The Nightingale

by Kristin Hannah

“The worst can always be true,”

a bomb exploded in a flash of eerie bright light, and something caught fire.

What of Paris was left?

Isabelle went immediately to the window, peering past the shade to look for the Eiffel Tower.

“You will learn that a lot of things are possible.”

Did he know how this hurt her? Did he care?

“I want to stay and fight, Papa. To be like Edith Cavell.”

The street was a living, breathing dragon of humanity,

Isabelle didn’t want to join this hopeless, helpless crowd of women and children and old people.

She was so tired of being considered disposable.

She was still walking hours later when night fell. Her feet ached; a blister burned with every step.

She knew this landscape, if only she could think.

“Ah, a nightingale.”

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

“We will see your sister in Carriveau and my mother in Poitiers, and then we will be off to join the war.”

It was what she’d been looking for all of her life. “A plan, then,” she said, unable to hide her smile.

But like I said, a nice girl like you wouldn’t know anything about survival.”

The soldier’s gaze narrowed. “Go ahead. Do it. Kill me.”

She stumbled toward the toddler. Gaëtan yanked her sideways. “I have to help—” “Your dying won’t help that kid,” he growled, pulling her so hard it hurt.

“Who wants to conjugate the verb courir for me?” she asked tiredly.

François

The lost year,

beans,

but even as she asked her the question, she looked unconvinced. Beaten.

Sabine,”

The baby was dead. Vianne knew about the kind of talon grief that wouldn’t let go; she had fallen into the fathomless gray that warped a mind and made a mother keep holding on long after hope was gone.

Sophie came running down the stairs, clutching Bébé to her chest. “Maman!”

something, a plea not to be left alone,

“You could be safe here, with your sister,” he said. “I don’t want to be safe. And my sister will not want me.”

“A woman who made a difference,”

nonchalant,

At his kiss, something opened up inside the scraped, empty interior of her heart, unfurled. For the first time, her romantic novels made sense; she realized that the landscape of a woman’s soul could change as quickly as a world at war. “I love you,” she whispered.

let it become the whole of her universe, and knew finally how it felt to be enough for someone.

“He shouldn’t have sent me away. But when has he ever done anything else?” A look passed between them. It was one of the few memories they shared, that abandonment, but clearly Vianne didn’t want to remember it.

You are not ready.

“You will stay here and be safe. We will speak of it no more.”

How long would it be before all this blue was filled with German aeroplanes?

Vianne understood what Isabelle could not:

Isabelle stepped defiantly into the street.

her green eyes bright with hatred, her pale, fine-boned beautiful face marred by scratches and bruises.

The Germans waved to her, looking more like tourists than conquerors.

The surrender wasn’t final.

“Let’s go,” Vianne said, irritated that Rachel had said to Isabelle what Vianne had not been able to.

“Sophie and I are going in,” Vianne said, although she had to admit that she felt a prickly sense of foreboding.

Isabelle had taught her niece to challenge authority.

“Ah, so you would rather leave the house to me. How difficult that must be for you.”

I am not going to abandon my home to the Germans.”

just as Isabelle gathered up her thick blond hair and fisted it. Staring grimly at Captain Beck’s handsome face, she hacked off her hair and handed the long blond tail to him.

Scratches marred her cheeks and throat; a reminder of what she’d seen and survived. And now her hair was hacked off, the ends uneven.

Does one follow a leader blindly?”