The Nightingale(31)

Isabelle stared at the small wooden radio, transfixed. This man they’d never heard of spoke directly to the people of France, not at them as Pétain had done, but to them in an impassioned voice. “Pretext of defeat. I knew it!”

“… we certainly have been, and still are, submerged by the mechanical strength of the enemy, both on land and in the air. The tanks, the aeroplanes, the tactics of the Germans astounded our generals to such an extent that they have been brought to the pain which they are in today. But has the last word been said? Has all hope disappeared? Is the defeat final?”

“Mon Dieu,” Isabelle said. This was what she’d been waiting to hear. There was something to be done, a fight to engage in. The surrender wasn’t final.

“Whatever happens,” de Gaulle’s voice went on, “the flame of French resistance must not and shall not die.”

Isabelle hardly noticed that she was crying. The French hadn’t given up. Now all Isabelle had to do was figure out how to answer this call.

*

Two days after the Nazis occupied Carriveau, they called a meeting for the late afternoon. Everyone was to attend. No exceptions. Even so, Vianne had had to fight with Isabelle to get her to come. As usual, Isabelle did not think ordinary rules pertained to her and she wanted to use defiance to show her displeasure. As if the Nazis cared what one impetuous eighteen-year-old girl thought of their occupation of her country.

“Wait here,” Vianne said impatiently when she’d finally gotten Isabelle and Sophie out of the house. She gently closed the broken gate behind them. It gave a little click of closure.

Moments later, Rachel appeared in the road, coming toward them, with the baby in her arms and Sarah at her side.

“That’s my best friend, Sarah,” Sophie said, gazing up at Isabelle.

“Isabelle,” Rachel said with a smile. “It is good to see you again.”

“Is it?” Isabelle said.

Rachel moved closer to Isabelle. “That was a long time ago,” Rachel said gently. “We were young and stupid and selfish. I’m sorry we treated you badly. Ignored you. That must have been very painful.”

Isabelle’s mouth opened, closed. For once, she had nothing to say.

“Let’s go,” Vianne said, irritated that Rachel had said to Isabelle what Vianne had not been able to. “We shouldn’t be late.”

Even this late in the day, the weather was unseasonably warm, and in no time, Vianne felt herself beginning to sweat. In town, they joined the grumbling crowd that filled the narrow cobblestoned street from storefront to storefront. The shops were closed and the windows were shuttered, even though the heat would be unbearable when they got home. Most of the display cases were empty, which was hardly surprising. The Germans ate so much; even worse, they left food on their plates in the cafés. Careless and cruel, it was, with so many mothers beginning to count the jars in their cellars so that they could dole out every precious bite to their children. Nazi propaganda was everywhere, on windows and shop walls; posters that showed smiling German soldiers surrounded by French children with captions designed to encourage the French to accept their conquerors and become good citizens of the Reich.

As the crowd approached the town hall, the grumbling stopped. Up close, it felt even worse, this following of instructions, walking blindly into a place with guarded doors and locked windows.

“We shouldn’t go in,” Isabelle said.

Rachel, who stood between the sisters, towering over both of them, made a tsking sound. She resettled the baby in her arms, patting his back in a comforting rhythm. “We have been summoned.”

“All the more reason to hide,” Isabelle said.

“Sophie and I are going in,” Vianne said, although she had to admit that she felt a prickly sense of foreboding.

“I have a bad feeling about it,” Isabelle muttered.

Like a thousand-legged centipede, the crowd moved forward into the great hall. Tapestries had once hung from these walls, leftover treasure from the time of kings, when the Loire Valley had been the royal hunting ground, but all that was gone now. Instead there were swastikas and propagandist posters on the walls—Trust in the Reich!—and a huge painting of Hitler.

Beneath the painting stood a man wearing a black field tunic decorated with medals and iron crosses, knee breeches, and spit-shined boots. A red swastika armband circled his right bicep.

When the hall was full, the soldiers closed the oak doors, which creaked in protest. The officer at the front of the hall faced them, shot his right arm out, and said, “Heil Hitler.”