The Summer Home

Prologue

Paris, June 14, 1940

THE DAY MY life imploded, I was drinking espresso.

Such beverages were expensive and only available through acquaintances with connections to the black market. But back then, every sleepy morning required a warm cup of espresso in the shade of deep caramel alongside half a loaf of bread.

After slipping a dressing gown over my lace trim nightgown, I would set my hair in curlers before sinking into the cushioned window seat to gaze through the golden haze cloaking the city.

From my apartment window, I could see the Eiffel Tower as it fragmented the tangerine morning sun rising from the calm waters of the Seine, where moored riverboats awaited passengers. Lights in tones of yellow and rose shone from the windows lining the enamelled apartments across the way.

The smell of fresh coffee, baguettes and lemon water from the cafés stretching along the wide, foliage-lined boulevard saturated the crisp morning air. The summer breeze tugged at the velvet curtains that swayed from a brass pole above my window; which I left slightly ajar to fill the apartment with roast chicken from the boucheries and wildflowers.

On that day, it was unusually quiet.

Though I often rose earlier than most in the city—particularly so considering my late-night gigs as a jazz singer at whichever clubs would hire me—the cobblestone streets were ordinarily bustling with housewives in wide-rimmed, straw hats pushing their prams for early shopping trips, and workers walking to repair buildings in Montmartre.

However, there were no housewives or construction workers in sight. A couple of French soldiers strutted along the pavement, their moustached lips pursed in concern. According to what I heard on the radio the previous evening, their angst was warranted. The Germans had long ago breached Marshal Pétain's supposedly impenetrable Maginot Line and sent the French government into hiding only the day before.

While the invasion of Paris seemed imminent, I refused to believe the great city of my youth could be conquered.

"Vi?" The groggy voice of my elder brother Nicolas swept through the corridor leading from my bedroom to the kitchen. His dark hair was tousled and his umber eyes were heavy with sleep.

"I left some bread for you on the table," I said tersely. Nicolas and I had quarrelled the night before. I remembered the fear in his eyes as we learned of the government's escape. Many of our friends had followed them into the country. But I could not leave Paris when my career was only beginning.

He was an impossible cynic, like our father, seeing the worst in people instead of the best. I took after my mother in both my unbridled optimism and fair complexion, blonde hair and blue eyes—a juxtaposition against Nicolas's dark features. While we were both tall in stature, Nicolas possessed my father's almost perfect posture, whereas my shoulders sloped like my mother's. 

When I remembered my parents together, I marvelled at how utterly different they had been. My mother was a free spirited artist from an aristocratic Catholic family. She had spent her youth painting scenes of Paris and the French countryside, as well as dressed in lavish ballgowns as she mingled with suitors in the castles and palaces of the past. Papa had been an earnest military officer completely opposed to the archaic institution of the monarchy Maman's family idolized. Then again, the contrast between my parents drew them together, transforming into spite when they realized they had nothing in common.

"You look dreadful," I told Nicolas playfully, hoping to use humour to eliminate the tension lingering between us. "Did you not sleep?"

Nicolas's hollow laughter penetrated the silence, threatening to wake old Madame Vachon in the apartment next to ours. Only last week she had threatened to call the police when I practised a new jazz song in my bedroom.

"You really aren't taking this seriously, are you?" Nicolas shook his head in disapproval. "The Germans are coming, Vi. My professors say we don't stand a chance."

He reminded me of my papa at that moment, with his thin lips and creased brow. Papa had been the same way as Nicolas in that respect, too. Always scolding me for every infraction he scrutinized. As a child, he had constantly chided me for my unkempt appearance and unsatisfactory schoolwork. A fierce defender of the Republic, Jean-Claude Dumont believed a girl's duty was to respect her parents and earn good grades until she found a suitable husband. My decision to do neither of those things had been the death of him.

My throat filled with bile. "How can you be so sure? About the Germans?"

Nicolas reached for the American radio on the oak table in the kitchen. Adjusting the knob on the compact machine to filter through the static and swing music, he settled on the garbled voice of an Englishman. Both Nicolas and I were fluent in English after learning from the many British and American radio programs we listened to as children, much to our patriotic French father's chagrin.

"Early this morning, Germany launched another attack on the nation of France. After the French government fled Paris yesterday, German forces are expected to enter the city within the hour."

The presenter's next words were muffled as I sank into my chair and covered my ears. Within the hour... the sentence made little sense. Paris could not fall to the Germans. The world would never allow it. Paris was the capital of the world, the most cosmopolitan city on the globe. If it fell, everyone else would fall with it.

"Listen, we need to leave." Nicolas pressed a firm hand to my shoulder. "Before it's too late. You know what the Nazis think of people like us."

"But we're French, Nicolas."

"Do you think that matters to them? We're Jews. Aunt Eleonora and Uncle Gerhard were German, but that didn't stop what happened." 

He drew a cigarette from the pocket of his flannel trousers—the kind he only wore when attending university classes at the Sorbonne. It was then that I glimpsed the satchel at the foot of his bedroom across the hall, his medical books peeking over the side. Shirt sleeves and trouser legs spilled over the rim of a closed leather suitcase.

He had prepared to leave the night before. And he was taking me with him.

"This isn't Germany." I pinned my hands to my hips.

"Now that the Germans are here, it soon will be Germany." Nicolas slammed his hand on the table, though I knew his anger was not directed to me. Nevertheless, I tightened my fists. Whenever we quarrelled, my elder brother always managed to outsmart me, until my pride was the only thing keeping me from finally relenting. 

Before I could protest further, the ground shook.

We both rested our elbows on the windowsill, leaning over the irises and lilies I had planted while hoping to allay the dense cloud of grief that had settled over the country once German bombers began battering the city.

There was nothing beyond the mist gathering around the ornate apartments. Only when a booming, heavily accented voice began blaring through the streets did we know our worst fears had been realized.

"People of Paris! You have been liberated by Germany!"