The Girl You Left Behind

  German lips. German hands.

  He was on top of me now, his weight pinning me to the bed. I could feel his hands tugging at my underclothes, desperate to get inside them. He pushed my knee to one side, half collapsing on my chest in his desperation. I felt him hard, unyielding, against my leg. Something ripped. And then, with a little gasp, he was inside me, and my eyes were tight shut, my jaw clenched to stop myself crying out in protest.

  In. In. In. I could hear the hoarseness of his breathing in my ear, feel the faint sheen of his sweat against my skin, the buckle of his belt against my thigh. My body moved, propelled by the urgency of his. Oh, God, what have I done? In. In. In. My fists closed around two handfuls of quilt, my thoughts jumbled and transient. Some distant part of me resented their soft, heavy warmth more than almost anything. Stolen from someone. Like they stole everything. Occupied. I was occupied. I disappeared. I was in a street in Paris, rue Soufflot. The sun was shining, and around me, as I walked, I could see Parisian women in their finery, the pigeons strutting through the dappled shadows of the trees. My husband's arm was linked through mine. I wanted to say something to him but instead I let out a small sob. The scene stilled, and evaporated. And then I was aware dimly that it had stopped. The pushing slowed, then stopped. Everything had stopped. The thing. His thing was no longer inside me but soft, curling apologetically against my groin. I opened my eyes, and found myself looking straight into his.

  The Kommandant's face, inches from my own, was flushed, his expression agonized. I stopped breathing as I grasped his predicament. I didn't know what to do. But his eyes locked on mine and he knew that I knew. He pushed himself roughly backwards so that his weight was off me.

  'You -' he began.

  'What?' I was conscious of my exposed breasts, my skirt bunched around my waist.

  'Your expression ... so ...'

  He stood, and I averted my eyes while I heard him pull up his trousers and fasten them. He stared rigidly away from me, one hand on the top of his head.

  'I - I'm sorry,' I began. I wasn't sure what I was apologizing for. 'What did I do?'

  'You - you - I didn't want that!' He gestured towards me. 'Your face ...'

  'I don't understand.' I was almost angry then, accosted by the unfairness of it. Did he have any idea what I had endured? Did he know what it had cost me to let him touch me? 'I did what you wanted!'

  'I didn't want you like that! I wanted ...' he said, his hand lifted in frustration. 'I wanted this! I wanted the girl in the painting!'

  We both stared in silence at the portrait. The girl gazed steadily back at us, her hair around her neck, her expression challenging, glorious, sexually replete. My face.

  I pulled my skirts over my legs, clutched my blouse around my neck. When I spoke, my voice was thick, tremulous. 'I gave you ... Herr Kommandant ... everything I was capable of giving.'

  His eyes became opaque, a sea that had frozen. The tic jumped in his jaw, a juddering pulse. 'Get out,' he said quietly.

  I blinked.

  'I'm sorry,' I stammered, when I realized I had heard him correctly. 'If ... I can ... '

  'GET OUT!' he roared. He grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging into my flesh, and wrenched me across the room.

  'My shoes ... my shawls!'

  'OUT, DAMN YOU!' I had time only to grab my painting, and then I was propelled out of the door, stumbling to my knees at the top of the stairs, my mind still struggling to grasp what was happening. There was the sound of a tremendous crash behind the door. And then another, this time accompanied by the sound of splintering glass. I glanced behind me. Then, barefoot, I ran down the stairs, across the courtyard and fled.

  It took me almost an hour to walk home. I lost the feeling in my feet after a quarter of a mile. By the time I reached the town they were so frozen that I was not aware of the cuts and grazes I had collected on the long walk up the flinted farm track. I walked on, stumbling through the dark, the painting under my arm, shivering in my thin blouse, and I felt nothing. As I walked, my shock gave way to understanding of what I had done, and what I had lost. My mind spun with it. I walked through the deserted streets of my home town, no longer caring if anyone saw me.

  I reached Le Coq Rouge shortly before one o'clock. I heard the clock chime a solitary note as I stood outside, and wondered briefly whether it would be better for everyone if I failed to let myself in at all. And then, as I stood there, a tiny glow appeared behind the gauze curtain and the bolts were drawn back on the other side. Helene appeared, her night bonnet on, her white shawl around her. She must have waited up for me.

  I looked up at her, my sister, and I knew then that she had been right all along. I knew that what I had done had put our entire family at risk. I wanted to tell her I was sorry. I wanted to tell her I understood the depth of my mistake, and that my love for Edouard, my desperation for our life together to continue, had made me blind to everything else. But I couldn't speak. I just stood in the doorway, mute.

  Her eyes widened as she took in my bare shoulders, my naked feet. She reached out a hand and pulled me in, closing the door behind her. She placed her shawl around my shoulders, smoothed my hair back from my face. Wordlessly, she led me to the kitchen, closed the door and lit the range. She heated a cup of milk, and as I held it (I couldn't drink it), she unhooked our tin bath from its place on the wall and put it on the floor, in front of the range. She filled copper pot after copper pot with water, which she boiled, wrenched from the stove and poured into the bath. When it was full enough, she walked around me and carefully removed the shawl. She unlaced my blouse, then lifted my chemise over my head, as she might with a child. She unbuttoned my skirts at the back, loosened my corset, then unhooked my petticoats, laying them all on the kitchen table until I was naked. As I began to shake, she took my hand and helped me step into the bath.

  The water was scalding, but I barely felt it. I lowered myself so that most of me, except my knees and shoulders, was under the water, ignoring the stinging of the cuts on my feet. And then my sister rolled up her sleeves, took a washcloth, and began to soap me, from my hair to my shoulders, from my back to my feet. She bathed me in silence, her hands tender as she worked, lifting each limb, gently wiping between each finger, carefully ensuring that there was no part of me not cleansed. She bathed the soles of my feet, delicately removing the small pieces of stone that had embedded themselves in the cuts. She washed my hair, rinsing it with a bowl until the water ran clear, then combed it out, strand by strand. She took the washcloth, and wiped at the tears that rolled silently down my cheeks. All the while she said nothing. Finally, as the water began to cool and I started to shake again, from cold or exhaustion or something else entirely, she took a large towel and wrapped me in it. Then she held me, put me into a nightgown and led me upstairs to my bed.

  'Oh, Sophie,' I heard her murmur, as I drifted into sleep. And I think I knew even then what I had brought down upon us all.

  'What have you done?'

  10

  Days passed. Helene and I went about our daily business like two actors. From afar perhaps we looked as we always had, but each of us floundered in a growing unease. Neither of us talked about what had happened. I slept little, sometimes only two hours a night. I struggled to eat. My stomach coiled itself tightly around my fear even as the rest of me threatened to unravel.

  I returned compulsively to the events of that fateful evening, berating myself for my naivety, my stupidity, my pride. For it must have been pride that had brought me to this. If I had pretended to enjoy the Kommandant's attentions, if I had imitated my own portrait, I might have won his admiration. I might have saved my husband. Would that have been such a terrible thing to do? Instead I had held on to this ridiculous notion that by allowing myself to become a thing, a vessel, I was somehow lessening my infidelity. I was somehow being true to us. As if that could make any difference to Edouard.

  Each day I waited, heart in mouth, and watched silently as the officers filed in and the Komman
dant wasn't with them. I was afraid to see him, but I was more afraid of his absence and what it might mean. One night, Helene plucked up the courage to ask the officer with the salt-and-pepper moustache where he was, but he just waved a hand and said he was 'too busy'. My sister's eyes met mine and I knew that was no comfort to either of us.

  I watched Helene and felt cowed by the weight of my guilt. Every time she glanced at the children I knew she was wondering what would become of them. Once, I saw her talking quietly to the mayor, and I thought I heard her asking him to take them, if anything happened to her. I say this because he looked appalled, as if he were astonished that she should even think such a thing. I saw the new lines of strain as they threaded their way around her eyes and jaw, and knew that they were my doing.

  The smaller children seemed oblivious to our private fears. Jean and Mimi played as they always had, whining and complaining of cold or each other's minor transgressions. Hunger made them fractious. I dared not take the smallest scrap from the German supplies now, but it was hard telling them no. Aurelien was again locked in his own unhappiness. He ate silently, and spoke to neither of us. I wondered if he had been fighting again at school, but I was too preoccupied to give it further thought. Edith knew, though. She had the sensitivity of a divining rod. She stuck to my side at all times. At night she slept with my nightgown clenched in her right hand, and when I woke her big dark eyes would be fixed on my face. When I caught sight of my reflection, my face was haggard, unrecognizable even to myself.

  News filtered through of two more towns taken by the Germans to the north-east. Our rations grew smaller. Each day seemed longer than the last. I served and cleaned and cooked but my thoughts were chaotic with exhaustion. Perhaps the Kommandant simply wouldn't appear. Perhaps his shame at what had happened between us meant he couldn't face seeing me. Perhaps he, too, felt guilt. Perhaps he was dead. Perhaps Edouard would walk through the door. Perhaps the war would end tomorrow. At this point I would usually have to sit down and take a breath.

  'Go upstairs and get some sleep,' Helene would murmur. I wondered if she hated me. I would have found it hard not to, if I were her.

  Twice I returned to my hidden letters, from the months before we had become a German territory. I read Edouard's words, about the friends he had made, their paltry rations, their good spirits, and it was like listening to a ghost. I read his words of tenderness to me, his promise that he would be with me soon, that I occupied his every waking thought.

  I do this for France but, more selfishly, I do it for us, so that I may travel back across a Free France to my wife. The comforts of home; our studio, coffee in the Bar du Lyons, our afternoons curled up in bed, you passing me pieces of peeled orange ... Things that were domestic mundanity have now taken on the glowing hues of treasure. Do you know how much I long to bring you coffee? To watch you brush your hair? Do you know how I long to watch you laughing on the other side of the table, and know that I am the cause of your happiness? I bring out these memories to console myself, to remind me why I am here. Stay safe for me. Know that I remain

  Your devoted husband.

  I read his words and now there was an extra reason to wonder whether I would ever hear them again.

  I was down in the cellar, changing one of the casks of ale, when I heard footsteps on the flagstones. Helene's silhouette appeared in the doorway, blocking out the light.

  'The mayor is here. He says the Germans are coming for you.'

  My heart stopped.

  She ran to the dividing wall, and began pulling the loose bricks from their placements. 'Go on - you can get out through next door if you hurry.' She pulled them out, her hands scrabbling in her haste. When she had created a hole about the width of a small barrel, she turned to me. She glanced down at her hands, wrenched off her wedding ring and handed it to me, before pulling her shawl from her shoulders. 'Take this. Go now. I'll hold them up. But hurry, Sophie, they're coming across the square.'

  I looked down at the ring in my palm. 'I can't,' I said.

  'Why not?'

  'What if he keeps his side of the deal?'

  'Herr Kommandant? Deal? How on earth can he be keeping his side of the deal? They are coming for you, Sophie! They are coming to punish you, to imprison you in a camp. You have gravely offended him! They are coming to send you away!'

  'But think about it, Helene. If he wanted to punish me, he would have had me shot or paraded through the streets. He would have done to me what he did to Liliane Bethune.'

  'And risk revealing what he was punishing you for? Have you taken leave of your senses?'

  'No.' My thoughts had begun to clear. 'He has had time to consider his temper and he is sending me to Edouard. I know it.'

  She pushed me towards the hole. 'This is not you talking, Sophie. It is lack of sleep, your fears, a mania ... You will come to your senses soon. But you need to go now. The mayor says to go to Madame Poilane so that you can stay in the barn with the false floor tonight. I'll try and send word to you later.'

  I shook off her arm. 'No ... no. Don't you see? The Kommandant cannot possibly bring Edouard back here, not without making it obvious what he has done. But if he sends me away, with Edouard, he can free us both.'

  'Sophie! Enough talking now!'

  'I kept my side of the deal.'

  'GO!'

  'No.' We stared at each other in the near dark. 'I'm not going.'

  I reached for her hand and placed the ring in it, closing her fingers around it. I repeated quietly, 'I'm not going.'

  Helene's face crumpled. 'You cannot let them take you, Sophie. This is insanity. They are sending you to a prison camp! Do you hear me? A camp! The very thing you said would kill Edouard!'

  But I barely heard her. I straightened up, and let out a breath. I felt strangely relieved. If they were coming only for me, Helene was safe, the children too.

  'I was right about him all along, I am sure. He has thought about it all, in the light of day, and he knows I tried, despite everything, to keep to my side of things. He is an honourable man. He said we were friends.'

  My sister was crying now. 'Please, Sophie, please don't do this. You don't know your own mind. You still have time -' She tried to block my path, but I pushed past her and began to walk up the stairs.

  They were already in the entrance to the bar when I emerged, two of them in uniform. The bar was silent and twenty pairs of eyes landed on me. I could see old Rene, his hand trembling on the edge of the table, Mesdames Louvier and Durant talking in hushed voices. The mayor was with one of the officers, gesticulating wildly, trying to convince him to change his mind, that there must have been some mistake.

  'It is the orders of the Kommandant,' the officer said.

  'But she has done nothing! This is a travesty!'

  'Courage, Sophie,' someone shouted.

  I felt as if I were in a dream. Time seemed to slow, the voices fading around me.

  One of the officers beckoned me forwards and I stepped outside. The sun's watery light flooded the square. There were people standing on the street, waiting to see the cause of the commotion in the bar. I stopped for a moment and gazed around me, blinking in the daylight after the gloom of the cellar. Everything seemed suddenly crystalline, redrawn in a finer, brighter image, as if it were imprinting itself on my memory. The priest was standing outside the post office, and he crossed himself when he saw the vehicle they had sent to take me away. It was, I realized, the one that had transported those women to the barracks. That night seemed an age ago.

  The mayor was shouting: 'We will not allow this! I want to register an official complaint! This is the limit! I will not let you take this girl without speaking to the Kommandant first!'

  'These are his orders.'

  A small group of older people were beginning to surround the men, as if to form a barrier.

  'You cannot persecute innocent women!' Madame Louvier was declaiming. 'You take over her home, make her your servant, and now you would imprison her? For no rea
son?'

  'Sophie. Here.' My sister reappeared at my shoulder. 'At least take your things.' She thrust a canvas bag at me. It overflowed with belongings she had hurriedly stuffed into it. 'Just stay safe. Do you hear me? Stay safe and come back to us.'

  The crowd was murmuring its protest. It had become a febrile, angry thing, growing in size. I glanced sideways and saw Aurelien, his face furious and flushed, standing on the pavement with Monsieur Suel. I didn't want him to get involved. If he turned on the Germans now it would be a disaster. And it was important that Helene had an ally these next few months. I pushed my way towards him. 'Aurelien, you are the man of the house. You must take care of everyone when I am gone,' I began, but he stopped me.

  'It is your own fault!' he blurted out. 'I know what you did! I know what you did with the German!'

  Everything stopped. I looked at my brother, the mixture of anguish and fury on his face.

  'I heard you and Helene talking. I saw you come back that night!'

  I registered the exchanges of glances around me. Did Aurelien Bessette just say what I think he did?

  'It's not what -' I began. But he turned and bolted back into the bar.

  A new silence fell. Aurelien's accusation was repeated in murmurs to those who hadn't heard it. I registered the shock on the faces around me, and Helene's fearful glance sideways. I was Liliane Bethune now. But without the mitigating factor of resistance. The atmosphere hardened around me tangibly.

  Helene's hand reached for mine. 'You should have gone,' she was whispering, her voice breaking. 'You should have gone, Sophie ...' She made as if to take hold of me, but she was pulled away.

  One of the Germans grabbed my arm, pushing me towards the back of the truck. Someone shouted something from the distance, but I couldn't make out whether it was a protest at the Germans or some term of abuse aimed at me. Then I heard, 'Putain! Putain!' and flinched. He is sending me to Edouard, I told myself, when my heart felt as if it would break out of my chest. I know he is. I must have faith.