The Nightingale (9 page)

*   *   *

When Vianne awoke, she noticed the quiet first. Somewhere a bird sang. She lay perfectly still in bed, listening. Beside her Sophie snored and grumbled in her sleep.

Vianne went to the window, lifting the blackout shade.

In her yard, apple branches hung like broken arms from the trees; the gate hung sideways, two of its three hinges ripped out. Across the road, the hayfield was flattened, the flowers crushed. The refugees who'd come through had left belongings and refuse in their wake—suitcases, buggies, coats too heavy to carry and too hot to wear, pillowcases, and wagons.

Vianne went downstairs and cautiously opened the front door. Listening for noise—hearing none—she unlatched the lock and turned the knob.

They had destroyed her garden, ripping up anything that looked edible, leaving broken stalks and mounds of dirt.

Everything was ruined, gone. Feeling defeated, she walked around the house to the backyard, which had also been ravaged.

She was about to go back inside when she heard a sound. A mewling. Maybe a baby crying.

There it was again. Had someone left an infant behind?

She moved cautiously across the yard to the wooden pergola draped in roses and jasmine.

Isabelle lay curled up on the ground, her dress ripped to shreds, her face cut up and bruised, her left eye swollen nearly shut, a piece of paper pinned to her bodice.

“Isabelle!”

Her sister's chin tilted upward slightly; she opened one bloodshot eye. “V,” she said in a cracked, hoarse voice. “Thanks for locking me out.”

Vianne went to her sister and knelt beside her. “Isabelle, you are covered in blood and bruised. Were you…”

Isabelle seemed not to understand for a moment. “Oh. It is not my blood. Most of it isn't, anyway.” She looked around. “Where's Gaët?”

“What?”

Isabelle staggered to her feet, almost toppling over. “Did he leave me? He did.” She started to cry. “He left me.”

“Come on,” Vianne said gently. She guided her sister into the cool interior of the house, where Isabelle kicked off her blood-splattered shoes, let them crack into the wall and clatter to the floor. Bloody footprints followed them to the bathroom tucked beneath the stairs.

While Vianne heated water and filled the bath, Isabelle sat on the floor, her legs splayed out, her feet discolored by blood, muttering to herself and wiping tears from her eyes, which turned to mud on her cheeks.

When the bath was ready, Vianne returned to Isabelle, gently undressing her. Isabelle was like a child, pliable, whimpering in pain.

Vianne unbuttoned the back of Isabelle's once-red dress and peeled it away, afraid that the slightest breath might topple her sister over. Isabelle's lacy undergarments were stained in places with blood. Vianne unlaced the corseted midsection of the foundation and eased it off.

Isabelle gritted her teeth and stepped into the tub.

“Lean back.”

Isabelle did as she was told, and Vianne poured hot water over her sister's head, keeping the water from her sister's eyes. All the while, as she washed Isabelle's dirty hair and bruised body, she kept up a steady, soothing croon of meaningless words, meant to comfort.

She helped Isabelle out of the tub and dried her body with a soft, white towel. Isabelle stared at her, slack-jawed, blank-eyed.

“How about some sleep?” Vianne said.

“Sleep,” Isabelle mumbled, her head lolling to one side.

Vianne brought Isabelle a nightdress that smelled of lavender and rose water and helped her into it. Isabelle could hardly keep her eyes open as Vianne guided her to the upstairs bedroom and settled her beneath a light blanket. Isabelle was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

*   *   *

Isabelle woke to darkness. She remembered daylight.

Where was she?

She sat up so quickly her head spun. She took a few shallow breaths and then looked around.

The upstairs bedroom at Le Jardin. Her old room. It did not give her a warm feeling. How often had Madame Doom locked her in the bedroom “for her own good”?

“Don't think about that,” she said aloud.

An even worse memory followed: Gaëtan. He had abandoned her after all; it filled her with the kind of bone-deep disappointment she knew so well.

Had she learned
nothing
in life? People left. She knew that. They especially left her.

She dressed in the shapeless blue housedress Vianne had left draped across the foot of the bed. Then she went down the narrow, shallow-stepped stairs, holding on to the iron banister. Every pain-filled step felt like a triumph.

Downstairs, the house was quiet except for the crackling, staticky sound of a radio on at a low volume. She was pretty sure Maurice Chevalier was singing a love song.
Perfect.

Vianne was in the kitchen, wearing a gingham apron over a pale yellow housedress. A floral scarf covered her hair. She was peeling potatoes with a paring knife. Behind her, a cast-iron pot made a cheery little bubbling sound.

The aromas made Isabelle's mouth water.

Vianne rushed forward to pull out a chair at the small table in the kitchen's corner. “Here, sit.”

Isabelle fell onto the seat. Vianne brought her a plate that was already prepared. A hunk of still-warm bread, a triangle of cheese, a smear of quince paste, and a few slices of ham.

Isabelle took the bread in her red, scraped-up hands, lifting it to her face, breathing in the yeasty smell. Her hands were shaking as she picked up a knife and slathered the bread with fruit and cheese. When she set down the knife it clattered. She picked up the bread and bit into it; the single best bite of food of her life. The hard crust of the bread, its pillow-soft interior, the buttery cheese, and the fruit all combined to make her practically swoon. She ate the rest of it like a madwoman, barely noticing the cup of
café noir
her sister had set down beside her.

“Where's Sophie?” Isabelle asked, her cheeks bulging with food. It was difficult to stop eating, even to be polite. She reached for a peach, felt its fuzzy ripeness in her hand, and bit into it. Juice dribbled down her chin.

“She's next door, playing with Sarah. You remember my friend, Rachel?”

“I remember her,” Isabelle said.

Vianne poured herself a tiny cup of espresso and brought it to the table, where she sat down.

Isabelle burped and covered her mouth. “Pardon.”

“I think a lapse in manners can be overlooked,” Vianne said with a smile.

“You haven't met Madame Dufour. No doubt she would hit me with a brick for that transgression.” Isabelle sighed. Her stomach hurt now; she felt like she might vomit. She wiped her moist chin with her sleeve. “What is the news from Paris?”

“The swastika flag flies from the Eiffel Tower.”

“And Papa?”

“Fine, he says.”

“Worried about me, I'll bet,” Isabelle said bitterly. “He shouldn't have sent me away. But when has he ever done anything else?”

A look passed between them. It was one of the few memories they shared, that abandonment, but clearly Vianne didn't want to remember it. “We hear there were more than ten million of you on the roads.”

“The crowds weren't the worst of it,” Isabelle said. “We were mostly women and children, V, and old men and boys. And they just … obliterated us.”

“It's over now, thank God,” Vianne said. “It's best to focus on the good. Who is Gaëtan? You spoke of him in your delirium.”

Isabelle picked at one of the scrapes on the back of her hand, realizing an instant too late that she should have let it alone. The scab ripped away and blood bubbled up.

“Maybe he has to do with this,” Vianne said when the silence elongated. She pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her apron pocket. It was the note that had been pinned to Isabelle's bodice. Dirty, bloody fingerprints ran across the paper. On it was written:
You are not ready.

Isabelle felt the world drop out from under her. It was a ridiculous, girlish reaction, overblown, and she knew it, but still it hit her hard, wounded deep. He had wanted to take her with him until the kiss. Somehow he'd tasted the lack in her. “He's no one,” she said grimly, taking the note, crumpling it. “Just a boy with black hair and a sharp face who tells lies. He's nothing.” Then she looked at Vianne. “I'm going off to the war. I don't care what anyone thinks. I'll drive an ambulance or roll bandages. Anything.”

“Oh, for heaven's sake, Isabelle. Paris is overrun. The Nazis control the city. What is an eighteen-year-old girl to do about all of that?”

“I am not hiding out in the country while the Nazis destroy France. And let's face it, you have never exactly felt sisterly toward me.” Her aching face tightened. “I'll be leaving as soon as I can walk.”

“You will be safe here, Isabelle. That's what matters. You must stay.”

“Safe?” Isabelle spat. “You think that is what matters now, Vianne? Let me tell you what I saw out there. French troops running from the enemy. Nazis murdering innocents. Maybe you can ignore that, but I won't.”

“You will stay here and be safe. We will speak of it no more.”

“When have I ever been safe with you, Vianne?” Isabelle said, seeing hurt blossom in her sister's eyes.

“I was young, Isabelle. I tried to be a mother to you.”

“Oh, please. Let's not start with a lie.”

“After I lost the baby—”

Isabelle turned her back on her sister and limped away before she said something unforgiveable. She clasped her hands to still their trembling.
This
was why she hadn't wanted to return to this house and see her sister, why she'd stayed away for years. There was too much pain between them. She turned up the radio to drown out her thoughts.

A voice crackled over the airwaves. “… Maréchal Pétain speaking to you…”

Isabelle frowned. Pétain was a hero of the Great War, a beloved leader of France. She turned up the volume further.

Vianne appeared beside her.

“… I assumed the direction of the government of France…”

Static overtook his deep voice, crackled through it.

Isabelle thumped the radio impatiently.

“… our admirable army, which is fighting with a heroism worthy of its long military traditions against an enemy superior in numbers and arms…”

Static. Isabelle hit the radio again, whispering, “
Zut
.”

“… in these painful hours I think of the unhappy refugees who, in extreme misery, clog our roads. I express to them my compassion and my solicitude. It is with a broken heart that I tell you today it is necessary to stop fighting.”

“We've won?” Vianne said.

“Shhh,” Isabelle said sharply.

“… addressed myself last night to the adversary to ask him if he is ready to speak with me, as soldier to soldier, after the actual fighting is over, and with honor, the means of putting an end to hostilities.”

The old man's words droned on, saying things like “trying days” and “control their anguish” and, worst of all, “destiny of the fatherland.” Then he said the word Isabelle never thought she'd hear in France.

Surrender
.

Isabelle hobbled out of the room on her bloody feet and went into the backyard, needing air suddenly, unable to draw a decent breath.

Surrender
. France. To Hitler.

“It must be for the best,” her sister said calmly.

When had Vianne come out here?

“You've heard about Maréchal Pétain. He is a hero unparalleled. If he says we must quit fighting, we must. I'm sure he'll reason with Hitler.” Vianne reached out.

Isabelle yanked away. The thought of Vianne's comforting touch made her feel sick. She limped around to face her sister. “You don't
reason
with men like Hitler.”

“So you know more than our heroes now?”

“I know we shouldn't give up.”

Vianne made a tsking sound, a little scuff of disappointment. “If Maréchal Pétain thinks surrender is best for France, it is. Period. At least the war will be over and our men will come home.”

“You are a fool.”

Vianne said, “Fine,” and went back into the house.

Isabelle tented a hand over her eyes and stared up into the bright and cloudless sky. How long would it be before all this blue was filled with German aeroplanes?

She didn't know how long she stood there, imagining the worst—remembering how the Nazis had opened fire on innocent women and children in Tours, obliterating them, turning the grass red with their blood.

“Tante Isabelle?”

Isabelle heard the small, tentative voice as if from far away. She turned slowly.

A beautiful girl stood at Le Jardin's back door. She had skin like her mother's, as pale as fine porcelain, and expressive eyes that appeared coal black from this distance, as dark as her father's. She could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale—Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.

“You can't be Sophie,” Isabelle said. “The last time I saw you … you were sucking your thumb.”

“I still do sometimes,” Sophie said with a conspiratorial smile. “You won't tell?”

“Me? I am the best of secret keepers.” Isabelle moved toward her, thinking,
my niece.
Family. “Shall I tell you a secret about me, just so that we are fair?”

Sophie nodded earnestly, her eyes widening.

“I can make myself invisible.”

“No, you can't.”

Isabelle saw Vianne appear at the back door. “Ask your maman. I have sneaked onto trains and climbed out of windows and run away from convent dungeons. All of this because I can disappear.”

“Isabelle,” Vianne said sternly.

Sophie stared up at Isabelle, enraptured. “Really?”

Isabelle glanced at Vianne. “It is easy to disappear when no one is looking at you.”