Chapter 22: War, Survival, and the Cost of Resistance

War had cast a long shad­ow over Paris, leav­ing destruc­tion and uncer­tain­ty in its wake. Return­ing from the Viz­ni­aks’ ran­sacked apart­ment, Isabelle found her father slumped in a chair, deep in a drunk­en slum­ber. The smell of stale alco­hol filled the air as she nudged him awake, hand­ing him a cup of bit­ter cof­fee in an attempt to sober him up. Their con­ver­sa­tion was laced with ten­sion, a reflec­tion of the strained rela­tion­ship they had shared for years. Despite the silence between them, the weight of unspo­ken emo­tions, inten­si­fied by the war, pressed heav­i­ly on Isabelle’s chest, but she chose not to linger in the moment. Rest­less­ness gnawed at her, pre­vent­ing sleep from tak­ing hold, and she felt an urgent need to under­stand the wors­en­ing sit­u­a­tion in Paris.

Step­ping into the cool night, Isabelle wan­dered through the dark­ened streets, her sens­es height­ened by an unshak­able feel­ing of dread. The qui­et hum of the city was over­shad­owed by dis­tant mur­murs and the occa­sion­al bark of orders from sol­diers patrolling the streets. She turned a cor­ner and was met with a heart-wrench­ing sight—lines of bus­es filled with ter­ri­fied moth­ers and their young chil­dren, their faces pale with fear. The real­iza­tion struck her like a phys­i­cal blow: they were being trans­port­ed to the Vélo­drome d’Hiver, a sports sta­di­um now trans­formed into a grim hold­ing site for Jew­ish fam­i­lies. A police­man, his face weary with regret, warned her to leave, whis­per­ing that any­one seen too close might be mis­tak­en for a sym­pa­thiz­er and shot on the spot. But the hor­ror unfold­ing before her demand­ed to be seen, and despite the threat, she inched clos­er, dri­ven by an over­whelm­ing need to bear wit­ness to the cru­el fate of these inno­cent peo­ple.

Miles away in the coun­try­side, Vianne faced an entire­ly dif­fer­ent but equal­ly per­ilous real­i­ty. With win­ter approach­ing, she metic­u­lous­ly rationed their dwin­dling food sup­ply, ensur­ing Sophie had enough to eat despite their grow­ing scarci­ty. Seek­ing com­fort in famil­iar­i­ty, she vis­it­ed Rachel, her clos­est friend, who had once lived a peace­ful, untrou­bled life before the occu­pa­tion. Now, Rachel’s home had become a prison, her every move dic­tat­ed by the fear of dis­cov­ery and per­se­cu­tion. Over the frag­ile com­fort of shared food, the two women whis­pered about the increased Ger­man pres­ence in Car­riveau, their voic­es heavy with unspo­ken fears. That evening, Beck, the Ger­man offi­cer sta­tioned in Vianne’s home, approached her with an unusu­al urgency in his expres­sion. He warned her of an impend­ing roundup tar­get­ing Jew­ish fam­i­lies, his voice low and urgent as if he, too, car­ried a bur­den of guilt.

Despite her instinc­tu­al dis­trust of Beck, Vianne couldn’t ignore the sin­cer­i­ty in his warn­ing. She rushed to Rachel, plead­ing with her to leave imme­di­ate­ly, to find shel­ter where the sol­diers couldn’t reach her. Rachel hes­i­tat­ed, torn between the real­i­ty of leav­ing every­thing behind and the dan­ger that came with stay­ing. With time run­ning out, Vianne made the dif­fi­cult deci­sion to put Sophie into a deep sleep with a mix­ture of warm milk and a sleep­ing draught, ensur­ing her daugh­ter wouldn’t wake up in the mid­dle of the night and jeop­ar­dize their plan. Mean­while, Beck, his usu­al sto­ic demeanor shak­en, con­fid­ed in Vianne about his grow­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment with the war, expos­ing a rare vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that left her momen­tar­i­ly speech­less.

Under the cov­er of dark­ness, they made their move. Rachel clutched her chil­dren tight­ly as they hur­ried toward the hid­den pas­sage that would lead them away from dan­ger. The ten­sion was suf­fo­cat­ing, every shad­ow a poten­tial threat, every sound a rea­son to pan­ic. But just as hope flick­ered in their hearts, tragedy struck. A burst of gun­fire shat­tered the still­ness, and before Vianne could react, Rachel’s daugh­ter, Sarah, col­lapsed to the ground, her small body life­less. The air was filled with Rachel’s anguished screams, the sound slic­ing through the night like a blade. Vianne fell to her knees, her hands trem­bling as she reached for the child, but there was noth­ing more to be done.

In the qui­et after­math, Rachel and Vianne buried Sarah beneath the apple trees, the very place where the chil­dren once played with­out a care in the world. The cold earth felt for­eign beneath Vianne’s hands as she helped cov­er the small body, her mind reel­ing from the irre­versible loss. Rachel, her eyes hol­low with grief, clung to Vianne, the weight of their sor­row pulling them both into a silent understanding—there was no safe­ty left, no inno­cence to shield them from the cru­el­ty of war. As dawn broke over Car­riveau, the real­i­ty of their new exis­tence set­tled heav­i­ly on their shoul­ders. Their sur­vival depend­ed on choic­es nei­ther of them ever imag­ined they would have to make.

The hor­rors of war had final­ly reached their doorstep, leav­ing them for­ev­er changed.