*
Roll call had been going on for hours. Isabelle dropped to her knees. The minute she hit the ground, she thought stay alive and clambered back up.
Guards patrolled the perimeter with their dogs, selecting women for the gas chamber. Word was that another march was coming. This one to Mauthausen, where thousands had already been worked to death: Soviet prisoners of war, Jews, Allied airmen, political prisoners. It was said that none who walked through its gates would ever walk out.
Isabelle coughed. Blood sprayed across her palm. She wiped it on her dirty dress quickly, before the guards could see.
Her throat burned, her head pulsed and ached. She was so focused on her agony that it took her a moment to notice the sound of engines.
“Do you hear that?” Micheline said.
Isabelle felt a commotion moving through the prisoners. It was hard to concentrate when she hurt so badly. Her lungs ached with every breath.
“They’re leaving,” she heard.
“Isabelle, look!”
At first all she saw was bright blue sky and trees and prisoners. Then she noticed.
“The guards are gone,” she said in a hoarse, ragged voice.
The gates clattered open and a stream of American trucks drove through the gates; soldiers sat on the bonnets and hung out the back, their rifles held across their chests.
Americans.
Isabelle’s knees gave out. “Mich … e … line,” she whispered, her voice as broken as her spirit. “We … made … it.”
*
That spring, the war began to end. General Eisenhower broadcast a demand for the German surrender. Americans crossed the Rhine and went into Germany; the Allies won one battle after another and began to liberate the camps. Hitler was living in a bunker.
And still, Isabelle didn’t come home.
Vianne let the letter box clang shut. “It’s as if she disappeared.”
Antoine said nothing. For weeks they had been searching for Isabelle. Vianne stood in queues for hours to make telephone calls and sent countless letters to agencies and hospitals. Last week they visited more displaced-person camps, but to no avail. There was no record of Isabelle Rossignol anywhere. It was as if she had disappeared from the face of the earth—along with hundreds of thousands of others.
Maybe Isabelle had survived the camps, only to be shot a day before the Allies arrived. Supposedly in one of the camps, a place called Bergen-Belsen, the Allies had found heaps of still-warm bodies at liberation.
Why?
So they wouldn’t talk.
“Come with me,” Antoine said, taking her by the hand. She no longer stiffened at his touch, or flinched, but she couldn’t seem to relax into it, either. In the months since Antoine’s return, they were playacting at love and both of them knew it. He said he didn’t make love to her because of the baby, and she agreed that it was for the best, but they knew.
“I have a surprise for you,” he said, leading her into the backyard.
The sky was a bright cerulean beneath which the yew tree provided a patch of cool brown shade. In the pergola, the few chickens that were left pecked at the dirt, clucking and flapping.
An old bedsheet had been stretched between a branch of the yew tree and an iron hat rack that Antoine must have found in the barn. He led her to one of the chairs set on the stone patio. In the years of his absence, the moss and grass had begun to overtake this part of the yard, so her chair sat unsteadily on the uneven surface. She sat down carefully; she was unwieldy these days. The smile her husband gave her was both dazzling in its joy and startling in its intimacy. “The kids and I have been working on this all day. It’s for you.”
The kids and I.
Antoine took his place in front of the sagging sheet and lifted his good arm in a sweeping gesture. “Ladies and gentlemen, children and scrawny rabbits and chickens who smell like shit—”
Behind the curtain, Daniel giggled and Sophie shushed him.
“In the rich tradition of Madelaine in Paris, which was Mademoiselle Mauriac’s first starring role, I give you the Le Jardin singers.” With a flourish, he unsnapped one side of the sheet-curtain and swept it aside to reveal a wooden platform set upon the grass at a not-quite-level slant. On it, Sophie stood beside Daniel. Both wore blankets as capes, with a sprig of apple blossoms at the throat and crowns made of some shiny metal, onto which they had glued pretty rocks and bits of colored glass.
“Hi, Maman!” Daniel said, waving furiously.
“Shhh,” Sophie said to him. “Remember?”
Daniel nodded seriously.
They turned carefully—the plank floor teetered beneath them—and held hands, facing Vianne.
Antoine brought a silver harmonica to his mouth and let out a mournful note. It hung in the air for a long time, vibrating in invitation, and then he started to play.
Sophie began to sing in a high, pure voice. “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques…”
She squatted down and Daniel popped up, singing, “Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?”
Vianne clamped her hand over her mouth but not before a little laughter slipped out.
Onstage, the song went on. She could see how happy Sophie was to do this once-ordinary thing, this little performance for her parents, and how hard Daniel was concentrating to do his part well.
It felt both profoundly magical and beautifully ordinary. A moment from the life they’d had before.
Vianne felt joy open up inside of her.
We’re going to be all right, she thought, looking at Antoine. In the shade cast by the tree her great-grandfather had planted, with their children’s voices in the air, she saw her other half, thought again: We’re going to be all right.
“… ding … dang … dong…”
When the song ended, Vianne clapped wildly. The children bowed majestically. Daniel tripped on his bedspread cape and tumbled to the grass and came up laughing. Vianne waddled to the stage and smothered her children with kisses and compliments.
“What a lovely idea,” she said to Sophie, her eyes shining with love and pride.
“I was concentrating, Maman,” Daniel said proudly.
Vianne couldn’t let them go. This future she’d glimpsed filled her soul with joy.
“I planned with Papa,” Sophie said. “Just like before, Maman.”
“I planned it, too,” Daniel said, puffing out his little chest.
She laughed. “How grand you both were at singing. And—”
“Vianne?” Antoine said from behind her.
She couldn’t look away from Daniel’s smile. “How long did it take you to learn your part?”
“Maman,” Sophie said quietly. “Someone is here.”
Vianne turned to look behind her.
Antoine was standing near the back door with two men; both wore threadbare black suits and black berets. One carried a tattered briefcase.
“Sophie, take care of your brother for a minute,” Antoine said to the children. “We have something to discuss with these men.” He moved in beside Vianne, placing a hand at the small of her back, helping her to her feet, urging her forward. They filed into the house in a silent line.
When the door closed behind them, the men turned to face Vianne.