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“You haven’t been home all this time?” I thought German soldiers got to go home every so often to see their families. But maybe that leave of absence doesn’t apply to soldiers from Austria. They have farther to travel.
“I have returned to Vienna once or twice since I was…how do you say? Conscripted. But that was not where my family lived.”
An emotion flickers so quickly on his face, I barely have a chance to grasp hold of it. Pain? Regret? Grief? Possibly something else?
“Lived? Where are they living now?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He strokes Esprit again, his rough tone implying the conversation has ended.
The rest of the feeding of the horses falls into silence. It is not exactly an uncomfortable silence, but it is one that reminds us we are on separate sides of the war.
* * *
Tension hoversover the table as Schmidt, Jacques, and I sit for our evening meal in the kitchen. The tension is more pronounced with Jacques and myself, our bodies refusing to relax. Schmidt acts like he’s joining us for a friendly family supper.
He eats a spoonful of the stew I prepared. It is not what he is used to eating. The stew is mostly watery vegetable broth. “Thank you, Angelique, for the fine food.”
Jacques doesn’t look up from his bowl, but no one at the table can miss his quiet snort of derision.
I do my best not to grin at my stew at his reaction. A response like Jacques’s in the presence of any other German soldier or Milice or Gestapo would not end well. They relish any excuse to remind us of who is in power. But Schmidt doesn’t respond that way. He seems to squirm in his chair and continues eating.
“Captain Schmidt will have some officers visiting for dinner tomorrow,” I say, more as a warning for Jacques than to inform him of the plan.
Jacques scowls at Schmidt. The captain doesn’t see it. He’s busy fishing a piece of carrot from his bowl.
“I’ll be in the barn, repairing tools.” Jacques’s words are muttered, the anger in them simmering beneath the surface. He stands, leaving me to wonder if he means he’ll be repairing the tools now or tomorrow when the enemy will be prowling in his house.
Jacques storms out of the kitchen, and a moment later, the front door slams shut. A harsh silence settles over Schmidt and me and stretches like a run in a stocking.
We focus on finishing what’s left of our food. Once the bowls are empty, I carry them to the sink and proceed to wash the dishes.
Schmidt is examining the faded photos on the side cabinet in the drawing room when I go in a short while later.
“Who is this?” He shows me the framed photo in his hand.
The young woman in the picture has long dark hair and delicate features. She looks nothing like me.
“She’s my sister. She died several years ago in childbirth.” Most of that is true. She is, though, Jacques’s real daughter.
Schmidt scans the room. “Are there no pictures of you?”
“My papa and I had a falling out when I fell in love with a man my family didn’t approve of. But I am back now, and my relationship with my papa is better.”
Better at least with my fictitious father. My real father was happy I was gifted with the ability to easily pick up new languages. But he always viewed my sister as the perfect daughter. The daughter who would never rock the bloody rowboat the way I would.
I doubt, if he were alive, he would approve of what I’m doing in France. Not because he would have supported the Nazis. He wouldn’t have. It’s because I’m a woman, and a woman isincapable of doing a man’s job. In his mind.
It’s the same sentiment shared by the male agents the SOE section F recruited. Sexist buffoons, the lot of them.
“Did you love him?” Schmidt asks.
“My husband?”
He nods.
“Very much.” My voice sounds croaky like I’ve swallowed a pond full of frogs. I did love Charles when we got engaged. I had envisioned us one day having two children—a girl and a boy—and being a happy family. “What about you? Do you have a wife back home?”
Perhaps the mysterious Anja I heard you talking to Lieutenant Fischer about?
