The Nightingale

The day Isabelle leaves, Beck brings Vianne a fish he caught and invites her to share it with him for dinner. Vianne worries about accepting the gift but ultimately does, quieting Sophie’s worries about what Isabelle would say. At dinner, Vianne is disconcerted to see Beck sitting in Antoine’s seat but pleased to hear him joking with Sophie: “[W]hen was the last time she’d eaten a meal this good…or heard Sophie laugh?” (196).

Isabelle, meanwhile, finds Paris dramatically changed: “In less than a year, this magnificent city had been stripped of its essence by the endless clatter of German jackboots on the streets and disfigured by swastikas that flew from every monument” (197). She heads to her father’s bookstore only to find it deserted, then goes to the family’s apartment and waits.

When Julien arrives home, he orders his daughter to return to Carriveau. Ignoring this, Isabelle asks about the bookshop, which her father says he closed after the Nazis removed the works of Jewish, Russian, and communist writers. Julien now works for the German high command. Disgusted, Isabelle calls him a coward and reiterates that she is staying. Julien relents but insists that she be home by curfew and find work to support herself.

When her father leaves for work the next morning, Isabelle hides the message she was entrusted with inside a secret pocket she created in her purse. She then leaves for her assigned meeting place, where she finds a 30-year-old woman waiting. After exchanging coded phrases to confirm one another’s identity, the woman leads Isabelle to a cafe, where Isabelle hands the letter over. The woman warns Isabelle not to talk to anyone about what she’s doing and gives her an address where she can meet others in the same network the next day. Isabelle leaves elated with her success.

Isabelle’s departure removes one source of anxiety for Vianne, but others remain. The money Antoine left is nearly gone, and while standing in line for rations, she sees signs reading “No Jews Allowed” and learns the town’s Jewish shopkeepers have been dispossessed. She struggles to explain this to Sophie, whom she fears will draw attention to herself by complaining about the policy. Later the same day, Beck brings Vianne a letter from Antoine, who tells her that he is safe and urges her not to worry.

Back in Paris, Isabelle goes to the meeting place, and a man leads her to a room with blackout curtains and four people: two young men, the woman Isabelle had previously spoken to (Anouk), and an elderly man named Paul Lévy who used to frequent her father’s bookshop. Lévy wonders whether Isabelle is still “impulsive [and] undisciplined” (221) and explains that the danger of resistance will only increase. Isabelle insists that she wants to help and is accepting a package to deliver when an old man enters the room, accompanied by an RAF pilot whose plane was shot down. Anouk says the resistance is trying to figure out a way to get downed airmen out of the country, and Isabelle translates this for the pilot, revealing—to the interest of the others—that she can speak English. Before leaving, she says the group can contact her at her father’s bookshop, which she intends to reopen. Lévy once more warns her against recklessness, saying, “It is time for [her] to grow up and do as [she is] told” (224).

Isabelle spends the next week delivering packages in and around Paris. Her father initially objects to her plan to reopen the bookshop but agrees on the condition that she stay out of the storeroom.

In June, the Gestapo arrest one of Vianne’s coworkers for distributing anti-German newspapers; when Vianne asks about it, the agent fires her. With no source of income, Vianne begins writing a desperate letter to her husband, only to discard it in guilt over troubling him. When Beck tells Vianne he is going home to visit his family and invites her to share a farewell drink, she confesses her fears. Beck assures her that Sophie will not starve during the coming winter; he also remarks that Vianne is beautiful, though he agrees when she says he should not have said so.

Meanwhile, Isabelle has reopened the Paris bookshop. Walking home from work one day, she senses something is wrong before spotting a man hiding in some shrubs. Recognizing his uniform, she confirms that he is a British pilot, then tells him to discreetly follow her home. She hides the man—Torrance MacLeish—in a concealed crawl space in her bedroom, warning him to stay quiet. She then tosses MacLeish’s flight suit in the river before returning to the apartment.

Her father is waiting for her and says he thinks he hears someone moving around. He insists on searching every room but does not check the crawl space. Isabelle accuses him of being “paranoid,” and he retorts that she “should be afraid of everyone” (244).

The next morning, Isabelle gives MacLeish some of her father’s clothes and tells him to follow her to the resistance headquarters. Once there, Anouk scolds her for the risk she took in bringing MacLeish, and Lévy reminds her they don’t have a plan for getting downed pilots and escaped POWs out of France. Their best bet is to cross into neutral Spain, but the Pyrenees form a natural barrier. Isabelle remarks that a friend of her mother’s was a Basque, and that goat herders in the region routinely cross the mountains. When Anouk says that that route had been tried before, Isabelle retorts, “Nearly impossible and impossible are not the same thing. If goat herders can cross the mountains, certainly airmen can do it […] And a woman could move easily across the checkpoints. Especially a young woman” (251).

After attempting to dissuade Isabelle, Lévy and Anouk invite someone in the adjoining room to join them. A man enters, revealing himself to be Gaëtan. Isabelle reaffirms her willingness to lead MacLeish and any others across the mountains, and Lévy—cautioning that the mission will take time to plan—sends Gaëtan to obtain the necessary funds; the latter shares a long look with Isabelle before leaving.

As Isabelle walks home later that day, Gaëtan intercepts her, revealing that he was the one who told Henri to seek out Isabelle in Carriveau. He apologizes for having hurt her but still insists that it is better for them not to see each other.

At home, Isabelle’s father confronts her, telling her he knows about both MacLeish and Isabelle’s broader involvement with the resistance. He explains that he has been in contact with Lévy all along—he himself uses his job at the high command to forge papers and even wrote the pamphlets Isabelle distributed in Carriveau. He had hoped to keep Isabelle away from Paris for her own safety, but when he sees her determination to take on this new role, he tells her to contact Micheline Babineau—her mother’s Basque friend.