The Girl You Left Behind

emerged, sounded unlike my own.
    ‘This is a hard winter. And I think we
     have some months of it to come yet. Would you like a drink?’ He moved to a small
     table, and poured two glasses of wine from a carafe. I took one from him wordlessly. I
     was still shivering from my walk.
    ‘You can put the package down,’
     he said.
    I had forgotten I was holding it. I lowered
     it to the floor, still standing.
    ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Please
     sit.’ He seemed almost irritated when I hesitated, as if my nervousness were an
     insult.
    I sat on one of the wooden chairs, one hand
     resting against the frame of the painting. I don’t know why I found it a
     comfort.
    ‘I did not come to eat at the hotel
     tonight. I thought about what you said, that you are already considered a traitor for
     our presence in your home.’
    I took a sip of my wine.
    ‘I do not wish to cause you more
     problems, Sophie … more than we already cause you by our
     occupation.’
    I didn’t know what to say to this. I
     took another sip. His eyes kept darting to mine, as if he were waiting for some
     response.
    From across the courtyard we could hear
     singing. I wondered whether the girls were with the men, then who they were, which
     villages they had come from. Would they, too, be paraded through the streets as
     criminals afterwards for what they had done? Did they know the fate of Liliane
     Béthune?
    ‘Are you hungry?’ He gestured
     towards a small tray of bread and cheese. I shook my head. I had had no appetite all
     day.
    ‘It’s not quite up to the normal
     standards of your cooking, I admit. I was thinking the other day of that duck dish you
     made last month. With the orange. Perhaps you would do that for us again.’ He kept
     talking. ‘But our supplies are dwindling. I found myself dreaming of a Christmas
     cake called
Stollen
. Do you have it in France?’
    I shook my head again.
    We sat on each side of the fire. I felt
     electrified, as if each part of me were fizzing, transparent. I felt as if he could see
     through my skin. He knew everything. He held everything. I listened to the distant
     voices, and every now and then my presence there hit me.
I am alone with a
Kommandant,
in the German barracks. In a room with a bed.
    ‘Did you think about what I
     said?’ I blurted out.
    He stared at me for a minute. ‘You
     would not allow us the pleasure of a small conversation?’
    I swallowed. ‘I’m sorry. But I
     must know.’
    He took a sip of wine. ‘I have thought
     of little else.’
    ‘Then …’ My breath stalled
     in my chest. I leaned over, put my glass down and unwrapped the painting. I placed it
     against the chair, lit by the fire, so that he could see it in its finest aspect.
     ‘Will you take it? Will you take it in exchange for my husband’s
     freedom?’
    The air in the room grew still. He
     didn’t look at the picture. His eyes stayed on mine, unblinking, unreadable.
    ‘If I could convey to you what this
     painting means to me … if you knew how it had kept me going in the darkest of
     days … you would know I could not offer it lightly. But I … would
     not mind the painting going to you, Herr Kommandant.’
    ‘Friedrich. Call me
     Friedrich.’
    ‘Friedrich. I … have long
     known that you understood my husband’s work. You understand beauty. You understand
     what an artist puts of himself into a piece of work, and why it is a thing of infinite
     value. So while it will break my heart to lose it, I give it willingly. To
     you.’
    He was still staring at me. I did not look
     away. Everything depended on this moment. I saw an old scar running several inches from
     his left ear down his neck, a lightly silvered ridge. I saw that his bright blue eyes
     were rimmed with black, as if someone had drawn around each iris for emphasis.
    ‘It was never about the painting,
     Sophie.’
    And there it was: confirmation of my
     fate.
    I closed my eyes briefly and let myself
     absorb this knowledge.
    The
Kommandant
began to talk about
     art. He spoke of an art teacher he had known as a young man, a teacher who had opened
     his eyes to work far from the classicism of his upbringing. He spoke of how he had tried
     to explain this rougher, more elemental way of painting to his father, and his
     disappointment at the older man’s incomprehension. ‘He told me it looked
     “unfinished”,’ he said sadly. ‘He believed that veering from the
     traditional was an act of rebellion in