The Nightingale

Please join us at the AFEES reunion in Paris, on May 7, 1995.

The fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.

For the first time, families and friends of passeurs will come together in gratitude to honor the extraordinary “Nightingale,” also known as Juliette Gervaise, in the grand ballroom of the Île de France Hôtel, in Paris. 7:00 P.M.

Beside me, the phone rings. As I reach for it, the invitation slips from my grasp, falls to the counter. “Hello?”

Someone is talking to me in French. Or am I imagining that?

“Is this a sales call?” I ask, confused.

“No! No. It is about our invitation.”

I almost drop the phone in surprise.

“It has been most difficult to track you down, Madame. I am calling about the passeurs’ reunion tomorrow night. We are gathering to celebrate the people who made the Nightingale escape route so successful. Did you receive the invitation?”

“Oui,” I say, clutching the receiver.

“The first one we sent you was returned, I am sorry to say. Please forgive the tardiness of the invitation. But … will you be coming?”

“It is not me people want to see. It’s Juliette. And she hasn’t existed for a long time.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong, Madame. Seeing you would be meaningful to many people.”

I hang up the phone so hard it is like smashing a bug.

But suddenly the idea of going back—going home—is in my mind. It’s all I can think about.

For years, I kept the memories at bay. I hid them in a dusty attic, far from prying eyes. I told my husband, my children, myself, that there was nothing for me in France. I thought I could come to America and make this new life for myself and forget what I had done to survive.

Now I can’t forget.

Do I make a decision? A conscious, let’s-think-it-out-and-decide-what’s-best kind of decision?

No. I make a phone call to my travel agent and book a flight to Paris, through New York. Then I pack a bag. It’s small, just a rolling carry-on, the sort of suitcase that a businesswoman would take on a two-day trip. In it, I pack some nylons, a few pairs of slacks and some sweaters, the pearl earrings that my husband bought me on our fortieth anniversary, and some other essentials. I have no idea what I will need, and I’m not really thinking straight anyway. Then I wait. Impatiently.

At the last minute, after I have called a taxi, I call my son and get his message machine. A bit of luck, that. I don’t know if I would have the courage to tell him the truth straight up.

“Hello, Julien,” I say as brightly as I can. “I am going to Paris for the weekend. My flight leaves at one ten and I’ll call you when I arrive to let you know I’m all right. Give my love to the girls.” I pause, knowing how he will feel when he gets this message, how it will upset him. That’s because I have let him think I am weak, all these years; he watched me lean on his father and defer to his decision making. He heard me say, “If that’s what you think, dear,” a million times. He watched me stand on the sidelines of his life instead of showing him the field of my own. This is my fault. It’s no wonder he loves a version of me that is incomplete. “I should have told you the truth.”

When I hang up, I see the taxi pull up out front. And I go.

TWENTY-SEVEN

October 1942

France

Vianne sat with Gaëtan in the front of the wagon, with the coffin thumping in the wooden bed behind them. The trail through the woods was hard to find in the dark; they were constantly starting and stopping and turning. At some point, it started to rain. The only words they’d exchanged in the last hour and a half were directions.

“There,” Vianne said later, as they reached the end of the woods. A light shone up ahead, straining through the trees, turning them into black slashes against a blinding white.

The border.

“Whoa,” Gaëtan said, pulling back on the reins.

Vianne couldn’t help thinking about the last time she’d been here.