The Nightingale(59)

Vianne grabbed her wrist. “You cannot have been sneaking out all winter to see a communist. You know what the Nazis think of them. It’s dangerous to even be seen with this man.”

“You think I care what the Nazis think?” Isabelle said, wrenching free. She ran barefooted across the field. At home, she grabbed some shoes and climbed aboard her bicycle. With an au revoir! to a stunned-looking Vianne, Isabelle was off, pedaling down the dirt road.

In town, she coasted past the abandoned hat shop—sure enough, the curtains were open—and veered into the cobblestoned alley and came to a stop.

She leaned her bicycle against the rough limestone wall beside her and rapped four times. It didn’t occur to her until the final knock that it might be a trap. The idea, when it came, made her draw in a sharp breath and glance left and right, but it was too late now.

Henri opened the door.

Isabelle ducked inside. The room was hazy with cigarette smoke and reeked of burned chicory coffee. There was about the place a lingering scent of blood—sausage making. The burly man who had first grabbed her—Didier—was seated on an old hickory-backed chair. He was leaning back so far the two front chair legs were off the floor and his back grazed the wall behind him.

“You shouldn’t have brought a notice to my house, Henri. My sister is asking questions.”

“It was important we talk to you immediately.”

Isabelle felt a little bump of excitement. Would they finally ask her to do something more than dropping papers in letter boxes? “I am here.”

Henri lit up a cigarette. She could feel him watching her as he exhaled the gray smoke and put down his match. “Have you heard of a prefect in Chartres who was arrested and tortured for being a communist?”

Isabelle frowned. “No.”

“He cut his own throat with a piece of glass rather than name anyone or confess.” Henri snubbed his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe and saved the rest for later in his coat pocket. “He is putting a group together, of people like us who want to heed de Gaulle’s call. He—the one who cut his own throat—is trying to get to London to speak to de Gaulle himself. He seeks to organize a Free French movement.”

“He didn’t die?” Isabelle asked. “Or cut his vocal cords?”

“No. They’re calling it a miracle,” Didier said.

Henri studied Isabelle. “I have a letter—very important—that needs to be delivered to our contact in Paris. Unfortunately, I am being watched closely these days. As is Didier.”

“Oh,” Isabelle said.

“I thought of you,” Didier said.

“Me?”

Henri reached into his pocket and withdrew a crumpled envelope. “Will you deliver this to our man in Paris? He is expecting it a week from today.”

“But … I don’t have an Ausweis.”

“Oui,” Henri said quietly. “And if you were caught…” He let that threat dangle. “Certainly no one would think badly of you if you declined. This is dangerous.”

Dangerous was an understatement. There were signs posted throughout Carriveau about executions that were taking place all over the Occupied Zone. The Nazis were killing French citizens for the smallest of infractions. Aiding this Free French movement could get her imprisoned at the very least. Still, she believed in a free France the way her sister believed in God. “So you want me to get a pass, go to Paris, deliver a letter, and come home.” It didn’t sound so perilous when put that way.

“No,” Henri said. “We need you to stay in Paris and be our … letter box, as it were. In the coming months there will be many such deliveries. Your father has an apartment there, oui?”

Paris.

It was what she’d longed for from the moment her father had exiled her. To leave Carriveau and return to Paris and be part of a network of people who resisted this war. “My father will not offer me a place to stay.”

“Convince him otherwise,” Didier said evenly, watching her. Judging her.

“He is not a man who is easily convinced,” she said.

“So you can’t do it. Voilà. We have our answer.”

“Wait,” Isabelle said.

Henri approached her. She saw reluctance in his eyes and knew that he wanted her to turn down this assignment. No doubt he was worried about her. She lifted her chin and looked him in the eyes. “I will do this.”

“You will have to lie to everyone you love, and always be afraid. Can you live that way? You’ll not feel safe anywhere.”