“Not if I stay here.”

“And now that your maman is gone . . .” Toselli said.

Jean-Luc nodded.

Lisette felt a lump in her throat. “We’ll miss you. But we understand.”

“Do you think Palomar will keep the peace around here, the way he did with the Italians?” he asked.

“He said he would find a way to get along with the Germans,” Lisette said. Sometimes her husband’s compliance with the invaders bothered her, but she never said anything. She didn’t want him watching her too closely, because she didn’t want him to figure out the truth about her photography work for the partisans and her laboratory work with Toselli, making penicillin.

Perhaps Didier, too, was engaged in secret work. Perhaps while appearing to cooperate with the invaders, her husband was actually helping the resistance. He had once said he believed in keeping his friends close, and keeping his enemies closer. That might be the reason he had been so agreeable when the new German marshal billeted an officer and three lieutenants at Sauveterre.

She returned home that evening to find a commotion in the courtyard. To her horror, the garden was filled with German soldiers, laughing and drinking Sauveterre wine as if it were water. A couple of brown-shirted soldiers were juggling hand grenades.

She rushed into their midst. “Stop this right now. You are guests in our home. I forbid you to behave this way.”

“Easy now,” said Colonel von Drumpf, swirling his wine in a goblet. “We are having a little celebration in honor of your good husband’s promotion.”

The group of Germans parted and there stood Didier, dressed from head to toe in a smart black beret, a black-and-red shirt, and matching trousers—the distinctive livery of the Milice—the despised Vichy police—Frenchmen preying on Frenchmen in order to save their own skin.

“I don’t understand.” Lisette feared that she did understand. She felt sick to her stomach. “What sort of promotion?”

“You heard the colonel. We’re celebrating,” said Didier, slipping his arm around her, a gesture more of possession than affection.

“He is the captain of the Milice,” said von Drumpf. “He is sworn to protect and uphold the law. And what a handsome couple the two of you make,” he added. “Both with that lovely fair coloring. I hope you are blessed with many beautiful children.”

It was shocking to hear the Nazis talk of the blond-haired, blue-eyed ideal. They seemed to be obsessed with their notion of a pure Aryan race, regarding humans like livestock, selected for physical traits.

She felt Palomar’s grip on her tighten, though his expression never wavered. Thus far they had failed to conceive a baby, and it was not for lack of trying on his part. He came to her almost nightly, but each month there was disappointment. There was no soul or grace in their coupling, only a grim sense of purpose.

“Go and fetch your camera, chérie,” said Didier. His lips and teeth were stained with wine. “You can photograph this moment for posterity.”

She backed away in horror, somehow managing to keep her expression neutral. “I’ll only be a moment,” she said, and hurried into the house. She rushed to the washroom just in time to throw up.

“I don’t feel well,” Lisette said to Didier that Sunday. “I won’t be going to church.”

“Again?” He glared at her in annoyance. “People are going to think you’re walking around unshriven.”

“Perhaps they’re going to think worse than that,” she snapped, unable to hold her tongue. She had been feigning illness in order to avoid encountering the people of Bellerive. At church, she cringed under the fury-filled glares of the villagers.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He checked his ridiculous uniform in the mirror.

She didn’t answer. The truth was, her husband had become the most hated and feared man in town these days. Now that he had openly sided with the Nazis, she could no longer pretend he was loyal to the French. He was the worst sort of collaborator, trading information about resistance workers in exchange for political and financial favors. She yearned to tell her neighbors that Didier’s choice to join the Milice had nothing to do with her. But she was his wife, and everyone assumed she shared his views.

The next day, she went to the primary school for her regular delivery, bringing a bushel of grapes she’d scavenged from one of the vineyards that was no longer cultivated due to lack of labor. Sister Marie-Noelle met her at the entrance to the school. “Thank you, Madame, for your generosity.” The nun’s face looked taut, and she didn’t meet Lisette’s eyes. “I’m afraid I cannot invite you in.”

“What’s the matter?” Lisette asked. “Is everything all right?”

Sister Marie-Noelle stared at the floor. “Father Rinaldo was accused of being involved with the Maquis, and he’s been taken away. We fear for his life.”

Lisette caught her breath. “What? Where? Is he all right?”

“No one knows.”

“How can I help?” Lisette asked, her mind already racing.

“It is best you keep your distance,” said the nun, her voice barely above a whisper. “They were acting on orders from the Milice.” She made the sign of the cross. “Father Rinaldo was accused by your husband, the mayor.”

Lisette felt as though she’d been punched in the gut. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I am so sorry . . .”

“It’s best you just go,” said the nun.

Lisette left the grapes and rode as fast as she could to the mairie. No wonder she’d garnered such hateful glares when she’d ridden her bicycle into the village earlier. She dropped the bike in the courtyard of the municipal offices and went in search of Didier, finding him in his office, surrounded by envelopes and files stuffed with Nazi records and papers.

“Is this what you do all day, then?” she demanded, clearing his desk with an angry sweep of her arm. “Spy on our friends and neighbors, people we’ve known all our lives?”

He shot up from his desk. “Watch your mouth.”

“I have been doing just that for far too long. I tried to believe you were doing the right thing for Bellerive, but now I know that’s not true. You’re as bad as the Nazis. Worse, because these are your people.”

“You have no idea what it’s like for me, trying to protect all of this, and the entire town, too.” He stood and straightened his posture, looking falsely righteous as he came around the desk to face her.

“Then protect the town,” she said. “Father Rinaldo is gone because you betrayed him. Madame Fortin fainted from hunger in church yesterday while you guzzled wine with Colonel von Drumpf.”

His arm flashed out. At first, Lisette didn’t even realize what hit her, or indeed that she had even been struck. She simply found herself on the floor, seeing stars and holding her hand to her cheek. No one had ever hit her before. It was like her first plunge off the cliffs of the Calanques into the sea—singular, frightening. She climbed to her feet and found her breath. “Monster! You have no right—”

“I’ll do what I like.”

“I shall report you,” she retorted, her anger burning hotter than her cheek.

“To whom?” he demanded. “The authorities? Of course, that would be me.”

Her mind raced. Where was safety now?

Didier must have guessed her thoughts. “You have no protection. Your crippled father can’t help. You could tell him, but that would only drive him insane because he can do nothing for you.”

Pressing a hand to her burning cheek, she backed away in horror. “I used to think you were a man who possessed a few good qualities. Now . . .”

“Now what?” he demanded. “By now you should know that anyone can be taken away. Anyone. Even your own father.”

“What?” A chill swept over her. “My father has nothing to do with the partisans. You wouldn’t—”

“He is lifelong friends with Raoul Canale, a known element of the FTP.”

The Francs-Tireurs et Partisans were greatly feared by the Nazis, because they knew the terrain and were experts at sabotage and assassination. Even a breath of suspicion meant a partisan could be taken and shot.