Aurélie laughed, a sound of pure joy, relief at being free, free of her mother, free of the Ritz, free of the endless waiting.
“Don’t fret,” she told Jean-Marie. “I’ll have you to your regiment by midnight.”
“No hurry,” said Jean-Marie, clutching the seat, and Aurélie laughed again, tilting her face to the breeze, watching Paris fade behind them.
The stately procession of Renaults carrying the rest of the forces were confined to one route, moving slowly down National Road 2, but Aurélie slipped away down the side roads, bouncing down rutted tracks, cutting across fields.
The swiftly falling dusk was kind, masking abandoned houses and empty fields, farms from which all the inhabitants had fled, taking their livestock with them, but nothing could hide the rumble of artillery, the scent of cordite heavy in the air.
They spoke as she drove, the desultory conversation of old friends, jumping from this to that, interspersed with long silences. Sometimes they sang, bits of old nursery songs, popular tunes, “La Marseillaise.” Aurélie felt the thrum of it, the road, the engine, the song, the battle in the distance, deep in her bones, and exulted in it, in finally being part of the war effort, the Demoiselle de Courcelles, bearing the talisman that would turn the tide of war.
It was an anticlimax to arrive, to find themselves in a confusion of cars and trucks and men rushing this way and that, tents hastily thrown up, doctors in stained aprons spilling out basins of goodness only knew what.
“I suppose I leave you here, then,” said Aurélie, as someone gestured to her to stop and turn around.
Jean-Marie rose slowly from his seat, his movements stiff, with nothing like his usual exuberance. “I suppose so,” he said.
Aurélie’s euphoria faded. She rubbed her hands along her arms, wishing she’d changed into something warmer than the afternoon dress she had been wearing at the Ritz. “A Frenchman is worth ten Huns,” she said fiercely. “Just remember that. You’ll rout them and be home in a month.”
Two months ago, she had believed that. Now, the words felt thin.
Jean-Marie ducked his head. She could see him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “You’ll be all right getting back? I shouldn’t have let you take me.”
“You had nothing to say about it. I made you. And it is my car.”
They looked at each other, ill at ease in a way they had never been before. The air was foul with mud and smoke and blood; the night was loud with gunfire. It didn’t feel the least bit glorious or heraldic and Aurélie found herself suddenly afraid, afraid for Jean-Marie and afraid for France.
What was it her mother called it? A case of the willies? Some phrase like that.
“Don’t die,” she said, which was odd, because she’d meant to say something else entirely, something about being brave for France.
“I’ll try not to,” said Jean-Marie, and, awkwardly, leaned forward to kiss her, not on the cheeks, but on the lips, a tentative, fleeting pressure. He rocked back on his heels, shoved his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat, and said, “You will be all right?”
“Of course,” Aurélie said, wondering if she ought to have protested or kissed him back. On the whole, she thought neither. Better to just leave it as it was. She grimaced to make him laugh. “Except when my mother gets hold of me.”
Behind her, someone was beeping. “You! Out of the road! Paugh! Woman drivers.”
“They’ve never seen you drive,” said Jean-Marie ruefully, and then, “I guess this is goodbye.”
A chill ran down Aurélie’s back. Her hand rose to the talisman beneath her dress. “Not goodbye! Only au revoir.”
But Jean-Marie was already gone, trudging off into the confusion to report to his commanding officer in one of those smoke-grimed tents.
Aurélie pressed her hand to her chest, feeling the bulk of the talisman between her breasts.
The road to Paris lay before her. Paris, and the suite at the Ritz, the endless salons, the waiting, the not knowing.
The car behind her beeped again.
Aurélie jerked the wheel sideways, spinning the car in an expert turn that made one driver spit at her and another applaud in admiration.
She didn’t care. Above the sound of battle, she could hear a thin, high sound, like a hunting horn, and she thought, for a moment, she could see, like the figures in an old tapestry, men in armor with lances by their sides and women in tall, draped hats.
Instead of turning to the southwest, to Paris, she set her course north and east, around the battle, into the disputed land, where she knew she was needed, where she truly belonged.
Home. To Courcelles.
Chapter Three
Daisy
The Hôtel Ritz
Paris, France
May 1942
To Daisy, the Ritz would always be home, even though she hadn’t actually lived there since her marriage seven years ago. People used to think it was so strange, to grow up like this inside a hotel, like some kind of rare plant inside a hothouse, but then what could you expect from a girl named for a flower?
Her full name was Marguerite Amélie de Courcelles d’Aubigny Villon (this last patronym belonging to her husband) but everybody called her Daisy. That was Grandmère’s name for her, because daisy was the English word for marguerite, and Grandmère had been born an American. Privately, Daisy hated the nickname, but she adored Grandmère so she let it be, as she did most things. When you possessed a grandmother as vivid and giant as Grandmère, before whom all of Paris trembled, you learned this happy method early in life. Laisse-le vivre—let it be—this was Daisy’s watchword. She’d said it over and over (in her own head, naturally) as she left the bookshop on rue Volney and walked north until she reached the banks of the Seine, crowded with German soldiers who smelled of cigarettes and sweat and sour beer, who laughed in their strange, loud, guttural way—to Daisy’s delicate French ears, anyway—and crossed the Place de la Concorde toward the hotel’s back entrance on rue Cambon. Laisse-le vivre, that was how you stayed alive in Paris, these days. Anyway, it was early May and Paris was blossoming in its heedless, abundant way, all buds and sunshine and sidewalks glossy from some recent shower, and when you drank in the air from the Tuileries it tasted of spring, as it did year after year, Germans or no Germans. What was the point in railing against fate? Against anything? It made no difference, except to get you in trouble. Laisse-le vivre.
Oh, but the sight of those crisp white awnings, that soot-smeared honey facade! A warm sigh escaped her. Grandmère had always preferred the grander main entrance on the Place Vendôme, but Daisy liked rue Cambon best, discreet and familiar, where nobody noticed you coming and going except the staff, and they were like family so Daisy didn’t mind. Now, of course, the Luftwaffe was headquartered on the Vendôme side, and most of the civilian guests came and went from rue Cambon. C’est la guerre. Daisy crossed the sidewalk and almost leapt up the steps to the door, which opened magically as it always did, the magician’s name being Bernard the porter. Daisy had known him all her life. He was large and dark-haired and fastidious, and he had once caught her rolling marbles outside Mademoiselle Chanel’s shop across the street and hadn’t told Grandmère, so she knew she could trust him.