The Nightingale(71)

“My friend delivered the letter to me. From now on, my apologies, you will correspond on the postcards only.”

He smiled at her and she had the strangest feeling that he knew about the lengthy letters she concocted in her head at night.

“Merci,” she said, wishing it weren’t such a small word.

“Au revoir, Madame,” he said, then turned on his heel and left her alone.

The crumpled, dirty letter shook in her grasp; the letters of her name blurred and danced as she opened it.

Vianne, my beloved,

First, do not worry about me. I am safe and fed well enough. I am unhurt. Truly. No bullet holes in me.

In the barracks, I have been lucky enough to claim an upper bunk, and it gives me some privacy in a place of too many men. Through a small window, I can see the moon at night and the spires of Nuremburg. But it is the moon that makes me think of you.

Our food is enough to sustain us. I have grown used to pellets of flour and small pieces of potato. When I get home, I look forward to your cooking. I dream of it—and you and Sophie—all the time.

Please, my beloved, don’t fret. Just stay strong and be there for me when the time comes for me to leave this cage. You are my sunlight in the dark and the ground beneath my feet. Because of you, I can survive. I hope that you can find strength in me, too, V. That because of me, you will find a way to be strong.

Hold my daughter tightly tonight, and tell her that somewhere far away, her papa is thinking of her. And tell her I will return.

I love you, Vianne.

P.S. The Red Cross is delivering packages. If you could send me my hunting gloves, I would be very happy.

The winters here are cold.

Vianne finished the letter and immediately began reading it again.

*

Exactly a week after her arrival in Paris, Isabelle was to meet the others who shared her passion for a free France, and she was nervous as she walked among the sallow-faced Parisians and well-fed Germans toward an unknown destination. She had dressed carefully this morning in a fitted blue rayon dress with a black belt. She’d set her hair last night and combed it out into precise waves this morning, pinning it back from her face. She wore no makeup; an old convent school blue beret and white gloves completed the outfit.

I am an actress and this is a role, she thought as she walked down the street. I am a schoolgirl in love sneaking out to meet a boy …

That was the story she’d decided on and dressed for. She was sure that—if questioned—she could make a German believe her.

With all of the barricaded streets, it took her longer than expected to arrive at her destination, but finally she ducked around a barricade and moved onto the boulevard Saint-Germain.

She stood beneath a streetlamp. Behind her, traffic moved slowly up the boulevard; horns honking, motors grumbling, horse hooves clomping, bicycle bells ringing. Even with all that noise, this once lively street felt stripped of its life and color.

A police wagon pulled up alongside of her, and a gendarme stepped out of the vehicle, his cloak folded over his shoulders. He was carrying a white stick.

“Do you think I’ll need an umbrella today?”

Isabelle jumped, made a little sound. She’d been so focused on the policeman—he was crossing the street now, heading toward a woman coming out of a café—that she’d forgotten her mission. “I-I expect it to remain sunny,” she said.

The man clutched her upper arm (there was no other word for it, really; he had a tight grip) and led her down the suddenly empty street. It was funny how one police wagon could make Parisians disappear. No one stuck around for an arrest—neither to witness it nor to help.

Isabelle tried to see the man beside her, but they were moving too fast. She glimpsed his boots—slashing quickly across the sidewalk beneath them—old leather, torn laces, a hole emerging from scuff marks at the left toe.

“Close your eyes,” he said as they crossed a street.

“Why?”

“Do it.”

She was not one to follow orders blindly (a quip she might have made under other circumstances), but she wanted so badly to be a part of this that she did as instructed. She closed her eyes and stumbled along beside him, almost tripping over her own feet more than once.

At last they came to a stop. She heard him knock four times on a door. Then there were footsteps and she heard the whoosh of a door opening and the acrid smell of cigarette smoke wafted across her face.

It occurred to her now—just this instant—that she could be in danger.