She saw the sad, forlorn look in his eyes, and she understood why he was here, what he’d come to say. He was going to sacrifice himself for Isabelle. She didn’t know how, but she knew it to be true just the same. It was his way of making up for all the times he’d disappointed them. “Papa,” she said. “What are you going to do?”
He laid a hand to her cheek and it was warm and solid and comforting, that father’s touch. She hadn’t realized—or admitted to herself—how much she’d missed him. And now, just when she glimpsed a different future, a redemption, it dissolved around her. “What would you do to save Sophie?”
“Anything.”
Vianne stared at this man who before the war changed him had taught her to love books and writing and to notice a sunset. She hadn’t remembered that man in a long time.
“I must go,” he said, handing her an envelope. On it was written Isabelle and Vianne in his shaky handwriting. “Read it together.”
He stood up and turned to leave.
She wasn’t ready to lose him. She grabbed for him. A piece of his cuff ripped away in her grasp. She stared down at it: a strip of brown-and-white-checked cotton lay in her palm. A strip of fabric like the others tied to her tree branches. Remembrances for lost and missing loved ones.
“I love you, Papa,” she said quietly, realizing how true it was, how true it had always been. Love had turned into loss and she’d pushed it away, but somehow, impossibly, a bit of that love had remained. A girl’s love for her father. Immutable. Unbearable but unbreakable.
“How can you?”
She swallowed hard, saw that he had tears in his eyes. “How can I not?”
He gave her a last, lingering look—and a kiss to each cheek—and then he drew back. So softly she almost didn’t hear, he said, “I loved you, too,” and then left her.
Vianne watched him walk away. When at last he disappeared, she returned home. There, she paused beneath the apple tree full of scraps of fabric. In the years that she had been tying scraps to the branches, the tree had died and the fruit had turned bitter. The other apple trees were hale and healthy, but this one, the tree of her remembrances, was as black and twisted as the bombed-out town behind it.
She tied the brown-checked scrap next to Rachel’s.
Then she went into the house.
A fire was lit in the living room; the whole house was warm and smoky. Wasteful. She closed the door behind her, frowning. “Children,” she called out.
“They are upstairs in my room. I gave them some chocolates and a game to play.”
Von Richter. What was he doing here in the middle of the day?
Had he seen her with her father?
Did he know about Isabelle?
“Your daughter thanked me for the chocolates. She is such a pretty young thing.”
Vianne knew better than to show her fear at that. She remained still and silent, trying to calm her racing heart.
“But your son.” He put the slightest emphasis on the word. “He looks nothing like you.”
“My h-husband, An—”
He struck so fast she didn’t even see him move. He grabbed her by the arm, squeezing hard, twisting the soft flesh. She let out a little cry as he shoved her back against the wall. “Are you going to lie to me again?”
He took both of her hands and wrenched them over her head, pinning them to the wall with one gloved hand. “Please,” she said, “don’t…”
She knew instantly that it was a mistake to beg.
“I checked the records. There is only one child born to you and Antoine. A girl, Sophie. You buried others. Who is the boy?”
Vianne was too frightened to think clearly. All she knew for sure was that she couldn’t tell the truth or Daniel would be deported. And God knew what they’d do to Vianne … to Sophie. “Antoine’s cousin died giving birth to Daniel. We adopted the baby just before the war started. You know how difficult official paperwork is these days, but I have his birth certificate and baptismal papers. He’s our son now.”
“Your nephew, then. Blood but not blood. Who is to say his father isn’t a communist? Or Jewish?”
Vianne swallowed convulsively. He didn’t suspect the truth. “We’re Catholic. You know that.”
“What would you do to keep him here with you?”
“Anything,” she said.
He unbuttoned her blouse, slowly, letting each button be teased through its fraying hole. When the bodice gaped open, he slid his hand inside, sliding it over her breast, twisting her nipple hard enough that she cried out in pain. “Anything?” he asked.
She swallowed dryly.
“The bedroom, please,” she said. “My children.”
He stepped back. “After you, Madame.”
“You will let me keep Daniel here?”
“Are you negotiating with me?”
“I am.”
He grabbed her by the hair and yanked hard, pulling her into the bedroom. He kicked the door shut with his booted foot and then shoved her up against the wall. She made an ooph as she hit. He pinned her in place and shoved her skirt up and ripped her knitted underpants away.
She turned her head and closed her eyes, hearing his belt unbuckle with a clatter and his buttons release.
“Look at me,” he said.
She didn’t move, didn’t so much as breathe. Neither did she open her eyes.
He hit her again. Still she stayed where she was, her eyes closed tightly.
“If you look at me, Daniel stays.”
She turned her head and slowly opened her eyes.
“That’s better.”
She gritted her teeth as he yanked down his pants and shoved her legs farther apart and violated both her body and her soul. She did not make a single sound.
Nor did she look away.