The Nightingale(34)

He looked uncomfortable. “This, I’m afraid, is the situation. Many of your fellow villagers are facing the same dilemma, I fear.”

“If we leave, will we get our home back?” Isabelle asked.

“I would not think so, Madame.”

Vianne dared to take a step toward him. Perhaps she could reason with him. “My husband will be home any day now, I imagine. Perhaps you could wait until he is here?”

“I am not the general, alas. I am simply a captain in the Wehrmacht. I follow orders, Madame, I do not give them. And I am ordered to billet here. But I assure you that I am a gentleman.”

“We will leave,” Isabelle said.

“Leave?” Vianne said to her sister in disbelief. “This is my home.” To the captain she said, “I can count on you to be a gentleman?”

“Of course.”

Vianne looked at Isabelle, who shook her head slowly.

Vianne knew there was no real choice. She had to keep Sophie safe until Antoine came home, and then he would handle this unpleasantness. Surely he would be home soon, now that the armistice had been signed. “There is a small bedroom downstairs. You’ll be comfortable there.”

The captain nodded. “Merci, Madame. I will get my things.”

*

As soon as the door closed behind the captain, Isabelle said, “Are you mad? We can’t live with a Nazi.”

“He said he’s in the Wehrmacht. Is that the same thing?”

“I’m hardly interested in their chain of command. You haven’t seen what they’re willing to do to us, Vianne. I have. We’ll leave. Go next door, to Rachel’s. We could live with her.”

“Rachel’s house is too small for all of us, and I am not going to abandon my home to the Germans.”

To that, Isabelle had no answer.

Vianne felt anxiety turn to an itch along her throat. An old nervous habit returned. “You go if you must, but I am waiting for Antoine. We have surrendered, so he’ll be home soon.”

“Vianne, please—”

The front door rattled hard. Another knock.

Vianne walked dully forward. With a shaking hand, she reached for the knob and opened the door.

Captain Beck stood there, holding his military hat in one hand and a small leather valise in the other. He said, “Hello again, Madame,” as if he’d been gone for some time.

Vianne scratched at her neck, feeling acutely vulnerable beneath this man’s gaze. She backed away quickly, saying, “This way, Herr Captain.”

As she turned, she saw the living room that had been decorated by three generations of her family’s women. Golden stucco walls, the color of freshly baked brioche, gray stone floors covered by ancient Aubusson rugs, heavily carved wooden furniture upholstered in mohair and tapestry fabric, lamps made of porcelain, curtains of gold and red toile, antiques and treasures left over from the years when the Rossignols had been wealthy tradesmen. Until recently there had been artwork on the walls. Now only the unimportant pieces remained. Isabelle had hidden the good ones.

Vianne walked past all of it to the small guest bedroom tucked beneath the stairs. At the closed door, to the left of the bathroom that had been added in the early twenties, she paused. She could hear him breathing behind her.

She opened the door to reveal a narrow room with a large window, bracketed by blue-gray curtains that pooled on the wooden floor. A painted chest of drawers supported a blue pitcher and ewer. In the corner was an aged oak armoire with mirrored doors. By the double bed sat a nightstand; on it, an antique ormolu clock. Isabelle’s clothes lay everywhere, as if she were packing for an extended holiday. Vianne picked them up quickly, and the valise, too. When she finished, she turned.

His suitcase plunked to the floor. She looked at him, compelled by simple politeness to offer a tense smile.

“You needn’t worry, Madame,” he said. “We have been admonished to act as gentlemen. My mother would demand the same, and, in truth, she scares me more than my general.” It was such an ordinary remark that Vianne was taken aback.

She had no idea how to respond to this stranger who dressed like the enemy and looked like a young man she might have met at church. And what was the price for saying the wrong thing?

He remained where he was, a respectful distance from her. “I apologize for any inconvenience, Madame.”

“My husband will be home soon.”

“We all hope to be home soon.”