The Girl You Left Behind

conjure feasts out of ever shrinking amounts of meat and
     vegetables. Trouble was edging closer.
    The
Journal des Occupés,
when
     it came, spoke of villages we knew. At night it was not unusual for the distant boom of
     the guns to cause faint ripples in the glasses on our tables. It was some days before I
     realized that the missing sound was that of birdsong. We had received word that all
     girls from the age of sixteen and all boys from fifteen would now be required to work
     for the Germans, pulling sugar beet or tending potatoes, or sent further afield to work
     in factories. With Aurélien only months from his fifteenthbirthday, Hélène and I became increasingly tense. Rumours were rife as to
     what happened to the young, with stories of girls billeted with gangs of criminal men
     or, worse, instructed to ‘entertain’ German soldiers. Boys were starved or
     beaten, moved around constantly so that they remained disoriented and obedient. Despite
     our ages Hélène and I were exempt, we were informed, because we were
     considered ‘essential to German welfare’ at the hotel. That alone would be
     enough to stir resentment among the rest of our village when it became known.
    There was something else. It was a subtle
     change, but I was conscious of it. Fewer people were coming to Le Coq Rouge in the
     daytime. From our usual twenty-odd faces, we were down to around eight. At first I
     thought the cold was keeping people indoors. Then I became worried, and called on old
     René to see if he was ill. But he met me at the door and said gruffly that he
     preferred to stay at home. He did not look at me as he spoke. The same happened when I
     went to call on Madame Foubert and the wife of the mayor. I was left feeling strangely
     unbalanced. I told myself that it was all in my imagination, but one lunchtime I
     happened to walk past Le Bar Blanc on my way to the pharmacy, and saw René and
     Madame Foubert sitting inside at a table, playing draughts. I was convinced my eyes had
     deceived me. When it became clear that they hadn’t, I put my head down and hurried
     past.
    Only Liliane Béthune spared me a
     friendly smile. I caught her, shortly before dawn one morning, as she slid an envelope
     under my door. She jumped as I undid the bolts. ‘Oh,
mon Dieu
– thank
     heaven it’s you,’ she said, her hand at her mouth.
    ‘Is this what I think it is?’ I
     said, glancing down at the oversized envelope, addressed to nobody.
    ‘Who knows?’ she said, already
     turning back towards the square. ‘I see nothing there.’
    But Liliane Béthune was in a minority
     of one. As the days crept on I noticed other things: if I walked into our bar from the
     kitchen, the conversation would quieten a little, as if whoever was talking were
     determined that I should not overhear. If I spoke up during a conversation, it was as if
     I had said nothing. Twice I offered a little jar of stock or soup to the mayor’s
     wife, only to be told that they had plenty, thank you. She had developed a peculiar way
     of talking to me, not unfriendly exactly but as though it were something of a relief
     when I gave up trying. I would never have admitted it, but it was almost a comfort when
     night fell and the restaurant was full of voices again, even if they did happen to be
     German.
    It was Aurélien who enlightened me.
    ‘Sophie?’
    ‘Yes?’ I was making the pastry
     for a rabbit and vegetable pie. My hands and apron were covered with flour, and I was
     wondering whether I could safely bake the off-cuts into little biscuits for the
     children.
    ‘Can I ask you something?’
    ‘Of course.’ I dusted my hands
     on my apron. My little brother was looking at me with a peculiar expression, as if he
     were trying to work something out.
    ‘Do you … do you like the
     Germans?’
    ‘Do I
like
them?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What a ridiculous question. Of course
     not. I wish theywould all be gone and that we could return to our
     lives as before.’
    ‘But you like Herr
     Kommandant.’
    I stopped, my hands on my rolling pin and
     spun round. ‘You know this is dangerous talk, the kind of talk that could get us
     all into terrible trouble.’
    ‘It is not my talk that is getting us
     into trouble.’
    Outside, in the bar, I could hear the
     townspeople talking. I walked over and closed the kitchen door, so that it was just the
     two of us in the kitchen. When I spoke again I kept my voice low and measured.
     ‘Say what you wish