Virginia’s decision to travel alone to Chambon may have been foolish. The Cosne station is infested with Nazis. If the Milice arrive, she’s in trouble.
All rail travel in the region had been suspended for days because of sabotage repairs. With warnings from HQ about increased raids and roundups of suspected Resistance members in the region, Virginia insisted her people stay away from her. After nearly a week of agonizing, self-imposed isolation, she’s finally able to proceed, as trains are again operational.
Virginia had told HQ her travel times and changes so the RAF bombers wouldn’t target her train, but when she arrives, the engine and times have been switched because of repairs. There’s nothing to be done.
Seated at the wall with her two suitcases at her feet, blue shawl covering her hair, she watches and waits. There are considerable delays—it’s a miracle there are rails left to ride—and she has been here for two long, hot, frightening hours. She watches the crowd with an eagle eye, aware of every person in the space, including the mustached man from the bus to Fresnes. The moment he entered the station, she remembered exactly where she first saw him. He was the man in the dinghy who took the weapons from the boy’s wagon. Though one would assume the man is a resistor, she’s unsettled by his presence. She’ll need to get word to Mimi to watch out for him.
The man reads his newspaper with great production, like he wants her to think he doesn’t see her. While it is standard to pretend not to know other resistors in public, she questions the coincidence of seeing him here again when she travels. Also, she knows by now how accurate her radar is for betrayers.
Will the train ever arrive?
In the small crowd entering the station doors, a young woman in a worn, pine-green dress stands out. She has large eyes, a dark braid, and full lips—a face of innocence that makes her look like an oversize doll. After she buys her ticket, she looks for a place to wait. Her eyes dart this way and that, and her forehead is creased with worry. Virginia thinks she must not be from Cosne, because she appears lost and frightened. Also, her clothing is even more provincial than that which is found here. The woman scans the crowd until her eyes find Virginia. She gasps with a quick laugh and moves quickly, taking the seat next to Virginia, knocking the wireless suitcase in the process.
“La Madone?” the woman says, breathless.
Virginia flinches.
“Diane?” the woman says. “Is it really you?”
Without looking at her, Virginia whispers, “How do you know me?”
“Simon sent me to find out when you were coming back to help us, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I thought the trip was wasted, but here you are. A miracle. La Madone!”
“Stop calling me that.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so thrilled to see you. Are you coming to us?”
“I am. Trying, anyway. But the train.”
“Yes. Delayed. I’m so happy I can travel with you.”
Virginia can’t believe her change in luck. She really shouldn’t have embarked alone, but here is her own little miracle, a native Frenchwoman who can speak for her at the checkpoints.
“You’re actually a great help to me,” says Virginia. “My accent . . .”
“Oh, I know. Simon said how bad it was.”
Virginia gives the young woman a stern look. The woman smiles sheepishly and shrugs her shoulders.
“I’m Danielle Le Forestier.”
“The doctor?”
“No, I’m his wife. But I assist Roger where I can. When I’m not taking care of our two little sons, and our guest, that is.”
Virginia no longer wants to speak with this woman. She keeps her lips pursed and continues to watch the travelers. When she notices that the mustached man no longer sits reading his newspaper, she looks at the doors. He walks out to the street, heading to where two Milice stand.
“Trouble,” says Virginia.
The stationmaster is before them.
“Follow me. Now,” he says.
Virginia knows this man is an ally. She stands and lifts her suitcases. Danielle offers to take one. Virginia passes her the suitcase with her personal belongings, keeping the wireless to herself. They walk in a hurry past the counter, down a poorly lit hallway, and to a room with a window facing the tracks. He closes the door behind them.
“There’s been a roundup. A large one in this region. They’re being taken to Vichy for interrogation.”
He points down the track about a hundred yards to where the Milice unload a bus to a railcar, men and women tied to one another by ropes, stumbling as they try to navigate down and up steps.
Virginia rushes to the window, squinting her eyes, struggling to make out the faces, trying to convince herself that her people would have gotten word and hidden.
“Now, over there, do you see the man with the orange scarf around his neck?” he says, pointing about twenty yards from the station to a different track.
“Yes,” says Virginia, forcing herself to pay attention even as she keeps scanning the line.
“When he puts that scarf in his pocket, leave through the back door at the end of the hallway, and meet him on the platform. When your train arrives, he’ll see you get on safely.”
“Will we be on the same train as the prisoners?”
“No. The boches commandeered that train. And yours was switched and held up because of line repairs.”
“Do you know any of the captives?” she says.
“Not yet. I just got word. When I saw you, I knew you needed to leave immediately.”
“Are we in danger?” says Danielle.
The man looks from Danielle to Virginia and departs in silence.
Virginia continues to try to see the prisoners’ faces, but they’re too far. The bus pulls away, and the train door is locked. She finds herself praying for her friends.
The sound of a commotion in the waiting area reaches them in the room. Virginia locks the door and pulls a wire from her pocket, passing it to Danielle.
“What’s this?”
“A garrote. It looks like a shoelace. But if you wrap this around a neck, it will suffocate a man, even cutting through to the trachea if you pull hard enough. I have two.”
Danielle’s face contorts with revulsion. She pushes it away.
“No!”
“We might need to defend ourselves,” says Virginia.
“I would never kill a man.”
“It’s war, Danielle.”
Danielle stares at Virginia a moment, then nods her head. “So, you don’t know about us villagers of Chambon?”
“Don’t know what?”
“We’re pacifists.”
“What?”
“Our pastor, André Trocmé, says we’re never to fight with guns and knives and dirty tricks. We fight the war with the weapons of the spirit.”
“Are you joking?” Virginia says.
“I couldn’t be more serious. Pastor Trocmé just got out of hiding and returned to us. He isn’t happy about the growing numbers of the Maquis. Especially because some of the refugee boys have left the villagers who’ve sheltered them to join the Secret Army.”
It’s not the fists alone that win the fight.
“If you’re a pacifist, why are you working with Simon to find me?” Virginia says.
“Well, I may be a pacifist myself, but my husband isn’t. And I’m not a fool.”
The following moments are to Virginia like flashes from a camera.
The orange scarf in the pocket.
The swift boarding of the train.
The orange scarf shoved in her own pocket as she passes the engineer.
The Milice spilling out of the station as her train pulls away.
The mustached man scanning the windows, looking for the women.
Pulling back so they can’t be seen.
Reaching in her pocket to touch her garrote for comfort.
Fingers touching the orange scarf.
Feeling the slip of paper folded in it.
Pulling it out and reading it.
mimi arrested.
Reading the words in Estelle’s handwriting several times before they make sense.
Eating the paper.
Feeling it tear apart in her teeth and her saliva, scratching her throat as it slides down into the bile of her belly.
Pressing her face to the window as they pass the cattle car, eyes searching until she finds her.
Mimi.
The women locking eyes.
Mimi crying, her face bruised.
Virginia standing, pushing out of her car while people shout at her, Danielle begging her to sit.
Stepping out on the gangway, struggling to stay upright as the train gathers speed, leaving Mimi’s train behind.
Fighting the urge to throw herself from the train.
Stumbling back to the car, numb.
Willing the ice to return to her heart.
Feeling it pump hot and fast in spite of her.
The train stopping in the middle of a field, travelers urged to get off and take cover because of the coming bombers.
Virginia staying on the train while Danielle and the passengers rush out, shrieking.
As bombers roar over, standing, clutching the ceiling bar, allowing her rage and despair to erupt.
Screaming.
With every engine that tears over, with every bomb that falls. Again and again.
Screaming.
War is black: blood on dirt, char on buildings, fuel puddles, rising smoke. After reading the paper, after watching the bombing, Virginia feels as if all the war black implodes into her heart, incinerating it, turning it to ash. In the absence of heart, the brain can take over.
Virginia cannot turn back, neither literally nor figuratively. The only way through is forward. She has beaten her own life expectancy in the field, so she will no longer count the days and the weeks. From this moment on, time will cease until the war is over.
Cold though it is, she forces herself to tuck the men, women, and children of Cosne away in a file folder in her mind. If she’s to continue on, there’s no other way. She imagines stamping MIA on the folder, closing it, and handing it to Vera.