The Baker's Secret(74)
They were different from the occupying soldiers in other ways, too. Instead of loud, hard boot heels, the invaders wore quiet shoes, and less snug uniforms. They pointed in their mouths to show that they were thirsty. They looked like walking Tannenbaums, festooned with gear from the first-aid kits strapped to their helmets to the canteens on their hips to the grenades clipped on both sides of their chests.
Some wore branches and leaves on their helmets. Some had blackened their faces with pitch. They seemed disorganized, not in the rigid squads the village was accustomed to, but organizing as they found one another, forming units almost improvisationally.
One woman said a soldier had removed his helmet to take out a picture of a girl, which he displayed while holding his hand beside his thigh to indicate the girl’s height. Another woman—her hands permanently scarred from the digging of Dog Hill—was sitting in her kitchen nursing a baby when a soldier burst in with pistol drawn, saw her, and backed out apologizing.
Pierre used his cane to lift the back flap of the officers’ mess. The place was deserted, chairs tipped, meals abandoned half eaten. He spotted the confectionery by the exit, and after a moment’s searching he was rewarded beyond belief: cigarettes. Packs and packs of them, and under the table a large boxful. Immediately he lit one, savoring the flavor, the relief of it, the deepest itch finally scratched. He breathed out a sweet blue plume.
Pierre began to stuff his pockets with packs, but then paused. He slid the box out, and it was not too heavy. After a pack or two for himself, he thought, the rest should go to Emma. She would know who else was in need; she would have a plan for distributing them fairly. He would deliver the box the moment the invasion ended.
Yves inched closer to the fuel depot’s rear fence, which appeared entirely unguarded. One soldier was busy at the front fueling a line of trucks, the drivers all shouting at him while he scurried here and there. The fisherman helped himself to one tall canister of petrol, snaking it through an opening in the fence and out to a hedgerow, then another, then a third that was smaller but had straps so he could carry it on his back. The weight of the three together was just within his capacity to lift.
No point in carrying the containers to his boat, Yves reasoned. The harbor was as unsafe a place as he could imagine. He would hide the canisters near his home, and the next day bring them to Emma. She would know who needed fuel most, and how to deliver it.
Odette held a finger to her lips and Fleur nodded, following her into the occupying army’s abandoned commissary. The shelves stood floor to ceiling, stretching back along both sides for the length of the tent. There was so much: flour, sugar, coffee, it seemed endless. A sack of potatoes stood a full meter tall.
“It is like the vault of a king,” Odette whispered. Fleur nodded with wide eyes.
Then they spied the eggs, indented trays that held four dozen, stacked twenty trays high.
“Perfect,” Odette said. “Nice and light, and we’ll return for more when it’s safer.”
“Emmanuelle,” Fleur chirped.
“Yes,” Odette continued. “We’ll bring these to Emma. She’ll know what to do.”
With that she lifted a dozen or so trays and hurried away. Fleur paused, snatched four eggs from the next tray to tuck in her apron pockets, and scurried to catch up.
Emma intended to check on Yves, to see if he had managed to fish that day, people would be wanting their dinner, but the war would not let her anywhere near. The battles were like hornets’ nests, fierce angers in one place with relative quiet a kilometer or so away. She pulled the wagon numbly along the village’s western edge, as close to the fighting as she dared. Perspiration beaded on her brow, a fever from her injuries, and she staggered in the road. Someone was coming, she could tell, skipping toward her—who would skip on a day such as this?—but her head was spinning and she needed water. Slipping off her harnesses, she tried to reach the canteen in the back of her wagon. But her legs felt like lead, her eyes fluttered. Emma dropped to her knees, then tumbled forward in the dirt.
The skipping person was Monkey Boy. At last he had found someone to tell everything. But before he could reach her, she had been shot. Five hundred and ten, and he stopped in the road.
But she was moving, one arm twitching. Monkey Boy ran till he reached her body on the ground. Rolling Emma onto her back, he recoiled at her battered face. He examined the rest of her, and there was no bleeding place. She had not been shot. Also she was still breathing. Still five hundred and nine, then.
Monkey Boy had a secret, which was that climbing trees all day makes a body strong. Arms like ropes, back muscles like cables. He lifted Emma onto his shoulder as if she weighed as little as a puppy, and laid her in the back of the wagon as gently as if that puppy were asleep. She murmured, and he saw her lips were cracked.
Rummaging in the wagon’s bins, he found the canteen. The top unscrewed, he poured a splash in her mouth. She coughed, eyes opening with a wince. But when she saw who it was, Emma took the canteen, and drank from it for many loud gulps.
Monkey Boy scurried to the front of the wagon. Spying from high in the branches, he had seen her do this many times. Often he had imagined himself in this very situation, leading the wagon, being important. He slid his arms into the harnesses. While Emma recovered in back, he pulled in the direction of the special sycamore. Instead of telling her, he would show.
As they drew nearer to the coast, soldiers from both armies passed them. At one point they saw three of the Allied invaders hunched around a machine gun, and one of them put a finger to his lips. Monkey Boy froze. Five of the occupying soldiers rounded the corner, bent low and arguing in hushed voices. Before they noticed, though, the machine gun fired a great loud burst, and all five men lay sprawled in the road. Startled, Monkey Boy pressed a palm to his chest. Five hundred and fourteen.