Chapter Seven #3
He was quiet long enough that she knew she’d surprised him. “I know who she is. She saved the lives of hundreds of Allied airmen in the Great War. She is famous for saying that ‘patriotism is not enough.’ And this is your hero, a woman executed by the enemy.”
“A woman who made a difference,” Isabelle said, studying him. “I am relying on you—a criminal and a communist—to help me make a difference. Perhaps I am as mad and impetuous as they say.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“Everyone.” She paused, felt her expectation gather close. She had made a point of never trusting anyone, and yet she believed Gaetan. He looked at her as if she mattered. “You will take me. As you promised.”
“You know how such bargains are sealed?”
“How?”
“With a kiss.”
“Quit teasing. This is serious.”
“What’s more serious than a kiss on the brink of war?” He was smiling, but not quite. That banked anger was in his eyes again, and it frightened her, reminded her that she really didn’t know him at all.
“I would kiss a man who was brave enough to take me into battle with him.”
“I think you know nothing of kissing,” he said with a sigh.
“Shows what you know.” She rolled away from him and immediately missed his touch. Trying to be nonchalant, she rolled back to face him and felt his breath on her eyelashes. “You may kiss me then. To seal our deal.”
He reached out slowly, put a hand around the back of her neck, and pulled her toward him.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his lips almost touching hers.
She didn’t know if he was asking about going off to war or granting permission for a kiss, but right now, in this moment, it didn’t matter.
Isabelle had traded kisses with boys as if they were pennies to be left on park benches and lost in chair cushions—meaningless.
Never before, not once, had she really yearned for a kiss.
“Oui,” she whispered, leaning toward him.
At his kiss, something opened up inside the scraped, empty interior of her heart, unfurled. For the first time, her romantic novels made sense; she realized that the landscape of a woman’s soul could change as quickly as a world at war.
“I love you,” she whispered. She hadn’t said these words since she was four years old; then, it had been to her mother. At her declaration, Gaetan’s expression changed, hardened. The smile he gave her was so tight and false she couldn’t make sense of it. “What? Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Of course not,” he said.
“We are lucky to have found each other,” she said.
“We are not lucky, Isabelle. Trust me on this.” As he said it, he drew her in for another kiss.
She gave herself over to the sensations of the kiss, let it become the whole of her universe, and knew finally how it felt to be enough for someone.
* * *
When Vianne awoke, she noticed the quiet first. Somewhere a bird sang. She lay perfectly still in bed, listening. Beside her Sophie snored and grumbled in her sleep.
Vianne went to the window, lifting the blackout shade.
In her yard, apple branches hung like broken arms from the trees; the gate hung sideways, two of its three hinges ripped out.
Across the road, the hayfield was flattened, the flowers crushed.
The refugees who’d come through had left belongings and refuse in their wake—suitcases, buggies, coats too heavy to carry and too hot to wear, pillowcases, and wagons.
Vianne went downstairs and cautiously opened the front door. Listening for noise—hearing none—she unlatched the lock and turned the knob.
They had destroyed her garden, ripping up anything that looked edible, leaving broken stalks and mounds of dirt.
Everything was ruined, gone. Feeling defeated, she walked around the house to the backyard, which had also been ravaged.
She was about to go back inside when she heard a sound. A mewling. Maybe a baby crying.
There it was again. Had someone left an infant behind?
She moved cautiously across the yard to the wooden pergola draped in roses and jasmine.
Isabelle lay curled up on the ground, her dress ripped to shreds, her face cut up and bruised, her left eye swollen nearly shut, a piece of paper pinned to her bodice.
“Isabelle!”
Her sister’s chin tilted upward slightly; she opened one bloodshot eye. “V,” she said in a cracked, hoarse voice. “Thanks for locking me out.”
Vianne went to her sister and knelt beside her. “Isabelle, you are covered in blood and bruised. Were you…”
Isabelle seemed not to understand for a moment. “Oh. It is not my blood. Most of it isn’t, anyway.” She looked around. “Where’s Gaet?”
“What?”
Isabelle staggered to her feet, almost toppling over. “Did he leave me? He did.” She started to cry. “He left me.”
“Come on,” Vianne said gently. She guided her sister into the cool interior of the house, where Isabelle kicked off her blood-splattered shoes, let them crack into the wall and clatter to the floor. Bloody footprints followed them to the bathroom tucked beneath the stairs.
While Vianne heated water and filled the bath, Isabelle sat on the floor, her legs splayed out, her feet discolored by blood, muttering to herself and wiping tears from her eyes, which turned to mud on her cheeks.
When the bath was ready, Vianne returned to Isabelle, gently undressing her. Isabelle was like a child, pliable, whimpering in pain.
Vianne unbuttoned the back of Isabelle’s once-red dress and peeled it away, afraid that the slightest breath might topple her sister over. Isabelle’s lacy undergarments were stained in places with blood. Vianne unlaced the corseted midsection of the foundation and eased it off.
Isabelle gritted her teeth and stepped into the tub.
“Lean back.”
Isabelle did as she was told, and Vianne poured hot water over her sister’s head, keeping the water from her sister’s eyes. All the while, as she washed Isabelle’s dirty hair and bruised body, she kept up a steady, soothing croon of meaningless words, meant to comfort.
She helped Isabelle out of the tub and dried her body with a soft, white towel. Isabelle stared at her, slack-jawed, blank-eyed.
“How about some sleep?” Vianne said.
“Sleep,” Isabelle mumbled, her head lolling to one side.
Vianne brought Isabelle a nightdress that smelled of lavender and rose water and helped her into it. Isabelle could hardly keep her eyes open as Vianne guided her to the upstairs bedroom and settled her beneath a light blanket. Isabelle was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
* * *
Isabelle woke to darkness. She remembered daylight.
Where was she?
She sat up so quickly her head spun. She took a few shallow breaths and then looked around.
The upstairs bedroom at Le Jardin. Her old room. It did not give her a warm feeling. How often had Madame Doom locked her in the bedroom “for her own good”?
“Don’t think about that,” she said aloud.
An even worse memory followed: Gaetan. He had abandoned her after all; it filled her with the kind of bone-deep disappointment she knew so well.
Had she learned nothing in life? People left. She knew that. They especially left her.
She dressed in the shapeless blue housedress Vianne had left draped across the foot of the bed. Then she went down the narrow, shallow-stepped stairs, holding on to the iron banister. Every pain-filled step felt like a triumph.
Downstairs, the house was quiet except for the crackling, staticky sound of a radio on at a low volume. She was pretty sure Maurice Chevalier was singing a love song. Perfect.
Vianne was in the kitchen, wearing a gingham apron over a pale yellow housedress. A floral scarf covered her hair. She was peeling potatoes with a paring knife. Behind her, a cast-iron pot made a cheery little bubbling sound.
The aromas made Isabelle’s mouth water.
Vianne rushed forward to pull out a chair at the small table in the kitchen’s corner. “Here, sit.”
Isabelle fell onto the seat. Vianne brought her a plate that was already prepared. A hunk of still-warm bread, a triangle of cheese, a smear of quince paste, and a few slices of ham.
Isabelle took the bread in her red, scraped-up hands, lifting it to her face, breathing in the yeasty smell.
Her hands were shaking as she picked up a knife and slathered the bread with fruit and cheese.
When she set down the knife it clattered.
She picked up the bread and bit into it; the single best bite of food of her life.
The hard crust of the bread, its pillow-soft interior, the buttery cheese, and the fruit all combined to make her practically swoon.
She ate the rest of it like a madwoman, barely noticing the cup of café noir her sister had set down beside her.
“Where’s Sophie?” Isabelle asked, her cheeks bulging with food. It was difficult to stop eating, even to be polite. She reached for a peach, felt its fuzzy ripeness in her hand, and bit into it. Juice dribbled down her chin.
“She’s next door, playing with Sarah. You remember my friend, Rachel?”
“I remember her,” Isabelle said.
Vianne poured herself a tiny cup of espresso and brought it to the table, where she sat down.
Isabelle burped and covered her mouth. “Pardon.”
“I think a lapse in manners can be overlooked,” Vianne said with a smile.
“You haven’t met Madame Dufour. No doubt she would hit me with a brick for that transgression.” Isabelle sighed. Her stomach hurt now; she felt like she might vomit. She wiped her moist chin with her sleeve. “What is the news from Paris?”
“The swastika flag flies from the Eiffel Tower.”
“And Papa?”
“Fine, he says.”
“Worried about me, I’ll bet,” Isabelle said bitterly. “He shouldn’t have sent me away. But when has he ever done anything else?”
A look passed between them. It was one of the few memories they shared, that abandonment, but clearly Vianne didn’t want to remember it. “We hear there were more than ten million of you on the roads.”
“The crowds weren’t the worst of it,” Isabelle said. “We were mostly women and children, V, and old men and boys. And they just … obliterated us.”