The Nightingale

Antoine took her in his arms. The scent of jasmine was intoxicating, and she knew suddenly, certainly, that from now on, whenever she smelled jasmine, she would remember this good-bye.

“I love you, Antoine Mauriac, and I expect you to come home to me.”

Later, she couldn’t remember them moving into the house, climbing the stairs, lying down in bed, undressing each other. She remembered only being naked in his arms, lying beneath him as he made love to her in a way he never had before, with frantic, searching kisses and hands that seemed to want to tear her apart even as they held her together.

“You’re stronger than you think you are, V,” he said afterward, when they lay quietly in each other’s arms.

“I’m not,” she whispered too quietly for him to hear.

*   *   *

The next morning, Via

But where would they go? War hung over all of Europe.

By the time she finished making breakfast and doing the dishes, a headache throbbed at the base of her skull.

“You seem sad, Maman,” Sophie said.

“How can I be sad on a gorgeous summer’s day when we are going to visit our best friends?” Via

It wasn’t until she was out the front door and standing beneath one of the apple trees in the front yard that she realized she was barefoot.

“Maman,” Sophie said impatiently.

“I’m coming,” she said, as she followed Sophie through the front yard, past the old dovecote (now a gardening shed) and the empty barn. Sophie opened the back gate and ran into the well-tended neighboring yard, toward a small stone cottage with blue shutters.

Sophie knocked once, got no answer, and went inside.

“Sophie!” Via

They’d been a pair back then: Via

Rachel appeared in the open doorway, holding her newborn son, Ariel.

A look passed between the women. In it was everything they felt and feared.

Via

In the small backyard, roses grew along a privet hedge. A table and four chairs sat unevenly on a stone patio. Antique lanterns hung from the branches of a chestnut tree.

Via

Rachel sat down across from her, with the baby asleep in her arms. Silence seemed to expand between them and fill with their fears and misgivings.

“I wonder if he’ll know his father,” Rachel said as she looked down at her baby.

“They’ll be changed,” Via

Rachel moved the infant to her shoulder, patted his back soothingly. “Marc is no good at changing diapers. And Ari loves to sleep in our bed. I guess that’ll be all right now.”

Via

“And we can have poached eggs for supper.”

“Only half the laundry,” she said, but then her voice broke. “I’m not strong enough for this, Rachel.”

“Of course you are. We’ll get through it together.”

“Before I met Antoine…”

Rachel waved a hand dismissively. “I know. I know. You were as ski

“Why?”

Rachel’s smile faded. “I know I’m big—statuesque, as they like to say when they’re selling me brassieres and stockings—but I feel … undone by this, V. I am going to need to lean on you sometimes, too. Not with all my weight, of course.”

“So we can’t both fall apart at the same time.”

“Voilà,” Rachel said. “Our plan. Should we open a bottle of cognac now, or gin?”

“It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”

“You’re right. Of course. A French 75.”

*   *   *

On Tuesday morning when Via

Antoine sat in the chair by the window, a walnut rocker he’d made during Via

“Maybe you should take Sophie to Paris,” he said as she sat up. “Julien would look out for you.”

“My father has made his opinion on living with his daughters quite clear. I ca

“Will you be all right?”

“Sophie and I will be fine. You’ll be home in no time anyway. The Maginot Line will hold. And Lord knows the Germans are no match for us.”

“Too bad their weapons are. I took all of our money out of the bank. There are sixty-five thousand francs in the mattress. Use it wisely, Via

She felt a flutter of panic. She knew too little about their finances. Antoine handled them.

He stood up slowly and took her in his arms. She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched.

Remember this, she thought. The way the light caught in his unruly hair, the love in his brown eyes, the chapped lips that had kissed her only an hour ago, in the darkness.

Through the open window behind them, she heard the slow, even clop-clop-clop of a horse moving up the road and the clattering of the wagon being pulled along behind.

That would be Monsieur Quillian on his way to market with his flowers. If she were in the yard, he would stop and give her one and say it couldn’t match her beauty, and she would smile and say merci and offer him something to drink.

Via