The Girl You Left Behind

plan to the mayor in front of her two
     days later. ‘If you remain here you will be the one person to miss it.
     That’s not right, given all you did to safeguard the pig.’
    ‘One of us has to stay,’ I
     pointed out. ‘You know it’s far safer if we can be sure that the officers
     are all in one place.’
    ‘But it won’t be the
     same.’
    ‘Well, nothing
is
the
     same,’ I said curtly. ‘And you know as well as I do that Herr Kommandant
     will notice if I am gone.’
    I saw her exchange glances with the
     mayor.
    ‘Hélène, don’t fuss. I
     am
la patronne
. He expects to see me here every evening. He will know something
     is going on if I am missing.’
    I sounded, even to my own ears, as if I was
     protesting too much. ‘Look,’ I continued, forcing myself to sound
     conciliatory. ‘Save me some meat. Bring it back in a napkin. I can promise you
     that, if the Germans are given rations enough to feast on, I will make sure I help
     myself to a share. I will not suffer. I promise.’
    They appeared mollified, but I
     couldn’t tell them the truth. Ever since I had discovered that the
Kommandant
knew about the pig, I had lost my appetite for it. That he had
     not revealed his knowledge of its existence, let alone punished us, didn’t make me
     joyous with relief, but deeply uneasy.
    Now when I saw him staring at my portrait, I
     no longer felt gratified that even a German could recognize myhusband’s talent. When he walked into the kitchen to make casual conversation, I
     became stiff and tense, afraid he might mention it.
    ‘Yet again,’ the mayor said,
     ‘I suspect we find ourselves in your debt.’ He looked beaten down. His
     daughter had been ill for a week; his wife had once told me that every time Louisa fell
     ill he barely slept for anxiety.
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I
     said briskly. ‘Compared to what our men are doing, this is just another
     day’s work.’
    My sister knew me too well. She didn’t
     ask questions directly; that was not Hélène’s style. But I could feel
     her watching me, could hear the faint edge to her voice whenever the question of the
réveillon
was raised. Finally, a week before Christmas, I confided in
     her. She had been sitting on the side of her bed, doing her hair. The brush stilled in
     her hand. ‘Why do you think he has not told anyone?’ I asked, when I
     finished.
    She stared at the bedspread. When she looked
     at me it was with a kind of dread. ‘I think he likes you,’ she said.
    The week before Christmas was busy, even
     though we had little with which to prepare for the festivities. Hélène and a
     couple of the older women had been sewing rag dolls for the children. They were
     primitive, their skirts made of sacking, their faces embroidered stockings. But it was
     important that the children who remained in St Péronne had a little magic in that
     bleak Christmas.
    I grew a little bolder in my own efforts.
     Twice I stole potatoes from the German rations, mashing what was left to disguise the
     smaller amounts, and ferried them in my pockets to those who seemed particularly frail.
     I stolethe smaller carrots and fed them into the hem of my skirt so
     that even when I was stopped and searched, they found nothing. To the mayor I took two
     jars of chicken stock, so that his wife could make Louisa a little broth. The child was
     pale and feverish; his wife told me she kept little down and seemed to be retreating
     into herself. Looking at her, swallowed by the vast old bed with its threadbare
     blankets, listless and coughing intermittently, I thought briefly that I could hardly
     blame her. What life was this for children?
    We tried to hide the worst of it from them
     as best we could, but they found themselves in a world where men were shot in the
     street, where strangers hauled their mothers from their beds by their hair for some
     trivial offence, like walking in a banned wood or failing to show a German officer
     sufficient respect. Mimi viewed our world with silent, suspicious eyes, which broke
     Hélène’s heart. Aurélien grew angry: I could see it building in
     him, like a volcanic force, and I prayed daily that when he finally erupted, it would
     not come at huge cost to himself.
    But the biggest news that week was the
     arrival through my door of a newspaper, roughly printed, and entitled
Journal des
     Occupés
. The only newspaper allowed in St Péronne was the
     German-controlled
Bulletin de Lille
, which was so