The Nightingale

“Interesting.” The woman used her booted foot to push out the chair across from her. “I am Micheline Babineau. Sit.”


“I know who you are,” Isabelle said. She added nothing. Information was dangerous these days. It was traded with care.

“Do you?”

“I’m Juliette Gervaise.”

“Why do I care?”

Isabelle glanced nervously at the old man, who watched her warily. She didn’t like turning her back on him, but she had no choice. She sat down across from the woman.

“You want a cigarette? It’s a Gauloises Bleu. They cost me three francs and a goat, but it’s worth it.” The woman took a long, sensual drag off of her cigarette and exhaled the distinctively scented blue smoke. “Why do I care about you?”

“Julien Rossignol believes I can trust you.”

Madame Babineau took another drag on the cigarette and then stubbed it out on the sole of her boot. She dropped the rest of it in her breast pocket.

“He says his wife was close friends with you. You are godmother to his eldest daughter. He is the godfather to your youngest son.”

“Was. The Germans killed both of my sons at the front. And my husband in the last war.”

“He wrote letters to you recently…”

“The poste is shit these days. What does he want?”

Here it was. The biggest flaw in this plan. If Madame Babineau was a collaborator, it was all over. Isabelle had imagined this moment a thousand times, planned it down to the pauses. She’d thought of ways to word things to protect herself.

Now she saw the folly of all that, the uselessness. She simply had to dive in.

“I left four downed pilots in Urrugne, waiting for me. I want to take them to the British consulate in Spain. We hope the British can get them back to England so they can fly more missions over Germany and drop more bombs.”

In the silence that followed, Isabelle heard the beat of her heart, the tick of the mantel clock, the distant bleating of a goat.

“And?” Madame Babineau said at last, almost too softly to hear.

“A-and I need a Basque guide to help me cross the Pyrenees. Julien thought you could help me.”

For the first time, Isabelle knew she had the woman’s undivided attention. “Get Eduardo,” Madame Babineau said to the old man, who jumped to do her bidding. The door banged shut so hard the ceiling rattled.

The woman retrieved the half-smoked cigarette from her pocket and lit it up, inhaling and exhaling several times in silence as she studied Isabelle.

“What do you—” Isabelle started to ask.

The woman pressed a tobacco-stained finger to her lips.

The door to the farmhouse crashed open and a man burst in. All Isabelle could make out were broad shoulders, burlap, and the smell of alcohol.

He grabbed her by the arm and lifted her out of the chair and threw her up against the rough-hewn wall. She gasped in pain and tried to get free, but he pinned her in place, wedged his knee roughly between her legs.

“Do you know what the Germans do to people like you?” he whispered, his face so close to hers she couldn’t focus, couldn’t see anything but black eyes and thick black lashes. He smelled of cigarettes and brandy. “Do you know how much they will pay us for you and your pilots?”

Isabelle turned her head to avoid his sour breath.

“Where are these pilots of yours?”

His fingers dug into the flesh of her upper arms.

“Where are they?”

“What pilots?” she gasped.

“The pilots you are helping escape.”

“W-what pilots? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He growled again and cracked her head against the wall. “You asked for our help to get pilots over the Pyrenees.”

“Me, a woman, climb across the Pyrenees? You must be joking. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Are you saying Madame Babineau is lying?”

“I don’t know Madame Babineau. I just stopped here to ask for directions. I’m lost.”

He smiled, revealing tobacco-and wine-stained teeth. “Clever girl,” he said, letting her go. “And not a bit weak in the knees.”

Madame Babineau stood. “Good for her.”

The man stepped back, giving her space. “I am Eduardo.” He turned to the old woman. “The weather is good. Her will is strong. The men may sleep here tonight. Unless they are weaklings, I will take them tomorrow.”

“You’ll take us?” Isabelle said. “To Spain?”

Eduardo looked to Madame Babineau, who looked at Isabelle. “It would be our great pleasure to help you, Juliette. Now, where are these pilots of yours?”

*

In the middle of the night, Madame Babineau woke Isabelle and led her into the farmhouse’s kitchen, where a fire was already blazing in the hearth. “Coffee?”

Isabelle finger-combed her hair and tied a cotton scarf around her head. “No, merci, it is too precious.”

The old woman gave her a smile. “No one suspects a woman my age of anything. It makes me good at trading. Here.” She offered Isabelle a cracked porcelain mug full of steaming black coffee. Real coffee.

Isabelle wrapped her hands around the mug and breathed deeply of the familiar, never-again-to-be-taken-for-granted aroma.