FOUR
June 1940
France
The medieval villa dominated a deeply green, forested hillside. It looked like something in a confectioner’s shopwindow; a castle sculpted of caramel, with spun-sugar windows and shutters the color of candied apples. Far below, a deep blue lake absorbed the reflection of the clouds. Manicured gardens allowed the villa’s occupants—and, more important, their guests—to stroll about the grounds, where only acceptable topics were to be discussed.
In the formal dining room, Isabelle Rossignol sat stiffly erect at the white-clothed table that easily accommodated twenty-four diners. Everything in this room was pale. Walls and floor and ceiling were all crafted of oyster-hued stone. The ceiling arched into a peak nearly twenty feet overhead. Sound was amplified in this cold room, as trapped as the occupants.
Madame Dufour stood at the head of the table, dressed in a severe black dress that revealed the soup spoon–sized hollow at the base of her long neck. A single diamond brooch was her only adornment (one good piece, ladies, and choose it well; everything makes a statement, nothing speaks quite so loudly as cheapness). Her narrow face ended in a blunt chin and was framed by curls so obviously peroxided the desired impression of youth was quite undone. “The trick,” she was saying in a cultivated voice, clipped and cut, “is to be completely quiet and unremarkable in your task.”
Each of the girls at the table wore the fitted blue woolen jacket and skirt that was the school uniform. It wasn’t so bad in the winter, but on this hot June afternoon, the ensemble was unbearable. Isabelle could feel herself beginning to sweat, and no amount of lavender in her soap could mask the sharp scent of her perspiration.
She stared down at the unpeeled orange placed in the center of her Limoges china plate. Flatware lay in precise formation on either side of the plate. Salad fork, dinner fork, knife, spoon, butter knife, fish fork. It went on and on.
“Now,” Madame Dufour said. “Pick up the correct utensils—quietly, s’il vous pla?t, quietly, and peel your orange.”
Isabelle picked up her fork and tried to ease the sharp prongs into the heavy peel, but the orange rolled away from her and bumped over the gilt edge of the plate, clattering the china.
“Merde,” she muttered, grabbing the orange before it fell to the floor.
“Merde?” Madame Dufour was beside her.
Isabelle jumped in her seat. Mon Dieu, the woman moved like a viper in the reeds. “Pardon, Madame,” Isabelle said, returning the orange to its place.
“Mademoiselle Rossignol,” Madame said. “How is it that you have graced our halls for two years and learned so little?”
Isabelle again stabbed the orange with her fork. A graceless—but effective—move. Then she smiled up at Madame. “Generally, Madame, the failing of a student to learn is the failing of the teacher to teach.”
Breaths were indrawn all down the table.
“Ah,” Madame said. “So we are the reason you still cannot manage to eat an orange properly.”
Isabelle tried to slice through the peel—too hard, too fast. The silver blade slipped off the puckered peel and clanged on the china plate.
Madame Dufour’s hand snaked out; her fingers coiled around Isabelle’s wrist.
All up and down the table, the girls watched.
“Polite conversation, girls,” Madame said, smiling thinly. “No one wants a statue for a dinner partner.”
On cue, the girls began speaking quietly to one another about things that did not interest Isabelle. Gardening, weather, fashion. Acceptable topics for women. Isabelle heard the girl next to her say quietly, “I am so very fond of Alen?on lace, aren’t you?” and really, it was all she could do to keep from screaming.
“Mademoiselle Rossignol,” Madame said. “You will go see Madame Allard and tell her that our experiment has come to an end.”
“What does that mean?”
“She will know. Go.”
Isabelle scooted back from the table quickly, lest Madame change her mind.
Madame’s face scrunched in displeasure at the loud screech the chair legs made on the stone floor.
Isabelle smiled. “I really do not like oranges, you know.”
“Really?” Madame said sarcastically.
Isabelle wanted to run from this stifling room, but she was already in enough trouble, so she forced herself to walk slowly, her shoulders back, her chin up. At the stairs (which she could navigate with three books on her head if required), she glanced sideways, saw that she was alone, and rushed down.
In the hallway below, she slowed and straightened. By the time she reached the headmistress’s office, she wasn’t even breathing hard.
She knocked.
At Madame’s flat “Come in,” Isabelle opened the door.
Madame Allard sat behind a gilt-trimmed mahogany writing desk. Medieval tapestries hung from the stone walls of the room and an arched, leaded-glass window overlooked gardens so sculpted they were more art than nature. Even birds rarely landed here; no doubt they sensed the stifling atmosphere and flew on.
Isabelle sat down—remembering an instant too late that she hadn’t been offered a seat. She popped back up. “Pardon, Madame.”
“Sit down, Isabelle.”
She did, carefully crossing her ankles as a lady should, clasping her hands together. “Madame Dufour asked me to tell you that the experiment is over.”
Madame reached for one of the Murano fountain pens on her desk and picked it up, tapping it on the desk. “Why are you here, Isabelle?”
“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.”
“And the school before that?”
Isabelle didn’t know what to say.
Madame put down her fountain pen. “You are almost nineteen.”
“Oui, Madame.”
“I think it’s time for you to leave.”
Isabelle got to her feet. “Shall I return to the orange lesson?”
“You misunderstand. I mean you should leave the school, Isabelle. It is clear that you are not interested in learning what we have to teach you.”
“How to eat an orange and when you can spread cheese and who is more important—the second son of a duke or a daughter who won’t inherit or an ambassador to an unimportant country? Madame, do you not know what is going on in the world?”
Isabelle might have been secreted deep in the countryside, but still she knew. Even here, barricaded behind hedges and bludgeoned by politeness, she knew what was happening in France. At night in her monastic cell, while her classmates were in bed, she sat up, long into the night, listening to the BBC on her contraband radio. 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.
They had prepared and worried and then … nothing.
Month after month, nothing happened.
At first all anyone could talk about was the Great War and the losses that had touched so many families, but as the months went on, and there was only talk of war, Isabelle heard her teachers calling it the dr?le de guerre, the phony war. The real horror was happening elsewhere in Europe; in Belgium and Holland and Poland.
“Will manners not matter in war, Isabelle?”
“They don’t matter now,” Isabelle said impulsively, wishing a moment later that she’d said nothing.
Madame stood. “We were never the right place for you, but…”
“My father would put me anywhere to be rid of me,” she said. Isabelle would rather blurt out the truth than hear another lie. She had learned many lessons in the parade of schools and convents that had housed her for more than a decade—most of all, she’d learned that she had to rely on herself. Certainly her father and her sister couldn’t be counted on.
Madame looked at Isabelle. Her nose flared ever so slightly, an indication of polite but pained disapproval. “It is hard for a man to lose his wife.”
“It is hard for a girl to lose her mother.” She smiled defiantly. “I lost both parents though, didn’t I? One died, and the other turned his back on me. I can’t say which hurt more.”
“Mon Dieu, Isabelle, must you always speak whatever is on your mind?”
Isabelle had heard this criticism all her life, but why should she hold her tongue? No one listened to her either way.
“So you will leave today. I will telegram your father. Tómas will take you to the train.”
“Tonight?” Isabelle blinked. “But … Papa won’t want me.”
“Ah. Consequences,” Madame said. “Perhaps now you will see that they should be considered.”