“The American Colony gets smaller each day,” Paul said. “Do you ever consider going home?”
Lucie stopped at the base of the Pont des Invalides and waited to cross the street. “Paris is my home, and I promised the Greenblatts I’d keep the store waiting for them. But I don’t see how they could ever return.” The Germans conquered every country they invaded, and no one had the strength and will to drive the Nazis out of France.
A blue-caped gendarme waved them across the street.
“Daddy, my feets are tired,” Josie said.
“Would you please hold this?” Paul handed his Bible to Lucie, then hoisted his daughter up to sit on his shoulders.
She giggled. “See me?”
Lucie held on to her hat and peered up. “Barely. You’re so high.”
Paul’s hat tipped over both eyes.
Lucie laughed and plucked it off his head. “I’ll carry this too.”
“Thank you.”
Lucie studied him as they passed the little greenbouquinistebookstalls along the quay. Was profit enough of a reason forPaul to stay in France even with all the difficulties? “Do you ever consider going home?”
Paul gripped Josie’s legs in their ankle socks. “Every day. But if I leave, the factory will be requisitioned. Conditions will become more difficult for my workers. I want to delay that as long as possible.”
With both Bibles in the crook of her arm, Lucie inspected the fedora crafted of fine wool. Once before he’d mentioned his workers as a reason to stay and to sell to the Germans. Maybe collaboration wasn’t as black-and-white as she’d thought.
“It’s a gamble,” he said. “Leave now, and we’ll sacrifice something dear. But if we wait too long, we’ll be interned like the British. I don’t want to waste time idling in an internment camp.”
The British men were interned in a camp in Saint-Denis, and the women and families in a hotel in Vittel. Paul and Josie would be together, but in captivity.
“Let’s talk about something lighter.” Paul cast a glance to the little girl on his shoulders, quiet but listening. “I have a burning question, Miss Girard.”
“You do?” She smiled at the humor in his voice, but—attractive as he was—she had to resist the impulse to flirt.
“You’re wearing green again. Is it a subtle advertisement for the store?”
“I never would have thought of that.” She laughed. “No, it’s my favorite color.”
“Mine too. We found something we agree on.”
Lucie smiled up at the linden trees rustling in the breeze. “Nothing more beautiful than the light green of a new spring leaf in the sunshine.”
“I like forest green. It has weight to it.”
Of all the shades of green, he’d picked the dullest. “Oh no. That weight—it’s why the color can’t dance.”
Paul’s lips curved, then he stopped and gazed up into thebranches of a linden. “Say, Josie? Can you pull down one of those branches?”
“I can! I’m so tall.” Josie brought a branch down in front of Paul’s face.
“Look up, Lucie,” he said. “The underside of the leaves. One leaf, two sides, two colors.”
Not really. It was an illusion played by shadow and light. And yet ... the dark sides of the leaves provided contrast that allowed the light sides to shine all the more. She let deep green fill her eyes. “It’s as if the weight of this color allows the color on the other side to dance.”
He chuckled. “That’s a clever way to see it. And the top side—that’s where photosynthesis takes place. Your dancing side nourishes the whole tree.”
Lucie met his gaze through the leaves between them, the light and dark flashing and mingling.
“Like Josie,” he said in that resonant voice. “Like you.”
