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“They’re burning them,” Philippe says. “My God, they’re going to burn them!”
Cries become screams, louder when those inside the smoke-choked church push open the door.
And when the church door opens, and the first women, many with children in their arms, or held by the hand, come rushing out of the smoke, the Germans open fire.
B-r-r-r-r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t!
Smoke rolls out of the church door, skimming above a rapidly growing pile of dead. Dead women. Dead children. Babies crying, screeching, suddenly silenced as a machine gun bullet finds them and ends their lives.
Dead in a pile of dead at the door of God’s house.
The windows of the church blow out, glass tinkling on stones, as the fire grows and the women and children climb over the bodies of their neighbors only to be ripped apart and join the pile themselves. Flames lick upward through the door, through windows.
And still the Germans fire, and reload, and fire again, pouring lead into women and children choking on smoke.
It is a long time before the firing stops and the last screams are silenced. A long time until the German soldiers, some looking down and rushing as though in a hurry to put the day’s massacre behind them, others sauntering, laughing, carrying stolen goods, set about the job of annihilating the village itself, tossing incendiary grenades through windows and doors. And as the last of them pile aboard their trucks, the village is engulfed in smoke and flame.
From their treetop perch Rainy and Philippe watch, hoping somehow to see life, to see a man or a woman or a child emerge.
Roofs collapse in showers of sparks.
“I must see,” Philippe says.
Rainy knows it’s a bad idea. She also knows there is nothing she can say to stop him. They climb down together, and Philippe leads the way to a small footbridge. They dip scarves in the water and tie them over their mouths and noses against the smoke, like bandits. They cross the river into a scene of man-made hell. The village is aflame. Smoke is thick, penetrating their damp scarves and making them choke and cough. The smell of burning wood, burning fabric, burning furniture, burning bodies is sickening. Fire and smoke are everywhere.
“My father,” Philippe says as if explanation is needed, as he races up the slope to the barn. Here the roof has collapsed, spreading broken tile over a mass of perhaps two dozen bodies. The clothing of the dead singes and catches fire, and quickly burns out. It is the flesh, the human fat, that burns longer.
Rainy puts a hand on Philippe’s shoulder. He shakes it off. He wishes no comfort. No comfort is possible.
Half blind from smoke, eyes swimming with tears, they walk back with dread-slowed steps to the church. Here the roof still burns but has not yet fallen. They kick their way through machine gun brass that tinkles merrily on the cobblestones. They cannot enter without climbing over dead bodies, bodies not yet stiff, bodies that sag and slide and force Rainy to her knees, steadying herself with a hand pressed down on a bloody face.
They see inside.
“Oh God,” Rainy cries. “Oh God. Oh God.”
Here there is no pile of two dozen. Here are hundreds. Hundreds of women and children. A baby, less than a year old, stares up at Rainy, its blue eyes open, its body pierced and torn apart by bullets, like a rag doll a mad dog has taken as a plaything. An old woman lies atop a child of six, her arms frozen in a futile attempt to protect him. A woman sits against one wall, her dress burned away to reveal flesh that is red and black.
Somewhere in the gruesome tangle of bodies lies Bernard. Rainy searches for his face but soon gives up. What is she hoping for? Does she want to see the lively little boy dead? Does she want to see those mischievous eyes staring blankly up at her?
Philippe calls out, “Is anyone alive? Does anyone still live?”
His answer comes when the roof begins to collapse in sections. No. No one still lives in the church at Oradour-sur-Glane.
Their faces black with smoke, they retreat to the river’s edge. Philippe collapses on the ground, head in his hands, weeping.
“I have to leave,” Rainy says dully.
“Why? For what? What is the point anymore?”
“I have to track the division. I have to report back on their movements.”
“I cannot.” He shrugs helplessly and looks with devastated eyes back toward his hometown.
“I know,” she says.
“I must . . . someone must . . .”
“I know.”
