The Nightingale(115)

It was the first substantive question she’d ever asked him.

“To a work camp in Germany.”

“I hid her all day,” Vianne said again, as if it mattered now.

“The Wehrmacht aren’t in control anymore. It’s the Gestapo and the SS. They’re more … brutes than soldiers.”

“Why were you there?”

“I was following orders. Where are her children?”

“Your Germans shot Sarah in the back at the frontier checkpoint.”

“Mein Gott,” he muttered.

“I have her son. Why wasn’t Ari on the list?”

“He was born in France and is under fourteen. They are not deporting French Jews.” He looked at her. “Yet.”

Vianne caught her breath. “Will they come for Ari?”

“I believe that soon they will deport all Jews, regardless of age or place of birth. And when they do, it will become dangerous to have any Jew in your home.”

“Children, deported. Alone.” The horror of it was unbelievable, even after what she’d already seen. “I promised Rachel I’d keep him safe. Will you turn me in?” she asked.

“I am not a monster, Vianne.”

It was the first time he’d ever used her Christian name.

He moved closer. “I want to protect you,” he said.

It was the worst thing he could have said. She had felt lonely for years, but now she truly was alone.

He touched her upper arm, almost a caress, and she felt it in every part of her body, like an electrical charge. Unable to help herself, she looked at him.

He was close to her, just a kiss away. All she had to do was give him the slightest encouragement—a breath, a nod, a touch—and he would close the gap between them. For a moment, she forgot who she was and what had happened today; she longed to be soothed, to forget. She leaned the smallest bit forward, enough to smell his breath, feel it on her lips, and then she remembered—all at once, in a whoosh of anger—and she pushed him away so he stumbled.

She scrubbed her lips, as if they’d touched his.

“We can’t,” she said.

“Of course not.”

But when he looked at her—and she looked at him—they both knew that there was something worse than kissing the wrong person.

It was wanting to.





TWENTY-FOUR

Summer ended. Hot golden days gave way to washed-out skies and falling rain. Isabelle was so focused on the escape route that she hardly noticed the change in weather.

On a chilly October afternoon, she stepped out of the train carriage in a crowd of passengers, holding a bouquet of autumn flowers.

As she walked up the boulevard, German motorcars clogged the street, honking loudly. Soldiers strode confidently among the cowed, drab Parisians. Swastika flags flapped in the wintry wind. She hurried down the Métro steps.

The tunnel was crowded with people and papered in Nazi propaganda that demonized the Brits and Jews and made the Führer the answer to every question.

Suddenly, the air raid sirens howled. The electricity snapped off, plunging everyone into darkness. She heard people muttering and babies crying and old men coughing. From far away, she could hear the thump and grumble of explosions. It was probably Boulogne-Billancourt—again—and why not? Renault was making lorries for the Germans.

When the all clear finally sounded, no one moved until moments later, when the electricity and lights came back on.

Isabelle was almost to the train when a whistle blared.

She froze. Nazi soldiers, accompanied by French collaborators, moved through the tunnel, talking to one another, pointing at people, pulling them out to the perimeter, forcing them to their knees.

A rifle appeared in front of her.

“Papers,” the German said.

Isabelle clutched the flowers in one hand and fumbled nervously with her purse with the other. She had a message for Anouk wrapped within the bouquet. It was not unexpected, of course, this search. Since the Allied successes in North Africa had begun, the Germans stopped people constantly, demanding papers. In the streets, the shops, the train stations, the churches. There was no safety anywhere. She handed over her false carte d’identité. “I am meeting a friend of my mother’s for lunch.”

The Frenchman sidled up to the German and perused the papers. He shook his head and the German handed Isabelle her papers and said, “Go.”

Isabelle smiled quickly, nodded a thank-you, and hurried for the train, slipping into an open carriage just as the doors slid shut.