Here’s the list,” says Bob.
He steps into the barn, where Dédé’s team prepares to raid the Nazi hospital. They received a message from the old woman at the hotel that the boches were evacuating the last patients. Once they get the all clear, they’ll sweep in to make sure there aren’t Nazi soldiers left there or anywhere in Chambon.
The paper Bob hands Virginia has all the names and addresses of the suspected Milice from the region. They might not be able to help Roger, but they can ensure that every betrayer and collaborator from here to Le Puy is eliminated.
“Hunt, imprison, and interrogate them,” says Virginia. “Shoot any who resist.”
Bob nods, and leaves with his team.
Virginia ties the orange scarf at her neck and wraps the blue shawl over her hair. She checks the liberator pistol and tucks it in her belt.
“I think you should stay here,” Dédé says.
“I didn’t ask your opinion.”
“HQ won’t be pleased.”
“What they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
She won’t be deterred. She needs to know MP Haas is gone or dead. Every time she closes her eyes, she sees his thinning blond hair, his pale eye, and his translucent skin. She hates the way he looks at people in town as if they’re his property, and the way he watches for her. If she and the Maquis are the shadow of the Resistance, he is the shadow of the Reich.
On the way to the hospital, angry storm clouds gather. The wind has been fierce, even blowing drops off target. They had to cross a forest for the last one, pulling massive containers out of trees and dragging them up cliffs. Thank goodness the men are so young and strong. In spite of looking old, she, too, is strong—thirty-eight years strong. The men love to see her hauling and climbing. On the last drop, while she gave the final, curse-laden yank freeing a container stuck in a thick hedge, one of Simon’s Maquis—the young, Jewish man named Serge, whose studies to become an obstetrician are on hold because of the war—laughed and told her she could have birthed a baby. Then he proposed to her.
Absurd as it is, it feels good to be the object of adoration of hundreds of strapping young men. In spite of their rough start, they’ve grown to love her, and she them. But because of this, the stakes are high.
On the group’s march through town, shopkeepers watch with interest, some pulling their curious daughters out of doorways and windows. Guns in the open, the Maquis grin and wink at the young women of town, on whom Virginia sees an interesting commonality. They wear silk shirts and skirts, in army green and white. It dawns on her that she’s not the only one for whom Dolmazon has made parachute clothing.
It’s not the fists alone that win the fight.
On the approach to the hospital, Virginia looks up to the window where the MP’s face has been staring out, but he’s no longer there. Why is she still so unsettled?
Dédé’s men lead, kicking in the door and shouting as they surge into the hospital, up staircases, breaking in rooms, overturning furniture. Once inside, Virginia pulls out the liberator pistol, cocks it, and loads the cartridge. Tense and ready to shoot, she passes through the lobby and climbs the stairs to the second floor. Halfway up, she hears Dédé shout.
“Hands up!”
Two Maquis run into the room. She hears a groaning noise and looks around the corner.
The smell is the first thing to greet her, followed by the horrid sight of MP Haas and his infected leg. What’s left of the putrid thing is black to the thighbone, green ooze covers his hip and pubic area, and flaking red skin rises up to his bare chest. The bed where he sweats and gasps is at an odd angle, facing away from the window, as if someone tried to move him but abandoned the task. The large, impressive uniform he once filled hangs on the wardrobe door—the silver of the neck plate flashing—while his body wastes away on threadbare sheets. She pulls the shawl off her head to cover her mouth and dismisses the gagging Maquis.
“You, too,” she says to Dédé. “Leave me.”
“I won’t,” he says, his gun still pointed at the monster, as if it could lift a hand to harm her. While she admires Dédé’s dedication to her safety, she shows him she’s armed and gives him a stern look. With reluctance, he obeys.
The sounds of the Maquis’ boots and shouts can be heard echoing through the halls, moving away from her. Pointing her pistol at the MP, she crosses the room, exaggerating her limp, while keeping the gun trained on him. When she gets to the window, she opens it to let in some fresh air. She sits on the sill but keeps the gun aimed at the man.
“Here I am again, opening windows for you,” she says in German.
His eyes widen.
“I know you,” he says.
“You should. La dame qui boite.”
He utters a curse.
“‘Most dangerous of Allied spies,’” she continues. “If you weren’t so stupid, you could have turned me in to Klaus Barbie. You’d have been decorated. Elevated. Rewarded. Maybe a fancy Nazi doctor could have fixed you.”
He groans and drops his head back on the pillow.
“Why didn’t your people take you?” she says.
“I told them I wanted to die here.”
“What happened?” she says, nodding at what’s left of his leg.
“A railway explosion. By terrorist scum.”
She smiles.
“Was the war worth it, Herr Haas?”
He remains silent.
“Why wouldn’t you let them amputate?” she says.
“And end up a Krüppel? I’d rather be dead.”
The irony. She shakes her head.
“And you will be dead,” she says. “Before the hour’s up, by the smell of you.”
Seeing his total impotence, she lowers her pistol, and turns her face to draw in a breath of fresh air. From his room, she can see the train station, the hotel, and the school, all the stops on the journeys of the Jewish children. She thinks of the sweetness of the classroom pets and Bible stories and corkboards celebrating these haunted little ones. It turns her stomach to look back at the MP rotting on the bed, knowing his proximity to that sweetness.
When her gaze returns to his gangrenous leg, she shudders to remember the hideous pain of her own infection. When the doctor in Turkey had asked her to choose her leg or her life, for a long time, and many times since, she’s wondered if she chose correctly. The answer lies decomposing here before her.
Every day, every hour, in every interaction, we’re given two options, and this man has been given the cup he chose. How many choices away from this thing in the bed is she? Three? Four? Fewer.
“Shoot me,” he says, struggling to lift his head. “Put me out of my misery.”
“Why not shoot yourself?” she says.
“They took my weapons.”
“Running low on the front, I’ve heard.”
He drops his head back on the pillow, grimacing from pain. Unmoved, she watches him struggle to readjust what’s left of his body. When he regains his breath, he begs.
“Please. Kill me.”
She thinks about it. On the train, she wished she had, but now she wonders: Would it free her from his haunting her, or forever link them? Would killing him be an act of mercy or vengeance? Does this man still have a chance at redemption before infection eats him alive?
She returns her gaze to the street and thinks of the lines of children singing “Alouette” on their trips to the forest. The MP has been able to see them come and go. Did he know what he was witnessing?
Virginia thinks of the orphan Danielle cares for alongside her own children, even now that Roger is gone. Of the girl in the polka-dot kerchief and the other children Estelle and dozens of women have escorted here and beyond, over the mountains to Switzerland. She thinks of Sophie and Mimi and Louis. The three musketeers. Her Lyon network that this man helped shatter. The mountain. Her leg. All she has lost flashes back to her like it’s the end of her life.
But it isn’t the end for her.
Vera told Virginia she had six weeks to live. All this time, Virginia thought it was a countdown to death, but maybe it was a countdown to new life.
Six weeks to live. To start living again.
To shed the past. To become tenderhearted. To love and to grieve and to atone instead of turning to stone.
Did Wild Bill know this mission would resurrect Virginia? Did Vera? Maybe.
She hates herself now for criticizing Sophie and Louis for holding a small place of love where they could meet, away from the war. Someday, Virginia hopes she’s able to apologize to them.
She looks at the MP. The veins at his temples pulse on his skin that’s coated in a slick sheen of sweat.
They crucified a baby.
Resolved, she stands.
If shooting him is mercy, there will be none of that here. She’d like to say it’s because she isn’t the Author of Life so she can’t end it, but that’s the belief of a Christian pacifist, which she is not. He’ll be dead within hours, and she wishes for him to die slowly.
Leaning out the window, she tears the swastika off the pole, pulls it into the room, and drops it over the MP. Then she slams the window closed and drags his bed back to it while he groans and pleads.
“I hope you live,” she says in his ear. “To see the raising of the tricolor.”
She leaves the man writhing, dying slowly in the room.
Dédé waits for her in the hallway.
“You didn’t kill him,” he says.
“I didn’t need to,” she says. “He’ll be dead by sundown.”
On her way down the stairs she hears Dédé’s voice say, “Yes, he will,” followed by the gunshot.
Back at the house, Virginia locks herself in her room and strips off the layers of elderly peasant clothing. She removes her glasses and scrubs her face and her hands, washing away the old woman. She unknots the bun and rolls her hair into a style becoming her true age. She pulls on the uniform Vera sent her—a khaki button-down slim-fitting shirt, pants, and knee-high boots perfectly suited to cover Cuthbert. She replaces the orange scarf at her neck with a tie but wraps the scarf at her wrist to keep the reminder.
Pausing at the mirror before she leaves, she takes in her flushed face, her shining eyes, her tanned skin, and her taut body.
There she is. No longer invisible.
She opens the door and walks down to meet her people.