The Nightingale (47 page)

“Your past should help you there.” Her teasing fell flat.

His smile faded. “I can't just deliver papers anymore, Iz. I need to do more. And … I won't see you for a while, I think.”

She nodded, but even as she moved her head in agreement, she thought:
How? How will I walk away and leave him now
? and she understood what he had been afraid of from the start.

The look he gave her was as intimate as a kiss. In it, she saw her own fear reflected. They might never see each other again. “Make love to me, Gaëtan,” she said.

Like it's the last time.

*   *   *

Vianne stood outside the Hôtel Bellevue in the pouring rain. The windows of the hotel were fogged; through the haze she could see a crowd of gray-green field uniforms.

Come on, Vianne, you're in it now
.

She squared her shoulders and opened the door. A bell tinkled gaily overhead, and the men in the room stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her. Wehrmacht, SS, Gestapo. She felt like a lamb going to slaughter.

At the desk, Henri looked up. Seeing her, he came out from behind the front desk and moved swiftly through the crowd toward her.

He took her by the arm, hissing, “Smile.” She tried to comply. She wasn't sure whether she succeeded.

He led her to the front desk, where he let go of her arm. He was saying something—laughing as if at some joke—as he took his place by the heavy black phone and cash register. “Your father, correct?” he said loudly. “A room for two nights?”

She nodded numbly.

“Here, let me show you the room we have available,” he said at last.

She followed him out of the lobby and into the narrow hallway. They went past a small table set with fresh fruit (only the Germans could afford such an extravagance) and a water closet that was empty. At the end of the corridor, he led her up a narrow set of stairs and into a room so small there was only a single bed and a blacked-out window.

He closed the door behind them. “You shouldn't be here. I sent you word that Isabelle was fine.”

“Oui, merci.”
She took a deep breath. “I need identity papers. You were the only person I could think of who might be able to help me.”

He frowned. “That's a dangerous request, Madame. For whom?”

“A Jewish child in hiding.”

“Hiding where?”

“I don't think you want to know that, do you?”

“No. No. Is it a safe place?”

She shrugged, her answer obvious in the silence. Who knew what was safe anymore?

“I hear Sturmbannführer Von Richter is billeted with you. He was here first. He's a dangerous man. Vindictive and cruel. If he caught you—”

“What can we do, Henri, just stand by and watch?”

“You remind me of your sister,” he said.

“Believe me, I am not a brave woman.”

Henri was quiet for a long while. Then he said, “I'll work on getting you the blank papers. You'll have to learn to forge them yourself. I am too busy to add to my duties. Practice by studying your own.”

“Thank you.” She paused, looking at him, remembering the note he had delivered to her all those months ago—and the assumptions Vianne had made about her sister at the time. She knew now that Isabelle had been doing dangerous work from the beginning. Important work. Isabelle had shielded Vianne from this knowledge to protect her, even though it meant looking like a fool. She had traded on the fact that Vianne would easily believe the worst of her.

Vianne was ashamed of herself for believing the lie so easily. “Don't tell Isabelle I am doing this. I want to protect her.”

Henri nodded.

“Au revoir,”
Vianne said.

On her way out, she heard him say, “Your sister would be proud of you.” Vianne neither slowed nor responded. Ignoring the German soldiers' catcalling, she made her way out of the hotel and headed for home.

*   *   *

Now all of France was occupied by the Germans, but it made little difference in Vianne's daily life. She still spent all day in one queue or another. Her biggest problem was Daniel. It still seemed smart to hide him from the villagers, even though her lie about an adoption seemed unquestioned when she'd told it (and she'd told it to everyone she could find, but people were too busy surviving to care, or maybe they guessed the truth and applauded it, who knew).

She left the children at home now, hidden away behind locked doors. It meant that she was always jittery in town, nervous. Today, when she had gotten all that there was to be had for her rations, she rewrapped the woolen scarf around her throat and left the butcher's shop.

As she braved the cold on rue Victor Hugo, she was so miserable and distracted by worry, it took her a moment to realize that Henri was walking beside her.

He glanced around the street, up and down, but in the wind and cold, no one was about. Shutters clattered and awnings shook. The bistro tables were empty.

He handed her a baguette. “The filling is unusual. My maman's recipe.”

She understood. There were papers inside. She nodded.

“Bread with special filling is difficult to obtain these days. Eat it wisely.”

“And what if I need more … bread?”

“More?”

“So many hungry children.”

He stopped, turned to her, gave her a perfunctory kiss on each cheek. “Come see me again, Madame.”

She whispered in his ear. “Tell my sister I asked about her. We parted badly.”

He smiled. “I am constantly arguing with my brother, even in war. In the end, we're brothers.”

Vianne nodded, hoping it was true. She placed the baguette in her basket, covering it with the scrap of linen, tucking it alongside the blancmange powder and oatmeal that had been available today. As she watched him walk away, the basket seemed to grow heavier. Tightening her grip, she headed down the street.

She was almost out of the town square when she heard it.

“Madame Mauriac. What a surprise.”

His voice was like oil pooling at her feet, slippery and clinging. She wet her lips and held her shoulders back, trying to look both confident and unconcerned. He had returned last evening, triumphant, crowing about how easy it had been to take over all of France. She had fed dinner to him and his men, pouring them endless glasses of wine—at the end of the meal, he had tossed the leftovers to the chickens. Vianne and the children had gone to bed hungry.

He was in his uniform, heavily decorated with swastikas and iron crosses, smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke slightly to the left of her face. “You are done with your shopping for the day?”

“Such as it is, Herr Sturmbannführer. There was very little to be had today, even with our ration cards.”

“Perhaps if your men hadn't been such cowards, you women wouldn't be so hungry.”

She gritted her teeth in what she hoped passed for a smile.

He studied her face, which she knew was chalky pale. “Are you all right, Madame?”

“Fine, Herr Sturmbannführer.”

“Allow me to carry your basket. I will escort you home.”

She gripped the basket. “No, really, it's not necessary—”

He reached a black-gloved hand toward her. She had no choice but to place the twisted willow handle in his hand.

He took the basket from her and began walking. She fell into step beside him, feeling conspicuous walking with an SS officer through the streets of Carriveau.

As they walked, Von Richter made conversation. He talked about the Allies' certain defeat in North Africa, he talked about the cowardice of the French and the greediness of the Jews, he talked about the Final Solution as if it were a recipe to be exchanged among friends.

She could hardly make out his words over the roar in her head. When she dared to glance at the basket, she saw the baguette peeking out from beneath the red-and-white linen that covered it.

“You are breathing like a racehorse, Madame. Are you unwell?”

Yes. That was it.

She forced a cough, clamped a hand over her mouth. “I am sorry, Herr Sturmbannführer. I was hoping not to bother you with it, but sadly, I fear I caught the flu from that boy the other day.”

He stopped. “Have I not asked you to keep your germs away from me?” He shoved the basket at her so hard it hit her in the chest. She grabbed hold of it desperately, afraid it would fall and the baguette would break open and spill false papers at his feet.

“I-I am so sorry. It was thoughtless of me.”

“I will not be home for supper,” he said, turning on his heel.

Vianne stood there a few moments—just long enough to be polite, in case he turned around—and then she hurried for home.

*   *   *

Well past midnight that night, when Von Richter had been abed for hours, Vianne crept from her bedroom and went to the empty kitchen. She carried a chair back to her bedroom, quietly shutting the door behind her. She brought the chair to the nightstand, tucked it in close, and sat down. By the light of a single candle, she withdrew the blank identity papers from her girdle.

She took out her own identity papers and studied them in minute detail. Then she took out the family Bible and opened it. On every blank space she could find, she practiced forging signatures. At first she was so nervous that her penmanship was unsteady, but the more she practiced, the calmer she felt. When her hands and breathing had steadied, she forged a new birth certificate for Jean Georges, naming him Emile Duvall.

But new papers weren't enough. What would happen when the war was over and Hélène Ruelle returned? If Vianne weren't here (with the risk she was taking, she had to consider this terrible possibility), Hélène would have no idea where to look for her son or what name he'd been given.

She would need to create a
fiche,
a file card that had all of the information she had on him—who he really was, who his parents were, any known relatives. Everything she could think of.

She ripped out three pages from the Bible and made a list on each page.

On the first, in dark ink over the prayers, she wrote:

Ari de Champlain 1

Jean Georges Ruelle 2

On the second sheet, she wrote:

1. Daniel Mauriac

2. Emile Duvall

And on the third, she wrote:

1. Carriveau. Mauriac

2. Abbaye de la Trinité

She carefully rolled each page into a small cylinder. Tomorrow she would hide them in three different places. One in a dirty jar in the shed, which she would fill with nails; one in an old paint can in the barn; and one she would bury in a box in the chicken coop. The
fiche
cards she would leave with Mother at the Abbey.

The cards and lists, when put together, would identify the children after the war and make it possible to get them back to their families. It was dangerous, of course, writing down any of this, but if she didn't keep a record—and the worst happened to her—how would the hidden children ever be reunited with their parents?

For a long time, Vianne stared down at her work, so long that the children sleeping in her bed began to move around and mumble and the candle flame began to sputter. She leaned over and laid a hand on Daniel's warm back to comfort him. Then she climbed into bed with her children. It was a long time before she fell asleep.

 

THIRTY-ONE

May 6, 1995

Portland, Oregon

“I am running away from home,” I say to the young woman sitting next to me. She has hair the color of cotton candy and more tattoos than a Hell's Angel biker, but she is alone like me, in this airport full of busy people. Her name, I have learned, is Felicia. In the past two hours—since the announcement that our flight is delayed—we have become traveling companions. It was a natural thing, our coming together. She saw me picking at the horrible French fries Americans love, and I saw her watching me. She was hungry, that was obvious. Naturally, I called her over and offered to buy her a meal. Once a mother, always a mother.

“Or maybe I'm finally going home after years of running away. It's hard to know the truth sometimes.”

“I'm running away,” she says, slurping on the shoebox-sized soft drink I bought her. “If Paris isn't far enough, my next stop is Antarctica.”

I see past the hardware on her face and the defiance in her tattoos, and I feel a strange connection to her, a compatriotism. We are runaways together. “I'm sick,” I say, surprising myself with the admission.

“Sick, like the shingles? My aunt had that. It was gross.”

“No, sick like cancer.”

“Oh.” Slurp. Slurp. “So why are you going to Paris? Don't you need, like, chemo?”

I start to answer her (no, no treatments for me, I'm done with all that) when her question settles in.
Why are you going to Paris?
And I fall silent.

“I get it. You're dying.” She shakes her big cup so that the slushy ice rattles inside. “Done with trying. Lost hope and all that.”

“What the
hell
?”

I am so deep in thought—in the unexpected starkness of her statement (
you're dying
) that it takes me a moment to realize that it is Julien who has just spoken. I look up at my son. He is wearing the navy blue silk sport coat I gave him for Christmas this year and trendy, dark-washed jeans. His hair is tousled and he is holding a black leather weekender bag slung over one shoulder. He does not look happy. “Paris, Mom?”

“Air France flight 605 will begin boarding in five minutes.”

“That's us,” Felicia says.

I know what my son is thinking. As a boy, he begged me to take him to Paris. He wanted to see the places I mentioned in bedtime stories—he wanted to know how it felt to walk along the Seine at night or to shop for art in the Place Des Vosges, or to sit in the Tuilleries Garden, eating a butterfly macaron from Ladurée. I said no to every request, saying simply,
I am an American now, my place is here.