Page 10 of The Girl You Left Behind
“Mesdames.” TheKommandantappeared at the kitchen door. We scrambled to our feet. “The meal was excellent. I hope you can maintain this standard.”
I looked at the floor.
“Madame Lefèvre.”
Reluctantly, I raised my eyes.
“You are pale. Are you ill?”
“We are quite well.” I swallowed. I felt his eyes on me like a burn. Beside me, Hélène twisted her fingers together, reddened as they were from the unaccustomed hot water.
“Madame, have you and your sister eaten?”
I thought it was a test. I thought he was checking whether we had followed those infernal forms to the letter. I thought he might weigh the leftovers, to ensure we had not sneaked a piece of apple peel into our mouths.
“We have not touched one grain of rice, Herr Kommandant.” I almost spat it at him. Hunger will do that to you.
He blinked. “Then you should. You cannot cook well if you do not eat. What is left?”
I couldn’t move. Hélène motioned to the roasting tray on the stove. There were four quarters of a chicken there, keeping warm in case the men wanted second helpings.
“Then sit down. Eat here.”
I could not believe this wasn’t a trap.
“That is an order,” he said. He was almost smiling, but I didn’t think it was funny. “Really. Go on.”
“Would... would it be possible to feed something to the children? It is a long time since they had any meat.”
He frowned a little, as if in incomprehension. I hated him. I hated the sound of my voice, begging a German for scraps of food.Oh, Édouard, I thought silently.If you could hear me now.
“Feed your children and yourselves,” he said shortly. And he turned and left the room.
We sat there in silence, his words ringing in our ears. Then Hélène grabbed her skirts and ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I hadn’t seen her move so fast in months.
Seconds later, she reappeared, with Jean in her arms, still in his nightshirt, Aurélien and Mimi before her.
“Is it true?” Aurélien said. He was staring at the chicken, his mouth hanging open.
I could only nod.
We fell upon that unlucky bird. I wish I could tell you that my sister and I were ladylike, that we picked delicately, as the Parisians do, that we paused to chat and wipe our mouths between bites. But we were like savages. We tore at the flesh, scooped handfuls of rice, ate with our mouths open, picking wildly at the bits that fell onto the table. I no longer cared whether this was some trick on theKommandant’s part. I have never tasted anything as good as that chicken. The garlic and tomatoes filled my mouth with long-forgotten pleasure, my nostrils with scents I could have inhaled forever. We emitted little sounds of delight as we ate, primal and uninhibited, each locked into our own private world of satisfaction. Baby Jean laughed and covered his face with juice. Mimi chewed pieces of chicken skin, sucking the grease from her fingers with noisy relish. Hélène and I ate without speaking, always ensuring the little ones had enough.
When there was nothing left, when every bone had been sucked of its meat, the trays emptied of each last grain of rice, we sat and stared at each other. We could hear the chatter from the bar of the Germans becoming noisier, as they consumed their wine, and occasional bursts of their laughter. I wiped my mouth with my hands.
“We must tell no one,” I said, rinsing them. I felt like a drunk who had suddenly become sober. “This may never happen again. And we must behave as if it did not happen once. If anyone finds out that we ate the Germans’ food, we will be considered traitors.”
We gazed at Mimi and Aurélien then, trying to impart to them the seriousness of what we were saying. Aurélien nodded. Mimi, too. I think they would have agreed to speak German forever in those moments. Hélène grabbed a dishcloth, wetted it, and set about removing traces of the meal from the faces of the two youngest. “Aurélien,” she said, “take them to bed. We will clear up.”
He was not infected by my misgivings. He was smiling. His thin, adolescent shoulders had dropped for the first time in months, and I swear, watching as he picked up Jean, I thought he would have whistled if he could. “No one,” I warned him.
“I know,” he said, in the tone of a fourteen-year-old who knows everything. Little Jean was already slumping, heavy lidded, on his shoulder, his first full meal in months exhausting him. They disappeared back up the stairs. The sound of their laughter as they reached the top made my heart ache.
•••
It was past eleven o’clock when the Germans left. We had been under a curfew for almost a year; when the nights drew in, if we had no candles or acetylene lamps, Hélène and I had acquired the habit of going to bed. The bar shut at six, had done so since the occupation, and we hadn’t been up so late for months. We were exhausted. Our stomachs gurgled with the shock of rich food after months of near starvation. I saw my sister slump as she scrubbed the roasting pans. I did not feel quite as tired, and my brain flickered with the memory of the chicken: It was as if long-dead nerves had been sparked into life. I could still taste and smell it. It burned in my mind like a tiny, glowing treasure.
Some time before the kitchen was clean again I sent Hélène upstairs. She pushed her hair back from her face. She had been so beautiful, my sister. When I looked at how the war had aged her, I thought of my own face and wondered what my husband would make of me.
