*
Later, while supper simmered on the stove, Vianne gathered the children together on their bed. “Sophie, Ari, come here. I need to speak with you.”
“What is it, Maman?” Sophie asked, looking worried already.
“They are deporting French-born Jews.” She paused. “Children, too.”
Sophie drew in a sharp breath and looked at three-year-old Ari, who bounced happily on the bed. He was too young to learn a new identity. She could tell him his name was Daniel Mauriac from now until forever and he wouldn’t understand why. If he believed in his mother’s return, and waited for that, sooner or later he would make a mistake that would get him deported, maybe one that would get them all killed. She couldn’t risk that. She would have to break his heart to protect them all.
Forgive me, Rachel.
She and Sophie exchanged a pained look. They both knew what had to be done, but how could one mother do this to another woman’s child?
“Ari,” she said quietly, taking his face in her hands. “Your maman is with the angels in Heaven. She won’t be coming back.”
He stopped bouncing. “What?”
“She’s gone forever,” Vianne said again, feeling her own tears rise and fall. She would say it over and over until he believed it. “I am your maman now. And you will be called Daniel.”
He frowned, chewing noisily on the inside of his mouth, splaying his fingers as if he were counting. “You said she was coming back.”
Vianne hated to say it. “She’s not. She’s gone. Like the sick baby rabbit we lost last month, remember?” They had buried it in the yard with great ceremony.
“Gone like the bunny?” Tears filled his brown eyes, spilled over. His mouth trembled. Vianne took him in her arms and held him and rubbed his back. But she couldn’t soothe him enough, nor could she let him go. At last, she eased back enough to look at him. “Do you understand … Daniel?”
“You’ll be my brother,” Sophie said, her voice unsteady. “Truly.”
Vianne felt her heart break, but she knew there was no other way to keep Rachel’s son safe. She prayed that he was young enough to forget he was ever Ari, and the sadness of that prayer was overwhelming. “Say it,” she said evenly. “Tell me your name.”
“Daniel,” he said, obviously confused, trying to please.
Vianne made him say it a dozen times that night, while they ate their supper of sausage and potatoes and later, when they washed the dishes and dressed for bed. She prayed that this ruse would be enough to save him, that his papers would pass inspection. Never again would she call him Ari or even think of him as Ari. Tomorrow, she would cut his hair as short as possible. Then she would go to town and tell everyone (that gossip Hélène Ruelle would be first) of the child she’d adopted from a dead cousin in Nice.
God help them all.
TWENTY-FIVE
Isabelle crept through the empty streets of Carriveau dressed in black, her golden hair covered. It was after curfew. A meager moon occasionally cast light on the uneven cobblestones; more often, it was obscured by clouds.
She listened for footsteps and lorry motors and froze when she heard either. At the end of town, she climbed over a rose-covered wall, heedless of the thorns, and dropped into a wet, black field of hay. She was halfway to the rendezvous point when three aeroplanes roared overhead, so low in the sky the trees shivered and the ground shook. Machine guns fired at one another, bursts of sound and light.
The smaller aeroplane banked and swerved. She saw the insignia of America on the underside of its wing as it banked left and climbed. Moments later, she heard the whistling of a bomb—the inhuman, piercing wail—and then something exploded.
The airfield. They were bombing it.
The aeroplanes roared overhead again. There was another round of gunfire and the American aeroplane was hit. Smoke roiled out. A screaming sound filled the night; the aeroplane plummeted toward the ground, twirled, its wings catching the moonlight, reflecting it.
It crashed hard enough to rattle Isabelle’s bones and shake the ground beneath her feet; steel hitting dirt, rivets popping from metal, roots being torn up. The broken aeroplane skidded through the forest, breaking trees as if they were matchsticks. The smell of smoke was overwhelming, and then in a giant whoosh, the aeroplane burst into flames.
In the sky, a parachute appeared, swinging back and forth, the man suspended beneath it looking as small as a comma.
Isabelle cut through the swath of burning trees. Smoke stung her eyes.
Where was he?
A glimpse of white caught her eye and she ran toward it.
The limp parachute lay across the scrubby ground, the airman attached to it.
Isabelle heard the sound of voices—they weren’t far away—and the crunching of footsteps. She hoped to God it was her colleagues, coming for the meeting, but there was no way to know. The Nazis would be busy at the airfield, but not for long.
She skidded to her knees, unhooked the airman’s parachute, gathered it up, and ran with it as far as she dared, burying it as best she could beneath a pile of dead leaves. Then she ran back to the pilot and grabbed him by the wrists and dragged him deeper into the woods.
“You’ll have to stay quiet. Do you understand me? I’ll come back, but you need to lie still and be quiet.”
“You … betcha,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
Isabelle covered him with leaves and branches, but when she stood back, she saw her footprints in the mud, each one oozing with black water now, and the rutted drag marks she’d made hauling him over here. Black smoke rolled past her, engulfed her. The fire was getting closer, burning brighter. “Merde,” she muttered.
There were voices. People yelling.
She tried to rub her hands clean but the mud just smeared and smeared, marking her.
Three shapes came out of the woods, moving toward her.
“Isabelle,” a man said. “Is that you?”
A torchlight flicked on, revealing Henri and Didier. And Ga?tan.
“You found the pilot?” Henri asked.
Isabelle nodded. “He’s wounded.”
Dogs barked in the distance. The Nazis were coming.
Didier glanced behind them. “We haven’t much time.”
“We’ll never make it to town,” Henri said.
Isabelle made a split-second decision. “I know somewhere close we can hide him.”
*
“This is not a good idea,” Ga?tan said.
“Hurry,” Isabelle said harshly. They were in the barn at Le Jardin now, with the door shut behind them. The airman lay slumped on the dirty floor, unconscious, his blood smearing across Didier’s coat and gloves. “Push the car forward.”
Henri and Didier pushed the Renault forward and then lifted the cellar door. It creaked in protest and fell forward and banged into the car’s fender.
Isabelle lit an oil lamp and held it in one hand as she felt her way down the wobbly ladder. Some of the provisions she’d left had been used.
She lifted the lamp. “Bring him down.”
The men exchanged a worried look.
“I don’t know about this,” Henri said.
“What choice do we have?” Isabelle snapped. “Now bring him down.”
Ga?tan and Henri carried the unconscious airman down into the dark, dank cellar and laid him on the mattress, which made a rustling, whispery sound beneath his weight.
Henri gave her a worried look. Then he climbed out of the cellar and stood above them. “Come on, Ga?tan.”
Ga?tan looked at Isabelle. “We’ll have to move the car back into place. You won’t be able to get out of here until we come for you. If something happened to us, no one would know you were here.” She could tell he wanted to touch her, and she ached for it. But they stood where they were, their arms at their sides. “The Nazis will be relentless in their search for this airman. If you’re caught…”
She tilted her chin, trying to hide how scared she was. “Don’t let me be caught.”
“You think I don’t want to keep you safe?”
“I know you do,” she said quietly.
Before he could answer, Henri said, “Come on, Ga?tan,” from above. “We need to find a doctor and figure out how to get them out of here tomorrow.”
Ga?tan stepped back. The whole world seemed to lie in that small space between them. “When we come back, we’ll knock three times and whistle, so don’t shoot us.”
“I’ll try not to,” she said.
He paused. “Isabelle…”
She waited, but he had no more to say, just her name, spoken with the kind of regret that had become common. With a sigh, he turned and climbed up the ladder.
Moments later, the trapdoor banged shut. She heard the boards overhead groan as the Renault was rolled back into place.
And then, silence.
Isabelle started to panic. It was the locked bedroom again; Madame Doom slamming the door, clicking the lock, telling her to shut up and quit asking for things.
She couldn’t get out of here, not even in an emergency.
Stop it. Be calm. You know what needs to be done. She went over to the shelving, pushed her father’s shotgun aside, and retrieved the box of medical supplies. A quick inventory revealed scissors, a needle and thread, alcohol, bandages, chloroform, Benzedrine tablets, and adhesive tape.
She knelt beside the airman and set the lamp down on the floor beside her. Blood soaked the chest of his flight suit, and it took great effort to peel the fabric away. When she did, she saw the giant, gaping hole in his chest and knew there was nothing she could do.
She sat beside him, holding his hand until he took one last, troubled breath; then his breathing stopped. His mouth slowly gaped open.
She gently eased the dog tags from around his neck. They would need to be hidden. She looked down at them. “Lieutenant Keith Johnson,” she said.
Isabelle blew out the lamp and sat in the dark with a dead man.