The Invisible Woman

by Erika Robuck

  A ghost.

  “Our son,” Dolmazon says, once he disappears. “Hope for the family name when so many of our kind have no more of that hope.”

  “Are you?”

  “Jewish. Yes.”

  “Yet Simon called me ‘La Madone’?”

  “France is a Catholic country. La Madone is everywhere, including Marseille, where Simon comes from a prominent family.”

  Virginia holds up her hands.

  “I know,” says Dolmazon. “I shouldn’t say too much. I only want you to know that if Simon seems a little harsher than you want him to be, you must understand all we’ve lost. All we have left to lose.”

  Virginia looks down at her lap, shame creeping in for judging Simon badly. How many people have called her too harsh? And she knows there is nothing she has suffered that can compare to that of the Jewish population of Europe.

  “It still doesn’t give him an excuse to make your job difficult,” Dolmazon continues, “but I only explain so you understand.”

  “Thank you. That’s helpful to know.”

  Dolmazon nods.

  Bob lights a cigarette.

  Dédé watches Virginia.

  Edmund paces, seemingly working something out in his head. After a few moments, he stops.

  “Is your broken bike in the yard?” he asks.

  She nods, and he disappears.

  In a short time, Simon walks into the room followed by a man of startling good looks. He’s tall, and his dark hair is impeccably styled. His silver belt buckle gleams under his white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves and unbuttoned at the collar.

  “Roger Le Forestier,” he says, kneeling at her feet. “Honored to finally meet you.”

  Goodness, she thinks. What a pretty pair the Le Forestiers make.

  “Danielle sends her best,” he continues in his deep, smooth voice. “She said you were so brave on the trip.”

  “Danielle is very kind,” Virginia says.

  “Let me see your injuries,” he says, holding out his hands.

  She raises her right arm before him, and he takes it, gently squeezing and moving her joints from her wrist to her elbow to her shoulder. “I don’t feel any breaks. Let’s get you cleaned up and a little salve on the wounds to keep infection away. I’ll leave you with some bandages for that wrist; it took the worst of the fall and you’re lucky it didn’t snap. You must be made of steel.”

  Hardly, she thinks.

  Dolmazon fetches them water and a towel, and the doctor makes quick work of cleaning and wrapping her cuts.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have more bandages,” he says, “or I’d also wrap that elbow. Try to keep it clean and dry.”

  “I’ve ordered ample medical supplies, if this drop ever comes through.”

  “I’d be most grateful.”

  When Roger leaves, and Edmund returns from the yard, they all resettle around the radio.

  Please, she thinks. Let tonight be the night.

  She’s exhausted by all the bickering, and the tension feels as terrible as it did in Cosne leading up to D-Day.

  At the end of the broadcast, the personal messages are read, but there are no daisies in bloom. There will be no drop tonight.

  Chapter 31

  While Virginia stands arguing with Simon about his unruly Maquis, the door bursts open. Bob draws his gun and points it at the man with flashing eyes and a red face. It’s Roger Le Forestier, and he looks utterly different from the way he did at their first meeting. He charges up to them.

  “What is it, man?” says Simon, grasping Roger’s arms.

  Roger shakes off Simon’s grip.

  “You tell your roving band of terrorist pirates, I want that car back and I want it by nightfall, or I will personally report them to the Milice.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Your Maquis,” he says, spitting the word, pointing his finger into Simon’s chest, “told me to give them my car. The one I use for doctor visits from here to Le Puy. The one the Salvation Army needs for transport. When I refused, the asses pointed a gun at me and told me they’d shoot if I didn’t hand it over. I put my hands up, one of them grabbed my keys, and they took the car. The car that was running on empty as it was!”

  Simon utters a curse under his breath.

  “Which ones?” says Dédé.

  “Do you need to ask?” says Roger.

  Virginia knows the group of which he speaks. There are three of them who’ve managed to find old guns, who strut around town like roosters, constantly having to be told to put their weapons away. The only thing keeping the Nazis at the hotel from pouncing are their infirmities, and the fact that most of the ones left are as young as the Maquis of the region. All except the one in the window.

  Virginia gives Bob a long look. He nods at her and leaves them.

  “I slave over them,” Roger continues. “All hours of the day and night for no pay. These ridiculous boys who think they’re men, stabbing their fingers with their stupid knife games, breaking limbs, endless infections.”

  “I’m sorry, Roger,” says Simon. “Sometimes I feel like the father of hundreds of orphans more than a military leader.”

  “That isn’t good enough. These boys are feral, and that makes them dangerous. We’re so close, Simon. Don’t let them jeopardize the fragile safety we have on the mountain.”

  “They’ll be disciplined severely for this.”

  “Make sure that discipline doesn’t require medical care, because I’m done with them.”

  Roger slams the barn door, leaving them in silence. Virginia doesn’t look at Simon. She could see something like this coming. Anyone with eyes could. While Simon paces, Edmund touches Virginia’s arm.

  “Come,” he says.

  He leads her to the barn stall.

  “This has nothing to do with that,” Edmund says, “but I have the answer to your battery problem solved. Voilà!”

  He pulls a tarp off a contraption. She’s able to make out pieces of her broken bicycle, wood, and wires. When she sees it’s all connected to her wireless, her face flushes.

  “Why did you touch that?” she says.

  “Don’t get mad,” he says, holding up his hands. “Just watch.”

  He hurries around to a stool, flips a few switches on her equipment, and uses his hands to work the bicycle pedals. In a moment, the light on the battery flickers to life.

  “A generator,” he says. “Now we don’t need a new battery or a power source.”

  She exhales with a smile.

  “Are you proud of me?” he asks.

  “Yes, Edmund, I’m very proud of you. And grateful.”

  Their mutual enjoyment doesn’t last long before the barn door again slams open. Three pimply, dirty, terrified young Maquis walk in with their hands in the air, followed by Bob, pointing his Luger at the head of the last one.

  “On your knees,” Bob says.

  The boys obey, hands shaking.

  “Do you know what we do to those who break our laws?” says Simon.

  “We kill them,” says Bob.

  “We are technically not recognized yet as military,” says Simon, “so we operate under our own rules. Those who disregard them will find the sword falls swift. Do you need to be reminded we are not anarchists?”

  They shake their heads in the negative.

  “Today, you boys will dig three graves,” says Bob. “If the car isn’t returned with a full tank of petrol by the time the sun sets, your bodies will be in them.”

  Virginia is glad to see this show of power. This is exactly the kind of discipline they need to keep order.

  “Sir,” says the one with red hair, “where are we to find petrol?”

  “That isn’t my problem,” says Bob.

  “And it better not be stolen fro
m another of our allies,” says Simon.

  “But the only ones who have it are the boches,” the redhead says.

  “Good,” says Bob. “Let them kill you for theft. Better your blood on their hands than mine.”

  * * *

  —

  On the way to Simon and Dolmazon’s that evening, Virginia and her core team take the road by the Le Forestiers’ place. The car is back in the driveway, so clean it shines in the light spilling out of the window, where they can see the family gathered for dinner. Danielle leans down to place a platter on the table where her two little boys sit with another child—a girl, maybe seven or eight years old. She reminds Virginia of her niece, Lorna. The family chatters like it’s any other night, like they aren’t sheltering a displaced Jewish orphan in wartime. As Danielle walks to the window to pull the drapes closed, Roger intercepts her, runs his hand down her braid, and kisses the side of her neck.

  Uncomfortable witnessing the Le Forestiers’ intimacy, Virginia resumes their walk.

  “I didn’t think the Maquis would be able to get the petrol,” says Virginia.

  Bob takes a long drag of his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and crushing it with his boot.

  “I knew they could,” he says. “You know the one with the red hair? The one who said only the boches had petrol?”

  “Yes.”

  “We suspect he’s an informer.”

  Virginia stops walking.

  “Why don’t you kill him now?”

  “We’re using him for the time being,” says Dédé. “Giving him false leads to tell the boches. We’ll dispose of him when we no longer need his services.”

  “I look forward to it,” says Bob.

  As the group resumes walking and crests the hill on the final climb to Simon’s place, the sight of the moon is arresting. Though not quite full, it’s enormous. It appears close enough to touch. The evening sky is clear and, though a strong wind blows, conditions are as favorable as they’ll ever be.

  Without a word, the group picks up their pace. They don’t have to hear the phrase over the BBC to know the daisies will bloom tonight.

  * * *

  —

  “I can’t believe it’s happening,” says Simon.

  His face is ecstatic as he looks to the heavens, the moon lighting up his eyes.

  Nestled between mountains and forests, the fields lay waiting in the glorious, shimmering, sweet summer night. Virginia has never seen such beauty. It makes her feel humbled and awed.

  Her team waits: Simon and Dolmazon, Bob, Edmund, and Dédé and his boys, thirty well-disciplined, hardworking, fresh, eager young men. Their exemplary progress in training has led to their reward as the first drop team.

  “It’s like a dream,” whispers Dolmazon.

  Simon touches Virginia’s arm.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “For all the doubt. For all the trouble.”

  “Thank you,” she says. “I understand. And I’m sorry for my sharp tongue.”

  He gives her a small smile before looking back at the sky.

  Earlier that night in the broadcast, after the announcer gave the phrase, he repeated it two more times, alerting Virginia to the fact that they could expect not one plane of containers, but three. She’s glad she had more holes dug on the field periphery. They’d used the exercise as discipline for the more unruly Maquis, but it turns out the holes will be needed.

  When the droning sound starts and the shadows of the planes can be seen in the distance, she hushes all their happy whispers and instructs them to take their positions. She flashes the agreed-upon Morse letter signal R to the anonymous pilot, and soon the parachutes begin to drop. One after another. Dozens of them, dancing toward the ground. As the containers land with thuds on the earth, the group is careful to avoid getting smashed. She blows a kiss to the planes as they fly away, their dear shadows crossing the moon.

  Chapter 32

  The empty shelves of the weapons depot are now full.

  Machine guns. Ammo. Anti-tank grenades. Hand grenades that explode on impact—no need to pull a pin. Caltrops: spikes to throw on the road to pop German tires and make sitting ducks of them for ambush. Liberator pistols: One shot, kill the German, take his weapon. Manuals, in French, on everything from explosives wiring, to communications cutting, to hand-to-hand combat.

  She looks at Dédé with skepticism when he introduces her to the sweet-faced kid he’s installed as depot guard, gun nearly as tall as he is. When they leave the boy to his duty, Dédé chastises Virginia in his quiet way.

  “You know as well as I do that looks can be deceiving,” he says, eyes touching her leg and rising back to her face.

  “Touché,” she says.

  Dédé knows about her hunting accident and Cuthbert. She had to tell him because she needed new screws to replace those that were rusting and wearing on her foot hinge. He’d been so awed—his admiration so much greater for her—she decided to take Bob and Edmund into her confidence. As she’d hoped, it proved to strengthen their bond. She’s fascinated and thankful that what she used to take such pains to hide—that kept her from acceptance in the US Foreign Service and from intimate relationships, and that brings her an element of shame for exposing weakness—deepens their esteem for her.

  She hasn’t discussed her disguise with them, though her core group seems to understand she isn’t an old woman. The gray dye is beginning to fade, and traces of her auburn hair are beginning to show at the roots. She knows she should add more gray, but she has no time. She’s rarely alone and, if she is, she uses that time to sleep.

  In the drop, Vera got a parcel through to her. In it were two women’s field uniforms—one with trousers, one a skirt—in her size. Vera writes:

  When the time comes, this is your armor. Geneva, etc.

  Also, tied with a bow, was a shining new S-Phone. It will make field-to-plane communication a breeze, and she can use it to properly thank these brave pilots for their dangerous work. Finally, she was relieved to see the coded message telling her Sophie was making her escape. After the roundups, Sophie got word to HQ through a pianist and disappeared into Spain. Virginia dearly hopes Sophie makes it safely back to London.

  Back at the Salvation Army house, Dolmazon works with the boys to fill the shelves with food, vitamins, clothing, and boots. A pile of parachutes is folded in the corner. On the drop night, when the Maquis began to bury them, Dolmazon insisted they stop. “I can use it all,” she’d said. Now they were just taking up room. Dangerously so.

  “A miracle,” says Dolmazon, motioning to the supplies.

  “No, simply a coordinated Allied effort,” says Virginia.

  “You’re too modest. This is overwhelming.”

  “Perhaps you’d be less overwhelmed if you allowed the boys to bury the parachutes. It isn’t safe having them here. If the wrong eyes see them, we’ll have a situation.”

  “Don’t worry,” Dolmazon says. “Simon has a group who will take them to our farm tonight. I have a place to hide them.”

  “What are you using them for?”

  Dolmazon smiles at her but doesn’t answer.

  * * *

  —

  The Le Forestiers arrive in their car, draped in the Red Cross flag for protection. Virginia helps Danielle and Roger load it up with medical supplies: bandages, antiseptics, aspirin, thermometers, uppers, downers, and L pills.

  “You keep this,” Roger says, tossing her the bottle of cyanide. “I took an oath.”

  “I did, too,” she says. “To myself. But I’ll give it to Bob. If the Maquis don’t want the pills, I’m sure he can put them to good use.”

  Roger laughs, and they continue the work, which lasts an hour and leaves them all hungry and tired. Happy with the return of his car, Roger never again brought up his outburst, and has disregarded his proclamation no
t to help the Maquis. When they finish loading the car, Danielle asks Virginia to come for dinner.

  “You’re very kind,” Virginia says.

  The little girl at the Le Forestiers’ house who reminds Virginia of her niece comes to mind. It has been so long since Virginia has seen Lorna; will she even recognize “Aunt Dindy” when they’re reunited? She thinks of how nice it would be to share a family meal around a dining table. But no, she must refuse.

  “I’m sorry,” Virginia says. “It still isn’t safe.”

  Danielle sighs as Roger wraps his arm around his wife.

  “Soon,” he says. “Now that the boys are armed, the end is coming.”

  “I pray you’re right,” Danielle says.

  The sudden sound of the cadence of shoes on cobblestones puts them on alert. They hurry around the car to where there’s a good view of the street, where lines of children march like little soldiers. Small, tall, young, adolescent—rows and rows of them flow like rivers from the town out to the field that leads to the forest, singing, “Alouette, gentille alouette,” all the way.

  “What are they doing?” Virginia asks.

  “We must have gotten a warning call,” says Roger. “When the Nazis or the Milice go out on patrol, we have a system of telephone calls from village to village.”

  “The children are told it’s time to pick mushrooms in the forest so they don’t panic,” says Danielle.

  “Do they need armed guards?” asks Virginia.

  “Already covered,” says Roger. “See?”

  Only because he pointed out the movement at the forest edge can she make out the camouflaged forms of the Maquis. They flank the forest border, looking like Boy Scouts out for a bit of exercise. Boy Scouts who know how to disarm, kill, and gut anyone who tries to harm the children, that is.

  The Le Forestiers leave, but Virginia is unable to carry on as if nothing is happening. After watching the last of the children slip into the woods—their sweet voices fading away—she feels a terrible sense of unease. And soon, as warned, a truck of Milice patrols the village, slowly snaking through the streets, looking into doorways and windows. She stalks them, keeping watch until they finish their route. Only when the black Citroen grows smaller as it drives away from Chambon can Virginia breathe better, but the anxiety remains.