Now she kept her gaze averted from a smear of pale, chalky blue against the wall near their apartment. It had once been a V—victoire, an additional mark of French opposition to the Nazis and a promise that eventually the Resistance would have their victory. That V hastily marked across the ragged stone had been put there by her own hand and had been the catalyst for the fight. Her fingers still recalled the dry grip of the brittle blue chalk she often kept in her purse.
The act was trite, but all she could allow herself when Joseph guarded her every move.
He had caught her midway through, his usually serene expression darkened with ire. The disagreement began as soon as they returned to their apartment, and it was then she had used the harshest of words upon her own husband.
The argument erupted in a blinding flare of their combined frustrations. He had scolded her for not being a proper Vichy wife—the type of Frenchwoman who was a mother and a housewife, obeying the orders of her husband—the type of woman she had never been. The type of woman he had never expected her to be. What’s more, Vichy was the regime that worked with the Nazis who she longed to oppose. The vile suggestion had been more than she could bear. In her rage, she called his refusal to join the Resistance cowardice.
He had not been home since.
Except Joseph was not a petty man. Of the two of them, she was the one who leaned heavily on her temper, who was too impulsive. Whatever kept him from returning home was not simply malcontent.
Each attempt to see Etienne, his closest friend, had been in vain as her visits to his flat went unanswered. She considered going to the police, but knew they worked closely with the Gestapo, men who were cold and cruel and likely to be of little help.
If Joseph was not back by dawn the following day, however, desperation would draw her to the police, no matter the risk.
The massive wooden doors of her apartment building came into view, and she pushed inside to the courtyard. All was quiet within.
A quick stop by their letterbox revealed it to be empty and devoid of any clues as to Joseph’s whereabouts. The sense of unease in her gut tightened further still as she tried to suppress the hope that he would be home.
She trudged up the stairs to the fourth floor and to the narrow apartment that Joseph’s parents left him when his mother passed away several years before the war. Though Hélène and Joseph were in Paris at the time, he kept his childhood home with the intent to use it for holidays. They did so several times. One summer in particular, they explored the winding streets during the day and stayed out late in the evening, drinking wine along the Rh?ne as the warm July air cooled. Lucky for them, the apartment was a place of refuge when the Germans marched into Paris. With so many fleeing to Lyon in those days, such accommodations would have been impossible to find otherwise.
Joseph hadn’t wanted to flee the City of Light when they were all warned to go, loathe to abandon his students and his work. But he had left everything in Paris for her, to keep her safe. That had been three years ago, back when their marriage had been happy.
She unlocked the door and pushed inside to reveal a dark, empty entryway.
“Joseph?”
Though she expected no answer, a sense of despair washed over her when none came. He really was gone.
But where? And when would he finally return?
The sky darkened as the imposed curfew neared. Each second dragged into a minute in her interminable wait for Joseph to come home. Hélène was preparing to retire early, yielding to the exhaustion of a heavy heart and an empty belly when a soft knock sounded at the front door.
Surely Joseph wouldn’t knock. Unless, of course, he didn’t have his key.
She ran to the entryway with such haste, the floorboards barely creaked underfoot. But it was not her husband who stood on the other side of the door. A woman with blond hair similar to her own regarded Hélène warily with wide dark eyes.