The Girl You Left Behind

you get the potato I left for you
     last week?’
    ‘I did.’ Her gaze slid sideways
     at Monsieur Armand. ‘I gave it to Madame Grenouille. She is … less
     particular about the provenance of her food.’
    I stood quite still. So this was how it was.
     The unfairness of it tasted like bitter ashes in my mouth. ‘Then I hope she
     enjoyed it. Monsieur Armand, I would like some bread, please. My loaf and
     Hélène’s, if you would be so kind.’ Oh, how I wished for one of
     his jokes, then. Some bawdy snippet or eye-rolling pun. But the baker just looked at me,
     his gaze steady and unfriendly. He didn’t walk into the back room, as I’d
     expected. In fact, he didn’t move. Just as I was about to repeat my request he
     reached under the counter and placed two loaves of black bread on its surface.
    I stared at them.
    The temperature in the little
boulangerie
seemed to drop, but I felt the eyes of the three other people
     like a burn. The loaves sat on the counter, squat and dark.
    I lifted my eyes and swallowed.
     ‘Actually, I have made a mistake. We are not in need of bread today,’ I said
     quietly, and placed my purse back in my basket.
    ‘I don’t suppose you’re in
     need of much at the moment,’ Madame Durant muttered.
    I turned and we stared at each other, the
     old womanand I. Then, my head high, I left the shop. The shame of
     it! The injustice! I saw the mocking looks of those two old ladies and realized I had
     been a fool. How could it have taken me so long to see what was going on under my nose?
     I strode back towards the hotel, my cheeks flushed, my mind racing. The ringing in my
     ears was so loud that I didn’t hear the voice at first.
    ‘
Halt!
’
    I stopped, and glanced around me.
    ‘
Halt!
’
    A German officer was marching towards me,
     his hand raised. I waited just under the ruined statue of Monsieur Leclerc, my cheeks
     still flushed. He walked right up to me. ‘You ignored me!’
    ‘I apologize, Officer. I did not hear
     you.’
    ‘It is an offence to ignore a German
     officer.’
    ‘As I said, I did not hear you. My
     apologies.’
    I unwound my scarf a little from my face.
     And then I saw who it was: the young officer who had drunkenly grabbed at
     Hélène in the bar, and whose head had been smashed against the wall for his
     pains. I saw the little scar on his temple, and I also saw he had recognized me too.
    ‘Your identity card.’
    It was not in my pocket. I had been so
     preoccupied with Aurélien’s words that I had left it on the hall table at the
     hotel.
    ‘I have forgotten it.’
    ‘It is an offence to leave your home
     without your identity card.’
    ‘It is just there.’ I pointed at
     the hotel. ‘If you walk over with me, I can get it –’
    ‘I’m not going anywhere. What is
     your business?’
    ‘I was just … going to the
boulangerie
.’
    He peered at my empty basket. ‘To buy
     invisible bread?’
    ‘I changed my mind.’
    ‘You must be eating well at the hotel,
     these days. Everybody else is keen to get their rations.’
    ‘I eat no better than anyone
     else.’
    ‘Empty your pockets.’
    ‘What?’
    He jabbed towards me with his rifle.
     ‘Empty your pockets. And remove some of those layers so I can see what you are
     carrying.’
    It was minus one in the daylight. The icy
     wind numbed every inch of exposed skin. I put down my pannier and slowly shed the first
     of my shawls. ‘Drop it. On the ground,’ he said. ‘And the next
     one.’
    I glanced around me. Across the square the
     customers in Le Coq Rouge would be watching. I slowly shed my second shawl, and then my
     heavy coat. I felt the blank windows of the square watching me.
    ‘Empty the pockets.’ He jabbed
     at my coat with his bayonet, so that it rubbed against the ice and mud. ‘Turn them
     inside out.’
    I bent down and put my hands into the
     pockets. I was shivering now, and my fingers, which were mauve, refused to obey me. In
     several attempts, I pulled from my jacket my ration book, two five-franc notes and a
     scrap of paper.
    He snatched at it. ‘What is
     this?’
    ‘Nothing of importance, Officer.
     Just … just a gift from my husband. Please let me have it.’
    I heard the panic in my voice, and even as I
     said thewords, I knew it had been a mistake. He opened
     Édouard’s little sketch of us; he the bear in his uniform, me serious in my
     starched blue dress. ‘This is confiscated,’ he said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘You are not