The Girl You Left Behind (13 page)

‘Who knows?’ she said, already
turning back towards 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 quieten a little, as if whoever was talking were
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 off-cuts 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 I
like
them?’

‘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.’

I stopped, my hands on my rolling pin and
spun round. ‘You know this is dangerous talk, the kind of talk that could get us
all into terrible trouble.’

‘It is not my talk that is getting us
into trouble.’

Outside, in the bar, I could hear the
townspeople talking. I walked over and closed the kitchen door, so that it was just the
two of us in the kitchen. When I spoke again I kept my voice low and measured.
‘Say what you wish to say, Aurélien.’

‘They say you are no better than
Liliane Béthune.’

‘What?’

‘Monsieur Suel saw you dancing with
Herr Kommandant on Christmas Eve. Close to him, your eyes shut, your bodies pressed
together, as if you loved him.’

Shock made me feel almost faint.
‘
What?
’

‘They say that is the real reason you
wanted to be away from
le réveillon
, to be alone with him. They say that
is why we are getting extra supplies. You are the German’s favourite.’

‘Is this why you have been fighting at
school?’ I thought back to his black eye, his sullen refusal to speak when I asked
him how he had come to receive it.

‘Is it true?’

‘No, it is
not
true.’ I
slammed my rolling pin down on the side. ‘He asked … he asked if we
might dance, just once, as it was Christmas, and I thought it better if he were thinking
about dancing and being here, rather than risk him wondering what was going on at Madame
Poilâne’s. There was nothing more to it than that – your sister trying
to protect you for that one evening. That dance won you a pork
supper, Aurélien.’

‘But I have seen him. I have seen the
way he admires you.’

‘He admires my portrait. There is a
huge difference.’

‘I have heard the way he talks to
you.’

I frowned at him, and he raised his eyes to
the ceiling. Of course: his hours spent peering through the floorboards of Room Three.
Aurélien must have heard and seen everything.

‘You can’t deny he likes you. He
says “
tu
”, not “
vous
” when he talks to you,
and you let him.’

‘He is a German
Kommandant
,
Aurélien. I don’t have much say in how he chooses to address me.’

‘They are all talking about you,
Sophie. I sit upstairs and I hear the names they call you and I don’t know what to
believe.’ His eyes burned with anger and confusion.

I walked over to him and grasped his
shoulders. ‘Then believe this. I have done nothing,
nothing
, to shame
myself or my husband. Every day I seek new ways to keep our family well, to keep our
neighbours and friends in food, comfort and hope. I have no feelings for the
Kommandant
. I try to remember that he is a human being, just as we are. But
if you think, Aurélien, that I would ever betray my husband, you are a fool. I love
Édouard with every part of me. Every day he is gone I feel his absence as if it
were an actual pain. At night I lie awake fearing what might befall him. And now I do
not ever want to hear you speak like this again. Do you hear me?’

He shook off my hand.

‘Do you hear me?’

He nodded sullenly.

‘Oh,’ I added. Perhaps I should
not have said it, but my blood was up. ‘And do not be too swift to condemn Liliane
Béthune. You may find you owe her more than you think.’

My brother glared at me, then stalked out of
the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. I stared at the pastry for several minutes
before I remembered I was meant to be making a pie.

Later that morning I took a walk across the
square. Normally Hélène fetched the bread –
Kriegsbrot
– but I needed
to clear my head, and the atmosphere in the bar had become oppressive. The air was so
cold that January that it hurt my lungs, sheathing the bare twigs of the trees in an icy
film, and I pulled my bonnet low over my head, my scarf up around my mouth. There were
few people on the streets, but even then only one person, old Madame Bonnard, nodded to
me. I told myself this was simply because, under so many layers, it was hard to tell who
I was.

I walked to rue des Bastides, which had been
renamed Schieler Platz (we refused to refer to it as such). The door of the
boulangerie
was closed and I pushed at it. Inside Madame Louvier and Madame
Durant were in animated conversation with Monsieur Armand. They stopped the moment the
door closed behind me.

‘Good morning,’ I said,
adjusting my pannier under my arm.

The two women, muffled under layers of wool,
nodded vaguely in my direction. Monsieur Armand simply stood, his hands on the counter
in front of him.

I waited, then turned to the old women.
‘Are you well, Madame Louvier? We have not seen you at Le Coq Rouge for several
weeks now. I was afraid you had been taken ill.’ My voice seemed unnaturally loud
and high in the little shop.

‘No,’ the old woman said.
‘I prefer to stay at home just now.’ She didn’t meet my eye as she
spoke.

‘Did you get the potato I left for you
last week?’

‘I did.’ Her gaze slid sideways
at Monsieur Armand. ‘I gave it to Madame Grenouille. She is … less
particular about the provenance of her food.’

I stood quite still. So this was how it was.
The unfairness of it tasted like bitter ashes in my mouth. ‘Then I hope she
enjoyed it. Monsieur Armand, I would like some bread, please. My loaf and
Hélène’s, if you would be so kind.’ Oh, how I wished for one of
his jokes, then. Some bawdy snippet or eye-rolling pun. But the baker just looked at me,
his gaze steady and unfriendly. He didn’t walk into the back room, as I’d
expected. In fact, he didn’t move. Just as I was about to repeat my request he
reached under the counter and placed two loaves of black bread on its surface.

I stared at them.

The temperature in the little
boulangerie
seemed to drop, but I felt the eyes of the three other people
like a burn. The loaves sat on the counter, squat and dark.

I lifted my eyes and swallowed.
‘Actually, I have made a mistake. We are not in need of bread today,’ I said
quietly, and placed my purse back in my basket.

‘I don’t suppose you’re in
need of much at the moment,’ Madame Durant muttered.

I turned and we stared at each other, the
old woman
and I. Then, my head high, I left the shop. The shame of
it! The injustice! I saw the mocking looks of those two old ladies and realized I had
been a fool. How could it have taken me so long to see what was going on under my nose?
I strode back towards the hotel, my cheeks flushed, my mind racing. The ringing in my
ears was so loud that I didn’t hear the voice at first.

‘
Halt!
’

I stopped, and glanced around me.

‘
Halt!
’

A German officer was marching towards me,
his hand raised. I waited just under the ruined statue of Monsieur Leclerc, my cheeks
still flushed. He walked right up to me. ‘You ignored me!’

‘I apologize, Officer. I did not hear
you.’

‘It is an offence to ignore a German
officer.’

‘As I said, I did not hear you. My
apologies.’

I unwound my scarf a little from my face.
And then I saw who it was: the young officer who had drunkenly grabbed at
Hélène in the bar, and whose head had been smashed against the wall for his
pains. I saw the little scar on his temple, and I also saw he had recognized me too.

‘Your identity card.’

It was not in my pocket. I had been so
preoccupied with Aurélien’s words that I had left it on the hall table at the
hotel.

‘I have forgotten it.’

‘It is an offence to leave your home
without your identity card.’

‘It is just there.’ I pointed at
the hotel. ‘If you walk over with me, I can get it –’

‘I’m not going anywhere. What is
your business?’

‘I was just … going to the
boulangerie
.’

He peered at my empty basket. ‘To buy
invisible bread?’

‘I changed my mind.’

‘You must be eating well at the hotel,
these days. Everybody else is keen to get their rations.’

‘I eat no better than anyone
else.’

‘Empty your pockets.’

‘What?’

He jabbed towards me with his rifle.
‘Empty your pockets. And remove some of those layers so I can see what you are
carrying.’

It was minus one in the daylight. The icy
wind numbed every inch of exposed skin. I put down my pannier and slowly shed the first
of my shawls. ‘Drop it. On the ground,’ he said. ‘And the next
one.’

I glanced around me. Across the square the
customers in Le Coq Rouge would be watching. I slowly shed my second shawl, and then my
heavy coat. I felt the blank windows of the square watching me.

‘Empty the pockets.’ He jabbed
at my coat with his bayonet, so that it rubbed against the ice and mud. ‘Turn them
inside out.’

I bent down and put my hands into the
pockets. I was shivering now, and my fingers, which were mauve, refused to obey me. In
several attempts, I pulled from my jacket my ration book, two five-franc notes and a
scrap of paper.

He snatched at it. ‘What is
this?’

‘Nothing of importance, Officer.
Just … just a gift from my husband. Please let me have it.’

I heard the panic in my voice, and even as I
said the
words, I knew it had been a mistake. He opened
Édouard’s little sketch of us; he the bear in his uniform, me serious in my
starched blue dress. ‘This is confiscated,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘You are not entitled to carry
likenesses of French Army uniform. I will dispose of it.’

‘But …’ I was incredulous.
‘It’s just a silly sketch of a bear.’

‘A bear in French uniform. It could be
a code.’

‘But – but it’s just a
joke … a trifle between me and my husband. Please do not destroy it.’ I
reached out my hand but he batted it away. ‘Please – I have so little to remind
me …’ As I stood, shivering, he looked me in the eye and tore it in two. Then
he tore the two pieces into shreds, watching my face as they fell like confetti on to
the wet ground.

‘Next time remember your papers,
whore,’ he said, and walked off to join his comrades.

Hélène met me as I walked through
the door, clutching my freezing, sodden shawls to me. I felt the eyes of the customers
as I pushed my way inside, but I had nothing to say to them. I walked through the bar
and back into the little hallway, struggling with frozen hands to hang my shawls on the
wooden pegs.

‘What happened?’ My sister was
behind me.

I was so upset I could barely speak.
‘The officer who grabbed you that time. He destroyed Édouard’s sketch.
He ripped it into pieces, to get revenge on us after the
Kommandant
hit him.
And there is no bread because Monsieur
Armand apparently also thinks
I am a whore.’ My face was numb and I could barely make myself understood, but I
was livid and my voice carried.

‘Ssh!’

‘Why? Why should I be quiet? What have
I
done wrong? This place is alive with people hissing and whispering and
nobody
tells the truth.’ I shook with rage and despair.

Hélène closed the bar door and
hauled me up the stairs to the empty bedrooms, one of the few places we might not be
heard.

‘Calm down and talk to me. What
happened?’

I told her then. I told her what
Aurélien had said, and how the ladies in the
boulangerie
had spoken to me
and about Monsieur Armand and his bread, which we could not now risk eating.
Hélène listened to all of it, placing her arms around me, resting her head
against mine, and making sounds of sympathy as I talked. Until: ‘You
danced
with him?’

I wiped my eyes.

‘Well, yes.’

‘You
danced
with Herr
Kommandant?’

‘Don’t you look at me like that.
You know what I was doing that night. You know I would have done anything to keep the
Germans away from
le réveillon
. Keeping him here meant that you all
enjoyed a proper feast. You told me it was the best day you’d had since
Jean-Michel left.’

She looked at me.

‘Well, didn’t you say that?
Didn’t you use those exact words?’

Still she said nothing.

‘What? Are you going to call me a
whore too?’

Hélène looked at her feet. Finally
she said, ‘I would not have danced with a German, Sophie.’