The Girl You Left Behind

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     me, her hands raised, a tray of broken glasses at her feet. Against the wall, the
Kommandant
had a young man by the throat. He was shouting something at him
     in German, his face contorted, inches from the man’s own. His victim’s hands
     were up in a gesture of submission.
    ‘Hélène?’
    She was ashen. ‘He put his hand on me
     as I went past. But … but Herr Kommandant has gone
mad
.’
    The other men were around them now, pleading
     with the
Kommandant
, trying to pull him off, their chairs overturning, shouting
     over each other in an attempt to be heard. The whole place was briefly in uproar.
     Eventually the
Kommandant
seemed to hear them and loosened his grip on the
     younger man’s throat. I thought his eyes met mine, briefly, but then, as he took a
     step back, his fist shot out and he punched the man hard in the side of the head, so
     that his face ricocheted off the wall. ‘
Sie können nicht berühren die
     Frauen
,’ he yelled.
    ‘The kitchen.’ I pushed my
     sister towards the door, not even stopping to scoop up the broken glass. I heard the
     raised voices, the slam of a door, and I hurried after her down the hallway.
    ‘Madame Lefèvre.’
    I was washing the last of the glasses.
     Hélène had gone to bed; the day’s events had exhausted her even more
     than they had me.
    ‘Madame?’
    ‘Herr Kommandant.’ I turned to
     him, drying my hands on the cloth. We were down to one candle in the kitchen, a wick set
     in some fat in a sardine tin; I could barely make out his face.
    He stood in front of me, his cap in his
     hands. ‘I’m sorry about your glasses. I will make sure they are
     replaced.’
    ‘Please don’t bother. We have
     enough to get by.’ I knew any glasses would simply be requisitioned from my
     neighbours.
    ‘I’m sorry about … the
     young officer. Please assure your sister it will not happen again.’
    I didn’t doubt it. Through the back
     window I had seen the man being helped back to his billet by one of his friends, a wet
     cloth pressed to the side of his head.
    I thought the
Kommandant
might
     leave then, but he just stood there. I felt him staring at me. His eyes were unquiet,
     anguished almost.
    ‘The food tonight
     was … excellent. What was the name of the dish?’
    ‘
Chou farci
.’
    He waited, and when the pause grew
     uncomfortably long, I added, ‘It’s sausage-meat, some vegetables and herbs,
     wrapped in cabbage leaves and poached in stock.’
    He looked down at his feet. He took a few
     steps around the kitchen, then stopped, fingering a jar of utensils. I wondered,
     absently, if he were about to take them.
    ‘It was very good. Everyone said so.
     You asked me today what I would like to eat. Well … we would like to have that
     dish again before too long, if it is not too much trouble.’
    ‘As you wish.’
    There was something different about him this
     evening, some subtle air of agitation that rose off him in waves. I wondered how it felt
     to have killed a man, whether it felt any more unusual to a German
Kommandant
than taking a second cup of coffee.
    He glanced at me as if he were about to say
     something else, but I turned back to my pans. Behind him I could hear the drag of chair
     legs on the floor as the other officers prepared to leave. It was raining, a fine, mean
     spit that hit the windows almost horizontally.
    ‘You must be tired,’ he said.
     ‘I will leave you in peace.’
    I picked up a tray of glasses and followed
     him towards the door. As he reached it, he turned and put on his cap, so that I had to
     stop. ‘I have been meaning to ask. How is the baby?’
    ‘Jean? He is fine, thank you, if a
     little –’
    ‘No. The other baby.’
    I nearly dropped the tray. I hesitated for a
     moment, collecting myself, but I felt the blood rush to my neck. I knew he saw it.
    When I spoke again, my voice was thick. I
     kept my eyes on the glasses in front of me. ‘I believe we are all … as
     well as we can be, given the circumstances.’
    He thought about this. ‘Keep him
     safe,’ he said quietly. ‘Best he doesn’t come out in the night air too
     often.’ He looked at me a moment longer, then turned and was gone.

6
    I lay awake that night, despite my
     exhaustion. I watched Hélène sleep fitfully, murmuring, her hand reaching
     across unconsciously to check that her children were beside her. At five, while it was
     still dark, I climbed out of bed, wrapping myself in several blankets, and