On a particularly cold morning in late November, Vianne woke with tears on her cheeks. She had been dreaming about Antoine again.
With a sigh, she eased out of bed, taking care not to waken Sophie. Vianne had slept fully dressed, wearing a woolen vest, a long-sleeved sweater, woolen stockings, a pair of flannel pants (Antoine’s, cut down to fit her), and a knit cap and mittens. It wasn’t even Christmas and already layering had become de rigueur. She added a cardigan and still she was cold.
She burrowed her mittened hands into the slit at the foot of the mattress and withdrew the leather pouch Antoine had left for her. Not much money remained in it. Soon, they would have to live on her teaching salary alone.
She returned the money (counting it had become an obsession since the weather turned cold) and went downstairs.
There was never enough of anything anymore. The pipes froze at night and so there was no water until midday. Vianne had taken to leaving buckets full of water positioned near the stove and fireplaces for washing. Gas and electricity were scarce, as was money to pay for them, so she was miserly with both. The flames on her stove were so low it barely boiled water. They rarely turned on the lights.
She made a fire and then wrapped herself in a heavy eiderdown and sat on the divan. Beside her was a bag of yarn that she’d collected by pulling apart one of her old sweaters. She was making Sophie a scarf for Christmas, and these early-morning hours were the only time she could find.
With only the creaking of the house for company, she focused on the pale
blue yarn and the way the knitting needles dove in and out of the soft strands, creating every moment something that hadn’t existed before. It calmed her nerves, this once-ordinary morning ritual. If she loosed her thoughts, she might remember her mother sitting beside her, teaching her, saying, “Knit one, purl two, that’s right … beautiful…”
Or Antoine, coming down the stairs in his stockinged feet, smiling, asking her what she was making for him …
Antoine.
The front door opened slowly, bringing a burst of ice-cold air and a flurry of leaves. Isabelle came in, wearing Antoine’s old wool coat and knee-high boots and a scarf that coiled around her head and neck, obscuring all but her eyes. She saw Vianne and came to a sudden stop. “Oh. You’re up.” She unwound the scarf and hung up her coat. There was no mistaking the guilty look on her face. “I was out checking on the chickens.”
Vianne’s hands stilled; the needles paused. “You might as well tell me who he is, this boy you keep sneaking out to meet.”
“Who would meet a boy in this cold?” Isabelle went to Vianne, pulling her to her feet, leading her to the fire.
At the sudden warmth, Vianne shivered. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d been. “You,” she said, surprised that it made her smile. “You would sneak out in the cold to meet a boy.”
“He would have to be some boy. Clark Gable, maybe.”
Sophie rushed into the room, snuggling up to Vianne. “This feels good,” she said, holding out her hands.
For a beautiful, tender moment, Vianne forgot her worries, and then Isabelle said, “Well, I’d best go. I need to be first in the butcher’s queue.”
“You need to eat something before you go,” Vianne said.
“Give mine to Sophie,” Isabelle answered, pulling the coat back on and rewinding the scarf around her head.
Vianne walked her sister to the door, watched her slip out into the darkness, then returned to the kitchen and lit an oil lamp and went down to the cellar pantry, where rows of shelving ran along the stone wall. Two years ago this pantry had been full to overflowing with hams smoked in ash and jars full of duck fat set beside coils of sausage. Bottles of aged champagne
vinegar, tins of sardines, jars of jam.
Now, they were nearly to the end of the chicory coffee. The last of the sugar was a sparkly white residue in the glass container, and the flour was more precious than gold. Thank God the garden had produced a good crop of vegetables in spite of the war refugees’ rampage. She had canned and preserved every single fruit and vegetable, no matter how undersized.
She reached for a piece of wholemeal bread that was about to go bad. As breakfast for growing girls went, a boiled egg and a piece of toast wasn’t much, but it could be worse.
“I want more,” Sophie said when she’d finished. “I can’t,” Vianne said.
“The Germans are taking all of our food,” Sophie said just as Beck emerged from his room, dressed in his gray-green uniform.
“Sophie,” Vianne said sharply.
“Well, it is true, young lady, that we German soldiers are taking much of the food France produces, but men who are fighting need to eat, do they not?”
Sophie frowned up at him. “Doesn’t everyone need to eat?”
“Oui, M’mselle. And we Germans do not only take, we give back to our friends.” He reached into the pocket of his uniform and drew out a chocolate bar.
“Chocolate!”
“Sophie, no,” Vianne said, but Beck was charming her daughter, teasing her as he made the chocolate bar disappear and reappear by sleight of hand. At last, he gave it to Sophie, who squealed and ripped off the paper.
Beck approached Vianne. “You look … sad this morning,” he said quietly. Vianne didn’t know how to respond.
He smiled and left. Outside, she heard his motorcycle start up and putter away.
“Tha’ was good cho’clate,” Sophie said, smacking her lips.
“You know, it would have been a good idea to have a small piece each night rather than to gobble it all up at once. And I shouldn’t have to mention the virtues of sharing.”
“Tante Isabelle says it’s better to be bold than meek. She says if you jump off a cliff at least you’ll fly before you fall.”
“Ah, yes. That sounds like Isabelle. Perhaps you should ask her about the time she broke her wrist jumping from a tree she shouldn’t have been climbing in the first place. Come on, let’s go to school.”
Outside, they waited at the side of the muddy, icy road for Rachel and the children. Together, they set off on the long, cold walk to school.
“I ran out of coffee four days ago,” Rachel said. “In case you’ve been wondering why I have been such a witch.”
“I’m the one who has been short-tempered lately,” Vianne said. She waited for Rachel to disagree, but Rachel knew her well enough to know when a simple statement wasn’t so simple. “It’s that … I’ve had some things on my mind.”
The list. She’d written down the names weeks ago, and nothing had come of it. Still, worry lingered.
“Antoine? Starvation? Freezing to death?” Rachel smiled. “What small worry has obsessed you this week?”
The school bell pealed.
“Hurry, Maman, we are late,” Sophie said, grabbing her by the arm, dragging her forward.
Vianne let herself be led up the stone steps. She and Sophie and Sarah turned into Vianne’s classroom, which was already filled with students.
“You’re late, Madame Mauriac,” Gilles said with a smile. “That’s one demerit for you.”
Everyone laughed.
Vianne took off her coat and hung it up. “You are very humorous, Gilles, as usual. Let’s see if you’re still smiling after our spelling test.”
This time they groaned and Vianne couldn’t help smiling at their crestfallen faces. They all looked so disheartened; it was difficult, honestly, to feel otherwise in this cold, blacked-out room that didn’t have enough light to dispel the shadows.
“Oh, what the heck, it is a cold morning. Maybe a game of tag is what we need to get our blood running.”
A roar of approval filled the room. Vianne barely had time to grab her coat before she was swept out of the classroom on a tide of laughing children.
They had been outside only a few moments when Vianne heard the
grumble of automobiles coming toward the school.
The children didn’t notice—they only noticed aeroplanes these days, it seemed—and went on with their play.
Vianne walked down to the end of the building and peered around the corner.
A black Mercedes-Benz roared up the dirt driveway, its fenders decorated with small swastika flags that flapped in the cold. Behind it was a French police car.
“Children,” Vianne said, rushing back to the courtyard, “come here. Stand by me.”
Two men rounded the corner and came into view. One she had never seen before—he was a tall, elegant, almost effete blond man wearing a long black leather coat and spit-shined boots. An iron cross decorated his stand-up collar. The other man she knew; he had been a policeman in Carriveau for years. Paul Jeauelere. Antoine had often remarked that he had a mean and cowardly streak.
“Madame Mauriac,” the French police officer said with an officious nod.
She didn’t like the look in his eyes. It reminded her of how boys sometimes looked at one another when they were about to bully a weaker child. “Bonjour, Paul.”
“We are here for some of your colleagues. There is nothing to concern you, Madame. You are not on our list.”
List.
“What do you want with my colleagues?” she heard herself asking, but her voice was almost inaudible, even though the children were silent.
“Some teachers will be dismissed today.” “Dismissed? Why?”
The Nazi agent flicked his pale hand as if he were batting at a fly. “Jews and communists and Freemasons. Others,” he sneered, “who are no longer permitted to teach school or work in civil service or in the judiciary.”
“But—”
The Nazi nodded at the French policeman and the two turned as one and marched into the school.
“Madame Mauriac?” someone said, tugging on her sleeve.
“Maman?” Sophie said, whining. “They can’t do that, can they?” “’Course they can,” Gilles said. “Damn Nazi bastards.”
Vianne should have disciplined him for his language, but she couldn’t think of anything except the list of names she’d given to Beck.
* * *
Vianne wrestled with her conscience for hours. She’d continued teaching for much of the day, although she couldn’t remember how. All that stuck in her mind was the look Rachel had given her as she walked out of the school with the other dismissed teachers. Finally, at noon, although they were already shorthanded at school, Vianne had asked another teacher to take over her classroom.
Now, she stood at the edge of the town square.
All the way here, she had planned what she would say, but when she saw the Nazi flag flying above the hôtel de ville, her resolve faltered. Everywhere she looked there were German soldiers, walking in pairs, or riding gorgeous, well-fed horses, or darting up the streets in shiny black Citröens. Across the square, a Nazi blew his whistle and used his rifle to force an old man to his knees.
Go, Vianne.
She walked up the stone steps to the closed oak doors, where a fresh-faced young guard stopped her and demanded to know her business.
“I am here to see Captain Beck,” she said.
“Ah.” The guard opened the door for her and pointed up the wide stone staircase, making the number two with his fingers.
Vianne stepped into the main room of the town hall. It was crowded with men in uniforms. She tried not to make eye contact with anyone as she hurried across the lobby to the stairs, which she ascended under the watchful eyes of the Führer, whose portrait took up much of the wall.
On the second floor, she found a man in uniform and she said to him, “Captain Beck, s’il vous plaît?”
“Oui, Madame.” He showed her to a door at the end of the hall and rapped smartly upon it. At a response from within, he opened the door for her.
Beck was seated behind an ornate black and gold desk—obviously taken
from one of the grand homes in the area. Behind him a portrait of Hitler and a collection of maps were affixed to the walls. On his desk was a typewriter and a roneo machine. In the corner stood a pile of confiscated radios, but worst of all was the food. There were boxes and boxes of food, heaps of cured meats and wheels of cheese stacked against the back wall.
“Madame Mauriac,” he said, rising quickly. “What a most pleasant surprise.” He came toward her. “What may I do for you?”
“It’s about the teachers you fired at the school.” “Not I, Madame.”
Vianne glanced at the open door behind them and took a step toward him, lowering her voice to say, “You told me the list of names was clerical in nature.”
“I am sorry. Truly. This is what I was told.” “We need them at the school.”
“You being here, it is … dangerous perhaps.” He closed the small distance between them. “You do not want to draw attention to yourself, Madame Mauriac. Not here. There is a man…” He glanced at the door and stopped speaking. “Go, Madame.”
“I wish you hadn’t asked me.”
“As do I, Madame.” He gave her an understanding look. “Now, go.
Please. You should not be here.”
Vianne turned away from Captain Beck—and all that food and the picture of the Führer—and left his office. On her way down the stairs, she saw how the soldiers observed her, smiling to one another, no doubt joking about another Frenchwoman courting a dashing German soldier who had just broken her heart. But it wasn’t until she stepped back out into the sunshine that she realized fully her mistake.
Several women were in the square, or near it, and they saw her step out of the Nazis’ lair.
One of the women was Isabelle.
Vianne hurried down the steps, toward Hélène Ruelle, the baker’s wife, who was delivering bread to the Kommandantur.
“Socializing, Madame Mauriac?” Hélène said archly as Vianne rushed past her.
Isabelle was practically running across the square toward her. With a defeated sigh, Vianne came to a standstill, waiting for her sister to reach her.
“What were you doing in there?” Isabelle demanded, her voice too loud, or maybe that was only to Vianne’s ears.
“They fired the teachers today. No. Not all of them, just the Jews and the Freemasons and the communists.” The memory welled up in her, made her feel sick. She remembered the quiet hallway and the confusion among the teachers who remained. No one knew what to do, how to defy the Nazis.
“Just them, huh?” Isabelle said, her face tightening.
“I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I meant to clarify. They didn’t fire all the teachers.” Even to her own ears it sounded a feeble excuse, so she shut up.
“And this says nothing to explain your presence at their headquarters.” “I … thought Captain Beck could help us. Help Rachel.”
“You went to Beck for a favor?” “I had to.”
“Frenchwomen do not ask Nazis for help, Vianne. Mon Dieu, you must know this.”
“I know,” Vianne said defiantly. “But…” “But what?”
Vianne couldn’t hold it in anymore. “I gave him a list of names.”
Isabelle went very still. For an instant she seemed not to be breathing. The look she gave Vianne stung more than a slap across the face. “How could you do that? Did you give him Rachel’s name?”
“I d-didn’t know,” Vianne stammered. “How could I know? He said it was clerical.” She grabbed Isabelle’s hand. “Forgive me, Isabelle. Truly. I didn’t know.”
“It is not my forgiveness you need to seek, Vianne.”
Vianne felt a stinging, profound shame. How could she have been so foolish, and how in God’s name could she make amends? She glanced at her wristwatch. Classes would be ending soon. “Go to the school,” Vianne said. “Get Sophie, Sarah, and take them home. There’s something I need to do.”
“Whatever it is, I hope you’ve thought it through.” “Go,” Vianne said tiredly.
* * *
The chapel of St. Jeanne was a small stone Norman church at the edge of town. Behind it, and within its medieval walls, lay the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph, nuns who ran both an orphanage and a school.
Vianne went into the church, her footsteps echoing on the cold stone floor; her breath plumed in front of her. She took off her mittens just long enough to touch her fingertips to the frozen holy water. She made the sign of the cross and went to an empty pew; she genuflected and then knelt. Closing her eyes, she bent her head in prayer.
She needed guidance—and forgiveness—but for the first time in her life she could find no words for her prayer. How could she be forgiven for such a foolish, thoughtless act?
God would see her guilt and fear, and He would judge her. She lowered her clasped hands and climbed back up to sit on the wooden pew.
“Vianne Mauriac, is that you?”
Mother Superior Marie-Therese moved in beside Vianne and sat down. She waited for Vianne to speak. It had always been this way between them. The first time Vianne had come to Mother for advice, Vianne had been sixteen years old and pregnant. It had been Mother who comforted Vianne after Papa called her a disgrace; Mother who had planned for a rushed wedding and talked Papa into letting Vianne and Antoine have Le Jardin; Mother who’d promised Vianne that a child was always a miracle and that young love could endure.
“You know there is a German billeted at my house,” Vianne said finally. “They are at all of the big homes and in every hotel.”
“He asked me which of the teachers at school were Jewish or communist or Freemasons.”
“Ah. And you answered him.”
“That makes me the fool Isabelle calls me, doesn’t it?”
“You are no fool, Vianne.” She gazed at Vianne. “And your sister is quick to judge. That much I remember about her.”
“I ask myself if they would have found these names without my help.” “They have dismissed Jews from positions all over town. Do you not
know this? M’sieur Penoir is not the postmaster anymore, and Judge Braias
has been replaced. I have had news from Paris that the headmistress of Collège Sévigné was forced to resign, as have all of the Jewish singers at the Paris Opera. Perhaps they needed your help, perhaps they did not. Certainly they would have found the names without your help,” Mother said in a voice that was both gentle and stern. “But that is not what matters.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think, as this war goes on, we will all have to look more deeply. These questions are not about them, but about us.”
Vianne felt tears sting her eyes. “I don’t know what to do anymore. Antoine always took care of everything. The Wehrmacht and the Gestapo are more than I can handle.”
“Don’t think about who they are. Think about who you are and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you.”
“It’s all breaking me. I need to be more like Isabelle. She is so certain of everything. This war is black and white for her. Nothing seems to scare her.”
“Isabelle will have her crisis of faith in this, too. As will we all. I have been here before, in the Great War. I know the hardships are just beginning. You must stay strong.”
“By believing in God.”
“Yes, of course, but not only by believing in God. Prayers and faith will not be enough, I’m afraid. The path of righteousness is often dangerous. Get ready, Vianne. This is only your first test. Learn from it.” Mother leaned forward and hugged Vianne again. Vianne held on tightly, her face pressed to the scratchy wool habit.
When she pulled back, she felt a little better.
Mother Superior stood, took Vianne’s hand, and drew her to a stand. “Perhaps you could find the time to visit the children this week and give them a lesson? They loved it when you taught them painting. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of grumbling about empty bellies these days. Praise the Lord the sisters have an excellent garden, and the goats’ milk and cheese is a Godsend. Still…”
“Yes,” Vianne said. Everyone knew about how the belt-tightening felt, especially to children.
“You’re not alone, and you’re not the one in charge,” Mother said gently.
“Ask for help when you need it, and give help when you can. I think that is how we serve God—and each other and ourselves—in times as dark as these.”
* * *
You’re not the one in charge.
Vianne contemplated Mother’s words all the way home.
She had always taken great comfort in her faith. When Maman had first begun to cough, and then when that coughing deepened into a hacking shudder that left sprays of blood on handkerchiefs, Vianne had prayed to God for all that she needed. Help. Guidance. A way to cheat the death that had come to call. At fourteen she’d promised God anything—everything—if He would just spare her maman’s life. With her prayers unanswered, she returned to God and prayed for the strength to deal with the aftermath—her loneliness, Papa’s bleak, angry silences and drunken rages, Isabelle’s wailing neediness.
Time and again, she had returned to God, pleading for help, promising her faith. She wanted to believe that she was neither alone nor in charge, but rather that her life was unfolding according to His plan, even if she couldn’t see it.
Now, though, such hope felt as slight and bendable as tin.
She was alone and there was no one else in charge, no one but the Nazis. She had made a terrible, grievous mistake. She couldn’t take it back,
however much she might hope for such a chance; she couldn’t undo it, but a good woman would accept responsibility—and blame—and apologize. Whatever else she was or wasn’t, whatever her failings, she intended to be a good woman.
And so she knew what she needed to do.
She knew it, and still when she came to the gate at Rachel’s cottage, she found herself unable to move. Her feet felt heavy, her heart even more so.
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. There was a shuffling of feet within and then the door opened. Rachel held her sleeping son in one arm and had a pair of dungarees slung over the other. “Vianne,” she said, smiling. “Come in.”
Vianne almost gave in to cowardice. Oh, Rachel, I just stopped by to say
hello. Instead, she took a deep breath and followed her friend into the house. She took her usual place in the comfortable upholstered chair tucked in close to the blazing fire.
“Take Ari, I’ll make us coffee.”
Vianne reached for the sleeping baby and took him in her arms. He snuggled close and she stroked his back and kissed the back of his head.
“We heard that some care packages were being delivered to prisoner of war camps by the Red Cross,” Rachel said a moment later, coming into the room carrying two cups of coffee. She set one down on the table next to Vianne. “Where are the girls?”
“At my house, with Isabelle. Probably learning how to shoot a gun.”
Rachel laughed. “There are worse skills to have.” She pulled the dungarees from her shoulder and tossed them onto a straw basket with the rest of her sewing. Then she sat down across from Vianne.
Vianne breathed in deeply of the sweet scent that was pure baby. When she looked up, Rachel was staring at her.
“Is it one of those days?” she asked quietly.
Vianne gave an unsteady smile. Rachel knew how much Vianne sometimes mourned her lost babies and how deeply she’d prayed for more children. It had been difficult between them—not a lot, but a little—when Rachel had gotten pregnant with Ari. There was joy for Rachel … and a thread of envy. “No,” she said. She lifted her chin slowly, looked her best friend in the eyes. “I have something to tell you.”
“What?”
Vianne drew in a breath. “Do you remember the day we wrote the postcards? And Captain Beck was waiting for me when we got home?”
“Oui. I offered to come in with you.”
“I wish you had, although I don’t suppose it would have made a difference. He just would have waited until you left.”
Rachel started to rise. “Did he—”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “Not that. He was working at the dining room table that day, writing something when I returned. He … asked me for a list of names. He wanted to know which of the teachers at the school were Jewish or communists.” She paused. “He asked about homosexuals and Freemasons,
too, as if people talk about such things.” “You told him you didn’t know.”
Shame made Vianne look away, but only for a second. She forced herself to say, “I gave him your name, Rachel. Along with the others.”
Rachel went very still; the color drained from her face, making her dark eyes stand out. “And they fired us.”
Vianne swallowed hard, nodded.
Rachel got to her feet and walked past Vianne without stopping, ignoring her pleading please, Rachel, pulling away so she couldn’t be touched. She went into her bedroom and slammed the door shut.
Time passed slowly, in indrawn breaths and captured prayers and creaks of the chair. Vianne watched the tiny black hands on the mantel clock click forward. She patted the baby’s back in rhythm with the passing minutes.
Finally, the door opened. Rachel walked back into the room. Her hair was a mess, as if she’d been shoving her hands through it; her cheeks were blotchy, from either anxiety or anger. Maybe both. Her eyes were red from crying.
“I’m so sorry,” Vianne said, rising. “Forgive me.”
Rachel came to a stop in front of her, looking down at her. Anger flashed in her eyes, then faded and was replaced by resignation. “Everyone in town knows I’m a Jew, Vianne. I’ve always been proud of it.”
“I know that. It’s what I told myself. Still, I shouldn’t have helped him. I am sorry. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world. I hope you know that.”
“Of course I know it,” Rachel said quietly. “But V, you need to be more careful. I know Beck is young and handsome and friendly and polite, but he’s a Nazi, and they are dangerous.”
* * *
The winter of 1940 was the coldest anyone could remember. Snow fell day after day, blanketing the trees and fields; icicles glittered on drooping tree branches.
And still, Isabelle woke every Friday morning, hours before dawn, and distributed her “terrorist papers,” as the Nazis now called them. Last week’s tract followed the military operations in North Africa and alerted the French
people to the fact that the winter’s food shortages were not a result of the British blockades—as Nazi propaganda insisted—but rather were caused by the Germans looting everything France produced.
Isabelle had been distributing these tracts for months now, and truthfully, she couldn’t see that they were having much impact on the people of Carriveau. Many of the villagers still supported Pétain. Even more didn’t care. A disturbing number of her neighbors looked upon the Germans and thought so young, just boys, and went on trudging through life with their heads down, just trying to stay out of danger.
The Nazis had noticed the flyers, of course. Some French men and women would use any excuse to curry favor—and giving the Nazis the flyers they found in their letter boxes was a start.
Isabelle knew that the Germans were looking for whoever printed and distributed the tracts, but they weren’t looking too hard. Especially not on these snowy days when the Blitz of London was all anyone could talk about. Perhaps the Germans knew that words on a piece of paper were not enough to turn the tide of a war.
Today, Isabelle lay in bed, with Sophie curled like a tiny sword fern beside her, and Vianne sleeping heavily on the girl’s other side. The three of them now slept together in Vianne’s bed. Over the past month they’d added every quilt and blanket they could find to the bed. Isabelle lay watching her breath gather and disappear in thin white clouds.
She knew how cold the floor would be even through the woolen stockings she wore to bed. She knew this was the last time all day she would be warm. She steeled herself and eased out from underneath the pile of quilts. Beside her, Sophie made a moaning sound and rolled over to her mother’s body for heat.
When Isabelle’s feet hit the floor, pain shot into her shins. She winced and hobbled out of the room.
The stairs took forever; her feet hurt so badly. The damn chilblains. Everyone was suffering from them this winter. Supposedly it was from a lack of butter and fat, but Isabelle knew it was caused by cold weather and socks full of holes and shoes that were coming apart at the seams.
She wanted to start a fire—ached for even a moment’s warmth, really—
but they were on their last bit of wood. In late January they’d started ripping out barn wood and burning it, along with tool boxes and old chairs and whatever else they could find. She made herself a cup of boiling water and drank it down, letting the heat and weight trick her stomach into thinking it wasn’t empty. She ate a small bit of stale bread, wrapped her body in a layer of newsprint, and then put on Antoine’s coat and her own mittens and boots. A woolen scarf she wrapped around her head and neck, and even so, when she stepped outside the cold took her breath away. She closed the door behind her and trudged out into the snow, her chilblained toes throbbing with every step, her fingers going cold instantly, even inside the mittens.
It was eerily quiet out here. She hiked through the knee-deep snow and opened the broken gate and stepped out onto the white-packed road.
Because of the cold and snow, it took her three hours to deliver her papers (this week’s content was about the Blitz—the Boches had dropped 32,000 bombs on London in one night alone). Dawn, when it came, was as weak as meatless broth. She was the first in line at the butcher’s shop, but others soon followed. At seven A.M., the butcher’s wife rolled open the window gate and unlocked the door.
“Octopus,” the woman said.
Isabelle felt a pang of disappointment. “No meat?” “Not for the French, M’mselle.”
She heard grumbling behind her from the women who wanted meat, and farther back, from the women who knew they wouldn’t even be lucky enough to get octopus.
Isabelle took the paper-wrapped octopus and left the shop. At least she’d gotten something. There was no tinned milk to be had anymore, not with ration cards or even on the black market. She was fortunate enough to get a little Camembert after two more hours in line. She covered her precious items with the heavy towel in her basket and hobbled down rue Victor Hugo.
As she passed a café filled with German soldiers and French policemen, she smelled brewed coffee and freshly baked croissants and her stomach grumbled.
“M’mselle.”
A French policeman nodded crisply and indicated a need to step around
her. She moved aside and watched him put up a poster in an abandoned storefront’s window. The first poster read:
NOTICE
SHOT FOR SPYING. THE JEW JAKOB MANSARD, THE COMMUNIST VIKTOR YABLONSKY, AND THE JEW LOUIS DEVRY.
And the second:
NOTICE
HENCEFORTH, ALL FRENCH PEOPLE ARRESTED FOR ANY CRIME OR INFRACTION WILL BE CONSIDERED HOSTAGES. WHEN A HOSTILE ACT AGAINST GERMANY OCCURS IN FRANCE, HOSTAGES WILL BE SHOT.
“They’re shooting ordinary French people for nothing?” she said.
“Don’t look so pale, Mademoiselle. These warnings are not for beautiful women such as yourself.”
Isabelle glared at the man. He was worse than the Germans, a Frenchman doing this to his own people. This was why she hated the Vichy government. What good was self-rule for half of France if it turned them into Nazi puppets?
“Are you unwell, Mademoiselle?”
So solicitous. So caring. What would he do if she called him a traitor and spat in his face? “I am fine, merci.”
She watched him cross the street confidently, his back straight, his hat positioned just so on his cropped brown hair. The German soldiers in the café welcomed him warmly, clapped him on the back and pulled him into their midst.
Isabelle turned away in disgust.
That was when she saw it: a bright silver bicycle leaning against the side wall of the café. At the sight of it, she thought how much it would change her life, ease her pain, to ride to town and back each day.
Normally a bicycle would be guarded by the soldiers in the café, but on this snow-dusted morning, no one was outside at a table.
Don’t do it.
Her heart started beating quickly, her palms turned damp and hot within her mittens. She glanced around. The women queued up at the butcher’s made it a point to see nothing and make eye contact with no one. The windows of the café across the street were fogged; inside, the men were olive-hued silhouettes.
So certain of themselves.
Of us, she thought bitterly.
At that moment, any trace of restraint she had vanished. She clutched the basket to her side and limped out onto the ice-slicked cobblestone street. From that instant, with that first step, the world seemed to blur and time slowed. She could hear her own breath and see its plumes in front of her face. The buildings turned into white shapes, the snow sparkled, until all that remained clear was the glint of the silver handlebars and the two black tires.
She knew there was only one way to do this: fast. No glances sideways or pauses.
Somewhere a dog barked. A door banged shut.
Isabelle continued walking; five steps from the bicycle. Four.
Three. Two.
She stepped onto the sidewalk, grabbed the bicycle, and leaped onto it. She rode down the cobblestone street, the frame clanging over bumps. She skidded around the corner, nearly falling, but righted herself and pedaled hard toward rue La Grande.
There, she turned into the alley and dismounted to knock on the door. Four sharp knocks.
The door creaked open. Henri saw her and frowned. She pushed her way inside.
The small meeting room was dimly lit. A single oil lamp flickered on a scarred wooden table. Henri was alone, preparing sausage from a tray of meat and fat, with skeins hanging from hooks on the wall. The room was heavy with the smell of meat, blood, and cigarette smoke. She yanked the bicycle inside and slammed the door shut.
“Well, hello,” he said, wiping his hands on a towel. “Have we called a meeting I don’t know about?”
“No.”
He glanced at her side. “That’s not your bicycle.”
“I stole it,” she said. “From right under their noses.”
“It is—or was—Alain Deschamp’s bicycle. He left everything and fled to Lyon with his family when the occupation began.” Henri moved toward her. “Lately, I have been seeing an SS soldier riding it around town.”
“SS?” Isabelle’s elation faded. There were ugly rumors swirling about the SS and their cruelty. Perhaps she should have thought this through …
He moved closer, so close she could feel the warmth of his body.
She had never been alone with him before, nor so near him. She saw for the first time that his eyes were neither brown nor green but rather a hazel gray that made her think of fog in a deep forest. She saw a small scar at his brow that had either been a terrible gash at one time or poorly stitched and it made her wonder all at once what kind of life he’d led that had brought him here, and to communism. He was older than she by at least a decade, although to be honest, he seemed even older sometimes, as if perhaps he’d suffered a great loss.
“You’ll need to paint it,” he said. “I don’t have any paint.”
“I do.”
“Would you—” “A kiss,” he said.
“A kiss?” She repeated it to stall for time. This was the sort of thing that she’d taken for granted before the war. Men desired her; they always had. She wanted that back, wanted to flirt with Henri and be flirted with, and yet the very idea of it felt sad and a little lost, as if perhaps kisses didn’t mean much anymore and flirtation even less.
“One kiss and I’ll paint your bicycle tonight and you can pick it up tomorrow.”
She stepped toward him and tilted her face up to his.
They came together easily, even with all the coats and layers of newsprint and wool between them. He took her in his arms and kissed her. For a
beautiful second, she was Isabelle Rossignol again, the passionate girl whom men desired.
When it ended and he drew back, she felt … deflated. Sad.
She should say something, make a joke, or perhaps pretend that she felt more than she did. That’s what she would have done before, when kisses had meant more, or maybe less.
“There’s someone else,” Henri said, studying her intently. “No there isn’t.”
Henri touched her cheek gently. “You’re lying.”
Isabelle thought of all that Henri had given her. He was the one who’d brought her into the Free French network and given her a chance; he was the one who believed in her. And yet when he kissed her, she thought of Gaëtan. “He didn’t want me,” she said. It was the first time she’d told anyone the truth. The admission surprised her.
“If things were different, I’d make you forget him.” “And I’d let you try.”
She saw the way he smiled at that, saw the sorrow in it. “Blue,” he said after a pause.
“Blue?”
“It’s the paint color I have.” Isabelle smiled. “How fitting.”
Later that day, as she stood in one line after another for too little food, and then as she gathered wood from the forest and carried it home, she thought about that kiss.
What she thought, over and over again, was if only.
