فصل 20

20

February 1917

Dearest sister

It is three weeks and four days since you left. I dont know if this letter will find you or, indeed, if the others did. The mayor has set up a new line of communication and promises he will send this on once he gets word that it is secure. So I wait, and I pray.

It has rained for fourteen days, turning what remained of the roads to mud that sucks at our legs and pulls the horses shoes from their hoofs. We have rarely ventured out beyond the square it is too cold and too difficult, and in truth I no longer wish to leave the children, even if just for a few minutes. Édith sat by the window for three days after you left, refusing to move, until I feared she would be ill and physically forced her to come to the table and, later, to bed. She no longer speaks. Im afraid I have barely had time to comfort her. There are fewer Germans coming in the evenings now, but enough that I have to work every night until midnight just to feed and clear up after them.

Aurélien disappeared. He left shortly after you did. I hear from Madame Louvier that he is still in St Péronne, staying with Jacques Arriège above the tabac, but in truth I have no appetite to see him. He is no better than Kommandant Hencken in his betrayal of you. For all your faith in peoples goodness, I cannot believe that if Herr Kommandant genuinely wished you well he would have torn you from our embrace in such a manner, so that the whole town might become aware of your alleged sins. I cannot see any evidence of humanity in either of their actions. I simply cannot.

I pray for you, Sophie. I see your face when I wake in the morning, and when I turn over some part of me startles that you are not there on the other pillow, your hair tied in a fat plait, making me laugh and conjuring food from your imagination. I turn to call for you at the bar and there is just a silence where you should be. Mimi climbs up to your bedroom and peers in as if she, too, expects to find you, seated before your bureau, writing or gazing into the middle distance, your head full of dreams. Do you remember when we used to stand at that window and imagine what lay beyond it? When we dreamed of fairies and princesses and those noblemen who might come to rescue us? I wonder what our childish selves would have made of this place now, with its pocked roads, its men like wraiths in rags, and its starving children.

The town has been so quiet since you left. Madame Louvier comes in, perverse to the last, and insists that your name must still be heard. She harangues anyone who will listen. Herr Kommandant is not among the handful of Germans who arrive for their meal in the evening. I truly believe he cannot meet my gaze. Or perhaps he knows I should like to run him through with my good paring knife and has decided to stay away.

Little snippets of information still find their way through a scrap of paper under my door told of another outbreak of influenza near Lille, a convoy of Allied soldiers captured near Douai, horses killed for meat on the Belgian border. No word from Jean-Michel. No word from you.

Some days I feel as if I am buried in a mine and can hear only the echoes of voices at some distance. All those I love, aside from the children, have been taken away from me and I no longer know whether any of you are alive or dead. Sometimes my fear for you grows so great that I find myself paralysed, and I will be in the middle of stirring some soup or laying a table and I have to force myself to breathe, to tell myself I must be strong for the children. Most of all, I must have faith. What would Sophie do? I ask myself firmly, and the answer is always clear.

Please, beloved sister, take care. Do not inflame the Germans further, even if they are your captors. Do not take risks, no matter how great the impulse. All that matters is that you return to us safely you and Jean-Michel and your beloved Édouard. I tell myself that this letter will reach you. I tell myself that perhaps, just perhaps, the two of you are together, and not in the way that I fear most. I tell myself God must be just, however He chooses to toy with our futures this dark day.

Stay safe, Sophie.

Your loving sister Hélène