The Nightingale

Sophie linked arms with Isabelle as the three of them set off for home.

Vianne studiously ignored the changes to Carriveau—the Nazis taking up so much space, the posters on the limestone walls (the new anti-Jewish tracts were sickening), and the red and black swastika flags hanging above doorways and from balconies. People had begun to leave Carriveau, abandoning their homes to the Germans. The rumor was that they were going to the Free Zone, but no one knew for sure. Shops closed and didn’t reopen.

She heard footsteps coming up behind her and said evenly, “Let’s walk faster.”

“Madame Mauriac, if I may interrupt.”

“Good Lord, is he following you?” Isabelle muttered.

Vianne slowly turned around. “Herr Captain,” she said. People in the street watched Vianne closely, eyes narrowed in disapproval.

“I wanted to say that I will be late tonight and will, sorrowfully, not be there for supper,” Beck said.

“How terrible,” Isabelle said in a voice as sweet and bitter as burned caramel.

Vianne tried to smile, but really, she didn’t know why he’d stopped her. “I will save you something—”

“Nein. Nein. You are most kind.” He fell silent.

Vianne did the same.

Finally Isabelle sighed heavily. “We are on our way home, Herr Captain.”

“Is there something I can do for you, Herr Captain?” said Vianne.

Beck moved closer. “I know how worried you have been about your husband, so I did some checking.”

“Oh.”

“It is not fine news, I am sorrowful to report. Your husband, Antoine Mauriac, has been captured along with many of your town’s men. He is in a prisoner of war camp.” He handed her a list of names and a stack of official postcards. “He will not be coming home.”

* * *

Vianne barely remembered leaving town. She knew Isabelle was beside her, holding her upright, urging her to put one foot in front of the other, and that Sophie was beside her, chirping out questions as sharp as fish hooks. What is a prisoner of war? What did Herr Captain mean that Papa would not be coming home? Never?

Vianne knew when they’d arrived home because the scents of her garden greeted her, welcomed her. She blinked, feeling a little like someone who had just wakened from a coma to find the world impossibly changed.

“Sophie,” Isabelle said firmly. “Go make your mother a cup of coffee. Open a tin of milk.”

“But—”

“Go,” Isabelle said.

When Sophie was gone, Isabelle turned to Vianne, cupped her face with cold hands. “He’ll be all right.”

Vianne felt as if she were breaking apart bit by bit, losing blood and bone as she stood here, contemplating something she had studiously avoided thinking about: a life without him. She started to shiver; her teeth chattered.

“Come inside for coffee,” Isabelle said.

Into the house? Their house? His ghost would be everywhere in there—a dent in the divan where he sat to read, the hook that held his coat. And the bed.

She shook her head, wishing she could cry, but there were no tears in her. This news had emptied her. She couldn’t even breathe.

Suddenly all she could think about was the sweater of his that she was wearing. She started to strip out of her clothes, tearing off the coat and the vest—ignoring Isabelle’s shouted NO!—as she yanked the sweater over her head and buried her face in the soft wool, trying to smell him in the yarn—his favorite soap, him.

But there was nothing but her own smell. She lowered the bunched-up sweater from her face and stared down at it, trying to remember the last time he’d worn it. She picked at a loose thread and it unraveled in her hand, became a squiggly coil of wine-colored yarn. She bit it off and tied a knot to save the rest of the sleeve. Yarn was precious these days.

These days.