Monsieur Humbert rolled down his window and poked his face into the opening. “Hello, Julien. She is ready?”

Papa nodded. “She is ready. Merci, Edouard.”

Patricia leaned over to talk to Papa through the open window. “We are only going as far as Orléans. And she has to pay her share of petrol.”

“Of course.”

Isabelle couldn’t leave. It was cowardly. Wrong. “Papa—”

“Au revoir,” he said firmly enough to remind her that she had no choice. He nodded toward the car and she moved numbly toward it.

She opened the back door and saw three small, dirty girls lying together, eating crackers and drinking from bottles and playing with dolls. The last thing she wanted was to join them, but she pushed her way in, made a space for herself among these strangers that smelled vaguely of cheese and sausage, and closed the door.

Twisting around in her seat, she stared at her father through the back window. His face held her gaze; she saw his mouth bend ever so slightly downward; it was the only hint that he saw her. The crowd surged around him like water around a rock, until all she could see was the wall of bedraggled strangers coming up behind the car.

Isabelle faced forward in her seat again. Out her window, a young woman stared back at her, wild eyes, hair a bird’s nest, an infant suckling on her breast. The car moved slowly, sometimes inching forward, sometimes stopped for long periods of time. Isabelle watched her countrymen—countrywomen—shuffle past her, looking dazed and terrified and confused. Every now and then one of them would pound on the car bonnet or boot, begging for something. They kept the windows rolled up even though the heat in the car was stifling.

At first, she was sad to be leaving, and then her anger bloomed, growing hotter even than the air in the back of this stinking car. She was so tired of being considered disposable. First, her papa had abandoned her, and then Vianne had pushed her aside. She closed her eyes to hide tears she couldn’t suppress. In the darkness that smelled of sausage and sweat and smoke, with the children arguing beside her, she remembered the first time she’d been sent away.

The long train ride … Isabelle stuffed in beside Vianne, who did nothing but sniff and cry and pretend to sleep.

And then Madame looking down her copper pipe of a nose saying, They will be no trouble.

Although she’d been young—only four—Isabelle thought she’d learned what alone meant, but she’d been wrong. In the three years she’d lived at Le Jardin, she’d at least had a sister, even if Vianne was never around. Isabelle remembered peering down from the upstairs window, watching Vianne and her friends from a distance, praying to be remembered, to be invited, and then when Vianne had married Antoine and fired Madame Doom (not her real name, of course, but certainly the truth), Isabelle had believed she was a part of the family. But not for long. When Vianne had her miscarriage, it was instantly good-bye, Isabelle. Three weeks later—at seven—she’d been in her first boarding school. That was when she really learned about alone.

“You. Isabelle. Did you bring food?” Patricia asked. She was turned around in her seat, peering at Isabelle.

“No.”

“Wine?”

“I brought money and clothes and books.”

“Books,” Patricia said dismissively, and turned back around. “That should help.”

Isabelle looked out the window again. What other mistakes had she already made?

*   *   *

Hours passed. The automobile made its slow, agonizing way south. Isabelle was grateful for the dust. It coated the window and obscured the terrible, depressing scene.

People. Everywhere. In front of them, behind them, beside them; so thick was the crowd that the automobile could only inch forward in fits and starts. It was like driving through a swarm of bees that pulled apart for a second and then swarmed again. The sun was punishingly hot. It turned the smelly automobile interior into an oven and beat down on the women outside who were shuffling toward … what? No one knew what exactly was happening behind them or where safety lay ahead.

The car lurched forward and stopped hard. Isabelle hit the seat in front of her. The children immediately started to cry for their mother.

“Merde,” Monsieur Humbert muttered.

“M’sieur Humbert,” Patricia said primly. “The children.”

An old woman pounded on the car’s bonnet as she shuffled past.

“That’s it, then, Madame Humbert,” he said. “We are out of petrol.”

Patricia looked like a landed fish. “What?”

“I stopped at every chance along the way. You know I did. We have no more petrol and there’s none to be had.”

“But … well … what are we to do?”

“We’ll find a place to stay. Perhaps I can convince my brother to come fetch us.” Humbert opened his automobile door, being careful not to hit anyone ambling past, and stepped out onto the dusty, dirt road. “See. There. Étampes is not far ahead. We’ll get a room and a meal and it will all look better in the morning.”

Isabelle sat upright. Surely she had fallen asleep and missed something. Were they going to simply abandon the automobile? “You think we can walk to Tours?”

Patricia turned around in her seat. She looked as drained and hot as Isabelle felt. “Perhaps one of your books can help you. Certainly they were a smarter choice than bread or water. Come, girls. Out of the automobile.”

Isabelle reached down for the valise at her feet. It was wedged in tightly and required some effort to extricate. With a growl of determination, she finally yanked it free and opened the car door and stepped out.

She was immediately surrounded by people, pushed and shoved and cursed at.

Someone tried to yank her suitcase out of her grasp. She fought for it, hung on. As she clutched it to her body, a woman walked past her, pushing a bicycle laden with possessions. The woman stared at Isabelle hopelessly, her dark eyes revealing exhaustion.

Someone else bumped into Isabelle; she stumbled forward and almost fell. Only the thicket of bodies in front of her saved her from going to her knees in the dust and dirt. She heard the person beside her apologize, and Isabelle was about to respond when she remembered the Humberts.

She shoved her way around to the other side of the car, crying out, “M’sieur Humbert!”

There was no answer, just the ceaseless pounding of feet on the road.

She called out Patricia’s name, but her cry was lost in the thud of so many feet, so many tires crunching on the dirt. People bumped her, pushed past her. If she fell to her knees, she’d be trampled and die here, alone in the throng of her countrymen.

Clutching the smooth leather handle of her valise, she joined the march toward Étampes.

She was still walking hours later when night fell. Her feet ached; a blister burned with every step. Hunger walked beside her, poking her insistently with its sharp little elbow, but what could she do about it? She’d packed for a visit with her sister, not an endless exodus. She had her favorite copy of Madame Bovary and the book everyone was reading—Autant en emporte le vent—and some clothes; no food or water. She’d expected that this whole journey would last a few hours. Certainly not that she would be walking to Carriveau.

At the top of a small rise, she came to a stop. Moonlight revealed thousands of people walking beside her, in front of her, behind her; jostling her, bumping into her, shoving her forward until she had no choice but to stumble along with them. Hundreds more had chosen this hillside as a resting place. Women and children were camped along the side of the road, in fields and gutters and gullies.

The dirt road was littered with broken-down automobiles and belongings; forgotten, discarded, stepped on, too heavy to carry. Women and children lay entangled in the grass or beneath trees or alongside ditches, asleep, their arms coiled around each other.