The Nightingale(85)

“Oui,” she said. Her past felt upended somehow, off balance. She didn’t know what to think or feel. Better to change the subject than to dwell on it. “I am … planning something. I will be gone for a while.”

He looked down at her. “I know. I have spoken to Paul.” He was silent for a long moment. “You know that your life changes right now. You will have to live underground—not here with me, not with anyone. You will not be able to spend more than a few nights in any one place. You will trust absolutely no one. And you will not be Isabelle Rossignol at all anymore; you will be Juliette Gervaise. The Nazis and the collaborators will always be searching for you, and if they find you…”

Isabelle nodded.

A look passed between them. In it, Isabelle felt a connection that had never existed before.

“You know that prisoners of war receive some mercy. You can expect none.”

She nodded.

“Can you do this, Isabelle?”

“I can do it, Papa.”

He nodded. “The name you are looking for is Micheline Babineau. Your maman’s friend in Urrugne. Her husband was killed in the Great War. I think she would welcome you. And tell Paul I will need photographs immediately.”

“Photographs?”

“Of the airmen.” At her continued silence, he finally smiled. “Really, Isabelle? Have you not put the pieces together?”

“But—”

“I forge papers, Isabelle. That’s why I work at the high command. I began by writing the very tracts you distributed in Carriveau, but … it turns out that the poet has a forger’s hand. Who do you think gave you the name Juliette Gervaise?”

“B-but…”

“You believed I collaborated with the enemy. I can hardly blame you.”

In him, suddenly, she saw someone foreign, a broken man where a cruel, careless man had always stood. She dared to rise up, to move toward him, to kneel in front of him. She stared up at him, feeling hot tears glaze her eyes. “Why did you push me and Vianne away?”

“I hope you never know how fragile you are, Isabelle.”

“I’m not fragile,” she said.

The smile he gave her was barely one at all. “We are all fragile, Isabelle. It’s the thing we learn in war.”





NINETEEN





WARNING


All males who come to the aid, either directly or indirectly, of the crews of enemy aircraft coming down in parachutes or having made a forced landing, help in their escape, hide them, or come to their aid in any fashion will be shot on the spot.

Women who render the same help will be sent to concentration camps in Germany.

“I guess I am lucky to be a woman,” Isabelle muttered to herself. How was it that the Germans hadn’t noticed by now—October 1941—that France had become a country of women?

Even as she said the words, she recognized the false bravado in them. She wanted to feel brave right now—Edith Cavell risking her life—but here, in this train station patrolled by German soldiers, she was scared.

There was no backing out now, no changing her mind. After months of planning and preparation, she and four airmen were ready to test the escape plan.

On this cool October morning, her life would change. From the moment she boarded this train bound for Saint-Jean-de-Luz, she would no longer be Isabelle Rossignol, the girl in the bookshop who lived on the Avenue de La Bourdonnais.

From now on, she was Juliette Gervaise, code name the Nightingale.

“Come.” Anouk linked arms with Isabelle and led her away from the warning sign and toward the ticket counter.

They had gone over these preparations so many times Isabelle knew the plan well. There was only one flaw: All of their attempts to reach Madame Babineau had thus far failed. That one key component—finding a guide—Isabelle would have to do on her own. Off to her left, waiting for her signal, Lieutenant MacLeish stood dressed as a peasant. All he’d kept from his escape kit were two Benzedrine tablets and a tiny compass that looked like a button and was pinned to his collar. He had been given false papers—now he was a Flemish farmworker. He had an identity card and a work permit, but her father couldn’t guarantee that the papers would pass close inspection. He had cut off the tops of his flight boots and shaved off his moustache.

Isabelle and Anouk had spent countless hours training him in proper behavior. They’d dressed him in a baggy coat and a worn, stained pair of work trousers. They’d bleached the nicotine stains from the first and second fingers of his right hand and taught him to smoke like a Frenchman, using his thumb and forefinger. He knew he was to look left before crossing the street—not right—and he was never to approach Isabelle unless she approached him first. She had instructed him to play deaf and dumb and to read a newspaper while on the train—the entire trip. He was also to buy his own ticket and sit apart from Isabelle. They all were. When they disembarked in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the airmen were to walk a good distance behind her.