Free Ordinary Heroes by Scott Turow Page A

after marrying the Comte de Lemolland after the First War, when her principal residence became a chateau in the Cotes-du-Nord. This property had not suffered as badly under the Germans as many others. Periodically, SS would take over the house as a resort for officers, and a German garrison would come each fall to confiscate crops and wine.
    Nonetheless, with the Comtesse's return, the vineyard and farm were already returning to life. The Comtesse herself, Martin confided, was not doing as well. Her son, Gilles, a member of another resistance group, Forces Francaises de l'Interieur, FFI, had been confirmed captured and burned alive by the Nazis earlier this month. The old woman had largely kept to herself since then.
    "Nonetheless," said Martin, "she would never forgive me if an American officer visited her home and I did not allow her to say a word of welcome. You will enjoy meeting her. She is a remarkable and gallant woman." Preparing to summon the Comtesse, Martin caught sight of Mademoiselle Lodz peeking into the kitchen, probably to see if we had yet been dispatched. She was now in country attire, a blouse with ruffled sleeves and a flowered dress with a bib and flouncy skirt.
    "Va leur parler"--Talk to them--he told her, gesturing her in. To us he said, "If you chaps will excuse me just one minute, Gita will keep you company." He admonished her in a low voice as he breezed out, "Bois plaisante."
    Biddy had retreated to a corner, leaving me to face Gita Lodz in silence. She was narrow as a deer, and in that fashion, pleasingly formed, but with a second chance to observe her, I had decided it would be a stretch to call her beautiful. Dry, her hair proved t o b e a brass-colored blonde. Her nose was broad and her teeth were small and crooked. Given the darkness of her eyes, her complexion was oddly pale. But she had what the Hollywood tattlers liked to call "it," an undefined magnetism which began with a defiant confidence about herself, palpable even from across the room.
    I attempted small talk.
    "May I be so bold as to ask about your name, Mademoiselle Lodz? Do you hail from that Polish city? From Lodz?" I said this in very correct French, which drew a pulled-down mouth from her, a seeming acknowledgment that she had not given me that much credit. But she replied in the same language, clearly delighted not to struggle with English.
    "I am Polish, yes, but not from Lodz. It is no one's name really. I am a bastard." She made that declaration with utter equanimity, but her small black eyes never left me. I always thought I'd learned a good poker face watching Westerns, but I feared at once that I'd reacted to her frankness, and I was grateful she went on. "My mother was Lodzka," she saidWodjka,' as she pronounced it--"from her first husband. She had not seen him in years, but it was convenient, naturally, for me to share her name. The French, of course, can only speak French. So it is easier here to be simply Lodz. And your name?" she asked. "How would it be spelled?"
    "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