Page 105 of The Girl You Left Behind
I no longer wept for home. I could not say how long we had been traveling, for the days and nights merged, and sleep had become a fleeting, sporadic visitor. Some miles outside Mannheim my head had begun to ache, swiftly followed by a fever that left me alternately shivering and fighting the urge to shed what few clothes remained. We were given little: cups of water and hunks of black bread, thrown into the back as one would hurl scraps to pigs. Liliane sat beside me, wiping my forehead with her skirt, helping me when we stopped. Her face was drawn with tension. “I’ll be better soon,” I kept telling her, forcing myself to believe that this was just a passing cold, the inevitable outcome of the past few days, the chill air, the shock.
And then, as I grew more feverish, I cared less about the lack of food. The pain in my stomach was smothered by other pains: my head, my joints, the back of my neck. My appetite disappeared, and Liliane had to urge me to swallow water over my sore throat, reminding me that I must eat while there was food, that I had to stay strong. Everything she said had an edge, as if she always knew far more than she chose to let on about what awaited us. With each stop her eyes widened with anxiety, and even as my thoughts clouded with illness, her fear became infectious.
When Liliane slept, her face twitched with nightmares. Sometimes she woke clawing at the air and making indistinguishable sounds of anguish. If I could, I reached across to touch her arm, trying to bring her back gently to the land of the waking. Sometimes, staring out at the German landscape, I wondered why I did.
Since I had discovered we were no longer heading for Ardennes, my own faith had begun to desert me. TheKommandantand his deals now seemed a million miles away; my life at the hotel, with its gleaming mahogany bar, my sister, and the village where I had grown up, had become dreamlike, as if I had imagined it a long time ago. Our reality was discomfort, cold, pain, ever-present fear, like a buzzing in my head. I tried to focus, to remember Édouard’s face, his voice, but even he failed me. I could conjure little pieces of him—the curl of his soft brown hair on his collar, his strong hands—but I could no longer bring them together into a comforting whole. I was more familiar now with Liliane’s broken hand resting in my own. I stared at it, with my homemade splints on her bruised fingers, and tried to remind myself that there was a purpose to all this, that the very point of faith was that it must be tested. It became harder, with every mile, to believe this.
The rain cleared. We stopped in a small village, and the young soldier unfolded his long limbs stiffly and climbed out. The engine stalled, and we heard Germans talking outside. I wondered, briefly, if I might ask them for some water. My lips were parched, and my limbs feeble.
Liliane, across from me, sat very still, like a rabbit scenting the air for danger. I tried to think past my throbbing head and gradually became aware of the sounds of a market: the jovial call of traders, the soft-spoken negotiations of women and stall holders. Just for a moment, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that the German accents were French, and that these were the sounds of St. Péronne. I could picture my sister, her pannier under her arm, picking up tomatoes and aubergines, feeling their weight and gently putting them back. I could almost feel the sun on my face, smell thesaucisson, thefromagerie, see myself walking slowly through the stalls. Then the flap lifted, and a woman’s face appeared.
It was so startling that I let out an involuntary gasp. She stared at me, and for a second I thought she was going to offer us food—but she turned, her pale hand still holding up the canvas—and shouted something in German. Liliane scrambled across the back of the truck and pulled me with her. “Cover your head,” she whispered.
“What?”
Before she could say anything else, a stone shot through the back and landed a stinging blow on my arm. I glanced down, confused, and another landed, cracking the side of my head. I blinked, and three, four more women appeared, their faces twisted with hate, their fists loaded with stones, rotting potatoes, pieces of wood, whatever missiles came to hand.
“Huren!”
Liliane and I huddled in the corner, trying to cover our heads as the armaments rained down on us, my head, my hands stinging at the impact. I was about to shout back at them:Why would you do this? What have we done to you?But the hatred in their faces and voices chilled me. These women truly despised us. They would rip us apart, given a chance. Fear rose like bile in my throat. Until that moment I had not felt it as a physical thing, a creature that could shake my sense of who I was, blast my thoughts, loosen my bowel with terror. I prayed—I prayed for them to go, for it all to stop. And then, when I dared to glance up, I glimpsed the young soldier who had sat in the back. He was standing off to the side and lighting a cigarette, calmly surveying the market square. Then I felt fury.
The bombardment continued for what was probably minutes but felt like hours. Then suddenly, abruptly, it stopped. My ears ceased ringing, and a warm trickle of blood eased into the corner of my eye. I could just make out a conversation outside. Then the engine charged, the young soldier climbed nonchalantly into the back, and the vehicle lurched forward.
A sob of relief filled my chest. “Sons of whores,” I whispered in French. Liliane squeezed my hand with her good one. Hearts thumping, we moved, trembling, back onto our benches. As we finally pulled out of the little town, the adrenalin slowly drained from my body, and I found myself almost bone dead with exhaustion. I was afraid to sleep, then, afraid of what might come next, but Liliane, her eyes rigidly open, was scanning the tiny patch of landscape visible through the canvas. Some selfish part of me knew she would look out for me, that she would not sleep again. I laid my head on the bench, and as my heartbeat finally returned to normal, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to sink into nothingness.
•••
Light. Liliane was looking into my eyes, her hand over my mouth. I blinked, and involuntarily bucked against her, but she lifted her finger to her lips. She waited until I nodded, to show I understood, and as she removed her hand I realized that the truck had stopped again. We were in a forest. Snow blanketed the ground in piebald patches, stilling movement and stifling sound.
She pointed at the guard. He was fast asleep, lying across the bench, his head resting on his kit bag. He was snoring, completely vulnerable, his holster visible, several inches of neck bare above his collar. I found my hand reaching involuntarily into my pocket, fingering the shard of glass.
“Jump,” whispered Liliane.
“What?”
“Jump. If we keep to that dip, there, where there is no snow, we will leave no footprints. We can be hours away by the time they wake up.”
“But we are in Germany.”
“I speak a little German. We will find our way out.”
She was animated, filled with conviction. I don’t think I had seen her so alive since St. Péronne. I blinked at the sleeping soldier, then back at Liliane, who was now carefully lifting the flap, peering out at the blue light.
“But they will shoot us if they catch us.”
“They will shoot us if we stay. And if they don’t shoot us it will be worse. Come. This is our chance.” She mouthed the word, motioning silently for me to pick up my bag.
I stood. Peered out at the woods. And stopped. “I can’t.”
She turned to me. She still carried her broken hand close to her chest, as if fearful anything would brush against it. I could see now in daylight the scratches and bruises on her face where the missiles had caught her the previous day.
I swallowed. “What if they are taking me to Édouard?”
Liliane stared at me. “Are you insane?” she whispered. “Come, Sophie. Come. This is our chance.”
“I can’t.”
She ducked in again, glancing nervously at the sleeping soldier, then grabbed my wrist with her good hand. Her expression was fierce, and she spoke as one would to a particularly stupid child. “Sophie. They are not taking you to Édouard.”
