CHAPTER 12 - LILLE, FRANCE—OCTOBER 1, 1916 #2
He chewed a piece of sausage. Containing spice and fat, it was far more savory than the dry field sausage which tasted like baked leather. “It’s good.”
She nodded with her eyes lowered.
For several minutes, they ate without speaking. Utensils clicked against porcelain plates.
His mind raced with what to say. “Do you often encounter ill-behaved soldiers?”
She took a drink of wine. “More often than I would like.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Merci.” As she attempted to cut her sausage, the knife slipped from her fingers and clanged against the plate.
“Do I make you uncomfortable?”
“Non,” she said, her eyes avoiding him.
“Your German is quite good. Where did you learn to speak it?”
“When I was a young, my parents took me and my younger sisters on summer vacations in Switzerland.”
A childhood memory of Bruno’s mutter—abandoning him with nannies and spending months at a time in a Swiss chalet—flashed in his head. He buried the image and asked, “Is your family in Lille?”
“Paris,” she said. “It’s where I’m from.”
“Oh,” he said. “Why are you in Lille?”
She paused, rubbing a finger over her glass.
“It’s okay, if you don’t want to tell me.” He forked a piece of potato, crusted with bits of caramelized onion. “You’re an exceptional cook. It’s been many months since I’ve had something—”
“I was visiting my aunt Gabrielle when the Germans invaded Lille,” she said, looking up from her plate. “We were unable to make it out of the city.” She sipped wine. “This is her home.”
“It’s grand,” Bruno said. “I assume it caught the attention of the army to billet officers.”
“Oui,” she said.
“Where is Gabrielle?” he asked.
Celeste squeezed the stem of her glass with her fingers. “She was taken away.”
“Why?”
She took a gulp of wine. “A few months ago, twenty thousand women and girls were rounded up by the Germans and relocated to rural areas of occupied France.”
Oh, no. A wave of repugnance flooded his body.
“They’re coerced to perform farm labor to feed your country.” She took a jagged breath. “Many of the women were dragged away, kicking and screaming, by soldiers with bayonets.”
He ran a hand through his hair, attempting to comprehend the enormity of the mass roundup.
The British naval blockade is depleting Germany’s food supply, and now we’re resorting to forced labor to feed our people.
Despite the dire circumstances, he detested his country’s solution to nourish a starving population.
She took a swig of wine, as if to gather her courage. “To shame and degrade the women, the Germans forced them to undergo gynecological examinations.”
A revolting shock surged through him. “I—I’m deeply sorry,” he said.
Her hands trembled as she pushed away her plate.
“I wish there was something I could have done.”
“If you’d been here during the roundup, could you have stopped it?”
“Nein.” He refilled her glass as his mind struggled to find the right words. “You were fortunate not be taken.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.” She crossed her arms. “A hauptmann, who had billeted here, arranged for me to remain in the house as caretaker on the condition that I be his courtesan.”
Oh, God.
Her eyes welled with tears.
He gripped the table. “Did he hurt you?”
“Not anymore.” She rubbed her hands, as if she were spreading ointment. “He was killed at the front.”
Bruno’s veins flowed with disgust. Atrocities are not limited to the battlefield. I cannot begin to imagine the suffering that you’ve endured. “You must hate us.”
Her eyes met his. “Oui.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said, his voice fading to a whisper.
She dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “I say too much.”
“It’s okay.”
She took a deep breath and exhaled. “If you’re willing, monsieur, tell me something about you.”
“I’m from Frankfurt,” he said, his mind still reeling from Celeste’s story. “Prior to the war, I was a chemist in my father’s ink and dye business.”
She sipped wine. “Are you married?”
“I have a fiancée in Oldenburg. Her name is Anna. We met after I sustained an injury on the front. She was a nurse who mended my wounds.”
Celeste smiled.
“Do you have someone waiting for you in Paris?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Only my maman, papa, and sisters. I miss them terribly.”
“You’ll see them after the war.”
She ran her finger over the table. “But I’m afraid that they’ll think different of me.”
“Why?”
“I’m a collaborator,” she said. “In Lille, I’m the former mistress to a fallen enemy officer. I’m viewed no differently than the French prostitutes who work in the German brothels. Regardless of which side wins the war, my family will eventually learn of what I’ve done, and they’ll disown me.”
“They’ll understand.” You collaborated to survive. He appreciated Celeste’s trust in him, and her courage to speak candidly. But most of all, her fear of being rejected by her family resonated with him. As if by reflex, he said, “I worry that Anna will spurn me, too.”
Her eyebrows raised. “May I ask why?”
He swirled his wine, pondering if he should continue. Fueled by alcohol and Celeste’s display of vulnerability, he looked at her and said, “Because of the horrible things I’ve done.”
“It’s war,” she said. “She’ll forgive you for what you did.”
A flash of gassed corpses, their faces blue and bellies bloated. Death is death, regardless of how it is inflicted, Haber’s mantra replayed in his head. “I do not believe that will be possible.”
She smoothed her skirt and placed a hand on Bruno’s fingers.
His skin tingled.
“Perhaps after the war,” she said, “we’ll find absolution for our sins.”
Bruno nodded.
“Good night, Herr Wahler. Merci for inviting me to join you.” Celeste stood and carried the plates to the kitchen.
Bruno finished the last of the wine, and then went to his room. Shaken from his conversation with Celeste, he was unable to sleep. He retrieved a pencil and paper from his case to write a letter to Anna, but the words never came.