Page 89 of The Girl You Left Behind
We were shepherded into a huge, empty factory. The floor crunched with broken glass, and a stiff night breeze whistled through the windows. We could hear the boom of the big guns in the distance, even see the odd flash of an explosion. I peered out, wondering where we were, but our surroundings were blanketed in the black of night.
“Here,” a voice said, and the Frenchman was between us, supporting us, moving us toward a corner. “Look, there is food.”
Soup, served by other prisoners from a long table with two huge urns. I had not eaten since early that morning. It was watery, filled with indistinct shapes, but my stomach constricted with anticipation. The Frenchman filled his enamel bowl and a cup that Hélène had put into my bag, and we sat in a corner and ate, giving sips to Liliane. The fingers of one hand were broken, so she could not use them.
“There is not always food. Perhaps our luck is changing,” the Frenchman said, but without conviction. He disappeared toward the table with the urns, where a crowd was already congregating in the hope of more, and I cursed myself for not being swift enough to go. I was afraid to leave Liliane, even for a moment. Minutes later he returned, the bowl filled. He stood beside us, then handed it to me and pointed at Liliane. “Here,” he said. “She needs strength.”
Liliane lifted her head. She looked at him as if she could not remember what it was to be treated with kindness, and my eyes filled with tears. The Frenchman nodded at us, as if we were in another world and he was courteously bidding us good night, then withdrew to where the men slept. I sat and I fed Liliane Béthune, sip by sip, as I would have done a child. When she had consumed the second bowl she gave a shaky sigh, rested her head against me, and fell asleep. I sat there in the dark, surrounded by quietly moving bodies, some coughing, some weeping, hearing the accents of lost Russians, Englishmen, and Poles. Through the floor I felt the occasional vibration as some distant shell hit home. I listened to the murmuring of the other prisoners, and as the temperature dropped, I began to shiver. I pictured my home, Hélène sleeping beside me, little Édith, her hands wound into my hair. And I wept silently in the darkness, until finally, overcome by exhaustion, I, too, fell asleep.
•••
Iwoke, and for several seconds I did not know where I was. Édouard’s arm was around me, his weight against me. There was a tiny crack in time, through which relief flooded—he was here!—before I realized that it was not my husband pressing against me. A man’s hand, furtive and insistent, was snaking its way inside my skirt, shielded by the dark, perhaps by his belief in my fear and exhaustion. I lay rigid, my mind turning to cold, hard fury as I understood what this intruder felt he could take from me. Should I scream? Would anyone care if I did? Would the Germans take it as another excuse to punish me? As I moved my arm slowly from its position half underneath me, my hand brushed against a shard of glass, cold and sharp, where it had been blasted from the windows. I closed my fingers around it, and then, almost before I could consider what I was doing, I had spun onto my side and had its jagged edge pressed against the throat of my unknown assailant.
“Touch me again and I will run this through you,” I whispered. I could smell his stale breath and feel his shock. He had not expected resistance. I was not even sure he understood my words. But he understood that sharp edge. He lifted his hands, a gesture of surrender, perhaps of apology. I kept the glass pressed where it was for a moment longer, a message of my intent. In the near pitch dark my gaze briefly met his, and I saw that he was afraid. He, too, had found himself in a world where there were no rules, no order. If it was a world where he might assault a stranger, it was also a world where she might slit his throat. The moment I released the pressure he scrambled to his feet. I could just make out his shape as it stumbled across the sleeping bodies to the other side of the factory.
I tucked the glass fragment into my skirt pocket, sat upright, my arms shielding Liliane’s sleeping form, and waited.
•••
It seemed I had been asleep a matter of minutes when we were woken by shouting. German guards were moving through the middle of the room, hitting sleepers with the butts of their rifles to rouse them, kicking with their boots. I pushed myself upright. Pain shot through my head, and I stifled a cry. Through blurred vision I saw the soldiers moving toward us and pulled at Liliane, trying to get her upright before they could hit us.
In the harsh blue light of dawn I could see our surroundings clearly. The factory was enormous and semiderelict; a gaping, splintered hole was at the center of the roof, broken beams and windows were scattered across the floor. At the far end the trestle tables were serving something that might have been coffee, and a hunk of black bread. I lifted Liliane—I had to get her across that vast space before the food ran out. “Where are we?” she said, peering out of the shattered window. A distant boom told us we must be near the Front.
“I have no idea,” I said, filled with relief that she felt well enough to engage in some small conversation with me.
We got the cup filled with coffee, and some in the Frenchman’s bowl. I looked for him, anxious that we might be depriving him, but a German officer was already dividing the men into groups, and some of them were filing away from the factory. Liliane and I were ordered into a separate group of mainly women and directed toward a communal water closet. In the daylight I could see the dirt ingrained in the other women’s skin, the gray lice that crawled freely upon their heads. I itched, and looked down to see one on my skirt. I brushed it off with a sense of futility. I would not escape them, I knew. It was impossible to spend so much time in close contact with the others and avoid them.
There must have been three hundred women trying to wash and use the lavatory in a space designed for twelve people. By the time I could get Liliane anywhere close to the cubicles, we both retched at what we found. We cleaned ourselves at the cold-water pump as best we could, following the lead of the other women: They barely removed their clothes to wash, and glanced about warily, as if waiting for some subterfuge by the Germans. “Sometimes they burst in,” Liliane said. “It is easier—and safer—to stay clothed.”
While the Germans were busy with the men, I scouted around outside in the rubble for twigs and pieces of string, then sat with Liliane. In the watery sunlight I bound the broken fingers of her left hand to splints. She was so brave, barely wincing even when I knew I must be hurting her. She had stopped bleeding but still walked gingerly, as if she were in pain. I dared not ask what had happened to her.
“It is good to see you, Sophie,” she said, examining her hand.
Somewhere in there, I thought,there might still be a shadow of the woman I knew in St. Péronne. “I never was so glad to see another human being,” I said, wiping her face with my clean handkerchief, and I meant it.
The men were sent on a work task. We could see them in the distance, queuing for shovels and pickaxes, then formed into columns to march toward the infernal noise on the horizon. I said a silent prayer that our charitable Frenchman would stay safe, then offered up another, as I always did, for Édouard. The women, meanwhile, were directed toward a railway carriage. My heart sank at the thought of the next lengthy, stinking journey, but then I scolded myself.I may be only hours from Édouard, I thought.This may be the train that takes me to him.
I climbed aboard without complaint. This carriage was smaller, yet they seemed to expect all three hundred women to get into it. There was some swearing and a few muffled arguments as we attempted to sit. Liliane and I found a small space on the bench, me sitting at her feet with my bag jammed underneath it. I regarded that bag with jealous propriety, as if it were a baby. Someone yelped as a shell burst close enough to make the train rattle.
“Tell me about Édith,” she said, as the train pulled off.
“She’s in good spirits.” I put as much reassurance into my voice as possible. “She and Mimi are now inseparable. She adores the baby, and he adores her, too.” As I talked, painting a picture of her daughter’s life in St. Péronne, her eyes closed. I could not tell if it was with relief or grief.
“Is she happy?”
I answered carefully: “She is a child. She wants hermaman. But she knows she is safe at Le Coq Rouge.” I could not tell her more, but that seemed to be enough. I did not tell her about Édith’s nightmares, about the nights she had sobbed for her mother. Liliane was not stupid: I suspected she knew those things in her heart already. When I finished she stared out of the window for a long time, lost in thought.
“Sophie, what brought you to this?” she asked, eventually turning back to me.
There was probably nobody else in the world who would understand better than Liliane. I searched her face, fearful even now. But the prospect of being able to share my burden with another human being was too great a lure.
I told her. I told her about theKommandant, the night I had gone to his barracks, and the deal I had offered him. She looked at me for a long time. She didn’t tell me I was a fool, or that I should not have believed him, or that my failure to do as theKommandanthad wished had been likely to bring about my death, if not that of those I loved.
She didn’t say anything at all.
“I do believe he will keep his side of things. I do believe he will bring me to Édouard,” I said, with as much conviction as I could muster. She reached out her good hand and squeezed mine.
•••
