There had been two previous attacks on the plant that had failed. But then almost a year ago, in February of 1943, there was success and the plant was destroyed. Norwegian saboteurs, using maps created by Louise during her undercover work in Norway, had skied across the pine forest of Telemark wearing winter whites and, like ghostly apparitions, descended on the plant. Their backpacks were filled with explosives and fuses. They had trained in Scotland, perfect preparation for the grueling expedition that would require these spies to scale icy mountains in pitch-darkness, ford rivers, and ski across treacherous terrain.

  Alice reached across the table and grasped her sister’s hand. “Louise, you’re a hero.”

  “Definitely an unsung one.” She laughed.

  “I would sing to you loudly!” Alice said in a hushed voice. “Don’t you feel proud of how you helped in . . . in . . .” She dared not mention the actual name of the plant or the expedition, which had been called Operation Gunnerside.

  “Yes, of course. But you know so much of what we do is boring. Stultifyingly boring.”

  “Like mopping floors. But you said the skiing was fun. And there was that handsome fellow. Anders.”

  “Oh yes, Anders!” Like fleeting clouds, a dreamy look passed across Louise’s eyes. “But did he ever remember me? Hardly!”

  “But you said there was that one time he kissed you.”

  “Almost kissed me that one time, and then I was extracted from the mission right after. He missed so many opportunities before that, as it took him the longest time to remember me enough to even want to kiss me.” Louise sighed. “I knew it wasn’t my cup of tea. Anyone can leave the Company. You think they want soft agents? Unhappy, whiny ones?”

  “You never whined. I’m the whiner in the family, if anybody is.”

  “No, you’re not. I just did my job, and I knew when I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

  “But what will you do now?”

  Louise looked about. There was no one sitting close by.

  “Bletchley,” she whispered. “I scored quite high on the exam.”

  “You did?”

  Louise nodded. “I just have to be patient and wait.”

  Alice thought a moment.

  “I know you went to classes at Cambridge.”

  “Believe me, if we get through this war, women will be allowed to enroll officially at Cambridge University. Some of the best code breakers are women who sat in the back rows of the lecture halls.”

  The Winfields had moved close to Cambridge, England, directly from Scotland, where Louise had been part of the training program for the forces responsible for blowing up the plant. The move was somewhat of a reward for services rendered by their family. Their father had delivered some superb intelligence while in Berlin. For almost three years, Alan Winfield had been stationed as an operative in Germany, and he was responsible for the early data and information concerning the heavy water.

  He worked as a chauffeur for the government—or what in Germany was called the Reich. Reich was the German word for “realm” or “regime.” Realm was a much prettier-sounding word. It conjured up thrones and queens and kings in crowns and beautiful robes. But Reich was so harsh sounding. Blades, clanking armor, and annihilating obedience. And yes, that little guy with the ugly toothbrush mustache and the dark madness in his eyes. Adolf Hitler.

  The Reich Research Council was the government center for atomic physicists. Her father had chauffeured them all, the top physicists of the Reich: Otto Scherzer, Abraham Esau, Erich Schumann. But it was Werner Heisenberg who chatted the most, and from whose careless lips he had first heard the words “heavy water” and “Vemork.”

  Louise had always dreamed of attending a great university. So as a reward for her services in Norway, in the late autumn of the previous year, 1943, Posie, Alice, and Louise were moved to a new home within two miles of Cambridge University. Louise’s entrance for lectures was of course arranged by the Company. Alice, in the meantime, had entered the local school. No posh school for her. Not the local pricey preparatory school, whose students carried crimson-and-orange school satchels. Her school colors were tan and black. And no special book bags were issued, although there was talk of changing the colors, as they had become favorite colors for many Nazi military divisions.

  Alice’s main challenge in the local school was not to appear too advanced. For she was extremely intelligent, as all Rasa children were. The Rasa had a facility for picking up languages, especially, and every summer they were sent to language camp. It was not unusual for a youngster to have mastered five or six different languages and dialects by the time he or she was sixteen. It was called language camp, but they learned many other things there as well. It was where they took their first parachute jumps and began flight training.

  Alice had made no close friends in Grantchester, for even in a small village school it took forever for her classmates to remember who she was. But this was as it was supposed to be. They were supposed to blend in unremarkably, seamlessly. Anonymity was their business—their family business. It never really bothered Alice that much. She had her sister. She had her mum—and soon, if things worked out, she and her mother might be reunited with their father. Louise would not join them now.

  But Louise as a code breaker? She’d never have imagined her sister sitting around with a lot of Cambridge mathematicians. Though the code breakers at Bletchley were at the very epicenter of intelligence, monitoring the secret communications of the German forces.

  Bletchley, an ornate mansion set in the middle of a beautiful park, was a closely guarded secret. It housed the code and cipher school for the British government. At Bletchley, they were devising a machine to decipher Nazi code, specifically working to crack the German Enigma code. They produced ultra intelligence, according to MI6 and the Company.

  The more Alice thought about it, the more she realized that Bletchley was a logical place for an ex-Company person to go. Especially one with a new face. Now those young men Louise had sat next to in the lecture halls would surely remember her. Alice had always heard Louise say, “It takes the fun out of flirting if you know the fellow won’t remember you the next day.”

  Alice sighed. “It’s sort of exciting, I suppose. . . .” Alice’s voice dwindled. Then she became suddenly animated. “So, what do you want to look like?”

  “Me! I want to look like me.”

  Alice giggled. “But that’s impossible. I mean, don’t you want to look like, say . . .”

  “Greta Garbo?” Louise said with a trace of contempt.

  “Why not? She’s not exactly hideous, you know.”

  “Nor is Joan Crawford, or Hedy Lamarr or Lana Turner.” All the movie stars they saw at the cinema were gorgeous in their own ways. And memorable. “I want to be me. Just me.” She sighed. “You know, Alice, the other night I went to that pub with Lucy. And this fella is sitting near me and asks if he can buy me a pint. Here’s exactly what he said. ‘Did anyone ever tell you that you look like Rita Hayworth?’”

  “The movie star?” Alice asked.

  “Indeed! The movie she’s starring in, Only Angels Have Wings, was playing at the cinema right across the street. He had just seen it.”

  “What did you say?”

  “‘I’m not Rita Hayworth. No red hair, and I wear mine up in a French twist.’

  “‘Doesn’t matter,’ he answers. ‘You remind me of her. I see a red glow in your hair, and if you let it down, it would tumble just like hers.’” Louise took a sip of her tea, then gave a harsh laugh. “Alice, that movie is in black and white!”

  “Doesn’t seem to matter.” Alice began to giggle.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “Did I tell you what happened when I went to the apothecary the other day to pick up that medicine for Mum?”

  “No. What happened?” Louise leaned in closer.

  “Mr. Jenkins, he screws up his eyes and starts studying me. Then finally he says, ‘Blimey, I can’t ever remember your first name, dear. Is it Minnie?’”

  “Oh no!” Louise gasped.

  “Yes! He’d most likely been to the cinema and seen that cartoon. Minnie Mouse. It’s playing there now.”

  Louise sighed again. “Did I also tell you about Mrs. Blackmore?”

  “The lady down the lane from us?”

  “Yes. She comes running up to me on that little road off Cromwell Square. I had some parsnips and things in my shopping bag, and she stops short and says, ‘You’re Jillian, aren’t you?’ And I say, ‘Jillian? Who’s Jillian?’ And she says, ‘The butcher’s daughter. I heard a rumor that he has some pork chops in.’”

  “I get it, classic WTS,” Alice said.

  “Exactly. Wishful thinking syndrome. She’d probably been yearning for them. She just wished me into the role of Jillian Wirth, the butcher’s daughter.”

  “I know Jillian from school. She’s not exactly a beauty. Terrible spots and rather unfortunate hair. Thin and limp.”

  “But you remember her, don’t you?” She leaned back in her chair. “Case made!” she announced with a trifle of smugness. Then her tone quickly changed. The satisfaction evaporated.

  “No one can really know us. Such is our fate, Alice.” Her voice was mournful. “But it doesn’t have to be.”

  Alice thought for several seconds. “But what will you be after your surgery? What will the real you look like?”

  “I don’t know, but I can’t wait to see me! I know that ‘me’ is there. Inside me someplace. I want to be me.” She paused. “The true me!” she whispered, as if this was a deep secret. “And Dr. Harding, the plastic surgeon, is supposed to be a real genius.”

  At that moment Lily the waitress returned. “Anything more, ladies?”

  “No, that will be all, thank you,” Alice replied, smiling up at her.

  Lily seemed to beam. “Did anyone ever tell you that you look a lot like Shirley Temple?” Alice resisted rolling her eyes. Her hair was straight as a stick, unlike the child movie star’s.

  “No curls.”

  “But I can almost see them! I’m not kidding. You’re the spitting image. You should go to the cinema. The Blue Bird is playing around the corner now, and Shirley stars in it.”

  “Okay, maybe.”

  “Bye-bye, Shirley!” Lily called out as the two sisters left the café.

  Three

  Swapping Vowels

  “It will settle,” Dr. Harding had said in the hospital room at the unveiling. It was as if he had been speaking of a house settling on its foundations. Or perhaps, Alice imagined, the ground after an earthquake. The features of Louise’s face were almost the same, but ever so slightly different . . . just rearranged, perhaps? Not the right word, Alice thought as they sat down at the dinner table. Louise’s nose was still in the middle, and her mouth was where it should be. “Disturbed” was a better word than “rearranged.” Disturbed, but not in a bad way, yet an interesting way. The swelling had almost vanished, as had the bruises. She no longer looked tarnished.

  Posie set down the casserole in the middle of the table. “Tomorrow night, I promise, no more snoek. We’ll use the last coupon in my ration book.” It was the fourth time that week they had eaten tinned snoek, a South African fish that had escaped being rationed. Alice looked across the table at her sister and wrinkled her nose. Louise attempted a nose wrinkle herself but failed. Her nose was still slightly swollen but nice. Alice hadn’t dared ask Louise if this face across from her was the one her sister had sought. She recalled her sister’s words from that day in the café: I want to be me. The true me!

  In a sense, Louise Winfield, or Lou Lou, still looked basically the same. But there was something definitely more memorable about her face. It was as if it had been quickened in some way that would make it not so forgettable. Nevertheless, Alice would sometimes hear their mum give a little yelp if she came around a corner in their house and Louise was coming the other way. It was not as if she was encountering a complete stranger, but still someone she hadn’t expected to see.

  It was the next evening, the evening of no snoek casserole—as Alice came to think of it—but instead stuffed peppers, when Louise made her big announcement. “Lou Lou, pass the white sauce,” Alice had said.

  “Please pass the white sauce,” her mother corrected.

  “Lou Lou, please pass the white sauce,” Alice repeated. Louise giggled a bit. A little private giggle, as Alice would come to think of it. Perhaps a coded communication with her newly released inner self.

  “Another minor correction,” Louise said softly, and slid her eyes first toward their mother and then Alice. “From now on, please don’t call me Lou Lou. Dispense with the nickname, kindly.” Although there was nothing kindly in her voice. It was brittle.

  “Of course, Louise,” Alice murmured. She felt as if something had collapsed inside her.

  “Ah!” Louise exclaimed. Both Alice and her mother, glanced at each other, confused.

  “Ah, what?” Alice asked.

  “Louisa, not just Louise.”

  “Why?” Alice asked.

  “It’s just . . .”

  “Just what?” Alice pressed. She felt irritation rising in her. Something was happening to her sister, and it had nothing to do with her face. What had that doctor done to her? The irritation began to quickly subside into fear. Why am I afraid? she wondered.

  “It’s just more . . . well, I just think it’s more elegant. More memorable. Goes with my face better.”

  “Really?” Alice asked in a shaky voice. How could swapping one letter, one vowel for another, really do all that? Then the irritation returned. “Perhaps I should change mine to Alicia, even though I haven’t had plastic surgery? There could very well be a tiny Alicia scampering about inside of me. Just gasping for air. Dying to be released.” Alice’s voice had bloomed into full, scalding contempt.

  But Posie, always attempting to broker peace between her two strong-minded daughters, began to chatter away. “Of course, dear. I had thought of naming you Louisa, but your father felt it seemed heavy freight for a delicate little girl. You were so delicate.”

  “Louisa” laughed. “I suppose Papa would call that ‘schwere fracht’ now,” she said.

  Alice and her mum exchanged horrified glances at Louise’s admission of her father’s location. Louisa appeared engulfed in a tidal wave of sudden remorse.

  “I’m sorry! Sorry, sorry!” She jumped up from the table and rushed over to kiss her mother. Posie looked at her daughter with a steely glare.

  “Sorry, won’t do. You said it, Louise! Out loud!”

  “I said it softly, Mum. No one could hear. The cottage isn’t wired.”

  Posie pushed her plate away. “I’m not really hungry. I think I’ll set the kettle on for tea.”

  The incident, though not forgotten, was never again mentioned. Everyone kept calm and carried on, as the motivational posters instructed; they had been plastered up all over England.

  Louisa’s face continued to heal. The puffiness, within another two weeks, was completely gone. Her complexion was no longer tarnished, and she was back to the proverbial English rose. Alice was just returning home from an errand when she saw a small cluster of girls who often walked the two miles to and from Cambridge University for lectures. They stopped at a window of the millinery shop to admire a copy of the queen’s hat.

  “It’s just perfect for wartime, I think,” one girl was saying.

  “Yes, you’re right, Florrie,” Louisa replied. “You don’t want anything too cheery and colorful. No dyed ostrich plumage. Just nice tawny pheasant feathers. Not Buckingham Palace tea-party fashion.” She sighed wistfully. “Those days are behind us.”

  Alice thought that Louise had seen her, for she had looked directly toward her at some point in this short exchange. Alice briefly hesitated but then decided to interrupt. “Uh . . . but they are primary feathers, wing feathers for flight, Louisa.”

  Louise turned now and looked at her straight on. Looked at her and through her. There wasn’t a flicker of recognition for at least five seconds. In Alice’s school experience, it would take her teachers, and those who would eventually become her friends, at least a month to remember who she was. She had so often seen this same gradual glimmer of dawning recognition during that first month—the blankness as they raked their memory to figure out who this face belonged to. Where had they seen it before? Then the dim flickering melted at last into a gleam of recognition.

  “Oh, Alice!” Louisa laughed awkwardly. “Forgive me,” she said, turning to the other two girls. “Florrie, Jean—this is my sister, Alice.”

  For a moment Alice actually felt unsteady on her feet. It was as if she had been snagged by a strange kind of riptide, pulled away from her own sister, who stood on the beach, watching her but not knowing her. But now Louisa bid her friends goodbye and then, tucking Alice’s arm snugly beneath hers, they walked off in best-of-friends fashion. But the problem was that Alice and Louisa were not the best of friends. They were sisters. And that was different. Completely different.

  “Oh, Louisa!” Florrie called out. “When can you come over and teach us to dance the Charleston?”

  Louisa laughed. “Maybe tomorrow”

  “Terrif! You know, Alice, nobody can dance the Charleston like your sister!”

  Alice smiled. “I know, she is really good!”

  Alice was haunted by this encounter. She dared not mention it to her mother. For she also noticed that Louise was beginning to spend a lot of time in front of the two mirrors in their cottage. Alice observed as Louise regarded herself in the mirror, tipping her head as she practiced a variety of smiles that showed the dimple Dr. Harding had created. The scent of a perfume that Louise had begun to wear wafted down the hall. Since she was no longer a spy, Louise could indulge in perfume now too. She had bought it as soon as she came home from her surgery.

  “Is it working?” Alice asked as she watched her dab on some perfume.

  Louise gave a small yelp. Again there was the blankness in her sister’s eyes, this time followed by a flash of absolute terror. She actually thinks I’m a thief, a home invader! Then Louise shook her head as if to clear it.