Did she? Most of the time it seemed she wanted to push him away. “You know very well I want nothing more than to be near you. But I am not the most important thing right now. I know that. And am likely soon to be altogether useless.”
Her brows puckered. “What are you talking about?”
“Have you not seen the bulletin yet?” He pulled one reluctant arm away so he could reach into his pocket and fish it out. “Arrived in the post today.”
She smoothed the paper out—against his chest rather thanturning away, which made him smile despite it all. “On 4September 1942, Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France and Chief of State of Vichy France, signed into law the Service du Trevail Obligatoire, requiring all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and fifty and single women between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five to be subject to do any work that the Government deems necessary.Marcel.” She looked up, her gaze horror stricken. “What exactly is thisany work?”
“Deportation to Germany. The orchestra is exempt... for now. But Von Eberstein had to fight to get those exemptions, and he was warned that they wouldn’t hold for long.” There were a few members still under eighteen, but not many. And not for long. The youngest of them had turned seventeen over the summer.
And without the orchestra, Marcel’s pass would be revoked. No more traveling all over France, no more reason to meet up with the agents he’d recruited all over the country. His choice would be to go to Germany or join the Maquis.
“How long?” she asked. He expected to hear the voice ofla patronne, even and aloof, as she worked through it. Instead, she sounded shaken. Distraught.
“Hard to say.” His fingers reached up to brush a wave of dark hair from her cheek before he could think better of it. “It could be weeks, months. I want to thinkyears, but Von Eberstein didn’t find that likely. His guess was six months at the outside. Quite likely sooner, because we all know how our neighbors will respond to this.” He tried for a smile and touched a knuckle under her chin to lift her face. “The Maquis is about to grow exponentially.”
“No one wants to grow like this.” She let out a long breath, eyes skimming over the rest of the announcement. “Your musicians?”
“All the ones of age received them too. We got very little practicing done today, I’m afraid.” He could still see the joint outrage, the guilty relief, the looming fear on their faces.
What will we do?his first chair violinist had asked, instrumentin hand.When our exemption runs out, what will we do? I don’t want to go to Germany.
We don’t go.Rather than sit at his piano, René had stood beside it.We fight instead.
“They’re already making plans to join the Maquis, when it comes down to it. Vivi’s taking names. I imagine she’ll come to see you soon, with a list of young men who need some fake papers.”
“I’ll tell our forger to expect an influx of requests.” She sounded resigned, a few bars away from defeated.
Of course she did. So much of their work would be undone, so many inroads laid waste. Marcel rubbed a hand over her back. “I’m sorry. I wish I could go on serving you—and I will as long as I can. But you’ll have no use for me after I lose my pass. I’ll have to throw myself on the mercy of Gustave or Raoul.”
Her gaze snapped to his, but before he could decide if it was incredulity or something else in her expression, she pulled away, spun. Gripped the back of her chair. After an eternal moment, she pivoted slowly to face him again, mask in place.
La patronne, clearly about to give an order or offer a solution he hadn’t thought of yet. He straightened, ready to listen.
“I don’t blame you if you want to take the opportunity to leave.” Her voice didn’t sound calm, not like she looked. It sounded frayed, like a violin string ready to snap. “I have done to you the exact thing I hated.”
“What?” He moved a step toward her but stopped when she held up a hand.
“Jacques always made me feel as though every time I didn’t do the expected thing, I lost a bit of his love. Like it was coins he put in a bank and withdrew every time I disappointed him. He made me think that love was a transaction—that if I didn’tdo, I couldn’treceive.”
He saw where she was going now but shook his head. “It’s not the same, Zelie. He was your husband—he’d sworn to love you,and he didn’t uphold his end. But you—you never promised me anything. Not loving me isn’t the same thing. You never told me you would if I did the right things.”
Her laugh was anything but amused, her mask cracked and tossed away. “No, I told you it was impossible. Made you think you were nothing to me but a pass across the demarcation line.”
Was she saying he was more? Or just regretting having hurt him in the same way she’d been hurt? “I know I’m your friend. And I know I put you in a difficult place when I said I love you. You don’t need to apologize for anything though.”
“Will you stop being perfect for a moment and listen?” She squeezed her eyes shut but then opened them again. “I’m afraid. Afraid of risking my heart and losing it again. Afraid of believing you love me, only for you to see later that you shouldn’t have. Afraid I can never give enough, neverbeenough to satisfy you. Marcel, I’m not the woman you should want.”
“Zelie.” He shook his head, a soft smile stealing over his lips. “When do you ever let fear rule you? When do you ever choose the safe path, when therightone is there? You only ever have to see the choice, know it’s yours to make, to grab hold of the right decision.”
He held out his arms, not in invitation but in display. “You don’t have to love me. You don’t have to choose this. It would be messy and complicated and difficult and could well end with one of us mourning the other. If you don’twantto love me, then don’t. But if fear is the only thing stopping you—then be the star I love and burn that away.”
He’d seen that battle waging across her face now many times before. The day Navarre told her he was leaving. The night they heard he’d been caught. When Marcel had told her about his cousin’s treachery. When her son looked her in the eye and told her to send them away.
He recognized the armies skirmishing through her mind—herown expectations, society’s, Alliance’s, God’s. Her desires, her hopes, her fears.
On some level, she wanted what they could have. If she didn’t, she never would have kissed him in January. Or in April. Or in June. Or in August.
But she wanted to be with her children right now too.Wantingdidn’t mean she’d act on it. Zelie was a master at sacrifice. And he had no confidence at all that, when given this choice, she wouldn’t decide now what she always did.
