Summary and Analysis
Chapter 13
Summary
Henri brings a coded message to Vianne for Isabelle. Isabelle goes to meet with the members of the resistance group, who ask her to deliver a letter to Paris and then stay there in her father’s apartment as a courier for the resistance. She agrees to try although she is not sure if she can get an Ausweis or persuade her father to let her stay with him in Paris.
Isabelle tells Beck that her father is sick and asks for an Ausweis to go to Paris and nurse him. Beck agrees. Vianne privately confronts Isabelle and declares that she is lying. Isabelle says she is going to Paris to be with a boy she has fallen in love with, and Vianne believes her story.
Analysis
Although Isabelle wants to show Vianne that she cares about her, the constraints of war and the resistance movement have made this kind of love impossible. When Isabelle asks her resistance friends to look after Vianne, they remind Isabelle that her participation in the resistance comes at the risk of her loved ones. Later, when Isabelle intentionally lies to Vianne in order to explain her departure for Paris, she is saddened when Vianne believes her selfish story. Yet in order to help people like her sister by working for the resistance, Isabelle must allow her sister to continue thinking that she is selfish and doesn’t really love Vianne or Sophie. For Isabelle, the inability to outwardly show her love is the cost of war.