Nightingale (10 page)

And, despite their love for music, the Germans called it
degenerate.

Madeleine appeared in the door with a cup of chamomile tea and settled on the couch next to him just as Milo’s last song was fading. She sipped, then glanced at the cover of the record that Yves was turning in his hands. “Why are you listening to these?”

“I’m trying to understand how he does it.” Yves turned the cover again, looked at the smiling face of the man, wearing a tux and holding a cigar, all drawn in art deco style. The arched eyebrow teased onlookers to try to pry the mystery from him.

“He sings from the heart,” Madeleine said. “He feels every note like a hot knife going through him.”

That might be it. Yves was tempted to start the record again, but he’d listened to it all morning and felt both a bit heartened and a bit saddened by it. It was a gentle melancholy to know the man was on his way to safety, but away from Paris. Surely, Heinrich would protect him if he knew him. Like he protected—or kept—the Brasche paintings. Those, too, did not suit the current German taste, and yet Heinrich kept them secreted away for whatever clandestine purpose.

“You sound a lot more like him when you sing,” Madeleine said eventually. “All that raw emotion coloring your breath. You’re a stunning singer.”

You sound a lot more like him.

What? He stared at her but saw only earnestness in her even features. Had she said what he’d just heard? “I thought . . . there was an Italian tenor . . .”

She shrugged. “Yes, but I met him at
La Scala
. By that time, I was already pregnant with you and Édith.”

“He’s—” Yves scrambled to his feet, then looked down at the cover. Heavens, he even resembled Vandio. The dark hair. The Mediterranean cast to his features. Not Italian—Romany.

I always thought you looked a bit like a Jew. One that’s cleaned up and pretty, but a Jew regardless.

“You could have told me.”

Madeleine gave him a
don’t-be-ridiculous
look. “And what difference would that make? He would never have settled down, and he had no hand in raising you. Nor did he want to. Though he likes you and thinks you’re very talented. Maybe you can record something together when he comes back.”

Yves shook his head. Maybe it didn’t matter. Half his life he’d believed he and his sister were a memento from singing
Carmen
or
Dalila
at the Scala. She’d had a number of famous love affairs with stage partners, and he’d somehow always assumed they were the result of that. He had never figured that it could have been a jazz singer.

Considering von Grimmstein’s suspicions, he’d have preferred not to know. Thought it might explain why Édith was so wild and headstrong, if she was half-gypsy. Pity that those qualities had never expressed themselves in him.

“Yes, maybe,” he said belatedly and rubbed his face. It was less tender now, still no visible discoloration, though he remembered the violence clearly enough.

A knock at the door made him glance up.

The maid looked flustered as she came into the sitting room. “You have a guest,
madame
.”

“One of the usual?” Madeleine asked.

“No,
madame
. He’s . . .” The maid straightened her apron and lowered her voice to a whisper. “One of
them
.”

Madeleine glanced at Yves. “Ah, I assume it had to happen. Not even the steep climb deters the potato beetles.” She gave the maid a dismissive gesture, then seated herself regally in her chair, brushing back her hair over her shoulders. “I shouldn’t have had the road built, after all. I liked this place better when it could only be reached on foot.”

No thought that she’d planned ahead for advancing age and for large, splendid parties with royalty and politicians, not all of whom were willing to climb up a steep hill through forest on a footpath made treacherous by running water and broken stones. As much as she liked her exile as queen on the mountain, it seemed far less desirable if nobody could reach her to admire her.

Yves felt himself flush with heat, and then his face went cold as the “potato beetle” in question turned out to be Heinrich. How dare he come here?

Heinrich strode into the room, hat wedged under his arm, his advance solid like a rock avalanche. “Oberst Heinrich von Starck, at your service,
madame
,” he said and clicked his heels.

Madeleine gingerly extended a hand, and von Starck kissed it. “
Enchanté
,
madame
. I’m a great fan,” he said in his flawless French, and Madeleine gave him a practiced, though genuine smile.

“If you are a fan, will you be moving in with us?” she asked, voice deceptively disinterested.

“No. Oh, no. I haven’t come to billet; I'm sorry if I gave that impression.”

“Oh, well, then,” she said, as if already bored with the subject. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?” The shortage hadn’t reached her here, or maybe she was proving a subtle point to the German.

“Yes, please. If it’s no imposition.”

Madeleine signaled the lingering maid with a nod. “This is my son, Yves. Quite a singer in his own right.”

Heinrich nodded; Yves had no idea how he should respond. Too much familiarity would only cause his mother to ask questions he couldn’t possibly answer truthfully. “Indeed. He’s causing a sensation in Paris. They call him the Nightingale.”

“Oh really?” Madeleine turned to Yves. “You never told me, dear. And here I thought you had no greater ambition for your gifts.”

Yves managed a brittle smile for her benefit. He wrestled for words, still shocked that Heinrich would follow him all the way from Paris. Was there no escaping? How dare Heinrich chase him and drive him at bay, in his mother’s own house, the last place in France where he’d be safe?

“I do all right,” he murmured.

“The people love him,” Heinrich said. “Germans and French, everybody does.”

Yves flinched. “Love is too strong a word.”

“Are you receiving a lot of roses, Yves?” Madeleine asked.

“Not nearly enough,” Heinrich said.

“Oh, that’s good. I love roses, though now I prefer camellias. They are more generous, more kind.” Madeleine smiled at von Starck. “Love does not need to have thorns, I’m now thinking, although thorns can be terribly exciting when you are young.”

Heinrich seemed taken aback, his French possibly failing him in an attempt to understand what she’d actually meant. Yves understood well enough. Maybe revisiting old lovers after the fury of passion had faded was what gave Madeleine peace these days.

“There is, of course, the chase,” he said.

“As a nobleman, you would be a hunter,” Madeleine said, looking at Yves.

She knew. She had to.

But as one who’d chosen her lovers freely amongst artists and nobles, French and foreigners, she wouldn’t judge him for it. He’d confessed in so many words that he had little interest or inclination to start a family, and everything had followed logically from there. She didn’t expect him to and didn’t query him. “Living for his art” she called it, but he was fairly certain that this included an unspoken agreement that living for art was a worthwhile thing to do and that she’d never censure him or push him in either direction.

What he did with his life seemed of little consequence as long as he was happy. Of far greater interest was what he was doing with his voice. She’d much rather accept a German as his lover than him selling himself short in bars. To her, he was just one step above a common street performer.

And yet she’d taken a jazz singer as her lover. Had she thought Vandio was beneath her? Had she done it for the scandal and the chase, or because Vandio had the voice? Because she’d been bored with other men, or because he was different? Or because, he, too, would move on and never expect her to be a mother and wife rather than a singer and a star? The meeting of two forces of nature, clashing briefly in a furious display, only to part again, unchanged and without losing power or speed for long.

For a moment he wished he could have an affair like that, though unlike her (she had had more practice), it might leave him unnerved and unbalanced.

And the man sitting there, delicately holding his coffee cup, wasn’t the kind of man to offer that. With Heinrich, Yves knew what it might mean to be married, a dreary routine and acceptance of another person’s proximity, a faint sense of mutual obligation, and possibly mild affection that could crest in not-very-exciting ways in the bedroom.

He shook his head and forced himself to focus on the conversation, though it centered around Madeleine and Heinrich trading names of German and French operas, covering the whole range from the comic to the tragic, both matching each other blow for blow. Yves noticed that his mother seemed impressed with Heinrich’s manners and breadth of knowledge.

If only it could have been that simple, and all they did was compare experiences in the one common language, music. In peacetimes, Heinrich would have been a welcome guest; now, though, his presence left a bitter taste in Yves’s mouth. Like Heinrich insisted on playing guest when he was anything but, as if acting it would somehow make it real. Maybe that was what underpinned their whole relationship. It wasn’t “what if,” but “as if.”

He was looking for a convenient opening to extricate himself from the situation when Heinrich paused and bowed in his seat. “With all due respect, and as enjoyable as present company is, I do have an ulterior motive for coming here.” Graciously, Madeleine bade him continue. “Yves’s departure from Paris didn’t go unnoticed, and his friend, Maurice Lefèvre, asked me to make enquiries as to his whereabouts and make sure there were no sinister reasons for his departure.”

Yves’s heart skipped several beats. He should be angry at the lie, but he only managed a stuttered denial. Everything was fine, he’d said. He’d just wanted to visit his mother and seek her council on that merciless stage nervousness.

Madeleine, if she spotted the lie, said nothing. That was yet another echo of Paris. That silence a conspiracy to not let the invader fluster them, catch them out, win even an inch of ground or respect. The French way: to fight, and then, once the battle was lost, to walk away whistling, pretending nothing had happened and they’d never wanted to win, anyway, regarded, in fact, winning beneath them. Deny the Germans, if not victory, then any joy in achieving it.

The maid appeared in the doorway again, and Madeleine excused herself. Yet another ruse; at least Yves feared so. She must have noticed what was really going on. Too bad he couldn’t find an excuse to leave as well, to take his mother and run, leaving the German to the Milo
Le Manouche
records.

He was increasingly spooked now, bordering on hysteria, so all he could do was sit there, hands trembling, and wait for the other boot to crush what was left of him.

Heinrich stood and stepped up to one of the bookshelves, undoubtedly keeping an eye on the corridor like a sentry. “I spoke to Dr. Abetz and some men on his staff. You’ll be quite safe when you return.” Heinrich’s words were as calm and rational as those of a madman. Maybe he was really no different from von Grimmstein in this, just without the simmering rage. “Unless you leave the country, which I wouldn’t advise.”

Return? He didn’t want to return. Paris was now too complicated, and there was von Grimmstein, those paintings, and Falk Harfner. He should stay here for a few more weeks and forget all about this. Write new songs. Start the season refreshed and with only completely safe material.

“I’m scared.”

“Of course you are. But I can protect you. Just do as I say, and nobody can endanger you. You have my word. On my honor.”

Ehrenwort
, the Germans called it. He knew it was binding to Heinrich, and yet, in the face of the threats awaiting him, it seemed a feeble and volatile thing. And how much of a threat was Heinrich himself? There would be no escaping him.

“I’m working on new songs. New jokes.” He was about to add, “I need a rest,” but bit down on those words before they escaped. He didn’t want to become that pathetic in the eyes of a man who’d survived being trapped in barbed wire.

“That’s good. You can work on them in Paris. There’s nothing to be afraid of now. You’ll be fine. I promise.”

Yves shook his head. He didn’t want to know the price of his help. Despite all of Heinrich’s niceness, this was a clear summons, the last stage of a successful hunt, and he had an inkling that Heinrich wouldn’t just leave him here when he said no. Not that he had any good reason to say no. Fear was an insidious thing, strangling the life from him like ivy choking a tree.

* * *

“You don’t actually love him, do you?” Madeleine asked as they parted.

Yves drew a deep breath, held it so the sigh wouldn’t give him away, and, most of all, didn’t look at Heinrich who was standing near the car, talking to the driver. Yves knew better than to assume that Heinrich wouldn’t notice if he glanced over, betraying that they were talking about him. “He's been kind to me.”

“A friend, then? A mentor? A protector?”