“Chantal, you have to be strong. There’s no time for self-pity, or we will be executed: you, me, father, our entire family.”
By degrees, Chantal’s face hardened, and she nodded.
“We are going into the house now,” Amélie said. “You will clean up, eat—”
Chantal wiped her eyes. “I’m not hungry.”
“But you must wash yourself. And when you leave the house, you can no longer go the back way through the alley. From now on you’ll go out the front and take the long way. If you see your friends, you’ll act as if nothing happened. If you see soldiers, you’ll act just as Papa told us. Do you understand?”
Chantal turned to look hard at Kallsen’s battered face. Then she wiped her cheeks and hugged Amélie. “I’ll be all right.”
Later that afternoon, Ferrand listened grimly as Amélie recounted the details of what had happened inside the garden shed. “Did Chantal say how he got her in there?”
“She said that she came home from the bakery and saw some of her friends. She spoke with them a while, and then turned off to come down the alley like she always does, and the others kept going to their houses. She had seen soldiers including Kallsen a little before the alley, and she behaved just as you instructed. She doesn’t know how Kallsen got to be behind her. She had already moved a ways into the alley when he called to her. She pretended not to hear and kept walking, but he kept calling and getting closer. She ran to the garden, but he caught up with her at the gate and forced her into the shed.”
Anger and despair tinged Ferrand’s countenance. “They will come here, to our house,” he said. “The soldiers with him will remember that he turned down our alley and that Chantal was ahead of him. Did you clean up the shed?”
Amélie nodded. “The body is still in there, but I shoveled dirt in to soak up the blood and tilled it into the flower garden. Then I spread some dry surface dust on the floor. We’ll have to move the body and do some final cleanup, but it will look like a normal garden shed.”
“At dusk,” Ferrand said. “They will miss him by this evening, and the days are long. We can expect a knock on the door tonight.”
10
The knock came just past midnight. When Amélie peered through the window, Bergmann stood at the door, a new orderly at his side and two men behind them.
“I’m sorry to bother you at this hour,” he said when Amélie let him inside. “We are searching for a missing soldier. You might remember him. He was my orderly when I came by the other day.”
“Yes, I saw him, in the alley this afternoon.”
Chantal appeared in the hall by the kitchen, rubbing her eyes sleepily. “What’s all the noise?” she murmured. Then she saw the soldiers and Bergmann and drew back.
“Chantal,” Amélie said, “these men are looking for Hauptman Bergmann’s orderly. Did he say where he was going when we saw him today?”
Chantal shook her head and yawned. She hoped her pretense looked real. Her heart beat unmercifully. “I had just arrived home from the bakery. You were gardening. He chatted with us a moment and went on down the alley. He didn’t really say anything besides hello, telling us what a nice garden we have, and goodbye.”
Ferrand appeared in the hall dripping wet and pulling a towel around his waist. Bergmann looked askance at him, slightly amused. “Isn’t this a little late for a bath?”
“I’m having a hard time sleeping,” Ferrand replied stonily. “It’s been that way since your forces advanced on Dunkirk. How would you react if an invading army destroyed your town and took your country?”
Bergmann regarded him silently. He turned slowly to study the details of the room, taking in the family pictures on the piano. Then he reverted his attention to Amélie and Chantal. “You saw Kallsen here?”
The sisters nodded in unison. “He called to us just as I opened the gate,” Chantal said. “We returned his greeting, and then he continued down the alley. We didn’t see where he was going.”
Bergmann crossed his arms and cupped his hand over his chin, his brow furrowing in thought. “All right,” he said after a few moments. “That is consistent with other reports we’ve had. Did any of your neighbors mention seeing him?”
The Bouliers glanced among themselves. “We didn’t think to ask,” Amélie said, shrugging.
Bergmann took a breath and exhaled rapidly. "No matter. We’ll continue down the street with our inquiries. My soldiers will need to check inside your shed.”
“But of course,” Ferrand said. He gestured with a sweeping palm toward the kitchen. “Be my guest.”
The new orderly flicked his hand, and the two accompanying soldiers bolted for the back door. They returned momentarily and shook their heads.
“I’m very sorry to have disturbed you,” Bergmann said, inclining his head toward each of the Bouliers in succession. “Please let me know if you hear of anything.” With that, he departed with his entourage.
“It’s not over,” Ferrand told his daughters after Bergmann had left. “They will determine that you were the last ones to see Kallsen, and they will keep after us until someone confesses.” He walked over to the piano, scanned the family photos absently, and dropped his forehead onto his curled fists. “I’ll be taken in for interrogation soon.”
Chantal ran to him, alarmed. “But you didn’t do anything,” she blurted.
Ferrand wrapped an arm around her and drew her to his chest. “You mean aside from disposing of the body? It wouldn’t matter. They’ll come for me.” He drew back and alternated his look between them. “It was good you had the bath ready. I was filthy. You did good work on cleaning up the sand and dirt through the hall and kitchen.”
“Where did you put him?” Amélie asked.
Ferrand sighed. “When they find him along the beach in several days, he’ll look like the
