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.