Code Name Hélène

by Ariel Lawhon

“Then that’s who I’m looking for.”

  “Out there.” She mercifully points to a cobblestone courtyard outside the church.

  I thank her and make a hasty exit from the infirmary. So not bulgur wheat, but Bulgarian. I shake my head and take three huge lungfuls of fresh air, only to realize I’ve not asked her what he looks like. But there’s no way I’m going back inside that building unless I am wounded myself. I weave my way through a crowd of soldiers. Almost all of them young. Exhausted. Shell-shocked. Each of them has the hollow-eyed expression of a man who has looked death in the face. I search for Henri everywhere I look. Terrified I will actually find him. These men hardly notice me as I push my way to the side of the church.

  It’s not that hard to find Konev in the end. He’s the one shouting instructions. A tall, willow switch of a man with milky blue eyes, a narrow jaw, and a voice filled with gravel and dust.

  “Are you Petar?” I ask.

  He looks me over and then says in a heavy accent, “Yes.”

  “I’ve come to volunteer.”

  “Go see Marie. She directs the nurses.”

  “No. I have an ambulance.”

  I can see that he wants to laugh but the expression on my face stops him. “We have no women drivers.”

  “You do now.” Honestly, I’m so tired of this bullshit. I can’t have a byline because I’m a woman. I can’t apply for a marriage license on my own because I’m a woman. I can’t drive an ambulance because I’m a woman.

  “Tell me where to go and who to collect or I’ll just head off on my own and cause everyone more trouble,” I say.

  Petar gives in more easily than some of the men I’ve known. He shrugs, as though he’s too tired for this nonsense. “Take the road north out of Marville. It won’t take you long to see the steady stream of people. But try to avoid stopping for the first group you see. Those are the ones who can walk, who can get here on their own. The ones who really need your help are miles farther on. They’ll have pieces blown off.”

  I don’t get a “thank you” or “good luck” or even “what’s your name?” Petar Konev turns away and resumes shouting orders to the other, weary ambulance drivers gathered in the courtyard.

  “Well, I guess that’s that,” I mutter as I climb back behind the wheel of my truck and turn on the engine. My lower back and hamstrings begin to protest. I have already been in this truck for far too long. But I turn on the engine, put it in gear, and head north. Because I can either sit in this seat and do some good or sit at home in Marseille, waiting and worthless.

  * * *

  —

  Every morning I head out in my ambulance, turning onto now-familiar roads, only to find that there are bodies everywhere, more victims caught in gunfire during the night. There are bombed-out vehicles on roads that were clear the day before. Sometimes I have to wait for them to be cleared before I can pass. These days are the worst because I am left to witness the carnage up close. The bodies of children are hardest to see. Scattered beside the road like so much garbage. I want to bury them. I want to weep for them. But I have to force myself onward. I can only shake my head in dismay at the mattresses strapped to the top of many of the vehicles that pass. They will not protect the passengers within from strafing by the Luftwaffe’s Stukas. All too often, when I head back, hours later, I see the dead and dying who have been hit by those planes, proof that the mattresses did very little to deter the barrage of German bullets.

  In my youth, before I left Australia, I worked as a nurse’s assistant in the Mudgee mining hospital. I know how to stitch a wound and how to stanch the flow of blood. At the time there were fewer career paths open to young girls, and I had not yet gone abroad in search of a more interesting life. I’d not yet learned to take shorthand or write an article. My time there had its benefits, however. I can give an immunization and, when necessary, make a tourniquet. But these are basic skills, of little use when an old woman has lost her left hand because she stuck it out the window and caught a stray bullet at the wrist. Or when a bus has taken gunfire and exploded, leaving fifteen people with third-degree burns. I am unprepared for the realities of battle. I have never seen injuries like these. Most days, as I drive along, listening to the cries and moans that drift up from the truck bed behind me, I pray for Henri. Though I could not surrender my Protestant past for his Catholic present, I do remember how to pray, and I know that God is God regardless of which denominational peg I hang my hat upon. I know that Henri is somewhere, nearby, but I hope that he is not in an ambulance such as this, his life slipping away as he bounces over ill-kept roads.

  Some days I ignore Petar Konev’s instruction and fill the back of my ambulance with refugees too tired to walk any longer. And other days I fill it with the wounded, men, women, and children who have been strafed by German Stukas flying low, shooting at desperate, easy targets. Often, I am too late. Often, there are too many. Always, I sleep in my ambulance, sprawled out across the seat, too tired to care that I can’t remember the last time I bathed or properly brushed my hair. I eat my meals at the mess hall in Marville but taste nothing. I focus on doing the next thing.

  A little over four weeks into my volunteer assignment the French government decides that Marville must be evacuated. Belgium has fallen, and the Germans have pushed all the way through the Ardennes forest and are now advancing toward our location. If we stay we will be taken prisoner. To make matters worse, a thing they are calling “The Blitz” is raging in England, and, I am ashamed to say, the French military dissolves into disorganization. We are instructed to pick up whomever we can. Wounded soldiers. Civilians, gunned down by Nazi machine guns. Anyone at all, really: walking, limping, or crawling. So, on the morning of June 10, I collect my last load of passengers, drop them at the field hospital, and head south.

  Retreat is a dismal thing. It tastes of bile and regret. And as I drive back, toward Marseille, I wonder how the French military could be so grossly unprepared. I saw this coming four years ago. Why weren’t they prepared? The reality of what is headed for us makes me sick to my stomach. It seems as though the air itself reeks with the stink of death and despair.

  * * *

  —

  Three days later my ambulance gives up the ghost. It sputters to a halt twenty kilometers from Nîmes. I tap the gas gauge. It’s half-full. But it’s an old truck and it was never meant to endure the punishment I’ve put it though. I’m only two hours from home and I am stranded on the side of the road.

  Exhaustion and discouragement have seeped into every fiber of my being. I feel as though the very strands of my hair are limp with it. I am hungry. I am thirsty. And my damn period started this morning. I stand there beside the truck, cramps spreading across my belly, into my back, and down to the tops of my thighs, and I think of every awful curse word Henri has ever taught me. I kick the tire of my poor old ambulance, so hard my toes hurt. I kick it again. “Merde! Putain de merde! Fils de pute, toi! Va te faire foutre! Tu me fais chier! Putain de bordel de merde! Quel salaud! Quelle conne! Vous tu es connasse! Trou du cul!” I am breathing hard, practically sweating, by the time I finish my tirade. Yet there is nothing left to be done but grab Henri’s suitcase and begin walking.

  Near sunset I reach Nîmes and secure a room at a small hotel. It does not serve meals and there is one bathroom per floor, but each room does come equipped with a radio. After a long, cold shower I fall into bed and switch on the BBC French Service, only to hear that the Germans marched into Paris earlier that day and met no resistance. Defeat and humiliation are poor bedfellows, and I lie there wondering where my husband might be. The thought hits me much like a thunderbolt: if he is alive, he will head for Marseille once his unit is disbanded. If Marville has been evacuated, then the rest of northern France has been as well. If Paris has surrendered without a fight, all conscripted soldiers will be sent home. That thought is the only thing that allows me to sleep.

&nbs
p; I begin walking again, the next morning, until I get one lift, and then another, piecemealing my way back to Marseille, only to find that in my absence it had been bombed by Benito Mussolini. Parts of the city have been blown to bits. The harbor is in shambles. The causeway destroyed. But our flat, high on the hill, is still standing.

  It is a quarter past noon when I walk into our home, only to be greeted by silence. The curtains are drawn. Dust lies heavy on every surface. The dogs are still with Ficetole. My husband is somewhere at the front, whether dead or alive I do not know. And the war has finally found us in Marseille. I slide down the wall and sit on the floor, crying at the great, awful waste of it all.

  * * *

  Henri

  LEMBACH, ALSACE, OUVRAGE FOUR-À-CHAUX, COMBAT UNIT NUMBER 5

  June 28, 1940

  France was caught unawares. Although Germany invaded Denmark and Norway in April, no one was prepared for the attacks on Holland, Luxembourg, and Belgium in May. None of the great military strategists could conceive that Germany would violate Belgium’s neutral stance and march straight through to the Ardennes forest. When the British retreated from Dunkirk, the exodus began. Paris fell. The Maginot Line was cut off and Henri and his fellow soldiers in Lembach were trapped. Helpless as the Germans marched through the Somme valley and into France. It took only a month for his noble country to fall to its knees.

  In theory the Maginot Line was a brilliant idea. Each state-of-the-art installation is connected by an underground railway and can hold over one thousand men. Each embodies the arrogance and power of France. But the Germans do not play by the established rules of warfare. They see. They want. They take. France was the next thing in line.

  Three days ago Henri and the others sat in their bunker and listened to the radio as it was announced that Marshal Pétain, the newly assigned prime minister, had signed the Armistice Convention, giving the German army full control of the northern half of France. He listened as his countrymen stated with dull voices where the lines of demarcation have been drawn. Occupied Zone and Free Zone. Northern France, with captured Paris as its capital. Southern France, to be administered, henceforth, from Vichy. Their leaders having promised goodwill and allegiance to the Führer. Papers will be required to pass from one side to another. Rations will go into effect. Movements will be restricted. Freedoms will be taken. Northern France has been rendered an occupied country. It is only a matter of time before the same will be true of the South.

  The idea of Nancy trapped in Marseille with leering, violent Germans makes Henri want to beat the walls around him and scream. So he lies in his bunk, taking comfort in the fact that he will be able to return to Marseille now that the French army has surrendered. He can keep his promise to Nancy. He can come home alive. And there are other promises he wants to keep as well, promises he made to himself.

  Henri reaches down and grabs a flashlight from his pack, then fishes in his back pocket for his wallet. There, hidden behind a number of francs, is a battered piece of stationery. Henri pulls it out, unfolds it, and lifts it in front of the flashlight. A faded gold HB is written at the top in swirling script. It is thin as tissue paper and the ink is smudged in several places. But in perfect, legible—albeit tiny—script, it reads:

  Nancy hates:

  Beer

  Cats

  Goat cheese

  Nancy cannot:

  Sing

  Whistle

  Clap in time to music

  Ride a bike

  *Teach her

  It is the list he made that first night when she walked with him beside the Seine. She still hates beer, goat cheese, and cats. But he did teach her to whistle on their honeymoon. Despite his best efforts he doubts that she will ever be able to sing a note or clap in time to music, but he can still do something about the bicycle.

  Henri stares at this list, his anxious mind racing, when the first bomb lands, two kilometers away. The walls of the ouvrage begin to rattle and groan. Henri stumbles out of his bunk and into complete bedlam as the sirens screech and the lights start to flash. The deep, destructive boom of a second bomb, and then a third, even closer, can be felt through the floors, up his body, and into his teeth. But it isn’t until the artillery bombardment begins, moments later, that concrete dust trickles down the walls and cracks start to spread across the ceiling.

  * * *

  Madame Andrée

  CHAUDES-AIGUES PLATEAU, CANTAL, FRANCE

  May 1944

  In many ways it feels as though I am starting over once Gaspard and his men arrive at Chaudes-Aigues. I have Fournier’s men trained. They know better than to leer or whistle. It’s been months since I looked over my shoulder on my daily trip to the creek. But no sooner do the maquisards from Mont Mouchet arrive than I am set back. It is unacceptable. Untenable. And I’ve put my knife to three different Adam’s apples since breakfast.

  The particular middle-aged Frenchman whom I have pressed up against a tree finds me much less attractive than he did thirty seconds ago now that I have the pointy end of one knife positioned against his jugular, and the sharp edge of another ready to slice off his testicles. There’s nothing like the fear of castration to eliminate a man’s sexual ardor.

  “Je ne suis pas une pute. Comprenez vous?” The fool is holding his breath and he’ll likely pass out before I’ve had the chance to finish what I am saying. I need him to understand me. It is very important that he and his friends learn this lesson quickly. I can’t spend my days defending myself from harassment. “Nod if you understand.”

  He’s afraid to move his head but he shifts it up and down slightly. I drop both knives and step away. “Good. Now go tell your friends exactly what I just told you. But first, repeat it to me.”

  He clears his throat. “You are not a whore.”

  “And you will not treat me like one. Go. Now.”

  He scuttles into the forest and I wait until he’s gone before turning to the shadows where Hubert has been standing for the last few moments.

  “This is never going to work,” I tell him.

  “No. It isn’t.”

  “Do you know who that man is?”

  “I don’t remember his name. But he belongs to Gaspard. He was one of the first to retreat from Mont Mouchet. He arrived three days ago. Smelled of dried piss and cheap brandy,” he says.

  “He doesn’t smell any better now.” I roll my neck from left to right. I slept wrong and there’s a kink at the base of my skull that’s making it painful to look up. “Do you know which group he’s been assigned to?”

  “Judex’s.”

  “Excellent. I’d planned to start with him anyway.”

  Hubert is one of those men who can ask questions without speaking. He can simply look at you and tip his chin. Or flare one nostril. On more than one occasion he’s made no expression whatsoever and I know exactly what he’s asking anyway. Ours is a platonic marriage in which we have learned to read each other like a primer.

  “I have to visit each of Gaspard’s groups,” I say. “And I may as well start at the top. These men reflect their leaders and my best chance of being taken seriously is for word to get out, from the top, that I’m not to be trifled with.”

  “I think neutering him would have done that nicely,” he says.

  “Yes, well, I still have to meet with Judex. Better to start off on the right foot.”

  “Do you mean to say that you are going to meet with him by yourself?”

  “Of course not! You’re coming with me.” I pat Hubert on the chest as I pass him. “Gaspard has his lieutenant and I have mine.”

  SAINT-MARTIAL, CANTAL, FRANCE

  May 20, 1944

  The village of Saint-Martial is only five kilometers from our encampment atop the Chaudes-Aigues plateau. Recently abandoned by its inhabitants due to German troop movement
s in the area, it gives Gaspard a place to reconvene with his troops and has the added benefit of getting them out of my immediate presence.

  I sent the middle-aged bugger who accosted me in the forest yesterday on ahead with a message that I will be visiting Gaspard today, to meet with him and Judex. What he does not know is that I had Hubert take me to three of his groups this morning to assess the troops. I asked them what weapons they have, and about those they lost after leaving Mont Mouchet. I asked about uniforms—or the lack thereof—and transportation. What they have eaten all these long months and where they acquire it. I asked what they think of their leaders and their fellow men-in-arms. So, by the time Hubert rounds the last bend on the narrow, pitted lane between Chaudes-Aigues and Saint-Martial, I know a great deal more about Gaspard, his men, and their needs than he imagines I do.

  True to form, Gaspard has avoided camping in the woods. As soon as he heard about the availability of housing in Saint-Martial, he directed his lieutenants to take up residence. Neither Hubert nor I bothered to point out that the German Luftwaffe regularly strafes farms and villages. The residents of Saint-Martial would still be in their homes otherwise. The village itself is composed of no more than fifteen small stone buildings scattered across the hilltop above a large reservoir with a single dirt road that leads in and out.

  As soon as we pull into the village, Gaspard’s men spring from the hedgerow wielding rifles that I know are unloaded. I roll down my window and say, “Madame Andrée. Gaspard is expecting me.”

  We are directed to the largest building in the village and Gaspard stands in the doorway, arms crossed. I am perversely happy to see that the lack of château makes him appear less intimidating. The house makes the man, I suppose.

  Gaspard leads us through the door. “Please,” he says, once Hubert and I are inside, “won’t you join Judex and me for a drink?”