She nods and squares her shoulders. “Would you consider taking on more? Watching over the boys’ dormitory, leading camping trips, that sort of thing. I know you’re already busy with sculpting, and I can’t pay as much as you deserve, but—”
“Yes, I’ll do it,” I say, feeling a little guilty at how little sculpting I’ve really been doing.
“Sergeant Travert won’t mind?”
“Travert doesn’t tell me what to do.” Or at least, I don’t listen when he does.
“Well, that’s good,” Anna says, picking up her pen like she means to get back to work, but then she bites her lower lip. “What’s it like with him?”
Years ago, she’d have meant, What’s he like in bed? Or she’d have meant, Are you still grieving for Henri? Does it hurt to be married to a different man?
I don’t know what she means now. “It’s fine.”
Anna looks at me like I’m holding out. “Only fine?”
“He loves me.” Travert has never told me he loves me, but he says it with his body when we touch. Personally, I don’t trust love—inside me it’s been a confusing and slippery emotion, taking on too many forms to recognize. And I’ve apparently been so starved of it that I’ve developed feelings for everybody who ever showed a real interest. But whatever it is that I feel for Yves, I enjoy his company, and I’m happy to know he wants more from life than what’s in the hills of Auvergne. Sometimes we talk about what we’ll do after the war if we live to see it. So I shrug and say, “I trust him.”
Hearing the word trust, she crosses her arms over herself. And there it is, what really came between us, and my heartbreak exposed. All these years, I’ve told myself I couldn’t confide in her because I wanted to protect her, but that was only half of the truth. I’ve wanted to protect myself from her. Until the occupation—even up until her father’s arrest—I couldn’t be sure what side she was on. I’m not even entirely sure I know now.
Oh, she hates the Germans. She wants the liberation of France. And she never said anything in favor of Pétain’s backward revolution. She never said anything against Jews or Freemasons or so-called sexual deviants . . . but I never heard her defend them either. It’s not fair to blame her for things nobody wants to talk about; it’s not like I make defiant speeches in the town square. But I never thought about volunteering to go work for the Nazis. Not once. Not ever. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Of course, it’s not that simple—because my husband actually does work for the Nazis, and I just convinced him not to quit. But Travert is risking his life for what’s right, and that makes all the difference. “Things are fine with Travert. In fact, they’re really good.”
At the boys’ dormitory they’re all talking about the maquisards. Young Daniel excitedly tells me there’s been a meeting of the Resistance in Paulhaguet, and that thousands of fighters are coming to the area. Of course, the boys always have as many stories about the Resistance as they do about comic books, so it’s easy to discount. But they also have a verboten radio, and the BBC broadcast is warning French people to take shelter in anticipation of an Allied bombing. We all know there’s going to be an American invasion with a bloody battle fought on French soil. It’s just a matter of when.
One afternoon in mid-May, I get a message in the mailbox from Sam to meet him by the rotting old tree house we used to play in when we were kids together. When I finally slip away from my duties at the preventorium, I find him sitting in the branches of a wild cherry tree. The same one where I first kissed Henri.
There was a time when seeing that tree would’ve sent me to the bottom of a bottle. The edges of grief aren’t so sharp now, and I can almost smile at the memory. Almost. Sam jumps down, looking like a real warrior now. His dark skin is weather-beaten. And he’s wearing a black beret, a rifle slung over his shoulder, and grenades on his belt.
“Where’d you get those?” I ask.
“A woman commander, if you can believe it. Australian. Parachuted in.”
I wince, knowing I shouldn’t have asked. Meanwhile, Sam plucks some ripening cherries from the tree and uses his shirt like a basket to hold them. “You should meet her.”
“No. I deal only with you.”
“And if I get shot?”
I press my lips together, not wanting to admit that possibility.
He gives me some cherries. “We need safe caches of weapons.”