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The day passed in a haze of sunshine-warmed contentment. They talked and laughed and shared their picnic. It wasn’t until late in the day, when Sophie was off with her fishing pole and Antoine was making their daughter a crown of daisies, that he said, “Hitler will suck us all into his war soon.”
War.
It was all anyone could talk about these days, and Via
She tented a hand across her eyes and stared at her daughter. Beyond the river, the green Loire Valley lay cultivated with care and precision. There were no fences, no boundaries, just miles of rolling green fields and patches of trees and the occasional stone house or barn. Tiny white blossoms floated like bits of cotton in the air.
She got to her feet and clapped her hands. “Come, Sophie. It’s time to go home.”
“You can’t ignore this, Via
“Should I look for trouble? Why? You are here to protect us.”
Smiling (too brightly, perhaps), she packed up the picnic and gathered her family and led them back to the dirt road.
In less than thirty minutes, they were at the sturdy wooden gate of Le Jardin, the stone country house that had been in her family for three hundred years. Aged to a dozen shades of gray, it was a two-story house with blue-shuttered windows that overlooked the orchard. Ivy climbed up the two chimneys and covered the bricks beneath. Only seven acres of the original parcel were left. The other two hundred had been sold off over the course of two centuries as her family’s fortune dwindled. Seven acres was plenty for Via
Via
The plaster on the interior walls was peeling here and there to reveal paint from years gone by. The living room was an eclectic mix of furniture and fabrics—tapestried settee, Aubusson rugs, antique Chinese porcelain, chintz and toile. Some of the paintings on the wall were excellent—perhaps important—and some were amateurish. It had the jumbled, cobbled-together look of lost money and bygone taste—a little shabby, but comfortable.
She paused in the salon, glancing through the glass-paned doors that led to the backyard, where Antoine was pushing Sophie on the swing he’d made for her.
Via
Sophie sat at the head of the table, wearing the crown of daisies Antoine had made for her at the riverbank.
Via
As always, Sophie talked all through supper. She was like her Tante Isabelle in that way—a girl who couldn’t hold her tongue.
When at last they came to dessert—ile flottante, islands of toasted meringue floating in a rich crème anglaise—there was a satisfied silence around the table.
“Well,” Via
“Ahh, Maman,” Sophie whined.
“No whining,” Antoine said. “Not at your age.”
Via
“Papa didn’t laugh at a single one of my stories today,” Sophie said as Via
“No laughter? Well, certainly that is cause for alarm.”
“He’s worried about the war.”
The war. Again.
Via
Via
“I’m scared,” Sophie said. “Is war coming?”
“Don’t be afraid,” Via
It was when her own father had gone off to war.
Sophie looked unconvinced. “But—”
“But nothing. There is nothing to worry about. Now go to sleep.”
She kissed her daughter again, letting her lips linger on the little girl’s cheek.
Via
She came up beside him, put a hand on his shoulder. He exhaled smoke and took another long drag on the cigarette. Then he looked up at her. In the moonlight, his face appeared pale and shadowed. Almost unfamiliar. He reached into the pocket of his vest and pulled out a piece of paper. “I have been mobilized, Via
“Mobilized? But … we are not at war. I don’t—”
“I am to report for duty on Tuesday.”
“But … but … you’re a postman.”
He held her gaze and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. “I am a soldier now, it seems.”
THREE
Via
The father who went off to war was not the one who came home. She had tried to be loved by him; more important, she had tried to keep loving him, but in the end, one was as impossible as the other. In the years since he’d shipped her off to Carriveau, Via
“I know how war scares you,” Antoine said.
“The Maginot Line will hold,” she said, trying to sound convincing. “You’ll be home by Christmas.” The Maginot Line was miles and miles of concrete walls and obstacles and weapons that had been constructed along the German border after the Great War to protect France. The Germans couldn’t breach it.