The Invisible Woman

by Erika Robuck

  It’s not who you are.

  Was her father now chiding her? She groaned and cursed her way to the forest, where she decided to go for living targets. Squirrels, groundhogs, deer. She’d kill anything that got in her path. But on her way past the barn, a cow’s mooing stopped her.

  I’m afraid I’ll never be able to milk a cow.

  She’d said those words as a joke a lifetime ago, which was actually just months, but now they had taken on an unreasonable weight. Learning how to milk a cow suddenly became a hurdle she needed to cross to get better. She couldn’t explain why, but she was compelled to conquer something—everything—that she had never been able to do.

  She’d entered the barn, leaned her gun and crutches against the wall, and hopped to the nearest Holstein. The massive creature lifted her head from her trough and looked at Virginia with a challenge in her eyes. A calf chewed hay in the corner. Virginia plopped onto the milking stool. She pulled a bucket under the cow and reached for its udders. She squeezed, but nothing came out. Her fury nearly blinded her.

  “Damn it!”

  Any old farmhand could make the milk come. For her father and her brother, it was effortless. She was the most educated member of the family with the most iron, stubborn will of them all, but she couldn’t get milk from the teat of a cow visibly bursting with it. She squeezed again, harder. The cow shifted on its feet, flicking its tail at her as if she were a fly.

  Virginia couldn’t take it. She stood up on her good foot, picked up the stool, and hurled it at the wall with all her strength, leaving a hole. Satisfaction at seeing the physical result of her anger was quickly replaced with shame. She cursed again, and hopped toward her crutches, stumbling and trying not to cry. As she turned to leave, she saw the calf walk to its mother and rub its head against her. The cow stopped eating and became still, almost pensive. Virginia watched until the calf began to drink, the milk letting down with ease.

  When the calf was full and wandered away, Virginia fetched the stool and placed it next to the cow. She again pulled the bucket over and took a deep breath. Before trying to milk it, she rubbed the cow, running her hand along its side and its udders, until she felt a change in the animal, a stillness. Virginia pinched a teat near its base and began to squeeze. Milk shot out on her pants. She’d cried out with laughter.

  She lifted her other hand to another teat, aimed into the bucket, and felt glorious success with each squirt. After Virginia finished her task, she stood, wiped her tears, and fetched her crutches.

  * * *

  —

  Who knew the skill would come in so handy?

  Virginia makes her way back from the goat stalls to Estelle’s house, but the smile on her face at her memories quickly dissolves. She hadn’t heard the Nazi Henschel truck arrive.

  As the soldiers walk toward her, she catches snippets of their conversation in German.

  “The house is large.”

  “Good place to billet.”

  “We’ll have to exterminate the rats first.”

  Their laughter is chilling.

  “Madame,” the officer says in French. “We’re searching for places for our men to convalesce. Surely you’ll be happy to have us look over the property and see if it’s suitable for our needs.”

  She squeezes her hands into fists. Strange though it is, when Nazis pretend to be gentlemen, it enrages her more than when they’re cruel. There can be no diplomacy, especially at this point in the war. Struggling to swallow the venom rising in her, she’s careful with her words and her tone.

  “The owner is visiting family, so I can’t say,” she says. “I work with the goats.”

  “A little old for a milkmaid, aren’t you?”

  “What else would you have me do?”

  He frowns. She should have held her tongue.

  While he looks her over, she glances at the other soldiers. The men look tired and unkempt. Haunted around the eyes. She’ll be glad to report on this sorry group to HQ.

  “You aren’t a Jew, are you?” he says. “We’ve heard things.”

  “No Jews here. Also, no running water. No electricity. Just goats. And an old man upstairs who’s losing his mind.”

  “Give me your papers.”

  She reaches into her pocket and passes them to the officer. He scrutinizes them, running his thumb over her picture. Goose bumps rise over her skin as if he’s actually touching her. She sees the wanted poster stark in her mind and feels exposed, certain they’ll see “Artemis” staring back at them. After a few moments, he gives them back. He nods his head at the soldiers and points to the house. She feels her blood pressure rising with every step they take.

  She knows she has hidden her wireless well and is nearly certain there aren’t any ghosts in the house, but the thought of the old man’s loaded gun brings fear to her heart. All weapons have to be turned over to the Nazis. As if on cue, she sees his face appear low at the window. He bangs the glass and shouts. When the soldiers open the door to the house, his voice travels to the yard.

  My God, if they get to his room first and find that gun, they’ll shoot him without hesitation.

  “May I see to the old man?” she asks.

  “My men will take care of him if he’s a problem.”

  She swallows, but her mouth is dry.

  “Sir,” she says. “Have pity. Have you no father or grandfather?”

  His right eye twitches.

  “He’s a veteran of the Great War,” she says. “Surely, you’ll give him the respect of a fellow soldier, no matter which side he’s on. Let me calm him.”

  She doesn’t know if appealing to the humanity of one she deems inhuman will work, but it’s all she’s got before trying to kill him. And killing him would only get her so far; she’s grossly outnumbered, and the reprisals would bring hell on Estelle.

  He looks up at the old man banging on the window. With the door open, she can hear bursts of words.

  “She’s a Nazi spy!”

  She forces out a laugh.

  “See,” she says. “He thinks I work for you. He thinks we’re on the moon. He thinks we’re trying to poison him. A new mania every day.”

  The officer looks her up and down and laughs. When he gestures that she may proceed, it takes all her strength not to rush into the house and up the stairs to get to the old man before the soldiers do. When they enter the foyer, the officer shouts in German for the soldiers to leave the old man to her and continue searching the rest of the house. As she climbs to the second floor, her fear of the Nazis is now replaced with a fear of getting shot by the old man she’s trying to protect.

  Of all days for Estelle not to be here.

  The old man’s voice has grown hoarse and savage. Is his gun loaded and pointing at the door? She feels a phantom pain slice through the foot she no longer has. Getting shot nearly destroyed her once; she can’t allow it to happen again, not this way.

  When she arrives at his room, she places her hand on the knob. Taking a deep breath and standing off to the side, she opens the door several inches. She’s glad to see a bureau mirror where his reflection reveals he sits at the window in his wheelchair, the steel of the gun shining in his lap.

  A movement in the hallway catches her eye. A soldier kicks in the first door on this side of staircase. The old man hears and turns, wheeling toward the door with startling quickness. She darts out of view, and when she hears him approach, she lunges forward, grabs the gun from his lap, and rushes to the bureau. As she tucks it deep under a pile of clothes, the soldier arrives at the room.

  “A spy! She’s a German spy!” says Estelle’s father.

  She can see by the soldier’s surprised reaction that he understands French, at least enough to hear the words German spy. Virginia turns slowly, holding a blanket she’s pulled from the bureau.

  “Monsieur,” she says, consoli
ng. “Please, go back to bed. You need your rest.”

  “She stole my gun,” the old man yells. “She will kill me.”

  The soldier looks from her to the old man, scrutinizing the pair. She moves away from the bureau and approaches the old man as if he were a dangerous animal.

  “Please,” she says. “Let me help you back to bed. Then I’ll get your gun, and your port, and some steak, and a nice dark chocolate cake for dessert. What do you think?”

  She winks at the soldier as if conspiring with him over this absurd list of things the old man can’t have.

  Estelle’s father is subdued. He doesn’t look confused. He stares at her with an eagle eye. The soldier doesn’t seem to know what to do, whom to believe.

  “Help me get him in the bed,” she says, taking the tone of the old woman over the young man. “Then you may search.”

  “Move him yourself,” says the soldier. He proceeds forward, starting with the closet, moving to the bathroom, back out to the dressers and bookshelves, and finally walks to the bureau. Virginia’s heart pounds all the way up to her ears. This could be it.

  There’s a sudden commotion in the hallway, the officer’s voice rising over that of another’s—a woman’s. Estelle appears in the doorway, flushed, breathless, and terrified. When she sees Virginia, her eyes dart between her, her father, and the soldier, who has turned to face her. Estelle rushes toward her father and falls to her knees at his feet.

  “Papa! You must not yell.”

  “But the boches,” he says, pointing at the Nazi soldiers.

  “Ah, ah,” she says, chastising him for the slur. “They only need to make sure everything is all right here.”

  “Her,” he says, pointing at Virginia.

  “Yes, my farm helper. She’s all right.”

  The officer directs the soldier to leave the room. He looks long at each of them before striding away toward the other end of the house. Virginia and Estelle stand still and silent, listening to his footsteps grow quieter. When the boots thunder down the stairs to the foyer, the two women exhale.

  Estelle looks at Virginia and mouths, “The gun?”

  Virginia nods her head toward the open door of the bureau. Estelle’s eyes grow wide.

  “How did you . . . ?” Estelle whispers.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Estelle crosses herself and turns her attention back to her father. The old man looks frail and small. Virginia had thought he was feeble of mind, but his sharp stare reveals that’s not necessarily the case. As Virginia passes them to leave the room, the old man reaches out for her.

  “You,” he says. His grip is strong, his gnarled fingers like a claw around her wrist. “You saved my life.”

  * * *

  —

  The soldiers leave them with warnings they might return, and instructions to organize and collect anything that might be medically useful to them. As they walk away, Virginia hears their conversation in German.

  “It was clear. False tip.”

  “The Milice are getting jumpy.”

  “We’ll check the outbuildings before we go.”

  Virginia tells Estelle what they said and is relieved to hear the barn is empty.

  “I don’t think they’ll be back,” says Virginia. “They were just saying so in case you were harboring anyone. Still, we must be vigilant.”

  Estelle breathes a sigh of relief. She had behaved admirably throughout the ordeal: stoic but cooperative. It’s now, after the soldiers leave, that her exhaustion comes through.

  “You could have been shot,” Estelle says, struggling to control her emotions.

  “I’ve survived that before,” says Virginia.

  The women share a laugh. Estelle knows all about the hunting accident.

  “Just in case, do you know of another nearby safe house?” Virginia asks. She needs at least one more house in her loop if she’s going to evade signal interception.

  “Yes. In Sury-ès-Bois. A vacant, one-room shack on my cousins’ farm. It’s a short bicycle ride from here. You may have one of ours. Take the one with the rack on the back so you can stack up your suitcases.”

  “Excellent. Thank you. Now, are you sure you want to be on the drop committee? I don’t have to tell you how dangerous it is. And it will be a big operation. I’m expecting many containers of supplies for Lavilette’s Maquis, so it will take a long time to break down.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Sury-ès-Bois is about an hour’s ride from Estelle’s farm, and it’s dusk when Virginia arrives, noting with pride that she isn’t winded and her knee stump isn’t raw. This lifestyle is putting her in as good a shape as she’s ever been. In fact, she’s growing so taut and lean she has to use more padding in her old-woman’s disguise.

  The shack is tiny, but it has a straw mattress on the floor, a drawer full of candles, a well with a bucket, and a small root cellar where she can hide her wireless suitcase. That night, she’s able to stack old crates from the yard to hoist herself on the roof to attach the antenna to the rusty weather vane at its peak. The view of the surrounding roads isn’t ideal, but she affixes the antenna wire loosely and runs it through the window so a swift pull will bring it down in a flash.

  She wires HQ of all the developments and asks for another battery and a stash of downers. They reply in the affirmative and are glad to hear her report of the haggard German soldiers. Since her wireless training back in London, the black propaganda division of the OSS has been waging a specific battle on the psychological health of Nazis, infusing broadcasts, parlor gossip, and pamphlets with stories of venereal disease outbreaks among French brothels, bombings of German cities, Nazi officers having orgies with lesser-ranked soldiers’ wives, and evidence of human excrement in barrack food. The devious minds in the black propaganda division are the kind you want on your side, and it appears their message is being heard.

  Before she signs off, HQ lets her know her mother has been writing the War Office, worrying over the lack of contact from her daughter. Virginia is strangely moved to hear it. Mrs. Hall was told Virginia worked for the First Experimental Detachment of the United States Army, an organization that gathers documents for future historical war accounts, which is really a front for the OSS. But it’s likely Mrs. Hall is shrewd enough to know that’s not true. Though Virginia isn’t a mother, she observes they seem to have a sixth sense for their children’s well-being.

  HQ says Vera’s secretary will write back, assuring her of their frequent contact with Virginia and her safety, and does she want them to pass along a personal message?

  —Tell her I miss her, the family, and the farm, and I promise to visit once we’ve won.

  —Will do. GB. BC.

  As Virginia packs up her equipment, she thinks back to the day when she learned to milk a cow and of when she’d returned to the farmhouse with the nearly full bucket. The milk had sloshed over on her pants the whole way back, but she was too happy to care. She had planned to leave the bucket as a peace offering, but when she returned to the house, her mother was waiting for her, wringing her hands, a contrite look on her face.

  “You did it?” said Mother.

  “I did.”

  Mother beamed at her. Then she walked slowly down the stairs, took the bucket, and placed it on the ground. In spite of how smelly and dirty Virginia was, Mother opened her arms and wrapped Virginia in a warm embrace. In the cloud of Mother’s lily perfume, Virginia felt herself soften wholly for the first time since the accident.

  Chapter 19

  Racing through the moonlight, wind in their hair, Virginia and Estelle ride bicycles to the drop field outside Cosne. It’s the first time Virginia has ever looked forward to a drop. She trusts her well-trained team, and, if all goes well, the Maquis in the region will be fully armed, allowing her to start preparing for her next stop. They couldn’t ask
for better weather or clearer skies, and they make good time. When Mimi, Lavi, the boy, and the team of Maquis meet them, there’s a flurry of hushed embraces and handshakes.

  Virginia pulls off her rucksack and passes out flashlights. She reminds the group of formation and checks to make sure they brought the largest donkey cart they could find. Then they crouch in the moonlight, watching the heavens for their deliverance.

  In the quiet, Louis creeps into Virginia’s mind. Virginia leans to Mimi and whispers his name like a question.

  “My cousin, the doctor, says he and his men are doing okay physically,” says Mimi. “Several are beginning to decay mentally, but not Louis.”

  Hold on, Virginia thinks.

  “I think he’s going to make it,” says Mimi.

  “If the invasion would only come,” says Virginia. “What about Sophie?”

  “She’s doing what she can with her Paris contacts, but hasn’t had any luck.”

  “Sophie needs to think about leaving for London.”

  “I told her. She won’t hear of it.”

  Virginia understands. At this point, there’s nothing that could persuade her to leave.

  Calling their attention back to the sky, the droning sound starts, first far away, then moving closer. They all separate and form the diamond, Virginia at the top. When the plane is in sight, Virginia flicks on her flashlight and the others follow. She and the pilot exchange signals. Then four containers parachute down to the field, landing with thumps in the thick grasses.

  The group descends upon each container, opening them, unloading them onto the cart, and burying them in the pre-dug holes with skill and ease. These are fit, able-bodied men and women in good number. Working in concert, their movements are as fluid and seamless as a symphony. Their sense for the others in the group is sharp and alert. No words need to be exchanged. Only the soft exclamations of gratitude for the weapons, medical supplies, food, cigarettes, and forged ration cards can be heard. In the last container, Lavi finds a heavy, padded package wrapped tight and labeled “Diane.” He tosses it to her, and she grins, eager to open it so she can give Estelle the Barros Porto that Virginia requested from HQ for Estelle’s father. When their work is done, Virginia pulls them close together, holding hands in a circle.