Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Code Name Verity, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship
War, Women, and Gender Roles
The Horrors of War
Resistance and Courage
Storytelling
Summary
Analysis
Maddie writes that since it turns out that anyone can dig through the Ormaie Town Hall archives, Amélie went and got the building plans. She told the guards she was working on a school project; they didn’t even check her ID. But so she wouldn’t get caught with the drawings, she left them in the café for Maddie to pick up later. In retrospect, it was a mistake to tell Amélie to use the café, since that’s Engel’s drop-off spot. When Maddie arrived to fetch the papers, Engel was at the table.
Amélie’s identity as a young, innocent schoolgirl helps her here—nobody suspects that she’s part of the Resistance. But this doesn’t mean that Amélie doesn’t still have to be careful, hence leaving the drawings at the café. Though Maddie acknowledges that she made a mistake, her tone doesn’t suggest that something terrible happened—and perhaps Engel will be able to offer more insight into Julie’s final weeks.
Themes
Engel greeted Maddie as Käthe and invited her to sit. She then gave Maddie a cigarette. That cigarette was weirdly intimate, as Maddie feels like she knows Engel well after reading Julie’s account. Casually, in French, Engel asked how Maddie’s “friend” is. Maddie couldn’t speak and choked on her cigarette, and finally, Engel asked if Julie is dead. Maddie nodded. Engel abruptly stood up and told Maddie to come with her—she had things to tell her. At Engel’s prodding, Maddie grabbed the papers on the table and followed her outside. At that point, Engel switched to English.
The fact that Engel doesn’t seem aware that Julie died speaks to something Maddie expressed earlier: that it’s normal in France at this time for people to disappear without a trace. This fractures the community and makes it difficult for people to maintain connections. Though Maddie feels awkward about knowing Engel so well, it’s worth considering that Engel might feel the same thing—she, after all, seems to know exactly who Maddie is.
Themes
Engel led Maddie to the Place des Hirondelles and showed here where Julie looked the wrong way crossing the street. Engel explained that in Ormaie, people look the other way when people are arrested or beaten. Julie put up a fight and bit the policeman; they had to call Engel to knock Julie out with chloroform. It was “like watching a light go out.” As she led Maddie across the square, Engel observed that the Nazis had turned Ormaie into “a real shit-hole.” They plowed down the roses in the square to park tanks. Engel led Maddie along the river and, chain-smoking as she talked, said that chloroforming people was part of her job, but that doing it to Julie felt like digging up roses to make space for a tank.
Engel again articulates that in Ormaie (and France more generally), it’s perhaps not safe to take interest when people are arrested. Julie seems to have caused quite the scene, but still, nobody was able to tell the Resistance anything about Julie’s arrest until now. Engel also portrays the Nazis as totally unfeeling and as only interested in power. This is why they plowed down the roses to park their tanks—they don’t care about beautiful things, whether that’s France or a vibrant young woman like Julie.
Themes
Maddie interrupted Engel—she knows, since Julie was her best friend. As Maddie continues her account, she begins to call Engel by her first name, Anna. Anna said that once Julie passed out, she discovered Julie’s scarf balled up in her fist—Julie was clearly trying to rub out the archive reference number written on her palm. So, Anna spit on the scarf and put it back in Julie’s hand, rubbing the number out. Since Julie had been filling out forms in the ration office, nobody asked about the ink.
Switching to using Engel’s first name suggests that in this moment, the trust and intimacy between these two women is increasing. Engel is, after all, Maddie’s only living connection to Julie in France; Engel probably knows Julie better than anyone else in the Resistance circuit, for instance. Engel also shows that she’s been helping Julie from the beginning, from the moment she rubbed out the archive number.
Themes
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Anna revealed that finally, on Julie’s last day of writing, Julie revealed what she planned to do with the number. Julie was exhausted and knew, more or less, what Ferber had told von Linden to do. Anna said that she wrote the number on her own palm, showed it to Julie, and then picked up Julie’s pages. Anna asked Julie what she should do with the number, and Julie said she’d burn the number and blow the hotel up. But then Julie laughed and said it was Anna’s problem now.
Recall that in Julie’s final days of writing, she was exhausted—that seems to track with how Engel describes Julie’s behavior at the end. But though it’s possible to read Julie’s comment about the number being Anna’s problem as flippant, it’s also trusting. Julie likely couldn’t outright ask Anna for help—she had to continue to act to protect them both.
Themes
Throwing her cigarette in the river, Anna said that Käthe should go home to Alsace. Maddie Brodatt will get her in trouble. Maddie knows this was a veiled warning to get out, to protect herself and the Thibauts. Tomorrow, she’ll be back in the barn loft. Back in her story, Maddie asked Anna what she was going to do. Anna said she’d been trying to get back to Berlin since they started interrogating Julie and the French girl. She’ll head back by Christmas. Maddie warned Anna that the British are bombing Berlin, but Anna said they probably deserve it. Maddie didn’t think anyone deserves to be bombed—except, as Anna pointed out, the Castle of Butchers.
Telling Maddie to go home shows again that Engel is sympathetic to the Resistance and wants to help—at the very least, she doesn’t want to see more Allies murdered the way that Julie was. And Anna reveals here that she has her own burden to bear, since she feels responsible for helping torture Julie and the French girl. Maddie insists that nobody really deserves to be a victim of violence—but Anna is so guilty about her involvement with the Gestapo that she thinks Germans (perhaps including herself) deserve to be bombed.
Themes
Really, Anna reminds Maddie a lot of Julie in her Eva Seiler persona. She remembers Julie telling her about her mock interrogation during training and cursing the whole time. Anna led Maddie back across the square and offered Maddie a cigarette—at which point Maddie accused her of not sharing with Julie. Anna laughed; she gave Julie half her salary in cigarettes. This detail isn’t in the account, because what would’ve happened to Anna, or Julie, if someone found out? Maddie accepted the cigarette and Anna told her how she got Julie’s account: von Linden’s landlady picked it up with laundry and told him she used the paper to start fires. She’s been punished, but she’ll be fine.
Maddie realizes that Anna and Julie were a lot alike: both were (and are) fantastic at pretending, and both used that skill to help a cause they believe in. In this passage, Anna also makes it very clear that it would be foolish to take Julie’s account at face value. Julie was walking a very thin line and, to protect herself and her allies, she had to leave a lot out. There are, it seems, more allies than even Julie realized, if von Linden’s landlady is helping Engel help the Resistance.
Themes
As Anna and Maddie got back to the café, Anna pressed a key into Maddie’s palm. She explained that she made a copy of the key to the back service door in the soap she gave to Julie before the interview. Now, Maddie has all she needs. Just then, von Linden came around the corner. Maddie was shocked to come face to face with her “mortal enemy,” but that’s what he is. The man has no idea that he stood for a moment with someone who could give up the coordinates to the Moon Squadron, or that Maddie knows he commanded his cronies to torture her best friend. Maddie hates him. She’s going to finish Julie’s work. Maddie then watched Anna walk away with von Linden. She likes Anna a lot.
Depending on when the Resistance decides to blow up the hotel, Anna no doubt realizes she could be agreeing to her own death by giving Maddie the key. This again shows that Anna prioritizes atonement for being complicit in torturing Julie over her own life—in much the same way that Maddie and Julie have prioritized things other than their own lives throughout the novel. For this, Maddie develops respect for Anna.
Themes
