The Invisible Woman

by Erika Robuck

“Come on,” says Virginia, climbing on her bicycle.

  Bob reaches for her, touching her arm.

  “La Madone,” he says.

  She flashes a dark look at him and pulls her arm away.

  “Don’t be mad,” he says. “When we call you la Madone, you must imagine the statue here. Not the quiet, vulnerable face of the Virgin in the stable but the conquering woman on the mountain.”

  It’s rare for Bob to act so seriously, and she sees that he doesn’t want her to make a joke or dismiss him, but she can’t. She feels as if she’ll choke from his admiration because she believes she’s unworthy of it.

  She wants to tell him she hasn’t conquered anything, especially not the mountain. Those she crossed conquered her because she never should have left her people. Now she’s stuck with the memory of them, and the new faces she’s added, always dragging heavy behind her, suffering again and again in her nightmares. But how can she say these things aloud—to a subordinate—when she hates to even think them herself?

  Chapter 34

  Buzzing from the uppers she took, eyes wide in the night, she stands guard with a machine gun, while Dédé and a group of his boys wire the tracks. They took the truck—lights out—all the way to Monistrol d’Allier to perform the cut. Her heart won’t stop racing, but it isn’t because of their activity. It’s Simon and his team who are on her mind.

  Once Simon received report of the convoys heading north, he decided his and Bob’s teams would make their first ambush tonight. As Simon promised, once armed, their numbers grew from two to four hundred, and they add men by the hour. The Maquis are ready to start closing in on Le Puy.

  Simon said they’d do one of two things. If grossly outnumbered by the Nazis, he’ll place his snipers at various points along the road, firing shots from different types of weapons to make the Nazis think their numbers and artillery are stronger than they are.

  “And if you aren’t outnumbered?” she’d said.

  “We’ll attack.”

  As difficult as Virginia’s relationship began with Simon, her respect for him has grown. He’s decisive and has kept the best control he can in a near-impossible situation. He’s organized and trained troops who not only had no weapons but didn’t know if they’d ever get them. His impatience, stubbornness, and need to take charge cause friction with her because she shares the same attributes, not that she’d ever admit such a thing to him. She hopes desperately for their success.

  “Psst.”

  Dédé waves her over.

  “I’ll take guard,” he says. “Please, check us.”

  She passes him the machine gun and inspects the fifteen meters of track they’ve wired leading up to the tunnel on each side. The first will detonate when the morning freight train full of supplies for German forces passes into the tunnel. They’ll blow the second on the other side after that, trapping the train and ensuring it can’t continue. The second detonator wire extends about a hundred meters down a cliff, where they’ll wait with the truck on the road. They’ll ride like the wind once the sabotage is complete.

  Hit and run.

  Once they’ve cleaned up their materials, they have an hour to watch the sunrise. She smells the pine and the sweet smoke of their tobacco. The sky is still dark blue, but the stars have disappeared, and a rim of light peeks over the distant mountains. When the morning light brightens, Dédé pulls a paper out of his pocket, unfolds it, and holds it up to show her.

  “Les Étoiles,” she reads. “What’s that?”

  “A clandestine paper. Resistance writers publish essays, stories, poetry—small acts of subversion. I liked this poem, ‘The Weapons of Pain,’ by Paul Éluard. I want to read it to all of you.”

  One boy chuckles, like it’s silly to read poetry. Dédé slaps him on the back of the head, silencing his insolence.

  “I would love to hear it,” says Virginia, glaring at the boy. He looks down at his hands in shame.

  Dédé clears his throat. While he reads and the sun rises, their memories rise with it. All the young faces age before her. She feels the age in her own bones, the many pains and losses she has suffered, the catalog of the faces she has known, the missing, the dead, the beloved. He reads of warriors—reckless and true, passionate and sleepless. Their motivations. What they represent. How every one of them—no matter how great or small—is the shadow of all of those fighting for the good in the world.

  When he finishes, she looks to the sky and is startled by the light of the great sun that has appeared over the mountains. She feels tears on her face and looks around to see the sunlight reflected in the others’ tears. They all let out embarrassed laughs.

  “This poem is a spark,” Dédé says. “Just think, little papers like this start the big blazes that win wars.”

  He folds it and tucks it in his pocket. After checking his watch, he stands and holds his hands down to Virginia, pulling her up with him. He motions for the others to rise, hands the keys to the truck to Virginia, and picks up the detonator.

  The sound of the freight train starts faint but grows closer and louder, rumbling to a roar as it passes. The boys wait, wide-eyed. She tenses, ready to spring to action. Dédé counts down.

  “Trois, deux, un . . .”

  Nothing. Nothing.

  Boom!

  They feel the great blast under their feet, and rocks rain over the cliff, stinging them like bits of meteor shower. Dédé presses the detonator, setting off the second blast.

  The boys whoop and holler, and Virginia orders them to the truck. She drives them as fast as she can toward the rising sun.

  * * *

  —

  They sleep for several hours but awaken before noon to prepare the groups for the coming nights. They need to cut the rails at Langogne, Brassac, and Solignac, the telephone lines from Brioude to Le Puy, and the bridges at Montagnac, Brioude, and Lavoûte-sur-Loire. The largest railway bridge cut they’ll need to make is at Chamalières, but they’ll need to work up to that. It will require the most heavy and precise explosive placement to enact.

  All day, Virginia watches the clock and the door, anxious to hear from Simon and Bob. If the ambush was a success, the German convoy will have no option but to fall back to Le Puy, pushing the boches into the trap the Resistance forces are slowly, methodically setting. But she must prepare herself for the worst-case scenarios: heavy Maquis loss to Simon’s and Bob’s teams, and no advancement. And if the Maquis fail and are put on the run, the threat to Chambon and the region will rise.

  By three o’clock in the afternoon, they still haven’t heard from Simon or Bob. Dédé and Edmund pace and chew their fingernails. They want to get to their teams to prepare them for the night’s sabotage, but they need to know what happened first. If they head to a region now swarming with Nazis, they’ll be walking right into a trap.

  When Virginia’s nerves can’t take another minute of sitting and waiting, she pulls on her shawl.

  “I’ll check in at the Hôtel May to see if there’s been any news,” she says.

  Dédé jumps to join her.

  “No,” she says. “Please. I need to be alone.”

  She doesn’t wait for his reply before heading out the door.

  The bicycle ride in the mountain air is invigorating, and by the time she arrives at the heart of town, she feels steady. Taking the back entrance to the hotel to avoid the watchful stare of MP Haas, she weaves her way through the dark hallways. Just as she steps into the lobby, the phones at the front desk and in the café start ringing, slicing through the air with their shrill cries. The old woman at the front desk answers, and her face goes white. She hurries to the woman at the café, and both tell the waitress and maid to go and sound the alarm.

  “What is it?” Virginia asks the woman at the front desk.

  “A raid.”

  Virginia’s hope crashes. Does this mean th
e Germans mowed through Simon’s men?

  “Is it the boches?” she says.

  “I don’t know. We were just warned to get the children to the forest. Here, take this basket. Help the teachers escort them there safely to pick mushrooms.”

  Virginia doesn’t want to endanger the children with her presence, but she can’t tell the old woman, who has no knowledge of Virginia’s role, nor will the woman take no for an answer.

  “Don’t look panicked,” the woman calls as Virginia heads out the back door. “You mustn’t let the children know you’re afraid.”

  * * *

  —

  Virginia takes the alley to the nearest school, where summer lessons were just letting out, and is soon caught up in a swell of primary-aged children. Their teachers have bright smiles and lead the kids in song, the pace they set the only indication of trouble. Virginia falls back toward the rear of the line, where a teacher asks her to check the school to make sure they didn’t miss anyone. Grateful for a task away from the children, Virginia passes off the basket, and hurries into the building.

  The windows are open, allowing the sweet mountain breezes to sweep through the classrooms. Virginia climbs to the third floor, checking each level, opening closet doors and looking under desks, making sure the building is empty. The rooms are decorated with wildflower collages, and finger paintings, and sets of building blocks. French lesson books line the shelves, and cages squeak with field mice on wheels and baby bunnies drinking from water bottles. She notes the Bible story puppets and pictures are of the Garden of Eden, Noah’s ark, David and Goliath—stories Jewish and Christian children have in common. In one of the classrooms, a photograph of a boy with haunted eyes is pinned to a corkboard, where little messages of kindness, scrawled in children’s penmanship, surround his face.

  My God, she thinks. These teachers are giving these boys and girls so much more than instruction and shelter.

  Struggling to keep herself composed, Virginia hurries to join the group and nods to the teacher to show there are no kids left in the building. The lines of children parade into the forest, their gentle songs muted and swallowed as the understory folds around them. Three Maquis appear to keep watch.

  She stays with them along the forest edge, guarding the children, alternating between feelings of affection for the people of Chambon, hatred of the Nazis, and terror over the fate of Simon and Bob’s Maquis. After an hour that feels like a day, a woman from the village waves a kerchief along the meadows’ edge, and one of the boys enters the woods to tell the teachers it’s all clear.

  Desperate for news of her boys, Virginia rushes back to town, finds her bicycle, and pedals as fast as her legs will push to her safe house, but there’s no one waiting for her.

  Chapter 35

  She paces, watching the window, battling with horrid thoughts of those she has lost, from Lyon to the present. She thinks back before all went south in her first mission in Lyon, before the Nazis spilled into the unoccupied zone, when she and her people all lived and worked together in harmony. In spite of their vastly different situations, their fight against evil was their bond.

  She recalls a sweet night when she and Louis and the prostitute and the old couple were able to sneak to the doctor’s living quarters, above his office, and share a modest Christmas dinner. The prostitute had been able to buy them a goose on the black market, and the rest had pooled their resources to make baked sweet potatoes and even to buy a few bottles of wine. The old woman drank hers too quickly and got the hiccups, and the rest of them couldn’t catch their breath from laughing.

  She smiles, warmed by the memory of her little Lyon family and proud of herself for combatting her hourly battle against despair with good thoughts.

  Suddenly, she hears a truck screech around the corner and come to a halt outside her place. She rushes out to meet it, thrilled to see Bob.

  She learns his and Simon’s teams ambushed the Germans, killing fourteen of them while suffering no casualties in their own ranks, and forcing the convoy back to Le Puy. As a result, hoping to boost German morale, the Milice attempted a raid on Chambon, but when they arrived in town, not a single suspicious child or resistor could be found. They left with lower morale than ever, and reportedly stank of fear, their positions as collaborators now clearly tenuous.

  In the following nights, Virginia’s teams successfully cut two railways and two bridges, and derail a train at a tunnel. The boys are starting to leave the forest to quarter at the nearby Château de Vaux, and Virginia helps Bob and another maquisard pack a crate of weapons and medical supplies for the storage closets there.

  “We need to arrest the Milice in the area as soon as possible,” says Virginia. “I don’t want them threatening those children again. Do we have a place we can jail them?”

  “The boys found an abandoned château at Pont de Mars. There’s one road in, and its position allows a good view of the landscape. They’re preparing it for prisoners now.”

  “Good. The moment it’s ready, you also need to lock up the betrayer.”

  God knows how a betrayer can destroy a network.

  “I don’t know that we’ll give him the courtesy of locking him up, la Madone.”

  They’re startled when the door behind them bursts open. Bob pulls out his gun and stands in front of Virginia. When they see Danielle Le Forestier, Virginia places her hand on Bob’s back. He lowers his gun.

  “I’m sorry,” says Danielle. “I wasn’t thinking. Please, I need you to talk Roger out of this mission of madness.”

  “What do you mean?” asks Virginia.

  “Two Maquis were arrested and taken to Le Puy. Roger’s going to plead on their behalf.”

  “Which ones?” asks Bob.

  “Two of the three who stole his car,” says Danielle.

  Bob’s face darkens.

  “What of the third?” asks Bob.

  “He got away. That’s how Roger heard of all this.”

  Based on the look Bob gives her, Virginia has the same awful thought that Bob has: the betrayer.

  Bob and the other maquisard pull on their jackets, Virginia wraps her hair with her shawl, and the group follows Danielle to the Le Forestiers’ house. As they arrive, Roger is securing the Red Cross sheet over the top of his car. The girl staying with them watches out the window, her eyes wide.

  “We can’t recommend you go to Le Puy,” says Virginia. “Not at this time.”

  “It’s all right,” says Roger. “Since the incident with my car, these boys have gone above and beyond to help me and show they’re sorry. I need to be there for them.”

  “Between skirmishes and the increase in Nazis at Le Puy, it isn’t wise. Bob and I were just in town, and the German General Staff from Lyon has moved in. Tensions are extremely high.”

  “Please,” says Danielle, clutching Roger’s arms.

  Roger looks down at his wife and takes her face in his hands. “My love, this is diplomatic and it’s the right thing to do. These boys are orphans and patriots. I have to be there for them. Even if I can’t get them out, they’ll at least know they’re cared for. It will be all right. I’m familiar to the Germans in Le Puy. They know I’m a doctor.”

  “Not the new ones,” says Danielle.

  “I’m going,” says Roger.

  “Then I’ll go with you,” says Bob. “For protection on the road.”

  “I will, too,” says Virginia. “I need to keep HQ as up to date as possible.”

  Roger looks at his wife with his eyebrows up, seeking her blessing. With reluctance, she nods and reaches for him. He wraps her in his arms.

  “Why were the Maquis arrested?” asks Bob.

  “They were on an errand for me,” says Roger, releasing his wife. “I had them running med supplies, but they apparently added a box of ammunition to the trunk. They got stopped at a checkpoint and searched. The maq
uisard that got away told me.”

  “Where is he?” asks Bob.

  “Inside the house. He’s pretty shaken up.”

  Virginia’s heart begins to race. Her hands feel clammy.

  “Danielle,” says Virginia. “Where are the children?”

  “Inside.”

  “Take them at once to the forest. All of them. For an hour.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  Danielle looks from Virginia to Roger. He nods, and she obeys.

  “Bob,” Virginia says.

  He follows Danielle. Once they’re inside, Virginia takes Roger’s arm, and whispers to him.

  “Don’t move or react,” she whispers. “The maquisard in your house is a collaborator.”

  Roger flinches, trying to pull away from her, but she holds him fast.

  “It’s all right,” she says. “Bob’s getting him.”

  On cue, Bob emerges, his gun thrust into the back of the maquisard with the red hair. The young man walks stiff and straight. His face is white, and the underarms of his shirt are soaked with sweat rings. Bob opens the door to the back of the car and climbs in after the young man. The other maquisard gets in the other side. Virginia releases Roger and takes the passenger seat. In a moment, Roger climbs in the driver’s seat, giving a dark look to all of them before starting the engine.

  On the ride, the only sounds are the shaking, gasping breaths of the betrayer. By the smell, she thinks he wet himself. Virginia rolls down her window. Several kilometers outside the village, Bob asks Roger to pull over near a small thicket of pines bordering a cliff. Roger wordlessly obeys. The betrayer whimpers but still doesn’t speak as Bob pulls him from the vehicle and walks him to the trees at gunpoint. Virginia watches the pines swallow them up. Several seconds later, she, Roger, and the other maquisard flinch when they hear the shot. Roger covers his mouth with a shaking hand and breathes heavily. Bob returns to the car alone, and they continue to Le Puy in silence.