The Nightingale

by Kristin Hannah

In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today’s young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.

They are not lost. Nor are they in a better place. They are gone. As I approach the end of my years, I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.

Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

At least that I will be forgiven.

In those boxes are the things I don’t use much anymore but can’t bear to part with.

My instinct is to toss the card into the trunk and slam the lid down, hiding it again. It’s what I have done all my life.

maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable, ordinary mother.

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

“Hitler will suck us all into his war soon.”

While Sophie and Antoine played outside, Vianne cooked supper. She wrapped a pink pork tenderloin in thick-cut bacon, tied it in twine, and browned it in hot oil. While the pork roasted in the oven, she made the rest of the meal. At eight o’clock—right on time—she called everyone to supper and couldn’t help smiling at the thundering of feet and the chatter

And of course there was the baguette Vianne had made yesterday morning.

“Ahh, Maman,” Sophie whined. “No whining,” Antoine said. “Not at your age.” Vianne and Sophie went into the kitchen, as they did each night, to their stations—Vianne at the deep copper sink, Sophie at the stone counter—and began washing and drying the dishes.

Antoine’s after-supper cigarette wafting through the house.

“He’s worried about the war.”

“Papa will protect us.” But even as she said it, she remembered another time, when her maman had said to her, Don’t be afraid. It was when her own father had gone off to war.

“I have been mobilized, Vianne. Along with most men between eighteen and thirty-five.” “Mobilized? But … we are not at war. I don’t—” “I am to report for duty on Tuesday.” “But … but … you’re a postman.”

“I am a soldier now, it seems.”

The father who went off to war was not the one who came home.

accepted—that when Maman had died, their family had been irreparably broken.

War hung over all of Europe.

Vianne smiled a bit too brightly.

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

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

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

She knew too little about their finances. Antoine handled them.

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.

She retrieved her handbag and went down the hallway to Sophie’s room. Like theirs, it was small, with a steeply pitched, timbered ceiling, wide plank wooden floors, and a window that overlooked the orchard. An ironwork bed, a nightstand with a hand-me-down lamp, and a blue-painted armoire filled the space. Sophie’s drawings decorated the walls.

Her pink stuffed teddy bear, Bébé, slept against her cheek.

“I don’t want Papa to go, Maman,” she whispered. She reached out for Bébé, practically snatched the bear from Vianne’s hands.

generation of men were going off to war. Again. Don’t think about it, Vianne told herself. Don’t remember what it was like last time when the men limped home, faces burned, missing arms and legs …

When had she stopped?

“I love you, too,” she said but the words that always seemed so big felt small now. What was love when put up against war?

They embraced as a family, one last time, until Antoine pulled back.

(one good piece, ladies, and choose it well; everything makes a statement, nothing speaks quite so loudly as cheapness).

“No one wants a statue for a dinner partner.”

“I hate oranges.” “Pardon?” “And if I were to eat an orange—which, honestly, Madame, why would I when I don’t like them—I would use my hands like the Americans do. Like everyone does, really. A fork and knife to eat an orange?” “I mean, why are you at the school?” “Oh. That. Well, the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Avignon expelled me. For nothing, I might add.” “And the Sisters of St. Francis?” “Ah. They had reason to expel me.”

France had joined Britain in declaring war on Germany, and Hitler was on the move. All across France people had stockpiled food and put up blackout shades and learned to live like moles in the dark.

horror was happening elsewhere in Europe; in Belgium and Holland and Poland.

“They don’t matter now,” Isabelle said impulsively, wishing a moment later that she’d said nothing.

she’d learned that she had to rely on herself. Certainly her father and her sister couldn’t be counted

“Ah. Consequences,” Madame said. “Perhaps now you will see that they should be considered.”

He was a tall man, at least six foot two, but he had been bent by the Great War.

But wasn’t it normal for a girl to want to live with her father?

“I could be a war hero, Christophe.” He laughed. “A girl? A hero? Absurd.” Isabelle got to her feet quickly, yanking up her hat and white kid gloves.

“I’m just tired of the war talk. And it’s a fact that women are useless in war. Your job is to wait for our return.”

Many students his age had volunteered to leave university and join the army. Not Christophe.

“A woman can go to war these days,”

“War is not a game, Isabelle.”

“The Germans are coming into Paris,” he said. “We must leave. I was in the Great War. I know…” Isabelle scoffed. “Germans in Paris? Impossible.”