The Girl You Left Behind

over like a shepherd’s crook, her
     hands resting on a small bag.
    Another woman, neatly dressed in navy,
     hurries in behind Paul, consults with him in whispers. He gestures towards the
     judge.
    ‘My grandmother has some important
     information regarding this case,’ the woman says. She speaks with a strong French
     accent, and as she walks down the centre aisle, she glances awkwardly to the people on
     either side.
    The judge throws up his hands. ‘Why
     not?’ he mutters audibly. ‘Everyone else seems to want to have a say.
     Let’s see if the cleaner would like to express her view, why don’t
     we?’
    The woman waits, and he says, exasperated,
     ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Madame. Do approach the bench.’
    They exchange a few words. The judge calls
     over the two barristers, and the conversation extends.
    ‘What is this?’ Henry keeps
     saying, beside Liv. ‘What on earth is going on?’
    A hush settles over the court.
    ‘It appears we should hear what this
     woman has to say,’the judge says. He picks up his pen and
     leafs through his notes. ‘I’m wondering if anybody here is going to be
     interested in something as mundane as an actual verdict.’
    The old woman’s chair is wheeled round
     and positioned near the front of the court. She speaks her first words in French, and
     her granddaughter translates.
    ‘Before the future of the painting is
     decided, there is something you must know. This case is based on a false premise.’
     She pauses, stooping to hear the old woman’s words, then straightens up again.
     ‘
The Girl You Left Behind
was never stolen.’
    The judge leans forward a little. ‘And
     how would you know this, Madame?’
    Liv lifts her face to look up at Paul. His
     gaze is direct, steady and oddly triumphant.
    The older woman lifts a hand, as if to
     dismiss her granddaughter. She clears her throat and speaks slowly and clearly, this
     time in English. ‘Because I am the person who gave it to Kommandant Hencken. My
     name is Édith Béthune.’

35
    1917
    I was unloaded some time after dawn. I
     don’t know how long we had been on the road: fever had invaded me so my days and
     my dreams had become jumbled and I could no longer be sure whether I still existed, or
     whether, like a spectre, I flitted in and out of some other reality. When I closed my
     eyes, I saw my sister pulling up the blinds of the bar window, turning to me with a
     smile, the sun illuminating her hair. I saw Mimi laughing. I saw Édouard, his face,
     his hands, heard his voice in my ear, soft and intimate. I would reach out to touch him,
     but he would vanish, and I would wake on the floor of the truck, my eyes level with a
     soldier’s boots, my head thumping painfully as we passed over every rut in the
     road.
    I saw Liliane.
    Her body was out there, somewhere on the
     Hannover road, where they had tossed it, cursing, as if she were a sandbag. I had spent
     the hours since speckled with her blood and worse. My clothes were coloured with it. I
     tasted it on my lips. It lay congealed and sticky on the floor from which I no longer
     had the energy to raise myself. I no longer felt the lice that ate me. I was numb. I
     felt no more alive than Liliane’s corpse.
    The soldier opposite sat as far away from me
     as possible,furious at the staining of his uniform, at the
     dressing-down he had received from his superior for Liliane’s theft of his gun,
     his face turned to the canvas sheeting that let in air from outside. I saw his look: it
     spoke of revulsion. I was no longer a human being to him. I tried to remember when I had
     been more than a thing, when even in a town full of Germans I had possessed dignity,
     commanded some respect, but it was hard. My whole world seemed to have become this
     truck. This hard metal floor. This woollen sleeve, with its dark red stain.
    The truck rumbled and lurched through the
     night, stopping briefly. I drifted in and out of consciousness, woken only by pain or
     the ferocity of my fever. I breathed in the cold air, cigarette smoke, heard the men
     speak in the front of the cab and wondered if I would ever hear a French voice
     again.
    And then, at dawn, it juddered to a halt. I
     opened my sore eyes, unable to move, listening to the young soldier scrambling out of
     the truck. I heard him stretch with a groan, the click of a cigarette lighter, German
     voices in low conversation. I heard the vigorous, indelicate sound of men relieving
     themselves,