by Erika Robuck
“But HQ . . .” said the doctor.
“I know. But my gut tells me otherwise. And he keeps asking for me directly. I don’t think I should be here for the meeting. I wish you weren’t involved.”
“I’m fine. But he’ll be here any minute. You’ll have to hide. I’ll make up a lie.”
“All right. Be sure to ask him about the Paris circuit. If he doesn’t tell you about the arrests, we can be almost certain he’s the rat.”
They could hear the housekeeper open the door, and the tones of a male voice. Virginia ducked into the closet in the study just in time. Through the crack in the door, Virginia saw the betrayer’s blue eyes and white, pasty skin as he entered. He blotted his sweating face with a handkerchief and peered around the room. His eyes found the dark space she inhabited, so she slid back, careful not to make a sound.
“The doctor sent me,” he’d said, smooth and polite.
“It has been a long time,” the doctor replied. “Come, sit.”
“I thought Marie would be joining us?”
The man’s piercing gaze returned to the closet where she stood, making it difficult for her to breathe. She hadn’t had a reaction like that to someone in a long time.
“Not today,” the doctor said.
“I didn’t expect this,” the man said. “I came a long way, and I don’t know when I can return.”
“She was needed elsewhere. Urgently so.”
There was a quietly concealed fury in the man. Though he looked smooth and unruffled, his blazing eyes were lit with blue-white heat.
“How are the Paris circuits operating?” said the doctor.
Virginia held her breath, waiting for the man’s reply.
“Well, in spite of constant danger.”
Upon hearing the lie, Virginia began to tremble. She clenched her hands into fists, trying to contain her fury.
“But the money will help tremendously,” the man continued. “It’s hard to say how long they can hold up under such intense pressure.”
The doctor stood abruptly.
“Come back next week,” he said, with a strain in his voice. “I’ll see what can be done by then.”
“Thank you,” the man said, feigning humble acceptance. “And please, ask Marie to be here then. I have specific questions I need to ask her.”
* * *
—
The early-morning knock pulls Virginia out of her memory.
Disoriented, heart pounding, she stands to open the door. Mimi steps into the room.
“Is she back?” asks Mimi.
Virginia shakes her head no.
“Lavi?” Virginia asks.
It’s Mimi’s turn to shake her head.
June 1. It’s June, and the Allies haven’t come.
“I’m taking the boy to Lavi today,” says Mimi. “I’ll tell him what’s going on and try to persuade him to come back tonight.”
Virginia nods, and watches them go. In truth, she’s grateful. She needs the space and quiet to make plans.
After leaving Estelle’s father—still at the window—with a tray of toast and a cup of café nationale, she pulls on her coat and boots, and heads outside for her chores. When she arrives at the goat stalls, the new babies suckle their mother. They’ve grown so much in the short time since their birth. How does the world keep spinning? She cleans out the pens, refills their food and water, and milks the goats that need it. After storing the milk in the larder, she heads to the barn. Estelle doesn’t like her going, but Estelle might not be coming back. She needs to know if anyone is there.
The beauty of the June morning is balm to her weary soul. Mist rises and burns off in the welcome sun. The vines and flowers are rich in color—jewels glittering in the dew—their sweet fragrance perfuming the air.
The sacrament of the present moment.
The phrase comes to her mind. The nun from Lyon had told Virginia about a work by that name, written hundreds of years ago by a priest. When Virginia was becoming overwhelmed by her tasks and fears, the nun consoled her with this idea of how sacred each moment of a life truly is if we view it with purpose, with love, with gratitude and mindfulness. Children understand the idea intuitively. Adults forget. The past and future are the devil’s playground—the place he can torture us with regret and anxiety. The present is rarely a place of suffering.
Until it is.
Then we rise up to meet it or we fall.
When Virginia arrives at the barn, she knocks four times, peeks in her head, and says, “Where did I leave my milking stool?”
After mourning doves flutter and resettle in the rafters, only silence remains. She pushes open the creaky door the rest of the way and peers up to the loft. She walks in, gazing around her, noting the stove, the swept floor, the water pitcher, a milking stool. She finds a ladder, lays it against the loft, and climbs.
There’s no one there.
She returns the ladder to its place, and sets out on a long walk, seeking a new drop field. Carrying on. Finding the sacrament of the present moment. By the time she returns to the house, it’s midday.
Estelle’s father is still in the window. His toast is stale. His coffee is cold. She takes the tray away, forcing down what the old man didn’t touch so it isn’t wasted. She brings him cheese, grapes, and water. He doesn’t eat that, either.
“Monsieur, let me help you to the bathroom,” she says.
He shakes his head.
“Let me help you to bed. You need rest.”
He doesn’t reply.
Virginia watches the sun make its progress through the blue all day. Evening brings quiet birdsong and lavender skies, and rising fear. Estelle still hasn’t returned.
Lavi’s arrival brings a wave of joy. When he comes in the room, they don’t speak—words would break them—but Lavi wraps Virginia in a warm hug of apology and consolation that threatens to undo her.
Sophie arrives next. After hugs and greetings, she holds up her hand, now bare of the small silver engagement ring Louis put on it.
“I’ve found a contact at Fresnes,” she says, her voice wavering. “Louis is alive. Weak, but still going. I gave the guard the ring and told him to tell Louis he can put it back on my hand when we’re reunited.”
Sophie is no longer able to hold back her crying. Mimi takes her in her arms, while Virginia rubs her back. She needs to find a way to persuade this girl to go back to London.
When the eight o’clock hour arrives, the sad, incomplete group makes the slow climb to Estelle’s father’s bedroom, where he still sits at the window. While Virginia and Lavi set up the radio, Estelle’s father makes a wheezing sound. Virginia rushes to him. He gasps and clutches at his heart.
“What is it?” Virginia says, grasping his shoulders. “Are you all right?”
His eyes are glassy with tears. A sudden cry erupts from him. He points out the window. She turns to look.
“Estelle!”
They all cheer while Virginia hurries out of the room and down the stairs as quickly as she’s able to meet her friend. When she bursts through the door, they rush to each other, embracing, laughing, talking over one another. They hurry up the stairs, and Estelle crosses the room to her father, knocking into him with her embrace.
The boy has to hush them for the broadcast. Lavi makes a waving motion at the radio as if it doesn’t matter while Estelle tells them what happened.
“There was a convoy that held up the train. I was stuck in Chambon for the extra night with no way to get word to you. I’m so sorry for the worry I’ve caused.”
“It doesn’t matter,” says Virginia.
“All that matters is that you’re here,” says her father.
“But the delay was good,” says Estelle. “I have a contact for you, Diane. More than one. There are hundreds of Maquis, in formation, ready for or
ders. But they have nothing.”
“Hush!” says the boy. “Personal messages are starting!”
They all grow quiet and huddle around the radio.
“Are you listening?” the announcer says. “Please, listen for personal messages.”
The silence around them is rich and dark, like a fertile, well-composted soil. It’s in this seasoned garden that the words drop like seeds one at a time and bring forth such sweetness, such a harvest of joy and hope, the likes of which each of them has never before experienced.
Finally—now—the night of June 1, 1944, they hear the words for which they’ve been longing. From London to France. Over the airwaves. The beginning of the end.
Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne.
The long sobs of the violins of autumn.
Chapter 21
Though excruciating, the waiting for the second stanza of the poem to announce D-Day’s commencement is filled with energy and excitement, like a child’s anticipation of Christmas. HQ orders Virginia to wait to travel to Chambon until after invasion. Eager though she is to fold Chambon into her network, her fondness for the people here and the work they have before them keeps her satisfied.
They spend their days assembling, cleaning, and loading Sten submachine guns. The weapons are simply and cheaply constructed, easy to use, and able to shoot either Allied or German magazines. The group prepares railway explosives and studies the maps and timetables of their targeted bridges and lines. Though the weather remains rotten, they come together each night, disappointed when they don’t hear the words but also relieved in the small, secret places in their hearts. For they know, when it starts, the fires of France will grow into a mighty, terrible conflagration that will consume without discernment.
On the night of June 5, they gather around the radio holding hands.
How strange that we can feel one another’s heartbeats in our palms, Virginia thinks.
It’s not the fists alone that win the fight.
In these weeks, they’ve all become new. They are all strong fists. All fierce guts. Intelligent brains. Blazing, pounding, loving hearts.
Virginia imagines rooms like this in places all over the country. Little shelters before the storm. She imagines the faces of those she’s loved and lost, and makes a silent wish for the safety of those who’ve survived, especially Louis. She longs for the redemption of the dead and for full, swift Allied triumph.
It’s this night, holding heart-pounding hands, when their wait is rewarded. They hear the final words announcing D-Day.
Blessent mon coeur d’une langueur monotone.
My heart is drowned in the slow sound, languorous and long.
After the words, they are quiet, breathing heavily.
She wants to tell them she loves them—that they are putting her broken heart back together—but she can’t speak over the lump in her throat.
The next day, June 6, the Nazi soldiers contract to their barracks and stations, leaving the streets empty of patrols while they learn of the arrival of 155,000 Allied troops at Normandy.
The banging of hammers rings from village to village, hanging notices for the inhabitants of the area:
the hour has arrived. it’s time to rise and to fight.
That night, Virginia and a small team of Lavi and two of his men creep to a site along the railway linking Cosne with Sury-près-Léré. One of the men—the one she christened “the explosives expert”—works with another who looks especially lethal. He has the aura of one who has lost much and wants to take even more.
While Virginia stands guard, they prepare the explosives, warming and shaping the material in their hands, inserting the fuses, and running the wires to detonators placed farther along the track. On the first morning ride, when the train hits the detonators and passes over the main devices, the engineers will evacuate the locomotive before it tips off the fuses and explodes. Virginia and her group won’t see it, but they’ll be able to hear it loud and clear from a nearby safe house. Then they’ll make like hell for the forest.
The night is so still, it’s hard to imagine what rages on a few hundred kilometers from them. Hard to imagine the arrival of the Nazi panzer divisions coming from the south to meet it. Hard to imagine the bloodshed that will touch even this field. She savors the sacrament of the present moment and tries not to be anxious about what waits coiled in the dark.
When their task is complete, they hurry across the meadow to the safe house.
She doesn’t know how any of them will sleep that night, but somehow they must have, because they are awoken at six in the morning by the blast. With wide smiles they look out the window to the horizon and see the black smoke rising.
* * *
—
That night, back in Estelle’s garret, in her first wire to HQ after D-Day, Virginia reports on the success of her team and three others on the severing of the rail lines around Cosne. One Nazi nerve center amputated. Hundreds to go.
—Reports panzers on the move to reinforce Normandy bases. South to north. Delay them as much as possible.
—We’re on it, Virginia taps.
—Keep skirmishes to a minimum. Sten guns no match for German artillery.
—Copied.
—Jed team for your Maquis will drop soon. Await date. You’re needed elsewhere.
And Lavi and his men are in fine fighting shape, and the Jed team will have not only military officials but also a pianist. She will miss her people here, but she knows they can stand on their own. Her only hesitation is getting farther from Louis, but deep down she knows she must press on. He survived a Spanish prison for seven months. Like he told her, captured doesn’t mean dead. Not today, anyway.
Virginia gives HQ the field coordinates for the Jed drop and signs off.
Knowing how badly her body needs rest, she takes a downer and allows it to pull a black curtain over her consciousness, where she sleeps a blessedly dreamless sleep.
Chapter 22
In the days following, there’s no rest to be had.
Estelle was smart to listen to the Nazi soldiers about gathering medical supplies, but it isn’t them she’s helping. It’s the increasing numbers of downed Allied airmen appearing at her barn. They bring news of Normandy, of flying with over two thousand aircraft, and more than seven thousand boats, all transporting one hundred fifty-five thousand men who stormed ashore in tides turned red with blood, tides visible from the sky.
Virginia wonders when hell will reach them. They’re only 280 kilometers—just 175 miles—southwest of the fighting. But she can’t waste time watching the horizon. She coordinates supply movement and sabotage with the Maquis, gets messages out to neighboring networks through Sophie, and helps Estelle and her cousin take care of the airmen—the work that makes her feel most alive.
It has been nearly a week since D-Day, and Estelle’s barn holds two injured pilots—one British and one American. Six others have passed through on their way to corral at a forest to wait for the Allies to reach them. The Brit sleeps, but the American has been chatting continually. He’s stocky for a pilot, and grunts as he readjusts himself in the hay. He tells them he works with the OSS and was on his way back from a drop over Dijon when he got shot down. Virginia chastises him for giving away more information than he needed to, but she can’t help but warm to him. He’s sweet and friendly and refreshingly American. She was able to smuggle him some cigarettes and playing cards, so he’s content as a clam.
“I’m no doctor,” she says. “But it only seems like a knee sprain. You’ll need to rest that leg, though, so you can get to the next stop.”
“Do I ever have to leave?” he says in his sweet Southern drawl. “It’s so nice and quiet here.”
“At least you won’t have to try to cross the Pyrenees in winter,” says Estelle in English. “Like she did.”
She nods to
Virginia.
“I can’t believe I’m with the legend,” he says. “Diane. The pride and joy of two continents.”
“Is Diane famous?” asks Estelle.
“Within our ranks she is,” the pilot says.
“As if I needed another reason to hate the Gestapo,” Virginia says. “They did me no favors calling me the Limping Lady. Everyone has been bugging me about my leg ever since.”
“You’re my idol.”
“You’re ridiculous,” says Virginia. “While I appreciate your admiration, I must insist on discretion.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, saluting her.
She smiles in spite of herself.
A quick knock quiets them. Sophie peers around the door.
“There’s more of you!” the pilot says. “I’m never leaving.”
The look on Sophie’s face wipes the smile off Virginia’s.
“What is it?” Virginia says in French, standing. “Louis?”
“No.”
Sophie steps forward, helping a man as he stumbles in. He falls to his hands and knees and vomits. Virginia and Estelle rush over and help Sophie carry him to a place he can lie down. Estelle covers the vomit with a pile of straw and uses a shovel to scoop it up and throw it outside the barn, before locking the door. The man is an American pilot, with “Murphy” stitched on his torn flight suit. He shakes so violently it’s as if electric currents run through his body. He can’t stop mumbling.
Virginia pulls a downer from her stash and feeds it to him. The trembling soon stops, but he doesn’t close his eyes, only stares at the ceiling as though seeing a place not in this barn. He keeps squeezing his eyes shut and shaking his head, as if trying to shut out a terrible vision.
“You’re safe,” Virginia says, kneeling beside him and rubbing his arm.
Aside from a few cuts on his face, Murphy has no visible injury, but Virginia knows well the hidden injury of memory can be just as painful. After a long while he focuses on her face as if seeing her for the first time. He moves his cracked lips open and closed. Virginia reaches for the canteen and gives him a drink.