Page 4 of The Girl You Left Behind
I never knew if he understood that I found it only because of him.
I stood and gazed at her, and, for a few seconds, I remembered how it had felt to be that girl, free of hunger, of fear, consumed only by idle thoughts of what private moments I might spend with Édouard. She reminded me that the world is capable of beauty, and that there were once things—art, joy, love—that filled my world, instead of fear and nettle soup and curfews. I saw him in my expression. And then I realized what I had just done. He had reminded me of my own strength, of how much I had left in me with which to fight.
When you return, Édouard, I swear I will once again be the girl you painted.
2
The story of the pig-baby had reached most of St. Péronne by lunchtime. The bar of Le Coq Rouge saw a constant stream of customers, even though we had little to offer other than chicory coffee; beer supplies were sporadic, and we had only a few ruinously expensive bottles of wine. It was astonishing how many people called just to wish us good day.
“And you tore a strip off him? Told him to go away?” Old René, chuckling into his mustache, was clutching the back of a chair and weeping tears of laughter. He had asked to hear the story four times now, and with every telling Aurélien had embellished it a little more, until he was fighting off theKommandantwith a saber, while I cried “Der Kaiser ist Scheiss!”
I exchanged a small smile with Hélène, who was sweeping the floor of the café. I didn’t mind. There had been little enough to celebrate in our town lately.
“We must be careful,” Hélène said, as René left, lifting his hat in salute. We watched him, convulsed with renewed mirth as he passed the post office, pausing to wipe his eyes. “This story is spreading too far.”
“Nobody will say anything. Everyone hates the Boche.” I shrugged. “Besides, they all want a piece of pork. They’re hardly going to inform on us before their food arrives.”
The pig had been moved discreetly next door in the early hours of the morning. Some months ago Aurélien, chopping up old beer barrels for firewood, had discovered that the only thing separating the labyrinthine wine cellar from that of the neighbors, the Fouberts, was a single-skin brick wall. We had carefully removed several of the bricks, with the Fouberts’ cooperation, and this had become an escape route of last resort. When the Fouberts had harbored a young Englishman, and the Germans had arrived unannounced at their door at dusk, Madame Foubert had pleaded incomprehension at the officer’s instructions, giving the young man just enough time to sneak down to the cellar and through into our side. They had taken her house to pieces, even looked around the cellar, but in the dim light not one had noticed that the mortar in the wall was suspiciously gappy.
This was the story of our lives: minor insurrections; tiny victories; a brief chance to ridicule our oppressors; little floating vessels of hope amid a great sea of uncertainty, deprivation, and fear.
“You met the newKommandant, then?” The mayor was seated at one of the tables near the window. As I brought him some coffee, he motioned to me to sit down. More than anyone else’s, his life, I often thought, had been intolerable since the occupation: He had spent his time in a constant state of negotiation with the Germans to grant the town what it needed, but periodically they had taken him hostage to force recalcitrant townspeople to do their bidding.
“It was not a formal introduction,” I said, placing the cup in front of him.
He tilted his head toward me, his voice low. “Herr Becker has been sent back to Germany to run one of the reprisal camps. Apparently there were inconsistencies in his bookkeeping.”
“That’s no surprise. He is the only man in Occupied France who has doubled in weight in two years.” I was joking, but my feelings at his departure were mixed. On the one hand Becker had been harsh, his punishments excessive, born out of insecurity and a fear that his men would not think him strong enough. But he had been too stupid—blind to many of the town’s acts of resistance—to cultivate any relationships that might have helped his cause.
“So, what do you think?”
“Of the newKommandant? I don’t know. He could have been worse, I suppose. He didn’t pull the house apart, where Becker might have, just to show his strength. But”—I wrinkled my nose—“he’s clever. We might have to be extra careful.”
“As ever, Madame Lefèvre, your thoughts are in harmony with my own.” He smiled at me, but not with his eyes. I remembered when the mayor had been a jolly, blustering man, famous for his bonhomie: He’d had the loudest voice at any town gathering.
“Anything coming in this week?”
“I believe there will be some bacon. And coffee. Very little butter. I hope to have the exact rations later today. Any news from your husband?”
“Not since August, when I had a postcard. He was near Amiens. He didn’t say much.” I think of you day and night,the postcard had said, in his beautiful loopy scrawl.You are my lodestar in this world of madness.I had lain awake for two nights worrying after I received it, until Hélène had pointed out that “this world of madness” might equally apply to a world in which one lived on black bread so hard it required a billhook to cut it, and kept pigs in a bread oven.
“The last I received from my eldest son came nearly three months ago. They were pushing forward toward Cambrai. Spirits good, he said.”
“I hope they are still good. How is Louisa?”
“Not too bad, thank you.” His youngest daughter had been born with a palsy; she failed to thrive, could eat only certain foods, and at eleven was frequently ill. Keeping her well was a preoccupation of our little town. If there was milk or any dried vegetable to be had, a little spare usually found its way to the mayor’s house.
“When she is strong again, tell her Mimi was asking after her. Hélène is sewing a doll for her that is to be the exact twin of Mimi’s own. She asked that they might be sisters.”
The mayor patted my hand. “You girls are too kind. I thank God that you returned here when you could have stayed in the safety of Paris.”
“Pah. There is no guarantee that the Boche won’t be marching down the Champs-Élysées before long. And besides, I could not leave Hélène alone here.”
“She would not have survived this without you. You have grown into such a fine young woman. Paris was good for you.”
“My husband is good for me.”
“Then God save him. God save us all.” The mayor smiled, placed his hat on his head, and stood up to leave.
