“You increased the wing load too severely.” Wilkes’s tone was only slightly panicked. “Slow and steady, bring us out of it. Do it now.”
Thomas took a deep breath and eased back on the stick, finally guiding the nose upward until they were once again parallel to the ground. “Christ, Flight! Are you trying to kill me before the Germans get around to it?”
The hint of a smile crossed Wilkes’s lips. “Now we’re going to climb back up and do it again, because you’re going to need to be able to do that in an instant. The skies are unforgiving, and your sharp reactions will mean the difference between life and death.” He paused and waited for Thomas to catch his breath. “The fate of England is in your hands, sir. You must proceed as if it is your destiny to save us all.”
CHAPTER FIVE
June 1940
The exodus had begun in earnest by the time June arrived.
Paris was in bloom, the chestnut trees lush and fragrant. Flowers in blue, pale green, and deep red spilled from window boxes and inched across the public gardens, painting the silent streets. But to Ruby, it felt as if nature itself was taunting the city. Soon, the world she knew would be swallowed by the coming Nazi invasion.
Ruby could feel their approach like a storm on the horizon, the air pregnant with something sinister. Though the French had collectively closed their eyes to the truth for months, ignoring German aggressions near the border, the jig was up. The Germans had simply gone around the Maginot Line, steamrolling their way through the forests and into France. They would be here any day now with their stiff marching, their too-polished uniforms, their strange Nazi emblem, a colorless pinwheel warped by the wind.
French generals were already declaring the Battle of France finished as bedraggled troops retreated hastily south. Air raid sirens pierced the nights. Cars moved in stealthy darkness, their headlights painted dark blue. Shops closed, apartments were shuttered, and Parisians fled in droves, clogging the roads as German bombs splintered the countryside. Paris was deserted, and without the laughter of the neighborhood children, a curtain of quiet had descended. Even the Eiffel Tower, a dagger against the crisp sky, seemed preternaturally still, as if it, too, was holding its breath.
“For God’s sake,” Marcel said to Ruby as they huddled alone in the abri beneath their building, taking shelter as bombs fell somewhere to the southwest—the Renault and Citro?n factories on the edge of the city, Ruby guessed. The Germans were pounding Paris, which had seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier. “You’re being foolish.”
The circles under his eyes were pronounced, his shoulders stiff, reminding Ruby of a tightly wound children’s toy.
“I knew what I was getting into,” she replied, not meeting his gaze. It wasn’t quite true; she’d been lulled into a false sense of security at first. But then she had chosen to stay because he had. “I’m here with you.”
“But that’s the problem, isn’t it, darling?” The endearment was sarcastic, not loving, and they both knew it. He was different lately, a far cry from the man she’d followed across the Atlantic the year before. His rejection from the French army—due to the marked limp in his right leg from the polio he’d battled as a child—now seemed to define his every waking moment.
“How so?” She fought to keep her tone even.
“You seem to believe you’re invulnerable. I didn’t ask you to stay.”
“I’m well aware.” In fact, he had tried to force her to leave, even writing to her parents to request their support in changing her mind. But she wouldn’t run at the first sign of trouble. She wouldn’t leave Marcel to face the invasion alone. She had cast her lot with him, for better or worse—and when he’d begun to try to get rid of her, it had only made her dig her heels in. “I still believe that we’re safe here for now.”
“Yes, well, it’s very American to go around believing in pipe dreams, isn’t it?”
She turned away as another blast rattled the building. Somewhere along the line, being American had become something to be ashamed of, in Marcel’s eyes anyhow. He resented President Roosevelt for staying out of Europe’s war, and as the months ticked by, and the Americans refused to engage, Marcel seemed more and more apt to hold Ruby herself responsible for the policies of her government.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his tone softening. He placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s only that I don’t know how I’d forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
“I know.” Ruby relaxed slightly, reminding herself that every marriage was bound to hit some snags. And really, who could blame Marcel for his sense of powerlessness? “But I feel that I’m meant to be here, Marcel. Here with you.”
She expected him to make a face, but instead, he just stared at her for a long time. “Oh, Ruby. I’ve ruined everything for you. I pretended to be the man I wanted to be, but now you’ve seen the real me, a man whose pathetic injury has taken away his ability to protect you.”
She took a step closer, putting a hand on his stubbled jaw. “I see you, Marcel,” she said. “I have always seen you. Do you think the French soldiers retreating from the front feel any more in control than you do? We are all powerless for now.”
“I suppose I should be thankful that you still see the world through rose-colored glasses. Perhaps it’s helpful not to see the coming storm so plainly.”
She wanted to protest, to tell him that she saw things as clearly as he did, but then he pulled her toward him, folding her in, and she held her tongue. Being in his arms again for the first time in weeks felt like coming home, even if it had turned out not to be the home she expected.
An hour later, when the three tones of the all-clear siren sounded, she led him upstairs, back into their apartment in the nearly deserted building, to the bedroom that had once been a sanctuary. It felt like a battleground now, and she knew they had to change that if they were to survive.
“You can’t possibly want me,” he whispered as she kissed him. “I’m nothing.”
“You’re my husband, and I stand by you,” she said firmly, covering his mouth with hers.
He made love to her quickly, almost violently. She tried to hold on, to focus on his eyes, to make him come back to her, but he was somewhere else entirely until he collapsed on her, spent and panting, his skin damp. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into her breasts. “I love you, you know. I do.”
She waited until his chest was rising and falling against her before she replied, “I love you too.”
Yes, Ruby would stay. Storms were meant to be weathered, after all.
“MADAME BENOIT?” A SMALL, TIMID voice jolted Ruby out of her fog later that night. She had been unable to sleep, and after tossing and turning for an hour, she had stepped onto the terrace. The air still carried the scent of burning rubber and smoldering metal; the German bombs had found their mark. She looked over to see Charlotte silhouetted in the moonlight next door.
“Charlotte,” she said warmly, relieved to see her. The girl and her parents hadn’t appeared in the shelter during the air raid, and Ruby thought perhaps they had fled. There were reports coming in of cars bombed to pieces while snarled in traffic on country roads, and Ruby had had the terrible feeling that something had happened to the Dachers. Even with Charlotte in front of her now, Ruby couldn’t erase her sense of foreboding.
“Good evening, Madame Benoit,” Charlotte said formally.
“Please. Call me Ruby, or you’ll make me feel old.”
“That is an American thing, I think,” Charlotte said after a long pause. “Calling adults by their first names.”
Ruby smiled into the darkness. “Yes, perhaps it is. Or perhaps it’s simply a neighbor thing. Times are too dark now for us to be anything but friends, don’t you think?”
“Well . . . all right.” Charlotte hesitated. “Can I ask you a question, Madame? Er, Ruby?”
“Anything.”
“Why are you still here?”