“Quiet,” she said, glancing at her father. “That’s nonsense.”
But it wasn’t nonsense, at least not for her. She let him kiss her again, but only once, when her father was outside with Bluebell, the goat. “That’s enough,” she said, but of course it wasn’t. She made up a bed for him in the parlor, and he went to sleep immediately, grateful and exhausted. Victor was beautiful and young. But he wasn’t a boy anymore; he was a fighter. Marianne’s head was spinning to think he was here, in their house. When her father asked if she’d like to look at the stars, she was happy to do so.
“That boy seems to know you well,” her father said in an offhand way as he lit a small cigar, one of a few that he rationed for special occasions.
“Well, of course. We shared a house for five years.”
“Were you happy when you were away?” For all those years he had wondered what his daughter’s life was like in Paris. He thought she might come home with a family, a husband and perhaps some sons, but that was not the case.
“I was happy,” Marianne said. “He made me happy,” she admitted. “But I missed this place.”
The stars were falling from the sky as they climbed up the hill, he on his crutches, she with a ready arm to guide him. She made her father a promise that nothing would happen under his roof.
“Whatever happens, you’re my daughter,” he said.
She nodded, content to be here with him to gaze at the constellations that were so familiar from her childhood. You couldn’t see a trail of stars covering the entire sky in Paris. You had to be here in the countryside on a clear night. She thought of Victor asleep in the parlor, and the powder burns on his face and hands. He was here for now, and that was enough. Everything might disappear, but not these stars. Her father should not have the strength to climb this hillock, but he did it anyway, and he trusted her to do what was best. He was who he was, after all, and had loved her even while she was gone. Standing beside him, she felt fortunate to have found her way home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BLESSING
RHôNE VALLEY, JUNE 1942
THE SISTERS HAD BEEN THE residents of a tall stone convent where there was a boarding school for girls for nearly three hundred years. The spires reached to heaven. The gravel paths were worn down from those who walked there daily as they recited their prayers. In the woods near the convent, Ava could hear the rise and fall of voices from inside. The nuns at prayer, the students at the dinner table, and then, the faintest voices of all, five Jewish girls in the attic who were well cared for, but who still wept at night, longing for their mothers. More and more children had been separated from their parents when the Vichy government decided to arrest Jews, except for children under the age of sixteen. Many of these children, who were now on their own, were living in châteaus and schools run by the OSE, who turned to convents such as this, and to the homes of those good neighbors who believed a child’s life was worth more than adhering to arbitrary laws.
The sisters had originally been lacemakers, but during the Reign of Terror many were beheaded by guillotine or thrown into prison. For the next twenty years they were in hiding, until they could at last be free to live and work as their faith decreed. During the Revolution, when they would not sign documents stating their first allegiance was to France, rather than to God, the congregation was outlawed until 1807. The sisters understood what it was to be persecuted and arrested and murdered, for a crime no worse than faith.
The convent and its grounds were elegant and lush, thanks to several wealthy women who, over the convent’s long history, had joined the order and brought their wealth with them. In their legendary garden grew roses of every color: rouge; noire; blanche; feu, the color of fire; cerise, the shade of cherries; argent, silver; and or, gold. Some varieties had first names and surnames, as though they were elegant women shrouded in vivid color standing between the hedges in silk dresses: Madame Isaac Pereire, created in 1881, Madame Ernest Calvat, first grown in 1888, Bourbon Roses and tea roses of every hue and tone,