Honeymoon in Paris: A Novella

on his nose. She has never noticed them before. They are the most beautiful freckles she has ever seen.
    ‘That’s okay, Mr Halston,’ she says, and reaches back to place the chocolates carefully on the bedside table, out of harm’s way. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’



1
    St Péronne

October 1916
    I was dreaming of food. Crisp baguettes,
    the flesh of the bread a virginal white, still steaming from the oven, and ripe cheese,
    its borders creeping towards the edge of the plate. Grapes and plums, stacked high in
    bowls, dusky and fragrant, their scent filling the air. I was about to reach out and
    take one, when my sister stopped me. ‘Get off,’ I murmured. ‘I’m
    hungry.’
    ‘Sophie. Wake up.’
    I could taste that cheese. I was going to
    have a mouthful of Reblochon, smear it on a hunk of that warm bread, then pop a grape
    into my mouth. I could already taste the intense sweetness, smell the rich aroma.
    But there it was, my sister’s hand on
    my wrist, stopping me. The plates were disappearing, the scents fading. I reached out to
    them but they began to pop, like soap bubbles.
    ‘Sophie.’
    ‘
What?
’
    ‘They have Aurélien!’
    I turned on to my side and blinked. My
    sister was wearing a cotton bonnet, as I was, to keep warm. Her face, even in the feeble
    light of her candle, was leachedof colour, her eyes wide with shock.
    ‘They have Aurélien. Downstairs.’
    My mind began to clear. From below us came
    the sound of men shouting, their voices bouncing off the stone courtyard, the hens
    squawking in their coop. In the thick dark, the air vibrated with some terrible purpose.
    I sat upright in bed, dragging my gown around me, struggling to light the candle on my
    bedside table.
    I stumbled past her to the window and stared
    down into the courtyard at the soldiers, illuminated by the headlights of their vehicle,
    and my younger brother, his arms around his head, trying to avoid the rifle butts that
    landed blows on him.
    ‘What’s happening?’
    ‘They know about the pig.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Monsieur Suel must have informed on
    us. I heard them shouting from my room. They say they’ll take Aurélien if he
    doesn’t tell them where it is.’
    ‘He will say nothing,’ I
    said.
    We flinched as we heard our brother cry out.
    I hardly recognized my sister then: she looked twenty years older than her twenty-four
    years. I knew her fear was mirrored in my own face. This was what we had dreaded.
    ‘They have a
Kommandant
with
    them. If they find it,’ Hélène whispered, her voice cracking with panic,
    ‘they’ll arrest us all. You know what took place in Arras. They’ll
    make an example of us. What will happen to the children?’
    My mind raced, fear that my brother might
    speak out making me stupid. I wrapped a shawl around myshoulders and
    tiptoed to the window, peering out at the courtyard. The presence of a
Kommandant
suggested these were not just drunken soldiers looking to take
    out their frustrations with a few threats and knocks: we were in trouble. His presence
    meant we had committed a crime that should be taken seriously.
    ‘They will find it, Sophie. It will
    take them minutes. And then …’ Hélène’s voice rose, lifted by
    panic.
    My thoughts turned black. I closed my eyes.
    And then I opened them. ‘Go downstairs,’ I said. ‘Plead ignorance. Ask
    him what Aurélien has done wrong. Talk to him, distract him. Just give me some time
    before they come into the house.’
    ‘What are you going to do?’
    I gripped my sister’s arm. ‘Go.
    But tell them nothing, you understand? Deny
everything
.’
    My sister hesitated, then ran towards the
    corridor, her nightgown billowing behind her. I’m not sure I had ever felt as
    alone as I did in those few seconds, fear gripping my throat and the weight of my
    family’s fate upon me. I ran into Father’s study and scrabbled in the
    drawers of the great desk, hurling its contents – old pens, scraps of paper, pieces from
    broken clocks and ancient bills – on to the floor, thanking God when I finally found
    what I was searching for. Then I ran downstairs, opened the cellar door and skipped down
    the cold stone stairs, so sure-footed now in the dark that I barely needed the
    fluttering glow of the candle. I lifted the heavy latch to the back cellar, which had
    once been stacked to the roof with beer kegs and good wine, slid one of the empty
    barrels aside and opened the door of the old cast-iron bread