We both laugh, and he glances nostalgically at the castle where it happened. It’s lit up beautifully tonight. Even the mismatched square tower—a newer addition the Americans built when they bought this place—looks like less of an architectural abomination with spotlights setting it aglow. The castle has been a sanctuary for both of us, but maybe Henri’s always loved it more because he had somewhere else to go.
Though I have no idea who my parents were, Henri used to insist that my father must have also been a soldier and that our heroic patriarchs would have made a marriage match of us, if they’d lived.
I’m sure of it, Henri would say. Henri is very sure of everything, which is his most endearing and irritating trait, because I’m not sure of much.
He means well, but his timing stinks. I do love Henri. He can be one of those saccharine saintly sorts, but he’s a good kisser, my best pal, and the closest thing to family I’ve ever known. Now he’s offering me a chance to make a real family . . .
I guess I’d have to be crazy to turn my nose up at that, but what would it mean to get married with everything so unsettled? He’s not a doctor yet, so how would we afford anything on my teacher’s salary? At least now I live in the staff quarters rent-free. I recoil at the sudden thought that he might expect me to get knocked up, move in with him and his mother on the family farm, and spend the rest of my life milking goats, but maybe it’s time to face facts and give up unrealistic dreams about living an artist’s life in Paris or anywhere else. War seems like a lousy reason to get hitched, but in my drunken state, I can’t think of a better one.
Now Henri tosses the ring up and catches it again. “So, what do you think, blondie?”
“I think I need to be sober for this conversation. Give me a little time?”
But as it happens, time is something we don’t have.
On the first of September, Germany invades Poland, France declares war, and the call comes for full mobilization even though it’s harvesttime and wheat is still bundled in the fields. Henri and Sam are both called up, and I go with them to the train station in Paulhaguet.
To see them off, I’ve styled my pageboy hair with peekaboo bangs, and I keep up a steady stream of stiff-upper-lip chitchat that’s supposed to keep spirits high, but I’m almost numb with shock, watching men and their wives embrace in tearful farewells on the platform.
None of this feels real. Like it’s all some drunken dream, and I just need to wake up and get on with the hangover . . .
Sam’s girl sends him off with a box of his favorite Algerian pastries. I’ve got only cigarettes for Henri, who tells me, “The war shouldn’t last long. A few skirmishes and we’ll make the Germans come to their senses, no?”
I nod, though it’s difficult to imagine Henri soldiering. Oh, I’ve seen him with a hunting rifle, but he’d rather be healing creatures than hurting them. Now he kisses the top of my head and looks into my eyes. “Will you keep your nose out of trouble and hold down the fort while I’m gone?”
I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but swallowing over the knot in my throat, I promise. I’m trying not to worry as the conductor shouts for passengers to board. I’m also trying to ignore the voice in my head shrieking that when I was a baby, someone left me in the streets of Paris and people have been leaving me ever since. Friends at the orphanage got adopted or grew up and moved away. Teachers and nurses and administrators at the Lafayette Memorial came and went. Even Sam took off for a few years before returning to the castle to work as a valet. Henri’s been my only constant, and now he’s leaving too . . .
What a prize idiot I’ve been.
As the train starts whistling, I splutter, “Is it too late to say I’ll marry you?”
Henri breaks into a broad grin. “Just in the nick of time!”
Already boarding, Sam calls to Henri, “Pinton, hurry up, will you?”
“I’m getting engaged,” Henri shouts back, fishing in his shirt pocket. I can’t believe he has the ring, but he does. And he laughs at my surprise. “I knew you’d see it my way, Marthe. I just didn’t think you’d wait until the very last minute to say yes.”
I want to cry, but I’m not the crying kind. “I’m sorry it’s too late to get hitched and get lucky.”
Henri laughs. “Gives me something to look forward to.” He slides the ring onto my finger, then we kiss as the train starts to move. Reluctantly Henri pulls away, breaks into a run, and hops on the moving train as it chugs out of the station. And I’m left with a lingering kiss and a ring on my finger, feeling alone and aimless. Men hear the drum and march off, but what’s a girl like me supposed to do in a world at war?
PART
ONE
Fourteen months later . . .
ONE
MARTHE
Chavaniac-Lafayette
The Free Zone
October 1940
I’ve almost made it, I think, pedaling my bicycle faster when I see the castle’s crenelated tower at the summit. I’ve ridden past yellowing autumn farmland, past the preventorium’s dormitories for boys, and past the terra-cotta-roof-topped houses of the village. And despite blistered feet and scuffed saddle shoes, I’m feeling cocky.
As I near the castle proper, I’m no longer worried anyone is going to take what I’ve carried all this way, which is probably why I’m so surprised to see Sergeant Travert’s old black Citroën parked by the village fountain.
Quelle malchance! What shit luck.
Sergeant Travert patrols our village every evening on his way home. For some reason the gendarme is early today, and having stalled out his jalopy, he’s got the hood up to repair it.
I try to ride past, but he notices and waves me over.
My heart sinks as Travert approaches, doffing his policeman’s cap, then resting his hand on his holstered pistol. “What have we here, mademoiselle?”
I pretend to be calm while he peers into my bicycle pannier baskets. “Just some supplies from Paulhaguet.”
That’s the nearest little town, where I bought dried sausage with ration coupons, but I traded on the black market to get sugar, paper for my classroom, and medicine for the doctors at the preventorium.
Black market barters for hard-to-find goods are illegal. I took the risk anyway for a good cause, but I had a selfish motive too. One the snooping constable uncovers with a disapproving arch of his bushy brow. “Cigarettes?”
According to our new leader, Marshal Pétain, Frenchwomen who smoke—not to mention foreigners and unpatriotic schoolteachers—are to blame for France’s defeat.