Chapter Eleven #2
And indeed, no surprise lit her face, only compassion.
She reached over and took Zelie’s hand. “It takes two to reduce a marriage to ruin, mon chou. I will not say no fault is yours—you’re as stubborn as I am, after all, and I know the grief that caused me over the years.
But I will also say not all the fault can be yours.
Jacques should have been able to see in a glance that he had as much hope of taming you as bridling the wind.
He should have realized that he wouldn’t be able to change the very thing that caught his attention to begin with.
He fell in love with you because you were unlike anyone else—and then he grew frustrated when you refused to conform. ”
Her throat too tight for words, Zelie could only nod.
So many nights, even now, she would dream of that look on his face.
The disappointment in his eyes, the frustrated line of his mouth.
The way he’d take the last sip of the one glass of cognac he’d allow himself every evening and thunk it down onto the table in accusation.
You could drive me to drink, he’d said once, just once, when he set that glass down.
But I won’t give you the honor of being my undoing.
He’d said it aloud only that one time, when Elise was a newborn. But she’d heard it in that clink every night thereafter. Every . . . single . . . night.
“Not every man would be such a fool, Zee. I’m sorry Jacques was killed.
He was a good man, for all I wanted to slap him silly for the way he tried to break your spirit.
Faithful, honest. He never would have asked for a divorce, so you could have wrestled it into some semblance of working.
But he’s gone, little one.” Maman squeezed her hand and kept on squeezing.
“He’s gone, and you’re not, and you deserve to live. Deserve to love.”
Live, yes. Zelie could grant that much. And love too—she’d love her children, her mother, her brother. She’d love her friends and colleagues. But more than that?
No. She didn’t have enough left to give to a man. Perhaps Marcel was as handsome as he was kind, perhaps she appreciated all he’d become to her—but she’d already learned her lesson. She wasn’t the sort of woman anyone wanted for a wife. Even if they thought they did.
Thankfully, Elise burst into the kitchen, saving Zelie a response. Her eyes were bright, her hair a bit wild from the wind as she swung, despite the braid Zelie had put in before they went outside.
She’d missed the feel of her daughter’s silky tresses in her fingers. Missed the way Elise wriggled and wiggled and giggled and asked ten times, “Are you done yet?”
Now the little one bounced on her toes. “He’s playing! Monsieur Marcel is playing. Can I watch? Can I have my lesson?”
Zelie smiled. Before the war, Elise had always loved to watch Zelie play and had begged to learn. But she’d been so young, her fingers so small . . .
No, that wasn’t it. Zelie hadn’t had the patience to teach her, she could admit it. She’d taught her which keys were which and let her play, but she’d never taken the time to give her real lessons, and Jacques had said they weren’t to hire a tutor for such “trivial nonsense” until she was five.
Then he’d died and they’d fled Paris and Zelie had installed them here and . . . she’d failed her, that’s what.
But Marcel had taken one look at the rapture on her daughter’s face last night after dinner and asked her if she played. Then, when she’d shaken her head, if she’d like to. He’d promised her a lesson each day until they left, and more whenever he saw her again.
Zelie stood and held out a hand. “Let’s wait for him to finish this piece, then we’ll ask if he’s ready.” It would keep her occupied while Zelie took Blaise out.
Raoul and Antoine both lounged in the room, a newspaper split between them. Marcel, of course, sat at the old upright in need of a tuning and brought it to life.
She was used to seeing him at sad, worn instruments, thanks to their Wednesday meetings.
What amazed her was how, no matter the setting or the piano, he looked perfectly at home.
At Grigoryan’s Bosendorfer or an out-of-tune Pleyel.
On stage at the Paris Opera or beneath a cloud of smoke at a hole-in-the-wall bistro.
Maman slipped in behind them too and took the cushion beside Antoine, but she didn’t reach for a paper or book or her knitting. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and smiled.
Elise tugged her closer to the piano. Zelie positioned her beside it, so that she could see his hands move but wouldn’t be in the way of his arms as they traversed the eighty-five keys this model had.
Elise’s little fingers soon curled over the side, and though Zelie couldn’t see her expression from where she stood behind her, Marcel obviously did when he looked over at them. And judging by his grin, it was as awed as it had been yesterday.
He finished the piece with a flourish and then turned on the stool toward Elise. “Are you ready for your first lesson, Mademoiselle Bellerose?”
“Yes, please, monsieur.” The bashful voice was in stark contrast to Elise’s boisterous expectation in the kitchen, but Zelie could understand that too. It was intimidating, standing on the cusp of the thing you most desired. When limitless potential suddenly became cold, hard facts.
Marcel stood and patted the bench. “You sit here. I’ll pull up a chair.”
Zelie sent him a smile, mouthed Thank you, and turned to her mother. “Blaise and I will be back soon.”
“Take your time,” Maman said. “We’ll see that Elise is occupied.”
Blaise didn’t exactly look happy when she told him to put his book away and led him out to her car, but he didn’t argue. Just dragged his feet as if she were taking him back to school already.
As they slid into their seats and she turned the key in the ignition, she couldn’t help the way her heart caught in her throat as she looked at him.
He’d had another growth spurt since she’d seen him last. His face had slimmed more.
Every time they were together, he was less and less her little boy and more and more a young man.
It wasn’t so different than it would have been regardless—he’d always have gone away to school. They would have had only holidays, the occasional weekend.
Still, that would have been more than this.
He pressed a fist to his leg as she backed up and turned around. “You never even answered my letters.”
At least he was speaking. “I couldn’t.”
The gaze he drilled into her burned with rage. “You couldn’t? Why not?”
She’d already decided to tell him. Even so, finding the words was easier decided than done. “Because I can’t risk the Nazis knowing I have children.”
“The . . .” When he frowned, he looked so much like Jacques. “What do you mean? Why would the Nazis care about us?”
“Because I’m leading a network of spies, Blaise. Do you remember Jean Loustaunau-Lacau?” At his nod, she continued. “He founded it. At first we called ourselves Crusade, but we’re working now with England’s intelligence agency, MI6, so we’ve renamed ourselves Alliance.”
Blaise repositioned himself, back to the door so that he faced her more fully. “You’re making it up. A story to tell me, a reason you’ve left us.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” Her fingers tightened on the wheel. “Jean was arrested. He’s been sentenced to execution, and his wife and children are in hiding. The Germans wanted to detain them too—even though they’d never done anything. They’re his, and so they’re the enemy in their eyes.”
“No!” Blaise surged toward her. “It’s dangerous, that’s what you’re saying. So why are you doing it?”
“Because I don’t want you to grow up in a world run by Nazis, mon chou.
” She reached over, gripped his knee. “You deserve to live in a free France. You deserve to grow up and chase your dreams, not accept whatever crumbs they hand you. You deserve to be friends with people from other countries, other religions, other races and not be told you can’t because they don’t look right or believe right.
” He’d already lost his two best friends when their families had to flee—one because they were Jewish, another because they were Slavic.
She lifted her chin. “Your father fought for you, my darling, in the way he could. He fought with his guns and his soldiers and his keen mind for strategy. He’s gone—but I won’t let the fight end just because our military surrendered.
I will keep fighting for you until I have no more breath, no more blood, no more life.
No one gets to tell me I can’t. No one gets to say it’s not my place. ”
His hand was almost as big as hers now. He covered her fingers with his own. “You’re . . . you’re really a spy? Like the Scarlet Pimpernel?”
Her lips tugged up. “Not exactly like him. I’m not usually the one going into dangerous situations myself. I’m the one everyone sends their reports to. I’ve learned how to encode and decode, to make sense of all the information people send me and decide what needs to be passed along to the Allies.”
“How many people work for you?” His voice said the answer mattered—that he was prepared to dismiss her endeavors if her “network” was only five friends.