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Summary
Chapters 16-20
Chapter 16
In Carriveau, Vianne learns that the butcher’s shop, owned by Madame Fournier, who is Jewish, has been confiscated and handed over to a new owner. At Le Jardin, Beck passes a letter from Antoine, who is being held as a prisoner in Germany, to a grateful Vianne. The letter reassures her that he is safe and urges her to stay strong. In Paris, Isabelle follows a series of steps to reach the Resistance group. In the small room where they meet, she encounters the woman she met earlier, named Anouk, and Monsieur Levy, who previously frequented her father’s bookstore. She agrees to deliver a small package to the commune of Amboise. Their discussion is interrupted when an older group member brings in a member of the British Royal Air Force who has been hiding for several days after his plane crashed. Because she can speak English, Isabelle explains to the man that the group will hide him until it is possible to find a way for him to return to Britain. Isabelle plans to reopen her father’s bookstore, and he reluctantly accepts this plan after making her promise not to enter the locked storeroom in the back of the shop.
Chapter 17
An ordinary school day in Carriveau is interrupted when a gestapo agent accompanied by the French policeman Paul arrests a math teacher, Monsieur Paretsky, for distributing a resistance newsletter. When Vianne asks why he is being arrested, the Gestapo agent fires her from the school on the spot. Later, she worries about how she will feed Sophie through the winter without her teaching salary. Beck shares some wine with her and describes her as beautiful. Though she resists his advances, he promises her that Sophie will not starve.
In Paris, Isabelle runs the bookshop, flirting with German soldiers despite her resentment. In the previous weeks, she has delivered secret packages to various towns in France, using false papers and assuming the identity of “Juliette Gervais.” Anouk delivers a secret message to Isabelle in the bookshop, informing her of her next assignment. After closing the shop, she spots an RAF pilot named Torrance MacLeish, who is attempting to hide, and later smuggles him into her father’s apartment, hiding him from her father and dumping his uniform and ID into a river.
Chapter 18
The next day, Isabelle steals clothing from her father for MacLeish and escorts him to the resistance group headquarters, where she offers to help smuggle MacLeish and others across the border into Spain by traversing the Pyrenees mountains. Suddenly, Gaëtan appears, revealing that he has been working with the Resistance. After hours of discussion, they put together a plan. Later, as Isabelle walks back to her father’s apartment, she sees Gaëtan following her. He tells her that he put her name forward to Henri in Carriveau and vouched for her to the Resistance group in Paris. At home, her father demands to know where she has been and then reveals that he knows of her activities with the Resistance and her plan to cross the border with the stranded British airmen. Next, he reveals that he has been working with the Resistance too, first printing the fliers that Isabelle and others distributed and later forging fake ID cards. He warns her of the dangers involved in her plan but, unable to dent her resolve, he tells her to seek assistance from Micheline Babineau, a family friend who lives near the Spanish border and can help.
Chapter 19
After months of planning, Isabelle and the Resistance put their scheme into motion, despite the fact that they have not been able to reach Babineau. In addition to assuming the false name of Juliette Gervaise, Isabelle adopts the codename “Nightingale,” a translation of her surname, Rossignol.
They disguise MacLeish as a Flemish farmworker and instruct him to follow Isabelle on the journey by train but warn him not to approach her directly or communicate with her. Along the way, they will pick up three other airmen, one of whom is British and the others Canadian. On the train, Isabelle distracts some German soldiers by acting flirtatious and playing cards. She and the airmen make it to their destination, the Basque commune of Saint-Jean-de-Luz in Southwestern France. There, she seeks out Babineau, who introduces her to a strong Basque man named Eduardo. After testing her resolve, Eduardo agrees to lead her and the airmen across the mountains. Their long and difficult trek takes several days as they cross the mountains in a single-file line. At the Spanish border, they see soldiers and searchlights, forcing them to quickly cross a rickety bridge over a turbulent river. Once in Spain, a woman named Almadora leads Isabelle and the airmen to the consulate, where she contacts the British consul and requests assistance in helping her to repeat the journey with more airmen in the future.
Chapter 20
Isabelle has an easy time returning to France. Returning to the small apartment assigned to her by the Resistance, she feels that Gaëtan is there, hiding from her, and she wonders if he shares her feelings.
In February of 1942, Vianne struggles to survive the difficult winter in Carriveau, having already sold off all her valuables in exchange for food. She gives everything she has to Sophie and passes out from hunger and exhaustion after a church service. She is carried inside by Beck, who shares some of the food that he has brought from Germany.
In March, allied air raids have become a regular feature of life in Paris. After passing a security point with her fake ID, Isabelle finds a new Resistance safe house in an old mill, where she questions two men, a Welshman named Ian Trufford and an American named Ed Perkins, to check that they are truly downed allied airmen.
In the spring, Isabelle is gardening when Sarah requests her help. She rushes to Rachel’s home, where she finds her friend in a despondent state. She and her children have been ordered to wear yellow stars publicly identifying them as Jews in accordance with a new Nazi law.
Analysis
Throughout the war, Vianne has proven willing to obey the various rules imposed by the occupying Germans. Though she is shocked when the Nazis confiscate the local butcher’s shop from its Jewish owners, she nevertheless keeps her thoughts to herself and collects her meager ration of meat. She has been consistently polite to the Nazis, even inadvertently colluding with them. In the end, however, her efforts yield little benefit to her family. She does not put up a fight when a colleague is arrested at school for distributing anti-German materials, but she is nevertheless summarily dismissed from her post for briefly questioning the actions of the Gestapo. The novel suggests that collaboration with the Nazis was ultimately a fruitless endeavor. Though some of the Germans, like Beck, are courteous and even occasionally sympathetic, they are not in France to make friends, but to subjugate the population and further their ambitions of conquering Europe. In many ways, Isabelle’s choice to fight back against the occupation is validated by the failure of Vianne to ensure her security by pacifying the Germans. Vianne, however, has yet to learn that the Nazis cannot be reasoned with. She bitterly regrets questioning the arrest of Monsieur Paretsky, wishing that she had silently acquiesced to the Gestapo’s actions.
Read more about Collaboration as a motif in The Nightingale.
These chapters underscore the various differing responses of the population of France to the occupation. Many, like Vianne, submit to the Germans, keeping their heads down and praying for an end to the conflict. Others go further, earning privileges by conspiring with the Germans and betraying their countrymen. In Paris, Isabelle observes that many individuals now spy on their neighbors on behalf of the Germans, and the French police prove largely willing to collaborate with the Nazi state. The novel suggests that, in times of difficulty, there will always be individuals who are willing to take advantage of others in order to help themselves.
As she walks around the once-grand city, Isabelle feels that the people of France have been cowed by their defeat. Nevertheless, Isabelle’s story shows that many in France were willing to take extraordinary risks to resist the occupation. Wherever she goes, from Carriveau to Paris, she finds brave individuals who work together to counter German propaganda and assist the allied war effort. Some, such as Micheline Babineau and Eduardo, have no formal connection to the Resistance but nevertheless offer their aid to Isabelle despite the risks.
During the war, some individuals reveal hidden depths, and some people who appear to have accepted France’s surrender to Germany resist the occupation behind closed doors. Isabelle thinks of her father as a defeated old man, condemning him harshly when she believes that he is working for the Nazi administration. She is later shocked to discover that he is only pretending to collaborate, using his printing equipment at the bookstore to print fliers for the Resistance and even forging fake identity cards. Isabelle herself must occasionally pretend to be nothing more than a carefree schoolgirl. When she flirts with some German soldiers on the train, an older woman insults her, telling her that she should be ashamed of herself. Isabelle’s true motive, however, is to distract the soldiers so that they do not notice the disguised allied airmen. Because of the need for secrecy, it can be difficult to determine who is a true collaborator and who is secretly resisting.
