Page 30 of The Girl You Left Behind
He puffed his cigarette. “An innocent.”
“Yes. They do exist.”
He looked at me sharply and I had to force myself not to lower my eyes.
“Herr Kommandant, I need to ask you a favor.”
“A favor?”
“My husband has been taken to a reprisal camp in Ardennes.”
“And I am not to ask you how you came upon this information.”
There was nothing in how he looked at me. No clue at all.
I took a breath. “I wondered... I’m asking if you can help him. He is a good man. He’s an artist, as you know, not a soldier.”
“And you want me to get a message to him.”
“I want you to get him out.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Herr Kommandant. You act as if we are friends. So, I’m begging you. Please help my husband. I know what goes on in those places, that he has little chance of coming out alive.”
He didn’t speak, so I seized my chance and continued. These were words I had said a thousand times in my head over the past hours. “You know that he has spent his whole life in the pursuit of art, of beauty. He’s a peaceful man, a gentle man. He cares about painting, about dancing, eating, and drinking. You know it makes no difference to the German cause whether he is dead or alive.”
He glanced around us, through the denuded woods, as if to monitor where the other officers had gone, then took another puff from his cigarette. “You take a considerable risk in asking me something like this. You saw how your townspeople treat a woman they think is collaborating with Germans.”
“They already believe me to be collaborating. The fact of you being in our hotel apparently made me guilty without a trial.”
“That, and dancing with the enemy.”
Now it was my turn to look surprised.
“I have told you before, madame. There is nothing that goes on in this town that I don’t hear about.”
We stood in silence, gazing at the horizon. In the distance a low boom caused the earth to vibrate very slightly under our feet. The girls felt it: I could see them gazing down at their shoes. He took a final puff from his cigarette, then crushed it under his boot.
“Here is the thing. You are an intelligent woman. I think you are probably a good judge of human nature. And yet you behave in ways that would entitle me, as an enemy soldier, to shoot you without even a trial. Despite this, you come here and expect me not just to ignore that fact but to help you. My enemy.”
I swallowed. “That... that is because I don’t just see you as... an enemy.”
He waited.
“You were the one who said... that sometimes we are just... two people.”
His silence made me bolder. I lowered my voice. “I know you are a powerful man. I know you have influence. If you say he should be released, he will be released. Please.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I know that if he has to stay there he will die.”
The faintest flicker behind his eyes.
“I know you are a gentleman. A scholar. I know you care about art. Surely to save an artist you admire would be...” My words faltered. I took a step forward. I put a hand out and touched his arm. “Herr Kommandant. Please. You know I would not ask you for anything, but I beg you for this. Please, please, help me.”
He looked so grave. And then he did something unexpected. He lifted a hand and lightly moved a strand of my hair from my face. He did it gently, meditatively, as if this was something he had imagined for some time. I hid my shock and kept perfectly still.
