“No!” he said, his voice muffled behind his own mask. “That was just the first round.”
He was right. A moment later, the whistles and the blasts began again, the bombs shrieking down from the sky with an audible, whining crescendo. This time, there was the ratta-tat-tat of return fire, of Germans on the ground desperately trying to shoot down the planes, a symphony of destruction. On and on it went, in waves, for two hours, glass breaking, the earth quaking, the sounds of their terror filling the cellar.
And then, finally, it really was over. They clung to each other in the silence for five full minutes before Paul removed his mask. “I think it’s done,” he said, and Juliette removed her mask, too, and breathed in a glorious mouthful of stagnant cellar air.
They helped the children remove their masks, and all of their faces were wet with tears, their noses red, their eyes bloodshot. “Maman!” they all cried, refusing to let her go, and she couldn’t move because the mere fact that they had all survived seemed impossible.
“I’ll go check upstairs,” Paul said.
Juliette nodded, terrified of what he would find. Was the store still standing? Was the world on fire? Would their little cocoon fill with black smoke? But when Paul made his way back down the stairs a few minutes later, carrying an oil lamp, the look on his face was one of relief.
“No damage,” he reported.
“None?” Juliette couldn’t believe it. “But it felt like the bombs were falling just above us.”
“I know. But all the buildings on our street look untouched. Monsieur Lychner’s butcher shop has a broken window, but that’s all. And our store is fine, Juliette. Not a book out of place. It’s a miracle.”
“A miracle,” Juliette echoed. So why didn’t she feel better? Her children were here, safe and sound, as was Paul. She had prayed to God, and he had spared them.
But there was no escaping the new reality. Their lives could be shattered at any time. Airplanes could swoop down from clear skies, destroying everything in their paths. And now that Juliette knew, she could never look at the world the same way again.
“Shall we get the children back to bed?” Paul asked. “Maybe I should go out and help Monsieur Lychner.”
“No.” The children were still in her arms, and though she knew she was fooling herself to imagine that she could protect them, she couldn’t let go. “No, please. Stay. Let’s spend the rest of the night here, just in case.”
Paul looked at her contemplatively before nodding. “All right.” He leaned down to kiss her on the cheek, his lips lingering, a tattoo of tenderness. “I’ll go get some blankets.”
* * *
The bombs didn’t fall on Boulogne-Billancourt again as the winter turned to spring, and the spring to summer. But that didn’t mean Juliette could relax. The Germans were rebuilding the destroyed pieces of the factory, and no one beyond their suburb seemed to care that hundreds of people on the ground had lost their lives that March night. A bomb could easily have found their little bookstore on the rue Goblet. Even though Paul reassured her again and again that they were too far from the Renault factory to have to worry, Juliette knew the truth. There was nowhere one could go in wartime that was completely safe.
Elise’s visits to the store grew more frequent, and Juliette found herself waiting eagerly for them. Lucie and Mathilde were as close as sisters now, and more often than not, the two toddlers played happily together, giggling over block towers or rag dolls, while the boys ran around the store pretending to be pirates or soldiers. Elise’s calm presence was a balm, and somehow, knowing that she would always be back within a few days made it easier for Juliette to brave the rough waters in between. Since that night in March, Juliette felt adrift, but Elise always reminded her that the one thing she could control in the world was how loved her children felt. Juliette never missed an opportunity now to hold Lucie, Claude, and Alphonse tightly and tell them how proud she was to be their mother.
She knew that Elise, too, was doing all she could to make sure her daughter knew she was a light in the world. But Elise was swimming through a darkness that Juliette didn’t entirely understand. Her husband was apparently getting more and more involved with the underground, becoming a louder voice against the Occupation.
“I’m frightened, Juliette,” Elise told her one day, tears in her eyes. “It’s like there’s a fire raging through him, and each time I try to put it out, I only stoke the flames.”
“Perhaps he’s doing what he thinks is right,” Juliette said. “He’s trying to stand up for France.”
Elise’s tears overflowed. “If that was all this was, I think I could bear it, even if it put us in danger. But this isn’t about fighting back, Juliette. This is about Olivier feeling that he matters, that people listen to him, that he’s an important artist and an important man.” She wiped at her eyes and glanced at Mathilde, playing quietly with Lucie in the children’s section of the bookstore. “This is about him, not France. And because of that, I fear it’s only a matter of time until he does something careless.”
That night, Juliette lay in bed with Paul, thinking about how marriages could be so different from one another. Elise had never given her any of the specifics of Olivier’s underground activities, so she was vague now when she brought them up to Paul.
“I’m worried,” she told him. “He’s not thinking of his wife and his child.” She felt a soft swell of gratitude for the man beside her, who had, in every day of their marriage, thought of her first. She rolled onto her side and kissed his bare shoulder. “Elise is terrified of what will happen.”
Paul was quiet before turning to face her. “It sounds as if Olivier LeClair is already writing the end to his own story.”
A shiver ran through Juliette. “But what about Elise? It’s her story, too. Hers and Mathilde’s.”
Paul reached out to touch her cheek in the darkness. “We all have some choice over the way our story ends, don’t we, my love?” He leaned forward to kiss her, and even in the tender gesture, she felt a sense of foreboding that matched hers.
“Thank you,” Juliette whispered. “Thank you for thinking of the children and me.”
“Always, my love.” Paul moved against her, pressing his body to hers. “Always and forever.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was the second Monday in September and Olivier had been gone for five days.
It was the longest he’d stayed away since the war had begun, and by Sunday, Elise had known that something was very wrong.
She had waited until the next morning to do anything about it, but when the sun rose over the rooftops, making the tiles glow like burning embers, she buttoned Mathilde into a cardigan, and together they walked the twelve blocks to Constant Bouet’s gallery. Constant would know where Olivier was.
But Monsieur Bouet just shrugged, his forehead lines deepening with concern as he glanced first at Mathilde and then at Elise. “I haven’t any idea,” he told Elise, his voice low. “I haven’t heard a thing, either. You should go home, Madame LeClair.”
“And what? Simply go about my life as if everything is normal?” Elise asked, finding it difficult to match his volume but knowing she must so they didn’t attract the attention of strangers. In the corner of the gallery’s main room, a wealthy-looking couple browsed, and moments before, Elise and Monsieur Bouet had both watched a German officer stroll into the adjoining room, which held the gallery’s premier collection. Several of Olivier’s paintings hung on the walls there, and Elise shuddered as she thought about a German walking out with one of her husband’s creations—or worse, flagging them as undesirable art and forbidding their display. It was what had happened to Picasso; he’d been forced out of the public eye when the Germans arrived, his art removed from museums and private collections.
“That’s exactly what you must do,” Monsieur Bouet said, his voice so quiet it was barely audible now. “Do you want to attract attention?” He cut a glance toward the adjoining room, where the German browsed. “Of course you do not. So you and Mathilde will go home. You will act as though your husband is simply away painting. And you will go about your life.”
“But he isn’t, is he?” Elise asked. “Something has happened. And none of you care enough to tell me.”
Monsieur Bouet’s expression hardened. “Madame LeClair, I will make inquiries right away and will notify you the moment I hear anything. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”