The Girl You Left Behind

mournfully.
    ‘Then I will save a jam jar full for
     you, my dear Madame. Believe me, there are many days in which we receive generous
     helpings in our flour. Weevil cake, weevil pie, weevil profiteroles: thanks to German
     generosity, we can supply them all.’ We laughed. It was impossible not to.
     Monsieur Armand managed to raise a smile even on the direst of days.
    Madame Louvier took her bread and put it
     into her basket with distaste. Monsieur Armand took no offence:he
     saw that expression a hundred times a day. The bread was black, square and sticky. It
     gave off a musty smell, as if it were mouldering from the moment it left the oven. It
     was so solid that the older women frequently had to request the help of the young simply
     to cut it. ‘Did you hear,’ she said, tucking her coat around her,
     ‘that they have renamed all the streets in Le Nouvion?’
    ‘Renamed the streets?’
    ‘German names for French ones.
     Monsieur Dinan got word from his son. You know what they call Avenue de la
     Gare?’
    We all shook our heads. Madame Louvier
     closed her eyes for a moment, as if to make sure she had got it right.
     ‘Bahnhofstrasse,’ she said finally.
    ‘Bahnhof-what?’
    ‘Can you believe it?’
    ‘They will not be renaming my
     shop.’ Monsieur Armand harrumphed. ‘I’ll be renaming their backsides.
Brot
this and
Brot
that. This is a
boulangerie
. In rue
     des Bastides. Always has been, always will. Bahnhof-whatsit. Ridiculous.’
    ‘But this is terrible!’ Madame
     Durant was panic-stricken.
    ‘I don’t speak any
     German!’
    We all stared at her.
    ‘Well, how am I supposed to find my
     way around my own town if I can’t tell the street names?’
    We were so busy laughing that for a moment
     we did not notice the door open. But then the shop fell abruptly silent. I turned to see
     Liliane Béthune walk in, her head up, but failing to meet a single person’s
     eye. Her face wasfuller than most, her clear skin rouged and
     powdered. She uttered a general ‘
Bonjour
,’ and reached into her
     bag. ‘Two loaves, please.’
    She smelt of expensive scent, and her hair
     was swept up in curls. In a town where most women were too exhausted or too empty-handed
     to do anything but the minimum of personal grooming, she stood out like a glittering
     jewel. But it was her coat that drew my eye. I could not stop staring at it. It was jet
     black, made of the finest astrakhan lambskin and as thick as a fur rug. It had the soft
     sheen of something new and expensive, and the collar rose around her face as if her long
     neck were emerging from black treacle. I saw the older women register it, their
     expressions hardening as their gaze travelled down its length.
    ‘One for you, one for your
     German?’ Madame Durant muttered.
    ‘I said two loaves, please.’ She
     turned to Madame Durant. ‘One for me. One for my
daughter
.’
    For once, Monsieur Armand did not smile. He
     reached under the counter, his eyes never leaving her face, and with his two meaty fists
     he slammed two loaves on to its surface. He did not wrap them.
    Liliane held out a note, but he didn’t
     take it from her hand. He waited the few seconds it took her to place it on the counter,
     and then he picked it up gingerly, as if it might infect him. He reached into his till
     and threw two coins down in change, even as she held out her hand.
    She looked at him, and then at the counter
     where the coins lay. ‘Keep them,’ she said. And, with a furious glance at
     us, she snatched up the bread, and swept out of the shop.
    ‘How she has the nerve …’
     Madame Durant was never happier than when she was outraged by somebody else’s
     behaviour. Luckily for her, Liliane Béthune had granted her ample opportunity to
     exercise her fury over the past few months.
    ‘I suppose she has to eat, like
     everyone else,’ I said.
    ‘Every night she goes to the Fourrier
     farm. Every night. You see her cross the town, scuttling like a thief.’
    ‘She has two new coats,’ Madame
     Louvier said. ‘The other one is green. A brand new green wool coat. From
     Paris.’
    ‘And shoes. Of kid leather. Of course
     she dare not wear them out in the day. She knows she would get lynched.’
    ‘She won’t, that one. Not with
     the Germans looking out for her.’
    ‘Still, when they leave, it’ll
     be another story, eh?’
    ‘I wouldn’t want to be in her
     shoes, kid leather or not.’
    ‘I do hate to see her strutting about,