Tonight, there was no forgetting. Louis had not told them what to expect. Jean-Luc had explained that the less each partisan knew, the better. There would be nothing to confess under torture if someone got caught.

“What I wouldn’t give for a smoke right now,” said Louis, pacing back and forth. “Can’t risk it, though, not even a match strike.” He tipped his head back and gazed at the empty black sky.

“Where would you even get a proper cigarette?” asked Jean-Luc. “Don’t tell me you’re dealing with the black market.”

“I don’t have one,” Louis admitted. “I was just wishing for one. You know I’d never line the pockets of the collaborators. The war profiteers are as bad as the Nazis.” He stopped speaking and tilted his head to one side. “Listen.”

Lisette could hear the sound of the waves, but then she noticed something else. “It’s a motor.”

“An airplane,” Jean-Luc said. “Are they making a parachute drop?”

“Yes. Supplies. Help me move these stones.” Louis dropped to his knees and started removing some large rocks from a pile. Jean-Luc and Lisette pitched in. Under the stones was a square of canvas. Louis moved it aside and took out a box or case of some sort.

“What is this?” she asked.

“It’s a transponder,” Louis said. “This tells them where the drop zone is.” He opened the hinged lid of the box and flipped some switches, and the equipment emitted a crackling sound. “I think it’s working. Now we wait.”

They lay back in the grass and looked up at the sky. The night was clear and filled with stars. Time moved slowly. Jean-Luc reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. She smiled into the darkness, but a ripple of sadness coursed through her. When she had first begun walking out with him, everything had seemed so simple. Now, instead of outings to town festivals and to the beach, they found themselves committing acts of subterfuge together.

“There,” Louis whispered. “I see something.”

They watched a shadow in the sky. It grew larger, drifting, and they rushed to meet it as it fell to the earth. There was a large parcel bound with straps. Louis opened it while Lisette and Jean-Luc gathered up the chute. Her heart was pounding as they loaded everything into the cart.

“We need to hurry,” Louis said, concealing the radio. They moved the rocks back into place and wheeled the cart to a stone-built borie. There, they unpacked the cache of small arms, guns, and Mills bombs, which Louis said were hand grenades. Other partisans, unknown to Lisette, would arm themselves with the fallen weapons to use against the enemy.

“Good work. We’ll soon have the Italians heading for the hills,” Louis murmured.

“And then what?” Jean-Luc asked. “Then the Germans will move in.”

“That’s why we’re stockpiling weapons,” Louis said. “Let’s go. We need to get back before dawn.” He slipped away, going off somewhere while Jean-Luc and Lisette rode the bicycle back to town. The darkness felt heavy now, the silence split by the rattle of the bike. Lisette held fast to Jean-Luc, and then dismounted as they approached the village.

A dog barked somewhere, and she recoiled. They made their way up the street toward the bridge. “I’ll wait here until I know you’re home safe,” Jean-Luc said.

The sound of footfalls froze them where they stood. Two soldiers seemed to appear out of nowhere. “What are you two doing out at this hour?” one of them demanded. “Curfew hasn’t been lifted.”

Lisette’s mouth went dry. She felt awash with guilt. “We . . . sir . . .”

“She’s my girlfriend,” Jean-Luc said. “We just wanted to be together.”

“She’s a beauty,” said the soldier. “Perhaps you will share.”

Jean-Luc planted himself in front of her. “Never. We don’t want any trouble.”

“You’re already in trouble, my friend.” One of the soldiers grabbed Jean-Luc by the arm. “What’s your name? I’m bringing you in for questioning.”

“He’s done nothing wrong,” Lisette said.

“Then he has nothing to worry about, eh? Go home, girl. Don’t break curfew again.” The two soldiers flanked Jean-Luc and took him across the bridge toward the mairie. Jean-Luc threw her a look, wordlessly cautioning her to cooperate. She was terrified for him, but what could she do?

Lisette stood frozen in place. Her chest was about to explode with panic. What would become of Jean-Luc? And his poor mother, bedridden in their meager apartment? She pictured Jean-Luc being tortured. The central administration made certain all citizens knew what was in store for partisans—beatings, starvation, sleep deprivation, threats to the family, deportation.

She jumped on the bicycle, riding as fast as she could to Sauveterre, the mas of Didier Palomar.

Ten

Lisette stepped carefully around a puddle of whitewash in the courtyard of the local primary school. Her husband, Didier, had ordered the roof to be painted white with a red cross as a signal to aerial bombers to avoid the target. The international symbol was supposed to be employed strictly for hospitals, but no one objected. Lisette wished every building in the village could be marked with the red cross.

Loaded with a bushel of apples from the orchards of Sauveterre, she went inside. Helping the schoolchildren gave her a sense of mission. The murmurs of children reciting from their primers filled the air. Sister Marie-Noelle welcomed her with a smile, motioning her into the refectory. The school was now coed due to a shortage of teachers. A portrait of Maréchal Pétain was hung on the wall, and each day the children had to sing a song that began with “Maréchal, nous voilà.” Everyone had to pretend loyalty to the Vichy government.

“Thank you so much, Madame Palomar,” she said. “The children are grateful for your generosity.”

“I wish I could do more,” Lisette admitted.

“Even the smallest gesture helps. Were you seen?”

Lisette shook her head. Every gram of food was supposed to be reported to the occupying authorities, but most of the townspeople refused to comply. Thanks to her status as the mayor’s wife, she could be confident that the soldiers would look the other way. She set the basket on a table in the refectory where a group of little ones were lining up for lunch. The looks on their faces made her almost glad she’d agreed to marry Didier.

Almost.

She couldn’t allow herself to look back over the past year, since she’d married Palomar. Without Didier’s help, Jean-Luc would have been tortured and put to death, and her parents would have been evicted from their home. All Didier had required was her hand in marriage. Even the parish priest had approved of the plan, telling her it was a blessed thing to protect those she loved, though it might mean sacrificing her own dreams.

These days, the world was not made for such things as love and romance. One must be practical. Jean-Luc had been released to tend to his mother and to his job with the railroad. Lisette and her parents now lived in safety at the big, rambling ancestral mas, where there would always be enough to eat. As for Lisette, she learned to keep her own counsel and to steer clear of scrutiny.

Her wedding had been a brief, civil affair. A lavish celebration would not have been appropriate, given the tenor of the times. The marriage bed was only tolerable, an awkward exercise in body mechanics. The breathless passion she read about in forbidden novels never occurred. Perhaps it was never meant to. Yet sometimes, in the deep quiet of the night, she lay with her back to Palomar and stared out the arched window at the stars, and she dreamed.

“Take these, too,” Lisette said to the nun, handing her a sheet of ration coupons. “It was a good harvest year, even without the usual laborers.” She stuffed her hands into her apron pockets, self-conscious about her cracked and calloused skin and rough-edged nails. Didier was too proud to work in the fields; he deemed it beneath the station of the town mayor, but Lisette was far too practical to let the yield rot away, untended. She and her mother, Didier’s sister, Rotrude, and even Didier’s little niece, Petra, had all pitched in throughout the harvest.

“Bless you, Madame,” said Sister Marie-Noelle.