“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Estelle tried to speak but couldn’t seem to make the words come out.
Rachel backed up a step. “Alain.”
Estelle nodded.
Her friend put a hand out and grasped the ambulance door. “Is he—” She couldn’t seem to say it either. As if neither of them saying what they both knew would make it not true.
“I’m sorry, Rachel,” Estelle said. “I’m so sorry.”
Rachel staggered and sat down hard on the back of the ambulance. She didn’t speak, didn’t move, and Estelle had no idea what to do. Or what to say.
After a moment, Rachel stood and approached Estelle. “How much fuel do you have left?”
“What?” Estelle shook her head, not understanding.
“How much fuel do you have? My ambulance isn’t drivable anymore; the front axle broke when I—”
“Rachel.” Estelle cut her off. “What are you doing?”
“I’m doing what Alain would have wanted us to do,” she said, her voice shaking. “There are men out there he would have considered friends, men he fought beside, men who are still fighting. Men who need our help. He would not want us to fall apart now.” She took Estelle’s hand and squeezed it tight.
“Rachel—”
“I won’t cry now,” she said, and the pressure on Estelle’s hand increased. “Because if I do, I won’t be able to stop. And that helps no one. We need to find some fuel.”
“Yes.”
Rachel let go of Estelle’s hands. “We need to get back to Jerome.”
The two women started across the yard, skirting the smallest of the outbuildings. Estelle hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps before she stopped, abruptly aware of the stillness of the yard. Vehicles sat unattended, posts had seemingly been deserted. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a young soldier running toward the barn.
“What’s happening?” she called out.
“A radio address,” he replied without slowing down. “From our government.”
Estelle exchanged a look with Rachel, and for the first time in a long while, hope surfaced. Estelle started forward, daring to believe that this would be the announcement they had been waiting for. That somehow, some way, more troops and more help would be coming. That the goddamn Boches would indeed be driven back to where they had come from and their seemingly unchecked aggression halted before it was too late.
The barn doors had been propped open, and Estelle and Rachel stepped into the cavernous space. Along the wall to Estelle’s right, a dozen patients languished on beds of straw. The one closest to her was moaning and mumbling, an empty space where his lower left leg should have been beneath his thin blanket. The others lay motionless, a handful watching her with haunted eyes shadowed by pain and exhaustion.
At the far end of the barn, a radio had been set up on a barrel, the long antenna snaking up through the hayloft and out the roof. A knot of men in various uniforms was crowded around. Estelle picked up her pace, anxious to hear what was being said. Rachel was on her heels. But as they got to the end, someone reached up and turned off the radio, the silence in the space unnerving and absolute. Only the whimpers of the patient by the door could be heard.
Estelle faltered. The expressions on each face ranged from grave to dismayed, furious to forlorn. One aging soldier, old enough that he had likely fought the Germans twenty years ago, was crying openly.
She grabbed the arm of a nearby medic. “What has happened?”
“We’ve surrendered.”
Estelle stared at him, not comprehending. “I don’t understand.”
“Reynaud has resigned, Pétain has taken power, and his first action as premier has been to ask the Germans to let France surrender.”
“That’s not possible.” Because that would mean everything in these last months had been for nothing. That all this suffering and death and sacrifice had been for nothing.
That Alain’s sacrifice had been for nothing.
“It’s done.” The medic pulled his arm from Estelle and stalked away.
Rachel made a tortured sound in her throat and sank to the ground on one knee, her hand over her mouth.
The others who had been listening to the radio were dispersing. Estelle and Rachel were left alone, staring at the space the crowd had just occupied. Dust motes danced in the light streaming down from the open loft door above, disturbed by their movements.
The generals in resplendent uniforms and the politicians in tailored suits had assured Estelle and everyone else that France was prepared for Germany. They’d asserted that France would crush any hostile overtures the Germans might dare to make. They’d proclaimed that the Maginot Line, with all its tunnels and troops and arms, was indestructible and impenetrable. And they’d affirmed that there was no tactical way an army could invade through the Ardennes or navigate the River Meuse. France would never fall.
They had all been liars.
Chapter
4
Gabriel
Paris, France
28 June 2017
Gabriel Seymour was turning into a liar.
When the woman emailed him yesterday, insisting she had found a painting that belonged to his family—a painting executed by his grandfather, no less—he almost deleted the message out of hand. But before he could swipe the communication out of existence, a pixelated photo attachment popped up on his screen, and Gabriel found himself looking at a rendition of Millbrook Hall, his family’s estate in Norfolk. The painting in the photo was executed in the same flat colors that were characteristic of his grandfather’s work, but the composition itself exhibited a hopeful quality, as though any shortcomings could be eclipsed by the sheer enthusiasm of its creator. It was a style that was as familiar to Gabriel as his own face after a lifetime of seeing dozens of similar paintings that still lined the walls of his ancestral home.
In her message, the woman—Aurelia Leclaire—indicated that she was emptying out an apartment that had once belonged to a deceased relative. Ms. Leclaire asked if Gabriel had any idea how the painting might have made its way to Paris, or if the name Estelle Allard meant anything to him. She further wondered if the painting might be valuable—she was unfamiliar with the artist, she said, and did not know if the market for his work was at all significant. Ms. Leclaire made it clear that she did not intend to keep the painting either way; she was determined to return the work to Gabriel’s family, its rightful owners, free of cost. She concluded her message by inviting him to Paris to view it.
The message communicated several things to Gabriel right away. First, its author had plenty of her own money. Too much, probably, to care about potentially adding to an existing fortune. And, second, whoever this woman was, she knew absolutely nothing about art. This last realization was further substantiated when Gabriel noticed the second canvas that was visible in the photo attachment, hiding just behind the optimistic little landscape.
A nude woman glared out of that second canvas, the bold style and deliberate colors obvious even considering the poor quality of the photo. Gabriel nearly dropped his phone when he saw it, the thrill of discovery running like lightning through his veins. Within seconds, he was booking a Eurostar ticket from London to Paris for the first train out the following morning. Years of experience had taught him that no matter how certain he might be about identifying a particular artist and their work, a careful and thorough examination needed to be done in person before making grand pronouncements. Offering a client false hope about a piece in their possession never ended well for anyone. And so he told Ms. Leclaire only that he wanted to come get a better look at the plain little landscape.