The Nightingale(158)

Her sister moved forward awkwardly, as if she wasn’t quite in control of her body. She wore a tattered dress that Isabelle remembered as once being pretty. Her red-gold hair was dull and lank, tucked behind her ears. Her face was as thin and hollow as a bone china teacup. “I’ve come to help you,” Vianne said quietly.

Isabelle could have cried. More than anything in the world, she wanted to run to her big sister, to drop to her knees and beg for forgiveness and then to hold her in gratitude. To say “I’m sorry” and “I love you” and all the words in between. But she couldn’t do any of that. She had to protect Vianne.

“So did he,” she said, cocking her head toward her father. “Go away. Please. Forget me.”

The German woman yanked Isabelle forward. She stumbled along, her feet screaming in pain, not allowing herself to look back. She thought she was being led to a firing squad, but she went past her father’s slumped body and out of the square and onto a side street, where a lorry was waiting.

The woman shoved Isabelle into the back of the lorry. She scrambled back to the corner and squatted down, alone. The canvas flaps unfurled, bringing darkness. As the engine roared to life, she rested her chin in the hard and empty valley between her bony knees and closed her eyes.

When she woke, it was to stillness. The truck had stopped moving. Somewhere, a whistle blared.

The flaps of the truck were whisked sideways and light flooded into the back of the truck, so bright Isabelle couldn’t see anything but shadow men coming toward her, yelling, “Schnell, schnell!”

She was pulled out of the truck and tossed to the cobblestoned street like a sack of trash. There were four empty cattle cars lined up along the platform. The first three were shut tightly. The fourth was open—and crammed with women and children. The noise was overwhelming—screaming, crying, dogs barking, soldiers shouting, whistles blaring, the chugging hum of the waiting train.

The Nazi shoved Isabelle into the crowd, pushing her forward every time she stopped, until the last carriage appeared in front of her.

He picked her up and threw her inside; she stumbled into the crowd, almost fell. Only the other bodies kept her on her feet. They were still coming in, stumbling forward, crying, clutching their children’s hands, trying to find a six-inch opening between bodies in which to stand.

Iron bars covered the windows. In the corner, Isabelle saw a single barrel.

Their toilet.

Suitcases were piled in the corner on a stack of hay bales.

Limping on feet that ached with every step, Isabelle pushed through the crowd of whimpering, crying women, past their screaming children, to the back of the train carriage. In the corner, she saw a woman standing alone, her arms crossed defiantly across her chest, her coarse gray hair covered by a black scarf.

Madame Babineau’s bruised face broke into a brown-toothed smile. Isabelle was so relieved by the sight of her friend that she almost cried.

“Madame Babineau,” Isabelle whispered, hugging her friend tightly.

“I think it’s time you called me Micheline,” her friend said. She was dressed in men’s pants that were too long for her and a flannel work shirt. She touched Isabelle’s cracked, bruised, bloodied face. “What have they done to you?”

“Their worst,” she said, trying to sound like herself.

“I think not.” Micheline let that sink in a moment and then cocked her head toward a bucket near her booted feet. This one was filled with a gray water that sloshed over the edges as the wooden floor rattled beneath so many moving bodies. A split wooden ladle lay to one side. “Drink. While it’s there,” she said.

Isabelle filled the ladle with the fetid-smelling water. Gagging at the taste, she forced herself to swallow. She stood, offered a ladleful to Micheline, who drank it all and wiped her wet lips with the back of her sleeve.

“This is going to be bad,” Micheline said.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” Isabelle said.

“You did not get me into anything, Juliette,” Micheline said. “I wanted to be a part of it.”

The whistle sounded again and the car doors banged shut, plunging them all into darkness. Bolts clanged into place, locking them in. The train lurched forward. People fell into one another, fell down. Babies screamed and children whined. Someone was peeing in the bucket and the smell overlaid the stench of the sweat and fear.

Micheline put an arm around Isabelle and the two women climbed to the top of the hay bales and sat together.