The Girl You Left Behind

her hands
     wound into my hair. And I wept silently in the darkness, until finally, overcome by
     exhaustion, I, too, fell asleep.
    I woke, and for several seconds I did not
     know where I was. Édouard’s arm was around me, his weight against me. There
     was a tiny crack in time, through which relief flooded –
he was here! –
before
     I realized that it was not my husband pressing against me. A man’s hand, furtive
     and insistent, was snaking its way inside my skirt, shielded by the dark, perhaps by his
     belief in my fear and exhaustion. I lay rigid, my mind turning to cold, hard fury as I
     understood what this intruder felt he could take from me. Should I scream? Would anyone
     care if I did? Would the Germans take it as another excuse to punish me? As I moved my
     arm slowly from its position half underneath me, my hand brushed against a shard of
     glass, cold and sharp, where it had been blasted from the windows. I closed my fingers
     around it and then, almost before I could consider what I was doing, I had spun on to my
     side and had its jagged edge pressed against the throat of my unknown assailant.
    ‘Touch me again and I will run this
     through you,’ I whispered. I could smell his stale breath and feel his shock. He
     had not expected resistance. I was not even sure he understood my words. But he
     understood that sharp edge. He lifted his hands, a gesture of surrender, perhaps of
     apology. I kept the glass pressed where it was for a moment longer, a message of my
     intent. In the nearpitch dark my gaze briefly met his and I saw that
     he was afraid. He, too, had found himself in a world where there were no rules, no
     order. If it was a world where he might assault a stranger, it was also a world where
     she might slit his throat. The moment I released the pressure he scrambled to his feet.
     I could just make out his shape as it stumbled across the sleeping bodies to the other
     side of the factory.
    I tucked the glass fragment into my skirt
     pocket, sat upright, my arms shielding Liliane’s sleeping form, and waited.
    It seemed I had been asleep a matter of
     minutes when we were woken by shouting. German guards were moving through the middle of
     the room, hitting sleepers with the butts of their rifles to rouse them, kicking with
     their boots. I pushed myself upright. Pain shot through my head, and I stifled a cry.
     Through blurred vision I saw the soldiers moving towards us and pulled at Liliane,
     trying to get her upright before they could hit us.
    In the harsh blue light of dawn, I could see
     our surroundings clearly. The factory was enormous and semi-derelict, a gaping,
     splintered hole at the centre of the roof, beams and windows scattered across the floor.
     At the far end the trestle tables were serving something that might have been coffee,
     and a hunk of black bread. I lifted Liliane – I had to get her across that vast space
     before the food ran out. ‘Where are we?’ she said, peering out of the
     shattered window. A distant boom told us we must be near the Front.
    ‘I have no idea,’ I said, filled
     with relief that she felt well enough to engage in some small conversation with me.
    We got the cup filled with coffee, and some
     in the Frenchman’s bowl. I looked for him, anxious that we might be depriving him,
     but a German officer was already dividing the men into groups, and some of them were
     filing away from the factory. Liliane and I were ordered into a separate group of mainly
     women, and directed towards a communal water closet. In daylight, I could see the dirt
     ingrained in the other women’s skin, the grey lice that crawled freely upon their
     heads. I itched, and looked down to see one on my skirt. I brushed it off with a sense
     of futility. I would not escape them, I knew. It was impossible to spend so much time in
     close contact with others and avoid them.
    There must have been three hundred women
     trying to wash and use the lavatory in a space designed for twelve people. By the time I
     could get Liliane anywhere close to the cubicles, we both retched at what we found. We
     cleaned ourselves at the cold-water pump as best we could, following the lead of the
     other women: they barely removed their clothes to wash, and glanced about warily, as if
     waiting for some subterfuge by the Germans. ‘Sometimes they burst in,’
     Liliane said. ‘It is easier – and safer – to stay clothed.’
    While the Germans were busy with the men, I