The Nightingale(60)

Isabelle laughed grimly. It was not so different from the life she’d lived since she was a little girl. “Will you watch over my sister?” she asked Henri. “Make sure she’s safe?”

“There is a price for all our work,” Henri said. He gave her a sad look. In it was the truth they had all learned. There was no safety. “I hope you see that.”

All Isabelle saw was her chance to do something that mattered. “When do I leave?”

“As soon as you get an Ausweis, which will not be easy.”

*

What in heaven’s name is that girl thinking?

Really, a school-yard-style note from a man? A communist?

Vianne unwrapped the stringy piece of mutton that had been this week’s ration and set it on the kitchen counter.

Isabelle had always been impetuous, a force of nature, really, a girl who liked to break rules. Countless nuns and teachers had learned that she could be neither controlled nor contained.

But this. This was not kissing a boy on the dance floor or running away to see the circus or refusing to wear a girdle and stockings.

This was wartime in an occupied country. How could Isabelle still believe that her choices had no consequences?

Vianne began finely chopping the mutton. She added a precious egg to the mix, and stale bread, then seasoned it with salt and pepper. She was forming the mixture into patties when she heard a motorcycle putt-puttering toward the house. She went to the front door and opened it just enough to peer out.

Captain Beck’s head and shoulders could be seen above the stone wall as he dismounted his motorcycle. Moments later, a green military lorry pulled up behind him and parked. Three other German soldiers appeared in her yard. The men talked among themselves and then gathered at the rose-covered stone wall her great-great-grandfather had built. One of the soldiers lifted a sledgehammer and brought it down hard on the wall, which shattered. Stones broke into pieces, a skein of roses fell, their pink petals scattering across the grass.

Vianne rushed out into her yard. “Herr Captain!”

The sledgehammer came down again. Craaaack.

“Madame,” Beck said, looking unhappy. It bothered Vianne that she knew him well enough to notice his state of mind. “We have orders to tear down all the walls along this road.”

As one soldier demolished the wall, two others came toward the front door, laughing at some joke between them. Without asking permission, they walked past her and went into her house.

“My condolences,” Beck said, stepping over the rubble on his way to her. “I know you love the roses. And—most sorrowfully—my men will be fulfilling a requisition order from your house.”

“A requisition?”

The soldiers came out of the house; one carried the oil painting that had been over the mantel and the other had the overstuffed chair from the salon.

“That was my grandmère’s favorite chair,” Vianne said quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Beck said. “I was unable to stop this.”

“What in the world…”

Vianne didn’t know whether to be relieved or concerned when Isabelle yanked her bike over the pile of stone and leaned it against the tree. Already there was no barrier between her property and the road anymore.

Isabelle looked beautiful, even with her face pink from the exertion of riding her bicycle and shiny with perspiration. Glossy blond waves framed her face. Her faded red dress clung to her body in all the right places.

The soldiers stopped to stare at her, the rolled-up Aubusson rug from the living room slung between them.

Beck removed his military cap. He said something to the soldiers who were carrying the rolled-up carpet, and they hurried toward the lorry.

“You’ve torn down our wall?” Isabelle said.

“The Sturmbannführer wants to be able to see all houses from the road. Somebody is distributing anti-German propaganda. We will find and arrest him.”

“You think harmless pieces of paper are worth all of this?” Isabelle asked.

“They are far from harmless, Mademoiselle. They encourage terrorism.”

“Terrorism must be avoided,” Isabelle said, crossing her arms.

Vianne couldn’t look away from Isabelle. There was something going on. Her sister seemed to be drawing her emotions back, going still, like a cat preparing to pounce. “Herr Captain,” Isabelle said after a while.

“Oui, M’mselle?”

Soldiers walked past them, carrying out the breakfast table.