Page 10 of The Moonlight Healers

ROUEN, FRANCE

1942

4

HELENE

Rouen rose in vertical lines, its ancient spires and towers soaring toward the sky. As Helene made her way off the train and out of the station, the city stretched before her, with cobblestoned roads that curved past in graceful arcs, elegant stone buildings stacked neatly in shades of cream. At the edge of her line of vision cars rushed by on one of the main boulevards.

Her hand was sweaty as she gripped her suitcase.

“Helene? Helene Paré?”

She startled at the sound of her name and shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked around for the source of the voice. There was a tap on her shoulder. She turned to find a young woman standing there, her round face flushed, a few brown curls visible from the white cap that covered most of her hair. She wore a gray dress cinched at the waist, with a stiff high-buttoned collar that went all the way to her chin.

“Yes,” Helene said. “I am Helene.”

“Then follow me, please,” the girl said, her expression bored, and pivoted toward the street.

“Sorry,” Helene said, her feet throbbing, her dress itchy and uncomfortable under the summer sun. The bustle of a larger city disoriented her, and she had been expecting a family greeting, not some rude stranger. “I was expecting my cousin, Cecelia.”

“Sister Cecelia is busy. Like the rest of them. That’s why they sent me.”

“And who are you?”

“My name is Elisabeth,” the girl said. “I’m a probate nurse at the Hôtel-Dieu. Please follow me.”

For several minutes they walked down the city streets in silence, Elisabeth’s pace brisk. As they moved farther from the station, the street grew quieter and older, the modern stone buildings giving way to peeling old houses, their facades streaked with crooked wooden timbers.

“Are you from here?” Helene asked as she tried to keep up.

“No,” Elisabeth said.

Helene waited for her to elaborate but nothing else came, and so they lapsed back into silence. After several minutes Elisabeth stopped abruptly. “And here we are,” she said in a flat voice.

They stood next to a pair of iron gates, the rigidity of the city giving way to a lush, park-like space beyond the fence, a sprawling courtyard dotted with trees and formal gardens. Helene peered closer through the bars of the gates, unable to comprehend that the building in front of her was a hospital. It looked more like a castle, with three vast, stately wings that surrounded the courtyard in a perfect U-shape. Its stone facade held what seemed to Helene like a thousand windows, tidy rectangles that swept out in all directions. She let her hand rest on the cool metal. This place was nothing like the modest country hospital she’d envisioned. It was a fortress, an entire city unto itself.

Elisabeth cleared her throat. A German soldier was walking toward them from the courtyard.

Helene hadn’t expected soldiers to be stationed at a hospital that housed a convent. In the days leading up to her departure,her grandfather, a devout Protestant, had said she would likely be at one of the few places in France the Germans had left alone because of the Catholic Church’s cooperation with the Nazis.

“They allow evil at their door as long as they can keep their churches protected. They are as bad as Vichy,” he had muttered. “Puppets. All of them.”

“Don’t be stupid. Just do what he says, answer his questions,” Elisabeth said now.

Helene nodded.

“Mademoiselles.”The soldier was short, not much taller than Helene, with a lean build. He gave a brief, perfunctory nod toward Elisabeth before turning to Helene.

“She’s a student nurse,” Elisabeth said, her gaze on the ground. “Here for training.”

The soldier eyed Helene. “Identification papers?” he asked in French, the words mangled by his thick, heavy accent.

Helene removed her creased papers from her pocket. She had been told so many times she would be safer in Rouen, and yet it seemed her mother had sent her off to a place where Germans would dictate her every movement. If anything she was less safe here, miles from the protection of her family.

She passed her papers through the gates. After studying them he handed the papers back and swung open the gate. Helene and Elisabeth stepped into the courtyard.

“You are here as a nurse? And only a nurse?” His expression was hard, and Helene was suddenly aware of the pistol that hung at his side, its black metal, the long wooden point at the end.

---