Code Name Hélène

by Ariel Lawhon

ARIEL LAWHON

In October 2015, I was sitting in a hotel room in Buffalo, New York, waiting for an event, when I got an email from an old friend. In it was the link to an obituary for a woman named Nancy Wake. I’d never heard of her, but my friend assured me that Nancy was a legend in her native Australia and that her story would make an excellent novel. She ended her short missive by saying, in no uncertain terms, that if I didn’t write about Nancy next, we could no longer be friends. When I read the obituary I knew, the way I always know, that I had found my next novel: all of the little hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I’d never read any story like it—much less a true one!—in which it was a woman who went off to war while her husband stayed behind to hold down the fort. A woman who stepped onto a battlefield and was not only treated as an equal but was revered and respected as a fearless leader. A woman who killed a Nazi with her bare hands. In all my years researching and writing historical fiction, I had never come across such a bold, bawdy, brazen woman. The fact that she really lived, and I had the honor of telling her story, is something for which I will always be grateful.

The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only. —VICTOR HUGO, LES MISÉRABLES

I do not believe in “instalove” (real love is more action than feeling, in my opinion) but I do believe in instant attraction. I once heard that men see and they want, but women grow into desire. Regardless, as Nancy tells the story in her autobiography, The White Mouse, there was a great deal of power in the first glance that she shared with her husband. He wanted immediately. Nancy on the other hand had to be convinced.

I absolutely hate having to wear flats just because a man didn’t have the good sense to grow a few inches taller.

Nancy showed up, fully formed, the first day I sat down to write, and she had a lot to say—much of it opinionated, bawdy, and outrageous. I was inspired greatly by her autobiography and also the handful of biographies written about her and I found that the more I read about her, the more easily I could hear her voice amidst the random moments of my day. It took me a year and a half to write her story and during that time I kept a notebook in my purse in case a thought or description or bit of dialogue came to me while I was out and about. I remember scratching down the above quote while grocery shopping with my son. I laughed then and I laugh now every time I see it. Side note: if you have a few spare minutes one evening, pour yourself a drink and search for interviews of Nancy Wake on YouTube. (Don’t do this until you’ve finished the book, however, or you will be sorry—SPOILERS!!) She was a marvel of a human and kept every ounce of vim and vigor until the day she died. I think you will enjoy seeing and hearing her for yourself.

This is how people are brainwashed, I think. This is how they follow a monster.

How? Why? These are the sort of questions we ask afterward, with the luxury of time and history behind us. But I wanted to know what Nancy would have felt like, sitting on those stands in Berlin, watching a rally in support of Adolf Hitler. How could these people possibly think that he was good? Why would they ever follow him? I also wanted to tap into the fear and rage she would feel as a dissenter in that crowd. She went to Berlin as a member of the press—determined to tell the truth about what was happening in the heart of Europe—but she left as a member of the resistance—determined to do anything she could to help stop the Nazi scourge.

I am a devoted fan of the male species. They are brave, brilliant, offer endless entertainment, are good for moving heavy objects, and make the act of procreation a great deal more enjoyable. I’d hate to see a world in which they did not exist. But sometimes they can be spectacular idiots.

Reader, I live in a house with four teenage boys (pray for me.) Like Nancy, out in the woods with the French Resistance, I am drowning in testosterone at all times. They are loud. They are smelly. They pick fights with one another and break things constantly (most recently a very large, very expensive flat screen television that we’d owned for a mere three months). I wouldn’t change a thing. And I do love my life. I love my boys. But sometimes they leave me speechless. In a bad way.

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. —ERNEST HEMINGWAY

This line comes at the end of one of my favorite scenes in the entire novel. Nancy has woken on her first morning in the woods with the French Resistance and she needs to use the restroom. There are no facilities, no accoutrements, and what’s more, she is surrounded, as she describes, by “two hundred sex-starved Frenchman.” It is no surprise that a handful follow her into the woods. What happens next, however, is quite surprising and really did happen. Nancy knew that, in order to lead those men, they could never look at her with lust. That said, she had no interest in losing her femininity in order to gain their respect. Her actions were a masterclass in being a woman AND a warrior.

Love is a choice. It is the active choosing of good for another person. But like? It is a gift and it cannot be forced.

There are a handful of people in this world that I love but do not like in the slightest. It might sound strange, perhaps, but those two emotions are not tied together. You can love a person and not want to be in the same room with them. But rarely do you like someone—particularly a love interest—and not want to be with them all the time. Love is action. Like is instinct. The best marriages have both.

The friendships of women are strange and wonderful. Fraught and irreplaceable.

I am fortunate to have wonderful female friends. I have chosen them with care because I have learned how painful it can be to choose poorly. Women can be jealous and conniving and competitive and not just with our enemies. We can unleash the worst parts of our nature on our friends as well. But my gosh, do we need each other. There is no friend in all the world like a girlfriend who has your back and loves you even when you’re at your worst. Find friends like that. Be a friend like that.

The thing about lipstick, the reason it’s so powerful, is that it is distracting. Men don’t see the flashes of anger in your eyes or your clenched fists when you wear it. They see a woman, not a warrior, and that gives me the advantage.

Nancy Wake taught me many things as I wrote her story and the power of red lipstick—trivial as it might seem—is one of the most important. I’d never worn red lipstick until I began writing this novel. I felt like a clown at first—like I’d turned an uncomfortable spotlight on myself—and had to wade in slowly. So I wore it at home, while working at my desk. Then on quick runs to the grocery store. Then for appointments (a certain meeting with a school Principal comes to mind). Soon I noticed something interesting begin to happen. I felt put together. Bold. Even if I dashed out the door in jeans and a ponytail, that bit of armor helped me project confidence and because I took myself seriously, those around me did as well. Nancy Wake taught me that a coat of red lipstick gives a woman physical presence. That she knows who she is. And she didn’t come to play.

Luxury is an odd thing. You don’t know you have it until confronted with someone else’s lack.

Nancy’s husband—Henri—teaches her three important things in the novel: how to drink, how to curse in French, and how to ride a bike. True to history, Nancy did not learn how to ride a bike until she was an adult. All three of those skills later become vital tools for Nancy as she leads seven thousand French Resistance soldiers in the Auvergne forests. But in the moment, when Henri presents her with her first bicycle, he cannot fathom how a woman could grow into her twenties and not know how to ride. But isn’t that how it always is? The things we take for granted can be unimaginable luxuries for someone else.

Mine is a level of fury that requires two coats of lipstick and a fully loaded revolver.

Nancy Wake went from being a young journalist sent to interview Adolf Hitler, to killing a Nazi with her bare hands. That was the transformation that fascinated me as I first sat down to write this novel. HOW does a woman make that journey? What must happen along the way to complete that arc? Where does she go and what does she learn to give her that kind of moxie? As it turns out, red lipstick and loaded revolvers play no small part.

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.

We love our war heroes. We love to hear of their trials and exploits, to sit in our warm houses with our full bellies and be carried away to a bygone time. But the truth is—underneath every one of those triumphant stories—lies heartbreak and loss and betrayal. Touch those printed words and you are touching the life of a man or woman who stepped into the fire so others could pass safely through. The thing I try to remember is that those men and women don’t come out unscathed. They remain marked forever by the horrors of war. So it is our duty to remember them and share their stories. The thing I will shout from rooftops, until the day I die, is that Nancy Wake deserves to be a household name. Little girls should dress up as her for Halloween. She should have a prominent place in our history books. She gave so much, and she deserves no less.

Acknowledgments

Honestly, I could spend the rest of my career writing about Nancy Wake. I could write about her life after the war. Her political aspirations in Australia. Her wistful return to England and how Prince Charles (yes, that Prince Charles!) numbered among her admirers and supporters. Thing is, books are never really done. They are only due. I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse behind the scenes, and I hope you love Nancy Wake as much as I do.