THIRTEEN
On a beautiful day in late April 1941, Isabelle lay stretched out on a woolen blanket in the field across from the house. The sweet smell of ripening hay filled her nostrils. When she closed her eyes, she could almost forget that the engines in the distance were German lorries taking soldiers—and France’s produce—to the train station at Tours. After the disastrous winter, she appreciated how sunshine on her face lulled her into a drowsy state.
“There you are.”
Isabelle sighed and sat up.
Vianne wore a faded blue gingham day dress that had been grayed by harsh homemade soap. Hunger had whittled her down over the winter, sharpened her cheekbones and deepened the hollow at the base of her throat. An old scarf turbaned her head, hiding hair that had lost its shine and curl.
“This came for you.” Vianne held out a piece of paper. “It was delivered. By a man. For you,” she said, as if that fact bore repeating.
Isabelle clambered awkwardly to her feet and snatched the paper from Vianne’s grasp. On it, in scrawled handwriting, was: The curtains are open. She reached down for her blanket and began folding it up. What did it mean? They’d never summoned her before. Something important must be happening.
“Isabelle? Would you care to explain?”
“No.”
“It was Henri Navarre. The innkeeper’s son. I didn’t think you knew him.”
Isabelle ripped the note into tiny pieces and let it fall away.
“He is a communist, you know,” Vianne said in a whisper.
“I need to go.”
Vianne grabbed her wrist. “You cannot have been sneaking out all winter to see a communist. You know what the Nazis think of them. It’s dangerous to even be seen with this man.”
“You think I care what the Nazis think?” Isabelle said, wrenching free. She ran barefooted across the field. At home, she grabbed some shoes and climbed aboard her bicycle. With an au revoir! to a stunned-looking Vianne, Isabelle was off, pedaling down the dirt road.
In town, she coasted past the abandoned hat shop—sure enough, the curtains were open—and veered into the cobblestoned alley and came to a stop.
She leaned her bicycle against the rough limestone wall beside her and rapped four times. It didn’t occur to her until the final knock that it might be a trap. The idea, when it came, made her draw in a sharp breath and glance left and right, but it was too late now.
Henri opened the door.
Isabelle ducked inside. The room was hazy with cigarette smoke and reeked of burned chicory coffee. There was about the place a lingering scent of blood—sausage making. The burly man who had first grabbed her—Didier—was seated on an old hickory-backed chair. He was leaning back so far the two front chair legs were off the floor and his back grazed the wall behind him.
“You shouldn’t have brought a notice to my house, Henri. My sister is asking questions.”
“It was important we talk to you immediately.”
Isabelle felt a little bump of excitement. Would they finally ask her to do something more than dropping papers in letter boxes? “I am here.”
Henri lit up a cigarette. She could feel him watching her as he exhaled the gray smoke and put down his match. “Have you heard of a prefect in Chartres who was arrested and tortured for being a communist?”
Isabelle frowned. “No.”
“He cut his own throat with a piece of glass rather than name anyone or confess.” Henri snubbed his cigarette out on the bottom of his shoe and saved the rest for later in his coat pocket. “He is putting a group together, of people like us who want to heed de Gaulle’s call. He—the one who cut his own throat—is trying to get to London to speak to de Gaulle himself. He seeks to organize a Free French movement.”
“He didn’t die?” Isabelle asked. “Or cut his vocal cords?”
“No. They’re calling it a miracle,” Didier said.
Henri studied Isabelle. “I have a letter—very important—that needs to be delivered to our contact in Paris. Unfortunately, I am being watched closely these days. As is Didier.”
“Oh,” Isabelle said.
“I thought of you,” Didier said.
“Me?”
Henri reached into his pocket and withdrew a crumpled envelope. “Will you deliver this to our man in Paris? He is expecting it a week from today.”
“But … I don’t have an Ausweis.”
“Oui,” Henri said quietly. “And if you were caught…” He let that threat dangle. “Certainly no one would think badly of you if you declined. This is dangerous.”
Dangerous was an understatement. There were signs posted throughout Carriveau about executions that were taking place all over the Occupied Zone. The Nazis were killing French citizens for the smallest of infractions. Aiding this Free French movement could get her imprisoned at the very least. Still, she believed in a free France the way her sister believed in God. “So you want me to get a pass, go to Paris, deliver a letter, and come home.” It didn’t sound so perilous when put that way.
“No,” Henri said. “We need you to stay in Paris and be our … letter box, as it were. In the coming months there will be many such deliveries. Your father has an apartment there, oui?”
Paris.
It was what she’d longed for from the moment her father had exiled her. To leave Carriveau and return to Paris and be part of a network of people who resisted this war. “My father will not offer me a place to stay.”
“Convince him otherwise,” Didier said evenly, watching her. Judging her.
“He is not a man who is easily convinced,” she said.
“So you can’t do it. Voilà. We have our answer.”
“Wait,” Isabelle said.
Henri approached her. She saw reluctance in his eyes and knew that he wanted her to turn down this assignment. No doubt he was worried about her. She lifted her chin and looked him in the eyes. “I will do this.”
“You will have to lie to everyone you love, and always be afraid. Can you live that way? You’ll not feel safe anywhere.”
Isabelle laughed grimly. It was not so different from the life she’d lived since she was a little girl. “Will you watch over my sister?” she asked Henri. “Make sure she’s safe?”
“There is a price for all our work,” Henri said. He gave her a sad look. In it was the truth they had all learned. There was no safety. “I hope you see that.”
All Isabelle saw was her chance to do something that mattered. “When do I leave?”
“As soon as you get an Ausweis, which will not be easy.”