself, and children scrambled over the debris, searching for firewood and things they could sell. Then I saw Anne’s shawl, a bright grass-green that matched her eyes. When I saw her last, she’d been wearing it wrapped tightly around her shoulders and tucked into her skirt to keep it out of the way. A young girl wore it now, and it fluttered in the breeze like the tricolour flags we’d raised above the GPO as triumphant conquerors. Those flags were gone now, destroyed. Just like Declan and Anne.

Senseless with fear and fatigue, I ran to the girl and demanded that she tell me where she’d found the shawl. She pointed to the rubble at her feet. She had a blank stare and old eyes, though she couldn’t have been more than fifteen.

“It was just here, buried under the bricks. It has a small hole. But I’m keeping it. This was my house. So it’s mine now.” She jutted out her chin, as though she thought I’d rip it from her. Maybe I would have. Instead, I spent the rest of the day in the tumbled pile of rock and walls, searching through debris, looking for Anne’s body. When the sun set and I had nothing to show for my efforts, the girl removed the shawl and handed it to me.

“I’ve changed my mind. You can have it. It might be all that’s left of your lady.” I could not hide my tears, and her eyes were not as ancient when she turned to go.

Tomorrow I’ll go back to Dromahair and bury the shawl beside Declan.

T. S.





3





THE STOLEN CHILD


For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

From a world more full of weeping than he can understand.

—W. B. Yeats

With my heart in my throat and my eyes peeled, I repeated Maeve’s directions like a Gregorian chant. I found my way to Ballinagar Cemetery and to the church that sat like a guardian over the graves. It was in the middle of empty fields, a parochial house behind it and only the endless stone walls of Ireland and a smattering of cows keeping it company. I pulled into the empty lot in front of the church and stepped out into the tepid June afternoon—if Ireland had a summer, it hadn’t arrived—feeling as though I’d found Golgotha and seen Jesus on the cross. With tear-filled eyes and shaking hands, I pushed through the huge wooden doors into the empty chapel, where reverence and memory had seeped into the walls and the wooden pews. The high ceiling echoed with a thousand christenings, countless deaths, and innumerable unions that stretched back beyond the dates on the nearby graves.