by Ariel Lawhon
I flash her a triumphant smile. “Paquet sent you? Why?”
“Because he recently learned that Nancy Fiocca is la Souris Blanche. And la Souris Blanche is the most wanted person, not just in France but in all of Germany as well. My job is to find you. Then kill you.”
It is Hubert’s turn to speak now. “I won’t let you do that.”
Marceline looks up at him as though looking at a gargoyle. Her eyes are filled with disgust. She turns away without a word.
“So you came here and offered your body to those men in the hope that they would lead you to me?” I am as disgusted by this as I am by what they did to Floria and Cécile.
“Men are stupid. They are weak. They will tell you anything if you crawl into bed with them.”
“Clearly you don’t know the right sort of men.” I pity her, and she sees it on my face.
“My conscience is clear,” she hisses, unwilling to accept even that from me.
“I doubt you will feel quite so confident when you stand before your Maker. You will pay for what you have done.”
“What I have done?” The smile she gives me turns my stomach sour. It makes a warning bell ring at the back of my skull. It makes me feel as though I’m being watched, as though there are bugs beneath my skin. “You have no idea what I have done.”
Lucienne Carlier
TOULOUSE, FRANCE
March 4, 1943
I have two choices: get arrested, again—only this time by the Gestapo—or jump from a moving train. Madame Françoise has arranged for me to take the train to Perpignan along with three men who are also looking to escape through the Pyrenees: two Frenchmen, a radio operator for the Resistance and a police officer unwilling to submit to Vichy orders; and one New Zealand airman who was shot down along the coast and is making his way home. Our little group of four is to stay close despite giving the appearances of traveling separately. We all assembled in the same compartment but haven’t spoken more than the usual pleasantries. Pleased with how well the journey seemed to be going, I’d just lit a cigarette when a railway official—no doubt under the employ of Françoise—stuck his head into our compartment and hissed that Germans were about to stop and search the train.
“Good grief, not again,” I mutter.
A quick glance at my traveling companions confirms that we are all of the same mind.
“Jump!” the airman screams.
Since the train has already begun to slow, there is no time for discussion. He pulls the window down, steps onto the seat, grabs the window frame, and jumps out feetfirst. There is a thump and the spray of gravel and the train slows even more. My turn. It’s a small space and an awkward leap, but I do my best. But the second I am clear of the train I hear the rat-tat-tat-tat of machine-gun fire. By the time my feet—now clad in sturdy boots, thanks to Françoise—hit the ground, the bullets are cutting through the air all around me. Whizzing past my ears. Burning through my hair as it flops around my head. I run like a starving jackal through the ditch and into an adjacent field. There is a vineyard on top of the hill and I shout to my companions to head in that direction, hoping the Germans can’t hear my orders over the sound of gunfire. The airman is ahead of me and to the right, but I’m uncertain whether the radioman or policeman made it off the train. I can hear shouting and the grinding of wheels against the tracks. The steam engine behind me pants like an old man who has just climbed the stairs.
There is nothing like machine-gun fire being pelted at your arse to prove that your gym teacher was correct. You can run faster than you think. Head down, shoulders curved, I haul through the grass and around the shrubbery without looking back. Nostrils flared. Lungs burning. A stitch forms in my side. My breath wheezes. My heart thumps and crashes inside my chest. But I run anyway, arms pumping at my sides, always one stumble away from careening out of control. I don’t turn to see if I’m being followed. I don’t look for my companions.
Five, ten minutes? I’m not sure how long it takes to reach the top of the hill, but I collapse into a heap when I do. The others aren’t there, so I pull myself into a ball at the base of a trellised vine and wait, trying to control my breathing as I suck air in through my nose.
It’s a bright, clear, cold afternoon and I’m sweating profusely. I reach for my hand out of habit to turn my engagement ring around on my finger three times. My good-luck charm. My mantra. Henri. Edmond. Fiocca.
My finger is bare.
I lift my hand before my face, appalled to find that my ring is gone. A frantic search on the ground beneath the vine proves useless. I think of the jumping and running, and I know that I have lost Henri’s precious gift. My breath, already shallow, comes hard and painful now as I weep into the crook of my arm, determined not to be heard in case the Germans are somewhere near, searching for us. And they must be, because my companions have not arrived.
It takes longer to realize that my purse is gone as well. Left on the train in my haste, most likely. I’ve lost everything but the money I keep tucked into my brassiere. I am alive. I am alive. That is all that matters. I know it is all that would matter to Henri. He would care nothing about the jewelry. But it is a grievous loss to me. A piece of him that I no longer have.
* * *
Henri
“I have always liked your hands,” Marceline says as she tries Henri’s wedding ring on each of her fingers. “They’re so big.”
He sits on the floor of his cell, right arm manacled to the wall, wondering how hard it would be to snap her thin, little fingers in half. Probably like pencils, he thinks. It wouldn’t be hard at all. Two of the fingers on his left hand are broken thanks to his own efforts to stop her from removing his ring. He’d clenched his hand into a fist until Paquet struck it with a baton, thirty minutes earlier, effectively shattering the knuckles on his pinkie and ring finger. Nancy will be furious when she finds out. She too has always loved his hands and his left will never be the same. It is pulled against his chest now. Swollen, bruised, and filled with an unholy sort of pain that makes dark spots float across his eyes.
There are no windows in his cell. It is in the basement of Marseille’s Fort Saint-Nicolas and is lit by a single bare lightbulb. The stone walls are thick, and they absorb the sound of screaming. He is grateful for this. Because there are a dozen cells in this basement and all the men within are receiving similar treatment to him, most at the hands of the Gestapo, but some, like Henri, are here courtesy of the Vichy police.
Marceline has traded in her brown blouse for one that is white, and is wearing a pair of navy slacks. Plain clothes don’t suit her. Her hair is gone, and she wears no makeup. Without the trappings of glamour, she has lost even a vestige of beauty.
Henri’s clothes are in a pile on the other side of the room. Cold. He has never been so cold as he is now, sitting naked on the floor of this cell. His jaw aches from chattering and clenching. Well, that and the punch he took outside the Hôtel du Louvre et Paix after refusing to get into the car with Marceline.
His ring is far too big for any of her fingers, but Marceline jams it onto the thumb of her right hand anyway. Then she squats to pick his trousers off the floor.
“Would you like these back?” she asks. “You must be uncomfortable.”
He glares at her.
She sighs. “It never had to be this hard, you know. All you had to do was fall in love with me.” She rolls one finger across her bottom lip. “I would have even settled for lust.”
There are fifteen adequate insults he could lob at her. But that’s what she wants. Marceline thrives on reaction. He drowns her in apathy instead.
Henri leans his head back and closes his eyes, silent.
He can hear the jangling of his belt. The rustling of the fine wool of his trousers. The jingling of his keys. The scrape of her fingernail against leather—his wallet most likely. But it is the crinkling of thi
n paper that forces his eyes open.
Marceline unfolds the list he has kept in his wallet for the last seven years. A growl rumbles through his chest. It sounds blistered. As though coming from a raw throat. Which it is, of course. He’d tried not to scream when Paquet broke his fingers, but there’s only so much a man can do under such circumstances.
“Oh, that gets a response,” she says, looking up at him curiously. “So, what exactly do we have here?” He watches the confusion roll across her face as she reads his faded handwriting. “Nancy hates beer, cats, and goat cheese. Nancy cannot sing, whistle, clap in time to music, or ride a bike. Teach her.”
She could have no more violated him had she read his most intimate thoughts. He would like to stand. To rush her. To hurt her. But he doesn’t. Henri forces himself to remain sitting.
“I do not understand what you see in her,” Marceline says as she tears his list into tiny pieces and drops them to the floor. She crosses the room and squats in front of him.
“My associates are after a woman called the White Mouse. There is a five-million-franc price on her head. Did you know that?”
He doesn’t answer.
“This woman has developed quite a reputation. And I’ve suspected for some time that your wife is the little vermin they’re searching for. I’m certain of it now. Have been for several weeks, actually. But I’ve kept this information to myself in the hopes that you and I might reach an understanding.”
“What understanding?” The words sound strange coming from his ravaged throat.
She is not a kind or gentle woman but, when she speaks, it is the most vulnerable he has ever seen her. “I want you to want me.”
Marceline leans forward and kisses Henri. Her lips are warm, her tongue is slick, and he remains still as she sets about her work. She rocks back on her heels several seconds later, searching his face for any hint of reciprocation.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. I can help you. I can get you out of here,” she says. “All you have to do is choose me.”
Henri rolls his chin to the side and wipes off her kiss on his shoulder. “I love my wife.”
The expression on her face shifts between disappointment and disgust. “You’ve made your choice, then?”
“I made it a long time ago.”
“You will regret it,” she says.
Marceline rises to her feet and dusts off her slacks, then crosses the floor and bangs hard on the cell door. A moment later Paquet steps into the room.
“You’ve learned something?” he asks.
She smiles at him. “The name of your White Mouse is Nancy Fiocca.”
* * *
PERPIGNAN
I wait half an hour for my companions, but they don’t arrive. When I creep to the edge of the vineyard and look into the valley below, I see that the train has gone and, as far as I can tell, so have the Germans.
The trousers Françoise provided me with are torn from the jump. My blouse and wool jacket are filthy. There are twigs in my hair, dirt on my face, and scratches along my cheekbones and the palms of my hands. I am hungry. I suspect I pulled several muscles on my sprint up the hill. The sun will be down in an hour and it is getting colder by the moment. And according to my best estimate, Perpignan is still twenty kilometers away and the Gestapo knows I’m coming.
Damn Roger le Neveu. I hope that, before this war is over, he gets exactly what he deserves.
There is nothing for it but to walk.
* * *
—
It is dawn when I reach the outskirts of Perpignan and I don’t know where to find my next contact. Like many of the Resistance operatives working throughout France, Patrick O’Leary kept his secrets close to the vest. Unfortunately for me, that means I don’t know the name of the man in Perpignan who arranges the guides for our organization. Without these guides, it is impossible to safely cross the Pyrenees into Spain. All O’Leary would tell me when I asked him, weeks ago, is that he lives on the rue Jean Racine and that we have been instructed to pound the lion’s-head door knocker seven times when we arrive. Irritated, I reminded O’Leary that I kept no such secrets from him. He knew everything about me. He’d been in my home. He’d met my husband.
“Yes,” he said at the time, “and I also know that you have a hefty price on your head. Lots of people are looking for you. There are some things it’s safer for you not to know.”
“You think I’d betray our organization!”
“The opposite, in fact. I think you’d die trying to protect us. I’m just giving you one less reason to martyr yourself.”
Asking directions—particularly in my state of disarray—is risky, so I part with a few precious francs and buy a map at a small newsstand along the Têt River. After splurging on a croissant at a nearby bakery, I locate a park bench, and then rue Jean Racine on my map. Thankfully it is a short residential street, only two blocks long, and less than a mile from my current location.
It is impossible in my condition to look clean, but I can appear confident. I straighten my back and lift my chin and make it to Perpignan’s residential area without incident. A quick stroll up and down rue Jean Racine finds three houses with lion’s-head door knockers. I am stuck with the process of elimination.
The first door is yanked open after the fourth knock by an angry old woman, who takes one look at my disreputable self and slams the door shut in my face.
“I don’t want any!” she shouts from within.
I move on to the second. No one answers. I wait a moment and try again but am greeted by stony silence. I can’t risk looking desperate or confused to any passerby—Perpignan is crawling with Gestapo thanks to its proximity to the border. I turn away from that house as well.
The third door is covered with chipping green paint and the knocker is the size of a dinner plate. I stop after seven knocks, take a step backward, and wait. It is opened ten seconds later by a man of medium height and medium attractiveness who considers my person without the slightest bit of alarm.
“Bonjour,” he says. “How may I help you?”
My options are limited, so I am blunt. “My name is Nancy Fiocca. I work with Patrick O’Leary and I know that you do as well. You’re in charge of our guides. I need to get over the mountains and into Spain and I cannot do that without your help.”
I stop to take a breath and he says, “What is the password?”
“Listen. I’ve had the worst few days of my life. I have been forced to flee my home, I have been separated from my husband. I have been thrown into prison, interrogated, slapped around, and accused of prostitution. I have jumped from a moving train and been shot at in the process. Sprinted to the top of a damn mountain, lost my belongings, and have walked all night while on the lookout for traps and roadblocks. I’ve had enough trouble getting here and finding your house, so I’m not going to take any crap about a password!”
To my complete surprise he laughs.
“Come in,” he says. “You look like you could use a drink.”
I have never turned down a drink in my life—not from friend or foe—and I have no intention of doing so now. I follow him into the little row house, through the first-floor sitting room, and into the kitchen.
“I am Bastian, and you are in luck. My guides are taking the next group at midnight tonight. There are five others, but they are all asleep upstairs.” He pulls a bottle of brandy from the back of his cupboard and pours me a finger’s worth. I swallow it in a single gulp. Bastian sets a hand on my shoulder. “There’s a bath upstairs if you’d like to freshen up. I can’t replace your trousers, but I can offer needle and thread so you can mend them,” he tells me.
“That would be lovely.”
I follow him upstairs and thank him as he shows me the bathroom and hands me a clean towel.
�
��Enjoy your bath and your rest,” he says. “This will likely be the last time you are warm or clean for some time.”
* * *
—
We are all given an extra pair of socks, a string bag, and a loaf of bread. Bastian leads the little group out the back door of his row house at nine o’clock sharp. The wind cuts through the alley like a freshly sharpened razor and I gasp at its bite. At least I have trousers. The two Frenchwomen are traveling in dresses with little more than stockings to cover their legs.
“This way,” Bastian whispers. “Keep to the shadows near the wall. Night patrols have been tripled along the border.”
Like the rest of France, Perpignan is under strict curfew. The streets are empty, and the lights are off in most of the homes. We walk for two hours, first through the dark, winding streets of the ancient Majorcan city, and then, by moonlight, through the exposed flatland beyond until Bastian motions us into a dry creek bed at the side of the road. Smooth pebbles line the bottom and a metal culvert runs under the road. It is wide enough to hide several full-grown men if necessary. Never a fan of enclosed spaces, I decide that, if necessary, I’ll make a run for it instead.
“We’ll wait here for the coal lorry that will take you through the military zone,” Bastian says.
Now that we are no longer moving, the cold begins to gnaw at us once more and steam rises from our nostrils. None of us speak, and in the silence, I hear chattering teeth.
“We’re inside the forbidden zone now,” Bastian explains after a moment. “It is twenty kilometers deep on this side of the Pyrenees and fifty kilometers deep on the Spanish side. Anyone living within is required to hold a residential permit. Anyone found without a permit is shot on sight.” He pauses for effect. “Please do not get caught.”
With the dark and the cold and that dire warning, it feels as though the lorry takes hours to arrive. In reality it’s less than half an hour before we hear the distant sputter of an engine. Bastian motions for us to lie flat in the ditch. The lorry arrives moments later, headlights off, and stops above the culvert.