Page 24 of The Girl You Left Behind
“I will dance with you, Herr Kommandant,” I said. “But only in the kitchen.”
He stood, held out his hand, and after a slight hesitation, I took it. His palm was surprisingly rough. I moved a few steps closer, not looking at his face, and then he rested his other hand on my waist. As the men in the next room sang, we began to move slowly around the table, me acutely aware of his body only inches from my own, the pressure of his hand on my corset. I felt the rough serge of his uniform against my bare arm and the soft vibration of his humming through his chest. I felt as if I were almost alight with tension, every sense monitoring my fingers, my arms, trying to ensure that I did not get too close, fearful that at any point he might pull me to him.
And all the while a voice repeated in my head,I am dancing with a German.
Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht...
But he didn’t do anything. He hummed, and he held me lightly, and he moved steadily in circles around the kitchen table. And just for a few minutes I closed my eyes and was a girl, alive, free from hunger and cold, dancing on the night before Christmas, my head a little giddy from good cognac, breathing in the scent of spices and delicious food. I lived as Édouard lived, relishing each small pleasure, allowing myself to see beauty in all of it. It was two years since a man had held me. I closed my eyes, relaxed, and let myself feel all of it, allowing my partner to turn me round, his voice still humming into my ear.
Christ, in deiner Geburt!
Christ, in deiner Geburt!
The singing stopped, and after a moment, almost reluctantly, he stepped back, releasing me. “Thank you, madame. Thank you very much.”
When I finally dared to look up there were tears in his eyes.
The next morning a small crate arrived on our doorstep. It contained three eggs, a smallpoussin,an onion, and a carrot. On the side, in careful script, was marked:Fröhliche Weihnachten. “It means ‘Merry Christmas,’” Aurélien said. For some reason he refused to look at me.
7
As the temperatures dropped, the Germans tightened their control over St. Péronne. The town became uneasy, greater numbers of troops came through daily; the officers’ conversations in the bar took on a new urgency, so that Hélène and I spent most of our time in the kitchen. TheKommandantbarely spoke to me; he spent much of his time huddled with a few trusted men. He looked exhausted, and when I heard his voice in the dining room, it was often raised in anger.
Several times that January French prisoners of war were marched up the main street and past the hotel, but we were no longer allowed to stand on the pavement to watch them. Food became ever scarcer; our official rations dropped, and I was expected to conjure feasts out of ever-shrinking amounts of meat and vegetables. Trouble was edging closer.
TheJournal des Occupés, when it came, spoke of villages nearby, villages we knew. At night it was not unusual for the distant boom of the guns to cause faint ripples in the glasses on our tables. It was some days before I realized that the missing sound was that of birdsong. We had received word that all girls from the age of sixteen and all boys from fifteen would now be required to work for the Germans, pulling sugar beets or tending potatoes, or sent farther afield to work in factories. With Aurélien only months from his fifteenth birthday, Hélène and I became increasingly tense. Rumors were rife as to what happened to the young, with stories of girls billeted with gangs of criminal men or, worse, instructed to “entertain” German soldiers. Boys were starved or beaten, and moved around constantly so that they remained disoriented and obedient. Hélène and I were exempt, we were informed, because we were considered “essential to German welfare” at the hotel. That alone would be enough to stir resentment among the rest of our village when it became known.
There was something else. It was a subtle change, but I was conscious of it. Fewer people were coming to Le Coq Rouge in the daytime. From our usual twenty-odd faces, we were down to around eight. At first I thought the cold was keeping people indoors. Then I became worried and called on Old René to see if he was ill. But he met me at the door and said gruffly that he preferred to stay at home. He did not look at me as he spoke. The same happened when I went to call on Madame Foubert and the wife of the mayor. I was left feeling strangely unbalanced. I told myself that it was all in my imagination, but one lunchtime I happened to walk past the Bar Blanc on my way to the pharmacy and saw René and Madame Foubert sitting inside at a table, playing drafts. I was convinced my eyes had deceived me. When it became clear that they hadn’t, I put my head down and hurried past.
Only Liliane Béthune spared me a friendly smile. I caught her, shortly before dawn one morning, as she slid an envelope under my door. She jumped as I undid the bolts. “Oh,mon Dieu—thank heaven it’s you,” she said, her hand at her mouth.
“Is this what I think it is?” I said, glancing down at the oversized envelope, addressed to nobody.
“Who knows?” she said, already turning back toward the square. “I see nothing there.”
But Liliane Béthune was in a minority of one. As the days crept on I noticed other things: If I walked into our bar from the kitchen, the conversation would quiet a little, as if whoever was talking was determined that I should not overhear. If I spoke up during a conversation, it was as if I had said nothing. Twice I offered a little jar of stock or soup to the mayor’s wife, only to be told that they had plenty, thank you. She had developed a peculiar way of talking to me, not unfriendly exactly, but as though it were something of a relief when I gave up trying. I would never have admitted it, but it was almost a comfort when night fell and the restaurant was full of voices again, even if they did happen to be German.
It was Aurélien who enlightened me.
“Sophie?”
“Yes?” I was making the pastry for a rabbit and vegetable pie. My hands and apron were covered with flour, and I was wondering whether I could safely bake the offcuts into little biscuits for the children.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” I dusted my hands on my apron. My little brother was looking at me with a peculiar expression, as if he were trying to work something out.
“Do you... do you like the Germans?”
“Do Ilikethem?”
“Yes.”
“What a ridiculous question. Of course not. I wish they would all be gone and that we could return to our lives as before.”
“But you like Herr Kommandant.”
