The Girl You Left Behind

do.’
    ‘You should know, Madame, that nothing
     escapes me in this little town. Nothing.’
    I couldn’t meet his eyes. I was afraid
     that this time my face, the rapid beating of my heart, would betray me. I wished I could
     wipe from my mind all knowledge of the feast that was taking place a few hundred yards
     from here. I wished I could escape the feeling that the
Kommandant
was playing
     a game of cat and mouse with me.
    I took another sip of my cognac. The men
     were singing again. I knew this carol. I could almost make out the words.
    Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht.
    Alles schläft; einsam wacht.
    Why did he keep looking at me? I was afraid
     to speak, afraid to get up again in case he asked awkward questions. Yet just to sit and
     let him stare at me seemed to make me complicit in something. Finally I took a small
     breath and looked up. He was still watching me. ‘Madame, will you dance with me?
     Just one dance? For Christmas’s sake?’
    ‘Dance?’
    ‘Just one dance. I would
     like … I would like to be reminded of humanity’s better side, just once
     this year.’
    ‘I don’t … I
     don’t think …’ I thought of Hélène and the others, down the
     road, free, for one evening. I thought of Liliane Béthune. I studied the
Kommandant
’s face. His request seemed genuine.
We shall
     just … be two people …
    And then I thought of my husband. Would I
     wish himto have a sympathetic pair of arms to dance in? Just for one
     evening? Did I not hope that somewhere, many miles away, some good-hearted woman might
     remind him in a quiet bar that the world could be a place of beauty?
    ‘I will dance with you, Herr
     Kommandant,’ I said. ‘But only in the kitchen.’
    He stood, held out his hand and, after a
     slight hesitation, I took it. His palm was surprisingly rough. I moved a few steps
     closer, not looking at his face and then he rested his other hand on my waist. As the
     men in the next room sang, we began to move slowly around the table, me acutely aware of
     his body only inches from my own, the pressure of his hand on my corset. I felt the
     rough serge of his uniform against my bare arm, and the soft vibration of his humming
     through his chest. I felt as if I were almost alight with tension, every sense
     monitoring my fingers, my arms, trying to ensure that I did not get too close, fearful
     that at any point he might pull me to him.
    And all the while a voice repeated in my
     head,
I am dancing with a German.
    Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
    Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht …
    But he didn’t do anything. He hummed,
     and he held me lightly, and he moved steadily in circles around the kitchen table. And
     just for a few minutes I closed my eyes and was a girl, alive, free from hunger and
     cold, dancing on the night before Christmas, my head a little giddy from good cognac,
     breathing in the scent of spices and delicious food. I lived as Édouard lived,
     relishing each small pleasure,allowing myself to see beauty in all
     of it. It was two years since a man had held me. I closed my eyes, relaxed and let
     myself feel all of it, allowing my partner to swing me round, his voice still humming
     into my ear.
    Christ, in deiner Geburt!
    Christ, in deiner Geburt!
    The singing stopped and after a moment,
     almost reluctantly, he stepped back, releasing me. ‘Thank you, Madame. Thank you
     very much.’
    When I finally dared to look up there were
     tears in his eyes.
    The next morning a small crate arrived on
     our doorstep. It contained three eggs, a small
poussin
, an onion and a carrot.
     On the side, in careful script, was marked:
Fröhliche Weihnachten.
‘It
     means “Merry Christmas”,’ Aurélien said. For some reason he
     refused to look at me.

7
    As the temperatures dropped, the Germans
     tightened their control over St Péronne. The town became uneasy, greater numbers of
     troops coming through daily; the officers’ conversations in the bar took on a new
     urgency, so that Hélène and I spent most of our time in the kitchen. The
Kommandant
barely spoke to me; he spent much of his time huddled with a few
     trusted men. He looked exhausted, and when I heard his voice in the dining room it was
     often raised in anger.
    Several times that January French prisoners
     of war were marched up the main street and past the hotel, but we were no longer allowed
     to stand on the pavement to watch them. Food became ever scarcer, our official rations
     dropped, and I was expected to