The Baker's Secret(77)

One soldier quieted them, a short, freckled one, giving Mémé a moment to defend herself. She made a gruff snort, as if suppressing a sneeze. Then she spat on Thalheim’s shirt.

A few soldiers cheered, the one threatening her lowered his gun, and they began discussions among themselves. At that moment three more men entered the barnyard, and the sight of one of them made the others straighten and salute. That officer asked a question, then pointed at the others, who answered him one by one. Mémé was astonished: it seemed they were introducing themselves. What kind of an invasion involves men who do not already know one another?

Then the officer was speaking to Mémé. In her language. Yet she barely heard him, the pace of events was so swift. She wanted to go back inside and resume the nap she had been awakened from, the sleep she had entered to avoid her hunger, and to stop her mind from dwelling on Emma’s promise to be home by midday, now that the sun was low in the west. Yet the man continued talking while Mémé weighed all of these concerns, so that when he paused, and she realized he had asked her a question, she had no idea what to say in reply.

“We have maps, you see,” he said, pulling papers from his jacket pocket and unfolding them. “But the road signs do not agree with them. We don’t know where we are.”

Mémé stood before him, mute as a mule. To her ears, this man made no sense.

“Am I speaking the right language?” he asked. “And when do you expect the enemy officer to return?”

She began to wring her hands and make a mewing sound.

The officer turned to the men. “Maybe she’s deaf.”

“Not deaf.” Emma stood at the barnyard door, looped in the wagon harnesses with Monkey Boy. “Only shy. I can help, if you’ll lend a hand for a moment.”

Some soldiers had turned guns on her, but as she wheeled forward they saw the paratrooper in the back.

“We found him in a hedgerow, tangled in the trees.”

The man was awake, sitting upright. He said a few words to the others, and they laughed and gathered near the cart.

The officer offered a handshake to Emma. “Captain Arnie Schwartz, McLean, Virginia. Thank you for helping this soldier.”

Emma took his hand in both of hers. “You came for us.”

“Well, yes.”

She continued to hold his hand. “I never thought you would.”

The captain smiled. “During training, I sometimes thought that, too. Now, about this soldier here—”

“Both of his legs are broken,” Emma said, turning. “And he may have other injuries. He needs a doctor.”

“Five hundred and fourteen is enough,” Monkey Boy cried.

“Shush now,” Emma said, and he shrank as if she had thrown cold water on him.

“Um,” the captain said. “Let’s debrief for a minute here.”

He leaned on the wagon’s side and began asking questions. As the paratrooper replied, Schwartz translated for Emma. She knew he was giving only part of the story, but she considered it good manners that he told her anything. Mostly she marveled that he was actually standing there, in her barnyard.

“He says the fires in the village were drawing in oxygen,” he said. “So they sucked some of our jump fighters in, too. Others landed in flooded fields—”

“That would be Pierre’s land,” Emma interjected.

“—where they drowned from the weight of their gear. This man you helped here, Corporal Mark Bronsky from Portland, Maine, saw from above as two dozen men went under.”

Emma nodded. That explained the previous day’s ditch digging.

“He pulled hard, to pilot away. But bad luck put him in a crosswind, and he wound up in the trees.”

“It was good luck, though,” Emma replied. She slid out of the wagon harness. “I saw another one caught in trees near the village. The occupying soldiers had cut him apart with bullets.”

Captain Schwartz put his hands on his hips, regarding her frankly. “We’re a hodgepodge right now, ma’am, I have to say it. Men from different units who’ve met up in the crazy woods here.” He pointed at some of them. “He’s a hundred and first like me, those two are eighty-second, we’ve got three marine companies represented here, a radioman with no radio, a sniper with an enemy rifle. Good fellows, but real scrambled eggs.”

He unfolded a map. “If you could explain the geography here, it would be a good start for us.”

“I will help,” she said. “There is one thing, though.” Emma’s tongue was sandpaper in her mouth.

“What’s that?”

He looked so healthy, eager, worried but not afraid. Emma pictured herself as he saw her: face battered, hair bedraggled, sweat marks on her clothes where the harness straps had been.

“I hate to ask for anything,” she said.

“If you’re going to do it, now’s the time.”

She picked at the scab on her chin, saw that her finger came away bloody. There was a chance she might fall over. Instead Emma steeled herself and whispered, “Do you have any food?”

“Oh.” The captain straightened with a smile, as if seeing her clearly for the first time. “Oh, sure.”

He gave an order, and men came forward with rations. Emma tried to eat slowly, with at least a show of restraint, while Mémé wolfed the food down, glancing sidelong as if someone might take it away at any moment.