The Girl You Left Behind

that stood on three legs in the
     corner. The floorboards had been stripped of their carpet and were grey, thick with
     dust. The bed was long gone, with the curtains, among the first things stolen when the
     Germans had taken our town. The marble fireplace had been ripped from the wall. For what
     reason, I do not know: it was not as if it could be used elsewhere. I think Becker had
     simply wanted to demoralize us, to remove all things of beauty.
    He took a step into the room.
    ‘Be careful where you walk,’ I
     said. He glanced down, then saw it: the corner of the room where they had attempted to
     remove the floorboards for firewood last spring. The house had been too well built, its
     boards nailed too securely, and they had given up after several hours when they had
     removed just three long planks. The hole, a gaping O of protest, exposed the beams
     beneath.
    The
Kommandant
stood for a minute,
     staring at the floor. He lifted his head and gazed around him. I had never been alone in
     a room with a German, and my heart was thumping. I could smell the faint hint of tobacco
     on him,see the rain splashes on his uniform. I watched the back of
     his neck, and eased my keys between my fingers, ready to hit him with my armoured fist
     should he suddenly attack me. I would not be the first woman who had had to fight for
     her honour.
    But he turned back to me. ‘Are they
     all as bad?’ he said.
    ‘No,’ I replied. ‘The
     others are worse.’
    He looked at me for such a long time that I
     almost coloured. But I refused to let that man intimidate me. I stared back at him, at
     his cropped greying hair, his translucent blue eyes, studying me from under his peaked
     cap. My chin remained lifted, my expression blank.
    Finally he turned and walked past me, down
     the stairs and into the back hallway. He stopped abruptly, peered up at my portrait and
     blinked twice, as if he were only now registering that I had moved it.
    ‘I will have someone inform you of
     when to expect the first delivery of food,’ he said. He went briskly through the
     doorway and back to the bar.

3
    ‘You should have said no.’
     Madame Durant poked a bony finger into my shoulder. I jumped. She wore a white frilled
     bonnet, and a faded blue crocheted cape was pinned around her shoulders. Those who
     complained about lack of news now that we were not allowed newspapers had evidently
     never crossed my neighbour’s path.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Feeding the Germans. You should have
     said no.’
    It was a freezing morning, and I had wrapped
     my scarf high around my face. I tugged it down to respond to her. ‘I should have
     said no? And you will say no, when they decide to occupy your house, will you,
     Madame?’
    ‘You and your sister are younger than
     I am. You have the strength to fight them.’
    ‘Unfortunately I lack the firearms of
     a battalion. What do you suggest I do? Barricade us all in? Throw cups and saucers at
     them?’
    She continued to berate me as I opened the
     door for her. The bakery no longer smelt like a bakery. It was still warm inside, but
     the scent of baguettes and croissants had long since disappeared. This small fact made
     me sad every time I crossed the threshold.
    ‘I swear I do not know what this
     country is coming to. If your father could have seen Germans in his hotel …’
     Madame Louvier had evidently been well briefed.She shook her head in
     disapproval as I approached the counter.
    ‘He would have done exactly the same
     thing.’
    Monsieur Armand, the baker, shushed them.
     ‘You cannot criticize Madame Lefèvre! We are all their puppets now. Madame
     Durant, do you criticize me for baking their bread?’
    ‘I just think it’s unpatriotic
     to do their bidding.’
    ‘Easy to say when you’re not the
     one facing a bullet.’
    ‘So, more of them are coming here?
     More of them pushing their way into our storerooms, eating our food, stealing our
     animals. I swear I do not know how we will survive this winter.’
    ‘As we always have, Madame Durant.
     With stoicism and good humour, praying that Our Lord, if not our brave boys, will give
     the Boche a royal kick up their backsides.’ Monsieur Armand winked at me.
     ‘Now, ladies, what would you like? We have week-old black bread, five-day-old
     black bread, and some black bread of indeterminate age, guaranteed free of
     weevils.’
    ‘There are days I would consider a
     weevil a welcome hors d’oeuvre,’ Madame Louvier said