The fresh bandages on her thighs lasted about fifteen miles, but by the time the road started to climb upward, they had twisted and rolled, leaving the flesh exposed again. The ones around her ankles lasted another five. One. Two. One. Two. Pushing down with one foot and then the other, inching forward along the rough country track, deeply shadowed by oak trees. The air was cool, but the forest seemed strangely quiet, stripped of birdsong, and there was no breeze to make the leaves stir and whisper. All Nancy could hear was her own breath.
Too steep. If the road had been flat, she could have built a rhythm, and then perhaps the pain would have dulled with its regular repetition, but the rough climbing ground made that impossible. Each turn of the wheels was a new torment. The straps from the radio set dug into her shoulders and the skin on her back where the edge of the case rested against her was slowly rubbing raw. And she still had God knew how many miles to go, almost all of them up.
Her thoughts came in short loops and flashes. Henri reading the newspaper at breakfast before the war broke out, setting down his coffee cup. The moment in the shadowed moonlight when Antoine blew his brains out. The secretary at the Free French Forces Headquarters. Böhm, holding his hand to his bleeding face. One. Two. One… Two… She knew a junction was coming up, the moment this track joined one of the metaled roads. There would be patrols. She’d be able to turn off it again after a mile or so, but while she was on it she’d be vulnerable.
The air was getting warm now, even under the shade of the trees. She turned onto the main road and the gradient increased a little. The blood from her thighs ran like rivulets of sweat down the inside of her leg. She glanced up. The sun was already past its zenith, and she had left the farm before dawn, so what was that—seven hours riding now? It felt like five minutes and an eternity.
Behind her she heard the drone of a petrol engine. Shit. That meant Germans.
She wiped the sweat out of her eyes and looked right and left. The banks rose steeply on each side of her, and the ditch at the side of the road was shallow and overgrown. She just had to keep going and hope that whoever was coming up behind her wasn’t looking for a woman with a case strapped to her back. But she needed to look ordinary, like a woman who had only gone a couple of miles, who was just on her way into the next village. Lift up your head, Nancy. Straighten your shoulders, Nancy. Smile. Look like you’re having fun. The pain shivered through her. The engine noise increased and they were on her, and passing her by, a flash of dark green, canvas, huge wheels, a low cloud of dust kicked up by the tires. She kept looking forward, head up.
One. Two. Three wagons. They didn’t even slow down, just pulled out a little so they didn’t knock her off the road. The last one was full of German troops, in their gray helmets and greenish tunics, crammed onto benches facing each other. The private at the back on the right-hand side, a boy in his late teens, smiled at her and raised his hand, a small private wave. She smiled back, and kept smiling until they disappeared out of sight around the next curve.
The track that led her off the main road again was rough, just earth in some places, gravel in others, with sudden pools of mud. It climbed then fell, climbed and fell. The bike wobbled and bounced over potholes dug by summer rain and grooves cut by horse-drawn carts. The daylight began to fade, and then it was only a matter of time. A twist of the path between fields, a steeper downward gradient than usual toward a wide and shallow stream, and a thick branch knocked loose in one of the sudden summer storms, not yet cleared away.
The front wheel caught and she was thrown forward over the handlebars. For a moment she was flying forward and sideways and too slow to do anything to save herself. She landed hard on her left side and the air was knocked out of her.
For a second or two, perhaps, she lost consciousness; it was difficult to tell given her mind had been a sort of dead white nothingness for hours. It was so peaceful here, lying on the earth. She could just hear the stream a hundred yards farther down the hill, and as the earth cooled, the air finally stirred the leaves very gently, like a hand through water.
“Nancy.”
There he was. Had he been away? She was so glad he was home.
“Nancy.”
Of course, he’d come back late in the afternoon yesterday, earlier than she’d expected, and he laughed at her, the way she threw herself into his arms, wrapped her legs around his waist. They hadn’t even made it upstairs, making love on the fancy sofa in the sitting room, hardly undressing, such was the immediate, absolute urgency.
“Nancy, my darling.”
Then where had they gone? The Hotel du Louvre et Paix, of course, by the harbor, where they could dine on the terrace and watch the boats coming and going as the last light faded, the fishermen carrying their baskets of lobsters straight into the kitchen where the chef waited to prepare Henri and Nancy’s supper. Had they been dancing? Ah, yes the Metropole! The barman there really understood that mixing a cocktail was an art. Nancy couldn’t help laughing, to see him so serious, but oh my, the drinks he could make, and they always had the best bands. Nancy had seen Rita Hayworth there once, and Maurice Chevalier twice.
“Listen to me, Nancy.”
Back home, purring up the hill in Henri’s favorite sports car, his hand always steady on the wheel no matter how much he’d drunk. She loved to see a man drive. Then making love again. In bed, this time, and drifting off to sleep in his arms under the cool white sheets.
“Nancy, you have to get up.”
She half opened her eyes. He was standing between her and the French windows that led onto the balcony; the lace curtains were billowing behind him in waves. Strange, Nancy couldn’t feel the breeze. How handsome he was, her Henri. How kind to her.
“I don’t want to, Henri darling, don’t make me,” she said.
He just kept looking at her. Why was he sad? How could he be sad on such a beautiful day?
“Open your eyes, Nancy.”
“I…”
His eyes were still kind, but his voice grew firm. “I mean it, Nancy. Open your eyes.”
She did. Marseille was gone. Henri was gone. She was lying in the dark on a path in the Auvergne, a radio strapped to her back, blood drying between her legs, her muscles cramping, her ribs bruised to hell, crazy with thirst. And now someone was crying, great racking sobs, a terrible, heart-wrenching sound. She listened, amazed, for a full minute before she realized it was her.
Henri, I fucked up. I fucked everything up. I’m so sorry. I was so stupid. I just… I didn’t know. The trees and the earth and the dark air said nothing. The things I have seen, Henri! The things I have done. I’ve killed men, got men killed. That girl, Jesus, what am I? Fuck, the Germans have killed children because of what I’ve done.
Eventually, the sobbing died away. Nothing had changed. She was still here, in occupied France. The dead were still dead and the living were waiting for her.
She pushed herself up on her knees, then, staggering under the weight of the radio, onto her feet, picked up the bicycle.
Fournier let go a stream of frightened obscenities when he saw her. The lookouts a hundred yards down the track had tried to help and had been told to fuck off, so they’d contented themselves with walking either side of her as she reached the cook house and barracks they’d set up in a deserted farm, half a mile from the barn where she’d left them, shepherding her on her way and making sure she didn’t hit any of the booby traps they’d set along the path.
For a moment it looked as if she was just going to keep going right through the camp, as if she’d forgotten how to even stop, but Tardivat grabbed the handles of the bike and held it. She looked at him, eyes dull and confused.
“For Christ’s sake, someone help her!” he shouted.
Fournier sprinted over and tried to lift her from the seat, but she pushed him away. It was a feeble push, but he stood back a pace, arms wide as she slowly climbed off. Her dress was torn and dirty, streaked with blood.
Denden carefully lifted the radio from her shoulders, slipping her arms free. Then she collapsed. Fournier caught her and carried her, gently as a bridegroom, to the farmhouse, shouting over his shoulder for a medic.