Page 45 of The Widows of Champagne

Gabrielle

B y the time Gabrielle was dragged away from her mother and shoved into the main portion of the police station, Mueller was gone. Since he’d driven her to town, she was forced to walk home in the dark. Because it was past curfew, she kept to the shadows. She arrived at the chateau with sore feet, a heavy heart and a desperate need to be alone. How ironic, when once she’d thought of her loneliness as a curse.

Not tonight. She wanted solitude to grieve and to mourn and to pray for her mother’s flight across the border. She also wanted to review everything she’d learned about the man who called himself Wolfgang Mueller. He also called himself a friend.

Gabrielle had never been one for blind faith.

Which was why she veered off to the wine cellar instead of going straight to the chateau. She moved quickly through the corridors, blinking past the gloom. At the fake wall, she stopped, frozen, her breath ragged in her throat. Weber was gone. His weapon had been removed. The hole in the wall was patched, the glass and debris swept away. But, most telling of all, the wine barrel Mueller had tied the lieutenant to was missing. All she had to do was think back over her own resistance work to understand what had happened to the SS officer.

She turned to go, then stopped. There, atop another wine barrel, was the page from Josephine’s journal, folded, with a new message penned in bold, masculine strokes. Deep inside her head, she heard Mueller’s unaccented French say the words as she read them. I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth. Job 29:17

Warmth overtook her limbs and the remaining scraps of doubt fell away. Wolfgang Mueller was, indeed, a friend. A man she could trust. Gabrielle was not alone. And no one could ever know the truth.

With surprisingly steady hands, she tucked the paper in her pocket, promising herself she would read it again in her room. But first, she had one final stop. One final goodbye to say. The journey required considerable stealth. As she made her way to her family’s private cemetery, tears threatened. She blinked them back. Not yet , she told herself. Do not cry yet.

At Benoit’s grave, she pressed her forehead to the headstone and, finally, unashamedly, let the tears flow. “I love you, Benoit. I will always love you. You were the boy of my childhood, the husband of my youth and the very essence of the woman I am today. You will be with me, always.” She placed a hand over her heart. “I will never forget you. But it’s time. I must let you go.”

The wind picked up, brushing across her wet cheeks. “Goodbye, Benoit.” Peace filled the ache in her soul. “Goodbye, my love. Goodbye.”

She hardly remembered returning home or entering the chateau. She desperately wanted solitude, more now than before, but was forced to set it aside when a weeping Paulette met her in the kitchen. The girl looked positively stricken. “They know Maman’s secret,” she wailed. “And it’s all my fault.”

Gabrielle was in no mood to placate an overwrought Paulette. She was silent a moment, a ball of rage and disappointment rolling in her stomach. She didn’t want to look at her sister and remember what she’d done to their mother. It took every ounce of fortitude not to grab the girl by the shoulders and shake her for her recklessness. “I know about Maman.”

This brought on more tears and Paulette’s weeping turned into big, gulping sobs. “I thought I could help her. I didn’t mean to make things worse. You have to believe me, Gabrielle. I didn’t mean to—”

“You never mean to, Paulette. That’s the problem. You only think of yourself.” Her voice was filled with years of resentment. Here her sister stood, mere hours after nearly destroying their mother, seeking absolution. Even knowing all was not lost, Gabrielle couldn’t drum up the strength to ease her sister’s guilt.

In that moment, she didn’t know who she pitied more. Paulette, for her carelessness, or herself for her inability to follow the Lord’s command and forgive the girl.

“You have to do something to fix this, Gabrielle. You have to save Maman from the camps.”

Now she turns to me. The thought came with much resentment. This was her moment of truth. The moment when she placed her trust in a stranger over her own sister. “It’s too late, Paulette. Nothing can be done. Maman is gone.”

In that, at least, she told the truth.

“No!” Paulette fell to her knees, her guilt spewing from her eyes in genuine, gut-wrenching tears.

Gabrielle’s own heart broke. Her anger and bitterness instantly dissolved, and she joined her sister on the floor. She took the girl into her arms and rocked her, letting her cry. Letting her mourn their mother. And, yes, letting her absorb the guilt of her actions.

The girl shook violently between sobs.

“I’m sorry, Paulette. I’m so very sorry.” Gabrielle meant every word. “Hush, now.”

“It’s all my fault,” she repeated. “How do I live with this shame? How?”

Gabrielle was crying, too, the sobs coming up through her chest. It was a day for tears and regrets. She pressed her wet cheek to the crown of Paulette’s head. She could alleviate her sister’s pain. All it would take was a few words. She didn’t even have to use names. She could claim the resistance took their mother away. And reveal her own secret work for France.

The words were moving through her throat, coming to the tip of her tongue. She swallowed them back. Paulette could not be trusted. She’d proven that today. No amount of remorse could change what she’d done.

In later years, Gabrielle knew, when the war was over and she told family and friends about this decision to keep her sister in ignorance, she would have to face the shock and horror etched on their faces. She could save herself that heartache. It would be a simple matter of saying, Maman is safe.

She couldn’t do it. She’d given her word to a man whose bravery humbled her. Whose life depended on her loyalty. A man who worked in the dark to serve the light.

There were other words she could give her sister, words that might help ease her guilt. But Gabrielle didn’t say those, either. She simply held on to Paulette and let her cry.