The Nightingale(64)

“Oui, Maman. I know that. Still, she said—”

“Go call the captain for supper. Isabelle is gone, and with her, her extreme worries. Now, go.”

Vianne returned to the stove. Moments later, she carried out a heavy ceramic tray bearing the fried fish surrounded by the pan-roasted vegetables and preserved lemons, all of it enhanced with fresh parsley. The tangy, lemony sauce in the bottom of the pan, swimming with crusty brown bits, could have benefited from butter, but still it smelled heavenly. She carried it into the dining room and found Sophie already seated, with Captain Beck beside her.

In Antoine’s chair.

Vianne missed a step.

Beck rose politely and moved quickly to pull out her chair. She paused only slightly as he took the platter from her.

“This looks most becoming,” he said in a hearty voice. Once again, his French was not quite right.

Vianne sat down and scooted in to her place at the table. Before she could think of what to say, Beck was pouring her wine.

“A lovely ’37 Montrachet,” he said.

Vianne knew what Isabelle would say to that.

Beck sat across from her. Sophie sat to her left. She was talking about something that had happened at school today. When she paused, Beck said something about fishing and Sophie laughed, and Vianne felt Isabelle’s absence as keenly as she’d previously felt her presence.

Stay away from Beck.

Vianne heard the warning as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud beside her. She knew that in this one thing her sister was right. Vianne couldn’t forget the list, after all, and the firings, or the sight of Beck seated at his desk with crates of food at his feet and a painting of the Führer behind him.

“… my wife quite despaired of my skill with a net after that…” he was saying, smiling.

Sophie laughed. “My papa fell into the river one time when we were fishing, remember, Maman? He said the fish was so big it pulled him in, right, Maman?”

Vianne blinked slowly. It took her a moment to notice that the conversation had circled back to include her.

It felt … odd to say the least. In all their past meals with Beck at the table, conversation had been rare. Who could speak surrounded by Isabelle’s obvious anger?

It is different now, with your sister away.

Vianne understood what he meant. The tension in the house—at this table—was gone now.

What other changes would her absence bring?

Stay away from Beck.

How was Vianne to do that? And when was the last time she’d eaten a meal this good … or heard Sophie laugh?

*

The Gare de Lyon was full of German soldiers when Isabelle disembarked from the train carriage. She wrestled her bicycle out with her; it wasn’t easy with her valise banging into her thighs the whole time and impatient Parisians shoving at her. She had dreamed of coming back here for months.

In her dreams, Paris was Paris, untouched by the war.

But on this Monday afternoon, after a long day’s travel, she saw the truth. The occupation might have left the buildings in place, and there was no evidence outside the Gare de Lyon of bombings, but there was a darkness here, even in the full light of day, a hush of loss and despair as she rode her bicycle down the boulevard.

Her beloved city was like a once-beautiful courtesan grown old and thin, weary, abandoned by her lovers. In less than a year, this magnificent city had been stripped of its essence by the endless clatter of German jackboots on the streets and disfigured by swastikas that flew from every monument.

The only cars she saw were black Mercedes-Benzes with miniature swastika flags flapping from prongs on the fenders, and Wehrmacht lorries, and now and then a gray panzer tank. All up and down the boulevard, windows were blacked out and shutters were drawn. At every other corner, it seemed, her way was barricaded. Signs in bold, black lettering offered directions in German, and the clocks had been changed to run two hours ahead—on German time.

She kept her head down as she pedaled past pods of German soldiers and sidewalk cafés hosting uniformed men. As she rounded onto the boulevard de la Bastille, she saw an old woman on a bicycle trying to bypass a barricade. A Nazi stood in her way, berating her in German—a language she obviously didn’t understand. The woman turned her bicycle and pedaled away.

It took Isabelle longer to reach the bookshop than it should have, and by the time she coasted to a stop out front, her nerves were taut. She leaned her bicycle against a tree and locked it in place. Clutching her valise in sweaty, gloved hands, she approached the bookshop. In a bistro window, she caught sight of herself: blond hair hacked unevenly along the bottom; face pale with bright red lips (the only cosmetic she still had); she had worn her best ensemble for traveling—a navy and cream plaid jacket with a matching hat and a navy skirt. Her gloves were a bit the worse for wear, but in these times no one noticed a thing like that.