*
Isabelle woke to darkness. She remembered daylight.
Where was she?
She sat up so quickly her head spun. She took a few shallow breaths and then looked around.
The upstairs bedroom at Le Jardin. Her old room. It did not give her a warm feeling. How often had Madame Doom locked her in the bedroom “for her own good”?
“Don’t think about that,” she said aloud.
An even worse memory followed: Ga?tan. He had abandoned her after all; it filled her with the kind of bone-deep disappointment she knew so well.
Had she learned nothing in life? People left. She knew that. They especially left her.
She dressed in the shapeless blue housedress Vianne had left draped across the foot of the bed. Then she went down the narrow, shallow-stepped stairs, holding on to the iron banister. Every pain-filled step felt like a triumph.
Downstairs, the house was quiet except for the crackling, staticky sound of a radio on at a low volume. She was pretty sure Maurice Chevalier was singing a love song. Perfect.
Vianne was in the kitchen, wearing a gingham apron over a pale yellow housedress. A floral scarf covered her hair. She was peeling potatoes with a paring knife. Behind her, a cast-iron pot made a cheery little bubbling sound.
The aromas made Isabelle’s mouth water.
Vianne rushed forward to pull out a chair at the small table in the kitchen’s corner. “Here, sit.”
Isabelle fell onto the seat. Vianne brought her a plate that was already prepared. A hunk of still-warm bread, a triangle of cheese, a smear of quince paste, and a few slices of ham.
Isabelle took the bread in her red, scraped-up hands, lifting it to her face, breathing in the yeasty smell. Her hands were shaking as she picked up a knife and slathered the bread with fruit and cheese. When she set down the knife it clattered. She picked up the bread and bit into it; the single best bite of food of her life. The hard crust of the bread, its pillow-soft interior, the buttery cheese, and the fruit all combined to make her practically swoon. She ate the rest of it like a madwoman, barely noticing the cup of café noir her sister had set down beside her.
“Where’s Sophie?” Isabelle asked, her cheeks bulging with food. It was difficult to stop eating, even to be polite. She reached for a peach, felt its fuzzy ripeness in her hand, and bit into it. Juice dribbled down her chin.
“She’s next door, playing with Sarah. You remember my friend, Rachel?”
“I remember her,” Isabelle said.
Vianne poured herself a tiny cup of espresso and brought it to the table, where she sat down.
Isabelle burped and covered her mouth. “Pardon.”
“I think a lapse in manners can be overlooked,” Vianne said with a smile.
“You haven’t met Madame Dufour. No doubt she would hit me with a brick for that transgression.” Isabelle sighed. Her stomach hurt now; she felt like she might vomit. She wiped her moist chin with her sleeve. “What is the news from Paris?”
“The swastika flag flies from the Eiffel Tower.”
“And Papa?”
“Fine, he says.”
“Worried about me, I’ll bet,” Isabelle said bitterly. “He shouldn’t have sent me away. But when has he ever done anything else?”
A look passed between them. It was one of the few memories they shared, that abandonment, but clearly Vianne didn’t want to remember it. “We hear there were more than ten million of you on the roads.”
“The crowds weren’t the worst of it,” Isabelle said. “We were mostly women and children, V, and old men and boys. And they just … obliterated us.”
“It’s over now, thank God,” Vianne said. “It’s best to focus on the good. Who is Ga?tan? You spoke of him in your delirium.”
Isabelle picked at one of the scrapes on the back of her hand, realizing an instant too late that she should have let it alone. The scab ripped away and blood bubbled up.
“Maybe he has to do with this,” Vianne said when the silence elongated. She pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of her apron pocket. It was the note that had been pinned to Isabelle’s bodice. Dirty, bloody fingerprints ran across the paper. On it was written: You are not ready.
Isabelle felt the world drop out from under her. It was a ridiculous, girlish reaction, overblown, and she knew it, but still it hit her hard, wounded deep. He had wanted to take her with him until the kiss. Somehow he’d tasted the lack in her. “He’s no one,” she said grimly, taking the note, crumpling it. “Just a boy with black hair and a sharp face who tells lies. He’s nothing.” Then she looked at Vianne. “I’m going off to the war. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I’ll drive an ambulance or roll bandages. Anything.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Isabelle. Paris is overrun. The Nazis control the city. What is an eighteen-year-old girl to do about all of that?”
“I am not hiding out in the country while the Nazis destroy France. And let’s face it, you have never exactly felt sisterly toward me.” Her aching face tightened. “I’ll be leaving as soon as I can walk.”
“You will be safe here, Isabelle. That’s what matters. You must stay.”
“Safe?” Isabelle spat. “You think that is what matters now, Vianne? Let me tell you what I saw out there. French troops running from the enemy. Nazis murdering innocents. Maybe you can ignore that, but I won’t.”
“You will stay here and be safe. We will speak of it no more.”
“When have I ever been safe with you, Vianne?” Isabelle said, seeing hurt blossom in her sister’s eyes.
“I was young, Isabelle. I tried to be a mother to you.”
“Oh, please. Let’s not start with a lie.”
“After I lost the baby—”
Isabelle turned her back on her sister and limped away before she said something unforgiveable. She clasped her hands to still their trembling. This was why she hadn’t wanted to return to this house and see her sister, why she’d stayed away for years. There was too much pain between them. She turned up the radio to drown out her thoughts.
A voice crackled over the airwaves. “… Maréchal Pétain speaking to you…”
Isabelle frowned. Pétain was a hero of the Great War, a beloved leader of France. She turned up the volume further.
Vianne appeared beside her.
“… I assumed the direction of the government of France…”
Static overtook his deep voice, crackled through it.
Isabelle thumped the radio impatiently.
“… our admirable army, which is fighting with a heroism worthy of its long military traditions against an enemy superior in numbers and arms…”
Static. Isabelle hit the radio again, whispering, “Zut.”
“… in these painful hours I think of the unhappy refugees who, in extreme misery, clog our roads. I express to them my compassion and my solicitude. It is with a broken heart that I tell you today it is necessary to stop fighting.”
“We’ve won?” Vianne said.
“Shhh,” Isabelle said sharply.
“… addressed myself last night to the adversary to ask him if he is ready to speak with me, as soldier to soldier, after the actual fighting is over, and with honor, the means of putting an end to hostilities.”
The old man’s words droned on, saying things like “trying days” and “control their anguish” and, worst of all, “destiny of the fatherland.” Then he said the word Isabelle never thought she’d hear in France.
Surrender.