Chapter Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
Summer ended. Hot golden days gave way to washed-out skies and falling rain. Isabelle was so focused on the escape route that she hardly noticed the change in weather.
On a chilly October afternoon, she stepped out of the train carriage in a crowd of passengers, holding a bouquet of autumn flowers.
As she walked up the boulevard, German motorcars clogged the street, honking loudly. Soldiers strode confidently among the cowed, drab Parisians. Swastika flags flapped in the wintry wind. She hurried down the Métro steps.
The tunnel was crowded with people and papered in Nazi propaganda that demonized the Brits and Jews and made the Führer the answer to every question.
Suddenly, the air raid sirens howled. The electricity snapped off, plunging everyone into darkness.
She heard people muttering and babies crying and old men coughing.
From far away, she could hear the thump and grumble of explosions.
It was probably Boulogne-Billancourt—again—and why not?
Renault was making lorries for the Germans.
When the all clear finally sounded, no one moved until moments later, when the electricity and lights came back on.
Isabelle was almost to the train when a whistle blared.
She froze. Nazi soldiers, accompanied by French collaborators, moved through the tunnel, talking to one another, pointing at people, pulling them out to the perimeter, forcing them to their knees.
A rifle appeared in front of her.
“Papers,” the German said.
Isabelle clutched the flowers in one hand and fumbled nervously with her purse with the other.
She had a message for Anouk wrapped within the bouquet.
It was not unexpected, of course, this search.
Since the Allied successes in North Africa had begun, the Germans stopped people constantly, demanding papers.
In the streets, the shops, the train stations, the churches.
There was no safety anywhere. She handed over her false carte d’identité.
“I am meeting a friend of my mother’s for lunch. ”
The Frenchman sidled up to the German and perused the papers. He shook his head and the German handed Isabelle her papers and said, “Go.”
Isabelle smiled quickly, nodded a thank-you, and hurried for the train, slipping into an open carriage just as the doors slid shut.
By the time she exited in the sixteenth arrondissement, her calm had returned.
A wet fog clung to the streets, obscuring the buildings and the barges moving slowly on the Seine.
Sounds were amplified by the haze, turned strange.
Somewhere, a ball was bouncing (probably boys playing in the street).
One of the barges honked its horn and the noise lingered.
At the avenue, she turned the corner and went to a bistro—one of the few with its lights on. A nasty wind ruffled the awning. She passed the empty tables and went to the outside counter, where she ordered a café au lait (without coffee or milk, of course).
“Juliette? Is that you?”
Isabelle saw Anouk and smiled. “Gabrielle. How lovely to see you.” Isabelle handed Anouk the flowers.
Anouk ordered a coffee. While they stood there, sipping coffee in the icy weather, Anouk said, “I spoke with my uncle Henri yesterday. He misses you.”
“Is he unwell?”
“No. No. Quite the opposite. He is planning a party for next Tuesday night. He asked me to extend an invitation.”
“Shall I take him a gift for you?”
“No, but a letter would be nice. Here, I have it ready for you.”
Isabelle took the letter and slipped it into the lining of her purse.
Anouk looked at her. Smoky shadows circled her eyes. New lines had begun to crease her cheeks and brow. This life in the shadows had begun to take a toll on her.
“Are you all right, my friend?” Isabelle asked.
Anouk’s smile was tired but true. “Oui.” She paused. “I saw Gaetan last night. He will be at the meeting in Carriveau.”
“Why tell me?”
“Isabelle, you are the most transparent person I have ever met. Every thought and feeling you have reveals itself in your eyes. Are you unaware how often you have mentioned him to me?”
“Really? I thought I had hidden it.”
“It’s nice, actually. It reminds me of what we are fighting for. Simple things: a girl and a boy and their future.” She kissed Isabelle’s cheeks. Then she whispered, “He mentions you as well.”
* * *
Luckily for Isabelle, it was raining in Carriveau on this late October day.
No one paid attention to people in weather like this, not even the Germans. She flipped her hood up and held her coat shut at her throat; even so, rain pelted her face and slid in cold streaks down her neck as she hauled her bicycle off the train and walked it across the platform.
On the outskirts of town, she climbed aboard.
Choosing a lesser-used alley, she pedaled into Carriveau, bypassing the square.
On a rainy autumn day like this, there were few people out and about; only women and children standing in food queues, their coats and hats dripping rainwater. The Germans were mostly inside.
By the time she reached the H?tel Bellevue, she was exhausted. She dismounted, locked her bicycle to a streetlamp, and went inside.
A bell jangled overhead, announcing her arrival to the German soldiers who were seated in the lobby, drinking their afternoon coffees.
“M’mselle,” one of the officers said, reaching for a flaky, golden pain au chocolat. “You are soaking wet.”
“These French do not know enough to get out of the rain.”
They laughed at that.
She kept smiling and walked past them. At the hotel’s front desk, she rang the bell.
Henri came out of the back room, holding a tray of coffees. He saw her and nodded.
“One moment, Madame,” Henri said, gliding past her, carrying the tray to a table where two SS agents sat like spiders in their black uniforms.
When Henri returned to the front desk, he said, “Madame Gervaise, welcome back. It is good to see you again. Your room is ready, of course. If you’ll follow me…”
She nodded and followed Henri down the narrow hallway and up the stairs to the second floor.
There, he pressed a skeleton key into a lock, gave it a twist, and opened the door to reveal a small bedroom with a single bed, a nightstand, and a lamp.
He led her inside, kicked the door shut with his foot, and took her in his arms.
“Isabelle,” he said, pulling her close. “It is good to see you.” He released her and stepped back. “With Romainville … I worried.”
Isabelle lowered her wet hood. “Oui.” In the past two months, the Nazis had cracked down on what they called saboteurs and resisters. They had finally begun to see the role women were playing in this war and had imprisoned more than two hundred French women in Romainville.
She unbuttoned her coat and draped it over the end of the bed.
Reaching into the lining, she pulled out an envelope and handed it to Henri.
“Here you go,” she said, giving him money that had come from MI9.
His hotel was one of the key safe houses their group maintained.
Isabelle loved that they housed Brits and Yanks and resisters right under the Nazis’ noses.
Tonight she would be a guest in this smallest of rooms.
She pulled out a chair from behind a scarred writing desk and sat down. “The meeting is set for tonight?”
“Eleven P.M. In the abandoned barn on the Angeler farm.”
“What’s it about?”
“I’m not in the know.” He sat down on the end of the bed. She could tell by the look on his face that he was going to get serious and she groaned.
“I hear the Nazis are desperate to find the Nightingale. Word is that they’re trying to infiltrate the escape route.”
“I know this, Henri.” She lifted one eyebrow. “I hope you are not going to tell me that it’s dangerous.”
“You are going too often, Isabelle. How many trips have you made?”
“Twenty-four.”
Henri shook his head. “No wonder they are desperate to find you. We hear word of another escape route, running through Marseille and Perpignan, that is having success, too. There is going to be trouble, Isabelle.”
She was surprised by how much his concern moved her and how nice it was to hear her own name. It felt good to be Isabelle Rossignol again, even if only for a few moments, and to sit with someone who knew her. So much of her life was spent hiding and on the run, in safe houses with strangers.
Still, she saw no reason to talk about this. The escape route was invaluable and worth the risk they were taking. “You are keeping an eye on my sister, oui?”
“Oui.”
“The Nazi still billets there?”
Henri’s gaze slid away from hers.
“What is it?”
“Vianne was fired from her teaching post some time ago.”
“Why? Her students love her. She’s an excellent teacher.”
“The rumor is that she questioned a Gestapo officer.”
“That doesn’t sound like Vianne. So she has no income. What is she living on?”
Henri looked uncomfortable. “There is gossip.”
“Gossip?”
“About her and the Nazi.”
* * *
All summer long, Vianne hid Rachel’s son in Le Jardin.
She made sure never to venture out with him, not even to garden.
Without papers, she couldn’t pretend he was anyone other than Ariel de Champlain.
She had to let Sophie stay at home with the child, and so each journey to town was a nerve-wracking event that couldn’t be over soon enough.
She told everyone she could think of—shopkeepers, nuns, villagers—that Rachel had been deported with both her children.
It was all she could think of to do.
Today, after a long, slogging day standing in line only to be told there was nothing left, Vianne left town feeling defeated. There were rumors of more deportations, more roundups, happening all over France. Thousands of French Jews were being held at internment camps.