The Nightingale

Was Antoine out there still? Was he somewhere in his prison camp, looking out a slit in the barracks wall or a boarded-up window, looking at this moon that had once shone on a house filled with love? And Isabelle. She’d been gone only two months, but it felt like a lifetime. Vianne worried about her constantly, but there was nothing to be done about worry; it had to be borne.

Downstairs, she lit a candle. The electricity had been off for a long time now. In the water closet, she set the candle down by the sink and stared at herself in the oval mirror. Even in candlelight, she looked pasty and gaunt. Her dull, reddish gold hair hung limp on either side of her face. In the years of deprivation, her nose seemed to have lengthened and her cheekbones had become more prominent. A bruise discolored her temple. Soon, she knew, it would darken. She knew without looking that there would be handprints on her upper arms and an ugly bruise on her left breast.

He was getting meaner. Angrier. The Allied forces had landed in southern France and begun liberating towns. The Germans were losing the war, and Von Richter seemed hell-bent on making Vianne pay for it.

She stripped and washed in tepid water. She scrubbed until her skin was mottled and red, and still she didn’t feel clean. She never felt clean.

When she could stand no more, she dried off and redressed in her nightgown, adding a robe over it. Tying it at the waist, she left the bathroom, carrying her candle.

Sophie was in the living room, waiting for her. She sat on the last good piece of furniture in the room—the divan—with her knees drawn together and her hands clasped. The rest of the furniture had been requisitioned or burned.

“What are you doing up so late?”

“I could ask you the same question, but I don’t really need to, do I?”

Vianne tightened the belt on her robe. It was a nervous habit, something to do with her hands. “Let’s go to bed.”

Sophie looked up at her. At almost fourteen, Sophie’s face had begun to mature. Her eyes were black against her pale skin, her lashes lush and long. A poor diet had thinned Sophie’s hair, but it still hung in ringlets. She pursed her full lips. “Really, Maman? How long must we pretend?” The sadness—and the anger—in those beautiful eyes was heartbreaking. Vianne apparently had hidden nothing from this child who’d lost her childhood to war.

What was the right thing for a mother to say to her nearly grown daughter about the ugliness in the world? How could she be honest? How could Vianne expect her daughter to judge her less harshly than she judged herself?

Vianne sat down beside Sophie. She thought about their old life—laughter, kisses, family suppers, Christmas mornings, lost baby teeth, first words.

“I’m not stupid,” Sophie said.

“I have never thought you were. Not for a moment.” She drew in a breath and let it out. “I only wanted to protect you.”

“From the truth?”

“From everything.”

“There’s no such thing,” Sophie said bitterly. “Don’t you know that by now? Rachel is gone. Sarah is dead. Grandpère is dead. Tante Isabelle is…” Tears filled her eyes. “And Papa … when did we last hear from him? A year? Eight months? He’s probably dead, too.”

“Your father is alive. So is your aunt. I’d feel it if they were gone.” She put a hand over her heart. “I’d know it here.”

“Your heart? You’d feel it in your heart?”

Vianne knew that Sophie was being shaped by this war, roughened by fear and desperation into a sharper, more cynical version of herself, but still it was hard to see in such sharp detail.

“How can you just … go to him? I see the bruises.”

“That’s my war,” Vianne said quietly, ashamed almost more than she could stand.

“Tante Isabelle would have strangled him in his sleep.”

“Oui,” she agreed. “Isabelle is a strong woman. I am not. I am just … a mother trying to keep her children safe.”

“You think we want you to save us this way?”

“You’re young,” she said, her shoulders slumping in defeat. “When you are a mother yourself…”

“I won’t be a mother,” she said.

“I’m sorry to have disappointed you, Sophie.”

“I want to kill him,” Sophie said after a moment.

“Me, too.”

“We could hold a pillow over his head while he sleeps.”

“You think I have not dreamed of doing it? But it is too dangerous. Beck already disappeared while living in this house. To have a second officer do the same? They would turn their attention on us, which we don’t want.”

Sophie nodded glumly.

“I can stand what Von Richter does to me, Sophie. I couldn’t stand losing you or Daniel or being sent away from you. Or seeing you hurt.”

Sophie didn’t look away. “I hate him.”

“So do I,” Vianne said quietly. “So do I.”

*

“It is hot out today. I was thinking it would be a good day for swimming,” Vianne said with a smile.

The uproar was immediate and unanimous.

Vianne guided the children out of the orphanage classroom, keeping them tucked in close as they walked down the cloisters. They were passing Mother Superior’s office when the door opened.

“Madame Mauriac,” Mother said, smiling. “Your little gaggle looks happy enough to burst into song.”

“Not on a day this hot, Mother.” She linked her arm through Mother’s. “Come to the pond with us.”