Code Name Hélène

by Ariel Lawhon

  “A friend of Louis’s. I’ve come with a message for Simone.”

  “Okay, then,” she says, and turns over her shoulder. “Simone! You have a visitor!”

  A young, pretty woman, with auburn hair, comes to the door. She looks rather like a toothpick that has swallowed an olive.

  “Heavens! You poor dear. I’ve never seen anyone as pregnant as you.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, and I could kick myself. The last thing I need is to offend her.

  But much to my relief, the girl laughs. “I feel as though I will be the only woman in the history of the world to be pregnant forever.” She wipes one hand on her apron and offers it to me. “Simone.”

  “Andrée.” I shake her hand, then motion to a little bench sitting beside the house. “Come, I have a message from your husband.”

  “Louis…?”

  “Is perfectly fine and unharmed.” No point mentioning the fingers. It’s only a tiny lie, so I don’t even wince. “I saw him this morning.”

  Simone waddles to the bench and lowers her body onto it. She groans and lifts her swollen feet, rolling her ankles, before setting them back on the ground.

  I hand her the envelope. “From your husband. For you and the baby. He sends his love.”

  Simone peeks into the envelope, gasps, then presses it to her chest. She juts out her chin and blinks hard, trying not to cry.

  “We did not think he would be paid.”

  “He has earned every penny.”

  I sit for a moment and answer all her questions. How is he? What has he been doing? Does he have enough to eat? Are his spirits up? Finally, I set my hand on her forearm and get to my point.

  “Before I go, there is one thing you can help me with,” I tell her.

  “Anything!”

  “I am looking for a Madame Renard. Do you know of her?”

  Simone shakes her head and her hair swings at her shoulders. It looks like brass in the fading sun and I am envious of the color, the way it catches the light and tosses it back against her skin. “No. What does she look like?”

  I shrug. “I only know that she lives on the outskirts of town, that she makes marvelous cakes, and that she used to work for an ambassador.”

  “An ambassador! I have a friend who told me once that her neighbor used to work in Paris for the French ambassador to Sweden.”

  “Where does your friend live?”

  Simone gives me the address with instructions to tell her friend that she sent me, and once more I am pedaling off on this most ridiculous goose chase. The house in question is two streets over and twice as well kept as that of Simone and her parents. There isn’t a dead leaf or cobweb to be seen anywhere in the yard or on the exterior of the home. But the porch light is on and the door is opened by a woman Simone’s exact opposite. Nearly as wide as she is tall and twice as old.

  “Bonjour, madame! Pardon the intrusion. Simone Autry sent me.” I am feeling less inclined to believe this expedition will result in anything at all, so I skip the formalities and get right to the point. “I am looking for a Madame Renard. Simone said you have a friend who once worked for an ambassador in Paris.”

  The woman—I do not even bother to ask her name at this point—has very small eyes in her very round face. It gives her the most strangely cheerful expression I’ve ever seen. Like a cookie that smiles back right before you eat it. “Do you mean Alice?”

  I wager a guess. “Alice Renard?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then yes, that is exactly who I’m looking for, and I do not mean to be rude, but time is of the essence.”

  She points to a larger home at the end of the street. “Tell her that Inès sent you.”

  For the dozenth time today I am shouting, “Merci beaucoup!” over my shoulder. Then I am pedaling, pedaling once again. I catch my breath in this yard, looking back the way I’ve come, trying to mentally retrace my route. I’ve been in such a rush to get here that it’s possible I might get lost and not be able to find my way back to Jacques. He, meanwhile, has no idea that I’ve gone on from Louis’s wife.

  I straighten my hair, dust off my slacks, and wipe a bead of perspiration from my forehead. I knock, three times. There is no answer. But the lights are on and I see the curtains twitch in my peripheral vision. I knock again. Nothing. I am debating whether to call out to her and if that will do any good. I decide against it and lift my hand once more, but the door pulls inward before I can try again.

  Before me stands a distinguished-looking woman with thin lips and a red-checkered apron. There is a smudge of flour on the end of her nose.

  “Madame Renard?”

  She nods but says nothing.

  “My name is Andrée. You do not know me, but I know of you.” I want to add that Maurice Southgate sent me, but if my suspicions are true and he is dead, she might know this already and I could end up with a bullet between my eyes. So I take a riskier tack. “I believe you have a…packet…for me.”

  Alice Renard draws herself up straighter, like a measuring tape pulled taut, and I see that she is several inches taller than me. She stands on her doorstep, very still and very quiet. I have come too far and gone to such trouble and the thought of leaving without Anselm when I might be only feet away from him is intolerable. So I break my own rules.

  “You do not have to believe me. I wouldn’t if I were you, to be honest. But I’ve just come from the home of your friend Inès. And before that a friend of hers. Both of them pointed me in the direction of the only woman they knew who once worked in the home of an ambassador.” I pause long enough to take a breath and that is when I smell it. Baking. The heavy, sweet, unmistakable scent of baba au rhum. I lean forward, close my eyes, and inhale. My mouth waters. “I have heard so much about your cakes!”

  This is better than any password.

  She smiles then, and it transforms her face. She glances over my shoulder, no doubt to make sure I have not been followed. “I have been cooking for a guest. Please, come in.”

  Madame Renard steps aside, lets me into her home, then shuts the door. She leads me into the kitchen, where the smell of rum cake permeates the air so heavily I can almost taste it.

  “You can come out now,” Madame Renard says, as though to no one in particular.

  It occurs to me, a moment too late, that this is how special operatives die. They wander like idiots into traps. They don’t ask enough questions. They follow friendly directions and end up behind closed doors at the mercy of strangers. All these thoughts are colliding as the door of an enormous armoire swings open and a man steps out. His mouth is drawn tight and a .45-caliber revolver is in his hand and pointed directly at my face.

  Nancy Fiocca

  MARSEILLE

  July 18, 1940

  I head to the Hôtel du Louvre et Paix but instead of going in the front entrance on the Canebière, I circle to the side and enter through a back door on the cours Belsunce. Within weeks of the armistice, Marseille was flooded by Gestapo thinly disguised as the German Commission. All of them dress in mufti—civilian clothes—but they fool no one. They’re just so damned German. Blond and blue-eyed, with those clean-shaven, square jaws. The guttural words. They ooze arrogance, not even bothering to speak French, ordering the staff around like servants. They’ve taken up residence in many of the popular hotels, hogging the bars and scaring the locals. This particular group of German secret police—seven in total—has claimed the elaborate foyer of the Hôtel du Louvre et Paix as their watering hole. I avoid them whenever I come to visit Antoine.

  I’ve not seen my husband in four and a half months. I am worried. I am lonely. But mostly I detest eating dinner by myself. So, most evenings I find my way to Antoine’s and enjoy an aperitif or two until dinner, which I eat at the bar. Sometimes I bring a novel to read—mostly Victor Hugo, since I am working my way through Henri’s co
llection—but I am often depressed by the tender romance I find on those pages, so there are many nights that I sit here and talk to Antoine, listen to the radio, or to the conversations of others. We seem to have developed a new rapport since my trip to Cannes, and his company makes me feel less alone.

  “How did you get that limp?” I ask Antoine when he shuffles toward me with a glass of brandy in hand. I’ve wondered for years and it occurs to me that I may as well ask.

  He sets the glass down in front of me, then gives me the most curious glance. “Did you know that you are the only person who has ever asked me that question outright?”

  “What about Henri?”

  “Non. He stares sometimes, so I tell him stories of being wounded during the Great War. Or”—he offers a guilty smile—“other things not fit for a lady’s ear. But not because he asks.”

  “And what answer will you give me?”

  “The truth, if that’s what you’d like.”

  “Please.”

  “I was kicked in the thigh by a mule fifteen years ago. It snapped my femur in half.” He touches his leg to show me where. “The doctors tried to set it, but”—he shrugs—“I am not young, and it healed poorly. My options were limited. So I left the family vineyard in Corsica and came here to tend bar. I’m good with people. I know wine. It made sense at the time and now I am too old for a career change.”

  There is nothing outrageous about the story. Nothing grandiose. I am inclined to believe him. It’s the sort of random injury that turns a man’s life upside down, and it’s not that I am grateful Antoine was injured but I am certainly glad that he is here, in this place, now.

  I wink at him. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  “You are collecting my secrets at an astonishing rate, madame.”

  Antoine limps off and that is when I see the two men sitting at the other end of the bar. One of them is reading a Joseph Conrad novel and the other is staring at me. Both of them have a general sense of unease about them. I let my gaze float past them, pretending a casual survey of the bar, then focus once more on my brandy. I did not think my trip to Cannes would catch up with me so quickly.

  After a few minutes I give Antoine a quick glance. He holds my gaze for a moment to let me know he’s seen the request, then polishes several glasses and straightens a few bottles on the shelf before making his way back toward me.

  “About that envelope that I delivered to Cannes…”

  “Yes?”

  “Does anyone know it passed through here?”

  “Françoise, my contact in Toulouse. Why?”

  “Because that man at the end of the bar, with the red hair, is the one who collected it at the Hôtel Martinez.”

  Antoine doesn’t turn to look but the muscle along his jaw does tense. “Why do I get the impression you won’t be satisfied to just sit and wonder what he’s doing here?”

  “Because they’re in my bar—”

  “—my bar, actually—”

  “—and I don’t like the idea that I could have been followed. So I may as well get to the bottom of it.”

  “Henri will kill me if I let you go anywhere near those men,” he hisses.

  “Henri, as you well know, has run off to be a hero. What he doesn’t know won’t upset him. Besides, I have no intention of going over there.” I flash him a wicked grin. “I mean to make them come to me.”

  “And what good will that do?”

  “It will help me understand what they’re doing in Marseille.” For the second time in as many weeks, I hold out my hand and ask for a menu.

  As always, Antoine’s radio is on, tuned to some Big Band playing swing music. We have been speaking in low voices, and in French, so there is little chance the strangers at the end of the bar can follow our conversation. Still, Antoine does as I ask. He reaches under the bar, pulls out a menu, and hands it to me.

  “Merci,” I say, then pretend to look it over. I’ve committed to playing this part, so I go all in. After a moment I shake my head, then say, in an exasperated voice, in English, “What I wouldn’t give for a plate of bangers and mash.”

  I am gratified to find that my gut instincts are still in good working order, because both men at the end of the bar sit up straighter and twist their heads to look at me. It takes a great effort not to laugh because the sudden movement makes them appear rather like American prairie dogs. I can see them confer, out of the corner of my eye. Both nod, and then make their way toward me.

  The redhead reaches me first. “Excuse me,” he says, also in English. “But we couldn’t help overhearing you just now. Are you British?”

  Now that he’s standing beside me I can see that my guess about him being part of the Commonwealth was spot-on. He’s a Scotsman through and through. Tall, broad-shouldered—although thin at the moment—charming, and friendly. Until I met Henri he would have been the embodiment of my very favorite species of man.

  “Not quite,” I say with a grin. I do love being right. “Australian.”

  “That counts.” He plops down on the stool to my right, relieved.

  Antoine does not speak English, so I know he can’t follow the conversation, but he is watching me. And once he sees that I’m not alarmed by their arrival, he reaches toward the radio and turns it up another notch to protect us from being overheard by the men in the lobby.

  “We thought you were French, at first,” says the second man. His accent is harder to place. Lots of French. A hint of German. And something else, something…with a bit of zing to it. He has a high, broad forehead with a receding hairline. Dark, wavy hair. Warm brown eyes. I like his nose as well. It is strong and straight and provides him an excellent profile.

  “Only by marriage.” I hold up my left hand to show them the thin, gold band on my ring finger. And then I make a decision based on instinct alone. “Please, have a seat. Join me for dinner. It’s always nice to meet another subject of the Crown.”

  “Ian Garrow.” The Scottish redhead extends his hand.

  “Is that your name?” I ask. A pause. A triumphant grin. And then, “I thought you went by Simón Bolívar?”

  He is so genuinely startled that I laugh out loud.

  “How—”

  “I was curious to see who would collect the envelope. So I waited in the bar,” I tell him. Then I take the hand that is still outstretched before me. “Nancy Fiocca.”

  They don’t know me, but they know Françoise. I don’t know Françoise, but I know Antoine. I trust him and he trusts her, so it is not a huge stretch for any of us to trust one another—at least enough to sit and have dinner. I can tell they are thinking the same thing. These two men look at each other, assessing, and I see them make a silent decision. It’s there in the slant of their mouths, the way their shoulders relax, the faint nod. They choose to put their caution aside.

  “This is my friend Patrick O’Leary,” Garrow says.

  I turn to the man on my left. “O’Leary is an Irish name.”

  “Yes.”

  “You are not Irish.”

  “No,” he says with a wink.

  “What are you, then?”

  “Cautious,” he says. But he does so with a smile, and I think that I might like him in the end.

  “What are you doing in Marseille?” I ask, looking from one to the other.

  There is a loud burst of laughter from the lobby where the Germans are gathered. Garrow looks over his shoulder and thinks for a moment. “In order to explain that to you, madame, we will need to go somewhere a great deal more private.”

  * * *

  —

  “We run a network of safe houses between here and Spain,” Patrick O’Leary says. “We are on our way to Perpignan with four Jewish refugees, and thanks to the papers you delivered to Cannes, they should be able to get into Spain with minimal trouble.”

/>   Belgian! It comes to me suddenly. He’s Belgian. That zing in O’Leary’s accent is a touch of Flemish. And when combined with the French and German, it makes up the typical Belgian accent. He clearly doesn’t want me to know this, however, so I keep the revelation to myself.

  All I have to go on is my gut. Trust is always an act of faith, and I listen as Garrow and O’Leary explain how they have begun the process of establishing an escape route for captured soldiers and persecuted Jews. They tell me that there are over two hundred British soldiers interred in Marseille’s Fort Saint-Jean alone. But none of that convinces me of their trustworthiness. It is the fact that they sit in my living room, drinking my liquor, while my dogs lie curled up in each of their laps, asleep. I have always believed Picon and Grenadine to be excellent judges of character. They would never allow me to fall in with a pack of traitors.

  “You work with Françoise?” I ask once they have divulged the basics of their operation.

  If he’s surprised that I know this name, he doesn’t let on. “She is the last stop on our route,” O’Leary says.

  I have Henri’s radio turned up one notch higher than I’d like and set to classical music so that our neighbor, Monsieur Paquet, cannot overhear our conversation. He has long been the commissioner of police, but since the armistice I have learned that he is also loyal to the new government in Vichy, and more than happy to inform on his fellow citizens.

  “Why have you trusted me with all of this?” I ask.

  Garrow scratches his chin. “My gut says that you are an ally. You delivered those papers to Cannes. You were in the bar where Françoise told us to meet her Marseille contact. At the very least, you’re not working against us.”

  I pull my bare feet under me and lean my head against the wing of my chair. “Four years ago I saw a Brownshirt in Vienna nearly whip an old woman to death. I promised myself that day that if there was anything I could ever do to fight against the Germans, I would. So no, I’m not working against you. And if I’m being perfectly honest, delivering transit papers to a luxury hotel hardly feels like work at all.”