1949 (31 page)

Lester arranged a tour of the entire complex of League buildings so Ursula would be able to find her way around on her own. “De Valera's president of the General Assembly this term,” he reminded her, “so he's here at the moment. Do you want to meet him?”

“I've met him,” she replied shortly.

“From your tone, I assume you're not one of his devoted admirers?”

She raised her chin to a belligerent angle. “In my opinion, Mr. de Valera's leadership constitutes a major disimprovement for Ireland.”

“I wouldn't say that here, if I were you.”

Ursula relaxed and smiled. “Don't worry, Seán, I won't.”

“In fact, you should say very little in public until you get your feet under the table and understand what's going on in Europe right now.”

 

Every morning before she began work Ursula bought the latest Swiss newspapers, including the internationally oriented
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
. Over a cup of tea in the staff canteen she read the papers front to back. For information about Ireland she relied on the
Irish Times
, delivered to Seán Lester's office two days late.

 

On the twelfth of January the IRA issued an ultimatum to the British government. If British troops were not withdrawn from Northern Ireland within four days, there would be reprisals.

In the Place du Bourg-de-Four, Ursula purchased a box of silky, whitechocolate truffles and sent them to England with a note: “Dear Fliss, You will be surprised to learn that I've returned to Switzerland. Not Surval, but close. I'm in Geneva, working for the League of Nations.”

Should Fliss mention this to Lewis Baines, Ursula thought with satisfaction, he would realize that she was valued by important people. People entrusted with the future of mankind.

But Ursula soon learned that the social structures of the world were not being shaped by the League of Nations. Rather they were contingent upon an infinite assortment of possibilities, any of which might unexpectedly alter the balance. The League had become a bystander, a leaf swirling on the flood tide of events.

A balding, bespectacled little Frenchman who worked in the office of Secretary-General Avenol often had lunch at Ursula's table in the canteen. One day he remarked, “We are standing on the tracks watching the locomotive rush down upon us.”

Ursula nodded agreement and took another bite of onion-and-mushroom quiche.

When she first arrived in Geneva nothing had tasted good. Then suddenly everything tasted good. Even eggs. Quiche was her current favorite. For lunch she took two helpings and had to restrain herself from asking for a third.

The Frenchman said admiringly, “I do not know where you put all that food, a little sparrow like you.”

 

Far away in Texas, Henry Mooney read Ursula's latest letter aloud to his wife and daughters. Henrietta, who was interested in everyone and everything, gave him her rapt attention. Isabella's mind was elsewhere.

“Bella, stop mooning,” her mother ordered, “and listen to your father.”

“I hear him. It's good enough for some, going to Switzerland. I never get to go anyplace.”

“You go to Saratoga Springs every summer,” Ella reminded her, “even when we can't afford it.”

“If I didn't I would simply
die!
We can afford it this summer, can't we? Papa?”

“Come June, I think we can buy you a train ticket. How about you, Hank? Do you want to go too?”

Although she was not yet sixteen, Bella Mooney was a brunette beauty who looked and dressed like a girl of eighteen years. By contrast, her little sister was a tomboy whose favorite clothing—to her mother's horror—was a one-piece garment called overalls. “I don't want to go to New York, Pop-Pop,” she told her father. “I want to stay here again and help you with the garden. You said we'd plant more vegetables this year, remember?”

“We may not have to. Roosevelt's almost got the depression licked, I think. We could put in more roses. You'd like that, Bella.”

“I won't see them, I'll be in Saratoga.”

Her little sister chanted, “Bella's got a boyfriend, Bella's got a…”

Under the table Bella gave Hank's arm a cruel pinch. “Liar!” she hissed.

Eyes welling with tears, Hank rubbed the injured arm. “I'm not a liar. I never lie. Much.”

“Good girl,” said Henry. “Bella, apologize to your sister. Now, where was I?”

“You were reading about Ursula's new job with the League of Nations,” Ella prompted. “Do you think she's in any danger? The newspapers are predicting war in Europe.”

“Ursula's quite able to look after herself, Cap'n. Besides, Switzerland's a federal republic with a long history of neutrality. They've avoided getting involved in other people's wars for nigh on three hundred years.”

Hank interjected, “Does she say anything about her father?”

Suddenly Bella was paying attention. She was fascinated by the tales Henry told of dashing, romantic Ned Halloran.

“ 'Fraid not, Hank. Ursula hasn't mentioned Ned in a long time and I'm almost scared to ask.”

Ella laid her hand on her husband's arm. “I'm sure he's all right.”

“God's eyelashes, woman, he's fighting a war in Spain! How can we be certain of anything? Talk about danger—Ned runs to it like metal filings run to a magnet. I'll tell you something for nothing. If he gets back to Ireland at all, as soon as I can scrape up the money I'm going home long enough to patch things up between us.”

“You didn't go back for your mother's funeral,” Ella reminded him, “nor when your sister Pauline died of tuberculosis.”

“I did not,” Henry agreed. “But they were the family I was stuck with. Ned's the family I chose for myself.”

As time allowed Ursula wrote to her other friends. Their replies came trickling back to her. Letters from those elsewhere in Europe carried a new tension, a growing reluctance to be open about one's thoughts.

 

“Dear Ursula,” Fliss wrote. “Thank you for the chocolates, which are delicious. Thank you also for the bomb your IRA detonated in London on the sixteenth of January. Is Adolf Hitler not bad enough?'”

She made no mention of her former enthusiasm for Oswald Mosley and fascism.

Ursula spent several hours crafting a letter that would placate her friend without actually apologizing for the Irish Republican Army. It was much more difficult than she expected.

On the twenty-sixth of January Franco's victorious forces entered Barcelona. At the League of Nations there were heated discussions about Spain's future, but no action was suggested.

Plainly disgusted, Seán Lester told Ursula, “We've learned from reliable sources that when Hitler entered the Rhineland, his forces were prepared for a hasty retreat if the French showed any sign of fight. But they didn't. Will this be remembered as the century when civilization was handed over to the bullies?”

 

The refurbishment of the house in the North Strand took longer than Finbar expected. His friends chided him for going to the effort and expense when he had no wife. Undeterred, he continued the work, doing much of it himself at night. He consulted the girls he knew about the fitting-out of the kitchen to be certain it was convenient and modern. Each of them harbored the dream of using that kitchen herself. One offered a window box to be planted with geraniums. Another hemmed an armload of flour-sack dish towels. Finbar was suitably appreciative, but when the house was ready, he would occupy it alone.

Sometimes Ursula went to the visitor's gallery of the General Assembly to listen to debates on the floor. Her favorite location was the front row of the second tier. From there she had a clear view of the delegates seated at the rows of desks below.

One afternoon she found herself next to a handsome, well-dressed youth who could not have been more than seventeen. “I admire Adolf Hitler very much,” he told her frankly. “He has come to power like a knight to the rescue.

“My family is German by ancestry but we live in the South Tyrol, which is governed by Italy. The Italian government demands crippling taxes from my father, they take everything he has worked so hard to build up. Under Mussolini we have no rights except the right to be exploited.

“The older I grow, and the stronger Germany becomes, the more I am drawn to the Fuehrer. I want to be free, I want to be a German among Germans!

“I accompanied my father to Geneva on business as a sort of farewell time with him. When we leave here I am going to enlist in the Brandenburg Division.
^*
I will fight for the Fatherland, I will be part of her glory. What a proud moment that will be!”

His cheeks were flushed, his eyes shone. He was the very image of a young man setting off on a heroic quest.
You can almost hear the trumpets in his voice
, Ursula thought.

The Versailles Treaty had stranded tens of thousands of ethnic Germans who must be hearing the same clarion call.

 

The Lesters often invited members of the staff from the secretariat for luncheon at the weekend. Ursula was always included. One Saturday afternoon Elsie took her aside. “I'm a bit worried about you,” she said.

“There's no need, Elsie. I'm in good form.”

“I've never seen anyone with a healthier appetite. But then, you may have a reason. Am I right?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. I've had three children, remember? I know the signs. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the weight you're gaining isn't fat.”

Ursula wanted to lie. But she would not kill this child and she would not deny it, either. “Does anyone else know?”

“Not yet.” Elsie gave her a sympathetic smile. “How far along are you?”

“About five months.”

“You should be showing more.”

“I've always been too thin. Now I'm just normal, except for the bump. Up to now my clothes have pretty well hidden it, though.”

“Not from a woman's eyes,” Elsie told her. “Does the father know?”

“He does not.”

“Do you want him to?”

“I do not.”

“So there is not much likelihood of marriage.”

“None. My choice,” Ursula added emphatically.

Elsie's pretty face was creased with concern. “Have you given any thought to…”

“I have, of course. You know what would happen if I had an illegitimate baby in Ireland. So I'm going to give birth in Switzerland, where people have a more enlightened attitude. I'll apologize to your husband for using him to get here, but I mean to do the best possible job for him as long as he'll have me.”

Elsie was looking at her in astonishment. “You're an amazing young woman. Have you thought about what you'll do after the baby's born?”

“I'm going to keep it.”

“And stay in Europe?”

Ursula shook her head. “Not forever. But by the time we go back, my child will have been mine for so long that no one would even think of taking it away from me.”

“What will you tell people in Ireland? That you married here, but your husband died?”

That was the most difficult question.

 

Ursula would always be grateful to Elsie Lester for her kindness. It was she who quietly, tactfully, explained the situation to her husband. If Seán Lester was shocked, his reaction never filtered down to Ursula. He was sympathetic and serious but not judgemental.

“You can continue to work as long as you feel like it,” he assured her. “When is the…ah…”

Ursula smiled at his embarrassment. “May, I believe.”

“I expect you'll want to stop a few weeks beforehand. I'll see that you remain on the payroll, and you can come back to your job whenever you're ready. If there's a job to come back to,” he added ruefully. “Sometimes I wonder how long the League's going to last.”

Elsie Lester gave a dinner party to which she invited both Ursula and the foremost obstetrician in Switzerland. By the end of the evening Magnus Leffler, a big man with a wide mouth like a frog and thick fingers capable of remarkable gentleness, had accepted Ursula as his patient.

That night she wrote in her journal, “I have thrown myself on the mercy of strangers and not been disappointed. My child will be born a citizen of the world.”

 

Early in the morning of February 10, Pope Pius XI died at the age of eighty-one. The League of Nations was immediately informed; the secretariat announced that formal mourning would be observed for three days. Ursula bought a loosely-cut black dress with no belt, and several colorful scarves to vary her costume afterward.

Coincidentally she was wearing a scarf of emerald green nine days later, when Eamon de Valera announced that Éire would be neutral in any imminent war.

 

Even in the black dress it was growing impossible to conceal her belly any longer. In Ireland no decent woman would have gone out on the street at this stage, but Europe was different. Women smiled at Ursula in the shops and men tipped their hats respectfully.

True to his word, Lester allowed her to continue working as long as she wanted.

 

On the twenty-eighth of February the British government's recognition of General Franco caused furious scenes in the House of Commons. Several MPs cried, “Shame!”

According to the newspapers, Prime Minister Chamberlain justified his action on the grounds that Franco had gained possession of most of Spain and no one knew how much of the Republican government remained, nor even where it was hiding.

Clement Attlee, leader of the Labour Party, retorted furiously that Chamberlain would always recognize a government that outraged every law, human and divine, but any government that obeyed the rules of civilization was “bound to be done down by the prime minister.”
¹

The British delegation at the League of Nations had no official comment.

 

On March 14 the German army seized Prague. The last democracy in central Europe was extinguished.

The knowledge was as ashes in the mouth. People passed one another in the corridors of the Palais des Nations with averted eyes.

Dead dreams and failure
.

Ursula cleaned her desk and left to await the birth of her child.

 

Almost unnoticed in the midst of other events, Madrid quietly crumbled into Franco's hands after a thirty-month siege.

On the first of April, 1939, the Nationalists triumphantly declared the Spanish Civil War over.

 

The next day was Sunday. Ursula was invited to dine with the Lesters, and found Seán uncharacteristically bitter. “Chamberlain's announced a Franco-British guarantee for Poland,” he said. “But for what, the weekend? If Hitler makes a move on Poland, France and Britain will back down just as they did with Czechoslovakia. The man who replaced me as high commissioner in Danzig is a charming fellow and a great raconteur, but that's all. The League's never given itself the power to do anything
but
talk.

“It breaks my heart, Ursula. Poland's history is so like our own. No Irishman can have other than sympathy and admiration for the Poles.”
²

The fifth of April dawned cold and crisp. Ursula was too restless to stay in the flat. She went for a long walk, gazing wistfully into shop windows where ski clothes were still displayed. Carefully balancing her heavy belly as she stepped over ridges of snow frozen to the pavement. After eating an early supper in a café around the corner from her flat, she spent the evening reading. By ten o'clock she had turned out the light.

She struggled awake bathed in sweat. As she threw back the duvet, a savage spasm gripped her.

Jesus Mary and Joseph!

Perhaps it was only a stomachache. Too much cheese fondue….

The cramp seized her again, stronger this time.

When she switched on the electric lamp by her bed the first thing she saw was Böcklin's painting. Somehow she found the strength to struggle out of bed and tear the thing from the wall.

 

The hospital was white. Everything. Walls, sheets, nurses, even the light. A glaring, pitiless light beneath which she felt like a butterfly pinned to a board. A butterfly…no, a chrysalis being split open…

“Take a deep breath now,” said Herr Doktor Leffler. He bent over her, smiling with his frog's mouth, kneading her belly with his sausage fingers.

Pain ripped and tore. Someone was breaking her spine from the inside.

The obstetrician stepped back to be replaced by a nurse in a white mask. She clapped a rubber cone over Ursula's nose and mouth. The world went spinning away…came back screaming…went away again…in her dreams she thought she heard the sound of gunfire. In her dreams she was Síle Duffy, running along the quays of Dublin while British artillery tore the city apart. In her dreams…

 

“So you're awake at last,” said a cheerful voice.

Elsie Lester was standing beside the bed. Sunlight was streaming through the window. Elsie offered Ursula a glass of water with a bent straw and she drank gratefully. “Is it over? I feel like a building fell on me.”

“You did very well.”

“How's my baby?”

Elsie hesitated.

Ursula almost shouted, “How's my baby?”

“
Ssshhh
, it's all right,” Elsie soothed. “He was very premature, Ursula. He's in an incubator and I've requested a priest to baptize him as a precaution. I thought you'd want…don't look like that, nothing's wrong with him! Ten fingers, ten toes, everything; he's just a tiny little fellow, that's all. But he's breathing on his own and putting up a strong fight for life. You'll be able to visit him soon and see for yourself.”

He. My son
.

“The priest will want a name for the baptism,” Elsie went on. “And the hospital needs one for the birth certificate.”

Ursula closed her eyes and lay back against the pillows. “Finbar Lewis Halloran,” she said in a steady voice. “But I'm going to call him Barry.”