The Nightingale(122)

“Don’t,” Vianne snapped. “I’m done making excuses for you. I was mean to you as a girl, Maman died, Papa is a drunk, Madame Dumas treated you badly. All of it is the truth, and I have longed to be a better sister to you, but that stops here. You are as thoughtless and reckless as always, only now you will get people killed. I can’t let you endanger Sophie. Do not come back. You are not welcome here. If you return, I will turn you in myself.” On that, Vianne clambered up the ladder and slammed the cellar door shut behind her.

*

Vianne had to keep busy or she would fall into a full-blown panic. She woke the children and fed them a light breakfast and got started on her chores.

After harvesting the last of the autumn’s vegetables, she pickled cucumbers and zucchini and canned some pumpkin puree. All the while, she was thinking about Isabelle and the airman in the barn.

What should be done? The question haunted her all day, reasserting itself constantly. Every choice was dangerous. Obviously she should just keep quiet about the airman in the barn. Silence was always safest.

But what if Beck and the Gestapo and the SS and their dogs went into the barn on their own? If Beck found the airman in a barn on the property where he was billeted, the Kommandant would not be pleased. Beck would be humiliated.

The Kommandant is blaming me for this failure to find the airman.

Humiliated men could be dangerous.

Maybe she should tell Beck. He was a good man. He had tried to save Rachel. He had gotten Ari papers. He mailed Vianne’s care packages to her husband.

Perhaps Beck could be convinced to take the airman and leave Isabelle out of it. The airman would be sent to a prisoner of war camp; that was not so bad.

She was still grappling with these questions long after supper had ended and she’d put the children to bed. She didn’t even try to go to sleep. How could she sleep with her family at such risk? The thought of that made her anger with Isabelle swell again. At ten o’clock, she heard footsteps out front and a sharp rap-rap on the door.

She put down her darning and got to her feet. Smoothing the hair back from her face, she went to the door and opened it. Her hands were trembling so badly she fisted them at her sides. “Herr Captain,” she said. “You are late. Shall I make you something to eat?”

He muttered, “No, thank you,” and pushed past her, rougher than he’d ever been before. He went into his room and came back with a bottle of brandy. Pouring himself a huge draught in a chipped café glass, he downed the liquid and poured himself another.

“Herr Captain?”

“We didn’t find the pilot,” he said, downing the second drink, pouring a third.

“Oh.”

“These Gestapo.” He looked at her. “They’ll kill me,” he said quietly.

“No, surely.”

“They do not like to be disappointed.” He drank the third glass of brandy and slammed the glass down on the table, almost breaking it.

“I have looked everywhere,” he said. “Every nook and cranny of this godforsaken town. I’ve looked in cellars and basements and chicken pens. In thickets of thorns and under piles of garbage. And what do I have to show for my efforts? A parachute with blood on it and no pilot.”

“S-surely you haven’t looked everywhere,” she said to console him. “Shall I get you something to eat? I saved you some supper.”

He stopped suddenly. She saw his gaze narrow, heard him say, “It is not possible, but…” He grabbed a torchlight and strode to the closet in the kitchen and yanked the door open.

“What are you d-doing?”

“I am searching your house.”

“Surely you don’t think…”

She stood there, her heart thumping as he searched from room to room and yanked the coats out of the closet and pulled the divan away from the wall.

“Are you satisfied?”

“Satisfied, Madame? We lost fourteen pilots this week, and God knows how many aeroplane crew. A Mercedes-Benz factory was blown up two days ago and all the workers were killed. My uncle works in that building. Worked, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Vianne drew in a deep breath, thinking it was over, and then she saw that he was going outside.

Did she make a sound? She was afraid that she did. She surged after him, wanting to grab his sleeve, but she was too late. He was outside now, following the beam of his torchlight, the kitchen door standing open behind him.