The Room on Rue Amélie(39)

And just like that, the moment was over. “Yes, of course, your husband.” He pulled away, hating the pang of jealousy he felt. Of course she’d loved the man she’d married; it shouldn’t bother him to hear that.

Ruby looked startled. “No, that’s not who I meant.”

Thomas thought she might elaborate, but instead, she went silent, her eyes filling with tears. She folded inward, and she suddenly looked haunted, broken. He wanted to ask who she was talking about, who had shattered her this way, but he knew better than to press. Instead, he put his arm around her and murmured, “I’m very sorry, Ruby.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone like this before,” she said after a while.

“Neither have I.” They looked into each other’s eyes, and for a moment, he thought he might try to kiss her, but then he lost his courage.

“I feel as if I could talk with you forever, without running out of things to say,” she said at last.

And so they stayed up hours more, talking about everything, although she never told him whose death had broken her heart. He got up just past three in the morning to get them a couple of glasses of water, and when he returned to the living room, he found her asleep on the couch, her head tilted to the left as her hair spilled over her shoulders. He gently pulled a blanket over her and settled onto the hard-backed chair across from her. Then he simply watched her sleep until he himself drifted off, just before dawn.

When he awoke, her eyes were open and she was studying him. She quickly glanced away as he came to. “You’re up,” she said.

He smiled at her. “What time is it?”

“Just past nine. I never sleep this late.”

“Me neither.”

The silence between them felt loaded.

“You covered me with the blanket last night?” she asked finally. “After I fell asleep?”

“You looked so peaceful. I didn’t want to disturb you.”

He could see her swallow hard. “Thank you. That was very kind. I haven’t slept that well in ages.” She cleared her throat. “Anyhow, I promise I’ll try again today to find Aubert. I really am very sorry about the delay. You must be eager to move on.”

“No,” Thomas said carefully. He waited until she looked up at him. “The truth is, I’m not sure I want to leave.”

He loved the way her cheeks turned pink before she replied. “I just wish I had more food to give you. But with the rations . . .”

“Ruby, I have everything I need.” He looked her in the eye and wondered if there was any chance at all that she was feeling the same way.



SHE LEFT AN HOUR LATER, over Thomas’s objections that she was putting herself in danger. “We’re all in danger all the time,” she said with a sad smile as she paused in the doorway. “The only way to change that is to fight back.”

She was gone before he could reply. Thomas spent the next hour staring at Ruby’s framed photos, feeling helpless. She was risking her life for him, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t expected her. She was different from the girls who hung around the air bases, batting their eyes at the pilots. She was different from the girls he’d gone to school with too, and not just because she was American. There was a strength to her, a fearlessness, and the strangest thing was that she didn’t seem to see it in herself. She wasn’t tough and standoffish like one might expect from a courageous girl. Someone had made her put her defenses up, though, and he thought it might have been her husband. But that didn’t explain whom she was grieving for. Had there been someone else, another man she’d loved?

A sharp knock at the door pulled him out of his thoughts and he froze. What if it was the Germans? Should he flee via the terrace? Hide in Ruby’s wardrobe? Stand here like a man and try to fight them off? Then again, if he was caught in Ruby’s apartment, she would be on the hook for it. He couldn’t do that to her.

“Damn it,” he cursed, paralyzed by indecision, just as the knocking came again, more insistent this time. He took a careful step toward the door. Ruby had a peephole; perhaps he could assess the situation in the hall before deciding what to do. If there were only two soldiers there, he had a chance to take them.

He was just about to lean in toward the door when he heard someone crying. It sounded like a child. He peered out and realized he was looking at a dark-haired little girl, maybe twelve or thirteen.

“Please, Madame Benoit!” the girl said in French through sobs. “It’s my maman! She needs your help!”

Thomas held his breath. Could it be some sort of trap? Had the Nazis put the child up to this so that he’d open the door?

When he didn’t answer, the girl seemed to pull herself together a bit. She knocked once more, more softly this time. “Monsieur Pilot?” she said more softly, and he was so startled that he took a step back from the door. “I know you’re in there. Please, my mother has fallen. I need your help. I can be trusted. I’m Ruby’s friend.”

Thomas stood stock-still, and after a moment, the girl whispered “Please?” in such a pitiful tone that he could feel his heart breaking a little. “I don’t know what else to do,” she added, backing away from the door. He watched her through the peephole as she disappeared into the apartment in the elbow of the building.