The Nightingale(48)

“Vianne! Come in. Sarah and I were just making a rice pudding—it’s mostly water and gelatin, of course, but I used a bit of milk.”

Vianne managed a smile. She let her friend sweep her into the kitchen and pour her a cup of the bitter, ersatz coffee that was all they could get. Vianne was remarking on the rice pudding—what she even said she didn’t know—when Rachel turned and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Vianne stared at her friend. She wanted to be the strong one—for once—but she couldn’t stop the tears that filled her eyes.

“Stay in the kitchen,” Rachel said to Sarah. “If you hear your brother wake up, get him. You,” she said to Vianne, “come with me.” She took Vianne by the arm and guided her through the small salon and into Rachel’s bedroom.

Vianne sat on the bed and looked up at her friend. Silently, she held out the list of names she’d gotten from Beck. “They’re prisoners of war, Rachel. Antoine and Marc and all the others. They won’t be coming home.”

*

Three days later, on a frosty Saturday morning, Vianne stood in her classroom and stared out at the group of women seated in desks that were too small for them. They looked tired and a little wary. No one felt comfortable gathering these days. It was never clear exactly how far verboten extended into conversations about the war, and besides that, the women of Carriveau were exhausted. They spent their days standing in line for insufficient quantities of foods, and when they weren’t in line, they were foraging the countryside or trying to sell their dancing shoes or a silk scarf for enough money to buy a loaf of good bread. In the back of the room, tucked into the corner, Sophie and Sarah were leaning against each other, knees drawn up, reading books.

Rachel moved her sleeping son from one shoulder to the other and closed the door of the classroom. “Thank you all for coming. I know how difficult it is these days to do anything more than the absolutely necessary.” There was a murmuring of agreement among the women.

“Why are we here?” Madame Fournier asked tiredly.

Vianne stepped forward. She had never felt completely comfortable around some of the women, many of whom had disliked Vianne when she moved here at fourteen. When Vianne had “caught” Antoine—the best-looking young man in town—they’d liked her even less. Those days were long past, of course, and now Vianne was friendly with these women and taught their children and frequented their shops, but even so, the pains of adolescence left a residue of discomfort. “I have received a list of French prisoners of war from Carriveau. I am sorry—terribly sorry—to tell you that your husbands—and mine, and Rachel’s—are on the list. I am told they will not be coming home.”

She paused, allowing the women to react. Grief and loss transformed the faces around her. Vianne knew the pain mirrored her own. Even so, it was difficult to watch, and she found her eyes misting again. Rachel stepped close, took her hand.

“I got us postcards,” Vianne said. “Official ones. So we can write to our men.”

“How did you get so many postcards?” Madame Fournier asked, wiping her eyes.

“She asked her German for a favor,” said Hélène Ruelle, the baker’s wife.

“I did not! And he’s not my German,” Vianne said. “He is a soldier who has requisitioned my home. Should I just let the Germans have Le Jardin? Just walk away and have nothing? Every house or hotel in town with a spare room has been taken by them. I am not special in this.”

More tsking and murmurs. Some women nodded; others shook their heads.

“I would have killed myself before I let one of them move into my house,” Hélène said.

“Would you, Hélène? Would you really?” Vianne said. “And would you kill your children first or throw them out into the street to survive on their own?”

Hélène looked away.

“They have taken over my hotel,” a woman said. “And they are gentlemen, for the most part. A bit crude, perhaps. Wasteful.”

“Gentlemen.” Hélène spat the word. “We are pigs to slaughter. You will see. Pigs who put up no fight at all.”

“I haven’t seen you at my butcher shop recently,” Madame Fournier said to Vianne in a judgmental voice.

“My sister goes for me,” Vianne said. She knew this was the point of their disapproval; they were afraid that Vianne would get—and take—special privileges that they would be denied. “I would not take food—or anything—from the enemy.” She felt suddenly as if she were back in school, being bullied by the popular girls.