But as she emerged into the salon, depleted, the muscles in her arms, shoulders, and back singing in relief and distress, she could hear excited shouts from the street below, sounds that hadn’t reached her while she was in her closed studio. The herringbone oak floor was cold beneath her bare feet, though the breeze through the open double windows was still balmy. Night had fallen while she’d worked, and as the baby shifted in her belly, Elise felt uneasy. She looked to the ornate clock above the marble fireplace. It was past eight o’clock, and Olivier still wasn’t home. Something was wrong.
Elise crossed to the windows and pushed them open a bit wider, gazing over the wrought iron balcony. Below, on the usually quiet avenue Mozart, people milled about, some waving French flags, some arguing loudly, one man on the corner drunkenly singing “La Marseillaise” while embracing a lamppost. Elise watched, her stomach swimming. There was no reason to think that the stir below had to do with Olivier and the small circle of artists he huddled with in cafés, discussing their hatred of Daladier’s government. There were rumors of retribution against agitators, and Olivier wasn’t always as circumspect as he should be about his leftist leanings. Could there have been a police action tonight, ordered by the government?
But then she heard the key turning in the lock to their apartment door, and her whole body sagged with relief as she turned and saw Olivier enter, his dark hair, usually swept back by pomade, loose and unkempt, his eyes bright. His shirt was half tucked, torn at the sleeve, and his expression was wild, filled with a strange brew of fear and exhilaration.
“Darling?” she began, striding toward him, her concern spiking when she saw a thin ribbon of blood above his right eyebrow.
“It has happened, Elise.” He tripped forward into the apartment, flinging the door closed behind him, and it was then that she realized he was drunk.
“Olivier…?” She reached out for him, wishing to comfort him, whatever it was that was wrong, but he impatiently swatted her hand away. He didn’t want comfort; he didn’t want her.
“The war, Elise,” he said, his eyes glimmering with something dangerous. “Where on earth have you been all afternoon? Hiding under a rock? Hitler has invaded Poland. The war has begun!”
CHAPTER FOUR
Two days after Germany invaded Poland, France and England had declared war, and though not much had changed in the French capital yet, Juliette could feel it, the palpable tension, the shift in the air, the way people cast their eyes downward now when they passed each other on the street. A week later, she and Paul were still walking around in a daze, waiting for something terrible to happen.
War has come to Europe again. The thought of what was to come paralyzed her, because in war, no one was safe. She knew that firsthand; she had been only five in 1918 when her mother had received the telegram saying that her father had lost his life somewhere near the Marne and wouldn’t be coming back to their little blue cottage in Connecticut. Juliette had watched her mother struggle, and then later marry a man simply because she needed someone to take care of her and to keep a roof over the head of her daughter.
Paul had known war, too; he had been seventeen when the Great War began, and he’d enlisted just after. He had fought for nearly the entirety of the conflict before his right leg was injured by an explosion in his trench in 1918. He’d been sent home, and even now, he wouldn’t talk to Juliette about the things he’d seen. “It is too painful,” he told her sometimes. “I don’t want my nightmares to bleed into your dreams. I am lucky to have come home.”
With Paul, Juliette had found family. Belonging. The other half of her soul. She had never believed in things like that before she met him; all-encompassing love was something for novels and stage plays, not something one could find in real life. Certainly her mother and stepfather had never had it. But Paul was as real as they came, and somehow, she fell a little more in love with him each day. She kept waiting for her fluttering heart to level out and settle into a familiar rhythm, but then she’d see him whispering conspiratorially with Claude or rocking Alphonse to sleep, or she’d catch him staring at her with wonder from across the room or caressing her pregnant belly while he thought she was asleep, and her pulse would quicken once more, just like it had when they first met.
Did Elise LeClair have that, too? Juliette wasn’t sure why she was still thinking about the woman so many days later, when the specter of an oncoming conflict should have pushed everything else aside.
“Will France go to war?” Claude had asked that morning, his eyes as round as saucers. Paul and Juliette had exchanged concerned looks, and then Juliette had said brightly, “It is nothing for you to worry about, my dear! We are safe and sound!” Claude had seemed appeased, but then she’d caught Paul looking at her again, and the doubt in his expression took her breath away. They would be all right, wouldn’t they? After all, the fighting was far away, to the east. And the borders of France were fortified, impenetrable.
But one of her best customers, Ruth Levy, a widow who lived a few blocks away, had come in that morning with her children, Georges and Suzanne, and was now pacing the aisles nervously as the children played with Claude and Alphonse. Ruth had come from Germany after the Great War to marry her French husband, who had died just a few years ago. She had been talking about the prospect of war since the night the previous November that rioters across Germany had destroyed Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues with the encouragement of the Nazi Party. Kristallnacht, she’d called it. The night of broken glass. “Hitler is getting bolder,” she had said then, her voice trembling. “He won’t stop, Juliette.”
Ruth and her children were Jewish, Juliette knew, and this morning, Ruth had told her that she hadn’t slept since war had been declared. “If the Germans invade,” she had said when she came into the shop, her voice hushed, “I fear the children and I aren’t safe anywhere.”
Juliette had tried to reassure her, but Ruth had shaken her head, her lips pressed together, and wandered off to browse.
Now Juliette was distracting herself by reshelving the books in the children’s section, placing them back in alphabetical order by author, when she heard the soft ding of the bell on the front door. She stood and brushed the dust from her knees, relieved to have another customer to focus on.
“I’m coming!” she called out as she rounded the corner from the children’s section into the main room of the store. She broke into a grin when she saw who was standing there. “Elise!” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t sure you’d return!”
“I have been eager to come back,” the other woman said, her smile not erasing the lines of concern on her face. “To be honest, the last time I felt like myself was here.”
Juliette smiled, trying to understand how it was possible not to feel exactly like oneself all the time. The two women exchanged kisses on both cheeks. “I’ve been worried about you,” Juliette said as she stepped back. “How are you? Have you had any more frights since that day in the park?”
Elise put a hand on her growing belly. “I think the baby is fine. I really must thank you for what you did for me. It was truly kind of you to—”
“Nonsense.” Juliette cut her off with a smile. “It was the least one mother could do for another. And how fortunate for me to have met a fellow American.” Juliette beckoned for Elise to follow her as she began moving into the store. “Come. One of my regular customers is here with her children. I’ll introduce you.”
Ruth was gazing absently at a row of travel guidebooks as they approached. “Ruth,” Juliette said. Ruth turned, her expression far away. “I’d like you to meet my new American friend, Madame LeClair. Elise, this is Madame Levy.”
“Bonjour, Madame Levy,” Elise said politely.
“Bonjour.” Ruth gave Elise a polite nod, but she still looked lost in her own world.
Juliette put a gentle hand on Ruth’s arm. “Let’s go see what the children are reading. Elise, you can meet Georges and Suzanne.”
Both women followed Juliette to the children’s section, and they all watched as Georges read dramatically to the other children from L’Oeuf magique, one of Claude’s favorite picture books.
“He can read?” Elise asked, and when Ruth smiled, a genuine smile, Juliette’s heart felt a bit lighter.
“He is very proud of himself,” Ruth said, her eyes never leaving her son. “I am proud, too.”
When Georges finished his story, he snapped the book triumphantly closed. The three women burst into spontaneous applause, and Georges laughed and came over to wrap his arms around his mother’s waist. His sister followed him over, as did Juliette’s two little boys.
Juliette put a hand on each of her sons’ heads. “Alphonse, Claude, my darlings, do you remember Madame LeClair?” Alphonse nodded, and Claude continued to stare at Elise.
“You’re all right, madame?” Claude asked Elise, worry shining in his eyes.
“I am,” she assured him. “Thank you, Claude, for being so kind. The water you brought me helped very much.”
His cheeks turned pink. “Good,” he mumbled.
“Georges, Suzanne, this is Madame Foulon’s friend, Madame LeClair,” Ruth said to her children, who looked up at Elise with curiosity. Suzanne gave a shy little wave, and Georges seemed to be assessing her.