“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. “Ahauptmann, 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.”
