Page 19 of The Mademoiselle Alliance

18

I Am Hérisson the Hedgehog

Marseille, May–June 1942

“I left Pau as soon as I got your note,” Lucien says to Baston, who pats him on the back. Then Baston tells me, “I sent a courier to Lucien last night in case Vichy arrested me rather than letting me come and collect you.”

“Collect me?”

“I found Rollin brandishing a piece of paper yesterday and ranting, Who is POZ55? Who is COU72? ” Baston explains. “Luckily the papers went to him rather than the Deuxième Bureau, otherwise you’d already be in prison. Luckily he’s a friend. He agreed to a forty-eight-hour amnesty as long as you explain what the papers mean. You’ll need a very good story. Even then…”

The half-moon bruises under Baston’s eyes underscore the gravity of his words. “I don’t know how you’ll get out of this. Not with Laval maneuvering to return as deputy prime minister. If that happens, I’m afraid—”

He cuts himself off, but the unspoken words echo: … you’re done for .

Laval doesn’t give amnesties.

I’m frozen in place. I know exactly what piece of paper Rollin, the Vichy head of security, has. One from Pau, before it was raided by police. I thought it had been destroyed. It lists our code names. And it’s in my handwriting.

It’s enough to condemn me.

But the only way Rollin could have that paper is if someone who’s been through Pau took it and gave it to Vichy.

Which means—one of my agents is a traitor.

It hurts; God, it hurts—that someone I trust is stabbing France in her defenseless back. But this person has also put my loyal agents in peril, so I stand on la patronne ’s feet and say to Lucien, “Thank you. A true Alliance agent could have done no better.”

He crosses his arms. “I’m ready to be a true Alliance agent. If you don’t let me, I’ll find another network that will.”

I can’t be responsible for the imprisonment and death of a sixteen-year-old . It’s Marie-Madeleine who whispers that. But it’s la patronne who knows, I’m the leader of a network, not men’s souls. I have no right to refuse their honor.

The Lucien in front of me is almost as tall as Léon. He looks like he’s started to shave; he’s almost a man.

So I make myself be the leader France needs me to be. But I also do what I can to keep Josette’s son safe. “Commandant Faye needs an adjutant,” I tell Lucien. “He’ll interview you for the position.” Then I turn to Baston. “And I’ll go with you to Vichy.”

Where I’ll need a miracle, not a story.

Léon swears. “There’s no way you’re going to Vichy.” His voice is implacable—a commandant’s voice. “It’s a trap.”

The eyes of my agents swivel from Léon to me and back to Léon. He is not my commandant. I am his. He told me he was prepared to follow me. And I think we’re about to put that to the test. Better to do it now, before I’ve let myself love him.

I keep my voice level. “If I don’t go, Marseille will be swarming with police by tomorrow. Then everyone will be arrested instead of just me.”

“They’ll never let you leave. Then where will Alliance be?” Léon shouts.

“Outside,” I snap, stalking out.

Behind the shop, where the bins, roaches, and vermin congregate, we face each other, equally stubborn, equally sure we’re right—but also equally afraid, I think. “I have to do this to keep everyone safe,” I tell him. “And you have to accept it. It’s your job.”

He braces one hand against the wall, shakes his head.

My voice softens. “Trust me. Trust that maybe I have a plan that will let me walk out of there.”

Léon’s eyes fall to my hand, as if he’s remembering that one moment of physical intimacy we shared—the way it wasn’t just our hands held fast together, but our fears and our worries and our souls, perhaps, too.

He lifts his eyes back up to meet mine. Swears once more, but says, “All right. I’ll take the same train to Vichy but ride in another carriage so nobody knows there’s any connection between us. Then I can…” His mouth twists. “I can warn the others if the worst comes to pass.”

I’m not used to sharing things. Since Edouard, I equate it with leaving myself exposed. But I lean against the wall beside Léon, let the back of my hand touch the back of his, knuckle against knuckle. But it’s like his hands are in my hair and his lips are on mine and I want to find a way to drink in this hot, hot love and not be burned.

His voice is husky when he speaks. “We need to work out who’s betraying you before they give up anything else.”

“I’ll think about who had access to that list. And Léon?” I look across at him. “You’ll interview Lucien? You need an adjutant.”

He laughs, the tension slipping from his face. “The Gestapo could be marching in the door and you’d still be talking about the agents, not yourself. So yes, I’ll give him the job.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll miss you,” he says very gently.

I can’t let myself say it. Not when I’m about to stroll in to see the Vichy chief of state security, whose government I’ve been plotting against for the last year and a half.

—

Will I end up in prison like Navarre? Do they torture women? How long would it take for me to crumble?

Will I ever see Béatrice and Christian again?

My thoughts clatter in time to the train’s wheels on the tracks. I try to light a cigarette, but my hand is shaking. Baston reaches for the lighter and flicks it, frowning. It’s his reputation on the line if my plan doesn’t work.

I close my eyes and try to settle into the role I need to play: the silly woman led astray by Navarre. The beautiful blonde with nothing going on in her head.

Maybe it’s the lull of the train. Maybe it’s na?veté or Schaerrer’s ghost or some kind of external grace that makes me relax enough that I dream, even though I think I’m awake. I see animals, hunted animals: prowling, pacing, proud. Coustenoble is a stealthy cat—the Tiger. Rivière is a Wolf—clever and loyal. Siegrist, my head of security, has ears that make him an Elephant.

I know what this dream means. If Vichy has our code names, we need new ones. I’m seeing the future. And in that future I’m not locked in a Vichy prison. I’ve become a creature nobody thinks much of. Hérisson—the prickly little Hedgehog, I think with a smile.

In Shanghai, parents dressed their children in bonnets stitched with white silk dragons’ teeth or lions’ manes made of wool. They believed that, by pretending to be animals, their children would be safe from the predators of the spirit world.

With animal code names, my agents will be safe from the Nazis.

When I exit the train, Léon steps down from the last carriage, reaching his long, beautiful arms up into the sky. He will be my Eagle, the one who soars above the mountaintops.

—

My quills are bristling when I walk through the halls of the H?tel du Parc to Commandant Rollin’s office. Whispers follow me like spies, and I hope my optimist adventurer tendencies haven’t just caused me to sign my own arrest warrant. But I hide those thoughts under a demure navy-blue dress and a little toque hat adorned with white egret feathers, impeccable maquillage, and a charming Marie-Madeleine smile.

At the door to Rollin’s office, I fire first. “How dare you!”

Rollin jumps. He’s short and graying, a grandfatherly former naval intelligence officer, a fact that made me radio MI6 last night to see if they knew him. They do. Rollin has continued to correspond with MI6’s chief since the German Occupation. He isn’t providing information, but nor is he turning his back on his friends.

I hope it means his heart won’t be in the business of questioning a woman over the suspicion that she might have been agitating against the very people whose views he despises. It’s a gamble akin to bluffing with only a pair in hand, but if a Resistance leader can’t bluff like a magician, then she doesn’t deserve her job.

From my purse, I pull out some letters, letting a hanky, a doll, and a child’s book spill out—evidence of my femininity, my esprit de famille . The first two or three pages are legitimate letters from doctors about Béatrice’s hip surgery. Baston, Lucien, and Léon spent yesterday afternoon traveling to Toulouse, Grenoble—where one of our agents is a doctor—and Nice, collecting them. The others have been forged by Elephant. I don’t want Vichy to know which hospital I’m planning to retreat to with Béatrice after this, I just want them to believe in my motherliness.

“You’re coming after me while I sit at my daughter’s bedside?” I demand, making sure my voice is hysterical—female. “She needs an operation and I’ve been summoned here to discuss some ridiculous hieroglyphics?”

I point to the list of code names on the desk. By themselves, they’re meaningless. And in the light of my performance, they look like nothing more than scribbles.

“You know Navarre,” I go on. “He loves intrigue. I got caught up in it for a while. But I haven’t seen him for months, which you know because he’s in prison. I’ve been busy with my daughter, as you can see from these letters.”

I slide into a chair, cross my legs, and light a cigarette, making sure my hands are visibly trembling, demonstrating my weakness.

Baston jumps in and says, “Look at her! That’s hardly the face of a criminal mastermind.”

I can feel the wink he wants to send my way as he spouts at Rollin the same beliefs he used to share.

Rollin sits heavily in his chair. “But I know it wasn’t just Navarre who was in contact with the British. You were, too.”

Merde . They know more than I thought. But I’m not the only one in the room who’s in touch with the British; Rollin is, too. He isn’t the first Vichy officer to pledge loyalty to Pétain but want the Germans out of France. So I take a shot at the honor I hope he still possesses.

“I left my daughter’s bedside to see if there were any French patriots left in Vichy and all I find is a silly list of numbers.”

“Patriots in Vichy!” he shouts, and for a second I worry that I’ve gone too far.

“I despise the Germans, too,” he continues, still blazing. “But there’s a way to do these things. Leave it to people who know what they’re doing. Trained French military officers, not housewives.”

That’s when I know I’m safe. He loves France, thinks he can ease Pétain onto the path of right. I want to tell him that’s a dead end. But I’ve given him a story that will appease his superiors. All I need to do now is shut my mouth and be nothing more than the woman they all think was Navarre’s mistress. Rollin will think little of that woman. More importantly, he’ll believe her.

I’m fleetingly grateful for what subordination has taught me, even as I hide lies within truths that make me want to cut out my own tongue. My daughter does need me. But I’ve just shamelessly tossed her plight and her pain into the room to get what I want, like the goddess Hera throwing her son off the top of a mountain.

Never did I consider myself immoral before now.

Then a worse thought cannonballs into me. What if this is just the beginning?

I no longer have to fake the tremble in my hands.

Thankfully Rollin does what might be the kindest thing anyone in Vichy will ever do for me. “I’ve been fielding phone calls about you all day,” he says. “Most people want you arrested. If you were in the Occupied Zone, you would be. But here”—he picks up a cigar that’s been smoldering throughout our conversation and puffs on it—“I’m in charge. I’ll make you a false identity card so you can travel to your daughter’s bedside without being arrested. Stay with her. If you do anything out of the ordinary, you’ll be brought straight back here and I won’t be able to help you again. And watch out. Laval is doing everything he can to get back into power. If that happens, I’ll be removed from my position and you’ll need more than a false identity card to keep you safe.”

He leaves the room to get my papers, an old patriot who’s made his one act of resistance. He clearly believes there’s no network behind me anymore—that I’m a lone ex-rogue—which means I’ve just bought Alliance some breathing space to blossom into.

But when I walk out of the H?tel du Parc, Pierre Laval walks in. He watches me, malice sparkling like black ice in his eyes.

He looks like a man intent on winning.

—

The following week, so help me God, I set up Alliance’s headquarters in my daughter’s hospital room in Toulouse and hone my talent for duplicity still more when the nurse greets my luggage with a startled, “ Mon Dieu .”

I’m carrying one small valise for my clothes and two enormous suitcases full of maps, folders, and codes. “I was worried Béatrice would be bored,” I say. “I’ve brought some things to keep her spirits up.”

Having passed off MI6’s intelligence questionnaires as children’s playthings—and once Béatrice is asleep—I hide folders under chair cushions, cover my map with a blanket, and start making a list. Which sectors have strong teams, which sectors need starting up. Where to send the transmitters that were dropped in by parachute last week. Which of our new sectors need wireless operators, how to find a replacement for Frédéric, the operator who defected.

That’s when I realize. He was at Pau.

He might have taken the list of code names as insurance. Perhaps he’s been captured and is cashing in his bond?

It’s actually a relief if it’s him. He was with us only a short time and knows nothing of the new recruits we’ve added to Alliance, so he can’t hurt the network’s second wave. I write a note to Coustenoble asking him urgently to find out if Frédéric has been arrested, and I explain the new animal code names.

When Dr. Charry comes in the next day to check on Béatrice, I ask him, “Would it be all right if we have a lot of visitors? I have a large family.”

The doctor says genially, “Your large family may visit whenever they like.”

He turns his attention to my daughter. She’s being taken to the operating room tomorrow, he tells us, so I ignore my maps, sit on the bed, and tell Béatrice the stories she most loves to hear—about my childhood in Shanghai with my sister, Yvonne. I describe my English governess who gave me a taste for tea, and our amah, who let us roam through the streets as fearless explorers.

Béatrice nestles into my shoulder.

“Are you frightened?” I ask, stroking her hair.

“Are you?” she asks very seriously, and I pretend to misunderstand.

“Not when I think about you running toward me so fast that you beat Christian.”

She laughs delightedly, as if she has a goal to work on in the months after I leave.

“I love you,” I tell her. “If you ever think you hate me for even a moment—”

“I would never hate you, Maman, ” she says, shocked.

I sleep in her bed that night, then hold her hand while they anesthetize her, try so hard to keep the tears at bay when her little body goes limp.

Dr. Charry disentangles our fingers, saying, “I’ll take good care of her.”

I pace Béatrice’s room for hours, crossing to the window and back to the door. Late morning, I see a man across the street, a man with graceful arms and the kind of smile that makes your heart hurt because it wishes it could smile right back.

Léon Faye, my Eagle, can’t come into the hospital, but he’s found a way to be here. And that’s when I realize this is no infatuation brought on by war. This is real.

So I leap.

I press my fingertips to my lips, let a kiss drift down to the street below. Léon catches it and tucks it into the pocket of his jacket, the one that sits over his heart.

And I know—there’s no going back from this. There will be a next kiss, a proper kiss, and it won’t be a subtle, drifting, invisible thing.

Alliance is my family now. Not a husband I haven’t seen since 1933.

I am Hérisson the Hedgehog. I belong to no one, carry the name of no man.

I divorce myself from my marriage.