The Nightingale

Vianne did the same.

Finally Isabelle sighed heavily. “We are on our way home, Herr Captain.”

“Is there something I can do for you, Herr Captain?” said Vianne.

Beck moved closer. “I know how worried you have been about your husband, so I did some checking.”

“Oh.”

“It is not fine news, I am sorrowful to report. Your husband, Antoine Mauriac, has been captured along with many of your town’s men. He is in a prisoner of war camp.” He handed her a list of names and a stack of official postcards. “He will not be coming home.”

*

Vianne barely remembered leaving town. She knew Isabelle was beside her, holding her upright, urging her to put one foot in front of the other, and that Sophie was beside her, chirping out questions as sharp as fish hooks. What is a prisoner of war? What did Herr Captain mean that Papa would not be coming home? Never?

Vianne knew when they’d arrived home because the scents of her garden greeted her, welcomed her. She blinked, feeling a little like someone who had just wakened from a coma to find the world impossibly changed.

“Sophie,” Isabelle said firmly. “Go make your mother a cup of coffee. Open a tin of milk.”

“But—”

“Go,” Isabelle said.

When Sophie was gone, Isabelle turned to Vianne, cupped her face with cold hands. “He’ll be all right.”

Vianne felt as if she were breaking apart bit by bit, losing blood and bone as she stood here, contemplating something she had studiously avoided thinking about: a life without him. She started to shiver; her teeth chattered.

“Come inside for coffee,” Isabelle said.

Into the house? Their house? His ghost would be everywhere in there—a dent in the divan where he sat to read, the hook that held his coat. And the bed.

She shook her head, wishing she could cry, but there were no tears in her. This news had emptied her. She couldn’t even breathe.

Suddenly all she could think about was the sweater of his that she was wearing. She started to strip out of her clothes, tearing off the coat and the vest—ignoring Isabelle’s shouted NO!—as she yanked the sweater over her head and buried her face in the soft wool, trying to smell him in the yarn—his favorite soap, him.

But there was nothing but her own smell. She lowered the bunched-up sweater from her face and stared down at it, trying to remember the last time he’d worn it. She picked at a loose thread and it unraveled in her hand, became a squiggly coil of wine-colored yarn. She bit it off and tied a knot to save the rest of the sleeve. Yarn was precious these days.

These days.

When the world was at war and everything was scarce and your husband was gone. “I don’t know how to be on my own.”

“What do you mean? We were on our own for years. From the moment Maman died.”

Vianne blinked. Her sister’s words sounded a little jumbled, as if they were running on the wrong speed. “You were alone,” she said. “I never was. I met Antoine when I was fourteen and got pregnant at sixteen and married him when I was barely seventeen. Papa gave me this house to get rid of me. So, you see, I’ve never been on my own. That’s why you’re so strong and I’m not.”

“You will have to be,” Isabelle said. “For Sophie.”

Vianne drew in a breath. And there it was. The reason she couldn’t eat a bowl of arsenic or throw herself in front of a train. She took the short coil of crooked yarn and tied it to an apple tree branch. The burgundy color stood out against the green and brown. Now, each day in her garden and when she walked to her gate and when she picked apples, she would pass this branch and see this bit of yarn and think of Antoine. Each time she would pray—to him and to God—Come home.

“Come,” Isabelle said, putting an arm around Vianne, pulling her close.

Inside, the house echoed the voice of a man who wasn’t there.

*

Vianne stood outside Rachel’s stone cottage; overhead the sky was the color of smoke on this cold, late afternoon. The leaves of the trees, marigold and tangerine and scarlet, were just beginning to darken around the edges. Soon they would drop to the ground.

Vianne stared at the door, wishing she didn’t need to be here, but she had read the names Beck had given her. Marc de Champlain was also listed.

When she finally found the courage to knock, Rachel answered almost instantly, wearing an old housedress and sagging woolen stockings. A cardigan sweater hung askew, buttoned incorrectly. It gave her an odd, tilted look.

“Vianne! Come in. Sarah and I were just making a rice pudding—it’s mostly water and gelatin, of course, but I used a bit of milk.”

Vianne managed a smile. She let her friend sweep her into the kitchen and pour her a cup of the bitter, ersatz coffee that was all they could get. Vianne was remarking on the rice pudding—what she even said she didn’t know—when Rachel turned and asked, “What’s wrong?”