The Nightingale

At home, when she was upstairs again, in the bedroom that had been hers as a child, she slammed the door shut behind her. A few moments later, she smelled cigarette smoke and it made her so angry she wanted to scream.

He was down there, smoking a cigarette. Captain Beck, with his cut-stone face and fake smile, could toss them all out of this house at will. For any reason or no reason at all. Her frustration curdled into an anger that was like nothing she’d ever known. She felt as if her insides were a bomb that needed to go off. One wrong move—or word—and she might explode.

She marched over to Vianne’s bedroom and opened the door. “You need a pass to leave town,” she said, her anger expanding. “The bastards won’t let us take a train to see family.”

From the darkness, Vianne said, “So that’s that.”

Isabelle didn’t know if it was relief or disappointment she heard in her sister’s voice.

“Tomorrow morning you will go to town for me. You will stand in the queues while I am at school and get what you can.”

“But—”

“No buts, Isabelle. You are here now and staying. It’s time you pulled your weight. I need to be able to count on you.”

*

For the next week, Isabelle tried to be on her best behavior, but it was impossible with that man living under the same roof. Night after night she didn’t sleep. She lay in her bed, alone in the dark, imagining the worst.

This morning, well before dawn, she gave up the pretense and got out of bed. She washed her face and dressed in a plain cotton day dress, wrapping a scarf around her butchered hair as she went downstairs.

Vianne sat on the divan, knitting, an oil lamp lit beside her. In the ring of lamplight that separated her from the darkness, Vianne looked pale and sickly; she obviously hadn’t slept much this week, either. She looked up at Isabelle in surprise. “You’re up early.”

“I have a long day of standing in lines ahead of me. Might as well get started,” Isabelle said. “The first in line get the best food.”

Vianne put her knitting aside and stood. Smoothing her dress (another reminder that he was in the house: neither of them came downstairs in nightdresses), she went into the kitchen and then returned with ration cards. “It’s meat today.”

Isabelle grabbed the ration cards from Vianne and left the house, plunging into the darkness of a blacked-out world.

Dawn rose as she walked, illuminating a world within a world—one that looked like Carriveau but felt entirely foreign. As she passed the airfield, a small green car with the letters POL on the rear roared past her.

Gestapo.

The airfield was already a hive of activity. She saw four guards out front—two at the newly constructed gated entrance and two at the building’s double doors. Nazi flags snapped in the early-morning breeze. Several aeroplanes stood ready for takeoff—to drop bombs on England and across Europe. Guards marched in front of red signs that read: VERBOTEN. KEEP OUT UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH.

She kept walking.

There were already four women queued up in front of the butcher’s shop when she arrived. She took her place at the back of the line.

That was when she saw a piece of chalk lying in the road, tucked in against the curb. She knew instantly how she could use it.

She glanced around, but no one was looking at her. Why would they be when there were German soldiers everywhere? Men in uniforms strode through town like peacocks, buying whatever caught their eye. Rambunctious and loud and quick to laugh. They were unfailingly polite, opening doors for women and tipping their hats, but Isabelle wasn’t fooled.

She bent down and palmed the bit of chalk, hiding it in her pocket. It felt dangerous and wonderful just having it. She tapped her foot impatiently after that, waiting for her turn.

“Good morning,” she said, offering her ration card to the butcher’s wife, a tired-looking woman with thinning hair and even thinner lips.

“Ham hocks, two pounds. That’s what is left.”

“Bones?”

“The Germans take all the good meat, M’mselle. You’re lucky, in fact. Pork is verboten for the French, don’t you know, but they don’t want the hocks. Do you want them or non?”

“I’ll take them,” someone said behind her.

“So will I!” yelled another woman.

“I’ll take them,” Isabelle said. She took the small packet, wrapped up in wrinkled paper and tied with twine.

Across the street, she heard the sound of jackboots marching on cobblestone, the rattling of sabers in scabbards, the sound of male laughter and the purring voices of the French women who warmed their beds. A trio of German soldiers sat at a bistro table not far away.

“Mademoiselle?” one of them said, waving to her. “Come have coffee with us.”