The Nightingale

Isabelle reached inside her coat, felt for the slit in the silk lining, and pulled out a single piece of paper. In one movement, she opened the letterbox and slid the paper inside and quietly shut the lid.

Out on the road again, she looked around and saw no one.

She had done it!

Her second stop was old man Rivet’s farm. He was a communist through and through, a man of the revolution, and he’d lost a son at the front.

By the time she gave away her last tract, she felt invincible. It was just past dawn; pale sunlight gilded the limestone buildings in town.

She was the first woman to queue up outside the shop this morning, and because of that, she got her full ration of butter. One hundred fifty grams for the month. Two-thirds of a cup.

A treasure.

ELEVEN

Every day that long, hot summer, Vianne woke to a list of chores. She (along with Sophie and Isabelle) replanted and expanded the garden and converted a pair of old bookcases into rabbit hutches. She used chicken wire to enclose the pergola. Now the most romantic place on the property stank of manure—manure they collected for their garden. She took in wash from the farmer down the road—old man Rivet—in exchange for feed. The only time she really relaxed, and felt like herself, was on Sunday mornings, when she took Sophie to church (Isabelle refused to attend Mass) and then had coffee with Rachel, sitting in the shade of her backyard, just two best friends talking, laughing, joking. Sometimes Isabelle joined them, but she was more likely to play with the children than talk with the women—which was fine with Vianne.

Her chores were necessary, of course—a new way of preparing for a winter that seemed far away but would arrive like an unwanted guest on the worst possible day. More important, it kept Vianne’s mind occupied. When she was working in her garden or boiling strawberries for preserves or pickling cucumbers, she wasn’t thinking of Antoine and how long it had been since she’d heard from him. It was the uncertainty that gnawed at her: Was he a prisoner of war? Was he wounded somewhere? Dead? Or would she look up one day and see him walking up this road, smiling?

Missing him. Longing for him. Worrying about him. Those were her nighttime journeys.

In a world now laden with bad news and silence, the one bit of good news was that Captain Beck had spent much of the summer away on one campaign or another. In his absence, the household settled into a routine of sorts. Isabelle did all that was asked of her without complaint.

It was October now, and chilly. Vianne found herself distracted as she walked home from school with Sophie. She could feel that one of her heels was coming loose; it made her slightly unsteady. Her black kidskin oxfords weren’t made for the kind of everyday use to which they’d been put in the past few months. The sole was beginning to pull away at the toe, which often caused her to trip. The worry about replacing things like shoes was never far away. A ration card did not mean there were shoes—or food—to be bought.

Vianne kept one hand on Sophie’s shoulder, both to steady her gait and to keep her daughter close. There were Nazi soldiers everywhere; riding in lorries and on motorcycles with machine-gun-mounted sidecars. They marched in the square, their voices raised in triumphant song.

A military lorry honked at them and they moved farther onto the sidewalk as a convoy rumbled past. More Nazis.

“Is that Tante Isabelle?” Sophie asked.

Vianne glanced in the direction of Sophie’s finger. Sure enough, Isabelle was coming out of an alley, clutching her basket. She looked … “furtive” was the only word that came to mind.

Furtive. At that, a dozen little pieces clicked into place. Tiny incongruities became a pattern. Isabelle had often left Le Jardin in the wee hours of the morning, much earlier than necessary. She had dozens of long-winded excuses for absences that Vianne had barely cared about. Heels that broke, hats that flew off in the wind and had to be chased down, a dog that frightened her and blocked her way.

Was she sneaking out to be with a boy?

“Tante Isabelle!” Sophie cried out.

Without waiting for a reply—or permission—Sophie darted into the street. She dodged a trio of German soldiers who were tossing a ball back and forth.

“Merde,” Vianne muttered. “Pardon,” she said, ducking around the soldiers and striding across the cobblestoned street.

“What did you get today?” she heard Sophie ask Isabelle as her daughter reached into the willow basket.

Isabelle slapped Sophie’s hand. Hard.

Sophie yelped and drew her hand back.

“Isabelle!” Vianne said harshly. “What’s wrong with you?”

Isabelle had the good grace to blush. “I am sorry. It’s just that I’m tired. I have been in queues all day. And for what? A veal jelly bone with barely any meat on it and a tin of milk. It’s disheartening. Still, I shouldn’t be rude. I’m sorry, Soph.”

“Perhaps if you didn’t sneak out so early in the morning you wouldn’t be tired,” Vianne said.

“I’m not sneaking out,” Isabelle said. “I’m going to the shops for food. I thought you wanted that of me. And by the way, we need a bicycle. These walks to town on bad shoes are killing me.”

Vianne wished she knew her sister well enough to read the look in her eyes. Was it guilt? Or worry or defiance? If she didn’t know better, she’d say it was pride.