The Nightingale

But this …

She let fear give her a little shake and she almost gave in to it. Then she thought about the swastikas that flew from the Eiffel Tower and Vianne living with the enemy and Antoine lost in some prisoner of war camp. And Edith Cavell. Certainly she had been afraid sometimes, too; Isabelle would not let fear stand in her way. The airmen were needed in Britain to drop more bombs on Germany.

Isabelle turned to the airman. “Are you a fit man, Lieutenant?” she said in English. “Could you keep up with a girl on a mountain crossing?”

“I could,” he said. “Especially one as pretty as you, miss. I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.”

Isabelle faced her compatriots. “I’ll take him to the consulate in San Sebastián. From there, it will be up to the Brits to get him home.”

Isabelle saw the conversation that passed in silence around her, concerns and questions unvoiced. A decision reached in silence. Some risks simply had to be taken; everyone in this room knew it.

“It will take weeks to plan. Maybe longer,” Lévy said. He turned to Ga?tan. “We will need money immediately. You will speak to your contact?”

Ga?tan nodded. He grabbed a black beret from the sideboard, putting it on.

Isabelle couldn’t look away. She was angry at him—she knew that, felt it—but as he came toward her, that anger dried up and blew away like dust beneath the longing that mattered so much more. Their gazes met, held; and then he was past her, reaching for the doorknob, going outside. The door clicked shut behind him.

“So,” Anouk said. “The planning. We should begin.”

*

For six hours, Isabelle sat at the table in the apartment on rue de Saint-Simon. They brought in others from the network and gave them tasks: to gather clothes for the pilots and stockpile supplies. They consulted maps and devised routes and began the long, uncertain process of setting up safe houses along the way. At some point, they began to see it as a reality instead of merely a bold and daring idea.

It wasn’t until Monsieur Lévy mentioned the curfew that Isabelle pushed back from the table. They tried to talk her into staying the night, but such a choice would make her father suspicious. Instead, she borrowed a heavy black peacoat from Anouk and put it on, grateful for the way it camouflaged her.

The boulevard Saint-Germain was eerily quiet, shutters closed tightly and blacked out, streetlamps dark.

She kept close to the buildings, grateful that the worn-down heels of her white oxfords didn’t clatter on the sidewalk. She crept past barricades and around groups of German soldiers patrolling the streets.

She was almost home when she heard an engine growling. A German lorry shambled up the street behind her, its blue-painted headlights turned off.

She pressed flat against the rough stone wall behind her and the phantom lorry rolled past, grumbling in the darkness. Then everything was silent again.

A bird whistled, a trilling song. Familiar.

Isabelle knew then that she’d been waiting for him, hoping …

She straightened slowly, rose to her feet. Beside her, a potted plant released the scent of flowers.

“Isabelle,” Ga?tan said.

She could barely make out his features in the dark, but she could smell the pomade in his hair and the rough scent of his laundry soap and the cigarette he’d smoked some time ago. “How did you know I was working with Paul?”

“Who do you think recommended you?”

She frowned. “Henri—”

“And who told Henri about you? I had Didier following you from the beginning, watching over you. I knew you would find your way to us.”

He reached out, tucked the hair behind her ears, and the intimacy of the act left her parched with hope. She remembered saying “I love you,” and shame and loss twisted her up inside. She didn’t want to remember how he’d made her feel, how he’d fed her roasted rabbit by hand and carried her when she was too tired to walk … and showed her how much one kiss could matter.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said.

“Why did you?”

“It doesn’t matter now.” He sighed. “I should have stayed in that back room today. It’s better not seeing you.”

“Not for me.”

He smiled. “You have a habit of saying whatever is on your mind, don’t you, Isabelle?”

“Always. Why did you leave me?”

He touched her face with a gentleness that made her want to cry; it felt like a good-bye, that touch, and she knew good-bye. “I wanted to forget you.”

She wanted to say something more, maybe “kiss me” or “don’t go” or “say I matter to you,” but it was already too late, the moment—whatever it was—was past. He was stepping away from her, disappearing into the shadows. He said softly, “Be careful, Iz,” and before she could answer, she knew he was gone; she felt his absence in her bones.