The Room on Rue Amélie(82)

“Oh, yes,” Ruby said, struggling upright. “I must have been more tired than I realized.”

Charlotte frowned. “You’re feeling all right?”

“Yes.”

Ruby was suddenly aware of how much older Charlotte looked lately. She was fifteen now. The innocent girl Ruby had first met nearly five years ago had vanished, replaced by a young woman. Would Charlotte’s own parents recognize the person their daughter had become?

“Is there anything you’d like to talk about?” Charlotte asked, sitting down beside Ruby.

Ruby lowered her eyes and shook her head. When she looked up again, the girl was still staring at her knowingly. Charlotte’s gaze moved to Ruby’s belly, and Ruby was startled to realize that her own hands had returned there, apparently of their own accord, as if she could shield the baby against all the evil in the world.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Charlotte’s tone was gentle.

“What?”

“You’re pregnant.”

“I—I didn’t even realize it myself until a few hours ago,” Ruby said, her voice shaking. “How did you know?”

Charlotte looked sad. “Because you’re peaceful. Just like you were the last time. It’s like—” She paused, searching for words. “It’s like it doesn’t matter what’s going on around you. You’re just calm.”

“Calm,” Ruby repeated. And as implausible as it sounded, she understood what Charlotte meant. Over the past month, she’d felt her energy turn inward. She had worried less about the pilots and the state of the war, and had concentrated more on the memories that she carried with her, as if they would provide her a means of survival. Now she recognized what Charlotte had already seen—that she’d been nesting before she even knew there was a need. “I’m very frightened, Charlotte,” she said after a moment. “What if I lose this baby too?”

“You won’t.”

“How can you know that?”

“I just do. This is what’s meant to be, Ruby. You’re meant to raise a child with Thomas.”

Ruby half-smiled. “You don’t judge me for having . . . relations with him?”

“Of course not! You would marry him right now if you could, wouldn’t you?”

Ruby could see in her mind’s eye a church somewhere—maybe in England, maybe in California—a white dress, and Thomas standing handsome and tall at the altar in an RAF dress uniform, waiting for her. Her favorite love song, “Cheek to Cheek,” would play afterward as all their loved ones celebrated, and they’d hold each other and dance long into the night. “Yes, I would.”

“Then God knows how you feel. This war, it has changed everything about the world. But our most important lives are still on the inside, aren’t they? What matters is what’s in your heart.”

“When did you get so wise?” Ruby’s eyes were suddenly wet.

Charlotte leaned forward and kissed Ruby on her cheek, then she placed a hand gently on Ruby’s belly. “Someone I love very much set a good example for me.”

“You mustn’t tell anyone, Charlotte. Not even Lucien. I—I don’t want anyone to know until I’ve told Thomas.”

“Your secret is safe—at least until your belly begins to grow. But maybe the war will be over by that time, and Thomas will have returned.”

There was a knock at the door then, and Charlotte went to peer out the peephole. “Another pilot,” she said, and Ruby nodded, wiping her tears away.

She took a deep breath and stood, ready to greet the newest fugitive. Their work had to go on. It was her duty to do everything she could to build a better world for the child she already loved with all her heart and soul.



THE NEW ARRESTS BEGAN IN March.

At first, there was the rumor that a man who had worked on Aubert’s original escape line had been arrested and executed for trying to smuggle pilots out of France. Soon after, Laure was picked up, questioned, and released, but she got word to Ruby through a friend of Lucien’s that she wouldn’t be working as a courier for the new line anymore, because she was certain the Germans were following her. She could think of no other reason why they would have let her out so quickly.

Ruby, whose belly was just beginning to blossom, grew increasingly nervous. She knew Laure hadn’t talked, but what if the authorities had been following her long before they picked her up? What if they’d seen her coming and going from Ruby’s apartment? The risks seemed enormous, but after a few weeks passed and no more arrests were carried out, Ruby began to relax. Perhaps the first arrest had been a terrible fluke and Laure’s had been a mistake. Besides, by early April, there was buzz about a possible Allied invasion in the next few weeks. Surely the Germans would be more worried about that.

“We still need to lie low,” Ruby said to Charlotte and Lucien over dinner one night. “Even if things seem to be turning in favor of the Allies.”

“You mean stop taking in pilots?” Charlotte asked.

Ruby hesitated. Her gut was telling her yes, but what would happen to the men who needed refuge? She couldn’t simply abandon them. “We just need to be more careful, I think.”

Lucien and Charlotte exchanged uneasy looks. “Ruby,” Lucien said after a moment, “I can take in pilots in my apartment for a while, just until things blow over. In case your apartment has been compromised.”