The Nightingale(73)

“They are everywhere,” Anouk said under her breath. “Falling from the skies.” She smiled tightly at the joke. “Evaders, escapees from German prisons, downed airmen.”

Isabelle stared at the airman. Everyone knew the penalty for helping British airmen. It was announced on billboards all over town: imprisonment or death.

“Get him some clothes,” Lévy said.

The old man turned to the airman and began speaking.

Clearly the airman didn’t speak French.

“They are going to get you some clothes,” Isabelle said.

The room fell silent. She felt everyone looking at her.

“You speak English?” Anouk said quietly.

“Passably. Two years in a Swiss finishing school.”

Another silence fell. Then Lévy said, “Tell the pilot we will put him in hiding until we can find a way out of France for him.”

“You can do that?” Isabelle said.

“Not at present,” Anouk said. “Don’t tell him that, of course. Just tell him we are on his side and he is safe—relatively—and he is to do as he is told.”

Isabelle went to the airman. As she neared him, she saw the scratches on his face and the way something had torn the sleeve of his flight suit. She was pretty sure dried blood darkened his hairline, and she thought: He dropped bombs on Germany.

“Not all of us are passive,” she said to the young man.

“You speak English,” he said. “Thank God. My aeroplane crashed four days ago. I’ve been crouching in dark corners ever since. I didn’t know where to go till this man grabbed me and dragged me here. You will help me?”

She nodded.

“How? Can you get me back home?”

“I don’t have the answers. Just do as they tell you, and Monsieur?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“They are risking their lives to help you. You understand that?”

He nodded.

Isabelle turned to face her new colleagues. “He understands and will do as you ask.”

“Merci, Isabelle,” Lévy said. “Where do we contact you after your return from Amboise?”

The moment she heard the question, Isabelle had an answer that surprised her. “The bookshop,” she said firmly. “I am going to reopen it.”

Lévy gave her a look. “What will your father say about that? I thought he closed it when the Nazis told him what to sell.”

“My father works for the Nazis,” she said bitterly. “His opinions don’t account for much. He asked me to get a job. This will be my job. I will be accessible to all of you at any time. It is the perfect solution.”

“It is,” Lévy said, although it sounded as if he didn’t agree. “Very well then. Anouk will bring you new papers as soon as we can get a carte d’identité made. We will need a photograph of you.” His gaze narrowed. “And Isabelle, allow me to be an old man for a moment and to remind a young girl who is used to being impulsive that there can be none of that anymore. You know I am friends with your father—or I was until he showed his true colors—and I have heard stories about you for years. It is time for you to grow up and do as you are told. Always. Without exception. It is for your safety as much as ours.”

It embarrassed Isabelle that he felt the need to say this to her, and in front of everyone. “Of course.”

“And if you get caught,” Anouk said, “it will be as a woman. You understand? They have special … unpleasantries for us.”

Isabelle swallowed hard. She had thought—briefly—of imprisonment and execution. This was something she had never even considered. Of course she should have.

“What we all demand of each other—or, hope for, at any rate—is two days.”

“Two days?”

“If you are captured and … questioned. Try to say nothing for two days. That gives us time to disappear.”

“Two days,” Isabelle said. “That’s not so long.”

“You are so young,” Anouk said, frowning.

*

In the past six days, Isabelle had left Paris four times. She’d delivered packages in Amboise, Blois, and Lyon. She’d spent more time in train stations than in her father’s apartment—an arrangement that suited them both. As long as she stood in food queues during the day and returned home before the curfew, her father didn’t care what she did. Now, though, she was back in Paris and ready to move forward with the next phase of her plan.