Code Name Hélène

by Ariel Lawhon

  Then I go in search of Ficetole.

  Hélène

  INVERIE BAY, SCOTLAND

  October 16, 1943

  Training begins that first morning.

  I am woken by the cheerful, melodic voice of Denis Rake, who, I learned on the way up, took a turn through both the national theater and the circus and can project his voice impressively.

  “Wake up, Duckie! No time to lie in.”

  A quick shower. A quick breakfast. And we are led outside beneath a sky so heavy and gray I fear it will break open at any moment. Our group of six is led to the water’s edge, around the shore, and into the hills, where an extraordinary stockpile of weapons, along with one very short man, is waiting for us.

  “My name is René Dusacq,” he says, “and I will be your weapons instructor on this course.”

  His accent is American, but the name is French and his words are peppered with the familiar purr of a native speaker, so I wonder where exactly he’s come from. Dusacq has a full, neatly trimmed beard. The lightest brown eyes I’ve ever seen and sandy-brown hair that wants to curl but is kept too short.

  He paces back and forth. “How many of you have never fired a weapon in your life?”

  I am the only person to raise my hand. The rest are, apparently, all former military.

  “Excellent! I have a week to make you proficient in the use of handguns, rifles, explosives, grenades, bazookas, Sten guns, Bren guns, and land mines.”

  The low rumble of thunder announces a pending storm and Dusacq looks heavenward, grinning like he’s been given a gift.

  “Perfect timing!” he says.

  “How so?” I ask.

  “We’ve had complaints from the neighbors about the explosions. Thunder will help mask the sound. Now.” He claps his hands twice. “Pick a weapon.”

  * * *

  —

  It’s not so scary once you realize the thing in your hand is just a machine. No different than a vehicle, really. Those can kill a man too, under the right circumstances. As it stands, my weapon of choice is a .38-caliber Webley British service revolver. Given that my five colleagues are all familiar with small arms, they move off to start target practice while Dusacq instructs me on the basics.

  “There are ten parts to this weapon and you must learn them all. Become familiar with these parts and what they do and it will no longer be intimidating to you. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  He holds the revolver up to me, at eye level, and points at them in turn. He starts at the end of the barrel and works his way around. “Front sight. Cylinder. Rear sight.” He runs his finger from sight to sight along the cylinder. “Line your target up between these two points and you won’t miss. Next is the hammer. Then the latch. The grip. Trigger. Cylinder stop. Barrel. And extractor rod.”

  “What about the bullet?”

  “Very important, but not part of the actual gun.”

  René Dusacq sits down beside me on an oblong boulder, beside the gray waters of Loch Nevis as the rain begins to fall, and teaches me how to disassemble and reassemble my revolver. We do this over and over, saying the names of each part, until I no longer have to ask questions.

  By the time he declares me competent, we are both soaked to the skin and I am no longer afraid of the weapon in my hands. It is almost a relief to join the others for target practice. Dusacq leads me to a copse of trees where my teammates lie on their bellies at one end and fire into bales of straw at the other.

  “Why does my target already have holes in it?” I ask.

  Dusacq laughs. “Ask the man to your right.”

  John Farmer glares at me.

  It is less frightening to actually fire a gun than to think about firing one. And after the first time I squeeze the trigger, I realize that I actually like the exercise. What’s more, I’m good at it. An hour later, with numb fingers, cold nose, and forearms that are buzzing from the recoiling of my Webley, Dusacq blows his whistle, collects our firearms, and instructs us to go get our targets. I didn’t hit it every time, but I never went high and am declared a “crack shot” as a result.

  By now it’s well past lunch and I think we might be allowed to go back and warm up, but no, we are piled onto a boat and taken onto the water for explosives training. Before any of us can ask why we’re in a boat instead of on land, Dusacq lifts a grenade from the locker at his feet, pulls the pin, and launches it, overhand, as far as he can into the bay. A plume of water gushes skyward with a gentle thud seconds after the grenade falls beneath the surface.

  He hands the next one to me. “Your turn,” he says.

  Everyone is watching, so I open my palm and receive the heavy, pineapple-shaped little bomb. “Like this?” I ask, pointing to the pin.

  He nods.

  I pull and launch but, much to my dismay, have only a fraction of the upper-body strength that Dusacq has, so the grenade clears the ship by only ten feet. Six grown men throw themselves to the deck of the boat and I am left alone, standing, to be drenched by the spout of water that ensues.

  * * *

  —

  The next day we are educated in the use of both Bren guns and Sten guns and their three main causes of failure. We load them. Fire them. Clean them. Dis- and reassemble them. We learn how to carry the semiautomatic rifle. How not to dislocate a shoulder or break a jawbone from the recoiling. How to run and leap with one strapped to your back. And it rains on us the entire time. I envy my male colleagues. Their comfort with the weapons. Their physiological advantages: strength, speed, balance. Even their short hair that does not constantly drip into their eyes. But there is no time to feel sorry for myself, because the week is consumed with training. With rain. And the unrelenting enthusiasm of Dusacq. I have never before met a person who so enjoys the destructive power of weaponry.

  On our final day in weapons training, Dusacq introduces us to his favored way of causing damage.

  “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.”

  Sadly, there are no spare tanks to be blown up in the highlands of Scotland, but there are countless piles of rocks and, after very careful instruction, we each get a turn. It’s a two-man job, and once again I’m placed with John Farmer. He sets the launcher on his shoulder and I stand behind him, loading the explosives through the tube so that they connect with the ignition, while Farmer aims and fires. I am alarmed at how much I enjoy the simple act of destroying things, of watching rock piles explode into dust. And though John Farmer is generally one of the most painfully boring men I have ever met, I do appreciate the fact that he is capable of working in companionable silence.

  * * *

  —

  The most physically grueling aspect of our training comes next. Self-defense, hand-to-hand combat, and silent killing.

  “I don’t understand what this has to do with anything,” I tell Denis Rake one afternoon as we sit in the library, banging the flats of our hands against the antique tables. It’s been less than thirty minutes and I can already feel the bruise blooming from the tip of my pinkie to the bone in my wrist.

  “Do you know how to crush a man’s throat?” he asks.

  “No.”

  “Well, you don’t do it with your thumbs. You do it with the fleshy, flat part of your hand. A hard, ferocious blow to the side of his neck”—he sets his fingers against my throat to show me where—“two inches below the ear, where the spinal cord can be snapped. You’ll crush his windpipe and, if you are lucky, paralyze him.”

  “I only weigh eleven stone,” I tell Rake.

  Denis Rake offers me his hand and I t
ake it. He pulls me up.

  “Your size doesn’t matter,” he tells me. “Nor does your weight. If you hit a man at exactly the right angle, with the right amount of force, and a hand hard as brick, you can kill him.”

  He lifts my hand to his throat, to the spot he indicated. Then he puts both of his against that spot and mimics gasping for breath. Given his theatrical past, he goes all in. Stumbling and flailing. And when he has everyone’s absolute attention, he pauses, then says, “If you were to knee me in the groin now, I would gasp from the pain and it would collapse my lungs. And just like that, your assailant is not only incapacitated, but hopefully paralyzed and dead in less than three minutes from suffocation.”

  We each have to practice this move. Over and over again until Rake feels confident we could pull it off in the field. And then he sends us back to the tables and has us pound our hands on the table once more.

  “You will do this every day for an hour,” he orders. “Until that skin is thick and that muscle dense. There will likely come a point when the only weapon at your disposal will be your bare hands.”

  * * *

  —

  After our third day of self-defense instruction I am somewhat overwhelmed and not a little exhausted. We are dismissed early for the day—dinner isn’t for another hour—so I decide that a long, hot bath is in order. My body hurts. All the muscles and ligaments feel like they’re about to snap. I have punched and wrestled and dodged for eight hours straight. I peel off my boots and socks and trudge to the third floor of the manor house barefoot. The bathroom that I am supposed to have all to myself—but have ended up sharing with Rake—is at the end of the hallway. I knock, just to be sure. This is the arrangement we’ve made. He doesn’t have to go downstairs to use the loo and I don’t have to live in fear of walking in on him while he’s on the pot.

  The bathroom is empty, and I give a silent prayer of thanks. Lock the door. Peel off my sweaty clothes. Run the tap. At some point I drift off, because I wake to find myself submerged in cold water. I dig through the linen closet, looking for a clean towel, and stumble on something that makes me smile.

  A small rubber duck.

  The plan forms as I dry myself off. It’s just a bit of fun, really. And Rake would do the same if given the opportunity. So I decide to sneak into his room and leave the duck on his pillow as a calling card. Just a gag. A way of letting him know I was there. The pet name he adopted in London has stuck. He’s not called me Nancy a single time.

  Rake is in his room. Sound asleep. But he’s naked as a jaybird and I cannot, under any circumstances, wake him. I am wearing nothing but a towel and I never wanted to know him this well anyway. But it’s just too good of an opportunity to pass up now. I tiptoe toward the four-poster bed, as quietly as I can, and set the rubber duck on his pillow, directly in his line of sight, so that it will be the first thing he sees when he wakes up.

  Denis Rake never even stirs.

  And I am laughing to myself as I close his bedroom door.

  The problem is, when I turn, Maurice Buckmaster is standing there, ready to knock. He looks at me. He looks at the towel. He looks at the door I have just closed. And I can see him reassess every single thing he thinks he knows about the both of us.

  “Aaahhhh…,” he says, unable to formulate a proper sentence.

  “It is not what you think.” I’m scrambling now, desperate to explain myself. This sort of thing could get me kicked out of the program. “I left a duck! A rubber duck! Because of the nickname he gave me. It was just a bit of fun. He had it coming. Really! I mean, you’ve met the man. He’s incorrigible.”

  My voice must be growing louder than I think, because I can hear a thump on the other side of Denis’s door, as though something, or someone, has fallen off a bed. A curse, and then, “I’m going to kill her!”

  God bless Maurice Buckmaster, he’s trying not to laugh.

  I bolt down the hallway, holding my towel in place, muttering every single French curse word Henri ever taught me.

  Madame Andrée

  MARSEILLE, FRANCE

  September 2, 1944

  I find Ficetole in the small home he shares with his wife and daughters on the outskirts of Marseille. The house is humble but it is clean, and I steal my courage to knock on the door.

  “Hello!” I call. “Monsieur Ficetole! It is Nancy Fiocca.”

  There is no answer, at first, but then I hear scuffling and sniffing on the other side of the door.

  “Hello?”

  And that is when the most wondrous howling begins. Picon. He barks. He snaps at the door. He still recognizes my voice. He scratches and whines and begs to be let out. I’d forced myself not to hope. I’d forced my heart to bury him too. But there is no mistaking the sound of Picon’s frantic joy. Finally, I hear footsteps and the sound of a chain being pulled aside.

  “Madame Fiocca!” Ficetole says, that one gray eye brighter than ever.

  But I see him for only a moment because Picon is bounding at my feet, licking my ankles. I pick him up and pull him to my chest. Then I bury my face in his fine white hair.

  “How did you find him?” I ask.

  Ficetole sets one large, warm hand on my arm and says, his voice etched with sadness, “Your husband told me to care for him until you returned.”

  * * *

  —

  My safe-deposit box is empty. Well, not entirely empty. I learn this an hour later when I stand inside the vault at the Société Marseillaise de Crédit.

  I lift the delicate gold necklace out of the box and hold it in my palm like some tiny, dangerous viper that must be kept at arm’s length. The dainty letter H rests on the heel of my hand. Picon hears my sharp intake of breath and looks up at me from where he is sniffing something in the corner.

  “Marceline,” I say, and hate that my voice cracks on the last syllable.

  “What of her?”

  I spin around, only to find Ranier Fiocca standing in the doorway to the vault. His arms are crossed over his chest and his jaw is clenched. Fury radiates from his entire body.

  “What are you doing here?” I demand.

  “I bank here. My father banked here. My son banked here.” He looks at the open box, at the key dangling from the lock. “Come to plunder the spoils of war, have you?”

  “Henri told me to come here. He made me promise. In case anything happened to him.”

  He takes one menacing step toward me, finger pointed and accusing. “You killed my son. You do not get to speak his name.”

  “Marceline killed him. Not me.” I hold the necklace out with a trembling hand, and something in the tone of my voice makes the hackles on Picon’s back rise. He barks once, in warning.

  Ranier Fiocca looks me over head to toe, then snorts in disgust. “If not for you, my son would still be alive.”

  The reason his words cut so deeply is because I know them to be true. But there is nothing I can say to Old Man Fiocca that will ease his grief or mine. So I pick up Picon and walk from the vault, tears streaming down my face. I throw Marceline’s necklace in the trash on the way out.

  * * *

  —

  There is nothing left worth keeping in our flat besides a few pictures and Henri’s Victor Hugo collection. Everything that I care about fits into a single box and I bring it with me to Antoine’s. I will stay at the hotel until we leave Marseille and head back to Fragnes, where we must complete our work with the Maquis.

  My friends don’t recognize me when I walk into Antoine’s. And why would they? Not a single one of them has ever seen me dressed up, with a full face of makeup, and a little dog beneath my arm. They don’t look half bad themselves, sitting at that corner table, relaxed, showered, shaved, and in clean clothes. Grief has hollowed me to the point where I don’t mind being invisible for a little while. I go to the bar before joining them.


  Antoine limps over the moment he sees me, then looks at the bar as I slide a small pillbox across the scuffed surface.

  “What is this?” he asks.

  “A gift from me for Monsieur Paquet, should he ever dine in your establishment again.”

  Antoine opens the lid and sniffs the contents. “Almonds.” He looks up sharply. “Cyanide?”

  It has been inside the second button on the left sleeve of my blouse since flying into France. Pity to let the thing go to waste.

  “I am told it will dissolve easily in any liquid,” I say.

  “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.”

  * * *

  —

  We eat on the house that night and my friends let me grieve the death of my husband, alternately laughing and crying as I tell them stories of our marriage. I tell them what happened at the bank earlier in the day and they allow me to confess that Old Man Fiocca gave a voice to my greatest fear: that my involvement in the war cost the life of my husband.

  “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.”

  Hélène

  INVERIE BAY, SCOTLAND

  December 15, 1943

  I was taught, as a young girl, to brush my teeth twice a day. And I have never been more grateful for this bit of maternal instruction than I am when Maurice Buckmaster brings a dentist to Scotland. We are British agents for the Special Operations Executive but we are being sent back into Nazi-occupied France. We have to speak French—not an issue with this particular group, given that we are all fluent in the language. We have to look French—a bit harder, if I’m being honest, given the stiff upper lips of my companions. We have to smell French and move French and never, once, give the enemy any reason to doubt our nationality. This has been drilled into us from the first day of training.