The Nightingale

She stared at him.

“Fine,” he said at last. “You’ll do what you will. But the storeroom in back. That’s mine. Mine, Isabelle. I will lock it up and take the key and you will respect my wishes by staying out of that room.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter why.”

“Do you have assignations with women there? On the sofa?”

He shook his head. “You are a foolish girl. Thank God your maman did not live to see who you have become.”

Isabelle hated how deeply that hurt her. “Or you, Papa,” she said. “Or you.”

SEVENTEEN

In mid-June of 1941, on the second-to-the-last school day of the term, Vianne was at the blackboard, conjugating a verb, when she heard the now-familiar putt-putt-putt of a German motorcycle.

“Soldiers again,” Gilles Fournier said bitterly. The boy was always angry lately, and who could blame him? The Nazis had seized his family’s butcher shop and given it to a collaborator.

“Stay here,” she said to her students, and went out into the hallway. In walked two men—a Gestapo officer in a long black coat and the local gendarme, Paul, who had gained weight since his collaboration with the Nazis. His stomach strained at his belt. How many times had she seen him strolling down rue Victor Hugo, carrying more food than his family could eat, while she stood in a lengthy queue, clutching a ration card that would provide too little?

Vianne moved toward them, her hands clasped tightly at her waist. She felt self-conscious in her threadbare dress, with its frayed collar and cuffs, and although she had carefully drawn a brown seam line up the back of her bare calves, it was obvious that it was a ruse. She had no stockings on, and that made her feel strangely vulnerable to these men. On either side of the hallway, classroom doors opened and teachers stepped out to see what the officers wanted. They made eye contact with one another but no one spoke.

The Gestapo agent walked determinedly toward Monsieur Paretsky’s classroom at the end of the building. Fat Paul struggled to keep up, huffing along behind him.

Moments later, Monsieur Paretsky was dragged out of his classroom by the French policeman.

Vianne frowned as they passed her. Old man Paretsky—who had taught her sums a lifetime ago and whose wife tended to the school’s flowers—gave her a terrified look. “Paul?” Vianne said sharply. “What is happening?”

The policeman stopped. “He is accused of something.”

“I did nothing wrong!” Paretsky cried, trying to pull free of Paul’s grasp.

The Gestapo agent noticed the commotion and perked up. He came at Vianne fast, heels clicking on the floor. She felt a shiver of fear at the glint in his eyes. “Madame. What is your reason for stopping us?”

“H-he is a friend of mine.”

“Really,” he said, drawing length from the word, making it a question. “So you know that he is distributing anti-German propaganda.”

“It’s a newspaper,” Paretsky said. “I’m just telling the French people the truth. Vianne! Tell them!”

Vianne felt attention turn to her.

“Your name?” the Gestapo demanded, opening a notebook and taking out a pencil.

She wet her lips nervously. “Vianne Mauriac.”

He wrote it down. “And you work with M’sieur Paretsky, distributing flyers?”

“No!” she cried out. “He is a teaching colleague, sir. I know nothing about anything else.”

The Gestapo closed the notebook. “Has no one told you that it is best to ask no questions?”

“I didn’t mean to,” she said, her throat dry.

He gave a slow smile. It frightened her, disarmed her, that smile; enough so that it took her a minute to register his next words.

“You are terminated, Madame.”