her someone to talk to, someone to help speed the time if she wouldn’t be freed soon.
Pierrette glanced at Isa. “Before we knew he’d been killed at the front, I’d have given anything to hear from him. I thought of him day and night, worried and feared. And then, when all those fears became real, I still wished, somehow, that I could hear from him. Crazy, yes? As if he could write to me from the dead!”
Isa remembered the letters she’d carried from Holland and the stories Gourard had told of soldiers with their dying wish to speak to their mothers in a letter.
“Perhaps he did try to write to you,” Isa said. “I’m sure his last thought must have been of you, his mother.”
“I’ll never know.”
“If only the Germans would let through letters from soldiers to families. Even a censored letter is better than nothing.”
“I know some get through,” Pierrette said, low. “Surely you’ve seen the placards of those punished for carrying such letters. Heroes, every one of them!”
Isa nodded. She didn’t count herself among them, having done it only once.
Pierrette sighed. “Ah, we must hold dear our heroes, mademoiselle. Do you agree?”
Isa nodded again, thinking of Edward and all he’d done in the past two years.
“I would be willing to do anything for my countrymen. And I’ve done so little, yet that’s why I’m here.”
“Why are you here?”
“I heard one accuse me of counting trains and conveying information to the Allies. Imagine! How was I to have sent that information, even if I was doing such a thing?” Her gaze wandered down the corridor to the cell belonging, for the moment at least, to her husband. “Same for my beloved Jean-Luc. They came for him this morning when I was out. When I came home, they were waiting for me.”
“But you said you’ve done so little for your countrymen. You have done something, then?”
Pierrette laughed and eyed Isa. “You ask a lot of questions, ma petite.”
“Yes, I’ve always been a pest, so I’ve been told.” According to Edward.
Pierrette laughed again, and it sounded so strange amid their surroundings that Isa studied her closely. She’s an odd one. One moment mourning her misfortune and the next able to laugh at light humor.
“Tell me of yourself, mademoiselle,” Pierrette said. “I know that you are not a workingwoman. I can tell from your nightclothes. You come from Upper Town, yes?”
Isa nodded.
“Were you born in Brussels?”
“America.”
“Ah, I thought as much. Your French is excellent, though.”
Isa said nothing.
“You are American, then. What are you doing here?”
“My father is Belgian. I am Belgian.”
Pierrette brushed a hand Isa’s way. “This is no reason to be here now. Why didn’t you go to America before the Germans came?”
Isa looked away from the woman’s obvious interest. Perhaps it was the surroundings or perhaps Pierrette’s own words. Even if the two of them did share a cell, they were strangers. And no one talked to strangers anymore. Still, Isa could think of no possible reason not to be friendly. “We did—that is, my parents did.”
“Ah, they left you? But you are so young! How could they do such a thing?”
Isa suddenly regretted her decision to talk. She couldn’t very well admit they’d taken her along but she’d returned on her own.
“My parents have always considered me inconvenient.” That much was true.
Pierrette reached across the narrow gap between their cots to stroke Isa’s cheek gently. “Ma petite, how can a child be an inconvenience?”
How indeed? She’d wondered that herself.
“How has it been for you, living without your parents? Have they been in touch?”
“Now who asks all the questions?”
Pierrette shifted on her cot, looking straight up at the ceiling. “Perhaps we have something in common. We are both pests?”
“I haven’t heard from my parents.”
“But surely if they left you behind, they know where you are?”
Isa didn’t answer. She’d probably said too much already, although she wasn’t quite sure it was necessary to be so cautious. At least not with someone on this side of the cell bars. She leaned back on the cot, listening as Pierrette continued to talk of her son, of her husband, of how happy they’d been before the war. Isa found it comforting to hear someone speak about how life had been before. Pierrette told of their bakery and Isa’s mouth watered to remember the tartelettes aux fruits, brioches, cornets à la crème, and how families used to come at teatime for the delicate pastries and to drink chocolate. But they’d closed along with the other