The Nightingale

Rachel stood there, with the baby in her arms and Sarah tucked in close to her side. “You are teaching today with your hair pinned?”

“Oh!” Vianne felt like a fool. What was wrong with her? Today was the last day of school before the summer break. “Let’s go, Sophie. We are late.” She rushed back inside and cleared the table. Sophie had licked her plate clean, so Vianne laid it in the copper sink to wash later. She covered the leftover pot of mush and put the preserved peaches away. Then she ran upstairs to get ready.

In no time, she had removed her hairpins and combed her hair into smooth waves. She grabbed her hat, gloves, and handbag and left the house to find Rachel and the children waiting in the orchard.

Captain Beck was there, too, standing by the shed. His white T-shirt was soaked in places and clung to his chest, revealing the whorls of hair beneath. He had the axe slung casually against one shoulder.

“Ah, greetings,” he said.

Vianne could feel Rachel’s scrutiny.

Beck lowered the axe. “This is a friend of yours, Madame?”

“Rachel,” Vianne said tightly. “My neighbor. This is Herr Captain Beck. He is … the one billeting with us.”

“Greetings,” Beck said again, nodding politely.

Vianne put a hand on Sophie’s back and gave her daughter a little shove, and they were off, trudging through the tall grass of the orchard and out onto the dusty road.

“He’s handsome,” Rachel said as they came to the airfield, which was abuzz with activity behind the coils of barbed wire. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“Is he?”

“I’m pretty sure you know he is, so your question is interesting. What’s he like?”

“German.”

“The soldiers billeted with Claire Moreau look like sausages with legs. I hear they drink enough wine to kill a judge and snore like rooting hogs. You’re lucky, I guess.”

“You’re the lucky one, Rachel. No one has moved into your house.”

“Poverty has its reward at last.” She linked her arm through Vianne’s. “Don’t look so stricken, Vianne. I hear they have orders to be ‘correct.’”

Vianne looked at her best friend. “Last week, Isabelle chopped off her hair in front of the captain and said beauty must be verboten.”

Rachel couldn’t stifle her smile completely. “Oh.”

“It’s hardly funny. She could get us killed with her temper.”

Rachel’s smile faded. “Can you talk to her?”

“Oh, I can talk. When has she ever listened to anyone?”

*

“You are hurting me,” Isabelle said.

The man yanked her away from the wall and dragged her down the street, moving so fast she had to run along beside him; she bumped into the stone alley wall with every step. When she tripped on a cobblestone and almost fell, he tightened his hold and held her upright.

Think, Isabelle. He wasn’t in uniform, so he must be Gestapo. That was bad. And he’d seen her defacing the poster. Did it count as an act of sabotage or espionage or resistance to the German occupation?

It wasn’t like blowing up a bridge or selling secrets to Britain.

I was making art … it was going to be a vase full of flowers … Not a V for victory, a vase. No resistance, just a silly girl drawing on the only paper she could find. I have never even heard of Général de Gaulle.

And what if they didn’t believe her?

The man stopped in front of an oak door with a black lion’s head knocker at its center.

He rapped four times on the door.

“W-where are you taking me?” Was this a back door to the Gestapo headquarters? There were rumors about these Gestapo interrogators. Supposedly they were ruthless and sadistic, but no one knew for sure.

The door opened slowly, revealing an old man in a beret. A hand-rolled cigarette hung from his fleshy, liver-spotted lips. He saw Isabelle and frowned.

“Open up,” the man beside Isabelle growled and the old man stepped aside.

Isabelle was pulled into a room full of smoke. Her eyes stung as she looked around. It was an abandoned novelty store that had once sold bonnets and notions and sewing supplies. In the smoky light, she saw empty display cases that had been shoved up against the walls, empty metal hat racks were piled in the corner. The window out front had been bricked up and the back door that faced rue La Grande was padlocked from the inside.

There were four men in the room: a tall, graying man, dressed in rags, standing in the corner; a boy seated beside the old man who had opened the door, and a handsome young man in a tattered sweater and worn pants with scuffed boots who sat at a café table.

“Who is this, Didier?” asked the old man who had opened the door.

Isabelle got the first good look at her captor—he was big and brawny, with the puffed-up look of a circus strong man and a heavily jowled, oversized face.

She stood as tall as possible, with her shoulders pressed back and her chin lifted. She knew she looked ridiculously young in her plaid skirt and fitted blouse, but she refused to give them the satisfaction of knowing she was afraid.