The Girl You Left Behind Read Free Page B

perhaps enough
     for him to know I had believed myself doomed. He was smart, this man, and subtle. I
     would have to be wary.
    ‘Men.’
    His soldiers turned, blindly obedient as
     ever, and walked out towards their vehicle, their uniforms silhouetted against the
     headlights. I followed him and stood just outside the door. The last I heard of his
     voice was the order to the driver to make for the town.
    We waited as the military vehicle travelled
     back down the road, its headlights feeling their way along the pitted surface.
     Hélène had begun to shake. She scrambled to her feet, her hand white-knuckled
     at her brow, her eyes tightly shut. Aurélien stood awkwardly beside me, holding
     Mimi’s hand, embarrassed by his childish tears. I waited for the last sounds of
     the engine to die away. It whined over the hill, as if it, too, were acting under
     protest.
    ‘Are you hurt, Aurélien?’ I
     touched his head. Flesh wounds. And bruises. What kind of men attacked an unarmed
     boy?
    He flinched. ‘It didn’t
     hurt,’ he said. ‘They didn’t frighten me.’
    ‘I thought he would arrest you,’
     my sister said. ‘I thought he would arrest us all.’ I was afraid when she
     looked like that: as if she were teetering on the edge of some vast abyss. She wiped her
     eyes and forced a smile as she crouched to hug her daughter. ‘Silly Germans. They
     gave us all a fright, didn’t they? Silly Maman for being frightened.’
    The child watched her mother, silent and
     solemn. Sometimes I wondered if I would ever see Mimi laugh again.
    ‘I’m sorry. I’m all right
     now,’ she went on. ‘Let’s all go inside. Mimi, we have a little milk I
     will warm for you.’ She wiped her hands on her bloodied gown, and held her hands
     towards me for the baby. ‘You want me to take Jean?’
    I had started to tremble convulsively, as if
     I had only just realized how afraid I should have been. My legs felt watery, their
     strength seeping into the cobblestones. I felt a desperate urge to sit down.
     ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose you should.’
    My sister reached out, then gave a small
     cry. Nestling in the blankets, swaddled neatly so that it was barely exposed to the
     night air, was the pink, hairy snout of the piglet.
    ‘Jean is asleep upstairs,’ I
     said. I thrust a hand at the wall to keep myself upright.
    Aurélien looked over her shoulder. They
     all stared at it.
    ‘
Mon Dieu
.’
    ‘Is it dead?’
    ‘Chloroformed. I remembered Papa had a
     bottle in his study, from his butterfly-collecting days. I think it will wake up. But
     we’re going to have to find somewhere else to keep it for when they return. And
     you know they will return.’
    Aurélien smiled then, a rare, slow
     smile of delight. Hélène stooped to show Mimi the comatose little pig, and
     they grinned. Hélène kept touching its snout, clamping a hand over her face,
     as if she couldn’t believe what she was holding.
    ‘You held the pig before them? They
     came here and you held it out in front of their noses? And then you told them off for
coming here
?’ Her voice was incredulous.
    ‘In front of their snouts,’ said
     Aurélien, who seemed suddenly to have recovered some of his swagger. ‘Hah!
     You held it in front of their snouts!’
    I sat down on the cobbles and began to
     laugh. I laughed until my skin grew chilled and I didn’t know whether I was
     laughing or weeping. My brother, perhaps afraid I was becoming hysterical, took my hand
     and rested against me. He was fourteen, sometimes bristling like a man, sometimes
     childlike in his need for reassurance.
    Hélène was still deep in thought.
     ‘If I had known …’ she said. ‘How did you become so brave,
     Sophie? My little sister! Who made you like this? You were a mouse when we were
     children. A mouse!’
    I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.
    And then, as we finally walked back into the
     house, as Hélène busied herself with the milk pan and Aurélien began to
     wash