The Nightingale

by Kristin Hannah

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I’d like to be known.

The lights are going out all over Europe; We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime. —SIR EDWARD GREY, ON WORLD WAR I

They had been lied to by their government. They’d been assured, time and time again, that the Maginot Line would keep the Germans out of France. Lies. Neither concrete and steel nor French soldiers could stop Hitler’s march, and the government had run from Paris like thieves in the night.

Her surname meant “nightingale.” Maman had called Vianne and Isabelle her nightingales as she kissed them good night. It was one of Isabelle’s few memories of her.

Why was it so easy for men in the world to do as they wanted and so difficult for women?

It was the kind of thing she heard all the time. It circled back to her looks, as most snide comments did. Surely a pretty blond girl had to be shallow and dim-witted.

“You don’t reason with men like Hitler.”

Whatever you keep—or hide—we will find, and if we find it … death.” He said it so casually, and wearing such a fine smile, that for a moment, it didn’t sink in.

“Don’t think about who they are. Think about who you are and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you.”

Asking yourself a question, that’s how resistance begins. And then ask that very question to someone else. —REMCO CAMPERT

And you, of all people, should know that a woman can do anything a man can do.”

There were constantly new restrictions in place for Jewish people: they could no longer own bicycles and were banned from all public places except between three and four P.M., when they were allowed to shop. By then, there was nothing left.

Or if she looked at him she might cry, might demand to know how it was that children could be shot in the dark for nothing.

Vianne hated what she saw in her daughter’s eyes right now. There was nothing young in her gaze—no innocence, no naïveté, no hope. Not even grief. Just anger.

He was a man who had stumbled into a little bit of power and seized it with both hands. She’d known that within the first few hours of his arrival, when he’d chosen the best room and gathered up the warmest blankets for his bed,

“I would tell you to be careful if these were ordinary times. I would point out that he is young and engaged in a dangerous business and young men in danger can be fickle.” She sighed. “But we are cautious about too much these days, and why add love to the list?”

“Or maybe I’m finally going home after years of running away. It’s hard to know the truth sometimes.”

If you’re going through hell, keep going. —WINSTON CHURCHILL

“It’s hard to forget,” she said quietly. “And I’ll never forgive.” “But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.”

This quote is my favorite.

“They couldn’t touch my heart. They couldn’t change who I was inside. My body … they broke that in the first days, but not my heart, V. Whatever he did, it was to your body, and your body will heal.”

Love. It was the beginning and end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between.

I realize that he has been keeping time all along, waiting. He is so American. No sitting idle, forgetting oneself,

“Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.

Because of them, I know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts. We remain.