Scott Turow - Ordinary Heroes

"Doo-ban?" she said once I had recited the letters. I said it again, and she tried a second time. "Doobean?"

I shrugged, accepting that as close enough.

"But what kind of name is that? Not French, no?" I answered simply, "American."

"Yes, but Americans, all of them come from Europe. Where in Europe was Doo-bean?"

I told her Russia, but she took my answer with mild suspicion.

"In what part?" she asked.

I named the village where both my parents had been born.

"Near Pinsk?" she said. "But your name does not sound Russian."

"It was Dubinsky, back then," I said after a second, still not acknowledging everything I might have. However, I had won a brief smile.

"Like lodzka," " she said. A second passed then, as we both seemed to ponder how to go forward, having found an inch of common ground. I finally asked where she was from in Poland, if not Lodz.

"Eh," she said. "Pilzkoba. A town. You put a thumbtack in a map and it is gone. Que des cretins," she added bitterly. All idiots. "I ran from there in 1940. After the Germans killed my mother."

I offered my condolences, but she shrugged them off.

"In Europe now we all have these stories. But I could not stay. I hated the Germans, naturally. And also the Poles, because they hated me. Bastards are not favorites in small Polish towns, Doo-bean. So I left. You see?"

"Yes," I said. In English, I quoted Exodus. " have been a stranger in a strange land.' "

She lit up. The phrase delighted her. "Parfait!" she declared and haltingly repeated as much as she could.

Martin reappeared just then and swept behind her.

"Ah, but no stranger to me," he said, and with his arms around her waist swung her off the floor. Once she was down she pried his hands apart to escape.

"I am enjoying this conversation," she told him in French.

"So you like this American?" Martin asked her.

"I like Americans," she answered. "That must be what interested me in you. Pas mar she added-Not bad-a reference to my looks, then winked at me with Martin behind her. She clearly had no wish to let him know I understood.

"You think he has silk stockings and chocolate bars?" asked Martin.

"Merde. You are always jealous."

Not without reason," he answered.

"Yes, but without right."

"Eh," he responded. It was banter. Both were grinning. He faced me and said that the Comtesse would be down momentarily.

With Martin's reappearance, I had taken a notebook from my fatigues and asked the Major if we might use the interval before the Comtesse's arrival to discuss my mission here. I presented him with an order from Patton's adjutant authorizing the Rule 35 investigation, but Martin did not read more than the first lines.

"Teedle," he said then, as if it were the most tiresome word in any language. "What does he say? No, don't bother. Mark it as true, whatever he says. All true. 'Insubordinate.' 'Mutinous.' Whatever the hell he wants to call it. Write down in your little book: Guilty as hell. The Army still doesn't know what to do with me." He laughed, just as he had when he recollected the Negro speakeasy.

I followed him across the kitchen. "I wouldn't make light of this, Major. Teedle has laid serious charges, sir." I explained his rights to Martin-he could give a statement himself or direct me to other witnesses. If he preferred to speak to a superior officer, he was entitled to do so. And certainly he could hear a specification of what had been said against him.

"If you must," he answered. He picked at a plate of grapes.

"General Teedle alleges that you've been ordered to disband your Operational Group and return to London. He says you've refused."

"Refused'? What rubbish. I'm here under the command of OSS London, and London has directed me to continue as before. Gita and I and the others are going to finish our business in France, then continue on to Germany. I have built networks there, too, Dubin. We will see this to an end. Teedle can be damned with his nonsense about refusing orders."

This is a misunderstanding, then?"

If you wish to call it that."

I was somewhat relieved to find the matter could be settled quickly. I asked Martin to see his orders from OSS, which brought an indulgent smile.

"You don't know much about OSS, do you, Dubin?" In fact, I had tried to learn as much as I could, but except for an old propaganda piece in Stars and Stripes and what I gleaned at the i8th Division from Martin's sanitized zoI file, I was largely in the dark. "An OSS officer carries no written orders," he told me. "The Nazis have said forthrightly that they'll shoot any OSS member they capture. Teedle knows this. But mine are orders nonetheless."

"Well, if I may, sir, who gave those orders?"

"My operational officer in London. I was ordered back to see him the last week in September, as a matter of fact."

"And his name, if you please?"

Again, Martin smiled as he would with a boy.

"Dubin, OSS has strict rules of secrecy. It is not a normal military organization. Only London can reveal the information you're asking for. But feel free to check with them. They will confirm everything."

I frowned.

"Oh, pshaw, Dubin. You doubt me? Look around here. We live in the open in the French countryside, fed and housed by a noted French resister. If London didn't want this, don't you think they could inform the local networks, the Free French, with whom they've worked hand in glove for years now? Do you think the Comtesse would defy them? I am here only with the leave of OSS."

He was making some sense, but I knew I could not conclude this investigation merely by inference. However, I had lost Martin's attention. On the threshold was an older woman, very erect, very slim, very drawn. Her graying hair was swept back smoothly and she wore a simple dress, sashed at the waist, and no jewelry besides a cameo that hung between her collarbones. Biddy and I were introduced to the Comtesse de Lemolland. I bowed briefly, accepting her hand.

She addressed us in English.

"I owe to all Americans my deepest gratitude for your courage in behalf of my country."

"I am only a lawyer, Comtesse. Your thanks go to the likes of Major Martin, not to me."

Martin interjected, "The Comtesse herself is a great heroine."

Not at all true," she answered.

"May I tell the story then, Comtesse, and allow Lieutenant Dubin to judge for himself?"

Leaning against a large cutting block in the center of the kitchen, Martin played raconteur, a role that clearly pleased him. He explained that when the Nazis arrived in 194o, they had commandeered the Comte de Lemolland's ancestral house in the Cotesdu-Nord, where the Comtesse, a widow of three years, had been residing. The Germans turned the chateau into a communications node. The Comtesse was forced to live as a guest in her own home, confined to an apartment of several rooms. Because the Germans adored rank, they accorded her some dignity, but they partied with prostitutes and nailed maps to the wainscoting in the parlor and abused her servants. Twice maids were raped.

One of the Comtesse's house staff was a member of the underground, and it was she who secretly introduced Agnes de Lemolland to Martin. The Comtesse agreed to the installation in her salon of a listening device, an induction microphone no larger than a button, which was attached by a filament to a tiny earphone that ran to her sitting room. There the Comtesse listened to the daily flow of information through the communications center downstairs, reporting what she'd overheard. When the plans were laid for D-Day, the Comtesse understood that it was from this very center that German reinforcements would be routed to Normandy. With no request from Martin, she designated her own house for bombing once the invasion began, fleeing with her servants only minutes before the first strike.