What the Wind Knows

by Amy Harmon

  “Mick,” Thomas rebuked.

  Michael Collins looked slightly chagrined and bobbed his head in apology at his language, but he continued to study me, holding my hand in his.

  “What do you think of our Tommy, Anne Gallagher?”

  I started to answer, but he squeezed my hand and shook his head slightly, warning me, “If you lie to me, I’ll know.”

  “Mick,” Thomas cautioned again.

  “Tommy. Quiet,” he murmured, his gaze locked on mine. “Do ya love him?”

  I breathed deeply, unable to look away from the dark eyes of a man who wouldn’t live to make his own wedding vows, who wouldn’t see his thirty-second birthday, who wouldn’t ever know how truly remarkable he was.

  “He’s easy to love,” I answered softly, each word like an anchor mooring me to a time and place that weren’t my own.

  Collins whooped and swung me up in his arms, as if I’d just made him a very happy man. “Did you hear that, Tommy? She loves you. If she’d said no, I was going to wrestle you for her. Let’s get a picture!” he demanded, pointing at the smiling photographer. “We need to mark this occasion. Tommy has a lass.”

  I couldn’t look at Thomas, couldn’t breathe, but Michael Collins was in charge, and he drew us around him and slung an arm over my shoulder, smirking at the camera as though he’d just bested the Brits. I was flooded with the feeling that I’d seen and done this all before. The bulb flashed and realization dawned. I remembered the picture I’d seen of Anne standing in a group beside Michael Collins and the picture of Thomas and Anne, the suggestion of intimacy in the line of their bodies and the angle of their gazes. Those weren’t photos of my great-grandmother at all.

  They were pictures of me.

  “Was Thomas in love with Anne?” I’d asked my grandfather.

  “Yes and no,” Eoin had answered.

  “Oh wow. There’s a story there,” I’d crowed.

  “Yes. There is,” he’d whispered. “A wonderful story.”

  And now I understood.

  26 August 1921

  I’ll never forget this day. Anne has gone to bed, and still I sit, watching the fire as though it holds a different, better set of answers. Anne told me everything. And yet . . . I know nothing.

  I called Garvagh Glebe before we left for the Gresham Hotel, knowing the O’Tooles would be hovering, waiting for word on Robbie’s condition. There are two telephones in all of Dromahair, and Garvagh Glebe boasts one. I’d rationalized the expense of phone lines; a doctor needed to be easily accessible. But no one else had telephones in rural Ireland. They didn’t call me; they fetched me. The only calls I ever received were from Dublin.

  Maggie was waiting breathlessly on the end of the line as the operator patched me through, and I could hear her tears when I told her “my patient” had come through surgery well and that the swelling had receded substantially. She was crying the Rosary as she handed the telephone to Daniel, who thanked me profusely, though he knew better than to specify what for, and then, oddly, he gave me an update on the foal that wasn’t due for another two weeks.

  “We went in to check on her this afternoon, Doc . . . and the foal was gone,” Daniel said, his voice slow and heavy with meaning.

  It took me a moment to understand.

  “Someone’s been in the barn, Doc. It’s gone. Nobody knows where. Liam’s been by to see Brigid, and I had to tell him. He’s upset. He had plans for the foal, as you know. Now, with her being gone . . . we need to figure out who took her. Tell Miss Anne, will you, Doc? Liam is certain she already knows. But I don’t imagine how.”

  I was silent, reeling. The guns were gone, and Liam was blaming Anne. Daniel was quiet for a moment too, letting me process his metaphor. I told him we would inquire further when I returned from Dublin. He agreed, and we signed off.

  I almost told Anne we weren’t going to the Gresham after all, but when I stepped into her room and saw her, lithe and lovely, her curling mass of hair loosely bound, her eyes warm, and her smile eager, I changed my mind once more.

  She held my hand, and I walked, half numb and wholly unprepared for the risk I was taking. All I knew was I wanted Mick to meet her. To reassure me. To absolve me. It was madness, bringing Anne to see him. I don’t know what compelled me to do it or what compelled him to draw a confession from her red lips. It was his way; I knew that well enough by now. He was completely unconventional, but he never failed to surprise me.

  He asked her what she thought of me, asked her if she loved me, and with only a small hesitation, the kind that comes from admitting personal things publicly, she said she did. The world spun, my heart leapt, and I wanted to pull her back out into the night where I could keep Mick safe and kiss her silly.

  Her colour was high, her eyes were bright, and she couldn’t meet my gaze. She seemed as dazed and dazzled as I, though Mick has that effect on people. He insisted we pose for a picture, then coaxed her onto the dance floor, despite her protestations. “I can’t dance, Mr. Collins!” I heard her say, though she’d always been a frenetic dancer, dragging Declan to his feet whenever there was music.

  Mick made up for whatever skill she thought she lacked by tucking her close and doing a simple two-step to the ragtime rhythm that mostly kept them in the same spot. And he talked to her, eyes boring down into hers like he wanted to know all her secrets. I understood the desire. I watched her shake her head and answer him with great seriousness. It was all I could do not to cut in, to save him, to save her, to save myself. It was all madness.

  I was pulled towards the corner table, Joe O’Reilly at my side. Tom Cullen put a drink in my hand while the newly released Sean MacEoin, who I had seen and administered to in Mountjoy jail in June, pushed me into a chair. They were ebullient, the calm of the truce and the cessation in hiding and fighting making them loud and loose in their conversation and celebration. I could only marvel. How long had it been since they could sit at the wedding of a friend and not have guards stationed at the doors, watching for patrols, for raids, for arrests?

  Mick brought Anne back to the corner table as well, and she fell into a seat beside me and took a long pull from my drink, wincing as she set it down.

  “Dance with the woman, Tommy. I’ve monopolized her long enough,” Mick ordered. His eyes were shadowed, and his mood was not nearly as jubilant as his men. They had been relieved, temporarily, of their burdens. He had not, and his nomination to attend the Treaty talks, to play the dancing puppet, was not sitting well on him.

  I stood and extended my hand to Anne. She didn’t refuse me but begged patience with her abilities, just like she’d done with Mick.

  She was light in my arms, her curls brushing my cheeks, her breath tickling my neck. I am an accomplished dancer. Not from any desire to be so. It is actually the opposite. I feel no pressure to impress, no desire to be noticed, and I approached dancing with the same attitude I have approached most everything else in my life. Dancing was just a skill to be learned and, in the case of traditional Irish dance, an act of defiance.

  Anne followed along, stepping as little as possible, swaying against me, her pulse thrumming, her lip caught between her teeth in concentration. I reached up and set it free with the pad of my thumb, and her eyes found mine, looking at me in that very un-Anne-like way. We didn’t speak of her confession, of the growing feelings between us. I didn’t mention the missing guns at Garvagh Glebe.

  Then something cracked, and someone screamed, and I pushed Anne behind me. Laughter ensued immediately. It wasn’t a gun; it was champagne. It bubbled and overflowed from a newly uncorked bottle, and Dermot Murphy raised his glass and made a traditional toast about death in Ireland. Death in Ireland meant a life in Ireland, not a life as an immigrant somewhere else.

  Glasses were raised in agreement, but Anne had grown still.

  “What day is it?” she asked, a note of panic in her voice.

  I answered that it was Friday, the twenty-sixth of August.

  She began to mumble,
as if trying to remember something important. “Friday the twenty-sixth, 1921. August 26, 1921. The Gresham Hotel. Something happens at the Gresham Hotel. A wedding party. Who is getting married? Their names, again?”

  “Dermot Murphy and Sinead McGowan,” I answered.

  “Murphy and McGowan, wedding party. Gresham Hotel.” She gasped. “You need to get Michael Collins out of here, Thomas. Right now.”

  “Anne—”

  “Right now!” she demanded. “And then we have to figure out how to get everyone else out as well.”

  “Why?”

  “Tell him it’s Thorpe. I think that was the name. A fire is set, and the door is barricaded so no one can get out.”

  I didn’t ask her how she knew. I simply turned, grabbing her hand, and strode to the corner where Mick was drinking and laughing with hooded eyes.

  I leaned over and spoke in his ear, Anne hovering behind me. I told him there was a threat of arson from a man named Thorpe—I had no idea who he was—and the room needed to be cleared immediately.

  Michael turned his head and met my gaze with an expression so weary I felt my own bones quake. Then he snapped to attention, and the weariness fell away.

  “I need a man at every exit, boys. Right now. We might have some fire starters on the premises.” The table cleared at once; glasses were emptied and slammed down again, and hair was smoothed back as if vigilance demanded a certain appearance. The men scattered, moving towards the doors, but Mick stayed at my side, waiting for a verdict. A moment later, a shout rose up. Gearóid O’Sullivan was kicking at the main entrance door, which appeared to be barricaded. Just like Anne had said.

  Mick met my gaze, and then his gaze touched on Anne briefly, his brow furrowed, his eyes troubled.

  “This one’s open,” Tom Cullen cried from behind the bar.

  The bartender stammered, “You can’t go out that way!”

  Cullen just shouted over him. “Everybody needs to file out! Let’s go. Girls first, gents! We’re okay. Just a little precaution to make sure the Gresham isn’t on fire . . . again.” The Gresham, sitting in Dublin’s city centre, has seen more than its fair share of havoc in its hundred years. Mick was already striding towards the exit, hat in his hand; Joe was at his side, loping to keep up.

  There was some nervous chuckling, but the wedding party made haste, filing out the door into the damp darkness of the August night. Even the bartender decided staying was foolish. I was the last to go, pushing Anne and O’Sullivan—who had abandoned his efforts to break down the other door—out before I scanned the room once more, making sure we’d left no one behind. Smoke had begun to billow through the vents.

  T. S.

  15

  ERE TIME TRANSFIGURED ME

  Although I shelter from the rain

  Under a broken tree,

  My chair was nearest to the fire

  In every company

  That talked of love or politics,

  Ere Time transfigured me.

  —W. B. Yeats

  It was the groom’s toast—death in Ireland—that had triggered my memory. I’d read about an attack on a wedding party when I’d researched the Gresham Hotel. I’d planned to stay there when I returned to Dublin after my pilgrimage to Dromahair. I’d chosen the Gresham for its history and for its central location to the Rising of 1916 and the tumultuous years that followed. I’d seen pictures of Michael Collins standing at her entrance, meeting contacts in her restaurant, and drinking in her pub. I’d read about Moya Llewelyn-Davies, one of the women who’d been in love with him, staying at the Gresham after she’d been released from jail.

  The Gresham plot—yet another attempt on Michael Collins’s life—was just one of many. But the fact that it had come after the truce and that so many people had been targeted made it notable. The British government had vehemently denied any knowledge or responsibility in the conspiracy. Some believed it was an attempt to undermine the peace process and was ordered by people who profited from conflict. A British double agent known only by the name Thorpe was also suspected. Michael Collins fingered him in his personal accounts. But no one ever knew for sure.

  I didn’t know if I’d saved lives or simply incriminated myself. I didn’t know if I’d changed history or just modified it by sounding the alarm. For all I knew, I’d been part of the history all along. Regardless, I’d planted myself firmly in the middle of it. And, however innocent, my foreknowledge of the fire was still impossible to explain.

  As I ran beside Thomas, my pulse pounding, lifting my skirts so I could keep up, I knew I’d only made things worse for myself. Michael Collins had leaned down and spoken in my ear as we’d stood waiting for his men to check the doors.

  “I don’t want to kill you, Anne Gallagher. But I will. You know that, don’t you?” he’d said.

  I had nodded. Oddly, I wasn’t frightened. I’d simply turned my head and met his gaze.

  “I am not a good man,” he’d said grimly. “I’ve done terrible things I will have to answer for. But I’ve always done them for good reason.”

  “I am no threat to you or to Ireland, Mr. Collins. I give you my word.”

  He’d replied, “Only time will tell, Mrs. Gallagher. Only time will tell.”

  Michael Collins was right. Only time would tell. Only time could tell. And time would not defend me.

  The members of the wedding party moved up the alley toward O’Connell, joining the guests now streaming from the front entrance. The fog and smoke were mating and recreating, distorting the shapes and the shrieks of the guilty and the guileless. And no one knew which was which. Michael Collins and his entourage disappeared into the night, piling into cars that came out of nowhere and screeched away.

  Clanging fire trucks and emergency personnel approached from two directions, and Thomas began moving among the people, creating triage across the street from the hotel, checking guests for smoke inhalation, sending those who seemed the worse for wear away in the St. John ambulances that had arrived on the scene, and releasing others to secure new lodgings. As I tried to stay out of the way and keep Thomas in my sights, the rain began to fall, aiding the efforts of the firemen. Curious onlookers and the milling crowd scurried for cover, effectively clearing the area. Our coats were still inside the Gresham and were as good as gone, at least for the time being. My dress was soaked, my hair streaming. Thomas took off his suit coat and slung it over my shoulders, and he found me waiting for him, huddled beneath it, as the last ambulance pulled away from the hotel.

  “There’s nothing more I can do here. Let’s go,” he said. His shirt was plastered to his skin, and he swept his hair back from his face, running his hands over his soot-streaked cheeks, removing the water only to have it replaced again.

  The water streamed from the eaves, running from the wrath of sodden skies, finding shelter in the cracks and crevices, and covering the streets and buildings in a wet blanket.

  He held my hand as we rushed through the streets, steadying me on the red heels that slowed us down and made me slip, but I felt his tension against my palm, radiating from his tight fingers and sculpting the line of his jaw.

  We had entered his neighborhood when Thomas stopped suddenly, cursing. He pulled me into an alcove, out of the rain, and began searching his pockets.

  “My house key is in my coat,” he said.

  I reached into the pocket of his suit jacket I was wearing before realizing he was talking about the overcoat still hanging in the Gresham Hotel’s cloakroom.

  “Let’s go back. Maybe someone can get us into the cloakroom or retrieve it for us,” I offered, bouncing in place to keep warm. The alcove shielded us from the worst of the downpour but not from the cold, and we couldn’t stay there all night.

  Thomas shook his head slowly, his lips pursed, his face pensive.

  “One of the firemen I treated said the fire was started in the coatroom, Anne. All the coats were doused in petrol. The door was locked and the vents opened. It’s right next to the ballro
om where the wedding party was gathered. Or didn’t you know that part of the plot?” He looked down at me and then away, water dripping from the lock of hair on his forehead, his expression as dark as the shadows where we stood. His voice was quiet, perfectly level but infused with bleak expectation.

  I had no way to defend myself. Nothing I could say would make things any better, so I said nothing. We stood silently under the overhang, staring out at the storm. I stepped closer to him so our bodies were pressed together along my right side. I was cold. Miserable. And I knew his misery exceeded my own. He stiffened, and my eyes shot to his face, catching on the clean line of his jaw. It was clenched, a muscle ticking like a clock, warning me I had seconds to start talking.

  I didn’t. I turned my head with a sigh and peered out into the deluge, wondering if the mist could take me home again, like the mist on the lake had brought me here.

  “I talked to Daniel earlier this evening,” Thomas continued, his tone brittle. “He said the guns are gone, Anne. Liam thinks you might know something about that too. In fact, he’s convinced you aren’t Anne Gallagher at all.”

  “Why?” I gasped, caught completely off guard. “Why would I know anything about Liam’s guns?” I latched on to the accusation that wasn’t true.

  “Because you know all kinds of things you have no business knowing,” Thomas shot back. “Jaysus, woman! I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with the guns or their disappearance. I didn’t have anything to do with the fire at the Gresham or anything else,” I said, trying to maintain my composure. I stepped out of the alcove and began walking again, moving toward his house in the square. We were almost there, and I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Anne!” Thomas shouted, and I could hear his desperate frustration. His distrust was the hardest thing to bear. I understood it, even sympathized with it. But it was corrosive and exhausting, and I was dangerously close to falling apart. I didn’t want to hurt Thomas. I didn’t want to lie to him. And I didn’t know how to tell him the truth. In that moment, I wanted nothing more than to escape, to close the book on this impossible tale.