An increasing number of French citizens are resisting the Germans. They sense freedom from the occupation is coming, and they’re doing their part to defy the enemy. To bring this war to an end.
I only hope it ends soon enough for the elderly woman in the apartment beneath this one and for my baby.
The flat door opens, and Lise hurries into our residence like a gale force wind. Her breath is coming in fast as though she sprinted to our building from several streets away, and there is a sadness about her that grips my heart in an icy fist.
Alarms blare through my body, and my muscles tense, ready to react, ready to fight. Did she get word the Milice or Gestapo are looking for me? For us?
“Is something wrong?” My words come out in a rush.
“There was an explosion on a railway track about one hundred miles south of here. It was the work of a group of maquis, but some of the raiding party weren’t able to get away in time. The Nazis gunned them down.” She closes her eyes for a second. “I’m sorry, Éve. Johann is dead.”
It takes two rapid heartbeats for her words to soak in, and then it’s as if the floor crumples away and I’m falling, falling, falling down a cold, black pit. I shake my head, scrambling to make purchase on the slippery walls.
Lise is wrong.
He cannot be dead.
After everything we’ve been through, my love cannot be dead.
“No.” My voice is nothing more than a croaked whisper, the air in my lungs failing me. “It wasn’t him. Whoever told you that was wrong. It was someone else. Johann is farther south. It wasn’t him.”It’s not him. It’s not him. It’s not him.
Cracks inside me begin to form, splintering through my body and carving out my flesh.
Lise sniffs. “It was him. Gaston was with him. They were both shot. They both died.”
A harsh sob rips through me, tearing me to pieces. I’m vaguely aware of Lise embracing me in her arms, of me crying on her shoulder.
“He cannot be dead. Please, God. Please let them be wrong. Please let them be wrong.” The words aren’t for her. They’re a prayer to a God I don’t believe in—not after everything that has happened. I pray the man I love was nowhere near the explosion. That he escaped. Defied the Nazis.
Lise guides me to the settee and sits me down. She doesn’t say anything. No false words of comfort. No promises that Anna and I will be all right. That we will get through this.
She holds me until I have no more tears to spare. Holds me until I slip into a void filled with nothing but nightmares and an aching loss.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping when a small cry breaks through my new round of bad dreams. I slowly pry my swollen eyelids open, and my new reality rushes in with a tidal wave. I’m drowning again in a grief so strong, I don’t have the strength in me to swim to the surface no matter how hard I try.
Lise cradles a crying Anna in her arms, rocking her, doing everything in her power to soothe the hungry baby. She sings softly to her, the lullaby an English song, and for that I am grateful. I wouldn’t be able to handle it if she sang one in French. Her words are quiet so no one outside the flat door can hear them.
Fatigue drains every part of me—every emotion, every cell. But I still find a tiny reservoir of strength deep inside and reach out and take my daughter. Anna and my sister are all I have left in this world.
Memories of Hazel during our childhood trickle in. She used to tell me stories about fairies when we were younger and I was feeling sad. They had a way of making me feel better.
They gave me hope.
I attempt to come up with one to tell Anna, but nothing jumps to mind. I wordlessly nurse her and stare at her sweet infant features. Features that will one day morph into a combination of mine and the man I love.
As I always do while feeding her, I fiddle with the heart pendant Johann gave me, rubbing it between my fingers. Silent tears trickle down my face and land on Anna’s soft skin.
I don’t know how to go on without him, but at the same time I know I have to be strong for myself and for Anna. His death doesn’t change the world we’re living in. It doesn’t end the war and the sense of loss everyone is feeling. Anna isn’t the only child who lost a father after the maquis set off that explosion. She is not the only child who has been made fatherless because of the war.
She might have lost her father and I’ve lost the man I love, but we have each other.
“It will be alright,ma petite,” I coo to her, trying to desperately patch up those cracks inside me with whatever hope I can find. “We will be okay.”
I keep repeating the words over and over and over until they’re ingrained in my thoughts, ingrained in my soul. I will always feel that burning loss for the man I love, but I cannot let it drown me. Not now. Not when Anna’s life and my life are constantly at risk.
Once Anna has finished nursing, I push to my feet. My legs tremble as does the rest of my body, but it has nothing to do with the lack of food.We’ll be okay. I just need to keep breathing. That is all. I swallow the pain and emptiness that threatens to consume me again.
Just one breath at a time, and one day I won’t have to keep reminding myself of that.
