The Invisible Woman

by Erika Robuck

  “Yes, even down to the child. But aren’t you afraid of what could happen to him?”

  “Yes. But I’m more terrified of what could happen to him growing up in a world where his mother and father and uncle and cousins didn’t do everything in their power to stop evil. Terrified of losing the respect of the young man God gave me to mold and shape and bring light to the world. If every one of us are slaughtered in this war, it will be worth it to stand proud before God and watch the gates of heaven open before us.”

  “I can’t take comfort from that. I don’t have faith in God.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mimi says. “God has faith in you.”

  Virginia shakes her head and looks down at her feet. Mimi places her hands on Virginia’s face and raises it to hers.

  “And so do we,” Mimi says. “Now go. Send your transmission. Be the answer to our prayers.”

  Chapter 9

  Don’t get attached.

  Virginia doesn’t want to warm to Louis’s sister and nephew. In another life, she knows they would have been fast friends, but in war it’s too dangerous. Hadn’t she learned that lesson in Lyon? She’d let her network into her heart, and now it’s broken.

  She tries to discipline herself by imagining the suffering these people could face for harboring her. She’s brusque, answers questions as briefly as possible, and asks few in return. But Mimi keeps Virginia so busy searching for drop fields and getting the lay of the land, and the boy reminds her so much of a little Louis, the combination of sheer industry and human contact begins to thaw her. She’s even been sleeping better and hasn’t had a memory episode since her arrival here.

  Lavi remains distant with her. The conditions have not yet been right for a drop, and she refuses to lug her B2 to the forest to show the men she truly is communicating with London. This weekend, however, is Easter, and Lavi promised Mimi and the boy that he’ll stay with them instead of at the camp. Virginia will use the opportunity to show Lavi the B2.

  When Lavi arrives, they’re thrilled to see he found a small ham on the black market. He thanks Virginia and assures her the men are enjoying their own Easter feast. He surprises his son with chocolate eggs, which the boy puts at each setting. When the adults move the eggs to surround his plate, he’s overjoyed.

  Virginia is also thrumming with excitement, and barely able to keep her secret. Last night, HQ let her know that Louis and his team were dropped safely, and he plans to rendezvous with his family on Easter Sunday before proceeding to his assigned region. If Louis were a cat, he’d have used seven or eight lives by now. He, too, had to make the Pyrenees crossing and survive Spanish prisons, and he hasn’t seen his family or beloved France in ages. It will do them all good to reunite.

  Virginia doesn’t want to tell Mimi in case anything goes wrong, but she decides to bring Lavi into her confidence with the hopes it will make a bridge between them. While Mimi checks the ham, Virginia motions for Lavi to follow her to the attic.

  After taking a few moments to check the streets from the window, Virginia pulls the wireless suitcase out from the trunk where she stores it under a pile of quilts. Lavi watches with interest as she shows him the aerial antenna, the headphones, and the switches.

  “And you can receive messages instantly?” Lavi says.

  “Once I turn the knob, yes.”

  “Is the signal detectable?”

  “It is. It takes twenty minutes for a Nazi RDF to zero in on transmission.”

  Lavi looks down the staircase, where he hears Mimi and his son talking.

  “I never go longer than ten minutes,” she says. “But I’ve been asking Mimi for another safe house in the region. It’s not good for me to stay here long term. Maybe you can persuade her.”

  He nods.

  “Has London given you a drop date yet?” he asks.

  “The full moon was last night,” she says, packing up the equipment. “Though you’d never know it from the cloud cover. It can happen anytime in the next few days, if the weather cooperates.”

  “The weather.” He rubs his eyes.

  It has been awful: rainy, foggy misery.

  “What phrase should I transmit to the BBC so your drop team knows to be ready?” she says.

  “I get to choose?”

  “Maybe then you’ll believe that I really am working with London on your behalf.”

  He thinks for a moment. “How about ‘The fool’s prayers are answered’?”

  “Excellent.”

  Once the wireless is back at the bottom of the trunk, Virginia looks down the stairs, and, when she’s sure Mimi can’t hear them and the boy isn’t spying, she leans close to Lavi.

  “Speaking of prayers being answered, I have more news,” she whispers.

  “Invasion?” he says, eyes lighting.

  “No, not yet.”

  His face again darkens.

  “News that will make Mimi happy, that is,” she says. “Louis had a safe landing. He’ll stop here on the way to his region.”

  Lavi’s shadowed face breaks into a grin, and for a moment Virginia is startled by the image of him outside of war.

  “I didn’t want to tell Mimi in case of any trouble,” Virginia says. “But I wanted you to know.”

  “Merci! Can we at least tease her a little?”

  “How?”

  “Tell her you need an extra place setting for an agent passing through who might need a meal. That way, if he doesn’t show up, no harm.”

  “Good idea.”

  For the first time since they’ve known each other, Lavi doesn’t have a frown for her. He stares at Virginia a long moment, looking from her hair, to her face, to her old-woman’s clothing. It seems to be dawning on him that there’s more to her than meets the eye. Before he has time to study her further, she heads downstairs. Once in the dining room, she calls to Mimi.

  “Where are the plates? I just remembered we need an extra setting.”

  “In the lower left cupboard cabinet,” Mimi says, appearing in the door, wiping her hands on a towel. She looks from her husband to Virginia. “Who’s joining us?”

  “I hate to impose,” Virginia says, “but HQ said an agent might be coming through. I know he’ll be hungry if he makes it. I’ll gladly share my portion.”

  “Nonsense. There’s plenty, if only for today.”

  After Virginia sets Louis’s place, she stands at the window and watches the street. The church soon rings the noon bells, and a swell of people emerges from the great wood doors. And there in the crowd—a shadow amid the parade of old women in white Easter dresses—she spots him.

  Louis.

  He’s square shouldered and wiry. He struts like a rooster, lifting his hat at every woman he passes. Has she taught him nothing about invisibility? She shakes her head but can’t help but smile.

  Virginia gets Lavi’s attention, motioning toward the window. He stands from where he and the boy play with Dinky trucks, and when he spots Louis, he beams. He taps his son on the head and points out the window. When the boy sees, he cheers.

  “Shhh,” says Lavi. “You get the door and bring him to Maman in the kitchen so she won’t alert the whole neighborhood.”

  “Oui, Papa.”

  Virginia withdraws into the shadows of the hallway to watch them: the boy opening the door and being picked up and swung around by Louis. Lavi bear-hugging his brother-in-law. Father and son leading Louis to Mimi in the kitchen, and the whoop of joy that follows. They kiss and hug and talk over one another. Virginia struggles to contain her emotion, and ducks into the toilet to check her face in the mirror.

  The last time Louis saw her she had coiffed hair and a sleek suit, and wore red lipstick. The face that looks back at her now is drawn and haggard, a badly aged version of her former self. How she longs to free the real woman.

  “Diane,” says Mimi.
“Where are you, my friend? My prayer answerer.”

  Virginia takes a deep breath and steps out of the bathroom. Mimi clasps her hands and leads her into the dining room. When Louis sees Virginia, his mouth drops open and he shakes his head. He lets out a low whistle.

  “Auntie,” he says. “The months have not been kind.”

  He crosses the room and scoops her into an embrace, swinging her around and kissing her cheek, while she swats at him.

  “Put me down, Nephew!” she says. “You smell like a barn!”

  “Which is exactly where I slept last night.”

  “Put her down,” says Mimi. “You’ll break her!”

  “Bah,” he says. “This old-lady disguise is as bad as her French accent.”

  Virginia slaps him on the shoulder.

  “I knew it!” says the boy.

  “Please,” says Virginia. “A little discretion.”

  They laugh around her. Mimi urges them into the sitting room to catch up. As they file in, Louis touches Virginia’s arm and passes her something from his pocket.

  “From Vera,” he says. “Happy birthday. A few days late. She says to put it on when you’re ready to come out of hiding.”

  It’s a tube of lipstick. Lou Lou. Red.

  The lump in Virginia’s throat prevents her from answering. She hadn’t even remembered her birthday passed three days ago. April 6. If you’d have told her back in 1940 that the war would still be going on to see her turn thirty-eight, she wouldn’t have believed it. She might have even gone home to her mother.

  * * *

  —

  Once they’ve eaten dinner, the boy has had his chocolate, and Mimi puts him to bed, they file up to the attic, bringing the radio and waiting for the BBC broadcast. Soft music plays, a jazzy waltz one could imagine in any Parisian club. Virginia closes her eyes for a moment, savoring the sound, imagining a smoky, prewar, left-bank café.

  Louis flops on Virginia’s bed, falls backward, and rubs his eyes. While she feels so much older than her thirty-eight years, Louis seems more boyish than his thirty-three.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” Virginia says. “I don’t want my bed to smell like goats.”

  “Oh, come now,” Louis says. “Then you can dream of me.”

  Virginia laughs and rolls her eyes.

  “Nonsense,” says Mimi. “We have a cot for you downstairs.”

  “Where are the others in your team?” asks Lavi.

  “Scattered in safe houses. We meet tomorrow before we start making our way.”

  “Where are you heading?” says Mimi.

  As Louis opens his mouth to answer, Virginia hushes him.

  “Please,” she says. “You know better. The less we all know, the less danger there is.”

  “She’s right, chérie,” Lavi says, touching Mimi’s arm.

  Though Mimi bristles, Lavi pulls his wife into him. He wraps his arms around her and dances her through the attic to the waltz.

  The room falls away, and Virginia is back in 1932, at a party in Poland. She worked at the American embassy in Warsaw and found her duty of entertaining members of the Polish Junior Army a highlight. Virginia and her embassy friend had stared over at the young, square-faced, clear-eyed, blond man Virginia had seen in the halls but hadn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting.

  “Who’s that fair one over there?” Virginia said. “The one who keeps pretending not to look at me?”

  “Emil,” her friend said with a sigh. “We thought he wasn’t interested in women.”

  “Why?”

  “All us girls have been trying to get his attention for months, but he seems to only have eyes for the boots of the man marching before him.”

  “He certainly has eyes for me tonight,” said Virginia, passing off her cocktail with a wink. “Hold this, would you?”

  Virginia flashed a grin at Emil, before turning her attention to a stack of records on a nearby table. She smiled when she saw the name: Josephine Baker, “J’ai deux amours.” Two loves: my country and Paris. My heart ravished between the two. Virginia pulled the record from the sleeve, placed it with care on the turntable, and lifted the needle, relishing the crispy sound of the blank space on the record. That sound was the curtain fluttering, the intake of breath before the first note was played. The foreplay. And then, Josephine.

  Virginia closed her eyes, letting the music take her back to her university days. She told herself she wouldn’t open them until Emil was in front of her.

  “Jesteś nowym urzędnikiem?”

  Voilà. Virginia opened her eyes, and the fair man was before her. She gave him her most dazzling smile.

  “No Polish. Not yet,” she said, shaking her head. “English?”

  “Angielski?”

  She nodded.

  “Nie.”

  “French?” said Virginia, knowing she was showing off.

  He shook his head no, clearly disappointed.

  “German? Sprichst du Deutsch?” she said brightly.

  Emil’s face transformed. He took her hand and guided her to the tile in the hall the guests were using as a dance floor. His hand was cool on her hot fingers.

  “Ja,” he’d said.

  “Diane.”

  She startles and finds herself back in the attic, Mimi, Lavi, and Louis staring at her. Heat creeps up her neck.

  “The broadcast is over,” says Mimi, breaking the awkwardness. “No violins.”

  “On a bright note,” Louis says, “I want you all to be the first to know. I’m in love.”

  “You’re always in love,” says Lavi.

  “With whom?” Mimi says.

  “A pianist. Like Diane. I met her in training. She’s due here any day now.”

  Virginia frowns at him. When will he ever learn?

  “I see your disapproval, Auntie,” Louis says, looking at her. “But you’d understand if you saw her. That black hair and those red lips and red nails. Her passion and fire.”

  “You’re ridiculous,” says Virginia.

  “I know. She said we should wait until the war is over, but I told her, why should anyone wait for love?”

  “Why, indeed,” says Mimi. “And what is the name of this woman of passion and fire? In case we come across her.”

  “Code name,” says Virginia.

  “Sophie,” Louis says. “Code name Sophie.”

  Virginia’s head feels tight, and she’s suddenly desperate for all of them to leave her small space. Memories of Emil always weigh her down. She shouldn’t have indulged them.

  She and Emil had a lightning-fast romance. In just months, they were engaged. Neither of their parents approved. Her mother’s reaction was predictable and could be dismissed, and she knew she could bring Daddy around. But Emil’s mother was devastated that her son fell in love with an American. She was convinced he would move away and leave her alone. In spite of Virginia’s and Emil’s passion, and many rows, Emil would not go against his mother’s wishes.

  And what if they had married? The Nazis killed all Polish officers. Virginia would be a widow—perhaps with children—stuck in what was left of Poland.

  Lavi and Mimi file out, but Louis remains.

  “Are you all right?” he says. “You don’t look well.”

  “I’m tired, starving, and covered in old-lady makeup.”

  “HQ is proud of you,” he says, not sensing her need for him to go. “Especially Vera. She brags constantly. Even if she wants you back in London. I told her—of any of us—you are the one no one needs to worry about.”

  Virginia manages a small smile.

  “There she is,” says Louis.

  He steps toward her and wraps his arms around her. Her stiff hug causes him to pull away quickly. He looks at her again with a question in his eyes.

  How can she ex
plain how rough these twenty days have been? These twenty months? How tired she is? The accumulated weight of the losses? She can’t say it, but she can give him a warning.

  “Everything is different now,” she says.

  “It is different, because the boches know they’re about to get sent back to hell.”

  “Yes. And they’ll drag as many people with them as they can.”

  “But not us. Not today, anyway.”

  She stares at him a long moment. His face remains open and energized. He’s hopeful in a way she hasn’t been in as long as she can remember. She won’t steal that from him. Not tonight.

  “No,” she concedes. “Not today.”

  Chapter 10

  On the third night after the full moon, Virginia waits in the field with Lavi, Mimi, and four Maquis. As hope was wavering, they had finally heard the words on the BBC—“The fool’s prayers are answered”—and the drop was in progress. The men keep looking from her to the sky, eyes wide, thoughts readable.

  Can it be? Will we really receive our first drop? Will we no longer be sitting ducks?

  She wishes she could feel as excited as they do. The dread over the dangers the drop could bring still eclipses her excitement, especially after what happened to the three musketeers.

  Louis is not with them. He slipped away before sunrise, the day after Easter, and is bound for who knows where to do who knows what. She hopes he stays focused on his mission instead of on his love life. Vera would have an aneurism if she knew agents were dallying with one another. Yet Virginia could foresee this problem. The SOE and OSS were rushing to get agents out the door as quickly as possible in advance of D-Day. Cutting corners in training was a dangerous business. But if her superiors could make peace with it, why couldn’t she?

  The last night of her own training, before Virginia’s first mission, comes to mind, giving her a shiver at its remembrance. She was on the English Channel at Beaulieu Estate—one of the dozens requisitioned for the war effort—for SOE finishing school. Weeks of gritty, intense physical exercises in Scotland came to a rather shocking halt, as recruits were now expected to behave civilly and normally, fully taking on their new identities. Virginia found that game of pretend far more strenuous than the gauntlet she’d already run. On that last night, Virginia was awoken from a sound sleep by a prick at her throat.