The Invisible Woman

by Erika Robuck

The trip should take two hours, but the stops and delays from overzealous MPs make it take four. Every bang and slam brings a fresh layer of sweat to her clothing, and by the time they arrive in Paris, Virginia could use a drink. They disembark arm in arm—two gray, invisible women—each carrying only a handbag. Virginia’s exhaustion is profound but, because cars and taxis are for Nazis and the metro is heavily patrolled, walking is the best option.

  Seeing the deterioration of Paris gives Virginia fresh heartbreak. Swastikas defile every view. Queues of starving people wrap around the food shops. Theaters are desecrated with Nazi Imperial Eagles. Racist propaganda is everywhere. When they reach the boulevard Raspail, the sight that greets them chills Virginia. Along the street are hundreds of wanted posters of men and women, the majority of them labeled with the word exécuté.

  Executed.

  Estelle doesn’t flinch or falter. She continues on, cool and serene. Virginia matches Estelle’s pace, and decides to pull her eyes away from the posters. She doesn’t want to risk disturbing her focus by seeing her own face.

  The prison looms—impenetrable—two hundred tiny windows marking each of its solitary-confinement cells. Above its huge, arched door are the words prison militaire de paris. The women veer toward the café across the street and, while Estelle goes in to get them a table, Virginia walks into the alley, where she spots the upturned rat. She slips her hand into her pocket, removes the sliver of paper, and tucks it into the belly of the rodent. She then drops the rat across the alley to the side visible to the duplicitous guard in the employ of HQ and returns to the café.

  When she and Estelle finish their drinks, they leave, walking along the prison wall to get to Estelle’s apartment. As they pass by, they hear a dreadful sound: the call to fire, the blast of guns.

  The women hold each other a little tighter but continue steady on, hoping they aren’t too late.

  * * *

  —

  The apartment at Estelle’s disposal is a long walk from the café, and by the time they turn on the street, Virginia is so dizzy from hunger and pain in her knee stump, she almost doesn’t notice where they are. When she catches sight of the bas-relief grotesque of the griffin on the cream-colored building, where four floors of balconies face the Seine, she stops short.

  “Johnnie,” she whispers.

  Her old pension. From her university days.

  The fourth-floor window where she saw the figures dancing all those years ago is shut tight, but the balcony that used to be hers is full of flowerpots bursting with blooms. She clasps her hands to her chest as if in prayer and takes a deep breath.

  “You’re shaking,” says Estelle. “Come.”

  Estelle’s place is across the way. Virginia allows Estelle to lead her into it but keeps looking over her shoulder at her old apartment and stumbles up the step into the building. Estelle catches her and continues to escort Virginia up the stairs to the third floor. When they enter the tiny flat, Virginia sees that her old place is in view. She sits in the window seat, staring at the bas-relief in wonder, only coming into the present moment when Estelle shoves a crust of bread in her hand.

  “Who is this Johnnie?” asks Estelle, her face serious.

  Virginia smiles.

  “It’s no one,” she says. “I mean, it’s the griffin on the building. I named it Johnnie, when I lived there, many moons ago, as a university student.”

  Virginia doesn’t mention it’s also her brother’s name.

  “Ah,” says Estelle, sitting on the other side of the window seat.

  Virginia takes a bite of bread but has a hard time swallowing. Estelle passes her a glass of water, and Virginia finishes it in three greedy gulps.

  “I’m sorry,” Virginia says. “I’m so stunned by this old life of mine before me, I lost the ability to think.”

  “You don’t have to explain that feeling to me. I used to stay here with my husband. It was his brother’s place. Now there’s no brother. No husband. But it feels like they’re just in the other room.”

  Virginia can’t say a single thing to reflect how sorry she is for this woman’s losses. She turns her gaze to Estelle, and it strikes Virginia how naturally she has fallen in with her. She knows part of it is due to the care Mimi took in choosing Estelle as a contact, and part is because of Estelle’s warm, capable, straightforward nature. But the last part is because Virginia has allowed it. An urge rises in her to keep herself closed off, but that takes more work than simply reaching for Estelle’s hand and giving in to the moment. Estelle smiles sadly, and the women return their attention to the building across the street.

  “See the balcony with the flowers?” Virginia says. “That was mine. I watched a hundred sunrises from there. Kissed a hundred boys. You wouldn’t believe what I was like before all this.”

  “Maybe you’ll be like that again someday.”

  Virginia laughs and shakes her head. “No, that girl has died a hundred deaths since then. She has disappeared.”

  “I don’t know. Doesn’t it seem like a sign? In this whole city, this is where my apartment is, right across the street from your old place. And on a whole building of empty balconies, flowers spill off the one where you used to watch the sunrise.”

  “I suppose one can hope,” says Virginia.

  “My friend, that’s all we have left.”

  * * *

  —

  They rest for an hour, before setting back out for the café. It’s hard for Virginia to tear herself away, but she must. The clock is ticking.

  When they arrive, it’s one o’clock in the afternoon. The rat is in place, a hand-rolled cigarette in its belly. Virginia removes it, slides it in her pocket, and joins Estelle for a cup of foul café nationale, the ersatz acorn-and-chickpea concoction that’s supposed to pass as coffee. After drinking half of it, she excuses herself to go to the toilet and, once locked in, unrolls the cigarette. Inside are two messages. The first is from the guard.

  Transferring later this week. Need new liaison.

  Damn. The timing is terrible. She’ll have to search her contacts to see who might be granted entrance to the prison.

  On the second paper, her spirits lift briefly when she sees Louis’s handwriting, but plunge when she reads the words.

  There are eight of us, not three.

  Breaking out three prisoners would have been hard enough. But eight? Nearly impossible. She’s about to flush the papers but sees Louis has written on the other side of it. The words are like a blast of icy wind.

  Found him. Home: 16th A. Rue Spontini. Work: Saint-Maur-des-Fossés.

  She’s unable to keep up with the waves of emotions she feels. Anger at Louis for pursuing the betrayer. Tenderness that he did it for her. Pride that they found him. Horror that the man is still operational. A dark desire to hunt.

  No, not today.

  She crumbles the paper in a ball and throws it and the cigarette down the toilet. It takes time to master her emotions while washing her hands. Looking in the mirror, she sees her eyes and posture are weary enough to match the age of her disguise.

  When Virginia returns to the table, Estelle sees Virginia’s exhaustion and takes strong hold of her arm. Virginia doesn’t know how she’ll summon the strength to make the return journey, but as they step onto the street and pass the prison, she hears a hoarse voice begin to call out, increasing in volume with each utterance.

  “Not today!” he shouts, over and over.

  Louis.

  She takes a deep breath and stands up straighter. Resolved.

  No. Not today.

  * * *

  —

  At the station at Briare, waiting for the evening bus to Sury-près-Léré, there’s an adolescent girl wearing a polka-dot kerchief on her dark hair. She fidgets with her coat and shifts from foot to foot. Her dark-circled eyes dart around the crowd
until they find Estelle and Virginia. She’s still for a moment and, once Estelle nods, the girl picks up her small suitcase and follows them onto the bus, where she moves past them to sit in the last row. Estelle leads Virginia to the seat in front of the girl.

  “How long since you’ve had a farmhand?” the girl whispers in a shaking voice.

  “It has been a long time,” Estelle says.

  Virginia looks from Estelle to the girl. Is this one of Estelle’s ghosts?

  Estelle’s posture is strong, her chin held high, her hands cool and steady. Providing sanctuary and escape, she’s one of the nameless throng—the anonymous, untrained men and women doing everything they can to help win the war. Yet Virginia is sure no one in the outside world will ever learn their names. When the war is over, people like Estelle, Mimi, and the Lopinats, or like Virginia’s Lyon contacts—the doctor, the nun, the prostitute, the old couple—deserve statues, but all that will remain are gravestones in lonely churchyards.

  Her thoughts turn to Louis. He’s no longer the cat with nine lives, but a mouse, trapped. One of eight, not three. She wishes she’d been kinder to Louis before he left, and thinks of the meetings with him she’d taken for granted, never really believing he’d get caught.

  Let D-Day come, she thinks. Once the Allies arrive, the war will start being won in the open. If only Louis can hang on.

  As they near the small bus stop in town, Estelle leans back and whispers to the girl.

  “Leave your suitcase. Take the main boulevard to the churchyard. Enter the cemetery, pause at a grave, and pray. Then make the sign of the cross over yourself. Do you know how to do that?”

  “Yes,” the girl whispers.

  “Good,” says Estelle. “Then take the path through the woods behind the cemetery. Follow it along the stream about a kilometer until you reach the barn. Knock four times and say, ‘Where did I leave my milking stool?’ I’ll bring your things later.”

  “I’m afraid of the woods,” the girl whispers, trying not to cry.

  “Courage,” Estelle whispers. “You’ve come this far. But you have a long way to go.”

  As directed, the girl leaves them at the stop, casting Estelle a quick, terrified look before she hurries away from them. Estelle sighs and mumbles a prayer.

  The women make it home without incident. When the door opens to the foyer, the old man screams from upstairs about the German spy.

  “Will I ever get the pleasure of meeting your father?” asks Virginia. “I do actually have a way with old men. I think I could win him over.”

  Her heart feels a stab of pain as she recalls the little, bereted peasant from Crozant.

  “Probably not,” says Estelle. “Getting around is hard for him. He takes his meals upstairs in his room. He talks to the ghosts of those we’ve lost as if they’re sitting around the table with him, drinking imaginary port.”

  “Imaginary.”

  “Yes. We haven’t been able to get him his beloved Barros Porto since the war began. I wish you could have known him when he was younger. He was a war hero. A mayor. He loved my husband so much. When he was killed in ’40, my father mourned him as deeply as I did. His health started slipping after that. The Nazis have taken so much from us. I will work until my dying breath to take back what I can.”

  Estelle suddenly stops speaking, as if ashamed she’s revealed too much.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” says Estelle. “I need to check on . . .”

  “Of course.”

  Before Estelle leaves her, Virginia reaches for her.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” she says. “You’ve taken great risk for me, and I won’t forget it.”

  “Think nothing of it,” says Estelle.

  Virginia nods and watches Estelle go, a wave of fondness washing over her.

  That night, Virginia wires HQ. They’re thrilled she made it safely back from Paris but sad to hear not only that they’re losing their contact at Cherche-Midi but that Louis is one of eight agents who have been rounded up. And Virginia isn’t the only one with a tough report. HQ delivers the terrible news that Hector, the leader of the nearest circuit, who had dismissed Sophie, has been captured.

  The small flame of hope that had been growing in Virginia is snuffed. She feels hollow, scooped out like a melon shell.

  —How?

  —Missed warning signal in pianist’s window.

  —So, the pianist is also?

  —Captured.

  Did he last six weeks? she thinks.

  With shaking hands, Virginia confirms the drop date, adds a request, and signs off before the twenty-minute mark. Once her equipment is stored, Virginia climbs into bed and tries to sleep, but it’s futile. She should have asked for more downers—exhaustion leads to mistakes.

  Hector must have been exhausted. The way she is. It makes her sick to think a moment’s carelessness can lead to the destruction of an entire network.

  Chapter 18

  It has been a week since Virginia should have died. She’s living on borrowed time.

  She feels a grim instinct toward pride at beating the odds, but the reality gives her no pleasure. If anything, it heightens the guilt she bears for surviving when so many have not, especially now that Louis has been arrested.

  Further plaguing her is the address Louis has given her. Fighting the temptation to hunt the betrayer is an hourly battle in her heart, and having this information weakens her resolve. Instead, through Sophie, Virginia begins to spread the definitive word: Avoid this man at all costs. Courier to courier, network to network, news of betrayers travels like lightning through communication lines. It won’t take long for the tables to turn, for the predator to become prey. The trick is holding off assassination to find more enemies, gain intelligence from the other side, and use the betrayer to supply false information.

  Virginia has alerted HQ. Their continued reluctance to accept the fact that he’s a double agent boils her blood, but she knows why. He’s good. Convincing to the highest degree. He has leveraged his position perfectly.

  It’s hardest to avoid dark thoughts when Estelle makes her trips, leaving Virginia alone to brood. Estelle left the day before with the girl with the polka-dot kerchief. While she’s gone, Estelle’s young cousin—a dark-haired, dark-eyed wisp of a teenager—cares for Estelle’s father. She acts as if she doesn’t see Virginia when she passes her on the stairs. Like Estelle, she’s the very picture of discretion, another of the nameless throng of heroes.

  On her way out one morning, after seeing to the old man’s breakfast and dressing, Estelle’s cousin slips a paper into Virginia’s hand and whispers, “From Mimi.” It reads:

  We’re safe. Network on alert. My cousin, a doctor, can get prison access. There’s still hope. See you at the drop.

  Virginia’s spirits lift, giving her the strength to push on. With renewed energy, she heads out to the stalls to tend to the goats and listen for Estelle’s return.

  Farm life is an oasis in wartime, and Estelle’s reminds her so much of Box Horn Farm. Though her family is one of some means and had a tenant farmer to do the actual work, Virginia always felt more comfortable in the barns and fields than in her mother’s parlor, better with simple animals than complicated human beings. Mother had permanently moved from their townhouse in Baltimore City to the summer farm after Daddy died. It was there Virginia returned for her rehabilitation after the hunting accident.

  * * *

  —

  After years of total freedom, traveling abroad in embassies and consulates, Virginia nearly suffocated returning to her mother’s home. Mother’s continuous offering of a wheelchair Virginia didn’t want, Mother’s friends at tea, and meals between meals between meals exasperated Virginia and added to a troubling undercurrent of rage she couldn’t shake. She knew her mother was lonely while she was gone and wanted only to help, but Virginia st
ill found it hard to accept.

  One spring day, voices of her mother’s friends had drifted up the staircase. The women were eager, curious, and hopeful they would see crippled Virginia Hall to take their gossip back to this guild and that club. Virginia had sat on her bed, staring out the window, thinking back to Turkey, to Poland, to Paris. To Emil. She thought coming home would be a comfort, but the walls had grown too small. She couldn’t live life ticking the time away on teas and socials.

  It’s not who you are, came her father’s voice.

  She had felt his loss more acutely at the farm. The place was haunted with him.

  Resting in the corner of her room was the shotgun that took her foot. Shooting targets with Daddy’s gun every day allowed her to make peace with it, to acknowledge it was her lack of respect for its power that resulted in her loss. She slung the unloaded shotgun over her chest, held her crutches in one hand, and grasped the rail with the other while she clomped down the staircase. She could hardly wait for the day her prosthetic would arrive, but until then she had to continue with those godforsaken crutches.

  The women’s voices below grew quiet. Virginia’s hair was in a messy braid, she wore no makeup, and her stump hung below where she’d cut her trousers. She was sweating by the time she was on the ground floor. As she passed the parlor, her mother stared at her with quickly masked distaste, and stood to introduce Virginia to her guests. They were a flock of fat hens in floral garb, ridiculous doilies on hair set in parlors, painted fingernails on smooth hands. A sudden, irrational hatred of those women rose in her.

  “Getting dressed up takes so much effort,” said Mother.

  Was she apologizing to her guests for Virginia’s appearance?

  Her mother babbled on about Virginia’s stubbornness and refusal to rest, and the guests regarded Virginia with curiosity and pity. It was the pity that made her burn. Rude though it was, she left without a word. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. She allowed the door to slam and, as she stumbled on the lowest porch stair, cursed loud enough for the women to hear through the open window. It gave her a thrill to imagine their discomfort.