Page 20 of The Girl You Left Behind
“Jean? He is fine, thank you, if a little—”
“No. The other baby.”
I nearly dropped the tray. I hesitated for a moment, collecting myself, but I felt the blood rush to my neck. I knew he saw it. When I spoke again, my voice was thick. I kept my eyes on the glasses in front of me. “I believe we are all... as well as we can be, given the circumstances.”
He thought about this. “Keep him safe,” he said quietly. “Best he doesn’t come out in the night air too often.” He looked at me a moment longer, then turned and was gone.
6
Ilay awake that night, despite my exhaustion. I watched Hélène sleep fitfully, murmuring, her hand reaching across unconsciously to check that her children were beside her. At five, while it was still dark, I climbed out of bed, wrapping myself in several blankets, and tiptoed downstairs to boil water for coffee. The dining room was still infused with the scents of the previous evening: wood from the grate and a faint hint of sausage meat that caused my stomach to rumble. I made myself a hot drink and sat behind the bar, gazing out across the empty square as the sun came up. As the blue light became streaked with orange, it was just possible to distinguish a faint shadow in the far right-hand corner where the prisoner had fallen. Had that young man had a wife, a child? Were they sitting at this moment composing letters to him or praying for his safe return? I took a sip of my drink and forced myself to look away.
I was about to go back to my room to dress when there was a rap at the door. I flinched, seeing a shadow behind the cotton screen. I pulled my blanket around me, staring at the silhouette, trying to work out who would be calling on us at such an hour, whether it was theKommandant, come to torment me about what he knew. I walked silently toward the door. I lifted the screen, and there, on the other side, was Liliane Béthune. Her hair was piled up in pin curls, she was wearing the black astrakhan coat, and her eyes were shadowed. She glanced behind her as I unlocked the top and bottom bolts and opened the door.
“Liliane? Are you... do you need something?” I said.
She reached into her coat and pulled out an envelope, which she thrust at me. “For you,” she said.
I glanced at it. “But... how did you—”
She held up a pale hand, shook her head.
It had been months since any of us had received a letter. The Germans had long kept us in a communications vacuum. I held it, disbelieving, then recovered my manners. “Would you like to come in? Have some coffee? I have a little real coffee put by.”
She gave me the smallest of smiles. “No. Thank you. I have to go home to my daughter.” Before I could even thank her, she was trotting up the street in her high heels, her back hunched against the cold.
I shut the screen and rebolted the door. Then I sat down and tore open the envelope. His voice, so long absent, filled my ears.
Dearest Sophie
It is so long since I heard from you. I pray you are safe. I tell myself in darker moments that some part of me would feel it, like the vibrations of a distant bell, if you were not.
I have so little to impart. For once I have no desire to translate into color the world I see around me. Words seem wholly inadequate. Know only that, precious wife, I am sound of mind and body, and that my spirit is kept whole by the thought of you.
The men here clutch photographs of their loved ones like talismans, protection against the dark—crumpled, dirty images endowed with the properties of treasure. I need no photograph to conjure you before me, Sophie: I need only to close my eyes to recall your face, your voice, your scent, and you cannot know how much you comfort me.
Know, my darling, that I mark each day not, like my fellow soldiers, as one that I am grateful to survive, but thanking God that each means I must surely be twenty-four hours closer to returning to you.
Your Édouard
It was dated two months previously.
I don’t know if it was exhaustion, or perhaps shock from the previous day’s events—I am not someone who cries easily, if at all—but I put the letter carefully back into its envelope, then rested my head on my hands, and, in the cold, empty kitchen, I sobbed.
•••
Icould not tell the other villagers why it was time to eat the pig, but the approach of Christmas gave me the perfect excuse. The officers were to have their dinner on Christmas Eve in Le Coq Rouge, a larger gathering than normal, and it was agreed that while they were here, Madame Poilâne would hold a secretréveillonat her home, two streets down from the square. For as long as I could keep the German officers occupied, our little band of townspeople would be safe to roast and eat the pig in the bread oven that Madame Poilâne had in her cellar. Hélène would help me serve the Germans their dinner, then sneak through the hole in the cellar wall and out down the alley to join the children at Madame Poilâne’s house. Those villagers who lived too far from her to walk through the town unnoticed would remain in her home after curfew, hiding if any Germans came checking.
“But that isn’t fair,” Hélène remarked, when I outlined the plan to the mayor in front of her two days later. “If you remain here you will be the one person to miss it. That’s not right, given all you did to safeguard the pig.”
“One of us has to stay,” I pointed out. “You know it’s far safer if we can be sure that the officers are all in one place.”
“But it won’t be the same.”
“Well, nothingisthe same,” I said curtly. “And you know as well as I do that Herr Kommandant will notice if I am gone.”
I saw her exchange glances with the mayor.
“Hélène, don’t fuss. I amla patronne. He expects to see me here every evening. He will know something is going on if I am missing.”
