The Nightingale

Once she’d stitched the entrance wound, she felt a little confidence, enough to stitch the exit wound and then to bandage it.

At last, she sat back, staring down at her bloody hands and bloodied skirt.

Isabelle looked so pale and frail, not herself at all. Her hair was filthy and matted, her clothes were wet with her own blood—and the airman’s—and she looked young.

So young.

Vianne felt a shame so deep it made her sick to her stomach. Had she really told her sister—her sister—to go away and not come back?

How often had Isabelle heard that in her life, and from her own family, from people who were supposed to love her?

“I’ll take her to the safe house in Brant?me,” the black-haired one said.

“Oh, no, you won’t,” Vianne said. She looked up from her sister, saw that the three men were standing together by the wagon, conspiring. She got to her feet. “She’s not going anywhere with you. You’re the reason she’s here.”

“She’s the reason we’re here,” the dark-haired man said. “I’m taking her. Now.”

Vianne approached the young man. There was a look in his eyes—an intensity—that ordinarily would have frightened her, but she was beyond fear now, beyond caution. “I know who you are,” Vianne said. “She described you to me. You’re the one from Tours who left her with a note pinned to her chest as if she were a stray dog. Gaston, right?”

“Ga?tan,” he said in a voice that was so soft she had to lean toward him to hear. “And you should know about that. Aren’t you the one who couldn’t bother to be her sister when she needed one?”

“If you try to take her away from me, I’ll kill you.”

“You’ll kill me,” he said, smiling.

She cocked her head toward Beck. “I killed him with a shovel and I liked him.”

“Enough,” Henri said, stepping between them. “She can’t stay here, Vianne. Think about it. The Germans are going to come looking for their dead captain. They don’t need to find a woman with a gunshot wound and false papers. You understand?”

The big man stepped forward. “We’ll bury the captain and the airman. And we’ll make sure the motorcycle disappears. Ga?tan, you get her to a safe house in the Free Zone.”

Vianne looked from man to man. “But it’s after curfew and the border is four miles away and she’s wounded. How will…”

Halfway through the question, she figured out the answer.

The coffin.

Vianne took a step back. The idea of it was so terrible, she shook her head.

“I’ll take care of her,” Ga?tan said.

Vianne didn’t believe him. Not for a second. “I’m going with you. As far as the border. Then I’ll walk back when I see that you’ve gotten her to the Free Zone.”

“You can’t do that,” Ga?tan said.

She looked up at him. “You’d be surprised what I can do. Now, let’s get her out of here.”





TWENTY-SIX

May 6, 1995

The Oregon Coast

That damned invitation is haunting me. I’d swear it has a heartbeat.

For days I have ignored it, but on this bright spring morning, I find myself at the counter, staring down at it. Funny. I don’t remember walking over here and yet here I am.

Another woman’s hand reaches out. It can’t be my hand, not that veiny, big-knuckled monstrosity that trembles. She picks up the envelope, this other woman.

Her hands are shaking even more than usual.

Please join us at the AFEES reunion in Paris, on May 7, 1995.

The fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.

For the first time, families and friends of passeurs will come together in gratitude to honor the extraordinary “Nightingale,” also known as Juliette Gervaise, in the grand ballroom of the ?le de France H?tel, in Paris. 7:00 P.M.

Beside me, the phone rings. As I reach for it, the invitation slips from my grasp, falls to the counter. “Hello?”

Someone is talking to me in French. Or am I imagining that?

“Is this a sales call?” I ask, confused.

“No! No. It is about our invitation.”

I almost drop the phone in surprise.

“It has been most difficult to track you down, Madame. I am calling about the passeurs’ reunion tomorrow night. We are gathering to celebrate the people who made the Nightingale escape route so successful. Did you receive the invitation?”

“Oui,” I say, clutching the receiver.

“The first one we sent you was returned, I am sorry to say. Please forgive the tardiness of the invitation. But … will you be coming?”

“It is not me people want to see. It’s Juliette. And she hasn’t existed for a long time.”

“You couldn’t be more wrong, Madame. Seeing you would be meaningful to many people.”

I hang up the phone so hard it is like smashing a bug.

But suddenly the idea of going back—going home—is in my mind. It’s all I can think about.

For years, I kept the memories at bay. I hid them in a dusty attic, far from prying eyes. I told my husband, my children, myself, that there was nothing for me in France. I thought I could come to America and make this new life for myself and forget what I had done to survive.

Now I can’t forget.