The Nightingale(12)

“Mon Dieu, Isabelle. Slow down!”

She held on to her flapping straw hat with one hand and clutched the steering wheel with the other. She barely slowed as she passed other motorists.

“Mon Dieu, slow down,” he said again.

Certainly he must know that she had no intention of complying.

“A woman can go to war these days,” Isabelle said when the Paris traffic finally forced her to slow down. “I could be an ambulance driver, maybe. Or I could work on breaking secret codes. Or charming the enemy into telling me a secret location or plan. Remember that game—”

“War is not a game, Isabelle.”

“I believe I know that, Christophe. But if it does come, I can help. That’s all I’m saying.”

On the rue de l’Amiral de Coligny, she had to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting a lorry. A convoy from the Comédie Fran?aise was pulling out of the Louvre museum. In fact, there were lorries everywhere and uniformed gendarmes directing traffic. Sandbags were piled up around several buildings and monuments to protect from attack—of which there had been none since France joined the war.

Why were there so many French policemen out here?

“Odd,” Isabelle mumbled, frowning.

Christophe craned his neck to see what was going on. “They’re moving treasures out of the Louvre,” he said.

Isabelle saw a break in traffic and sped up. In no time, she had pulled up in front of her father’s bookshop and parked.

She waved good-bye to Christophe and ducked into the shop. It was long and narrow, lined from floor to ceiling with books. Over the years, her father had tried to increase his inventory by building freestanding bookcases. The result of his “improvements” was the creation of a labyrinth. The stacks led one this way and that, deeper and deeper within. At the very back were the books for tourists. Some stacks were well lit, some in shadows. There weren’t enough outlets to illuminate every nook and cranny. But her father knew every title on every shelf.

“You’re late,” he said, looking up from his desk in the back. He was doing something with the printing press, probably making one of his books of poetry, which no one ever purchased. His blunt-tipped fingers were stained blue. “I suppose boys are more important to you than employment.”

She slid onto the stool behind the cash register. In the week she’d lived with her father she’d made it a point not to argue back, although acquiescing gnawed at her. She tapped her foot impatiently. Words, phrases—excuses—clamored to be spoken aloud. It was hard not to tell him how she felt, but she knew how badly he wanted her gone, so she held her tongue.

“Do you hear that?” he said sometime later.

Had she fallen asleep?

Isabelle sat up. She hadn’t heard her father approach, but he was beside her now, frowning.

There was a strange sound in the bookshop, to be sure. Dust fell from the ceiling; the bookcases clattered slightly, making a sound like chattering teeth. Shadows passed in front of the leaded-glass display windows at the entrance. Hundreds of them.

People? So many of them?

Papa went to the door. Isabelle slid off her stool and followed him. As he opened the door, she saw a crowd running down the street, filling the sidewalks.

“What in the world?” Papa muttered.

Isabelle pushed past Papa, elbowed her way into the crowd.

A man bumped into her so hard she stumbled, and he didn’t even apologize. More people rushed past them.

“What is it? What’s happened?” she asked a florid, wheezing man who was trying to break free of the crowd.

“The Germans are coming into Paris,” he said. “We must leave. I was in the Great War. I know…”

Isabelle scoffed. “Germans in Paris? Impossible.”

He ran away, bobbing from side to side, weaving, his hands fisting and unfisting at his sides.

“We must get home,” Papa said, locking the bookshop door.

“It can’t be true,” she said.

“The worst can always be true,” Papa said grimly. “Stay close to me,” he added, moving into the crowd.

Isabelle had never seen such panic. All up and down the street, lights were coming on, automobiles were starting, doors were slamming shut. People screamed to one another and reached out, trying to stay connected in the melee.

Isabelle stayed close to her father. The pandemonium in the streets slowed them down. The Métro tunnels were too crowded to navigate, so they had to walk all the way. It was nearing nightfall when they finally made it home. At their apartment building, it took her father two tries to open the main door, his hands were shaking so badly. Once in, they ignored the rickety cage elevator and hurried up five flights of stairs to their apartment.