The Girl You Left Behind

have saved my husband. Would that have been such a
     terrible thing to do? Instead I had held on to this ridiculous notion that by allowing
     myself to become a thing, a vessel, I was somehow lessening my infidelity. I was somehow
     being true to us. As if that could make any difference to Édouard.
    Each day I waited, heart in mouth, and
     watched silently as the officers filed in and the
Kommandant
wasn’t with
     them. I was afraid to see him, but I was more afraid of his absence and what it might
     mean. One night, Hélène plucked up the courage to ask the officer with the
     salt-and-pepper moustache where he was, but he just waved a hand and said he was
     ‘too busy’. My sister’s eyesmet mine and I knew
     that was no comfort to either of us.
    I watched Hélène and felt cowed by
     the weight of my guilt. Every time she glanced at the children I knew she was wondering
     what would become of them. Once, I saw her talking quietly to the mayor, and I thought I
     heard her asking him to take them, if anything happened to her. I say this because he
     looked appalled, as if he were astonished that she should even think such a thing. I saw
     the new lines of strain as they threaded their way around her eyes and jaw, and knew
     that they were my doing.
    The smaller children seemed oblivious to our
     private fears. Jean and Mimi played as they always had, whining and complaining of cold
     or each other’s minor transgressions. Hunger made them fractious. I dared not take
     the smallest scrap from the German supplies now, but it was hard telling them no.
     Aurélien was again locked in his own unhappiness. He ate silently, and spoke to
     neither of us. I wondered if he had been fighting again at school, but I was too
     preoccupied to give it further thought. Édith knew, though. She had the sensitivity
     of a divining rod. She stuck to my side at all times. At night she slept with my
     nightgown clenched in her right hand, and when I woke her big dark eyes would be fixed
     on my face. When I caught sight of my reflection, my face was haggard, unrecognizable
     even to myself.
    News filtered through of two more towns
     taken by the Germans to the north-east. Our rations grew smaller. Each day seemed longer
     than the last. I served and cleaned and cooked but my thoughts were chaotic with
     exhaustion. Perhaps the
Kommandant
simply wouldn’t appear.Perhaps his shame at what had happened between us meant he
     couldn’t face seeing me. Perhaps he, too, felt guilt. Perhaps he was dead. Perhaps
     Édouard would walk through the door. Perhaps the war would end tomorrow. At this
     point I would usually have to sit down and take a breath.
    ‘Go upstairs and get some
     sleep,’ Hélène would murmur. I wondered if she hated me. I would have
     found it hard not to, if I were her.
    Twice I returned to my hidden letters, from
     the months before we had become a German territory. I read Édouard’s words,
     about the friends he had made, their paltry rations, their good spirits, and it was like
     listening to a ghost. I read his words of tenderness to me, his promise that he would be
     with me soon, that I occupied his every waking thought.
I do this for France but, more selfishly, I do it for us, so that I may travel
     back across a Free France to my wife. The comforts of home; our studio, coffee
     in the Bar du Lyons, our afternoons curled up in bed, you passing me pieces of
     peeled orange … Things that were domestic mundanity have now taken on
     the glowing hues of treasure. Do you know how much I long to bring you coffee?
     To watch you brush your hair? Do you know how I long to watch you laughing on
     the other side of the table, and know that I am the cause of your happiness? I
     bring out these memories to console myself, to remind me why I am here. Stay
     safe for me. Know that I remain
    Your devoted husband.
    I read his words and now there was an extra
     reason to wonder whether I would ever hear them again.
    I was down in the cellar, changing one of
     the casks of ale, when I heard footsteps on the flagstones. Hélène’s
     silhouette appeared in the doorway, blocking out the light.
    ‘The mayor is here. He says the
     Germans are coming for you.’
    My heart stopped.
    She ran to the dividing wall, and began
     pulling the loose bricks from their placements. ‘Go on – you can get out through
     next door if you hurry.’ She pulled them out, her hands scrabbling in her haste.
     When she had created a hole