The Nightingale(66)

Isabelle turned off the light. There was no reason to waste precious electricity while she waited. She sat down at the round wooden table beneath the chandelier, its rough surface scarred by a thousand suppers over the years. Her hand ran lovingly over the banged-up wood.

Let me stay, Papa. Please. I’ll be no trouble.

How old had she been that time? Eleven? Twelve? She wasn’t sure. But she’d been dressed in the blue sailor uniform of the convent school. It all felt a lifetime ago now. And yet here she was, again, ready to beg him to—(love her)—let her stay.

Later—how much longer? She wasn’t sure how long she’d sat here in the dark, remembering the circumstances of her mother because she had all but forgotten her face in any real way—she heard footsteps and then a key rattling in the lock.

She heard the door open and rose to her feet. The door clicked shut. She heard him shuffling through the entry, past the small kitchen.

She needed to be strong now, determined, but the courage that was as much a part of her as the green of her eyes had always faded in her father’s presence and it retreated now. “Papa?” she said into the darkness. She knew he hated surprises.

She heard him go still.

Then a light switch clicked and the chandelier came on. “Isabelle,” he said with a sigh. “What are you doing here?”

She knew better than to reveal uncertainty to this man who cared so little for her feelings. She had a job to do now. “I have come to live with you in Paris. Again,” she added as an afterthought.

“You left Vianne and Sophie alone with the Nazi?”

“They are safer with me gone, believe me. Sooner or later, I would have lost my temper.”

“Lost your temper? What is wrong with you? You will return to Carriveau tomorrow morning.” He walked past her to the wooden sideboard that was tucked against the papered wall. He poured himself a glass of brandy, drank it down in three large gulps, and poured another. When he finished the second drink, he turned to her.

“No,” she said. The single word galvanized her. Had she ever said it to him before? She said it again for good measure. “No.”

“Pardon?”

“I said no, Papa. I will not bend to your will this time. I will not leave. This is my home. My home.” Her voice weakened on that. “Those are the drapes I watched Maman make on her sewing machine. This is the table she inherited from her great-uncle. On the walls of my bedroom you’ll find my initials, drawn in Maman’s lipstick when she wasn’t looking. In my secret room, my fort, I’ll bet my dolls are still lined up along the walls.”

“Isabelle—”

“No. You will not turn me away, Papa. You have done that too many times. You are my father. This is my home. We are at war. I’m staying.” She bent down for the valise at her feet and picked it up.

In the pale glow of the chandelier, she saw defeat deepen the lines in her father’s cheeks. His shoulders slumped. He poured himself another brandy, gulped it greedily. Obviously he could barely stand to look at her without the aid of alcohol.

“There are no parties to attend,” he said, “and all your university boys are gone.”

“This is really what you think of me,” she said. Then she changed the subject. “I stopped by the bookshop.”

“The Nazis,” he said in response. “They stormed in one day and pulled out everything by Freud, Mann, Trotsky, Tolstoy, Maurois—all of them, they burned—and the music, too. I would rather lock the doors than sell only what I am allowed to. So, I did just that.”

“So, how are you making a living? Your poetry?”

He laughed. It was a bitter, slurred sound. “This is hardly a time for gentler pursuits.”

“Then, how are you paying for electricity and food?”

Something changed in his face. “I’ve got a good job at the H?tel de Crillon.”

“In service?” She could hardly credit him serving beer to German brutes.

He glanced away.

Isabelle got a sick feeling in her stomach. “For whom do you work, Papa?”

“The German high command in Paris,” he said.

Isabelle recognized that feeling now. It was shame. “After what they did to you in the Great War—”

“Isabelle—”

“I remember the stories Maman told us about how you’d been before the war and how it had broken you. I used to dream that someday you’d remember that you were a father, but all that was a lie, wasn’t it? You’re just a coward. The minute the Nazis return you race to aid them.”