Code Name Hélène

by Ariel Lawhon

“The thing about you, Nancy, is that no one seems to ask questions.”

Ian Garrow wants me to smuggle human beings out of France.

I am excited. This feels like a challenge. And much to my surprise I am ready for it.

Nancy Fiocca—is the kind of woman who conquers the world. Fearless. Ferocious. Nancy is the sort of woman who bathes in a meteor shower.

A week ago the Vichy government signed into law a decree that declares all foreign-born Jews to be illegal immigrants. They are, without warning or chance of appeal, to be sent directly to Germany and housed in concentration camps.

Garrow, O’Leary, and I cannot work fast enough. We cannot procure documents fast enough.

“What’s happened—” I ask, and then add, before he changes the subject, “Yes, I found your wife. Yes, she’s fine. It looks like she’ll have the baby in a week or two. Now tell me what the hell has happened.” “It has happened!” “What has?” “D-Day! The Allies have landed at Normandy.”

We know only the specifics of our own assignment: train, arm, and organize the Maquis for battle. Everything beyond that was a contingency based on the hope of an Allied invasion.

But now that it has happened, the second phase of our mission has gone into effect and I wasn’t here to see it. Overcome by exhaustion, disappointment, and the sense that I have missed the most important night of the war, I cry myself to sleep.

But then it came. That one phrase. ‘I wish I was by the seaside at sunrise.’ And everyone knew.”

I wanted the pure satisfaction of seeing our plan unfold. Because the next phase of our mission will go into effect the moment they are done.

Last night I collected Anselm and now our forces can be properly trained.

We hear of the ghastly blood-filled waves at Normandy. The countless bodies lying on the beach. And the tens of thousands of men who are even now pushing inland. Who are fighting back. Who are resisting the great evil that Hitler has unleashed upon the continent. And now the real work begins. This is why we have come to France.

“How the hell did you do that?” Hubert hisses as he trots along beside me. “Just a bit of lying and forgery. All’s fair in love and war, you know.”

God have mercy on Harelip if he is trying to deceive or betray me. Because I certainly won’t.

This man holds Ian Garrow’s life in his hands. You cannot pity him.

I read Les Misérables, turning the pages for over an hour, absorbing not a single word.

Oh, the morbid places my mind can travel when fed a steady diet of fear for an afternoon.

“Nancy.” It is Ian Garrow’s voice, choked with emotion, staticky, and from a distance. But unmistakably his. “Thank you.”

Their phones are tapped. Their mail is being intercepted. The Vichy commissioner of police is watching them.

I didn’t realize I was crying until he said this. I wipe my face on my sleeve. “No.”

He kisses me firmly on the lips. There is nothing sensual about it. This is not the sort of kiss he would use to seduce me. This is an emotional kiss. Urgent and terrified. The sort of kiss a man gives his wife when he’s going off to war. But I am the one leaving. How, how, am I supposed to leave?

I have biked over two hundred kilometers in one day. My knees buckle with relief. But I remind myself that the most dangerous part of my journey is ahead.

“My son lives near the garrison in Montluçon and has told me about this man. He is cruel and evil. His name is Wolff.”

Every kilometer is pure agony. By three o’clock in the morning I am certain that if I get off this bicycle I will never get on again.

By the time I push my bicycle into the French Resistance camp at Saint-Santin, I have pedaled five hundred kilometers round trip. My friends stare at me, speechless, as I take the last excruciating steps toward the campfire.

I let my bicycle fall to the ground beside me as I teeter on my feet, unable to maintain my balance. “London is sending a new radio and transmitter at one o’clock in the morning,” I say.

“But you walked right into Vichy headquarters. Do you even understand how risky that was?” Patrick O’Leary stops then, right in the middle of the street. He sticks a finger in my face and shakes it. “And you walked right into Mauzac to free Ian Garrow. Did you think I would do any less for you?”

“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!”

I’m not a doctor. I’m not even a nurse. I don’t know the names of any muscle, ligament, or tendon in the shoulder. But I do know that I shouldn’t go digging around in the human body with a folding Sheffield knife.

“She’s French.” “How can you tell?” I shrug. “I just can. They all have a look.” By which I mean that she is entirely flat-chested and has an arrogant set to her mouth.

“What is the point of this?” I ask. “To see how fast you can think. How fast you can move,” Rake says. “I moved fast enough the last time I had to escape the Germans.” “And how, exactly, did you escape them?” Buckmaster asks. “I jumped off a train and ran through a vineyard while they shot at me,” I say. “An entirely unpleasant experience, if you want to know the truth.”

“You took to it like a duck to water,” Rake says.

“Ho there, Duckie! You’ve just walked straight into a wall!” or “Farmer!

“Well,” I say, “if it isn’t Simón Bolívar, alive and in the flesh.” He grins. “Welcome to the Special Operations Executive, Nance.” Denis Rake straightens his back, lifts his hand, and salutes. “Lieutenant Colonel Garrow, sir!”

I have watched this man commit unspeakable acts without a hint of remorse.

“That is for Janos Lieberman. And for the old woman in Vienna who you tied to that waterwheel and whipped within an inch of her life.”

“It is for Olivia Soutine and her unborn child and the little girl you left without a mother—for the man you left without a wife. That is for every person you have killed. For every child you have left an orphan. For every Jew you’ve carried off to your slaughterhouses. For Patrick O’Leary and for Alex.” I take a step toward Wolff and put my foot on his neck, then press harder, hastening the process. “That is for France.”

“I never said I couldn’t shoot. Just that I don’t like to.” “But you’re not even drunk.” “Don’t worry, Duckie, I will be soon.”

They turn sharply on their heels and stand at attention. There is one last trumpet blast, then every man before me raises his hand in salute. It is a show of respect. Of honor. Deference. They are acknowledging, one and all, that I am their leader.

I say good-bye to Tardivat, Jacques, and Louis on the front steps of the Château de Fragne. I watch as my maquisards drive away, hanging out the windows, whooping and hollering, and I think that I have never loved any group of men more than I do right now.

Henri Fiocca has no idea if those things are possible. He has no idea how this war will end. But he is absolutely certain of three things: his wife is the bravest person he has ever known, his father is a fool, and Marceline is a liar.

“I was chasing devils everywhere else. How could I have missed the one living right beside me?”

I am the same but different, and I greet this new reflection with a nod of acceptance. There is metal in my spine and there are fractures in my soul. I resemble Garrow now. I have been changed by war.

And then I pick through my purse and pull out the tube of red lipstick. With a shaking, unsteady hand I apply my armor.

“This is a bazooka, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher,” he says, stroking its long pipe as though it were a woman’s thigh, “and if the very sight of it doesn’t make your nethers tingle, then you aren’t worth knowing. Because this baby can blow a hole through a building, destroy a vehicle, or, in the right circumstances, puncture a tank.”

“You have my word.” He slides the pillbox across the counter, puts it into his pocket, and gives me a small bow. “Can I get you a brandy?” I think for a second but shake my head. “No. A French Seventy-Five, please.”

“You will never know that for sure,” Hubert tells me, and I love him for not dismissing the possibility out of hand. I love him for blinking back tears and clearing his throat as he leans across the table and says, “But I do know that there are thousands of people—literally thousands, Nance—who wouldn’t be alive right now if you’d stayed out of it.”

We are British agents for the Special Operations Executive but we are being sent back into Nazi-occupied France.

“Do you really have no fillings?” Farmer hisses at me as he passes. I open my mouth to show him a perfect set of pearly-white teeth. My mother had many faults. But her commitment to oral hygiene wasn’t one of them.