The Nightingale(143)

Yes. That was it.

She forced a cough, clamped a hand over her mouth. “I am sorry, Herr Sturmbannführer. I was hoping not to bother you with it, but sadly, I fear I caught the flu from that boy the other day.”

He stopped. “Have I not asked you to keep your germs away from me?” He shoved the basket at her so hard it hit her in the chest. She grabbed hold of it desperately, afraid it would fall and the baguette would break open and spill false papers at his feet.

“I-I am so sorry. It was thoughtless of me.”

“I will not be home for supper,” he said, turning on his heel.

Vianne stood there a few moments—just long enough to be polite, in case he turned around—and then she hurried for home.

*

Well past midnight that night, when Von Richter had been abed for hours, Vianne crept from her bedroom and went to the empty kitchen. She carried a chair back to her bedroom, quietly shutting the door behind her. She brought the chair to the nightstand, tucked it in close, and sat down. By the light of a single candle, she withdrew the blank identity papers from her girdle.

She took out her own identity papers and studied them in minute detail. Then she took out the family Bible and opened it. On every blank space she could find, she practiced forging signatures. At first she was so nervous that her penmanship was unsteady, but the more she practiced, the calmer she felt. When her hands and breathing had steadied, she forged a new birth certificate for Jean Georges, naming him Emile Duvall.

But new papers weren’t enough. What would happen when the war was over and Hélène Ruelle returned? If Vianne weren’t here (with the risk she was taking, she had to consider this terrible possibility), Hélène would have no idea where to look for her son or what name he’d been given.

She would need to create a fiche, a file card that had all of the information she had on him—who he really was, who his parents were, any known relatives. Everything she could think of.

She ripped out three pages from the Bible and made a list on each page.

On the first, in dark ink over the prayers, she wrote:

Ari de Champlain 1

Jean Georges Ruelle 2

On the second sheet, she wrote:

1. Daniel Mauriac





2. Emile Duvall


And on the third, she wrote:

1. Carriveau. Mauriac

2. Abbaye de la Trinité

She carefully rolled each page into a small cylinder. Tomorrow she would hide them in three different places. One in a dirty jar in the shed, which she would fill with nails; one in an old paint can in the barn; and one she would bury in a box in the chicken coop. The fiche cards she would leave with Mother at the Abbey.

The cards and lists, when put together, would identify the children after the war and make it possible to get them back to their families. It was dangerous, of course, writing down any of this, but if she didn’t keep a record—and the worst happened to her—how would the hidden children ever be reunited with their parents?

For a long time, Vianne stared down at her work, so long that the children sleeping in her bed began to move around and mumble and the candle flame began to sputter. She leaned over and laid a hand on Daniel’s warm back to comfort him. Then she climbed into bed with her children. It was a long time before she fell asleep.





THIRTY-ONE

May 6, 1995

Portland, Oregon

“I am running away from home,” I say to the young woman sitting next to me. She has hair the color of cotton candy and more tattoos than a Hell’s Angel biker, but she is alone like me, in this airport full of busy people. Her name, I have learned, is Felicia. In the past two hours—since the announcement that our flight is delayed—we have become traveling companions. It was a natural thing, our coming together. She saw me picking at the horrible French fries Americans love, and I saw her watching me. She was hungry, that was obvious. Naturally, I called her over and offered to buy her a meal. Once a mother, always a mother.

“Or maybe I’m finally going home after years of running away. It’s hard to know the truth sometimes.”

“I’m running away,” she says, slurping on the shoebox-sized soft drink I bought her. “If Paris isn’t far enough, my next stop is Antarctica.”

I see past the hardware on her face and the defiance in her tattoos, and I feel a strange connection to her, a compatriotism. We are runaways together. “I’m sick,” I say, surprising myself with the admission.