Sentimental Journey Read Free Page B

it.
    Sunshine, sudden, hot, and intense, hit her face. She was outside the alley, in the open and running over dust and hard-packed dirt.
    Someone called out, “Vite, vite, I’Americaine. Depeche!”
    She heard the truck suddenly bearing down on her. She heard the engine noise and the rattle of its axles as it bounced over the pocked dirt streets.
    She couldn’t run any faster.
    Beside her came the squealing scream of truck brakes. Inches away.
    She stopped, afraid of running into its path.
    Dust flew everywhere, into her nose, into her mouth. She stood in a cloud of it and waited for the impact, her eyes tightly shut . . . so ludicrous.
    She would die on the day she was free.
    Time stopped the way she’d always heard it did at moments like this.
    She continued to stand there, waiting, shaking, unable to move, her chest burning for a real breath. Against her legs she could feel the undulating heat from the truck engine.
    The truck tailgate opened with a junky rattle.
    She opened her eyes. The sun was so bright there was no shadow, no silhouette, nothing before her eyes. Breathing was impossible. She bent down and placed her hands on her knees, disoriented still, trying to catch a breath that was out of reach.
    Men jumped down out of the truck. She smelled male sweat, desert dust, and something else—the slightly burnt odor of starched and ironed twill. The smell of uniforms. The men wearing them surrounded her; their shadows blocked out the hot sun.
    She felt an incredible sense of relief. The Vichy could protect her from the man who chased her. She took one more shallow breath. “Aide. S’il vous plait. Un homme me chasse.”
    They said nothing. The Vichy had never given her any trouble other than the political quagmire that made her and others like her have to wait for exit papers. But that was all over now. She was going home.
    She straightened. “Pouvez-vous m’aider? Will you help me?”
    The only answer she got was the click of a rifle. Then another, and another, all around her, click . . . click . . . click . . . like doors of escape locking closed.
    “Quest ce que vous-voulez?” she said more forcefully.
    A man grabbed her shoulder. His hand was hot and sweaty. He was panting. It was her pursuer.
    Couscous. An inane thought. He had eaten couscous? What did that matter? She could feel the edges of hysteria: a laugh that was rising from her gut.
    He jerked the scarf from her head.
    Her laugh came out as a cry, small and final; the same pitiful noise the rabbits made when market butchers chopped their back feet off so they couldn’t run away.
    For just a moment she thought she might faint. She wobbled slightly, head down. Her loose hair fell into her face; it was damp and stringy and smelled of the Breck shampoo she’d used that morning.
    He grabbed her hair in a tight fist, then twisted it hard and jerked her head up and around so she faced him. The bright sun behind him made everything look white.
    She smelled that same frighteningly distinctive odor she’d first encountered years ago when she was just a kid, standing in front of a cage full of leopards at the zoo; it was the metallic, bloody smell of a predator, the kind of smell you never forgot. Now it was all around her, emanating from this man who was a good foot taller than she was.
    He twisted her hair again even harder.
    It hurt so badly she cried out.
    He laughed.
    She kicked him.
    He spun her by her hair so her back was against his chest, his other arm clamped hard across her ribs.
    “Someone help me!” she shouted. “Oh, God . . . Please! Help me!” she screamed it in English, in French, then in Italian.
    He let her go, then kicked her feet out from under her.
    She fell to her knees. Small, sharp pieces of gravel cut through her stockings. He stepped behind her and twisted her head back until her neck was exposed.
    Oh, God . . .
    He was going to slit her throat.
    She screamed as loud as she could.
    He laughed. The sound was