The Nightingale(24)

“Have you heard of Edith Cavell?” she asked.

“Do I strike you as an educated man?”

She thought about that for a moment and then said, “Yes.”

He was quiet long enough that she knew she’d surprised him. “I know who she is. She saved the lives of hundreds of Allied airmen in the Great War. She is famous for saying that ‘patriotism is not enough.’ And this is your hero, a woman executed by the enemy.”

“A woman who made a difference,” Isabelle said, studying him. “I am relying on you—a criminal and a communist—to help me make a difference. Perhaps I am as mad and impetuous as they say.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“Everyone.” She paused, felt her expectation gather close. She had made a point of never trusting anyone, and yet she believed Ga?tan. He looked at her as if she mattered. “You will take me. As you promised.”

“You know how such bargains are sealed?”

“How?”

“With a kiss.”

“Quit teasing. This is serious.”

“What’s more serious than a kiss on the brink of war?” He was smiling, but not quite. That banked anger was in his eyes again, and it frightened her, reminded her that she really didn’t know him at all.

“I would kiss a man who was brave enough to take me into battle with him.”

“I think you know nothing of kissing,” he said with a sigh.

“Shows what you know.” She rolled away from him and immediately missed his touch. Trying to be nonchalant, she rolled back to face him and felt his breath on her eyelashes. “You may kiss me then. To seal our deal.”

He reached out slowly, put a hand around the back of her neck, and pulled her toward him.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his lips almost touching hers. She didn’t know if he was asking about going off to war or granting permission for a kiss, but right now, in this moment, it didn’t matter. Isabelle had traded kisses with boys as if they were pennies to be left on park benches and lost in chair cushions—meaningless. Never before, not once, had she really yearned for a kiss.

“Oui,” she whispered, leaning toward him.

At his kiss, something opened up inside the scraped, empty interior of her heart, unfurled. For the first time, her romantic novels made sense; she realized that the landscape of a woman’s soul could change as quickly as a world at war.

“I love you,” she whispered. She hadn’t said these words since she was four years old; then, it had been to her mother. At her declaration, Ga?tan’s expression changed, hardened. The smile he gave her was so tight and false she couldn’t make sense of it. “What? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. Of course not,” he said.

“We are lucky to have found each other,” she said.

“We are not lucky, Isabelle. Trust me on this.” As he said it, he drew her in for another kiss.

She gave herself over to the sensations of the kiss, let it become the whole of her universe, and knew finally how it felt to be enough for someone.

*

When Vianne awoke, she noticed the quiet first. Somewhere a bird sang. She lay perfectly still in bed, listening. Beside her Sophie snored and grumbled in her sleep.

Vianne went to the window, lifting the blackout shade.

In her yard, apple branches hung like broken arms from the trees; the gate hung sideways, two of its three hinges ripped out. Across the road, the hayfield was flattened, the flowers crushed. The refugees who’d come through had left belongings and refuse in their wake—suitcases, buggies, coats too heavy to carry and too hot to wear, pillowcases, and wagons.

Vianne went downstairs and cautiously opened the front door. Listening for noise—hearing none—she unlatched the lock and turned the knob.

They had destroyed her garden, ripping up anything that looked edible, leaving broken stalks and mounds of dirt.

Everything was ruined, gone. Feeling defeated, she walked around the house to the backyard, which had also been ravaged.

She was about to go back inside when she heard a sound. A mewling. Maybe a baby crying.

There it was again. Had someone left an infant behind?

She moved cautiously across the yard to the wooden pergola draped in roses and jasmine.

Isabelle lay curled up on the ground, her dress ripped to shreds, her face cut up and bruised, her left eye swollen nearly shut, a piece of paper pinned to her bodice.