The Nightingale

When the world was at war and everything was scarce and your husband was gone. “I don’t know how to be on my own.”

“What do you mean? We were on our own for years. From the moment Maman died.”

Vianne blinked. Her sister’s words sounded a little jumbled, as if they were running on the wrong speed. “You were alone,” she said. “I never was. I met Antoine when I was fourteen and got pregnant at sixteen and married him when I was barely seventeen. Papa gave me this house to get rid of me. So, you see, I’ve never been on my own. That’s why you’re so strong and I’m not.”

“You will have to be,” Isabelle said. “For Sophie.”

Vianne drew in a breath. And there it was. The reason she couldn’t eat a bowl of arsenic or throw herself in front of a train. She took the short coil of crooked yarn and tied it to an apple tree branch. The burgundy color stood out against the green and brown. Now, each day in her garden and when she walked to her gate and when she picked apples, she would pass this branch and see this bit of yarn and think of Antoine. Each time she would pray—to him and to God—Come home.

“Come,” Isabelle said, putting an arm around Vianne, pulling her close.

Inside, the house echoed the voice of a man who wasn’t there.

* * *

Vianne stood outside Rachel’s stone cottage; overhead the sky was the color of smoke on this cold, late afternoon. The leaves of the trees, marigold and tangerine and scarlet, were just beginning to darken around the edges. Soon they would drop to the ground.

Vianne stared at the door, wishing she didn’t need to be here, but she had read the names Beck had given her. Marc de Champlain was also listed.

When she finally found the courage to knock, Rachel answered almost instantly, wearing an old housedress and sagging woolen stockings. A cardigan sweater hung askew, buttoned incorrectly. It gave her an odd, tilted look.

“Vianne! Come in. Sarah and I were just making a rice pudding—it’s mostly water and gelatin, of course, but I used a bit of milk.”

Vianne managed a smile. She let her friend sweep her into the kitchen and pour her a cup of the bitter, ersatz coffee that was all they could get. Vianne was remarking on the rice pudding—what she even said she didn’t know—when Rachel turned and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Vianne stared at her friend. She wanted to be the strong one—for once—but she couldn’t stop the tears that filled her eyes.

“Stay in the kitchen,” Rachel said to Sarah. “If you hear your brother wake up, get him. You,” she said to Vianne, “come with me.” She took Vianne by the arm and guided her through the small salon and into Rachel’s bedroom.

Vianne sat on the bed and looked up at her friend. Silently, she held out the list of names she’d gotten from Beck. “They’re prisoners of war, Rachel. Antoine and Marc and all the others. They won’t be coming home.”

* * *

Three days later, on a frosty Saturday morning, Vianne stood in her classroom and stared out at the group of women seated in desks that were too small for them. They looked tired and a little wary. No one felt comfortable gathering these days. It was never clear exactly how far verboten extended into conversations about the war, and besides that, the women of Carriveau were exhausted. They spent their days standing in line for insufficient quantities of foods, and when they weren’t in line, they were foraging the countryside or trying to sell their dancing shoes or a silk scarf for enough money to buy a loaf of good bread. In the back of the room, tucked into the corner, Sophie and Sarah were leaning against each other, knees drawn up, reading books.

Rachel moved her sleeping son from one shoulder to the other and closed the door of the classroom. “Thank you all for coming. I know how difficult it is these days to do anything more than the absolutely necessary.” There was a murmuring of agreement among the women.

“Why are we here?” Madame Fournier asked tiredly.

Vianne stepped forward. She had never felt completely comfortable around some of the women, many of whom had disliked Vianne when she moved here at fourteen. When Vianne had “caught” Antoine—the best-looking young man in town—they’d liked her even less. Those days were long past, of course, and now Vianne was friendly with these women and taught their children and frequented their shops, but even so, the pains of adolescence left a residue of discomfort. “I have received a list of French prisoners of war from Carriveau. I am sorry—terribly sorry—to tell you that your husbands—and mine, and Rachel’s—are on the list. I am told they will not be coming home.”

She paused, allowing the women to react. Grief and loss transformed the faces around her. Vianne knew the pain mirrored her own. Even so, it was difficult to watch, and she found her eyes misting again. Rachel stepped close, took her hand.

“I got us postcards,” Vianne said. “Official ones. So we can write to our men.”

“How did you get so many postcards?” Madame Fournier asked, wiping her eyes.

“She asked her German for a favor,” said Hélène Ruelle, the baker’s wife.

“I did not! And he’s not my German,” Vianne said. “He is a soldier who has requisitioned my home. Should I just let the Germans have Le Jardin? Just walk away and have nothing? Every house or hotel in town with a spare room has been taken by them. I am not special in this.”

More tsking and murmurs. Some women nodded; others shook their heads.

“I would have killed myself before I let one of them move into my house,” Hélène said.

“Would you, Hélène? Would you really?” Vianne said. “And would you kill your children first or throw them out into the street to survive on their own?”

Hélène looked away.