Page 88 of The Girl You Left Behind
“Français?” I said, into the silence. Several faces looked blankly at me. I tried again.
“Ici,” said a voice near the back. I began to make my way carefully down the length of the carriage, trying not to disturb those who were sleeping. I heard a voice that might have been Russian. I trod on someone’s hair, and was cursed. Finally I reached the rear of the carriage. A shaven-headed man was looking at me. His face was scarred, as if with some recent pox, and his cheekbones jutted from his face like those of a skull.
“Français?” he said.
“Yes,” I replied. “What is this? Where are we going?”
“Where are we going?” He regarded me with astonishment, and then, when he grasped that my question was serious, laughed mirthlessly.
“Tours, Amiens, Lille. How would I know? They keep us on some endless cross-country chase so that none of us knows where we are.”
I sat beside him for hours, my arms wrapped around my knees, my mind numbed by anxiety. We stopped, inexplicably, for a while, and a few of us stood and picked our way around the stationary carriage, just to stretch our limbs. I was about to head back to my spot when I saw the shape on the floor. A black coat so familiar that at first I dared not look closer. I stepped forward, past a sleeping man, and knelt down. “Liliane?” I could see her face, still bruised, under what remained of her hair. She opened one eye, as if she did not trust her ears. “Liliane! It’s Sophie.”
She gazed at me. “Sophie,” she whispered. Then she lifted a hand and touched mine. “Édith?” Even in her frail state I could hear the fear in her voice.
“She is with Hélène. She is safe.”
The eye closed.
“Are you sick?” It was then I saw the blood, dried, around her skirt. Her deathly pallor.
“Has she been like this for long?”
A man beside her shrugged, as if he had seen too many bodies like Liliane’s to feel anything as distinct as compassion now. The Frenchman called out: “She was here when we boarded.”
Her lips were chapped, her eyes sunken. “Does anyone have water?” I called. A few faces turned to me.
The Frenchman said pityingly, “You think this is a buffet car?”
I tried again, my voice lifting. “Does anyone have a sip of water?” I could see faces turning to each other.
“This woman risked her life to bring information to our town. If anyone has water, please, just a few drops.” A murmur went through the carriage. “Please! For the love of God!” And then, astonishingly, minutes later, an enamel bowl was passed along. It had a half inch of what might have been rainwater in the bottom. I called out my thanks and lifted Liliane’s head gently, tipping the precious drops into her mouth.
The Frenchman seemed briefly animated. “We should hold cups, bowls, anything out of the carriage if possible, while it rains. We do not know when we will next receive food or water.”
Liliane swallowed painfully. I positioned myself on the floor so that she could rest against me. With a squeal and the harsh grinding of metal on rails, the train moved off into the countryside.
•••
Icould not tell you how long we stayed on that train. It moved slowly, stopping frequently and without obvious reason. I stared out through the gap in the splintered boards, watching the endless movement of troops, prisoners, and civilians through my battered country, holding the dozing Liliane in my arms. The rain grew heavier, and there were murmurs of satisfaction as the occupants passed round water they had collected. I was cold but glad of the rain and the low temperature: I could not imagine how hellish this carriage might become in the heat, when the odors would worsen.
As the hours stretched, the Frenchman and I talked. I asked about the number plate on his cap and the red stripe on his jacket, and he told me he had come from the ZAB—theZivilarbeiter Battalione, prisoners who were used for the very worst of jobs, shipped to the front, exposed to Allied fire. He told me of the trains he saw each week packed with boys, women, and young girls, crisscrossing the country to the Somme, to Escaut and Ardennes to work as slave labor for the Germans. Tonight, he said, we would lodge in ruined barracks, factories, or schools in evacuated villages. He did not know whether we would be taken to a prison camp or a work battalion.
“They keep us weak through lack of food, so that we will not try to escape. Most are now grateful merely to stay alive.” He asked if I had food in my bag and was disappointed when I had to say no. I gave him a handkerchief that Hélène had packed, feeling obliged to give him something. He looked at its laundered cotton freshness as if he were holding spun silk. Then he handed it back. “Keep it,” he said, and his face closed. “Use it for your friend. What did she do?”
When I told him of her bravery, the lifeline of information she had brought to our town, he looked at her anew, as if he were no longer seeing a body but a human being. I told him I was seeking news of my husband, and that he had been sent to Ardennes. The Frenchman’s face was grave. “I spent several weeks there. You know that there has been typhoid? I will pray for you that your husband has survived.” I swallowed back a lump of fear.
“Where is the rest of your battalion?” I asked him, trying to change the subject. The train slowed, and we passed another column of trudging prisoners. Not a man looked up at the passing train. I scanned each of the faces, fearful that Édouard might be among them.
It was a moment before he spoke. “I am the only one left.”
•••
Several hours after dark we drew into a siding. The doors slid open noisily, and German voices yelled at us to get out. Bodies unfolded themselves wearily from the floor, clutching their enamel bowls, and made their way along a disused track. Our path was lined with German infantry, prodding us into line with their guns. I felt like a herded animal, as if I were no longer human. I recalled the desperate escape of the young prisoner in St. Péronne and suddenly had an inkling of what had made him run, despite the knowledge that he was almost certain to fail.
I held Liliane close to me, supporting her under the arms. She walked slowly, too slowly. A German stepped behind us and kicked at her.
“Leave her!” I protested, and his rifle butt shot out and cracked my head so that I stumbled briefly to the ground. I felt hands pulling me up, and then I was moving forward again, dazed, my sight blurred. When I put my hand to my temple, it came away sticky with blood.
